People and prince are one in William's name, Their joys, their dangers, and their laws the same. Let Liberty and Right, with plumes display'd, Clap their glad wings around their guardian's head.
Religion o'er the rest her starry pinious spread.
Religion guards him; round the' Imperial queen
Place waiting Virtues, each of heavenly mien :
Learn their bright air, and paint it from his eyes;
The just, the bold, the temperate, and the wise,
Dwell in his looks; majestic, but serene;
Sweet, with no fondness; cheerful, but not vain :
Bright, without terror; great, without disdain.
His soul inspires us what his lips command,
And spreads his brave example through the land;
Not so the former reigns:
Bend down his ear to each afflicted cry,
Let beams of grace dart gently from his eye;
But the bright treasures of his sacred breast
Are too divine, too vast to be express'd;
Colours must fail where words and numbers faint, And leave the hero's heart for Thought alone to paint.
Now, Muse, pursue the satirist again,
Wipe off the blots of his envenom'd pen;
Hark, how he bids the servile painter draw,
In monstrous shapes, the patrons of our law;
At one slight dash he cancels every name
From the white rolls of honesty and fame;
This scribbling wretch marks all he meets for knave,
Shoots sudden bolts promiscuous at the base and
And, with unpardonable malice, sheds [brave,
Poison and spite on undistinguished heads.
Painter, forbear! or, if thy bolder hand
Dares to attempt the villains of the land:
Draw first this poet like some baleful star,
With silent influence shedding civil war ;
Or factious trumpeter, whose magic sound
Calls off the subjects to the hostile ground,
And scatters hellish feuds the nation round,
These are the imps of hell, that cursed tribe
That first create the plague, and then the pain de
Draw next above, the great ones of our isle, Still from the good distinguishing the vile; Seat them in pomp, in grandeur, and command, Peeling the subjects with a greedy hand: Paint forth the knaves that have the nation sold, And tinge their greedy looks with sordid gold. Mark, what a selfish faction undermines The pious monarch's generous designs, Spoil their own native land as vipers do, Vipers that tear their mother's bowels through. Let great Nassau, beneath a careful crown, Mournful in majesty, look gently down, Mingling soft pity with an awful frown: He grieves to see how long in vain he strove To make us bless'd, how vain his labours prove, To save the stubborn land he condescends to love.
DISCONTENTED AND UNQUIET.
IMITATED PARTLY FROM CASIMIR, B. IV. on. 15.
VARIA, there's nothing here that's free
From wearisome anxiety;
And the whole round of mortal joys
With short possession tires and cloys:
'Tis a dull circle that we tread,
Just from the window to the bed;
We rise to see, and to be seen,
Gaze on the world awhile, and then
We yawn, and stretch to sleep again.
But Fancy, that uneasy guest,
Still holds a longing in our breast:
She finds or frames vexations still,
Herself the greatest plague we feel.
We take great pleasure in our pain,
And make a mountain of a grain.
Assume the load, and pant and sweat
Beneath the' imaginary weight,
With our dear selves we live at strife,
While the most constant scenes of life
From peevish humours are not free:
Still we affect variety:
Rather than pass an easy day,
We fret and chide the hours away;
Grow weary of this circling sun,
And vex that he should ever run
The same old track; and still, and still
Rise red behind yon eastern hill,
And chide the moon that darts her light Through the same casement every night.
We shift our chambers, and our homes,
To dwell where trouble never comes:
Sylvia has left the city crowd,
Against the court exclaims aloud,
Flies to the woods; a hermit saint!
She loaths her patches, pins, and paint,
Dear diamonds from her neck are torn ;
But Humour, that eternal thorn,
Sticks in her heart: she's hurried still,
'Twixt her wild passions and her will;
Haunted and hagg'd where'er she roves,
By purling streams and silent groves,
Or with her furies, or her loves.
Then our native land we hate,
Too cold, too windy, or too wet;
Change the thick climate, and repair
To France or Italy for air;
In vain we change, in vain we fly;
Go, Sylvia, mount the whirling sky,
Or ride upon the feather'd wind
In vain; if this diseased mind
Clings fast, and still sits close behind.
Faithful disease, that never fails
Attendance at her lady's side,
Over the desert or the tide,
On rolling wheels or flying sails.
Happy the soul that Virtue shows
To fix the place of her repose,
Needless to move; for she can dwell
In her old grandsire's hall as well.
Virtue that never loves to roam,
But sweetly hides herself at home;
And easy on a native throne
Of humble turf, sits gently down.
Yet should tumultuous storms arise,
And mingle earth, and seas, and skies,
Should the waves swell, and make her roll
Across the line, or near the pole,
Still she's at peace; for well she knows
To launch the stream that duty shows,
And makes her home where'er she goes.
Bear her, ye seas, upon your breast,
Or waft her, winds, from east to west
On the soft air: she cannot find
A couch so easy as her mind,
Nor breathe a climate half so kind.
TO JOHN HARTOPP, ES2.
(AFTERWARDS SIR JOHN HARTOPP, BART.) Casimir, B. I. Od. 4, imitated.
Vive jocundæ metuens juventa, &c.
LIVE, my dear Hartopp, live to-day,
Nor let the sun look down and say,
'Inglorious here he lies ;'
Shake off your ease, and send your name
To immortality and fame,
By every hour that flies.
Youth's a soft scene, but trust her not:
Her airy minutes, swift as thought,
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