In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed,
To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid,
Inspired repulsed battalions to engage,
And taught the doubtful battle where to rage.
So when an angel by divine command
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past,
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; 290
And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.

But see the haughty household-troops advance!
The dread of Europe, and the pride of France.
The war's whole art each private soldier knows,
And with a general's love of conquest glows;
Proudly he marches on, and, void of fear,
Laughs at the shaking of the British spear:
Vain insolence! with native freedom brave,
The meanest Briton scorns the highest slave. 300

A CRADLE HYMN

Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber, Holy angels guard thy bed! Heavenly blessings without number

Gently falling on thy head.

Sleep, my babe; thy food and raiment,
House and home, thy friends provide;
All without thy care or payment:
All thy wants are well supplied.
How much better thou'rt attended

Than the Son of God could be,
When from heaven He descended
And became a child like thee!

Soft and easy is thy cradle:

Coarse and hard thy Saviour lay,
When His birthplace was a stable
And His softest bed was hay.

Blessed babe! what glorious features
Spotless fair, divinely bright!
Must He dwell with brutal creatures?
How could angels bear the sight?

Was there nothing but a manger
Cursed sinners could afford
To receive the heavenly stranger?

Did they thus affront their Lord?

Soft, my child: I did not chide thee, Though my song might sound too hard; 'Tis thy mother sits beside thee,

And her arms shall be thy guard.

ΤΟ

20

See the kinder shepherds round Him,
Telling wonders from the sky!

Where they sought Him, there they found Him,
With His Virgin mother by.

See the lovely babe a-dressing;
Lovely infant, how He smiled!

When He wept, the mother's blessing
Soothed and hush'd the holy child.

Lo, He slumbers in His manger,
Where the hornèd oxen fed;
Peace, my darling; here's no danger,
Here's no ox anear thy bed.

'Twas to save thee, child, from dying,
Save my dear from burning flame,

Bitter groans and endless crying,
That thy blest Redeemer came.

May'st thou live to know and fear Him,
Trust and love Him all thy days;

Then go dwell forever near Him,

See His face, and sing His praise!

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50

AMBROSE PHILIPS (1675-1749)

221

TO MISS CHARLOTTE PULTENEY, IN HER MOTHER'S ARMS

Timely blossom, infant fair,
Fondling of a happy pair,
Every morn and every night
Their solicitous delight;
Sleeping, waking, still at ease,
Pleasing, without skill to please;
Little gossip, blithe and hale,
Tattling many a broken tale,
Singing many a tuneless song,
Lavish of a heedless tongue.
Simple maiden, void of art,
Babbling out the very heart,
Yet abandoned to thy will,
Yet imagining no ill,
Yet too innocent to blush;
Like the linnet in the bush,
To the mother-linnet's note
Moduling her slender throat,
Chirping forth thy pretty joys;
Wanton in the change of toys,
Like the linnet green, in May,
Flitting to each bloomy spray;
Wearied then, and glad of rest,
Like the linnet in the nest.
This thy present happy lot,
This, in time, will be forgot;
Other pleasures, other cares,

FROM THE SPLENDID SHILLING Happy the man who, void of cares and strife, In silken or in leathern purse retains A Splendid Shilling. He nor hears with pain New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale; But with his friends, when nightly mists arise, To Juniper's Magpie or Town-hall repairs: Where, mindful of the nymph whose wanton eye Transfixed his soul and kindled amorous flames, Chloe or Phillis, he each circling glass Wishes her health, and joy, and equal love. Meanwhile he smokes, and laughs at merry tale Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint. But I, whom griping penury surrounds, And hunger, sure attendant upon want, With scanty offals, and small acid tiff,

ΤΟ

20

Wretched repast! my meagre corps sustain:
Then solitary walk, or doze at home
In garret vile, and with a warming puff
Regale chilled fingers; or from tube as black
As winter-chimney, or well-polished jet,
Exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming scent:
Not blacker tube nor of a shorter size
Smokes Cambro-Briton, versed in pedigree,
Sprung from Cadwalador and Arthur, kings
Full famous in romantic tale, when he
O'er many a craggy hill and barren cliff,
Upon a cargo of famed Cestrian cheese,
High overshadowing rides, with a design
To vend his wares, or at th' Arvonian mart,
Or Maridunum, or the ancient town
Ycleped Brechinia, or where Vaga's stream
Encircles Ariconium, fruitful soil!
Whence flows nectareous wines that well may
vie

With Massic, Setin, or renowned Falern.

Thus, while my joyless minutes tedious flow With looks demure and silent pace, a dun, Horrible monster! hated by gods and men, To my aërial citadel ascends.

With vocal heel thrice thundering at my gate,
With hideous accent thrice he calls; I know
The voice ill-boding, and the solemn sound.
What should I do? or whither turn? Amazed,
Confounded, to the dark recess I fly

Of wood-hole; straight my bristling hairs erect
Thro' sudden fear: a chilly sweat bedews
My shuddering limbs, and, wonderful to tell!
My tongue forgets her faculty of speech;
So horrible he seems! His faded brow

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40

Such plagues from righteous men! Behind him stalks

Another monster, not unlike himself,
Sullen of aspect, by the vulgar called
A catchpole, whose polluted hands the gods
With force incredible and magic charms
First have endued: if he his ample palm
Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay
Of debtor, straight his body, to the touch
Obsequious, as whilom knights were wont,
To some enchanted castle is conveyed,
Where gates impregnable and coercive chains
In durance strict detain him till, in form
Of money, Pallas sets the captive free.

