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IX. VOL. IX. POEMS, HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL.

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Square brackets denote editorial insertions or emendations.

10

HEROIC STANZAS CONSECRATED TO THE MEMORY OF HIS HIGHNESS OLIVER, LATE LORD PROTECTOR OF THIS COMMONWEALTH.

WRITTEN AFTER THE CELEBRATING OF HIS FUNERAL.

I

And now 'tis time; for their officious haste,
Who would before have borne him to the sky,
Like eager Romans, ere all rites were past,
Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly.
11

II

Though our best notes are treason to his fame,
Joined with the loud applause of public voice;
Since heaven, what praise we offer to his name,
Hath rendered too authentic by its choice;

III

Though in his praise no arts can liberal be,
Since they, whose muses have the highest flown,
Add not to his immortal memory,
But do an act of friendship to their own,

IV

Yet 'tis our duty, and our interest too,
Such monuments as we can build to raise;
Lest all the world prevent what we should do,
And claim a title in him by their praise.

V

How shall I then begin, or where conclude,
To draw a fame so truly circular?
For in a round, what order can be shewed,
Where all the parts so equal-perfect are?
12

VI

His grandeur he derived from heaven alone;
For he was great, ere fortune made him so:
And wars, like mists that rise against the sun,
Made him but greater seem, not greater grow.

VII

No borrowed bays his temples did adorn,
But to our crown he did fresh jewels bring;
Nor was his virtue poisoned soon as born,
With the too early thoughts of being king.

VIII

Fortune, (that easy mistress of the young,
But to her ancient servants coy and hard,)
Him at that age her favourites ranked among,
When she her best-loved Pompey did discard.

IX

He, private, marked the faults of others' sway,
And set as sea-marks for himself to shun;
Not like rash monarchs, who their youth betray
By acts their age too late would wish undone.

X

And yet dominion was not his design;
We owe that blessing, not to him, but heaven,
Which to fair acts unsought rewards did join;
Rewards, that less to him, than us, were given.
13

XI

Our former chiefs, like sticklers of the war,
First sought to inflame the parties, then to poise:
The quarrel loved, but did the cause abhor;
And did not strike to hurt, but make a noise.
14

XII

War, our consumption, was their gainful trade;
We inward bled, whilst they prolonged our pain;
He fought to end our fighting, and essayed
To stanch the blood, by breathing of the vein.
15

XIII

Swift and resistless through the land he past,
Like that bold Greek, who did the East subdue;
And made to battles such heroic haste,
As if on wings of victory he flew.

XIV

He fought, secure of fortune as of fame,
Till by new maps the island might be shewn,
Of conquests, which he strewed where'er he came,
Thick as the galaxy with stars is sown.
16

XV

His palms, though under weights they did not stand,
Still thrived; no winter could his laurels fade:
Heaven, in his portrait, shewed a workman's hand,
And drew it perfect, yet without a shade.

XVI

Peace was the prize of all his toil and care,
Which war had banished, and did now restore:
Bolognia's walls thus mounted in the air,
To seat themselves more surely than before.
17

XVII

Her safety rescued Ireland to him owes;
And treacherous Scotland, to no interest true,
Yet blest that fate which did his arms dispose
Her land to civilise, as to subdue.
18

XVIII

Nor was he like those stars which only shine,
When to pale mariners they storms portend;
19

He had his calmer influence, and his mien
Did love and majesty together blend.

XIX

'Tis true, his countenance did imprint an awe,
And naturally all souls to his did bow;
As wands of divination downward draw,
And point to beds where sovereign gold doth grow.
20

XX

When, past all offerings to Feretrian Jove,
He Mars deposed, and arms to gowns made yield;
Successful councils did him soon approve,
As fit for close intrigues, as open field.

XXI

To suppliant Holland he vouchsafed a peace,
Our once bold rival in the British main;
Now tamely glad her unjust claim to cease,
And buy our friendship with her idol, gain.

XXII

Fame of the asserted sea, through Europe blown,
Made France and Spain ambitious of his love;
Each knew that side must conquer he would own,
And for him fiercely, as for empire, strove.
21

XXIII

No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embraced,
Than the light Monsieur the grave Don outweighed:
His fortune turned the scale where'er 'twas cast,
Though Indian mines were in the other laid.

XXIV

When absent, yet we conquered in his right;
For, though some meaner artist's skill were shown,
In mingling colours, or in placing light,
Yet still the fair designment was his own.

XXV

For, from all tempers he could service draw;
The worth of each, with its alloy, he knew;
And, as the confidant of Nature, saw
How she complexions did divide and brew.
22

XXVI

Or he their single virtues did survey,
By intuition, in his own large breast;
Where all the rich ideas of them lay,
That were the rule and measure to the rest.

XXVII

When such heroic virtue heaven sets out,
The stars, like commons, sullenly obey;
Because it drains them when it comes about,
And therefore is a tax they seldom pay.

XXVIII

From this high spring our foreign conquests flow,
Which yet more glorious triumphs do portend;
Since their commencement to his arms they owe,
If springs as high as fountains may ascend.

XXIX

He made us freemen of the continent,
Whom nature did like captives treat before;
To nobler preys the English lion sent,
And taught him first in Belgian walks to roar.
23

XXX

That old unquestioned pirate of the land,
Proud Rome, with dread the fate of Dunkirk heard;
And, trembling, wished behind more Alps to stand,
Although an Alexander were her guard.
24

XXXI

By his command we boldly crossed the line,
And bravely fought where southern stars arise;
We traced the far-fetched gold unto the mine,
And that, which bribed our fathers, made our prize.

XXXII

Such was our prince; yet owned a soul above
The highest acts it could produce to show:
Thus, poor mechanic arts in public move,
Whilst the deep secrets beyond practice go.

XXXIII

Nor died he when his ebbing fame went less,
But when fresh laurels courted him to live:
He seemed but to prevent some new success,
As if above what triumphs earth could give.

XXXIV

His latest victories still thickest came,
As near the centre motion doth increase;
Till he, pressed down by his own weighty name,
Did, like the vestal, under spoils decease.
25

XXXV

But first the ocean as a tribute sent
That giant prince of all her wat'ry herd;
And the isle, when her protecting Genius went,
Upon his obsequies loud sighs conferred.

XXXVI

No civil broils have since his death arose,
But faction now by habit does obey;
And wars have that respect for his repose,
As winds for halcyons when they breed at sea.
26

XXXVII

His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest;
His name a great example stands, to show,
How strangely high endeavours may be blessed,
Where piety and valour jointly go.
32

ASTRÆA REDUX.

A POEM, ON THE HAPPY RESTORATION AND RETURN OF HIS SACRED MAJESTY, CHARLES THE SECOND. 1660.

Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna.
Virg.

The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes,
Renews its finished course; Saturnian times
Roll round again.

Now with a general peace the world was blest,
While ours, a world divided from the rest,
A dreadful quiet felt, and worser far
Than arms, a sullen interval of war.
Thus when black clouds draw down the lab'ring skies,
Ere yet abroad the winged thunder flies,
An horrid stillness first invades the ear,
And in that silence we the tempest fear.
The ambitious Swede, like restless billows tost,
On this hand gaining what on that he lost,
33

Though in his life he blood and ruin breathed,
To his now guideless kingdom peace bequeathed;
And heaven that seemed regardless of our fate,
For France and Spain did miracles create;
Such mortal quarrels to compose in peace,
As nature bred, and interest did increase.
We sighed to hear the fair Iberian bride
Must grow a lily to the lily's side;
34

While our cross stars denied us Charles his bed,
Whom our first flames and virgin love did wed.
For his long absence church and state did groan;
Madness the pulpit, faction seized the throne:
Experienced age in deep despair was lost,
To see the rebel thrive, the loyal crost:
Youth, that with joys had unacquainted been,
Envied grey hairs, that once good days had seen:
We thought our sires, not with their own content,
Had, ere we came to age, our portion spent.
Nor could our nobles hope their bold attempt,
Who ruined crowns, would coronets exempt:
For when, by their designing leaders taught
To strike at power, which for themselves they sought,
The vulgar, gulled into rebellion, armed,
Their blood to action by the prize was warmed.
The sacred purple, then, and scarlet gown,
Like sanguine dye to elephants, was shewn.
Thus, when the bold Typhœus scaled the sky,
And forced great Jove from his own heaven to fly,
(What king, what crown, from treason's reach is free,
If Jove and Heaven can violated be?)
35

The lesser gods, that shared his prosperous state,
All suffered in the exiled Thunderer's fate.
The rabble now such freedom did enjoy,
As winds at sea, that use it to destroy:
Blind as the Cyclops, and as wild as he,
They owned a lawless savage liberty,
Like that our painted ancestors so prized,
Ere empire's arts their breast had civilised.
How great were then our Charles his woes, who thus
Was forced to suffer for himself and us!
He, tossed by fate, and hurried up and down,
Heir to his father's sorrows, with his crown,
Could taste no sweets of youth's desired age,
But found his life too true a pilgrimage.
Unconquered yet in that forlorn estate,
His manly courage overcame his fate:
His wounds he took, like Romans, on his breast,
Which by his virtue were with laurels drest.
As souls reach heaven, while yet in bodies pent,
So did he live above his banishment.
That sun, which we beheld with cozened eyes
Within the water, moved along the skies.
How easy 'tis, when destiny proves kind,
With full-spread sails to run before the wind!
But those, that 'gainst stiff gales laveering go,
Must be at once resolved, and skilful too.
He would not, like soft Otho, hope prevent,
But stayed, and suffered fortune to repent.
36

These virtues Galba in a stranger sought,
And Piso to adopted empire brought.
How shall I then my doubtful thoughts express,
That must his suffering both regret and bless!
For, when his early valour heaven had crost,
And all at Worc'ster but the honour lost;
Forced into exile from his rightful throne,
He made all countries where he came his own;
And, viewing monarchs' secret arts of sway,
A royal factor for their kingdoms lay.
37

Thus, banished David spent abroad his time,
When to be God's anointed was his crime;
And, when restored, made his proud neighbours rue
Those choice remarks he from his travels drew.
Nor is he only by afflictions shown
To conquer others' realms, but rule his own;
Recovering hardly what he lost before,
His right endears it much, his purchase more.
Inured to suffer ere he came to reign,
No rash procedure will his actions stain:
To business ripened by digestive thought,
His future rule is into method brought;
As they who first proportion understand,
With easy practice reach a master's hand.
Well might the ancient poets then confer
On Night the honoured name of Counsellor;
Since, struck with rays of prosperous fortune blind,
We light alone in dark afflictions find.
In such adversities to sceptres trained,
The name of Great his famous grandsire gained;
Who yet, a king alone in name and right,
With hunger, cold, and angry Jove did fight;
Shocked by a covenanting League's vast powers,
As holy and as catholic as ours:
Till Fortune's fruitless spite had made it known,
Her blows not shook, but riveted, his throne.
38

Some lazy ages, lost in sleep and ease,
No action leave to busy chronicles:
Such, whose supine felicity but makes
In story chasms, in epoches mistakes;
O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down,
Till with his silent sickle they are mown.
Such is not Charles his too too active age,
Which, governed by the wild distempered rage
Of some black star, infecting all the skies,
Made him at his own cost, like Adam, wise.
Tremble, ye nations, who, secure before,
Laughed at those arms that 'gainst ourselves we bore;
Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail,
Our Lion now will foreign foes assail.
With alga, who the sacred altar strews?
To all the sea-gods Charles an offering owes:
A bull to thee, Portunus, shall be slain,
A lamb to you, ye tempests of the main:
For those loud storms, that did against him roar,
Have cast his shipwrecked vessel on the shore.
Yet, as wise artists mix their colours so,
That by degrees they from each other go;
39

Black steals unheeded from the neighbouring white,
Without offending the well-cozened sight:
So on us stole our blessed change; while we
The effect did feel, but scarce the manner see.
Frosts, that constrain the ground, and birth deny
To flowers that in its womb expecting lie,
Do seldom their usurping power withdraw,
But raging floods pursue their hasty thaw;
Our thaw was mild, the cold not chased away,
But lost in kindly heat of lengthened day.
Heaven would no bargain for its blessings drive,
But what we could not pay for, freely give.
The Prince of Peace would, like himself, confer
A gift unhoped, without the price of war:
Yet, as he knew his blessing's worth, took care,
That we should know it by repeated prayer;
Which stormed the skies, and ravished Charles from thence,
As heaven itself is took by violence.
Booth's forward valour only served to show,
He durst that duty pay, we all did owe:
The attempt was fair; but heaven's prefixed hour
Not come: so, like the watchful travellour,
40

That by the moon's mistaken light did rise,
Lay down again, and closed his weary eyes.
'Twas Monk, whom Providence designed to loose
Those real bonds false freedom did impose.
The blessed saints, that watched this turning scene,
Did from their stars with joyful wonder lean,
To see small clues draw vastest weights along,
Not in their bulk, but in their order strong.
Thus, pencils can, by one slight touch, restore
Smiles to that changed face that wept before.
With ease such fond chimeras we pursue,
As fancy frames for fancy to subdue:
But when ourselves to action we betake,
It shuns the mint, like gold that chemists make.
How hard was then his task, at once to be
What in the body natural we see!
Man's architect distinctly did ordain
The charge of muscles, nerves, and of the brain,
Through viewless conduits spirits to dispense;
The springs of motion from the seat of sense.
'Twas not the hasty product of a day,
But the well-ripened fruit of wise delay.
He, like a patient angler, ere he strook,
Would let them play a while upon the hook.
Our healthful food the stomach labours thus,
At first embracing what it straight doth crush.
Wise leaches will not vain receipts obtrude,
While growing pains pronounce the humours crude:
Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill,
Till some safe crisis authorise their skill.
41

Nor could his acts too close a vizard wear,
To 'scape their eyes whom guilt had taught to fear,
And guard with caution that polluted nest,
Whence Legion twice before was dispossest:
Once sacred house, which when they entered in,
They thought the place could sanctify a sin;
Like those, that vainly hoped kind heaven would wink,
While to excess on martyrs' tombs they drink.
42

And, as devouter Turks first warn their souls
To part, before they taste forbidden bowls,
So these, when their black crimes they went about,
First timely charmed their useless conscience out.
Religion's name against itself was made;
The shadow served the substance to invade:
Like zealous missions, they did care pretend
Of souls, in show, but made the gold their end.
The incensed powers beheld with scorn, from high,
An heaven so far distant from the sky,
Which durst, with horses' hoofs that beat the ground,
And martial brass, bely the thunder's sound.
'Twas hence, at length, just vengeance thought it fit
To speed their ruin by their impious wit:
Thus Sforza, cursed with a too fertile brain,
Lost by his wiles the power his wit did gain.
43

Henceforth their fougue must spend at lesser rate,
Than in its flames to wrap a nation's fate.
Suffered to live, they are like Helots set,
A virtuous shame within us to beget;
44

For, by example most we sinned before,
And glass-like clearness mixed with frailty bore.
But since, reformed by what we did amiss,
We by our sufferings learn to prize our bliss:
Like early lovers, whose unpractised hearts
Were long the may-game of malicious arts,
When once they find their jealousies were vain,
With double heat renew their fires again.
'Twas this produced the joy, that hurried o'er
Such swarms of English to the neighbouring shore,
To fetch that prize, by which Batavia made
So rich amends for our impoverished trade.
Oh, had you seen from Scheveline's barren shore,
(Crowded with troops, and barren now no more,)
Afflicted Holland to his farewell bring
True sorrow, Holland to regret a king!
45

While waiting him his royal fleet did ride,
And willing winds to their lower'd sails denied.
The wavering streamers, flags, and standart out,
The merry seamen's rude but cheerful shout;
And last the cannon's voice that shook the skies,
And, as it fares in sudden ecstasies,
At once bereft us both of ears and eyes.
The Naseby, now no longer England's shame,
But better to be lost in Charles his name,
(Like some unequal bride in nobler sheets)
Receives her lord; the joyful London meets
The princely York, himself alone a freight;
The Swiftsure groans beneath great Gloster's weight:
46

Secure as when the halcyon breeds, with these,
He, that was born to drown, might cross the seas.
Heaven could not own a Providence, and take
The wealth three nations ventured at a stake.
The same indulgence Charles his voyage blessed,
Which in his right had miracles confessed.
The winds, that never moderation knew,
Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew;
Or, out of breath with joy, could not enlarge
Their straightened lungs, or conscious of their charge.
The British Amphitrite, smooth and clear,
In richer azure never did appear;
Proud her returning prince to entertain
With the submitted fasces of the main.
And welcome now, great monarch, to your own!
Behold the approaching cliffs of Albion.
It is no longer motion cheats your view;
As you meet it, the land approacheth you.
The land returns, and, in the white it wears,
The marks of penitence and sorrow bears.
47

But you, whose goodness your descent doth show,
Your heavenly parentage and earthly too,
By that same mildness, which your father's crown
Before did ravish, shall secure your own.
Not tied to rules of policy, you find
Revenge less sweet than a forgiving mind.
Thus, when the Almighty would to Moses give
A sight of all he could behold and live;
A voice before his entry did proclaim,
Long-suffering, goodness, mercy, in his name.
Your power to justice doth submit your cause,
Your goodness only is above the laws;
48

Whose rigid letter, while pronounced by you,
Is softer made. So winds, that tempests brew,
When through Arabian groves they take their flight,
Made wanton with rich odours, lose their spite.
And as those lees, that trouble it, refine
The agitated soul of generous wine;
So tears of joy, for your returning spilt,
Work out, and expiate our former guilt.
Methinks I see those crowds on Dover's strand,
Who, in their haste to welcome you to land,
Choked up the beach with their still growing store,
And made a wilder torrent on the shore:
While, spurred with eager thoughts of past delight,
Those, who had seen you, court a second sight;
Preventing still your steps, and making haste
To meet you often whersoe'er you past.
How shall I speak of that triumphant day,
When you renewed the expiring pomp of May!
A month that owns an interest in your name:
You and the flowers are its peculiar claim.
49

That star, that at your birth shone out so bright,
It stained the duller sun's meridian light,
Did once again its potent fires renew,
Guiding our eyes to find and worship you.
50

And now Time's whiter series is begun,
Which in soft centuries shall smoothly run:
Those clouds, that overcast your morn, shall fly,
Dispelled, to farthest corners of the sky.
Our nation, with united interest blest,
Not now content to poise, shall sway the rest.
Abroad your empire shall no limits know,
But, like the sea, in boundless circles flow;
Your much-loved fleet shall, with a wide command,
Besiege the petty monarchs of the land;
And, as old Time his offspring swallowed down,
Our ocean in its depths all seas shall drown.
Their wealthy trade from pirates' rapine free,
Our merchants shall no more adventurers be;
Nor in the farthest east those dangers fear,
Which humble Holland must dissemble here.
Spain to your gift alone her Indies owes;
For, what the powerful takes not, he bestows:
51

And France, that did an exile's presence fear,
May justly apprehend you still too near.
At home the hateful names of parties cease,
And factious souls are wearied into peace.
The discontented now are only they,
Whose crimes before did your just cause betray;
Of those your edicts some reclaim from sins,
But most your life and blest example wins.
Oh happy prince, whom heaven hath taught the way
By paying vows to have more vows to pay!
Oh happy age! Oh times like those alone,
By fate reserved for great Augustus' throne!
When the joint growth of arms and arts foreshew
The world a monarch, and that monarch you.
54

TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY, A PANEGYRIC ON HIS CORONATION.

In that wild deluge where the world was drowned,
When life and sin one common tomb had found,
The first small prospect of a rising hill
With various notes of joy the ark did fill:
Yet when that flood in its own depths was drowned,
It left behind it false and slippery ground;
And the more solemn pomp was still deferred,
Till new-born Nature in fresh looks appeared.
Thus, Royal Sir, to see you landed here,
Was cause enough of triumph for a year:
Nor would your care those glorious joys repeat,
Till they at once might be secure and great;
Till your kind beams, by their continued stay,
Had warmed the ground, and called the damps away.
Such vapours, while your powerful influence dries,
Then soonest vanish when they highest rise.
55

Had greater haste these sacred rites prepared,
Some guilty months had in your triumphs shared;
But this untainted year is all your own,
Your glories may without our crimes be shown,
We had not yet exhausted all our store,
When you refreshed our joys by adding more:
As heaven, of old, dispensed celestial dew,
You gave us manna, and still gave us new.
Now our sad ruins are removed from sight,
The season too comes fraught with new delight:
Time seems not now beneath his years to stoop,
Nor do his wings with sickly feathers droop:
Soft western winds waft o'er the gaudy spring,
And opened scenes of flowers and blossoms bring,
56

To grace this happy day, while you appear,
Not king of us alone, but of the year.
All eyes you draw, and with the eyes the heart;
Of your own pomp yourself the greatest part:
Loud shouts the nation's happiness proclaim,
And heaven this day is feasted with your name.
Your cavalcade the fair spectators view,
From their high standings, yet look up to you.
From your brave train each singles out a prey,
And longs to date a conquest from your day.
Now charged with blessings while you seek repose,
Officious slumbers haste your eyes to close;
And glorious dreams stand ready to restore
The pleasing shapes of all you saw before.
Next to the sacred temple you are led,
Where waits a crown for your more sacred head.
How justly from the church that crown is due,
Preserved from ruin, and restored by you!
The grateful quire their harmony employ,
Not to make greater, but more solemn joy.
Wrapt soft and warm your name is sent on high,
As flames do on the wing of incense fly.
Music herself is lost; in vain she brings
Her choicest notes to praise the best of kings:
Her melting strains in you a tomb have found,
And lie like bees in their own sweetness drowned.
He, that brought peace, and discord could atone,
His name is music of itself alone.
Now while the sacred oil anoints your head,
And fragrant scents, begun from you, are spread
Through the large dome, the people's joyful sound,
Sent back, is still preserved in hallowed ground;
57

Which in one blessing mixed descends on you,
As heightened spirits fall in richer dew.
Not that our wishes do increase your store;
Full of yourself you can admit no more.
We add not to your glory, but employ
Our time, like angels, in expressing joy.
Nor is it duty, or our hopes alone,
Create that joy, but full fruition:
We know those blessings, which we must possess,
And judge of future by past happiness.
No promise can oblige a prince so much
Still to be good, as long to have been such.
A noble emulation heats your breast,
And your own fame now robs you of your rest.
Good actions still must be maintained with good,
As bodies nourished with resembling food.
You have already quenched sedition's brand;
And zeal, which burnt it, only warms the land.
The jealous sects, that dare not trust their cause
So far from their own will as to the laws,
You for their umpire and their synod take,
And their appeal alone to Cæsar make.
Kind heaven so rare a temper did provide,
That guilt repenting might in it confide.
Among our crimes oblivion may be set;
But 'tis our king's perfection to forget.
58

Virtues unknown to these rough northern climes,
From milder heavens you bring, without their crimes.
Your calmness does no after-storms provide,
Nor seeming patience mortal anger hide.
When empire first from families did spring,
Then every father governed as a king;
But you, that are a sovereign prince, allay
Imperial power with your paternal sway.
From those great cares when ease your soul unbends,
Your pleasures are designed to noble ends;
Born to command the mistress of the seas,
Your thoughts themselves in that blue empire please.
Hither in summer evenings you repair,
To taste the fraischeur of the purer air:
Undaunted here you ride, when winter raves,
With Cæsar's heart that rose above the waves.
More I could sing, but fear my numbers stays;
No loyal subject dares that courage praise.
In stately frigates most delight you find,
Where well-drawn battles fire your martial mind.
59

What to your cares we owe, is learnt from hence,
When even your pleasures serve for our defence.
Beyond your court flows in the admitted tide,
Where in new depths the wondering fishes glide:
Here in a royal bed the waters sleep;
When tired at sea, within this bay they creep.
Here the mistrustful fowl no harm suspects,
So safe are all things which our king protects.
From your loved Thames a blessing yet is due,
Second alone to that it brought in you;
A queen, near whose chaste womb, ordained by fate,
The souls of kings unborn for bodies wait.
It was your love before made discord cease:
Your love is destined to your country's peace.
60

Both Indies, rivals in your bed, provide
With gold or jewels to adorn your bride;
This to a mighty king presents rich ore,
While that with incense does a god implore.
Two kingdoms wait your doom; and, as you choose,
This must receive a crown, or that must lose.
Thus from your Royal Oak, like Jove's of old,
Are answers sought and destinies foretold:
Propitious oracles are begged with vows,
And crowns that grow upon the sacred boughs.
Your subjects, while you weigh the nations' fate,
Suspend to both their doubtful love or hate.
Choose only, sir, that so they may possess
With their own peace their children's happiness.
63

TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR HYDE.

