:
Drives through the sleeping ranks then to his | Beside what fountain, in what breezy bower,
Gave signals of retreat; but nobler deeds [friend Reclines my charmer in the noon-tide hour
He meditates, to drag the radiant car,
Or lift it through the threefold ranks, up-born
High on his shoulders, or with slaughter stain
Th' ensangui'd field; when, lo! the martial maid
Down rushes from the battlements of Heaven,
And sudden cries, "Return, brave chief, return,
Lest from the skies some guardian power of Troy
Wrathful descend, and rouse the hostile bands."
Thus speaks the warrior queen: the heavenly
Tydides owns, and mounts the fiery steeds, [voice
Observant of the high command; the bow
Sage Ithacus apply'd, and tow'rd the tents [plain.
Scourg'd the proud steeds, the steeds flew o'er the
A PASTORAL,
TO A YOUNG LADY, UPON HER LEAVING, AND RETURN
TO, THE COUNTRY.
DAMON,
SAY, while each scene so beautiful appears,
Why heaves thy bosom, and why flow thy tears?
See! from the clouds the spring descends in showers,
The painted vallies laugh with rising flowers:
Smooth flow the floods, soft breathe the vernal airs;
The spring, flowers, floods, conspire to charm our
cares.
FLORUS.
But vain the pleasures which the season yields,
The laughing vallies, or the painted fields.
No more, ye floods, in silver mazes flow;
Smile not, ye flowers; no more, soft breezes, blow:
Far, Damon, far from these unhappy groves,
The cruel, lovely Rosalinda roves.
DAMON.
Ah! now I know why late the opening buds
Clos'd up their gems, and sicken'd in the woods;
Why droop'd the lily in her snowy pride;
And why the rose withdrew her sweets, and dy'd:
For thee, fair Rosalind, the opening buds
Clos'd up their gems, and sicken'd in the woods;
For thee the lily shed her snowy pride;
For thee the rose withdrew her sweets, and dy'd.
FLORUS.
Bee! where yon vine in soft embraces weaves
Her wanton ringlets with the myrtle's leaves;
There tun'd sweet Philomel her sprightly lay,
Both to the rising and the falling day:
But since fair Rosalind forsook the plains,
Sweet Philomel no more renews her strains;
With sorrow dumb, she disregards her lay,
Nor greets the rising nor the falling day.
DAMON.
Say, O ye winds, that range the distant skies,
Now swell'd to tempests by my rising sighs;
Say, while my Rosalind deserts these shores,
How Damon dies for whom his soul adores.
FLORUS.
Ye murmuring fountains, and ye wandering floods,
That visit various lands through various roads;
Say, when ye find where Rosalind resides,
Say, how my tears increase your swelling tides.
DAMON.
Tell me, I charge you. O ye sylvan swains!
Who range the mazy gro or flowery plains,
FLORUS.
Soft, I adjure you, by the skipping fawns,
By the fleet roes, that bound along the lawns;
Soft tread, ye virgin daughters of the grove,
Nor with your dances wake my sleeping love
DAMON.
Return, O virgin! and if proud disdain
Arm thy fierce soul, return, enjoy my pain:
If pleas'd thou view'st a faithful lover's cares,
Thick rise, ye sighs: in floods descend, ye tears
FLORUS.
Return, O virgin! while in verdant meads
By springs we sport, or dream on flowery beds
She weary wanders through the desert way,
The food of wolves, or hungry lions' prey.
DAMON.
Ah! shield her, Heaven! your rage, ye beasts, for
Those are not limbs for savages to tear! [bear
Adieu, ye meads! with her through wilds I go
O'er burning sands, or everlasting snow;
With her I wander through the desert way,
The food of wolves, or hungry lions' prey.
FLORUS.
Come, Rosalind, before the wintry clouds
Frown o'er th' aërial vault, and rush in floods;
Ere raging storms howl o'er the frozen plains;
Thy charms may suffer by the storms or rains.
