A Collection of Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

In these censorious Days, when Those delight
To censure largely, who could never write,
What Author dares to hope he shall succeed,
When more are Criticks, than have learn'd to read?
Yet be thou kind, my Friend! at whose Desire,
I call upon the MUSE, and court her Fire:
If thou approv'st, I care not who condemn,
The Rage of Coxcombs is the Road to Fame.

122

O bear me far from Scenes of anxious Strife,
The Noise of Fools, and vexing Cares of Life!
While Peace and calm Retirement grace my Song;
To smoothest Themes, the smoothest Hours belong.
May sleepless Nights be W******'s, to restrain
Th' ambitious Spirit of perfidious Spain;
With Fleets to guard Gibraltar and Mahon;
Or calm his jealous Enemies at Home:
And let the murm'ring Nation, Fears commence
From publick Conduct, and the Realm's Expence;
A sweet Retirement from their Broils, be mine;
Not subject, or to glory, or repine.
Tho' ev'ry haughty Pow'r on Earth contend,
And each to be the Friend of Man pretend;
I leave the Friend of Mankind and the Foe,
To Providence above, and George below.

Come, heav'nly Peace! dear Sister of Content,
Calm thou the World, and hostile Woes prevent;
Reduce the Nations to thy blest Command,
And rule the Kingdoms with thy Olive Wand.
If thou withdraw'st thy Presence from Mankind,
All Bliss adieu, we give it to the Wind.

123

In ev'ry Bosom, thirst of Vi'lence burns,
And Grief and Hatred rack the Mind by turns;
No social Graces teach the Mein to shine,
But gloomy lours the human Face divine;
The Poles are vex'd with more than Ice or Snow,
And fiercer Flames about th' Equator glow:
The Sword destructive gleams, and Cannons roar,
Where the white Harvest rustling way'd before;
Th' astonish'd Husbandman beholds, agast,
His Labour ruin'd, and his Vintage Waste;
His Hands have idly thrown the fruitless Grain,
The Grape grows full, the Citron blows, in vain.
Sad seat of War! nor more of Joy appears,
Where tender Orphans Cries, and Widow's Tears,
Teach lonely Shades, and silent Walls to mourn,
For Heroes who must never more return;
Scenes of black Grief, and solitary Woe,
Wring ev'ry Heart, and darken ev'ry Brow;
Each Morning lowrs, and heavy mounts to Noon,
And Ev'ning falls in melancholy Gloom:
By Night, no Joy the Bed can give the Bride,
But sobbing o'er the dear forsaken Side,

124

The visionary Sword before her gleams,
She shrieks in Sleep, and frighted, starts in Dreams.

But when, celestial Virtue! thou descends,
The Furies cease, and madding Discord Ends;
Each Bosom feels a Spring of Pleasure flow,
And Grief and Sadness seek the Shades below;
Each Face renews the Charms of blooming Joy,
And gay Delight sits sparkling in each Eye:
No Fields of Bloody Glory fire the Mind,
But softer Scenes appear, and Days more kind.
The joyful Peasant takes his Pipe again,
And thus renews his Numbers on the Plain.
Now blow ye Breezes, gentle Show'rs come down;
Dawn bright ye Morns, and kindly roll thou Sun;
Unlock your crystal Streamlets, ev'ry Spring,
Shine out-ye Groves, ye feather'd Warblers sing!
For now no more the anxious Hind shall rue,
What Flocks he bred, or gainless Closes sew;
The Sower and the Reaper shall be one,
And all the Fullness of the Year our own;
PEACE comes, and smiling Plenty tends her Way,
And the glad Shepherd hails the blissful Day.

125

Thus sings the Swain, and with a raptur'd Eye,
Surveys the Fields, or meditates the Skie:
While all the Great, and Wise, and Learn'd, retire,
And feel soft Solitudes, their Souls to fire.
Now lib'ral Arts begin afresh to shine,
And Science opens out her Charms divine:
Some thro' the mystick Ways of Nature run,
And search the Source from whence her Laws begun:
The Mind's Recesses, are by others sought,
How Thought begins, and Actions follow Thought,
Others aloft expatiate o'er the Spheres,
Discry new Suns, and find out Worlds in Stars.
While Souls less studious, seek a gentler Bliss,
And melt in humbler Scenes of Happiness:
The forward Youth who swell'd at Glory's Charms,
And dauntless, sought his Foe in horrid Arms,
Or drench'd in Blood, reluctant left the Field,
Sheath'd the broad Sword, and ceas'd to poize the Shield;
Pursuits more humane, now become his Care,
His Prize is Beauty, and his Chace the Fair.
While the dear Nymph he leads from Grove to Grove,
His Heart beats thick with Tenderness and Love;

126

His Soul, which oft unmov'd has wag'd the Fight,
Lies all subdu'd to Beauty's stronger Might;
From Dream to Dream his ravish'd Fancy's tost,
And all the Warriour in the Lover's lost.

