FLORUS.

FLORUS.

Drives through the sleeping ranks : then to his Beside what fountain, in what broczy 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 Soft, I adjure you, by the skipping fawns,
High on his shoulders, or with slaughter stain

By the fleet roes, that bound along the lawns;
Tho ensangui.ı'd field; when, lo! the martial maid Soft tread, ye virgin daughters of the grove,
Down rusbes from the battlements of Heaven, Nor with your dances wake my sleeping love 1
And sudden cries, “ Return, brave chief, return,

DAMON.
Lest from the skies some guardian power of Troy
Wrathful descend, and rouse the hostile bands.”

Return, O virgin ! and if proud disdain

Arm thy fierce soul, return, enjoy my pain :
Thus speaks the warrior queen: the heavenly

If pleas'd thou view'st a faithful lover's cares,
Tydides owns, and mounts the fiery steeds, (voice Thick rise, ye sighs: in floods descend, ye tears
Observant of the high command; the bow
Sage Ithacus apply'd, and tow'rd the tents (plain. Return, O virgin! while in verdant meads
Scourg'd the proud steeds, the steeds flew o'er the By springs we sport, or dream on flowery beds

She weary wanders through the desert way,

The food of walves, or hungry lions' prey.
A PASTORAL,

DAMON

Ah! shield her, Heaven! your rage, ye beasts, for TO A YOUNG LADY, UPON HER LEAVING, AND RETURN Those are not limbs for savages to tear!

(bear?
TO, THE COUNTRY.

Adieu, ye meads! with her through wilds I go
DAMOX,

O’er burning sands, or everlasting snow ;
Say, while each scene so beautiful appears,

With her I wander through the desert way,

The food of wolves, or hungry lions' prey.
Why heaves thy bosom, and why tlow thy tears?
See! from the clouds the spring descends in showers,
The painted vallies laugh with rising flowers : Come, Rosalind, before the wintry clouds
Smooth flow the floods, soft breathe the vernal airs; Frown o'er th' aërial vault, and rush in floods;
The spring, flowers, floods, conspire to charm our Ere raging storins howl o'er the frozen plains ;
cares.

Thy charms may suffer by the storms or rains.
FLORUS.
But vain the pleasures which the season yields, Come, Rosalind, O come; then infant flowers
The laughing vallies, or the painted fields. Shall bloom and smile, and forin their charms by
No more, ye floods, in silver mazes Now;

By you, the lily shall her white compose; (yours a
Smile not, ye flowers; no more, soft breezes, blow: Your blush shall add new blushes to the rose;
Far, Damon, far from these unhappy groves, Each flowery mead, and every tree shall bud,
The cruel, lovely Rosalinda roves.

And fuller honours clothe the youthful wood.

FLORUS.

DAMON,

But it is plain, that in these times

Aw'd by your guardian's dangerous power, No house is rais'd by poets' rhymes;

At distance trembling we adore; They for themselves can only rear

At distance once again behold A few wild castles in the air;

A serpent guard the blooming gold. Poor are the brethren of the bays,

Well pleas'd, and harmless, lo! he lies, · Down from high strains, to ekes and ayet Basks in the sunshine of your eyes; The Muses too are virgins yet,

Now twists his spires, and now unfurls And may be till they portions get.

The gay confusion of his curls. Yet still the doating rhymer dreams,

Oh ! happy on your breast to lie, And sings of Helicon's bright streams ;

As that bright star that gilds the sky, But Helicon, for all his clatter,

Who, ceasing in the spheres to shine, Yields only uninspiring water;

Would, for your breast, his Heaven resign, Yet ev'n athirst he sweetly singe

Yet, oh! fair virgin, caution take, Of Nectar, and Elysian springs.

Lest some bold cheat assume the snake. What dire malignant planet sheds,

When Jove comprest the Grecian dame. Ye bards, his influence on your heads?

