I'll try, if I can pluck thee from thy rock, Prometheus! from this barren ball of earth; 420 If Reason can unchain thee, thou art free. And, first, thy Caucasus, Ambition, calls; Mountain of torments! eminence of woes! Of courted woes! and courted through mistake! 'Tis not ambition charms thee; 'tis a cheat 425 Will make thee start, as H---- at his moor. Dost grasp at greatness? First, know what it is: Think'st thou thy greatness in distinction lies? Not in the feather, wave it e'er so high, By Fortune stuck, to mark us from the throng, Is glory lodged: 'tis lodged in the reverse; In that which joins, in that which equals, all, 432 The monarch and his slave;--"A deathless soul, Unbounded prospect, and immortal kin, A Father God, and brothers in the skies;" Elder, indeed, in time; but less remote In excellence, perhaps, than thought by man; Why greater what can fall, than what can rise? If still delirious, now, Lorenzo! go; And with thy full-blown brothers of the world, 440 Throw scorn around thee; cast it on thy slaves; Thy slaves, and equals: how scorn cast on them Rebounds on thee! If man is mean, as man, Art thou a god? If Fortune makes him so, Beware the consequence: a maxim that, Which draws a monstrous picture of mankind, Where, in the drapery, the man is lost; Externals fluttering, and the soul forgot. Thy greatest glory, when disposed to boast, Boast that aloud, in which thy servants share. 450 We wisely strip the steed we mean to buy: Judge we, in their caparisons, of men? It nought avails thee, where, but what, thou art; All the distinctions of this little life Are quite cutaneous, foreign to the man, When, through death's straits, earth's subtle serpents creep, Which wriggle into wealth, or climb renown. As crooked Satan the forbidden tree, 458 They leave their party-colour'd robe behind, All that now glitters, while they rear aloft Their brazen crests, and hiss at us below. Of fortune's fucus[45] strip them, yet alive; Strip them of body, too; nay, closer still, Away with all, but moral, in their minds; And let what then remains, impose their name, Pronounce them weak, or worthy; great, or mean. How mean that snuff[46] of glory Fortune lights, And Death puts out! Dost thou demand a test, A test, at once, infallible, and short, Of real greatness? That man greatly lives, 470 Whate'er his fate, or fame, who greatly dies; High-flush'd with hope, where heroes shall despair. If this a true criterion, many courts, Illustrious, might afford but few grandees. Th' Almighty, from his throne, on earth surveys Nought greater, than an honest, humble heart; An humble heart, His residence! pronounced His second seat; and rival to the skies.