But oh! if from your praise I feel
A joy that has no parallel!
What must I suffer when I cannot pay
Your goodness, your own generous way?
And make my stubborn Muse your just commands obey.
My Muse that would endeavour fain to glide
With the fair prosperous gale, and the full driving tide,
But loyalty commands with pious force,
That stops me in the thriving course.
The breeze that wafts the crowding nations o’re,
Leaves me unpitied far behind
On the forsaken barren shore,
To sigh with Echo, and the murmuring wind;
While all the inviting prospect I survey,
With melancholy eyes I view the plains,
Where all I see is ravishing and gay,
And all I hear is mirth in loudest strains;
Thus while the chosen seed possess the promised land,
I like the excluded prophet stand,
The fruitful happy soil can only see,
But am forbid by fate’s decree
To share the triumph of the joyful victory.
