Songs Set To Music: 21. Set By Mr. De Fesch

Touch the lyre, touch every string;
Touch it, Orpheus; I will sing
A song which shall immortal be,
Since she I sing's a deity;
A Leonora, whose bless'd birth
Has no relation to this earth.

Songs Set To Music: 1. Set By Mr. Abel

Reading ends in melancholy,
Wine breeds vices and diseases,
Wealth is but care, and love but folly,
Only friendship truly pleases.
My wealth, my books, my flask, my Molly,
Farewell all if friendship ceases.

Songs Set To Music: 11. Set By Mr. De Fesch

Morella, charming without art,
And kind without design,
Can never lose the smallest part
Of such a heart as mine.

Obliged a thousand several ways,
It ne'er can break her chains,
While passion which her beauties raise
My gratitude maintains.

Songs Set To Music: 3. Set By Mr. De Fesch

Strephonetta, why d'ye fly me,
With such rigour in your eyes:
Oh! 'tis cruel to deny me,
Since your charms I so much prize.

But I plainly see the reason
Why in vain I you pursued,
Her to gain 'twas out of season,
Who before the chaplain woo'd.

Songs Set To Music: 13. Set By Mr. De Fesch

Love! inform thy faithful creature
How to keep his fair one's heart;
Must it be by truth of nature,
Or by poor dissembling art?
Tell the secret, show the wonder,
How we both may gain our ends;
I am lost if we're asunder,
Ever tortured if we're friends.

Songs Set To Music: 2. Set By Mr. Purcell

Whither would my passion run?
Shall I fly her, or pursue her?
Losing her I am undone,
Yet would not gain her to undo her.

Ye tyrants of the human breast,
Love and Reason, cease your war,
And order Death to give me rest,
So each will equal triumph share.

Songs Set To Music: 10. Set By Mr. Smith

Why, Harry, what ails you? why look you so sad?
To think and ne'er drink will make you stark mad.
'Tis the mistress, the friend, and the bottle, old boy,
Which create all the pleasure poor mortals enjoy;
But wine of the three's the most cordial brother,
For one it relieves, and it strengthens the other.

Songs Set To Music: 7. Set By Mr. De Fesch

Phillis, this pious talk give o'er,
And modesty pretend no more,
It is too plain an art:
Surely you take me for a fool,
And would by this prove me so dull
As not to know your heart.

In vain you fancy to deceive;
For truly I can ne'er believe
But this is all a sham,
Since any one may plainly see
You'd only save yourself with me,
And with another damn.

Songs Set To Music: 16. Set By Mr. Smith

Accept, my Love, as true a heart
As ever lover gave;
'Tis free (it vows) from my art,
And proud to be your slave.

Then take it kindly, as 'twas meant,
And let the giver live,
Who with it would the world have sent
Had it been his to give.

And that Dorinda may not fear
I e'er will prove untrue,
My vows shall, ending with the year,
With it begin a new.

Songs Set To Music: 17. Set By Mr. De Fesch

Nanny blushes when I woo her,
And with kindly chiding eyes
Faintly says I shall undo her;
Faintly, O, forbear! she cries.

But her breasts while I am pressing,
While to hers my lips I join,
Warm'd, she seems to taste the blessing,
And her kisses answer mine.

Undebauch'd by rules of honour,
Innocence with Nature charms;
One bids gently push me from her,
The other take me in her arms.

Songs Set To Music: 5. Set By Mr. De Fesch

Let perjured fair Amynta know
What for her sake I undergo;
Tell her, for her how I sustain
A lingering fever's wasting pain;
Tell her the torments I endure,
Which only, only she can cure.

But, oh! she scorns to hear or see
The wretch that lies so low as me;
Her sudden greatness turns her brain,
And Strephon hopes, alas! in vain;
For ne'er 'twas found (though often tried)
That Pity ever dwelt with Pride.

Songs Set To Music: 20. Set By Mr. De Fesch

Since by ill fate I'm forced away,
And snatch'd so soon from those dear arms,
Against my will I must obey,
And leave those sweet endearing charms.

Yet still love on, and never fear
But you and constancy will prove
Enough my present flame to bear,
And make me, though in absence, love.

For though your presence Fate denies,
I feel, alas! the killing smart,
And can with undiscerned eyes
Behold your picture in my heart.

A Song. In Vain You Tell Your Parting Lover

In vain you tell your parting lover
You wish fair winds may waft him over
Alas! what winds can happy prove
That bear me far from what I love?
Alas! what dangers on the main
Can equal those that I sustain
From slighted vows and cold disdain?

Be gentle, and in pity choose
To wish the wildest tempests loose,
That thrown again upon the coast
Where first my shipwreck'd heart was lost,
I may once more repeat my pain,
Once more in dying notes complain
Of slighted vows and cold disdain.

Songs Set To Music: 22. Set By Mr. De Fesch

In vain, alas! poor Strephon tries
To ease his tortured breast,
Since Amoret the cure denies,
And makes his pain a jest.

Ah! fair one, why to me so coy,
And why to him so true?
Who with more coldness slights the joy
Than I with love pursue.

Die, then, unhappy lover, die;
For since she gives thee death,
The world has nothing that can buy
A minute more of breath.

Yet though I could your scorn outlive,
'Twere folly, since to me
Not love itself a joy can give,
But, Amoret, in thee.

Songs Set To Music: 9. Set By Mr. De Fesch

Is it, O love, thy want of eyes,
Or by the Fates decreed,
That hearts so seldom sympathise,
Or for each other bleed?

If thou wouldst make two youthful hearts
One amorous shaft obey,
'Twould save thee the expense of darts,
And more extend thy sway.

Forbear, alas! thus to destroy
Thyself, thy growing power,
For that which would be stretch'd by joy
Despair will soon devour.

Ah! wound then my relentless fair,
For thy own sake and mine,
That boundless may be my share,
And double glory thine.

Songs Set To Music: 26.

Some kind angel, gently flying,
Moved with pity at my pain,
Tell Corinna I am dying
Till with joy we meet again.

Tell Corinna, since we parted
I have never known delight,
And shall soon be broken-hearted
If I longer want her sight.

Tell her how her lover, mourning,
Thinks each lazy day a year,
Cursing every morn returning,
Since Corinna is not here.

Tell her, too, not distant places,
Will she be but true and kind,
Join'd with time and change of faces,
E'er shall shake my constant mind.

Songs Set To Music: 25.

Since, Moggy, I mun bid adieu,
How can I help despairing?
Let cruel Fate us still pursue,
There's nought more worth my caring.

'Twas she alone could calm my soul
When racking thoughts did grieve me;
Her eyes my trouble could control,
And into joys deceive me.

Farewell ye brooks! no more along
Your banks mun I be walking;
No more you'll hear my pipe or song,
Or pretty Moggy's talking.

But I by death an end will give
To grief since we mun sever;
For who can after parting live,
Ought to be wretched ever.

Songs Set To Music: 12. Set By Mr. Smith

Since my words, though ne'er so tender,
With sincerest truth express'd,
Cannot make your heart surrender,
Nor so much as warm your breast;

What will move the springs of Nature
What will make you think me true?
Tell me, thou mysterious creature,
Tell poor Strephon what will do.

Do not, Charmion, rack your lover
Thus, by seeming not to know
What so plainly all discover,
What his eyes so plainly show.

Fair one, 'tis yourself deceiving,
'Tis against your reason's laws;
Atheist-like (th' effect perceiving)
Still to disbelieve the cause.

A Song. If Wine And Music Have The Power

If wine and music have the power
To ease the sickness of the soul,
Let Phoebis every string explore,
And Bacchus fill the sprightly bowl:
Let them their friendly aid employ
To make my Cloe's absense light,
And seek for pleasure to destroy
The sorrows of this live-long night.

But she to-morrow will return:
Venus, be thou to-morrow great;
Thy myrtles strow, thy odours burn,
And meet thy favourite nymph in state,
Kind goddess, to no other powers
Let us to-morrow's blessings own,
Thy darling Loves shall guide the hours,
And all the day be thine alone.

Songs Set To Music: 27.

Haste, my Nannette,
My lovely maid,
Haste to the bower
Thy swain has made.
For thee alone
I made the bower,
And strew'd the couch
With many a flower.
None but my sheep
Shall near us come;
Venus be praised
My sheep are dumb.
Great god of love
Take thou my crook,
To keep the wolf
From Nannette's flock.
Guard thou the sheep
To her so dear;
My own, alas!
Are less my care.
But of the wolf
If thou'rt afraid,
Come not to us
To call for aid;
For with her swain
My love shall stay,
Though the wolf stroll
And the sheep stray.

Songs Set To Music: 18. Set By Mr. Smith

Since we your husband daily see
So jealous out of season,
Phillis, let you and I agree
To make him so with reason.

I'm vex'd to think that every night
A sot, within thy arms,
Tasting the most divine delight,
Should sully all your charms.

While, fretting, I must lie alone,
Cursing the powers divine,
That undeservedly have thrown
A pearl unto a swine.

Then, Phillis, heal my wounded heart,
My burning passion cool;
Let me at least in thee have part
With thy insipid fool.

Let him by night his joys pursue,
And blunder in the dark,
While I by day enjoying you,
Can see to hit the mark.

Songs Set To Music: 23. Set By Mr. De Fesch

Well, I will never more complain,
Or call the Fates unkind;
Alas! how fond it is, how vain!
But self-conceitedness does reign
I nevery mortal mind.

'Tis true, they long did me deny,
Nor would permit a sight;
I raged, for I could not espy,
Or think that any harm could lie
Disguised in that delight.

At last, my wishes to fulfil,
They did their power resign,
I saw her, but I wish I still
Had been obedient to their will,
And they not unto mine.

Yet I by this have learn'd the wit
Never to grieve or fret;
Contentedly I will submit,
And think that best which they think fit,
Without the least regret.

Songs Set To Music: 24. Set By Mr. C. R.

Cloe beauty has, and wit,
And an air that is not common;
Every charm in her does meet,
Fit to make a handsome woman.

But we do not only find
Here a lovely face or feature,
For she's merciful and kind;
Beauty's answer'd by good-nature.

She is always doing good,
Of her favours never sparing,
And, as all good Christians should,
Keeps poor mortals from despairing.

Jove the power knew of her charms,
And that no man could endure 'em,
So providing 'gainst all harms,
Gave to her the power to cure 'em,

And 'twould be a cruel thing,
When her black eyes have raised desire,
Should she not her bucket bring,
And kindly help to quench the fire.

THE merchant, to secure his treasure,
   Conveys it in a borrow'd name:
Euphelia serves to grace my measure;
   But Chloe is my real flame.

My softest verse, my darling lyre,
   Upon Euphelia's toilet lay;
When Chloe noted her desire
   That I should sing, that I should play.

My lyre I tune, my voice I raise;
   But with my numbers mix my sighs:
And while I sing Euphelia's praise,
   I fix my soul on Chloe's eyes.

Fair Chloe blush'd: Euphelia frown'd:
   I sung, and gazed: I play'd, and trembled:
And Venus to the Loves around
   Remark'd, how ill we all dissembled.

Songs Set To Music: 6. Set By Mr. Smith

Phillis, since we have both been kind,
And of each other had our fill,
Tell me what pleasure you can find
In forcing Nature 'gainst her will.

'Tis true, you may, with art and pain,
Keep in some glowings of desire,
But still those glowings which remain
Are only ashes of the fire.

Then let us free each other's soul,
And laugh at the dull constant fool
Who would Love's liberty control,
And teach us how to whine by rule.

Let us no impositions set
Or clogs upon each other's heart;
But, as for pleasure first we met,
So now for pleasure let us part.

We both have spent our stock of love,
So consequently should be free;
Thyrsis expects you in yon grove,
And pretty Chloris stays for me.

Songs Set To Music: 15. Set By Mr. De Fesch

Farewell, Amynta, we must part;
The charm has lost its power
Which held so fast my captived heart
Until this fatal hour.

Hadst thou not thus my love abused,
And used me ne'er so ill,
Thy cruelty I had excused,
And I had loved thee still.

But know, my soul disdain'd thy sway,
And scorns thy charms and thee,
To which each fluttering coxcomb may
As welcome be as me.

Think in what perfect bliss you reign'd,
How loved before thy fall,
And now, alas! how much disdain'd
By me, and scorn'd by all.

Yet thinking of each happy hour,
Which I with thee have spent,
So robs my rage of all its power,
That I almost relent.

But pride will never let me bow;
No more thy charms can move;
Yet thou art worth my pity now,
Because thou hadst my love.

Songs Set To Music: 19. Set By Mr. C. R.

Phillis, give this humour over,
We too long have time abused;
I shall turn an errant rover
If the favour's still refused.

Faith 'tis nonsense out of measure,
Without ending thus to see
Women forced to taste a pleasure
Which they love as well as we.

Let not pride and folly share you,
We were made but to enjoy;
Ne'er will Age or Censure spare you
E'er the more for being coy.

Never fancy time's before you;
Youth believe me will away;
Then, alas! who will adore you,
Or to wrinkles tribute pay?

All the swains on you attending
Show how much your charms deserve;
But, miser-like, for fear of spending
You amidst your plenty starve.

While a thousand freer lasses,
Who their youth and charms employ,
Though your beauty theirs surpasses,
Live in far more perfect joy.

Songs Set To Music: 28. Nelly.

Whilst others proclaim
This nymph or that swain,
Dearest Nelly the lovely I'll sing:
She shall grace every verse,
I'll her beauties rehearse,
Which lovers can't think an ill thing.

Her eyes shine as bright
As stars in the night;
Her complexion's divinely fair;
Her lips red as a cherry,
Would a hermit make merry,
And black as a coal is her hair.

Her breath, like a rose,
Its sweets does disclose,
Whenever you ravish a kiss
Like ivory inchas'd,
Her teeth are well placed;
And exquisite beauty she is.

Her plump breasts are white,
Delighting the sight,
There Cupid discovers her charms;
Oh! spare then the rest,
And think of the best;
'Tis heaven to die in her arms.

She's blooming as May,
Brisk, lively, and gay,
The Graces all round about her;
She's prudent and witty,
Sings wondrously pretty,
And there is no living without her.

Songs Set To Music: 8. Set By Mr. Smith

Still, Dorinda, I adore;
Think I mean not to deceive you,
For I loved you much before,
And, alas! now love you more
Though I force myself to leave you.

Staying I my vows shall fail,
Virtue yields as love grows stronger;
Fierce desires will prevail,
You are fair and I am frail,
And dare trust myself no longer.

You, my love, too nicely coy,
Lest I should have gain'd the treasure,
Made my vows and oaths destroy
The pleasing hopes I did enjoy
Of all my future peace and pleasure.

To my vows I have been true,
And in silence hid my anguish,
But I cannot promise too
What my love may make me do
While with her for whom I languish.

For in thee strange magic lies,
And my heart is too, too tender;
Nothing's proof against those eyes,
Best resolves and strictest ties
To their force must soon surrender.

But, Dorinda, you're severe,
I much doting thus to sever:
Since from all I hold most dear,
That you may no longer fear,
I divorce myself for ever.

Songs Set To Music: 14. Set By Mr. Smith

Once I was unconfined and free,
Would I had been so still!
Enjoying sweetest liberty,
And roving at my will.

But now, not master of my heart,
Cupid does so decide,
That two she tyrants shall it part,
And so poor me divide.

Victoria's will I must obey,
She acts without control;
Phillis has such a taking way
She charms my very soul.

Deceived by Phillis' looks and smiles,
Into her snares I run;
Victoria shows me all her wiles,
Which yet I dare not shun.

From one I fancy every kiss
Has something in't divine,
And awful taste the balmy bliss
That joins her lips with mine.

But when with th' other I embrace,
Though she be not a queen,
Methinks 'tis sweet with such a lass
To tumble on the green.

Thus here you see a shared heart,
But I meanwhile the fool;
Each in it has an equal part,
But neither yet the whole.

Nor will it, if I right forecast,
To either wholly yield;
I find the time approaches fast
When both must quit the field.

Songs Set To Music: 4. Set By Mr. Smith

Come, weep no more, for 'tis in vain;
Torment not thus your pretty heart;
Think, Flavia, we may meet again,
As well as that we now must part.

You sigh and weep; the gods neglect
That precious dew your eyes let fall;
Our joy and grief with like respect
They mind, and that is not at all.

We pray, in hopes they will be kind,
As if they did regard our state;
They hear, and the return we find
Is, that no prayers can alter Fate.

