The Poems of Edmund Waller :: :: University of Virginia Library

Now had his Highness bid farewell to Spain,
And reached the sphere of his own power, the main;
With British bounty in his ship he feasts
The Hesperian princes, his amazed guests
To find that watery wilderness exceed
The entertainment of their great Madrid.
Healths to both kings, attended with the roar
Of cannons, echoed from the affrighted shore,
With loud resemblance of his thunder, prove
Bacchus the seed of cloud-compelling Jove;
While to his harp divine Arion sings
The loves and conquests of our Albion kings.

Of the Fourth Edward was his noble song,
Fierce, goodly, valiant, beautiful, and young;

He rent the crown from vanquished Henry's head,
Raised the White Rose, and trampled on the Red;
Till love, triumphing o'er the victor's pride,
Brought Mars and Warwick to the conquered side;
Neglected Warwick (whose bold hand, like Fate,
Gives and resumes the sceptre of our state)
Woos for his master; and with double shame,
Himself deluded, mocks the princely dame,
The Lady Bona, whom just anger burns,
And foreign war with civil rage returns.
Ah! spare your swords, where beauty is to blame;
Love gave the affront, and must repair the same;
When France shall boast of her, whose conquering eyes
Have made the best of English hearts their prize;
Have power to alter the decrees of Fate,
And change again the counsels of our state.

What the prophetic Muse intends, alone
To him that feels the secret wound is known.

With the sweet sound of this harmonious lay
About the keel delighted dolphins play,
Too sure a sign of sea's ensuing rage,
Which must anon this royal troop engage;
To whom soft sleep seems more secure and sweet,
Within the town commanded by our fleet.

These mighty peers placed in the gilded barge,
Proud with the burden of so brave a charge,
With painted oars the youths begin to sweep
Neptune's smooth face, and cleave the yielding deep;

Which soon becomes the seat of sudden war
Between the wind and tide that fiercely jar.
As when a sort of lusty shepherds try
Their force at football, care of victory
Makes them salute so rudely breast to breast,
That their encounters seem too rough for jest;
They ply their feet, and still the restless ball,
Tossed to and fro, is urged by them all:
So fares the doubtful barge 'twixt tide and winds,
And like effect of their contention finds.
Yet the bold Britons still securely rowed;
Charles and his virtue was their sacred load;
Than which a greater pledge Heaven could not give,
That the good boat this tempest should outlive.

But storms increase, and now no hope of grace
Among them shines, save in the Prince's face;
The rest resign their courage, skill, and sight,
To danger, horror, and unwelcome night.
The gentle vessel (wont with state and pride
On the smooth back of silver Thames to ride)
Wanders astonished in the angry main,
As Titan's car did, while the golden rein
Filled the young hand of his adventurous son,
When the whole world an equal hazard run
To this of ours, the light of whose desire
Waves threaten now, as that was scared by fire.
The impatient sea grows impotent and raves,

That, night assisting, his impetuous waves
Should find resistance from so light a thing;
These surges ruin, those our safety bring.
The oppressed vessel doth the charge abide,
Only because assailed on every side;
So men with rage and passion set on fire,
Trembling for haste, impeach their mad desire.

The pale Iberians had expired with fear,
But that their wonder did divert their care,
To see the Prince with danger moved no more
Than with the pleasures of their court before;
Godlike his courage seemed, whom nor delight
Could soften, nor the face of death affright.
Next to the power of making tempests cease,
Was in that storm to have so calm a peace.
Great Maro could no greater tempest feign,
When the loud winds usurping on the main
For angry Juno, laboured to destroy
The hated relics of confounded Troy;
His bold Æneas, on like billows tossed
In a tall ship, and all his country lost,
Dissolves with fear; and both his hands upheld,
Proclaims them happy whom the Greeks had quelled
In honourable fight; our hero, set
In a small shallop, Fortune in his debt,
So near a hope of crowns and sceptres, more
Than ever Priam, when he flourished, wore;
His loins yet full of ungot princes, all
His glory in the bud, lets nothing fall

That argues fear; if any thought annoys
The gallant youth, 'tis love's untasted joys,
And dear remembrance of that fatal glance,
For which he lately pawned his heart in France;
Where he had seen a brighter nymph than she
That sprung out of his present foe, the sea.
That noble ardour, more than mortal fire,
The conquered ocean could not make expire;
Nor angry Thetis raise her waves above
The heroic Prince's courage or his love;
'Twas indignation, and not fear he felt,
The shrine should perish where that image dwelt.
Ah, Love forbid! the noblest of thy train
Should not survive to let her know his pain;
Who nor his peril minding nor his flame,
Is entertained with some less serious game,
Among the bright nymphs of the Gallic court,
All highly born, obsequious to her sport;
They roses seem, which in their early pride
But half reveal, and half their beauties hide;
She the glad morning, which her beams does throw
Upon their smiling leaves, and gilds them so;
Like bright Aurora, whose refulgent ray
Foretells the fervour of ensuing day,
And warns the shepherd with his flocks retreat
To leafy shadows from the threatened heat.

From Cupid's string of many shafts, that fled

Winged with those plumes which noble Fame had shed,
As through the wondering world she flew, and told
Of his adventures, haughty, brave, and bold;
Some had already touched the royal maid,
But Love's first summons seldom are obeyed;
Light was the wound, the Prince's care unknown,
She might not, would not, yet reveal her own.
His glorious name had so possessed her ears,
That with delight those antique tales she hears
Of Jason, Theseus, and such worthies old,
As with his story best resemblance hold.
And now she views, as on the wall it hung,
What old Musæus so divinely sung;
Which art with life and love did so inspire,
That she discerns and favours that desire,
Which there provokes the adventurous youth to swim,
And in Leander's danger pities him;
Whose not new love alone, but fortune, seeks
To frame his story like that amorous Greek's.
For from the stern of some good ship appears
A friendly light, which moderates their fears;
New courage from reviving hope they take,
And climbing o'er the waves that taper make,
On which the hope of all their lives depends,
As his on that fair Hero's hand extends.
The ship at anchor, like a fixed rock,

Breaks the proud billows which her large sides knock;
Whose rage restrained, foaming higher swells,
And from her port the weary barge repels,
Threatening to make her, forced out again,
Repeat the dangers of the troubled main.
Twice was the cable hurled in vain; the Fates
Would not be moved for our sister states;
For England is the third successful throw,
And then the genius of that land they know,
Whose prince must be (as their own books devise)
Lord of the scene where now his danger lies.

Well sung the Roman bard, “All human things
Of dearest value hang on slender strings.”
O see the then sole hope, and, in design
Of Heaven, our joy, supported by a line!
Which for that instant was Heaven's care, above
The chain that's fixed to the throne of Jove,
On which the fabric of our world depends;
One link dissolved, the whole creation ends.

TO THE QUEEN,

OCCASIONED UPON SIGHT OF HER MAJESTY'S PICTURE.

Well fare the hand! which to our humble sight
Presents that beauty, which the dazzling light
Of royal splendour hides from weaker eyes,
And all access, save by this art, denies.
Here only we have courage to behold
This beam of glory; here we dare unfold
In numbers thus the wonders we conceive;
The gracious image, seeming to give leave,
Propitious stands, vouchsafing to be seen,
And by our muse saluted, Mighty Queen,
In whom the extremes of power and beauty move,
The Queen of Britain, and the Queen of Love!

As the bright sun (to which we owe no sight
Of equal glory to your beauty's light)
Is wisely placed in so sublime a seat,
To extend his light, and moderate his heat;
So, happy 'tis you move in such a sphere,
As your high Majesty with awful fear
In human breasts might qualify that fire,
Which, kindled by those eyes, had flamed higher

Than when the scorched world like hazard run,
By the approach of the ill-guided sun.

No other nymphs have title to men's hearts,
But as their meanness larger hope imparts;
Your beauty more the fondest lover moves
With admiration than his private loves;
With admiration! for a pitch so high
(Save sacred Charles his) never love durst fly.
Heaven that preferred a sceptre to your hand,
Favoured our freedom more than your command;
Beauty had crowned you, and you must have been
The whole world's mistress, other than a Queen.
All had been rivals, and you might have spared,
Or killed, and tyrannized, without a guard.
No power achieved, either by arms or birth,
Equals love's empire both in heaven and earth.
Such eyes as yours on Jove himself have thrown
As bright and fierce a lightning as his own;
Witness our Jove, prevented by their flame
In his swift passage to the Hesperian dame;
When, like a lion, finding, in his way
To some intended spoil, a fairer prey,
The royal youth pursuing the report
Of beauty, found it in the Gallic court;
There public care with private passion fought
A doubtful combat in his noble thought:
Should he confess his greatness, and his love,
And the free faith of your great brother prove;
With his Achates breaking through the cloud

Of that disguise which did their graces shroud;
And mixing with those gallants at the ball,
Dance with the ladies, and outshine them all?
Or on his journey o'er the mountains ride?—
So when the fair Leucothoe he espied,
To check his steeds impatient Phœbus yearned,
Though all the world was in his course concerned.
What may hereafter her meridian do,
Whose dawning beauty warmed his bosom so?
Not so divine a flame, since deathless gods
Forbore to visit the defiled abodes
Of men, in any mortal breast did burn;
Nor shall, till piety and they return.

OF HIS MAJESTY'S RECEIVING THE NEWS OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM'S DEATH.

So earnest with thy God! can no new care,
No sense of danger, interrupt thy prayer?
The sacred wrestler, till a blessing given,
Quits not his hold, but halting conquers Heaven;
Nor was the stream of thy devotion stopped,
When from the body such a limb was lopped,
As to thy present state was no less maim,
Though thy wise choice has since repaired the same.
Bold Homer durst not so great virtue feign
In his best pattern: for Patroclus slain,
With such amazement as weak mothers use,
And frantic gesture, he receives the news.
Yet fell his darling by the impartial chance
Of war, imposed by royal Hector's lance;
Thine in full peace, and by a vulgar hand
Torn from thy bosom, left his high command.

The famous painter could allow no place
For private sorrow in a prince's face:
Yet, that his piece might not exceed belief,
He cast a veil upon supposed grief.
'Twas want of such a precedent as this
Made the old heathen frame their gods amiss.

Their Phœbus should not act a fonder part
For their fair boy, than he did for his hart;
Nor blame for Hyacinthus' fate his own,
That kept from his wished death, hadst thou been known.

He that with thine shall weigh good David's deeds,
Shall find his passion, not his love, exceeds:
He cursed the mountains where his brave friend died,
But let false Ziba with his heir divide;
Where thy immortal love to thy best friends,
Like that of Heaven, upon their seed descends.
Such huge extremes inhabit thy great mind,
Godlike, unmoved, and yet, like woman, kind!
Which of the ancient poets had not brought
Our Charles's pedigree from Heaven, and taught
How some bright dame, compressed by mighty Jove,
Produced this mixed Divinity and Love?

OF SALLE.

Of Jason, Theseus, and such worthies old,
Light seem the tales antiquity has told;
Such beasts and monsters as their force oppressed,
Some places only, and some times, infest.
Salle, that scorned all power and laws of men,
Goods with their owners hurrying to their den,
And future ages threatening with a rude
And savage race, successively renewed;
Their king despising with rebellious pride,
And foes professed to all the world beside;
This pest of mankind gives our hero fame,
And through the obliged world dilates his name.

The Prophet once to cruel Agag said,
“As thy fierce sword has mothers childless made,
So shall the sword make thine;” and with that word
He hewed the man in pieces with his sword.
Just Charles-like measure has returned to these
Whose Pagan hands had stained the troubled seas;
With ships they made the spoiled merchant mourn;
With ships their city and themselves are torn.

One squadron of our winged castles sent,
O'erthrew their fort, and all their navy rent;
For not content the dangers to increase,
And act the part of tempests in the seas,
Like hungry wolves, these pirates from our shore
Whole flocks of sheep, and ravished cattle bore.
Safely they might on other nations prey,—
Fools to provoke the sovereign of the sea!
Mad Cacus so, whom like ill fate persuades,
The herd of fair Alcmena's seed invades,
Who for revenge, and mortals' glad relief,
Sacked the dark cave, and crushed that horrid thief.

Morocco's monarch, wondering at this fact,
Save that his presence his affairs exact,
Had come in person to have seen and known
The injured world's revenger and his own.
Hither he sends the chief among his peers,
Who in his bark proportioned presents bears,
To the renowned for piety and force,
Poor captives manumised, and matchless horse.

TO THE KING, ON HIS NAVY.

Where'er thy navy spreads her canvas wings,
Homage to thee, and peace to all she brings;
The French and Spaniard, when thy flags appear,
Forget their hatred, and consent to fear.
So Jove from Ida did both hosts survey,
And when he pleased to thunder part the fray.
Ships heretofore in seas like fishes sped,
The mighty still upon the smaller fed;
Thou on the deep imposest nobler laws,
And by that justice hast removed the cause
Of those rude tempests, which for rapine sent,
Too oft, alas! involved the innocent.
Now shall the ocean, as thy Thames, be free
From both those fates, of storms and piracy.
But we most happy, who can fear no force
But winged troops, or Pegasean horse.
'Tis not so hard for greedy foes to spoil
Another nation, as to touch our soil.
Should nature's self invade the world again,
And o'er the centre spread the liquid main,
Thy power were safe, and her destructive hand
Would but enlarge the bounds of thy command;
Thy dreadful fleet would style thee lord of all,
And ride in triumph o'er the drowned ball;

Those towers of oak o'er fertile plains might go,
And visit mountains where they once did grow.

The world's restorer never could endure
That finished Babel should those men secure,
Whose pride designed that fabric to have stood
Above the reach of any second flood;
To thee, his chosen, more indulgent, he
Dares trust such power with so much piety.

UPON HIS MAJESTY'S REPAIRING OF PAUL'S.

That shipwrecked vessel which the Apostle bore,
Scarce suffered more upon Melita's shore,
Than did his temple in the sea of time,
Our nation's glory, and our nation's crime.
When the first monarch of this happy isle,
Moved with the ruin of so brave a pile,
This work of cost and piety begun,
To be accomplished by his glorious son,
Who all that came within the ample thought
Of his wise sire has to perfection brought;
He, like Amphion, makes those quarries leap
Into fair figures from a confused heap;
For in his art of regiment is found
A power like that of harmony in sound.

Those antique minstrels sure were Charles-like kings,

Cities their lutes, and subjects' hearts their strings,
On which with so divine a hand they strook,
Consent of motion from their breath they took:
So all our minds with his conspire to grace
The Gentiles' great apostle, and deface
Those state-obscuring sheds, that like a chain
Seemed to confine and fetter him again;
Which the glad saint shakes off at his command,
As once the viper from his sacred hand:
So joys the aged oak, when we divide
The creeping ivy from his injured side.

Ambition rather would affect the fame
Of some new structure, to have borne her name.
Two distant virtues in one act we find,
The modesty and greatness of his mind;
Which not content to be above the rage,
And injury of all-impairing age,
In its own worth secure, doth higher climb,
And things half swallowed from the jaws of Time
Reduce; an earnest of his grand design,
To frame no new church, but the old refine;
Which, spouse-like, may with comely grace command,
More than by force of argument or hand.
For doubtful reason few can apprehend,
And war brings ruin where it should amend;
But beauty, with a bloodless conquest, finds
A welcome sovereignty in rudest minds.

Not aught which Sheba's wondering queen beheld
Amongst the works of Solomon, excelled

His ships, and building; emblems of a heart
Large both in magnanimity and art.

While the propitious heavens this work attend,
Long-wanted showers they forget to send;
As if they meant to make it understood
Of more importance than our vital food.

The sun, which riseth to salute the quire
Already finished, setting shall admire
How private bounty could so far extend:
The King built all, but Charles the western end.
So proud a fabric to devotion given,
At once it threatens and obliges heaven!

Laomedon, that had the gods in pay,
Neptune, with him that rules the sacred day,
Could no such structure raise: Troy walled so high,
The Atrides might as well have forced the sky.

Glad, though amazed, are our neighbour kings,
To see such power employed in peaceful things;
They list not urge it to the dreadful field;
The task is easier to destroy than build.

------ Sic gratia regum
Pieriis tentata modis. ------

—Horat.

TO MR. HENRY LAWES,

WHO HAD THEN NEWLY SET A SONG OF MINE IN THE YEAR 1635.

Verse makes heroic virtue live;
But you can life to verses give.
As when in open air we blow,
The breath, though strained, sounds flat and low;
But if a trumpet take the blast,
It lifts it high, and makes it last:
So in your airs our numbers dressed,
Make a shrill sally from the breast
Of nymphs, who, singing what we penned,
Our passions to themselves commend;
While love, victorious with thy art,
Governs at once their voice and heart.

You by the help of tune and time,
Can make that song that was but rhyme.
Noy pleading, no man doubts the cause;
Or questions verses set by Lawes.

As a church window, thick with paint,
Lets in a light but dim and faint;
So others, with division, hide
The light of sense, the poet's pride:
But you alone may truly boast
That not a syllable is lost;
The writer's, and the setter's skill
At once the ravished ears do fill.
Let those which only warble long,
And gargle in their throats a song,
Content themselves with Ut, Re, Mi:
Let words, and sense, be set by thee.

THE COUNTRY TO MY LADY OF CARLISLE.

Madam, of all the sacred Muse inspired,
Orpheus alone could with the woods comply;
Their rude inhabitants his song admired,
And Nature's self, in those that could not lie:
Your beauty next our solitude invades,
And warms us, shining through the thickest shades.

Nor ought the tribute which the wondering court
Pays your fair eyes, prevail with you to scorn
The answer and consent to that report
Which, echo-like, the country does return:
Mirrors are taught to flatter, but our springs
Present the impartial images of things.

A rural judge disposed of beauty's prize;
A simple shepherd was preferred to Jove;
Down to the mountains from the partial skies,
Came Juno, Pallas, and the Queen of Love,
To plead for that which was so justly given
To the bright Carlisle of the court of heaven.

Carlisle! a name which all our woods are taught,
Loud as his Amaryllis, to resound;
Carlisle! a name which on the bark is wrought
Of every tree that's worthy of the wound.
From Phœbus' rage our shadows and our streams
May guard us better than from Carlisle's beams.

THE COUNTESS OF CARLISLE IN MOURNING.

When from black clouds no part of sky is clear,
But just so much as lets the sun appear,
Heaven then would seem thy image, and reflect
Those sable vestments, and that bright aspect.
A spark of virtue by the deepest shade
Of sad adversity is fairer made;
Nor less advantage doth thy beauty get;
A Venus rising from a sea of jet!
Such was the appearance of new formed light,
While yet it struggled with eternal night.
Then mourn no more, lest thou admit increase
Of glory by thy noble lord's decease.
We find not that the laughter-loving dame
Mourned for Anchises; 'twas enough she came
To grace the mortal with her deathless bed,
And that his living eyes such beauty fed;
Had she been there, untimely joy, through all
Men's hearts diffused, had marred the funeral.
Those eyes were made to banish grief: as well
Bright Phœbus might affect in shades to dwell,
As they to put on sorrow: nothing stands,
But power to grieve, exempt from thy commands.

If thou lament, thou must do so alone;
Grief in thy presence can lay hold on none.
Yet still persist the memory to love
Of that great Mercury of our mighty Jove,
Who, by the power of his enchanting tongue,
Swords from the hands of threatening monarchs wrung.
War he prevented, or soon made it cease,
Instructing princes in the arts of peace;
Such as made Sheba's curious queen resort
To the large-hearted Hebrew's famous court.
Had Homer sat amongst his wondering guests,
He might have learned at those stupendous feasts,
With greater bounty, and more sacred state,
The banquets of the gods to celebrate.
But oh! what elocution might he use,
What potent charms, that could so soon infuse
His absent master's love into the heart
Of Henrietta! forcing her to part
From her loved brother, country, and the sun,
And, like Camilla, o'er the waves to run
Into his arms! while the Parisian dames
Mourn for their ravished glory; at their flames
No less amaz'd than the amazed stars,
When the bold charmer of Thessalia wars
With Heaven itself, and numbers does repeat,
Which call descending Cynthia from her seat.

IN ANSWER TO ONE WHO WRIT AGAINST A FAIR LADY.

What fury has provoked thy wit to dare,
With Diomede, to wound the Queen of Love?
Thy mistress' envy, or thine own despair?
Not the just Pallas in thy breast did move
So blind a rage, with such a different fate;
He honour won where thou hast purchased hate.

She gave assistance to his Trojan foe;
Thou, that without a rival thou mayst love,
Dost to the beauty of this lady owe,
While after her the gazing world does move.
Canst thou not be content to love alone?
Or is thy mistress not content with one?

Though Ceres' child could not avoid the rape
Of the grim god that hurried her to hell,
Yet there her beauty did from slander 'scape,
When thou art there, she shall not speed so well:
The spiteful owl, whose tale detains her there,
Is not so blind to say she is not fair.

Hast thou not read of Fairy Arthur's shield,
Which, but disclosed, amazed the weaker eyes
Of proudest foes, and won the doubtful field?
So shall thy rebel wit become her prize.
Should thy iambics swell into a book,
All were confuted with one radiant look.

Heaven he obliged that placed her in the skies;
Rewarding Phœbus, for inspiring so
His noble brain, by likening to those eyes
His joyful beams; but Phœbus is thy foe,
And neither aids thy fancy nor thy sight,
So ill thou rhym'st against so fair a light.

OF HER CHAMBER.

They taste of death that do at heaven arrive;
But we this paradise approach alive.
Instead of death, the dart of love does strike,
And renders all within these walls alike.
The high in titles, and the shepherd, here
Forgets his greatness, and forgets his fear.
All stand amazed, and gazing on the fair,
Lose thought of what themselves or others are;
Ambition lose, and have no other scope,
Save Carlisle's favour, to employ their hope.
The Thracian could (though all those tales were true
The bold Greeks tell) no greater wonders do;
Before his feet so sheep and lions lay,
Fearless and wrathless while they heard him play.
The gay, the wise, the gallant, and the grave,
Subdued alike, all but one passion have;
No worthy mind but finds in hers there is
Something proportioned to the rule of his;
While she with cheerful, but impartial grace,
(Born for no one, but to delight the race
Of men) like Phœbus so divides her light,
And warms us, that she stoops not from her height.

TO PHYLLIS.

Phyllis! 'twas love that injured you,
And on that rock your Thyrsis threw;
Who for proud Celia could have died,
Whilst you no less accused his pride.

Fond Love his darts at random throws,
And nothing springs from what he sows;
From foes discharged, as often meet
The shining points of arrows fleet,
In the wide air creating fire,
As souls that join in one desire.

Love made the lovely Venus burn
In vain, and for the cold youth mourn,
Who the pursuit of churlish beasts
Preferred to sleeping on her breasts.

Love makes so many hearts the prize
Of the bright Carlisle's conquering eyes
Which she regards no more than they
The tears of lesser beauties weigh.
So have I seen the lost clouds pour
Into the sea a useless shower;
And the vexed sailors curse the rain
For which poor shepherds prayed in vain.
Then, Phyllis, since our passions are

Governed by chance; and not the care,
But sport of Heaven, which takes delight
To look upon this Parthian fight
Of love, still flying, or in chase,
Never encountering face to face
No more to love we'll sacrifice,
But to the best of deities;
And let our hearts, which love disjoined,
By his kind mother be combined.

TO MR. GEORGE SANDYS,

ON HIS TRANSLATION OF SOME PARTS OF THE BIBLE.

How bold a work attempts that pen,
Which would enrich our vulgar tongue
With the high raptures of those men
Who, here, with the same spirit sung
Wherewith they now assist the choir
Of angels, who their songs admire!

Whatever those inspired souls
Were urged to express, did shake
The aged deep, and both the poles;
Their numerous thunder could awake
Dull earth, which does with Heaven consent
To all they wrote, and all they meant.

Say, sacred bard! what could bestow
Courage on thee to soar so high?
Tell me, brave friend! what helped thee so
To shake off all mortality?
To light this torch, thou hast climbed higher
Than he who stole celestial fire.

UPON BEN JONSON.

Mirror of poets! mirror of our age!
Which her whole face beholding on thy stage,
Pleased, and displeased, with her own faults, endures
A remedy like those whom music cures.
Thou hast alone those various inclinations
Which Nature gives to ages, sexes, nations,
So traced with thy all-resembling pen,
That whate'er custom has imposed on men,
Or ill-got habit (which deforms them so,
That scarce a brother can his brother know)
Is represented to the wondering eyes
Of all that see, or read, thy comedies.

Whoever in those glasses looks, may find
The spots returned, or graces, of his mind;
And by the help of so divine an art,
At leisure view, and dress, his nobler part.
Narcissus, cozened by that flattering well,
Which nothing could but of his beauty tell,
Had here, discovering the deformed estate
Of his fond mind, preserved himself with hate.
But virtue too, as well as vice, is clad
In flesh and blood so well, that Plato had
Beheld, what his high fancy once embraced,
Virtue with colours, speech, and motion graced.
The sundry postures of thy copious Muse
Who would express, a thousand tongues must use;
Whose fate's no less peculiar than thy art;
For as thou couldst all characters impart,
So none could render thine, which still escapes,
Like Proteus, in variety of shapes;
Who was nor this, nor that, but all we find,
And all we can imagine, in mankind.

TO MY LORD NORTHUMBERLAND,

UPON THE DEATH OF HIS LADY.

To this great loss a sea of tears is due;
But the whole debt not to be paid by you.
Charge not yourself with all, nor render vain
Those showers the eyes of us your servants rain.
Shall grief contract the largeness of that heart,
In which nor fear, nor anger, has a part?
Virtue would blush if time should boast (which dries,
Her sole child dead, the tender mother's eyes)
Your mind's relief, where reason triumphs so
Over all passions, that they ne'er could grow
Beyond their limits in your noble breast,
To harm another, or impeach your rest.
This we observed, delighting to obey
One who did never from his great self stray;
Whose mild example seemed to engage
The obsequious seas, and teach them not to rage.

The brave Æmilius, his great charge laid down,
(The force of Rome, and fate of Macedon)
In his lost sons did feel the cruel stroke
Of changing fortune, and thus highly spoke

Before Rome's people: “We did oft implore,
That if the heavens had any bad in store
For your Æmilius, they would pour that ill
On his own house, and let you flourish still.”
You on the barren seas, my lord, have spent
Whole springs and summers to the public lent;
Suspended all the pleasures of your life,
And shortened the short joy of such a wife;
For which your country's more obliged than
For many lives of old less happy men.
You, that have sacrificed so great a part
Of youth, and private bliss, ought to impart
Your sorrow too, and give your friends a right
As well in your affliction as delight.
Then with Æmilian courage bear this cross,
Since public persons only public loss
Ought to affect. And though her form and youth,
Her application to your will and truth,
That noble sweetness, and that humble state,
(All snatched away by such a hasty fate!)
Might give excuse to any common breast,
With the huge weight of so just grief oppressed;
Yet let no portion of your life be stained
With passion, but your character maintained
To the last act. It is enough her stone
May honoured be with superscription
Of the sole lady who had power to move
The great Northumberland to grieve, and love.

TO MY LORD ADMIRAL,

OF HIS LATE SICKNESS AND RECOVERY.

With joy like ours, the Thracian youth invades
Orpheus, returning from the Elysian shades;
Embrace the hero, and his stay implore;
Make it their public suit he would no more
Desert them so, and for his spouse's sake,
His vanished love, tempt the Lethean lake.
The ladies, too, the brightest of that time,
(Ambitious all his lofty bed to climb)
Their doubtful hopes with expectation feed,
Who shall the fair Eurydice succeed:
Eurydice! for whom his numerous moan
Makes listening trees and savage mountains groan;
Through all the air his sounding strings dilate
Sorrow, like that which touched our hearts of late.
Your pining sickness, and your restless pain,
At once the land affecting, and the main,
When the glad news that you were admiral
Scarce through the nation spread, 'twas feared by all
That our great Charles, whose wisdom shines in you,
Would be perplexed how to choose a new.
So more than private was the joy and grief,

That at the worst it gave our souls relief,
That in our age such sense of virtue lived,
They joyed so justly, and so justly grieved.
Nature (her fairest lights eclipsed) seems
Herself to suffer in those sharp extremes;
While not from thine alone thy blood retires,
But from those cheeks which all the world admires.
The stem thus threatened, and the sap in thee,
Droop all the branches of that noble tree!
Their beauty they, and we our love suspend;
Nought can our wishes, save thy health, intend.
As lilies overcharged with rain, they bend
Their beauteous heads, and with high heaven contend;
Fold thee within their snowy arms, and cry—
“He is too faultless, and too young, to die!”
So like immortals round about thee they
Sit, that they fright approaching death away.
Who would not languish, by so fair a train
To be lamented, and restored again?
Or, thus withheld, what hasty soul would go,
Though to be blest? O'er her Adonis so
Fair Venus mourned, and with the precious shower
Of her warm tears cherished the springing flower.