PRESENTED ON NEW-YEAR'S DAY, 1662.

My Lord,

While flattering crowds officiously appear
To give themselves, not you, an happy year,
And by the greatness of their presents prove
How much they hope, but not how well they love,—
The muses, who your early courtship boast,
Though now your flames are with their beauty lost,
Yet watch their time, that, if you have forgot
They were your mistresses, the world may not.
Decayed by time and wars, they only prove
Their former beauty by your former love;
And now present, as ancient ladies do,
That courted long, at length are forced to woo:
For still they look on you with such kind eyes,
As those, that see the Church's sovereign rise,
64

From their own order chose, in whose high state
They think themselves the second choice of fate.
When our great monarch into exile went,
Wit and religion suffered banishment.
Thus once, when Troy was wrapped in fire and smoke,
The helpless gods their burning shrines forsook;
They with the vanquished prince and party go,
And leave their temples empty to the foe.
At length the Muses stand, restored again
To that great charge which nature did ordain;
And their loved druids seem revived by fate,
While you dispense the laws, and guide the state.
The nation's soul, our monarch, does dispense,
Through you, to us his vital influence:
You are the channel, where those spirits flow,
And work them higher as to us they go.
In open prospect nothing bounds our eye,
Until the earth seems joined unto the sky:
So in this hemisphere, our utmost view
Is only bounded by our king and you;
Our sight is limited where you are joined,
And beyond that no farther heaven can find.
So well your virtues do with his agree,
That though your orbs of different greatness be,
Yet both are for each other's use disposed,
His to inclose, and yours to be inclosed:
Nor could another in your room have been,
Except an emptiness had come between.
Well may he, then, to you his cares impart,
And share his burden where he shares his heart.
In you his sleep still wakes; his pleasures find
Their share of business in your labouring mind.
65

So, when the weary sun his place resigns,
He leaves his light, and by reflection shines.
Justice, that sits and frowns where public laws
Exclude soft mercy from a private cause,
In your tribunal most herself does please;
There only smiles because she lives at ease;
And, like young David, finds her strength the more,
When disencumbered from those arms she wore.
Heaven would your royal master should exceed
Most in that virtue, which we most did need;
And his mild father (who too late did find
All mercy vain but what with power was joined)
His fatal goodness left to fitter times,
Not to increase, but to absolve our crimes:
But when the heir of this vast treasure knew
How large a legacy was left to you,
(Too great for any subject to retain)
He wisely tied it to the crown again;
Yet, passing through your hands it gathers more,
As streams, through mines, bear tincture of their ore.
While emp'ric politicians use deceit,
Hide what they give, and cure but by a cheat;
You boldly show that skill which they pretend,
And work by means as noble as your end;
Which should you veil, we might unwind the clue,
As men do nature, till we came to you.
And, as the Indies were not found before
Those rich perfumes, which, from the happy shore,
The winds upon their balmy wings conveyed,
Whose guilty sweetness first their world betrayed;
So, by your counsels, we are brought to view
A rich and undiscovered world in you.
66

By you our monarch does that fame assure,
Which kings must have, or cannot live secure:
For prosperous princes gain their subjects' heart,
Who love that praise in which themselves have part.
By you he fits those subjects to obey,
As heaven's eternal monarch does convey
His power unseen, and man, to his designs,
By his bright ministers, the stars, inclines.
Our setting sun, from his declining seat,
Shot beams of kindness on you, not of heat;
And, when his love was bounded in a few
That were unhappy, that they might be true,
Made you the favourite of his last sad times,
That is, a sufferer in his subjects' crimes.
Thus, those first favours you received, were sent,
Like heaven's rewards, in earthly punishment:
Yet fortune, conscious of your destiny,
E'en then took care to lay you softly by,
And wrapped your fate among her precious things,
Kept fresh to be unfolded with your king's.
Shown all at once, you dazzled so our eyes,
As new-born Pallas did the gods surprise,
When, springing forth from Jove's new-closing wound,
She struck the warlike spear into the ground;
Which sprouting leaves did suddenly inclose,
And peaceful olives shaded as they rose.
How strangely active are the arts of peace,
Whose restless motions less than war's do cease!
Peace is not freed from labour, but from noise;
And war more force, but not more pains employs.
Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind,
That, like the earth, it leaves our sense behind,
While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere,
That rapid motion does but rest appear.
67

For, as in nature's swiftness, with the throng
Of flying orbs while ours is borne along,
All seems at rest to the deluded eye,
Moved by the soul of the same harmony;
So, carried on by your unwearied care,
We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.
Let envy, then, those crimes within you see,
From which the happy never must be free;
(Envy, that does with misery reside,
The joy and the revenge of ruined pride.)
Think it not hard, if, at so cheap a rate,
You can secure the constancy of fate,
Whose kindness sent what does their malice seem,
By lesser ills the greater to redeem;
Nor can we this weak shower a tempest call,
But drops of heat that in the sunshine fall.
You have already wearied Fortune so,
She cannot farther be your friend or foe;
But sits all breathless, and admires to feel
A fate so weighty, that it stops her wheel.
In all things else above our humble fate,
Your equal mind yet swells not into state,
But, like some mountain in those happy isles,
Where in perpetual spring young nature smiles,
Your greatness shows; no horror to affright,
But trees for shade, and flowers to court the sight:
Sometimes the hill submits itself a while
In small descents, which do its height beguile;
And sometimes mounts, but so as billows play,
Whose rise not hinders, but makes short our way.
68

Your brow, which does no fear of thunder know,
Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below;
And, like Olympus' top, the impression wears
Of love and friendship writ in former years.
Yet unimpaired with labours, or with time,
Your age but seems to a new youth to climb.
Thus heavenly bodies do our time beget,
And measure change, but share no part of it.
And still it shall without a weight increase,
Like this new-year, whose motions never cease:
For, since the glorious course you have begun
Is led by Charles, as that is by the sun,
It must both weightless and immortal prove,
Because the centre of it is above.
70

SATIRE ON THE DUTCH.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1662.
As needy gallants, in the scrivener's hands,
Court the rich knaves that gripe their mortgaged lands;
The first fat buck of all the season's sent,
And keeper takes no fee in compliment;
The dotage of some Englishmen is such,
To fawn on those who ruin them,—the Dutch.
They shall have all, rather than make a war
With those who of the same religion are.
The Straits, the Guinea trade, the herrings too;
Nay, to keep friendship, they shall pickle you.
Some are resolved not to find out the cheat,
But, cuckold-like, love them that do the feat.
What injuries soe'er upon us fall,
Yet still the same religion answers all:—
Religion wheedled us to civil war,
Drew English blood, and Dutchmen's now would spare.
Be gulled no longer, for you'll find it true,
They have no more religion, faith! than you.
Interest's the god they worship in their state;
And we, I take it, have not much of that.
Well monarchies may own religion's name;
But states are atheists in their very frame.
They share a sin; and such proportions fall,
That, like a stink, 'tis nothing to them all.
Think on their rapine, falsehood, cruelty,
And that, what once they were they still would be.
To one well-born the affront is worse and more,
When he's abused and baffled by a boor,
With an ill grace the Dutch their mischiefs do;
They've both ill nature and ill manners too.
Well may they boast themselves an ancient nation;
For they were bred ere manners were in fashion:
71

And their new commonwealth hath set them free
Only from honour and civility.
Venetians do not more uncouthly ride,
Than did their lubber state mankind bestride;
Their sway became them with as ill a mein,
As their own paunches swell above their chin.
Yet is their empire no true growth, but humour,
And only two kings' touch can cure the tumour.
As Cato fruits of Afric did display,
Let us before our eyes their Indies lay:
All loyal English will like him conclude,—
Let Cæsar live, and Carthage be subdued.
75

VERSES TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUCHESS, ON THE MEMORABLE VICTORY GAINED BY THE DUKE AGAINST THE HOLLANDERS, JUNE THE 3, 1665, AND ON HER JOURNEY AFTERWARDS INTO THE NORTH.

Madam,

When, for our sakes, your hero you resigned
To swelling seas, and every faithless wind;
When you released his courage, and set free
A valour fatal to the enemy;
You lodged your country's cares within your breast,
(The mansion where soft love should only rest,)
And, ere our foes abroad were overcome,
The noblest conquest you had gained at home.
Ah, what concerns did both your souls divide!
Your honour gave us what your love denied;
And 'twas for him much easier to subdue
Those foes he fought with, than to part from you.
That glorious day, which two such navies saw,
As each unmatched might to the world give law,
76

Neptune, yet doubtful whom he should obey,
Held to them both the trident of the sea:
The winds were hushed, the waves in ranks were cast,
As awfully as when God's people past:
Those, yet uncertain on whose sails to blow,
These, where the wealth of nations ought to flow.
Then with the Duke your Highness ruled the day:
While all the brave did his command obey,
The fair and pious under you did pray.
How powerful are chaste vows! the wind and tide
You bribed to combat on the English side.
Thus to your much-loved lord you did convey
An unknown succour, sent the nearest way.
New vigour to his wearied arms you brought,
(So Moses was upheld while Israel fought)
While, from afar, we heard the cannon play,
Like distant thunder on a shiny day.
77

For absent friends we were ashamed to fear,
When we considered what you ventured there.
Ships, men, and arms, our country might restore,
But such a leader could supply no more.
With generous thoughts of conquest he did burn,
Yet fought not more to vanquish than return.
Fortune and victory he did pursue,
To bring them, as his slaves, to wait on you:
Thus beauty ravished the rewards of fame,
And the fair triumphed, when the brave o'ercame.
Then, as you meant to spread another way
By land your conquests, far as his by sea,
Leaving our southern clime, you marched along
The stubborn north ten thousand Cupids strong.
Like commons the nobility resort,
In crowding heaps, to fill your moving court:
To welcome your approach the vulgar run,
Like some new envoy from the distant sun;
And country beauties by their lovers go,
Blessing themselves, and wondering at the show.
So, when the new-born Phœnix first is seen,
Her feathered subjects all adore their queen,
And, while she makes her progress through the east,
From every grove her numerous train's increased:
Each poet of the air her glory sings,
And round him the pleased audience clap their wings.
103

ANNUS MIRABILIS, THE YEAR OF WONDERS, 1666.

TO THE METROPOLIS OF GREAT BRITAIN, THE MOST RENOWNED AND LATE FLOURISHING CITY OF LONDON, IN ITS REPRESENTATIVES, THE LORD MAYOR AND COURT OF ALDERMEN, THE SHERIFFS, AND COMMON COUNCIL OF IT.

I

In thriving arts long time had Holland grown,
Crouching at home and cruel when abroad;
Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own;
Our king they courted, and our merchants awed.
104

II

Trade, which like blood should circularly flow,
Stopped in their channels, found its freedom lost;
Thither the wealth of all the world did go,
And seemed but shipwracked on so base a coast.

III

For them alone the heavens had kindly heat,
In eastern quarries ripening precious dew;
For them the Idumæan balm did sweat,
And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew.

IV

The sun but seemed the labourer of their year;
Each wexing moon supplied her watery store,
To swell those tides, which from the Line did bear
Their brim-full vessels to the Belgian shore.

V

Thus, mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,
And swept the riches of the world from far;
105

Yet stooped to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong:
And this may prove our second Punic war.

VI

What peace can be, where both to one pretend?
(But they more diligent, and we more strong),
Or if a peace, it soon must have an end;
For they would grow too powerful, were it long.

VII

Behold two nations then, engaged so far,
That each seven years the fit must shake each land;
Where France will side to weaken us by war,
Who only can his vast designs withstand.

VIII

See how he feeds the Iberian with delays,
To render us his timely friendship vain;
And while his secret soul on Flanders preys,
He rocks the cradle of the babe of Spain.
106

IX

Such deep designs of empire does he lay
O'er them, whose cause he seems to take in hand;
And prudently would make them lords at sea,
To whom with ease he can give laws by land.

X

This saw our king: and long within his breast
His pensive counsels balanced to and fro;
He grieved the land he freed should be oppressed,
And he less for it than usurpers do.

XI

His generous mind the fair ideas drew
Of fame and honour, which in dangers lay;
107

Where wealth, like fruit on precipices, grew,
Not to be gathered but by birds of prey.

XII

The loss and gain each fatally were great;
And still his subjects called aloud for war:
But peaceful kings, o'er martial people set,
Each other's poise and counterbalance are.

XIII

He first surveyed the charge with careful eyes,
Which none but mighty monarchs could maintain;
Yet judged, like vapours that from limbecks rise,
It would in richer showers descend again.

XIV

At length resolved to assert the watery ball,
He in himself did whole Armados bring;
Him aged seamen might their master call,
And choose for general, were he not their king.
108

XV

It seems as every ship their sovereign knows,
His awful summons they so soon obey;—
So hear the scaly herd when Proteus blows,
And so to pasture follow through the sea.

XVI

To see this fleet upon the ocean move,
Angels drew wide the curtains of the skies;
And heaven, as if there wanted lights above,
For tapers made two glaring comets rise.
109

XVII

Whether they unctuous exhalations are,
Fired by the sun, or seeming so alone;
Or each some more remote and slippery star,
Which loses footing when to mortals shown;

XVIII

Or one, that bright companion of the sun,
Whose glorious aspect sealed our new-born king;
And now, a round of greater years begun,
New influence from his walks of light did bring.

XIX

Victorious York did first, with famed success,
To his known valour make the Dutch give place;
Thus heaven our monarch's fortune did confess,
Beginning conquest from his royal race.
110

XX

But since it was decreed, auspicious king,
In Britain's right that thou shouldst wed the main,
Heaven, as a gage, would cast some precious thing,
And therefore doomed that Lawson should be slain.
111

XXI

Lawson amongst the foremost met his fate,
Whom sea-green sirens from the rocks lament
Thus, as an offering for the Grecian state,
He first was killed, who first to battle went.

XXII

Their chief blown up, in air, not waves, expired,
To which his pride presumed to give the law;
The Dutch confessed heaven present, and retired,
And all was Britain the wide ocean saw.

XXIII

To nearest ports their shattered ships repair,
Where by our dreadful cannon they lay awed;
So reverently men quit the open air,
Where thunder speaks the angry gods abroad.

XXIV

And now approached their fleet from India, fraught

The attempt at Bergen.


With all the riches of the rising sun;
And precious sand from southern climates brought,
The fatal regions where the war begun.
112

XXV

Like hunted castors, conscious of their store,
Their waylaid wealth to Norway's coast they bring;
There first the North's cold bosom spices bore,
And winter brooded on the eastern spring.
113

XXVI

By the rich scent we found our perfumed prey,
Which, flanked with rocks, did close in covert lie;
And round about their murdering cannon lay,
At once to threaten and invite the eye.
114

XXVII

Fiercer than cannon, and than rocks more hard,
The English undertake the unequal war;
Seven ships alone, by which the port is barred,
Besiege the Indies, and all Denmark dare.

XXVIII

These fight like husbands, but like lovers those;
These fain would keep, and those more fain enjoy;
And to such height their frantic passion grows,
That what both love, both hazard to destroy.
115

XXIX

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball,
And now their odours armed against them fly;
Some preciously by shattered porcelain fall,
And some by aromatic splinters die.

XXX

And though by tempests of the prize bereft,
In heaven's inclemency some ease we find;
Our foes we vanquished by our valour left,
And only yielded to the seas and wind.

XXXI

Nor wholly lost we so deserved a prey;
For storms, repenting, part of it restored;
Which as a tribute from the Baltic sea,
The British ocean sent her mighty lord.

XXXII

Go, mortals, now, and vex yourselves in vain
For wealth, which so uncertainly must come;
When what was brought so far, and with such pain,
Was only kept to lose it nearer home.
116

XXXIII

The son, who twice three months on th'ocean tost,
Prepared to tell what he had passed before,
Now sees in English ships the Holland coast,
And parents' arms, in vain, stretched from the shore.

XXXIV

This careful husband had been long away,
Whom his chaste wife and little children mourn;
Who on their fingers learned to tell the day,
On which their father promised to return.

XXXV

Such are the proud designs of humankind,
And so we suffer shipwreck everywhere!
Alas, what port can such a pilot find,
Who in the night of fate must blindly steer!

XXXVI

The undistinguished seeds of good and ill,
Heaven in his bosom from our knowledge hides;
And draws them in contempt of human skill,
Which oft, for friends mistaken, foes provides.
117

XXXVII

Let Munster's prelate ever be accurst,
In whom we seek the German faith in vain;
Alas, that he should teach the English first,
That fraud and avarice in the church could reign!

XXXVIII

Happy, who never trust a stranger's will,
Whose friendship's in his interest understood;
Since money given but tempts him to be ill,
When power is too remote to make him good.
118

XXXIX

War declared by France.

Till now, alone the mighty nations strove;
The rest, at gaze, without the lists did stand;
And threatening France, placed by a painted Jove,
Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.

XL

That eunuch guardian of rich Holland's trade,
Who envies us what he wants power to enjoy;
Whose noiseful valour does no foe invade,
And weak assistance will his friends destroy.

XLI

Offended that we fought without his leave,
He takes this time his secret hate to show;
Which Charles does with a mind so calm receive,
As one that neither seeks nor shuns his foe.

XLII

With France, to aid the Dutch, the Danes unite;
France as their tyrant, Denmark as their slave.
But when with one three nations join to fight,
They silently confess that one more brave.
119

XLIII

Louis had chased the English from his shore,
But Charles the French as subjects does invite;
Would heaven for each some Solomon restore,
Who, by their mercy, may decide their right.

XLIV

Were subjects so but only by their choice,
And not from birth did forced dominion take,
Our prince alone would have the public voice,
And all his neighbours' realms would deserts make.

XLV

He without fear a dangerous war pursues,
Which without rashness he began before;
As honour made him first the danger choose,
So still he makes it good on virtue's score.

XLVI

The doubled charge his subjects' love supplies,
Who in that bounty to themselves are kind:
So glad Egyptians see their Nilus rise,
And in his plenty their abundance find.
120

XLVII

Prince Rupert and Duke Albemarle sent to sea.

With equal power he does two chiefs create,
Two such as each seemed worthiest when alone;
Each able to sustain a nation's fate,
Since both have found a greater in their own.
121

XLVIII

Both great in courage, conduct, and in fame,
Yet neither envious of the other's praise;
Their duty, faith, and interest too the same,
Like mighty partners equally they raise.
122

XLIX

The Prince long time had courted fortune's love,
But once possessed did absolutely reign;
Thus with their Amazons the heroes strove,
And conquered first those beauties they would gain.

L

The Duke beheld, like Scipio, with disdain,
That Carthage, which he ruined, rise once more;
And shook aloft the fasces of the main,
To fright those slaves with what they felt before.

LI

Together to the watery camp they haste,
Whom matrons passing to their children show;
Infants' first vows for them to heaven are cast,
And future people bless them as they go.

LII

With them no riotous pomp, nor Asian train,
To infect a navy with their gaudy fears;
To make slow fights, and victories but vain;
But war severely, like itself, appears.

LIII

Diffusive of themselves, where'er they pass,
They make that warmth in others they expect;
Their valour works like bodies on a glass,
And does its image on their men project.

LIV

Duke of Albemarle's battle, first day.

Our fleet divides, and straight the Dutch appear,
In number, and a famed commander, bold;
The narrow seas can scarce their navy bear,
Or crowded vessels can their soldiers hold.
123

LV

The Duke, less numerous, but in courage more,
On wings of all the winds to combat flies;
His murdering guns a loud defiance roar,
And bloody crosses on his flag-staffs rise.

LVI

Both furl their sails, and strip them for the fight;
Their folded sheets dismiss the useless air;
The Elean plains could boast no nobler sight,
When struggling champions did their bodies bare.

LVII

Borne each by other in a distant line,
The sea-built forts in dreadful order move;
So vast the noise, as if not fleets did join,
But lands unfixed, and floating nations strove.

LVIII

Now passed, on either side they nimbly tack;
Both strive to intercept and guide the wind;
And, in its eye, more closely they come back,
To finish all the deaths they left behind.
124

LIX

On high-raised decks the haughty Belgians ride,
Beneath whose shade our humble frigates go;
Such port the elephant bears, and so defied
By the rhinoceros, her unequal foe.

LX

And as the built, so different is the fight,
Their mounting shot is on our sails designed;
Deep in their hulls our deadly bullets light,
And through the yielding planks a passage find.
125

LXI

Our dreaded admiral from far they threat,
Whose battered rigging their whole war receives;
All bare, like some old oak which tempests beat,
He stands, and sees below his scattered leaves.

LXII

Heroes of old, when wounded, shelter sought;
But he, who meets all danger with disdain,
Even in their face his ship to anchor brought,
And steeple-high stood propt upon the main.
126

LXIII

At this excess of courage, all amazed,
The foremost of his foes a while withdraw;
With such respect in entered Rome they gazed,
Who on high chairs the godlike Fathers saw.

LXIV

And now, as where Patroclus' body lay,
Here Trojan chiefs advanced, and there the Greek;
Ours o'er the Duke their pious wings display,
And theirs the noblest spoils of Britain seek.

LXV

Meantime his busy mariners he hastes,
His shattered sails with rigging to restore;
And willing pines ascend his broken masts,
Whose lofty heads rise higher than before.

LXVI

Straight to the Dutch he turns his dreadful prow,
More fierce the important quarrel to decide;
Like swans, in long array, his vessels show,
Whose crests advancing do the waves divide.
127

LXVII

They charge, recharge, and all along the sea
They drive, and squander the huge Belgian fleet;
Berkley alone, who nearest danger lay,
Did a like fate with lost Creusa meet.

LXVIII

The night comes on, we eager to pursue
The combat still, and they ashamed to leave;
Till the last streaks of dying day withdrew,
And doubtful moonlight did our rage deceive.

LXIX

In the English fleet each ship resounds with joy,
And loud applause of their great leader's fame;
In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy,
And, slumbering, smile at the imagined flame.

LXX

Not so the Holland fleet, who, tired and done,
Stretched on their decks, like weary oxen, lie;
Faint sweats all down their mighty members run,
Vast bulks, which little souls but ill supply.
128

LXXI

In dreams they fearful precipices tread;
Or, shipwrecked, labour to some distant shore;
Or in dark churches walk among the dead;
They wake with horror, and dare sleep no more.

LXXII

Second day's battle.

The morn they look on with unwilling eyes,
Till from their main-top joyful news they hear
Of ships, which, by their mould, bring new supplies,
And in their colours Belgian lions bear.

LXXIII

Our watchful general had discerned from far
This mighty succour, which made glad the foe;
He sighed, but, like a father of the war,
His face spake hope, while deep his sorrows flow.

LXXIV

His wounded men he first sends off to shore,
Never, till now, unwilling to obey;
They, not their wounds, but want of strength, deplore,
And think them happy, who with him can stay.

LXXV

Then to the rest, “Rejoice,” said he, “to-day;
In you the fortune of Great Britain lies;
Among so brave a people, you are they,
Whom heaven has chose to fight for such a prize.
129

LXXVI

“If number English courages could quell,
We should at first have shunn'd, not met, our foes,
Whose numerous sails the fearful only tell;
Courage from hearts, and not from numbers grows.”

LXXVII

He said, nor needed more to say; with haste,
To their known stations, cheerfully they go;
And, all at once, disdaining to be last,
Solicit every gale to meet the foe.

LXXVIII

Nor did the encouraged Belgians long delay,
But, bold in others, not themselves, they stood;
So thick, our navy scarce could sheer their way,
But seemed to wander in a moving wood.
130

LXXIX

Our little fleet was now engaged so far,
That, like the sword-fish in the whale they fought;
The combat only seemed a civil war,
Till through their bowels we our passage wrought.

