By SCIENCE youthful minds are taught to know, What to their God, their Country, Friends, they owe; Life's glorious scope, and whence it first began, What springs direct the Microcosm, Man; What bids a favage like a fage to fhine, Or makes an * Attila an† Antonine; All that ennobles man's exalted race, All that Religion, Virtue, Truth, embrace! 'Tis ber's with loftier feelings to inspire, And fit a mortal for the heavenly choir! * The tyrannical King of the Hunns. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, equally fam'd for his clemency and philofophy. VERSES, Written and pronounced as an Exercise at the Public Commencement, May 30, 1765, on taking the Degree of M. A. in faid College. "TWA WAS nobly done! the Mufe's feat to In this fair land, and earn immortal praise ! What land than this can choicer bleffings claim, Where facred liberty has fixt her name; Where Where o'er each field gay Plenty spreads her ftore, * river laves the winding fhore; Free as yon To make our native treasures doubly bleft, Was fit for learning's patrons and for - you! As from the east yon orb first darts his ray O'er heav'ns blue vault, and weftward bends his way, So Science in the orient climes begun, And, like bright Sol, a western circuit run; From eastern realms to Greece was learning brought, What e'er Pythagoras or Cadmus taught; Her form illuftrious Athens did illume, And rais'd the genius of imperial Rome; From Latium's plains fhe fought Britannia's fhore, And bid her barb'rous fons be rude no more; *The Delaware. Fierce Fierce nations roam'd around the rugged ifle," Fair Cam and Ifis heard no mufe's strains, 1 Their fhades were trod by wolves and fiercer Danes, Each grove and mountain fhall be facred made, As now is Cooper's hill and Windfor's fhade. Flush'd with the thought I'm borne to ages hence, The mufe-wrought vision rushes on my fenfe. Methinks MESSIAH's enfign I behold In the deep gloom of yonder fhades unroll'd, While through their breasts celestial transports roll. Stupendous change! methinks th' effects appear; O hafte, bleft days! till ign'rance flee the ball, And the bright rays of knowledge lighten all, Till in yon wild new feats of Science rife, And fuch as you the arts fhall patronize! For this your names fhall fwell the trump of fame, And ages yet unborn your worth proclaim. |