Then clear your brow, and look more gay;
Do not yourself to grief resign;
Who knows but that those powers may
The pair they now have parted join?

But since they have thus cruel been,
And could such constant lovers sever,
I dare not trust, lest, now they're in,
They should divide us two for ever.

Then, Flavia, come, and let us grieve,
Remembering, though, upon what score;
This our last parting look believe,
Believe we must embrace no more.

Yet should our sun shine out at last,
And Fortune, without more deceit,
Throw but one reconciling cast,
To make two wandering lovers meet;

How great then would our pleasures be
To find heaven kinder than believed,
And we, who had no hopes to see
Each other, to be thus deceived!

But say, should heaven bring no relief;
Suppose our sun should never rise;
Why, then, what's due to such a grief
We've paid already with our eyes.

To The Countess Of Exeter. Playing On The Lute

What charms you have, from what high race you sprung,
Have been the pleasing subjects of my song:
Unskill'd and young, yet something still I writ
Of Ca'ndish' beauty, join'd to Cecil's wit.
But when you please to show the labouring muse
What greater theme your music can produce,
My babbling praises I repeat no more,
But hear, rejoice, stand silent, and adore.
The Persians thus, first gazing on the sun,
Admired how high 'twas placed, how bright it shone;
But as his power was known their thoughts were raised,
And soon they worshipp'd what at first they praised.
Eliza's glory lives in Spenser's song,
And Cowley's verse keeps fair Orinda young;
That as in birth and beauty you excel,
The muse might dictate and the poet tell:
Your art no other art can speak; and you
To show how well you play, must play anew:
Your music's power your music must disclose,
For what light is 'tis only light that shows.
Strange force of harmony that thus controls
Our thoughts, and turns and sanctifies our souls.
While with its utmost art your sex could move
Our wonder only or at best our love,
You far above both these your god did place,
That your high power might worldly thoughts destroy,
That with your numbers you our zeal might raise,
And like himself communicate your joy.
When to your native heaven you shall repair,
And with your presence crown the blessings there,
Your lute may wind its strings but little higher
To tune their notes to that immortal quire.
Your art is perfect here; your numbers do
More than our books make the rude atheist know
That there's a heaven by what he hears below.
As in some piece while Luke his skill exprest,
A cunning angel came and drew the rest,
So when you play, some godhead does impart
Harmonious aid; divinity helps art;
Some cherub finishes what you begun,
And to a miracle improves a tune.
To burning Rome when frantic Nero play'd,
Viewing that face, no more he had survey'd
The raging flames, but, struck with strange surprise,
Confess'd them less than those of Anna's eyes;
But, had he heard thy lute, he soon had found
His rage eluded and his crime atoned:
Thine, like Amphion's hand, had waked the stone
And from destruction call'd the rising town;
Malice to music had been forced to yield,
Nor could he burn so fast as thou couldst build.

The Second Hymn Of Callimachus. To Apollo

Hah! how the laurel, great Apollo's tree,
And all the cavern shakes! Far off, far off,
The man that is unhallow'd: for the god,
The god approaches. Hark! he knocks; the gates
Feel the glad impulse, and the sever'd bars
Submissive clink against their brazen portals.
Why do the Delian palms incline their boughs,
Self-moved, and hovering swans, their throats released
From native silence, carol sounds harmonious?
Begin young men the hymn: let all your harps
Break their inglorious silence, and the dance,
In mystic numbers trod, explain the music,
But first by ardent prayer and clear lustration
Purge the contagious spots of human weakness:
Impure no mortal can behold Apollo.
So may ye flourish favour'd by the god,
In youth with happy nuptials, and in age
With silver hairs, and fair descent of children;
So lay foundations for aspiring cities,
And bless your spreading colonies' increase.
Pay sacred reverence to Apollo's song,
Lest wrathful the far-shooting god emit
His fatal arrows. Silent Nature stands,
And seas subside, obedient to the sound
Of Iö, Iö Pean! nor dares Thetis
Longer bewail her loved Achilles' death;
For Phoebus was his foe. Nor must sad Niobe
In fruitless sorrow persevere, or weep
E'en through the Phyrgian marble. Hapless mother!
Whose fondness could compare her mortal offspring
To those which fair Latona bore to Jove.
Iö! again repeat ye, Iö Pean!
Against the Deity 'tis hard to strive.
He that resists the power of Ptolemy
Resists the power of heaven; for power from heaven
Derives, and monarchs rule by gods appointed.
Recite Apollo's praise till night draws on,
The ditty still unfinish'd, and the day
Unequal to the godhead's attributes
Various, and matter copious of your songs.
Sublime at Jove's right hand Apollo sits,
And thence distributes honour, gracious king,
And thence of verse perpetual. From his robe
Flows light ineffable; his harp, his quiver,
And Lictian bow, are gold: with golden sandals
His feet are shod; how rich! how beautiful!
Beneath his steps the yellow mineral rises,
And earth reveals her treasures. Youth and beauty
Eternal deck his cheeks; from his fair head
Perfumes distil their sweets; and cheerful Health,
His duteous handmaid, through the air improved,
With lavish hand diffuses scents ambrosial.
The spearman's arm, by thee, great god, directed,
Sends forth a certain wound. The laurell'd bard,
Inspired by thee, composes verse immortal.
Taught by thy art divine, the sage physician
Eludes the urn, and chains or exiles Death.
Thee, Nomian, we adore, for that from heaven
Descending, thou on fair Amphyrsus' banks
Didst guard Admetus' herds. Sithence the vow
Produced an ampler store of milk; the she-goat,
Not without pain, dragg'd her distended udder;
And ewes, that erst brought forth but single lambs,
Now dropp'd their twofold burdens. Bless'd the cattle
On which Apollo cast his favouring eye!
But, Phoebus, thou to man beneficient
Delight'st in building cities. Bright Diana,
Kind sister to thy infant deity,
New-wean'd, and just arising from the cradle,
Brought hunted wild goats' heads and branching antlers
Of stags, the fruit and honour of her toil;
These with discerning hand thou knew'st to range,
(Young as thou wast) and in the well-framed models,
With emblematic skill and mystic order,
Thou show'dst where towers or battlements should rise,
Where gates should open, or where walls should compass;
While from thy childish pastime, man received
The future strength and ornament of nations.
Battus, our great progentior, now touch'd
The Libyan strand, when the foreboding crow
Flew on the right before the people, marking
The country destined the auspicious seat
Of future kings, and favour of the god,
Whose oath is sure, and promise stands eternal.
Or Boedromian hear'st thou pleased, or Clarian
Phoebus, great king? for different are thy names,
As thy kind hand has founded many cities,
Or dealt benign thy various gifts to man.
Carnean let me call thee, for my country
Calls thee Carnean: the fair colony
Thrice by thy gracious guidance was transported
Ere settled in Cyrene; there we appointed
Thy annual feasts, kind god, and bless'd thy altars,
Smoking with hecatombs of slaughter'd bulls,
As Carnus, thy high priest and favour'd friend,
Had erst ordain'd; and with mysterious rites
Our great forefathers taught their sons to worship,
Iö! Carnean Phoebus! Iö Pean!
The yellow crocus there, and fair narcissus,
Reserve the honours of their winter-store
To deck thy temple, till returning spring
Diffuses Nature's various pride, and flowers
Innumerable, by the soft south-west
Open'd, and gather'd by religious hands,
Rebound their sweets from th' odoriferous pavement.
Perpetual fires shine hallow'd on thy altars,
When annual the Carnean feast is held:
The warlike Libyans clad in armour lead
The dance; with clanging swords and shields they beat
The dreadful measure: in the chorus join
Their women, brown, but beautiful: such rites
To thee well pleasing. Nor had yet thy votaries,
From Greece transplanted, touch'd Cyrene's banks,
And lands determined for their last abodes,
But wander'd through Azilis' horrid forest
Dispersed, when from Myrtusa's craggy brow,
Fond of the maid, auspicious to the city
Which must hereafter bear her favour'd name,
Thou gracious deign'd'st to let the fair one view
Her typic people; thou with pleasure taught'st her
To draw the bow, to slay the shaggy lion,
And stop the spreading ruin of the plains.
Happy the nymph who, honour'd by thy passion,
Was aided by thy power! the monstrous Python
Durst tempt thy wrath in vain; for dead he fell,
To thy great strength and golden arms unequal.
Iö! while thy unerring hand elanced
Another, and another dart, the people
Joyful repeated Iö! Iö Pean!
Elance the dart, Apollo; for the safety
And health of man, gracious, thy mother bore thee.
Envy, thy latest foe, suggested thus:
Like thee I am a power immortal, therefore
To thee dare speak. How canst thou favour partial
Those poets who write little? vast and great
Is what I love: the far extended ocean
To a small rivulet I prefer. Apollo
Spurn'd Envy with his foot, and thus the god:
Daemon, the headlong current of Euphrates,
Assyrian river, copious runs, but muddy,
And carries forward with his stupid force
Polluting dirt, his torrent still augmenting,
His wave still more defiled; meanwhile the nymphs
Melissan, sacred and recluse to Ceres,
Studious to have their offerings well received,
And fit for heavenly use, from little urns
Pour streams select and purity of waters.
Iö! Apollo, mighty king, let Envy,
Ill judging and verbose, from Lethe's lake
Draw tons unmeasurable, while thy favour
Administers to my ambitious thirst
The wholesome draught from Aganippe's spring
Genuine, and with soft murmurs gently rilling
Adown the mountains where thy daughters haunt.

Down-Hall. A Ballad.

Tune. - 'King John and the Abbot of Canterbury.'


I sing not old Jason who travell'd through Greece
To kiss the fair maids and possess the rich fleece,
Nor sing I AEneas, who, led by his mother,
Got rid of one wife and went far for another.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Nor him who through Asia and Europe did roam,
Ulysses by name, who ne'er cared to go home,
But rather desired to see cities and men
Than return to his farms and converse with old Pen.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Hang Homer and Virgil; their meaning to seek,
A man must have poked into Latin and Greek;
Those who love their own tongue we have reason to hope,
Have read them translated by Dryden and Pope.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


But I sing of exploits that have lately been done
By two British heroes call'd Matthew and John,
And how they rid friendly from fine London town,
Fair Essex to see, and a place they call Down.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Now ere they went out, you may rightly suppose
How much they discoursed both in prudence and prose:
For before this great journey was thoroughly concerted,
Full often they met, and as often they parted.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


And thus Matthew said, look you here my friend John,
I fairly have travell'd years thirty and one,
And though I still carried my Sovereign's warrants,
I only have gone upon other folks errands.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


And now in this journey of life I would have
A place where to bait 'twixt the court and the grave,
Where joyful to live, not unwilling to die -
Gadzooks, I had just a place in my eye.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


There are gardens so stately, and arbours so thick,
A portal of stone, and a fabric of brick;
The matter next week shall be all in your power;
But the money, Gadzooks, must be paid in an hour.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


For things in this world must by law be made certain;
We both must repair unto Oliver Martin,
For he is a lawyer of worthy renown,
I'll bring you to see he must fix you at Down.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Quoth Matthew, I know that from Berwick to Dover
You've sold all our premises over and over;
And now if your buyers and sellers agree
You may throw all our acres into the South-sea.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


But a word to the purpose; to-morrow, dear friend,
We'll sea what to-night you so highly commend,
And if with a garden and house I am bless'd,
Let the devil and Coningsby go with the rest.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Then answer'd Squire Morley, pray get a calash,
That in summer may burn, in winter may splash;
I love dirt and dust; and 'tis always my pleasure
To take with me much of the soil that I measure.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


But Matthew thought better, for Matthew thought right,
And hired a chariot so trim and so tight,
That extremes both of winter and summer might pass,
For one window was canvas, the other was glass.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Draw up, quoth friend Matthew; pull down, quoth friend John,
We shall be both hotter and colder anon:
Thus talking and scolding they forward did speed,
And Ralpho paced by under Newman the Swede.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Into an old inn did this equipage roll,
At a town they call Hodsdon, the sign of the Bull,
Near a nymph with an urn, that divides the highway,
And into a puddle throws mother of tea.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Come here, my sweet landlady, pray, how d'ye do?
Where is Cicily so cleanly, and Prudence, and Sue?
And where is the widow that dwelt here below?
And the ostler that sung about eight years ago?

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


And where is your sister, so mild and so dear?
Whose voice to her maids like a trumpet was clear.
By my troth, she replies, you grow younger I think;
And pray, Sir, what wine does the gentleman drink?

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Why now let me die, Sir, or live upon trust,
If I know to which question to answer you first:
Why things since I saw you most strangely have varied?
The ostler is hang'd, and the widow is married.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


And Prue left a child for the parish to nurse,
And Cicily went off with a gentleman's purse;
And as to my sister, so mild and so dear,
She has lain in the churchyard full many a year.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Well, peace to her ashes; what signifies grief?
She roasted red veal, and she powder'd lean beef;
Full nicely she knew to cook up a fine dish,
For tough were her pullets and tender her fish.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


For that matter, Sir, be ye 'squire, knight, or lord,
I'll give you whate'er a good inn can afford:
I should look on myself as unhappily sped
Did I yield a sister or living or dead.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Of mutton a delicate neck and a breast,
Shall swim in the water in which they were dress'd;
And because you great folks are with rarities taken,
Addle-eggs shall be next course, tost up with rank bacon.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Then supper was served, and the sheets they were laid,
And Morley most lovingly whisper'd the maid.
The maid! was she handsome? why, truly so so;
But what Morley whisper'd we never shall know,

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Then up rose these heroes as brisk as the sun,
And their horses, like his, were prepared to run:
Now when in the morning Matt ask'd for the score,
John kindly had paid it the evening before.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Their breakfast so warm, to be sure they did eat,
A custom in travellers mighty discreet:
And thus with great friendship and glee they went on
To find out the place you shall hear of anon,

Called Down, Down, hey derry down.


But what did they talk of from morning till noon?
Why, of spots in the sun, and the man in the moon;
Of the Czar's gentle temper, the stocks in the city,
The wise men of Greece, and the secret Committee.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


So to Harlow they came; and hey, where are you all?
Show us into the parlour, and mind when I call:
Why, your maids have no motion, your men have no life:
Well Master, I hear you have buried your wife,

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Come this very instant, take care to provide
Tea, sugar, and toast, and a hoarse and a guide.
Are the Harrisons here, both the old and the young?
And where stands fair Down, the delight of my song.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


O 'squire, to the grief of my heart I may say
I have buried two wives since you travell'd this way;
And the Harrisons both may be presently here;
And Down stands, I think, where it stood the last year.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Then Joan brought the tea-pot, and Caleb the toast,
And the wine was frothed out by the hand of mine host;
But we clear'd our extempore banquet so fast,
That the Harrisons both were forgot in the haste.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Now hey or Down-Hall; for the guide he was got;
The chariot was mounted, the horses did trot;
The guide he did bring us a dozen miles round;
But, oh! all in vain, for no Down could be found.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


O thou Popish guide, thou hast led us astray,
Says he, How the devil should I know the way?
I never yet travell'd this road in my life;
But Down lies on the left I was told by my wife.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Thy wife, answer'd Matthew, when she went abroad,
Ne'er told thee of half the by-ways she had trod;
Perhaps she met friends, and brought pence to thy house,
But thou shalt go home without ever a sous.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


What is this thing, Morley, and how can you mean it?
We have lost our estate here before we have seen it;
Have patience, soft Morley in anger replied;
To find out our way let us send off our guide.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


O here I spy Down: cast your eye to the west,
Where a windmill so stately stands plainly confess'd.
On the west! replied Matthew, no windmill I find;
As well thou may'st tell me I see the west wind.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Now pardon me, Morley, the windmill I spy,
But faithful Achates, no house is there nigh:
Look again, says mild Morley, Gadzooks, you are blind;
The mill stands before and the house lies behind,

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


O now a low ruin'd white shed I discern,
Untiled and unglazed, I believe 'tis a barn.
A barn! why you have rave; 'tis a house for a 'squire,
A justice of peace, or a knight of our shire.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


A house should be built or with brick or with stone,
Why, 'tis plaster and lath, and I think that's all one;
And such as it is it has stood with great fame,
Been called a Hall, and has given its name,
To Down, Down, hey derry down.

