ΤΟ

THE EARL OF WARWICK,

ON THE

DEATH OF MR. ADDISON.

IF, dumb too long, the drooping Muse hath stay'd,
And left her debt to Addison unpaid,

Blame not her silence, Warwick, but bemoan,
And judge, oh judge, my bosom by your own.
What mourner ever felt poetic fires!
Slow comes the verse that real woe inspires :
Grief unaffected suits but ill with art,
Or flowing numbers with a bleeding heart.

Can I forget the dismal night that gave
My soul's best part for ever to the grave!
How silent did his old companions tread,
By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead,
Through breathing statues, then unheeded things,
Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings!
What awe did the slow solemn knell inspire;
The pealing organ, and the pausing choir;
The duties by the lawn-rob'd prelate pay'd;
And the last words that dust to dust convey'd!
While speechless o'er thy closing grave we bend,
Accept these tears, thou dear departed friend.
Oh, gone for ever; take this long adieu;
And sleep in peace, next thy lov'd Montague.
To strew fresh laurels, let the task be mine,
A frequent pilgrim, at thy sacred shrine;
Mine with true sighs thy absence to bemoan,
And grave with faithful epitaphs thy stone.
If e'er from me thy lov'd memorial part,
May shame afflict this alienated heart;
Of thee forgetful if I form a song,
My lyre be broken, and untun'd my tongue,
My grief be doubled from thy image free,
And mirth a torment, unchastis'd by thee.

Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone, Sad luxury! to vulgar minds unknown, Along the walls where speaking marbles show What worthies form the hallow'd mould below; Proud names, who once the reins of empire held; In arms who triumph'd; or in arts excell'd; Chiefs, grac'd with scars, and prodigal of blood; Stern patriots, who for sacred freedom stood; Just men, by whom impartial laws were given; And saints who taught, and led, the way to Heaven; Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty rest, Since their foundation, came a nobler guest; Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss convey'd A fairer spirit or more welcome shade.

In what new region, to the just assign'd,
What new employments please th' unbody'd mind?
A winged Virtue, through th' etherial sky,
From world to world unweary'd does he fly?
Or curious trace the long laborious maze

Of Heaven's decrees, where wondering angels gaze?
Does he delight to hear bold seraphs tell
How Michael battl'd, and the dragon fell;

In hymns of love, not ill essay'd below?
Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind,
A task well-suited to thy gentle mind?
Oh! if sometimes thy spotless form descend:
To me, thy aid, thou guardian genius, lend!
When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms,
When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms,
In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart,
And turn from ill, a frail and feeble heart;
Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before,
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more.
That awful form, which, so the Heavens decree,
Must still be lov'd and still deplor'd by me;
In nightly visions seldom fails to rise,

Or, rous'd by Fancy, meets my waking eyes.
If business calls, or crouded courts invite,
Th' unblemish'd statesman seems to strike my sight;
If in the stage I seek to sooth my care,

I meet his soul which breathes in Cato there;
If pensive to the rural shades I rove,

His shape o'ertakes me in the lonely grove;
'Twas there of just and good he reason'd strong,
Clear'd some great truth, or rais'd some serious song:
There patient show'd us the wise course to steer,
A candid censor, and a friend severe;
There taught us how to live; and (oh! too high
The price for knowledge) taught us how to die.

Thou Hill, whose brow the antique structures grace,
Rear'd by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race,
Why, once so lov'd, when-e'er thy bower appears,
O'er my dim eye-balls glance the sudden tears!
How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair,
Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air!
How sweet the glooms beneath thy aged trees,
Thy noon-tide shadow, and thy evening breeze!
His image thy forsaken bowers restore;
Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more;
No more the summer in thy glooms allay'd,
Thy evening breezes, and thy noon-day shade.

From other hills, however Fortune frown'd;
Some refuge in the Muse's art I found;
Reluctant now I touch the trembling string,
Bereft of him, who taught me how to sing;
And these sad accents, murmur'd o'er his urn,
Betray that absence, they attempt to mourn.
O! must I then (now fresh my bosom bleeds,
And Craggs in death to Addison succeeds)
The verse, begun to one lost friend, prolong,
And weep a second in th' unfinish'd song!

