Idle musicians of the spring,
Fly through the world, and let your trembling throat
Whose only care 's to love and sing,
Praise your Creator with the sweetest note.
Praise him each savage furious beast,
That on his stores do daily feast:
And you tame slaves of the laborious plough,
Your weary knees to your Creator bow.
Majestic monarchs, mortal, gods,
Whose power hath here no periods,
May all attempts against your crowns be vain!
But still remember by whose power you reign.
Let the wide world his praises sing, Where Tagus and Euphrates spring, And from the Danube's frosty banks, to those Where from an unknown head great Nilus flows.
You that dispose of all our lives,
Praise him from whom your power derives; Be true and just like him, and fear his word, As much as malefactors do your sword.
Praise him, old monuments of time;
O praise him in your youthful prime;
Praise him, fair idols of our greedy sense;
Exalt his name, sweet age of innocence.
Jehovah's name shall only last,
When Heaven, and Earth, and all is past: Nothing, great God, is to be found in thee, But unconceivable eternity.
Exalt, O Jacob's sacred race,
The God of gods, the God of grace;
Who will above the stars your empire raise,
And with his glory recompense your praise.
SPOKEN TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF YORK, AT EDINBURGH.
FOLLY and vice are easy to describe,
The common subjects of our scribbling tribe;
But when true virtues, with unclouded light,
All great, all royal, shine divinely bright,
Our eyes are dazzled, and our voice is weak;
Let England, Flanders, let all Europe speak,
Let France acknowledge that her shaking throne
Was once supported, sir, by you alone;
Banish'd from thence for an usurper's sake,
Yet trusted then with her last desperate stake:
When wealthy neighbours strove with us for power,
Let the sea tell, how in their fatal hour,
Swift as an eagle, our victorious prince,
Great Britain's genius, flew to her defence;
His name struck fear, his conduct won the day,
He came, he saw, he seiz'd the struggling prey,
And, while the heavens were fire and th' ocean blood,
Confirm'd our empire o'er the conquer'd flood.
O happy islands, if you knew your bliss!
Strong by the sea's protection, safe by his!
Express your gratitude the only way,
And humbly own a debt too vast to pay:
Let Fame aloud to future ages tell,
None e'er commanded, none obey'd so well;
While this high courage, this undaunted mind,
So loyal, so submissively resign'd,
Proclaim that such a hero never springs
But from the uncorrupted blood of kings.
ON A YOUNG LADY WHO SUNG FINELY, AND WAS AFRAID
WINTER, thy cruelty extend, Till fatal tempests swell the sea. In vain let sinking pilots pray;
Beneath thy yoke let Nature bend, Let piercing frost, and lasting snow, Through woods and fields destruction sow!
Yet we unmov'd will sit and smile, While you these lesser ills create, These we can bear; but, gentle Fate,
And thon, blest Genius of our isle, From Winter's rage defend her voice, At which the listening gods rejoice.
May that celestial sound each day
With ecstasy transport our souls,
Whilst all our passions it controls,
And kindly drives our cares away;
Let no ungentle cold destroy
All taste we have of heavenly joy!
VIRGIL'S SIXTH ECLOGUE, SILENUS.
Two young shepherds, Chromis and Mnasylus, having been often promised a song by Silenus, chance to catch him asleep in this eclogue; where they bind him hand and foot, and then claim his promise. Silenus, finding they would be put off no longer, begins his song, in which he describes the formation of the universe, and the original of animals, according to the Epicurean philosophy; and then runs through the most surprising transformations which have happened in Nature since her birth. This eclogue was designed as a compliment to Syro the Epicurean, who instructed Virgil and Varus in the principles of that philosophy. Silenus acts as tutor, Chromis and Mnasylus as the two pupils.
I FIRST of Romans stoop'd to rural strains,
Nor blush'd to dwell among Sicilian swains,
When my Thalia rais'd her bolder voice,
And kings and battles were her lofty choice,
Phoebus did kindly humbler thoughts infuse,
And with this whisper check th' aspiring Muse:
"A shepherd, Tityrus, his flocks should feed,
And choose a subject suited to his reed."
