Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher, Death, and God adore;
What future bliss He gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art By doctor's bills to play the doctor's part, Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.
Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise. By mountains pil'd on mountains to the skies? Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
I lose my patience, and I own it too,
When works are censur'd, not as bad but new;
While if our Elders break all reason's laws,
These fools demand not pardon but Applause.