Cowley, Denham, Milton

Rouz'd from my bed, I speedily ascend
The houses' tops, and listening there attend.
As flames roll'd by the winds' conspiring force,
O'er full-ear'd corn, or torrents' raging course
Bears down th' opposing oaks, the fields destroys,
And mocks the plough-man's toil, th' unlook'd-Upon us, with civility misplac'd ;

Nor only on the Trojans fell this doom,
Their hearts at last the vanquish'd re-assume;
And now the victors fall: on all sides fears,
Groans and pale Death in all her shapes appears :
Androgeus first with his whole troop was cast

for noise

From neighbouring hills th' amazed shepherd
hears;

Such my surprise, and such their rage appears.
First fell thy house, Ucalegon, then thine
Deiphobus, Sigæan seas did shine

Bright with Troy's flames; the trumpets dreadful
sound

The louder groans of dying men confound;
"Give me my arms," I cry'd, resolv'd to throw
Myself 'mong any that oppos'd the foe:
Rage, anger, and despair at once suggest,
That of all deaths to die in arms was best.
The first I met was Pantheus, Phoebus' priest,
Who, 'scaping with his gods and reliques, fled,
And towards the shore his little grandchild led.
"Pantheus, what hope remains? what force,
what place

Made good?" but sighing, he replies, "Alas!
Trojans we were, and mighty Ilium was;
But the last period, and the fatal hour
Of Troy is come: our glory and our power
Incensed Jove's transfers to Grecian hands;
The foe within the burning town commands;
And (like a smother'd fire) an unseen force
Breaks from the bowels of the fatal horse:
Insulting Sinon flings about the flame,
And thousands more than e'er from Argos came
Possess the gates, the passes, and the streets,
And these the sword o'ertakes, and those it meets.
The guard nor fights, nor flies; their fate so

near

At once suspends their courage and their fear."
Thus by the gods, and by Atrides' words
Inspir'd, I make my way through fire, through
swords,

Where noises, tumults, outcries, and alarms,
I heard. First Iphitus, renown'd for arms,
We meet, who knew us (for the Moon did shine);
Then Ripheus, Hypanis, and Dymas join
Their force, and young Chorobus, Mygdon's
Who, by the love of fair Cassandra, won, [son,
Arriv'd but lately in her father's aid;
Unhappy, whom the threats could not dissuade
Of his prophetic spouse;

Whom when I saw yet daring to maintain
The fight, I said, "Brave spirits (but in vain)
Are you resolv'd to follow one who dares
Tempt all extremes; the state of our affairs
You see the gods have left us, by whose aid
Our empire stood; nor can the flame be staid :
Then let us fall amidst our foes; this one
Relief the vanquish'd have, to hope for none."
Then reinforc'd, as in a stormy night
Wolves urged by their raging appetite
Forage for prey, which their neglected young
With greedy jaws expect, ev'n so among
Foes, fire, and swords, t' assured death we pass,
Darkness our guide, Despair our leader was.
Who can relate that evening's woes and spoils,
Or can his tears proportion to our toils?
The city, which so long had flourish'd, falls;
Death triumphs o'er the houses, temples, walls.

VOL. VII.

[crest, [fect.

Thus greeting us, "You lose by your delay, Your share both of the honour and the prey; Others the spoils of burning Troy convey Back to those ships which you but now forsake." We making no return, his sad mistake Too late he finds: as when an unseen snake A traveller's unwary foot hath prest, Who trembling starts when the snake's azure Swoln with his rising anger, he espies, So from our view surpriz'd Androgeus flies. But here an easy victory we meet : Fear binds their hands, and ignorance their Whilst fortune our first enterprize did aid, Encourag'd with success, Chorobus said, "O friends we now by better Fates are led, And the fair path they lead us, let us tread. First change your arms, and their distinctions The same, in foes, deceit and virtue are."[bear; Then of his arms Androgeus he divests, His sword, his shield he takes, and plumed crests, Then Ripheus, Dymas, and the rest, all glad Of the occasion, in fresh spoils are clad. Thus mixt with Greeks, as if their fortune still Follow'd their swords, we fight, pursue, and kill. Some re-ascend the horse, and he whose sides Let forth the valiant, now the coward hides. Some to their safer guard, their ships, retire; But vain's that hope, 'gainst which the gods conBehold the royal virgin, the divine Cassandra, from Minerva's fatal shrine [vain, [spire: Dragg'd by the hair, casting towards heaven, in Her eyes; for cords her tender hands did strain; Chorobus, at the spectacle enrag'd Flies in amidst the foes: we thus engag'd, To second him, among the thickest ran; Here first our ruin from our friends began, Who from the temple's battlements a shower Of darts and arrows on our heads did pour; They us for Greeks, and now the Greeks (who Cassandra's rescue) us for Trojans slew. Then from all parts Ulysses, Ajax then, And then th' Atridæ, rally all their men ; As winds, that meet from several coasts, contest, Their prisons being broke, the south and west, And Eurus on his winged coursers borne, Triumphing in their speed, the woods are torn, And chasing Nereus with his trident throws The billows from the bottom; then all those Who in the dark our fury did escape, Returning, know our borrow'd arms, and shape, And different dialect: then their numbers swell And grow upon us. First Chorobus fell Before Minerva's altar, next did bleed Just Ripheus, whom no Trojan did exceed In virtue, yet the gods his fate decreed. Then Hypanis and Dymas, wounded by Their friends; nor thee, Pantheus, thy piety, Nor consecrated mitre, from the same Ill fate could save; my country's funeral flame And Troy's cold ashes I attest, and call To witness for myself, that in their fall No foes, no death, nor danger, I declin'd, Did, and deserv'd no less, my fate to find.

