To crown the forests with immortal greens,
Make Windsor-hills in lofty numbers rise,
And lift her turrets nearer to the skies;
To sing those honours you deserve to wear,
And add new lustre to her silver star1!

Here noble Surrey felt the sacred rage,
Surrey, the Granville of a former age:
Matchless his pen, victorious was his lance,
Bold in the lists, and graceful in the dance:
In the same shades the Cupids tun'd his lyre2,
To the same notes, of love, and soft desire:
Fair Geraldine, bright object of his vow,
Then fill'd the groves, as heav'nly Mira now3.

Oh wouldst thou sing what heroes Windsor bore,
What Kings first breath'd upon her winding shore,
Or raise old warriors, whose ador'd remains
In weeping vaults her hallow'd earth contains!
With Edward's acts adorn the shining page,
Stretch his long triumphs down through every age,
Draw monarchs chain'd, and Cressi's glorious field,
The lilies blazing on the regal shield:
Then, from her roofs when Verrio's colours fall,
And leave inanimate the naked wall";

Still in thy song should vanquish'd France appear,
And bleed for ever under Britain's spear.

310

Let softer strains ill-fated Henry mourn,
And palms eternal flourish round his urn.
Here o'er the martyr-king the marble weeps,
And, fast beside him, once-fear'd Edward sleeps":
Whom not th' extended Albion could contain,
From old Belerium to the northern main,
The grave unites; where e'en the great find rest,
And blended lie th' oppressor and th' opprest!
Make sacred Charles's tomb for ever known9
(Obscure the place, and uninscrib'd the stone),

315

Her silver star] All the lines that follow were not added to the poem till the year 1710. What immediately followed this, and made the conclusion, were these,

My humble muse in unambitious strains, &c. P. 2 Here noble Surrey] Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, one of the first refiners of the English poetry; who flourished in the time of Henry VIII. P.

[Born in 1517; died 1547. In the famous sonnet in 'Description and Praise of his love Geraldine' he sings that 'Windsor, alas! doth chase me from her sight.' All the conjectures concerning the lady are based upon this sonnet.]

3 The Mira of Granville was the countess of Newburgh. Towards the end of her life Dr King, of Oxford, wrote a very severe satire against her, in three books, 4to., called 'The Toast. Warton. 4 Edward's acts] Edward III. born here. P. [In the year 1312. It was in 1340 that he

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first quartered the arms of France with his own.] I have sometimes wondered that Pope did not mention the building of Windsor Castle by Edward III. His architect was William of Wykeham. Warton.

5 [Verrio's ceilings, enumerated at length in Jesse's Eton and Windsor, pp. 51, 2, are severely criticised by Horace Walpole. See Bowles ad loc. They were painted temp. Carol. II.]

6 Henry mourn] Henry VI. P.

7 once fear'd Edward sleeps:] Edward IV. P.
[Both are buried in St George's chapel.]
8 Belerium. [The Land's End.]

9 [The grave of Charles I., of which, owing to the confusion which had attended his interment, the locality was unknown at the Restoration, though one of the witnesses, Mr Herbert, declared himself certain as to its precise situation, was discovered in the locality indicated in 1813. See Sir Henry Halford's account, quoted by Jesseu.s.]

Oh fact accurst! what tears has Albion shed,

Heav'ns, what new wounds! and how her old have bled!

She saw her sons with purple deaths expire,

Her sacred domes involv'd in rolling fire,
A dreadful series of intestine wars,

Inglorious triumphs and dishonest scars.

At length great Anna said, "Let Discord cease!
She said the world obey'd, and all was Peace!

325

And sullen Mole, that hides his diving flood";
And silent Darent, stain'd with Danish blood3.

