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Did fancy mock your vows. Nor let the gleam
Of youthful hope that shines upon your Hearts,
Be chill'd or clouded at this awful task
To learn the lore of undeceitful good,390
And truth eternal. Tho' the pois'nous charms
Of baleful superstition, guide the feet
Of servile numbers, thro' a dreary way
To their abode, thro' desarts, thorns and mire;
And leave the wretched pilgrim all forlorn395
To muse, at last, amid the ghostly gloom
Of graves, and hoary vaults, and cloister'd cells;
To walk with spectres thro' the midnight shade,
And to the screaming owl's accursed song
Attune the dreadful workings of his heart;400
Yet be not you dismay'd. A gentler star
Your lovely search illumines. From the grove
Where wisdom talk'd with her Athenian sons,
Could my ambitious hand intwine a wreath
Of Plato's olive with the Mantuan bay,405
Then should my pow'rful verse at once dispel
Those monkish horrors: then in light divine
Disclose th' Elysian prospect, where the steps
Of those whom nature charms, thro' blooming walks,
Thro' fragrant mountains and poetic streams,410
Amid the train of sages, heroes, bards,
Led by their winged Genius and the choir
Of laurell'd science and harmonious art,

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