The next support, fair hope of your great name,
And second pillar of that noble frame,
By loss of thee would no advantage have,
But step by step pursue thee to the grave.

And now relentless Fate, about to end
The line which backward does so far extend
That antique stock, which still the world supplies
With bravest spirits, and with brightest eyes,
Kind Phœbus, interposing, bid me say,
Such storms no more shall shake that house; but they,
Like Neptune, and his sea-born niece, shall be
The shining glories of the land and sea;
With courage guard, and beauty warm, our age,
And lovers fill with like poetic rage.

TO THE QUEEN MOTHER OF FRANCE, UPON HER LANDING.

Great Queen of Europe! where thy offspring wears
All the chief crowns; where princes are thy heirs;
As welcome thou to sea-girt Britain's shore,
As erst Latona (who fair Cynthia bore)
To Delos was; here shines a nymph as bright,
By thee disclosed, with like increase of light.
Why was her joy in Belgia confined?
Or why did you so much regard the wind?
Scarce could the ocean, though enraged, have tossed
Thy sovereign bark, but where the obsequious coast
Pays tribute to thy bed. Rome's conquering hand

More vanquished nations under her command
Never reduced. Glad Berecynthia so
Among her deathless progeny did go;
A wreath of towers adorned her reverend head,
Mother of all that on ambrosia fed.
Thy godlike race must sway the age to come,
As she Olympus peopled with her womb.

Would those commanders of mankind obey
Their honoured parent, all pretences lay
Down at your royal feet, compose their jars,
And on the growing Turk discharge these wars,
The Christian knights that sacred tomb should wrest
From Pagan hands, and triumph o'er the East;
Our England's Prince, and Gallia's Dauphin, might
Like young Rinaldo and Tancredo fight;
In single combat by their swords again
The proud Argantes and fierce Soldan slain;
Again might we their valiant deeds recite,
And with your Tuscan Muse exalt the fight.

UPON THE DEATH OF MY LADY RICH.

May those already cursed Essexian plains,
Where hasty death and pining sickness reigns,
Prove all a desert! and none there make stay,
But savage beasts, or men as wild as they!
There the fair light which all our island graced,
Like Hero's taper in the window placed,
Such fate from the malignant air did find,
As that exposed to the boisterous wind.

Ah, cruel Heaven! to snatch so soon away
Her for whose life, had we had time to pray,
With thousand vows and tears we should have sought
That sad decree's suspension to have wrought.
But we, alas, no whisper of her pain
Heard, till 'twas sin to wish her here again.
That horrid word, at once, like lightning spread,
Struck all our ears—The Lady Rich is dead!
Heartrending news! and dreadful to those few
Who her resemble, and her steps pursue;
That Death should license have to rage among
The fair, the wise, the virtuous, and the young!

The Paphian queen from that fierce battle borne,
With gored hand, and veil so rudely torn,

Like terror did among the immortals breed,
Taught by her wound that goddesses may bleed.

All stand amazed! but beyond the rest
The heroic dame whose happy womb she blessed,
Moved with just grief, expostulates with Heaven,
Urging the promise to the obsequious given,
Of longer life; for ne'er was pious soul
More apt to obey, more worthy to control.
A skilful eye at once might read the race
Of Caledonian monarchs in her face,
And sweet humility; her look and mind
At once were lofty, and at once were kind.
There dwelt the scorn of vice, and pity too,
For those that did what she disdained to do;
So gentle and severe, that what was bad,
At once her hatred and her pardon had.
Gracious to all; but where her love was due,
So fast, so faithful, loyal, and so true,
That a bold hand as soon might hope to force
The rolling lights of Heaven as change her course.

Some happy angel, that beholds her there,
Instruct us to record what she was here!
And when this cloud of sorrow's overblown,
Through the wide world we'll make her graces known.
So fresh the wound is, and the grief so vast,
That all our art and power of speech is waste.
Here passion sways, but there the Muse shall raise
Eternal monuments of louder praise.

There our delight, complying with her fame,
Shall have occasion to recite thy name,
Fair Sacharissa!—and now only fair!
To sacred friendship we'll an altar rear,
(Such as the Romans did erect of old)
Where, on a marble pillar, shall be told
The lovely passion each to other bare,
With the resemblance of that matchless pair.
Narcissus to the thing for which he pined,
Was not more like than yours to her fair mind,
Save that she graced the several parts of life,
A spotless virgin, and a faultless wife.
Such was the sweet converse 'twixt her and you,
As that she holds with her associates now.

How false is hope, and how regardless fate,
That such a love should have so short a date!
Lately I saw her sighing part from thee;
(Alas that such the last farewell should be!)
So looked Astræa, her remove designed,
On those distressed friends she left behind.
Consent in virtue knit your hearts so fast,
That still the knot, in spite of death, does last;
For as your tears, and sorrow-wounded soul,
Prove well that on your part this bond is whole,
So all we know of what they do above,
Is that they happy are, and that they love.
Let dark oblivion, and the hollow grave,

Content themselves our frailer thoughts to have;
Well chosen love is never taught to die,
But with our nobler part invades the sky.
Then grieve no more that one so heavenly shaped
The crooked hand of trembling age escaped;
Rather, since we beheld not her decay,
But that she vanished so entire away,
Her wondrous beauty, and her goodness, merit
We should suppose that some propitious spirit
In that celestial form frequented here,
And is not dead, but ceases to appear.

THYRSIS, GALATEA.

THYRSIS.
As lately I on silver Thames did ride,
Sad Galatea on the bank I spied;
Such was her look as sorrow taught to shine,
And thus she graced me with a voice divine.

GALATEA.
You that can tune your sounding strings so well,
Of ladies' beauties, and of love to tell,
Once change your note, and let your lute report
The justest grief that ever touched the Court.

THYRSIS.
Fair nymph! I have in your delights no share,
Nor ought to be concerned in your care;
Yet would I sing if I your sorrows knew,
And to my aid invoke no muse but you.

GALATEA.
Hear then, and let your song augment our grief,
Which is so great as not to wish relief.
She that had all which Natures gives, or Chance,
Whom Fortune joined with Virtue to advance
To all the joys this island could afford,
The greatest mistress, and the kindest lord;
Who with the royal mixed her noble blood,
And in high grace with Gloriana stood;
Her bounty, sweetness, beauty, goodness, such,
That none e'er thought her happiness too much;
So well-inclined her favours to confer,
And kind to all, as Heaven had been to her!
The virgin's part, the mother, and the wife,
So well she acted in this span of life,
That though few years (too few, alas!) she told,
She seemed in all things, but in beauty, old.
As unripe fruit, whose verdant stalks do cleave
Close to the tree, which grieves no less to leave

The smiling pendant which adorns her so,
And until autumn on the bough should grow;
So seemed her youthful soul not easily forced,
Or from so fair, so sweet, a seat divorced.
Her fate at once did hasty seem and slow;
At once too cruel, and unwilling too.

THYRSIS.
Under how hard a law are mortals born!
Whom now we envy, we anon must mourn;
What Heaven sets highest, and seems most to prize,
Is soon removed from our wondering eyes!
But since the Sisters did so soon untwine
So fair a thread, I'll strive to piece the line.
Vouchsafe, sad nymph! to let me know the dame,
And to the muses I'll commend her name;
Make the wide country echo to your moan,
The listening trees and savage mountains groan.
What rock's not moved when the death is sung
Of one so good, so lovely, and so young?

GALATEA.
'Twas Hamilton!—whom I had named before,
But naming her, grief lets me say no more.

ON MY LADY DOROTHY SIDNEY'S PICTURE.

Such was Philoclea, such Musidorus' flame!
The matchless Sidney, that immortal frame
Of perfect beauty on two pillars placed;
Not his high fancy could one pattern, graced
With such extremes of excellence, compose;
Wonders so distant in one face disclose!
Such cheerful modesty, such humble state,
Moves certain love, but with a doubtful fate
As when, beyond our greedy reach, we see
Inviting fruit on too sublime a tree.
All the rich flowers through his Arcadia found,
Amazed we see in this one garland bound.
Had but this copy (which the artist took
From the fair picture of that noble book)
Stood at Calander's, the brave friends had jarred,
And, rivals made, the ensuing story marred.
Just nature, first instructed by his thought,
In his own house thus practised what he taught;
This glorious piece transcends what he could think,
So much his blood is nobler than his ink!

TO VANDYCK.

Rare Artisan, whose pencil moves
Not our delights alone, but loves!
From thy shop of beauty we
Slaves return, that entered free.
The heedless lover does not know
Whose eyes they are that wound him so;
But, confounded with thy art,
Inquires her name that has his heart.
Another, who did long refrain,
Feels his old wound bleed fresh again
With dear remembrance of that face,
Where now he reads new hopes of grace:
Nor scorn nor cruelty does find,
But gladly suffers a false wind
To blow the ashes of despair
From the reviving brand of care.
Fool! that forgets her stubborn look
This softness from thy finger took.
Strange! that thy hand should not inspire
The beauty only, but the fire;
Not the form alone, and grace,
But act and power of a face.
Mayst thou yet thyself as well,

As all the world besides, excel!
So you the unfeigned truth rehearse
(That I may make it live in verse)
Why thou couldst not at one assay,
That face to aftertimes convey,
Which this admires. Was it thy wit
To make her oft before thee sit?
Confess, and we'll forgive thee this;
For who would not repeat that bliss?
And frequent sight of such a dame
Buy with the hazard of his fame?
Yet who can tax thy blameless skill,
Though thy good hand had failed still,
When nature's self so often errs?
She for this many thousand years
Seems to have practised with much care,
To frame the race of women fair;
Yet never could a perfect birth
Produce before to grace the earth,
Which waxed old ere it could see
Her that amazed thy art and thee.

But now 'tis done, O let me know
Where those immortal colours grow,
That could this deathless piece compose!
In lilies? or the fading rose?
No; for this theft thou hast climbed higher
Than did Prometheus for his fire.

AT PENSHURST.

Had Sacharissa lived when mortals made
Choice of their deities, this sacred shade
Had held an altar to her power, that gave
The peace and glory which these alleys have;
Embroidered so with flowers where she stood,
That it became a garden of a wood.
Her presence has such more than human grace,
That it can civilize the rudest place;
And beauty too, and order, can impart,
Where nature ne'er intended it, nor art.
The plants acknowledge this, and her admire,
No less than those of old did Orpheus' lyre;
If she sit down, with tops all towards her bowed,
They round about her into arbours crowd;
Or if she walk, in even ranks they stand,
Like some well-marshalled and obsequious band.
Amphion so made stones and timber leap
Into fair figures from a confused heap;
And in the symmetry of her parts is found
A power like that of harmony in sound.

Ye lofty beeches, tell this matchless dame,
That if together ye fed all one flame,

It could not equalize the hundredth part
Of what her eyes have kindled in my heart!
Go, boy, and carve this passion on the bark
Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark
Of noble Sidney's birth; when such benign,
Such more than mortal making stars did shine,
That there they cannot but for ever prove
The monument and pledge of humble love;
His humble love whose hope shall ne'er rise higher,
Than for a pardon that he dares admire.

TO MY LORD OF LEICESTER.

Not that thy trees at Penshurst groan,
Oppressed with their timely load,
And seem to make their silent moan,
That their great lord is now abroad:
They to delight his taste, or eye,
Would spend themselves in fruit, and die.

Not that thy harmless deer repine,
And think themselves unjustly slain
By any other hand than thine,
Whose arrows they would gladly stain;
No, nor thy friends, which hold too dear
That peace with France which keeps thee there.

All these are less than that great cause
Which now exacts your presence here,
Wherein there meet the divers laws
Of public and domestic care.
For one bright nymph our youth contends,
And on your prudent choice depends.

Not the bright shield of Thetis' son,
(For which such stern debate did rise,
That the great Ajax Telamon
Refused to live without the prize)
Those Achive peers did more engage,
Than she the gallants of our age.

That beam of beauty, which begun
To warm us so when thou wert here,
Now scorches like the raging sun,
When Sirius does first appear.
O fix this flame! and let despair
Redeem the rest from endless care.

OF THE LADY WHO CAN SLEEP WHEN SHE PLEASES.

No wonder sleep from careful lovers flies,
To bathe himself in Sacharissa's eyes.
As fair Astræa once from earth to heaven,
By strife and loud impiety was driven;
So with our plaints offended, and our tears,
Wise Somnus to that paradise repairs;
Waits on her will, and wretches does forsake,
To court the nymph for whom those wretches wake.
More proud than Phœbus of his throne of gold
Is the soft god those softer limbs to hold;
Nor would exchange with Jove to hide the skies
In darkening clouds, the power to close her eyes;
Eyes which so far all other lights control,
They warm our mortal parts, but these our soul!

Let her free spirit, whose unconquered breast
Holds such deep quiet and untroubled rest,
Know that though Venus and her son should spare
Her rebel heart, and never teach her care,
Yet Hymen may enforce her vigils keep,
And for another's joy suspend her sleep.

OF THE MISREPORT OF HER BEING PAINTED.

As when a sort of wolves infest the night
With their wild howlings at fair Cynthia's light,
The noise may chase sweet slumber from our eyes,
But never reach the mistress of the skies;
So with the news of Sacharissa's wrongs
Her vexed servants blame those envious tongues;
Call Love to witness that no painted fire
Can scorch men so, or kindle such desire;
While, unconcerned, she seems moved no more
With this new malice than our loves before;
But from the height of her great mind looks down
On both our passions without smile or frown.
So little care of what is done below
Hath the bright dame whom heaven affecteth so!
Paints her, 'tis true, with the same hand which spreads
Like glorious colours through the flowery meads,
When lavish Nature, with her best attire,
Clothes the gay spring, the season of desire;
Paints her, 'tis true, and does her cheek adorn
With the same art wherewith she paints the morn
With the same art wherewith she gildeth so
Those painted clouds which form Thaumantias' bow.

OF HER PASSING THROUGH A CROWD OF PEOPLE.

As in old chaos (heaven with earth confused,
And stars with rocks together crushed and bruised)
The sun his light no further could extend
Than the next hill, which on his shoulders leaned;
So in this throng bright Sacharissa fared,
Oppressed by those who strove to be her guard;
As ships, though never so obsequious, fall
Foul in a tempest on their admiral.
A greater favour this disorder brought
Unto her servants than their awful thought
Durst entertain, when thus compelled they pressed
The yielding marble of her snowy breast.
While love insults, disguised in the cloud,
And welcome force, of that unruly crowd.
So the amorous tree, while yet the air is calm,
Just distance keeps from his desired palm;
But when the wind her ravished branches throws
Into his arms, and mingles all their boughs,
Though loath he seems her tender leaves to press,
More loath he is that friendly storm should cease,
From whose rude bounty he the double use
At once receives, of pleasure and excuse.

THE STORY OF PHŒBUS AND DAPHNE, APPLIED.

Thyrsis, a youth of the inspired train,
Fair Sacharissa loved, but loved in vain.
Like Phœbus sung the no less amorous boy;
Like Daphne she, as lovely, and as coy!
With numbers he the flying nymph pursues,
With numbers such as Phœbus' self might use!
Such is the chase when Love and Fancy leads,
O'er craggy mountains, and through flowery meads;
Invoked to testify the lover's care,
Or form some image of his cruel fair.
Urged with his fury, like a wounded deer,
O'er these he fled; and now approaching near,
Had reached the nymph with his harmonious lay,
Whom all his charms could not incline to stay.
Yet what he sung in his immortal strain,
Though unsuccessful, was not sung in vain;
All, but the nymph that should redress his wrong,
Attend his passion, and approve his song.
Like Phœbus thus, acquiring unsought praise,
He catched at love, and filled his arm with bays.

SONG.

[Say, lovely dream! where couldst thou find]

Say, lovely dream! where couldst thou find
Shades to counterfeit that face?
Colours of this glorious kind
Come not from any mortal place.

In heaven itself thou sure wert dressed
With that angel-like disguise:
Thus deluded am I blessed,
And see my joy with closed eyes.

But ah! this image is too kind
To be other than a dream;
Cruel Sacharissa's mind
Never put on that sweet extreme!

Fair dream! if thou intend'st me grace,
Change that heavenly face of thine;
Paint despised love in thy face,
And make it to appear like mine.

Pale, wan, and meagre let it look,
With a pity-moving shape,
Such as wander by the brook
Of Lethe, or from graves escape.

Then to that matchless nymph appear,
In whose shape thou shinest so;
Softly in her sleeping ear,
With humble words, express my woe.

Perhaps from greatness, state, and pride,
Thus surprised she may fall;
Sleep does disproportion hide,
And, death resembling, equals all.

TO THE SERVANT OF A FAIR LADY.

Fair fellow-servant! may your gentle ear
Prove more propitious to my slighted care
Than the bright dame's we serve: for her relief
(Vexed with the long expressions of my grief)
Receive these plaints; nor will her high disdain
Forbid my humble muse to court her train.

So, in those nations which the sun adore,
Some modest Persian, or some weak-eyed Moor,
No higher dares advance his dazzled sight,
Than to some gilded cloud, which near the light
Of their ascending god adorns the east,
And, graced with his beams, outshines the rest.

Thy skilful hand contributes to our woe,
And whets those arrows which confound us so.
A thousand Cupids in those curls do sit,
Those curious nets thy slender fingers knit.
The Graces put not more exactly on
The attire of Venus, when the ball she won,
Than that young Beauty by thy care is dressed,

When all our youth prefers her to the rest.

You the soft season know when best her mind
May be to pity, or to love, inclined:
In some well-chosen hour supply his fear,
Whose hopeless love durst never tempt the ear
Of that stern goddess. You, her priest, declare
What offerings may propitiate the fair;
Rich orient pearl, bright stones that ne'er decay,
Or polished lines, which longer last than they;
For if I thought she took delight in those,
To where the cheerful morn does first disclose,
(The shady night removing with her beams)
Winged with bold love, I'd fly to fetch such gems.
But since her eyes, her teeth, her lip excels
All that is sound in mines or fishes' shells,
Her nobler part as far exceeding these,
None but immortal gifts her mind should please.
The shining jewels Greece and Troy bestowed
On Sparta's queen, her lovely neck did load,
And snowy wrists; but when the town was burned,
Those fading glories were to ashes turned;
Her beauty, too, had perished, and her fame,
Had not the muse redeemed them from the flame.

TO A VERY YOUNG LADY.

Why came I so untimely forth
Into a world which, wanting thee,
Could entertain us with no worth
Or shadow of felicity,
That time should me so far remove
From that which I was born to love?

Yet, fairest blossom! do not slight
That age which you may know so soon;
The rosy morn resigns her light,
And milder glory, to the noon;
And then what wonders shall you do,
Whose dawning beauty warms us so?

Hope waits upon the flowery prime;
And summer, though it be less gay,
Yet is not looked on as a time
Of declination or decay;
For with a full hand that does bring
All that was promised by the spring.

TO AMORET.

Fair! that you may truly know
What you unto Thyrsis owe,
I will tell you how I do
Sacharissa love and you.

Joy salutes me, when I set
My blessed eyes on Amoret;
But with wonder I am strook,
When I on the other look.

If sweet Amoret complains,
I have sense of all her pains;
But for Sacharissa I
Do not only grieve, but die.

All that of myself is mine,
Lovely Amoret! is thine;
Sacharissa's captive fain
Would untie his iron chain,
And, those scorching beams to shun,
To thy gentle shadow run.

If the soul had free election
To dispose of her affection,
I would not thus long have borne
Haughty Sacharissa's scorn;
But 'tis sure some power above,

Which controls our will in love!

If not love, a strong desire
To create and spread that fire
In my breast, solicits me,
Beauteous Amoret! for thee

'Tis amazement more than love,
Which her radiant eyes do move;
If less splendour wait on thine,
Yet they so benignly shine,
I would turn my dazzled sight
To behold their milder light;
But as hard 'tis to destroy
That high flame, as to enjoy;
Which how easily I may do,
Heaven (as easily scaled) does know!

Amoret! as sweet and good
As the most delicious food,
Which, but tasted, does impart
Life and gladness to the heart.

Sacharissa's beauty's wine,
Which to madness doth incline;
Such a liquor as no brain
That is mortal can sustain.

Scarce can I to heaven excuse
The devotion which I use
Unto that adored dame
For 'tis not unlike the same
Which I thither ought to send;
So that if it could take end,

'Twould to heaven itself be due
To succeed her, and not you,
Who already have of me
All that's not idolatry;
Which, though not so fierce a flame,
Is longer like to be the same.

Then smile on me, and I will prove
Wonder is shorter-lived than love.

ON THE FRIENDSHIP BETWIXT TWO LADIES.

Tell me, lovely, loving pair!
Why so kind, and so severe?
Why so careless of our care,
Only to yourselves so dear?

By this cunning change of hearts,
You the power of love control;
While the boy's deluded darts
Can arrive at neither soul.

For in vain to either breast
Still beguiled love does come,
Where he finds a foreign guest,
Neither of your hearts at home.

Debtors thus with like design,
When they never mean to pay,
That they may the law decline,
To some friend make all away.

Not the silver doves that fly,
Yoked in Cytherea's car;
Not the wings that lift so high,
And convey her son so far;

Are so lovely, sweet, and fair,
Or do more ennoble love;
Are so choicely matched a pair,
Or with more consent do move.

ON HER COMING TO LONDON.

What's she, so late from Penshurst come,
More gorgeous than the mid-day sun,
That all the world amazes?
Sure 'tis some angel from above,
Or 'tis the Cyprian Queen of Love
Attended by the Graces.

Or is't not Juno, Heaven's great dame,
Or Pallas armed, as on she came
To assist the Greeks in fight,
Or Cynthia, that huntress bold,
Or from old Tithon's bed so cold,
Aurora chasing night?

No, none of those, yet one that shall
Compare, perhaps exceed them all,
For beauty, wit, and birth;
As good as great, as chaste as fair,
A brighter nymph none breathes the air,
Or treads upon the earth.

'Tis Dorothèe, a maid high-born,
And lovely as the blushing morn,
Of noble Sidney's race,
Oh! could you see into [her] mind,
The beauties there locked-up outshine
The beauties of her face.

Fair Dorothea, sent from heaven
To add more wonders to the seven,
And glad each eye and ear,
Crown of her sex, the Muse's port,
The glory of our English court,
The brightness of our sphere.

To welcome her the Spring breathes forth
Elysian sweets, March strews the earth
With violets and posies,
The sun renews his [da]rting fires,
April puts on her best attires,
And May her crown of roses.

Go, happy maid, increase the store
Of graces born with you, [and] more
Add to their number still;
So neither all-consuming age,
Nor envy's blast, nor fortune's rage
Shall ever work you ill.

AT PENSHURST.

While in the park I sing, the listening deer
Attend my passion, and forget to fear.
When to the beeches I report my flame,
They bow their heads, as if they felt the same.
To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers
With loud complaints, they answer me in showers.
To thee a wild and cruel soul is given,
More deaf than trees, and prouder than the heaven!
Love's foe professed! why dost thou falsely feign
Thyself a Sidney? from which noble strain
He sprung, that could so far exalt the name
Of love, and warm our nation with his flame;
That all we can of love, or high desire,
Seems but the smoke of amorous Sidney's fire.
Nor call her mother, who so well does prove
One breast may hold both chastity and love.
Never can she, that so exceeds the spring
In joy and bounty, be supposed to bring
One so destructive. To no human stock
We owe this fierce unkindness, but the rock,
That cloven rock produced thee, by whose side
Nature, to recompense the fatal pride

Of such stern beauty, placed those healing springs,
Which not more help, than that destruction, brings.
Thy heart no ruder than the rugged stone,
I might, like Orpheus, with my numerous moan
Melt to compassion; now, my traitorous song
With thee conspires to do the singer wrong;
While thus I suffer not myself to lose
The memory of what augments my woes;
But with my own breath still foment the fire,
With flames as high as fancy can aspire!

This last complaint the indulgent ears did pierce
Of just Apollo, president of verse;
Highly concerned that the muse should bring
Damage to one whom he had taught to sing,
Thus he advised me: “On yon aged tree
Hang up thy lute, and hie thee to the sea,
That there with wonders thy diverted mind
Some truce, at least, may with this passion find.”
Ah, cruel nymph! from whom her humble swain
Flies for relief unto the raging main,
And from the winds and tempests does expect
A milder fate than from her cold neglect!
Yet there he'll pray that the unkind may prove
Blessed in her choice; and vows this endless love
Springs from no hope of what she can confer,
But from those gifts which heaven has heaped on her.

THE BATTLE OF THE SUMMER ISLANDS.

CANTO I.

Upon those late-discovered isles.

Aid me, Bellona! while the dreadful fight
Betwixt a nation and two whales I write.
Seas stained with gore I sing, adventurous toil,
And how these monsters did disarm an isle.

Bermudas, walled with rocks, who does not know?
That happy island where huge lemons grow,
And orange trees, which golden fruit do bear,
The Hesperian garden boasts of none so fair;
Where shining pearl, coral, and many a pound,
On the rich shore, of ambergris is found.
The lofty cedar, which to heaven aspires,
The prince of trees! is fuel for their fires;
The smoke by which their loaded spits do turn,
For incense might on sacred altars burn;
Their private roofs on odorous timber borne,
Such as might palaces for kings adorn.
The sweet palmettos a new Bacchus yield,
With leaves as ample as the broadest shield,
Under the shadow of whose friendly boughs
They sit, carousing where their liquor grows.

Figs there unplanted through the fields do grow,
Such as fierce Cato did the Romans show,
With the rare fruit inviting them to spoil
Carthage, the mistress of so rich a soil.
The naked rocks are not unfruitful there,
But, at some constant seasons, every year,
Their barren tops with luscious food abound,
And with the eggs of various fowls are crowned.
Tobacco is the worst of things, which they
To English landlords, as their tribute, pay.
Such is the mould, that the blessed tenant feeds
On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds.
With candied plantains, and the juicy pine,
On choicest melons, and sweet grapes, they dine,
And with potatoes fat their wanton swine.
Nature these cates with such a lavish hand
Pours out among them, that our coarser land
Tastes of that bounty, and does cloth return,
Which not for warmth, but ornament, is worn;
For the kind spring, which but salutes us here,
Inhabits there, and courts them all the year.
Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live;
At once they promise what at once they give.
So sweet the air, so moderate the clime,
None sickly lives, or dies before his time.
Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncursed,
To show how all things were created first.
The tardy plants in our cold orchards placed,
Reserve their fruit for the next age's taste.

There a small grain in some few months will be
A firm, a lofty, and a spacious tree.
The palma-christi, and the fair papà,
Now but a seed, (preventing nature's law)
In half the circle of the hasty year
Project a shade, and lovely fruit do wear.
And as their trees, in our dull region set,
But faintly grow, and no perfection get;
So, in this northern tract, our hoarser throats,
Utter unripe and ill-constrained notes,
Where the supporter of the poets' style,
Phœbus, on them eternally does smile.
Oh! how I long my careless limbs to lay
Under the plantain's shade, and all the day
With amorous airs my fancy entertain,
Invoke the Muses, and improve my vein!
No passion there in my free breast should move,
None but the sweet and best of passions, love.
There while I sing, if gentle love be by,
That tunes my lute, and winds the strings so high,
With the sweet sound of Sacharissa's name
I'll make the listening savages grow tame.—
But while I do these pleasing dreams indite,
I am diverted from the promised fight.

CANTO II.

Discovered were, this Canto shows.

