TO DR. SCARBOROUGH.
155
But thou by Heaven wert sent
This desolation to prevent,
A medicine, and a counter-poison, to the age.
Scarce could the sword dispatch more to the grave
Than thou didst save;
By wondrous art, and by successful care,
The ruins of a civil war thou dost alone repair!
This desolation to prevent,
A medicine, and a counter-poison, to the age.
Scarce could the sword dispatch more to the grave
Than thou didst save;
By wondrous art, and by successful care,
The ruins of a civil war thou dost alone repair!
The inundations of all liquid Pain,
And deluge Dropsy, thou dost drain.
Fevers, so hot that one would say
Thou might'st as soon hell-fires allay
(The damn'd scarce more incurable than they)
Thou dost so temper, that we find,
Like gold, the body but refin'd,
No unhealthful dross behind.
The subtle Ague, that for sureness' sake
Takes its own times th' assault to make,
And at each battery the whole fort does shake,
When thy strong guards, and works, it spies,
Trembles for itself, and flies.
The cruel Stone, that restless pain,
That's sometimes roll'd away in vain,
But still, like Sysiphus's stone, returns again,
Thou break'st and meltest by learn'd juices' force
(A greater work, though short the way appear,
Than Hannibal's by vinegar!)
Oppressed Nature's necessary course
It stops in vain; like Moses, thou
Strik'st but the rock, and straight the waters freely flow.
And deluge Dropsy, thou dost drain.
Fevers, so hot that one would say
Thou might'st as soon hell-fires allay
(The damn'd scarce more incurable than they)
Thou dost so temper, that we find,
Like gold, the body but refin'd,
No unhealthful dross behind.
The subtle Ague, that for sureness' sake
Takes its own times th' assault to make,
And at each battery the whole fort does shake,
When thy strong guards, and works, it spies,
Trembles for itself, and flies.
The cruel Stone, that restless pain,
That's sometimes roll'd away in vain,
But still, like Sysiphus's stone, returns again,
Thou break'st and meltest by learn'd juices' force
(A greater work, though short the way appear,
Than Hannibal's by vinegar!)
Oppressed Nature's necessary course
It stops in vain; like Moses, thou
Strik'st but the rock, and straight the waters freely flow.
