Matthew Prior. Dialogues of the Dead and Other Works ::

Since by just Flames the guilty Piece is lost,
The noblest Work thy fruitless Art could boast;
Renew thy faithful Pains a second time,
From the Duke's Ashes raise the Prince of Lime,
And make thy Fame eternal as his Crime.

The Land (if such it may be counted) draw,
Whose Interest is Religion, Treason Law;
Th' ingrateful Land, whose Treacherous Sons are Foes
To the kind Monarchy by which they rose,
And by instinctive Hatred dread that Pow'r,
Join'd in our King and in their Conqueror.

Amidst the Councils of this black Divan,
Draw the misled, aspiring, wretched Man,
His Sword maintaining what his Fraud began.
Draw Treason, Sacrilege, and Perfidy,
The curst Achitophel's kind Legacy;
Three direful Engins of a Rebel's hate,
Fit to perform the blackest work of Fate.

290

But lest their horrid Force too weak shou'd prove,
Add tempting Woman's more destructive Love:
Give the Ambitious Fair—
All Nature's Gifts refin'd by subtlest Art,
Too able to betray that easy Heart,
And with more charms than Helen's to destroy
That other Hope of our mistaken Troy.

The Scene from Dulness, and Dutch Plots bring o'er,
And set the hopeful Parracide ashore,
Fraught with the Blessings of each boorish Friend,
And the kind helps their Pray'rs and Brandy lend,
With those few Crowns—
Some English Jews, and some French Christians send.

Next in thy darkest Colours paint the Town,
For old Hereditary Treason known,
Whose Infant Sons in early mischiefs bred,
Swear to the Cov'nant they can hardly read;
Brought up with too much Charity to hate
Ought but their Bible, and their Magistrate.

Here let the gawdy Banner be display'd,
While the kind Fools invoke their Neighbours Aid
T' adore that Idol they themselves have made,
And Peasants from neglected Fields resort
To fill his Army, and adorn his Court.

Near this, erected on a Drum unbrac'd,
Let Heaven's and James's Enemy be plac'd,
The Wretch that hates, like false Argyle, the Crown,
The Wretch that, like vile Oates, defames the Gown,
And through the Speaking-Trumpet of his Nose
Heav'n's sacred Word profanely does expose,
Bidding the large-ear'd Rout with one accord
Stand up and fight the Battel of the Lord.

Then nigh the Pageant Prince (alas too nigh!)
Paint [Gray] with a Romantick Constancy,
Resolv'd to Conquer, or resolv'd to Fly;

291

And let there in his Guilty Face appear
The Rebel's Malice and the Coward's Fear,
That future Ages in thy Face may see
Not his Wife falser to his Bed, than to all Parties he.

Now let the curst Triumvirate prepare
For all the baneful Ills of horrid War;
Let zealous Rage the dreadful Work begin,
Back'd with the sad variety of Sin;
Let Vice in all its numerous shapes be shown,
Crimes which to milder Brennus were unknown,
And innocent Cromwel wou'd have blush'd to own.
Their Arms from pillag'd Temples let 'em bring,
And rob the Deity to wound the King.

Excited then by their Camp-Priest's long Pray'r
Their Country's Curses, and their own Despair,
While Hell combines with its vile Offspring Night,
To hide their Treachery, or secure their Flight,
The watchful Troops with cruel hast come on,
Then shout, look terrible, discharge, and run.

Fal'n from his short-liv'd Pow'r and flatter'd Hopes,
His Friends destroy'd by Hunger, Swords, and Ropes;
To some near Grove the Western Monarch flies,
In vain the innocent Grove her Shade denies.
The Juster Trees—
Who when for refuge Charles and Virtue fled,
By grateful Instinct their glad Branches spread,
And round the Sacred Charge cast their inlarged Head,
Straight when the outcast Absalom comes nigh,
Drop off their fading Leaves, and blasted dy.
Nor Earth her self will hide her Guilty Son,
Tho he for refuge to her Bowels run.
Rebellious Corah to her Arms she took
When Heav'n, and Israel his old Cause forsook;
But now provok'd by a more just disdain,
She shrinks her frighted Head, and gives our Rebel back again.

292

Now Artist, let thy juster Pencil draw
The sad effects of necessary Law.
In painted Words, and speaking Colours tell
The dismal Exit this sham Prince befel;
On the sad Scene the glorious Rebel place,
With Pride, and Sorrow strugling in his Face;
Describe the Pangs of his distracted Breast
(If by thy Labours Thought can be exprest)
Shew with what difference two vast Passions move,
And how the Hero with the Christian strove.

Then place the Sacred Prelate by his side,
To raise his Sorrow, and confound his Pride
With the dear dreadful Thoughts of a God crucify'd.
Paint, if thou canst, the Heavenly Words that hung
Upon the Holy Mens perswasive Tongue,
Words sweet as Moses writ, or Asaph sung;
Words whose prevailing Influence might have won
All but the haughty harden'd Absalon.

At distance round their weeping Mother, place
The too unmindful Fathers beauteous Race;
But like the Grecian Artist, spread a Veil
O'er the sad Beauties of fair Annabel.

No Art, no Muse those Sorrows can express,
Which would be render'd by Description less.

Here close the dismal Scene, conceal the rest
That the sad Orphans Eyes will teach us best;
Thy guilty Art might raise our ill-tim'd Grief too high,
And make us, while we pity him, forget our Loyalty.

The Duke's Picture burnt at Cambridg.

Holland.

Lady Harr. Wentworth.

Taunton.

Ferguson.

[The lead taken of the Cathedral of Wells to make Bullets.]

Taken in a Ditch.

[Bishop of Ely.]

[Dutchess.]

University of Virginia Library

Advice to the Painter, Upon the defeat of the Rebels in the West, and the Execution of the late D. of Monmouth.