Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/180

170 But when the mighty pupil had outgrown Their musty discipline, when manlier thoughts possessed His generous princely breast, Now ripe for empire and a crown, And filled with lust of honour and renown, He then learnt to contemn The despicable things, the men of phlegm; Straight he to the dull pedants gave release, And a more noble master straight took place:— Thou, who the Grecian warrior so couldst praise, As might in him just envy raise, Who, one would think, had been himself too high To envy anything of all mortality, ’Twas thou that taught'st him lessons loftier far, The art of reigning, and the art of war. And wondrous was the progress which he made, While he the acts of thy great pattern read. The world too narrow for his boundless conquests grew, He conquered one, and wished, and wept for new; From thence he did those miracles produce, And fought, and vanquished by the conduct of a muse. No wonder rival nations quarrelled for thy birth, A prize of greater and of higher worth Than that which led whole Greece and Asia forth, Than that for which thy mighty hero fought, And Troy with ten years' war, and its destruction bought. Well did they think it noble to have borne that name, Which the whole world would with ambition claim; Well did they temples raise To thee, at whom nature herself stood in amaze, A work she never tried to amend, nor could, In which mistaking man, by chance she formed a god. How gladly would our willing isle resign Her fabulous Arthur, and her boasted Constantine,