Though rocks so high about this island rise,
That well they may the numerous Turk despise,
Yet is no human fate exempt from fear,
Which shakes their hearts, while through the isle they hear
A lasting noise, as horrid and as loud
As thunder makes before it breaks the cloud.
Three days they dread this murmur, ere they know
From what blind cause the unwonted sound may grow.
At length two monsters of unequal size,
Hard by the shore, a fisherman espies;
Two mighty whales! which swelling seas had tossed,
And left them prisoners on the rocky coast.
One as a mountain vast; and with her came
A cub, not much inferior to his dam.
Here in a pool, among the rocks engaged,
They roared, like lions caught in toils, and raged.
The man knew what they were, who heretofore
Had seen the like lie murdered on the shore;
By the wild fury of some tempest cast,
The fate of ships, and shipwrecked men, to taste.
As careless dames, whom wine and sleep betray
To frantic dreams, their infants overlay:

So there, sometimes, the raging ocean fails,
And her own brood exposes; when the whales
Against sharp rocks, like reeling vessels quashed,
Though huge as mountains, are in pieces dashed;
Along the shore their dreadful limbs lie scattered,
Like hills with earthquakes shaken, torn, and shattered.
Hearts sure of brass they had, who tempted first
Rude seas that spare not what themselves have nursed.
The welcome news through all the nation spread,
To sudden joy and hope converts their dread;
What lately was their public terror, they
Behold with glad eyes as a certain prey;
Dispose already of the untaken spoil,
And, as the purchase of their future toil,
These share the bones, and they divide the oil.
So was the huntsman by the bear oppressed,
Whose hide he sold—before he caught the beast!

They man their boats, and all their young men arm
With whatsoever may the monsters harm;
Pikes, halberts, spits, and darts that wound so far,
The tools of peace, and instruments of war.
Now was the time for vigorous lads to show
What love, or honour, could invite them to;
A goodly theatre; where rocks are round
With reverend age, and lovely lasses, crowned.
Such was the lake which held this dreadful pair,
Within the bounds of noble Warwick's share;
Warwick's bold Earl! than which no title bears
A greater sound among our British peers;

And worthy he the memory to renew,
The fate and honour to that title due,
Whose brave adventures have transferred his name,
And through the new world spread his growing fame.

But how they fought, and what their valour gained,
Shall in another Canto be contained.

CANTO III.

And how the fishes sacked the isle.

The boat which on the first assault did go,
Struck with a harping-iron the younger foe;
Who, when he felt his side so rudely gored,
Loud as the sea that nourished him he roared.
As a broad bream, to please some curious taste,
While yet alive, in boiling water cast,
Vexed with unwonted heat, bounds, flings about
The scorching brass, and hurls the liquor out;
So with the barbed javelin stung, he raves,
And scourges with his tail the suffering waves.
Like Spenser's Talus with his iron flail,
He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail;
Dissolving at one stroke the battered boat,
And down the men fall drenched in the moat;
With every fierce encounter they are forced
To quit their boats, and fare like men unhorsed.

The bigger whale like some huge carrack lay,
Which wanteth sea-room with her foes to play;
Slowly she swims; and when, provoked she would
Advance her tail, her head salutes the mud;
The shallow water doth her force infringe,
And renders vain her tail's impetuous swinge;
The shining steel her tender sides receive,
And there, like bees, they all their weapons leave.

This sees the cub, and does himself oppose
Betwixt his cumbered mother and her foes;
With desperate courage he receives her wounds,
And men and boats his active tail confounds.
Their forces joined, the seas with billows fill,
And make a tempest, though the winds be still.

Now would the men with half their hoped prey
Be well content, and wish this cub away;
Their wish they have: he (to direct his dam
Unto the gap through which they thither came)
Before her swims, and quits the hostile lake,
A prisoner there, but for his mother's sake.
She, by the rocks compelled to stay behind,
Is by the vastness of her bulk confined.
They shout for joy! and now on her alone
Their fury falls, and all their darts are thrown.
Their lances spent, one bolder than the rest,
With his broad sword provoked the sluggish beast;
Her oily side devours both blade and haft,

And there his steel the bold Bermudian left.
Courage the rest from his example take,
And now they change the colour of the lake;
Blood flows in rivers from her wounded side,
As if they would prevent the tardy tide,
And raise the flood to that propitious height,
As might convey her from this fatal strait.
She swims in blood, and blood does spouting throw
To heaven, that heaven men's cruelties might know.
Their fixed javelins in her side she wears,
And on her back a grove of pikes appears;
You would have thought, had you the monster seen
Thus dressed, she had another island been.
Roaring she tears the air with such a noise,
As well resembled the conspiring voice
Of routed armies, when the field is won,
To reach the ears of her escaped son.
He, though a league removed from the foe,
Hastes to her aid; the pious Trojan so,
Neglecting for Creusa's life his own,
Repeats the danger of the burning town.
The men, amazed, blush to see the seed
Of monsters human piety exceed.
Well proves this kindness, what the Grecians sung,
That Love's bright mother from the ocean sprung.
Their courage droops, and, hopeless now, they wish
For composition with the unconquered fish;
So she their weapons would restore again.
Through rocks they'd hew her passage to the main.

But how instructed in each other's mind?
Or what commerce can men with monsters find?
Not daring to approach their wounded foe,
Whom her courageous son protected so,
They charge their muskets, and, with hot desire
Of fell revenge, renew the fight with fire;
Standing aloof, with lead they bruise the scales,
And tear the flesh of the incensed whales.
But no success their fierce endeavours found,
Nor this way could they give one fatal wound.
Now to their fort they are about to send
For the loud engines which their isle defend;
But what those pieces framed to batter walls,
Would have effected on those mighty whales,
Great Neptune will not have us know, who sends
A tide so high that it relieves his friends.
And thus they parted with exchange of harms;
Much blood the monsters lost, and they their arms.

WHEN HE WAS AT SEA.

Whilst I was free I wrote with high conceit,
And love and beauty raised above their height;
Love, that bereaves us both of brain and heart,
Sorrow and silence doth at once impart.
What hand at once can wield a sword and write
Or battle paint, engaged in the fight?
Who will describe a storm must not be there:
Passion writes well, neither in love nor fear.
Why on the naked boy have poets then
Feathers and wings bestowed, that wants a pen?

TO MY LORD OF FALKLAND.

Brave Holland leads, and with him Falkland goes.
Who hears this told, and does not straight suppose
We send the Graces and the Muses forth,
To civilize and to instruct the north?
Not that these ornaments make swords less sharp;
Apollo bears as well his bow as harp;
And though he be the patron of that spring,
Where, in calm peace, the sacred virgins sing,
He courage had to guard the invaded throne
Of Jove, and cast the ambitious giants down.

Ah, noble friend! with what impatience all
That know thy worth, and know how prodigal

Of thy great soul thou art, (longing to twist
Bays with that ivy which so early kissed
Thy youthful temples) with what horror we
Think on the blind events of war and thee!
To fate exposing that all-knowing breast
Among the throng, as cheaply as the rest;
Where oaks and brambles (if the copse be burned)
Confounded lie, to the same ashes turned.

Some happy wind over the ocean blow
This tempest yet, which frights our island so!
Guarded with ships, and all the sea our own,
From heaven this mischief on our heads is thrown.

In a late dream, the Genius of this land,
Amazed, I saw, like the fair Hebrew stand,
When first she felt the twins begin to jar,
And found her womb the seat of civil war.
Inclined to whose relief, and with presage
Of better fortune for the present age,
Heaven sends, quoth I, this discord for our good,
To warm, perhaps, but not to waste our blood;
To raise our drooping spirits, grown the scorn
Of our proud neighbours, who ere long shall mourn
(Though now they joy in our expected harms)
We had occasion to resume our arms.

A lion so with self-provoking smart,
(His rebel tail scourging his noble part)
Calls up his courage; then begins to roar
And charge his foes, who thought him mad before.

OF THE QUEEN.

The lark, that shuns on lofty boughs to build
Her humble nest, lies silent in the field;
But if the promise of a cloudless day,
Aurora smiling, bids her rise and play,
Then straight she shows 'twas not for want of voice,
Or power to climb, she made so low a choice;
Singing she mounts; her airy wings are stretched
Towards heaven, as if from heaven her note she fetched.

So we, retiring from the busy throng,
Use to restrain the ambition of our song;
But since the light which now informs our age
Breaks from the court, indulgent to her rage,
Thither my muse, like bold Prometheus, flies,
To light her torch at Gloriana's eyes.

Those sovereign beams which heal the wounded soul,
And all our cares, but once beheld, control;
There the poor lover, that has long endured
Some proud nymph's scorn, of his fond passion cured,
Fares like the man who first upon the ground
A glow-worm spied, supposing he had found

A moving diamond, a breathing stone;
For life it had, and like those jewels shone;
He held it dear, till by the springing day
Informed, he threw the worthless worm away.

She saves the lover, as we gangrenes stay,
By cutting hope, like a lopped limb, away;
This makes her bleeding patients to accuse
High Heaven, and these expostulations use:
“Could Nature then no private woman grace,
Whom we might dare to love, with such a face,
Such a complexion, and so radiant eyes,
Such lovely motion, and such sharp replies?
Beyond our reach, and yet within our sight,
What envious power has placed this glorious light?”

Thus, in a starry night, fond children cry
For the rich spangles that adorn the sky,
Which, though they shine for ever fixed there,
With light and influence relieve us here.
All her affections are to one inclined;
Her bounty and compassion to mankind;
To whom, while she so far extends her grace,
She makes but good the promise of her face;
For Mercy has, could Mercy's self be seen,
No sweeter look than this propitious queen.
Such guard, and comfort, the distressed find
From her large power, and from her larger mind,
That whom ill Fate would ruin, it prefers,
For all the miserable are made hers.
So the fair tree whereon the eagle builds,

Poor sheep from tempests, and their shepherd shields;
The royal bird possesses all the boughs,
But shade and shelter to the flock allows.

Joy of our age, and safety of the next!
For which so oft thy fertile womb is vexed;
Nobly contented, for the public good,
To waste thy spirits and diffuse thy blood,
What vast hopes may these islands entertain,
Where monarchs, thus descended, are to reign?
Led by commanders of so fair a line,
Our seas no longer shall our power confine.

A brave romance who would exactly frame,
First brings his knight from some immortal dame,
And then a weapon, and a flaming shield,
Bright as his mother's eyes, he makes him wield.
None might the mother of Achilles be,
But the fair pearl and glory of the sea;
The man to whom great Maro gives such fame,
From the high bed of heavenly Venus came;
And our next Charles, whom all the stars design
Like wonders to accomplish, springs from thine.

THE APOLOGY OF SLEEP,

FOR NOT APPROACHING THE LADY WHO CAN DO ANYTHING BUT SLEEP WHEN SHE PLEASETH.

My charge it is those breaches to repair
Which Nature takes from sorrow, toil, and care;
Rest to the limbs, and quiet I confer
On troubled minds; but nought can add to her
Whom Heaven and her transcendent thoughts have placed
Above those ills which wretched mortals taste.

Bright as the deathless gods, and happy, she
From all that may infringe delight is free;
Love at her royal feet his quiver lays,
And not his mother with more haste obeys.
Such real pleasures, such true joys suspense,
What dream can I present to recompense?

Should I with lightning fill her awful hand,
And make the clouds seem all at her command;
Or place her in Olympus' top, a guest
Among the immortals, who with nectar feast;
That power would seem, that entertainment, short
Of the true splendour of her present court,
Where all the joys, and all the glories, are

Of three great kingdoms, severed from the care.
I, that of fumes and humid vapours made,
Ascending, do the seat of sense invade,
No cloud in so serene a mansion find,
To overcast her ever-shining mind,
Which holds resemblance with those spotless skies,
Where flowing Nilus want of rain supplies;
That crystal heaven, where Phœbus never shrouds
His golden beams, nor wraps his face in clouds.
But what so hard which numbers cannot force?
So stoops the moon, and rivers change their course.
The bold Mæonian made me dare to steep
Jove's dreadful temples in the dew of sleep;
And since the Muses do invoke my power,
I shall no more decline that sacred bower
Where Gloriana their great mistress lies;
But, gently taming those victorious eyes,
Charm all her senses, till the joyful sun
Without a rival half his course has run;
Who, while my hand that fairer light confines,
May boast himself the brightest thing that shines.

PUERPERIUM.

You gods that have the power
To trouble, and compose,
All that's beneath your bower,
Calm silence on the seas, on earth impose.

Fair Venus! in thy soft arms
The God of Rage confine;
For thy whispers are the charms
Which only can divert his fierce design.

What though he frown, and to tumult do incline?
Thou the flame
Kindled in his breast canst tame
With that snow which unmelted lies on thine.

Great goddess! give this thy sacred island rest;
Make heaven smile,
That no storm disturb us while
Thy chief care, our halcyon, builds her nest.

Great Gloriana! fair Gloriana!
Bright as high heaven is, and fertile as earth,
Whose beauty relieves us,
Whose royal bed gives us
Both glory and peace,
Our present joy, and all our hopes' increase.

TO AMORET.

Amoret! the Milky Way
Framed of many nameless stars!
The smooth stream where none can say
He this drop to that prefers!

Amoret! my lovely foe!
Tell me where thy strength does lie?
Where the power that charms us so?
In thy soul, or in thy eye?

By that snowy neck alone,
Or thy grace in motion seen,
No such wonders could be done;
Yet thy waist is straight and clean
As Cupid's shaft, or Hermes' rod,
And powerful, too, as either god.

TO PHYLLIS.

Phyllis! why should we delay
Pleasures shorter than the day
Could we (which we never can
Stretch our lives beyond their span,
Beauty like a shadow flies,
And our youth before us dies.
Or would youth and beauty stay,
Love hath wings, and will away.
Love hath swifter wings than Time;
Change in love to heaven does climb.
Gods, that never change their state,
Vary oft their love and hate.

Phyllis! to this truth we owe
All the love betwixt us two.
Let not you and I inquire
What has been our past desire;
On what shepherds you have smiled,
Or what nymphs I have beguiled;
Leave it to the planets too,
What we shall hereafter do;
For the joys we now may prove,
Take advice of present love.

À LA MALADE.

Ah, lovely Amoret! the care
Of all that know what's good or fair!
Is heaven become our rival too?
Had the rich gifts, conferred on you
So amply thence, the common end
Of giving lovers—to pretend?

Hence, to this pining sickness (meant
To weary thee to a consent
Of leaving us) no power is given
Thy beauties to impair; for heaven
Solicits thee with such a care,
As roses from their stalks we tear,
When we would still preserve them new
And fresh, as on the bush they grew.

With such a grace you entertain,
And look with such contempt on pain,
That languishing you conquer more,
And wound us deeper than before.
So lightnings which in storms appear,
Scorch more than when the skies are clear.

And as pale sickness does invade
Your frailer part, the breaches made
In that fair lodging, still more clear
Make the bright guest, your soul, appear.
So nymphs o'er pathless mountains borne,
Their light robes by the brambles torn
From their fair limbs, exposing new
And unknown beauties to the view
Of following gods, increase their flame,
And haste to catch the flying game.

OF LOVE.

Anger, in hasty words or blows,
Itself discharges on our foes;
And sorrow, too, finds some relief
In tears, which wait upon our grief;
So every passion, but fond love,
Unto its own redress does move;
But that alone the wretch inclines
To what prevents his own designs;
Makes him lament, and sigh, and weep,
Disordered, tremble, fawn, and creep;
Postures which render him despised,
Where he endeavours to be prized.
For women (born to be controlled)
Stoop to the forward and the bold;
Affect the haughty and the proud,
The gay, the frolic, and the loud.
Who first the generous steed oppressed,
Not kneeling did salute the beast;
But with high courage, life, and force,
Approaching, tamed the unruly horse.

Unwisely we the wiser East
Pity, supposing them oppressed
With tyrants' force, whose law is will,
By which they govern, spoil, and kill:
Each nymph, but moderately fair,
Commands with no less rigour here.
Should some brave Turk, that walks among

His twenty lasses, bright and young,
And beckons to the willing dame,
Preferred to quench his present flame,
Behold as many gallants here,
With modest guise and silent fear,
All to one female idol bend,
While her high pride does scarce descend
To mark their follies, he would swear
That these her guard of eunuchs were,
And that a more majestic queen,
Or humbler slaves, he had not seen.

All this with indignation spoke,
In vain I struggled with the yoke
Of mighty Love; that conquering look,
When next beheld, like lightning strook
My blasted soul, and made me bow
Lower than those I pitied now.

So the tall stag, upon the brink
Of some smooth stream about to drink,
Surveying there his armed head,
With shame remembers that he fled
The scorned dogs, resolves to try
The combat next; but if their cry
Invades again his trembling ear,
He straight resumes his wonted care,
Leaves the untasted spring behind,
And, winged with fear, outflies the wind.

FOR DRINKING OF HEALTHS.

And is antiquity of no more force!
Whoe'er opposed that ancient friendly course,
And free expression of our absent love,
Against the custom of all nations strove
And lost his labour, it does still prevail,
And shall, while there is friendship, wine, or ale.
Let brutes and vegetals, that cannot think,
So far as drought and nature urges, drink;
A more indulgent mistress guides our sprites,
Reason, that dares beyond our appetites,
(She would our care, as well as thirst, redress)
And with divinity rewards excess.
Deserted Ariadne, thus supplied,
Did perjured Theseus' cruelty deride;
Bacchus embraced, from her exalted thought
Banished the man, her passion, and his fault.
Bacchus and Phœbus are by Jove allied,
And each by other's timely heat supplied;
All that the grapes owe to his ripening fires
Is paid in numbers which their juice inspires.
Wine fills the veins, and healths are understood
To give our friends a title to our blood;
Who, naming me, doth warm his courage so,
Shows for my sake what his bold hand would do.
'Twere slender kindness that would not dispense
With health itself, to breed a confidence
Of true love in a friend, and he that quits

Each custom which the rude plebeian gets,
For his reserv'dness will too dearly pay,
Employ the night and loose the cheerful day:
The burnished face oft decked with hoary hairs
Shows drinking brings no death, but to our cares.
Who with a full red countenance ends his days,
He sets like Phœbus and discerns his bays.

OF MY LADY ISABELLA,

PLAYING ON THE LUTE.

Such moving sounds from such a careless touch!
So unconcerned herself, and we so much!
What art is this, that with so little pains
Transports us thus, and o'er our spirit reigns?
The trembling strings about her fingers crowd,
And tell their joy for every kiss aloud.
Small force there needs to make them tremble so;
Touched by that hand, who would not tremble too?
Here love takes stand, and while she charms the ear,
Empties his quiver on the listening deer.
Music so softens and disarms the mind,
That not an arrow does resistance find.
Thus the fair tyrant celebrates the prize,
And acts herself the triumph of her eyes:
So Nero once, with harp in hand, surveyed
His flaming Rome, and as it burned he played.

OF MRS. ARDEN.

Behold, and listen, while the fair
Breaks in sweet sounds the willing air,
And with her own breath fans the fire
Which her bright eyes do first inspire.
What reason can that love control,
Which more than one way courts the soul?

So when a flash of lightning falls
On our abodes, the danger calls
For human aid, which hopes the flame
To conquer, though from heaven it came;
But if the winds with that conspire,
Men strive not, but deplore the fire.

OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE DWARFS.

Design, or chance, makes others wive;
But Nature did this match contrive;
Eve might as well have Adam fled,
As she denied her little bed
To him, for whom Heaven seemed to frame,
And measure out, this only dame.

Thrice happy is that humble pair,
Beneath the level of all care!
Over whose heads those arrows fly
Of sad distrust and jealousy;
Secured in as high extreme,
As if the world held none but them.

To him the fairest nymphs do show
Like moving mountains, topped with snow;
And every man a Polypheme
Does to his Galatea seem;
None may presume her faith to prove;
He proffers death that proffers love.

Ah, Chloris, that kind Nature thus
From all the world had severed us;
Creating for ourselves us two,
As love has me for only you!

LOVE'S FAREWELL.

Treading the path to nobler ends,
A long farewell to love I gave,
Resolved my country, and my friends,
All that remained of me should have.

And this resolve no mortal dame,
None but those eyes could have o'erthrown,
The nymph I dare not, need not name,
So high, so like herself alone.

Thus the tall oak, which now aspires
Above the fear of private fires,
Grown and designed for nobler use,
Not to make warm, but build the house,
Though from our meaner flames secure,
Must that which falls from heaven endure.

FROM A CHILD.

Madam, as in some climes the warmer sun
Makes it full summer ere the spring's begun,
And with ripe fruit the bending boughs can load,
Before our violets dare look abroad;
So measure not by any common use
The early love your brighter eyes produce.
When lately your fair hand in woman's weed
Wrapped my glad head, I wished me so indeed,
That hasty time might never make me grow
Out of those favours you afford me now;
That I might ever such indulgence find,
And you not blush, or think yourself too kind;
Who now, I fear, while I these joys express,
Begin to think how you may make them less.
The sound of love makes your soft heart afraid,
And guard itself, though but a child invade,
And innocently at your white breast throw
A dart as white, a ball of new fall'n snow.

ON A GIRDLE.

That which her slender waist confined,
Shall now my joyful temples bind;
No monarch but would give his crown,
His arms might do what this has done.

It was my heaven's extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer.
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move!

A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair;
Give me but what this ribband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.

THE FALL.

See! how the willing earth gave way,
To take the impression where she lay.
See! how the mould, as loth to leave
So sweet a burden, still doth cleave
Close to the nymph's stained garment. Here
The coming spring would first appear,
And all this place with roses strow,
If busy feet would let them grow.
Here Venus smiled to see blind chance
Itself before her son advance,
And a fair image to present,
Of what the boy so long had meant.
'Twas such a chance as this, made all
The world into this order fall;
Thus the first lovers on the clay,
Of which they were composed, lay;
So in their prime, with equal grace,
Met the first patterns of our race.
Then blush not, fair! or on him frown,
Or wonder how you both came down;
But touch him, and he'll tremble straight,
How could he then support your weight?
How could the youth, alas! but bend,
When his whole heaven upon him leaned?
If aught by him amiss were done,
'Twas that he let you rise so soon.

OF SYLVIA.

Our sighs are heard; just Heaven declares
The sense it has of lover's cares;
She that so far the rest outshined,
Sylvia the fair, while she was kind,
As if her frowns impaired her brow,
Seems only not unhandsome now.
So when the sky makes us endure
A storm, itself becomes obscure.

Hence 'tis that I conceal my flame,
Hiding from Flavia's self her name,
Lest she, provoking Heaven, should prove
How it rewards neglected love.
Better a thousand such as I,
Their grief untold, should pine and die,
Than her bright morning, overcast
With sullen clouds, should be defaced.

THE BUD.

Lately on yonder swelling bush,
Big with many a coming rose,
This early bud began to blush,
And did but half itself disclose;
I plucked it, though no better grown,
And now you see how full 'tis blown.

Still as I did the leaves inspire,
With such a purple light they shone,
As if they had been made of fire,
And spreading so, would flame anon.
All that was meant by air or sun,
To the young flower, my breath has done.

If our loose breath so much can do,
What may the same in forms of love,
Of purest love, and music too,
When Flavia it aspires to move?
When that, which lifeless buds persuades
To wax more soft, her youth invades?

ON THE DISCOVERY OF A LADY'S PAINTING.

Pygmalion's fate reversed is mine;
His marble love took flesh and blood;
All that I worshipped as divine,
That beauty! now 'tis understood,
Appears to have no more of life
Than that whereof he framed his wife.

As women yet, who apprehend
Some sudden cause of causeless fear,
Although that seeming cause take end,
And they behold no danger near,
A shaking through their limbs they find,
Like leaves saluted by the wind:

So though the beauty do appear
No beauty, which amazed me so;
Yet from my breast I cannot tear
The passion which from thence did grow;
Nor yet out of my fancy raze
The print of that supposed face.

A real beauty, though too near,
The fond Narcissus did admire!
I dote on that which is nowhere;
The sign of beauty feeds my fire.
No mortal flame was e'er so cruel
As this, which thus survives the fuel!

100

OF LOVING AT FIRST SIGHT.

Not caring to observe the wind,
Or the new sea explore,
Snatched from myself, how far behind
Already I behold the shore!

May not a thousand dangers sleep
In the smooth bosom of this deep?
No; 'tis so rockless and so clear,
That the rich bottom does appear,
Paved all with precious things, not torn
From shipwrecked vessels, but there born.

Sweetness, truth, and every grace
Which time and use are wont to teach,
The eye may in a moment reach,
And read distinctly in her face.

Some other nymphs, with colours faint,
And pencil slow, may Cupid paint,
And a weak heart in time destroy;
She has a stamp, and prints the boy;
Can, with a single look, inflame
The coldest breast, the rudest tame.

101

THE SELF-BANISHED.

It is not that I love you less,
Than when before your feet I lay;
But to prevent the sad increase
Of hopeless love, I keep away.

In vain, alas! for everything
Which I have known belong to you,
Your form does to my fancy bring,
And makes my old wounds bleed anew.

Who in the spring, from the new sun,
Already has a fever got,
Too late begins those shafts to shun,
Which Phœbus through his veins has shot;

Too late he would the pain assuage,
And to thick shadows does retire;
About with him he bears the rage,
And in his tainted blood the fire.

But vowed I have, and never must
Your banished servant trouble you;
For if I break, you may mistrust
The vow I made—to love you too.

102

TO A FRIEND,

OF THE DIFFERENT SUCCESS OF THEIR LOVES.

Thrice happy pair! of whom we cannot know
Which first began to love, or loves most now;
Fair course of passion! where two lovers start,
And run together, heart still yoked with heart;
Successful youth! whom love has taught the way
To be victorious in the first essay.
Sure love's an art best practised at first,
And where the experienced still prosper worst!
I, with a different fate, pursued in vain
The haughty Celia, till my just disdain
Of her neglect, above that passion borne,
Did pride to pride oppose, and scorn to scorn.
Now she relents; but all too late to move
A heart directed to a nobler love.
The scales are turned, her kindness weighs no more
Now than my vows and service did before.
So in some well-wrought hangings you may see
How Hector leads, and how the Grecians flee;
Here, the fierce Mars his courage so inspires,
That with bold hands the Argive fleet he fires;
But there, from heaven the blue-eyed virgin falls,
And frighted Troy retires within her walls;
They that are foremost in that bloody race,
Turn head anon, and give the conquerors chase.

103

So like the chances are of love and war,
That they alone in this distinguished are,
In love the victors from the vanquished fly;
They fly that wound, and they pursue that die.

TO ZELINDA.

Fairest piece of well-formed earth!
Urge not thus your haughty birth;
The power which you have o'er us lies
Not in your race, but in your eyes.
“None but a prince!”—Alas! that voice
Confines you to a narrow choice.
Should you no honey vow to taste,
But what the master-bees have placed
In compass of their cells, how small
A portion to your share would fall!
Nor all appear, among those few,
Worthy the stock from whence they grew.
The sap which at the root is bred
In trees, through all the boughs is spread;
But virtues which in parents shine,
Make not like progress through the line.
'Tis not from whom, but where, we live;
The place does oft those graces give.

104

Great Julius, on the mountains bred,
A flock perhaps, or herd, had led.
He that the world subdued had been
But the best wrestler on the green.
'Tis art and knowledge which draw forth
The hidden seeds of native worth;
They blow those sparks, and make them rise
Into such flames as touch the skies.
To the old heroes hence was given
A pedigree which reached to heaven;
Of mortal seed they were not held,
Which other mortals so excelled.
And beauty, too, in such excess
As yours, Zelinda! claims no less.
Smile but on me, and you shall scorn,
Henceforth, to be of princes born.
I can describe the shady grove
Where your loved mother slept with Jove;
And yet excuse the faultless dame,
Caught with her spouse's shape and name.
Thy matchless form will credit bring
To all the wonders I shall sing.

105

TO A LADY SINGING A SONG OF HIS COMPOSING.

Chloris! yourself you so excel,
When you vouchsafe to breathe my thought,
That, like a spirit, with this spell
Of my own teaching, I am caught.

That eagle's fate and mine are one,
Which, on the shaft that made him die,
Espied a feather of his own,
Wherewith he wont to soar so high.

Had Echo, with so sweet a grace,
Narcissus' loud complaints returned,
Not for reflection of his face,
But of his voice, the boy had burned.

106

TO THE MUTABLE FAIR.