Thus I (while each ambitious pen prepares
To write thy praise, Varus, and thy wars)
My pastoral tribute in low numbers pay,
And though I once presum'd, I only now obey.
But yet (if any with indulgent eyes
Can look on this, and such a trifle prize)
Thee only, Varus, our glad swains shall sing,
And every grove and every echo ring.
Phoebus delights in Varus' favourite name,
And none who under that protection came
Was ever ill receiv'd, or unsecure of fame.
Young Chromis and Mnasylus chanc'd to stray
Where (sleeping in a cave) Silenus lay,
Whose constant cups fly fuming to his brain,
And always boil in each extended vein;
His trusty flaggon, full of potent juice,
Was hanging by, worn thin with age and use;
Dropp'd from his head, a wreath lay on the ground;
In haste they seiz'd him, and in haste they bound;
Eager, for both had been deluded long
With fruitless hope of his instructive song:
But while with conscious fear they doubtful stood,
Ægle, the fairest Naïs of the flood,
With a vermilion dye his temples stain'd.
Waking, he smil'd, "And must I then be chain'd?
Loose me," he cry'd ; “ 'twas boldly done, to find
And view a god, but 'tis too bold to bind.
The promis'd verse no longer I'll delay,
(She shall be satisfy'd another way)."
With that he rais'd his tuneful voice aloud, -
The knotty oaks their listening branches bow'd,
And savage beasts and silvan gods did crowd;
For lo! he sung the world's stupendous birth,
How scatter'd seeds of sea, and air, and earth,
And purer fire, through universal night
And empty space, did fruitfully unite;
From whence th' innumerable race of things,
By circular successive order springs.
By what degrees this Earth's compacted sphere
Was harden'd, woods and rocks and towns to bear;
How sinking waters (the firm land to drain)
Fill'd the capacious deep, and form'd the main,
While from above, adorn'd with radiant light,
A new-born Sun surpris'd the dazzled sight;
How vapours turn'd to clouds obscure the sky,
And clouds dissolv'd the thirsty ground supply;
How the first forest rais'd its shady head,
Till when, few wandering beasts on unknown moun-
tains fed.
Then Pyrrha's stony race rose from the ground,
Old Saturn reign'd with golden plenty crown'd,
And bold Prometheus (whose untam'd desire
Rival'd the Sun with his own heavenly fire)
Now doom'd the Scythian vulture's endless prey,
Severely pays for animating clay.
He nam'd the nymph (for who but gods could tell?)
Into whose arms the lovely Hylas fell;
Alcides wept in vain for Hylas lost,
Hylas in vain resounds through all the coast.
He with compassion told Pasiphaë's fault,
Ah! wretched queen! whence came that guilty
thought?
The maids of Argos, who with frantic cries
And imitated lowings fill the skies,
(Though metamorphos'd in their wild conceit)
Did never burn with such unnatural heat.
Ah! wretched queen! while you on mountains stray,
He on soft flowers his snowy side does lay;
Or seeks in herds a more proportion'd love:
"Surround, my nymphs," she cries, "surround the
Perhaps some footsteps printed in the clay, [grove;
Will to my love direct your wandering way;
Perhaps, while thus in search of him I roam,
My happier rivals have entic'd him home."
He sung how Atalanta was betray'd
By those Hesperian baits her lover laid,
And the sad sisters who to trees were turn'd,
While with the world th' ambitious brother burn'd.
All he describ'd was present to their eyes,
He taught which Muse did by Apollo's will
Guide wandering Gallus to th' Aonian bill:
(Which place the god for solemn meetings chose)
With deep respect the learned senate rose,
And Linus thus (deputed by the rest)
The hero's welcome, and their thanks, express'd:
"This harp of old to Hesiod did belong,
To this, the Muses' gift, join thy harmonious song:
Charm'd by these strings, trees starting from the
ground,
Have follow'd with delight the powerful sound.