LXXX

Never had valour, no, not ours before
Done aught like this upon the land or main;
Where not to be o'ercome was to do more
Than all the conquests former kings did gain.

LXXXI

The mighty ghosts of our great Harrys rose,
And armed Edwards looked with anxious eyes,
To see this fleet among unequal foes,
By which fate promised them their Charles should rise.

LXXXII

Meantime the Belgians tack upon our rear,
And raking chase-guns through our sterns they send;
Close by, their fire-ships, like jackals, appear,
Who on their lions for the prey attend.
131

LXXXIII

Silent, in smoke of cannon, they come on;
Such vapours once did fiery Cacus hide:
In these, the height of pleased revenge is shown,
Who burned contented by another's side.

LXXXIV

Sometimes from fighting squadrons of each fleet,
Deceived themselves, or to preserve some friend,
Two grappling Ætnas on the ocean meet,
And English fires with Belgian flames contend.

LXXXV

Now, at each tack, our little fleet grows less;
And, like maimed fowl, swim lagging on the main.
Their greater loss their numbers scarce confess,
While they lose cheaper than the English gain.
132

LXXXVI

Have you not seen, when whistled from the fist,
Some falcon stoops at what her eye designed,
And with her eagerness the quarry missed,
Straight flies at check, and clips it down the wind?

LXXXVII

The dastard crow, that to the wood made wing,
And sees the groves no shelter can afford,
With her loud caws her craven kind does bring,
Who, safe in numbers, cuff the noble bird.

LXXXVIII

Among the Dutch thus Albemarle did fare:
He could not conquer, and disdained to fly;
Past hope of safety, 'twas his latest care,
Like falling Cæsar, decently to die.

LXXXIX

Yet pity did his manly spirit move,
To see those perish who so well had fought;
And generously with his despair he strove,
Resolved to live till he their safety wrought.

XC

Let other muses write his prosperous fate,
Of conquered nations tell, and kings restored;
But mine shall sing of his eclipsed estate,
Which, like the sun's, more wonders does afford.
133

XCI

He drew his mighty frigates all before,
On which the foe his fruitless force employs;
His weak ones deep into his rear he bore,
Remote from guns, as sick men from the noise.

XCII

His fiery cannon did their passage guide,
And following smoke obscured them from the foe:
Thus Israel, safe from the Egyptian's pride,
By flaming pillars, and by clouds did go.

XCIII

Elsewhere the Belgian force we did defeat,
But here our courages did theirs subdue;
So Xenophon once led that famed retreat,
Which first the Asian empire overthrew.

XCIV

The foe approached; and one for his bold sin
Was sunk, as he that touched the ark was slain:
The wild waves mastered him, and sucked him in,
And smiling eddies dimpled on the main.
134

XCV

This seen, the rest at awful distance stood;
As if they had been there as servants set,
To stay, or to go on, as he thought good,
And not pursue, but wait on his retreat.

XCVI

So Libyan huntsmen on some sandy plain,
From shady coverts roused, the lion chase;
The kingly beast roars out with loud disdain,
And slowly moves, unknowing to give place.

XCVII

But if some one approach to dare his force,
He swings his tail, and swiftly turns him round;
With one paw seizes on his trembling horse,
And with the other tears him to the ground.

XCVIII

Amidst these toils succeeds the balmy night;
Now hissing waters the quenched guns restore;
And weary waves, withdrawing from the fight,
Lie lulled and panting on the silent shore.
135

XCIX

The moon shone clear on the becalmed flood,
Where, while her beams like glittering silver play,
Upon the deck our careful general stood,
And deeply mused on the succeeding day.

C

“That happy sun,” said he, “will rise again,
Who twice victorious did our navy see;
And I alone must view him rise in vain,
Without one ray of all his star for me.

CI

“Yet, like an English general will I die,
And all the ocean make my spacious grave:
Women and cowards on the land may lie;
The sea's a tomb that's proper for the brave.”

CII

Restless he passed the remnants of the night,
Till the fresh air proclaimed the morning nigh;
And burning ships, the martyrs of the fight,
With paler fires beheld the eastern sky.

CIII

But now his stores of ammunition spent,

Third day.


His naked valour is his only guard;
Rare thunders are from his dumb cannon sent,
And solitary guns are scarcely heard.
136

CIV

Thus far had fortune power, here forced to stay,
Nor longer durst with virtue be at strife;
This as a ransom Albemarle did pay,
For all the glories of so great a life.

CV

For now brave Rupert from afar appears,
Whose waving streamers the glad general knows;
With full-spread sails his eager navy steers,
And every ship in swift proportion grows.
137

CVI

The anxious Prince had heard the cannon long,
And, from that length of time, dire omens drew
Of English overmatched, and Dutch too strong,
Who never fought three days, but to pursue.

CVII

Then as an eagle, who with pious care
Was beating widely on the wing for prey,
To her now silent eyry does repair,
And finds her callow infants forced away;

CVIII

Stung with her love, she stoops upon the plain,
The broken air loud whistling as she flies;
She stops and listens, and shoots forth again,
And guides her pinions by her young ones' cries.

CIX

With such kind passion hastes the Prince to fight,
And spreads his flying canvas to the sound;
Him, whom no danger, were he there, could fright,
Now absent, every little noise can wound.

CX

As in a drought the thirsty creatures cry,
And gape upon the gathered clouds for rain;
And first the martlet meets it in the sky,
And with wet wings joys all the feathered train;

CXI

With such glad hearts did our despairing men
Salute the appearance of the Prince's fleet;
And each ambitiously would claim the ken,
That with first eyes did distant safety meet.
138

CXII

The Dutch, who came like greedy hinds before,
To reap the harvest their ripe ears did yield,
Now look like those, when rolling thunders roar,
And sheets of lightning blast the standing field.

CXIII

Full in the Prince's passage, hills of sand,
And dangerous flats, in secret ambush lay;
Where the false tides skim o'er the covered land,
And seamen, with dissembled depths, betray.

CXIV

The wily Dutch, who, like fallen angels, feared
This new Messiah's coming, there did wait,
And round the verge their braving vessels steered,
To tempt his courage with so fair a bait.

CXV

But he, unmoved, contemns their idle threat,
Secure of fame whene'er he please to fight;
His cold experience tempers all his heat,
And inbred worth does boasting valour slight.

CXVI

Heroic virtue did his actions guide,
And he the substance, not the appearance, chose;
To rescue one such friend he took more pride,
Than to destroy whole thousands of such foes.

CXVII

But when approached, in strict embraces bound,
Rupert and Albemarle together grow;
He joys to have his friend in safety found,
Which he to none but to that friend would owe.
139

CXVIII

The cheerful soldiers, with new stores supplied,
Now long to execute their spleenful will;
And, in revenge for those three days they tried,
Wish one, like Joshua's, when the sun stood still.

CXIX

Thus reinforced, against the adverse fleet,

Fourth day's battle.


Still doubling ours, brave Rupert leads the way;
With the first blushes of the morn they meet,
And bring night back upon the new-born day.

CXX

His presence soon blows up the kindling fight,
And his loud guns speak thick like angry men;
It seemed as slaughter had been breathed all night,
And death new-pointed his dull dart again.

CXXI

The Dutch too well his mighty conduct knew,
And matchless courage, since the former fight;
Whose navy like a stiff-stretched cord did shew,
Till he bore in, and bent them into flight.
140

CXXII

The wind he shares, while half their fleet offends
His open side, and high above him shows;
Upon the rest at pleasure he descends,
And, doubly harmed, he double harms bestows.

CXXIII

Behind, the general mends his weary pace,
And sullenly to his revenge he sails;
So glides some trodden serpent on the grass,
And long behind his wounded volume trails.

CXXIV

The increasing sound is borne to either shore,
And for their stakes the throwing nations fear;
Their passions double with the cannons' roar,
And with warm wishes each man combats there.

CXXV

Plied thick and close as when the fight begun,
Their huge unwieldy navy wastes away:
So sicken waning moons too near the sun,
And blunt their crescents on the edge of day.

CXXVI

And now, reduced on equal terms to fight,
Their ships like wasted patrimonies show;
Where the thin scattering trees admit the light,
And shun each other's shadows as they grow.
141

CXXVII

The warlike Prince had sever'd from the rest
Two giant ships, the pride of all the main;
Which with his one so vigorously he pressed,
And flew so home, they could not rise again.

CXXVIII

Already battered, by his lee they lay;
In vain upon the passing winds they call;
The passing winds through their torn canvas play,
And flagging sails on heartless sailors fall.

CXXIX

Their opened sides receive a gloomy light,
Dreadful as day let into shades below;
Without, grim death rides barefaced in their sight,
And urges entering billows as they flow.

CXXX

When one dire shot, the last they could supply,
Close by the board the Prince's main-mast bore:
All three, now helpless, by each other lie,
And this offends not, and those fear no more.

CXXXI

So have I seen some fearful hare maintain
A course, till tired before the dog she lay;
Who, stretched behind her, pants upon the plain,
Past power to kill, as she to get away.
142

CXXXII

With his loll'd tongue he faintly licks his prey;
His warm breath blows her flix up as she lies;
She, trembling, creeps upon the ground away,
And looks back to him with beseeching eyes.

CXXXIII

The Prince unjustly does his stars accuse,
Which hindered him to push his fortune on;
For what they to his courage did refuse,
By mortal valour never must be done.

CXXXIV

This lucky hour the wise Batavian takes,
And warns his tattered fleet to follow home;
Proud to have so got off with equal stakes,
Where 'twas a triumph not to be o'ercome.
143

CXXXV

The general's force, as kept alive by fight,
Now not opposed, no longer can pursue;
Lasting till heaven had done his courage right;
When he had conquered, he his weakness knew.

CXXXVI

He casts a frown on the departing foe,
And sighs to see him quit the watery field;
His stern fixed eyes no satisfaction show,
For all the glories which the fight did yield.

CXXXVII

Though, as when fiends did miracles avow,
He stands confessed e'en by the boastful Dutch;
He only does his conquest disavow,
And thinks too little what they found too much.

CXXXVIII

Returned, he with the fleet resolved to stay;
No tender thoughts of home his heart divide;
Domestic joys and cares he puts away,
For realms are households which the great must guide.
144

CXXXIX

As those, who unripe veins in mines explore,
On the rich bed again the warm turf lay,
Till time digests the yet imperfect ore,
And know it will be gold another day;
145

CXL

So looks our monarch on this early fight,
Th'essay and rudiments of great success;
Which all-maturing time must bring to light,
While he, like heaven, does each day's labour bless.

CXLI

Heaven ended not the first or second day,
Yet each was perfect to the work designed:
God and kings work, when they their work survey,
And passive aptness in all subjects find.

CXLII

In burdened vessels first, with speedy care,
His plenteous stores do season'd timber send;

His Majesty repairs the fleet.


Thither the brawny carpenters repair,
And as the surgeons of maimed ships attend.

CXLIII

With cord and canvas from rich Hamburgh sent,
His navy's moulted wings he imps once more;
Tall Norway fir, their masts in battle spent,
And English oak, sprung leaks and planks restore.

CXLIV

All hands employed, the royal work grows warm;
Like labouring bees on a long summer's day,
Some sound the trumpet for the rest to swarm,
And some on bells of tasted lilies play.
146

CXLV

With gluey wax some new foundations lay,
Of virgin-combs, which from the roof are hung;
Some armed within doors, upon duty stay,
Or tend the sick, or educate the young.

CXLVI

So here some pick out bullets from the sides,
Some drive old oakum through each seam and rift;
Their left hand does the caulking-iron guide,
The rattling mallet with the right they lift.

CXLVII

With boiling pitch another near at hand,
From friendly Sweden brought, the seams instops;
Which well paid o'er, the salt sea waves withstand,
And shakes them from the rising beak in drops.
147

CXLVIII

Some the galled ropes with dauby marline bind,
Or searcloth masts with strong tarpauling coats;
To try new shrouds, one mounts into the wind,
And one below their ease or stiffness notes.

CXLIX

Our careful monarch stands in person by,
His new-cast cannon's firmness to explore;
The strength of big-corn'd powder loves to try,
And ball and cartridge sorts for every bore.

CL

Each day brings fresh supplies of arms and men,
And ships which all last winter were abroad;
And such as fitted since the fight had been,
Or new from stocks, were fallen into the road.

CLI

The goodly “London,” in her gallant trim,

“Loyal London” described.


The phœnix-daughter of the vanished old,
Like a rich bride does to the ocean swim,
And on her shadow rides in floating gold.
148

CLII

Her flag aloft, spread ruffling to the wind,
And sanguine streamers, seem the flood to fire;
The weaver, charmed with what his loom designed,
Goes on to sea, and knows not to retire.

CLIII

With roomy decks, her guns of mighty strength,
Whose low-laid mouths each mounting billow laves;
Deep in her draught, and warlike in her length,
She seems a sea-wasp flying on the waves.
149

CLIV

This martial present, piously designed,
The loyal city gave their best-loved king;
And, with a bounty ample as the wind,
Built, fitted, and maintained, to aid him bring.

CLV

By viewing nature, nature's handmaid, art,

Digression concerning shipping and navigation.


Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow:
Thus fishes first to shipping did impart,
Their tail the rudder, and their head the prow.

CLVI

Some log, perhaps, upon the waters swam,
An useless drift, which, rudely cut within,
And hollow'd, first a floating trough became,
And cross some rivulet passage did begin.

CLVII

In shipping such as this, the Irish kern,
And untaught Indian, on the stream did glide;
Ere sharp-keel'd boats to stem the flood did learn,
Or fin-like oars did spread from either side.

CLVIII

Add but a sail, and Saturn so appeared,
When from lost empire he to exile went,
And with the golden age to Tiber steer'd,
Where coin and first commerce he did invent.
150

CLIX

Rude as their ships was navigation then;
No useful compass or meridian known;
Coasting, they kept the land within their ken,
And knew no north but when the Pole-star shone.

CLX

Of all, who since have used the open sea,
Than the bold English none more fame have won;
Beyond the year, and out of heaven's high way,
They make discoveries where they see no sun.

CLXI

But what so long in vain, and yet unknown,
By poor mankind's benighted wit is sought,
Shall in this age to Britain first be shown,
And hence be to admiring nations taught.

CLXII

The ebbs of tides, and their mysterious flow,
We, as art's elements, shall understand;
And as by line upon the ocean go,
Whose paths shall be familiar as the land.

CLXIII

Instructed ships shall sail to quick commerce,
By which remotest regions are allied;
Which makes one city of the universe,
Where some may gain, and all may be supplied.
151

CLXIV

Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go,
And view the ocean leaning on the sky:
From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,
And on the lunar world securely pry.

CLXV

This I foretell from your auspicious care,

Apostrophe to the Royal Society.


Who great in search of God and nature grow;
Who best your wise Creator's praise declare,
Since best to praise His works is best to know.

CLXVI

O truly royal! who behold the law,
And rule of beings in your Maker's mind;
And thence, like limbecs, rich ideas draw,
To fit the levelled use of humankind.

CLXVII

But first the toils of war we must endure,
And from the injurious Dutch redeem the seas;
War makes the valiant of his right secure,
And gives up fraud to be chastised with ease.

CLXVIII

Already were the Belgians on our coast,
Whose fleet more mighty every day became
By late success, which they did falsely boast,
And now, by first appearing, seemed to claim.
152

CLXIX

Designing, subtile, diligent, and close,
They knew to manage war with wise delay;
Yet all those arts their vanity did cross,
And by their pride their prudence did betray.

CLXX

Nor stayed the English long; but, well supplied,
Appear as numerous as the insulting foe;
The combat now by courage must be tried,
And the success the braver nation show.

CLXXI

There was the Plymouth squadron new come in,
Which in the Straits last winter was abroad;
Which twice on Biscay's working bay had been,
And on the midland sea the French had awed.

CLXXII

Old expert Allen, loyal all along,
Famed for his action on the Smyrna fleet;
153

And Holmes, whose name shall live in epic song,
While music numbers, or while verse has feet.

CLXXIII

Holmes, the Achates of the general's fight,
Who first bewitched our eyes with Guinea gold;
As once old Cato, in the Roman sight,
The tempting fruits of Afric did unfold.

CLXXIV

With him went Spragge, as bountiful as brave,
Whom his high courage to command had brought;
154

Harman, who did the twice-fired “Harry” save,
And in his burning ship undaunted fought.
155

CLXXV

Young Hollis on a muse by Mars begot,
Born, Cæsar-like, to write and act great deeds;
Impatient to revenge his fatal shot,
His right hand doubly to his left succeeds.
156

CLXXVI

Thousands were there in darker fame that dwell,
Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn;
And, though to me unknown, they sure fought well,
Whom Rupert led, and who were British born.

CLXXVII

Of every size an hundred fighting sail;
So vast the navy now at anchor rides,
That underneath it the pressed waters fail,
And with its weight it shoulders off the tides.
157

CLXXVIII

Now, anchors weighed, the seamen shout so shrill,
That heaven and earth, and the wide ocean rings;
A breeze from westward waits their sails to fill,
And rests in those high beds his downy wings.

CLXXIX

The wary Dutch this gathering storm foresaw,
And durst not bide it on the English coast;
Behind their treacherous shallows they withdraw,
And there lay snares to catch the British host.

CLXXX

So the false spider, when her nets are spread,
Deep ambushed in her silent den does lie,
And feels far off the trembling of her thread,
Whose filmy cord should bind the struggling fly;
158

CLXXXI

Then, if at last she find him fast beset,
She issues forth, and runs along her loom;
She joys to touch the captive in her net,
And drag the little wretch in triumph home.

CLXXXII

The Belgians hoped, that, with disordered haste,
Our deep-cut keels upon the sands might run;
Or, if with caution leisurely were past,
Their numerous gross might charge us one by one.

CLXXXIII

But with a fore-wind pushing them above,
And swelling tide that heaved them from below,
O'er the blind flats our warlike squadrons move,
And with spread sails to welcome battle go.

CLXXXIV

It seemed as there the British Neptune stood,
With all his hosts of waters at command;
Beneath them to submit the officious flood,
And with his trident shoved them off the sand.

CLXXXV

To the pale foes they suddenly draw near,
And summon them to unexpected fight:
They start like murderers when ghosts appear,
And draw their curtains in the dead of night.
159

CLXXXVI

Now van to van the foremost squadrons meet,

Second battle.


The midmost battles hasting up behind;
Who view far off the storm of falling sleet,
And hear their thunder rattling in the wind.
160

CLXXXVII

At length the adverse admirals appear,
The two bold champions of each country's right;
Their eyes describe the lists as they come near,
And draw the lines of death before they fight.

CLXXXVIII

The distance judged for shot of every size,
The linstocks touch, the ponderous ball expires:
The vigorous seamen every port-hole plies,
And adds his heart to every gun he fires!

CLXXXIX

Fierce was the fight on the proud Belgians' side,
For honour, which they seldom sought before;
But now they by their own vain boasts were tied,
And forced, at least in show, to prize it more.
161

CXC

But sharp remembrance on the English part,
And shame of being matched by such a foe,
Rouse conscious virtue up in every heart,
And seeming to be stronger makes them so.

CXCI

Nor long the Belgians could that fleet sustain,
Which did two generals' fates, and Cæsar's bear;
Each several ship a victory did gain,
As Rupert or as Albemarle were there.

CXCII

Their battered admiral too soon withdrew,
Unthanked by ours for his unfinished fight;
But he the minds of his Dutch masters knew,
Who called that providence, which we called flight.

CXCIII

Never did men more joyfully obey,
Or sooner understood the sign to fly;
With such alacrity they bore away,
As if, to praise them, all the States stood by.

CXCIV

O famous leader of the Belgian fleet,
Thy monument inscribed such praise shall wear,
As Varro, timely flying, once did meet,
Because he did not of his Rome despair.
162

CXCV

Behold that navy, which, a while before,
Provoked the tardy English close to fight;
Now draw their beaten vessels close to shore,
As larks lie dared, to shun the hobby's flight.

CXCVI

Whoe'er would English monuments survey,
In other records may our courage know;
But let them hide the story of this day,
Whose fame was blemished by too base a foe.

CXCVII

Or if too busily they will inquire
Into a victory, which we disdain;
Then let them know, the Belgians did retire,
Before the patron saint of injured Spain.
163

CXCVIII

Repenting England this revengeful day
To Philip's manes did an offering bring;
England, which first, by leading them astray,
Hatched up rebellion to destroy her king.

CXCIX

Our fathers bent their baneful industry,
To check a monarchy that slowly grew;
But did not France or Holland's fate foresee,
Whose rising power to swift dominion flew.

CC

In fortune's empire blindly thus we go,
And wander after pathless destiny;
Whose dark resorts since prudence cannot know,
In vain it would provide for what shall be.

CCI

But whate'er English to the blessed shall go,
And the fourth Harry or first Orange meet;
Find him disowning of a Bourbon foe,
And him detesting a Batavian fleet.
164

CCII

Now on their coasts our conquering navy rides,
Waylays their merchants, and their land besets;
Each day new wealth without their care provides;
They lie asleep with prizes in their nets.

CCIII

So close behind some promontory lie
The huge leviathans to attend their prey;
And give no chase, but swallow in the fry,
Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way.

CCIV

Burning of the fleet in the Vlie by Sir Robert Holmes.

Nor was this all; in ports and roads remote,
Destructive fires among whole fleets we send;
Triumphant flames upon the water float,
And outbound ships at home their voyage end.
165

CCV

Those various squadrons, variously designed,
Each vessel freighted with a several load,
Each squadron waiting for a several wind,
All find but one,—to burn them in the road.
166

CCVI

Some bound for Guinea, golden sand to find,
Bore all the gauds the simple natives wear;
Some for the pride of Turkish courts designed,
For folded turbans finest Holland bear.

CCVII

Some English wool vexed in a Belgian loom,
And into cloth of spongy softness made,
Did into France, or colder Denmark, doom,
To ruin with worse ware our staple trade.
167

CCVIII

Our greedy seamen rummage every hold,
Smile on the booty of each wealthier chest;
And, as the priests who with their gods make bold,
Take what they like, and sacrifice the rest.

CCIX

But ah! how unsincere are all our joys!

Transition to the Fire of London.


Which sent from heaven, like lightning, make no stay;
Their palling taste the journey's length destroys,
Or grief, sent post, o'ertakes them on the way.

CCX

Swelled with our late successes on the foe,
Which France and Holland wanted power to cross,
We urge an unseen fate to lay us low,
And feed their envious eyes with English loss.

CCXI

Each element His dread command obeys,
Who makes or ruins with a smile or frown;
Who, as by one He did our nation raise,
So now He with another pulls us down.
168

CCXII

Yet London, empress of the northern clime,
By an high fate thou greatly didst expire;
Great as the world's, which, at the death of time,
Must fall, and rise a nobler frame by fire.
169

CCXIII

As when some dire usurper heaven provides,
To scourge his country with a lawless sway;
His birth, perhaps, some petty village hides,
And sets his cradle out of fortune's way:

CCXIV

Till fully ripe his swelling fate breaks out,
And hurries him to mighty mischiefs on;
His prince, surprised at first, no ill could doubt,
And wants the power to meet it when 'tis known:

CCXV

Such was the rise of this prodigious fire,
Which in mean buildings first obscurely bred,
From thence did soon to open streets aspire,
And straight to palaces and temples spread.

CCXVI

The diligence of trades and noiseful gain,
And luxury more late, asleep were laid;
All was the night's; and, in her silent reign,
No sound the rest of nature did invade.
170

CCXVII

In this deep quiet, from what source unknown,
Those seeds of fire their fatal birth disclose;
And, first, few scattering sparks about were blown,
Big with the flames that to our ruin rose.

CCXVIII

Then in some close-pent room it crept along,
And, smouldering as it went, in silence fed;
Till th'infant monster, with devouring strong,
Walked boldly upright with exalted head.

CCXIX

Now, like some rich or mighty murderer,
Too great for prison, which he breaks with gold,
Who fresher for new mischiefs does appear,
And dares the world to tax him with the old:

CCXX

So scapes the insulting Fire his narrow jail,
And makes small outlets into open air;
There the fierce winds his tender force assail,
And beat him downward to his first repair.

