Whose various kinds a various hue unfold,
With crimson blush, or burnish into gold?
Say, why the Sun arrays with shining dyes
The gaudy bow, that gilds the gloomy skies?
He from his urn pours forth his golden streams,
And humid clouds imbibe the glittering beams;
Sweetly the varying colours fade or rise,
And the vast arch embraces half the skies.
Say, didst thou give the mighty seas their bars,
Fill air with fowl, or light up Heaven with stars,
Whose thousand times ten thousand lamps display
A friendly radiance, mingling ray with ray?
Say, canst thou rule the coursers of the Sun,
Or lash the lazy sign, Bootes, on?
Dost thou instruct the eagle how to fly,
To mount the viewless winds, and tower the sky?
On sounding pinions borne, he soars, and shrouds
His proud aspiring head among the clouds;
Strong-pounc'd, and fierce, he darts upon his prey,
He sails in triumph through th' ethereal way,
Bears on the Sun, and basks in open day.
Does the dread king, and terrour of the wood,
The lion, from thy hand expect his food?
Stung with keen hunger from his den he comes,
Ranges the plains, and o'er the forest roams:
'He snuffs the track of beasts, he fiercely roars,
Doubling the horrors of the midnight hours:
With sullen majesty he stalks away,

And the rocks tremble while he seeks his prey:
Dreadful he grins, he rends the savage brood
With unsheath'd paws, and churns the spouting
blood.

Dost thou with thunder arm the generous horse,
Add nervous limbs, or swiftness for the course?
Fleet as the wind, he shoots along the plain,
And knows no check, nor hears the curbing rein;
His fiery eye-balls, formidably bright,
Dart a fierce glory, and a dreadful light:
Pleas'd with the clank of arms, and trumpets' sound,
He bounds, and, prancing, paws the trembling ground;
He snuffs the promis'd battle from afar, [war:
Neighs at the captains, shouts, and thunder of the
Rous'd with the noble din and martial sight,
He pants with tumults of severe delight:
His sprightly blood an even course disdains,
Pours from his heart, and charges in his veins;
He braves the spear, and mocks the twanging bow,
Demands the fight, and rushes on the foe.

Come, blissful mourner, wisely sad,
In sorrow's garb, in sable clad,
Henceforth, thou, Care, my hours employ
Sorrow, be thou henceforth my joy!

By tombs where sullen spirits stalk,
Familiar with the dead I walk;
While to my sighs and groans by turns,
From graves the midnight Echo mourns.
Open thy marble jaws, O Tomb,
Though earth conceal me in thy womb!
And you, ye worms, this frame confound,
Ye brother reptiles of the ground!
O life, frail offspring of a day!
"Tis puff'd with one short gasp away!
Swift as the short-liv'd flower it flies,
It springs, it blooms, it fades, it dies.
With cries we usher in our birth;
With groans resign our transient breath:
While round, stern ministers of Fate,
Pain, and Disease, and Sorrow wait.
While childhood reigns, the sportive boy
Learns only prettily to toy;

And, while he roves from play to play,
The wanton trifles life away.
When to the noon of life we rise,
The man grows elegant in vice;
To glorious guilt in courts he climbs,
Vilely judicious in his crimes.

When youth and strength in age are lost,
Man seems already half a ghost;
Wither'd, and wan, to earth he bows,
A walking hospital of woes.

Oh! Happiness, thou empty name!
Say, art thou bought by gold or Fame?
What art thou, Gold, but shining earth?
Thou, common Fame, but common breath?
If Virtue contradict the voice
Of public Fame, applause is noise;
Ev'n victors are by conquest curst,
The bravest warrior is the worst.
Look round on all that man below
Idly calls great, and all is show!
All, to the coffin from our birth,
In this vast toy-shop of the Earth.
Come then, O friend of virtuous woe,
With solemn pace, demure, and slow:
Lo! sad and serious, I pursue
Thy steps... adieu, vain world, adieu!

