II.

There needs, alas! but little art

To have this fatal secret found;

With the same ease you threw the dart, "Tis certain you may show the wound.

III.

How can I see you and not love,

While you as op'ning east are fair? While cold as northern blasts you prove, How can I love and not despair?

IV.

The wretch in double fetters bound
Your potent mercy may release:
Soon, if my love but once were crown'd,
Fair Prophetess, my grief would cease.

AN ODE TO A LADY,

She refusing to continue a dispute with me, and leaving me in the argument.

1.

SPARE, gen'rous Victor, spare the slave

Who did unequal war pursue,

That more than triumph he might have
In being overcome by you.

II.

In the dispute, whate'er I said,

My heart was by my tongue bely'd,

IV.

Fair Albion shall, with faithful trust,
Her holy Queen's sad relics guard,
Till Heav'n awakes the precious dust,
And gives the saint her full reward.

V.

But let the King dismiss his woes,
Reflecting on his fair renown,
And take the cypress from his brows,
To put his wonted laurels on.

VI.

If press'd by grief our Monarch stoops,
In vain the British Lions roar:

If he whose hand sustain'd them droops,-
The Belgic darts will wound no more.

VII.

Embattled princes wait the chief

Whose voice should rule, whose arm should lead, And in kind murmurs chide that grief Which hinders Europe being freed.

VIII.

The great example they demand

Who still to conquest led the way,
Wishing him present to command,
As they stand ready to obey.

IX.

They seek that joy which us'd to glow
Expanded on the hero's face,

When the thick squadrons press'd the foe,
And William led the glorious chace.

To give the mourning nations joy,
Restore them thy auspicious light,
Great Sun! with radiant beams destroy
Those clouds which keep thee from our sight.

XI.

Let thy sublime meridian course
For Mary's setting rays atone;
Our lustre, with redoubled force,
Must now proceed from thee alone.

XII.

See pious King! with diff'rent strife
Thy struggling Albion's bosom torn;
So much she fears for William's life
That Mary's fate she dare not mourn.

XIII.

Her beauty, in thy softer half

Bury'd and lost, she ought to grieve; But let her strength in thee be safe; And let her weep, but let her live.

XIV.

Thou, guardian Angel! save the land
From thy own grief, her fiercest foe,
Lest Britain, rescu'd by thy hand,

Should bend and sink beneath thy woe.

XV.

Her former triumphs all are vain,

Unless new trophies still be sought,

And hoary Majesty sustain

The battles which thy youth has fought.

XVI.

Where now is all that fearful leve

Which made her hate the war's alarms?
That soft excess with which she strove
To keep her hero in her arms?

XVII.

While still she chid the coming spring,
Which call'd him o'er his subject seas,
While for the safety of the King,
She wish'd the victor's glory less.

XVIII.

'Tis chang'd; 'tis gone: sad Britain now
Hastens her lord to foreign wars:

Happy if toils may break his woe,
Or dangers may divert his cares.

XIX.

In martial din she drowns her sighs,
Lest he the rising grief should hear;
She pulls her helmet o'er her eyes,
Lest he should see the falling tear.

Go, mighty Prince! let France be taught
How constant minds by grief are try'd,
How great the land that wept and fought,
When William led and Mary dy'd!

XXI.

Fierce in the battle make it known,

Where Death with all his darts is seen,

That he can touch thy heart with none
But that which struck the beauteous Queen-

XXII.

Belgia indulg'd her open grief,

While yet her master was not near,
With sullen pride refus'd relief,
And sat obdurate in despair.

XXIII.

As waters from her sluices, flow'd

Unbounded sorrow from her eyes; To earth her bended front she bow'd, And sent her wailings to the skies.

XXIV.

But when her anxious lord return'd,
Rais'd is her head, her eyes are dry'd ;
She smiles, as William ne'er had mourn'd;
She looks, as Mary ne'er had dy'd.

XXV.

That freedom which all sorrows claim,
She does for thy content resign;
Her piety itself would blame,

If her regrets should waken thine.

XXVI.

To cure thy woe she shews thy fame, Lest the great mourner should forget, That all the race whence Orange came Made Virtue triumph over Fate.

XXVII.

William his country's cause could fight,
And with his blood her freedom seal
Maurice and Henry guard that right
For which their pious parents fell.