O Morley, O Morley, if that be a hall,
The same with a building will suddenly fall -
With your friend Jemmy Gibbs about buildings agree,
My business is land, and it matters not me.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


I wish you could tell what a deuce your head ails;
I show'd you Down-Hall, did you look for Versailles?
Then take house and farm as John Ballet will let ye,
For better for worse, as I took my dame Betty.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


And now, Sir, a word to the wise is enough;
You'll make very little of all your old stuff;
And to build at your age, by my troth, you grow simple,
Are you young and rich, like the master of Wimple?

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


If you have these whims of apartments and gardens,
From twice fifty acres you'll ne'er see five farthings;
And in your's I shall find the true gentleman's fate,
Ere you finish your house you'll have spent your estate.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.


Now let us touch thumb, and be friends ere we part,
Here, John, is my thumb, and here, Mat, is heart;
To Halstead I speed, and you go back to town;
Thus ends the first part of the ballad of Down.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.

An Ode - Humbly Inscribed To The Queen, On The Glorious Success Of Her Majesty's Arms

When great Augustus govern'd ancient Rome,
And sent his conquering bands to foreign wars,
Abroad when dreaded, and beloved at home,
He saw his fame increasing with his years,
Horace, great bard, (so fate ordain'd) arose,
And, bold as were his countryman in fight,
Snatch'd their fair actions from degrading prose,
And set their battles in eternal light:
High as their trumpets tune his lyre he strung,
And with his prince's arms he moralized his song.

When bright Eliza ruled Britannia's state,
Widely distributing her high commands,
And, boldly wise and fortunately great,
Freed the glad nations from tyrannic bands,
An equal genius was in Spenser found;
To the high theme he match'd his noble lays;
He travelled England o'er on fairy ground,
In mystic notes to sing his monarch's praise:
Reciting wondrous truths in pleasing dreams
He deck'd Eliza's head with Gloriana's beams.

But, greatest Anna! while thy arms pursue
Paths of renown, and climb ascents of fame,
Which nor Augustus nor Eliza knew,
What poet shall be found to sing thy name?
What numbers shall record, what tongue shall say
Thy wars on land, thy triumphs on the main?
O fairest model of imperial sway!
What equal pen shall write thy wondrous reign?
Who shall attempts and feats of arms rehearse,
Nor yet by story told, nor parallel'd by verse?

Me all too mean for such a task I weet;
Yet if the sovereign Lady designs to smile
I'll follow Horace with impetuous heat,
And clothe the verse in Spenser's native style:
By these examples rightly taught to sing,
And smit with pleasure of my country's praise,
Stretching the plumes of an uncommon wing,
High as Olympus I my flight will raise,
And latest times shall in my numbers read
Anna's immortal fame and Marlborough's hardy deed.

As the strong eagle in the silent wood,
Mindless of warlike rage and hostile care,
Plays round the rocky cliff or crystal flood,
Till by Jove's high behests call'd out to war,
And charged with thunder of his angry king,
His bosom with the vengeful message glows,
Upward the noble bird directs his wing,
And towering round his master's earth-born foes,
Swift he collects his fatal stock of ire,
Lifts his fierce talon high, and darts the forked fire.

Sedate and calm thus victor Marlborough sate,
Shaded with laurels, in his native land,
Till Anna calls him from his soft retreat,
And gives her second thunder to his hand:
Then leaving sweet repose and gentle ease,
With ardent speed he seeks the distant foe,
Marching o'er hills and vales, o'er rocks and seas,
He meditates and strikes the wondrous blow.
Our thought flies slower than our General's fame;
Grasps he the bolt? (we ask) when he has hurl'd the flame.

When fierce Bavar on Judoign's spacious plain
Did from afar the British chief behold,
Betwixt despair, and rage, and hope, and pain,
Something within his warring bosom roll'd:
He views that favourite of indulgent Fame,
Whom whilom he had met on Ister's shore;
Too well, alas! the man he knows the same
Whose prowess there repell'd the Boyan power,
And sent them trembling thro' the frighted lands,
Swift as the whirlwind drives Arabia's scatter'd sands.

His former losses he forgets to grieve;
Absolves his fate with a kinder ray
It now would shine, and only give him leave
To balance the account of Blenheim's day.
So the fell lion, in the lonely glade,
His side still smarting with the hunter's spear,
Though deeply wounded, no way yet dismay'd,
Roars terrible, and meditates new war,
In sullen fury traverses the plain
To find the venturous foe, and battle him again.

Misguided prince, no longer urge thy fate,
Nor tempt the hero to unequal war;
Famed in misfortune, and in ruin great,
Confess the force of Malbro's stronger star.
Those laurel groves (the merits of thy youth)
Which thou from Mahomet didst greatly gain,
While, bold assertor of resistless truth,
Thy sword did godlike Liberty maintain.
Must from thy brow their falling honours shed,
And their transplanted wreaths must deck a worthier head.

Yet cease the ways of Providence to blame,
And human faults with human grief confess;
'Tis thou art changed, while Heaven is still the same;
From thy ill counsels date thy ill success:
Impartial Justice holds her equal scales,
Till stronger virtue does the weight incline;
If over thee thy glorious foe prevails,
He now defends the cause that once was thine.
Righteous the war, the champion shall subdue,
For Jove's great handmaid, Power, must Jove's decrees pursue.

Hark! the dire trumpets sound their shrill alarms!
Auverqueque, branch'd from the renown'd Nassaus,
Hoary in war, and bent beneath his arms,
His glorious sword with dauntless courage draws.
When anxious Britain mourn'd her parting lord,
And all of William that was mortal died,
The faithful hero had received his sword
From his expiring master's much-loved side:
Oft from its fatal ire has Louis flown,
Where'er great William led or Maese and Sambre run.

But brandish'd high, in an ill-omen'd hour
To thee, proud Gaul, behold thy justest fear,
The master-sword, disposer of thy power:
'Tis that which Caesar gave the British peer.
He took the gift: Nor ever will I sheath
This steel (so Anna's high behests ordain)
The General said, unless by glorious death
Absolved, till conquest has confirm'd your reign.
Returns like these our mistress bids us make,
When from a foreign prince a gift her Britons take.

And now fierce Gallia rushes on her foes,
Her force augmented by the Boyan bands;
So Volga's stream, increased by mountain snows,
Rolls with new fury down through Russia's lands.
Like two great rocks against the raging tide
(If Virtue's force with Nature's we compare)
Unmoved the two united chiefs abide,
Sustain the impulse, and receive the war:
Round their firm sides in vain the tempest beats,
And still the foaming wave with lessen'd power retreats.

The rage dispersed, the glorious pair advance,
With mingled anger and collected might,
To turn the war, and tell aggressing France
How Britain's sons and Britain's friends can fight.
On conquest fix'd, and covetous of fame,
Behold them rushing through the Gallic host;
Through standing corn so runs the sudden flame,
Or eastern winds along Sicilia's coast.
They deal their terrors to the adverse nation:
Pale Death attends their arms, and ghastly Desolation.

But while with fiercest ire Bellona glows,
And Europe rather hopes than fears her fate,
While Britain presses her afflicted foes,
What horror damps the strong and quells the great?
Whence look the soldier's cheeks dismay'd and pale?
Erst ever dreadful, know they now to dread?
The hostile troops, I ween, almost prevail,
And the pursuers only not recede.
Alas! their lessen'd rage proclaims their grief!
For anxious, lo! they crowd around their falling chief.

I thank thee, Fate, exclaims the fierce Bavar;
Let Boya's trumpet graceful Io's sound;
I saw him fall, their thunderbolt of war; -
Ever to Vengeance sacred be the ground -
Vain wish! short joy! the hero mounts again
In greater glory, and with fuller light;
The evening star so falls into the main,
To rise at morn more prevalently bright.
He rises safe, but near, too near his side,
A good man's grievous loss, a faithful servant died.

Propitious Mars! the battle is regain'd';
The foe with lessen'd wrath disputes the field:
The Briton fights, by favoring gods sustain'd;
Freedom must live, and lawless power must yield.
Vain now the tales which fabling poets tell,
That wavering Conquest still desires to rove!
In Marlbro's camp the goddess knows to dwell;
Long as the hero's life remains her love.
Again France flies, again the Duke pursues,
And on Ramilia's plains he Blenheim's fame renews.

Great thanks, O Captain, great in arms! receive
From thy triumphant country's public voice;
Thy country greater thanks can only give
To Anne, to her who made those arms her choice.
Recording Schellenberg's and Blenheim's toils,
We dreaded lest thou should'st those toils repeat:
We view'd the palace charged with Gallic spoils,
And in those spoils we thought thy praise complete.
For never Greek we deem'd, nor Roman knight,
In characters like these did e'er his acts indite.

Yet, mindless still of ease, thy virtue flies
A pitch to old and modern times unknown:
Those goodly deeds, which we so highly prize,
Imperfect seem, great Chief, to thee alone.
Those heights, where William's virtue might have staid,
And on the subject world look'd safely down,
By Marlbro's pass'd, the props and steps were made
Sublimer yet to raise his Queen's renown:
Still gaining more, still slighting what he gain'd,
Nought done the hero deem'd while ought undone remain'd.

When swift-wing'd Rumour told the mighty Gaul
How lessen'd from the field Bavar was fled,
He wept the swiftness of the champion's fall,
And thus the royal treaty-breaker said:
And lives he yet, the great, the lost Bavar,
Ruin to Gallia in the name of friend?
Tell me how far has Fortune been severe?
Has the foe's glory of our grief an end?
Remains there, of the fifty thousand lost,
To save our threaten'd realm, or guard our shatter'd coast?

To the close rock the frighted raven flies,
Soon as the rising eagle cuts the air
The shaggy wolf unseen and trembling lies,
When the hoarse roar proclaims the lion near:
Ill starr'd did we our forts and lines forsake,
To dare our British foes to open fight:
Our conquest we by stategem should make:
'Tis ours by craft and by surprise to gain:
'Tis theirs, to meet in arms, and battle in the plain.

The ancient father of this hostile brood,
Their boasted Brute, undaunted snatch'd his gods
From burning Troy, and Xanthus red with blood,
And fix'd on silver Thames his dire abodes:
And this be Trynovante, he said, the seat
By Heaven ordain'd, my sons, your lasting place:
Superior here to all the bolts of fate
Live, mindful of the author of your race,
Whom neither Greece, nor war, nor want, nor flame,
Nor great Pelides' arm, nor Juno's rage, could tame.

Their Tudors hence, and Stuart's offspring flow:
Hence Edward, dreadful with his sable shield,
Talbot to Gallia's power eternal foe,
And Seymour, famed in council or in field:
Hence Nevel, great to settle or dethrone,
And Drake, and Ca'ndish, terrors of the sea:
Hence Butler's sons, o'er land and ocean known,
Herbert's and Churchill's warring progeny:
Hence the long roll which Gallia should conceal:
For, oh! who, vanquish'd, loves the victor's fame to tell?

Envy'd Britannia, sturdy as the oak,
Which on her mountain top she proudly bears,
Eludes the axe, and sproutes against the stroke;
Strong from her wounds, and greater by her wars.
And as those teeth, which Cadmus sow'd in earth,
Produced new youth, and furnish'd fresh supplies;
So with young vigour, and succeeding birth,
Her losses more than recompensed arise;
And every age she with a race is crown'd,
For letters more polite, in battles more renown'd.

Obstinate power, whom nothing can repel;
Not the fierce Saxon, nor the cruel Dane,
Nor deep impression of the Norman steel,
Nor Europe's force amass'd by envious Spain.
Nor France on universal sway intent,
Oft breaking leagues, and oft renewing wars;
Nor (frequent bane of weaken'd government)
Their own intestine feuds and mutual jars;
Those feuds and jars, in which I trusted more,
Than in my troops, and fleets, and all the Gallic power.

To fruitful Rheims, or fair Lutetia's gate,
What tidings shall the messenger convey?
Shall the loud herald our success relate,
Or mitred priest appoint the solemn day?
Alas! my praises they no more must sing;
They to my statue now must bow no more;
Broken, repulsed is their immortal king:
Fall'n, fall'n for ever, is the Gallic power.-
The woman chief is master of the war:
Earth she has freed by arms, and vanquish'd Heaven by prayer.

While thus the ruin'd foe's despair commends
Thy council and thy deed, victorious queen,
What shall thy subjects say, and what thy friends;
How shall thy triumphs in our joy be seen?
Oh! deign to let the eldest of the nine
Recite Britannia great and Gallia free;
Oh! with her sister Sculpture let her join
To raise, great Anne, the monument to thee;
To thee, of all our good the sacred spring;
To thee, our dearest dread; to thee, our softer king.

Let Europe, saved, the column high erect,
Than Trojan's higher, or than Antonine's,
Where sembling art may carve the fair effect
And full achievement of thy great designs,
In a calm heaven and a serener air
Sublime the queen shall on the summit stand,
From danger far, as far removed from fear,
And pointing down to earth her dread command.
All winds, all storms, that threaten human wo
Shall sink beneath her feet, and spread their rage below.

There fleets shall strive, by winds and waters tost,
Till the young Austrian on Iberia's strand,
Great as AEneas on the Latian coast
Shall fix his foot: And this, be this the land,
Great Jove, where I for ever will remain,
(The empire's other hope shall say) and here
Vanquish'd, intomb'd I'll lie, or crown'd I'll reign -
O Virtue, to thy British Mother dear!
Like the famed Trojan suffer and abide:
For Anne is thine, I ween, as Venus was his guide.

There, in eternal characters engraved,
Vigo, and Gibraltar, and Barcelone,
Their force destroy'd, their privileges saved,
Shall Anna's terrors and her mercies own:
Spain, from the usurper Bourbon's arms retrieved,
Shall with new life and grateful joy appear,
Numbering the wonders which that youth achieved
Whom Anna clad in arms and sent to war,
Whom Anna sent to claim Iberia's throne,
And made him more than king in calling him her son.

There Isther, pleased by Blenheim's glorious field,
Rolling, shall bid his eastern waves declare
Germania saved by Britain's ample shield,
And bleeding Gaul afflicted by her spear;
Shall bid them mention Marlbro', on that shore
Leading his islanders renown'd in arms,
Through climes where never British chief before
Or pitch'd his camp, or sounded his alarms;
Shall bid them bless the queen, who made his streams
Glorious as those of Boyne, and safe as those of Thames.

Brabantia, clad with fields, and crown'd with towers,
With decent joy shall her deliverer meet,
Shall own thy arms, great queen, and bless thy powers,
Laying the keys beneath thy subject's feet.
Flandria, by plenty made the home of war,
Shall weep her crime, and bow to Charles restored,
With double vows shall bless thy happy care
In having drawn and having sheathed the sword,
From these their sister provinces shall know
How Anne supports a friend, and how forgives a foe.

Bright swords, and crested helms, and pointed spears,
In artful piles around the work shall lie;
And shields indented deep in ancient wars,
Blazon'd with signs of Gallic heraldry;
And standards with distinguish'd honours bright,
Marks of high power and national command,
Which Valois' sons, and Bourbon's bore in fight,
Or gave to Foix', or Montmorancy's hand;
Great spoils, which Gallia must to Britain yield,
From Cressy's battle saved to grace Ramilia's field.

And, as fine art the spaces may dispose,
The knowing thought and curious eye shall see
Thy emblem, gracious queen, the British rose,
Type of sweet rule and gentle majesty:
The northern thistle, whom no hostile hand
Unhurt too rudely may provoke, I ween;
Hibernia's harp, device of her command,
And parent of her mirth shall there be seen:
Thy vanquish'd lilies, France, decay'd and torn,
Shall with disorder'd pomp the lasting work adorn.

Beneath, great queen, oh! very far beneath,
Next to the ground and on the humble base,
To save herself from darkness and from death,
That muse desires the last, the lowest place;
Who, though unmeet, yet touch'd the trembling string,
For the fair fame of Anne and Albion's land,
Who durst of war and martial fury sing;
And when thy will, and when thy subject's hand,
Had quell'd those wars, and bid that fury cease,
Hangs up her grateful harp to conquest, and to peace.

Henry And Emma. A Poem.

Upon the Model of The Nut-Brown Maid. To Cloe.


Thou, to whose eyes I bend, at whose command
(Though low my voice, though artless be my hand.
I take the sprightly reed, and sing and play,
Careless of what the censuring world may say;
Bright Cloe! object of my constant vow,
Wilt thou a while unbend thy serious brow?
Wilt thou with pleasure hear thy lover's strains,
And with one heavenly smile o'erpay his pains?
No longer shall the Nut-brown Maid be old,
Though since her youth three hundred years have roll'd:
At thy desire she shall again be raised,
And her reviving charms in lasting verse be praised.

