  How loves the mind to muse o'er long-past hours, While o'er the scene the swift ideas dance; How sweet absorb'd in memory's pleasing pow'rs, To wing the soul in retrospective glance! But nought avails the retrospective view, If calm reflection turn it not to good; In vain shall thought the backward theme pursue, If mind not profit by the theme pursu'd. Thus o'er some antique ruin, time-defac'd, The sons of science oft delight to stray, To trace the inscription on the desert waste, And pierce time's dark veil by its lucid ray. But vain the labours of the enquiring sage, If thence the mind no moral truth sublimes; Nor learns from heroes of a distant age, To love their virtues, and to shun their crimes. Beneath yon hillock, by the embow'ring grove, The once-fam'd convent's mouldering walls arise; Come, pensive muse, that lov'st these scenes to rove, Now rising vesper rules the evening skies! Explore the gloom with silent step, and slow, While musing melancholy hovers near; Haply from hence some moral truth may flow, And frame a song that virtue's self may hear. This sacred pile, for solitude design'd, To pious age might form a still retreat; But bigot zeal here rankled in the mind, And superstition fix'd her baneful seat. Yon pending column, moss ygrown and rude, Now torn by time, and faithless to its trust; Once mark'd the proud spot where a temple stood, And mystic rites made consecrate its dust. 'Twere impious thought these cloister'd shades to roam, Or wake dull echo with one cheerful sound; No stranger eye might meditate the dome, No foot unhallow'd tread the sacred ground. But now ev'n here the slimy serpent crawls, And hence the gloom-born owlet wheels her way; Loud shrieks the hoarse bat from the hollow walls, And the gaunt night-wolf meditates his prey. As o'er the mind these varied visions steal, They speak instruction to the musing bard; From these vain efforts of religious zeal, How clear the moral, yet how few regard. In vain may priests their mystic rites repeat, The dome still moulders with th' unhallow'd dust; For virtue only consecrates her seat, Her sacred temple is the heart that's just. How dark the times when wily monks combin'd, And shrouded truth in superstitious gloom; Represt the noblest energies of mind, Prescrib'd man's path, and fix'd his final doom. If crimes untold some parting spirit felt, Persuasive gold to holy friar was giv'n; Low at the altar brib'd devotion knelt, And mammon wing'd the venal pray'r to heav'n. Succeeding ages saw their wealth increase, While self-denying poverty they feign'd; Secure they liv'd in luxury and ease, Nor kept those vigils which themselves ordain'd. Now the eighth Henry rul'd our rising isle, He saw their treasure, and he burnt t' enjoy; Destruction rag'd o'er each devoted pile, And wealth, that rais'd them, serv'd but to destroy. Thus burst one link of superstition's chain, The mind unfetter'd dar'd a nobler flight; Fair truth and reason reassum'd their reign, And pour'd a flood of intellectual light. How blest were man, had this diffusive beam Spread o'er the general world its lambent ray; Illum'd the shores where Volga pours its stream, And where the classic Tiber rolls its way. For there no gleam shot through th' impervious night, And there their seat the monkish zealots made; As the dull earth-worm shuns the realms of light, And courts in gloom obscure its native shade. Still in those regions superstition sways, In cloister'd shades see youth and beauty shrin'd; There unexcited energy decays, And genius dies that might have blest mankind. But soon ev'n here the illusive shade shall fail, And truth omnipotent assert its power; How joys the muse the coming dawn to hail, Oh! might her line facilitate the hour. Say, what is virtue, sages? Is it this? To quit the public weal, and guard our own: Is life's sole object individual bliss? Does man exist to bless himself alone? Have we no duties of a social kind? Is self-regard creation's noblest end? How then shall age its wonted succour find; The blind a leader, and the poor a friend? Say, ye recluse, who shun life's public road, Have ye not powers to mitigate distress; To ease affliction's bosom of its load, And make the sum of human misery less? This duty teaches to the human breast, And virtue bids us still her fires relume; Nor waste the flame, unblessing and unblest, As lamps that glimmer in sepulchral gloom. Who hides those talents bounteous heav'n bestow'd In lone retreat, perverts great nature's plan, The path of duty is the social road, The sphere for action is the sphere for man. MOSCHUS. Vignette
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