Tho' venal writers, and degenerate times,
Call for Lucilius' lays, or Oldham's rhimes
While o'er neglected lyres the Muses weep,
Implor'd in vain-or in their grottos sleep;
Yet when some rising genius breaks the cloud,
Shouts of applause will echo from the croud:
Contraste by such opposing views is made,
And merit shines the brighter thro' the shade.
Such early worth commands unwilling lays
From the stern critic, and extorts our praise.
Pleas'd with your infant Muse, and manly rhime,
Even envy speaks, and silence is a crime.
Thus when we see some plant of goodly size,
With towering state, amidst the desart rise,
Tho' savage shrubs the forest round o'erspread,
O'er the wild waste it lifts its lofty head,
With fair, luxuriant branches mounts on high,
Scorns the low earth, and blossoms to the sky.
Hence may the bard's prophetic pen presage
Descending blessings to the rising age.
I see transported into future time,
New lights emerging thro' the foggy clime.
Dim is the ken to unassisted sight,
Yet clear in waking visions of the night.
Yet can the Muse anticipate the day,
And rapt in fancy distant scenes survey.
She from her torched watch-tower can descry
The promis'd morn, with purple gild the sky.
See from the west illustrious youths appear,
Where Selwoods groves once darken'd half the shire.
See Thynne, and Prowse, and bright descended Boyle,
Reflect new honours on their native soil:
Round their gay villas with poetic shade,
The bay-trees bloom, and lawrels never fade.
Hail! happy groves-whose shades so oft' inspire
The hermit's visions, and the poet's fire.
Born on this spot seraphic Singer sung,
Immortal made by Prior's tuneful tongue.
Behold the youths in future senates shine,
With manly sense, and eloquence divine.
O! born to greatness, and reserv'd by fate,
To bless your country, and adorn the state;
To prop those altars, which vain fools despise,
Bid ruin'd domes, and prostrate temples rise.
Recal the exil'd Muses to the isle,
Bid wit return, and slighted science smile.
While drowsy dullness in her dungeon pines,
A goddess made in Pope's immortal lines.
Thus patroniz'd the drooping arts shall thrive,
And nodding learning from its trance revive.
'Till by tyrannic dunces cramp'd no more,
Britannia's genius to the skys shall soar;
The wither'd olives smile with greens again,
And bloom as in Astræa's golden reign.

August, 1750