This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
CANTO IV.
113

VIII.

Food, raiment, shelter, safety, he provides;
No forecast, no anxieties have they;
The Jesuit governs, and instructs and guides;
Their part it is to honour and obey,
Like children under wise parental sway.
All thoughts and wishes are to him confest;
And when at length in life's last weary day
In sure and certain hope they sink to rest,
By him their eyes are closed, by him their burial blest.

IX.

Deem not their lives of happiness devoid,
Tho' thus the years their course obscurely fill;
In rural and in household arts employ'd,
And many a pleasing task of pliant skill,
For emulation here unmix'd with ill,
Sufficient scope was given. Each had assign'd
His proper part, which yet left free the will;
So well they knew to mould the ductile mind
By whom the scheme of that wise order was combined.