Here, Celia! for thy sake I part
With all that grew so near my heart;
The passion that I had for thee,
The faith, the love, the constancy!
And, that I may successful prove,
Transform myself to what you love.

Fool that I was! so much to prize
Those simple virtues you despise;
Fool! that with such dull arrows strove,
Or hoped to reach a flying dove;
For you, that are in motion still,
Decline our force, and mock our skill;
Who, like Don Quixote, do advance
Against a windmill our vain lance.

Now will I wander through the air,
Mount, make a stoop at every fair;
And, with a fancy unconfined,
(As lawless as the sea or wind)
Pursue you wheresoe'er you fly,
And with your various thoughts comply.

The formal stars do travel so,
As we their names and courses know;

107

And he that on their changes looks,
Would think them governed by our books;
But never were the clouds reduced
To any art; the motions used
By those free vapours are so light,
So frequent, that the conquered sight
Despairs to find the rules that guide
Those gilded shadows as they slide;
And therefore of the spacious air
Jove's royal consort had the care;
And by that power did once escape,
Declining bold Ixion's rape;
She, with her own resemblance, graced
A shining cloud, which he embraced.

Such was that image, so it smiled
With seeming kindness, which beguiled
Your Thyrsis lately, when he thought
He had his fleeting Celia caught.
'Twas shaped like her, but, for the fair,
He filled his arms with yielding air.

A fate for which he grieves the less,
Because the gods had like success;
For in their story, one, we see,
Pursues a nymph, and takes a tree;
A second, with a lover's haste,
Soon overtakes whom he had chased,

108

But she that did a virgin seem,
Possessed, appears a wandering stream;
For his supposed love, a third
Lays greedy hold upon a bird,
And stands amazed to find his dear
A wild inhabitant of the air.

To these old tales such nymphs as you
Give credit, and still make them new;
The amorous now like wonders find
In the swift changes of your mind.

But, Celia, if you apprehend
The muse of your incensed friend,
Nor would that he record your blame,
And make it live, repeat the same;
Again deceive him, and again,
And then he swears he'll not complain;
For still to be deluded so,
Is all the pleasure lovers know;
Who, like good falconers, take delight,
Not in the quarry, but the flight.

109

TO A LADY, FROM WHOM HE RECEIVED A SILVER PEN.

Madam! intending to have tried
The silver favour which you gave,
In ink the shining point I dyed,
And drenched it in the sable wave;
When, grieved to be so foully stained,
On you it thus to me complained:

“Suppose you had deserved to take
From her fair hand so fair a boon,
Yet how deserved I to make
So ill a change, who ever won
Immortal praise for what I wrote,
Instructed by her noble thought?

“I, that expressed her commands
To mighty lords, and princely dames,
Always most welcome to their hands,
Proud that I would record their names,
Must now be taught an humble style,
Some meaner beauty to beguile!”

So I, the wronged pen to please,
Make it my humble thanks express,
Unto your ladyship, in these:
And now 'tis forced to confess
That your great self did ne'er indite,
Nor that, to one more noble, write.

110

ON THE HEAD OF A STAG.

So we some antique hero's strength
Learn by his lance's weight and length;
As these vast beams express the beast,
Whose shady brows alive they dressed.
Such game, while yet the world was new,
The mighty Nimrod did pursue.
What huntsman of our feeble race,
Or dogs, dare such a monster chase,
Resembling, with each blow he strikes,
The charge of a whole troop of pikes?
O fertile head! which every year
Could such a crop of wonder bear!
The teeming earth did never bring
So soon, so hard, so huge a thing;
Which might it never have been cast,
(Each year's growth added to the last)
These lofty branches had supplied
The earth's bold sons' prodigious pride;
Heaven with these engines had been scaled,
When mountains heaped on mountains failed.

111

THE MISER'S SPEECH.

IN A MASQUE.

Balls of this metal slacked At'lanta's pace,
And on the amorous youth bestowed the race;
Venus, (the nymph's mind measuring by her own)
Whom the rich spoils of cities overthrown
Had prostrated to Mars, could well advise
The adventurous lover how to gain the prize.
Nor less may Jupiter to gold ascribe;
For, when he turned himself into a bribe,
Who can blame Danae, or the brazen tower,
That they withstood not that almighty shower?
Never till then did love make Jove put on
A form more bright, and nobler than his own;
Nor were it just, would he resume that shape,
That slack devotion should his thunder 'scape.
'Twas not revenge for grieved Apollo's wrong,
Those ass's ears on Midas' temples hung,
But fond repentance of his happy wish,
Because his meat grew metal like his dish.
Would Bacchus bless me so, I'd constant hold
Unto my wish, and die creating gold.

112

TO CHLORIS.

Chloris! since first our calm of peace
Was frighted hence, this good we find,
Your favours with your fears increase,
And growing mischiefs make you kind.
So the fair tree, which still preserves
Her fruit and state while no wind blows,
In storms from that uprightness swerves,
And the glad earth about her strows
With treasure, from her yielding boughs.

113

TO A LADY IN A GARDEN.

Sees not my love how time resumes
The glory which he lent these flowers?
Though none should taste of their perfumes,
Yet must they live but some few hours;
Time what we forbear devours!

Had Helen, or the Egyptian Queen,
Been ne'er so thrifty of their graces,
Those beauties must at length have been
The spoil of age, which finds out faces
In the most retired places.

Should some malignant planet bring
A barren drought, or ceaseless shower,
Upon the autumn or the spring,
And spare us neither fruit nor flower;
Winter would not stay an hour.

Could the resolve of love's neglect
Preserve you from the violation
Of coming years, then more respect
Were due to so divine a fashion,
Nor would I indulge my passion.

114

CHLORIS AND HYLAS.

MADE TO A SARABAND.

CHLORIS.
Hylas, oh Hylas! why sit we mute,
Now that each bird saluteth the spring
Wind up the slack'ned strings of thy lute,
Never canst thou want matter to sing;
For love thy breast does fill with such a fire,
That whatsoe'er is fair moves thy desire.

HYLAS.
Sweetest! you know, the sweetest of things
Of various flowers the bees do compose;
Yet no particular taste it brings
Of violet, woodbine, pink, or rose;
So love the result is of all the graces
Which flow from a thousand several faces.

115

CHLORIS.
Hylas! the birds which chant in this grove,
Could we but know the language they use,
They would instruct us better in love,
And reprehend thy inconstant Muse;
For love their breasts does fill with such a fire,
That what they once do chose, bounds their desire.

HYLAS.
Chloris! this change the birds do approve,
Which the warm season hither does bring;
Time from yourself does further remove
You, than the winter from the gay spring;
She that like lightning shined while her face lasted,
The oak now resembles which lightning hath blasted.

116

IN ANSWER OF SIR JOHN SUCKLING'S VERSES.

CON.

Stay here, fond youth! and ask no more; be wise;
Knowing too much, long since lost Paradise.

PRO.

And, by your knowledge, we should be bereft
Of all that paradise which yet is left.

CON.

The virtuous joys thou hast, thou wouldst should still
Last in their pride; and wouldst not take it ill
If rudely from sweet dreams, and for a toy,
Thou wert awaked; he wakes himself that does enjoy.

PRO.

How can the joy, or hope, which you allow
Be styled virtuous, and the end not so?
Talk in your sleep, and shadows still admire!
'Tis true, he wakes that feels this real fire;
But to sleep better; for whoe'er drinks deep
Of this Nepenthe, rocks himself asleep.

117

CON.

Fruition adds no new wealth, but destroys,
And while it pleaseth much, yet still it cloys.
Who thinks he should be happier made for that,
As reasonably might hope he might grow fat
By eating to a surfeit; this once passed,
What relishes? even kisses lose their taste.

PRO.

Blessings may be repeated while they cloy;
But shall we starve, 'cause surfeitings destroy?
And if fruition did the taste impair
Of kisses, why should yonder happy pair,
Whose joys just Hymen warrants all the night,
Consume the day, too, in this less delight?

CON.

Urge not 'tis necessary; alas! we know
The homeliest thing that mankind does is so.
The world is of a large extent we see,
And must be peopled; children there must be:—
So must bread too; but since there are enough
Born to that drudgery, what need we plough?

118

PRO.

I need not plough, since what the stooping hind
Gets of my pregnant land, must all be mine;
But in this nobler tillage 'tis not so;
For when Anchises did fair Venus know,
What interest had poor Vulcan in the boy,
Famous Æneas, or the present joy?

CON.

Women enjoyed, whate'er before they've been,
Are like romances read, or scenes once seen;
Fruition dulls or spoils the play much more
Than if one read, or knew, the plot before.

PRO.

Plays and romances read and seen, do fall
In our opinions; yet not seen at all,
Whom would they please? To an heroic tale
Would you not listen, lest it should grow stale?

CON.

'Tis expectation makes a blessing dear;
Heaven were not heaven if we knew what it were.

119

PRO.

If 'twere not heaven if we knew what it were,
'Twould not be heaven to those that now are there.

CON.

As in prospects we are there pleased most,
Where something keeps the eye from being lost,
And leaves us room to guess; so here, restraint
Holds up delight, that with excess would faint.

PRO.

Restraint preserves the pleasure we have got,
But he ne'er has it that enjoys it not.
In goodly prospects, who contracts the space,
Or takes not all the bounty of the place?
We wish removed what standeth in our light,
And nature blame for limiting our sight;
Where you stand wisely winking, that the view
Of the fair prospect may be always new.

CON.

They, who know all the wealth they have, are poor;
He's only rich that cannot tell his store.

PRO.

Not he that knows the wealth he has is poor,
But he that dares not touch, nor use, his store.

120

AN APOLOGY FOR HAVING LOVED BEFORE.

They that never had the use
Of the grape's surprising juice,
To the first delicious cup
All their reason render up;
Neither do, nor care to know,
Whether it be best or no.

So they that are to love inclined
Swayed by chance, not choice, or art,
To the first that's fair, or kind,
Make a present of their heart;
'Tis not she that first we love,
But whom dying we approve.

To man, that was in the evening made,
Stars gave the first delight,
Admiring, in the gloomy shade,
Those little drops of light;
Then at Aurora, whose fair hand
Removed them from the skies,
He gazing toward the east did stand,
She entertained his eyes.

121

But when the bright sun did appear,
All those he 'gan despise;
His wonder was determined there,
And could no higher rise;
He neither might, nor wished to know
A more refulgent light;
For that (as mine your beauties now)
Employed his utmost sight.

ON A BREDE OF DIVERS COLOURS,

WOVEN BY FOUR LADIES.

Twice twenty slender virgin-fingers twine
This curious web, where all their fancies shine.
As Nature them, so they this shade have wrought,
Soft as their hands, and various as their thought.
Not Juno's bird, when his fair train dispread,
He woos the female to his painted bed;
No, not the bow, which so adorns the skies,
So glorious is, or boasts so many dyes.

122

TO CHLORIS.

Chloris! what's eminent, we know
Must for some cause be valued so;
Things without use, though they be good,
Are not by us so understood.
The early rose, made to display
Her blushes to the youthful May,
Doth yield her sweets, since he is fair,
And courts her with a gentle air.
Our stars do show their excellence
Not by their light, but influence;
When brighter comets, since still known
Fatal to all, are liked by none.
So your admired beauty still
Is, by effects, made good or ill.

123

SONG.

[Stay, Phœbus! stay]

Stay, Phœbus! stay;
The world to which you fly so fast,
Conveying day
From us to them, can pay your haste
With no such object, nor salute your rise,
With no such wonder as De Mornay's eyes.

Well does this prove
The error of those antique books,
Which made you move
About the world; her charming looks
Would fix your beams, and make it ever day,
Did not the rolling earth snatch her away.

124

SONG.

[Peace, babbling Muse!]

Peace, babbling Muse!
I dare not sing what you indite;
Her eyes refuse
To read the passion which they write.
She strikes my lute, but, if it sound,
Threatens to hurl it on the ground;
And I no less her anger dread,
Than the poor wretch that feigns him dead,
While some fierce lion does embrace
His breathless corpse, and licks his face;
Wrapped up in silent fear he lies,
Torn all in pieces if he cries.

125

TO FLAVIA.

A SONG.

'Tis not your beauty can engage
My wary heart;
The sun, in all his pride and rage,
Has not that art;
And yet he shines as bright as you,
If brightness could our souls subdue.

'Tis not the pretty things you say,
Nor those you write,
Which can make Thyrsis' heart your prey;
For that delight,
The graces of a well-taught mind,
In some of our own sex we find.

No, Flavia! 'tis your love I fear;
Love's surest darts,
Those which so seldom fail him, are
Headed with hearts;
Their very shadows make us yield;
Dissemble well, and win the field.

126

BEHOLD THE BRAND OF BEAUTY TOSSED!

A SONG.

Behold the brand of beauty tossed!
See how the motion does dilate the flame!
Delighted love his spoils does boast,
And triumph in this game.
Fire, to no place confined,
Is both our wonder and our fear;
Moving the mind,
As lightning hurled through the air.

High heaven the glory does increase
Of all her shining lamps, this artful way;
The sun in figures, such as these,
Joys with the moon to play;
To the sweet strains they advance,
Which do result from their own spheres,
As this nymph's dance
Moves with the numbers which she hears.

127

WHILE I LISTEN TO THY VOICE.

While I listen to thy voice,
Chloris! I feel my life decay;
That powerful noise
Calls my flitting soul away.
Oh! suppress that magic sound,
Which destroys without a wound.

Peace, Chloris! peace! or singing die,
That together you and I
To heaven may go;
For all we know
Of what the blessed do above,
Is, that they sing, and that they love.

128

GO, LOVELY ROSE!

Go, lovely Rose!
Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired;
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.

Then die! that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

129

UNDER A LADY'S PICTURE.

Some ages hence, for it must not decay,
The doubtful wonderers at this piece, will say
Such Helen was! and who can blame the boy
That in so bright a flame consumed his Troy?
But had like virtue shined in that fair Greek,
The amorous shepherd had not dared to seek
Or hope for pity; but with silent moan,
And better fate, had perished alone.

WRITTEN IN MY LADY SPEKE'S SINGING-BOOK.

Her fair eyes, if they could see
What themselves have wrought in me,
Would at least with pardon look
On this scribbling in her book:
If that she the writer scorn,
This may from the rest be torn,
With the ruin of a part,
But the image of her graces
Fills my heart and leaves no spaces.

130

OF A LADY WHO WRIT IN PRAISE OF MIRA.

While she pretends to make the graces known
Of matchless Mira, she reveals her own;
And when she would another's praise indite,
Is by her glass instructed how to write.

TO ONE MARRIED TO AN OLD MAN.

Since thou wouldst needs (bewitched with some ill charms!)
Be buried in those monumental arms,
All we can wish is, may that earth lie light
Upon thy tender limbs! and so good night.

131

AN EPIGRAM ON A PAINTED LADY WITH ILL TEETH.

Were men so dull they could not see
That Lyce painted, should they flee,
Like simple birds, into a net
So grossly woven and ill set,
Her own teeth would undo the knot,
And let all go that she had got.
Those teeth fair Lyce must not show
If she would bite; her lovers, though
Like birds they stoop at seeming grapes,
Are disabused when first she gapes;
The rotten bones discovered there,
Show 'tis a painted sepulchre.

ON MR. JOHN FLETCHER'S PLAYS.

Fletcher! to thee we do not only owe
All these good plays, but those of others too;
Thy wit repeated does support the stage,
Credits the last, and entertains this age.
No worthies, formed by any Muse but thine,
Could purchase robes to make themselves so fine.

132

What brave commander is not proud to see
Thy brave Melantius in his gallantry?
Our greatest ladies love to see their scorn
Outdone by thine, in what themselves have worn;
The impatient widow, ere the year be done,
Sees thy Aspasia weeping in her gown.

I never yet the tragic strain essayed,
Deterred by that inimitable Maid;
And when I venture at the comic style,
Thy Scornful Lady seems to mock my toil.

Thus has thy Muse at once improved and marred
Our sport in plays, by rendering it too hard!
So when a sort of lusty shepherds throw
The bar by turns, and none the rest outgo
So far, but that the best are measuring casts,
Their emulation and their pastime lasts;
But if some brawny yeoman of the guard
Step in, and toss the axletree a yard,
Or more, beyond the furthest mark, the rest
Despairing stand, their sport is at the best.

133

VERSES TO DR. GEORGE ROGERS,

ON HIS TAKING THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHYSIC AT PADUA, IN THE YEAR 1646.

When as of old the earth's bold children strove,
With hills on hills, to scale the throne of Jove,
Pallas and Mars stood by their sovereign's side,
And their bright arms in his defence employed;
While the wise Phœbus, Hermes, and the rest,
Who joy in peace, and love the Muses best,
Descending from their so distempered seat,
Our groves and meadows chose for their retreat.
There first Apollo tried the various use
Of herbs, and learned the virtues of their juice,
And framed that art, to which who can pretend
A juster title than our noble friend?
Whom the like tempest drives from his abode,
And like employment entertains abroad.
This crowns him here, and in the bays so earned,
His country's honour is no less concerned,
Since it appears not all the English rave,
To ruin bent; some study how to save;
And as Hippocrates did once extend
His sacred art, whole cities to amend;
So we, great friend! suppose that thy great skill,
Thy gentle mind, and fair example, will,
At thy return, reclaim our frantic isle,
Their spirits calm, and peace again shall smile.

134

TO MY LADY MORTON, ON NEW-YEAR'S DAY, 1650.

AT THE LOUVRE IN PARIS.

Madam! new years may well expect to find
Welcome from you, to whom they are so kind;
Still as they pass, they court and smile on you,
And make your beauty, as themselves, seem new.
To the fair Villiers we Dalkeith prefer,
And fairest Morton now as much to her;
So like the sun's advance your titles show,
Which as he rises does the warmer grow.

But thus to style you fair, your sex's praise,
Gives you but myrtle, who may challenge bays;
From armed foes to bring a royal prize,
Shows your brave heart victorious as your eyes.
If Judith, marching with the general's head,
Can give us passion when her story's read,
What may the living do, which brought away,
Though a less bloody, yet a nobler prey;
Who from our flaming Troy, with a bold hand,
Snatched her fair charge, the Princess, like a brand?
A brand! preserved to warm some prince's heart,
And make whole kingdoms take her brother's part.

135

So Venus, from prevailing Greeks, did shroud
The hope of Rome, and save him in a cloud.

This gallant act may cancel all our rage,
Begin a better, and absolve this age.
Dark shades become the portrait of our time;
Here weeps Misfortune, and their triumphs Crime!
Let him that draws it hide the rest in night;
This portion only may endure the light,
Where the kind nymph, changing her faultless shape,
Becomes unhandsome, handsomely to 'scape,
When through the guards, the river, and the sea,
Faith, beauty, wit, and courage, made their way.
As the brave eagle does with sorrow see
The forest wasted, and that lofty tree
Which holds her nest about to be o'erthrown,
Before the feathers of her young are grown,
She will not leave them, nor she cannot stay,
But bears them boldly on her wings away;
So fled the dame, and o'er the ocean bore
Her princely burthen to the Gallic shore.
Born in the storms of war, this royal fair,
Produced like lightning in tempestuous air,
Though now she flies her native isle (less kind,
Less safe for her than either sea or wind!)
Shall, when the blossom of her beauty's blown,
See her great brother on the British throne;
Where peace shall smile, and no dispute arise,
But which rules most, his sceptre, or her eyes.

136

TO SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT,

UPON HIS TWO FIRST BOOKS OF GONDIBERT.

[_]

Written in France.

Thus the wise nightingale that leaves her home,
Her native wood, when storms and winter come,
Pursuing constantly the cheerful spring,
To foreign groves does her old music bring.

The drooping Hebrews' banished harps, unstrung
At Babylon upon the willows hung;
Yours sounds aloud, and tells us you excel
No less in courage, than in singing well;
Whilst, unconcerned, you let your country know,
They have impoverished themselves, not you;
Who, with the Muses' help, can mock those fates
Which threaten kingdoms, and disorder states.
So Ovid, when from Cæsar's rage he fled,
The Roman Muse to Pontus with him led;
Where he so sung, that we, through pity's glass,
See Nero milder than Augustus was.
Hereafter such, in thy behalf, shall be
The indulgent censure of posterity.
To banish those who with such art can sing,
Is a rude crime, which its own curse does bring;

137

Ages to come shall ne'er know how they sought,
Nor how to love their present youth be taught.
This to thyself.—Now to thy matchless book,
Wherein those few that can with judgment look,
May find old love in pure fresh language told,
Like new-stamped coin made out of Angel gold;
Such truth in love as the antique world did know,
In such a style as courts may boast of now;
Which no bold tales of gods or monsters swell,
But human passions, such as with us dwell.
Man is thy theme; his virtue, or his rage,
Drawn to the life in each elaborate page.
Mars, nor Bellona, are not named here,
But such a Gondibert as both might fear;
Venus had here, and Hebe been outshined
By thy bright Birtha and thy Rodalind.
Such is thy happy skill, and such the odds
Betwixt thy worthies and the Grecian gods!
Whose deities in vain had here come down,
Where mortal beauty wears the sovereign crown;
Such as of flesh composed, by flesh and blood,
Though not resisted, may be understood.

138

A PANEGYRIC TO MY LORD PROTECTOR,

OF THE PRESENT GREATNESS, AND JOINT INTEREST, OF HIS HIGHNESS, AND THIS NATION.

While with a strong and yet a gentle hand,
You bridle faction, and our hearts command,
Protect us from ourselves, and from the foe,
Make us unite, and make us conquer too;

Let partial spirits still aloud complain,
Think themselves injured that they cannot reign,
And own no liberty but where they may
Without control upon their fellows prey.

Above the waves as Neptune showed his face,
To chide the winds, and save the Trojan race,
So has your Highness, raised above the rest,
Storms of ambition, tossing us, repressed.

Your drooping country, torn with civil hate,
Restored by you, is made a glorious state;
The seat of empire, where the Irish come,
And the unwilling Scotch, to fetch their doom.

The sea's our own; and now all nations greet,
With bending sails, each vessel of our fleet;
Your power extends as far as winds can blow,
Or swelling sails upon the globe may go.

139

Heaven, (that has placed this island to give law,
To balance Europe, and her states to awe)
In this conjunction does on Britain smile;
The greatest leader, and the greatest isle!

Whether this portion of the world were rent,
By the rude ocean, from the continent;
Or thus created; it was sure designed
To be the sacred refuge of mankind.

Hither the oppressed shall henceforth resort,
Justice to crave, and succour, at your court;
And then your Highness, not for ours alone,
But for the world's protector shall be known.

Fame, swifter than your winged navy, flies
Through every land that near the ocean lies,
Sounding your name, and telling dreadful news
To all that piracy and rapine use.

With such a chief the meanest nation blessed,
Might hope to lift her head above the rest;
What may be thought impossible to do
For us, embraced by the sea and you?

Lords of the world's great waste, the ocean, we
Whole forests send to reign upon the sea,
And every coast may trouble, or relieve;
But none can visit us without your leave.

140

Angels and we have this prerogative,
That none can at our happy seat arrive;
While we descend at pleasure, to invade
The bad with vengeance, and the good to aid.

Our little world, the image of the great,
Like that, amidst the boundless ocean set,
Of her own growth has all that Nature craves;
And all that's rare, as tribute from the waves.

As Egypt does not on the clouds rely,
But to her Nile owes more than to the sky;
So what our earth, and what our heaven, denies,
Our ever constant friend, the sea, supplies.

The taste of hot Arabia's spice we know,
Free from the scorching sun that makes it grow;
Without the worm, in Persian silks we shine;
And, without planting, drink of every vine.

To dig for wealth we weary not our limbs;
Gold, though the heaviest metal, hither swims;
Ours is the harvest where the Indians mow;
We plough the deep, and reap what others sow.

Things of the noblest kind our own soil breeds;
Stout are our men, and warlike are our steeds;
Rome, though her eagle through the world had flown,
Could never make this island all her own.

141

Here the Third Edward, and the Black Prince, too,
France-conquering Henry flourished, and now you;
For whom we stayed, as did the Grecian state,
Till Alexander came to urge their fate.

When for more worlds the Macedonian cried,
He wist not Thetis in her lap did hide
Another yet; a world reserved for you,
To make more great than that he did subdue.

He safely might old troops to battle lead,
Against the unwarlike-Persian, and the Mede,
Whose hasty flight did, from a bloodless field,
More spoil than honour to the victor yield.

A race unconquered, by their clime made bold,
The Caledonians, armed with want and cold,
Have, by a fate indulgent to your fame,
Been from all ages kept for you to tame.

Whom the old Roman wall so ill confined,
With a new chain of garrisons you bind;
Here foreign gold no more shall make them come;
Our English iron holds them fast at home.

They, that henceforth must be content to know
No warmer region than their hills of snow,
May blame the sun, but must extol your grace,
Which in our senate has allowed them place.

142

Preferred by conquest, happily o'erthrown,
Falling they rise, to be with us made one;
So kind dictators made, when they came home,
Their vanquished foes free citizens of Rome.

Like favour find the Irish, with like fate,
Advanced to be a portion of our state;
While by your valour and your courteous mind,
Nations, divided by the sea, are joined.

Holland, to gain your friendship, is content
To be our outguard on the continent;
She from her fellow-provinces would go,
Rather than hazard to have you her foe.

In our late fight, when cannons did diffuse,
Preventing posts, the terror and the news,
Our neighbour princes trembled at their roar;
But our conjunction makes them tremble more.

Your never-failing sword made war to cease;
And now you heal us with the arts of peace;
Our minds with bounty and with awe engage,
Invite affection, and restrain our rage.

Less pleasure take brave minds in battles won,
Than in restoring such as are undone;
Tigers have courage, and the rugged bear,
But man alone can, whom he conquers, spare.

143

To pardon willing, and to punish loath,
You strike with one hand, but you heal with both;
Lifting up all that prostrate lie, you grieve
You cannot make the dead again to live.

When fate, or error, had our age misled,
And o'er these nations such confusion spread,
The only cure, which could from Heaven come down,
Was so much power and clemency in one!

One! whose extraction from an ancient line
Gives hope again that well-born men may shine;
The meanest in your nature, mild and good,
The noble rest secured in your blood.

Oft have we wondered how you hid in peace
A mind proportioned to such things as these;
How such a ruling spirit you could restrain,
And practise first over yourself to reign.

Your private life did a just pattern give,
How fathers, husbands, pious sons should live;
Born to command, your princely virtues slept,
Like humble David's, while the flock he kept.

But when your troubled country called you forth,
Your flaming courage, and your matchless worth,
Dazzling the eyes of all that did pretend,
To fierce contention gave a prosperous end.

144

Still as you rise, the state, exalted too,
Finds no distemper while 'tis changed by you;
Changed like the world's great scene! when, without noise,
The rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys.

Had you, some ages past, this race of glory
Run, with amazement we should read your story;
But living virtue, all achievements past,
Meets envy still, to grapple with at last.

This Cæsar found; and that ungrateful age,
With losing him fell back to blood and rage;
Mistaken Brutus thought to break their yoke,
But cut the bond of union with that stroke.

That sun once set, a thousand meaner stars
Gave a dim light to violence, and wars,
To such a tempest as now threatens all,
Did not your mighty arm prevent the fall.

If Rome's great senate could not wield that sword,
Which of the conquered world had made them lord,
What hope had ours, while yet their power was new,
To rule victorious armies, but by you?

You! that had taught them to subdue their foes,
Could order teach, and their high spirits compose;
To every duty could their minds engage,
Provoke their courage, and command their rage.

145

So when a lion shakes his dreadful mane,
And angry grows, if he that first took pain
To tame his youth approach the haughty beast,
He bends to him, but frights away the rest.

As the vexed world, to find repose, at last
Itself into Augustus' arms did cast;
So England now does, with like toil oppressed,
Her weary head upon your bosom rest.

Then let the Muses, with such notes as these,
Instruct us what belongs unto our peace;
Your battles they hereafter shall indite,
And draw the image of our Mars in fight;

Tell of towns stormed, of armies overrun,
And mighty kingdoms by your conduct won;
How, while you thundered, clouds of dust did choke
Contending troops, and seas lay hid in smoke.

Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,
And every conqueror creates a muse.
Here, in low strains, your milder deeds we sing;
But there, my lord; we'll bays and olive bring

To crown your head; while you in triumph ride
O'er vanquished nations, and the sea beside;
While all your neighbour-princes unto you,
Like Joseph's sheaves, pay reverence, and bow.

146

TO MY WORTHY FRIEND, MR. WASE.

THE TRANSLATOR OF GRATIUS.

Thus, by the music, we may know
When noble wits a-hunting go,
Through groves that on Parnassus grow.

The Muses all the chase adorn;
My friend on Pegasus is borne;
And young Apollo winds the horn.

Having old Gratius in the wind,
No pack of critics e'er could find,
Or he know more of his own mind.

Here huntsmen with delight may read
How to choose dogs for scent or speed,
And how to change or mend the breed;

What arms to use, or nets to frame,
Wild beasts to combat or to tame;
With all the mysteries of that game.

147

But, worthy friend! the face of war
In ancient times doth differ far
From what our fiery battles are.

Nor is it like, since powder known,
That man, so cruel to his own,
Should spare the race of beasts alone

No quarter now, but with the gun
Men wait in trees from sun to sun,
And all is in a moment done.

And therefore we expect your next
Should be no comment, but a text
To tell how modern beasts are vexed.

Thus would I further yet engage
Your gentle Muse to court the age
With somewhat of your proper rage;

Since none does more to Phœbus owe,
Or in more languages can show
Those arts which you so early know.

149

TO HIS WORTHY FRIEND, MASTER EVELYN,

UPON HIS TRANSLATION OF LUCRETIUS.

That chance and atoms make this all
In order democratical,
Where bodies freely run their course,
Without design, or fate, or force,
In English verse Lucretius sings,
As if with Pegasean wings,
He soared beyond our utmost sphere
And other worlds discovered there;
His boundless and unruly wit,
To Nature does no bounds permit;
But boldly has removed those bars
Of heaven and earth and seas and stars,
By which she was before supposed,
By moderate wits, to be enclosed,
Till his free muse threw down the pale,
And did at once dispark them all.

So vast this argument did seem,
That the wise author did esteem
The Roman language (which was spread
O'er the whole world, in triumph led)

150

Too weak, too narrow to unfold
The wonders which he would have told.
This speaks thy glory, noble friend!
And British language does commend;
For here Lucretius whole we find,
His words, his music, and his mind.
Thy art has to our country brought
All that he writ, and all he thought.
Ovid translated, Virgil too,
Showed long since what our tongues could do;
Nor Lucan we, nor Horace spared;
Only Lucretius was too hard.
Lucretius, like a fort, did stand
Untouched, till your victorious hand
Did from his head this garland bear,
Which now upon your own you wear;
A garland! made of such new bays,
And sought in such untrodden ways,
As no man's temples e'er did crown,
Save this great author's, and your own!

151

OF A WAR WITH SPAIN, AND A FIGHT AT SEA.

Now, for some ages, had the pride of Spain
Made the sun shine on half the world in vain;
While she bid war to all that durst supply
The place of those her cruelty made die.
Of nature's bounty men forebore to taste,
And the best portion of the earth lay waste,
From the new world her silver and her gold
Came, like a tempest, to confound the old;
Feeding with these the bribed Electors' hopes,
Alone she gave us emperors and popes;
With these accomplishing her vast designs,
Europe was shaken with her Indian mines.

When Britain, looking with a just disdain
Upon this gilded majesty of Spain,
And knowing well that empire must decline,
Whose chief support and sinews are of coin,
Our nation's solid virtue did oppose
To the rich troublers of the world's repose.

And now some months, encamping on the main,

152

Our naval army had besieged Spain;
They that the whole world's monarchy designed,
Are to their ports by our bold fleet confined;
From whence our Red Cross they triumphant see,
Riding without a rival on the sea.

Others may use the ocean as their road,
Only the English make it their abode,
Whose ready sails with every wind can fly,
And make a covenant with the inconstant sky;
Our oaks secure, as if they there took root,
We tread on billows with a steady foot.

Meanwhile the Spaniards in America,
Near to the line the sun approaching saw,
And hoped their European coasts to find
Cleared from our ships by the autumnal wind;
Their huge capacious galleons stuffed with plate,
The labouring winds drive slowly towards their fate.
Before St. Lucar they their guns discharge,
To tell their joy, or to invite a barge;
This heard some ships of ours, (though out of view)
And, swift as eagles, to the quarry flew;
So heedless lambs, which for their mothers bleat,
Wake hungry lions, and become their meat.

Arrived, they soon begin that tragic play,
And with their smoky cannons banish day;
Night, horror, slaughter, with confusion meets,
And in their sable arms embrace the fleets.

153

Through yielding planks the angry bullets fly,
And, of one wound, hundreds together die;
Born under different stars one fate they have,
The ship their coffin, and the sea their grave!
Bold were the men which on the ocean first
Spread their new sails, when shipwreck was the worst;
More danger now from man alone we find
Than from the rocks, the billows, or the wind.
They that had sailed from near the Antarctic Pole,
Their treasure safe, and all their vessels whole,
In sight of their dear country ruined be,
Without the guilt of either rock or sea!
What they would spare, our fiercer art destroys,
Surpassing storms in terror and in noise.
Once Jove from Ida did both hosts survey,
And, when he pleased to thunder, part the fray;
Here, heaven in vain that kind retreat should sound,
The louder cannon had the thunder drowned.
Some, we made prize; while others, burned and rent,
With their rich lading to the bottom went;
Down sinks at once (so Fortune with us sports!)
The pay of armies, and the pride of courts.
Vain man! whose rage buries as low that store,
As avarice had digged for it before;
What earth, in her dark bowels, could not keep

154

From greedy hands, lies safer in the deep,
Where Thetis kindly does from mortals hide
Those seeds of luxury, debate, and pride.

And now, into her lap the richest prize
Fell, with the noblest of our enemies;
The Marquis (glad to see the fire destroy
Wealth that prevailing foes were to enjoy)
Out from his flaming ship his children sent,
To perish in a milder element;
Then laid him by his burning lady's side,
And, since he could not save her, with her died.
Spices and gums about them melting fry,
And, phœnix-like, in that rich nest they die;
Alive, in flames of equal love they burned,
And now together are to ashes turned;
Ashes! more worth than all their funeral cost,
Than the huge treasure which was with them lost.

155

These dying lovers, and their floating sons,
Suspend the fight, and silence all our guns;
Beauty and youth about to perish, finds
Such noble pity in brave English minds,
That (the rich spoil forgot, their valour's prize)
All labour now to save their enemies.
How frail our passions! how soon changed are
Our wrath and fury to a friendly care!
They that but now for honour, and for plate,
Made the sea blush with blood, resign their hate;
And, their young foes endeavouring to retrieve,
With greater hazard than they fought, they dive.

With these, returns victorious Montague,
With laurels in his hand, and half Peru.
Let the brave generals divide that bough,
Our great Protector hath such wreaths enow;
His conquering head has no more room for bays;
Then let it be as the glad nation prays;
Let the rich ore forthwith be melted down,
And the state fixed by making him a crown;
With ermine clad, and purple, let him hold
A royal sceptre, made of Spanish gold.

156

TO HIS WORTHY FRIEND, SIR THOS. HIGGONS,

UPON THE TRANSLATION OF “THE VENETIAN TRIUMPH.”

The winged lion's not so fierce in fight,
As Liberi's hand presents him to our sight;
Nor would his pencil make him half so fierce,
Or roar so loud, as Businello's verse;
But your translation does all three excel,
The fight, the piece, and lofty Businel.
As their small galleys may not hold compare
With our tall ships, whose sails employ more air;
So does the Italian to your genius vail,
Moved with a fuller and a nobler gale.
Thus, while your muse spreads the Venetian story,
You make all Europe emulate her glory;
You make them blush weak Venice should defend
The cause of Heaven, while they for words contend;
Shed Christian blood, and populous cities raze,
Because they're taught to use some different phrase.
If, listening to your charms, we could our jars
Compose, and on the Turk discharge these wars,
Our British arms the sacred tomb might wrest
From Pagan hands, and triumph o'er the East;
And then you might our own high deeds recite,
And with great Tasso celebrate the fight.

157

PART OF THE FOURTH BOOK OF VIRGIL, TRANSLATED.

[_]

Beginning

------ Talesque miserrima fletus
Fertque refertque soror ------

And ending with

Adnixi torquent spumas, et cærula verrunt.

All this her weeping sister does repeat
To the stern man, whom nothing could entreat;
Lost were her prayers, and fruitless were her tears!
Fate, and great Jove, had stopped his gentle ears.
As when loud winds a well-grown oak would rend
Up by the roots, this way and that they bend
His reeling trunk; and with a boisterous sound
Scatter his leaves, and strew them on the ground;
He fixed stands; as deep his root doth lie
Down to the centre, as his top is high;
No less on every side the hero pressed,
Feels love and pity shake his noble breast,
And down his cheeks though fruitless tears do roll,
Unmoved remains the purpose of his soul.
Then Dido, urged with approaching fate,
Begins the light of cruel Heaven to hate;
Her resolution to dispatch and die,
Confirmed by many a horrid prodigy!
The water, consecrate for sacrifice,
Appears all black to her amazed eyes;

158

The wine to putrid blood converted flows,
Which from her none, not her own sister, knows.
Besides, there stood, as sacred to her lord,
A marble temple which she much adored,
With snowy fleeces and fresh garlands crowned;
Hence every night proceeds a dreadful sound;
Her husband's voice invites her to his tomb,
And dismal owls presage the ills to come.
Besides, the prophecies of wizards old
Increased her terror and her fall foretold;
Scorned, and deserted, to herself she seems,
And finds Æneas cruel in her dreams.

So to mad Pentheus, double Thebes appears,
And furies howl in his distempered ears;
Orestes so, with like distraction tossed,
Is made to fly his mother's angry ghost.

Now grief and fury at their height arrive;
Death she decrees, and thus does it contrive.
Her grieved sister, with a cheerful grace,
(Hope well dissembled shining in her face)
She thus deceives. “Dear sister! let us prove
The cure I have invented for my love.
Beyond the land of Ethiopia lies
The place where Atlas does support the skies,
Hence came an old magician, that did keep
The Hesperian fruit, and made the dragon sleep;
Her potent charms do troubled souls relieve,
And, where she lists, make calmest minds to grieve:
The course of rivers, or of heaven, can stop,

159

And call trees down from the airy mountain's top.
Witness, ye Gods! and thou, my dearest part!
How loath I am to tempt this guilty art.
Erect a pile, and on it let us place
That bed where I my ruin did embrace;
With all the reliques of our impious guest,
Arms, spoils, and presents, let the pile be dressed;
(The knowing woman thus prescribes) that we
May rase the man out of our memory.”

Thus speaks the Queen, but hides the fatal end
For which she doth those sacred rites pretend.
Nor worse effects of grief her sister thought
Would follow, than Sichæus' murder wrought;
Therefore obeys her; and now, heaped high,
The cloven oaks and lofty pines do lie;
Hung all with wreaths and flowery garlands round,
So by herself was her own funeral crowned!
Upon the top the Trojan's image lies,
And his sharp sword, wherewith anon she dies.
They by the altar stand, while with loose hair
The magic prophetess begins her prayer:
On Chaos, Erebus, and all the gods,
Which in the infernal shades have their abodes,
She loudly calls, besprinkling all the room
With drops, supposed from Lethe's lake to come.
She seeks the knot which on the forehead grows
Of new-foaled colts, and herbs by moonlight mows.
A cake of leaven in her pious hands
Holds the devoted Queen, and barefoot stands;

160

One tender foot was bare, the other shod.
Her robe ungirt, invoking every god,
And every power, if any be above,
Which takes regard of ill-requited love!

Now was the time when weary mortals steep
Their careful temples in the dew of sleep;
On seas, on earth, and all that in them dwell,
A death-like quiet, and deep silence fell;
But not on Dido! whose untamed mind
Refused to be by sacred night confined;
A double passion in her breast does move,
Love, and fierce anger for neglected love.
Thus she afflicts her soul: “What shall I do?
With fate inverted, shall I humbly woo?
And some proud prince, in wild Numidia born,
Pray to accept me, and forget my scorn?
Or shall I with the ungrateful Trojan go,
Quit all my state, and wait upon my foe?
Is not enough, by sad experience! known
The perjured race of false Laomedon?
With my Sidonians shall I give them chase,
Bands hardly forced from their native place?
No;—die! and let this sword thy fury tame;
Nought but thy blood can quench this guilty flame.
Ah, sister! vanquished with my passion, thou
Betray'dst me first, dispensing with my vow.
Had I been constant to Sichæus still,
And single-lived, I had not known this ill!”

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Such thoughts torment the Queen's enraged breast,
While the Dardanian does securely rest
In his tall ship, for sudden flight prepared;
To whom once more the son of Jove appeared;
Thus seems to speak the youthful deity,
Voice, hair, and colour, all like Mercury.

“Fair Venus' seed! canst thou indulge thy sleep,
Nor better guard in such great danger keep?
Mad, by neglect to lose so fair a wind!
If here thy ships the purple morning find,
Thou shalt behold this hostile harbour shine
With a new fleet, and fire, to ruin thine;
She meditates revenge, resolved to die;
Weigh anchor quickly, and her fury fly.”

This said, the god in shades of night retired.
Amazed Æneas, with the warning fired,
Shakes off dull sleep, and, rousing up his men,
“Behold! the gods command our flight again
Fall to your oars, and all your canvas spread;
What god soe'er that thus vouchsaf'st to lead,
We follow gladly, and thy will obey;
Assist us still, smoothing our happy way,
And make the rest propitious!”—With that word
He cuts the cable with his shining sword;
Through all the navy doth like ardour reign,
They quit the shore, and rush into the main;
Placed on their banks, the lusty Trojans sweep
Neptune's smooth face, and cleave the yielding deep.

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UPON THE LATE STORM, AND OF THE DEATH OF HIS HIGHNESS ENSUING THE SAME.

We must resign! Heaven his great soul does claim
In storms, as loud as his immortal fame;
His dying groans, his last breath, shakes our isle,
And trees uncut fall for his funeral pile;
About his palace their broad roots are tossed
Into the air.—So Romulus was lost!
New Rome in such a tempest missed her king,
And from obeying fell to worshipping.
On Œta's top thus Hercules lay dead,
With ruined oaks and pines about him spread;
The poplar, too, whose bough he wont to wear
On his victorious head, lay prostrate there;
Those his last fury from the mountain rent:
Our dying hero from the continent
Ravished whole towns; and forts from Spaniards reft,
As his last legacy to Britain left.
The ocean, which so long our hopes confined,
Could give no limits to his vaster mind;

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Our bounds' enlargement was his latest toil,
Nor hath he left us prisoners to our isle;
Under the tropic is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath received our yoke.
From civil broils he did us disengage,
Found nobler objects for our martial rage;
And, with wise conduct, to his country showed
Their ancient way of conquering abroad.
Ungrateful then! if we no tears allow
To him, that gave us peace and empire too.
Princes, that feared him, grieve, concerned to see
No pitch of glory from the grave is free.
Nature herself took notice of his death,
And, sighing, swelled the sea with such a breath,
That, to remotest shores her billows rolled,
The approaching fate of her great ruler told.

TO THE KING,

UPON HIS MAJESTY'S HAPPY RETURN.

The rising sun complies with our weak sight,
First gilds the clouds, then shows his globe of light
At such a distance from our eyes, as though
He knew what harm his hasty beams would do.

But your full majesty at once breaks forth
In the meridian of your reign. Your worth,
Your youth, and all the splendour of your state,

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(Wrapped up, till now, in clouds of adverse fate!)
With such a flood of light invade our eyes,
And our spread hearts with so great joy surprise,
That if your grace incline that we should live,
You must not, sir! too hastily forgive.
Our guilt preserves us from the excess of joy,
Which scatters spirits, and would life destroy.
All are obnoxious! and this faulty land,
Like fainting Esther, does before you stand,
Watching your sceptre. The revolted sea
Trembles to think she did your foes obey.

Great Britain, like blind Polypheme, of late,
In a wild rage, became the scorn and hate
Of her proud neighbours, who began to think
She, with the weight of her own force, would sink.
But you are come, and all their hopes are vain;
This giant isle has got her eye again.
Now she might spare the ocean, and oppose
Your conduct to the fiercest of her foes.
Naked, the Graces guarded you from all
Dangers abroad; and now your thunder shall.
Princes that saw you, different passions prove,
For now they dread the object of their love;
Nor without envy can behold his height,
Whose conversation was their late delight.
So Semele, contented with the rape
Of Jove disguised in a mortal shape,
When she beheld his hands with lightning filled,
And his bright rays, was with amazement killed.

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And though it be our sorrow, and our crime,
To have accepted life so long a time
Without you here, yet does this absence gain
No small advantage to your present reign;
For, having viewed the persons and the things,
The councils, state, and strength of Europe's kings,
You know your work; ambition to restrain,
And set them bounds, as Heaven does to the main.
We have you now with ruling wisdom fraught,
Not such as books, but such as practice, taught.
So the lost sun, while least by us enjoyed,
Is the whole night for our concern employed;
He ripens spices, fruits, and precious gums,
Which from remotest regions hither comes.

This seat of yours (from the other world removed)
Had Archimedes known, he might have proved
His engine's force fixed here. Your power and skill
Make the world's motion wait upon your will.

Much suffering monarch! the first English born
That has the crown of these three nations worn!
How has your patience, with the barbarous rage
Of your own soil, contended half an age?
Till (your tried virtue, and your sacred word,
At last preventing your unwilling sword)
Armies and fleets which kept you out so long,
Owned their great sovereign, and redressed his wrong.
When straight the people, by no force compelled,
Nor longer from their inclination held,
Break forth at once, like powder set on fire,

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And, with a noble rage, their King require;
So the injured sea, which from her wonted course,
To gain some acres, avarice did force,
If the new banks, neglected once, decay,
No longer will from her old channel stay;
Raging, the late got land she overflows,
And all that's built upon't, to ruin goes.

Offenders now, the chiefest, do begin
To strive for grace, and expiate their sin.
All winds blow fair, that did the world embroil;
Your vipers treacle yield, and scorpions oil.

If then such praise the Macedonian got,
For having rudely cut the Gordian knot,
What glory's due to him that could divide
Such ravelled interests; has the knot untied,
And without stroke so smooth a passage made,
Where craft and malice such impeachments laid?

But while we praise you, you ascribe it all
To His high hand, which threw the untouched wall
Of self-demolished Jericho so low;
His angel 'twas that did before you go,
Tamed savage hearts, and made affections yield,
Like ears of corn when wind salutes the field.

Thus patience crowned, like Job's, your trouble ends,
Having your foes to pardon, and your friends;
For, though your courage were so firm a rock,
What private virtue could endure the shock?
Like your Great Master, you the storm withstood,
And pitied those who love with frailty showed.

Rude Indians, torturing all the royal race,

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Him with the throne and dear-bought sceptre grace
That suffers best. What region could be found,
Where your heroic head had not been crowned?

The next experience of your mighty mind
Is how you combat fortune, now she's kind.
And this way, too, you are victorious found;
She flatters with the same success she frowned.
While to yourself severe, to others kind,
With power unbounded, and a will confined,
Of this vast empire you possess the care,
The softer part falls to the people's share.
Safety, and equal government, are things
Which subjects make as happy as their kings.

Faith, law, and piety, (that banished train!)
Justice and truth, with you return again.
The city's trade, and country's easy life,
Once more shall flourish without fraud or strife.
Your reign no less assures the ploughman's peace,
Than the warm sun advances his increase;
And does the shepherds as securely keep
From all their fears, as they preserve their sheep.

But, above all, the Muse-inspired train
Triumph, and raise their drooping heads again!
Kind Heaven at once has, in your person, sent
Their sacred judge, their guard, and argument.

Nec magis expressi vultus per aenea signa,
Quam per vatis opus mores, animique, virorum
Clarorum apparent ------

168

ON ST. JAMES'S PARK,

AS LATELY IMPROVED BY HIS MAJESTY.

Of the first Paradise there's nothing found;
Plants set by Heaven are vanished, and the ground;
Yet the description lasts; who knows the fate
Of lines that shall this paradise relate?

Instead of rivers rolling by the side
Of Eden's garden, here flows in the tide;
The sea, which always served his empire, now
Pays tribute to our Prince's pleasure too.
Of famous cities we the founders know;
But rivers, old as seas, to which they go,
Are nature's bounty; 'tis of more renown
To make a river, than to build a town.

For future shade, young trees upon the banks
Of the new stream appear in even ranks;
The voice of Orpheus, or Amphion's hand,
In better order could not make them stand;
May they increase as fast, and spread their boughs,
As the high fame of their great owner grows!
May he live long enough to see them all
Dark shadows cast, and as his palace tall!
Methinks I see the love that shall be made,
The lovers walking in that amorous shade;
The gallants dancing by the river's side;
They bathe in summer, and in winter slide.
Methinks I hear the music in the boats,
And the loud echo which returns the notes;

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While overhead a flock of new-sprung fowl
Hangs in the air, and does the sun control,
Darkening the sky; they hover o'er, and shroud
The wanton sailors with a feathered cloud.
Beneath, a shoal of silver fishes glides,
And plays about the gilded barges' sides;
The ladies, angling in the crystal lake,
Feast on the waters with the prey they take;
At once victorious with their lines, and eyes,
They make the fishes, and the men, their prize.
A thousand Cupids on the billows ride,
And sea-nymphs enter with the swelling tide;
From Thetis sent as spies, to make report,
And tell the wonders of her sovereign's court.
All that can, living, feed the greedy eye,
Or dead, the palate, here you may descry;
The choicest things that furnished Noah's ark,
Or Peter's sheet, inhabiting this park;
All with a border of rich fruit-trees crowned,
Whose loaded branches hide the lofty mound.
Such various ways the spacious alleys lead,
My doubtful Muse knows not what path to tread.
Yonder, the harvest of cold months laid up,
Gives a fresh coolness to the royal cup;
There ice, like crystal firm, and never lost,

170

Tempers hot July with December's frost;
Winter's dark prison, whence he cannot fly,
Though the warm spring, his enemy, draws nigh.
Strange! that extremes should thus preserve the snow,
High on the Alps, or in deep caves below.

Here, a well-polished Mall gives us the joy
To see our Prince his matchless force employ;
His manly posture, and his graceful mien,
Vigour and youth, in all his motions seen;
His shape so lovely, and his limbs so strong,
Confirm our hopes we shall obey him long.
No sooner has he touched the flying ball,
But 'tis already more than half the Mall;
And such a fury from his arm has got,
As from a smoking culverin 'twere shot.

Near this my Muse, what most delights her, sees
A living gallery of aged trees;
Bold sons of earth, that thrust their arms so high,
As if once more they would invade the sky.
In such green palaces the first kings reigned,
Slept in their shades, and angels entertained;
With such old counsellors they did advise,
And, by frequenting sacred groves, grew wise.
Free from the impediments of light and noise,
Man, thus retired, his nobler thoughts employs.
Here Charles contrives the ordering of his states,
Here he resolves his neighbouring princes' fates;

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What nation shall have peace, where war be made,
Determined is in this oraculous shade;
The world, from India to the frozen north,
Concerned in what this solitude brings forth.
His fancy, objects from his view receives;
The prospect, thought and contemplation gives.
That seat of empire here salutes his eye,
To which three kingdoms do themselves apply;
The structure by a prelate raised, Whitehall,
Built with the fortune of Rome's capitol;
Both, disproportioned to the present state
Of their proud founders, were approved by Fate.
From hence he does that antique pile behold,
Where royal heads receive the sacred gold;
It gives them crowns, and does their ashes keep;
There made like gods, like mortals there they sleep;
Making the circle of their reign complete,
Those suns of empire! where they rise, they set.
When others fell, this, standing, did presage
The crown should triumph over popular rage;
Hard by that house, where all our ills were shaped,
The auspicious temple stood, and yet escaped.
So snow on Ætna does unmelted lie,
Whence rolling flames and scattered cinders fly;
The distant country in the ruin shares;
What falls from heaven the burning mountain spares.

172

Next, that capacious hall he sees, the room
Where the whole nation does for justice come;
Under whose large roof flourishes the gown,
And judges grave, on high tribunals, frown.
Here, like the people's pastor he does go,
His flock subjected to his view below;
On which reflecting in his mighty mind,
No private passion does indulgence find;
The pleasures of his youth suspended are,
And made a sacrifice to public care.
Here, free from court compliances, he walks,
And with himself, his best adviser, talks;
How peaceful olive may his temples shade,
For mending laws, and for restoring trade;
Or, how his brows may be with laurel charged,
For nations conquered, and our bounds enlarged.
Of ancient prudence here he ruminates,
Of rising kingdoms, and of falling states;
What ruling arts gave great Augustus fame,
And how Alcides purchased such a name.
His eyes, upon his native palace bent,
Close by, suggest a greater argument.
His thoughts rise higher, when he does reflect
On what the world may from that star expect
Which at his birth appeared, to let us see
Day, for his sake, could with the night agree;

173

A prince, on whom such different lights did smile,
Born the divided world to reconcile!
Whatever Heaven, or high extracted blood
Could promise, or foretell, he will make good;
Reform these nations, and improve them more,
Than this fair park, from what it was before.

TO THE QUEEN, UPON HER MAJESTY'S BIRTHDAY,

AFTER HER HAPPY RECOVERY FROM A DANGEROUS SICKNESS.

Farewell the year! which threatened so
The fairest light the world can show.
Welcome the new! whose every day,
Restoring what was snatched away
By pining sickness from the fair,
That matchless beauty does repair
So fast, that the approaching spring,
(Which does to flowery meadows bring
What the rude winter from them tore)
Shall give her all she had before.

But we recover not so fast
The sense of such a danger past;
We that esteemed you sent from heaven,
A pattern to this island given,
To show us what the blessed do there

174

And what alive they practised here,
When that which we immortal thought,
We saw so near destruction brought,
Felt all which you did then endure,
And tremble yet, as not secure.
So though the sun victorious be,
And from a dark eclipse set free,
The influence, which we fondly fear,
Afflicts our thoughts the following year.

But that which may relieve our care
Is, that you have a help so near
For all the evil you can prove,
The kindness of your royal love;
He that was never known to mourn,
So many kingdoms from him torn,
His tears reserved for you, more dear,
More prized, than all those kingdoms were!
For when no healing art prevailed,
When cordials and elixirs failed,
On your pale cheek he dropped the shower,
Revived you like a dying flower.

Nunc itaque et versus et cætera ludicra pono,
Quid verum, atque decens, curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum.

175

TO A FAIR LADY, PLAYING WITH A SNAKE.

Strange! that such horror and such grace
Should dwell together in one place;
A fury's arm, an angel's face!

'Tis innocence, and youth, which makes
In Chloris' fancy such mistakes,
To start at love, and play with snakes.

By this and by her coldness barred,
Her servants have a task too hard;
The tyrant has a double guard!

Thrice happy snake! that in her sleeve
May boldly creep; we dare not give
Our thoughts so unconfined a leave.

Contented in that nest of snow
He lies, as he his bliss did know,
And to the wood no more would go.

Take heed, fair Eve! you do not make
Another tempter of this snake;
A marble one so warmed would speak.

176

INSTRUCTIONS TO A PAINTER,

FOR THE DRAWING OF THE POSTURE AND PROGRESS OF HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES AT SEA, UNDER THE COMMAND OF HIS HIGHNESS-ROYAL; TOGETHER WITH THE BATTLE AND VICTORY OBTAINED OVER THE DUTCH, JUNE 3, 1665.

First draw the sea, that portion which between
The greater world and this of ours is seen;
Here place the British, there the Holland fleet,
Vast floating armies! both prepared to meet.
Draw the whole world, expecting who should reign,
After this combat, o'er the conquered main.
Make Heaven concerned, and an unusual star
Declare the importance of the approaching war.
Make the sea shine with gallantry, and all
The English youth flock to their Admiral,
The valiant Duke! whose early deeds abroad,
Such rage in fight, and art in conduct showed.
His bright sword now a dearer interest draws,
His brother's glory, and his country's cause.

