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HAT mighty gale hath rais'd a flight so strong?
So high above all vulgar eyes? fo long?

One fingle rapture scarce itself confines
Within the limits of four thousand lines.:
And yet I hope to fee this noble heat
Continue, till it makes the piece compleat,
That to the latter age it may defcend,
And to the end of time its beams extend.
When poefy joins profit with delight,
Her images fhould be most exquifite,
Since man to that perfection cannot rise,
Of always virtuous, fortunate, and wife;
Therefore the patterns man should imitate
Above the life our masters should create.
Herein, if we confult with Greece and Rome,
Greece (as in war) by Rome was overcome;
Though mighty raptures we in Homer find,
Yet, like himself, his characters were blind
Virgil's fublimed eyes not only gaz'd,
But his fublimed thoughts to Heaven were rais'd.
Who reads the honours which he paid the gods,
Would think he had beheld their bleft abodes;
*K 8

DENHAM

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And

And, that his hero might accomplish'd be,
From divine blood he draws his pedigree.

From that great judge your judgment takes its law, 25
And by the best original does draw

Bonduca's honour, with those heroes Time
Had in oblivion wrapt, his faucy crime;
To them and to your nation you are just,
In raifing up their glories from the duft;

And to Old England you that right have done,
To fhew, no story nobler than her own.

ELEGY ON THE DEATH

O F

39

HENRY LORD HASTINGS.

R

1650.

EADER, preserve thy peace; those busy eyes-
Will weep at their own fad difcoveries;

When every line they add improves thy lofs,

Till, having view'd the whole, they fun a cross;
Such as derides thy paffions' beft relief,
And fcorns, the fuccours of thy easy grief.
Yet, left thy ignorance betray thy name

Of man and pious, read and mourn the shame
Of an exemption, from juft fenfe, doth fhew
Irrational, beyond excefs of woe.

Since reafon, then, can privilege a tear,
Mankood, uncenfur'd, pay that tribute here,

Upon

ON THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS.
Upon this noble urn. Here, here remains
Duft far more precious than in India's veins:
Within these cold embraces, ravish'd, lies
That which compleats the age's tyrannies:
Who weak to fuch another ill appear,

For what deftroys our hope, fecures our fear.
What fin unexpiated, in this land

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Of groans, hath guided fo fevere a hand?
The late great victim * that your altars knew,
Ye angry gods, might have excus'd this new
Oblation, and have fpar'd one lofty light
Of virtue, to inform our steps aright;
By whofe example good, condemned we
Might have run on to kinder destiny.
But, as the leader of the herd fell firft
A facrifice, to quench the raging thirst

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Of inflam'd vengeance for paft crimes; fo none

But this white-fatted youngling could atone,

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By his untimely fate, that impious smoke,

That sullied earth, and did Heaven's pity choak.
Let it fuffice for us, that we have loft

In him, more than the widow'd world can boast

In any lump of her remaining clay.

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Fair as the grey-ey'd morn he was s; the day,
Youthful, and climbing upwards still, imparts
No haste like that of his increasing parts ;

Like the meridian beam, his virtue's light

Was feen, as full of comfort, and as bright.

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King Charles the Firft.

Had

Had his noon been as fix'd as clear-but he,
That only wanted immortality

To make him perfect, now fubmits to night,
In the black bofom of whofe fable spite,
He leaves a cloud of flesh behind, and flies,
Refin'd, all ray and glory, to the skies.

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Great faint! fhine there in an eternal sphere, And tell thofe powers to whom thou now draw'st near, That by our trembling fenfe, in HASTINGS dead,

Their anger and our ugly faults are read;

The short lines of whofe life did to our eyes

Their love and majesty epitomize.

Tell them, whofe ftern decrees impofe our laws,
The feasted grave may close her hollow jaws ;
Though fin fearch nature, to provide her here
A fecond entertainment half fo dear,
She'll never meet a plenty like this hearse,
Till Time present her with the Universe.

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CON

POEM S

BY

DR. THOMAS SPRAT,

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.

L

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