Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/223

At random loves and loathes, avoids, pursues,
Enacts, repeals, makes, alters, does, undoes.^[1]
Did we, like him, e'er see the dog, or bear,
Chimeras of their own devising fear?
Frame needless doubts, and for those doubts forego
The joys which prompting nature calls them to?
And, with their pleasures awkwardly at strife,
With scaring phantoms pall the sweets of life?
Tell me, grave sir, did ever man see beast
So much below himself, and sense debased,
To worship man with superstitious fear,
And fondly to his idol temples rear?
Was he e'er seen with prayers and sacrifice
Approach to him, as ruler of the skies,
To beg for rain or sunshine on his knees?
No, never; but a thousand times has beast
Seen man, beneath the meanest brute debased,
Fall low to wood and metal heretofore,
And madly his own workmanship adore;
In Egypt oft has seen the sot bow down,
And reverence some deified baboon;
Has often seen him on the banks of Nile
Say prayers to the almighty crocodile;
And now each day, in every street abroad,
Sees prostrate fools adore a breaden-god.
'But why,' say you, 'these spiteful instances
Of Egypt and its gross idolatries?
Of Rome and hers, as much ridiculous?
What are these lewd buffooneries to us?
How gather you from such wild proofs as these,
That man, a doctor, is beneath an ass?
An ass! that heavy, stupid, lumpish beast,
The sport and mocking-stock of all the rest?

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1. Chaos of thought and passion, all confused.
   Still by himself abused, and disabused—
   Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled.
   The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.—Pope.