She shakes the colours of her radiant wing,
And, from the Spheres, he takes a pitch to fing. Thrice happy Genius his, whofe Works have hit The lucky point of Business and of Wit.
They feem like showers, which April months prepare To call their flowery glories up to air:
The drops, defcending, take the painted bow, And dress with funfhine, while for good they flow. To me retiring oft, he finds relief
In flowly-wafting care and biting grief: From me retreating oft, he gives to view What eases care and grief in others too. Ye fondly grave, be wife enough to know, "Life, ne'er unbent, were but a life of woe." Some, full in ftretch for greatness, fome for gain, On his own rack each puts himself to pain. I'll gently steal you from your toils away, Where balmy winds with fcents ambrofial play; Where, on the banks as crystal rivers flow, They teach immortal amaranths to grow: Then, from the mild indulgence of the scene, Reftore your tempers ftrong for toils again.
She ceas'd. Soft mufic trembled in the wind, And fweet delight diffus'd through every mind: The little Smiles, which still the Goddess grace, Sportive arofe, and ran from face to face. But chief (and in that place the Virtues bless) A gentle band their eager joys express: Here, Friendship asks, and Love of Merit longs To hear the Goddeffes renew their fongs;
![[blocks in formation]](https://books.google.mk/books/content?id=WrJjJqv41_kC&output=html_text&pg=PA277&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&q=editions:OCLC4254798&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U3oGJ4LhAyruevKMnrWvMKKwGfbsQ&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=371,1530,495,43)
Here great Benevolence to Man is pleas'd;
Thefe own their Swift, and grateful hear him prais❜d. You gentle band, you well may bear your part, You reign Superior Graces in his heart.
O Swift! if fame be life (as well we know That Bards and Heroes have efteem'd it fo); Thou canst not wholly die. Thy works will shine To future times, and Life in Fame be thine.
On Bishop BURNET's being fet on Fire in his Clofet.
ROM that dire æra, bane to Sarum's pride,.
Which broke his fchemes, and laid his friends afide, He talks and writes that Popery will return,
And we, and he, and all his works will burn. What touch'd himself was almost fairly prov'd: (Oh, far from Britain be the reft remov'd!) For, as of late he meant to blefs the age With flagrant Prefaces of party-rage,
O'er-wrought with paffion, and the fubject's weight, Lolling, he nodded in his elbow-feat;
Down fell the candle; Greafe and Zeal confpire, Heat meets with heat, and Pamphlets burn their Sire. Here crawls a Preface on its half-burn'd maggots, And there an Introduction brings its faggots: Then roars the Prophet of the Northern Nation, Scorch'd by a flaming fpeech on Moderation. Unwarn'd by this, go on, the realm to fright, Thou Briton vaunting in thy fecond-fight!
In fuch a Miniftry you fafely tell,
How much you'd fuffer, if Religion fell.
airy fields, the fields of blifs below,
Where woods of myrtle, set by Maro, grow; Where grafs beneath, and shade diffus'd above, Refresh the fevers of diftracted love:
There, at a folemn tide, the beauties, flain By tender paffion, act their fates again,
Through gloomy light, that juft betrays the grove,' In orgies, all difconfolately rove:
They range the reeds, and o'er the poppies sweep, That nodding bend beneath their load of fleep, By lakes fubfiding with a gentle face,
And rivers gliding with a filent
Where Kings and Swains, by ancient authors fung, Now chang'd to flowerets o'er the margin hung;
The self-admirer, white Narciffus, so
Fades at the brink, his picture fades below: In bells of azure, Hyacinth arofe;
In crimson painted, young Adonis glows; The fragrant Crocus fhone with golden flame, And leaves infcrib'd with Ajax' haughty name. A fad remembrance brings their lives to view, And, with their paffion, makes their tears renew; Unwinds the years, and lays the former fcene, Where, after death, they live for deaths again,
Loft by the glories of her lover's ftate, Deluded Semele bewails her fate;
And runs, and seems to burn, the flames arise, And fan with idle fury as the flies.
The lovely Canis, whofe transforming shape Secur'd her honour from a fecond rape,
Now moans the first, with ruffled drefs appears, Feels her whole fex return, and bathes with tears. The jealous Procris wipes a feeming wound, Whose trickling crimson dyes the bushy ground; Knows the fad fhaft, and calls before the go, To kifs the favourite hand that gave the blow. Where Ocean feigns a rage, the Seftian Fair Holds a dim taper from a tower of air; A noifelef's wind affaults the wavering light, The beauty tumbling mingles with the night. Where curling fhades for rough Leucate rose, With love distracted tuneful Sappho goes; Sings to mock clifts a melancholy lay, And with a lover's leap affrights the fea. The fad Eryphile retreats to moan,
What wrought her husband's death, and caus'd her own ; Surveys the glittering veil, the bribe of fate, And tears the fhadow, but she tears too late, In thin defign, and airy picture, fleet The tales that ftain the royal house of Crete ; To court a lovely Bull, Pafiphaë flies, The fnowy phantom feeds before her eyes. Loft Ariadne raves, the thread the bore Trails on unwinding, as the walks the shore;
And Phædra, defperate, feeks the lonely groves, To read her guilty letter while fhe roves ; Red shame confounds the firft, the fecond wears A ftarry crown, the third a halter bears. Fair Leodamia mourns her nuptial night Of love defrauded by the thirst of fight; Yet, for another as delufive cries, And, dauntlefs, fees her hero's ghost arise. Here Thibe, Canace, and Dido, stand, All arm'd with fwords, a fair, but angry band, This fword a lover own'd; a father gave The next; a ftranger chanc'd the last to leave.
And there ev'n fhe, the Goddess of the Grove, Join'd with the phantom-fairs, affects to rove, As once, for Latmos, fhe forfook the plain, To steal the kifles of a flumbering fwain: Around her head a ftarry fillet twines,
And at the front a filver crefcent fhines. These, and a thousand, and a thousand more, With facred rage recall the pangs they bore, Strike the deep dart afresh, and ask relief, Or footh the wound with foftening words of grief. At fuch a tide, unheedful love invades The dark receffes of the madding shades; Through long descent he fans the fogs around; His purple feathers, as he flies, refound. The nimble beauties, crouding all to gaze, Perceive the common troubler of their eafe; Though dulling mists and dubious day destroy The fine appearance of the fluttering boy,
« PreviousContinue » |