Thus consecrated, thy Grynæan grove
Shall have no equal in Apollo's love."
Why should I speak of the Megarian maid,
For love perfidious, and by love betray'd?
And her, who round with barking monsters arm'd,
The wandering Greeks (ah, frighted men!) alarm'd;
Whose only hope on shatter'd ships depends,
While fierce sea-dogs devour the mangled friends.
Or tell the Thracian tyrant's alter'd shape,
And dire revenge of Philomela's rape,
Who to those woods directs her mournful course,
Where she had suffer'd by incestuous force,
While, loth to leave the palace too well known,
Progné flies, hovering round, and thinks it still her
Whatever near Eurota's happy stream [own?
With laurels crown'd, had been Apollo's theme,
Silenus sings; the neighbouring rocks reply,
And send his mystic numbers through the sky;
Till Night began to spread her gloomy veil,
And call'd the counted sheep from every dale;
The weaker light unwillingly declin'd, [sign'd.
And to prevailing shades the murmuring world re-
ODE UPON SOLITUDE.
HAIL, sacred Solitude! from this calm bay,
I view the world's tempestuous sea,
And with wise pride despise
All those senseless vanities:
With pity mov'd for others, cast away
On rocks of hopes and fears, I see them toss'd
Some, the prevailing malice of the great,
On rocks of folly and of vice, I see them lost:
Unhappy men, or adverse Fate,
Sunk deep into the gulfs of an afflicted state.
But more, far more, a numberless prodigious train,
Whilst Virtue courts them, but, alas! in vain,
Fly from her kind embracing arms,
Deaf to her fondest call, blind to her greatest charms,
And, sunk in pleasures and in brutish ease,
They in their shipwreck'd state themselves obdu-
rate please.
Hail, sacred Solitude! soul of my soul,
It is by thee I truly live,
Thou dost a better life and nobler vigour give;
Dost each unruly appetite control:
Thy constant quiet fills my peaceful breast,
With unmix'd joy, uninterrupted rest.
Presuming Love does ne'er invade
This private solitary shade:
And, with fantastic wounds by beauty made,
The joy has no allay of jealousy, hope, and fear,
The solid comforts of this happy sphere:
Yet I exalted Love admire,
Friendship, abhorring sordid gain,
And, as he rais'd his verse, the poplars seem'd to rise. And purify'd from Lust's dishonest stain:
Nor is it for my solitude unfit,
For I am with my friend alone,
As if we were but one;
"Tis the polluted love that multiplies,
But friendship does two souls in one comprise.
Here in a full and constant tide doth flow
All blessings man can hope to know; Here in a deep recess of thought we find
Pleasures which entertain, and which exalt the mind, Pleasures which do from friendship and from knowledge rise,
Which make us happy, as they make us wise:
Here may I always on this downy grass,
Unknown, unseen, my easy minutes pass:
Till with a gentle force victorious Death
My solitude invade,
And, stopping for a while my breath,
With ease convey me to a better shade.
While, rul'd by a resistless fire,
Our great Orinda' I admire,
The hungry wolves, that see me stray,
Unarm'd and single, run away.
Set me in the remotest place
That ever Neptune did embrace;
When there her image fills my breast,
Helicon is not half so blest.
Leave me upon some Libyan plain,
So she my fancy entertain,
And when the thirsty monsters meet,
They 'll all pay homage to my feet.
The magic of Orinda's name,
Not only can their fierceness tame,
But, if that mighty word I once rehearse,
They seem submissively to roar in verse.
VIRTUE, dear friend, needs no defence,
The surest guard is innocence:
None knew, till guilt created fear,
What darts or poison'd arrows were.
Integrity undaunted goes
Through Libyan sands and Scythian snows,
Or where Hydaspes' wealthy side
Pays tribute to the Persian pride.