[knew

Now Iphitus with me, and Pelias
Slowly retire; the one retarded was
By feeble age, the other by a wound.
To court the cry directs us, where we found
Th' assault so hot, as if 'twere only there,
And all the rest secure from foes or fear:
The Greeks the gates approach'd, their targets

cast

Over their heads; some scaling ladders plac'd
Against the walls, the rest the steps ascend,
And with their shields on their left arms defend
Arrows and darts, and with their right hold fast
The battlement; on them the Trojans cast
Stones, rafters, pillars, beams; such arms as
these,

Now hopeless, for their last defence they seize.
The gilded roofs, the marks of ancient state,
They tumble down; and now against the gate
Of th' inner court their growing force they
bring:

Now was our last effort to save the king,
Relieve the fainting, and succeed the dead.
A private gallery 'twixt th' apartments led,
Not to the foe yet known, or not observ'd,
(The way for Hector's hapless wife reserv'd,
When to the aged king, her little son [run
She would present) through this we pass, and
Up to the highest battlement, from whence
The Trojans threw their darts without offence,
A tower so high, it seem'd to reach the sky,
Stood on the roof, from whence we could descry
All Ilium-both the camps, the Grecian fleet;
This, where the beams upon the columns meet,
We loosen, which like thunder from the cloud
Breaks on their heads, as sudden and as loud.
But others still succeed: meantime, nor stones
Nor any kind of weapons cease.

Before the gate in gilded armour shone [grown,
Young Pyrrhus, like a snake, his skin new
Who fed on poisonous herbs, all winter lay
Under the ground, and now reviews the day
Fresh in his new apparel, proud and young,
Rolls up his back, and brandishes his tongue,
And lifts his scaly breast against the Sun;
With him his father's squire, Automedon,
And Peripas, who drove his winged steeds,
Enter the court; whom all the youth succeeds
Of Seyros' isle, who flaming firebrands flung
Up to the roof; Pyrrhus himself among
The foremost with an axe an entrance hews
Through beams of solid oak, then freely views
The chambers, galleries, and rooms of state,
Where Priam and the ancient monarchs sat.
At the first gate an armed guard appears ;
But th' inner court with horrour, noise, and tears,
Confus'dly fill'd, the women's shrieks and cries
The arch'd vaults re-echo to the skies;
Sad matrons wandering through the spacious

rooms

Embrace and kiss the posts: then Pyrrhus comes
Fl of his father, neither men nor walls
His force sustain, the torn portcullis falls,

And now between two sad extremes I stood,
Here Pyrrhus and th' Atridæ drunk with blood,
There th' hapless queen amongst an hundred
dames,

And Priam quenching from his wounds those
flames

Which his own hands had on the altar laid ;
Then they the secret cabinets invade,
Where stood the fifty nuptial beds, the hopes
Of that great race; the golden posts, whose tops
Old hostile spoils adorn'd, demolish'd lay,
Or to the foe, or to the fire a prey.
Now Priam's fate perhaps you may inqnire:
Seeing his empire lost, his Troy on fire,
And his own palace by the Greeks possest,
Arms long disus'd his trembling limbs invest;
Thus on his foes he throws himself alone,
Not for their fate, but to provoke his own:
There stood an altar open to the view
Of Heaven, near which an aged laurel grew,
Whose shady arms the household gods embrac'd;
Before whose feet the queen herself had cast
With all her daughters, and the Trojan wives,
As doves whom an approaching tempest drives
And frights into one flock; but having spy'd
Old Priam clad in youthful arm, she cried,
"Alas, my wretched husband, what pretence
To bear those arms, and in them what defence?
Such aid such times require not, when again
If Hector were alive, he liv'd in vain ;
Or here we shall a sanctuary find,
Or as in life we shall in death be join'd.”
Then weeping, with kind force held and embrac'd,
And on the secret seat the king she plac'd.
Meantime Polites, one of Priam's sons,
Flying the rage of bloody Pyrrhus, runs
Through foes and swords, and ranges all the court,
And empty galleries, amaz'd and hurt ;
Pyrrhus pursues him, now o'ertakes, now kills,
And his last blood in Priam's presence spills.
The king (though him so many deaths enclose)
Nor fear, nor grief, but indignation shows;
"The gods requite thee, (if within the care
Of those above th' affairs of mortals are)
Whose fury on the son but lost had been,
Had not his parents' eyes his murder seen:
Not that Achilles (whom thou feign'st to be
Thy father) so inhuman was to me;
He blusht, when I the rights of arms implor'd;
To me my Hector, me to Troy restor❜d:"
This said, his feeble arm a javelin flung,
Which on the sounding shield, scarce entering,
rung.

