Transfix'd his heart, and gash'd him o'er with The inmost deep recesses of his soul [wounds. Thrown open, Anguish there on cruel wing Alights, and, like an hungry vulture, tears And preys upon his heart-strings, but amidst The' unparallel'd distress, the Son of God Superior shines, defies the fiercest pangs, And triumphs in his woes. Heroic zeal For his great Father's glories arm'd his soul, Join'd with invincible delight to save Millions of rebels from the gulf of hell. Such his stupendous ardour to endure Vicarious punishment! What will not love When love inspires a mortal breast, achieve? But when celestial bosoms catch the fire, What miracles of mercy blaze around?
But let fancy with all its images subside and vanish. I know not whither the impetuous Muse has hurried me. I designed only four lines in verse, and behold what a number! While I have indulged my rapture, I fear my juvenile heat, and too bold an imagination, may have made some trespass on divinity.
I received a letter yesterday acquainting me that our mother was somewhat better, though the fever has not left her. I intended to have written more particularly, but the swelling and growing verses bave prevented me, and contracted the limits of my letter. Farewell, dear brother, and may you make strenuous advances in the study of religion and medicine! Given from my study in London on the sixteenth of the Kalends of February, 1693.
FRATRIS E. W. OLIM NAVIGATURO.
1 FELIX, pede prospero I frater, trabe pineâ Sulces æquora cœrula Pandas carbasa flatibus Quæ tutò reditura sint. Non te monstra natantia Ponti carnivoræ incolæ Prædentur rate naufragâ. Navis, tu tibi creditum Fratrem dimidium mei Salvum fer per inhospita Ponti regna, per avios Tractus, et liquidum Chaos. Nec te sorbeat horrida Syrtis, nec scopulus minax Rumpat roboreum latus : Captent mitia flamina Antennæ ; et Zephyri leves Dent portum placidum tibi. Tu, qui flumina, qui vagos Fluctus oceani regis, Et sævam boream domas, Da fratri faciles vias,
Et fratrem reducem suis,
TRANSLATION. BY DR. GIBBONS.
BROTHER, may Heaven vouchsafe to bless, And crown your voyage with success! Go, in the planks of pine immur'd, And from surrounding harms secur'd; Go, and with sails expanding wide, With pleasure plough the placid tide, In safety wafted o'er the main, In safety wafted home again. O may no monster of the flood
That roams for prey, and thirsts for blood, Seize you to his tremendous pow'r, And with remorseless jaws devour; While the bark, shiver'd by the blast, Strows with its wreck the watry waste! My brother trusted to thy care, Half of myself, O vessel, bear Secure through ocean's wide domain; At best a desert trackless plain, And oft, when hurricanes arise, In billows thundering to the skies: Safe from the sand's devouring heap, May'st thou thy wary passage keep; Safe too from each tremendous rock, Where ships are shatter'd by the shock:
May only favourable gales Attend thy course, and till thy sails, And may the zephyr's softest wing Thee to thy port serenely bring!
Thou, who dost o'er the seas preside, Rouse them to rage, or smooth their tide! Thou, who dost in thy fetters keep The boisterous tyrants of the deep! To foreign climes secure convey My brother, through the watry way; And back conduct him, o'er the main, To his dear shores and friends again!
FIDUM ADOLESCENTIÆ MEÆ PRÆCEPTOREM. Pindarica Carminis Specimen. 1694.
EN te, Pinhorni, Musa Trisantica Salutat, ardens discipulum tuam Gratè fateri: nunc Athenas,
Nunc Latias per amœnitates
Tutò pererrans te recolit ducem,
Te quondam teneros et Ebraia per aspera gressus Non durâ duxisse manu. Tuo patescunt lumine Thespii Campi atque ad arcem Pieridôn iter: En altus assurgens Homerus
Arma deosque virosque miscens
Occupat æthereum Parnassi culmen : Homeri Immensos stupeo manes
Te, Maro, dulcè canens sylvas, te bella sonantem Ardua, da veniam tenui venerare camœnâ; Tuæque accipias, Thebane vates, Debita thura lyræ.
Vobis, magna trias! clarissima nomina semper Scrinia nostra patent, et pectora nostra patebunt, Quum mihi conque levem concesserit otia et horam Divina Mosis pagina.
Flaccus ad hanc triadem ponatur, at ipsa pudendas Deponat veneres: venias sed purus et insons Ut te collaudem, dum sordes et mala lustra'' Ablutus, Venusine, canis ridesve. Recisæ Hâc lege accedant satyræ Juvenalis, amari Torrores vitiorum. At longè cæcus abesset Persius, obscuros vates, nisi lumina circum-
fusa forent, sphingisque ænigmata, Bonde, scidisses.
Grande sonans Senecæ fulmen, grandisque cothurni Pompa Sophoclei celso ponantur eodem
Ordine, et ambabus simul hos amplectar in ulnis. Tutò, poëtæ, tutò habitabitis
Pictos abacos: improba tinea Obiit, nec audet sæva castas Attingere blata camœnas. At tu renidens fœda epigrammatum Farrago inertûm, stercoris impii Sentina fœtens, Martialis, In barathrum relegandus imum Aufuge, et hinc tecum rapias Catullum Insulsè mollem, naribus, auribus Ingrata castis carmina, et improbi Spurcos Nasonis amores.
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