DAMON
Come, Rosalind, O come; then infant flowers
Shall bloom and smile, and form their charms by
By you, the lily shall her white compose; [yours
Your blush shall add new blushes to the rose;
Each flowery mead, and every tree shall bud,
And fuller honours clothe the youthful wood.
FLORUS.
Yet, ah! forbear to urge thy homeward way,
While sultry suns infest the glowing day:
The sultry suns thy beauties may impair!-
Yet haste away! for thou art now too fair.
DAMON.
Hark! from yon bower what airs soft-warbled play!
My soul takes wing to meet th' enchanting lay:
Silence, ye nightingales! attend the voice!
While thus it warbles, all your songs are noise.
FLORUS.
See! from the bower a form majestic moves,
And, smoothly gliding, shines along the groves;
Say, comes a goddess from the golden spheres?
A goddess comes, or Rosalind appears!
DAMON.
Shine forth, thou Sun, bright ruler of the day;
And where she treads, ye flowers, adorn the way
Rejoice, ye groves; my heart, dismiss thy cares.!
My goddess comes, my Rosalind appears!
POVERTY AND POETRY
"TWAS sung of old how one Amphion
Could by his verses tame a lion,
And, by his strange enchanting tunes,
Make bears or wolves dance rigadoons a
His songs could call the timber down,
And form it into house or town;
But it is plain, that in these times
No house is rais'd by poets' rhymes;
They for themselves can only rear
A few wild castles in the air;
Poor are the brethren of the bays,
Down from high strains, to ekes and ayes,
The Muses too are virgins yet,
And may be-till they portions get.
Yet still the doating rhymer dreams, And sings of Helicon's bright streams; But Helicon, for all his clatter, Yields only uninspiring water; Yet ev'n athirst he sweetly singe Of Nectar, and Elysian springs.
What dire malignant planet sheds, Ye bards, his influence on your heads? Lawyers by endless controversies, Consume unthinking clients' purses, As Pharaoh's kine, which strange and odd is, Devour'd the plump and well-fed bodies.
The grave physician, who by physic, Like Death, dispatches him that is sick, Pursues a sure and thriving trade; Though patients die, the doctor's paid: Licens'd to kill, he gains a palace, For what another mounts the gallows.
In shady groves the Muses stray, And love in flowery meads to play; An idle crew! whose only trade is To shine in trifles, like our ladies; In dressing, dancing, toying, singing, While wiser Pallas thrives by spinning: Thus they gain nothing to bequeath Their votaries, but a laurel wreath,
But love rewards the bard! the fair Attend his song, and ease his care: Alas! fond youth, your plea you urge ill Without a jointure, though a Virgil: Could you like Phoebus sing, in vain You nobly swell the lofty strain; Coy Daphne flies, and you will find as Hard hearts as hers in your Belindas.
But then some say you purchase fame, And gain that envy'd prize, a name; Great recompence! like his who sells A diamond, for beads and bells. Will Fame be thought sufficient bail To keep the poet from the jail?
Thus the brave soldier, in the wars, Gets empty praise, and aching scars; Is paid with fame and wooden legs; And, starv'd, the glorious vagrant begs,
TO A LADY.
PLAYING WITH A SNAKE,
IT is a pleasing direful sight!
At once you charm us, and affright!
So Heaven destroying angels arms
With terrour, dreadful in their charms!
Such, such was Cleopatra's air, Lovely, but formidably fair, When the griev'd world empoverish'd lost, By the dire asp, its noblest boast
TO A LADY OF THIRTY.
No more let youth its beauty boast,
-n at thirty reigns a toast,
And, like the Sun as he declines,
More mildly, but more sweetly shine
The hand of Time alone disarms
Her face of its superfluous charms:
But adds, for every grace resign'd,
A thousand to adorn her mind.
Youth was her too inflaming time;
This, her more habitable clime:
How must she then each heart engage,
Who blooms like youth, is wise like age
Thus the rich orange-trees produce
At once both ornament, and use:
Here opening blossoms we behold,
There fragrant orbs of ripen'd gold.
