Unto soft music stealing o'er the lake--
The innocent modesty by gems undone--
The qualms of judges by small brib'ry won--
The dread of children, trembling while they play--
The bliss of monarchs, potent in their sway--
The note of war struck by the culverin,
That snakes its brazen neck through battle din--
The military millipede
That tramples out the guilty seed--
The capital all pleasure and delight--
And all that like a town or army chokes
The gazer with foul dust or sulphur smokes.
The budget, prize for which ten thousand bait
A subtle hook, that ever, as they wait
Catches a weed, and drags them to their fate,
While gleamingly its golden scales still spread--
Such were the meats by which these guests were fed.

A hundred slaves for lazy master cared,
And served each one with what was e'er prepared
By him, who in a sombre vault below,
Peppered the royal pig with peoples' woe,
And grimly glad went laboring till late--
The morose alchemist we know as Fate!
That ev'ry guest might learn to suit his taste,
Behind had Conscience, real or mock'ry, placed;
Conscience a guide who every evil spies,
But royal nurses early pluck out both his eyes!

Oh! at the table there be all the great,