No longer man of woman shall complain,
That he may love and not be loved again;
That we in vain the fickle sex pursue,
Who change the constant lover for the new.
Whatever has been writ, whatever said
Henceforth shall in my verse refuted stand,
Be said to winds, or writ upon the sand:
And while my notes to future times proclaim
Unconquer'd love and ever-during flame,
O, fairest of the sex, be thou my muse;
Deign on my work thy influence to diffuse:
Let me partake the blessings I rehearse,
And grant me love, the just reward of verse.

As beauty's potent queen with every grace
That once was Emma's has adorn'd thy face,
And as her son has to my bosom dealt
That constant flame which faithful Henry felt,
O let the story with thy life agree,
Let men once more the bright example see;
What Emma was to him be thou to me:
Nor send me by thy frown from her I love,
Distant and sad, a banish'd man to rove:
But, oh! with pity long entreated crown
My pains and hopes: and when thou say'st that one
Of all mankind thou lovest, oh! think on me alone.

Where beauteous Isis and her husband Thame
With mingled waves for ever flow the same,
In times of yore an ancient baron lived,
Great gifts bestowed, and great respect received.

When dreadful Edward, with successful care
Led his free Britons to the Gallic war,
This Lord had headed his appointed bands,
In firm allegiance to his king's commands,
And (all due honours faithfully discharged)
Had brought back his paternal coat, enlarged
With a new mark, the witness of his toil,
And no inglorious part of foreign spoil.

From the loud camp retired and noisy court,
In honourable days and rural sport
The remnant of his days he safely past,
Nor found they lagg'd too slow nor flew too fast;
He made his wish with his estate comply,
Joyful to live, yet not afraid to die.

One child he had, a daughter, chaste and fair,
His age's comfort, and his fortune's heir:
They call'd her Emma, for the beauteous dame
Who gave the virgin birth had borne the name;
The name th' indulgent father doubly loved,
For in the child the mother's charms improved:
Yet as when little, round his knees she play'd,
He call'd her oft in sport his Nut-brown Maid:
The friends and tenants took the fondling word,
(As still they please who imitate their lord)
Usage confirm'd what fancy had begun;
The mutual terms around the lands were known,
And Emma and the Nut-brown Maid were one.

As with her stature still her charms increased,
Through all the isle her beauty was confess'd.
Oh! what perfections must that virgin share,
Who fairest is esteem'd where all are fair?
From distant shires repair the noble youth,
And find report for once had lessen'd truth.
By wonder first, and then by passion moved,
They came, they saw, they marvell'd, and they loved.
By public praises and by secret sighs,
Each own'd the general power of Emma's eyes.
In tilts and tournaments the valiant strove
By glorious deeds to purchase Emma's love.
In gentle verse the witty told their flame,
And graced their choicest songs with Emma's name.
In vain they combated, in vain they writ,
Useless their strength, and impotent their wit:
Great Venus only must direct the dart,
Which else will never reach the fair one's heart,
Spite of th' attempt of force and soft effects of art:
Great Venus must prefer the happy one;
In Henry's cause her favour must be shown,
And Emma, of mankind, must love but him alone.

While these in public to the castle came
And by their grandeur justified their flame,
More secret ways the careful Henry takes;
His squires, his arms, and equipage forsakes.
In borrow'd name and false attire array'd,
Oft he finds means to see the beauteous maid.

When Emma hunts, in huntsman's habit dress'd,
Henry on foot pursues the bounding beast;
In his right hand his beachen pole he bears,
And grateful at his side his horn he wears.
Still to the glade where she has bent her way
With knowing skill he drives the future prey;
Bids her decline the hill and shun the brake,
And shows the path her steed may safest take;
Directs her spear to fix the glorious wound,
Pleased in his toil, to have her triumphs crown'd,
And blows her praises in no common sound.

A falconer Henry is when Emma hawks,
With her of tarsels and of lures he talks.
Upon his wrist the towering merlin stands,
Practised to rise and stoop at her commands:
And when superior now the bird has flown,
And headlong brought the tumbling quarry down,
With humble reverence he accosts the fair,
And with the honour'd feather decks her hair.
Yet still as from the sportive field she goes,
His downcast eye reveals his inward woes;
And by his look and sorrow is express'd,
A nobler game pursued than bird or beast
A shepherd now along the plain he roves,
And with his jolly pipe delights the groves.
The neighbouring swains around the stranger throng,
Or to admire or emulate his song;
While with soft sorrow he renews his lays,
Nor heedful of their envy nor their praise:
But soon as Emma's eyes adorn the plain,
His notes he raises to a nobler strain.
With dutiful respect and studious fear,
Lest any careless sound offend her ear.

A frantic gypsy now the house he haunts,
And in wild phrases speaks dissembled wants.
With the fond maids in psalmistry he deals:
They tell the secret first which he reveals:
Says who shall wed, and who shall be beguiled;
What groom shall get, and squire maintain, the child;
But when Bright Emma would her fortune know,
A softer look unbends his opening brow:
With trembling awe he gazes on her eye,
And in soft accents forms the kind reply.
That she shall prove as fortunate fair,
And Hymen's choicest gifts are all reserved for her.

Now oft had Henry changed his sly disguise,
Unmark'd by all but beauteous Emma's eyes;
Oft had found means alone to see the dame,
And at her feet to breathe his amorous flame;
And oft the pangs of absence to remove
By letters, soft interpreters of love.
Till time and industry (the mighty wo
That bring our wishes nearer to our view)
Made him perceive that the inclining fair
Received his vows with no reluctant ear;
That Venus had confirm'd her equal reign,
And dealt to Emma's heart a share of Henry's pain.

While Cupid smiled, by kind occasion bless'd,
And with the secret kept the love increased,
The amorous youth frequents the silent groves,
And much he meditates, for much he loves.
He loves, 'tis true, and is beloved again;
Great are his joys, but will they long remain?
Emma with smiles receives his present flame,
But, smiling, will she ever be the same?
Beautiful looks are ruled by fickle minds,
And summer seas are turn'd by sudden winds:
Another love may gain her easy youth;
Time changes thought, and flattery conquers truth.

O impotent estate of human life!
Where hope and fear maintain eternal strife;
Where fleeting joy does lasting doubt inspire,
And most we question what we most desire.
Amongst thy various gifts, great heaven, bestow
Our cup of life unmix'd; forbear to throw
Bitter ingredients in, nor pall the draught
With nauseous grief; for our ill-judging thought
Hardly enjoys the pleasurable taste,
Or deems it not sincere, or fears it cannot last.

With wishes raised, with jealousies oppress'd,
(Alternate tyrants of the human breast)
By one great trial he resolves to prove
The faith of woman and the force of love:
If scanning Emma's virtues, he may find
That beauteous frame enclose a steady mind,
He'll fix his hope of future joy secure,
And live a slave to Hymen's happy power;
But if the fair one, as he fears, is frail,
If poised aright in reason's equal scale,
Light fly her merits, and her faults prevail.
His mind he vows to free from amorous care,
The latent mischief from his heart to tear,
Resume his azure arms, and shine again in war.

South of the castle, in a verdant glade,
A spreading beech extends her friendly shade;
Here oft the nymph his breathing vows had heard:
Here oft her silence had her heart declared.
An active spring awaked her infant buds,
And genial life inform'd the verdant woods,
Henry in knots involving Emma's name,
Had half express'd and half conceal'd his flame
Upon this tree; and as the tender mark
Grew with the year, and, widen'd with the bark,
Venus had heard the virgin's soft address,
That, as the wound, the passion might increase.
As potent Nature shed her kindly showers,
And deck'd the various mead with opening flowers,
Upon this tree the nymph's obliging care
Had left a frequent wreath for Henry's hair,
Which as with gay delight the lover found,
Pleased with his conquest, with her present crown'd,
Glorious through all the plains he oft had gone,
And to each swain the mystic honour shown,
The gift still praised, the giver still unknown.

His secret note the troubled Henry writes;
To the known tree the lovely maid invites:
Imperfect words and dubious terms express
That unforeseen mischance disturb'd his peace
That he must something to her ear commend,
On which her conduct and his life depend.

Soon as the fair one had the note received,
The remnant of the day alone she grieved;
For different this from every former note
Which Venus dictated and Henry wrote;
Which told her all his future hopes were laid
On the dear bosom of his Nut-brown Maid;
Which always bless'd her eyes and own'd her power,
And bid her oft adieu, yet added more.

Now night advanced: the house in sleep were laid,
The nurse experienced, and the prying maid;
And, last, that sprite which does incessant haunt
The lover's steps, the ancient maiden aunt,
To her dear Henry Emma wings her way,
With quicken'd pace repairing forced delay:
For love fantastic power that is afraid
To stir abroad till watchfulness be laid,
Undaunted then o'er cliffs and valleys strays,
And leads his votaries safe through pathless ways.
Not Argus with his hundred eyes shall find
Where Cupid goes, though he poor guide is blind.

The maiden first arriving, sent her eye
To ask if yet its chief delight were nigh:
With fear and with desire, with joy and pain
She sees, and runs to meet him on the plain;
But, oh! his steps proclaim no lover's haste;
On the low ground his fix'd regards are cast;
His artful bosom heaves dissembled sighs,
And tears suborn'd fall copious from his eyes.

With ease, alas! we credit what we love;
His painted grief does real sorrow move
In the afflicted fair: adown her cheek
Trickling the genuine tears their current break!
Attentive stood the mountain nymph; the man
Broke silence first; the tale alternate ran.


Henry.
Sincere, O tell me, hast thou felt a pain,
Emma, beyond what woman knows to feign?
Has thy uncertain bosom ever strove
With the first tumults of a real love?
Hast thou now dreaded and now bless'd his sway,
By turns averse and joyful to obey,
Thy virgin softness hast thou e'er bewail'd,
As reason yielded and as love prevail'd?
And wept the potent god's resistless dart,
His killing pleasure, his ecstatic smart,
And heavenly poison thrilling through thy heart?
If so, with pity view my wretched state,
At least deplore, and then forget my fate:
To some more happy knight reserve thy charms,
By Fortune favour'd and successful arms;
And only as the sun's revolving ray
Brings back each year this melancholy day,
Permit one sigh, and set apart one tear
To an abandon'd exile's endless care,
For me, alas! outcast of human race,
Love's anger only waits and dire disgrace;
For, lo! these hands in murder are imbrued,
These trembling feet by Justice are pursued;
Fate calls aloud and hastens my away;
A shameful death attends my longer stay;
And I this night must fly from thee and love,
Condemn'd in lonely woods a banish'd man to rove.


Emma.
What is our bliss that changeth with the moon,
And day of life that darkens ere 'tis noon?
What is true passion, if unbless'd it dies?
And where is Emma's joy if Henry flies?
If love, alas! be pain, the pain I bear
No thought can figure, and no tongue declare.
Ne'er faithful woman felt, nor false one feign'd,
The flames which long have in my bosom reign'd:
The god of love himself inhabits there,
With all his rage, and dread, and grief, and care,
His complement of stores and total war.

O! cease then coldly to suspect my love,
And let my deed, at least my faith, approve.
Alas! no youth shall my endearments share,
Nor day nor night shall interrupt my care;
No future story shall with truth upbraid
The cold indifference of the Nut-brown Maid;
Nor to hard banishment shall Henry run
While careless Emma sleeps on beds of down.
View me resolved where'er thou lead'st to go,
Friend to thy pain, and partner of thy wo;
For I attest fair Venus and her son,
That I of all mankind will love but thee alone.


Henry.
Let prudence yet obstruct thy venturous way,
And take good heed what men will think and say;
That beauteous Emma vagrant courses took,
Her father's house and civil life forsook;
That full of youthful blood, and fond of man,
She to the woodland with an exile ran.
Reflect, that lessen'd fame is ne'er regain'd,
And virgin-honour once, is always stain'd:
Timely advised, the coming evil shun;
Better not do the deed than weep it done:
No penance can absolve our guilty fame,
Nor tears, that wash out sin, can wash out shame:
Then fly the sad effects of desperate love,
And leave a banish'd man through lonely woods to rove.


Emma.
Let Emma's hapless case be falsely told
By the rash young or the ill-natured old;
Let every tongue its various censures choose,
Absolve with coldness, or with spite accuse;
Fair Truth at last her radiant beams will raise,
And Malice vanquish'd heightens Virtue's praise.
Let then thy favour but indulge my flight,
O! let my presence make thy travels light,
And potent Venus shall exalt my name
Above the rumours of censorious Fame;
Nor from that busy demon's restless power
Will ever Emma other grace implore,
Than that this truth should to the world be known,
That I of all mankind have loved but thee alone.


Henry.
But canst thou wield the sword and bend the bow?
With active force repel the sturdy foe?
When the loud tumult speaks the battle nigh,
And winged deaths in whistling arrows fly,
Wilt thou, though wounded, yet undaunted stay,
Perform thy part, and share the dangerous day?
Then, as thy strength decays, thy heart will fail,
Thy limbs all trembling, and thy cheeks all pale;
With fruitless sorrow thou, inglorious Maid,
Wilt weep thy safety by thy love betray'd;
Then to thy friend, by foes o'ercharged, deny
Thy little useless aid, and coward fly;
Then wilt thou curse the chance that made thee love
A banish'd man, condemn'd in lonely woods to rove.


Emma.
With fatal certainty Thalestris knew
To send the arrow from the twanging yew
And, great in arms, and foremost in the war,
Bonduca brandish'd high the British spear.
Could thirst of vengeance and desire of fame
Excite the female breast with martial flame?
And shall not Love's diviner power inspire
More hardy virtue and more generous fire?

Near thee, mistrust not, constant I'll abide,
And fall or vanquish, fighting by thy side.
Though my inferior strength may not allow
That I should bear or draw the warrior bow,
With ready hand I will the shaft supply,
And joy to see thy victor arrows fly.
Touch'd in the battle by the hostile reed,
Shouldst thou, (but Heaven avert it!) shouldst thou blend,
To stop the wounds my finest lawn I'd tear,
Wash them with tears, and wipe them with my hair;
Blest when my dangers and my toils have shown,
That I, of all mankind, could love but thee alone.


Henry.
But canst thou, tender Maid, canst thou sustain
Afflictive want, or hunger's pressing pain?
Those limbs, in lawn and softest silk array'd,
From sunbeams guarded, and of winds afraid,
Can they bear angry Jove? can they resist
The parching Dogstar and the bleak North-east?
When, chill'd by adverse snows and beating rain,
We tread with weary steps the longsome plain;
When with hard toil we seek our evening food,
Berries and acorns, from the neighbouring wood,
And find among the cliffs no other house
But the thin covert of some gather'd boughs,
Wilt thou not then reluctant send thine eye
Around the dreary waste, and weeping try,
(Though then, alas! that trial be too late)
To find thy father's hospitable gate,
And seats where Ease and Plenty brooding sate?
Those seats whence, long excluded, thou must mourn;
That gate for ever barr'd to thy return;
And hate baish'd man, condemn'd in woods to rove?


Emma.
Thy rise of fortune did I only wed,
From its decline determined to recede;
Did I but purpose to embark with thee
On the smooth surface of a summer's sea,
While gentle zephyrs play in prosperous gales,
And Fortune's favour rills the swelling sails.
But would forsake the ship and make the shore,
When the winds whistle and the tempests roar?
No, Henry, no: one sacred oath has tied
Our loves; one destiny our life shall guide
Nor wild nor deep our common way divide.

When from the cave thou risest with the day
To beat the woods and rouse the bounding prey,
The cave with moss and branches I'll adorn,
And cheerful sit to wait my lord's return.
And when thou frequent bring'st the smitten deer,
(For seldom, archers say, thy arrows err)
I'll fetch quick fuel from the neighbouring wood,
And strike the sparkling flint, and dress the food:
With humble duty and officious haste
I'll cull the furthest mead for thy repast:
The choicest herbs I to thy board will bring,
And draw thy water from the freshest spring
And when, at night, with weary toil opprest,
Soft slumbers thou enjoy'st and wholesome rest,
Watchful I'll guard thee, and with midnight prayer
Weary the gods to keep thee in their care;
And joyous ask at morn's returning ray
If thou hast health, and I may bless the day.
My thoughts shall fix, my latest wish depend
On thee, guide, guardian, kinsman, father, friend
By all these sacred names be Henry known
To Emma's heart; and, grateful, let him own
That she, of all mankind, could love but him alone.