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THOMAS PARNELL (1679-1718)

FROM A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH

By the blue taper's trembling light,
No more I waste the wakeful night,
Intent with endless view to pore
The schoolmen and the sages o'er;
Their books from wisdom widely stray,
Or point at best the longest way.
I'll seek a readier path, and go
Where wisdom's surely taught below.

How deep yon azure dyes the sky,
Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie,
While through their ranks in silver pride
The nether crescent seems to glide!
The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe,
The lake is smooth and clear beneath,
Where once again the spangled show
Descends to meet our eyes below.
The grounds which on the right aspire,
In dimness from the view retire:
The left presents a place of graves,
Whose wall the silent water laves.
That steeple guides thy doubtful sight
Among the livid gleams of night.
There pass, with melancholy state,
By all the solemn heaps of fate,
And think, as softly-sad you tread
Above the venerable dead,

"Time was, like thee they life possest, And time shall be, that thou shalt rest."

ΤΟ

20

Those graves, with bending osier bound,
That nameless heave the crumbled ground, 30
Quick to the glancing thought disclose,
Where toil and poverty repose.

The flat smooth stones that bear a name,
The chisel's slender help to fame,
(Which ere our set of friends decay
Their frequent steps may wear away;)
A middle race of mortals own,
Men, half ambitious, all unknown.
The marble tombs that rise on high,
Whose dead in vaulted arches lie,
Whose pillars swell with sculptur'd stones,
Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones,
These, all the poor remains of state,
Adorn the rich, or praise the great;
Who while on earth in fame they live,
Are senseless of the fame they give.

Ha! while I gaze, pale Cynthia fades, The bursting earth unveils the shades!

40

Then every Grace shall prove its guest, And I'll be there to crown the rest."

Oh! by yonder mossy seat,

In my hours of sweet retreat,

Might I thus my soul employ,
With sense of gratitude and joy!
Rais'd as ancient prophets were,
In heavenly vision, praise, and prayer;
Pleasing all men, hurting none,
Pleas'd and bless'd with God alone:
Then while the gardens take my sight,
With all the colours of delight;
While silver waters glide along,
To please my ear, and court my song;
I'll lift my voice, and tune my string,
And thee, great Source of nature, sing.

The sun that walks his airy way,

223

To light the world, and give the day;
The moon that shines with borrow'd light;
The stars that gild the gloomy night;
The seas that roll unnumber'd waves;
The wood that spreads its shady leaves;
The field whose ears conceal the grain,
The yellow treasure of the plain;
All of these, and all I see,
Should be sung, and sung by me:
They speak their maker as they can,
But want and ask the tongue of man.

Go search among your idle dreams,
Your busy or your vain extremes;
And find a life of equal bliss,
Or own the next begun in this.

SONG

When thy beauty appears

In its graces and airs

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60

70

And with his spade the sexton marks the ground!
Intent not on her own, but others' doom,
She plans new conquests and defrauds the tomb.
In vain the cock has summoned sprites away,
She walks at noon and blasts the bloom of day.
Gay rainbow silks her mellow charms infold, 511
And nought of Lycè but herself is old.

Her grizzled locks assume a smirking grace,
And art has levelled her deep furrowed face.
Her strange demand no mortal can approve,
We'll ask her blessing, but can't ask her love.
She grants, indeed, a lady may decline
(All ladies but herself) at ninety-nine.

Ah! how unjust to Nature and himself, Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man! Like children babbling nonsense in their sports, We censure Nature for a span too short: That span too short, we tax as tedious too; Torture invention, all expedients tire, To lash the lingering moments into speed, And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves. Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer (For Nature's voice, unstifled, would recall), 120 Drives headlong towards the precipice of death! Death, most our dread; death, thus more dreadful made:

O, what a riddle of absurdity!

130

Leisure is pain; takes off our chariot wheels:
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Blest leisure is our curse: like that of Cain,
It makes us wander; wander earth around
To fly that tyrant, Thought. As Atlas groaned
The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour.
We cry for mercy to the next amusement:
The next amusement mortgages our fields;
Slight inconvenience! prisons hardly frown,
From hateful Time if prisons set us free.
Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief,
We call him cruel; years to moments shrink,
Ages to years. The telescope is turned.
To man's false optics (from his folly false)
Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings,
And seems to creep, decrepit with his age;
Behold him when past by; what then is seen 140
But his broad pinions, swifter than the winds?
And all mankind, in contradiction strong,
Rueful, aghast, cry out on his career.

PROCRASTINATION

FROM THE COMPLAINT

NIGHT I

By nature's law, what may be, may be now; 270
There's no prerogative in human hours.
In human hearts what bolder thought can rise
Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to-morrow? In another world.
For numbers this is certain; the reverse
Is sure to none; and yet on this 'perhaps,'
This 'peradventure,' infamous for lies,
As on a rock of adamant, we build
Our mountian hopes, spin out eternal schemes
As we the fatal sisters could out-spin,
And big with life's futurities, expire.
Not e'en Philander had bespoke his shroud,

280