AMYNTAS.
43
No rude extremes the world primæval knew;
Nor Sirius scorched, nor wintry Boreas blew.
Contending nations had not learned to jar,
No fleet from shoar to shoar transported war;
Nor yet had commerce wafted o'er the seas
As certain death, imbittered by disease.
These blessings only to that age belong;
Yet not for them we raise our simple song:
For other bliss that age we chiefly prize;
Mistaken mortals, hear it, and be wise.
As yet audacious Honour had not birth;
The tyrant-phantom was not known on earth;
Honour, a pompous, unsubstantial name,
That fills with lies the sounding trump of Fame;
That bids an honest poor man be a slave,
And to a deity erects a knave;
Confounds the characters by Jove assigned,
And contradicts the great, eternal Mind.
In early times, we modestly desired
Just what the genuine frame of man required;
Nor Sirius scorched, nor wintry Boreas blew.
Contending nations had not learned to jar,
No fleet from shoar to shoar transported war;
Nor yet had commerce wafted o'er the seas
As certain death, imbittered by disease.
These blessings only to that age belong;
Yet not for them we raise our simple song:
For other bliss that age we chiefly prize;
Mistaken mortals, hear it, and be wise.
As yet audacious Honour had not birth;
The tyrant-phantom was not known on earth;
Honour, a pompous, unsubstantial name,
That fills with lies the sounding trump of Fame;
That bids an honest poor man be a slave,
And to a deity erects a knave;
Confounds the characters by Jove assigned,
And contradicts the great, eternal Mind.
In early times, we modestly desired
Just what the genuine frame of man required;
How
