Exalted Worth disdains to owe
Its grandeur to its greatest foe.
Now rais'd on high, see Virtue shows
The godlike ends for which he rose;
For him, let proud Ambition know
The height of glory here below,
Grandeur, by goodness made complete!
To bless, is truly to be great!
He taught how men to honour rise,
Like gilded vapours to the skies,
Which, howsoever they display
Their glory from the god of day,
Their noblest use is to abate
His dangerous excess of heat,
To shield the infant fruits and flowers,
And bless the earth with genial showers.
Now change the scene; a nobler care
Demands him in a higher sphere[1]:
Distress of nations calls him hence,
Permitted so by Providence;
For models, made to mend our kind,
To no one clime should be confin'd;
And Manly Virtue, like the sun,
His course of glorious toils should run;
Alike diffusing in his flight
Congenial joy, and life, and light.
Pale Envy sickens, Errour flies,
And Discord in his presence dies;
Oppression hides with guilty dread,
And Merit rears her drooping head;
The arts revive, the vallies sing,
And winter softens into spring:
- ↑ Lord Carteret had the honour of mediating peace for Sweden with Denmark and with the czar.
