Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

Thy cares and comforts, fovereign Love,
Vaftly out-weigh the fand below,

And to a larger audit grow
Than all the stars above.

Thy mighty loffes and thy gains

Are their own mutual measures;

Only the man that knows thy pains
Can reckon up thy pleafures.

Say, Damon, fay, how bright the scene,
Damon is half-divinely bleft,

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

Nor can thy foul's remotest part

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

When friendship all-fincere grows up to ecstacy,
Nor felf contracts the blifs, nor vice pollutes the joy.
While thy dear offspring round thee fit,

Or fporting innocently at thy feet

Thy kindeft thoughts engage:

Those little images of thee,

What pretty toys of youth they be,

And growing props of age!

But fhort is earthly blifs! The changing wind
Blows from the fickly South, and brings

Malignant fevers on its fultry wings,

Relentless death fits close behind :

[blocks in formation]

Now gafping infants, and a wife in tears,
With piercing groans falutes his ears,
Through every vein the thrilling torments roll;
While fweet and bitter are at ftrife

In thofe dear miseries of life,

Thofe tendereft pieces of his bleeding foul.
The pleafing fenfe of love awhile
Mixt with the heart-ake may the pain beguile,
And make a feeble fight:
Till forrows like a gloomy deluge rise,
Then every fmiling paffion dies,

And hope alone with wakeful eyes
Darkling and folitary waits the flow-returning light.

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

Or mount by turns and fink again,
And share just measures of alternate sway.
So Damon lives, and ne'er complains;
Scarce can we hope diviner scenes

On this dull ftage of clay:

The tribes beneath the northern Bear

Submit to darkness half the year,

Since half the year is day.

On

On the DEATH of the DUKE of GLOUCESTER, juft after Mr. DRYDEN.

ΑΝ

EPIGRA M.

1700.

DR

RYDEN is dead, Dryden alone could fing
The full-grown glories of a future king.

Now Glofter dies: Thus leffer heroes live
By that immortal breath that Poets give;
And scarce revive the Mufe: But William ftands,
Nor afks 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 poffis, &c.

INSCRIBED TO MR. JOSIAH HORTE.
Lord Bishop of KILMORE* in IRELAND.

1694.

So fmooth your numbers, friend, your verse so sweet,
So fharp the jeft, and yet the turn fo neat,

That with her Martial Rome would place Cirine,
Rome would prefer your fenfe and thought to mine.
Yet modeft you decline the public stage,

To fix your friend alone amidst th' applauding age,

Afterwards Archbishop of Tuam.

So

So Maro did; the mighty Maro fings

In vaft herolé notes of vaft heroic things,

And leaves the ode to dance upon his Flaccus' ftrings.
He fcorn'd to daunt the dear Horatian lyre,
Though his brave genius flafh'd Pindaric fire,
And at his will could filence all the Lyric quire.
So to his Varius he refign'd the praise
Of the proud bufkin and the tragic bays,
When he could thunder with a loftier vein,
And fing of Gods and Heroes in a bolder strain.
A handfome treat, a piece of gold, or fo,
And compliments will every friend bestow;
Rarely a Virgil, a Cirine we meet,

Who lays his laurels at inferior feet,

And yields the tenderest point of honour, Wit.

}

}

R

EPISTOLA

Frátri fuo dilecto R. W. I, W. S. P. D.

URSUM tuas, amande, frater, accepi literas. eodem fortafsè momento, quo meæ ad te pervenefunt; idemque qui te fcribentem vidit dies, meum ad epistolare munus excitavit calamum; non inane eft inter nos Fraternum Nomen, unicus enim fpiritus nos intùs animat, agitque, & concordes in ambobus efficit motus: O utinam crefcat indies, & vigefcat mutua charitas ; faxit Deus, ut amor fui noftra incendat & defæcet pectora, tunc etenim & alternis pure amicitiæ flammis

erga

erga nos invicem divinum in modum ardebimus; Contemplemur Jefum noftrum, cœlefte illud & adorandum exemplar charitatis. Ille eft,

QUI quondam æterno delapfus ab æthere valtus
Induit humanos, ut poffet corpore noftras
(Héu miferas) fufferre vices; fponforis obivit
Munia, & in fefe Tabule maledicta Minacis
Tranftulit, et fceleris poenas hominifque reatum,

Ecce jacet defertus humi, diffufus in herbam
Integer, innocuas verfus fua fidera palmas
Et placidum attollens vultum, nec ad ofcula Patris
Amplexus folitofve: Artus nudatus amitu
Sidereos, et fponte finum patefactus ad iras
Numinis armati. Pater, hic infige * fagittas,
"Hæc, ait, iratum forbebunt pectora ferrum,
"Abluat æthereus mortalia crimina sanguis."

Dixit, & horrendum fremtêre tonitrua cœli
Infenfufque Deus, (quem jam pofuiffe paternum
Musa queri vellet nomen, fed & ip/a fragores
Ad tantos pevefacta filet.) Jam diffilit æther,
Pandunturque fores, ubi duro carcere regnát
Ira, et pœnarum thefauros mille coercet,
Inde ruunt gravidi vefano fulphure nimbi,
Centuplicifque volant contorta volumira flammæ
In caput immeritum; diro hic fub pondere preffus

*Job iv. 6.

Reftat

« ForrigeFortsæt »