A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain..: Swift. Thompson. Watts ...

ODE ON SCIENCE.

CH, heavenly-born! in deepest dells
If faireft fcience ever dwells

Beneath the moffy cave;
Indulge the verdure of the woods;
With azure beauty gild the floods,
And flowery carpets lave;

For melancholy ever reigns
Delighted in the fylvan fcenes
With fcientific light;

While Dian, huntress of the vales,
Seeks lulling founds and fanning gales,
Though wrapt from mortal fight.
Yet, goddess, yet the way explore
With magic rites and heathen lore
Obftructed and deprefs'd;
Till Wisdom give the facred Nine,
Untaught, not uninfpir'd, to shine,
By Reafon's power redress'd.
When Solon and Lycurgus taught
To moralize the human thought
Of mad opinion's maze,

To erring zeal they gave new laws.
Thy charms, O Liberty, the cause
That blends congenial rays.

Bid bright Aftræa gild the morn,
Or bid a hundred funs be born,
To hecatomb the year;
Without thy aid, in vain the poles,
In vain the zodiac fyftem rolls,

In vain the lunar sphere.
Come, faireft princess of the throng,
Bring fwift Philofophy along

In metaphyfic dreams; While raptur'd bards no more behold A vernal age of purer gold

In Heliconian ftreams.

Drive Thraldom with malignant hand,
To curfe fome other deftin'd land

By Folly led astray:
Jerne bear on azure wing;
Energic let her foar and fing

Thy univerfal sway.

So, when Amphion bade the lyre
To more majestic found afpire,

Behold the madding throng,
In wonder and oblivion drown'd,
To fculpture turn'd by magic found
And petrifying fong.

STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY.

March 13. 1726.

THIS day, whate'er the fates decree,
Shall ftill be kept with joy by me :
This day then let us not be told,
That you are fick, and I grown old;
Nor think on your approachi? g ills,
And talk of fpectacles and pills:
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear such mortifying ftuff.

Yet, fince from reafon may brought
A better and more pleafing thought,
Which can, in fpite of all decays,
Support a few remaining days;
From not the graveft of Divines
Accept for once fome ferious lines.
Although we now can form no more
Long schemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet
you, while time is running faft,
Can look with joy on what is paft.
Were future happiness and pain
A mere contrivance of the brain;
As atheists argue, to entice
And fit their profelytes for vice
(The only comfort they propose,
To have companions in their woes):
Grant this the cafe; yet fure 'tis hard
That virtue, ftyl'd its own reward,
And by all fages understood
To be the chief of human good,
Should acting die; nor leave behind
Some lafting pleasure in the mind,
Which by remembrance will affuage
Grief, fickness, poverty, and age,
And strongly shoot a radiant dart
To fhine through life's declining part.
Say, Stella, feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well fpent;
Your fkilful hand employ'd to fave
Defpairing wretches from the grave;
And then fupporting with your store
Thofe whom you dragg'd from death before?
So Providence on mortals waits,
Preferving what it first creates.
Your generous boldnefs to defend
An innocent and abfent friend;
That courage which can make you just
To merit humbled in the dust;
The deteftation you express
For vice in all its glittering dress;
That patience under tottering pain,
Where stubborn ftoics would complain;
Muft thefe like empty fhadows pafs,
Or forms neglected from a glafs?
Or mere chimeras in the mind,
That fly, and leave no mark behind?
Does not the body thrive and grow
By food of twenty years ago?
And, had it not been ftill fupply'd,
It must a thousand times have died.
Then who with reafon can maintain
That no effects of food remain ?
And is not virtue in mankind
The nutriment that feeds the mind;
Upheld by each good action paft,
And ftill continued by the last?
Then, who with reafon can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?

Believe me, Stella, when you fhow
That true contempt for things below,
Nor prize your life for other ends
Than merely to oblige your friends;
Your former actions claim their part,
And join to fortify your heart.
For virtue, in her daily race,
Like Janus, bears a double face;
Looks back with joy where fhe has gone,
And therefore goes with courage on;

She at your fickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better state.
O then, whatever Heaven intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.

Me, furely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly would your fuffering share :
Or give my fcrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due;
You to whole care so oft I owe
That I'm alive to tell you fo.

HORACE, BOOK L ODE XIV.
Paraphrased, and inscribed to Ireland. 1726.

THE INSCRIPTION.