Aloof he threw the lightning's flame; Lawyers by endless controversies,

On radiant spires the lover rode,
Consume unthinking clients' purses,

And in the snake conceal'd the gode
As Pharaoh's kine, which strange and odd is,
Devour'd the plump and well-fed bodies.
The grave physician, who by physic,

TO A LADY OF THIRTY
Like Death, dispatches him that is sick,

No Pursues a sure and thriving trade;

more let youth its beauty boast,

SThough patients die, the doctor's paid :

-n at thirty reigns a toast, Licens’d to kill, he gains a palace,

And, like the Sun as he declines, For what another mounts the gallows

More mildly, but more sweetly sbires

The hand of Time alone disarins In shady groves the Muses stray,

Her face of its superfluous charms : And love in flowery meads to play ;

But avds, for every grace resign'd,
An idle crew! whose only trade is

A thousand to adorn her mind.
To shine in trifles, like our ladies;
In dressing, dancing, toying, singing,

Youth was her too inflaming time;
While wiser Pallas thrives by spinning :

This, her more babitable clime: Thus they gain nothing to bequeath

How must she then each heart engage, Their votaries, but a laurel wreath.

Who blooms like youth, is wise like age &

Thus the rich orange-trees produce But love rewards the bard! the fair

At once both ornament, and use:
Attend his song, and ease his care:

Here opening blossoms we behold,
Alas! fond youth, your plea yoa urge ill There fragrant orbs of ripen'd goldo
Without a jointure, though a Virgil:
Could you like Phæbus sing, in vain
You nobly swell the lofty strain;
Coy Daphne flies, and you will find as
Hard hearts as hers in your Belindas.

BIRTH-DAY OF MR. ROBERT TREFUSIS
But then some say you purchase fame,
And gain that envy'd prize, a name;

BEING THREE YEARS OLD, MARCH 22, 1710-11. Great recompence! like his who sells

Awake, sweet babe! the Sun's emerging ray, A diamond, for beads and bells. Will Fame be thought sufficient bail

That gave you birth, renews the happy day! To keep the poet from the jail ?

Calmly serene, and glorious to the view,

He marches forth, and strives to look like you, Thus the brave soldier, in the wars, Bets empty praise, and aching scars;

VARIATIONS. Is paid with fame and wooden legs;

Why, lovely babe, does slumber seal your eyes And, stary'd, the glorious vagrant begs

See, fair Aurora blushes in the skies !
The Sun, which gave you birth, in bright array

Begins his course, and ushers in the day.
TO A LADY.

Calmly serene, and glorious to the view,

He marches forth, and strives to look like you. PLAYING WITH A SNAKE.

Fair beauty's bud! when Time shall stretch thy Iris a pleasing direful sight!

Confirm thy charms, and ripen thee to man, (spau, At once you charm us, and affright!

How shall each swain, each beauteous nymph comSo Heaven destroying angels arms

For love each nymph, for envy every swain! (plain, With terrour, dreadful in their charms !

What matchless charms shall thy full noon adorn, Such, such was Cleopatra's air,

When so admir'd, so glorious, is thy morn!
Lovely, but formidably fair,
When the grier'd world empoverish'd lost,

* The Scorpion. By the dire asp, its poblest boast

Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great

ON THE

Fair beauty's bud! when Time sball stretch thy | Nobly adorn’d, and finish'd to display Confirin thy charms, and ripen thee to man, (span, A fuller beam of Heaven's ethereal ray. What plenteous fruits thy blossoms shall produce, May all thy charıns increase, O lovely boy! And yield not barren ornament, but use!

Spare them, ye pains, and age alone destroy! Ev'n now thy spring a rich increase prepares So fair thou art, that if great Cupid be To crown thy riper growth, and manly years. A child, the god might boast to look like thee! Thus in the kernel's intricate disguise,

When young lulus' form he deign'd to wear, In miniature a little orchard lies;

Such were his smiles, and such his winning air: The fibrous labyrinths by just degrees

Ev'n Venus might mistake thee for her own, Stretch their swoln cells, replete with future trees; Thence all the lightning of thy mother's flies,

Did not thy eyes proclaim thee nut her son ;
By Time evolv'd, the spreading branches rise,
Yield their rich fruits, and shoot into the skies.

A Cupid grac'd with Cytheraa's eyes!
O lovely babe, what lustre shall adorn

Yet ah! how short a date the Powers decree Thy noon of beauty, when so bright thy morn!

To that bright frame of beauties, and to thee! Shine forth advancing with a brighter ray,

Pass a few days, and all those beauties dy! And may no.vice o'ercloud thy future day!

Pass a few years, and thou, alas ! shalt die!. With nobler aim instruct thy soul to glow,

Then all thy kindred, all thy friends shall see Than those gay trifles, titles, wealth, and show :

With tears, what now thou art, and they must be; May valour, wisdom, learning, crown thy days!