These works divine, which, on his death-bed laid,
To thee, O Craggs, th' expiring sage convey'd,
Great, but ill-omen'd, monument of fame,
Nor he surviv'd to give, nor thou to claim.
Swift after him thy social spirit flies,
And close to his, how soon! thy coffin lies.
Blest pair! whose union future bards shall tell
In future tongues: each other's boast! farewel,
Farewel! whom join'd in fame, in friendship try'd,
No chance could sever, nor the grave divide.

COLIN AND LUCY.

A BALLAD.

OF Leinster, fam'd for maidens fair,
Bright Lucy was the grace;
Nor e'er did Liffy's limpid stream
Reflect so sweet a face :

Till luckless love, and pining care,

Impair'd her rosy hue,
Her coral lips, and damask cheeks,
And eyes of glossy blue.
Oh! have you seen a lily pale,

When beating rains descend?

So droop'd the slow-consuming maid,
Her life now near its end.

By Lucy warn'd, of flattering swains
Take heed, ye easy fair:
Of vengeance due to broken vows,
Ye perjur'd swains, beware.
Three times, all in the dead of night,
A bell was heard to ring;
And shrieking at her window thrice,
The raven flap'd his wing.

Too well the love-lorn maiden knew
The solemn boding sound:
And thus, in dying words, bespoke
The virgins weeping round:
"I hear a voice, you cannot hear,
Which says, I must not stay;

I see a hand, you cannot see,

Which beckons me away.

By a false heart, and broken vows,
In early youth I die :
Was I to blame, because his bride
Was thrice as rich as I?

"Ah, Colin! give not her thy vows,
Vows due to me alone:

Nor thou, fond maid, receive his kiss,
Nor think him all thy own.
To-morrow, in the church to wed,
Impatient, both prepare!

But know, fond maid; and know, false man,
That Lucy will be there!

"Then bear my corse, my comrades, bear, This bridegroom blithe to meet, He in his wedding-trim so gay,

I in my winding-sheet."

She spoke, she dy'd, her corse was borne,
The bridegroom blithe to meet,
He in his wedding trim so gay,

She in her winding-sheet.

Then what were perjur'd Colin's thoughts?
How were these nuptials kept?
The bridesmen flock'd round Lucy dead,
And all the village wept.
Confusion, shame, remorse, despair,
At once his bosom swell:
The damps of death bedew'd his brow,
He shook, he groan'd, he fell.
From the vain bride, ah, bride no more!
The varying crimson fled,
When, stretch'd before her rival's corse,
She saw her husband dead.
Then to his Lucy's new-made grave,

Convey'd by trembling swains,

One mould with her, beneath one sod,
For ever he remains.

Oft at this grave, the constant hind
And plighted maid are seen;

With garlands gay, and true-love knots,
They deck the sacred green :
But, swain forsworn, whoe'er thou art,
This hallow'd spot forbear;
Remember Colin's dreadful fate,
And fear to meet him there.

ΤΟ

SIR GODFREY KNELLER,

AT HIS COUNTRY SEAT.

123

To Whitton's shades, and Hounslow's airy plain,
Thou, Kneller, tak'st thy summer flights in vain,
In vain thy wish gives all thy rural hours
To the fair villa, and well-order'd bowers;
To court thy pencil early at thy gates,
Ambition knocks, and fleeting Beauty waits;
The boastful Muse, of others' fame so sure,
Implores thy aid to make her own secure;
The great, the fair, and, if aught nobler be,
Aught more belov'd, the Arts solicit thee.

How canst thou hope to fly the world, in vain
From Europe sever'd by the circling main;
Sought by the kings of every distant land,
And every hero worthy of thy hand?
Hast thou forgot that mighty Bourbon fear'd
He still was mortal, till thy draught appear'd?
That Cosmo chose thy glowing form to place,
Amidst her masters of the Lombard race?
See, on her Titian's and her Guido's urns,
Her falling arts forlorn Hesperia mourns;
While Britain wins each garland from her brow,
Her wit and freedom first, her painting now.