In that blest moment from his oozy bed
Old father Thames advanc'd his reverend head.
His tresses dropp'd with dews, and o'er the stream
His shining horns diffus'd a golden gleam:
Grav'd on his urn appear'd the moon, that guides
His swelling waters and alternate tides;
The figur'd streams in waves of silver roll'd,
And on their banks Augusta rose in gold.
Around his throne the sea-born brothers stood,
Who swell with tributary urns his flood;
First the fam'd authors of his ancient name1,
The winding Isis, and the fruitful Thame:
The Kennet swift, for silver eels renown'd;
The Loddon slow, with verdant alders crown'd;
Cole, whose dark streams his flowery islands lave;
And chalky Wey, that rolls a milky wave:
The blue, transparent Vandalis appears;
The gulfy Lee his sedgy tresses rears;

330

335

340

345

High in the midst, upon his urn reclin'd
(His sea-green mantle waving with the wind),
The god appear'd: he turn'd his azure eyes
Where Windsor-domes and pompous turrets rise;
Then bow'd and spoke; the winds forget to roar,
And the hush'd waves glide softly to the shore.
Hail, sacred peace! hail, long-expected days*,
That Thames's glory to the stars shall raise!
Tho' Tiber's streams immortal Rome behold,
Tho' foaming Hermus swells with tides of gold,
From heav'n itself though sev'nfold Nilus flows,
And harvests on a hundred realms bestows;
These now no more shall be the Muse's themes,
Lost in my fame, as in the sea their streams.
Let Volga's banks with iron squadrons shine,
And groves of lances glitter on the Rhine,
Let barb'rous Ganges arm a servile train;

1 He has copied, and equalled, the Rivers of Spenser, Drayton and Milton. Warton. [viz. in the Faerie Queen bk. iv. canto xi, the Polyolbion, and the Vacation exercise annoætatis xix.] 2 The Mole sinks through its sands, in dry summers, into an invisible channel under ground at Mickleham, near Dorking, Surrey. Bowles.

3 [Not Danish, but Saxon. The Britons under

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355

360

365

Vortimer the son of Vortigern are said to have repulsed the Saxon invaders on the Darent.]

4 [The allusions are of course to the expected peace, for which the conferences were opened in January 1711 at Utrecht; to the previous campaigns in Spain and Germany; to the war between Peter the Great and Charles XII.; and to the early difficulties of our East India settlements.]

Be mine the blessings of a peaceful reign.
No more my sons shall dye with British blood
Red Iber's sands, or Ister's foaming flood:
Safe on my shore each unmolested swain

Shall tend the flocks, or reap the bearded grain;

370

The shady empire shall retain no trace
Of war or blood, but in the sylvan chase;

The trumpet sleep, while cheerful horns are blown,

And arms employ'd on birds and beasts alone.
Behold! th' ascending Villas on my side

Project long shadows o'er the crystal tide.
Behold! Augusta's glitt'ring spires increase,

375

And Temples rise1, the beauteous works of Peace.

I see, I see, where two fair cities bend

Their ample bow, a new Whitehall ascend2!
There mighty Nations shall inquire their doom,
The World's great Oracle in times to come;

380

There Kings shall sue, and suppliant States be seen
Once more to bend before a BRITISH QUEEN.

Thy trees, fair Windsor! now shall leave their woods,

385

Where clearer flames glow round the frozen Pole:
Or under southern skies exalt their sails,
Led by new stars, and borne by spicy gales!

390

For me the balm shall bleed, and amber flow,
The coral redden, and the ruby glow,

The pearly shell its lucid globe infold,

And Phoebus warm the ripening ore to gold.

395

The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind,
Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind,
Whole nations enter with each swelling tide,
And seas but join the regions they divide;
Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold,

400

And the new world launch forth to seek the old.
Then ships of uncouth form shall stem the tide,
And feather'd people crowd my wealthy side,
And naked youths and painted chiefs admire
Our speech, our colour, and our strange attire!

