ODE TO PATIENCE.

• Unawed by threats, unmoved by force,
• My steady soul pursues her course,
•          Collected, calm, resign’d.
• Say, ye, who search with curious eyes,
• The spring whence human actions rise,
•          Say, whence this turn of mind?


• ’Tis Patience.—Gentle Goddess, hail!
• O, let thy votary’s vows prevail,
•          Thy threaten’d flight to stay:
• Long hast thou been a welcome guest,
• Long reign’d an inmate in this breast,
•          And ruled with gentle sway.


• Through all the various turns of fate,
• Ordain’d me in each several state,
•          My wayward lot has known—
• What taught me silently to bear,
• To curb the sigh, to check the tear,
•          When sorrow weigh’d me down?


• ’Twas Patience.—Temperate Goddess, stay!
• For still thy dictates I obey,
•          Nor yield to Passion’s power;
• Though by injurious foes borne down,
• My fame, my toil, my hopes o’erthrown
•          In one ill-fated hour.


• When robb’d of her I held most dear,
• My hands adorned the mournful bier
•          Of her I loved so well:
• What, when mute sorrow chain’d my tongue,
• As o’er the sable hearse I hung,
•          Forbade the tide to swell?


• ’Twas Patience.—Goddess ever calm,
• Oh! pour into my breast thy balm,
•          That antidote to pain:
• * Which, flowing from thy nectar’d urn,
• By chemistry divine can turn
•          Our losses into gain.


• When sick, and languishing in bed,
• Sleep from my restless couch had fled,
•          Sleep—which even pain beguiles:
• What taught me calmly to sustain
• A feverish being rack’d with pain,
•          And drest my looks in smiles?


• ’Twas Patience.—Heav’n-descended Maid,
• Implored, flew swiftly to my aid,
•          And lent her fostering breast:
• Watch’d my sad couch with parent care,
• Repell’d th’ approaches of Despair,
•          And sooth’d my soul to rest.


• What, when dissever’d from his side,
• My friend, protector, and my guide;
•          When my prophetic soul,
• Anticipating all the storm,
• Saw danger in its direst form,
•          What could my fears controul?


• ‘Twas Patience.—Gentle goddess, hear,
• Be ever to thy suppliant near,
•          Nor let one murmur rise:
• For still some mighty joys are given,
• Dear to her soul, the gifts of heaven,
•          The sweet domestic ties.


• * “Patience, sovereign o’er transmuted ill.”
•                                     Vanity of Human Wishes.