CCXXI

The winds, like crafty courtesans, withheld
His flames from burning, but to blow them more;
And, every fresh attempt, he is repelled
With faint denials, weaker than before.
171

CCXXII

And now, no longer letted of his prey,
He leaps up at it with enraged desire;
O'erlooks the neighbours with a wide survey,
And nods at every house his threat'ning fire.

CCXXIII

The ghosts of traitors from the bridge descend,
With bold fanatic spectres to rejoice;
About the fire into a dance they bend,
And sing their Sabbath notes with feeble voice.

CCXXIV

Our guardian angel saw them where they sate,
Above the palace of our slumbering king;
He sighed, abandoning his charge to fate,
And, drooping, oft looked back upon the wing.

CCXXV

At length the crackling noise and dreadful blaze
Called up some waking lover to the sight;
And long it was ere he the rest could raise,
Whose heavy eyelids yet were full of night.
172

CCXXVI

The next to danger, hot pursued by fate,
Half-clothed, half-naked, hastily retire;
And frighted mothers strike their breasts too late,
For helpless infants left amidst the fire.

CCXXVII

Their cries soon waken all the dwellers near;
Now murmuring noises rise in every street;
The more remote run stumbling with their fear,
And in the dark men jostle as they meet.

CCXXVIII

So weary bees in little cells repose;
But if night-robbers lift the well-stored hive,
An humming through their waxen city grows,
And out upon each other's wings they drive.

CCXXIX

Now streets grow thronged, and busy as by day;
Some run for buckets to the hallowed quire;
Some cut the pipes, and some the engines play,
And some, more bold, mount ladders to the fire.

CCXXX

In vain; for from the east a Belgian wind
His hostile breath through the dry rafters sent;
The flames, impelled, soon left their foes behind,
And forward with a wanton fury went.

CCXXXI

A quay of fire ran all along the shore,
And lightened all the river with a blaze;
The wakened tides began again to roar,
And wondering fish in shining waters gaze.
173

CCXXXII

Old Father Thames raised up his reverend head,
But feared the fate of Simois would return;
Deep in his ooze he sought his sedgy bed,
And shrunk his waters back into his urn.

CCXXXIII

The fire, meantime, walks in a broader gross;
To either hand his wings he opens wide;
He wades the streets, and straight he reaches cross,
And plays his longing flames on the other side.

CCXXXIV

At first they warm, then scorch, and then they take;
Now with long necks from side to side they feed;
At length, grown strong, their mother-fire forsake,
And a new colony of flames succeed.

CCXXXV

To every nobler portion of the town
The curling billows roll their restless tide;
In parties now they straggle up and down,
As armies, unopposed, for prey divide.
174

CCXXXVI

One mighty squadron with a side-wind sped,
Through narrow lanes his cumbered fire does haste;
By powerful charms of gold and silver led,
The Lombard bankers and the Change to waste.

CCXXXVII

Another backward to the Tower would go,
And slowly eats his way against the wind;
But the main body of the marching foe
Against the imperial palace is designed.

CCXXXVIII

Now day appears, and with the day the King,
Whose early care had robbed him of his rest;
Far off the cracks of falling houses ring,
And shrieks of subjects pierce his tender breast.
175

CCXXXIX

Near as he draws, thick harbingers of smoke,
With gloomy pillars cover all the place;
Whose little intervals of night are broke
By sparks, that drive against his sacred face.

CCXL

More than his guards his sorrows made him known,
And pious tears, which down his cheeks did shower;
The wretched in his grief forgot their own,
So much the pity of a king has power.

CCXLI

He wept the flames of what he loved so well,
And what so well had merited his love;
For never prince in grace did more excel,
Or royal city more in duty strove.

CCXLII

Nor with an idle care did he behold;
Subjects may grieve, but monarchs must redress;
He cheers the fearful, and commends the bold,
And makes despairers hope for good success.

CCXLIII

Himself directs what first is to be done,
And orders all the succours which they bring;
The helpful and the good about him run,
And form an army worthy such a king.
176

CCXLIV

He sees the dire contagion spread so fast,
That where it seizes all relief is vain;
And therefore must unwillingly lay waste
That country, which would else the foe maintain.

CCXLV

The powder blows up all before the fire;
The amazed flames stand gathered on a heap;
And from the precipice's brink retire,
Afraid to venture on so large a leap.

CCXLVI

Thus fighting fires a while themselves consume,
But straight, like Turks forced on to win or die,
They first lay tender bridges of their fume,
And o'er the breach in unctuous vapours fly.
177

CCXLVII

Part stay for passage, till a gust of wind
Ships o'er their forces in a shining sheet;
Part creeping under ground, their journey blind,
And climbing from below their fellows meet.

CCXLVIII

Thus to some desert plain, or old wood-side,
Dire night-hags come from far to dance their round;
And o'er broad rivers on their fiends they ride,
Or sweep in clouds above the blasted ground.

CCXLIX

No help avails; for, hydra-like, the fire
Lifts up his hundred heads to aim his way;
And scarce the wealthy can one half retire,
Before he rushes in to share the prey.

CCL

The rich grow suppliant, and the poor grow proud;
Those offer mighty gain, and these ask more;
So void of pity is the ignoble crowd,
When others' ruin may increase their store.

CCLI

As those who live by shores with joy behold
Some wealthy vessel split or stranded nigh;
And from the rocks leap down for shipwrecked gold,
And seek the tempests which the others fly:
178

CCLII

So these but wait the owners' last despair,
And what's permitted to the flames invade;
E'en from their jaws they hungry morsels tear,
And on their backs the spoils of Vulcan lade.

CCLIII

The days were all in this lost labour spent;
And when the weary King gave place to night,
His beams he to his royal brother lent,
And so shone still in his reflective light.

CCLIV

Night came, but without darkness or repose,
A dismal picture of the general doom;
Where souls, distracted when the trumpet blows,
And half unready, with their bodies come.
179

CCLV

Those who have homes, when home they do repair,
To a last lodging call their wandering friends;
Their short uneasy sleeps are broke with care,
To look how near their own destruction tends.

CCLVI

Those who have none, sit round where once it was,
And with full eyes each wonted room require;
Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place,
As murdered men walk where they did expire.

CCLVII

Some stir up coals and watch the vestal fire,
Others in vain from sight of ruin run;
And while through burning lab'rinths they retire,
With loathing eyes repeat what they would shun.

CCLVIII

The most in fields, like herded beasts, lie down,
To dews obnoxious on the grassy floor;
And while their babes in sleep their sorrows drown,
Sad parents watch the remnants of their store.
180

CCLIX

While by the motion of the flames they guess
What streets are burning now, and what are near,
An infant, waking, to the paps would press,
And meets, instead of milk, a falling tear.

CCLX

No thought can ease them but their sovereign's care,
Whose praise the afflicted as their comfort sing;
E'en those, whom want might drive to just despair,
Think life a blessing under such a king.

CCLXI

Meantime he sadly suffers in their grief,
Outweeps an hermit, and outprays a saint;
All the long night he studies their relief,
How they may be supplied, and he may want.

CCLXII

King's Prayer.

“O God,” said he, “thou patron of my days,
Guide of my youth in exile and distress!
Who me, unfriended, brought'st by wondrous ways,
The kingdom of my fathers to possess:
181

CCLXIII

“Be thou my judge, with what unwearied care
I since have laboured for my people's good;
To bind the bruises of a civil war,
And stop the issues of their wasting blood.

CCLXIV

“Thou who hast taught me to forgive the ill,
And recompense, as friends, the good misled;
If mercy be a precept of thy will,
Return that mercy on thy servant's head.

CCLXV

“Or if my heedless youth has stepped astray,
Too soon forgetful of thy gracious hand,
On me alone thy just displeasure lay,
But take thy judgments from this mourning land.

CCLXVI

“We all have sinned; and thou hast laid us low,
As humble earth, from whence at first we came:
Like flying shades before the clouds we show,
And shrink like parchment in consuming flame.

CCLXVII

“O let it be enough what thou hast done;
When spotted deaths ran arm'd through every street,
With poisoned darts, which not the good could shun,
The speedy could outfly, or valiant meet.
182

CCLXVIII

“The living few, and frequent funerals then,
Proclaimed thy wrath on this forsaken place;
And now those few, who are returned again,
Thy searching judgments to their dwellings trace.

CCLXIX

“O pass not, Lord, an absolute decree,
Or bind thy sentence unconditional;
But in thy sentence our remorse foresee,
And in that foresight this thy doom recall.

CCLXX

“Thy threat'nings, Lord, as thine, thou may'st revoke;
But, if immutable and fixed they stand,
Continue still thyself to give the stroke,
And let not foreign foes oppress thy land.”
183

CCLXXI

The Eternal heard, and from the heavenly quire
Chose out the cherub with the flaming sword;
And bade him swiftly drive the approaching fire
From where our naval magazines were stored.

CCLXXII

The blessed minister his wings displayed,
And like a shooting star he cleft the night:
He charged the flames, and those that disobeyed,
He lashed to duty with his sword of light.

CCLXXIII

The fugitive flames, chastised, went forth to prey
On pious structures, by our fathers reared;
By which to heaven they did affect the way,
Ere faith in churchmen without works was heard.

CCLXXIV

The wanting orphans saw, with watery eyes,
Their founders' charity in dust laid low;
And sent to God their ever-answered cries;
For He protects the poor, who made them so.

CCLXXV

Nor could thy fabric, Paul's, defend thee long,
Though thou wert sacred to thy Maker's praise;
Though made immortal by a poet's song,
And poets' songs the Theban walls could raise.
184

CCLXXVI

The daring flames peeped in, and saw from far
The awful beauties of the sacred quire;
But since it was profaned by civil war,
Heaven thought it fit to have it purged by fire.

CCLXXVII

Now down the narrow streets it swiftly came,
And, widely opening, did on both sides prey;
This benefit we sadly owe the flame,
If only ruin must enlarge our way.

CCLXXVIII

And now four days the sun had seen our woes;
Four nights the moon beheld the incessant fire;
It seemed as if the stars more sickly rose,
And farther from the feverish north retire.
185

CCLXXIX

In the empyrean heaven, the blessed abode,
The Thrones and the Dominions prostrate lie,
Not daring to behold their angry God;
And an hushed silence damps the tuneful sky.

CCLXXX

At length the Almighty cast a pitying eye,
And mercy softly touched his melting breast;
He saw the town's one half in rubbish lie,
And eager flames give on to storm the rest.

CCLXXXI

An hollow crystal pyramid he takes,
In firmamental waters dipt above;
Of it a broad extinguisher he makes,
And hoods the flames that to their quarry strove.

CCLXXXII

The vanquished fires withdraw from every place,
Or, full with feeding, sink into a sleep:
Each household genius shows again his face,
And from the hearths the little Lares creep.
186

CCLXXXIII

Our King this more than natural change beholds;
With sober joy his heart and eyes abound:
187

To the All-good his lifted hands he folds,
And thanks him low on his redeemed ground.
188

CCLXXXIV

As when sharp frosts had long constrained the earth,
A kindly thaw unlocks it with mild rain;
And first the tender blade peeps up to birth,
And straight the green fields laugh with promised grain.

CCLXXXV

By such degrees the spreading gladness grew
In every heart which fear had froze before;
The standing streets with so much joy they view,
That with less grief the perished they deplore.

CCLXXXVI

The father of the people opened wide
His stores, and all the poor with plenty fed:
Thus God's anointed God's own place supplied,
And filled the empty with his daily bread.

CCLXXXVII

This royal bounty brought its own reward,
And in their minds so deep did print the sense,
That if their ruins sadly they regard,
'Tis but with fear the sight might drive him thence.
189

CCLXXXVIII

But so may he live long, that town to sway,

City's request to the King not to leave them.


Which by his auspice they will nobler make,
As he will hatch their ashes by his stay,
And not their humble ruins now forsake.

CCLXXXIX

They have not lost their loyalty by fire;
Nor is their courage or their wealth so low,
That from his wars they poorly would retire,
Or beg the pity of a vanquished foe.

CCXC

Not with more constancy the Jews, of old,
By Cyrus from rewarded exile sent,
Their royal city did in dust behold,
Or with more vigour to rebuild it went.
190

CCXCI

The utmost malice of the stars is past,
And two dire comets, which have scourged the town,
In their own plague and fire have breathed their last,
Or dimly in their sinking sockets frown.

CCXCII

Now frequent trines the happier lights among,
And high-raised Jove, from his dark prison freed,
Those weights took off that on his planet hung,
Will gloriously the new-laid work succeed.

CCXCIII

Methinks already from this chemic flame,
I see a city of more precious mould;
Rich as the town which gives the Indies name,
With silver paved, and all divine with gold.

CCXCIV

Already labouring with a mighty fate,
She shakes the rubbish from her mountain brow,
And seems to have renewed her charter's date,
Which heaven will to the death of time allow.
191

CCXCV

More great than human now, and more august,
New deified she from her fires does rise;
Her widening streets on new foundations trust,
And opening into larger parts she flies.

CCXCVI

Before, she like some shepherdess did show,
Who sat to bathe her by a river's side;
Not answering to her fame, but rude and low,
Nor taught the beauteous arts of modern pride.
192

CCXCVII

Now, like a maiden queen, she will behold,
From her high turrets, hourly suitors come;
The East with incense, and the West with gold,
Will stand like suppliants to receive her doom.

CCXCVIII

The silver Thames, her own domestic flood,
Shall bear her vessels like a sweeping train;
And often wind, as of his mistress proud,
With longing eyes to meet her face again.

CCXCIX

The wealthy Tagus, and the wealthier Rhine,
The glory of their towns no more shall boast;
And Seine, that would with Belgian rivers join,
Shall find her lustre stained, and traffic lost.

CCC

The venturous merchant, who designed more far,
And touches on our hospitable shore,
Charmed with the splendour of this northern star,
Shall here unlade him, and depart no more.

CCCI

Our powerful navy shall no longer meet,
The wealth of France or Holland to invade;
The beauty of this town, without a fleet,
From all the world shall vindicate her trade.

CCCII

And while this famed emporium we prepare,
The British ocean shall such triumphs boast,
That those, who now disdain our trade to share,
Shall rob like pirates on our wealthy coast.
193

CCCIII

Already we have conquered half the war,
And the less dangerous part is left behind;
Our trouble now is but to make them dare,
And not so great to vanquish as to find.

CCCIV

Thus to the eastern wealth through storms we go,
But now, the Cape once doubled, fear no more;
A constant trade-wind will securely blow,
And gently lay us on the spicy shore.
 

Precious stones at first are dew, condensed and hardened by the warmth of the sun, or subterranean fires.

According to their opinion who think, that great heap of waters under the Line is depressed into tides by the moon towards the poles.

Cœruleus Proteus immania ponti
Armenta, et magnas pascit sub gurgite phocas.

The admiral of Holland.

Southern climates—Guinea.

From Petronius: “Si bene calculum ponas, ubique fit naufragium.”

Tacitus saith of them, “Nullos mortalium fide aut armis ante Germanos esse.”

Examina infantium, futurusque populus. Plin. jun. in Pan. ad Trajanum.

Where the Olympic games were celebrated.

From Virgil: Credas innare revulsas Cycladas.

Spem vultu simulat, premit alto corde dolorem.

—Virgil.

The simile is Virgil's: “Vestigia retro improperata refert.”

From Statius, Sylv.—

“Nec trucibus fluviis idem sonus: occidit horror
Equoris, antennis maria acclinata quiescunt.”

The third of June, famous for two former victories.

From Virgil—

“Quum medii nexus, extremæque agmina caudæ
Solvuntur; tardosque trahit sinus ultimus orbes.”

From Horace—

------“Quos opimus,
Fallere et effugere est triumphus.”

Fervet opus; the same similitude in Virgil.

Extra anni solisque vias. —Virgil.

Levat ipse tridenti, et vastas aperit syrtes. —Virgil.

Possunt quia posse videntur. —Virgil.

St. James, on whose day this victory was gained.

Philip II. of Spain, against whom the Hollanders rebelling were aided by Queen Elizabeth.

Quum mare, quum tellus, correptaque regia cœli ardeat.

Hæc arte tractabat cupidum virum, ut illius animum inopia accenderet.

Sigæa igni freta lata relucent.

—Virgil.

Mexico.

Augusta, the old name of London.

195

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL

215

TO THE UNKNOWN AUTHOR OF THIS EXCELLENT POEM.

Take it as earnest of a faith renewed,
Your theme is vast, your verse divinely good:
Where, though the Nine their beauteous strokes repeat,
And the turned lines on golden anvils beat,
It looks as if they strook them at a heat.
So all serenely great, so just refined,
Like angels' love to human seed inclined,
It starts a giant, and exalts the kind.
'Tis spirit seen, whose fiery atoms roll,
So brightly fierce, each syllable's a soul.
'Tis miniature of man, but he's all heart;
'Tis what the world would be, but wants the art;
To whom even the fanatics altars raise,
Bow in their own despite, and grin your praise.
As if a Milton from the dead arose,
Filed off the rust, and the right party chose.
Nor, Sir, be shocked at what the gloomy say,
Turn not your feet too inward, nor too splay.
'Tis gracious all, and great; push on your theme,
Lean your grieved head on David's diadem.
David, that rebel Israel's envy moved,
David, by God and all good men beloved.
The beauties of your Absalom excel;
But more the charms of charming Annabel;
Of Annabel, than May's first morn more bright,
Cheerful as summer's noon, and chaste as winter's night.
Of Annabel the muses' dearest theme,
Of Annabel the angel of my dream.
Thus let a broken eloquence attend,
And to your master-piece these shadows send.
216

TO THE UNKNOWN AUTHOR OF THIS ADMIRABLE POEM.

I thought,—forgive my sin,—the boasted fire
Of poets' souls did long ago expire;
Of folly or of madness did accuse
The wretch that thought himself possessed with muse;
Laughed at the God within, that did inspire
With more than human thoughts the tuneful quire;
But sure 'tis more than fancy, or the dream
Of rhymers slumb'ring by the muses' stream.
Some livelier spark of heaven, and more refined
From earthly dross, fills the great poet's mind.
Witness these mighty and immortal lines,
Through each of which th'informing genius shines.
Scarce a diviner flame inspired the king
Of whom thy muse does so sublimely sing.
Not David's self could in a nobler verse
His gloriously offending son rehearse,
Though in his breast the prophet's fury met
The father's fondness, and the poet's wit.
Here all consent in wonder and in praise,
And to the unknown poet altars raise,
Which thou must needs accept with equal joy,
As when Æneas heard the wars of Troy,
Wrapt up himself in darkness and unseen,
Extolled with wonder by the Tyrian Queen.
Sure thou already art secure of fame,
Nor want'st new glories to exalt thy name;
What father else would have refused to own
So great a son as godlike Absalon?
R. D.
217

TO THE CONCEALED AUTHOR OF THIS INCOMPARABLE POEM.

Hail, heaven-born muse! hail every sacred page!
The glory of our isle and of our age.
The inspiring sun to Albion draws more nigh,
The north at length teems with a work to vie
With Homer's flame and Virgil's majesty.
While Pindus lofty heights our poet sought,
(His ravished mind with vast ideas fraught),
Our language failed beneath his rising thought;
This checks not his attempt, for Maro's mines,
He drains of all their gold t'adorn his lines;
Through each of which the Mantuan Genius shines.
The rock obeyed the powerful Hebrew guide,
Her flinty breast dissolved into a tide;
Thus on our stubborn language he prevails,
And makes the Helicon in which he sails.
The dialect, as well as sense, invents,
And, with his poem, a new speech presents.
Hail then, thou matchless bard, thou great unknown,
That give your country fame, yet shun you own!
In vain—for everywhere your praise you find,
And not to meet it, you must shun mankind.
Your loyal theme each loyal reader draws,
And even the factious give your verse applause,
Whose lightning strikes to ground their idol cause.
The cause for whose dear sake they drank a flood
Of civil gore, nor spared the royal blood;
The cause whose growth to crush, our prelates wrote
In vain, almost in vain our heroes fought.
Yet by one stab of your keen satire dies;
Before your sacred lines their shattered Dagon lies.
Oh! if unworthy we appear to know
The sire, to whom this lovely birth we owe;
Denied our ready homage to express,
And can at best but thankful be by guess;
This hope remains,—May David's godlike mind,
(For him 'twas wrote) the unknown author find,
And, having found, shower equal favours down,
On wit so vast as could oblige a crown.
N. T.
218

TO THE AUTHOR OF THAT INCOMPARABLE POEM ABOVE MENTIONED.

Homer, amazed, resigns the hill to you,
And stands i'the crowd, amidst the panting crew:
Virgil and Horace dare not show their face,
And long admired Juv'nal quits his place;
For this one mighty poem hath done more
Than all those poets could have done before.
Satire, or statesmen, poet, or divine,
Thou any thing, thou every thing that's fine,
Thy lines will make young Absalom relent;
And, though 'tis hard, Achitophel repent;
And stop—as thou hast done—
Thus once thy rival muse, on Cooper's Hill,
With the true story would not Fatme kill.
No politics exclude repentance quite;
Despair makes rebels obstinately fight;
'Tis well when errors do for mercy call;
Unbloody conquests are the best of all.
Methinks I see a numerous mixed crowd
Of seduced patriots crying out aloud
For grace, to royal David. He, with tears,
Holds forth his sceptre, to prevent their fears,
And bids them welcome to his tender breast:
Thus may the people, thus the king be blest.
Then tunes his harp, thy praises to rehearse,
Who owes his son and subjects to thy verse.
219

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

I. PART I.

------ Si proprius sles
Te capiet magis.