Henry.
Vainly thou tell'st me what the woman's care
Shall in the wilderness of the wood prepare;
Thou, ere thou goest, unhappiest of thy kind,
Must leave the habit of the sex behind.
No longer shall thy comely tresses break
In flowing ringlets on thy snowy neck,
Or sit behind thy head, an ample round,
In graceful braids, with various ribbands bound;
No longer shall the bodice, aptly laced
From thy full bosom to thy slender waist,
That air and harmony of shape exprest,
Fine by degrees, and beautifully less;
Nor shall thy lower garments artful plait,
From thy fair side dependent to thy feet,
Arm their chaste beauties with a modest pride,
And double every charm they seek to hide.
Th' ambrosial plenty of thy shining hair
Cropt off and lost, scarce lower than thy ear
Shall stand uncouth; a horseman's coast shall hide
Thy taper shape and comeliness of side;
The short trunk-hose shall show thy foot and knee
Licentious, and to common eyesight free;
And with a bolder stride and looser air,
Mingled with men, a man thou must appear.

Nor solitude, nor gentle peace of mind,
Mistaken Maid, shalt thou in forests find:
'Tis long since Cynthia and her train were there,
Or guardian gods made innocence their care:
Vagrants and outlaws shall offend thy view,
For such must be my friends; a hideous crew,
By adverse fortune mix'd in social ill,
Train'd to assault, and disciplined to kill;
Their common loves a lewd abandon'd pack,
The beadle's lash still flagrant on their back;
By sloth corrupted, by disorder fed,
Made bold by want, and prostitute for bread:
With such must Emma hunt the tedious day,
Assist their violence an divide their prey;
With such she must return at setting light,
Though not partaker, witness of their night.
Thy ear, inured to charitable sounds
And pitying love, must feel the hateful wounds
Of jest obscene and vulgar ribaldry,
The ill-bred question and the lewd reply;
Brought by long habitude from bad to worse,
Must hear the frequent oath, the direful curse,
That latest weapon of the wretches' war,
And blasphemy, sad comrade of despair.

Now, Emma, now the last reflection make,
What thou wouldst follow, what thou must forsake:
By out ill-omen'd stars and adverse heaven
No middle object to thy choice is given;
Or yield thy virtue to attain thy love,
Or leave a banish'd man, condemn'd in woods to rove.


Emma.
O grief of heart! that our unhappy fates
Force thee to suffer what thy honour hates;
Mix thee amongst the bad, or make thee run
Too near the path which Virtue bids thee shun.
Yet with her Henry still let Emma go;
With him abhor the vice, but share the wo:
And sure my little heart can never err
Amidst the worse if Henry still be there.

Our outward act is prompted from within,
And from the sinner's mind proceeds the sin:
By her own choice free Virtue is approved,
Nor by the force of outward objects moved.
Who has essay'd no danger gains no praise,
In a small isle, amidst the widest seas,
Triumphant Constancy has fix'd her seat;
In vain the Syrens sing, the tempests beat:
Their flattery she rejects, nor fears their threat.

For thee alone these little charms I drest,
Condemn'd them or absolved them by thy test:
In comely figure ranged my jewels shone,
Or negligently placed for thee alone:
For thee again they shall be laid aside;
The woman, Henry, shall put off her pride
I'll mingle with the people's wretched lee:
O line extreme of human infamy!
Wanting the scissors, with these hands I'll tear
(If that obstructs my flight) this load of hair:
Black soot or yellow walnut shall disgrace
This little red and white of Emma's face:
These nails with scratches shall deform my breast,
Lest by my look or colour be exprest
The mark of ought high-born, or ever better drest.
Yet in this commerce, under this disguise,
Let me be grateful still to Henry's eyes;
Lost to the world, let me to him be known;
My fate I can absolve if he shall own
That, leaving all mankind, I love but him alone.


Henry.
O wildest thought of an abandon'd mind:
Name, habit, parents, woman, left behind,
Even honour dubious, thou preferr'st to go
Wild to the woods with me. Said Emma so?
Or did I dream what Emma never said:
O guilty error! and O wretched Maid!
Whose roving fancy would resolve the same
With him who next should tempt her easy fame,
And blow with empty words the susceptible flame.
Now why should doubtful terms thy mind perplex?
Confess thy frailty and avow the sex:
No longer loose desire for constant love
Mistake, but say, 'tis man with whom thou long'st to rove.


Emma.
Are there not poisons, racks, and flames, and swords,
That Emma thus must die by Henry's words;
Yet what could swords or poison, racks, or flame,
But mangle and disjoint this brittle frame!
More fatal Henry's words, they murder Emma's fame.

And fall these sayings from that gentle tongue,
Where civil speech and soft persuasion hung?
Whose artful sweetness and harmonious strain,
Courting my grace, yet courting it in vain,
Call sighs, and tears, and wishes, to its aid,
And, whilst it Henry's glowing flame convey'd,
Still blamed the coldness of the Nut-brown Maid?

Let envious Jealousy and canker'd Spite
Produce my actions to severest light,
And tax my open day or secret might.
Did e'er my tongue speak my unguarded heart
The least inclined to play the wanton's part?
Did e'er my eye one inward thought reveal,
Which angels might not hear and virgins tell!
And hast thou, Henry, in my conduct known
One fault but that which I must ever own
That I, of all mankind, have loved but thee alone?


Henry.
Vainly thou talk'st of loving me alone?
Each man is man, and all of our sex is one;
False are our words, and fickle is our mind;
Nor in Love's ritual can we ever find
Vows made to last, or promises to blind.

By Nature prompted, and for empire made,
Alike by strength or cunning we invade:
When arm'd with rage we march against the foe,
We lift the battle-axe, and draw the bow;
When fired with passion we attack the fair,
Delusive sighs and brittle vows we bear;
Our falsehood and out arms have equal use,
As they our conquest or delight produce.

The foolish heart thou gavest again receive,
The only boon departing Love can give.
To be less wretched be no longer true:
What strives to fly thee why shouldst thou pursue?
Forget the present flame, indulge a new:
Single the loveliest of the amorous youth:
Ask for his vow, but hope not for his truth,
The next man (and the next thou shalt believe)
Will pawn his gods intending to deceive;
Will kneel, implore, persist, o'ercome, and leave.
Hence let thy Cupid aim his arrows right:
Be wise and false, shun trouble, seek delight;
Change thou the first, nor wait thy lover's flight.

Why shouldst thou weep? let Nature judge our case;
I saw thee young and fair; I another saw
Fairer and younger: yielding to the law
Of our all-ruling mother, I pursued
More youth, more beauty. Blest vicissitude!
My active heart still keeps its pristine flame,
The object alter'd, the desire the same.

This younger, fairer, pleads her rightful charms,
With present power compels me to her arms;
And much I fear from my subjected mind,
(If beauty's force to constant love can bind)
That years may roll ere in her turn the maid
Shall weep the fury of my love decay'd,
And weeping follow me, as thou dost now,
With idle clamours of a broken vow.

Nor can the wildness of thy wishes err,
So wide to hope that thou may'st live with her!
Love, well thou know'st, no partnership allows;
Cupid averse, rejects divided vows:
Then from thy foolish heart, vain maid, remove
A useless sorrow and an ill-starr'd love,
And leave me, with the fair, at large in woods to rove.


Emma.
Are we in life through one great error led?
Is each man perjured, and each nymph betray'd?
Of the superior sex art thou the worst?
Am I of mine the most completely cursed?
Yet let me go with thee, and going prove,
From what I will endure, how much I love.

This potent beauty, this triumphant fair,
This unhappy object of our different care,
Her let me follow; her let me attend,
A servant: (she may scorn the name of friend)
What she demands incessant I'll prepare;
I'll weave her garlands, and I'll plait her hair;
My busy diligence shall deck her board,
(For there at least I may approach my lord)
And when her Henry's softer hours advice
His servant's absence, with dejected eyes
Far I'll recede, and sighs forbid to rise.

Yet, when increasing grief brings slow disease
And ebbing life, on terms severe as these,
Will have its little lamp no longer fed;
When Henry's mistress shows him Emma dead
Rescue my poor remains from vile neglect:
With virgin honours let my hearse be deck'd
And decent emblem; and, at least, persuade
This happy nymph that Emma may be laid
Where thou, dear author of my death, where she
With frequent eye my sepulchre may see.
The nymph, amidst her joys, may haply breathe
One pious sigh, reflecting on my death,
And the sad fate which she may one day prove,
Who hopes from Henry's vows eternal love.
And thou forsworn, thou cruel, as thou art,
If Emma's image ever touch'd thy heart,
Thou sure must give one thought, and drop one tear
To her whom love abandon'd to despair;
To her who dying on the wounded stone,
Bid it in lasting characters be known,
That of mankind she loved but thee alone.


Henry.
Hear, solemn Jove, and, conscious Venus, hear;
And thou, bright maid, believe me whilst I swear;
No time, no charge, no future flame, shall move
The well placed basis of my lasting love.
O powerful Virtue! O victorious fair!
At least excuse a trial too severe;
Receive the triumph, and forget the war.

No banish'd man, condemn'd in woods to rove,
Entreats thy pardon, and implores thy love:
No perjured knight desires to quit thy arms,
Fairest collection of thy sex's charms,
Crown of my love, and honour of my youth;
Henry, thy Henry, with eternal truth,
As thou may'st wish, shall all his life employ,
And found his glory in his Emma's joy.

In me behold the potent Edgar's heir,
Illustrious earl: him terrible in war,
Let Loyre confess, for she has felt his sword,
And trembling fled before the British lord.
Him great in peace and wealth fair Deva knows,
For she amidst his spacious meadows flows,
Inclines her urn upon his fatten'd lands,
And sees his numerous herds imprint her sands.

And thou, my fair, my dove, shalt raise thy thought
To greatness next to empire; shalt be brought
With solemn pomp to my paternal seat,
Where peace and plenty on thy word shall wait:
Music and song shall wake the marriage day,
And while the priests accuse the bride's delay,
Myrtles and roses shall obstruct her way.

Friendship shall still thy evening feasts adorn,
And blooming Peace shall ever bless thy morn,
Succeeding years their happy race shall run,
And Age unheeded by delight come on,
While yet superior love shall mock his power;
And when old Time shall turn the fated hour,
Which only can our well-tied knot unfold,
What rests of both one sepulchre shall hold.

Hence, then, for ever, from my Emma's breast
(That heaven of softness and that seat of rest)
Ye doubts and tears, and all that know to move
Tormenting grief, and all that trouble love;
Scatter'd by winds recede, and wild in forests rove.


Emma.
O day, the fairest sure that ever rose!
Period and end of anxious Emma's woes!
Sire of her joy, and source of her delight,
O! wing'd with pleasure take thy happy flight,
And give each future morn a tincture of thy white.
Yet tell thy votary, potent queen of love,
Henry, my Henry, will he never rove?
Will he be ever kind, and just, and good?
And is there yet no mistress in the wood?
None, none there is: the thought was rash and vain,
A false idea, and a fancied pain,
Doubt shall for ever quit my strengthen'd heart,
And anxious Jealousy's corroding smart;
Nor other inmate shall inhabit there,
But soft Belief, young Joy, and pleasing Care.

Hence let the tides of Plenty ebb and flow,
And Fortune's various gale unheeded blow.
If at my feet the suppliant goddess stands,
And sheds her treasure with unwearied hands,
Her present favour cautious I'll embrace,
And not unthankful use the proffer'd grace;
If she reclaims the temporary boon,
And tries her pinions, fluttering to be gone,
Secure of mind I'll obviate her intent,
And unconcern'd return the goods she lent,
Nor happiness can I, not misery, feel,
From any turn of her fantastic wheel:
Friendship's great laws and love's superior powers,
Must mark the colour of my future hours.
From the events which thy commands create
I must my blessings or my sorrows date,
And Henry's will must dictate Emma's fate.

Yet, while with close delight and inward pride
(Which from the world my careful soul shall hide)
I see thee, lord and end of my desire,
Exalted high as virtue can require,
With power invested, and with pleasure cheer'd,
Sought by the good, by the oppressor fear'd,
Loaded and bless'd with all the affluent store
Which human vows at smoking shrines implore.
Grateful and humble grant me to employ
My life subservient only to thy joy,
And at my death to bless thy kindness, shown
To her who, of mankind, could love but thee alone.

While thus the constant pair alternate said,
Joyful above them and around them play'd
Angels and sportive loves, a numerous crowd:
Smiling they clapp'd their wings, and low they bow'd:
They tumbled all their little quivers o'er,
To choose propitious shafts a precious store,
That when their god should take his future darts,
To strike, (however rarely) constant hearts,
His happy skill might proper arms employ,
All tipt with pleasure, and all wing'd with joy;
And those, they vow'd, whose lives should imitate
These lovers' constancy, should share their fate.

The queen of beauty stopp'd her bridled doves,
Approved the little labour of the loves:
Was proud and pleased the mutual vow to hear,
And to the triumph call'd the god of war:
Soon as she calls, the god is always near.

Now Mars, she said, let Fame exalt her voice,
Nor let thy conquests only be her choice,
But when she sings, great Edward from the field
Return'd, the hostile spear and captive shield
In Concord's temple hung, and Gallia taught to yield.
And when, as prudent Saturn shall complete
The years design'd to perfect Britain's state,
The swift-wing'd power shall take her trump again,
To sing her favourite Anna's wondrous reign,
To recollect unwearied Malbro's toils,
Old Rufus' Hall unequal to his spoils,
The British soldier from his high command
Glorious, and Gaul thrice vanquish'd by his hand.
Let her at least perform what I desire,
With second breath the vocal brass inspire,
And tell the nations in no vulgar strain,
What wars I manage, and what wreaths I gain,
And when thy tumults and thy fights are past,
And when thy laurels at my feet are cast;
Faithful may'st thou, like British Henry prove,
And Emma-like let me return thy love.

Renown'd for truth let all thy sons appear,
And constant beauty shall reward their care.

Mars smiled, and bow'd: the Cyprian deity
Turn'd to the glorious ruler of the sky;
And thou, she smiling said, great god of days
And verse, behold my deed and sing my praise;
As on the British earth, my favourite isle,
Thy gentle rays and kindest influence smile,
Through all her laughing fields and verdant groves
Proclaim with joy these memorable loves:
From every annual course let one great day
To celebrate sports and floral play
Be set aside; and in the softest lays
Of thy poetic sons, be solemn praise
And everlasting marks of honour paid
To the true lover and the Nut-brown Maid.

Solomon On The Vanity Of The World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Power. Book Iii.

The Argument


Solomon considers man through the several stages and conditions of life, and concludes, in general, that we are all miserable. He reflects more particularly upon the trouble and uncertainty of greatness and power; gives some instances thereof from Adam down to himself; and still concludes that All Is Vanity. He reasons again upon life, death, and a future being; finds human wisdom too imperfect to resolve his doubts; has recourse to religion; is informed by an angel what shall happen to himself, his family, and his kingdom, till the redemption of Israel; and, upon the whole, resolves to submit his inquiries and anxieties to the will of his Creator.


Come then, my soul: I call thee by that name,
Thou busy thing, from whence I know I am;
For, knowing that I am, I know thou art,
Since that must needs exist which can impart:
But how thou camest to be, or whence thy spring,
For various of thee priests and poets sing.

Hearest thou submissive, but a lowly birth,
Some secret particles of finer earth,
A plain effect which Nature must beget,
As motion orders, and as atoms meet,
Companion of the body's good or ill,
From force of instinct more than choice of will,
Conscious of fear or valour, joy or pain,
As the wild courses of the blood ordain;
Who, as degrees of heat and cold prevail,
In youth dost flourish, and with age shalt fail,
Till, mingled with thy partner's latest breath,
Thou fliest, dissolved in air and lost in death.

Or, if thy great existence would aspire
To causes more sublime, of heavenly fire
Wert thou a spark struck off, a separate ray,
Ordain'd to mingle with terrestrial clay,
With it condemn'd for certain years to dwell,
To grieve its frailties, and its pains to feel,
To teach it good and ill, disgrace or fame,
Pale it with rage, or redden it with shame,
To guide its actions with informing care,
In peace to judge, to conquer in the war;
Render it agile, witty, valiant, sage,
As fits the various course of human age,
Till, as the earthly part decays and falls,
The captive breaks her prison's mouldering walls,
Hovers awhile upon the sad remains,
Which now the pile or sepulchre contains,
And thence, with liberty unbounded, flies,
Impatient to regain her native skies?

