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He look'd, and turn'd his eyes away,
With high disdain I heard him say,
"Bliss is not made of glittering clay."

Now Pomp and Grandeur court his head
With 'scutcheons, arms, and ensigns spread;
Gay magnificence and state,

Guards, and chariots, at his gate,

And slaves in endless order round his table
wait;

They learn the dictates of his eyes,
And now they fall, and now they rise,
Watch every motion of their lord,
Hang on his lips with most impatient zeal,
With swift ambition seize th' unfinish'd word,
And the command fulfil.

Tir'd with the train that Grandeur brings,
He dropp'd a tear; and pitied kings;
Then, flying from the noisy throng,
Seeks the diversion of a song.

Music, descending on a silent cloud,

Tun'd all her strings with endless art; By slow degrees from soft to loud Changing she rose: the harp and flute Harmonious join, the hero to salute,

And make a captive of his heart.

Fruits, and rich wine, and scenes of lawless

love,

Each with utmost luxury strove

To treat their favourite best;

But sounding strings, and fruits, and wine,
And lawless love in vain combine

To make his virtue sleep, or lull his soul

rest.

He saw the tedious round, and, with a sigh,
Pronounc'd the world but vanity.
"In crowds of pleasure still I find
A painful solitude of mind;

A vacancy within which sense can ne'er supply.
Hence, and be gone, ye flattering snares,
Ye vulgar charms of eyes and ears,
Ye unperforming promisers!
Be all my baser passions dead,

And base desires, by Nature made
For animals and boys:

Man has a relish more refin'd,
Souls are for social bliss design'd;

Give me a blessing fit to match my mind,
A kindred-soul to double and to share

joys."

Myrrha appear'd: "Serene her soul

to

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That brightest star that gilds the wings of Fame,
William the brave, the pious, and the just,
Adorn these gloomy scenes of tyrany and lust?

Polhill, my blood boils high, my spirits flame;
Can your zeal sleep? or are your passions tame?
Nor call revenge and darkness on the poet's name?
Why smoke the skies not? why no thunders roll?
Nor kindling lightnings blast his guilty soul?
Audacious wretch! to stab a monarch's fame,
And fire his subjects with a rebel-flame;
To call the painter to his black designs,
To draw our gardian's face in hellish lines:
my Painter, beware! the monarch can be shown
Under no shape but angels, or his own,
Gabriel, or William, on the British throne.

O! could my thought but grasp the vast design,

And active as the Sun, yet steady as the And words with infinite ideas join,

pole:

In softer beauties shone her face;

Every Muse, and every Grace,

Made her heart and tongue their seat,

Her heart profusely good, her tongue divinely

sweet:

Myrrha the wonder of his eyes;"
His heart recoil'd with sweet surprise,
With joys unknown before:

His soul dissolv'd in pleasing pain,
Flow'd to his eyes, and look'd again,

And could endure no more.
"Enough! (th' impatient hero cries)
And seiz'd her to his breast,

I seek no more below the skies,
I give my slaves the rest."

I'd rouse Apelles from his iron sleep,

And bid him trace the warrior o'er the deep :
Trace him, Apelles, o'er the Belgian plain,
Fierce, how he climbs the mountains of the slain,
Scattering just vengeance through the red campaign.
Then dash the canvass with a flying stroke,
Till it be lost in clouds of fire and smoke,
And say, "Twas thus the conqueror through the
squadrons broke.