ON THE
BIRTH-DAY OF MR. ROBERT TREFUSIS. BEING THREE YEARS OLD, MARCH 22, 1710-11. AWAKE, Sweet babe! the Sun's emerging ray,
That gave you birth, renews the happy day! Calmly serene, and glorious to the view,
He marches forth, and strives to look like you,
VARIATIONS.
Why, lovely babe, does slumber seal your eyes? See, fair Aurora blushes in the skies! The Sun, which gave birth, in bright array Begins his course, and ushers in the day. Calmly serene, and glorious to the view, He marches forth, and strives to look like you.
Fair beauty's bud! when Time shall stretch thy Confirm thy charms, and ripen thee to man, [span, How shall each swain, each beauteous nymph comFor love each nymph, for envy every swain! [plain, What matchless charms shall thy full noon adorn, When so admir'd, so glorious, is thy morn!
7 The Scorpion.
Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great
Fair beauty's bud! when Time shall stretch thy | Confirm thy charms, and ripen thee to man, [span, What plenteous fruits thy blossoms shall produce, And yield not barren ornament, but use! Ev'n now thy spring a rich increase prepares To crown thy riper growth, and manly years.
Thus in the kernel's intricate disguise, In miniature a little orchard lies; The fibrous labyrinths by just degrees Stretch their swoln cells, replete with future trees; By Time evolv'd, the spreading branches rise, Yield their rich fruits, and shoot into the skies.
O lovely babe, what lustre shall adorn Thy noon of beauty, when so bright thy morn! Shine forth advancing with a brighter ray, And may no vice o'ercloud thy future day! With nobler aim instruct thy soul to glow, Than those gay trifles, titles, wealth, and show: May valour, wisdom, learning, crown thy days! Those fools admire these Heaven and Angels praise!?
With riches blest, to Heaven those riches lend, The poor man's guardian, and the good man's friend: Bid virtuous Sorrow smile, scorn'd Merit cheer, And o'er Affliction pour the generous tear. Some, wildly liberal, squander, not bestow, And give unprais'd, because they give for show: To sanctify thy wealth, on worth employ Thy gold, and to a blessing turn the toy: Thus offerings from th' unjust pollute the skies, The good, turn smoke into a sacrifice.
As when an artist plans a favourite draught, The structures rise responsive to the thought; A palace grows beneath his forming hands, Or worthy of a god a temple stands : Such is thy rising frame! by Heaven design'd A temple, worthy of a godlike mind;
VARIATIONS.
So glorious is thy morn of life begun,
That all to thee with admiration run,
Turn Persians, and adore the rising Sun.
So fair thou art, that if great Cupid be
A child, as poets say; sure thou art he.
Fair Venus would mistake thee for her own,
Did not thy eyes proclaim thee not her son.
There all the lightnings of thy mother's shine,
Their radiant glory and their sweetness join,
To show their fatal power, and all their charms, in
If fond Narcissus in the crystal stood, [thine,
A form like thine, O lovely infant, view'd,
Well might the flame the pining youth destroy;
Excess of beauty justified the boy.
ADDITION.
To brace the mind to dignity of thought, To emulate what godlike Tully wrote, Be this thy early wish! The garden breeds, If unimprov'd, at least but gaudy weeds : And stubborn youth, by culture unsubdu'd, Lies wildly barren, or but gayly rude. Yet, as some Phidias gives the marble life, While Art with Nature holds a dubious strife, Adorns a rock with graces not its own, And calls a Venus from the rugged stone; So culture aids the human soul to rise, To scorn the sordid Earth, and mount the skies, Till by degrees the noble guest refines, Claims her high birthright, and divinely shine.
Nobly adorn'd, and finish'd to display
A fuller beam of Heaven's ethereal ray.
May all thy charms increase, O lovely boy! Spare them, ye pains, and age alone destroy! So fair thou art, that if great Cupid be
A child, the god might boast to look like thee!
When young lulus' form he deign'd to wear,
Such were his smiles, and such his winning air:
Ev'n Venus might mistake thee for her own,
Did not thy eyes proclaim thee not her son;
Thence all the lightning of thy mother's flies,
A Cupid grac'd with Cytheraa's eyes!