Let thy bold pencil hope and courage spread
Through the whole navy, by that hero led;

177

Make all appear, where such a Prince is by,
Resolved to conquer, or resolved to die.
With his extraction, and his glorious mind,
Make the proud sails swell more than with the wind;
Preventing cannon, make his louder fame
Check the Batavians, and their fury tame.
So hungry wolves, though greedy of their prey,
Stop when they find a lion in their way.
Make him bestride the ocean, and mankind
Ask his consent to use the sea and wind.
While his tall ships in the barred channel stand,
He grasps the Indies in his armed hand.

Paint an east wind, and make it blow away
The excuse of Holland for their navy's stay;
Make them look pale, and, the bold Prince to shun,
Through the cold north and rocky regions run.
To find the coast where morning first appears,
By the dark pole the wary Belgian steers;
Confessing now he dreads the English more
Than all the dangers of a frozen shore;
While from our arms, security to find,
They fly so far, they leave the day behind.
Describe their fleet abandoning the sea,
And all their merchants left a wealthy prey;
Our first success in war make Bacchus crown,
And half the vintage of the year our own.
The Dutch their wine, and all their brandy lose,
Disarmed of that from which their courage grows;
While the glad English, to relieve their toil,

178

In healths to their great leader drink the spoil.

His high command to Afric's coast extend,
And make the Moors before the English bend;
Those barbarous pirates willingly receive
Conditions, such as we are pleased to give.
Deserted by the Dutch, let nations know
We can our own and their great business do;
False friends chastise, and common foes restrain,
Which, worse than tempests, did infest the main.
Within those Straits, make Holland's Smyrna fleet
With a small squadron of the English meet;
Like falcons these, those like a numerous flock
Of fowl, which scatter to avoid the shock.
There paint confusion in a various shape;
Some sink, some yield; and, flying, some escape.
Europe and Africa, from either shore,
Spectators are, and hear our cannon roar;
While the divided world in this agree,
Men that fight so, deserve to rule the sea.

But, nearer home, thy pencil use once more,
And place our navy by the Holland shore;
The world they compassed, while they fought with Spain,
But here already they resign the main;
Those greedy mariners, out of whose way
Diffusive Nature could no region lay,

179

At home, preserved from rocks and tempests, lie,
Compelled, like others, in their beds to die.
Their single towns, the Iberian armies pressed;
We all their provinces at once invest;
And, in a month, ruin their traffic more
Than that long war could in an age before.

But who can always on the billows lie?
The watery wilderness yields no supply.
Spreading our sails, to Harwich we resort,
And meet the beauties of the British court.
The illustrious Duchess, and her glorious train,
(Like Thetis with her nymphs) adorn the main.
The gazing sea-gods, since the Paphian Queen
Sprung from among them, no such sight had seen.
Charmed with the graces of a troop so fair,
Those deathless powers for us themselves declare,
Resolved the aid of Neptune's court to bring,
And help the nation where such beauties spring;
The soldier here his wasted store supplies,
And takes new valour from the ladies' eyes.

Meanwhile, like bees, when stormy winter's gone,
The Dutch (as if the sea were all their own)
Desert their ports, and, falling in their way,
Our Hamburg merchants are become their prey.
Thus flourish they, before the approaching fight;
As dying tapers give a blazing light.

To check their pride, our fleet half-victualled goes,
Enough to serve us till we reach our foes;
Who now appear so numerous and bold,

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The action worthy of our arms we hold.
A greater force than that which here we find,
Ne'er pressed the ocean, nor employed the wind.
Restrained a while by the unwelcome night,
The impatient English scarce attend the light.
But now the morning (heaven severely clear!)
To the fierce work indulgent does appear;
And Phœbus lifts above the waves his light,
That he might see, and thus record, the fight.

As when loud winds from different quarters rush,
Vast clouds encountering one another crush;
With swelling sails so, from their several coasts,
Join the Batavian and the British hosts.
For a less prize, with less concern and rage,
The Roman fleets at Actium did engage;
They, for the empire of the world they knew,
These, for the Old contend, and for the New.
At the first shock, with blood and powder stained,
Nor heaven, nor sea, their former face retained;
Fury and art produce effects so strange,
They trouble Nature, and her visage change.
Where burning ships the banished sun supply,
And no light shines but that by which men die,
There York appears! so prodigal is he
Of royal blood, as ancient as the sea!
Which down to him, so many ages told,
Has through the veins of mighty monarchs rolled!
The great Achilles marched not to the field
Till Vulcan that impenetrable shield,

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And arms, had wrought; yet there no bullets flew,
But shafts and darts which the weak Phrygians threw.
Our bolder hero on the deck does stand
Exposed, the bulwark of his native land;
Defensive arms laid by as useless here,
Where massy balls the neighbouring rocks do tear.
Some power unseen those princes does protect,
Who for their country thus themselves neglect.

Against him first Opdam his squadron leads,
Proud of his late success against the Swedes;
Made by that action, and his high command,
Worthy to perish by a prince's hand.
The tall Batavian in a vast ship rides,
Bearing an army in her hollow sides;
Yet, not inclined the English ship to board,
More on his guns relies, than on his sword;
From whence a fatal volley we received;
It missed the Duke, but his great heart it grieved;
Three worthy persons from his side it tore,
And dyed his garment with their scattered gore.
Happy! to whom this glorious death arrives,
More to be valued than a thousand lives!
On such a theatre as this to die,
For such a cause, and such a witness by!
Who would not thus a sacrifice be made,
To have his blood on such an altar laid?
The rest about him struck with horror stood,
To see their leader covered o'er with blood.

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So trembled Jacob, when he thought the stains
Of his son's coat had issued from his veins.
He feels no wound but in his troubled thought;
Before, for honour, now, revenge he fought;
His friends in pieces torn, (the bitter news
Not brought by Fame) with his own eyes he views.
His mind at once reflecting on their youth,
Their worth, their love, their valour, and their truth,
The joys of court, their mothers, and their wives,
To follow him, abandoned,—and their lives!
He storms and shoots, but flying bullets now,
To execute his rage, appear too slow;
They miss, or sweep but common souls away;
For such a loss Opdam his life must pay.
Encouraging his men, he gives the word,
With fierce intent that hated ship to board,
And make the guilty Dutch, with his own arm,
Wait on his friends, while yet their blood is warm.
His winged vessel like an eagle shows,
When through the clouds to truss a swan she goes;
The Belgian ship unmoved, like some huge rock
Inhabiting the sea, expects the shock.
From both the fleets men's eyes are bent this way,
Neglecting all the business of the day;
Bullets their flight, and guns their noise suspend;
The silent ocean does the event attend,
Which leader shall the doubtful victory bless,
And give an earnest of the war's success;
When Heaven itself, for England to declare,

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Turns ship, and men, and tackle, into air.

Their new commander from his charge is tossed,
Which that young prince had so unjustly lost,
Whose great progenitors, with better fate,
And better conduct, swayed their infant state.
His flight towards heaven the aspiring Belgian took,
But fell, like Phaëton, with thunder strook;
From vaster hopes than his he seemed to fall,
That durst attempt the British Admiral;
From her broad sides a ruder flame is thrown
Than from the fiery chariot of the sun;
That, bears the radiant ensign of the day,
And she, the flag that governs in the sea.

The Duke, (ill pleased that fire should thus prevent
The work which for his brighter sword he meant)
Anger still burning in his valiant breast,
Goes to complete revenge upon the rest,
So on the guardless herd, their keeper slain,
Rushes a tiger in the Libyan plain.
The Dutch, accustomed to the raging sea,
And in black storms the frowns of heaven to see,
Never met tempest which more urged their fears,
Than that which in the Prince's look appears.
Fierce, goodly, young! Mars he resembles, when
Jove sends him down to scourge perfidious men;
Such as with foul ingratitude have paid,
Both those that led, and those that gave them aid.
Where he gives on, disposing of their fates,
Terror and death on his loud cannon waits,

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With which he pleads his brother's cause so well,
He shakes the throne to which he does appeal.
The sea with spoils his angry bullets strow,
Widows and orphans making as they go;
Before his ship fragments of vessels torn,
Flags, arms, and Belgian carcasses are borne;
And his despairing foes, to flight inclined,
Spread all their canvas to invite the wind.
So the rude Boreas, where he lists to blow,
Makes clouds above, and billows fly below,
Beating the shore; and, with a boisterous rage,
Does heaven at once, and earth, and sea engage.

The Dutch, elsewhere, did through the watery field
Perform enough to have made others yield;
But English courage, growing as they fight,
In danger, noise, and slaughter, takes delight;
Their bloody task, unwearied still, they ply,
Only restrained by death, or victory.
Iron and lead, from earth's dark entrails torn,
Like showers of hail from either side are borne;
So high the rage of wretched mortals goes,
Hurling their mother's bowels at their foes!
Ingenious to their ruin, every age
Improves the arts and instruments of rage.
Death-hastening ills Nature enough has sent,
And yet men still a thousand more invent!

But Bacchus now, which led the Belgians on,
So fierce at first, to favour us begun;
Brandy and wine, (their wonted friends) at length

185

Render them useless, and betray their strength.
So corn in fields, and in the garden, flowers,
Revive and raise themselves with moderate showers;
But overcharged with never-ceasing rain,
Become too moist, and bend their heads again.
Their reeling ships on one another fall,
Without a foe, enough to ruin all.
Of this disorder, and the savouring wind,
The watchful English such advantage find,
Ships fraught with fire among the heap they throw,
And up the so-entangled Belgians blow.
The flame invades the powder-rooms, and then,
Their guns shoot bullets, and their vessels men.
The scorched Batavians on the billows float,
Sent from their own, to pass in Charon's boat.

And now, our royal Admiral success
(With all the marks of victory) does bless;
The burning ships, the taken, and the slain,
Proclaim his triumph o'er the conquered main.
Nearer to Holland, as their hasty flight
Carries the noise and tumult of the fight,
His cannons' roar, forerunner of his fame,
Makes their Hague tremble, and their Amsterdam;
The British thunder does their houses rock,
And the Duke seems at every door to knock.
His dreadful streamer (like a comet's hair,
Threatening destruction) hastens their despair;
Makes them deplore their scattered fleet as lost,
And fear our present landing on their coast.

186

The trembling Dutch the approaching Prince behold,
As sheep a lion leaping towards their fold;
Those piles, which serve them to repel the main,
They think too weak his fury to restrain.
“What wonders may not English valour work,
Led by the example of victorious York?
Or, what defence against him can they make,
Who, at such distance, does their country shake?
His fatal hand their bulwarks will o'erthrow,
And let in both the ocean, and the foe;”
Thus cry the people;—and, their land to keep,
Allow our title to command the deep;
Blaming their States' ill conduct, to provoke
Those arms, which freed them from the Spanish yoke.

Painter! excuse me, if I have awhile
Forgot thy art, and used another style;
For, though you draw armed heroes as they sit,
The task in battle does the Muses fit;
They, in the dark confusion of a fight,
Discover all, instruct us how to write;
And light and honour to brave actions yield,
Hid in the smoke and tumult of the field,
Ages to come shall know that leader's toil,
And his great name, on whom the Muses smile;
Their dictates here let thy famed pencil trace,
And this relation with thy colours grace.

Then draw the parliament, the nobles met,
And our great monarch high above them set;

187

Like young Augustus let his image be,
Triumphing for that victory at sea,
Where Egypt's Queen, and Eastern Kings o'erthrown,
Made the possession of the world his own.
Last draw the Commons at his royal feet,
Pouring out treasure to supply his fleet;
They vow with lives and fortunes to maintain
Their King's eternal title to the main;
And with a present to the Duke, approve
His valour, conduct, and his country's love.

TO THE KING.

Great Sir! disdain not in this piece to stand,
Supreme commander both of sea and land.
Those which inhabit the celestial bower,
Painters express with emblems of their power;
His club Alcides, Phœbus has his bow,
Jove has his thunder, and your navy you.

But your great providence no colours here
Can represent; nor pencil draw that care,
Which keeps you waking to secure our peace,
The nation's glory, and our trade's increase;
You, for these ends, whole days in council sit,
And the diversions of your youth forget.

Small were the worth of valour and of force,
If your high wisdom governed not their course;
You as the soul, as the first mover you,
Vigour and life on every part bestow;

188

How to build ships, and dreadful ordnance cast,
Instruct the artists, and reward their haste.

So Jove himself, when Typhon heaven does brave,
Descends to visit Vulcan's smoky cave,
Teaching the brawny Cyclops how to frame
His thunder, mixed with terror, wrath, and flame.
Had the old Greeks discovered your abode,
Crete had not been the cradle of their god;
On that small island they had looked with scorn,
And in Great Britain thought the thunderer born.

189

UPON HER MAJESTY'S NEW BUILDINGS AT SOMERSET HOUSE

Great Queen! that does our island bless
With princes and with palaces;
Treated so ill, chased from your throne,
Returning, you adorn the town;
And, with a brave revenge, do show
Their glory went and came with you.

While Peace from hence, and you were gone,
Your houses in that storm o'erthrown,
Those wounds which civil rage did give,
At once you pardon, and relieve.

Constant to England in your love,
As birds are to their wonted grove,
Though by rude hands their nests are spoiled,
There the next spring again they build.

Accusing some malignant star,
Not Britain, for that fatal war,
Your kindness banishes your fear,
Resolved to fix for ever here.
But what new mine this work supplies?
Can such a pile from ruin rise?
This, like the first creation, shows
As if at your command it rose

190

Frugality and bounty too,
(Those differing virtues) meet in you;
From a confined, well-managed store,
You both employ and feed the poor.

Let foreign princes vainly boast
The rude effects of pride and cost;
Of vaster fabrics, to which they
Contribute nothing but the pay;
This, by the Queen herself designed,
Gives us a pattern of her mind;
The state and order does proclaim
The genius of that royal dame.
Each part with just proportion graced,
And all to such advantage placed,
That the fair view her window yields,
The town, the river, and the fields,
Entering, beneath us we descry,
And wonder how we came so high.

She needs no weary steps ascend;
All seems before her feet to bend;
And here, as she was born, she lies;
High, without taking pains to rise.

191

EPITAPH TO BE WRITTEN UNDER THE LATIN INSCRIPTION UPON THE TOMB OF THE ONLY SON OF THE LORD ANDOVER.

'Tis fit the English reader should be told,
In our own language, what this tomb does hold.
'Tis not a noble corpse alone does lie
Under this stone, but a whole family.
His parents' pious care, their name, their joy,
And all their hope, lies buried with this boy;
This lovely youth! for whom we all made moan,
That knew his worth, as he had been our own.

Had there been space and years enough allowed,
His courage, wit, and breeding to have showed,
We had not found, in all the numerous roll
Of his famed ancestors, a greater soul;
His early virtues to that ancient stock
Gave as much honour, as from thence he took.

Like buds appearing ere the frosts are passed,
To become man he made such fatal haste,
And to perfection laboured so to climb,
Preventing slow experience and time,
That 'tis no wonder Death our hopes beguiled;
He's seldom old that will not be a child.

192

TO MR. KILLIGREW,

UPON HIS ALTERING HIS PLAY, “PANDORA,” FROM A TRAGEDY INTO A COMEDY, BECAUSE NOT APPROVED ON THE STAGE.

Sir, you should rather teach our age the way
Of judging well, than thus have changed your play;
You had obliged us by employing wit,
Not to reform Pandora, but the pit;
For as the nightingale, without the throng
Of other birds, alone attends her song,
While the loud daw, his throat displaying, draws
The whole assembly of his fellow-daws;
So must the writer, whose productions should
Take with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould;
Whilst nobler fancies make a flight too high
For common view, and lessen as they fly.

193

EPIGRAM UPON THE GOLDEN MEDAL.

Our guard upon the royal side!
On the reverse our beauty's pride!
Here we discern the frown and smile,
The force and glory of our isle.
In the rich medal, both so like
Immortals stand, it seems antique;
Carved by some master, when the bold
Greeks made their Jove descend in gold,
And Danae wondering at that shower,
Which falling, stormed her brazen tower.
Britannia there, the fort in vain
Had battered been with golden rain;
Thunder itself had failed to pass;
Virtue's a stronger guard than brass.

THE NIGHT-PIECE;

OR, A PICTURE DRAWN IN THE DARK.

Darkness, which fairest nymphs disarms,
Defends us ill from Mira's charms;
Mira can lay her beauty by,
Take no advantage of the eye,
Quit all that Lely's art can take,
And yet a thousand captives make.

Her speech is graced with sweeter sound
Than in another's song is found;
And all her well-placed words are darts,
Which need no light to reach our hearts.

As the bright stars, and Milky Way,

194

Showed by the night, are hid by day;
So we, in that accomplished mind,
Helped by the night, new graces find,
Which, by the splendour of her view,
Dazzled before, we never knew.

While we converse with her, we mark
No want of day, nor think it dark;
Her shining image is a light
Fixed in our hearts, and conquers night.

Like jewels to advantage set,
Her beauty by the shade does get;
There blushes, frowns, and cold disdain,
All that our passion might restrain,
Is hid, and our indulgent mind
Presents the fair idea kind.

Yet, friended by the night, we dare
Only in whispers tell our care;
He that on her his bold hand lays,
With Cupid's pointed arrows plays;
They with a touch, (they are so keen!)
Wound us unshot, and she unseen.

All near approaches threaten death;
We may be shipwrecked by her breath;
Love, favoured once with that sweet gale,
Doubles his haste, and fills his sail,
Till he arrive where she must prove
The haven, or the rock, of love.

So we the Arabian coast do know
At distance, when the spices blow;
By the rich odour taught to steer,
Though neither day nor stars appear

195

ON THE PICTURE OF A FAIR YOUTH,

TAKEN AFTER HE WAS DEAD.

As gathered flowers, while their wounds are new,
Look gay and fresh, as on the stalk they grew;
Torn from the root that nourished them, awhile
(Not taking notice of their fate) they smile,
And, in the hand which rudely plucked them, show
Fairer than those that to their autumn grow;
So love and beauty still that visage grace;
Death cannot fright them from their wonted place.
Alive, the hand of crooked Age had marred
Those lovely features, which cold death has spared.

No wonder then he sped in love so well,
When his high passion he had breath to tell;
When that accomplished soul, in this fair frame,
No business had but to persuade that dame,
Whose mutual love advanced the youth so high,
That, but to heaven, he could no higher fly.

196

OF A TREE CUT IN PAPER.

Fair hand! that can on virgin paper write,
Yet from the stain of ink preserve it white;
Whose travel o'er that silver field does show
Like track of leverets in morning snow.
Love's image thus in purest minds is wrought,
Without a spot or blemish to the thought.
Strange that your fingers should the pencil foil,
Without the help of colours or of oil!
For though a painter boughs and leaves can make,
'Tis you alone can make them bend and shake;
Whose breath salutes your new-created grove,
Like southern winds, and makes it gently move.
Orpheus could make the forest dance; but you
Can make the motion and the forest too.
A poet's fancy when he paints a wood,
By his own nation only understood,
Is as in language so in fame confined;
Not like to yours, acknowledged by mankind.
All that know Nature and the trees that grow,
Must praise the foliage expressed by you,
Whose hand is read wherever there are men:
So far the scissor goes beyond the pen.

197

TO A LADY, FROM WHOM HE RECEIVED THE FOREGOING COPY WHICH FOR MANY YEARS HAD BEEN LOST.

Nothing lies hid from radiant eyes;
All they subdue become their spies.
Secrets, as choicest jewels, are
Presented to oblige the fair;
No wonder, then, that a lost thought
Should there be found, where souls are caught.

The picture of fair Venus (that
For which men say the goddess sat)
Was lost, till Lely from your look
Again that glorious image took.

If Virtue's self were lost, we might
From your fair mind new copies write.
All things but one you can restore;
The heart you get returns no more.

OF ENGLISH VERSE.

Poets may boast, as safely vain,
Their works shall with the world remain;
Both, bound together, live or die,
The verses and the prophecy.

But who can hope his lines should long
Last in a daily changing tongue?
While they are new, envy prevails;
And as that dies, our language fails.

198

When architects have done their part,
The matter may betray their art;
Time, if we use ill-chosen stone,
Soon brings a well-built palace down.

Poets that lasting marble seek,
Must carve in Latin, or in Greek;
We write in sand, our language grows,
And, like the tide, our work o'erflows.

Chaucer his sense can only boast;
The glory of his numbers lost!
Years have defaced his matchless strain;
And yet he did not sing in vain.

The beauties which adorned that age,
The shining subjects of his rage,
Hoping they should immortal prove,
Rewarded with success his love.

This was the generous poet's scope;
And all an English pen can hope,
To make the fair approve his flame,
That can so far extend their fame.

Verse, thus designed, has no ill fate,
If it arrive but at the date
Of fading beauty; if it prove
But as long-lived as present love.

199

TO THE DUCHESS,

WHEN HE PRESENTED THIS BOOK TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS.

Madam! I here present you with the rage,
And with the beauties, of a former age;
Wishing you may with as great pleasure view
This, as we take in gazing upon you.
Thus we writ then: your brighter eyes inspire
A nobler flame, and raise our genius higher.
While we your wit and early knowledge fear,
To our productions we become severe;
Your matchless beauty gives our fancy wing,
Your judgment makes us careful how we sing.
Lines not composed, as heretofore, in haste,
Polished like marble, shall like marble last,
And make you through as many ages shine,
As Tasso has the heroes of your line.

Though other names our wary writers use,
You are the subject of the British muse;
Dilating mischief to yourself unknown,
Men write, and die, of wounds they dare not own.
So the bright sun burns all our grass away,
While it means nothing but to give us day.

200

TO THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS,

WHEN SHE WAS TAKING LEAVE OF THE COURT AT DOVER.

That sun of beauty did among us rise;
England first saw the light of your fair eyes;
In English, too, your early wit was shown;
Favour that language, which was then your own,
When, though a child, through guards you made your way;
What fleet or army could an angel stay?
Thrice happy Britain! if she could retain
Whom she first bred within her ambient main.
Our late burned London, in apparel new,
Shook off her ashes to have treated you;
But we must see our glory snatched away,
And with warm tears increase the guilty sea;
No wind can favour us; howe'er it blows,
We must be wrecked, and our dear treasure lose!
Sighs will not let us half our sorrows tell,—
Fair, lovely, great, and best of nymphs, farewell!

201

TO A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR,

A PERSON OF HONOUR, WHO LATELY WRIT A RELIGIOUS BOOK, ENTITLED, “HISTORICAL APPLICATIONS, AND OCCASIONAL MEDITATIONS, UPON SEVERAL SUBJECTS.”

Bold is the man that dares engage
For piety in such an age!
Who can presume to find a guard
From scorn, when Heaven's so little spared?
Divines are pardoned; they defend
Altars on which their lives depend;
But the profane impatient are,
When nobler pens make this their care;
For why should these let in a beam
Of divine light to trouble them,
And call in doubt their pleasing thought,
That none believes what we are taught?
High birth, and fortune, warrant give
That such men write what they believe;
And, feeling first what they indite,
New credit give to ancient light.
Amongst these few, our author brings
His well-known pedigree from kings.
This book, the image of his mind,
Will make his name not hard to find;
I wish the throng of Great and Good
Made it less easily understood!

202

OF HER ROYAL HIGHNESS, MOTHER TO THE PRINCE OF ORANGE;

AND OF HER PORTRAIT, WRITTEN BY THE LATE DUCHESS OF YORK WHILE SHE LIVED WITH HER.

Heroic nymph! in tempests the support,
In peace the glory of the British court!
Into whose arms the church, the state, and all
That precious is, or sacred here, did fall.
Ages to come, that shall your bounty hear,
Will think you mistress of the Indies were;
Though straiter bounds your fortunes did confine,
In your large heart was found a wealthy mine;
Like the blest oil, the widow's lasting feast,
Your treasure, as you poured it out, increased.
While some your beauty, some your bounty sing,
Your native isle does with your praises ring;
But, above all, a nymph of your own train
Gives us your character in such a strain,
As none but she, who in that court did dwell,
Could know such worth, or worth describe so well.
So while we mortals here at heaven do guess,
And more our weakness, than the place, express,
Some angel, a domestic there, comes down,
And tells the wonders he hath seen and known.

203

ON THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES I.

AT CHARING CROSS.

That the First Charles does here in triumph ride
See his son reign where he a martyr died,
And people pay that reverence as they pass,
(Which then he wanted!) to the sacred brass,
Is not the effect of gratitude alone,
To which we owe the statue and the stone;
But Heaven this lasting monument has wrought,
That mortals may eternally be taught
Rebellion, though successful, is but vain,
And kings so killed rise conquerers again.
This truth the royal image does proclaim,
Loud as the trumpet of surviving Fame.

EPITAPH ON COLONEL CHARLES CAVENDISH.

Here lies Charles Ca'ndish: let the marble stone,
That hides his ashes, make his virtue known.
Beauty and valour did his short life grace,
The grief and glory of his noble race!
Early abroad he did the world survey,
As if he knew he had not long to stay;
Saw what great Alexander in the East,
And mighty Julius conquered in the West;

204

Then, with a mind as great as theirs, he came
To find at home occasion for his fame;
Where dark confusion did the nations hide,
And where the juster was the weaker side.
Two loyal brothers took their sovereign's part,
Employed their wealth, their courage, and their art;
The elder did whole regiments afford;
The younger brought his conduct and his sword.
Born to command, a leader he begun,
And on the rebels lasting honour won.
The horse, instructed by their general's worth,
Still made the King victorious in the north.
Where Ca'ndish fought, the Royalists prevailed;
Neither his courage, nor his judgment, failed.
The current of his victories found no stop,
Till Cromwell came, his party's chiefest prop.
Equal success had set these champions high,
And both resolved to conquer or to die.
Virtue with rage, fury with valour strove;
But that must fall which is decreed above!
Cromwell, with odds of number and of fate,
Removed this bulwark of the church and state;
Which the sad issue of the war declared,
And made his task, to ruin both, less hard.
So when the bank, neglected, is o'erthrown,
The boundless torrent does the country drown.
Thus fell the young, the lovely, and the brave;
Strew bays and flowers on his honoured grave!

205

THE TRIPLE COMBAT.

When through the world fair Mazarin had run,
Bright as her fellow-traveller, the sun,
Hither at length the Roman eagle flies,
As the last triumph of her conquering eyes.
As heir to Julius, she may pretend
A second time to make this nation bend;
But Portsmouth, springing from the ancient race
Of Britons, which the Saxon here did chase,
As they great Cæsar did oppose, makes head,
And does against this new invader lead.
That goodly nymph, the taller of the two,
Careless and fearless to the field does go.
Becoming blushes on the other wait,
And her young look excuses want of height.
Beauty gives courage; for she knows the day
Must not be won the Amazonian way.
Nor does her grace the better title want;
Our law's indulgent to the occupant.
Legions of Beauties to the battle come,
For Little Britain these, and those for Rome.

206

Dressed to advantage, this illustrious pair
Arrived, for combat in the list appear.
What may the Fates design! for never yet
From distant regions two such beauties met.
Venus had been an equal friend to both,
And victory to declare herself seems loth;
Over the camp, with doubtful wings, she flies,
Till Chloris shining in the field she spies.
The lovely Chloris well-attended came,
A thousand Graces waited on the dame;
Her matchless form made all the English glad,
And foreign beauties less assurance had;
Yet, like the Three on Ida's top, they all
Pretend alike, contesting for the ball;
Which to determine, Love himself declined,
Lest the neglected should become less kind.
Such killing looks! so thick the arrows fly!
That 'tis unsafe to be a stander-by.
Poets, approaching to describe the fight,
Are by their wounds instructed how to write.
They with less hazard might look on, and draw
The ruder combats in Alsatia;
And, with that foil of violence and rage,
Set off the splendour of our golden age;
Where Love gives law, Beauty the sceptre sways,
And, uncompelled, the happy world obeys.

207

UPON OUR LATE LOSS OF THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE.

The failing blossoms which a young plant bears,
Engage our hope for the succeeding years;
And hope is all which art or nature brings,
At the first trial, to accomplish things.
Mankind was first created an essay;
That ruder draught the deluge washed away.
How many ages passed, what blood and toil,
Before we made one kingdom of this isle!
How long in vain had nature striven to frame
A perfect princess, ere her Highness came!
For joys so great we must with patience wait;
'Tis the set price of happiness complete.
As a first fruit, Heaven claimed that lovely boy;
The next shall live, and be the nation's joy.