Let the faint copier, on old Tiber's shore,
Nor mean the task, each breathing bust explore,
Line after line, with painful patience trace,
This Roman grandeur, that Athenian grace:
Vain care of parts; if, impotent of soul,

Th' industrious workman fails to warm the whole,
Each theft betrays the marble whence it came,
And a cold statue stiffens in the frame.
Thee Nature taught, nor Art her aid deny'd,
The kindest mistress, and the surest guide,
To catch a likeness at one piercing sight,
And place the fairest in the fairest light;
Ere yet thy pencil tries her nicer toils,
Or on thy palette lie the blendid oils,
Thy careless chalk has half achiev'd thy art,
And her just image makes Cleora start.

A mind that grasps the whole is rarely found,
Half learn'd, half painters, and half wits abound;
Few, like thy genius, at proportion aim,
All great, all graceful, and throughout the same.
Such be thy life, O since the glorious rage
That fir'd thy youth, flames unsubdued by age!
Though wealth, nor fame, now touch thy sated mind,
Still tinge the canvas, bounteous to mankind;
Since after thee may rise an impious line,
Coarse manglers of the human face divine,
Paint on, till Fate dissolve thy mortal part,
And live and die the monarch of thy art.

ON THE DEATH OF

THE EARL OF CADOGAN.

Or Marlborough's captains, and Eugenio's friends,
The last, Cadogan, to the grave descends:
Low lies each hand, whence Blenheim's glory sprung,
The chiefs who conquer'd, and the bards who sung.
From his cold corse though every friend be fled,
Lo! Envy waits, that lover of the dead:
Thus did she feign o'er Nassau's hearse to mourn;
Thus wept insidious, Churchill, o'er thy urn;

To blast the living, gave the dead their due,
And wreaths, herself had tainted, trimm'd anew,
Thou, yet unnam'd to fill his empty place,
And lead to war thy country's growing race,
Take every wish a British heart can frame,
Add palm to palm, and rise from fame to fame.
An hour must come, when thou shalt hear with
Thyself traduc'd, and curse a thankless age: [rage
Nor yet for this decline the generous strife,
These ills, brave man, shall quit thee with thy life,
Alive though stain'd by every abject slave,
Secure of fame and justice in the grave.

Ah! no-when once the mortal yields to Fate,
The blast of Fame's sweet trumpet sounds too late,
Too late to stay the spirit on its flight,
Or sooth the new inhabitant of light;
Who hears regardless, while fond man, distress'd,
Hangs on the absent, and laments the blest.
Farewel then Fame, ill sought thro' fields and
Farewel unfaithful promiser of good:

[blood,

Thou music, warbling to the deafen'd ear!
Thou incense wasted on the funeral bier!
Through life pursued in vain, by death obtain'd,
When ask'd deny'd us, and when given disdain'd.

AN ODE

INSCRIBED TO

THE EARL OF SUNDERLAND

AT WINDSOR.

THOU Dome, where Edward first enroll'd
His red-cross knights and barons bold,
Whose vacant seats, by Virtue bought,
Ambitious emperors have sought :
Where Britain's foremost names are found,
In peace belov'd, in war renown'd,
Who made the hostile nations moan,
Or brought a blessing on their own:

Once more a son of Spencer waits,

A name familiar to thy gates;
Sprung from the chief whose prowess gain'd
The Garter while thy founder reign'd,
He offer'd here his dinted shield,
The dread of Gauls in Cressi's field,
Which, in thy high-arch'd temple rais'd,
For four long centuries hath blaz'd.

These seats our sires, a hardy kind,
To the fierce sons of war confin'd,
The flower of chivalry, who drew
With sinew'd arm the stubborn yew:
Or with heav'd pole-ax clear'd the field;
Or who, in justs and tourneys skill'd,
Before their ladies' eyes renown'd,
Threw horse and horseman to the ground.

In after-times, as courts refin'd, Our patriots in the list were join'd. Not only Warwick stain'd with blood, Or Marlborough near the Danube's flood, Have in their crimson crosses glow'd; But, on just lawgivers bestow'd, These emblems Cecil did invest, And gleam'd on wise Godolphin's breast.