Yet ah! how short a date the Powers decree To that bright frame of beauties, and to thee! Pass a few days, and all those beauties By! Pass a few years, and thou, alas! shalt die! Then all thy kindred, all thy friends shall see With tears, what now thou art, and they must be; A pale, cold, lifeless lump of earth deplore! Such shalt thou be, and kings shall be no more!
But oh! when, ripe for death, Fate calls thee hence, Sure lot of every mortal excellence! When, pregnant as the womb, the teeming Earth Resigns thee quicken'd to thy second birth, Rise, cloth'd with beauties that shall never die! A saint on Earth! an angel in the sky!
TO A GENTLEMAN OF SEVENTY,
WHO MARRIED A LADY OF SIXTEEN.
WHAT WOes must such unequal union bring,
When hoary Winter weds the youthful Spring!
You, like Mezentius,' in the nuptial bed,
Once more unite the living to the dead.
THE
XLIII CHAPTER OF ECCLESIASTICUS.
A PARAPHRASE.
THE Sun, that rolls his beamy orb on high,
Pride of the world, and glory of the sky,
Illustrious in his course, in bright array
Marches along the Heavens, and scatters day
O'er Earth, and o'er the main, and through th' ethe
Fie in the morn renews his radiant round, [real way.
And warms the fragrant bosom of the ground;
But ere the noon of day, in fiery gleams
He darts the glory of his blazing beams;
Beneath the burnings of his sultry ray,
Earth, to her centre, pierc'd admits the day;
Huge vales expand, where rivers roll'd before.
And lessen'd seas contract within their shore.
The fragrant infants paint th' enamel'd vales,
And native incense loads the balmy gales;
The balmy gales the fragrancy convey
To Heaven, and to their God, an offering pay.
By thy command the Moon, as day-light fades,
Lifts her broad circle in the deepening shades;
Array'd in glory, and enthron'd in light,
She breaks the solemn terrours of the night;
Sweetly inconstant in her varying flame,
She changes still, another, yet the same!
Now in decrease, by slow degrees she shrouds
Her fading lustre in a veil of clouds ;
Now at increase, her gathering beams display
A blaze of light, and give a paler day;
Ten thousand stars adorn her glittering train,
Fall when she falls, and rise with, her again;
And o'er the deserts of the sky unfold
Their burning spangles of sidereal gold:
Through the wide Heavens she moves serenely
Queen of the gay attendants of the night;
Orb above orb in sweet confusion lies,
And with a bright disorder paints the skies.
[bright,
The Lord of Nature fram'd the showery bow,
Turn'd its gay arch, and bade its colours glow:
Its radiant circle compasses the skies,
And sweetly the rich tinctures faint, and rise;.
It bids the horrours of the storm to cease,
Adorns the clouds, and makes the tempest please.
He gives the furious whirlwind wings to fly, To rend the Earth, and wheel along the sky; In circling eddies whirl'd, it roars aloud,
Drives wave on wave, and dashes cloud on cloud;
Where'er it moves, it lays whole forests low;
And at the blast, eternal mountains bow;
While, tearing up the sands, in drifts they rise,
And half the deserts mount the burthen'd skies.
He from aërial treasures downward pours
Sheets of unsully'd snow in lucid showers;
Flake after flake, through air thick-wavering flies,
Till one vast shining waste all nature lies;
Then the proud hills a virgin whiteness shed,
A dazzling brightness glitters from the mead;
The hoary trees reflect a silver show,
And groves beneath the lovely burthen bow.
He from loose vapours with an icy chain
Binds the round hail, and moulds the harden'd rain:
The stony tempest, with a rushing sound,
Beats the firm glebe, resulting from the ground;
Swiftly it falls, and as it falls invades
The rising herb, or breaks the spreading blades:
While infant flowers that rais'd their bloomy heads,
Crush'd by its fury, sink into their beds.
