Thought it too little, and too small the praise: The other tried to think, for thinking so Answered his purpose best, that what of great Mankind could do, had been already done; And therefore laid him calmly down to sleep.

Different in mode-destructive both alike:
Destructive always indolence; and love
Of fame destructive always too, if less

Than praise of God it sought, content with less;
Even then not current, if it sought his praise
From other motive than resistless love:

Tho' base, main-spring of action in the world;
And under name of vanity and pride,

Was greatly practised on by cunning men.
It opened the niggard's purse; clothed nakedness;
Gave beggars food; and threw the Pharisee
Upon his knees, and kept him long in act

Of prayer; it spread the lace upon the fop,
His language trimmed, and planned his curious gait;

It stuck the feather on the gay coquette,

And on her finger laid the heavy load

Of jewellery: it did-what did it not?

The gospel preached, the gospel paid, and sent The gospel; conquered nations; cities built;

Measured the furrow of the field with nice

Directed share; shaped bulls, and cows, and rams; And threw the ponderous stone; and pitiful, Indeed, and much against the grain, it dragged The stagnant, dull, predestinated fool,

Thro' learning's halls, and made him labour much
Abortively; tho' sometimes not unpraised

He left the sage's chair, and home returned,
Making his simple mother think that she
Had born a man. In schools, designed to root
Sin up, and plant the seeds of holiness

In youthful minds, it held a signal place.
The little infant man, by nature proud,

Was taught the Scriptures by the love of praise,
And grew religious as he grew in fame.

And thus the principle, which out of heaven The devil threw, and threw him down to hell,

And keeps him there, was made an instrument, To moralize, and sanctify mankind;

And in their hearts beget humility:

With what success it needs not now to say.

Destructive both we said, activity,

And sloth-behold the last exemplified,

In literary man. Not all at once,
He yielded to the soothing voice of sleep;
But having seen a bough of laurel wave,

He effort made to climb; and friends, and even

Himself, talked of his greatness, as at hand,
And prophesying drew his future life.

Vain prophecy! his fancy, taught by sloth,
Saw in the very threshold of pursuit,

A thousand obstacles; he halted first,
And while he halted, saw his burning hopes,
Grow dim and dimmer still; ambition's self,

The advocate of loudest tongue, decayed;

His purposes, made daily, daily broken,
Like plant uprooted oft, and set again,
More sickly grew, and daily wavered more:
Till at the last, decision, quite worn out,
Decision, fulcrum of the mental powers,

Resigned the blasted soul to staggering chance;
Sleep gathered fast, and weighed him downward

still:

His eye fell heavy from the mount of fame;
His young resolves to benefit the world,

Perished, and were forgotten; he shut his ear
Against the painful news of rising worth;

And drank with desperate thirst the poppy's juice;
A deep and mortal slumber settled down,
Upon his weary faculties oppressed;

He rolled from side to side, and rolled again;

And snored, and groaned, and withered, and

expired,

And rotted on the spot, leaving no name.

The hero best example gives of toil

Unsanctified.

One word his history writes:

He was a murderer above the laws,

And greatly praised for doing murderous deeds :
And now he grew, and reached his perfect growth.
And also now the sluggard soundest slept,
And by him lay the uninterred corpse.

Of every order, sin and wickedness, Deliberate, cool, malicious villany,

This age, attained maturity, unknown

Before; and seemed in travail to bring forth

Some last, enormous, monstrous deed of guilt

Original, unprecedented guilt,

That might obliterate the memory

Of what had hitherto been done most vile.

Inventive men were paid, at public cost,
To plan new modes of sin: the holy word
Of God was burned, with acclamations loud:
New tortures were invented for the good :