Religion now does on her death-bed lie,
Heart-sick of a high fever and consuming atrophy;
How the physicians swarm to show their mortal skill,
And by their college arts methodically kill:
Reformers and physicians differ but in name,
One end in both, and the design the same;
Cordials are in their talk, while all they mean
Is but the patient's death, and gain--
Check in thy satire, angry Muse,
Or a more worthy subject choose:
Let not the outcasts of an outcast age
Provoke the honour of my Muse's rage,
Nor be thy mighty spirit rais'd,
Since Heaven and Cato both are pleas'd--

[The rest of the poem is lost.]

[Footnote 1: Born Jan., 1616-17; died 1693. For his life, see "Dictionary
of National Biography."--_W. E. B._]



ODE TO THE HON. SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE

WRITTEN AT MOOR-PARK IN JUNE 1689


I

Virtue, the greatest of all monarchies!