"
When stormy Winter from the frozen north
Borne on his icy chariot issues forth,
The blasted groves their verdant pride resign,
And billows harden'd into crystal shine:
Sharp blows the rigour of the piercing winds,
And the proud floods as with a breast-plate binds:
Ev'n the proud seas forget tides to roll
Beneath the freezings of the northern pole;
There waves on waves in solid mountains rise,
And Alps of ice invade the wondering skies;
While gulphs below, and slippery vallies lie,
And with a dreadful brightness pain the eye:
But if warm winds a warmer air restore,
And softer breezes bring a genial shower,
The genial shower revives the cheerful plain,
And the huge hills flow down into the main.
When the seas rage, and loud the ocean roars,
When foaming billows lash the sounding shores;
If he in thunder bid the waves subside,
The waves obedient sink upon the tide,
A sudden peace controls the limpid deep,
And the still waters in soft silence sleep.
Then Heaven lets down a golden-streaming ray,
And all the broad expansion flames with day:
In the clear glass the mariners descry
A sun inverted, and a downward sky.
Thus, Lord, the wonders of earth, sea, and air,
He, when deep-rolling clouds blot out the day, And thunderous storms a solemn gloom display, Pours down a watery deluge from on high, And opens all the sluices of the sky: High o'er the shores the rushing surge prevails, Bursts o'er the plain, and roars along the vales; Dashing abruptly, dreadful down it comes, Tumbling through rocks, and tosses, whirls, and Mean time, from every region of the sky, [foams: Red burning bolts in forky vengeance fly; Dreadfully bright o'er seas and earth they glare, And bursts of thunder rend th' encumber'd air; At once the thunders of th' Almighty sound, Heaven lours, descend the floods, and rocks the Thy boundless wisdom and thy power declare; Thou high in glory, and in might serene, See'st and mov'st all, thyself unmov'd, unseen: Should men and angels join in songs to raise Though men and angels in the song should join A grateful tribute equal to thy praise, Yet far thy glory would their praise outshine, For though this Earth with skill divine is wrought, Above the guess of man, or angel's thought, Yet in the spacious regions of the skies New scenes unfold, and worlds on worlds arise; There other orbs, round other suns advance, And yet the power of thy Almighty hand Float on the air, and run their mystic dance; Can build another world from every sand: And though vain man arraign thy high decree, Still this is just! what is, that ought to be.
ground.
They who adventurous plough the watery way,
The dreadful wonders of the deep survey;
Familiar with the storms, their sails unbind,
Tempt the rough blast, and bound before the wind:
Now high they mount, now shoot into a vale,
Now smooth their course, and scud before the gale;
There rolling monsters, arm'd in scaly pride,
Flounce in the billows, and dash round the tide;
There huge Leviathan unwieldy moves,
And through the waves, a living island, roves;
In dreadful pastime terribly he sports
And the vast ocean scarce his weight supports;
Where'er he turns, the hoary deeps divide;
He breathes a tempest, and he spouts a tide.
"Yet though she flies, she leaves behind Her lovely image in my mind. O! fair Belinda, with me stay, Or take thy image too away! "See! how the fields are gay around, How painted flowers adorn the ground! As if the fields, as well as I,
Were proud to please my fair-one's eye.
"But now, ye fields, no more be gay;
No more, ye flowers, your charms display!
'Tis desert all, now you are fled,
And paradise is where you tread.”
Unmov'd the virgin flies his cares,
To shine at court and play:
To lonely shades the youth repairs,
To weep his life away.
ON A FLOWER
WHICH BELINDA CAVE ME FROM HER BOSOM.
O! LOVELY offspring of the May,
Whence flow thy balmy odours, say!
Such odours-not the orient boasts!
Though Paradise adorn'd the coasts!
O! sweeter than each flower that blooms,
This fragrance from thy bosom comes!
Thence, thence such sweets are spread abroad,
As might be incense for a god!
4
When Venus stood conceal'd from view, Her son, the latent goddess knew, Such sweets breath'd round! and thus we know, Our other Venus here below.
But see! my fairest, see this flower, This short-liv'd beauty of an hour!
From the stage.
3 Alluding to a vote of the Roman senate, by which they decreed Cæsar a crown of laurel to over his baldness.
Ambrosiæque comæ divinum vertice odorem
Spirayêre.
Virg.
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