In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin,
Before polygamy was made a sin;
When man on many multiplied his kind,
Ere one to one was cursedly confined;
When nature prompted, and no law denied,
Promiscuous use of concubine and bride;
Then Israel's monarch after heaven's own heart,
His vigorous warmth did variously impart
To wives and slaves; and, wide as his command,
Scattered his Maker's image through the land.
Michal, of royal blood, the crown did wear,
A soil ungrateful to the tiller's care:
220

Not so the rest; for several mothers bore
To godlike David several sons before.
But since like slaves his bed they did ascend,
No true succession could their seed attend.
Of all the numerous progeny was none
So beautiful, so brave, as Absalon;
221

Whether inspired by some diviner lust,
His father got him with a greater gust;
222

Or that his conscious destiny made way,
By manly beauty, to imperial sway.
223

Early in foreign fields he won renown,
With kings and states, allied to Israel's crown;
224

In peace the thoughts of war he could remove,
And seemed as he were only born for love.
225

Whate'er he did, was done with so much ease,
In him alone 'twas natural to please;
226

His motions all accompanied with grace,
And paradise was opened in his face.
227

With secret joy indulgent David viewed
His youthful image in his son renewed;
228

To all his wishes nothing he denied,
And made the charming Annabel his bride.
229

What faults he had,—for who from faults is free?
His father could not, or he would not see.
230

Some warm excesses, which the law forbore,
Were construed youth that purged by boiling o'er;
And Amnon's murder, by a specious name,
Was called a just revenge for injured fame.
231

Thus praised and loved, the noble youth remained,
While David undisturbed in Sion reigned.
232

But life can never be sincerely blest;
Heaven punishes the bad, and proves the best.
The Jews, a headstrong, moody, murmuring race,
As ever tried the extent and stretch of grace;
God's pampered people, whom, debauched with ease,
No king could govern, nor no God could please;
Gods they had tried of every shape and size,
That godsmiths could produce, or priests devise;
These Adam-wits, too fortunately free,
Began to dream they wanted liberty:
And when no rule, no precedent was found,
Of men, by laws less circumscribed and bound;
They led their wild desires to woods and caves,
And thought that all but savages were slaves.
They who, when Saul was dead, without a blow,
Made foolish Ishbosheth the crown forego;
Who banished David did from Hebron bring,
And with a general shout proclaimed him king;
Those very Jews, who at their very best,
Their humour more than loyalty exprest,
Now wondered why so long they had obeyed
An idol monarch, which their hands had made;
Thought they might ruin him they could create,
Or melt him to that golden calf,—a State.
233

But these were random bolts; no formed design,
Nor interest made the factious crowd to join:
The sober part of Israel, free from stain,
Well knew the value of a peaceful reign;
And, looking backward with a wise affright,
Saw seams of wounds dishonest to the sight;
In contemplation of whose ugly scars,
They curst the memory of civil wars.
The moderate sort of men, thus qualified,
Inclined the balance to the better side;
And David's mildness managed it so well,
The bad found no occasion to rebel.
But when to sin our biassed nature leans,
The careful devil is still at hand with means,
And providently pimps for ill desires;
The good old cause, revived, a plot requires.
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up commonwealths, and ruin kings.
The inhabitants of old Jerusalem
Were Jebusites; the town so called from them;
And theirs the native right.—
But when the chosen people grew more strong,
The rightful cause at length became the wrong;
And every loss the men of Jebus bore,
They still were thought God's enemies the more.
Thus worn or weakened, well or ill content,
Submit they must to David's government;
Impoverished and deprived of all command,
Their taxes doubled as they lost their land;
And, what was harder yet to flesh and blood,
Their gods disgraced, and burnt like common wood.
This set the heathen priesthood in a flame;
For priests of all religions are the same.
234

Of whatsoe'er descent their godhead be,
Stock, stone, or other homely pedigree,
In his defence his servants are as bold,
As if he had been born of beaten gold.
The Jewish rabbins, though their enemies,
In this conclude them honest men and wise;
For 'twas their duty, all the learned think,
To espouse his cause, by whom they eat and drink.
From hence began that plot, the nation's curse;
Bad in itself, but represented worse;
235

Raised in extremes, and in extremes decried;
With oaths affirmed, with dying vows denied;
236

Not weighed nor winnowed by the multitude,
But swallowed in the mass, unchewed and crude.
237

Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with lies,
To please the fools, and puzzle all the wise.
Succeeding times did equal folly call,
Believing nothing, or believing all.
The Egyptian rites the Jebusites embraced,
Where gods were recommended by their taste.
Such savoury deities must needs be good,
As served at once for worship and for food.
By force they could not introduce these gods,—
For ten to one in former days was odds,—
So fraud was used, the sacrificer's trade;
Fools are more hard to conquer than persuade.
Their busy teachers mingled with the Jews,
And raked for converts even the court and stews;
Which Hebrew priests the more unkindly took,
Because the fleece accompanies the flock.
Some thought they God's anointed meant to slay
By guns, invented since full many a day:
238

Our author swears it not; but who can know
How far the devil and Jebusites may go?
This plot, which failed for want of common sense,
Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence;
For as, when raging fevers boil the blood,
The standing lake soon floats into a flood,
And every hostile humour, which before
Slept quiet in its channels, bubbles o'er;
So several factions, from this first ferment,
Work up to foam, and threat the government.
Some by their friends, more by themselves thought wise,
Opposed the power to which they could not rise;
Some had in courts been great, and, thrown from thence,
Like fiends, were hardened in impenitence;
Some, by their monarch's fatal mercy, grown
From pardoned rebels kinsmen to the throne,
Were raised in power and public office high;
Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie.
239

Of these the false Achitophel was first;
A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs, and crooked counsels fit;
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfixed in principles and place;
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace;
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy-body to decay,
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity,
Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high,
He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son;
240

Got, while his soul did huddled notions try;
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
In friendship false, implacable in hate;
Resolved to ruin, or to rule the state.
To compass this the triple bond he broke;
The pillars of the public safety shook;
And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke;
241

Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting fame,
Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.
So easy still it proves in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes.
How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,
Where none can sin against the people's will?
Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own?
Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge;
The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abbethdin
With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean,
242

Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress;
Swift of dispatch, and easy of access.
Oh! had be been content to serve the crown,
With virtue only proper to the gown;
243

Or had the rankness of the soil been freed
From cockle, that oppressed the noble seed;
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land.
Achitophel, grown weary to possess
A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,
Disdained the golden fruit to gather free,
And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.
Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since,
He stood at bold defiance with his prince;
Held up the buckler of the people's cause
Against the crown, and skulked behind the laws.
244

The wished occasion of the plot he takes;
Some circumstances finds, but more he makes;
By buzzing emissaries fills the ears
Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears
Of arbitrary counsels brought to light,
And proves the king himself a Jebusite.
Weak arguments! which yet, he knew full well,
Were strong with people easy to rebel.
For, governed by the moon, the giddy Jews
Tread the same track when she the prime renews;
And once in twenty years their scribes record,
By natural instinct they change their lord.
Achitophel still wants a chief, and none
Was found so fit as warlike Absalon.
Not that he wished his greatness to create,
For politicians neither love nor hate;
But, for he knew his title not allowed,
Would keep him still depending on the crowd;
That kingly power, thus ebbing out, might be
Drawn to the dregs of a democracy.
Him he attempts with studied arts to please,
And sheds his venom in such words as these.
“Auspicious prince, at whose nativity
Some royal planet ruled the southern sky;
Thy longing country's darling and desire;
Their cloudy pillar and their guardian fire;
245

Their second Moses, whose extended wand
Divides the seas, and shows the promised land;
Whose dawning day, in every distant age,
Has exercised the sacred prophet's rage;
The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,
The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!
Thee, Saviour, thee the nation's vows confess,
And, never satisfied with seeing, bless;
Swift unbespoken pomps thy steps proclaim,
And stammering babes are taught to lisp thy name.
How long wilt thou the general joy detain,
Starve and defraud the people of thy reign;
Content ingloriously to pass thy days,
Like one of virtue's fools that feed on praise;
Till thy fresh glories, which now shine so bright,
Grow stale, and tarnish with our daily sight?
Believe me, royal youth, thy fruit must be
Or gathered ripe, or rot upon the tree.
Heaven has to all allotted, soon or late,
Some lucky revolution of their fate;
Whose motions if we watch and guide with skill
(For human good depends on human will),
Our fortune rolls as from a smooth descent,
And from the first impression takes the bent;
But, if unseized, she glides away like wind,
And leaves repenting folly far behind.
Now, now she meets you with a glorious prize,
And spreads her locks before you as she flies.
Had thus old David, from whose loins you spring,
Not dared, when fortune called him, to be king,
At Gath an exile he might still remain,
And heaven's anointing oil had been in vain.
246

Let his successful youth your hopes engage;
But shun the example of declining age:
Behold him setting in his western skies,
The shadows lengthening as the vapours rise.
He is not now, as when, on Jordan's sand,
The joyful people thronged to see him land,
Covering the beach and blackening all the strand;
But, like the prince of angels, from his height
Comes tumbling downward with diminished light;
Betrayed by one poor plot to public scorn,
Our only blessing since his curst return;
Those heaps of people which one sheaf did bind,
Blown off and scattered by a puff of wind.
What strength can he to your designs oppose,
Naked of friends, and round beset with foes?
If Pharaoh's doubtful succour he should use,
A foreign aid would more incense the Jews;
Proud Egypt would dissembled friendship bring;
Foment the war, but not support the king:
Nor would the royal party e'er unite
With Pharaoh's arms to assist the Jebusite;
Or, if they should, their interest soon would break,
And with such odious aid make David weak.
All sorts of men, by my successful arts
Abhorring kings, estrange their altered hearts
From David's rule; and 'tis the general cry,
Religion, commonwealth, and liberty.
If you, as champion of the public good,
Add to their arms a chief of royal blood,
What may not Israel hope, and what applause
Might such a general gain by such a cause?
247

Not barren praise alone, that gaudy flower
Fair only to the sight, but solid power;
And nobler is a limited command,
Given by the love of all your native land,
Than a successive title, long and dark,
Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.”
248

What cannot praise effect in mighty minds,
When flattery soothes, and when ambition blinds?
Desire of power, on earth a vicious weed,
Yet, sprung from high, is of celestial seed;
In God 'tis glory; and when men aspire,
'Tis but a spark too much of heavenly fire.
The ambitious youth, too covetous of fame,
Too full of angel's metal in his frame,
Unwarily was led from virtue's ways,
Made drunk with honour, and debauched with praise.
Half loath, and half consenting to the ill,—
For loyal blood within him struggled still,—
He thus replied.—“And what pretence have I
To take up arms for public liberty?
My father governs with unquestioned right,
The faith's defender, and mankind's delight;
Good, gracious, just, observant of the laws;
And heaven by wonders has espoused his cause.
Whom has he wronged in all his peaceful reign?
Who sues for justice to his throne in vain?
What millions has he pardoned of his foes,
Whom just revenge did to his wrath expose!
249

Mild, easy, humble, studious of our good,
Inclined to mercy, and averse from blood.
If mildness ill with stubborn Israel suit,
His crime is God's beloved attribute.
What could he gain his people to betray,
Or change his right for arbitrary sway?
Let haughty Pharaoh curse with such a reign
His fruitful Nile, and yoke a servile train.
If David's rule Jerusalem displease,
The dog-star heats their brains to this disease.
Why then should I, encouraging the bad,
Turn rebel, and run popularly mad?
Were he a tyrant, who by lawless might
Oppressed the Jews, and raised the Jebusite,
Well might I mourn; but nature's holy bands
Would curb my spirits, and restrain my hands:
The people might assert their liberty;
But what was right in them were crime in me.
His favour leaves me nothing to require,
Prevents my wishes, and outruns desire.
What more can I expect while David lives?
All but his kingly diadem he gives;
And that”—But there he paused; then sighing, said—
“Is justly destined for a worthier head;
For, when my father from his toils shall rest,
And late augment the number of the blest,
His lawful issue shall the throne ascend,
Or the collateral line, where that shall end.
His brother, though oppressed with vulgar spite,
Yet dauntless, and secure of native right,
Of every royal virtue stands possest;
Still dear to all the bravest and the best.
250

His courage foes, his friends his truth proclaim;
His loyalty the king, the world his fame.
His mercy even the offending crowd will find;
For sure he comes of a forgiving kind.
Why should I then repine at heaven's decree,
Which gives me no pretence to royalty?
Yet oh that fate, propitiously inclined,
Had raised my birth, or had debased my mind;
To my large soul not all her treasure lent,
And then betrayed it to a mean descent!
I find, I find my mounting spirits bold,
And David's part disdains my mother's mould.
Why am I scanted by a niggard birth?
My soul disclaims the kindred of her earth;
And, made for empire, whispers me within,
Desire of greatness is a godlike sin.”
Him staggering so, when hell's dire agent found,
While fainting virtue scarce maintained her ground,
He pours fresh forces in, and thus replies:
“The eternal God, supremely good and wise,
Imparts not these prodigious gifts in vain.
What wonders are reserved to bless your reign!
Against your will your arguments have shown,
Such virtue's only given to guide a throne.
Not that your father's mildness I contemn;
But manly force becomes the diadem.
'Tis true, he grants the people all they crave;
And more, perhaps, than subjects ought to have;
For lavish grants suppose a monarch tame,
And more his goodness than his wit proclaim:
But when should people strive their bonds to break,
If not when kings are negligent, or weak?
Let him give on till he can give no more,
The thrifty sanhedrim shall keep him poor;
251

And every shekel, which he can receive,
Shall cost a limb of his prerogative.
To ply him with new plots shall be my care,
Or plunge him deep in some expensive war;
Which when his treasure can no more supply,
He must, with the remains of kingship, buy.
His faithful friends, our jealousies and fears
Call Jebusites, and Pharaoh's pensioners;
Whom when our fury from his aid has torn,
He shall be naked left to public scorn.
The next successor, whom I fear and hate,
My arts have made obnoxious to the state;
Turned all his virtues to his overthrow,
And gained our elders to pronounce a foe.
His right, for sums of necessary gold,
Shall first be pawned, and afterwards be sold;
Till time shall ever-wanting David draw,
To pass your doubtful title into law:
252

If not, the people have a right supreme
To make their kings; for kings are made for them.
253

All empire is no more than power in trust,
Which, when resumed, can be no longer just.
Succession, for the general good designed,
In its own wrong a nation cannot bind;
If altering that the people can relieve,
Better one suffer than a million grieve.
The Jews well know their power; ere Saul they chose,
God was their king, and God they durst depose.
Urge now your piety, your filial name,
A father's right, and fear of future fame;—
The public good, that universal call,
To which even heaven submitted, answers all.
Nor let his love enchant your generous mind;
'Tis nature's trick to propagate her kind.
Our fond begetters, who would never die,
Love but themselves in their posterity.
Or let his kindness by the effects be tried,
Or let him lay his vain pretence aside.
God said, he loved your father; could he bring
A better proof, than to anoint him king?
It surely showed he loved the shepherd well,
Who gave so fair a flock as Israel.
Would David have you thought his darling son?
What means he then to alienate the crown?
The name of godly he may blush to bear;
'Tis after God's own heart to cheat his heir.
He to his brother gives supreme command,
To you a legacy of barren land;
254

Perhaps the old harp, on which he thrums his lays,
Or some dull Hebrew ballad in your praise.
Then the next heir, a prince severe and wise,
Already looks on you with jealous eyes;
Sees through the thin disguises of your arts,
And marks your progress in the people's hearts;
Though now his mighty soul its grief contains,
He meditates revenge who least complains;
And like a lion, slumbering in the way,
Or sleep dissembling, while he waits his prey,
His fearless foes within his distance draws,
Constrains his roaring, and contracts his paws;
Till, at the last, his time for fury found,
He shoots with sudden vengeance from the ground;
The prostrate vulgar passes o'er and spares,
But with a lordly rage his hunters tears.
Your case no tame expedients will afford;
Resolve on death, or conquest by the sword,
Which for no less a stake than life you draw;
And self-defence is nature's eldest law.
Leave the warm people no considering time;
For then rebellion may be thought a crime.
Prevail yourself of what occasion gives,
But try your title while your father lives;
And that your arms may have a fair pretence,
Proclaim you take them in the king's defence;
255

Whose sacred life each minute would expose
To plots, from seeming friends, and secret foes.
And who can sound the depth of David's soul?
Perhaps his fear his kindness may control.
He fears his brother, though he loves his son,
For plighted vows too late to be undone.
If so, by force he wishes to be gained;
Like woman's lechery to seem constrained.
Doubt not; but, when he most affects the frown,
Commit a pleasing rape upon the crown.
Secure his person to secure your cause;
They, who possess the prince, possess the laws.”
He said, and this advice, above the rest,
With Absalom's mild nature suited best;
Unblamed of life, ambition set aside,
Not stained with cruelty, nor puffed with pride.
How happy had he been, if destiny
Had higher placed his birth, or not so high!
His kingly virtues might have claimed a throne,
And blest all other countries but his own;
But charming greatness since so few refuse,
'Tis juster to lament him than accuse.
Strong were his hopes a rival to remove,
With blandishments to gain the public love;
To head the faction while their zeal was hot,
And popularly prosecute the plot.
To further this, Achitophel unites
The malcontents of all the Israelites;
Whose differing parties he could wisely join,
For several ends, to serve the same design.
The best,—and of the princes some were such,—
Who thought the power of monarchy too much;
Mistaken men, and patriots in their hearts;
Not wicked, but seduced by impious arts.
By these the springs of property were bent,
And wound so high, they cracked the government.
256

The next for interest sought to embroil the state,
To sell their duty at a dearer rate,
And make their Jewish markets of the throne;
Pretending public good, to serve their own.
Others thought kings an useless heavy load,
Who cost too much, and did too little good.
These were for laying honest David by,
On principles of pure good husbandry.
With them joined all the haranguers of the throng,
That thought to get preferment by the tongue.
Who follow next a double danger bring,
Not only hating David, but the king;
The Solymæan rout; well versed, of old,
In godly faction, and in treason bold;
Cow'ring and quaking at a conqueror's sword,
But lofty to a lawful prince restored;
Saw with disdain an Ethnic plot begun,
And scorned by Jebusites to be outdone.
257

Hot Levites headed these; who, pulled before
From the ark, which in the Judges' days they bore,
Resumed their cant, and, with a zealous cry,
Pursued their old beloved theocracy;
Where sanhedrim and priest enslaved the nation,
And justified their spoils by inspiration.
For who so fit to reign as Aaron's race,
If once dominion they could found in grace?
These led the pack; though not of surest scent,
Yet deepest mouthed against the government.
A numerous host of dreaming saints succeed,
Of the true old enthusiastic breed;
'Gainst form and order they their power employ,
Nothing to build, and all things to destroy.
But far more numerous was the herd of such,
Who think too little, and who talk too much.
These out of mere instinct, they knew not why,
Adored their fathers' God, and property;
And, by the same blind benefit of fate,
The devil and the Jebusite did hate;
Born to be saved, even in their own despite,
Because they could not help believing right.
Such were the tools; but a whole Hydra more
Remains of sprouting heads too long to score.
Some of their chiefs were princes of the land:
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand;
258

A man so various, that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
259

Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman, who could every hour employ,
With something new to wish, or to enjoy!
Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes;
260

So over violent, or over civil,
That every man with him was God or devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
261

Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late;
He had his jest, and they had his estate.
He laughed himself from court; then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;
262

For, spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom, and wise Achitophel;
Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left.
263

Titles and names 'twere tedious to rehearse
Of lords, below the dignity of verse.
Wits, warriors, commonwealths-men, were the best;
Kind husbands, and mere nobles, all the rest.
264

And therefore, in the name of dulness, be
The well-hung Balaam and cold Caleb free;
265

And canting Nadab let oblivion damn,
Who made new porridge for the paschal lamb.
266

Let friendship's holy band some names assure;
Some their own worth, and some let scorn secure.
267

Nor shall the rascal rabble here have place,
Whom kings no titles gave, and God no grace:
268

Not bull-faced Jonas, who could statutes draw
To mean rebellion, and make treason law.
But he, though bad, is followed by a worse,
The wretch, who heaven's anointed dared to curse;
269

Shimei,—whose youth did early promise bring
Of zeal to God, and hatred to his king,—
Did wisely from expensive sins refrain,
And never broke the Sabbath but for gain:
270

Nor ever was he known an oath to vent,
Or curse, unless against the government.
271

Thus heaping wealth, by the most ready way
Among the Jews, which was—to cheat and pray;
272

The city, to reward his pious hate
Against his master, chose him magistrate.
His hand a vare of justice did uphold;
His neck was loaded with a chain of gold.
During his office treason was no crime;
The sons of Belial had a glorious time:
For Shimei, though not prodigal of pelf,
Yet loved his wicked neighbour as himself.
When two or three were gathered to declaim
Against the monarch of Jerusalem,
Shimei was always in the midst of them:
And, if they cursed the king when he was by,
Would rather curse than break good company.
If any durst his factious friends accuse,
He packed a jury of dissenting Jews;
Whose fellow-feeling in the godly cause
Would free the suffering saint from human laws:
For laws are only made to punish those
Who serve the king, and to protect his foes.
If any leisure-time he had from power,—
Because 'tis sin to misemploy an hour,—
273

His business was, by writing, to persuade,
That kings were useless, and a clog to trade;
And, that his noble style he might refine,
No Rechabite more shunned the fumes of wine.
Chaste were his cellars, and his shrieval board
The grossness of a city-feast abhorred.
His cooks, with long disuse, their trade forgot;
Cool was his kitchen, though his brains were hot.
Such frugal virtue malice may accuse;
But sure 'twas necessary to the Jews:
For towns, once burnt, such magistrates require,
As dare not tempt God's providence by fire.
With spiritual food he fed his servants well,
But free from flesh, that made the Jews rebel:
And Moses' laws he held in more account,
For forty days of fasting in the mount.
To speak the rest (who better are forgot),
Would tire a well-breathed witness of the plot.
Yet Corah, thou shalt from oblivion pass;
Erect thyself, thou monumental brass,
274

High as the serpent of thy metal made,
While nations stand secure beneath thy shade!
275

What though his birth were base, yet comets rise
From earthy vapours, ere they shine in skies.
Prodigious actions may as well be done
By weaver's issue, as by prince's son.
This arch-attester for the public good
By that one deed ennobles all his blood.
Who ever asked the witnesses' high race,
Whose oath with martyrdom did Stephen grace?
Ours was a Levite, and, as times went then,
His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen.
Sunk were his eyes, his voice was harsh and loud:
Sure signs he neither choleric was, nor proud:
276

His long chin proved his wit; his saint-like grace
A church vermilion, and a Moses' face.
His memory, miraculously great,
Could plots, exceeding man's belief, repeat;
Which therefore cannot be accounted lies,
For human wit could never such devise.
Some future truths are mingled in his book;
But where the witness failed the prophet spoke:
Some things like visionary flight appear;
The spirit caught him up,—the Lord knows where,
And gave him his rabbinical degree,
Unknown to foreign university.
277

His judgment yet his memory did excel;
Which pieced his wondrous evidence so well,
And suited to the temper of the times,
Then groaning under Jebusitic crimes.
Let Israel's foes suspect his heavenly call,
And rashly judge his writ apocryphal;
Our laws for such affronts have forfeits made:
He takes his life, who takes away his trade.
Were I myself in witness Corah's place,
The wretch, who did me such a dire disgrace,
Should whet my memory, though once forgot,
To make him an appendix of my plot.
His zeal to heaven made him his prince despise,
And load his person with indignities.
But zeal peculiar privilege affords,
Indulging latitude to deeds and words:
And Corah might for Agag's murder call,
In terms as coarse as Samuel used to Saul.
278

What others in his evidence did join,
The best that could be had for love or coin,
279

In Corah's own predicament will fall:
For witness is a common name to all.
280

Surrounded thus with friends of every sort,
Deluded Absalom forsakes the court;
Impatient of high hopes, urged with renown,
And fired with near possession of a crown.
The admiring crowd are dazzled with surprise,
And on his goodly person feed their eyes.
His joy concealed, he sets himself to show;
On each side bowing popularly low:
His looks, his gestures, and his words he frames,
And with familiar ease repeats their names.
281

Thus formed by nature, furnished out with arts,
He glides unfelt into their secret hearts.
Then with a kind compassionating look,
And sighs, bespeaking pity ere he spoke,
Few words he said; but easy those and fit,
More slow than Hybla-drops, and far more sweet.
“I mourn, my countrymen, your lost estate;
Though far unable to prevent your fate:
Behold a banished man, for your dear cause
Exposed a prey to arbitrary laws!
Yet oh! that I alone could be undone,
Cut off from empire, and no more a son!
Now all your liberties a spoil are made;
Egypt and Tyrus intercept your trade,
And Jebusites your sacred rites invade.
My father,—whom with reverence yet I name—
Charmed into ease, is careless of his fame;
And, bribed with petty sums of foreign gold,
Is grown in Bathsheba's embraces old;
Exalts his enemies, his friends destroys,
And all his power against himself employs.
He gives,—and let him give,—my right away:
But why should he his own and yours betray?
He, only he, can make the nation bleed,
And he alone from my revenge is freed.
Take then my tears,”—with that he wiped his eyes,—
“'Tis all the aid my present power supplies:
No court-informer can these arms accuse;
These arms may sons against their fathers use:
And 'tis my wish, the next successor's reign
May make no other Israelite complain.”
Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail;
But common interest always will prevail;
282

And pity never ceases to be shown
To him who makes the people's wrongs his own.
The crowd, that still believe their kings oppress,
With lifted hands their young Messiah bless:
Who now begins his progress to ordain
With chariots, horsemen, and a numerous train:
283

From east to west his glories he displays,
And, like the sun, the promised land surveys.
284

Fame runs before him as the morning-star,
And shouts of joy salute him from afar;
285

Each house receives him as a guardian god,
And consecrates the place of his abode.
286

But hospitable treats did most commend
Wise Issachar, his wealthy western friend.
287

This moving court, that caught the people's eyes,
And seemed but pomp, did other ends disguise:
288

Achitophel had formed it, with intent
To sound the depths, and fathom, where it went,
The people's hearts, distinguish friends from foes,
And try their strength before they came to blows.
Yet all was coloured with a smooth pretence
Of specious love, and duty to their prince.
Religion, and redress of grievances,
(Two names that always cheat, and always please,)
Are often urged; and good king David's life,
Endangered by a brother and a wife.
Thus in a pageant-show a plot is made;
And peace itself is war in masquerade.
Oh foolish Israel! never warned by ill!
Still the same bait, and circumvented still!
Did ever men forsake their present ease,
In midst of health imagine a disease,
289