Poor floating ifle, toft on ill-fortune's waves,
Ordain'd by fate to be the land of slaves;
Shall moving Delos now deep-rooted stand;
Then, fix'd of old, be now the moving land?
Although the metaphor be worn and ftale,
Betwin a ftate and veffel under fail ;
Let me fuppofe thee for a fhip a while,
And thus addrefs thee in the failor's ftyle:

Yet at a ball unthinking fools delight
In the gay trappings of a birth-day night:
They on the gold brocades and fatins rav'd,
And quite forgot their country was enflav'd.
Dear veffel, ftill be to thy steerage juft,
Nor change thy courfe with every fudden guft;
Like fupple patriots of the modern fort,
Who turn with every gale that blows from court.
Weary and fea-fick when in thee confin'd,
Now for thy fafety cares distract my mind;
As those who long have stood the storms of state
Retire, yet till bemoan their country's fate.
Beware; and when you hear the furges roar,
Avoid the rocks on Britain's angry shore.
They lie, alas! too eafy to be found;
For thee alone they lie the island round.

VERSES

ON THE SUDDEN DRYING UP OF ST. PATRICK'S
WELL,

Near Trinity College, Dublin. 1726.

By holy zeal infpir'd, and led by fame,
To thee, once favourite ifle, with joy I came;
What time the Goth, the Vandal, and the Hun,
Had my own native Italy o'er-run.
Ierne, to the world's remoteft parts,
Renown'd for valour, policy and arts.

UNHAPPY ship, thou art return'd in vain :

wwaves fhall drive thee to the deep again.
Look to thyfelf, and be no more the sport
Of giddy winds, but make fome friendly port.
Lot are thy oars, that us'd thy courfe to guide,
Like faithful counsellors, on either fide.
Thy mat, which like fome aged patriot food
The angle pillar for his country's good,
To lead thee, as a staff directs the blind,
Behold it cracks by yon rough eastern wind.
Your cable's burft, and you must quickly feel
simpetuous enter at your keel.
Thas commonwealths receive a foreign yoke,
When the ftrong cords of union once are broke.
Tore by a fudden tempeft is thy fail,
Expanded to invite a milder gale.

The waves

As when fome writer in the public caufe
to fave a finking nation, draws.

We all is calm, his arguments prevail;
The people's voice expands his paper-fail;
Tpower, difcharging all her ftormy bags,
Flatters the feeble pamphlet into rags.
The nation fcar'd, the author doom'd to death,
Who fondly put his truft in poplar breath.
A larger facrifice in vain you vow;
There's not a power above will help you now:
A nation thus, who oft' Heaven's call neglects,
Ja vain from injur'd Heaven relief expects.
Twul not avail, when thy ftrong fides are broke,
That thy defcent is from the British oak;
Cr, when your name and family you boast,
From fleets triumphant o'er the Gallic coaft.
Such was Ierne's claim, as juft as thine,
Her fans defcended from the British line;
Her matchlefs fons, whofe valour still remains
On French records for twenty long campaigns:

Yet, from an
emprefs

now a captive grown,

The fav'd Britannia's rights and lost her own.
In tips decay'd no mariner confides,
Lard by the gilded stern and painted fides;

Hither from Colchos t, with the fleecy ore,
Jafon arriv'd two thousand years before.
Thee, happy ifland, Pallas call'd her own,
When haughty Britain was a land unknown :
From thee, with pride, the Caledonians trace
The glorious founder of their kingly race:
Thy martial fons, whom now they dare defpife,
Did once their land fubdue and civilize :
Their drefs, their language, and the Scottish name,
Confefs the foil from whence the victors came §.
Well may they boaft that ancient blood which

runs

Within their veins, who are thy younger fons,

Italy was not properly the native place of St. Patrick, but the place of his education, and where he received his miffion; and because he had his new birth there, hence, by poetical licence, and by feripture figure, our author calls that country his native Italy. IRISH ED.

† Orpheus, or the ancient author of the Greek poem on the Argonautic expedition, whoever be be, fays, that Jafon, who manned the hip Argus at Theffaly, failed to Ireland. IRISH ED.

Tacitus, in the life of Julius Agricola, fays, that the harbours of Ireland, on account of their commerce, were better known to the world than thofe of Britain. IRISH ED.

The argument here turns on, what the author of courfe took for granted, the prefent Scots being the defcendants of Irish emigrants.