208

OF THE LADY MARY, &c.

As once the lion honey gave,
Out of the strong such sweetness came;
A royal hero, no less brave,
Produced this sweet, this lovely dame.

To her the prince, that did oppose
Such mighty armies in the field,
And Holland from prevailing foes
Could so well free, himself does yield.

Not Belgia's fleet (his high command)
Which triumphs where the sun does rise,
Nor all the force he leads by land,
Could guard him from her conquering eyes.

Orange, with youth, experience has;
In action young, in council old;
Orange is, what Augustus was,
Brave, wary, provident, and bold.

On that fair tree which bears his name,
Blossoms and fruit at once are found;
In him we all admire the same,
His flowery youth with wisdom crowned!

209

Empire and freedom reconciled
In Holland are by great Nassau;
Like those he sprung from, just and mild,
To willing people he gives law.

Thrice happy pair! so near allied
In royal blood, and virtue too!
Now love has you together tied,
May none this triple knot undo!

The church shall be the happy place
Where streams, which from the same source run,
Though divers lands awhile they grace,
Unite again, and are made one.

A thousand thanks the nation owes
To him that does protect us all;
For while he thus his niece bestows,
About our isle he builds a wall;

A wall! like that which Athens had,
By the oracle's advice, of wood;
Had theirs been such as Charles has made,
That mighty state till now had stood.

210

TO THE PRINCE OF ORANGE, 1677.

Welcome, great Prince, unto this land,
Skilled in the arts of war and peace;
Your birth does call you to command,
Your nature does incline to peace.

When Holland, by her foes oppressed
No longer could sustain their weight;
To a native prince they thought it best
To recommend their dying state.

Your very name did France expel;
Those conquered towns which lately cost
So little blood, unto you fell
With the same ease they once were lost.

'Twas not your force did them defeat;
They neither felt your sword nor fire;
But seemed willing to retreat,
And to your greatness did conspire.

Nor have you since ungrateful been,
When at Seneff you did expose,
And at Mount Cassal, your own men,
Whereby you might secure your foes.

Let Maestricht's siege enlarge your name,
And your retreat at Charleroy;
Warriors by flying may gain fame,
And Parthian-like their foes destroy.

211

Thus Fabius gained repute of old,
When Roman glory gasping lay;
In council slow, in action cold,
His country saved, running away.

What better method could you take?
When you by beauty's charms must move,
And must at once a progress make,
I' th' stratagems of war and love.

He that a princess' heart would gain,
Must learn submissively to yield;
The stubborn ne'er their ends obtain;
The vanquished masters are o' the field.

Go on, brave Prince, with like success,
Still to increase your hoped renown,
Till to your conduct and address,
Not to your birth, you owe a crown.

Proud Alva with the power of Spain
Could not the noble Dutch enslave;
And wiser Parma strove in vain
For to reduce a race so brave.

They now those very armies pay,
By which they were forced to yield to you;
Their ancient birthright they betray,
By their own votes you them subdue.

Who can then liberty maintain
When by such arts it is withstood?
Freedom to princes is a chain,
To all that spring from royal blood.

212

ON THE DUKE OF MONMOUTH'S EXPEDITION

INTO SCOTLAND IN THE SUMMER SOLSTICE, 1678.

Swift as Jove's messenger, the winged god,
With sword as potent as his charming rod,
He flew to execute the King's command,
And in a moment reached that northern land,
Where day contending with approaching night,
Assists the hero with continued light.

On foes surprised, and by no night concealed,
He might have rushed; but noble pity held
His hand a while, and to their choice gave space,
Which they would prove, his valour or his grace.
This not well heard, his cannon louder spoke,
And then, like lightning, through that cloud he broke.
His fame, his conduct, and that martial look,
The guilty Scotch with such a terror strook,
That to his courage they resign the field,
Who to his bounty had refused to yield.
Glad that so little loyal blood it cost,
He grieves so many Britons should be lost;
Taking more pains, when he beheld them yield,
To save the flyers, than to win the field;
And at the Court his interest does employ,

213

That none, who 'scaped his fatal sword, should die.

And now, these rash bold men their error find,
Not trusting one beyond his promise kind;
One! whose great mind, so bountiful and brave,
Had learned the arts to conquer and to save.

In vulgar breasts no royal virtues dwell;
Such deeds as these his high extraction tell,
And give a secret joy to him who reigns,
To see his blood triumph in Monmouth's veins;
To see a leader whom he got and chose,
Firm to his friends, and fatal to his foes.

But seeing envy, like the sun, does beat,
With scorching rays, on all that's high and great,
This, ill-requited Monmouth! is the bough
The Muses send to shade thy conquering brow.
Lampoons, like squibs, may make a present blaze;
But time and thunder pay respect to bays.
Achilles' arms dazzle our present view,
Kept by the Muse as radiant and as new
As from the forge of Vulcan first they came;
Thousands of years are past, and they the same;
Such care she takes to pay desert with fame!
Than which no monarch, for his crown's defence,
Knows how to give a nobler recompense.
Covered with dust at one another thrown,
How can the lustre of their wit be shown?
What Hector got for well defending Troy,
The Greeks did with the ruined town destroy.

214

UPON THE EARL OF ROSCOMMON'S TRANSLATION OF HORACE,

“DE ARTE POETICA;” AND OF THE USE OF POETRY.

Rome was not better by her Horace taught,
Than we are here to comprehend his thought;
The poet writ to noble Piso there;
A noble Piso does instruct us here,
Gives us a pattern in his flowing style,
And with rich precepts does oblige our isle:
Britain! whose genius is in verse expressed,
Bold and sublime, but negligently dressed.

Horace will our superfluous branches prune,
Give us new rules, and set our harps in tune;
Direct us how to back the winged horse,
Favour his flight, and moderate his force.

Though poets may of inspiration boast,
Their rage, ill-governed, in the clouds is lost.
He that proportioned wonders can disclose,
At once his fancy and his judgment shows.
Chaste moral writing we may learn from hence,
Neglect of which no wit can recompense.

215

The fountain which from Helicon proceeds,
That sacred stream! should never water weeds,
Nor make the crop of thorns and thistles grow,
Which envy or perverted nature sow.

Well-sounding verses are the charm we use,
Heroic thoughts and virtue to infuse;
Things of deep sense we may in prose unfold,
But they move more in lofty numbers told.
By the loud trumpet, which our courage aids,
We learn that sound, as well as sense, persuades.

The Muses' friend, unto himself severe,
With silent pity looks on all that err;
But where a brave, a public action shines,
That he rewards with his immortal lines.
Whether it be in council or in fight,
His country's honour is his chief delight;
Praise of great acts he scatters as a seed,
Which may the like in coming ages breed.

Here taught the fate of verses (always prized
With admiration, or as much despised),
Men will be less indulgent to their faults,
And patience have to cultivate their thoughts.
Poets lose half the praise they should have got,
Could it be known what they discreetly blot;
Finding new words, that to the ravished ear
May like the language of the gods appear,
Such as, of old, wise bards employed to make
Unpolished men their wild retreats forsake;
Law-giving heroes, famed for taming brutes,

216

And raising cities with their charming lutes;
For rudest minds with harmony were caught,
And civil life was by the Muses taught.
So wandering bees would perish in the air,
Did not a sound, proportioned to their ear,
Appease their rage, invite them to the hive,
Unite their force, and teach them how to thrive,
To rob the flowers, and to forbear the spoil,
Preserved in winter by their summer's toil;
They give us food, which may with nectar vie,
And wax, that does the absent sun supply.

THESE VERSES WERE WRIT IN THE TASSO OF HER ROYAL HIGHNESS.

Tasso knew how the fairer sex to grace,
But in no one durst all perfection place.
In her alone that owns this book is seen
Clorinda's spirit, and her lofty mien,
Sophronia's piety, Erminia's truth,
Armida's charms, her beauty, and her youth.

Our princess here, as in a glass, does dress
Her well-taught mind, and every grace express.
More to our wonder than Rinaldo fought,
The hero's race excels the poet's thought.

217

OF AN ELEGY MADE BY MRS. WHARTON ON THE EARL OF ROCHESTER.

Thus mourn the Muses! on the hearse
Not strewing tears, but lasting verse,
Which so preserve the hero's name,
They make him live again in fame.

Chloris, in lines so like his own,
Gives him so just and high renown,
That she the afflicted world relieves,
And shows that still in her he lives;
Her wit as graceful, great, and good;
Allied in genius, as in blood.

His loss supplied, now all our fears
Are, that the nymph should melt in tears.
Then, fairest Chloris! comfort take,
For his, your own, and for our sake,
Lest his fair soul, that lives in you,
Should from the world for ever go.

218

TO MR. CREECH, ON HIS TRANSLATION OF “LUCRETIUS.”

What all men wished, though few could hope to see,
We are now blessed with, and obliged by thee.
Thou, from the ancient, learned Latin store,
Giv'st us one author, and we hope for more.
May they enjoy thy thoughts!—Let not the stage
The idlest moment of thy hours engage;
Each year that place some wondrous monster breeds,
And the wit's garden is o'errun with weeds.
There, Farce is Comedy; bombast called strong;
Soft words, with nothing in them, make a song.
'Tis hard to say they steal them now-a-days;
For sure the ancients never wrote such plays.
These scribbling insects have what they deserve,
Not plenty, nor the glory for to starve.
That Spenser knew, that Tasso felt before;
And death found surly Ben exceeding poor.
Heaven turn the omen from their image here!
May he with joy the well-placed laurel wear!
Great Virgil's happier fortune may he find,
And be our Cæsar, like Augustus, kind!

219

But let not this disturb thy tuneful head;
Thou writ'st for thy delight, and not for bread;
Thou art not cursed to write thy verse with care;
But art above what other poets fear.
What may we not expect from such a hand,
That has, with books, himself at free command?
Thou know'st in youth, what age has sought in vain;
And bring'st forth sons without a mother's pain.
So easy is thy sense, thy verse so sweet,
Thy words so proper, and thy phrase so fit,
We read, and read again; and still admire
Whence came this youth, and whence this wondrous fire!

Pardon this rapture, sir! but who can be
Cold, and unmoved, yet have his thoughts on thee?
Thy goodness may my several faults forgive,
And by your help these wretched lines may live.
But if, when viewed by your severer sight,
They seem unworthy to behold the light,
Let them with speed in deserved flames be thrown!
They'll send no sighs, nor murmur out a groan;
But, dying silently, your justice own.

220

SUNG BY MRS. KNIGHT, TO HER MAJESTY, ON HER BIRTHDAY.

This happy day two lights are seen,
A glorious saint, a matchless queen;
Both named alike, both crowned appear,
The saint above, the Infanta here.
May all those years which Catherine
The martyr did for heaven resign,
Be added to the line
Of your blessed life among us here!
For all the pains that she did feel,
And all the torments of her wheel,
May you as many pleasures share!
May Heaven itself content
With Catherine the Saint!
Without appearing old,
An hundred times may you,
With eyes as bright as now,
This welcome day behold!

WRITTEN ON A CARD THAT HER MAJESTY TORE AT OMBRE.

The cards you tear in value rise;
So do the wounded by your eyes.
Who to celestial things aspire,
Are by that passion raised the higher.

221

TRANSLATED OUT OF SPANISH.

Though we may seem importunate,
While your compassion we implore;
They whom you make too fortunate,
May with presumption vex you more.

OF HER MAJESTY, ON NEW-YEAR'S DAY, 1683.

What revolutions in the world have been,
How are we changed since we first saw the Queen!
She, like the sun, does still the same appear,
Bright as she was at her arrival here!
Time has commission mortals to impair,
But things celestial is obliged to spare.

May every new year find her still the same
In health and beauty as she hither came!
When Lords and Commons, with united voice,
The Infanta named, approved the royal choice;
First of our queens whom not the King alone,
But the whole nation, lifted to the throne.

With like consent, and like desert, was crowned
The glorious Prince that does the Turk confound.
Victorious both! his conduct wins the day,
And her example chases vice away;
Though louder fame attend the martial rage,
'Tis greater glory to reform the age.

222

OF TEA, COMMENDED BY HER MAJESTY.

Venus her myrtle, Phœbus has his bays;
Tea both excels, which she vouchsafes to praise.
The best of queens, and best of herbs, we owe
To that bold nation which the way did show
To the fair region where the sun does rise,
Whose rich productions we so justly prize.
The Muse's friend, tea does our fancy aid,
Repress those vapours which the head invade,
And keeps that palace of the soul serene,
Fit on her birth-day to salute the Queen.

223

PROLOGUE FOR THE LADY-ACTORS:

SPOKEN BEFORE KING CHARLES II.

Amaze us not with that majestic frown,
But lay aside the greatness of your crown!
For your diversion here we act in jest,
But when we act ourselves we do our best.
You have a look which does your people awe,
When in your throne and robes you give them law,
Lay it by here, and use a gentler smile!
Such as we see great Jove's in picture, while
He listens to Apollo's charming lyre,
Or judges of the songs he does inspire.
Comedians on the stage show all their skill,
And after do as Love and Fortune will.
We are less careful, hid in this disguise;
In our own clothes more serious and more wise.
Modest at home, upon the stage more bold,
We seem warm lovers, though our breasts be cold;
A fault committed here deserves no scorn,
If we act well the parts to which we're born.

224

PROLOGUE TO THE “MAID'S TRAGEDY.”

Scarce should we have the boldness to pretend
So long renowned a tragedy to mend,
Had not already some deserved your praise
With like attempt. Of all our elder plays
This and Philaster have the loudest fame;
Great are their faults, and glorious is their flame.
In both our English genius is expressed;
Lofty and bold, but negligently dressed.

Above our neighbours our conceptions are;
But faultless writing is the effect of care.
Our lines reformed, and not composed in haste,
Polished like marble, would like marble last.
But as the present, so the last age writ;
In both we find like negligence and wit.
Were we but less indulgent to our faults,
And patience had to cultivate our thoughts,
Our Muse would flourish, and a nobler rage
Would honour this than did the Grecian stage.

Thus says our author, not content to see
That others write as carelessly as he;
Though he pretends not to make things complete,
Yet, to please you, he'd have the poets sweat.

225

In this old play, what's new we have expressed
In rhyming verse, distinguished from the rest;
That as the Rhone his hasty way does make
(Not mingling waters) through Geneva's lake,
So having here the different styles in view,
You may compare the former with the new.

If we less rudely shall the knot untie,
Soften the rigour of the tragedy,
And yet preserve each person's character,
Then to the other this you may prefer.
'Tis left to you: the boxes, and the pit,
Are sovereign judges of this sort of wit.
In other things the knowing artist may
Judge better than the people; but a play,
(Made for delight, and for no other use)
If you approve it not, has no excuse.

226

EPILOGUE TO THE “MAID'S TRAGEDY.”

SPOKEN BY THE KING.

The fierce Melantius was content, you see,
The king should live; be not more fierce than he;
Too long indulgent to so rude a time,
When love was held so capital a crime,
That a crowned head could no compassion find,
But died—because the killer had been kind!
Nor is't less strange, such mighty wits as those
Should use a style in tragedy like prose.
Well-sounding verse, where princes tread the stage,
Should speak their virtue, or describe their rage.
By the loud trumpet, which our courage aids,
We learn that sound, as well as sense, persuades;
And verses are the potent charms we use,
Heroic thoughts and virtue to infuse.

When next we act this tragedy again,
Unless you like the change, we shall be slain.
The innocent Aspasia's life or death,
Amintor's too, depends upon your breath.
Excess of love was heretofore the cause;
Now if we die, 'tis want of your applause.

227

EPILOGUE TO THE “MAID'S TRAGEDY.”

DESIGNED UPON THE FIRST ALTERATION OF THE PLAY, WHEN THE KING ONLY WAS LEFT ALIVE.

Aspasia bleeding on the stage does lie,
To show you still 'tis the Maid's Tragedy.
The fierce Melantius was content, you see,
The king should live; be not more fierce than he;
Too long indulgent to so rude a time,
When love was held so capital a crime,
That a crowned head could no compassion find,
But died—because the killer had been kind!
This better-natured poet had reprieved
Gentle Amintor too, had he believed
The fairer sex his pardon could approve,
Who to ambition sacrified his love.
Aspasia he has spared; but for her wound
(Neglected love!) there could no salve be found.

When next we act this tragedy again,
Unless you like the change, I must be slain.
Excess of love was heretofore the cause;
Now if I die, 'tis want of your applause.

228

OF THE INVASION AND DEFEAT OF THE TURKS, IN THE YEAR 1683.

The modern Nimrod, with a safe delight
Pursuing beasts, that save themselves by flight,
Grown proud, and weary of his wonted game,
Would Christians chase, and sacrifice to fame.

A prince with eunuchs and the softer sex
Shut up so long, would warlike nations vex,
Provoke the German, and, neglecting heaven,
Forget the truce for which his oath was given.

His Grand Vizier, presuming to invest
The chief imperial city of the west,
With the first charge compelled in haste to rise,
His treasure, tents, and cannon, left a prize;
The standard lost, and janizaries slain,
Render the hopes he gave his master vain.
The flying Turks, that bring these tidings home,
Renew the memory of his father's doom;
And his guard murmurs, that so often brings
Down from the throne their unsuccessful kings.

The trembling Sultan's forced to expiate
His own ill-conduct by another's fate.
The Grand Vizier, a tyrant, though a slave,

229

A fair example to his master gave;
He Bassa's head, to save his own, made fly,
And now, the Sultan to preserve, must die.

The fatal bowstring was not in his thought,
When, breaking truce, he so unjustly fought;
Made the world tremble with a numerous host,
And of undoubted victory did boast.
Strangled he lies! yet seems to cry aloud,
To warn the mighty, and instruct the proud,
That of the great, neglecting to be just,
Heaven in a moment makes an heap of dust.

The Turks so low, why should the Christians lose
Such an advantage of their barbarous foes?
Neglect their present ruin to complete,
Before another Solyman they get?
Too late they would with shame, repenting, dread
That numerous herd, by such a lion led;
He Rhodes and Buda from the Christians tore,
Which timely union might again restore.

But, sparing Turks, as if with rage possessed,
The Christians perish, by themselves oppressed;
Cities and provinces so dearly won,
That the victorious people are undone!

What angel shall descend to reconcile
The Christian states, and end their guilty toil?
A prince more fit from heaven we cannot ask
Than Britain's king, for such a glorious task;
His dreadful navy, and his lovely mind,
Give him the fear and favour of mankind;

230

His warrant does the Christian faith defend;
On that relying, all their quarrels end.
The peace is signed, and Britain does obtain
What Rome had sought from her fierce sons in vain.

In battles won Fortune a part doth claim,
And soldiers have their portion in the fame;
In this successful union we find
Only the triumph of a worthy mind.
'Tis all accomplished by his royal word,
Without unsheathing the destructive sword;
Without a tax upon his subjects laid,
Their peace disturbed, their plenty, or their trade.
And what can they to such a prince deny,
With whose desires the greatest kings comply?

The arts of peace are not to him unknown;
This happy way he marched into the throne;
And we owe more to heaven than to the sword,
The wished return of so benign a lord.

Charles! by old Greece with a new freedom graced,
Above her antique heroes shall be placed.
What Theseus did, or Theban Hercules,
Holds no compare with this victorious peace,
Which on the Turks shall greater honour gain,
Than all their giants and their monsters slain:
Those are bold tales, in fabulous ages told;
This glorious act the living do behold.

231

A PRESAGE OF THE RUIN OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE.

PRESENTED TO HIS MAJESTY ON HIS BIRTHDAY.

Since James the Second graced the British throne,
Truce, well observed, has been infringed by none;
Christians to him their present union owe,
And late success against the common foe;
While neighbouring princes, loth to urge their fate,
Court his assistance, and suspend their hate.
So angry bulls the combat do forbear,
When from the wood a lion does appear.

This happy day peace to our island sent,
As now he gives it to the continent.
A prince more fit for such a glorious task,
Than England's king, from Heaven we cannot ask;
He, great and good! proportioned to the work,
Their ill-drawn swords shall turn against the Turk.

Such kings, like stars with influence unconfined,
Shine with aspect propitious to mankind;
Favour the innocent, repress the bold,
And, while they flourish, make an age of gold.

Bred in the camp, famed for his valour young;
At sea successful, vigorous, and strong;

232

His fleet, his army, and his mighty mind,
Esteem and reverence through the world do find.
A prince with such advantages as these,
Where he persuades not, may command a peace.
Britain declaring for the juster side,
The most ambitious will forget their pride;
They that complain will their endevours cease,
Advised by him, inclined to present peace,
Join to the Turk's destruction, and then bring
All their pretences to so just a king.

If the successful troublers of mankind,
With laurel crowned, so great applause do find,
Shall the vexed world less honour yield to those
That stop their progress, and their rage oppose?
Next to that power which does the ocean awe,
Is to set bounds, and give ambition law.

The British monarch shall the glory have,
That famous Greece remains no longer slave;
That source of art and cultivated thought!
Which they to Rome, and Romans hither brought.

The banished Muses shall no longer mourn,
But may with liberty to Greece return;
Though slaves, (like birds that sing not in a cage)
They lost their genius, and poetic rage;
Homers again, and Pindars, may be found,
And his great actions with their numbers crowned.

The Turk's vast empire does united stand;
Christians, divided under the command
Of jarring princes, would be soon undone,

233

Did not this hero make their interest one;
Peace to embrace, ruin the common foe,
Exalt the Cross, and lay the Crescent low.

Thus may the Gospel to the rising sun
Be spread, and flourish where it first begun;
And this great day, (so justly honoured here!)
Known to the East, and celebrated there.

Hæc ego longævus cecini tibi, maxime regum!
Ausus et ipse manu juvenum tentare laborem.

—Virg.

234

TO HIS MAJESTY,

UPON HIS MOTTO, BEATI PACIFICI, OCCASIONED BY THE TAKING OF BUDA, 1686.

Buda and Rhodes proud Solyman had torn
From those, whom discord made the Pagan scorn;
Vienna too besieged, had been his prize,
Had not the approach of winter made him rise:
This motto practised, you have turned the scale,
Christians united by your help prevail.
Thus you enlarge the bounds of Christendom,
Though public interest keep you still at home.
The Gallic Prince his glory did increase,
When among subjects he made duels cease:
But sure the Britain merits more renown,
That has made sovereigns lay their weapons down.
So peaceful! and so valiant! are extremes,
Not to be found, but in our matchless James.
The well-defended Buda, with the spoil
Was bravely got, but with much blood and toil:
Your nobler art of making peace destroys
The barbarous foe, without expense or noise.
So Heaven with silence favours our increase,
Preventing blasts and making tempests cease.

235

The world from Chaos was to Order brought,
By making peace among the parts that fought:
From like confusion you have Europe freed,
And with like concord made their arms succeed.
Victorious Peace, with this well-chosen word,
To Turks more fatal than the Imperial sword,
Has for reward to your high merit given,
A title to be called the Son of Heaven.
—For they shall be called the Children of God.

—Matt. v. 9.

EPITAPH ON SIR GEORGE SPEKE.

Under this stone lies virtue, youth,
Unblemished probity and truth;
Just unto all relations known,
A worthy patriot, pious son;
Whom neighbouring towns so often sent,
To give their sense in parliament;
With lives and fortunes trusting one
Who so discreetly used his own.
Sober he was, wise, temperate,
Contented with an old estate,
Which no foul avarice did increase,
Nor wanton luxury make less.
While yet but young his father died,
And left him to a happy guide;

236

Not Lemuel's mother with more care
Did counsel or instruct her heir,
Or teach with more success her son
The vices of the time to shun.
An heiress she; while yet alive,
All that was hers to him did give;
And he just gratitude did show
To one that had obliged him so;
Nothing too much for her he thought,
By whom he was so bred and taught.
So (early made that path to tread,
Which did his youth to honour lead)
His short life did a pattern give
How neighbours, husbands, friends, should live.

The virtues of a private life
Exceed the glorious noise and strife
Of battles won; in those we find
The solid interest of mankind.

Approved by all, and loved so well,
Though young, like fruit that's ripe, he fell.

237

EPITAPH ON HENRY DUNCH, ESQ.,

IN NEWINGTON CHURCH, IN OXFORDSHIRE, 1686.

Here lies the prop and glory of his race,
Who, that no time his memory may deface,
His grateful wife, under this speaking stone
His ashes hid, to make his merit known.
Sprung from an opulent and worthy line,
Whose well-used fortune made their virtues shine,
A rich example his fair life did give,
How others should with their relations live.
A pious son, a husband, and a friend,
To neighbours too his bounty did extend
So far, that they lamented when he died,
As if all to him had been near allied.
His curious youth would men and manners know,
Which made him to the southern nations go.
Nearer the Sun, though they more civil seem,
Revenge and luxury have their esteem;
Which well observing he returned with more
Value for England, than he had before;
Her true religion, and her statutes too,
He practised not less than seeked to know;
And the whole country grieved for their ill fate,
To lose so good, so just a magistrate.
To shed a tear may readers be inclined,
And pray for one he only left behind,
Till she, who does inherit his estate,
May virtue love like him, and vices hate.

238

SONG.

[Chloris! farewell. I now must go]

Chloris! farewell. I now must go;
For if with thee I longer stay,
Thy eyes prevail upon me so,
I shall prove blind, and lose my way.

Fame of thy beauty, and thy youth,
Among the rest, me hither brought;
Finding this fame fall short of truth,
Made me stay longer than I thought.

For I'm engaged by word and oath,
A servant to another's will;
Yet, for thy love, I'd forfeit both,
Could I be sure to keep it still.

But what assurance can I take,
When thou, foreknowing this abuse,
For some more worthy lover's sake,
Mayst leave me with so just excuse?

For thou mayst say, 'twas not thy fault
That thou didst thus inconstant prove;
Being by my example taught
To break thy oath, to mend thy love.

239

No, Chloris! no: I will return,
And raise thy story to that height,
That strangers shall at distance burn,
And she distrust me reprobate.

Then shall my love this doubt displace,
And gain such trust, that I may come
And banquet sometimes on thy face,
But make my constant meals at home.

TO MR. GRANVILLE (NOW LORD LANSDOWNE),

ON HIS VERSES TO KING JAMES II.

An early plant! which such a blossom bears,
And shows a genius so beyond his years;
A judgment! that could make so fair a choice;
So high a subject to employ his voice;
Still as it grows, how sweetly will he sing
The growing greatness of our matchless King!

240

LONG AND SHORT LIFE.

Circles are praised, not that abound
In largeness, but the exactly round:
So life we praise that does excel
Not in much time, but acting well.

TRANSLATED OUT OF FRENCH.

Fade, flowers! fade, Nature will have it so;
'Tis but what we must in our autumn do!
And as your leaves lie quiet on the ground,
The loss alone by those that loved them found.
So in the grave shall we as quiet lie,
Missed by some few that loved our company;
But some so like to thorns and nettles live,
That none for them can, when they perish, grieve.

241

SOME VERSES OF AN IMPERFECT COPY, DESIGNED FOR A FRIEND, ON HIS TRANSLATION OF OVID'S “FASTI.”

Rome's holy-days you tell, as if a guest
With the old Romans you were wont to feast.
Numa's religion, by themselves believed,
Excels the true, only in show received.
They made the nations round about them bow,
With their dictators taken from the plough;
Such power has justice, faith, and honesty!
The world was conquered by morality.
Seeming devotion does but gild a knave,
That's neither faithful, honest, just, nor brave;
But where religion does with virtue join,
It makes a hero like an angel shine. [OMITTED]

242

PRIDE.

Not the brave Macedonian youth alone,
But base Caligula, when on the throne,
Boundless in power, would make himself a god,
As if the world depended on his nod.
The Syrian King to beasts was headlong thrown,
Ere to himself he could be mortal known.
The meanest wretch, if Heaven should give him line,
Would never stop till he were thought divine.
All might within discern the serpent's pride,
If from ourselves nothing ourselves did hide.
Let the proud peacock his gay feathers spread,
And woo the female to his painted bed;
Let winds and seas together rage and swell;
This Nature teaches, and becomes them well.
“Pride was not made for men:” a conscious sense
Of guilt, and folly, and their consequence,
Destroys the claim, and to beholders tells,
Here nothing but the shape of manhood dwells.

EPITAPH ON THE LADY SEDLEY.

