Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. III. The Eighteenth Century: Addison to Blake

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

Horace, Book IV, Ode IX

Addressed to Archbishop King, 1718.

VIRTUE conceal’d within our breast

Is inactivity at best:

But never shall the Muse endure

To let your virtues lie obscure;

Or suffer Envy to conceal

Your labours for the public weal.

Within your breast all wisdom lies,

Either to govern or advise;

Your steady soul preserves her frame,

In good and evil times, the same.

Pale Avarice and lurking Fraud,

Stand in your sacred presence awed;

Your hand alone from gold abstains,

Which drags the slavish world in chains.

Him for a happy man I own,

Whose fortune is not overgrown;

And happy he who wisely knows

To use the gifts that Heaven bestows;

Or, if it please the powers divine,

Can suffer want and not repine.

The man who infamy to shun

Into the arms of death would run;

That man is ready to defend,

With life, his country or his friend.