On the authority of Buchanan and his predeceffors, the hiftorical part of this poem feems founded, as well as the notes figned IRISH ED., fome of which, it is fuppofed, were written by the Dean himself.

A conqueft and a colony from thee.
The mother-kingdom left her children free;
From thee no mark of flavery they felt :
Not fo with thee thy base invaders dealt;
Invited here to vengeful Morrough's aid *,

See, where that new-devouring vermin runs,
Sent in my anger from the land of Huns!
With harpy-claws it undermines the ground,
And fudden fpreads a numerous offspring round.
Th' amphibious tyrant, with his ravenous band,

Those whom they could not conquer, they be- Drains all thy lakes of fifh, of fruits thy land.

tray'd.

Britain, by thee we fell, ungrateful isle!
Not by thy valour, but fuperior guile :
Britain, with fhame, confefs this land of mine
First taught thee human knowledge and divine t;
My prelates and my ftudents, fent from hence,
Made your fons converts both to God and fenfe :
Not like the paftors of thy ravenous breed,
Who come to fleece the flocks, and not to feed.

Wretched Ierne! with what grief I fee
The fatal changes Time hath made on thee!
The Chriftian rites I introduc'd in vain :
Lo! infidelity return'd again!

Freedom and virtue in thy fons I found,
Who now in vice and flavery are drown'd.

By faith and prayer, this crofier in my hand,
I drove the venom'd ferpent from thy land;
The thepherd in his bower might fleep or fing t,
Nor dread the adder's tooth, nor fcorpion's fting.
With omens oft' I ftrove to warn thy fwains,
Omens, the types of thy impending chains.
I fent the magpie from the British foil,
With reftless beak thy blooming fruit to spoil,
To din thine ears with unharmonious clack,
And haunt thy holy walls in white and black.
What elfe are thofe thou feeft in Bishops' geer,
Who crop the nurseries of learning here;
Afpiring, greedy, full of fenfelefs prate,
Devour the church, and chatter to the state?

As you grew more degenerate and base, I fent you millions of the croaking race; Emblems of infects vile, who spread their spawn Through all thy land, in armour, fur, and lawn; A naufeous brood, that fills your fenate walls, And in the chambers of your viceroy crawls!

In the reign of King Henry II. Dermot M'Morrough, king of Leiner, being deprived of bis kingdom by Roderick O'Connor, king of Connaught, he invited the English over as auxiliaries, and promifed Richard Strangbow, Earl of Pembroke, bis daughter and all his dominions as a portion. By this affiftance, M‘Morrough recovered his crown, and Strangbow became poffeed of all Leinfler. IRISH ED.

t St. Patrick arrived in Ireland in the year 431, and completed the converfion of the natives, which had been begun by Palladius and others. And, as bibop Nicholfon obferves, Ireland foon became the fountain of learning, to which all the Western Chriflians, as well as the English, had re courfe, not only for inflructions in the principles of religion, but in all forts of literature, viz. Legendi et fcholafticæ eruditionis gratiâ. IRISH ED.

There are no fnakes, vipers, or toads, in Ireland; and even frogs were not known here until about the year 1700. The magpies came a fhort time before; and the Norway rats fince. IRISH ED.

Where is the holy well that bore my name?
Fled to the fountain back, from whence it came
Fair Freedom's emblem once, which smoothly
And bleings equally on all beftows. [flows,
Here, from the neighbouring nursery of arts,
The students, drinking, rais'd their wit and parts;
Here, for an age and more, improv'd their vein,
Their Phoebus I, my fpring their Hippocrene.
Difcourag'd youths! now all their hopes muft fail
Condemn'd to country cottages and ale;

To foreign prelates make a flavish court,
And by their fweat procure a mean support;
Or, for the claffics, read “Th' Attorney's Guide;"
Collect excife, or wait upon the tide.

Oh! that I had been apoftle to the Swifs,
Or hardy Scot, or any land but this;
Combin'd in arms, they had their foes defied,
And kept their liberty, or bravely died.
Thou ftill with tyrants in fucceffion curst,
The laft invaders trampling on the first :
Now fondly hope for fome reverse of fate,
Virtue herself would now return too late.
Not half thy course of mifery is run,
Thy greatest evils yet are scarce begun.
Soon fhall thy fons (the time is juft at hand)
Be all made captives in their native land;
When, for the use of no Hibernian born,
Shall rife one blade of grafs, one ear of corn;
When thells and leather shall for money país,
Nor thy oppreffing lords afford the brass †.
But all turn leafers to that mongrel breed,
Who, from thee sprung, yet on thy vitals feed;
Who to yon ravenous ifle thy treasures bear,
And wafte in luxury thy harvests there;
For pride and ignorance a proverb grown,
The jeft of wits, and to the court unknown.
I fcorn thy fpurious and degenerate line,
And from this hour my patronage refigu.

