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What altars rear, what holy rev'rence owe?
Nothing is sweeter than the placid dawn
Come forth to sip the dew drops of the morn.
Nothing more lovely than the op'ning spring—
Nothing can more delight to mortal bring,
Than that dear spot where vying blossoms glow,
And murm'ring waters lull with constant flow.
Nothing is more enamell'd than the fields.
Nothing than Zephyrus, more fragrance yields.
Nothing is scared from rude war's alarms.
Nothing secure from sacrilegious arms.
Nothing while peace abounds is right or just
Nothing in violated leagues can trust.
Happy the man who Nothing has, for he
Fears not the robber, or incendiary;
Laughs theft to scorn, free from vexatious sports
And tedious quarrels of litigious Courts.
The sage who bows to virtuous Zeno's rules,
Revering precepts of the learned schools,
Views Nothing with surprise; his bounded hope
Extends to Nothing beyond Reason's scope.
Nothing to know was the Socratic plan
By which he formed a just and upright man.
This fav'rite science all his powers he lends,
To this the minds of youth he moulds and tends
This golden statute he the first proclaims,
The means of wealth, the hope of pious aims.
Know Nothing and behold you know I ween
All centered in Pythagoras's bean.
Many on Mercury will fain rely
And instant to their secret toil apply,
Midst dingy furnaces with care refine,
The exhumated treasures of the mine;
Till wealth consum'd by midnight watchings worn,
Their breasts by anxious speculation torn
They Nothing find their labor to repay
And Nothing will e'en to their latest day.
No measure meets it; nor can he command
Who counts the atoms of the Lybian sand,
Numbers to number it—Th' all-seeing eye
Of Phœbus passes it unnoticed by—
Nothing more lofty than the orbs of light
Which gem the etherial mantle of the night.
Nothing is finer than the Solar beams
More brilliant than the flood of fiery streams.