A pale, cold, lifeless lump of earth deplore ! Those fools admirem-these Heaven and Angels Such shalt thou be, and kings shall be no more! praise!'

Butoh! when, ripe for death, Fate caksthee hence, With riches blest, to Heaven those riches lend,

Sure lot of every mortal excellence ! The poor man's guardian, and the good man's friend: When, pregnant as the womb, the teening Earth Bid virtuous Sorrow smile, scorn'd Merit cheer,

Resigns thee quicken'd to thy second birth, And oʻer Afliction pour the generous tear.

Rise, cloth'd with beauties that shall never die ! Some, wildly liberal, squander, not beston,

A saint on Earth! an angel in the sky!
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 :

TO A GENTLEMAN OF SEVENTY, Thus offerings from th’ unjust pollute the skies,

WHO MARRIED A LADY OF SIXTEEN. The good, turn smoke into a sacrifice.

What woes must such unequal union bring, As when an artist plans a favourite draught,

When hoary Winter weds the youthful Spring! The structures rise responsive to the thought;

You, like Mezentius, in the nuptial bed,
A palace grows beneath his forming hands,

Once more unite the living to the dead.
Or worthy of a god a temple stands :
Such is thy rising frame! by Heaven design'd
A temple, worthy of a godlike mind;

THE

A PARAPHRASE.

VARIATIONS
So glorious is thy morn of life begun,

XLIII CHAPTER OF ECCLESIASTICUS.
That all to thee with admiration run,
Turn Persians, and adore the rising Sun.

Tae So fair thou art, that if great Cupid be

Sun, that rolls his beamy orb on high, A child, as poets say; sure thou art he.

Pride of the world, and glory of the sky,

Ilustrious in his course, in briglit array
Fair Venus would mistake thee for her own,
Did not thy eyes proclaim thee not her son.

Marches along the Heavens, and scatters day There all the lightnings of thy mother's shine,

O'er Earth, and o'er the main, and through th’ethe.

Fie in the morn renews his radiant round, (real way. Their radiant glory and their sweetness join, To show their fatal power, and all their charms, in And warms the fragrant bosom of the ground; If fond Narcissus in the crystal stood, [thine,

But ere the noon of day, in fiery gleams

He darts the glory of his blazing beams;
A form like thine, O lovely infant, view'd,
Well might the flame the pining youth destroy ;

Beneath the burnings of his sultry ray,
Excess of beauty justified the boy.

Earth, to her centre, pierc'd admits the day;
Huge vales expand, where rivers rollid before.

And lessen'd seas contract within their shore. • To brace the mind to dignity of thought,

O! Power supreme! 0! high above all height! To emulate what godlike Tully wrote,

Thou gav'st the Sun to shine, and thou art Light: Be this thy early wish! The garden breeds,

Whether he falls or rises in the skies, If unimprov'd, at least but gaudy weeds :

He by thy voice is taught to fall or rise ; And stubborn youth, by culture unsubdu'd, Swiftly he moves, refulgent in his sphere, Lies wildly barren, or but gayly rude.

And measures out the day, the month, and year; · Yet, as some Phidias gives the marble life, He drives the hours along with slower pace, While Art with Nature holds a dubious strifc, The minutes rush away impetuous in their race: Adorns a rock with graces not its own,

He wakes the flowers that sleep within the earth, And calls a Venus from the rugged stone ;

And calls the fragrant infants out to birth; So culture aids the human soul to rise, To scorn the sordid Earth, and mount the skies, The living and the dead, athis command, Till by degrees the noble guest refines,

Were coupled face to face, and hand to hand. Claims her high birthright, and divinely shingt

Drydep's Virgil, An vää

ADDITION.

The fragrant infants paint th' enameld vales, When stormy Winter from the frozen north
And natire incense loads the balmy gales; Borne on his icy chariot issues forth,
The balmy gales the fragrancy convey

The blasted groves their veruant pride resign, To Heaven, and to their God, an offering pay. And billow's harden d into crystal shine:

Sharp blows the rigour of the piercing winds, By thy command the Moon, as day-light fades,

And the proud floods as with a breast-plate binds : Lifts her broad circle in the deepening shades,

Ev'n the proud seas forget in tides to roll Array'd in glory, and enthrond in light,

Beneath the freezings of the northern pole; She breaks the soleinn terrours of the night;

There waves on waves in solid mountains rise, Sweetly inconstant in her varying flame,

And Alps of ice invade the wondering skies; She changes still, another, yet the same!

