For Virtue, in her dally race,
Like Janus, bears a double face;
Looks back with joy where she has gone,
And therefore goes with courage on:
She at your sickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better state.
O then, whatever Heaven intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, surely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly would your suffering share;
Or give my scrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due;
You, to whose care so oft I owe
That I'm alive to tell you so.
Poor floating isle, tost on ill fortune's waves,
Ordain'd by fate to be the land of slaves;
Shall moving Delos now deep-rooted stand:
Thou, fix'd of old, be now the moving land?
Although the metaphor be worn and stale,
Betwixt a state, and vessel under sail;
Let me suppose thee for a ship awhile,
And thus address thee in the sailor's style.
New waves shall drive thee to the deep again.
Look to thyself, and be no more the sport
Lost