How e'er Mankind may fill the Trump of Fame,
With Praise and Glory, all is but a Name;
For Happiness, abroad we vainly roam,
Our solid Blessings are procur'd at Home,
In calm Retreats and silent Solitudes,
Where Pomp not dazles, nor the Crowd intrudes.
Happy the Man, who such a State enjoys,
If such a happy State he right employs;
The Mind there plac'd, Intent it self surveys,
Looks back on Life, and scans our various Ways;
Examins all the Passions to their Source,
And teaches Reason to correct their Force.
Here Virtue first displays her Virgin-Charms,
Smites the rapt Soul, and all the Bosom warms:
Hail! holiest, dearest, loveliest, best of Things,
From thee, the Purity of Conscience springs;
Thou o'er the Mind a grand Composure casts,
Which neither Fools disturb, nor slander blasts;

127

Nor rising Gusts of popular Applause,
Nor the dire Venom thrown from Envy's Jaws,
Exalts the Thought on Clouds of vain Deceit,
Or damps the Soul, establish'd to be great:
Fixt on strong Truth her lasting Pleasures grow
While Jarrs and Jangle pass unheard below.
O peaceful Virtue! all the Graces wait,
Thy sweet Retirements and adorn thy State;
The Land is more than blest, that thee contains,
Its Hills are Eden, Paradise its Plains:
Thou mixest Æthiopia's Heats with Joys,
And warm'st the Scythian Snows, and Zembla's Ice;
Thou smooth'st the Main and mak'st the Desart smile,
And call'st forth Olives on the barren Soil.

O give me, gracious Pow'rs! a Silvan Seat,
A peaceful Mansion in some close Retreat;
Where led by Love of Solitude, thro' Shades,
And Fields, and spreading Groves, and opening Glades;
There clear my Sight, and teach my Eyes to see,
Thy Ways, O Truth! and Virtue find with thee.
Sequester'd from the Grief and tort'ring Cares,
Of human Life, and all its dire Affairs,

128

Teach me to find the Thing so little known,
Divine Content, and purchase it my own.
And O if there be yet a Blessing more,
It is to have a Friend or two in store,
With a kind Partner from the softer Fair,
To melt my Heart, and sooth my Soul from Care;
To sweeten the stern Mein of deep Discourse,
Or gently to unbend my studious Hours;
With kind Endearments, tender Passions move,
And all the blissful Joys of virtuous Love.

Nor shall I then forget the tuneful Throng,
Nor cease th' enchanting Ways of sacred Song;
The Muse forever covets Silvan Shades,
Green Banks, and purling Streams, and flow'ry Beds;
She bids the Man, whose Bosom she designs
Shall be productive of immortal Lines:
The jangling Crowds of busy Towns to shun,
And into Groves and rural Cots to run;
There opening out her Charms, without controul,
Raptures the Heart, and ravishes the Soul.
Pope thus, while Windsor's Breezes fann'd his Flame,
Shot up to Praise, and ripen'd into Fame:

129

And thus magistick Denham's Breast was stung,
On Cooper's Hill, with vi'lent Love of Song.
When from the verdant Steep, the Thames he ey'd,
In limpid Lapse, and Silver Waves to glide;
“Tho' deep, yet clear, tho' gentle yet not dull,
“Strong without Rage, without o'er-flowing full.
Nor can the Muse her Cowley's Name forget,
Ah, still with sighs she-recollects his Fate,
With Love of Meads and Fields, too warmly fir'd,
He shot beyond the Life so much desir'd;
Perhaps some heav'nly Muse attends him now,
On Plains, where never-fading Verdures grow.
Oh Addison! thee next the Muse deplores,
For all her Charms were thine, and all her Stores,
Ere thy great Genius from the World withdrew,
How Poesie flourish'd, how young Poets grew,
Bays, round an hundred Heads began to speed,
And ev'ry blithesome Shepherd tun'd his Reed;
Sweet past'ral Lays on ev'ry Plain were known,
And ev'ry Lay begun from Addison.
But now no more the ravish'd Breast is fir'd,
In Addison the Muses all expir'd,

130

His Elegy, the last that Tickel sung,
And Pope no more provokes the tuneful Throng,
But careless seems of further Praise, while Gay
Sooths the dull Town with Sing-sang Opera;
Of wretched Taste, the woeful Evidence,
Of dearth of Wit, and mighty loss of Sense.
O might some Portion of that heav'nly Flame
Descend, to rouze the slumbring World again,
To set the Mind upon her ancient Heights,
And bid the Muse to tour sublime her Flights,
To fill the Soul with Sentiments refin'd,
And banish tuneful Nonsense from Mankind.