Mark him again emerging from the cloud,
Far from his troops; there like a rock he stood
His country's single barrier in a sea of blood.
Calmly he leaves the pleasures of a throne,
And his Maria weeping; whilst alone

He wards the fate of nations, and provokes his own:

But Heaven secures its champion; o'er the field
Paint hovering angels; though they fly conceal'd,
Each intercepts a Death, and wears it on his shield.
Now, noble pencil, lead him to our isle,
Mark how the skies with joyful lustre smile,
Then imitate the glory; on the strand
Spread half the nation, longing till he land.
Wash off the blood, and take a peaceful teint,
All red the warrior, white the ruler paint;
Abroad a hero, and at home a saint.
Throne him on high upon a shining seat,
Lust and Profaneness dying at his feet,

While round his head the laurel and the olive meet,
The crowns of war and peace; and may they blow
With flowery blessings always on his brow.
At his right hand pile up the English laws
In sacred volumes; thence the monarch draws
His wise and just commands-

Rise, ye old sages of the British isle,

On the fair tablet cast a reverend smile,

And bless the piece; these statutes are your own,
That sway the cottage, and direct the throne;
People and prince are one in William's name,
Their joys, their dangers, and their laws the same.
Let Liberty and Right, with plumes display'd,
Clap their glad wings around their guardian's head,
Religion o'er the rest her starry pinions spread.
Religion guards him: round th' imperial queen
Place waiting Virtues, each of heavenly mien;
Learn their bright air, and paint it from his eyes;
The just, the bold, the temperate, and the wise
Dwell in his looks; majestic, but serene;
Sweet, with no fondness; cheerful, but not vain:
Bright, without terrour; great, without disdain.
His soul inspires us what his lips command,
And spreads his brave example through the land:
Not so the former reigns ;-

Bend down his ear to each afflicted cry,
Let beams of grace dart gently from his eye;
But the bright treasures of his sacred breast
Are too divine, too vast to be exprest:

Colours must fail where words and numbers faint,
And leave the hero's heart for Thought alone to paint.

PART II.

Now, Muse, pursue the satirist again,
Wipe off the blots of his envenom'd pen;
Hark, how he bids the servile painter draw,
In monstrous shapes, the patrons of our law;
At one slight dash he cancels every name
From the white rolls of Honesty and Fame;
This scribbling wretch marks all he meets for knave,
Shoots sudden bolts promiscuous at the base and
And with unpardonable malice sheds
Poison and spite on undistinguish'd heads.
Painter, forbear; or if thy bolder hand
Dares to attempt the villains of the land,
Draw first this poet, like some baleful star,
With silent influence shedding civil war;
Or factious trumpeter, whose magic sound
Calls off the subjects to the hostile ground,
And scatters hellish feuds the nation round.

[brave,

These are the imps of hell, that cursed tribe [scribe.
That first create the plague, and then the pain

Draw next above, the great ones of our isle,
Still from the good distinguishing the vile;
Seat them in pomp, in grandeur, and command,
Peeling the subject with a greedy hand :

VOL. XIII.

Paint forth the knaves that have the nation sold,
And tinge their greedy looks with sordid gold.
Mark what a selfish faction undermines
The pious monarch's generous designs,
Spoil their own native land as vipers do,
Vipers that tear their mother's bowels through.
Let great Nassau, beneath a careful crown,
Mournful in majesty, look gently down,
Mingling soft pity with an awful frown:
He grieves to see how long in vain he strove
To make us blest, how vain his labours prove
To save the stubborn land he condescends to love.

ΤΟ

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THE DISCONTENTED AND UNQUIET.
Imitated partly from Casimire, B. iv. Od. 15.
VARIA, there's nothing here that 's free
From wearisome anxiety;

And the whole round of mortal joys
With short possession tires and cloys:
'Tis a dull circle that we tread,
Just from the window to the bed;
We rise to see and to be seen,

Gaze on the world awhile, and then
We yawn, and stretch to sleep again.
But Fancy, that uneasy guest,
Still holds a longing in our breast:
She finds or frames vexations still,
Herself the greatest plague we feel;
We take strange pleasure in our pain,
And make a mountain of a grain,
Assume the load, and pant and sweat
Beneath th' imaginary weight:
With our dear selves we live at strife,
While the most constant scenes of life
From peevish humours are not free;
Still we affect variety.

Rather than pass an easy day,
We fret and chide the hours away;
Grow weary of this circling Sun,
And vex that he should ever run

The same old track, and still and still
Rise red behind yon eastern hill;
And chide the Moon, that darts her light
Through the same casement every night.

