Me bear, dread power, for warlike sport,
To fome wave-incircled fort;
Or (if it yield more open fight)
To fome hoar promontory's height,
Whose high arch'd brow o'erlooks the scene,
Where Tritons blue and Naïads green,
Sportive from their coral cave,
Through the fluid chrystal lave:
There eagerly I ken from far
All the waste of naval war,
And catch a sympathetick rage,
While the num'rous fleets engage,
And every diftant fhore rebounds
To the cannons rattling founds,
And the fulphureous firefhip rends,
And thoufand fates around her fends,
And limbs diffeyer'd hurl'd on high,
Smoke amid th' affrighted fky.
Then let black clouds above my head,
With gleams of fcarlet thick be spread,
With lightning's flash and thunder's growl,
Suit the spleen that fhades my foul.
There, too, let cranes, a numerous flight,
With beaks and claws rage bloody fight,
And airy knights from every cloud
Prick forth, their armour rattling loud;
With blazing fwords and comets drear,
Dragging a trail of flaming hair;
Such as diffus'd their baneful gleam
O'er befieg'd Jerufalem,
Or hung o'er Rome ere Julius fell,
And if old fages rightly spell,
Were ever deemed to foreshow
Changes in our realms below.
And when at length cold creeping Age
Freezes the torrent of my rage,
Let me live amongst a crew
Of invalids, of kindred hue!
Of fome main limb bereft by War,
Or blefs'd with fome deep glorious scar;
Scar, that endless glory draws
From Liberty and Albion's caufe:
Then oft well pleas'd with them retire
To circle round a fea-coal fire,
And all our paft campaigns recite,
Of Vigo's fack and Blenheim's fight;
How valiant Rooke majestick trod,
How Malbro' thunder'd, half a god!
And then, with fage prophetick eye,
In future battles to descry,
That Britain fhall not fail to yield
Equal generals for the field;
That France again shall pour her blood,
And Danube roll a purpled flood.
And when my children round me throng,
The fame grand theme fhall grace my tongue;
To teach them, should fair England need
Their blood, 'tis theirs to wish to bleed;
And, as I fpeak, to mark with joy
New courage ftart in every boy;
And gladfome read in all their eyes,
Each will a future hero rife.
Thefe delights if Mars afford,
Mars, with thee I whet my fword.
WRITTEN ON THE CONCLUSION OF THE PEACE OF AIX-LACHAPELLE, MDCCXLVIII.
ENCE, peftilential Mars,
Of fable-vested Night and Chaos bred,
On matter's formless bed,
'Mid the harsh din of elemental jars:
Hence with thy frantick crowd,
Wing'd Flight, pale Terror, Discord cloath'd in fire,
While mad Bellona cracks her fnaky thong,
And hurries headlong on,
To Ach'ron's brink and Phlegethon's flaming flood.
But hail, fair Peace! fo mild and meek,
With polish'd brow and rofy cheek;
That, on thy fleece-white cloud descending,
Hither, foft-ey'd queen, art tending
Gently o'er thy favourite land,
To wave thy genial myrtle wand:
To shake from off thy turtle wing
Th' ambrofial dews of endless spring;
Spring, like that, which poets feign
Gilded Saturn's easy reign;
For Saturn's firft-born daughter thou;
Unless, as later bards avow,
The youthful god with spangled hair
Closely clafp'd Harmonia fair:
For, banish'd erft heaven's star-pav'd floor,
(As fings my legendary lore)
As Phoebus fat by weeping brook,
With fhepherd's fcrip and fhepherd's crook,
Penfive 'midst a savage train
(For favage then was all the plain)
Fair Harmonia left her bower,
To join her radiant paramour.
Hence didft thou fpring; and at thy birth
Lenient zephyrs fann'd the earth;
Rumbling thunders growl'd no more;
Prowling wolves forgot to roar;
And man, from fiercer rage poffefs'd,
Smil'd Diffenfion from his breaft.
She comes! fhe comes! ye nymphs, prepare
Gay floral wreaths to bind your hair;
Ye fwains, infpire the mellow flute
To dulcet ftrains, which aptly fuit
The featly-footed faraband
Of Phillis trim and Marian bland,
When nimbly light each fimpering lafs
Trips it o'er the pliant grafs.
But fee! her focial smiling train,
Now invefts th' enraptur'd plain!
Plenty's treasure-teeming horn
Show'rs it's fruits, it's flow'rs, it's corn;
Commerce fpreads his ampleft fail;
Strong-nerv'd Labour lifts his flail:
Sylvanus, too, attends; ('tis he
That bears the root-pluck'd cypress tree)
He fhall my youngling footsteps lead
Thro' tufted lawn and fringed mead,
By scooped valley, heaped hill,
Level river, dancing rill,
Where the shepherds all appear
To fhear and wash their fleecy care,
Which bleating stand the streams around,
And whiten all the clofe-cropt ground;
Or when the maids in bonnets fheen,
Cock the hay upon the green;
Or up yon fteep rough road the fwains
Drive flow along their rolling wains
(Where laughing Ceres crowns the stack,
And makes the pond'rous axle crack)
Then to the village on the hill,
The barns capacious jaws to fill,
Where the answering flails rebound,
Beating bold with thundering found.
Inchanted with this rural fcene,
Here let me weave my arb'rets green;
Here arch the woodbine, mantling neat
O'er my noon-tide cool retreat;
Or bind the oak with ivy-twine;
Or wed the elm and purpling vine.
But if my vagrant fancy pants
For charms, which fimple nature wants,
Grant, Power benign, admittance free
To fome rang'd academy:
There to give to arts refin'd
All the impulfe of my mind;
And oft obfervant take my stand,
Where the painter's magick hand,
From sketches rude, with gradual art,
Calls dawning life to every part,
Till with nice tints all labour'd high,
Each starting hero meets the eye.
Oft too, O let me nice infpect
The draughts of jufteft architect:
And hence delighted let me pafs,
Where others mould the ductile brass;
Or teach the Parian stone to wear
A letter'd fage's mufing air.
But, ah! these arts have fix'd their home
In Roman or in Gallick, dome:
|