405

O stretch thy reign, fair Peace! from shore to shore,

Gigantic Pride, pale Terror, gloomy Care,
And mad Ambition, shall attend her there:
There purple Vengeance bath'd in gore retires,
Her weapons blunted, and extinct her fires:
There hateful Envy her own snakes shall feel,
And Persecution mourn her broken wheel:
There Faction roar, Rebellion bite her chain,
And gasping Furies thirst for blood in vain.
Here cease thy flight, nor with unhallow'd lays
Touch the fair fame of Albion's golden days:
The thoughts of gods let Granville's verse recite,
And bring the scenes of op'ning fate to light.
My humble Muse, in unambitious strains,
Paints the green forests and the flow'ry plains,
Where Peace descending bids her olives spring,
And scatters blessings from her dovelike wing.
Ev'n I more sweetly pass my careless days,
Pleas'd in the silent shade with empty praise;
Enough for me, that to the list'ning swains
First in these fields I sung the sylvan strains.

415

420

425

430

Ver. 89. Miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma.' Virg. Warburton.

Ver. 134. 'Præcipites alta vitam sub nube relinquunt.' Virg. Warburton.

Ver. 158. and earth rolls back] He has improved his original,

" terræque urbesque recedunt.'

Virg. Warburton.

Ver. 183, 186.
'Ut fugere accipitrem penna trepidante columbæ,
Ut solet accipiter trepidas agitare columbas.'
Ovid. Warburton.

Ver. 191, 194.

'Sol erat a tergo: vidi præcedere longam
Ante pedes umbram: nisi si timor illa videbat.
Sed certe sonituque pedum terrebar; et ingens

Ver. 151. Th' impatient courser, etc.] Trans- Crinales vittas afflabat anhelitus oris.' lated from Statius,

'Stare adeo miserum est, pereunt vestigia mille Ante fugam, absentemque ferit gravis ungula campum.'

These lines Mr Dryden, in his preface to his translation of Fresnoy's Art of Painting, calls wonderfully fine, and says they would cost him an hour, if he had the leisure to translate them, there is so much of beauty in the original; which was the reason, I suppose, why Mr P. tried his strength with them. Warburton.

Most of the circumstances in this tale are taken from Ovid. Warton.

Ver. 249, 50. 'Servare modum finemque tenere.
Naturamque sequi.'
Luc.
'O qui me gelidis, etc.'

Ver. 259.

Ver. 421.

Virg. Warburton.

'Quo, Musa, tendis? desine pervicax
Referre sermones Deorum et

Magna modis tenuare parvis.'

Hor.

Warburton.

ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY,

MDCCVIII.

AND OTHER PIECES FOR MUSIC.

ODE FOR MUSIC ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY.

[This famous Ode, written by Pope in the year 1708 at Steele's desire, in praise of an art of the principles of which he was ignorant, while to its effects he was insensible,' has been naturally compared by successive generations of critics to Dryden's masterpiece on the same subject. A superiority which few will be disposed to deny has been generally claimed for Alexander's Feast; but it may be questioned whether in this class of poetry either the choice of historical instead of mythological illustrations, or the unity of the action represented, is to be regarded as an absolute merit. A more tenable objection to Pope's Ode is the circumstance that in his endeavour to vary expressively the versification, he has in Stanza IV. and in the second part of Stanza V. permitted himself the use of metres which mar the dignity of the poem. This Ode was set to music as an exercise for his degree of doct. mus. by Maurice Greene, and performed at the Public Commencement at Cambridge, on July 6th, 1730. The text of the Ode as sung on this occasion contains in the first four stanzas many variations introduced by Pope; and the following stanza is inserted as the third of the Ode:

Amphion thus bade wild dissension cease,

And softened mortals learn'd the Arts of Peace-
Amphion taught contending Kings

From various discords to create
The Musick of a well tun'd State,

Nor slack nor strain the tender Strings;
Those useful touches to impart

That strike the Subject's answ'ring heart;
And the soft silent Harmony, that springs
From sacred union and consent of Things.]