Then Pyrrhus; "Go a messenger to Hell
Of my black deeds, and to my father tell
The acts of his degenerate race." So through
His son's warm blood the trembling king he
drew

To th' altar; in his hair one hand he wreaths;
His sword the other in his bosom sheaths.
Thus fell the king, who yet surviv'd the state,
With such a signal and peculiar fate,

Then from the hinge their strokes the gates di- Under so vast a ruin, not a grave,

vorce,

And where the way they cannot find, they force.
Not with such rage a swelling torrent flows
Above his banks, th' opposing dams o'erthrows,
Depopulates the fields, the cattle, sheep,
Shepherds and folds, the foaming surges sweep.

Nor in such flames a funeral fire to have:
He whom such titles swell'd, such power made

proud,

To whom the sceptres of all Asia bow'd,
On the cold earth lies th' unregarded king,
A headless carcase, and a nameless thing.

ON THE EARL OF STRAFFORD...TO A PERSON OF HONOUR. 243

ON THE EARL OF STRAFFORD'S

TRIAL AND DEATH.

GREAT Strafford! worthy of that name, though
all

Of thee could be forgotten, but thy fall,
Crush'd by imaginary treason's weight,
Which too much merit did accumulate:
As chymists gold from brass by fire would draw,
Pretexts are into treason forg'd by law..
His wisdom such, at once it did appear
Three kingdoms' wonder, and three kingdoms'
fear;

While single he stood forth, and seem'd, although
Each had an army, as an equal foe.
Such was his force of eloquence, to make
The hearers more concern'd than he that spake;
Each seem'd to act that part he came to see,
And none was more a looker-on than he ;
So did he move our passions, some were known
To wish, for the defence, the crime their own.
Now private pity strove with public hate,
Reason with rage, and eloquence with fate:
Now they could him, if he could them forgive;
He's not too guilty, but too wise to live;

Less seem those facts which Treason's nick-name

WHAT mighty gale hath rais'd a flight so strong?
So high above all vulgar eyes! so long?
One single rapture scarce itself confines
Within the limits of four thousand lines:
And yet I hope to see this noble heat
Continue, till it makes the piece complete,
That to the latter age it may descend,
And to the end of time its beams extend.
When Poesy joins profit with delight,
Her images should be most exquisite,

1 The honourable Edward Howard, by his poem called The British Princes, engaged the attention of by far the most eminent of his contemporaries; who played upon his vanity, as the wits of half a century 'before had done on that of Thomas Coryat, by writing extravagant compliments on his works. See Butler's, Waller's, Sprat's, and Dorset's verses, in their respecLive volumes; and in the Select Collection of Miscellaneous Poems, 1780, vol. III. p. 105, are other verses on the same subject, by Marton Clifford, and the lord Vaughan. N.

Since man to that perfection cannot rise,
Of always virtuous, fortunate, and wise;
Therefore the patterns man should imitate
Above the life our masters should create.
Herein, if we consult with Greece and Rome,
Greece (as in war) by Rome was overcome;
Though mighty raptures we in Homer find,
Yet, like himself, his characters were blind;
Virgil's Cablimed eyes not only gaz'd,
But his sublimed thoughts to Heaven were
rais'd.

Who reads the honours which he paid the gods,
Would think he had beheld their blest abodes;
And that his hero might accomplish'd be,
From divine blood he draws his pedigree.
From that great judge your judgment takes its
law,

And by the best original does draw
Bonduca's honour, with those heroes Time
Had in oblivion wrapt, his saucy crime;
To them and to your nation you are just,
In raising up their glories from the dust;
And to Old England you that right have done
To show, no story nobler than her own.

Such as derides thy passions' best relief,
And scorns the succours of thy easy grief.
Yet, lest thy ignorance betray thy name
Of man and pious, read and mourn: the shame
Of an exemption, from just sense, doth show
Irrational, beyond excess of woe.

