None but the present is our own;
Grace is not plac'd within our pow'r,
"Tis but one short, one shining hour,
Bright and declining as a setting sun.
See the white minutes wing'd with haste:
The Now that flies may be the last;
Seize the salvation ere 'tis past,
Nor mourn the blessing gone:
A thought's delay is ruin here,
A closing eye, a gasping breath
Shuts up the golden scene in death,
And drowns you in despair.

TO WILLIAM BLACKBOURN, ESQ.
CASIMIR, LIB. II. OD. 2. IMITATED.
Quæ tegit canas modo bruma valles, &c.

MARK how it snows! how fast the valley fills!
And the sweet groves the hoary garments wear;
Yet the warm sun-beams bounding from the hills
Shall melt the veil away, and the young green appear.

But when old age has on your temples shed

Her silver frost, there's no returning sun;

Swift flies our autumn, swift our summer's fled, When youth, and love, and spring, and golden joys

are gone.

Then cold, and winter, and your aged snow
Stick fast upon you; not the rich array,
Not the green garland, nor the rosy bough
Shall cancel or conceal the melancholy grey.

The chase of pleasures is not worth the pains,
While the bright sands of health run wasting down;
And honour calls you from the softer scenes,

To sell the gaudy hour for ages of renown.

'Tis but one youth, and short, that mortals have,
And one old age dissolves our feeble frame;
But there's a heavenly art t' elude the grave,
And with the hero-race immortal kindred claim.

The man that has his country's sacred tears
Bedewing his cold hearse, has liv'd his day;

Thus, Blackbourn, we should leave our names our

heirs;

Old Time and waning moons sweep all the rest away.

TRUE MONARCHY.

1701.

THE rising year beheld th' imperious Gaul
Stretch his dominion, while a hundred towns
Crouch'd to the victor: but a steady soul
Stands firm on its own base, and reigns as wide,
As absolute: and sways ten thousand slaves,
Lusts and wild fancies with a sovereign hand.

We are a little kingdom; but the man
That chains his rebel will to reason's throne,
Forms it a large one, whilst his royal mind
Makes Heaven its council, from the rolls above
Draws its own statutes, and with joy obeys.

"Tis not a troop of well-appointed guards Create a monarch, not a purple robe

Dyed in the people's blood; not all the crowns
Or dazzling tiars that bend about the head,
Tho' gilt with sun-beams and set round with stars.
A monarch's he that conquers all his fears,
And treads upon them; when he stands alone
Makes his own camp; four guardian virtues wait
His nightly slumbers, and secure his dreams.
Now dawns the light; he ranges all his thoughts
In square battalions, bold to meet th' attacks
Of time and chance, himself a num'rous host,
All eye, all ear, all wakeful as the day,

Firm as a rock, and moveless as the centre.

In vain the harlot, Pleasure, spreads her charms, To lull his thoughts in luxury's fair lap To sensual ease, (the bane of little kings, Monarchs whose waxen images of souls Are moulded into softness,) still his mind Wears its own shape, nor can the heavenly form Stoop to be moddell'd by the wild decrees Of the mad vulgar, that unthinking herd.

He lives above the crowd, nor hears the noise
Of wars and triumphs, nor regards the shouts
Of popular applause, that empty sound;
Nor feels the flying arrows of reproach,
Or spite or envy. In himself secure,

Wisdom his tower, and conscience is his shield,
His peace all inward, and his joys his own.

Now my ambition swells, my wishes soar,
This be my kingdom: sit above the globe,
My rising soul, and dress thyself around
And shine in virtue's armour, climb the height

Of wisdom's lofty castle, there reside

Safe from the smiling and the frowning world.

Yet once a-day drop down a gentle look On the great mole-hill, and with pitying eye Survey the busy emmets, round the heap Crowding and bustling, in a thousand forms Of strife and toil, to purchase wealth and fame, A bubble or a dust: then call thy thoughts Up to thyself to feed on joys unknown, Rich without gold, and great without renown.

TRUE COURAGE.

HONOUR demands my song. Forget the ground,
My generous muse, and sit amongst the stars!
There sing the soul that, conscious of her birth,
Lives like a native of the vital world,

Amongst these dying clods, and bears her state
Just to herself: how nobly she maintains
Her character, superior to the flesh,

She wields her passions like her limbs, and knows
The brutal powers were born but to obey.

This is the man whom storms could never make Meanly complain; nor can a flattering gale Make him talk proudly: he hath no desire To read his secret fate; yet unconcern'd And calm could meet his unborn destiny, In all its charming or its frightful shapes.

He that unshrinking, and without a groan, Bears the first wound, may finish all the war With mere courageous silence, and come off Conqueror: for the man that well conceals The heavy strokes of fate, he bears them well.

He, though the Atlantic and the midland seas With adverse surges meet, and rise on high Suspended 'twixt the winds, then rush amain, Mingled with flames, upon his single head, And clouds and stars and thunder, firm he stands, Secure of his best life-unhurt, unmovedAnd drops his lower nature, born for death. Then, from the lofty castle of his mind, Sublime looks down, exulting, and surveys The ruins of creation; (souls alone Are heirs of dying worlds;) a piercing glance Shoots upwards from between his closing lids, To reach his birth-place, and without a sigh He bids his batter'd flesh lie gently down Amongst its native rubbish: whilst the spirit Breathes and flies upward, an undoubted guest Of the third heaven, th' unruinable sky.

Thither, when fate has brought our willing souls, No matter whether 'twas a sharp disease,

Or a sharp sword that help'd the travellers on,
And push'd us to our home. Bear up, my friend,
Serenely, and break through the stormy brine
With steady prow; know, we shall once arrive
At the fair haven of eternal bliss

To which we ever steer; whether as kings
Of wide command we've spread the spacious sea
With a broad painted fleet, or row'd along
In a thin cock-boat, with a little oar.