In gentle sighs the softly whispering breeze
Salutes the flowers, and waves the trembling trees;
Hark! the night-warbler, from yon vocal boughs,
Glads every valley with melodious woes!
Swift through the air her rounds the swallow takes,
Or sportive skims the level of the lakes.
The timorous deer, swift-starting as they graze,
Bound off in crowds, then turn again, and gaze.
See! how yon swans, with snowy pride elate,
Arch their high necks, and sail along in state!
Thy frisking flocks safe-wandering crop the plain,
And the glad season claims a gladsome strain.
Begin- -Ye echoes listen to the song,
And, with its sweetness pleas'd, each note prolong!

LYCIDAS.

Sing, Muse-and oh! may Townshend deign to view
What the Muse sings, to Townshend this is due!
Who, carrying with him all the world admires,
From all the world illustriously retires;
And, calmly wandering in his Rainham, roves
By lake, or spring, by thicket, lawn, or groves ;
Where verdant hills, or vales, where fountains stray,
Charm every thought of idle pomp away;
Unenvy'd views the splendid toils of state,
In private happy, as in public great.

Thus godlike Scipio, on whose cares reclin'd
The burthen and repose of half mankind,
Left to the vain their pomp, and calmly stray'd,
The world forgot, beneath the laurel shade;
Nor longer would be great, but void of strife,
Clos'd in soft peace his eve of glorious life.
Feed round, my goats; ye sheep, in safety graze;
Ye winds, breathe gently while I tune my lays.
The joyous Spring draws nigh! ambrosial showers
Unbind the earth, the earth unbinds the flowers,
The flowers blow sweet, the daffodils unfold
The spreading glories of their blooming gold.

Where'er Belinda roves, ye Zephyrs, play! Where'er she treads, ye flowers, adorn the way! From sultry suns, ye groves, my charmer keep! Ye bubbling fountains, murmur her to sleep!

LYCIDAS.

If streams smooth-wandering, Delia, yield delight;
If the gay rose, or lily, please thy sight;
Smooth streams here wander, here the roses glow,
Here the proud lilies rise to shade thy brow!

DAPHNIS.

LYCIDAS,

DAPHNIS.

C

An awful horrour fills the gloomy woods,
And bluish mists rise from the smoking floods:
Haste, Daphnis, haste to fold thy woolly care,
The deepening shades imbrown th' unwholesome air.

THE FIRST ODE OF HORACE,

TRANSLATED.

MECENAS, whose high lineage springs

From a long race of ancient kings,
Patron and friend! thy honour'd name
At once is my defence and fame.

There are, who with fond transport praise
The chariot thundering in the race;
Where conquest won, and palmis bestow'd,
Lift the proud mortal to a god.

The man who courts the people's voice, And doats on offices and noise; Or they who till the peaceful fields, And reap what bounteous Nature yields, Unmov'd, the merchant's wealth behold, Nor hazard happiness for gold; Untempted by whole worlds of gain To stem the billows of the main.

The merchant, when the storm invades,
Envies the quiet of the shades;
But soon relaunches from the shore,
Dreading the crime of being poor!

Some careless waste the mirthful day
With generous wines, and wanton play,
Indulgent of the genial hour,
By spring, or rill, or shade, or bower.

Some hear with joy the clanging jar
Of trumpets, that alarm to war;
While matrons tremble at the breath
That calls their sons to arms and death.
The sportsman, train'd in storms, defies
The chilling blast, and freezing skies:
Unmindful of his bride, in vain
Soft beauty pleads! along the plain
The stag he chases, or beguiles
The furious boar into his toils.

For you the blooming ivy grows,
Proud to adorn your learned brows;
Patron of letters you arise,
Grow to a god, and mount the skies.

Humbly in breezy shades I stray
Where Sylvans dance, and Satyrs play;
Contented to advance my claim,
Only o'er men without a name;
Transcribing what the Muses sing
Harmonious to the pipe or string.

But if indulgently you deign
To rank me with the Lyric train,
Aloft the towering Muse shall rise
On bolder wings, and gain the skies.

VARIATION.

Haste, Lycidas, to fold, &c. Te doctarum hederæ, &c.

AN EPISTLE

TO MY FRIEND MR. ELIJAH FENTON, AUTHOR OF MARIAMNE, A TRAGEDY.

1726.

