On bankrupt mortals, who believe and love

His name.

Then, my Charissa, all is thine.'-
And thine, my Mitio, (the fair saint replies.)

Life, death, the world below, and worlds on high,
And place, and time, are ours; and things to come,
And past, and present, for our interest stands
Firm in our mystic head, the title sure.

'Tis for our health and sweet refreshment (while
We sojourn, strangers, here) the fruitful earth
Bears plenteous; and revolving seasons still
Dress her vast globe in various ornament.
For us this cheerful sun and cheerful light
Diurnal shine. This blue expanse of sky
Hangs a rich canopy above our heads,
Covering our slumbers, all with starry gold
Inwrought, when night alternates her return.
For us Time wears his wings out: Nature keeps
Her wheels in motion: and her fabric stands.
Glories, beyond our ken of mortal sight,
Are now preparing, and a mansion fair
Awaits us, where the Saints unbodied live.
Spirits releas'd from clay, and purg'd from sin :
Thither our hearts with most incessant wish
Panting aspire; when shall that dearest hour
Shine and release us hence, and bear us high,
Bear us at once unsever'd, to our better home?
O bless'd connubial state! O happy pair,
Envied by yet unsociated souls

Who seek their faithful twins! your pleasures rise,
Sweet as the morn, advancing as the day,
Fervent as glorious noon, serenely calm
As summer-evenings. The vile sons of earth
Grovelling in dust with all their noisy jars
Restless, shall interrupt your joys no more

Than barking animals affright the moon
Sublime, and riding in her midnight way.
Friendship and love shall undistinguish'd reign
O'er all your passions with unrival'd sway,
Mutual and everlasting: friendship knows
No property in good, but all things common
That each possesses, as the light or air

In which we breathe and live: there's not one thought

Can lurk in close reserve, no barriers fix'd,
But every passage open as the day

To one another's breast, and inmost mind.
Thus by communion your delight shall grow,
Thus streams of mingled bliss swell higher as

they flow,

[glow. Thus angels mix their flames, and more divinely

PART III.

THE ACCOUNT BALANCED.

SHOULD Sovereign love before me stand,
With all his train of pomp and state;
And bid the daring Muse relate
His comforts and his cares;

Mitio, I would not ask the sand
For metaphors to' express their weight,
Nor borrow numbers from the stars:
Thy cares and comforts, sovereign love
Vastly outweigh the sand below,
And to a larger audit grow

Than all the stars above.

Thy mighty losses and thy gains

Are their own mutual measures; Only the man that knows thy pains Can reckon up thy pleasures.

Say, Damon, say how bright the scene.
Damon is half-divinely bless'd,

Leaning his head on his Florella's breast,
Without a jealous thought, or busy care between:
Then the sweet passions mix and share;
Florella tells thee all her heart,

Nor can thy soul's remotest part

Conceal a thought or wish from the beloved fair.
Say, what a pitch thy pleasures fly,

When friendship all-sincere grows up to ecstasy;
Nor self contracts the bliss, nor vice pollutes the
While thy dear offspring round thee sit,
Or sporting innocently at thy feet,

Thy kindest thoughts engage:

Those little images of thee,

What pretty toys of youth they be,
And growing props of age!

But short is earthly bliss! the changing wind
Blows from the sickly South, and brings
Malignant fevers on its sultry wings,

[joy?

Relentless Death sits close behind:
Now gasping infants, and a wife in tears,
With piercing groans salute his ears,
Through every vein the thrilling torments roll;
While sweet and bitter are at strife

In those dear nurseries of life,

Those tenderest pieces of his bleeding soul.

The pleasing sense of love awhile

Mix'd with the heart-ache, may the pain beguile,
And make a feeble fight:

Till sorrows like a gloomy deluge rise,
Then every smiling passion dies,
And hope alone with wakeful eyes,
Darkling and solitary waits the slow-returning light.

Here then let my ambition rest,
May I be moderately bless'd
When I the laws of Love obey:
Let but my pleasure and my pain
In equal balance ever reign,

Or mount by turns and sirk again,
And share just measures of alternate sway.
So Damon lives, and ne'er complains;
Scarce can we hope diviner scenes
On this dull stage of clay:

The tribes beneath the northern bear
Submit to darkness half the year,
Since half the year is day.

ON THE DEATH OF

THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER,

JUST AFTER MR. DRYDEN, 1700.

AN EPIGRAM.

DRYDEN is dead, Dryden alone could sing
The full grown glories of a future king.
Now Glo'ster dies: thus lesser heroes live
By that immortal breath that poets give;

And scarce survive the Muse; but William stands
Nor asks his honours from the poet's hands,
William shall shine without a Dryden's praise,
His laurels are not grafted on the bays.

AN EPIGRAM

OF MARTIAL TO CIRINUS.

Sic, tua, Cirini, promas Epigrammata vulgo
Ut mecum possis, &c.

INSCRIBED TO MR. JOSIAH HORT, 1694.

(Lord Bishop of Kilmore in Ireland, and afterwards Arch Bishop of Tuam.)

So smooth your numbers, friend, your verse so sweet,
So sharp the jest, and yet the turn so neat,
That, with her Martial Rome would place Cirine,
Rome would prefer your sense and thought to mine.
Yet modest you decline the public stage,

To fix your friend alone midst the' applauding age.
So Maro did; the mighty Maro sings

In vast heroic notes of vast heroic things,

And leaves the ode to dance upon his Flaccus' strings.
He scorn'd to daunt the dear Horatian lyre,
Though his brave genius flash'd Pindaric fire;
And at his will, could silence all the Lyric quire.
So to his Varius he resign'd the praise
Of the proud buskin and the tragic bays,
When he could thunder with a loftier vein,
And sing of gods and heroes in a bolder strain.