We shift our chambers and our homes,
To dwell where trouble never comes;
Sylvia has left the city crowd,
Against the court exclaims aloud,
Flies to the woods; a hermit saint!
She loaths her patches, pins, and paint;
Dear diamonds from her neck are torn:
But Humour, that eternal thorn,
Sticks in her heart: she is hurried still,
'Twixt her wild passions and her will;
Haunted and hagg'd where'er she roves,
By purling streams and silent groves,
Or with her Furies, or her Loves.

Then our own native land we hate,
Too cold, too windy, or too wet;
Change the thick climate, and repair
To France or Italy for air:
de-In vain we change, in vain we fly;
Go, Sylvia, mount the whirling sky,
Or ride upon the feather'd wind!
In vain; if this diseased mind
Clings fast, and still sits close behind:

Faithful disease, that never fails
Attendance at her lady's side,
Over the desert or the tide,
On rolling wheels, or flying sails.
Happy the soul that Virtue shows
To fix the place of her repose,
Needless to move; for she can dwell
In her old grandsire's hall as well.
Virtue, that never loves to roam,
But sweetly hides herself at home;
And easy on a native throne
Of humble turf sits gently down.

Yet should tumultuous souls arise, And mingle earth, and seas, and skies; Should the waves swell, and make her roll Across the line, or near the pole, Still she's at peace; for well she knows To lanch the stream that duty shows, And makes her home where'er she goes. Bear her, ye seas, upon your breast, Or waft her, winds, from east to west, On the soft air; she cannot find A couch so easy as her mind,

Nor breathe a climate half so kind.

ΤΟ

JOHN HARTOPP, ESQ. (AFTERWARDS SIR JOHN HARTOPp, bart.) Casimire, Book i. Ode 4. imitated. Vive jucunda metuens juventæ, &c.

LIVE, my dear Hartopp, live to-day, Nor let the Sun look down and say, Inglorious here he lies;"

66

July, 1700.

Shake off your ease, and send your name
To immortality and fame,

By every hour that flies.

Youth's a soft scene, but trust her not :
Her airy minutes, swift as thought,

Slide off the slippery sphere;

Moons with their months make hasty rounds,
The Sun has pass'd his vernal bounds,
And whirls about the year.

Let Folly dress in green and red,
And gird her waist with flowing gold,
Knit blushing roses round her head,
Alas! the gaudy colours fade,

The garmeut waxes old.
Hartopp, mark the withering rose,
And the pale gold how dim it shows!

Bright and lasting bliss below

Is all romance and dream; Only the joys celestial flow

In an eternal stream:

The pleasures that the smiling day
With large right hand bestows,
Falsely her left conveys away,
And shuffles in our woes.
So have I seen a mother play,
And cheat her silly child;
She gave and took a toy away,
The infant cried and smil'd.
Airy Chance and iron Fate
Hurry and vex our mortal state,
And all the race of ills create;

Now fiery Joy, now sullen Grief,
Commands the reins of human life,
The wheels impetuous roll;

The harness'd hours and minutes strive,
And days with stretching pinions drive
Down fiercely on the goal.

Not half so fast the galley flies

O'er the Venetian sea,

When sails, and oars, and labouring skies, Contend to make her way.

Swift wings for all the flying hours

The God of time prepares;.

The rest lie still yet in their nest,
And grow for future years.

TO THOMAS GUNSTON, ESQ. HAPPY SOLITUDE. Casimire, Book iv. Ode 12. imitated. Quid me latentem, &c.

THE noisy world complains of me
That I should shun their sight, and flee
Visits, and crowds, and company.
Gunston, the lark dwells in her nest

Till she ascend the skies;

And in my closet I could rest Till to the Heavens I rise.

Yet they will urge, "This private life

Can never make you blest,

And twenty doors are still at strife

T'engage you for a guest."