WHY art thou so slow to strike th' harmonious
Averse to sing, who know'st to sing so well? [shell,
If thy proud Muse the tragic buskin wears,
Great Sophocles revives and re-appears;
While, regularly bold, she nobly sings
Strains worthy to detain the ears of kings;
If by thy hand th' Homeric lyre be strung,
The lyre returus such sounds as Homer sung.
The kind compulsion of a friend obey,
And, though reluctant, swell the lofty lay; [sound,
Then listening groves once more shall catch the
While Grecian Muses sing on British ground.

Thus calm and silent thy own Proteus roves
Through pearly mazes, and through coral groves;
But when, emerging from the azure main,
Coercive bands th' unwilling God constrain,
Then heaves his bosom with prophetic fires, [spires.
And his tongue speaks sublime, what Heaven ins
Envy, 'tis true, with barbarous rage invades
What ev'n fierce lightning spares, the laurel shades;
And critics, biass'd by mistaken rules,

Like Turkish zealots, reverence none but fools.
But praise from such injurious tongues is shame;
They rail the happy author into fame:
Thus Phoebus through the zodiac takes his way,
And rises amid monsters into day.

Oh vileness of mankind! when writing well
Becomes a crime, and danger to excel !
While noble scorn, my friend, such insult sees,
And flies from towns to wilds, from men to trees.

Free from the lust of wealth, and glittering snares,
That make th' unhappy great in love with cares,
Me humble joys in calm retirement please,
A silent happiness, and learned ease.
Deny me grandeur, Heaven, but goodness grant!
A king is less illustrious than a saint:
Hail, holy Virtue! come, thou heavenly guest,
Come, fix thy pleasing empire in my breast!
Thou know'st her influence, friend! thy chearful
Proclaims the innocence and peace within; [mien
Such joys as none but sons of Virtue know,
Shine in thy-face, and in thy bosom glow.

So when the holy mount the prophet trod,"
And talk'd familiar as a friend with God,
Celestial radiance every feature shed,
And ambient glories dawn'd around his head.

Sure what th' unthinking great mistaken call
Their happiness, is folly, folly all!
Like lofty mountains in the clouds they hide
Their haughty heads, but swell with barren pride;
And, while low vales in useful beauty lie,
Heave their proud naked summits to the sky.
In honour, as in place, ye great, transcend!
An angel fall'n, degenerates to a fiend :

Th' all-chearing Sun is honour'd with his shrines; Not that he moves aloft, but that he shines.

1 Mr. Fenton translated four books of the Odyssey.

2 See the story of Proteus, Odyssey, lib. 4. translated by Mr. Fenton.

VARIATION.

Thou feel'st her power, my friend, & Caf

Not that he's highest, but because he's best;

Fond to oblige; in blessing others, blest.

How wondrous few, by avarice uncontrol'd, Have virtue to subdue the thirst of gold! The shining dirt the sordid wretch ensnares To buy, with mighty treasures, mighty cares; Blindly he courts, misguided by the will, A specious good, and meets a real ili: So when Ulysses plough'd the surgy main; When now in view appear'd his native reign, His wayward mates th' Æolian bag unbind, Expecting treasures, but out rush'd a wind; The sudden hurricane in thunder roars, Butlets the bark, and whirls it from the shores. O Heaven! by what vain passions man is sway'd, Proud of his reason, by his will betray'd! Blindly he wanders in pursuit of Vice, And hates confinement, though in Paradise; Doom'd, when enlarg'd, instead of Eden's bowers, To rove in wilds, and gather thorns for flowers; Between th' extremes, direct he sees the way, Yet wilful swerves, perversely fond to stray! Whilst niggard souls indulge their craving thirst, Rich without bounty, with abundance curst; The Prodigal pursues expensive vice, And buys dishonour at a mighty price; On beds of state the splendid glutton sleeps, While starving Merit unregarded weeps: His ill-plac'd bounty, while scorn'd Virtue grieves, A dog, a fawning sycophant, receives; And cringing knaves, or haughty strumpets, share What would make Sorrow smile, and chear Despair. Then would'st thou steer where Fortune spreads

the sails?

Go, flatter Vice! for seldom flattery fails:
Soft through the ear the pleasing bane distils:
Delicious poison! in perfumes it kills!
Be all but virtuous: Oh! unwise to live
Unfashionably good, and hope to thrive!
Trees that aloft with proudest honours rise,
Root hell-ward, and thence flourish to the skies.