So Greece, ere arts began to rise, Fix'd huge Orion in the skies,

And stern Alcides, fam'd in wars,
Bespangled with a thousand stars;
Till letter'd Athens round the pole
Made gentler constellations roll;
In the blue heavens the lyre she strung,
And near the Maid the Balance 1 hung.
Then, Spencer, mount amid the band,
Where knights and kings promiscuous stand.
Burns calmly in thy generous breast !
What though the hero's flame repress'd
Yet who more dauntless to oppose
In doubtful days our home-bred foes!
Or view'd with less desiring eye!
Who rais'd his country's wealth so high,

The sage, who, large of soul, surveys
The globe, and all its empires weighs,
Watchful the various climes to guide,
Which seas, and tongues, and faiths, divide,
A nobler name in Windsor's shrine
Shall leave, if right the Muse divine,
Than sprung of old, abhorr'd and vain,
From ravag'd realms and myriads slain.
Why praise we, prodigal of fame,
The rage that sets the world on flame?
My guiltless Muse his brow shall bind
Whose godlike bounty spares mankind.
For those, whom bloody garlands crown,
The brass may breathe, the marble frown,
To him through every rescued land,
Ten thousand living trophies stand.

Midst greens and sweets, a regal fabric, stands,
And sees each spring, luxuriant in her bowers,
A snow of blossoms, and a wild of flowers,
The dames of Britain oft in crowds repair
To gravel walks, and unpolluted air.
Here, while the town in damps and darkness lies,
They breathe in sun-shine, and see azure skies;
Each walk, with robes of various dyes bespread,
Seems from afar a moving tulip-bed,
Where rich brocades and glossy damasks glow,
And chints, the rival of the showery bow.

Here England's daughter, darling of the land,
Sometimes, surrounded with her virgin band,
Gleams through the shades. She, towering o'er the
Stands fairest of the fairer kind confest,
Form'd to gain hearts, that Brunswick's cause deny'd,
And charm a people to her father's side.

[rest,

Long have these groves to royal guests been known, Nor Nassau first prefer'd them to a throne. Ere Norman banners wav'd in British air; Ere lordly Hubba with the golden hair Pour'd in his Danes; ere elder Julius came; Or Dardan Brutus gave our isle a name; A prince of Albion's lineage grac'd the wood, The scene of wars, and stain'd with lovers' blood. You,who thro' gazing crowds, your captive throng, Throw pangs and passions, as you move along, Turn on the left, ye fair, your radiant eyes, Where all unlevel'd the gay garden lies:

1 Names of constellations.

'Twas here one noon, the gaudiest of the May, The still, the secret, silent, hour of day, Beneath a lofty tulip's ample shade

Sat the young lover and th' immortal maid. They thought all fairies slept, ah, luckless pair! Hid, but in vain, in the Sun's noon-tide glare! When Albion, leaning on his Kenna's breast, Thus all the softness of his soul exprest :

Blood only less than royal fill'd thy veins,
Proud was thy roof, and large thy fair domains.
Where now the skies high Holland-House invades,
And short-liv'd Warwick sadden'd all the shades,
Thy dwelling stood: nor did in him afford

A nobler owner, or a lovelier lord.

For thee a hundred fields produc'd their store,
And by thy name ten thousand vassals swore;

Nor moon nor star in Heaven's blue arch is seen
With kindly rays to silver o'er the green,
Grateful to fairy eyes; they secret take
Their rest, and only wretched mortals wake.
This dead of day I fly to thee alone,
A world to me, a multitude in one.
Oh, sweet as dew-drops on these flowery lawns,
When the sky opens, and the evening dawns!
Straight as the pink, that towers so high in air,
Soft as the blow-bell! as the daisy, fair!
Blest be the hour, when first I was convey'd
An infant captive to this blissful shade!
And blest the hand that did my form refine,
And shrunk my stature to a match with thine!
Glad I for thee renounce my royal birth,
And all the giant-daughters of the Earth.
Thou, if thy breast with equal ardour burn,
Renounce thy kind, and love for love return.
So from us two, combin'd by nuptial ties,
A race unknown of demi-gods shall rise.
O speak, my love! my vows with vows repay,
And sweetly swear my rising fears away.”