1700.

Friend, should the towers of Windsor or Whitehall Spread open their inviting gates

To make my entertainment gay;

I would obey the royal call,

But short would be my stay,

Since a diviner service waits

T'employ my hours at home, and better fill the day.
When I within myself retreat,

I shut my doors against the great;
My busy eye-balls inward roll,
And there with large survey I see
All the wide theatre of me,

And view the various scenes of my retiring soul;
There I walk o'er the mazes I have trod,
While hope and fear are in a doubtful strife,

Whether this Opera of life

Be acted well to gain the plaudit of my God.
There's a day hastening, ('tis an awful day!)
When the great Sovereign shall at large review
All that we speak, and all we do,

The several parts we act on this wide stage of clay:
These he approves, and those he blames,
And crowns perhaps a porter, and a prince he damns.
O if the Judge from his tremendous seat

Shall not condemn what I have done,
I shall be happy though unknown,
Nor need the gazing rabble, nor the shouting street.
I hate the glory, friend, that springs
From vulgar breath, and empty sound;
Fame mounts her upward with a flattering gale

Upon her airy wings,

Till Envy shoots, and Fame receives the wound: Then her flagging pinions fail,

Down Glory falls, and strikes the ground,

And breaks her batter'd limbs.

Rather let me be quite conceal'd from Fame;

How happy I should lie.

In sweet obscurity,

Nor the loud world pronounce my little name!
Here I could live and die alone;
Or, if society be due
To keep our taste of pleasure new,

Gunston, I'd live and die with you,
For both our souls are one.

Here we could sit and pass the hour,

And pity kingdoms and their kings, And smile at all their shining things, Their toys of state, and images of power; Virtue should dwell within our seat, Virtue alone could make it sweet, Nor is herself secure but in a close retreat. While she withdraws from public praise, Envy perhaps would cease to rail,

Envy itself may innocently gaze

At Beauty in a veil :

But if she once advance to light,

Her charms are lost in Envy's sight,

And Virtue stands the mark of universal spite.

ΤΟ

JOHN HARTOPP, ESQ.

(AFTERWARDS SIR JOHN HARTOPP, Bart.)

THE DISDAIN.

HARTOPP, I love the soul that dares
Tread the temptations of his years
Beneath his youthful feet:
Fleetwood and all thy heavenly line
Look through the stars, and smile divine
Upon an heir so great.

Young Hartopp knows this noble theme,
That the wild scenes of busy life,

The noise, th' amusements, and the strife,
Are but the visions of the night,
Gay phantoms of delusive light,
Or a vexatious dream.

Flesh is the vilest and the least
Ingredient of our frame:
We're born to live above the beast,
Or quit the manly name.
Pleasures of sense we leave for boys;
Be shining dust the miser's food;
Let Fancy feed on fame and noise,
Souls must pursue diviner joys,
And seize th' immortal good.

ΤΟ

MITIO, MY FRIEND.

AN EPISTLE.

1700.

FORGIVE me, Mitio, that there should be any mortifying lines in the following poems inscribed to you, so soon after your entrance into that state, which was designed for the completest happiness on Earth: but you will quickly discover that the Muse in the first poem only represents the shades and dark colours that melancholy throws upon love and the social life. In the second, perhaps, she indulges her own bright ideas a little. Yet if

the accounts are but well balanced at last, and things set in a due light, I hope there is no ground for censure. Here you will find an attempt made to talk of one of the most important concerns of human nature in verse, and that with a solemnity becoming the argument. I have banished grimace and ridicule, that persons of the most serious character may read without offence. What was written several years ago to yourself, is now permitted to entertain the world; but you may assume it to yourself as a private entertainment still, while you lie concealed behind a feigned name.

THE MOURNING-PIECE.