Here lies the learned Savil's heir;
So early wise, and lasting fair,
That none, except her years they told,
Thought her a child, or thought her old.
All that her father knew or got,

243

His art, his wealth, fell to her lot;
And she so well improved that stock,
Both of his knowledge and his flock,
That wit and fortune, reconciled
In her, upon each other smiled.
While she, to every well-taught mind,
Was so propitiously inclined,
And gave such title to her store,
That none, but the ignorant, were poor.
The Muses daily found supplies,
Both from her hands and from her eyes.
Her bounty did at once engage,
And matchless beauty warm, their rage.
Such was this dame in calmer days,
Her nation's ornament and praise!
But when a storm disturbed our rest,
The port and refuge of the oppressed.
This made her fortune understood,
And looked on as some public good.
So that (her person and her state,
Exempted from the common fate)
In all our civil fury she
Stood, like a sacred temple, free.
May here her monument stand so,
To credit this rude age! and show
To future times, that even we
Some patterns did of virtue see;
And one sublime example had
Of good, among so many bad.

244

EPITAPH UNFINISHED.

Great soul! for whom Death will no longer stay,
But sends in haste to snatch our bliss away.
O cruel Death! to those you take more kind,
Than to the wretched mortals left behind!
Here beauty, youth, and noble virtue shined,
Free from the clouds of pride that shade the mind.
Inspired verse may on this marble live,
But can no honour to thy ashes give— [OMITTED]

UPON A LADY'S FISHING WITH AN ANGLE.

See where the fair Clorinda sits, and seems
Like new-born Venus risen from the streams;
In vain the beauties of the neighbouring field,
In vain the painted flowers' pride
With their faint colours strive to hide
That flower to which Flora herself would yield.
Each object's pleasant to the sight,
The streams, the meadows yield delight,
But nothing fair as her you can espy
Unless i' th' brook (her looking-glass) you chance to cast your eye.

See how she makes the trembling angle shake,
Touched by those hands that would make all men quake.
See how the numerous fishes of the brook

245

(For now the armour of their scales
Nothing against her charms prevails)
Willingly hang themselves upon her hook;
See how they crowd and thronging wait
Greedy to catch the proffered bait;
In her more bright and smoother hands content
Rather to die, than live in their own watery element.

With how composed a look and cheerful air,
(Calm as the stream and as the season fair)
With careful eyes she views the dancing float,
Longing to have it disappear,
That she its head may higher rear,
And make it swim i' th' air above the moat;
She sits as silent as the fish,
Seems burdened with no other wish,
So well she's masked under this fair pretence,
An infidel would swear she's made of perfect innocence.

But ah! Clorinda's is a cruel game,
As she with water sports, she sports with flame,
She innocently angles here, but then
Thousands of charming baits she lays,
A thousand other several ways;
Her beauteous eyes ensnare whole shoals of men,
Each golden hair's a fishing line,
Able to catch such hearts as mine,
And he that once views her bewitching eyes,
To her victorious charms (like me) must ever be a prize.

246

ON MRS. HIGGONS.

Ingenious Higgons never sought
To hide the candour of her thought;
And now her clothes are lost, we find
The nymph as naked as her mind:
Like Eve while yet she was untaught
To hide herself or know a fault.
For a snatched ribbon she would frown,
But cares too little for her gown;
It makes her laugh, and all her grief
Is lest it should undo the thief.
Already she begins to stretch
Her wit, to save the guilty wretch,
And says she was of goods bereft
By her own bounty, not by theft.
She thought not fit to keep her clothes
Till they were eaten up with moths,
But made a nobler use of store,
To clothe the naked and the poor.
Should all that do approve the fair
Her loss contribute to repair,
Of London she would have the fate,
And rise (undone) in greater state,
In points, and hoods, and Indian gown,
As glorious as the new-built town.

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DIVINE POEMS.

OF DIVINE LOVE.

SIX CANTOS.

I. Asserting the authority of the Scripture, in which this love is revealed.—II. The preference and love of God to man in the creation.—III. The same love more amply declared in our redemption.—IV. How necessary this love is to reform mankind, and how excellent in itself.—V. Showing how happy the world would be, if this love were universally embraced.—VI. Of preserving this love in our memory, and how useful the contemplation thereof is.

CANTO I.

The Grecian muse has all their gods survived,
Nor Jove at us, nor Phœbus is arrived;
Frail deities! which first the poets made,
And then invoked, to give their fancies aid.
Yet if they still divert us with their rage,
What may be hoped for in a better age,
When not from Helicon's imagined spring,
But Sacred Writ, we borrow what we sing?
This with the fabric of the world begun,
Elder than light, and shall outlast the sun.

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Before this oracle, like Dagon, all
The false pretenders, Delphos, Ammon, fall;
Long since despised and silent, they afford
Honour and triumph to the eternal Word.

As late philosophy our globe has graced,
And rolling earth among the planets placed,
So has this Book entitled us to heaven,
And rules to guide us to that mansion given;
Tells the conditions how our peace was made,
And is our pledge for the great Author's aid.
His power in Nature's ample book we find,
But the less volume does express His mind.

This light unknown, bold Epicurus taught
That his blessed gods vouchsafe us not a thought,
But unconcerned let all below them slide,
As fortune does, or human wisdom, guide.
Religion thus removed, the sacred yoke,
And band of all society, is broke.
What use of oaths, of promise, or of test,
Where men regard no God but interest?
What endless war would jealous nations tear,
If none above did witness what they swear?
Sad fate of unbelievers, and yet just,
Among themselves to find so little trust!
Were Scripture silent, Nature would proclaim,
Without a God, our falsehood and our shame.
To know our thoughts the object of his eyes,
Is the first step towards being good or wise;
For though with judgment we on things reflect,

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Our will determines, not our intellect.
Slaves to their passion, reason men employ
Only to compass what they would enjoy.
His fear to guard us from ourselves we need,
And Sacred Writ our reason does exceed;
For though heaven shows the glory of the Lord,
Yet something shines more glorious in his Word;
His mercy this (which all his work excels!)
His tender kindness and compassion tells;
While we, informed by that celestial Book,
Into the bowels of our Maker look.
Love there revealed (which never shall have end,
Nor had beginning) shall our song commend;
Describe itself, and warm us with that flame
Which first from heaven, to make us happy, came.

CANTO II.

The fear of hell, or aiming to be blessed,
Savours too much of private interest.
This moved not Moses, nor the zealous Paul,
Who for their friends abandoned soul and all;
A greater yet from heaven to hell descends,
To save, and make his enemies his friends.
What line of praise can fathom such a love,
Which reached the lowest bottom from above?
The royal prophet, that extended grace
From heaven to earth, measured but half that space.
The law was regnant, and confined his thought;

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Hell was not conquered when that poet wrote;
Heaven was scarce heard of until he came down,
To make the region where love triumphs known.

That early love of creatures yet unmade,
To frame the world the Almighty did persuade;
For love it was that first created light,
Moved on the waters, chased away the night
From the rude Chaos, and bestowed new grace
On things disposed of to their proper place;
Some to rest here, and some to shine above;
Earth, sea, and heaven, were all the effects of love.
And love would be returned; but there was none
That to themselves or others yet were known;
The world a palace was without a guest,
Till one appears that must excel the rest;
One! like the Author, whose capacious mind
Might, by the glorious work, the Maker find;
Might measure heaven, and give each star a name;
With art and courage the rough ocean tame;
Over the globe with swelling sails might go,
And that 'tis round by his experience know;
Make strongest beasts obedient to his will,
And serve his use the fertile earth to till.
When, by his Word, God had accomplished all,
Man to create he did a council call;
Employed his hand, to give the dust he took
A graceful figure, and majestic look;
With his own breath conveyed into his breast
Life, and a soul fit to command the rest;

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Worthy alone to celebrate his name
For such a gift, and tell from whence it came.
Birds sing his praises in a wilder note,
But not with lasting numbers and with thought,
Man's great prerogative! but above all
His grace abounds in his new favourite's fall.

If he create, it is a world he makes;
If he be angry, the creation shakes;
From his just wrath our guilty parents fled;
He cursed the earth, but bruised the serpent's head.
Amidst the storm his bounty did exceed,
In the rich promise of the Virgin's seed;
Though justice death, as satisfaction, craves,
Love finds a way to pluck us from our graves.

CANTO III.

Not willing terror should his image move;
He gives a pattern of eternal love;
His Son descends to treat a peace with those
Which were, and must have ever been, his foes.
Poor he became, and left his glorious seat
To make us humble, and to make us great;
His business here was happiness to give
To those whose malice could not let him live.

Legions of angels, which he might have used,
(For us resolved to perish) he refused;
While they stood ready to prevent his loss,
Love took him up, and nailed him to the cross.

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Immortal love! which in his bowels reigned,
That we might be by such a love constrained
To make return of love. Upon this pole
Our duty does, and our religion, roll.
To love is to believe, to hope, to know;
'Tis an essay, a taste of heaven below!

He to proud potentates would not be known;
Of those that loved him he was hid from none.
Till love appear we live in anxious doubt;
But smoke will vanish when that flame breaks out;
This is the fire that would consume our dross,
Refine, and make us richer by the loss.

Could we forbear dispute, and practise love,
We should agree as angels do above.
Where love presides, not vice alone does find
No entrance there, but virtues stay behind;
Both faith, and hope, and all the meaner train
Of moral virtues, at the door remain.
Love only enters as a native there,
For, born in heaven, it does but sojourn here.

He that alone would wise and mighty be,
Commands that others love as well as he.
Love as he loved!—How can we soar so high?—
He can add wings, when he commands to fly.
Nor should we be with this command dismayed;
He that examples gives, will give his aid;
For he took flesh, that where his precepts fail,
His practice, as a pattern, may prevail.
His love, at once, and dread, instruct our thought;

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As man he suffered, and as God he taught.
Will for the deed he takes; we may with ease
Obedient be, for if we love we please.
Weak though we are, to love is no hard task,
And love for love is all that Heaven does ask.
Love! that would all men just and temperate make,
Kind to themselves, and others, for his sake.

'Tis with our minds as with a fertile ground,
Wanting this love they must with weeds abound,
(Unruly passions) whose effects are worse
Than thorns and thistles springing from the curse.

CANTO IV.

To glory man, or misery, is born,
Of his proud foe the envy, or the scorn;
Wretched he is, or happy, in extreme;
Base in himself, but great in Heaven's esteem;
With love, of all created things the best;
Without it, more pernicious than the rest;
For greedy wolves unguarded sheep devour
But while their hunger lasts, and then give o'er;
Man's boundless avarice his want exceeds,
And on his neighbours round about him feeds.

His pride and vain ambition are so vast,
That, deluge-like, they lay whole nations waste.
Debauches and excess (though with less noise)
As great a portion of mankind destroys.
The beasts and monsters Hercules oppressed

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Might in that age some provinces infest;
These more destructive monsters are the bane
Of every age, and in all nations reign;
But soon would vanish, if the world were blessed
With sacred love, by which they are repressed.

Impendent death, and guilt that threatens hell,
Are dreadful guests, which here with mortals dwell;
And a vexed conscience, mingling with their joy
Thoughts of despair, does their whole life annoy;
But love appearing, all those terrors fly;
We live contented, and contented die.
They in whose breast this sacred love has place,
Death, as a passage to their joy, embrace.
Clouds and thick vapours, which obscure the day,
The sun's victorious beams may chase away;
Those which our life corrupt and darken, love
(The nobler star!) must from the soul remove.
Spots are observed in that which bounds the year;
This brighter sun moves in a boundless sphere;
Of heaven the joy, the glory, and the light,
Shines among angels, and admits no night.

CANTO V.

This Iron Age (so fraudulent and bold!)
Touched with this love, would be an Age of Gold;
Not, as they feigned, that oaks should honey drop,
Or land neglected bear an unsown crop;

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Love would make all things easy, safe, and cheap;
None for himself would either sow or reap;
Our ready help, and mutual love, would yield
A nobler harvest than the richest field.
Famine and death, confined to certain parts,
Extended are by barrenness of hearts.
Some pine for want where others surfeit now;
But then we should the use of plenty know.
Love would betwixt the rich and needy stand,
And spread Heaven's bounty with an equal hand;
At once the givers and receivers bless,
Increase their joy, and make their suffering less.
Who for himself no miracle would make,
Dispensed with Nature for the people's sake;
He that, long fasting, would no wonder show,
Made loaves and fishes, as they ate them, grow,
Of all his power, which boundless was above,
Here he used none but to express his love;
And such a love would make our joy exceed,
Not when our own, but other mouths we feed.

Laws would be useless which rude nature awe;
Love, changing nature, would prevent the law;
Tigers and lions into dens we thrust,
But milder creatures with their freedom trust.
Devils are chained, and tremble; but the Spouse
No force but love, nor bond but bounty, knows.
Men (whom we now so fierce and dangerous see)
Would guardian angels to each other be;
Such wonders can this mighty love perform,

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Vultures to doves, wolves into lambs transform!
Love what Isaiah prophesied can do,
Exalt the valleys, lay the mountains low,
Humble the lofty, the dejected raise,
Smooth and make straight our rough and crooked ways.
Love, strong as death, and like it, levels all;
With that possessed, the great in title fall;
Themselves esteem but equal to the least,
Whom Heaven with that high character has blessed.
This love, the centre of our union, can
Alone bestow complete repose on man;
Tame his wild appetite, make inward peace,
And foreign strife among the nations cease.
No martial trumpet should disturb our rest,
Nor princes arm, though to subdue the East;
Where for the tomb so many heroes (taught
By those that guided their devotion) fought.
Thrice happy we, could we like ardour have
To gain his love, as they to win his grave!
Love as he loved! A love so unconfined,
With arms extended, would embrace mankind.
Self-love would cease, or be dilated, when
We should behold as many selfs as men;
All of one family, in blood allied,
His precious blood, that for our ransom died.

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CANTO VI.

Though the creation (so divinely taught!)
Prints such a lively image in our thought,
That the first spark of new-created light,
From Chaos struck, affects our present sight;
Yet the first Christians did esteem more blessed
The day of rising, than the day of rest,
That every week might new occasion give,
To make his triumph in their memory live.
Then let our Muse compose a sacred charm,
To keep his blood among us ever warm,
And singing as the blessed do above,
With our last breath dilate this flame of love.
But on so vast a subject who can find
Words that may reach the ideas of his mind?
Our language fails; or, if it could supply,
What mortal thought can raise itself so high?
Despairing here, we might abandon art,
And only hope to have it in our heart.
But though we find this sacred task too hard,
Yet the design, the endeavour, brings reward.
The contemplation does suspend our woe,
And makes a truce with all the ills we know.
As Saul's afflicted spirit, from the sound
Of David's harp, a present solace found;
So on this theme while we our Muse engage,
No wounds are felt, of fortune or of age.
On divine love to meditate is peace,

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And makes all care of meaner things to cease.

Amazed at once, and comforted, to find
A boundless power so infinitely kind,
The soul contending to that light to flee
From her dark cell, we practise how to die;
Employing thus the poet's winged art,
To reach this love, and grave it in our heart.
Joy so complete, so solid, and severe,
Would leave no place for meaner pleasures there;
Pale they would look, as stars that must be gone,
When from the East the rising sun comes on.

Floriferis ut Apes in saltibus omnia libant,
Sic nos Scripturæ depascimur aurea dicta;
Aurea perpetuâ semper dignissima vitâ.
Nam Divinus Amor, cum cœpit vociferari,
Diffugiunt Animi terrores.

—Lucr.

Exul eram, requiesque mihi, non Fama petita est,
Mens intenta suis ne foret usque malis.
Namque ubi mota calent Sacrâ mea Pectora Musâ,
Altior humano Spiritus ille malo est.

—De Trist.

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OF DIVINE POESY.

TWO CANTOS.

[_]

Occasioned upon sight of the 53rd chapter of Isaiah turned into verse by Mrs. Wharton.

CANTO I.

Poets we prize, when in their verse we find
Some great employment of a worthy mind.
Angels have been inquisitive to know
The secret which this oracle does show.
What was to come, Isaiah did declare,
Which she describes as if she had been there;
Had seen the wounds, which, to the reader's view,
She draws so lively that they bleed anew.
As ivy thrives which on the oak takes hold,
So with the prophet's may her lines grow old!
If they should die, who can the world forgive,
(Such pious lines!) when wanton Sappho's live?
Who with his breath his image did inspire,
Expects it should foment a nobler fire;
Not love which brutes as well as men may know,
But love like his, to whom that breath we owe.
Verse so designed, on that high subject wrote,
Is the perfection of an ardent thought;
The smoke which we from burning incense raise,
When we complete the sacrifice of praise.
In boundless verse the fancy soars too high
For any object but the Deity,
What mortal can with Heaven pretend to share

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In the superlatives of wise and fair?
A meaner subject when with these we grace,
A giant's habit on a dwarf we place.
Sacred should be the product of our Muse,
Like that sweet oil, above all private use,
On pain of death forbidden to be made,
But when it should be on the altar laid.
Verse shows a rich inestimable vein,
When, dropped from heaven, 'tis thither sent again.

Of bounty 'tis that he admits our praise,
Which does not him, but us that yield it, raise;
For as that angel up to heaven did rise,
Borne on the flame of Manoah's sacrifice,
So, winged with praise, we penetrate the sky;
Teach clouds and stars to praise him as we fly;
The whole creation, (by our fall made groan!)
His praise to echo, and suspend their moan.
For that he reigns, all creatures should rejoice,
And we with songs supply their want of voice.
The church triumphant, and the church below,
In songs of praise their present union show;
Their joys are full; our expectation long;
In life we differ, but we join in song.
Angels and we, assisted by this art,
May sing together, though we dwell apart.
Thus we reach heaven, while vainer poems must
No higher rise than winds may lift the dust.

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From that they spring; this from his breath that gave,
To the first dust, the immortal soul we have;
His praise well sung, (our great endeavour here)
Shakes off the dust, and makes that breath appear.

CANTO II.

He that did first this way of writing grace,
Conversed with the Almighty face to face;
Wonders he did in sacred verse unfold,
When he had more than eighty winters told.
The writer feels no dire effect of age,
Nor verse, that flows from so divine a rage.
Eldest of Poets, he beheld the light,
When first it triumphed o'er eternal night;
Chaos he saw, and could distinctly tell
How that confusion into order fell.
As if consulted with, he has expressed
The work of the Creator, and his rest;
How the flood drowned the first offending race,
Which might the figure of our globe deface.
For new-made earth, so even and so fair,
Less equal now, uncertain makes the air;
Surprised with heat and unexpected cold,
Early distempers make our youth look old;
Our days so evil, and so few, may tell
That on the ruins of that world we dwell.
Strong as the oaks that nourished them, and high,

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That long-lived race did on their force rely,
Neglecting Heaven; but we, of shorter date!
Should be more mindful of impendent fate.
To worms, that crawl upon this rubbish here,
This span of life may yet too long appear;
Enough to humble, and to make us great,
If it prepare us for a nobler seat.
Which well observing, he, in numerous lines,
Taught wretched man how fast his life declines;
In whom he dwelt before the world was made,
And may again retire when that shall fade.
The lasting Iliads have not lived so long
As his and Deborah's triumphant song.
Delphos unknown, no Muse could them inspire,
But that which governs the celestial choir.
Heaven to the pious did this art reveal,
And from their store succeeding poets steal.
Homer's Scamander for the Trojans fought,
And swelled so high, by her old Kishon taught.
His river scarce could fierce Achilles stay;
Hers, more successful, swept her foes away.
The host of Heaven, his Phœbus and his Mars,
He arms, instructed by her fighting stars.
She led them all against the common foe;
But he (misled by what he saw below!)
The powers above, like wretched men, divides,
And breaks their union into different sides.
The noblest parts which in his heroes shine,
May be but copies of that heroine.

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Homer himself, and Agamemnon, she
The writer could, and the commander, be.
Truth she relates in a sublimer strain,
Than all the tales the boldest Greeks could feign;
For what she sung that Spirit did indite,
Which gave her courage, and success, in fight.
A double garland crowns the matchless dame;
From Heaven her poem, and her conquest, came.

Though of the Jews she merit most esteem,
Yet here the Christian has the greater theme;
Her martial song describes how Sisera fell;
This sings our triumph over death and hell.
The rising light employed the sacred breath
Of the blest Virgin and Elizabeth.
In songs of joy the angels sung his birth;
Here how he treated was upon the earth
Trembling we read! the affliction and the scorn,
Which for our guilt so patiently was borne!
Conception, birth, and suffering, all belong
(Though various parts) to one celestial song;
And she, well using so divine an art,
Has in this concert sung the tragic part.

As Hannah's seed was vowed to sacred use,
So here this lady consecrates her Muse.
With like reward may Heaven her bed adorn,
With fruit as fair as by her Muse is born!

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OF THE PARAPHRASE ON THE LORD'S PRAYER,

WRITTEN BY MRS. WHARTON.

Silence, you winds! listen, ethereal lights!
While our Urania sings what Heaven indites;
The numbers are the nymph's; but from above
Descends the pledge of that eternal love.
Here wretched mortals have not leave alone,
But are instructed, to approach his throne;
And how can he to miserable men
Deny requests which his own hand did pen?

In the Evangelists we find the prose
Which, paraphrased by her, a poem grows;
A devout rapture! so divine a hymn,
It may become the highest seraphim!
For they, like her, in that celestial choir,
Sing only what the Spirit does inspire.
Taught by our Lord, and theirs, with us they may
For all but pardon for offences pray.

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SOME REFLECTIONS OF HIS UPON THE SEVERAL PETITIONS IN THE SAME PRAYER.

1.

His sacred name with reverence profound
Should mentioned be, and trembling at the sound
It was Jehovah; 'tis Our Father now;
So low to us does Heaven vouchsafe to bow!

Ps. xviii. 9.

He brought it down, that taught us how to pray;
And did so dearly for our ransom pay.

2.

His kingdom come. For this we pray in vain,
Unless he does in our affections reign.
Absurd it were to wish for such a King,
And not obedience to his sceptre bring,
Whose yoke is easy, and his burthen light,
His service freedom, and his judgments right.

3.

His will be done. In fact 'tis always done;
But, as in Heaven, it must be made our own.
His will should all our inclinations sway,
Whom Nature, and the universe, obey

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Happy the man! whose wishes are confined
To what has been eternally designed;
Referring all to his paternal care,
To whom more dear than to ourselves we are.

4.

It is not what our avarice hoards up;
'Tis he that feeds us, and that fills our cup;
Like new-born babes depending on the breast,
From day to day we on his bounty feast;
Nor should the soul expect above a day
To dwell in her frail tenement of clay;
The setting sun should seem to bound our race,
And the new day a gift of special grace.

5.

That he should all our trespasses forgive,
While we in hatred with our neighbours live;
Though so to pray may seem an easy task,
We curse ourselves when thus inclined we ask.
This prayer to use, we ought with equal care
Our souls, as to the sacrament prepare.
The noblest worship of the Power above,
Is to extol, and imitate his love;
Not to forgive our enemies alone,
But use our bounty that they may be won.

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6.

Guard us from all temptations of the foe,
And those we may in several stations know;
The rich and poor in slippery places stand.
Give us enough! but with a sparing hand!
Not ill-persuading want, nor wanton wealth,
But what proportioned is to life and health.
For not the dead, but living, sing thy praise,
Exalt thy kingdom, and thy glory raise.

Favete linguis! . . . . .
Virginibus puerisque canto.

—Horat.

ON THE FEAR OF GOD.

IN TWO CANTOS.

CANTO I.

The fear of God is freedom, joy, and peace,
And makes all ills that vex us here to cease.
Though the word fear some men may ill endure,
'Tis such a fear as only makes secure.
Ask of no angel to reveal thy fate;
Look in thy heart, the mirror of thy state.
He that invites will not the invited mock,
Opening to all that do in earnest knock.
Our hopes are all well-grounded on this fear
All our assurance rolls upon that sphere.

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This fear, that drives all other fears away,
Shall be my song, the morning of our day!
Where that fear is, there's nothing to be feared;
It brings from Heaven an angel for our guard.
Tranquillity and peace this fear does give;
Hell gapes for those that do without it live.
It is a beam, which he on man lets fall,
Of light, by which he made and governs all.
'Tis God alone should not offended be;
But we please others, as more great than he.
For a good cause, the sufferings of man
May well be borne; 'tis more than angels can.
Man, since his fall, in no mean station rests,
Equal to angels, or below the beasts.
He with true joy their hearts alone does fill,
That thirst and hunger to perform his will.
Others, though rich, shall in this world be vexed,
And sadly live in terror of the next.
The world's great conqueror would his point pursue,
And wept because he could not find a new;
Which had he done, yet still he would have cried,
To make him work until a third he spied.
Ambition, avarice, will nothing owe
To Heaven itself, unless it make them grow.
Though richly fed, man's care does still exceed;
Has but one mouth, but would a thousand feed.
In wealth and honour, by such men possessed,
If it increase not, there is found no rest.
All their delight is while their wish comes in;

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Sad when it stops, as there had nothing been.
'Tis strange men should neglect their present store,
And take no joy but in pursuing more;
No! though arrived at all the world can aim;
This is the mark and glory of our frame.
A soul capacious of the Deity,
Nothing but he that made can satisfy.
A thousand worlds, if we with him compare
Less than so many drops of water are.
Men take no pleasure but in new designs;
And what they hope for, what they have outshines.
Our sheep and oxen seem no more to crave,
With full content feeding on what they have;
Vex not themselves for an increase of store,
But think to-morrow we shall give them more.
What we from day to day receive from Heaven,
They do from us expect it should be given.
We made them not, yet they on us rely,
More than vain men upon the Deity;
More beasts than they! who will not understand
That we are fed from his immediate hand.
Man, that in him has being, moves, and lives,
What can he have, or use, but what he gives?
So that no bread can nourishment afford,
Or useful be, without his Sacred Word.

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CANTO II.

Earth praises conquerors for shedding blood,
Heaven those that love their foes, and do them good.
It is terrestrial honour to be crowned
For strowing men, like rushes, on the ground.
True glory 'tis to rise above them all,
Without advantage taken by their fall.
He that in fight diminishes mankind,
Does no addition to his stature find;
But he that does a noble nature show,
Obliging others, still does higher grow;
For virtue practised, such a habit gives,
That among men he like an angel lives;
Humbly he doth, and without envy, dwell,
Loved and admired by those he does excel.
Fools anger show, which politicians hide;
Blessed with this fear, men let it not abide.
The humble man, when he receives a wrong,
Refers revenge to whom it doth belong;
Nor sees he reason why he should engage,
Or vex his spirit for another's rage.
Placed on a rock, vain men he pities, tossed
On raging waves, and in the tempest lost.
The rolling planets, and the glorious sun,
Still keep that order which they first begun;
They their first lesson constantly repeat,
Which their Creator as a law did set.
Above, below, exactly all obey;

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But wretched men have found another way;
Knowledge of good and evil, as at first,
(That vain persuasion!) keeps them still accursed!
The Sacred Word refusing as a guide,
Slaves they become to luxury and pride.
As clocks, remaining in the skilful hand
Of some great master, at the figure stand,
But when abroad, neglected they do go,
At random strike, and the false hour show;
So from our Maker wandering, we stray,
Like birds that know not to their nests the way.
In him we dwelt before our exile here,
And may, returning, find contentment there,
True joy may find, perfection of delight,
Behold his face, and shun eternal night.

Silence, my Muse! make not these jewels cheap,
Exposing to the world too large a heap.
Of all we read, the Sacred Writ is best,
Where great truths are in fewest words expressed.

Wrestling with death, these lines I did indite;
No other theme could give my soul delight.
O that my youth had thus employed my pen!
Or that I now could write as well as then!
But 'tis of grace, if sickness, age, and pain,
Are felt as throes, when we are born again;
Timely they come to wean us from this earth,
As pangs that wait upon a second birth.

272

OF THE LAST VERSES IN THE BOOK.

When we for age could neither read nor write,
The subject made us able to indite;
The soul, with nobler resolutions decked,
The body stooping, does herself erect.
No mortal parts are requisite to raise
Her that, unbodied, can her Maker praise.

The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er;
So, calm are we when passions are no more!
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made;
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.

------ Miratur limen Olympi.

—Virg.