O happier thou, my friend, with ease content,
Blest with the conscience of a life well-spent!
Nor would'st be great; but guide thy gather'd sails,
Safe by the shore, nor tempt the rougher gales;
For sure, of all that feel the wound of Fate,
None are completely wretched but the great:
Superior woes, superior stations bring;
A peasant sleeps, while cares awake a king;
Who reigns, must suffer! crowns, with gems inlaid,
At once adorn and load the royal head:
Change but the scene, and kings in dust decay,
Swept from the Earth, the pageants of a day;
There no distinctions on the dead await,
But pompous graves, and rottenness in state.
Such now are all that shone on Earth before;
Cæsar and mighty Marlborough are no more!
Unhallow'd feet o'er awful Tully tread,
And Hyde and Plato join the vulgar dead;
And all the glorious aims that can employ
The soul of mortals, must with Hanmer die:
O Compton, when this breath we once resign,
My dust shall be as eloquent as thine!

Till that last hour which calls me hence away To pay that great arrear which all must pay; Oh! may I tread the paths which saints have trod, Who knew they walk'd before th' all-seeing God!

Who mock at vice, while grieving angels weep.
Come, taste, my friend! the joys retirement brings,
Look down on royal slaves, and pity kings.

More happy! laid where trees with trees entwin'd
In bowery arches tremble to the wind,
With innocence and shade like Adam blest,
While a new Eden opens in the breast!
Such were the scenes descending angels trod
In guiltless days, when man convers'd with God.
Then shall my lyre to loftier sounds be strung,
Inspir'd by Homer, or what thou hast sung:
My Muse from thine shall catch a warmer ray;
As clouds are brighten'd by the god of day.
So trees unapt to bear, by art refin'd,
High o'er the ground with fruits adopted rise,
With shoots ennobled of a generous kind,
And lift their spreading honours to the skies.

A DIALOGUE

BETWEEN A LADY AND HER LOOKING-GLASS, WHILE
SHE HAD THE GREEN-SICKNESS.

THE gay Ophelia view'd her face
In the clear crystal of her glass;
The lightning from her eye was fled,
Her cheek was pale, the roses dead.

Then thus Ophelia, with a frown:-
"Art thou, false thing, perfidious grown!
I never could have thought, I swear,
To find so great a slanderer there!

Beaux vow I'm fair-who never lye.
"False thing! thy malice I defy!
More brittle far than brittle thou,
Would every grace of woman grow,
If charms so great so soon decay,
The bright possession of a day!
But this I know, and this declare,.
That thou art false, and I am fair."

The glass was vexed to be bely'd,
And thus with angry tone reply'd:

"No more to me of falsehood talk, But leave your oatmeal and your chalk! 'Tis true, you're meagre, pale, and wan; The reason is, you're sick for man.”—

While yet it spoke, Ophelia frown'd
And dash'd th' offender to the ground;
With fury from her arm it fled,
And round a glittering ruin spread;
When lo! the parts pale looks disclose,
Pale looks in every fragment rose;
Around the room instead of one,
An hundred pale Ophelias shone;
Away the frighted virgin flew,
And, humbled, from herself withdrew,

Though pale the cheek, yet swear it glows
With the vermilion of the rose:
Praise them-for praise is always true,
Though with both eyes the cheat they view.
From hateful truths the virgin flies;
But the false sex is caught with lies.

POEM ON

THE SEAT OF WAR IN FLANDERS,

CHIEFLY WITH RELATION TO THE SIEGES:WITH THE PRAISE OF PEACE AND RETIREMENT. WRITTEN IN 1710.

Secessus mei non desidiæ nomen, sed tranquillitatis accipiant. Plin.

HAPPY, thou Flandria, on whose fertile plains,
In wanton pride luxurious Plenty reigns;
Happy! had Heaven bestow'd one blessing more,
And plac'd thee distant from the Gallic power!
But now in vain thy lawns attract the view,
They but invite the victor to subdue:
War, horrid War, the sylvan scene invades,
And angry trumpets pierce the woodland shades;
Here shatter'd towers, proud works of many an age,
Lie dreadful monuments of human rage;
There palaces and hallow'd domes display
Majestic ruins, awful in decay!