Since reason, then, can privilege a tear,
Upon this noble urn. Here, here, remains
Manhood, uncensur'd, pay that tribute here,
Dust far more precious than in India's veins :
Within these cold embraces, ravish'd, lies
That which compleats the age's tyrannies:
Who weak to such another ill appear,
For what destroys our hope, secures our fear.
What sin unexpiated, in this land
Of groans, hath guided so severe a hand ?
The late great victim 2 that your altars knew,
Ye angry gods, might have excus'd this new

Oblation, and have spar'd one lofty light
of virtue, to inform our steps aright;
By whose example good, condemned, we
Might have run on to kinder destiny.
But as the leader of the herd fell first
Of inflam'd vengeance for past crimes; so none
A sacrifice, to quench the raging thirst
By his untimely fate; that impious smoke,
But this white-fatted youngling cou'd atone,
That sullied Earth, and did Heaven's pity choke.

King Charles the First.

Let it suffice for us, that we have lost
In him more than the widow'd world can boast
In any lump of her remaining clay.
Fair as the grey ey'd Morn he was; the day,
Youthful, and climbing upwards still, imparts
No haste like that of his increasing parts;
Like the meridian beam, his virtue's light
Was seen, as full of comfort and as bright.
Had his noon been as fix'd as clear-but he,
That only wanted immortality

To make him perfect, now submits to night,
In the black bosom of whose sable spite,
He leaves a cloud of flesh behind, and flies,
Refin'd, all ray and glory, to the skies.

Great saint! shine there in an eternal sphere, And tell those powers to whom thou now draw'st

near,

[dead,

That by our trembling sense, in HASTINGS
Their anger and our ugly faults are read;
The short lines of whose life did to our eyes
Their love and majesty epitomize:

Tell them, whose stern degrees impose our laws,
The feasted Grave may close her hollow jaws:
Though Sin search Nature, to provide her here
A second entertainment half so dear,
She'll never meet a plenty like this hearse,
Till Time present her with the universe.

Thus the constitution Condemns them every one, From the father to the son.

But John

(Our friend) Molleson
Thought us to have out-gone
With a quaint invention.
Like the prophets of yore,
He complain'd long before,
Of the mischiefs in store,
Ay, and thrice as much more.

And with that wicked lye,
A letter they came by
From our king's majesty.

But Fate

Brought the letter too late,

'Twas of too old a date

To relieve their damn'd state.

The letter's to be seen,

With seal of wax so green,
At Dantzige where 't has been
Turn'd into good Latin.

But he that gave the hint
This letter for to print,
Must also pay his stint.

These statesmen, you believe,
Send straight for the shrieve,
For he is one too, or would be;

But he drinks no wine,
Which is a shrewd sign

That all 's not so well as it should be.

These three, when they drink,
How little do they think
Of banishment, debts, or dying:
Not old with their years,
Nor cold with their fears;
But their angry stars still defying.

Mirth makes them not mad,
Nor sobriety sad;

But of that they are seldom in danger;
At Paris, at Rome,

At the Hague, they 're at home; The good fellow is no where a stranger.

TO SIR JOHN MENNIS,

BEING INVITED FROM CALAIS TO BOLOGNE TO

EAT A PIG.

ALL on a weeping Monday,
With a fat Bulgarian sloven,
Little admiral John

To Bologne is gone.

Whom I think they call Old Loven. Hadst thou not thy fill of carting, Will Aubrey, count of Oxon,

When nose lay in breech, And breech made a speech, So often cry'd A pox on ? A knight by land and water Esteem'd at such a high rate, When 'tis told in Kent, In a cart that he went, They'll say now, Hang him pirate.

Thou might'st have ta'en example,
From what thou read'st in story;

Being as worthy to sit
On an ambling tit
As thy predecessor Dory.

But oh! the roof of linen,

Intended for a shelter !

But the rain made an ass

Of tilt and canvass ;

And the snow, which you know is a melter.

But with thee to inveigle
That tender stripling Astcot,

Who was soak'd to the skin,
Through drugget so thin,

Having neither coat nor waistcoat.

He being proudly mounted,
Clad in cloak of Plymouth,
Defy'd cart so base,

For thief without grace,
That goes to make a wry mouth.

Nor did he like the omen,
For fear it might be his doom

One day for to sing,
With a gullet in string,
-A hymn of Robert Wisdom.

But what was all this business?
For sure it was important:
For who rides i' th' wet

When affairs are not great,
The neighbours make but a sport on't.

To a goodly fat sow's baby,
O John, thou hadst a malice,
The old driver of swine
That day sure was thine,
Or thou hadst not quitted Calais.

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