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To Mr. WATTS, on his Poems.

O murmuring ftreams, in tender ftrains,
My penfive Mufe no more

Of love's enchanting force complains,
Along the flowery shore.

No more MIRTILLO's fatal face
My quiet breaft alarms,

His eyes, his air, and youthful grace,
. Have loft their ufual charms.

No gay ALEXIS in the grove
Shall be my future theme :
I burn with an immortal love,
And fing a purer flame.

Seraphic heights I feem to gain,
And facred tranfports feel,

While, WATTS, to thy celeftial strain,
Surpriz'd, I liften still.

The gliding ftreams their courfe forbear,
When I thy lays repeat;

The bending forest lends an ear;
The birds their notes forget.

With fuch a graceful harmony
Thy numbers ftill prolong;
And let remoteft lands reply,

And echo to thy song.

Far as the diftant regions, where

The beauteous morning springs, And scatters odours through the air, From her refplendent wings;

Unto the new-found realms, which see

The latter fun arife,

When, with an eafy progress, he

Rolls down the nether fkies..

July, 1706.

PHILOMELA.

To Mr. WATTs, on reading his Hora Lyricæ.

HA

AIL, heaven-born Mufe! that with celeftial flame, And high feraphic numbers, durft attempt To gain thy native 1kies. No common theme Merits thy thought, felf-confcious of a foul Superior, though on earth detain'd a-while ; Like fome propitious angel, that's defign'd A refident in this inferior orb,

To guide the wandering fouls to heavenly blifs,
Thou feem'ft; while thou their everlafting fongs
Haft fung to mortal ears, and down to earth
Transferr'd the work of heaven; with thought fublime,
And high fonorous words, thou fweetly fing'st
To thy immortal lyre. Amaz'd, we view
The towering height ftupendous, while thou foar'ft
Above the reach of vulgar eyes or thought,
Hymning th' Eternal Father; as of old
When first th' Almighty from the dark abyfs

Of everlasting night and filence call'd
The fhining worlds with one creating word,
And rais'd from nothing all the heavenly hofts,
And with external glories fill'd the void,
Harmonious Seraphs tun'd their golden harps,
And with their chearful Hallelujahs blefs'd
The bounteous author of their happiness;
From orb to orb th' alternate mufick rang,
And from the crystal arches of the sky
Reach'd our then glorious world, the native feat
Of the first happy pair, who join'd their fongs
To the loud echo's of th' angelie choirs,
And fill'd with blifsful hymns, terreftrial heaven,
The paradife of God where all delights
Abounded, and the pure ambrofial air,

Fann'd by mild zephyrs, breath'd eternal fweets,
Forbidding death and forrow, and bestow'd
Fresh heavenly bloom, and gay immortal youth.
Not fo, alas! the vile apoftate race,

Who in mad joys their brutal hours employ'd,
Afaulting with their impious blafphemies
The Power fupreme that gave them life and breath,
Incarnate fiends! outrageous they defy'd
Th' Eternal's thunder, and almighty wrath
Fearless provok'd, which all the other devils
Would dread to meet; remembering well the day
When, driven from pure immortal feats above,
A fiery tempeft hurl'd them down the skies,
And hung upon the rear, urging their fall
To the dark, deep, unfathomable gulph,

Where

Where bound on fulphurous lakes to glowing rocks
With adamantine chains, they wail their woes,
And know Jehovah great as well as good;
And fix'd for ever by eternal fate,

With horror find his arm omnipotent.

Prodigious madnefs! that the facred Mufe,
Firft taught in heaven to mount immortal heights,
And trace the boundlefs glories of the sky,
Should now to every idol bafely bow,
And curfe the deity fhe once ador'd,
Erecting trophies to each fordid vice,
And celebrating the infernal praife
Of haughty Lucifer, the defperate foe
Of God and man, and winning every hour
New votaries to hell, while all the fiends
Hear thefe accurfed lays, and, thus outdone,
Raging they try to match the human race,
Redoubling all their hellish blafphemies,
And with loud curfes rend the gloomy vault.
Ungrateful mortals! ah! too late you'll find
What 'tis to banter heaven, and laugh at hell;
To drefs-up vice in falfe delufive charms,

And with gay colours paint her hideous face,
Leading befotted fouls through flowery paths,
In gaudy dreams and vain fantastic joys,
To difmal scenes of everlafting woe;

When the great Judge fhall rear his awful throne,
And raging flames furround the trembling globe,
While the loud thunders roar from pole to pole,
And the last trump awakes the fleeping dead;
And guilty fouls to ghaftly bodies driven,

Within thofe dire eternal prifons fhut,

Expect their fad inexorable doom.

Say now, ye men of wit! what turn of thought
Will please you then! Alas, how dull and poor,
Ev'n to yourselves, will your lewd flights appear!
How will you envy then the happy fate

Of idiots! and perhaps in vain you'll with,
You'd been as very fools as once you thought
Others, for the fublimeft wifdom fcorn'd;

When pointed lightnings from the wrathful Judge
Shall finge your blighted laurels, and the men
Who thought they flew fo high, fhall fall fo low.
No more, my Mufe, of that tremendous thought :
Refume thy more delightful theme, and fing
Th' immortal man, that with immortal verfe
Rivals the hymns of angels, and like them
Defpifes mortal criticks' idle rules :
While the celeftial flame that waims thy foul
Infpires us, and with holy transports moves
Our labouring minds, and nobler fcenes prefents
Than all the Pagan Poets ever fung,

Homer, or Virgil; and far fweeter notes

Than Horace ever taught his founding lyre,
And purer far, though Martial's felf might feem
A modeft Poet in our Chriftian days.

May thofe forgotten and ne~leged lie,

No more let men be fond of fabulous Cods,
Nor Heathen wit debauch one Chriftian line,

While with the coarfe and daubing paint we hide
The fhining beauties of eternal truch,