For as (by amorous thoughts betray'd)
Careless in sabine woods I stray'd,
A grisly foaming wolf unfed,
Met me unarm'd, yet trembling fled.
No beast of more portentous size
In the Hercinian forest lies;
None fiercer, in Numidia bred,
With Carthage were in triumph led.
Set me in the remotest place That Neptune's frozen arms embrace; Where angry Jove did never spare One breath of kind and temperate air. Set me where on some pathless plain The swarthy Africans complain, To see the chariot of the Sun So near their scorching country run. The burning zone, the frozen isles, Shall hear me sing of Cælia's smiles: All cold but in her breast I will despise, And dare all heat but that in Calia's eyes.
VIRTUE (dear friend) needs no defence, No arms, but its own innocence: Quivers and bows, and poison'd darts, Are only us'd by guilty hearts.
An honest mind safely alone
May travel through the burning zone; Or through the deepest Scythian snows, Or where the fam'd Hydaspes flows.
THE FIFTH SCENE OF THE SECOND ACT IN
GUARINI'S PASTOR FIDO,
АH happy grove! dark and secure retreat
Of sacred Silence, Rest's eternal seat;
How well your cool and unfrequented shade
Suits with the chaste retirements of a maid;
Oh! if kind Heaven had been so much my friend,
To make my fate upon my choice depend;
All my ambition I would here confine,
And only this Elysium should be mine:
Fond men, by passion wilfully betray'd,
Adore those idols which their fancy made;
Purchasing riches with our time and care,
We lose our freedom in a gilded snare;
And, having all, all to ourselves refuse,
Opprest with blessings which we fear to use.
Fame is at best but an inconstant good,
Vain are the boasted titles of our blood;
We soonest lose what we most highly prize,
And with our youth our short-liv'd beauty dies;
In vain our fields and flocks increase our store,
If our abundance makes us wish for more.
How happy is the harmless country-maid,
Who, rich by Nature, scorns superfluous aid!
Whose modest clothes no wanton eyes invite,
But, like her soul, preserves the native white;
Whose little store her well-taught mind does please,
Nor pinch'd with want, nor cloy'd with wanton ease;
Who, free from storms, which on the great ones fall,
Makes but few wishes, and enjoys them all;
No care but love can discompose her breast,
Love, of all cares, the sweetest and the best:
While on sweet grass her bleating charge does lie,
One happy lover feeds upon her eye;
Not one on whom or gods or men impose,
But one whom Love has for this lover chose;
Under some favourite myrtle's shady boughs,
They speak their passions in repeated vows,
And whilst a blush confesses how she burns,
His faithful heart makes as sincere returns;
Thus in the arms of Love and Peace they lie,
And while they live, their flames can never die.
* Mrs. Catharine Philips.
THE GHOST OF THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS.
To the pale tyrant, who to horrid graves
Condemns so many thousand helpless slaves,
Ungrateful we do gentle Sleep compare,
Who, though his victories as numerous are,
Yet from his slaves no tribute does he take,
But woful cares that load men while they wake.
When his soft charms had eas'd my weary sight
Of all the baleful troubles of the light,
Dorinda came, divested of the scorn
Which the unequal'd maid so long had worn;
How oft, in vain, had Love's great god essay'd
To tame the stubborn heart of that bright maid!
Yet, spite of all the pride that swells her mind,
The humble god of Sleep can make her kind.
A rising blush increas'd the native store
Of charms, that but too fatal were before.
Once more present the vision to my view,
The sweet illusion, gentle Fate, renew!
How kind, how lovely she, how ravish'd I!
Show me, blest god of Sleep, and let me die.
GHOST OF THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS,
TO THE NEW ONE, APPOINTED TO MEET AT
OXFORD.
FROM deepest dungeons of eternal night,
The seats of horrour, sorrow, pains, and spite,
I have been sent to tell you, tender youth,
A seasonable and important truth.
