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Atque ipsa Utilitas, justi prope mater et aequi. Hor.

THOU, whom nor honors, wealth, nor youth can spoil
With the least vice of each luxuriant soil,

Say, YORKE (for sure, if any, you can tell),
What Virtue is, who practise it so well;
Say, where inhabits this Sultana queen;
Prais'd and ador'd by all, but rarely seen?
By what sure marks her essence can we trace,
When each religion, faction, age, and place,
Sets up some fancy'd idol of its own;
A vain pretender to her sacred throne?
In man, too oft a well-dissembled part,
A self-denying pride in woman's heart,
In synods faith, and in the fields of fame
Valor usurps her honors, and her name.
Whoe'er their sense of Virtue would express,

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'Tis still by something they themselves possess. Hence youth good-humor, frugal craft old-age, Warm politicians term it party-rage ;

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True churchmen zeal right orthodox; and hence
Fools think it gravity, and wits pretence:
To constancy alone fond lovers join it,
And maids unask’d to chastity confine it.

But have we then no law besides our will?
No just criterion fix'd to good and ill?
As well at noon we may obstruct our sight,
Then doubt if such a thing exists as light;
For no less plain would nature's law appear,
As the meridian sun unchang'd, and clear.
Would we but search for what we were design'd,
And for what end th' Almighty form'd mankind,
A rule of life we then should plainly see,
For to pursue that end must Virtue be.

Then what is that? not want of power, or fame,
Or worlds unnumber'd to applaud his name,
But a desire his blessings to diffuse,

And fear lest millions should existence lose;
His goodness only could his pow'r employ,
And an eternal warmth to propagate his joy.

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Hence soul, and sense diffus'd through every place, Make happiness as infinite as space;

Thousands of suns beyond each other blaze,

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Orbs roll o'er orbs, and glow with mutual rays;