Whate'er thou art, where'er ordain'd to go,
(Points which we rather may dispute than know)
Come on, thou little inmate of this breast,
Which for thy sake from passions'l divest
For these, thou say'st, raise all the stormy strife,
Which hinder thy repose, and trouble life;
Be the fair level of thy actions laid
As temperance wills and prudence may persuade
By thy affections undisturb'd and clear,
Guided to what may great or good appear,
And try if life be worth the liver's care.

Amass'd in man, there justly is beheld
What through th whole creation has excell'd,
The angel's forecast and intelligence:
Say, from these glorious seeds what harvest flows?
Recount our blessings, and compare our woes:
In its true light let clearest reason see
The man dragg'd out to act, and forced to be;
Helpless and naked, on a woman's knees,
To be exposed or rear'd as she may please,
Feel her neglect, and pine from her disease:
His tender eye by too direct a ray
Wounded, and flying from unpractised day;
His heart assaulted by invading air,
And beating fervent to the vital war;
To his young sense how various forms appear,
That strike this wonder, and excite his fear;
By his distortions he reveals his pains;
He by his tears and by his sighs complains,
Till time and use assist the infant wretch,
By broken words, and rudiments of speech,
His wants in plainer characters to show,
And paint more perfect figures of his wo,
Condemn'd to sacrifice his childish years
To babbling ignorance, and to empty fears;
To pass the riper period of his age,
Acting his part upon a crowded stage;
To lasting toils exposed, and endless cares,
To open dangers, and to secret snares;
To malice which the vengeful foe intends,
And the more dangerous love of seeming friends:
His deeds examined by the people's will.
Prone to forget the good, and blame the ill;
Or, sadly censured in their cursed debate,
Who, in the scorner's or the judge's seat
Dare to condemn the virtue which they hate:
Or would he rather leave this frantic scene,
And trees and beasts prefer to courts and men,
In the remotest wood and lonely grot
Certain to meet that worst of evils, thought,
Different ideas to his memory brought,
Some intricate, as are the pathless woods,
Impetuous some, as the descending floods;
With anxious doubts, with raging passions torn,
No sweet companion near with whom to mourn,
He hears the echoing rock return his sighs,
And from himself the frighted hermit flies.

Thus, through what path soe'er of life we rove,
Rage companies our hate, and grief our love;
Vex'd with the present moment's heavy gloom,
Why seek we brightness from the years to come?
Disturb'd and broken, like a sick man's sleep,
Our troubled thoughts to distant prospects leap,
Desirous still what flies us to o'ertake;
For hope is but the dream of those that wake:
But looking back we see the dreadful train
Of woes, anew, which, were we to sustain,
We should refuse to tread the path again:
Still adding grief, still counting from the first,
Judging the latest evil still the worst,
And sadly finding each progressive hour
Heighten their number and augment their power,
Till by one countless sum of woes oppress'd,
Hoary with cares, and ignorant of rest,
We find the vital springs relax'd and worn,
Compell'd our common impotence to mourn:
Thus, through the round of age, to childhood we return;
Reflecting find, that naked, from the womb
We yesterday came forth; that in the tomb
Naked again we must to-morrow lie,
Born to lament, to labour, and to die.

Pass we the ills which each man feels or dreads,
The weight or fall'n or hanging o'er our heads;
The bear, the lion, terrors of the plain,
The sheepfold scatter'd, and the shepherd slain;
The frequent errors of the pathless wood,
The giddy precipice, and the dangerous flood;
The noisome pestilence, that in open war
Terrible, marches through the mid-way air,
And scatters death; the arrow that by night
Cuts the dank mist, and fatal wings its flight;
The billowing snow, and violence of the shower,
That from the hills disperse their dreadful store,
And o'er the vales collected ruin pour;
The worm that gnaws the ripening fruit, sad guest,
Canker or locust, hurtful to infest
The blade; while husks elude the tiller's care,
And eminence of want distinguishes the year.

Pass we the slow disease, and subtile pain
Which our weak frame is destined to sustain;
The cruel stone with congregated war,
Tearing his bloody way; the cold catarrh,
With frequent impulse, and continued strife
Weakening the wasted seeds of irksome life;
The gout's fierce rack, the burning fever's rage,
The sad experience of decay and age,
Herself the sorest ill, while death and ease,
Oft and in vain invoked, or to appease
Or end the grief, with hasty wings recede
From the vex'd patient and the sickly bed.

Nought shall it profit that the charming fair,
Angelic, softest work of Heaven, draws near
To the cold shaking paralytic hand,
Senseless of Beauty's touch, or Love's command,
No longer apt or able to fulfil
The dictates of its feeble master's will.
Nought shall the psaltery and the harp avail,
The pleasing song, or well-repeated tale,
When the quick spirits their warm march forbear,
And numbing coldness has unbraced the ear.

The verdant rising of the flowery hill,
The vale enamell'd, and the crystal rill,
The ocean rolling, and the shelly shore,
Beautiful objects, shall delight no more,
When the lax'd sinews of the weaken'd eye
Day follows night; the clouds return again
After the falling of the latter rain;
But to the aged blind shall ne'er return
Grateful vicissitude; he still must mourn,
The sun, and moon, and every starry light,
Eclipsed to him, and lost in everlasting night.

Behold where Age's wretched victim lies;
See his head trembling, and his half-closed eyes;
Frequent for breath his panting bosom heaves;
To broken sleeps his remnant sense he gives,
And only by his pains awaking finds he lives.

Loosed by devouring Time, the silver cord
Dissever'd lies; unhonour'd from the board
The crystal urn, when broken, is thrown by,
And apter utensils their place supply.
These things and thou must share one equal lot;
Die and be lost, corrupt and be forgot;
While still another and another race
Shall now supply and now give up the place.
From earth all came, to earth must all return,
Frail as the cord, and brittle as the urn.

But the terror of these ills suppress'd,
And view we man with health and vigour bless'd.
Home he returns with the declining sun,
His destined task of labour hardly done;
Goes forth again with the ascending ray,
Again his travail for his bread to pay,
And find the ill sufficient to the day.
Haply at night he does with honour shun
A widow'd daughter, or a dying son;
His neighbour's offspring he to-morrow sees,
And doubly feels his want in their increase:
The next day, and the next, he must attend
His foe triumphant, or his buried friend.
In every act and turn of life he feels
Public calamities, or household ills;
The due reward to just desert refused,
The trust betray'd, the nuptial bed abused:
The judge corrupt, the long-depending cause,
And doubtful issue of misconstrued laws:
The crafty turns of a dishonest state,
And violent will of the wrong-doing great;
The venom'd tongue, injurious to his fame,
Which nor can wisdom shun nor fair advice reclaim.

Esteem we these, my friend, event and chance,
Produced as atoms form their fluttering dance?
Or higher yet their essence may we draw
From destined order and eternal law?
Again, my Muse, the cruel doubt repeat?
Spring they, I say, from accident or fate?
Yet such we find they are, as can control
The servile actions of our wavering soul;
Can fright, can alter, or can chain the will;
Their ills all built on life, that fundamental ill.

O fatal search! in which the labouring mind,
Still press'd with weight of wo, still hopes to find
A shadow of delight, a dream of peace,
From years of pain one moment of release;
Hoping, at least, she may herself deceive,
Against experience willing to believe,
Desirous to rejoice, condemn'd to grieve,

Happy the mortal man who now at last
Has through this doleful vale of misery pass'd,
Who to his destined stage has carried on
The tedious load, and laid his burden down;
Whom the cut brass or wounded marble shows
Victor o'er Life, and all her train of woes:
He happier yet, who privileged by Fate
To shorter labour and a lighter weight,
Received but yesterday the gift of breath,
Order'd to-morrow to return to death:
But, O! beyond description happiest he
Who ne'er must roll on life's tumultuous sea;
Exempt, must never force the teeming womb,
Nor see the sun, nor sink into the tomb.

Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn!
And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born.

'Yet in thy turn, thou frowning Preacher, hear;
Are not these general maxims too severe?
Say, cannot power secure its owner's bliss?
Are victors bless'd with fame, or kings with ease?'

I tell thee, life is but one common care,
And man was born to suffer and to fear.

'But is no rank, no station, no degree,
From this contagious taint of sorrow free?'

None, mortal, none: yet in a bolder strain
Let me this melancholy truth maintain:
But hence, ye worldly and profane, retire,
For I adapt my voice and raise my lyre
To notions not by vulgar ear received;
Yet still must covet life, and be deceived;
Your very fear of death shall make you try
To catch the shade of immortality,
Wishing on earth to linger, and to save
Part of its prey from the devouring grave;
To those who may survive ye to bequeath
Something entire, in spite of time and death;
A fancied kind of being to retrieve,
And in a book, or from a building live.
False hope! vain labour! let some ages fly,
The dome shall moulder, and the volume die.
Wretches, still taught! still will ye think it strange
That all the parts of this great fabric change.
Quit their high station and primeval frame,
And lose their shape, their essence and their name?

Reduce the song; our hopes, our joys, are vain;
Our lot is sorrow, and our portion pain.

What pause from wo, what hopes of comfort bring
The name of wise or great, of judge or king?
What is a king? a man condemn'd to bear
The public burden of the nation's care;
Now crown'd, some angry faction to appease,
Now falls a victim to the people's ease;
From the first blooming of his ill-taught youth
Nourish'd flattery, and estranged from truth:
At home surrounded by a servile crowd,
Prompt to abuse, and in detraction loud;
Abroad begirt with men, and swords and spears,
His very state acknowledging his fears;
Marching amidst a thousand guards, he shows
His secret terror of a thousand foes;
In war, however prudent, great, or brave,
To blind events and fickle chance a slave;
Seeking to settle what for ever flies,
Sure of the toil, uncertain of the prize.

But he returns with conquest on his brow,
Brings up the triumph, and absolves the vow:
The captive generals to his car are tied;
The joyful citizens, tumultuous tide,
Echoing his glory, gratify his pride.
What is this triumph? madness, shouts, and noise,
One great collection of the people's voice.
The wretches he brings back, in chains relate
What may to-morrow be the victor's fate.
The spoils and trophies borne before him show
National loss and epidemic wo,
Various distress which he and his may know.
Does he not mourn the valiant thousands slain,
The heroes, once the glory of the plain,
Left in the conflict of the fatal day,
Or the wolf's portion, or the vulture's prey?
Does he not weep the laurel which he wears,
Wet with the soldiers' blood and widows tears?

See where he comes, the darting of the war!
See millions crowding round the gilded car!
In the vast joys of this ecstatic hour,
And full fruition of successful power,
One moment and one thought might let him scan
The various turns of life, and fickle state of man.
Are the dire images of sad distrust,
And popular change, obscured amid the dust
That rises from the victor's rapid wheel?
Can the loud clarion or shrill life repel
The inward cries of Care? can Nature's voice,
Plaintive, be drown'd, or lessen'd in the noise,
Though shouts, as thunder loud, afflict the air,
Stun the birds, now released, and shake the ivory chair?

Yon crowd, (he might reflect) yon joyful crowd,
Pleased with my honours, in my praise loud,
(Should fleeting victory to the vanquish'd go,
Should she depress my arms and raise the foe)
Would for that foe with equal ardour wait,
At the high palace or the crowded gate,
With restless rage would pull my statues down,
And cast the brass anew to his renown.

O impotent desire of worldly sway!
That I who make the triumph of to-day,
May of to-morrow's pomp one part appear,
Ghastly with wounds, and lifeless on the bier!
Then, (vileness of mankind!) then of all these
Whom my dilated eye with labour sees,
Would one, alas! repeat me good or great,
Wash my pale body, or bewail my fate?
Or, march'd I chain'd behind the hostile car,
The victor's pastime, and the sport of war,
Would one, would one his pitying sorrow lend,
Or be so poor to own he was my friend?

Avails it then, O Reason, to be wise?
To see this cruel scene with quicker eyes?
To know with more distinction to complain,
And have superior sense in feeling pain?

Let us resolve, that roll with strictest eye,
Where safe from time distinguish'd actions lie,
And judge if greatness be exempt from pain,
Or pleasure ever may with power remain.
Adam, great type, for whom the world was made,
The fairest blessing to his arms convey'd,
A charming wife; and air, and sea, and land,
And all that move therein, to his command
Render'd obedient: say, my pensive Muse,
What did these golden promises produce?
Scarce tasting life he was of joy bereaved;
One day I think in Paradise he lived,
Destined the next his journey to pursue
Where wounding thorns and cursed thistles grew.
Ere yet he earns his bread, adown his brow,
Inclined to earth, his labouring sweat must flow;
His limbs must ache, with daily toils oppress'd,
Ere long-wish'd night brings necessary rest:
Still viewing with regret his darling Eve,
He for her follies and his own must grieve.
Bewailing still afresh their hapless choice,
His ear oft frighted with the imaged voice,
Of Heaven when first it thundere'd, oft his view,
Aghast, as when the infant lightning flew,
And the stern cherub stopp'd the fatal road,
Arm'd with the flames of an avenging God,
His younger son on the polluted ground,
First fruit of death, lies plaintive of a wound
Given by a brother's hand; his eldest birth
Flies, mark'd by Heaven, a fugitive o'er earth:
Yet why these sorrows heap'd upon the sire,
Becomes nor man nor angel to inquire.

Each age sinn'd on, and guild advanced with time;
The son still added to the father's crime;
Till God arose, and, great in anger, said,
Lo! it repenteth me that man was made.
And from your deep abyss, ye waters, rise!
The frighted angels heard th' Almighty Lord,
And o'er the earth from wrathful vials pour'd
Tempests and storm, obedient to his word.
Meantime his providence to Noah gave
The guard of all that he design'd to save:
Exempt from general doom the patriarch stood,
Contemn'd the waves, and triumph'd o'er the flood.

The winds fall silent and the waves decrease;
The dove brings quiet, and the clive peace;
Yet still his heart does inward sorrow feel,
Which faith alone forbids him to reveal.
If on the backward world his views are cast,
'Tis death diffused, and universal waste.
Present, (sad prospect!) can he ought descry
But (what affects his melancholy eye)
The beauties of the ancient fabric lost,
In chains of craggy hill, or lengths of dreary coast?
While to high heaven his pious breathings turn'd,
Weeping he hoped, and sacrificing mourn'd;
When of God's image only eight he found
Snatch'd from the watery grave, and saved from nations drown'd;
And of three sons, the future hopes of earth,
The seed whence empires must receive their birth,
One he foresees excluded heavenly grace,
And mark'd with curses fatal to his race.

Abraham, potent prince, the friend of God,
Of human ills must bear the destined load,
By blood and battles must his power maintain,
And slay the monarchs ere he rules the plain;
Must deal just portions of a servile life
To a proud handmaid and a peevish wife;
Must with the mother leave the weeping son,
In want to wander and in wilds to groan;
Must take his other child, his age's hope,
To trembling Moriah's melancholy top,
Order'd to drench his knife in filial blood,
Destroy his heir, or disobey his God.

Moses beheld that God; but how beheld
The Deity, in radiant beams conceal'd,
And clouded in a deep abyss of light!
While present too severe for human sight,
Nor staying longer than one swift-wing'd night
The following days, and months, and years, decreed
To fierce encounter, and to toilsome deed:
His youth with wants and hardships must engage,
Plots and rebellions must disturb his age:
Some Corah still arose, some rebel slave,
Prompter to sink the state than he to save,
And Israel did his rage so far provoke,
That what the Godhead wrote the prophet broke.
His voice scarce heard, his dictates scarce believed,
In camps, in arms, in pilgrimage, he lived,
And died obedient to severest law,
Forbid to tread the Promised land he saw.

My father's life was one long line of care,
A scene of danger and a state of war.
The bear's rough gripe and foaming lion's rage,
By various turns his threaten'd youth must fear
Goliath's lifted sword and Saul's emitted spear.
Forlorn he must, and persecuted, fly,
Climb the steep mountain, in the cavern lie,
And often ask, and be refused to die.

For ever from his manly toils are known
The weight of power and anguish of a crown.
What tongue can speak the restless monarch's woes,
When God and Nathan were declared his foes?
When every object his offence reviled,
The husband murder'd and the wife defiled,
The parent's sins impress'd upon the dying child!
What heart can think the grief which he sustain',d
When the King's crime brought vengeance on the land,
And the inexorable prophet's voice
Give famine, plague, or war, and bid him fix his choice?