LIFE's a long tragedy: this globe the stage,
Well fix'd and well adorn'd with strong machines,
Gay fields, and skies, and seas: the actors many:
The plot immense: a flight of demons sit
On every sailing cloud with fatal purpose;
And shoots across the scenes ten thousand arrows
Perpetual and unseen, headed with pain,
With sorrow, infamy, disease, and death.
The pointed plagues fly silent through the air,
Nor twangs the bow, yet sure and deep the wound,

Dianthe acts her little part alone,

Nor wishes an associate. Lo she glides
Single through all the storm, and more secure;
Less are her dangers, and her breast receives
The fewest darts. "But, O my lov'd Marilla,
My sister, once my friend, (Dianthe cries)
How much art thou expos'd! Thy growing soul
Doubled in wedlock, multiplied in children,
Stands but the broader mark for all the mischiefs
That rove promiscuous o'er the mortal stage:
Children, those dear young limbs, those tenderest
Of your own flesh, those little other selves, [pieces
How they dilate the heart to wide dimensions,
And soften every fibre to improve

The mother's sad capacity of pain!

I mourn Fidelio too; though Heaven has chose
A favourite mate for him, of all her sex
The pride and flower. How blest the lovely pair,
Beyond expression, if well mingled loves
And woes well mingled could improve our bliss!
Amidst the rugged cares of life behold

The father and the husband; flattering names,
That spread his title, and enlarge his share
Of common wretchedness. He fondly hopes

To multiply his joys, but every hour
Renews the disappointment and the smart.
There not a wound afflicts the meanest joint
Of his fair partner, or her infant-train,
(Sweet babes!) but pierces to his inmost soul.
Strange is thy power, O Love' what numerous veins,

And arteries, and arms, and hands, and eyes,
Are link'd and fasten'd to a lover's heart,
By strong but secret strings! With vain attempt
We put the Stoic on; in vain we try
To break the ties of nature and of blood;
Those hidden threads maintain the dear communion
Inviolably firm; their thrilling motions
Reciprocal give endless sympathy
In all the bitters and the sweets of life.
Thrice happy inan, if Pleasure only knew
These avenues of love to reach our souls,
And Pain had never found them!"

Thus sang the tuneful maid, fearful to try
The bold experiment. Oft Daphnia came,
And oft Narcissus, rivals of her heart,
Luring her eyes with trifles dipt in gold,
And the gay silken bondage. Firm she stood,
And bold repuls'd the bright temptation still,
Nor put the chains on; dangerous to try,
And hard to be dissolv'd. Yet rising tears
Sat on her eye-lids, while her numbers flow'd
Harmonious sorrow; and the pitying drops
Stole down her cheeks to mourn the hapless state
Of mortal love. Love, thou best blessing sent
To soften life, and make our iron cares
Easy but thy own cares of softer kind
Give sharper wounds: they lodge too near the heart,
Beat, like the pulse, perpetual, and create
A strange uneasy sense, a tempting pain.

Say, my companion Mitio, speak sincere,
(For thou art learned now) what anxious thoughts,
What kind perplexities tumultuous rise,
If but the absence of a day divide
Thee from thy fair beloved! Vainly smiles
The cheerful Sun, and Night with radiant eyes
Twinkles in vain: the region of thy soul
Is darkness, till thy better star appear.
Tell me, what toil, what torment to sustain
The rolling burthen of the tedious hours?
The tedious hours are ages. Fancy roves
Restless in fond inquiry, nor believes
Charissa safe: Charissa, in whose life
Thy life consists, and in her comfort thine.
Fear and surmise put on a thousand forms
Of dear disquietude, and round thine ears
Whisper ten thousand dangers, endless woes,
Till thy frame shudders at her fancied death:
Then dies my Mitio, and his blood creeps cold
Through every vein. Speak, does the stranger
Cast happy guesses at the unknown passion, [Muse
Or has she fabled all? Inform me, friend,
Are half thy joys sincere? thy hopes fulfill'd,
Or frustrate? Here commit thy secret griefs
To faithful ears, and be they buried here
In friendship and oblivion; lest they spoil
Thy new-born pleasures with distasteful gall.
Nor let thine eye too greedily drink in
The frightful prospect, when untimely Death
Shall make wild inroads on a parent's heart,
And his dear offspring to the cruel grave
Are dragg'd in sad succession, while his soul
Is torn away piece-meal. Thus dies the wretch
A various death, and frequent, ere he quit
The theatre, and make his exit final.