Take pains contingent mischiefs to foresee,
Make heirs for monarchs, and for God decree?
What shall we think? Can people give away,
Both for themselves and sons, their native sway?
Then they are left defenceless to the sword
Of each unbounded, arbitrary lord:
And laws are vain, by which we right enjoy,
If kings unquestioned can those laws destroy.
Yet if the crowd be judge of fit and just,
And kings are only officers in trust,
Then this resuming covenant was declared
When kings were made, or is for ever barred.
If those, who gave the sceptre, could not tie,
By their own deed, their own posterity,
How then could Adam bind his future race?
How could his forfeit on mankind take place?
290

Or how could heavenly justice damn us all,
Who ne'er consented to our father's fall?
Then kings are slaves to those whom they command,
And tenants to their people's pleasure stand.
Add, that the power, for property allowed,
Is mischievously seated in the crowd;
For who can be secure of private right,
If sovereign sway may be dissolved by might?
Nor is the people's judgment always true:
The most may err as grossly as the few;
And faultless kings run down by common cry,
For vice, oppression, and for tyranny.
What standard is there in a fickle rout,
Which, flowing to the mark, runs faster out?
Nor only crowds but Sanhedrims may be
Infected with this public lunacy,
And share the madness of rebellious times,
To murder monarchs for imagined crimes.
If they may give and take whene'er they please,
Not kings alone, the Godhead's images,
But government itself, at length must fall
To nature's state, where all have right to all.
Yet, grant our lords, the people, kings can make,
What prudent man a settled throne would shake?
For whatsoe'er their sufferings were before,
That change they covet makes them suffer more.
All other errors but disturb a state;
But innovation is the blow of fate.
If ancient fabrics nod, and threat to fall,
To patch the flaws, and buttress up the wall,
291

Thus far 'tis duty: but here fix the mark;
For all beyond it is to touch our ark.
To change foundations, cast the frame anew,
Is work for rebels, who base ends pursue;
At once divine and human laws control,
And mend the parts by ruin of the whole.
The tampering world is subject to this curse,
To physic their disease into a worse.
Now what relief can righteous David bring?
How fatal 'tis to be too good a king!
Friends he has few, so high the madness grows;
Who dare be such must be the people's foes.
Yet some there were, even in the worst of days;
Some let me name, and naming is to praise.
In this short file Barzillai first appears;
Barzillai, crowned with honour and with years.
292

Long since, the rising rebels he withstood
In regions waste beyond the Jordan's flood:
293

Unfortunately brave to buoy the state;
But sinking underneath his master's fate:
294

In exile with his godlike prince he mourned;
For him he suffered, and with him returned.
295

The court he practised, not the courtier's art:
Large was his wealth, but larger was his heart,
296

Which well the noblest objects knew to choose,
The fighting warrior, and recording muse.
His bed could once a fruitful issue boast;
Now more than half a father's name is lost.
His eldest hope, with every grace adorned,
By me, so heaven will have it, always mourned,
And always honoured, snatched in manhood's prime
By unequal fates, and providence's crime:
297

Yet not before the goal of honour won,
All parts fulfilled of subject and of son:
Swift was the race, but short the time to run.
298

Oh narrow circle, but of power divine,
Scanted in space, and perfect in thy line!
By sea, by land, thy matchless worth was known,
Arms thy delight, and war was all thy own:
299

Thy force infused the fainting Tyrians propped,
And haughty Pharaoh found his fortune stopped.
Oh ancient honour! Oh unconquered hand,
Whom foes unpunished never could withstand!
But Israel was unworthy of thy name:
Short is the date of all immoderate fame.
It looks as heaven our ruin had designed,
And durst not trust thy fortune and thy mind.
Now, free from earth, thy disencumbered soul
Mounts up, and leaves behind the clouds and starry pole:
From thence thy kindred legions may'st thou bring,
To aid the guardian angel of thy king.
Here stop, my muse; here cease thy painful flight;
No pinions can pursue immortal height:
Tell good Barzillai thou canst sing no more,
And tell thy soul she should have fled before:
Or fled she with his life, and left this verse
To hang on her departed patron's hearse?
Now take thy steepy flight from heaven, and see
If thou canst find on earth another he:
Another he would be too hard to find;
See then whom thou canst see not far behind.
Zadoc the priest, whom, shunning power and place,
His lowly mind advanced to David's grace.
300

With him the Sagan of Jerusalem,
301

Of hospitable soul, and noble stem;
302

Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense
Flows in fit words, and heavenly eloquence.
The prophet's sons, by such example led,
To learning and to loyalty were bred:
For colleges on bounteous kings depend,
And never rebel was to arts a friend.
To these succeed the pillars of the laws;
Who best could plead, and best can judge a cause.
Next them a train of loyal peers ascend;
Sharp-judging Adriel, the muses' friend,
303

Himself a muse: in Sanhedrim's debate,
True to his prince, but not a slave of state:
Whom David's love with honours did adorn,
That from his disobedient son were torn.
304

Jotham, of piercing wit, and pregnant thought,
Endued by nature, and by learning taught,
305

To move assemblies, who but only tried
The worse awhile, then chose the better side:
306

Nor chose alone, but turned the balance too;
So much the weight of one brave man can do.
Hushai, the friend of David in distress;
In public storms, of manly stedfastness;
By foreign treaties he informed his youth,
And joined experience to his native truth.
His frugal care supplied the wanting throne;
Frugal for that, but bounteous of his own:
307

'Tis easy conduct when exchequers flow,
But hard the task to manage well the low;
For sovereign power is too depressed or high,
When kings are forced to sell, or crowds to buy.
Indulge one labour more, my weary muse,
For Amiel; who can Amiel's praise refuse?
Of ancient race by birth, but nobler yet
In his own worth, and without title great:
308

The Sanhedrim long time as chief he ruled,
Their reason guided, and their passion cooled:
So dexterous was he in the crown's defence,
So formed to speak a loyal nation's sense,
That, as their band was Israel's tribes in small,
So fit was he to represent them all.
Now rasher charioteers the seat ascend,
Whose loose careers his steady skill commend:
309

They, like the unequal ruler of the day,
Misguide the seasons, and mistake the way;
While he, withdrawn, at their mad labours smiles,
And safe enjoys the Sabbath of his toils.
These were the chief; a small but faithful band
Of worthies, in the breach who dared to stand,
And tempt the united fury of the land.
With grief they viewed such powerful engines bent,
To batter down the lawful government.
310

A numerous faction, with pretended frights,
In Sanhedrims to plume the legal rights;
The true successor from the court removed;
The plot, by hireling witnesses, improved.
These ills they saw, and, as their duty bound,
They showed the king the danger of the wound;
That no concessions from the throne would please,
But lenitives fomented the disease:
That Absalom, ambitious of the crown,
Was made the lure to draw the people down:
That false Achitophel's pernicious hate
Had turned the plot to ruin church and state:
The council violent, the rabble worse;
That Shimei taught Jerusalem to curse.
With all these loads of injuries opprest,
And long revolving in his careful breast
The event of things, at last, his patience tired,
Thus, from his royal throne, by heaven inspired,
The godlike David spoke; with awful fear
His train their Maker in their master hear.
311

“Thus long, have I by native mercy swayed,
My wrongs dissembled, my revenge delayed;
So willing to forgive the offending age;
So much the father did the king assuage.
But now so far my clemency they slight,
The offenders question my forgiving right.
312

That one was made for many, they contend;
But 'tis to rule; for that's a monarch's end.
They call my tenderness of blood, my fear;
Though manly tempers can the longest bear.
Yet since they will divert my native course,
'Tis time to show I am not good by force.
Those heaped affronts, that haughty subjects bring,
Are burdens for a camel, not a king.
Kings are the public pillars of the state,
Born to sustain and prop the nation's weight:
If my young Samson will pretend a call
To shake the column, let him share the fall:
But oh, that yet he would repent and live!
How easy 'tis for parents to forgive!
With how few tears a pardon might be won
From nature, pleading for a darling son!
Poor, pitied youth, by my paternal care
Raised up to all the height his fame could bear!
Had God ordained his fate for empire born,
He would have given his soul another turn:
Gulled with a patriot's name, whose modern sense
Is one that would by law supplant his prince;
313

The people's brave, the politician's tool;
Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.
Whence comes it, that religion and the laws
Should more be Absalom's than David's cause?
His old instructor, ere he lost his place,
Was never thought endued with so much grace.
Good heavens, how faction can a patriot paint!
My rebel ever proves my people's saint.
Would they impose an heir upon the throne?
Let Sanhedrims be taught to give their own.
A king's at least a part of government;
And mine as requisite as their consent:
Without my leave a future king to choose,
Infers a right the present to depose.
True, they petition me to approve their choice;
But Esau's hands suit ill with Jacob's voice.
My pious subjects for my safety pray;
Which to secure, they take my power away.
From plots and treasons heaven preserve my years,
But save me most from my petitioners!
Unsatiate as the barren womb or grave;
God cannot grant so much as they can crave.
What then is left, but with a jealous eye
To guard the small remains of royalty?
The law shall still direct my peaceful sway,
And the same law teach rebels to obey:
Votes shall no more established power control,—
Such votes, as make a part exceed the whole.
No groundless clamours shall my friends remove,
Nor crowds have power to punish ere they prove;
For gods and godlike kings their care express,
Still to defend their servants in distress.
314

Oh, that my power to saving were confined!
Why am I forced, like heaven, against my mind,
To make examples of another kind?
Must I at length the sword of justice draw?
Oh curst effects of necessary law!
How ill my fear they by my mercy scan!
Beware the fury of a patient man.
Law they require, let law then show her face;
They could not be content to look on grace,
Her hinder parts, but with a daring eye,
To tempt the terror of her front, and die.
By their own arts 'tis righteously decreed,
Those dire artificers of death shall bleed.
Against themselves their witnesses will swear,
Till, viper-like, their mother-plot they tear;
And suck for nutriment that bloody gore,
Which was their principle of life before.
Their Belial with their Beelzebub will fight;
Thus on my foes, my foes shall do me right:
Nor doubt the event; for factious crowds engage,
In their first onset, all their brutal rage.
Then let them take an unresisted course;
Retire, and traverse, and delude their force:
315

But when they stand all breathless, urge the fight,
And rise upon them with redoubled might:
For lawful power is still superior found;
When long driven back, at length it stands the ground.”
He said; the Almighty, nodding, gave consent,
And peals of thunder shook the firmament.
Henceforth a series of new time began,
The mighty years in long procession ran;
Once more the godlike David was restored,
And willing nations knew their lawful lord.
317

II. PART II.

Si quis tamen hæc quoque, si quis
Captus amore leget. ------

323

Since men, like beasts, each other's prey were made,
Since trade began, and priesthood grew a trade,
Since realms were formed, none, sure, so curst as those,
That madly their own happiness oppose;
There heaven itself, and godlike kings, in vain
Shower down the manna of a gentle reign;
While pampered crowds to mad sedition run,
And monarchs by indulgence are undone.
Thus David's clemency was fatal grown,
While wealthy faction awed the wanting throne:
For now their sovereign's orders to contemn,
Was held the charter of Jerusalem;
His rights to invade, his tributes to refuse,
A privilege peculiar to the Jews;
As if from heavenly call this licence fell,
And Jacob's seed were chosen to rebel!
324

Achitophel, with triumph, sees his crimes
Thus suited to the madness of the times;
And Absalom, to make his hopes succeed,
Of flattering charms no longer stands in need;
While fond of change, though ne'er so dearly bought,
Our tribes outstrip the youth's ambitious thought;
His swiftest hopes with swifter homage meet,
And crowd their servile necks beneath his feet.
Thus to his aid while pressing tides repair,
He mounts, and spreads his streamers in the air.
The charms of empire might his youth mislead,
But what can our besotted Israel plead?
Swayed by a monarch, whose serene command
Seems half the blessing of our promised land;
Whose only grievance is excess of ease,
Freedom our pain, and plenty our disease!
Yet as all folly would lay claim to sense,
And wickedness ne'er wanted a pretence,
With arguments they'd make their treason good,
And righteous David's self with slanders load:
That arts of foreign sway he did affect,
And guilty Jebusites from law protect,
325

Whose very chiefs, convict, were never freed,
Nay we have seen their sacrifices bleed!
Accuser's infamy is urged in vain,
While in the bounds of sense they did contain;
But soon they launched into the unfathomed tide,
And in the depths they knew disdained to ride;
For probable discoveries to dispense,
Was thought below a pensioned evidence;
Mere truth was dull, nor suited with the port
Of pampered Corah, when advanced to court.
No less than wonders now they will impose,
And projects void of grace or sense disclose.
Such was the charge on pious Michal brought;
Michal, that ne'er was cruel even in thought;
The best of queens, and most obedient wife,
Impeached of curst designs on David's life!
His life, the theme of her eternal prayer,
'Tis scarce so much his guardian angel's care.
Not summer morns such mildness can disclose,
The Hermon lily, nor the Sharon rose,
Neglecting each vain pomp of majesty,
Transported Michal feeds her thoughts on high.
She lives with angels, and, as angels do,
Quits heaven sometimes to bless the world below;
Where, cherished by her bounteous plenteous spring,
Reviving widows smile, and orphans sing.
Oh! when rebellious Israel's crimes at height,
Are threatened with her Lord's approaching fate,
The piety of Michal then remain
In heaven's remembrance, and prolong his reign!
Less desolation did the pest pursue,
That from Dan's limits to Beersheba slew;
326

Less fatal the repeated wars of Tyre,
And less Jerusalem's avenging fire.
With gentler terror these our state o'erran,
Than since our evidencing days began!
On every cheek a pale confusion sat,
Continued fear beyond the worst of fate!
Trust was no more, art, science, useless made,
All occupations lost but Corah's trade.
Meanwhile a guard on modest Corah wait,
If not for safety, needful yet for state.
Well might he deem each peer and prince his slave,
And lord it o'er the tribes which he could save:
327

Even vice in him was virtue—what sad fate,
But for his honesty, had seized our state?
And with what tyranny had we been curst,
Had Corah never proved a villain first?
To have told his knowledge of the intrigue in gross,
Had been, alas, to our deponent's loss:
328

The travelled Levite had the experience got,
To husband well and make the best of's plot;
And therefore, like an evidence of skill,
With wise reserves secured his pension still;
Nor quite of future power himself bereft,
But limbos large for unbelievers left.
And now his writ such reverence had got,
'Twas worse than plotting to suspect his plot:
329

Some were so well convinced, they made no doubt
Themselves to help the foundered swearers out;
Some had their sense imposed on by their fear,
But more for interest sake believe and swear:
Even to that height with some the frenzy grew,
They raged to find their danger not prove true.
Yet, than all these a viler crew remain,
Who with Achitophel the cry maintain;
Not urged by fear, nor through misguided sense,
(Blind zeal and starving need had some pretence),
But for the good old cause, that did excite
The original rebel's wiles,—revenge, and spite.
These raise the plot, to have the scandal thrown
Upon the bright successor of the crown,
Whose virtue with such wrongs they had pursued,
As seemed all hope of pardon to exclude.
Thus, while on private ends their zeal is built,
The cheated crowd applaud and share their guilt.
Such practices as these, too gross to lie
Long unobserved by each discerning eye,
The more judicious Israelites unspelled,
Though still the charm the giddy rabble held;
Even Absalom, amidst the dazzling beams
Of empire, and ambition's flattering dreams,
Perceives the plot, too foul to be excused,
To aid designs, no less pernicious, used;
330

And, filial sense yet striving in his breast,
Thus to Achitophel his doubts exprest.
“Why are my thoughts upon a crown employed,
Which, once obtained, can be but half enjoyed?
Not so when virtue did my arms require,
And to my father's wars I flew entire.
331

My regal power how will my foes resent,
When I myself have scarce my own consent?
Give me a son's unblemished truth again,
Or quench the sparks of duty that remain.
How slight to force a throne that legions guard,
The task to me; to prove unjust, how hard!
332

And if the imagined guilt thus wound my thought,
What will it, when the tragic scene is wrought?
Dire war must first be conjured from below,
The realm we'd rule we first must overthrow;
And when the civil furies are on wing,
That blind and undistinguished slaughters fling,
Who knows what impious chance may reach the king?
Oh! rather let me perish in the strife,
Than have my crown the price of David's life!
Or, if the tempest of the war he stand,
In peace, some vile officious villain's hand
His soul's anointed temple may invade,
Or, prest by clamorous crowds, myself be made
His murtherer; rebellious crowds, whose guilt
Shall dread his vengeance till his blood be spilt;
Which if my filial tenderness oppose,
Since to the empire by their arms I rose,
Those very arms on me shall be employed,
A new usurper crowned, and I destroyed:
The same pretence of public good will hold,
And new Achitophels be found as bold
To urge the needful change,—perhaps the old.”
He said. The statesman with a smile replies,
A smile that did his rising spleen disguise:—
“My thoughts presumed our labours at an end,
And are we still with conscience to contend?
Whose want in kings as needful is allowed,
As 'tis for them to find it in the crowd.
Far in the doubtful passage you are gone,
And only can be safe by pressing on.
The crown's true heir, a prince severe and wise,
Has viewed your motions long with jealous eyes;
Your person's charms, your more prevailing arts,
And marked your progress in the people's hearts,
333

Whose patience is the effect of stinted power,
But treasures vengeance for the fatal hour;
And if remote the peril he can bring,
Your present danger's greater from the king.
Let not a parent's name deceive your sense,
Nor trust the father in a jealous prince!
Your trivial faults if he could so resent,
To doom you little less than banishment,
What rage must your presumption since inspire?
Against his orders your return from Tyre;
Nor only so, but with a pomp more high,
And open court of popularity,
The factious tribes—And this reproof from thee?”
The prince replies,—“O statesman's winding skill!
They first condemn, that first advised the ill.”—
“Illustrious youth,” returned Achitophel,
“Misconstrue not the words that mean you well.
The course you steer I worthy blame conclude,
But 'tis because you leave it unpursued.
A monarch's crown with fate surrounded lies;
Who reach, lay hold on death that miss the prize.
Did you for this expose yourself to show,
And to the crowd bow popularly low;
For this your glorious progress next ordain,
With chariots, horsemen, and a numerous train;
With fame before you like the morning star,
And shouts of joy saluting from afar?
Oh from the heights you've reached but take a view,
Scarce leading Lucifer could fall like you!
And must I here my shipwrecked arts bemoan?
Have I for this so oft made Israel groan?
334

Your single interest with the nation weighed,
And turned the scale where your desires were laid.
Even when at helm a course so dangerous moved
To land your hopes, as my removal proved.”
“I not dispute,” the royal youth replies,
“The known perfection of your policies,
Nor in Achitophel yet grudge or blame
The privilege that statesmen ever claim;
Who private interest never yet pursued,
But still pretended 'twas for others' good:
What politician yet e'er 'scaped his fate,
Who saving his own neck not saved the state?
From hence on every humorous wind that veered,
With shifted sails a several course you steered.
What form of sway did David e'er pursue,
That seemed like absolute, but sprung from you?
Who at your instance quashed each penal law,
That kept dissenting factious Jews in awe;
335

And who suspends fixed laws, may abrogate,
That done, form new, and so enslave the state.
Even property, whose champion now you stand,
And seem for this the idol of the land,
Did ne'er sustain such violence before,
As when your counsel shut the royal store;
Advice, that ruin to whole tribes procured,
But secret kept till your own banks secured.
Recount with this the triple covenant broke,
And Israel fitted for a foreign yoke;
Nor here your counsels fatal progress stayed,
But sent our levied powers to Pharaoh's aid.
Hence Tyre and Israel, low in ruins laid,
And Egypt, once their scorn, their common terror made.
Even yet of such a season can we dream,
When royal rights you made your darling theme;
For power unlimited could reasons draw,
And place prerogative above the law;
Which on your fall from office grew unjust,
The laws made king, the king a slave in trust;
Whom with state-craft, to interest only true,
You now accuse of ills contrived by you.”
To this hell's agent:—“Royal youth, fix here;
Let interest be the star by which you steer.
336

Hence, to repose your trust in me was wise,
Whose interest most in your advancement lies;
A tie so firm as always will avail,
When friendship, nature, and religion fail.
On ours the safety of the crowd depends,
Secure the crowd, and we obtain our ends;
Whom I will cause so far our guilt to share,
Till they are made our champions by their fear.
What opposition can your rival bring,
While sanhedrims are jealous of the king?
His strength as yet in David's friendship lies,
And what can David's self without supplies?
Who with exclusive bills must now dispense,
Debar the heir, or starve in his defence;
Conditions which our elders ne'er will quit,
And David's justice never can admit.
Or, forced by wants his brother to betray,
To your ambition next he clears the way;
For if succession once to nought they bring,
Their next advance removes the present king:
Persisting else his senates to dissolve,
In equal hazard shall his reign involve.
Our tribes, whom Pharaoh's power so much alarms,
Shall rise without their prince to oppose his arms.
Nor boots it on what cause at first they join;
Their troops, once up, are tools for our design.
At least such subtle covenants shall be made,
Till peace itself is war in masquerade.
Associations of mysterious sense,
Against, but seeming for, the king's defence,
Even on their courts of justice fetters draw,
And from our agents muzzle up their law.
337

By which a conquest if we fail to make,
'Tis a drawn game at worst, and we secure our stake.”
He said, and for the dire success depends
On various sects, by common guilt made friends;
Whose heads, though ne'er so differing in their creed,
I'th' point of treason yet were well agreed.
Amongst these, extorting Ishban first appears,
Pursued by a meagre troop of bankrupt heirs,
338

Blest times, when Ishban, he whose occupation
So long has been to cheat, reforms the nation!
Ishban, of conscience suited to his trade,
As good a saint as usurer ever made.
Yet Mammon has not so engrossed him quite,
But Belial lays as large a claim of spite;
Who, for those pardons from his prince he draws,
Returns reproaches, and cries up the cause.
That year in which the city he did sway,
He left rebellion in a hopeful way;
339

Yet his ambition once was found so bold,
To offer talents of extorted gold,
(Could David's wants have so been bribed), to shame
And scandalise our peerage with his name;
For which his dear sedition he'd forswear,
And e'en turn loyal, to be made a peer.
Next him, let railing Rabsheka have place,
So full of zeal he has no need of grace;
340

A saint that can both flesh and spirit use,
Alike haunt conventicles and the stews;
Of whom the question difficult appears,
If most i'th' preacher's or the bawd's arrears.
What caution could appear too much in him,
That keeps the treasure of Jerusalem!
Let David's brother but approach the town,
“Double our guards,” he cries, “we are undone.”
341

Protesting that he dares not sleep in's bed,
Lest he should rise next morn without his head.
Next these, a troop of busy spirits press,
Of little fortunes, and of conscience less;
With them the tribe, whose luxury had drained
Their banks, in former sequestrations gained;
Who rich and great by past rebellions grew,
And long to fish the troubled streams anew.
Some, future hopes, some, present payment draws,
To sell their conscience and espouse the cause.
Such stipends those vile hirelings best befit,
Priests without grace, and poets without wit.
342

Shall that false Hebronite escape our curse,
Judas, that keeps the rebels' pension-purse;
343

Judas, that pays the treason-writer's fee,
Judas, that well deserves his namesake's tree;
344

Who at Jerusalem's own gates erects
His college for a nursery of sects;
345

Young prophets with an early care secures,
And with the dung of his own arts manures!
346

What have the men of Hebron here to do?
What part in Israel's promised land have you?
347

Here Phaleg, the lay-Hebronite, is come,
'Cause like the rest he could not live at home;
348

Who from his own possessions could not drain
An omer even of Hebronitish grain,
Here struts it like a patriot, and talks high
Of injured subjects, altered property;
An emblem of that buzzing insect just,
That mounts the wheel, and thinks she raises dust.
Can dry bones live? or skeletons produce
The vital warmth of cuckoldising juice?
Slim Phaleg could, and, at the table fed,
Returned the grateful product to the bed.
A waiting-man to travelling nobles chose,
He his own laws would saucily impose,
Till bastinadoed back again he went,
To learn those manners he to teach was sent.
Chastised he ought to have retreated home,
But he reads politics to Absalom;
349