The' who in the chair prefides So fteadily the fenate guides: If others, whom you make your theme, Are feconds in the glorious scheme : lievery peer whom you commend, To worth and learning be a friend : lf this be truth, as you atteft, What land was ever half so bleft? No falíehood now among the great, And tradesmen now no longer cheat; Now on the bench fair Justice fhines, Her scale to neither fide inclines; Now pride and cruelty are flown, And mercy here exalts her throne: For fuch is good example's power It does its office every hour, Where governors are good and wife; Or else the trueft maxim lies: For fo we find all ancient fages Decree, that, ad exemplum regis, Through all the realm his virtues run, Ripening and kindling like the fun. If this be true, then how much more When you have nam'd at least a score Of courtiers, each in their degree, If poffible, as good as he?

Or take it in a different view. I afk (if what you fay be true) If you affirm the prefent age Deferves your fatire's keenest rage: If that fame universal passion With every vice had fill'd the nation: If virtue dares not venture down A fingle step beneath the crown: If clergymen, to show their wit, Praise claffics more than holy writ: F bankrupts, when they are undone, Lato the senate-house can run, And fell their votes at such a rate As will retrieve a lost estate: If law be fuch a partial whore,

To pare the rich, and plague the poor: If there be of all crimes the worst, What land was ever half so curft?

QUOTH the thief to the dog, let me into your door
And I'll give you thefe delicate bits.
Quoth the dog, I shall then be more villian than
And befides must be out of my wits. [you're,
Your delicate bits will not ferve me a meal,
But my mafter each day gives me bread;
You'll fly, when you get what ye came here to
And I must be hang'd in your stead. [fteal,
The ftock-jobber thus from 'Change-alley goes
And tips you the freeman a wink; [down,
Let me have but your vote to serve for the town,
And here is a guinea to drink.

Says the freeman, your guinea to-night will be
Your offers of bribery cease:
[spent!
I'll vote for my landlord, to whom I pay rent,
Or elfe I may forfeit my lease.

Sir Spencer Compton, then speaker, afterwards Earl of Wilmington.

From London they come, filly people to choose,
Their lands and their faces unknown:
Who'd vote a rogue into the parliament-house,
That would turn a man out of his own!

ADVICE

TO THE GRUB-STREET VERSE-WRITERS. 1726.
YE poets ragged and forlorn,
Down from your garrets hafte;
Ye rhymers dead as foon as born,
Not yet confign'd to pafte;

I know a trick to make you thrive;
O, 'tis a quaint device:
Your ftill-born poems fhall revive.
And fcorn to wrap up spice.

Get all your verfes printed fair,

And let them well be dried;
And Curll must have a special care

To leave the margin wide.

Lend these to paper-sparing * Pope;
And when he fits to write,

No letter with an envelope

Could give him more delight.
When Pope has fill'd the margins round,
Why then recall your loan;
Sell them to Curll for fifty pound,
And fwear they are your own.

TO A LADY,

WHO DESIRED THE AUTHOR TO WRITE SOME VERSES UPON HER IN THE HEROIC STYLE.

Written at London, in 1726.

AFTER venting all my spite,
Tell me, what have I to write?
Every error I could find
Through the mazes of your mind,
Have my bufy Mufe employ'd
Till the company was cloy'd.
Are you pofitive and fretful,
Heedlefs, ignorant, forgetful?
Thofe, and twenty follies more,
I have often told before.

Hearken what my lady says:
Have I nothing then to praise?
Ill it fits you to be witty,

Where a fault should move your pity.
If you think me too conceited,
Or to paffion quickly heated;
If my wandering head be lefs
Set on reading than on dress;
If I always feem too dull t'ye ;
I can folve the difficulty.

You would teach me to be wife ; Truth and honour how to prize;

• The original copy of Mr. Pope's celebrated tranflation of Homer (preferved in the British Mufeum) is almost entirely written on the covers of letters, and fometimes between the lines of the letters themselves.

