What philosophic Sage of pride austere
Can lend conviction an attentive ear?
What pattern of humility and truth
Can bear the jeering ridicule of youth?
What blushing Author ever rank'd his Muse
With Fowler's Poet-Laureat of the Stews?
Dull Penny, nodding o'er his wooden lyre,
Conceits the vapours of Geneva fire.
All in the language of Apostles cry,
If Angels contradict me, Angels lie?
As all have intervals of ease and pain,
So all have intervals of being vain;
But some of folly never shift the scene,
Or let one lucid moment intervene;
Dull single acts of many-footed Prose
Their tragi-comedys of life compose;
Incessant madding for a system toy
The greatest of Creations blessings cloy;
Their senses dosing a continual dream,
They hang enraptured o'er the hideous scheme:
So virgins tott'ring into ripe three score,
Their greatest likeness in baboons adore.