I feel (but, oh! too late) that no disease
Is like a surfeit of luxurious ease:
And of all others, the most tempting things
Are too much wealth, and too indulgent kings.
None ever was superlatively ill,
But by degrees, with industry and skill:
And some, whose meaning hath at first been fair,
Grow knaves by use, and rebels by despair.
My time is past, and yours will soon begin,
Keep the first blossoms from the blast of sin;
And by the fate of my tumultuous ways,
Preserve yourselves, and bring serener days.
The busy, subtle serpents of the law,
Did first my mind from true obedience draw:
While I did limits to the king prescribe,
And took for oracles that canting tribe,
I chang'd true freedom for the name of free,
And grew seditious for variety:
All that oppos'd me were to be accus'd,
And by the laws illegally abus'd;
The robe was summon'd, Maynard in the head,
In legal murder none so deeply read;
I brought him to the bar, where once he stood,
Stain'd with the (yet unexpiated) blood
Of the brave Strafford, when three kingdoms rung
With his accumulative hackney-tongue;
Prisoners and witnesses were waiting by,
I seem'd (and did but seem) to fear the guards,
And took for mine the Bethels and the Wards:
Anti-mornarchic heretics of state,
Immoral atheists, rich and reprobate:
But above all I got a little guide,
Who every ford of villany had try'd:
None knew so well the old pernicious way,
To ruin subjects, and make kings obey;
And my small Jehu, at a furious rate,
Was driving Eighty back to Forty-eight.
This the king knew, and was resolv'd to bear,
But I mistook his patience for his fear.
All that this happy island could afford,
Was sacrific'd to my voluptuous board.
In his whole paradise, one only tree
He had excepted by a strict decree;
A sacred tree, which royal fruit did bear,
Yet it in pieces I conspir'd to tear;
Beware, my child! divinity is there.
This so undid all I had done before,
I could attempt, and he endure no more;
My unprepar'd, and unrepenting breath,
Was snatch'd away by the swift hand of Death;
And I, with all my sins about me, hurl'd
To th' utter darkness of the lower world:
A dreadful place! which you too soon will see,
If you believe seducers more than me.
DEATH OF A LADY'S DOG.
THOU, happy creature, art secure
From all the torments we endure;
Despair, ambition, jealousy,
Lost friends, nor love, disquiet thee;
A sullen prudence drew thee hence
From noise, fraud, and impertinence.
Though Life essay'd the surest wile,
Gilding itself with Laura's smile;
How didst thou scorn Life's meaner charms,
Thou who could'st break from Laura's arms!
Poor Cynic! still methinks I hear
Thy awful murmurs in my ear;
As when on Laura's lap you lay,
Chiding the worthless crowd away.
How fondly human passions turn!
What we then envy'd, now we mourn!
WHEN ACTED AT THE THEATRE IN DUBLIN.
You've seen to-night the glory of the East, The man, who all the then known world possest, That kings in chains did son of Ammon call,
These had been taught to swear, and those to die, And kingdoms thought divine, by treason fall.
And to expect the arbitrary fates,
Some for ill faces, some for good estates.
To fright the people, and alarm the town,
Bedloe and Oates employ'd the reverend gown.
But while the triple mitre bore the blame,
The king's three crowns were their rebellious aim:
Him Fortune only favour'd for her sport;
And when his conduct wanted her support,
His empire, courage, and his boasted line,
Were all prov'd mortal by a slave's design.
Great Charles, whose birth has promis'd milder sway,
Whose awful nod all nations must obey,
Secur'd by higher powers, exalted stands
Above the reach of sacrilegious hands;
Those miracles that guard his crowns declare,
That Heaven has form'd a monarch worth their care;
Born to advance the loyal, and depose
His own, his brother's, and his father's foes.
Faction, that once made diadems her prey,
And stopt our prince in his triumphant way,
Fled like a mist before this radiant day.
