Curst be the wretch! nay, doubly curst! (If it may lawful be To curse our greatest enemy,) Who learn'd himself that heresy first, (Which since has seized on all the rest,) That knowledge forfeits all humanity; Taught us, like Spaniards, to be proud and poor, And fling our scraps before our door! Thrice happy you have 'scaped this general pest; Those mighty epithets, learned, good, and great, Which we ne'er join'd before, but in romances meet, We find in you at last united grown. You cannot be compared to one: I must, like him that painted Venus' face, Borrow from every one a grace; Virgil and Epicurus will not do, Their courting a retreat like you, Unless I put in Caesar's learning too: Your happy frame at once controls This great triumvirate of souls.
Let not old Rome boast Fabius' fate; He sav'd his country by delays, But you by peace.[1] You bought it at a cheaper rate; Nor has it left the usual bloody scar, To show it cost its price in war; War, that mad game the world so loves to play, And for it does so dearly pay; For, though with loss, or victory, a while Fortune the gamesters does beguile, Yet at the last the box sweeps all away.
Only the laurel got by peace No thunder e'er can blast: Th'artillery of the skies Shoots to the earth and dies: And ever green and flourishing 'twill last, Nor dipt in blood, nor widows' tears, nor orphans' cries. About the head crown'd with these bays, Like lambent fire, the lightning plays; Nor, its triumphal cavalcade to grace, Makes up its solemn train with death; It melts the sword of war, yet keeps it in the sheath.
The wily shafts of state, those jugglers' tricks, Which we call deep designs and politics, (As in a theatre the ignorant fry, Because the cords escape their eye, Wonder to see the motions fly,) Methinks, when you expose the scene, Down the ill-organ'd engines fall; Off fly the vizards, and discover all: How plain I see through the deceit! How shallow, and how gross, the cheat! Look where the pulley's tied above! Great God! (said I) what have I seen! On what poor engines move The thoughts of monarchs and designs of states! What petty motives rule their fates! How the mouse makes the mighty mountains shake! The mighty mountain labours with its birth, Away the frighten'd peasants fly, Scared at the unheard-of prodigy, Expect some great gigantic son of earth; Lo! it appears! See how they tremble! how they quake! Out starts the little beast, and mocks their idle fears.