How to fhine in conversation,
And with credit fill my ftation;
How to relish notions high;
How to live, and how to die.

But it was decreed by fate---
Mr. Dean, you come too late.
Well I know, you can difcern,
I am now too old to learn:
Follies, from my youth inftill'd,
Have my foul entirely fill'd;
In my head and heart they centre,
Nor will let your leffons enter.

Bred a fondling and an heiress,
Dreft like any Lady Mayorefs,
Cocker'd by the fervants round,
Was too good to touch the ground;
Thought the life of every lady
Should be one continual play-day---
Balls, and mafquerades, and fhows,
Vifits, plays, and powder'd beaux.

Thus you have my cafe at large,
And may now perform your charge.
Thofe materials I have furnish'd,
When by you refin'd and burnish'd,
Muft, that all the world may know 'em,
Be reduc'd into a poem.

But, I beg, fufpend a while
That fame paltry, burlesque ftyle;
Drop for once your conftant rule,
Turning all to ridicule;

Teaching others how to ape you;
Court nor Parliament can 'fcape you :
Treat the public and your friends
Both alike, while neither mends.

Sing my praife in ftrain fublime :
Treat me not with doggrel rhyme.
'Tis but juft, you should produce,
With each fault, each fault's excufe;
Not to publish every trifle,
And my few perfections ftifle,
With fome gifts at least endow me,
Which my very foes allow me.
Am I fpightful, proud, unjust?
Did I ever break my trust?
Which of all our modern dames
Cenfures lefs, or lefs defames?
In good manners am I faulty?
Can you call me rude or haughty?
Did I e'er my mite withhold
From the impotent and old?
When did ever I omit
Due regard for men of wit?
When have I efteem exprefs'd
For a coxcomb gaily drefs'd?
Do I, like the female tribe,
Think it wit to fleer and gibe?
Who with leis defigning ends
Kindlier entertains their friends;

With good words, and countenance (prightly;

Strives to treat them more politely?

Think not cards my chief diverfion :

'Tis a wrong, njuft afperfion:
Never know any good in 'em,
But to dofe my head like laudanum.
We by play, as men by drinking,
Pafe our nights, to drive out thinking,
From my ailments give me leisure,
I shall read and think with pleasure;

Converfation learn to relish,

And with books my mind embellish. Now, methinks, I hear you cry, Mr. Dean, you must reply.

Madam, I allow 'tis true:

All these praises are your due.
You, like fome acute philofopher,
Every fault have drawn a glofs over :
Placing in the strongest light
All your virtues to my fight.

Though you lead a blameless life, Are an humble prudent wife, Anfwer all domeftic ends; What is this to us your friends? Though your children by a nod Stand in awe without a rod; Though, by your obliging sway, Servants love you, and obey; Though you treat us with a fmile; Clear your looks, and smooth your style; Load our plates from every dish; This is not the thing we wish. Colonel

may be your debtor;

We expect employment better.
You must learn, if you would gain us
With good fenfe to entertain us.

Scholars, when good fenfe describing,
Call it tafling and imbibing :
Metaphoric meat and drink
Is to understand and think:
We may carve for others thus ;
And let others carve for us:
To difcourfe and to attend,
Is to help yourself and friend.
Converfation is but carving;
Carve for all, yourfelf is ftarving:
Give no more to every gueft,
Than he's able to digeft;
Give him always of the prime,
And but a little at a time.
Carve to all but just enough;
Let them neither ftarve nor ftuff:
And, that you may have your due,
Let your neighbours carve for you.
This comparifon will hold,
Could it well in rhyme be told
How converfing, listening, thinking,
Juftly may refemble drinking;
For a friend a glafs you fill,
What is this but to inftill ?

To conclude this long effay;
Pardon, if I ditobey:
Nor, against my natural vein,
Treat you in heroic strain.
I, as all the parish knows,
Hardly can be grave in profe:
Still to lafh, and lafhing fmile,
Ill befits a lofty style.
From the planet of my birth
I encounter vice with mirth.
Wicked minifters of state

I can easier fcorn than hate:
And I find it anfwers right;
Scorn torments them more than spight.
All the vices of a court

Do but ferve to make me fport.
Where I in fome foreign realm,
Which all vices overwhelm;

« Forrige Fortsæt »

Bøger