While gulphs below, and slippery vallies lie, Now in decrease, by slow degrees she shrouds

And with a dreadful brightness pain the eye: Her fading lustre in a veil of clouds;

But if warm winds a warmer air restore, Now at incrcase, her gathering beams display

And softer breezes bring a genial shower, A blaze of light, and give a paler day;

The genial shower revives the cheerful plain, Ten thousand stars adorn her glittering train,

And the huge hills slow down into the main.
Fall when she falls, and rise with her again ;
And o'er the deserts of the sky unfold

When the seas rage, and loud the ocean roars,
Their burning spangles of sidereal gold: [bright, When foaming billows lash the sounding shores ;
Througb the wide Heavens she moves serenely If he in thunder bid the waves subside,
Queen of the gay attendants of the night; The waves obedient sink upon the tide,
Orb above orb in sweet confusion lics,

A sudden peace controls the limpid deep, And with a bright disorder paints the skies. And the still waters in soft silence sleep,

Then Heaven lets down a golden-streaming ray, The Lord of Nature fram'd the showery bow,

And all the broad expansion flames with day: Turn'd its gay arch, and bade its colours glow :

In the clear glass the-mariners descry
Its radiant circle compasses the skies,

A sun inverted, and a downward sky.
And sweetly the rich tinctures faint, and rise;.
It bids the hortours of the storm to cease,

They who adventurous plough the watery way, Adorns the clouds, and makes the tempést please.

The dreadful wonders of the deep survey;

Familiar with the storms, their sails unbind, He, when deep-rolling clouds blot out the day,

Tempt the rough blast, and bound before the wind: And thunderous storms a solemn gloom display,

Now high they mount, now shoot into a vale, Pours downı a watery deluge from on high,

Now smooth their course, and scud before the gale; And opens all the sluices of the sky :

There rolling monsters, arm'd in scaly pride, High o'er the shores the rushing surge prevails,

Flounce in the billows, and dash round the tide; Bursts o'er the plain, and roars along the vales;

'There huge Leviathan unwieldy moves, Dashing abruptly, dreadful down it comes,

And through the waves, a living island, roves; Tumbling through rocks, and tosses, whirls, and Mean time, from every region of the sky, [foams: And the vast ocean scarce his weight supports;

In dreadful pastime terribly he sports Red burning bolts in forky vengeance fly ;

Where'er he turns, the hoary deeps divide ; Dreadfully bright o'er seas and earth they glare,

He breathes a tempest, and he spouts a tide. And bursts of thunder rend th' encumber'd air; At once the thunders of th' Almighty sound, Thus, Lord, the wonders of earth, sea, and air, Heaven lours, descend the flouds, and rocks the Thy boundless wisdom and thy power declare; ground.

Thou high in glory, and in might serene, He gives the furious whirlwind wings to fly,

See'st and movist all, thyself unmovid, unseen: To rend the Earth, and wheel along the sky;

Should men and angels join in songs to raise In circling eddies whirld, it roars aloud,

A grateful tribute equal to thy praise, Drives wave on wave, and dashes cloud on cloud; Yet far thy glory would their praise outshine, Where'er it moves, it lays whole forests low ; Though men and angels in the song should join; And at the blast, eternal mountains bow;

For though this Earth with skill divinç is wrought, While, tearing up the sands, in drifts they rise,

Above the guess of man, or angel's thought, And half the deserts mount the burthen'd skies. Yet in the spacious regions of the skies

New scenes unfold, and worlds on worlds arise;
He from aërial treasures downward pours There other orbs, round other suns advance,
Sheets of unsully'd snow in lucid showers; Float on the air, and run their mystic dance ;
Plake after flake, through air thick-wavering flies, And yet the power of thy Almighty hand
Till one vast shining waste all nature lies; Can build another world from every sand :
Then the proud hills a virgin whiteness shed, And though vain man arraign thy high decree,
A dazzling brightness glitters from the mead; Still this is just! what is, that ought to be.
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 bail, and moulds the harden'd rain:
The stony tempest, with a rushing sound,

CONCLUSION OF AN EPILOGUE
Beats the firm glebe, resulting from the ground;
Swiftly it falls, and as it falls invades

TO MR. SOUTHERN'S LAST PLAY, CALLED MONEY THR
The rising herb, or breaks the spreading blades:
While infant flowers that rais’d their bloomy heads, There was a time, when in his younger years,
Crush'd by its fury, sink into their beds.