So when, in Heaven, the mighty rebels rose,
Proud, and resolv'd that empire to depose,
Angels fought first, but unsuccessful prov'd,
God kept the conquest for his best belov'd:
At sight of such omnipotence they fly,
Like leaves before autumnal winds, and die.
All who before him did ascend the throne,
Labour'd to draw three restive nations on.
He boldly drives them forward without pain,
They hear his voice, and straight obey the rein.
Such terrour speaks him destin'd to command;
We worship Jove with thunder in his hand;
But when his mercy without power appears,
We slight his altars, and neglect our prayers.
How weak in arms did civil Discord show!
Like Saul, she struck with fury at her foe,
When an immortal hand did ward the blow.
Her offspring, made the royal hero's scorn,
Like sons of Earth, all fell as soon as born:
Yet let us boast, for sure it is our pride,
When with their blood our neighbour lands were dy'd,
Ireland's untainted loyalty remain'd,
Her people guiltless, and her fields unstain'd.
THE day of wrath, that dreadful day,
Shall the whole world in ashes lay,
As David and the Sibyls say.
What horrour will invade the mind,
When the strict Judge, who would be kind,
Shall have few venial faults to find!
The last loud trumpet's wondrous sound
Shall through the rending tombs rebound,
And wake the nations under ground.
Nature and Death shall, with surprise,
Behold the pale offender rise,
And view the Judge with conscious eyes.
Then shall, with universal dread,
The sacred mystic book be read,
To try the living and the dead.
The Judge ascends his awful throne,
He makes each secret sin be known,
And all with shame confess their own.
O then what interest shall I make,
To save my last important stake,
When the most just have cause to quake?
Thou mighty, formidable King,
Thou mercy's unexhausted spring,
Some comfortable pity bring!
Forget not what my ransom cost,
Nor let my dear-bought soul be lost,
In storms of guilty terrour tost.
Thou, who for me didst feel such pain,
Whose precious blood the cross did stain,
Let not those agonies be vain.
Thou, whom avenging powers obey,
Cancel my debt (too great to pay)
Before the sad accounting-day.
Surrounded with amazing fears,
Whose load my soul with anguish bears,
I sigh, I weep: accept my tears.
Thou, who wert mov'd with Mary's grief,
And, by absolving of the thief,
Hast given me hope, now give relief.
Reject not my unworthy prayer,
Preserve me from that dangerous snare
Which Death and gaping Hell prepare.
Give my exalted soul a place
Among thy chosen right-hand race;
The sons of God, and heirs of grace.
From that insatiable abyss,
Where flames devour, and serpents hiss,
Promote me to thy seat of bliss.
Prostrate my contrite heart I rend,
My God, my Father, and my Friend,
Do not forsake me in my end.
Well may they curse their second breath,
Who rise to a reviving death;
Thou great Creator of mankind,
Let guilty man compassion find!
POMPEY, A TRAGEDY,.
TRANSLATED BY MRS. CATH. PHILIPS, FROM THE FRENCH OF MONSIEUR CORNEILLE,
AND ACTED AT THE THEATRE IN DUBLIN.
THE mighty rivals, whose destructive rage
Did the whole world in civil arms engage,
Are now agreed; and make it both their choice,
To have their fates determin'd by your voice.
Cæsar from none but you will have his doom,
He hates th' obsequious flatteries of Rome :
He scorns, where once he rul'd, now to be try'd,
And he hath rul'd in all the world beside.
When he the Thames, the Danube, and the Nile,
Had stain'd with blood, Peace flourish'd in this isle;
And you alone may boast, you never saw
Cæsar till now, and now can give him law.
Great Pompey too, comes as a suppliant here,
But says he cannot now begin to fear:
He knows your equal justice, and (to tell
A Roman truth) he knows himself too well.
Success, 'tis true, waited on Cæsar's side,
But Pompey thinks he conquer'd when he died.
His fortune, when she prov'd the most unkind,
Chang'd his condition, but not Cato's mind.
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