Thy very dust, though undistinguish'd trod,
Compos'd, perhaps, some hero, great and good,
Who nobly for his country lost his blood!
Ev'n with the grave, the haughty spoilers war,
And Death's dark mansions wide disclose to air:
O'er kings and saints insulting stalk, nor dread
To spurn the ashes of the glorious dead.

See! the Britannic lions wave in air!
See! mighty Marlborough breathing death and war!
From Albion's shores, at Anna's high commands,
The dauntless hero pours his martial bands.

As when in wrath stern Mars the Thunderer sends
To scourge his foes; in pomp the god descends;
He mounts his iron car; with fury burns;
The car, fierce-rattling, thunders as it turns;
Gloomy he grasps his adamantine shield,
And scatters armies o'er th' ensanguin'd field:
With delegated wrath thus Marlborough glows,
In vengeance rushing on his country's foes.
See! round the hostile towers embattled stands
His banner'd host, embodied bands by bands!
Hark! the shrill trumpet sends a mortal sound,
And prancing horses shake the solid ground;
The surly drums beat terrible afar,

With all the dreadful music of the war;
From the drawn swords effulgent flames arise,
Flash o'er the plains, and lighten to the skies;
The heavens above, the fields and floods beneath,
Glare formidably bright, and shine with death;
In fiery storms descends a murderous shower,
Thick flash the lightnings, fierce the thunders roar.
As when in wrathful mood almighty Jove
Aims his dire bolts red-hissing from above;
Through the sing'd air, with unresisted sway,
The forky vengeance rends its flaming way,
And, while the firmament with thunder roars,
From their foundations hurls imperial towers:

So rush the globes with many a fiery round,
Tear up the rock, or rend the stedfast mound.
Death shakes aloft her dart, and o'er her prey
Stalks with dire joy, and marks in blood her way
Mountains of heroes slain deform the ground,
The shape of man half bury'd in the wound:
And lo! while in the shock of war they close,
While swords meet swords, and foes encounter foes,
The treacherous Earth beneath their footsteps
cleaves,

Her entrails tremble, and her bosom heaves;
Sudden in bursts of fire eruptions rise,
And whirl the torn battalions to the skies.

Thus earthquakes, rumbling with a thundering sound,

Shake the firm world, and rend the cleaving ground;
Rocks, hills, and groves, are tost into the sky,
And in one mighty ruin nations die.

See! through th' encumber'd air the ponderous Bears magazines of Death within its womb; [bomb The glowing orb displays a blazing train,

And darts bright horrour through th' ethereal plain; It mounts tempestuous, and with hideous sound Wheels down the heavens, and thunders o'er the

ground:

Th' imprison'd Deaths rush dreadful in a blaze, And mow a thousand lives, a thousand ways; [arise "Earth floats with blood, while spreading flames From palaces, and domes, and kindle half the skies,

Thus terribly in air the comets roll,

And shoot malignant gleams from pole to pole; "Tween worlds and worlds they move, and from their hair

Shake the blue Plague, the Pestilence, and War,

But who is he, who stern bestrides the plain, Who drives triumphant o'er huge hills of slain; Serene, while engines from the hostile tower Ram from their brazen mouths an iron shower; While turbid fiery smoke obscures the day, Hews thro' the deathful breach his desperate way Sure Jove descending joins the martial toil; Or is it Marlborough, or the great Argyle?

Thus, when the Grecians, furious to destroy, Level'd the structures of imperial Troy; Here angry Neptune hurl'd his vengeful mace, There Jove o'erturn'd it from its inmost base: Though brave, yet vanquished, she confess'd the odds;

Her sons were heroes, but they fought with gods.

Ah! what new horrours rise? In deep array The squadrons form! aloft the standards play! The captains draw the sword! on every brow Determin'd valour lowers! the trumpets blow! See! the brave Briton delves the cavern'd ground Through the hard entrails of the stubborn mound! And undismay'd by Death, the foc invades Through dreadful horrorus of infernal shades!

VARIATIONS.

"Ev'n the stern souls of heroes feel dismay; Proud temples nod, aspiring towers give way. Dreadful it mounts, tempestuous in its flight, It sinks, it falls, Earth groans beneath its weight. Th' imprison'd Deaths rush out in smoke and ûre, The mighty bleed, heaps crush'd on heaps expire. 6 The barriers burst, wide-spreading flames arises