He died; and, oh! may no reflection shed
Its poisonous venom on the royal dead:
Yet the unwilling truth must be express'd
Which long has labour'd in this pensive breast;
Dying he added to my weight of care;
He made me to his crimes undoubted heir;
Left his unfinish'd murder to his son,
And Joab's blood entail'd on Judah's crown.

Young as I was, I hasted to fulfil
The cruel dictates of my parent's will:
Of his fair deeds a distant view I took,
But turn'd the tube upon his faults to look;
Forgot his youth spent in his country's cause,
His care of right, his reverence to the laws,
But could with joy his years of folly trace,
Broken and old in Bathsheba's embrace
Could follow him where'er he stray'd from good,
And cite his sad example, whilst I trod
Paths open to deceit, and track'd with blood.
With smiles I could betray, with temper kill;
Soon in a brother could a rival view,
Watch all his acts, and all his ways pursue:
In vain for life he to the altar fled;
Ambition and Revenge have certain speed.
Even there, my soul, even there he should have fell,
But that my interest did my rage conceal:
Doubling my crime I promise and deceive,
Purpose to slay, whilst swearing to forgive.
Treaties, persuasions, sighs, and tears, are vain
With a mean lie cursed vengeance I sustain.
Join fraud to force, and policy to power,
Till of the destined fugitive secure,
In solemn state to parricide I rise,
And, as God lives, this day my brother dies.

Be witness to my tears, celestial Muse!
In vain I would forget, in vain excuse,
Fraternal blood by my direction spilt;
In vain on Joab's head transfer the guilt:
The deed was acted by the subject's hand,
The sword was pointed by the King's command:
Mine was the murder; it was mine alone;
Years of contrition must the crime atone:
Nor can my guilty soul expect relief
But from a long sincerity of grief.

With an imperfect hand and trembling heart,
Her love of truth superior to her art,
Already the reflecting Muse has traced
The mournful figures of my actions past,
The pensive goddess has already taught
How vain is hope, and how vexatious thought;
From growing childhood to declining age,
How tedious every step, how gloomy every stage,
This course of vanity almost complete,
Tired in the field of life, I hope retreat
In the still shades of death; for dread, and pain,
And grief, will find their shafts elanced in vain,
And their points broke, retorted from the head,
Safe in the grave, and free among the dead.

Yet tell me, frighted reason! what is death?
Blood only stopp'd, and interrupted breath?
The utmost limit of a narrow span,
And end of motion, which with life began?
As smoke that rises from the kindling fires
Is seen this moment, and the next expires;
As empty clouds by rising winds are lost,
Their fleeting forms scarce sooner found than lost,
So vanishes our state, so pass our days,
So life but opens now, and now decays;
The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh,
To live is scarce distinguish'd from to die.

Cure of the miser's wish and coward's fear,
Death only shows us what we knew was near,
With courage therefore view the pointed hour,
Dread not Death's anger, but expect his power,
Nor Nature's law with fruitless sorrow mourn,
But die, O mortal man! for thou wast born.

Cautious through doubt, by want of courage wise,
To such advice the reasoner still replies.

Yet measuring all the long continued space,
Every successive day's repeated race,
Since Time first started from his pristine goal,
Till he had reach'd that hour wherein my soul
Join'd to my body swell'd the womb, I was
(At least I think so) nothing; must I pass
Again to nothing when this vital breath
Ceasing, consigns me o'er to rest and death?
Must the whole man, amazing thought! return
To the cold marble or contracted urn?
And never shall those particles agree
That were in life this individual he?
But sever'd, must they join the general mass,
Through other forms and shapes ordain'd to pass,
Nor thought nor image kept of what he was?
Does the great word that gave him sense ordain
That life shall never wake that sense again?
And will no power his sinking spirits save
From the dark caves of death, and chambers of the grave?

Each evening I behold the setting sun
With downward speed into the ocean run;
Yet the same light (pass but some fleeting hours)
Exerts his vigour and renews his powers;
Starts the bright race again: his constant flame
Rises and sets, returning still the same.
I mark the various fury of the winds;
These neither seasons guide nor order binds;
They now dilate, and now contract their force;
Various their speed, but endless is their course,
From his first fountain and beginning ooze,
Down to the sea each brook and torrent flows;
Though sundry drops or leave or swell the stream,
The whole still runs, with equal pace the same;
Still other waves supply the rising urns,
And the eternal flood no want of water mourns.

Why then must man obey the sad decree,
Which subjects neither sun, nor wind, nor sea?

A flower that does with opening morn arise,
And flourishing the day at evening dies;
A winged eastern blast, just skimming o'er
The ocean's brow, and sinking on the shore;
A fire, whose flames through crackling stubbles fly;
A meteor shooting from the summer sky;
A bowl adown the bending mountain roll'd;
A bubble breaking, and a fable told;
A noontide shadow, and a midnight dream,
Are emblems which with semblance apt proclaim
Our earthly course; but, O my Soul! so fast
Must life run off, and death for ever last!

This dark opinion sure is too confined,
Else whence this hope and terror of the mind?
Does something still, and somewhere, yet remain,
Reward or punishment, delight or pain?
Say, shall our relics second birth receive?
Sleep we to wake, and only die to live?
When the sad wife has closed her husband's eyes,
And pierced the echoing vault with doleful cries,
Lies the pale corpse not yet entirely dead,
The spirit only from the body fled,
The grosser part of heat and motion void,
To be by fire, or worm, or time, destroy'd;
The soul, immortal substance, to remain
Conscious of joy and capable of pain?
And if her acts have been directed well,
While with her friendly clay she deign'd to dwell,
Shall she with safety reach her pristine seat,
Find her rest endless, and her bliss complete?
And while the buried man we idly mourn,
Do angels joy to see his better half return?
But if she has deform'd this earthly life
With murderous rapine and seditious strife,
Amazed, repulsed, and by those angels driven
From the ethereal seat and blissful heaven,
In everlasting darkness must she lie,
Still more unhappy that she cannot die?
Amid two seas, on one small point of land,
Wearied, uncertain, and amazed, we stand;
On either side our thoughts incessant turn,
Forward we dread, and looking back we mourn,
Losing the present in this dubious haste,
And lost ourselves betwixt the future and the past.

These cruel doubts contending in my breast,
My reason staggering and my hopes oppress'd,
Once more I said, once more I will inquire,
What is this little, agile, pervious fire,
This flattering motion which we call the Mind,
How does she act? and where is she confined?
Have we the power to give her as we please?
Whence then those evils that obstruct our ease?
We happiness pursue: we fly from pain;
Yet the pursuit and yet the flight is vain;
And while poor Nature labours to be bless'd,
By day with pleasure, and by night with rest,
Some stronger power eludes our sickly will,
Dashes our rising hope with certain ill,
And makes us, with reflective trouble, see
That all is destined which we fancy free.

That power superior then which rules our mind,
Is his decree by human prayer inclined?
Will he for sacrifice our sorrows ease!
And can our tears reverse his firm decrees?
Then let religion aid where reason fails,
Throw loads of incense in to turn the scales,
And let the silent sanctuary show,
What from the babbling schools we may not know,
How man may shun or bear his destined part of wo.

What shall amend, or what absolve our fate?
Anxious we hover in a mediate state
Betwixt infinity and nothing; bounds,
Or boundless terms, whose doubtful sense confounds:
Unequal thought, whilst all we apprehend
Is, that our hopes must rise, our sorrows end,
As our Creator deigns to be our friend.

I said, - and instant bade the priests prepare
The ritual sacrifice and solemn prayer.
Select from vulgar herds, with garlands gay,
A hundred bulls ascend the sacred way:
The artful youth proceed to form the choir,
They breathe the flute, or strike the vocal wire.
The maids in comely order next advance,
They beat the timbrel and instruct the dance:
Follows the chosen tribe, from Levi sprung,
Chanting by just return the holy song.
Along the choir in solemn state they pass'd,
- The anxious King came last.
The sacred hymn perform'd, my promised vow
I paid, and, bowing at the altar low.

Father of heaven! I said, and Judge of earth!
Whose word call'd out this universe to birth,
By whose kind power and influencing care
The various creatures move, and live, and are;
But ceasing once that care, withdrawn that power,
They move (alas!) and live, and are no more;
Omniscient Master, omnipresent King,
To thee, to thee my last distress I bring.

Thou that canst still the raging of the seas,
Chain up the winds, and bid the tempests cease,
Redeem my shipwreck'd soul from raging gusts
Of cruel passion and deceitful lusts;
From storms of rage and dangerous rocks of pride,
Let thy strong hand this little vessel guide,
(It was thy hand that made it) through the tide
Impetuous of this life, let thy command
Direct my course, and bring me safe to land.

If, while this wearied flesh draws fleeting breath,
Not satisfied with life, afraid of death,
It haply be thy will that I should know
Glimpse of delight, or pause from anxious wo,
From now, from instant now, great Sire! dispel
The clouds that press my soul; from now reveal
A gracious beam of light; from now inspire
My tongue to sing, my hand to touch the lyre;
My open'd thought to joyous prospects raise,
And for thy mercy let me sing thy praise:
Or, if thy will ordains, I still shall wait
Some new hereafter and a future state,
Permit me strength my weight of wo to bear,
And raise my mind superior to my care.
Let me, howe'er unable to explain
The secret lab'rinths of thy ways to man,
With humble zeal confess thy awful power,
Still weeping hope, and wondering, still adore:
So in my conquest be thy might declared,
And for thy justice be thy name revered.

My prayer scarce ended, a stupendous gloom
Darkens the air; loud thunder shakes the dome:
To the beginning miracle succeed
An awful silence and religious dread.
Sudden breaks forth a more than common day,
The sacred wood, which on the alter lay
Untouch'd, unlighted glows -
Ambrosial odour, such as never flows
From Arab's gum or the Sabaean rose,
Does round the air evolving scents diffuse:
The holy ground is wet with heavenly dews:
Celestial music (such Jessides' lyre,
Such Miriam's timbrel would in vain require)
Strikes to my thought through admiring ear,
With ecstasy too fine, and pleasure hard to bear:
And, lo! what sees my ravish'd eye? what feels
My wondering soul? an opening cloud reveals
A heavenly form embodied and array'd
With robes of light, I heard; the angel said,

Cease, Man, of women born, to hope relief
From daily trouble and continued grief.
Thy hope of joy deliver to the wind:
Suppress thy passions, and prepare thy mind.
Free and familiar with misfortune grow;
Be used to sorrow, and inured to wo.
By weakening toil and hoary age o'ercome,
See thy decrease, and hasting to thy tomb.
Leave to thy children tumult, strife, and war,
Portions of toil, and legacies of care:
Send the successive ills through ages down,
And let each weeping father tell his son
That, deeper struck, and more distinctly grieved,
He must augment the sorrows he received.

The child to whose success thy hope is bound,
Ere thou art scarce interr'd or he is crown'd,
To lust of arbitrary sway inclined,
(That cursed poison to the prince's mind!)
Shall from thy dictates and his duty rove,
And lose his great defence, his people's love:
Ill counsell'd, vanquish'd, fugitive, disgraced,
Shall mourn the fame of Jacob's strength effaced:
Shall sigh the King diminish'd, and the crown
With lessen'd rays descending to his son:
Shall see the wreaths his grandsire knew to reap
By active toil and military sweat,
Rining incline their sickly leaves, and shed
Their falling honours from his giddy head:
By arms or prayer unable to assuage
Domestic horror and intestine rage,
Shall from the victor and the vanquish'd fear,
From Israel's arrow and from Judah's spear:
Shall cast his wearied limbs on Jordan's flood,
By brothers' arms disturb'd, and stain'd with kindred blood.

Hence labouring years shall weep their destined race,
Charged with ill omens, sully'd with disgrace;
Time, by necessity compell'd, shall go
Through scenes of war, and epochas of wo:
The empire lessen',d in a parted stream
Shall lose its course -
Indulge thy tears; the Heathen shall blaspheme;
Judah shall fall, oppress'd by grief and shame,
And men shall from her ruins know her fame.

New Egypts yet and second bonds remain,
A harsher Pharaoh, and a heavier chain.
Again, obedient to a dire command,
Thy captive sons shall leave the promised land;
Their name more low, their servitude more vile,
Shall on Euphrates' bank renew the grief of Nile.

These pointed spires that wound the ambient sky,
Inglorious change shall in destruction lie
Low, levell'd with the dust, their heights unknown,
Or measured by their ruin. Yonder throne,
For lasting glory built, design'd the seat
Of kings for ever bless'd, for ever great,
Removed by the invader's barbarous hand,
Shall grace his triumph in a foreign land:
The tyrant shall demand yon' sacred load
Of gold and vessels set apart to God,
Then by bile hands to common use debased,
Shall send them flowing round his drunken feast,
With sacrilegious taunt and impious jest.

Twice fourteen ages shall their way complete,
Empires by various turns shall rise and set,
While thy abandon'd tribes shall only know
A different master and a change of wo;
With downcast eyelids, and with looks aghast,
Shall dread the future or bewail the past.
Afflicted Israel shall sit weeping down,
Fast by the streams where Babel's waters run,
Their harps upon the neighbouring willows hung,
Nor joyous hymn encouraging their tongue,
Nor cheerful dance their feet; with toil oppress'd,
Their wearied limbs aspiring but to rest.
In the reflective stream the sighing bride,
Viewing her charms impair'd, abash'd shall hide
Her pensive head, and in her languid face
The bridegroom shall foresee his sickly race,
While ponderous fetters vex their close embrace
With irksome anguish then your priests shall mourn
Their long neglected feasts despair'd return,
And sad oblivion of their solemn days:
Thenceforth their voices they shall only raise,
Louder to weep. By day your frighted seers
Shall call for fountains to express their tears,
And wish their eyes were floods: by night, from dreams
Of opening gulfs, black storms, and raging flames,
Starting amazed, shall to the people show
Emblems of heavenly wrath, and mystic types of wo.

The captives, as their tyrant shall require
That they should breathe the song and touch the lyre,
Shall say, Can Jacob's servile race rejoice,
Untuned the music, and disused the voice?
What can we play, (they shall discourse) how sing
In foreign lands, and to a barbarous king?
We and our fathers, from our childhood bred
To watch the cruel victor's eye, to dread
The arbitrary lash, to bend, to grieve,
(Outcast of mortal race) can we conceive
Image of ought delightful, soft, or gay?
Alas! when we have toil the longsome day,
The fullest bliss our hearts aspire to know,
Is but some interval from active wo;
In broken rest and startling sleep to mourn,
Till morn the tyrant and the scourge return:
Bred up in grief, can pleasure be our theme?
Our endless anguish does not nature claim?
Reason and sorrow are to us the same.
Alas! with wild amazement we require
If idle Folly was not Pleasure's sire?
Madness, we fancy, gave an ill-timed birth.

This is the series of perpetual wo
Which thou, alas! and thine, are born to know.
Illustrious wretch! repine not nor reply;
View not what Heaven ordains with reason's eye;
Too bright the object is, the distance is too high.
The man who would resolve the work of fate
May limit number and make crooked straight:
Stop thy inquiry, then, and curb thy sense,
'Tis God who must dispose and man sustain,
Born to endure, forbidden to complain:
Thy sum of life must his decrees fufil;
What derogates from his command is ill,
And that alone is good which centres in his will.

Yet that thy labouring senses may not droop,
Lost to delight, and destitute of hope,
Remark what I, God's messenger, aver
From him who neither can deceive nor err.
The land, at length redeem'd, shall cease to mourn,
Shall from her sad captivity return:
Sion shall raise her long-dejected head,
And in her courts the law again be read,
Again the glorious temple shall arise,
And with now lustre pierce the neighbouring skies:
The promised seat of empire shall again
Cover the mountain and command the plain;
And from thy race distinguish'd, One shall spring
Greater in act than victor, more than king;
In dignity and power sent down from heaven
To succour earth. To him, to him, 'tis given
Passion, and care, and anguish, to destroy;
Through him soft peace and plenitude of joy
Perpetual o'er the world redeem'd shall flow;
No more may man inquire or angel know.