Our author's scenes commanded smiles or tears;

THE

MISTRESS.

And though beneath the weight of days he bends, Such are thy charms !--yet Zephyrs bring
Yet, like the Sun, he shines as he descends : The flower to bloom again in Spring :
Then with applause, in honour to his age,

But beauty, when it once declines,
Dismiss your veteran soldier off? the stage; No more to warm the lover shines:
Crown his last exit with distinguish'd praise, Alas! incessant speeds the day,
And kindly hide his baldness with the bays. When thou shalt be but common clay!

When I, who now adore, may see,
And ev'n with horrour start from thee!

But ere, sweet gift, thy grace consumers
THE PARTING,

Show thou my fair-one how she blooms!

Put forth thy charms and then declare
A SONG,

Thyself less sweet, thyself less fair !

Then sudden, by a swift decay,
SET BY DR. TUDWAY, PROFESSOR OF MUSIC IN

Let all thy beauties fade away ;
CAMBRIDGE.

And let her in thy glass descry,
When from the plains Belinda fed,

How youth, and how frail beauty die. The sad Amintor sigh'd;

Ah! turn, my charmer, turn thy eyos! And thus, while streams of tears he shed,

See! how at once it fades, it dies! The mournful shepherd cry'd:

While thine--it gaily pleas'd the view, “ Move slow, ye Hours ! thou, Time, delay! Unfaded, as before it grew ! Prolong the bright Belinda's stay:

Now, from thy bosom doom'd to stray, But you, like her, my prayer deny,

'Tis only beauteous in decay: And cruelly away ye fly.

So the sweet-smelling Indian flowers,

Griev'd when they leave those happier shores, “ Yet though she flies, she leaves behind

Sicken, and die away in ours. Her lovely image in my mind.

So flowers, in Eden fond to blow, 0! fair Belinda, with me stay,

In Paradise would only grow. Or take thy image too away! “ See! how the fields are gay around,

Nor wonder, fairest, to survey

The flower so suddenly decay! How painted Aowers adorn the ground

Too cold thy breast! nor can it grow As if the fields, as well as I,

Between such little hills of snow. Were proud to please my fair-one's eye.

I now, vain infidel, no more “ But now, ye fields, no more be gay ;

Deride th' Ægyptians, who adore No more, ye flowers, your charms display! 'Tis desert all, now you are fled,

The rising herb, and blooming flower ;

Now, now their convert I will be, And paradise is where you tread.”

O lovely Flower! to worship thee.
Unmov'd the virgin fies his cares,

But if thou 'rt one of their sad train
To shine at court and play:
To lonely shades the youth repairs,

Who dy'd for love, and cold disdain,
To weep his life away.

Who, chang'd by some kind pitying power,
A lover once, art now a flower ;
O pity me, O weep my care,
A thousand, thousand pains I bear,

I love, I die through deep despair
ON A FLOWER

THE STORY OF TALUS.

FROM TIIE FOURTH BOOK OF APOLLOXIUS RHODIO

V, 1629,

WNICN BELINDA CAVE ME FROM HER BOSOM,
O!

LOVELY offspring of the May,
Whence Aow 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!

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!

*Huos do hidros kividu, arè & lauder kerne

AŰ2.10s, &c.
The evening-star now lifts, as day-light fades,
His golden circlet in the decpening shades ;
Stretch'd at his ease, the weary labourer shares
A sweet forgetfulness of human cares;
At once in silence sink the sleeping gales ;
The mast they drop ?, and furl the flagging sails;
All night, all day, they ply the bending oars
Tow'rd Carpathus, and reach the rocky shows

9 From the stage.

3 Alluding to a vote of the Roman senate, by which they decreed Cæsar a crown of laurel to Rover his baldness. Ambrosiæque coma divinum vertice odorem Spirayêre.

Virg.

VARIATION.
how could it grow.
6 See Ovid's Metamorpha
Argonaut

7