第15章 Book 4(3)

These here revolve, or, as thou likest, at home, Till time mature thee to a kingdom's weight;

These rules will render thee a king complete Within thyself, much more with empire joined."

To whom our Saviour sagely thus replied:--"Think not but that I know these things; or, think I know them not, not therefore am I short Of knowing what I ought. He who receives Light from above, from the Fountain of Light, No other doctrine needs, though granted true;

But these are false, or little else but dreams, Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm.

The first and wisest of them all professed To know this only, that he nothing knew;

The next to fabling fell and smooth conceits;

A third sort doubted all things, though plain sense;

Others in virtue placed felicity, But virtue joined with riches and long life;

In corporal pleasure he, and careless ease;

The Stoic last in philosophic pride, By him called virtue, and his virtuous man, Wise, perfect in himself, and all possessing, Equal to God, oft shames not to prefer, As fearing God nor man, contemning all Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life--

Which, when he lists, he leaves, or boasts he can;

For all his tedious talk is but vain boast, Or subtle shifts conviction to evade.

Alas! what can they teach, and not mislead, Ignorant of themselves, of God much more, And how the World began, and how Man fell, Degraded by himself, on grace depending?

Much of the Soul they talk, but all awry;

And in themselves seek virtue; and to themselves All glory arrogate, to God give none;

Rather accuse him under usual names, Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite Of mortal things. Who, therefore, seeks in these True wisdom finds her not, or, by delusion Far worse, her false resemblance only meets, An empty cloud. However, many books, Wise men have said, are wearisome; who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior, (And what he brings what needs he elsewhere seek?)

Uncertain and unsettled still remains, Deep-versed in books and shallow in himself, Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge, As children gathering pebbles on the shore.

Or, if I would delight my private hours With music or with poem, where so soon As in our native language can I find That solace? All our Law and Story strewed With hymns, our Psalms with artful terms inscribed, Our Hebrew songs and harps, in Babylon That pleased so well our victor's ear, declare That rather Greece from us these arts derived--

Ill imitated while they loudest sing The vices of their deities, and their own, In fable, hymn, or song, so personating Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.

Remove their swelling epithetes, thick-laid As varnish on a harlot's cheek, the rest, Thin-sown with aught of profit or delight, Will far be found unworthy to compare With Sion's songs, to all true tastes excelling, Where God is praised aright and godlike men, The Holiest of Holies and his Saints (Such are from God inspired, not such from thee);

Unless where moral virtue is expressed By light of Nature, not in all quite lost.

Their orators thou then extoll'st as those The top of eloquence--statists indeed, And lovers of their country, as may seem;

But herein to our Prophets far beneath, As men divinely taught, and better teaching The solid rules of civil government, In their majestic, unaffected style, Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome.

In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt, What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so, What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat;

These only, with our Law, best form a king."

So spake the Son of God; but Satan, now Quite at a loss (for all his darts were spent), Thus to our Saviour, with stern brow, replied:--

"Since neither wealth nor honour, arms nor arts, Kingdom nor empire, pleases thee, nor aught By me proposed in life contemplative Or active, tended on by glory or fame, What dost thou in this world? The Wilderness For thee is fittest place: I found thee there, And thither will return thee. Yet remember What I foretell thee; soon thou shalt have cause To wish thou never hadst rejected, thus Nicely or cautiously, my offered aid, Which would have set thee in short time with ease On David's throne, or throne of all the world, Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season, When prophecies of thee are best fulfilled.

Now, contrary--if I read aught in heaven, Or heaven write aught of fate--by what the stars Voluminous, or single characters In their conjunction met, give me to spell, Sorrows and labours, opposition, hate, Attends thee; scorns, reproaches, injuries, Violence and stripes, and, lastly, cruel death.

A kingdom they portend thee, but what kingdom, Real or allegoric, I discern not;

Nor when: eternal sure--as without end, Without beginning; for no date prefixed Directs me in the starry rubric set."

So saying, he took (for still he knew his power Not yet expired), and to the Wilderness Brought back, the Son of God, and left him there, Feigning to disappear. Darkness now rose, As daylight sunk, and brought in louring Night, Her shadowy offspring, unsubstantial both, Privation mere of light and absent day.

Our Saviour, meek, and with untroubled mind After hisaerie jaunt, though hurried sore, Hungry and cold, betook him to his rest, Wherever, under some concourse of shades, Whose branching arms thick intertwined might shield From dews and damps of night his sheltered head;