To whom (the shining azure of her eyes
More brighten'd) thus th' enamour'd maid replies:
"By all the stars, and first the glorious Moon,
I swear, and by the head of Oberon,
A dreadful oath! no prince of fairy line
Shall e'er in wedlock plight his vows with mine.
Where-e'er my footsteps in the dance are seen,
May toadstools rise, and mildews blast the green,
May the keen east-wind blight my favourite flowers,
And snakes and spotted adders haunt my bowers.
Confin'd whole ages in an hemlock shade
There rather pine I a neglected maid,
Or worse, exil'd from Cynthia's gentle rays,
Parch in the sun a thousand summer-days,
Than any prince, a prince of fairy line,
In sacred wedlock plight his vows with mine."
She ended and with lips of rosy hue
Dipp'd five times over in ambrosial dew,
Stifled his words. When, from his covert rear'd,
The frowning brow of Oberon appear'd. [sight!)
A sun-flower's trunk was near, whence (killing
The monarch issued, half an ell in height:
Full on the pair a furious look he cast,
Nor spoke; but gave his bugle-horn a blast,
That through the woodland echoed far and wide,
And drew a swarm of subjects to his side.
A hundred chosen knights, in war renown'd,
Drive Albion banish'd from the sacred ground;
And twice ten myriads guard the bright abodes,
Where the proud king, amidst his demi-gods,
For Kenna's sudden bridal bids prepare,
And to Azuriel gives the weeping fair.

If fame in arms, with ancient birth combin'd,
A faultless beauty, and a spotless mind,
To love and praise can generous souls incline,
That love, Azuriel, and that praise, was thine.

All fairy shouted with a general voice.
Oriel alone a secret rage supprest,
That from his bosom heav'd the golden vest.
Along the banks of Thame his empire ran,
Wide was his range, and populous his clan.
When cleanly servants, if we trust old tales,
Beside their wages had good fairy vails,
Whole heaps of silver tokens, nightly paid,
The careful wife, or the neat dairy-maid,
Sunk not his stores. With smiles and powerful bribes
He gain'd the leaders of his neighbour tribes,
And ere the night the face of Heaven had chang'd,
Beneath his banners half the fairies rang'd.

Meanwhile, driven back to Earth, a lonely way
The chearless Albion wander'd half the day, [thorns
A long, long journey, choak'd with brakes and
Ill-measur'd by ten thousand barley-corns.
Tir'd out at length a spreading stream he spy'd
Fed by old Thame, a daughter of the tide : [fame
'Twas then a spreading stream, though now, its
Obscur'd, it bears the Creek's inglorious name,
And creeps, as through contracted bounds it strays,
A leap for boys in these degenerate days.

On the clear crystal's verdant bank he stood, And thrice look'd backward on the fatal wood, And thrice he groan'd, and thrice he beat his breast, And thus in tears his kindred gods addrest.

"If true, ye watery powers, my lineage came From Neptune mingling with a mortal dame; Down to his court, with coral garlands crown'd, Through all your grottoes waft my plaintive sound, And urge the god, whose trident shakes the Earth, To grace his offspring, and assert my birth."

He said. A gentle Naiad heard his prayer, And, touch'd with pity for a lover's care, Shoots to the sea, where low beneath the tides Old Neptune in th' unfathom'd deep resides. Rouz'd at the news, the sea's stern sultan swore Revenge, and scarce from present arms forbore; But first the nymph his harbinger he sends, And to her care the favourite boy commends.

As thro' the Thames her backward course she Driv'n up his current by the refluent tides, [guides, Along his banks the pygmy legions spread She spies, and haughty Oriel at their head, Soon with wrong'd Albion's name the host she fires, And counts the ocean's god, among his sires; "The ocean's god, by whom shall be o'erthrown, (Styx heard his oath) the tyrant Oberon. See here beneath a toadstool's deadly gloom Lies Albion: him the Fates your leader doom. Hear, and obey; 'tis Neptune's powerful call, By him Azuriel and his king shall fall."

She said. They bow'd: and on their shield: up-bore With shouts their new saluted emperor. E'en Oriel smil'd at least to smile he strove, And hopes of vengeance triumph'd over love.

See now the mourner of the lonely shade By gods protected, and by hosts obey'd,