But if his dearest half, his faithful mate
Survive, and in the sweetest saddest airs
Of love and grief approach with trembling hand
To close his swimming eyes, what double pangs,
What racks, what twinges rend his heart-strings off
From the fair bosom of that fellow-dove

He leaves behind to mourn! What jealous cares
Hang on his parting soul, to think his love
Expos'd to wild oppression, and the herd
Of savage men! So parts the dying turtle
With sobbing accents, with such sad regret
Leaves his kind feather'd mate. The widow bird
Wanders in lonesome shades, forgets her food,
Forgets her life; or falls a speedier prey
To talon'd falcons, and the crooked beak
Of hawks athirst for blood-

THE SECOND PART: OR,

THE BRIGHT VISION.
THUS far the Muse, in unaccustom'd mood,
And strains unpleasing to a lover's ear,
Indulg'd a gloom of thought; and thus she sang
Partial: for Melancholy's hateful form
Stood by in sable robe: the pensive Muse
Survey'd the darksome scenes of life, and sought
Some bright relieving glimpse, some cordial ray
In the fair world of love. But while she gaz'd
Delightful on the state of twin-born souls
United, blest, the cruel shade applied
A dark long tube, and a false tinctur'd glass
Deceitful: blending love and life at once
In darkness, chaos, and the common mass
Of misery. Now Uran a feels the cheat,
And breaks the hated optic in disdain.
Swift vanishes the sullen form, and lo
The scene shines bright with bliss. Behold the place
Where mischiefs never fly, cares never come
With wrinkled brow, nor anguish, nor disease,
Nor malice forky-tongued. On this dear spot,
Mitio, my love would fix and plant thy station
To act thy part of life, serene and blest,
With the fair consort fitted to thy heart.

Sure 'tis a vision of that happy grove
Where the first authors of our mournful race
Liv'd in sweet partnership! One hour they liv'd
But chang'd the tasted bliss (imprudent pair!)
For sin and shame, and this waste wilderness
Of briers, and nine hundred years of pain.
The wishing Muse new-dresses the fair garden
Amid this desert world, with budding bliss,
And ever-greens, and balms, and flowery beauties,
Without one dangerous tree. There heavenly dews
Nightly descending shall impearl the grass
And verdant herbage; drops of fragrancy
Sit trembling on the spires: the spicy vapours
Rise with the dawn, and through the air diffus'd
Salute your waking senses with perfume:
While vital fruits with their ambrosial juice
Renew life's purple flood and fountain, pure
From vicious taint; and with your innocence
Immortalize the structure of your clay.
On this new Paradise the cloudless skies
Shall smile perpetual, while the lamp of day
With flames unsullied (as the fabled torch
Of Hymen) measures out your golden hours
Along his azure road. The nuptial Moon
In milder rays serene, should nightly rise
Full orb'd (if Heaven and Nature will indulge
So fair an einblem), big with silver joys,
And still forget her wane. The feather'd choir,
Warbling their Maker's praise on early wing,
Or pereh❜d on evening bough, shall join your worship,
Join your sweet vespers, and the morning song.

O sacred symphony! hark, through the grove
I hear the sound divine! I'm all attention,
All ear, all ecstasy; unknown delight!
And the fair Muse proclaims the Heaven below.
Not the seraphic minds of high degree
Disdain converse with men. Again returning,
I see th' ethereal host on downward wing.
Lo, at the eastern gate young cherubs stand
Guardians, commission'd to convey their joys
To earthly lovers. Go, ye happy pair,
Go taste their banquet, learn the nobler pleasures
Supernal, and from brutal dregs refin'd,

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