For never Hebronite, though kicked and scorned,
To his own country willingly returned.
—But, leaving famished Phaleg to be fed,
And to talk treason for his daily bread,
Let Hebron, nay let hell, produce a man
So made for mischief as Ben-Jochanan;
350

A Jew of humble parentage was he,
By trade a Levite, though of low degree;
351

His pride no higher than the desk aspired,
But for the drudgery of priests was hired
352

To read and pray in linen ephod brave,
And pick up single shekels from the grave.
Married at last, and finding charge come faster,
He could not live by God, but changed his master;
Inspired by want, was made a factious tool,
They got a villain, and we lost a fool.
Still violent, whatever cause he took,
But most against the party he forsook:
For renegadoes, who ne'er turn by halves,
Are bound in conscience to be double knaves.
So this prose-prophet took most monstrous pains,
To let his masters see he earned his gains.
But as the devil owes all his imps a shame,
He chose the apostate for his proper theme;
With little pains he made the picture true,
And from reflexion took the rogue he drew.
A wondrous work, to prove the Jewish nation
In every age a murmuring generation;
To trace them from their infancy of sinning,
And show them factious from their first beginning.
To prove they could rebel, and rail, and mock,
Much to the credit of the chosen flock;
A strong authority which must convince,
That saints own no allegiance to their prince;
As 'tis a leading-card to make a whore,
To prove her mother had turned up before.
But, tell me, did the drunken patriarch bless
The son that showed his father's nakedness?
Such thanks the present church thy pen will give,
Which proves rebellion was so primitive.
Must ancient failings be examples made?
Then murtherers from Cain may learn their trade.
353

As thou the heathen and the saint hast drawn,
Methinks the apostate was the better man;
And thy hot father, waving my respect,
Not of a mother-church, but of a sect.
And such he needs must be of thy inditing;
This comes of drinking asses' milk and writing.
If Balak should be called to leave his place,
As profit is the loudest call of grace,
His temple, dispossessed of one, would be
Replenished with seven devils more by thee.
Levi, thou art a load; I'll lay thee down,
And show rebellion bare, without a gown;
Poor slaves in metre, dull and addle-pated,
Who rhyme below even David's psalms translated:
Some in my speedy pace I must outrun,
As lame Mephibosheth the wizard's son;
354

To make quick way I'll heap o'er heavy blocks,
Shun rotten Uzza as I would the pox;
355

And hasten Og and Doeg to rehearse,
Two fools that crutch their feeble sense on verse;
Who by my muse to all succeeding times
Shall live in spite of their own doggrel rhymes.
Doeg, though without knowing how or why,
Made still a blundering kind of melody;
356

Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin,
Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in;
Free from all meaning, whether good or bad,
And, in one word, heroically mad.
357

He was too warm on picking-work to dwell,
But fagoted his notions as they fell,
And, if they rhymed and rattled, all was well.
Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a satire,
For still there goes some thinking to ill-nature;
358

He needs no more than birds and beasts to think,
All his occasions are to eat and drink.
359

If he call rogue and rascal from a garret,
He means you no more mischief than a parrot;
360

The words for friend and foe alike were made,
To fetter them in verse is all his trade.
361

For almonds he'll cry whore to his own mother,
And call young Absalom king David's brother.
Let him be gallows-free by my consent,
And nothing suffer since he nothing meant;
Hanging supposes human soul and reason,
This animal's below committing treason;
Shall he be hanged who never could rebel?
That's a preferment for Achitophel.
The woman, that committed buggary,
Was rightly sentenced by the law to die;
But 'twas hard fate that to the gallows led
The dog, that never heard the statute read.
362

Railing in other men may be a crime,
But ought to pass for mere instinct in him;
Instinct he follows and no farther knows,
For, to write verse with him is to transprose;
'Twere pity treason at his door to lay,
Who makes heaven's gate a lock to its own key.
Let him rail on, let his invective muse
Have four-and-twenty letters to abuse,
Which if he jumbles to one line of sense,
Indict him of a capital offence.
In fireworks give him leave to vent his spite,
Those are the only serpents he can write;
The height of his ambition is, we know,
But to be master of a puppet-show;
On that one stage his works may yet appear,
And a month's harvest keeps him all the year.
Now stop your noses, readers, all and some,
For here's a tun of midnight-work to come,
Og from a treason-tavern rolling home.
363

Round as a globe, and liquored every chink,
Goodly and great he sails behind his link.
With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,
For every inch, that is not fool, is rogue;
A monstrous mass of foul corrupted matter,
As all the devils had spewed to make the batter.
When wine has given him courage to blaspheme,
He curses God, but God before curst him;
364

And if man could have reason, none has more,
That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor.
With wealth he was not trusted, for heaven knew
What 'twas of old to pamper up a Jew;
To what would he on quail and pheasant swell,
That even on tripe and carrion could rebel?
But though heaven made him poor, with reverence speaking,
He never was a poet of God's making;
The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
With this prophetic blessing—Be thou dull;
Drink, swear, and roar; forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk; do anything but write.
Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men,
A strong nativity—but for the pen;
Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink,
Still thou may'st live, avoiding pen and ink.
I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain,
For treason, botched in rhyme, will be thy bane;
Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck,
'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck.
Why should thy metre good king David blast?
A psalm of his will surely be thy last.
Darest thou presume in verse to meet thy foes,
Thou, whom the penny pamphlet foiled in prose?
Doeg, whom God for mankind's mirth has made,
O'ertops thy talent in thy very trade;
Doeg to thee, thy paintings are so coarse,
A poet is, though he's the poet's horse.
A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,
For writing treason, and for writing dull;
To die for faction is a common evil,
But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.
Hadst thou the glories of thy king exprest,
Thy praises had been satire at the best;
But thou in clumsy verse, unlickt, unpointed,
Hast shamefully defied the Lord's anointed.
365

I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes,
For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes?
But of king David's foes be this the doom,
May all be like the young man Absalom;
And, for my foes, may this their blessing be,
To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee!
Achitophel each rank, degree, and age,
For various ends neglects not to engage;
The wise and rich, for purse and counsel brought,
The fools and beggars, for their number sought;
Who yet not only on the town depends,
For even in court the faction had its friends.
These thought the places they possest too small,
And in their hearts wished court and king to fall;
Whose names the muse, disdaining holds i'th' dark,
Thrust in the villain herd without a mark;
With parasites and libel-spawning imps,
Intriguing fops, dull jesters, and worse pimps.
Disdain the rascal rabble to pursue,
Their set cabals are yet a viler crew.
See where involved in common smoke they sit,
Some for our mirth, some for our satire fit;
These gloomy, thoughtful, and on mischief bent,
While those for mere good fellowship frequent
The appointed club, can let sedition pass,
Sense, nonsense, anything to employ the glass;
366

And who believe, in their dull honest hearts,
The rest talk treason but to show their parts;
367

Who ne'er had wit or will for mischief yet,
But pleased to be reputed of a set.
But in the sacred annals of our plot,
Industrious Arod never be forgot;
368

The labours of this midnight magistrate
May vie with Corah's to preserve the state.
In search of arms he failed not to lay hold
On war's most powerful dangerous weapon, gold.
And last, to take from Jebusites all odds,
Their altars pillaged, stole their very gods.
369

Oft would he cry, when treasure he surprised,
'Tis Baalish gold in David's coin disguised.
Which to his house with richer reliques came,
While lumber idols only fed the flame;
For our wise rabble ne'er took pains to inquire,
What 'twas he burnt, so it made a rousing fire.
With which our elder was enriched no more
Than false Gehazi with the Syrian's store;
So poor, that when our choosing tribes were met,
Even for his stinking votes he ran in debt;
For meat the wicked, and, as authors think,
The saints he choused for his electing drink;
Thus every shift and subtle method past,
And all to be no Zaken at the last.
370

Now, raised on Tyre's sad ruins, Pharaoh's pride
Soared high, his legions threat'ning far and wide;
As when a battering storm engendered high,
By winds upheld, hangs hovering in the sky,
Is gazed upon by every trembling swain,
This for his vineyard fears, and that his grain,
For blooming plants, and flowers new opening; these
For lambs eaned lately, and far-labouring bees;
To guard his stock each to the gods does call,
Uncertain where the fire-charged clouds will fall;
Even so the doubtful nations watch his arms,
With terror each expecting his alarms.
Where, Judah, where was now thy lion's roar?
Thou only couldst the captive lands restore;
But thou, with inbred broils and faction prest,
From Egypt need'st a guardian with the rest.
Thy prince from sanhedrims no trust allowed,
Too much the representers of the crowd,
Who for their own defence give no supply,
But what the crown's prerogatives must buy;
As if their monarch's rights to violate
More needful were, than to preserve the state!
371

From present dangers they divert their care,
And all their fears are of the royal heir;
Whom now the reigning malice of his foes,
Unjudged would sentence, and ere crowned depose;
Religion the pretence, but their decree
To bar his reign, whate'er his faith shall be.
By sanhedrims and clamorous crowds thus prest,
What passions rent the righteous David's breast!
Who knows not how to oppose or to comply,
Unjust to grant, and dangerous to deny!
How near in this dark juncture Israel's fate,
Whose peace one sole expedient could create,
Which yet the extremest virtue did require,
Even of that prince whose downfall they conspire!
His absence David does with tears advise,
To appease their rage; undaunted he complies.
372

Thus he, who, prodigal of blood and ease,
A royal life exposed to winds and seas,
At once contending with the waves and fire,
And heading danger in the wars of Tyre,
Inglorious now forsakes his native sand,
And, like an exile, quits the promised land.
Our monarch scarce from pressing tears refrains,
And painfully his royal state maintains,
Who now, embracing on the extremest shore,
Almost revokes what he enjoyed before;
Concludes, at last, more trust to be allowed
To storms and seas than to the raging crowd.—
Forbear, rash muse, the parting scene to draw,
With silence charmed as deep as theirs that saw
Not only our attending nobles weep,
But hardy sailors swell with tears the deep;
The tide restrained her course, and, more amazed,
The twin-stars on the royal brothers gazed;
While this sole fear—
Does trouble to our suffering hero bring,
Lest, next, the popular rage oppress the king.
Thus parting, each for the other's danger grieved,
The shore the king, and seas the prince received.—
Go, injured hero! while propitious gales,
Soft as thy consort's breath, inspire thy sails;
Well may she trust her beauties on a flood,
Where thy triumphant fleets so oft have rode!
Safe on thy breast reclined, her rest be deep,
Rocked, like a Nereid, by the waves asleep;
373

While happiest dreams her fancy entertain,
And to Elysian fields convert the main!
Go, injured hero! while the shores of Tyre
At thy approach so silent shall admire,
Who on thy thunder still their thoughts employ,
And greet thy landing with a trembling joy.
On heroes thus the prophet's fate is thrown,
Admired by every nation but their own;
Yet while our factious Jews his worth deny,
Their aching conscience gives their tongue the lie.
Even in the worst of men the noblest parts
Confess him, and he triumphs in their hearts;
Whom to his king the best respects commend,
Of subject, soldier, kinsman, prince and friend;
All sacred names of most divine esteem,
And to perfection all sustained by him;
Wise, just, and constant, courtly without art,
Swift to discern and to reward desert;
No hour of his in fruitless ease destroyed,
But on the noblest subjects still employed;
Whose steady soul ne'er learnt to separate
Between his monarch's interest and the state,
But heaps those blessings on the royal head,
Which he well knows must be on subjects shed.
On what pretence could then the vulgar rage
Against his worth, and native rights engage?
Religious fears their argument are made,
Religious fears his sacred rights invade!
Of future superstition they complain,
And Jebusitic worship in his reign;
With such alarms his foes the crowd deceive,
With dangers fright, which not themselves believe.
Since nothing can our sacred rites remove,
Whate'er the faith of the successor prove;
Our Jews their ark shall undisturbed retain,
At least while their religion is their gain,
374

Who know by old experience Baal's commands
Not only claimed their conscience but their lands.
They grudge God's tithes; how therefore shall they yield
An idol full possession of the field?
Grant such a prince enthroned, we must confess
The people's sufferings than that monarch's less,
Who must to hard conditions still be bound,
And for his quiet with the crowd compound;
Or should his thoughts to tyranny incline,
Where are the means to compass the design?
Our crown's revenues are too short a store,
And jealous sanhedrims would give no more.
As vain our fears of Egypt's potent aid;
Not so has Pharaoh learnt ambition's trade,
Nor ever with such measures can comply,
As shock the common rules of policy.
None dread like him the growth of Israel's king;
And he alone sufficient aids can bring,
Who knows that prince to Egypt can give law,
That on our stubborn tribes his yoke could draw:
At such profound expense he has not stood,
Nor dyed for this his hands so deep in blood;
Would ne'er through wrong and right his progress take,
Grudge his own rest, and keep the world awake,
To fix a lawless prince on Judah's throne,
First to invade our rights, and then his own;
His dear-gained conquests cheaply to despoil,
And reap the harvest of his crimes and toil.
We grant his wealth vast as our ocean's sand,
And curse its fatal influence on our land,
Which our bribed Jews so numerously partake,
That even an host his pensioners would make.
From these deceivers our divisions spring,
Our weakness, and the growth of Egypt's king;
375

These, with pretended friendship to the state,
Our crowd's suspicion of their prince create,
Both pleased and frightened with the specious cry,
To guard their sacred rights and property.
To ruin thus the chosen flock are sold,
While wolves are ta'en for guardians of the fold;
Seduced by these we groundlessly complain,
And loathe the manna of a gentle reign;
Thus our forefathers' crooked paths are trod,
We trust our prince no more than they their God.
But all in vain our reasoning prophets preach,
To those whom sad experience ne'er could teach,
Who can commence new broils in bleeding scars,
And fresh remembrance of intestine wars;
When the same household mortal foes did yield,
And brothers stained with brothers' blood the field;
When sons' curst steel the fathers' gore did stain,
And mothers mourned for sons by fathers slain!
When thick as Egypt's locusts on the sand,
Our tribes lay slaughtered through the promised land,
Whose few survivors with worse fate remain,
To drag the bondage of a tyrant's reign;
Which scene of woes, unknowing, we renew
And madly even those ills we fear pursue;
While Pharaoh laughs at our domestic broils,
And safely crowds his tents with nations' spoils.
Yet our fierce sanhedrim, in restless rage,
Against our absent hero still engage,
And chiefly urge, such did their frenzy prove,
The only suit their prince forbids to move;
Which till obtained they cease affairs of state,
And real dangers wave for groundless hate.
Long David's patience waits relief to bring,
With all the indulgence of a lawful king,
376

Expecting till the troubled waves would cease,
But found the raging billows still increase.
The crowd, whose insolence forbearance swells,
While he forgives too far, almost rebels.
At last his deep resentments silence broke,
The imperial palace shook, while thus he spoke:
“Then Justice wake, and Rigour take her time,
For lo! our mercy is become our crime.
While halting punishment her stroke delays,
Our sovereign right, heaven's sacred trust, decays;
For whose support even subjects' interest calls,
Woe to that kingdom where the monarch falls!
That prince, who yields the least of regal sway,
So far his people's freedom does betray.
Right lives by law, and law subsists by power;
Disarm the shepherd, wolves the flock devour.
Hard lot of empire o'er a stubborn race,
Which heaven itself in vain has tried with grace!
When will our reason's long-charmed eyes unclose,
And Israel judge between her friends and foes?
When shall we see expired deceivers' sway,
And credit what our God and monarchs say?
Dissembled patriots, bribed with Egypt's gold,
Even sanhedrims in blind obedience hold;
377

Those patriots' falsehood in their actions see,
And judge by the pernicious fruit the tree;
If aught for which so loudly they declaim,
Religion, laws, and freedom, were their aim,
Our senates in due methods they had led,
To avoid those mischiefs which they seem'd to dread;
But first, e'er yet they propped the sinking state,
To impeach and charge, as urged by private hate,
Proves that they ne'er believed the fears they prest,
But barbarously destroyed the nation's rest.
O whither will ungoverned senates drive?
And to what bounds licentious votes arrive?
When their injustice we are pressed to share,
The monarch urged to exclude the lawful heir.
Are princes thus distinguished from the crowd,
And this the privilege of royal blood?
But grant we should confirm the wrongs they press,
His sufferings yet were than the people's less;
Condemned for life the murdering sword to wield,
And on their heirs entail a bloody field.
Thus madly their own freedom they betray,
And for the oppression which they fear make way;
Succession fixed by heaven, the kingdom's bar,
Which, once dissolved, admits the flood of war;
Waste, rapine, spoil, without the assault begin,
And our mad tribes supplant the fence within.
Since, then, their good they will not understand,
'Tis time to take the monarch's power in hand;
Authority and force to join with skill,
And save the lunatics against their will.
The same rough means that 'suage the crowd, appease
Our senates, raging with the crowd's disease.
378

Henceforth unbiassed measures let them draw
From no false gloss, but genuine text of law;
Nor urge those crimes upon religion's score,
Themselves so much in Jebusites abhor;
Whom laws convict, and only they, shall bleed,
Nor Pharisees by Pharisees be freed.
Impartial justice from our throne shall shower,
All shall have right, and we our sovereign power.”
He said; the attendants heard with awful joy,
And glad presages their fixed thoughts employ.
From Hebron now the suffering heir returned,
A realm that long with civil discord mourned;
Till his approach, like some arriving god,
Composed and healed the place of his abode;
379

The deluge checked that to Judea spread,
And stopped sedition at the fountain's head.
Thus in forgiving David's paths he drives,
And, chased from Israel, Israel's peace contrives.
The field confessed his power in arms before,
And seas proclaimed his triumphs to the shore;
As nobly has his sway in Hebron shown,
How fit to inherit godlike David's throne.
Through Sion's streets his glad arrival's spread,
And conscious faction shrinks her snaky head;
His train their sufferings think o'erpaid to see
The crowds applause with virtue once agree.
Success charms all, but zeal for worth distrest,
A virtue proper to the brave and best;
'Mongst whom was Jothran, Jothran always bent
To serve the crown, and loyal by descent;
380

Whose constancy so firm, and conduct just,
Deserved at once two royal masters' trust;
Who Tyre's proud arms had manfully withstood
On seas, and gathered laurels from the flood;
Of learning yet no portion was denied,
Friend to the muses, and the muses' pride.
Nor can Benaiah's worth forgotten lie,
Of steady soul when public storms were high;
Whose conduct while the Moor fierce onsets made,
Secured at once our honour and our trade.
Such were the chiefs who most his sufferings mourned,
And viewed with silent joy the prince returned;
While those, that sought his absence to betray,
Press first, their nauseous false respects to pay;
381

Him still the officious hypocrites molest,
And with malicious duty break his rest.
While real transports thus his friends employ,
And foes are loud in their dissembled joy,
His triumphs, so resounded far and near,
Missed not his young ambitious rival's ear;
And as, when joyful hunters' clamorous train
Some slumbering lion wakes in Moab's plain,
Who oft had forced the bold assailants yield,
And scattered his pursuers through the field,
Disdaining, furls his mane, and tears the ground,
His eyes inflaming all the desert round,
With roar of seas directs his chasers' way,
Provokes from far, and dares them to the fray;
382

Such rage stormed now in Absalom's fierce breast,
Such indignation his fired eyes confessed.
Where now was the instructor of his pride?
Slept the old pilot in so rough a tide,
Whose wiles had from the happy shore betrayed,
And thus on shelves the credulous youth conveyed?
In deep revolving thoughts he weighs his state,
Secure of craft, nor doubts to baffle fate;
At least, if his stormed bark must go adrift,
To balk his charge, and for himself to shift,
In which his dext'rous wit had oft been shown,
And in the wreck of kingdoms saved his own;
But now with more than common danger pressed,
Of various resolutions stands possessed,
Perceives the crowd's unstable zeal decay,
Lest their recanting chief the cause betray,
Who on a father's grace his hopes may ground,
And for his pardon with their heads compound.
Him therefore, e'er his fortune slip her time,
The statesman plots to engage in some bold crime
Past pardon; whether to attempt his bed,
Or threat with open arms the royal head,
Or other daring method, and unjust,
That may confirm him in the people's trust.
But, failing thus to ensnare him, not secure
How long his foiled ambition may endure,
Plots next to lay him by as past his date,
And try some new pretender's luckier fate;
Whose hopes with equal toil he would pursue,
Nor cares what claimer's crowned, except the true.
Wake, Absalom, approaching ruin shun,
And see, O see, for whom thou art undone!
383

How are thy honours and thy fame betrayed,
The property of desperate villains made!
Lost power and conscious fears their crimes create,
And guilt in them was little less than fate;
But why shouldst thou, from every grievance free,
Forsake thy vineyards for their stormy sea?
For thee did Canaan's milk and honey flow,
Love dressed thy bowers, and laurels sought thy brow;
Preferment, wealth, and power, thy vassals were,
And of a monarch all things but the care.
Oh, should our crimes again that curse draw down,
And rebel arms once more attempt the crown,
Sure ruin waits unhappy Absalon,
Alike by conquest or defeat undone.
Who could relentless see such youth and charms,
Expire, with wretched fate, in impious arms?
A prince so formed, with earth's and heaven's applause,
To triumph o'er crowned heads in David's cause.
Or, grant him victor, still his hopes must fail,
Who, conquering, would not for himself prevail;
The faction, whom he trusts for future sway,
Him and the public would alike betray;
Amongst themselves divide the captive state,
And found their hydra-empire in his fate.
Thus having beat the clouds with painful flight,
The pitied youth, with sceptres in his sight,
(So have their cruel politics decreed),
Must by that crew, that made him guilty, bleed!
For, could their pride brook any prince's sway,
Whom, but mild David, would they choose to obey?
Who once at such a gentle reign repine,
The fall of monarchy itself design;
384

From hate to that their reformations spring,
And David not their grievance, but the king.
Seized now with panic fear the faction lies,
Lest this clear truth strike Absalom's charmed eyes;
Lest he perceive, from long enchantment free,
What all, beside the flattered youth, must see.
But whate'er doubts his troubled bosom swell,
Fair carriage still became Achitophel;
Who now an envious festival installs,
And to survey their strength the faction calls,
Which fraud, religious worship too, must gild;
But oh how weakly does sedition build!
For, lo! the royal mandate issues forth,
Dashing at once their treason, zeal, and mirth.—
385

So have I seen disastrous chance invade,
Where careful emmets had their forage laid;
Whether fierce Vulcan's rage the furzy plain
Had seized, engendered by some careless swain;
Or swelling Neptune lawless inroads made,
And to their cell of store his flood conveyed;
The commonwealth, broke up, distracted go,
And, in wild haste, their loaded mates o'erthrow:
Even so our scattered guests confusedly meet,
With boiled, baked, roast, all justling in the street;
Dejected all, and ruefully dismayed,
For shekel, without treat or treason, paid.
Sedition's dark eclipse now fainter shows,
More bright each hour the royal planet grows,
386

Of force the clouds of envy to disperse,
In kind conjunction of assisting stars.
Here, labouring muse! those glorious chiefs relate,
That turned the doubtful scale of David's fate;
387

The rest of that illustrious band rehearse,
Immortalised in laurelled Asaph's verse:
Hard task! yet will not I thy flight recall;
View heaven, and then enjoy thy glorious fall.
First write Bezaliel, whose illustrious name
Forestalls our praise, and gives his poet fame.
388

The Kenites' rocky province his command,
A barren limb of fertile Canaan's land;
389

Which, for its generous natives, yet could be
Held worthy such a president as he.
390

Bezaliel with each grace and virtue fraught,
Serene his looks, serene his life and thought;
391

On whom so largely nature heaped her store,
There scarce remained for arts to give him more.
To aid the crown and state his greatest zeal,
His second care, that service to conceal;
392

Of dues observant, firm to every trust,
And to the needy always more than just;
Who truth from specious falsehood can divide,
Has all the gownsmen's skill without their pride;
Thus crowned with worth, from heights of honour won,
Sees all his glories copied in his son,
Whose forward fame should every muse engage,
Whose youth boasts skill denied to others' age.
Men, manners, language, books of noblest kind,
Already are the conquest of his mind;
Whose loyalty, before its date, was prime,
Nor waited the dull course of rolling time;
The monster faction early he dismayed,
And David's cause long since confessed his aid.
Brave Abdael o'er the prophet's school was placed;
Abdael, with all his father's virtue graced;
393

