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Mr. Cooke's Original Poems

with Imitations and Translations of Several Select Passages of the Antients, In Four Parts: To which are added Proposals For perfecting the English Language

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ELEGY the Third. On seeing Bellamira's Picture.
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151

ELEGY the Third. On seeing Bellamira's Picture.

As when the curious Eye admiring roves
O'er Lely's Portraits, or Albano's Groves,
As when Carac's majestic Forms we view,
Or what the Master Hand of Rubens drew,
Beautys on Beautys to the Sight arise,
And as we longer gaze they more surprise,
We doubt where first to praise the Painter's Art,
Which merits our Applause in ev'ry Part:
So, Bellamira, we with Wonder trace
The various Charms of thine angelic Face.
See by a Master Hand the Canvass spread,
Like Chaos, 'e're the Birth of Nature, dead;
Beneath the Pencil see the Goddess rise;
The Form divine with Wonder strikes our Eyes.
Thro many Cent'rys may the Portrait last,
And charm each Age succeeding like the pass'd:

152

But O! that Hour will come, (thy Fate before
Apelles!) when Vandyke shall please no more,
When Raphael's Draughts shall be no longer seen,
And Kneller's Beautys as they'd never been.
Painting and Poetry have, to create,
Alike the Pow'r, but how unlike their Fate!
The monumental Marble shall decay,
Kings be forgot, and Ages rowl away;
Castles and Towns may fall the Prey of Flames;
And Nations in the Deep may lose their Names;
Yet shall Corinna live in Ovid's Page,
And Lesbia triumph o'er the Waste of Age,
Till Earth herself is from her Axis hurl'd,
Or in one Conflagration burns the World.