Yet, that his piece might not exceed belief,
He caft a veil upon fuppofed grief.
'Twas want of fuch a precedent as this,
Made the old heathen frame their Gods amifs.
Their Phoebus fhould not act a fonder part
For the fair boy, than he did for his hart:
Nor blame for Hyacinthus' fate his own, [known.
That kept from him wish'd death, hadft thou been
He that with thine shall weigh good David's deeds,
Shall find his paffion, nor his love, exceeds:
He curft the moutains where his brave friend dy'd,
But let falfe Ziba with his heir divide:
Where thy immortal love to thy bleft frinds,
Like that of Heaven, upon their feed defcends.
Such huge extremes inhabit thy great mind,
God-like, unmov'd; and yet, like
woman, kind!
Which of the ancient Poets had not brought
Our Charles's pedigree from heaven; and taught
How fome bright dame, compreft by mighty Jove,
Produc'd this mix'd Divinity and Love?
To the KING on his NAVY.
"HERE'ER thy Navy spreads her canvas wings, Homage to thee, and peace to all fhe brings: The French, and Spaniard, when thy flags appear, Forget their hatred, and confent to fear.
So Jove from Ida did both hosts furvey,
And, when he pleas'd to thunder, part the fray.
Ships heretofore in feas like fishes sped,
The mightiest ftill upon the smallest fed:
Thou on the Deep imposest nobler laws;
And by that justice hast remov'd the cause
Of thofe rude tempefts, which, for rapine fent,
Too oft, alas! involv'd the innocent.
Now shall the Ocean, as thy Thames, be free
From both thofe fates, of ftorms and piracy.
But we most happy, who can fear no force
But winged troops, or Pegafean horse:
'Tis not fo hard for greedy foes to spoil
Another nation, as to touch our foil.
Should Nature's felf invade the world again,
And o'er the centre spread the liquid Main,
Thy power were fafe; and her deftructive hand
Would but enlarge the bounds of thy command:
Thy dreadful Fleet would ftyle thee Lord of all,
And ride in triumph o'er the drowned Ball:
Those towers of oak o'er fertile plains might go,
And vifit mountains where they once did grow.
The world's restorer once could not indure,
That finifh'd Babel fhould thofe men fecure,
Whose pride design'd that fabric to have stood
1 Above the reach of any fecond flood:
To thee his chofen more indulgent, He
Dares truft fuch power with so much piety.
On the taking of SALLE.
OF Jafon, Thefeus, and fuch Worthies old,
Light seem the tales antiquity has told:
Such beafts, and monsters, as their force oppreft,
Some places only, and fome times, infest.
Salle, that scorn'd all power and laws of men,
Goods with their owners hurrying to their den
And future ages threatening with a rude
And savage race, fucceffively renew'd:
Their King defpifing with rebellious pride,
And foes profeft to all the world befide:
This pest of mankind gives our Hero fame,
And through th' obliged world dilates his name.
The Prophet once to cruel Agag said,
As thy fierce fword has mothers childless made,
So fhall the fword make thine: and with that word
He hew'd the man in pieces with his sword.
Juft Charles like measure has return'd to these,
Whofe pagan hands had stain'd the troubled feas:
With ships, they made the spoiled merchants mourn 195
With fhips, their city and themselves are torn.
One fquadron of our winged castles font
O'erthrew their Fort, and all their Navy rent:
For, not content the dangers to increase,
And act the part of tempefts in the seas;
Like hungry wolves, thofe pirates from our shore
Whole flocks of sheep, and ravish'd cattle, bore.
Safely they might on other nations prey;
Fools to provoke the Sovereign of the fea!
Mad Cacus fo, whom like ill fate perfuades,
The herd of fair Alcmena's feed invades ;
Who, for revenge, and mortals' glad relief,
Sack'd the dark cave, and crush'd that horrid thief.
Morocco's monarch, wondering at this fact,
Save that his presence his affairs exact,
Had come in perfon, to have seen and known
The injur'd world's avenger and his own.
Hither he fends the chief among his Peers,
Who in his bark proportion'd presents bears,
To the renown'd for piety and force,
Poor captives manumis'd, and matchless horse.
Upon his Majesty's repairing of ST. PAUL'S.
HAT fhipwreck'd veffel which th' Apostle bore,
Scarce fuffer'd more upon Melita's fhore,
Than did his temple in the fea of time;
Our nation's glory, and our nation's crime.
When the first * Monarch of this happy Ifle,
Mov'd with the ruin of fo brave a pile,
This work of cost and piety begun,
To be accomplish'd by his Glorious Son:
Who all that came within the ample thought
Of his wife Sire, has to perfection brought.
He, like Amphion, makes thofe quarries leap
Into fair figures from a confus'd heap:
For in his art of regiment is found
A power, like that of harmony in sound.
Those antique minftrels fure were Charles-like Kings,
Cities their lutes, and subjects' hearts their strings;
On which with so divine a hand they strook,
Consent of motion from their breath they took :
So, all our minds with his conspire to grace
The Gentiles' great Apostle; and deface
Those state-obfcuring sheds, that like a chain
Seem'd to confine, and fetter him again :
Which the glad Saint shakes off at his command,
As once the viper from his facred hand.
So joys the aged oak, when we divide
The creeping ivy from his injur'd fide.
Ambition rather would affect the fame
Of fome new ftru&ture, to have borne her name :
Two diftant virtues in one act we find,
The modefty, and greatness, of his mind :
Which, not content to be above the rage
And injury of all-impairing age,
In its own worth fecure, doth higher climb,
And things half swallow'd, from the jaws of time
Reduce: an earnest of his grand design,
To frame no new Church, but the old refine :
Which, fpoufe-like, may with comely grace command,
More than by force of argument or hand.
For, doubtful reafon few can apprehend;
And war brings ruin, where it should amend ;
But beauty, with a bloodless conquest, finds
A welcome fovereignty in rudest minds.
Not aught which Sheba's wondering Queen beheld Amongst the works of Solomon, excell'd
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