A hero who, while stars looked wondering down,
Without one Hebrew's blood restored the crown.
That praise was his; what therefore did remain
For following chiefs, but boldly to maintain
That crown restored? and in this rank of fame,
Brave Abdael with the first a place must claim.
Proceed, illustrious, happy chief, proceed!
Fore-seize the garlands for thy brow decreed;
While the inspired tribe attend with noblest strain,
To register the glories thou shalt gain:
For sure the dew shall Gilboa's hills forsake,
And Jordan mix his stream with Sodom's lake;
Or seas retired their secret stores disclose,
And to the sun their scaly brood expose;
Or, swelled above the cliffs, their billows raise,
Before the muses leave their patron's praise.
394

Eliab our next labour does invite,
And hard the task to do Eliab right.
Long with the royal wanderer he roved,
And firm in all the turns of fortune proved.
Such ancient service, and desert so large,
Well claimed the royal household for his charge.
395

His age with only one mild heiress blessed,
In all the bloom of smiling nature dressed;
And blessed again to see his flower allied
To David's stock, and made young Othniel's bride.
396

The bright restorer of his father's youth,
Devoted to a son's and subject's truth:
Resolved to bear that prize of duty home,
So bravely sought, while sought by Absalom.
Ah, prince! the illustrious planet of thy birth,
And thy more powerful virtue, guard thy worth,
That no Achitophel thy ruin boast!
Israel too much in one such wreck has lost.
Even envy must consent to Helon's worth;
Whose soul, though Egypt glories in his birth,
397

Could for our captive ark its zeal retain,
And Pharaoh's altars in their pomp disdain;
To slight his gods was small; with nobler pride,
He all the allurements of his court defied.
Whom profit nor example could betray,
But Israel's friend, and true to David's sway.
398

What acts of favour in his province fall,
On merit he confers, and freely all.
399

Our list of nobles next let Amri grace,
Whose merits claimed the Abethdin's high place;
400

Who, with a loyalty that did excel,
Brought all the endowments of Achitophel.
Sincere was Amri, and not only knew,
But Israel's sanctions into practice drew;
Our laws, that did a boundless ocean seem,
Were coasted all, and fathomed all by him.
No rabbin speaks like him their mystic sense,
So just, and with such charms of eloquence;
To whom the double blessing does belong,
With Moses' inspiration, Aaron's tongue.
Than Sheva none more loyal zeal have shown,
Wakeful as Judah's lion for the crown;
401

Who for that cause still combats in his age,
For which his youth with danger did engage.
In vain our factious priests the cant revive;
In vain seditious scribes with libel strive
To inflame the crowd; while he, with watchful eye,
Observes, and shoots their treasons as they fly:
Their weekly frauds his keen replies detect;
He undeceives more fast than they infect.
So Moses, when the pest on legions preyed,
Advanced his signal, and the plague was stayed.
Once more, my fainting muse, thy pinions try,
And strength's exhausted store let love supply.
What tribute, Asaph, shall we render thee?
We'll crown thee with a wreath from thy own tree!
Thy laurel-grove no envy's flash can blast;
The song of Asaph shall for ever last.
With wonder late posterity shall dwell
On Absalom and false Achitophel:
Thy strains shall be our slumbering prophets' dream,
And when our Zion virgins sing their theme,
Our jubilees shall with thy verse be graced;
The song of Asaph shall for ever last.
How fierce his satire, loosed; restrained, how tame;
How tender of the offending young man's fame!
How well his worth, and brave adventures styled;
Just to his virtues, to his error mild!
402

No page of thine that fears the strictest view,
But teems with just reproof, or praise, as due;
Not Eden could a fairer prospect yield,
All paradise, without one barren field
Whose wit the censure of his foes has past:
The song of Asaph shall for ever last.
What praise for such rich strains shall we allow?
What just rewards the grateful crown bestow?
While bees in flowers rejoice, and flowers in dew,
While stars and fountains to their course are true,
While Judah's throne, and Zion's rock stand fast,
The song of Asaph, and the fame shall last.
Still Hebron's honoured happy soil retains
Our royal hero's beauteous dear remains;
Who now sails off, with winds nor wishes slack,
To bring his sufferings' bright companion back.
But ere such transport can our sense employ,
A bitter grief must poison half our joy;
Nor can our coasts restored those blessings see
Without a bribe to envious destiny!
Cursed Sodom's doom for ever fix the tide,
Where by inglorious chance, the valiant died.
Give not insulting Askelon to know,
Nor let Gath's daughters triumph in our woe!
No sailor with the news swell Egypt's pride,
By what inglorious fate our valiant died!
Weep, Arnon! Jordan, weep thy fountains dry,
While Zion's rock dissolves for a supply.
403

Calm were the elements, night's silence deep,
The waves scarce murmuring, and the winds asleep;
Yet fate for ruin takes so still an hour,
And treacherous sands the princely bark devour;
Then death unworthy seized a generous race,
To virtue's scandal, and the stars' disgrace!
404

Oh, had the indulgent powers vouchsafed to yield,
Instead of faithless shelves, a listed field;
A listed field of heaven's and David's foes,
Fierce as the troops that did his youth oppose,
Each life had on his slaughtered heap retired,
Not tamely and unconquering thus expired.
But destiny is now their only foe,
And, dying, even o'er that they triumph too;
With loud last breaths their master's 'scape applaud,
Of whom kind force could scarce the Fates defraud;
Who, for such followers lost, O matchless mind!
At his own safety now almost repined!—
Say, royal Sir, by all your fame in arms,
Your praise in peace, and by Urania's charms,
If all your sufferings past so nearly prest,
Or pierced with half so painful grief, your breast?
Thus some diviner muse her hero forms,
Not soothed with soft delights, but tossed in storms;
Nor stretched on roses in the myrtle grove,
Nor crown his days with mirth, his nights with love,
405

But far removed in thundering camps is found,
His slumbers short, his bed the herbless ground;
In tasks of danger always seen the first,
Feeds from the hedge, and slakes with ice his thirst.
Long must his patience strive with fortune's rage,
And long opposing gods themselves engage;
Must see his country flame, his friends destroyed,
Before the promised empire he enjoyed:
Such toil of fate must build a man of fame,
And such, to Israel's crown, the godlike David came.
What sudden beams dispel the clouds so fast,
Whose drenching rains laid all our vineyards waste?
The spring so far behind her course delayed,
On the instant is in all her bloom arrayed;
The winds breathe low, the element serene,
Yet, mark! what motion in the waves is seen!
Thronging and busy as Hyblæan swarms,
Or straggled soldiers summoned to their arms.
See where the princely bark in loosest pride,
With all her guardian fleet adorns the tide!
High on her deck the royal lovers stand,
Our crimes to pardon e'er they touched our land.
406

Welcome to Israel and to David's breast!
Here all your toils, here all your sufferings rest.
This year did Ziloah rule Jerusalem,
And boldly all sedition's syrtes stem,
407

Howe'er encumbered with a viler pair
Than Ziph or Shimei, to assist the chair;
408

Yet Ziloah's loyal labours so prevailed,
That faction, at the next election failed;
409

When even the common cry did justice sound,
And merit by the multitude was crowned;
410

With David then was Israel's peace restored,
Crowds mourned their error, and obeyed their lord.
411

THE MEDAL.

A SATIRE AGAINST SEDITION.

Per Graium populos, mediæque per Elidis urbem
Ibat ovans; Divumque sibi poscebat honores.

433

UPON THE AUTHOR OF THE FOLLOWING POEM.

Once more our awful poet arms, to engage
The threat'ning hydra-faction of the age;
Once more prepares his dreadful pen to wield
And every muse attends him to the field:
By art and nature for this task designed,
Yet modestly the fight he long declined;
Forbore the torrent of his verse to pour,
Nor loosed his satire till the needful hour:
His sovereign's right, by patience half betrayed,
Waked his avenging genius to its aid.
Blest muse, whose wit with such a cause was crowned,
And blest the cause that such a champion found;
With chosen verse upon the foe he falls,
And black sedition in each quarter galls;
Yet, like a prince with subjects forced to engage,
Secure of conquest, he rebates his rage;
His fury not without distinction sheds,
Hurls mortal bolts but on devoted heads:
To less infected members gentle found,
Or spares, or else pours balm into the wound.
Such generous grace the ungrateful tribe abuse,
And trespass on the mercy of his muse;
Their wretched dogg'rel rhymers forth they bring,
To snarl and bark against the poet's king:
A crew that scandalise the nation more
Than all their treason-canting priests before!
On these he scarce vouchsafes a scornful smile,
But on their powerful patrons turns his style:
A style so keen, as even from faction draws
The vital poison, stabs to the heart their cause.
Take then, great bard, what tribute we can raise;
Accept our thanks, for you transcend our praise.
434

TO THE UNKNOWN AUTHOR OF THE FOLLOWING POEM, AND THAT OF ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

Thus pious ignorance, with dubious praise,
Altars of old, to gods unknown, did raise:
They knew not the loved Deity, they knew
Divine effects a cause divine did shew:
Nor can we doubt, when such these numbers are,
Such is their cause, though the worst muse shall dare
Their sacred worth in humble verse declare.
As gentle Thames, charmed with thy tuneful song,
Glides in a peaceful majesty along;
No rebel stone, no lofty bank, does brave
The easy passage of his silent wave;
So, sacred poet, so thy numbers flow,
Sinewy, yet mild, as happy lovers woo;
Strong, yet harmonious too, as planets move,
Yet soft as down upon the wings of love.
How sweet does virtue in your dress appear!
How much more charming, when much less severe!
Whilst you our senses harmlessly beguile,
With all the allurements of your happy style;
You insinuate loyalty with kind deceit,
And into sense the unthinking many cheat:
So the sweet Thracian, with his charming lyre,
Into rude nature virtue did inspire;
So he the savage herd to reason drew,
Yet scarce so sweet, so charmingly, as you.
435

Oh that you would, with some such powerful charm,
Enervate Albion to just valour warm!
Whether much-suffering Charles shall theme afford,
Or the great deeds of godlike James's sword;
Again fair Gallia might be ours, again
Another fleet might pass the subject main;
Another Edward lead the Britons on,
Or such an Ossory as you did moan:
While in such numbers you, in such a strain,
Inflame their courage, and reward their pain.
Let false Achitophel the rout engage,
Talk easy Absalom to rebel rage;
Let frugal Shimei curse in holy zeal,
Or modest Corah more new plots reveal;
Whilst constant to himself, secure of fate,
Good David still maintains the royal state;
Though each in vain such various ills employs,
Firmly he stands, and even those ills enjoys;
Firm as fair Albion 'midst the raging main,
Surveys encircling danger with disdain.
In vain the waves assault the unmoved shore,
In vain the winds with mingled fury roar,
Fair Albion's beauteous cliffs shine whiter than before.
Nor shalt thou move, though hell thy fall conspire,
Though the worse rage of zeal's fanatic fire,
Thou best, thou greatest of the British race,
Thou only fit to fill great Charles his place.
Ah wretched Britons! ah too stubborn isle!
Ah stiff-necked Israel on blest Canaan's soil!
Are those dear proofs of heaven's indulgence vain,
Restoring David and his gentle reign?
Is it in vain thou all the goods dost know,
Auspicious stars on mortals shed below,
While all thy streams with milk, thy lands with honey flow?
No more, fond isle! no more thyself engage,
In civil fury, and intestine rage,
No rebel zeal thy duteous land molest,
But a smooth calm soothe ever peaceful breast,
While in such charming notes divinely sings
The best of poets, of the best of kings.
436

THE MEDAL.

Of all our antic sights and pageantry,
Which English idiots run in crowds to see,
The Polish Medal bears the prize alone;
A monster, more the favourite of the town
Than either fairs or theatres have shown.
437

Never did art so well with nature strive,
Nor ever idol seemed so much alive;
So like the man, so golden to the sight,
So base within, so counterfeit and light.
438

One side is filled with title and with face;
And, lest the king should want a regal place,
On the reverse a Tower the town surveys,
O'er which our mounting sun his beams displays.
439

The word, pronounced aloud by shrieval voice,
Lætamur, which, in Polish, is Rejoice;
The day, month, year, to the great act are joined,
And a new canting holiday designed;
Five days he sat for every cast and look,
Four more than God to finish Adam took.
But who can tell what essence angels are?
Or how long heaven was making Lucifer?
Oh, could the style that copied every grace,
And ploughed such furrows for an eunuch face,
Could it have formed his ever-changing will,
The various piece had tired the graver's skill!
440

A martial hero first, with early care,
Blown, like a pigmy by the winds, to war;
A beardless chief, a rebel ere a man;
So young his hatred to his prince began.
Next this,—how wildly will ambition steer!
A vermin wriggling in the usurper's ear;
441

Bartering his venal wit for sums of gold,
He cast himself into the saint-like mould;
Groaned, sighed, and prayed, while godliness was gain,
The loudest bagpipe of the squeaking train.
But, as 'tis hard to cheat a juggler's eyes,
His open lewdness he could ne'er disguise.
442

There split the saint; for hypocritic zeal
Allows no sins but those it can conceal:
Whoring to scandal gives too large a scope;
Saints must not trade, but they may interlope:
The ungodly principle was all the same;
But a gross cheat betrays his partner's game.
Besides, their pace was formal, grave, and slack;
His nimble wit outran the heavy pack;
Yet still he found his fortune at a stay,
Whole droves of blockheads choking up his way;
They took, but not rewarded, his advice;
Villain and wit exact a double price.
Power was his aim; but thrown from that pretence,
The wretch turned loyal in his own defence,
And malice reconciled him to his prince.
443

Him, in the anguish of his soul, he served;
Rewarded faster still than he deserved.
Behold him now exalted into trust;
His counsel's oft convenient, seldom just;
Even in the most sincere advice he gave,
He had a grudging still to be a knave.
The frauds, he learned in his fanatic years,
Made him uneasy in his lawful gears;
At best, as little honest as he could,
And, like white witches, mischievously good;
To his first bias longingly he leans,
And rather would be great by wicked means.
Thus framed for ill, he loosed our triple hold;
Advice unsafe, precipitous, and bold.
444

From hence those tears, that Ilium of our woe!
Who helps a powerful friend, forearms a foe.
What wonder if the waves prevail so far,
When he cut down the banks that made the bar?
Seas follow but their nature to invade;
But he, by art, our native strength betrayed:
So Samson to his foe his force confest,
And, to be shorn, lay slumbering on her breast.
But when this fatal counsel, found too late,
Exposed its author to the public hate;
When his just sovereign by no impious way
Could be seduced to arbitrary sway;
445

Forsaken of that hope, he shifts his sail,
Drives down the current with a popular gale,
And shows the fiend confessed without a veil.
446

He preaches to the crowd, that power is lent,
But not conveyed, to kingly government;
447

That claims successive bear no binding force;
That coronation oaths are things of course;
Maintains the multitude can never err;
And sets the people in the papal chair.
The reason's obvious,—interest never lies;
The most have still their interest in their eyes;
The power is always theirs, and power is ever wise.
Almighty crowd! thou shortenest all dispute;
Power is thy essence, with thy attribute!
Nor faith nor reason make thee at a stay;
Thou leap'st o'er all eternal truths in thy pindaric way!
Athens, no doubt, did righteously decide,
When Phocion and when Socrates were tried;
As righteously they did those dooms repent;
Still they were wise, whatever way they went:
Crowds err not, though to both extremes they run;
To kill the father, and recall the son.
Some think the fools were most as times went then,
But now the world's o'erstocked with prudent men.
The common cry is even religion's test,—
The Turk's is at Constantinople best,
Idols in India, Popery at Rome,
And our own worship only true at home;
And true but for the time, 'tis hard to know
How long we please it shall continue so;
This side to-day, and that to-morrow burns;
So all are God-almighties in their turns.
448

A tempting doctrine, plausible and new;
What fools our fathers were, if this be true!
Who, to destroy the seeds of civil war,
Inherent right in monarchs did declare;
And, that a lawful power might never cease,
Secured succession to secure our peace.
Thus property and sovereign sway at last
In equal balances were justly cast;
But this new Jehu spurs the hot-mouthed horse,
Instructs the beast to know his native force,
To take the bit between his teeth, and fly
To the next headlong steep of anarchy.
Too happy England, if our good we knew,
Would we possess the freedom we pursue!
The lavish government can give no more;
Yet we repine, and plenty makes us poor.
God tried us once; our rebel fathers fought;
He glutted them with all the power they sought,
Till, mastered by their own usurping brave,
The free-born subject sunk into a slave.
We loathe our manna, and we long for quails;
Ah, what is man, when his own wish prevails!
How rash, how swift to plunge himself in ill,
Proud of his power, and boundless in his will!
That kings can do no wrong, we must believe;
None can they do, and must they all receive?
Help, heaven! or sadly we shall see an hour,
When neither wrong nor right are in their power!
Already they have lost their best defence,
The benefit of laws, which they dispense;
No justice to their righteous cause allowed,
But baffled by an arbitrary crowd;
And medals graved their conquest to record,
The stamp and coin of their adopted lord.
449

The man, who laughed but once to see an ass
Mumbling to make the cross-grained thistles pass,
Might laugh again to see a jury chaw
The prickles of unpalatable law.
The witnesses, that leech-like lived on blood,
Sucking for them were med'cinally good;
But when they fastened on their festered sore,
Then justice and religion they forswore;
Their maiden oaths debauched into a whore.
Thus men are raised by factions, and decried,
And rogue and saint distinguished by their side;
They rack even Scripture to confess their cause,
And plead a call to preach in spite of laws.
But that's no news to the poor injured page,
It has been used as ill in every age;
450

And is constrained with patience all to take,
For what defence can Greek and Hebrew make?
Happy, who can this talking trumpet seize;
They make it speak whatever sense they please!
'Twas framed at first our oracle, to enquire;
But since our sects in prophecy grow higher,
The text inspires not them, but they the text inspire.
London, thou great emporium of our isle,
O thou too bounteous, thou too fruitful Nile!
How shall I praise or curse to thy desert?
Or separate thy sound from thy corrupted part?
I called thee Nile; the parallel will stand;
Thy tides of wealth o'erflow the fattened land;
Yet monsters from thy large increase we find,
Engendered on the slime thou leav'st behind.
Sedition has not wholly seized on thee,
Thy nobler parts are from infection free.
Of Israel's tribes thou hast a numerous band,
But still the Canaanite is in the land;
Thy military chiefs are brave and true,
Nor are thy disenchanted burghers few;
The head is loyal which thy heart commands,
But what's a head with two such gouty hands?
The wise and wealthy love the surest way,
And are content to thrive and to obey.
But wisdom is to sloth too great a slave;
None are so busy as the fool and knave.
451

Those let me curse; what vengeance will they urge,
Whose ordures neither plague nor fire can purge;
Nor sharp experience can to duty bring,
Nor angry heaven, nor a forgiving king!
In gospel-phrase their chapmen they betray;
Their shops are dens, the buyer is their prey:
The knack of trades is living on the spoil;
They boast even when each other they beguile.
Customs to steal is such a trivial thing,
That 'tis their charter to defraud their king.
All hands unite of every jarring sect;
They cheat the country first, and then infect.
They for God's cause their monarchs dare dethrone,
And they'll be sure to make his cause their own.
Whether the plotting Jesuit laid the plan
Of murdering kings, or the French Puritan,
Our sacrilegious sects their guides outgo,
And kings and kingly power would murder too.
What means their traitorous combination less,
Too plain to evade, too shameful to confess!
But treason is not owned when 'tis descried;
Successful crimes alone are justified.
The men, who no conspiracy would find,
Who doubts, but, had it taken, they had joined,—
Joined in a mutual covenant of defence,
At first without, at last against, their prince?
452

If sovereign right by sovereign power they scan,
The same bold maxim holds in God and man:
God were not safe, his thunder could they shun,
He should be forced to crown another son.
Thus, when the heir was from the vineyard thrown,
The rich possession was the murderers' own.
In vain to sophistry they have recourse;
By proving theirs no plot, they prove 'tis worse,
Unmasked rebellion, and audacious force;
Which, though not actual, yet all eyes may see,
'Tis working in the immediate power to be;
For from pretended grievances they rise,
First to dislike, and after to despise;
Then, cyclop-like, in human flesh to deal,
Chop up a minister at every meal;
Perhaps not wholly to melt down the king,
But clip his regal rights within the ring.
From thence to assume the power of peace and war,
And ease him, by degrees, of public care:
453

Yet, to consult his dignity and fame,
He should have leave to exercise the name,
And hold the cards while commons played the game.
For what can power give more than food and drink,
To live at ease, and not be bound to think?
These are the cooler methods of their crime,
But their hot zealots think 'tis loss of time;
On utmost bounds of loyalty they stand,
And grin and whet like a Croatian band,
That waits impatient for the last command.
Thus outlaws open villainy maintain;
They steal not, but in squadrons scour the plain;
And if their power the passengers subdue,
The most have right, the wrong is in the few.
Such impious axioms foolishly they show,
For in some soils republics will not grow:
Our temperate isle will no extremes sustain
Of popular sway, or arbitrary reign;
But slides between them both into the best,
Secure in freedom, in a monarch blest;
454

And though the climate, vexed with various winds,
Works through our yielding bodies on our minds,
The wholesome tempest purges what it breeds,
To recommend the calmness that succeeds.
But thou, the pander of the people's hearts,
O crooked soul, and serpentine in arts,
Whose blandishments a loyal land have whored,
And broke the bonds she plighted to her lord;
What curses on thy blasted name will fall,
Which age to age their legacy shall call!
For all must curse the woes that must descend on all.
Religion thou hast none: thy mercury
Has passed through every sect, or theirs through thee.
But what thou givest, that venom still remains,
And the poxed nation feels thee in their brains.
What else inspires the tongues, and swells the breasts,
Of all thy bellowing renegado priests,
455

That preach up thee for God, dispense thy laws,
And with thy stum ferment their fainting cause;
Fresh fumes of madness raise, and toil and sweat,
To make the formidable cripple great?
456

Yet should thy crimes succeed, should lawless power
Compass those ends thy greedy hopes devour,
Thy canting friends thy mortal foes would be,
Thy God and theirs will never long agree;
457

For thine, if thou hast any, must be one,
That lets the world and humankind alone;
A jolly god, that passes hours too well,
To promise heaven, or threaten us with hell;
That unconcerned can at rebellion sit,
And wink at crimes he did himself commit.
A tyrant theirs; the heaven their priesthood paints
A conventicle of gloomy, sullen saints;
A heaven, like Bedlam, slovenly and sad,
Fore-doomed for souls with false religion mad.
Without a vision, poets can foreshow
What all but fools, by common sense, may know:
If true succession from our isle should fail,
And crowds profane, with impious arms, prevail,
Not thou, nor those thy factious arts engage,
Shall reap that harvest of rebellious rage,
With which thou flatterest thy decrepit age.
The swelling poison of the several sects,
Which, wanting vent, the nation's health infects,
Shall burst its bag, and, fighting out their way,
The various venoms on each other prey.
458

The presbyter, puffed up with spiritual pride,
Shall on the necks of the lewd nobles ride;
His brethren damn, the civil power defy,
And parcel out republic prelacy.
But short shall be his reign; his rigid yoke,
And tyrant power, will puny sects provoke;
And frogs and toads, and all the tadpole train,
Will croak to heaven for help from this devouring crane.
The cut-throat sword and clamorous gown shall jar,
In sharing their ill-gotten spoils of war;
Chiefs shall be grudged the part which they pretend;
Lords envy lords, and friends with every friend
About their impious merit shall contend.
The surly commons shall respect deny,
And jostle peerage out with property.
Their general either shall his trust betray,
And force the crowd to arbitrary sway;
459

Or they, suspecting his ambitious aim,
In hate of kings shall cast anew the frame,
And thrust out Collatine, that bore their name.
Thus, inborn broils the factions would engage,
Or wars of exiled heirs, or foreign rage,
Till halting vengeance overtook our age;
And our wild labours, wearied into rest,
Reclined us on a rightful monarch's breast.
------ Pudet hæc opprobria, vobis
Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli.
END OF THE NINTH VOLUME.
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