Now, Solomon, remembering who thou art,
Act through thy remnant life a decent part:
Go forth; be strong; with patience and with care
Perform and suffer; to thyself severe,
Gracious to others, thy desires suppress'd,
Diffused thy virtues, first of men, be best.
Thy sum of duty let two words contain,
O may they graven in thy heart remain!
Be humble and be just. The angel said:
With upward speed his agile wings he spread,
Whilst on the holy ground I prostrate lay,
By various doubts impell'd, or to obey
Or to object; at length (my mournful look
Heavenward erect) determined, thus I spoke:

Supreme, all-wise, eternal Potentate!
Sole author, sole disposer, of our fate!
Enthroned in light and immortality,
Whom no man fully sees, and none can see!
Original of Beings! Power divine!
Since that I live, that I think, is thine;
Benign Creator! let thy plastic hand
Dispose its own effect: let thy command
Restore, great Father, thy instructed son,
And in my act may thy great will be done.

Solomon On The Vanity Of The World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Pleasure. Book Ii.

The Argument


Solomon, again seeking happiness, inquires if wealth and greatness can produce it: begins with the magnificence of gardens and buildings; the luxury of music and feasting; and proceeds to the hopes and desires of love. In two episodes are shown the follies and troubles of that passion. Solomon, still disappointed, falls under the temptations of libertinism and idolatry; recovers his thought; reasons aright; and concludes that, as to the pursuit of pleasure and sensual delight, All Is Vanity and Vexation of Spirit.


Try then, O man, the moments to deceive
That from the womb attend thee to the grave:
For wearied Nature find some apter scheme;
Health be thy hope, and pleasure be thy theme;
From the perplexing and unequal ways
Where Study brings thee from the endless maze
Which Doubt persuades o run, forewarn'd, recede
To the gay field, and flowery path, that lead
To jocund mirth, soft joy, and careless ease:
Forsake what my instruct for what may please:
Essay amusing art and proud expense,
And make thy reason subject to thy sense.

I communed thus: the power of wealth I tried,
And all the various luxe of costly pride;
Artists and plans relieved my solemn hours:
I founded palaces and planted bowers,
Birds, fishes, beasts, of exotic kind
I to the limits of my court confined,
To trees transferr'd I gave a second birth,
And bade a foreign shade grace Judah's earth.
Fish-ponds were made where former forests grew
And hills were levell'd to extend the view.
Rivers, diverted from their native course,
And bound with chains of artificial force,
From large cascades in pleasing tumult roll'd,
Or rose through figured stone or breathing gold.
From furthest Africa's tormented womb
The marble brought, erects the spacious dome,
Or forms the pillars' long-extended rows,
On which the planted grove and pensile garden grows.

The workmen here obey the master's call,
To gild the turret and to paint the wall;
To mark the pavement there with various stone,
And on the jasper steps to rear the throne:
The spreading cedar, that an age had stood,
Supreme of trees, and mistress of the wood,
Cut down and carved, my shining roof adorns,
And Lebanon his ruin'd honour mourns.

A thousand artists show their cunning powers
To raise the wonders of the ivory towers:
A thousand maidens ply the purple loom
To weave the bed and deck the regal room;
Till Tyre confesses her exhausted store,
That on her coast the murex is no more;
Till from the Paian isle and Liby's coast
The mountains grieve their hopes of marble lost
And India's woods return their just complaint,
Their brood decay'd, and want of elephant.

My full design with vast expense achieved,
I came, beheld, admired, reflected, grieved:
I chid the folly of my thoughtless haste,
For, the work perfected, the joy was past.

To my new courts sad Thought did still repair,
And round my gilded roofs hung hovering Care.
In vain on silken beds I sought repose,
And Restless oft from purple couches rose;
Vexatious Thought still found my flying mind,
Nor bound by limits nor to place confined:
Haunted my nights, and terrified my days,
Stalk'd through my gardens, and pursued my ways,
Nor shut from artful bower, nor lost in winding maze.

Yet take thy bent, my soul; another sense
Indulge: add music to magnificence:
Essay if harmony may grief control,
Or power of sound prevail upon the soul.
Often our seers and poets have confess'd
That music's force can tame the furious beast;
Can make the wolf or foaming boar restrain
His rage, the lion drop his crested main,
Attentive to the song; the lynx forget
His wrath to man, and lick the minstrel's feet.
Are we, alas! less savage yet than these?
Else music sure may human cares appease.

I spake my purpose, and the cheerful choir
Parted their shares of harmony: the lyre
Soften'd the timbrel's noise; the trumpet's sound
Provoked the Dorian flute, (both sweeter found
When mix'd) the fife the viol's notes refined,
And every strength with every grace was join'd:
Each morn they waked me with a sprightly lay;
Each evening their repeated skill express'd
Scenes of repose and images of rest;
Yet still in vain; for music gather'd thought;
But how unequal the effects it brought?
The soft ideas of the cheerful note,
Lightly received, were easily forgot;
The solemn violence of the graver sound
Knew to strike deep, and leave a lasting wound.

And now reflecting, I with grief descry
The sickly lust of the fantastic eye;
How the weak organ is with seeing cloy'd,
Flying ere night what it at noon enjoy'd.
And now (unhappy search of thought!) I found
The fickle ear soon glutted with the sound,
Condemn'd eternal changes to pursue,
Tired with the last and eager of the new.

I bade the virgins and the youth advance,
To temper music with the sprightly dance.
In vain! too low the mimic motions seem;
What takes our heart must merit our esteem.
Nature, I thought, perform'd too mean a part,
Forming her movements to the rules of art;
And vex'd I found that the musician's hand
Had o'er the dancer's mind too great command.

I drank; I liked it not: 'twas rage, 'twas noise;
An airy scene of transitory joys,
In vain I trusted that the flowing bowl
Would banish sorrow and enlarge the soul.
To the late revel and protracted feast
Wild dreams succeeded and disorder'd rest;
And as at dawn of morn fair reason's light
Broke through the fumes and phantoms of the night,
What had been said, I ask'd my soul, what done?
How flow'd our mirth, and whence the source begun?
Perhaps the jest that charm'd the sprightly crowd,
And made the jovial table laugh so loud,
To some false notion owed its poor pretence,
To an ambiguous word's percerted sense,
To a wild sonnet, or a wanton air,
Offence and torture to the sober ear,
Perhaps, alas! the pleasing stream was brought
From this man's error, from another's fault;
From topics which good-nature would forget,
And prudence mention with the last regret.

Add yet unnumber'd ills that lie unseen
In the pernicious draught; the word obscene
Or harsh, which once elanced must ever fly
Irrevocable: the too prompt reply,
Seed of severe distrust and fierce debate,
What we should shun, and what we ought to hate.

Add, too, the blood impoverish'd, and the course
Of health suppress'd by wine's continued course.

Unhappy man! whom sorrow thus and rage
To different ills alternately engage;
Who drinks, alas! but to forget; nor sees
That melancholy sloth, severe disease,
Memory confused, and interrupted thought,
Death's harbingers, lie latent in the draught;
And in the flowers that wreath the sparkling bowl
Fell adders hiss, and poisonous serpents roll.

Remains there ought untried that may remove
Sickness of mind, and heal the bosom? - Love!
Love yet remains; indulge his genial fire,
Cherish fair Hope, solicit young Desire,
And boldly bid thy anxious soul explore
This last great remedy's mysterious power.

Why, therefore, hesitates my doubtful breast?
Why ceases it one moment to be bless'd?
Fly swift, my Friends; my Servants fly; employ
Your instant pains to bring our master joy.
Let all my wives and concubines be dress'd;
Let them to-night attend the royal feast;
All Israel's beauty, all the foreign fair,
The gifts of princes, or the spoils of war:
Before their monarch they shall singly pass,
And the most worthy shall obtain the grace.

I said: the feast was served; the bowl was crown'd;
To the King's pleasure went the mirthful round.
The women came: as custom wills they pass'd:
On one (O that distinguish'd one!) I cast
The favourite glance? O! yet my mind retains
That fond beginning of my infant pains.
Mature the virgin was, of Egypt's race,
Grace shaped her limbs and beauty deck'd her face:
Easy her motion seem'd, serene her air;
Full, though unzoned, her bosom rose; her hair
Untied, and, ignorant of artful aid,
Adown her shoulders loosely lay display'd,
And in the jetty curls ten thousand cupids play'd.

Fix'd on her charms, and pleased that I could love,
Aid me, my Friends, contribute to improve
Your monarch's bliss, I said: fresh roses bring
To strew my bed, till the impoverish'd Spring
Confess her want: around my amorous head
Be dropping myrrh and liquid amber shed
Till Arab has no more; from the soft lyre,
Sweet flute, and ten-string'd instrument require
Sounds of delight: and thou, fair Nymph, draw nigh,
Thou in whose graceful form and potent eye,
Thy master's joy, long sought, at length is found,
And, as thy brow, let my desires be crown'd.
O favourite virgin, that hast warm'd the breast,
Whose sovereign dictates subjugate the East!

I said: and sudden from the golden throne,
With a submissive step, I hasted down.
The glowing garland from my hair I took,
Love in my heart, obedience in my look,
Prepared to place it on her comely head,
O favourite Virgin! (yet again I said)
Receive the honours destined to thy brow;
And O, above thy fellows, happy thou!
Their duty must thy sovereign word obey.
Rise up, my love, my fair one, come away.

What pang, alas! what ecstasy of smart
Tore up my senses and transfix'd my heart,
When she with modest scorn the wreath return'd,
Reclined her beauteous neck, and inward mourn'd!

Forced by my pride, I my concern suppress'd,
Pretended drowsiness and wish of rest;
And sullen, I forsook th' imperfect feast:
Ordering the eunuchs, to whose proper care
Our Eastern gradneur gives th' imprison'd fair,
To lead her forth to a distinuish'd bower,
And nid her dress the bed, and wait the hour.

Restless I follow'd this obdurate maid,
(Swift are the steps that Love and Anger tread)
Approach'd her person, courted her embrace,
Renew'd my flame, repeated my disgrace:
By turns put on the suppliant and the lord:
Threaten'd this moment, and the next implored,
Offer'd again the unaccepted wreath,
And choice of happy love, or instant death.

Averse to all her amorous King desired,
Far as she might she decently retired,
And darting scorn and sorrow from her eyes,
What means, said she, King Solomon the wise?

This wretched body trembles at your power;
Thus far could Fortune, but she can no more.
Free to herself my potent mind remains,
Nor fears the victor's rage, nor feels his chains.

'Tis said that thou canst plausibly dispute,
Supreme of seers, of angel, man, and brute:
Canst plead, with subtle wit and fair discourse,
Of passion's folly and of reason's force;
That to the tribes attentive, thou canst know
Whence their misfortunes or their blessings flow:
That thou in science as in power art great,
And truth and honour on thy edicts wait.
Where is that knowledge now, that regal thought,
With just advice and timely counsel fraught?
Where now, O Judge of Israel, does it rove? -
What in one moment dost thou offer? - Love!
Love? why, 'tis joy or sorrow, peace or strife;
'Tis all the colour of remaining life,
And human misery must begin or end
As he becomes a tyrant or a friend.
Would David's son, religious, just, and grave,
To the first bride-bed of the world receive
A foreigner, a Heathen, and a slave?
Or grant thy passion has these names destroy'd,
That Love, like Death, makes all distinction void,
Yet in his empire o'er thy abject breast
His flames and torments only are exprest,
His rage can in my smiles alone relent,
And all his joys solicit my consent.

Soft love, spontaneous tree, its parted root
Must from two hearts with equal vigour shoot,
Whilst each delighted, and delighting, gives
The pleasing ecstasy which each receives:
Cherish'd with hope, and fed with joy, it grows,
Its cheerful buds their opening bloom disclose,
And round the happy soul diffusive odour flows.
If angry fate that mutual care denies,
The fading plant bewails its due supplies;
Wild with despair, or sick with grief, it dies.

By force beasts act, and are by force restrain'd;
The human mind by gentle means is gain'd.
Thy useless strength mistaken King employ:
Sated with rage, and ignorant of joy,
Thou shalt not gain what I deny to yield,
Nor reap the harvest, though thou spoil'st the field.
Know, Solomon, thy poor extent of sway;
Contract thy brow, and Israel shall obey;
But wilful Love thou must with smiles appease,
Approach his awful throne by just degrees,
And if thou wouldst be happy, learn to please.

Not that those arts can here successful prove,
For I am destined to another's love.
Beyond the cruel bounds of thy command,
To my dear equal, in my native land,
My plighted vow I gave; I his received:
Each swore with truth, with pleasure each believed
The mutual contract was to heaven convey'd;
In equal scales thy busy angels weigh'd
Its solemn force, and clapp'd their wings, and spread
The lasting roll, recording what we said.

Now in my heart behold thy poniard stain'd;
Take the sad life which I have long disdain'd;
End, in a dying virgin's wretched fate,
Thy ill-starr'd passion and my steadfast hate:
For long as blood informs these circling veins,
Or fleeting breath its latest power retains,
Hear me to Egypt's vengeful gods declare
Hate is my part; be thine O King despair.

Now strike, she said, and open'd bare her breast,
Stand it in Judah's Chronicles confest
That David's son, by impious passion moved,
Smote a she-slave, and murder'd what he loved.

Ashamed, confused, I started from the bed,
And to my soul, yet uncollected, said,
Into thyself fond Solomon return;
Reflect again, and thou again shalt mourn.
When I through number'd years have pleasure sought,
And in vain hope the wanton phantom caught,
To mock my sense and mortify my pride,
'Tis in another's power and is denied.
Am I a king, great Heaven? does life or death
Hang on the wrath or mercy of my breath,
While kneeling I my servant's smiles implore,
And one mad damsel dares dispute my power?

To ravish her? that thought was soon depress'd,
Which must debase the monarch to the beast.
To send her back? O whither, and to whom?
To lands where Solomon must never come?
To that insulting rival's happy arms
For whom, disdaining me, she keeps her charms?

Fantastic tyrant of the amorous heart,
How hard thy yoke! how cruel is thy dart?
Those 'scape thy anger who refuse thy sway,
And those are punish'd most who most obey,
See Judah's king revere thy greater power;
What canst thou covet, or how triumph more;
Why, then, O Love, with an obdurate ear,
Does this proud nymph reject a monarch's prayer?
Why to some simple shepherd does she run
Where wealth and pleasure may thy reign support,
To some poor cottage on the mountain's brow,
Now bleak with winds, and cover'd now with snow,
And household cares suppress thy genial fires!

Too aptly the afflicted Heathens prove
The force, while they erect the shrines of Love.
His mystic form the artisans of Greece
In wounded stone or molten gold express;
And Cyprus to his godhead pays her vow,
Fast in his hand the idol holds his bow;
A quiver by his side sustains his store
Of pointed darts, sad emblems of his power;
A pair of wings he has, which he extends
Now to be gone, which now again he bends,
Prone to return, as best may serve his wanton ends.
Entirely thus I find the fiend portray'd,
Since first, alas! I saw the beauteous maid;
I felt him strike, and now I see him fly:
Cursed daemon! O! for ever broken lie
Those fatal shafts by which I inward bleed!
O! can my wishes yet o'ertake thy speed!
Tired mayst thou turn'st thy course, resolved to bring
Except thou turn'st thy course, resolved to bring
The damsel back, and save the love-sick king.

My soul thus struggling in the fatal net,
Unable to enjoy or to forget,
I reason'd much, alas! but more I loved,
Sent and recall'd, ordain'd and disapproved,
Till hopeless plunged in an abyss of grief,
I from necessity received relief;
Time gently aided to assuage my pain
And wisdom took once more the slacken'd rein.

But O how short my interval of wo!
Our griefs how swift, our remedies how slow!
Another nymph, (for so did Heaven ordain,
To change the manner but renew the pain)
Another nymph, amongst the many fair
That made my softer hours their solemn care,
Before the rest affected still to stand,
And watch'd my eye, preventing my command,
Abra, she so was call'd, did sooner haste
To grace my presence; Abra went the last;
Abra was ready ere I call'd her name,
And though I call'd another, Abra came.

Her equals first observed her growing zeal,
And laughing gloss'd, that Abra served so well.
To me her actions did unheeded die,
Or were remark'd but with a common eye,
Till more apprized of what the rumour said,
More I observed peculiar in the maid.

The sun declined had shot his western ray,
When, tired with business of the solemn day,
I purposed to unbend the evening hours,
And banquet private in the women's bowers.
I call'd before I sat to wash my hands,
for so the precept of the law commands;
Love had ordain'd that it was Abra's turn
To mix the sweets, and minister the urn.

With awful homage and submissive dread
The maid approach'd, on my declining head
To pour the oils: she trembled as she pour'd:
With an unguarded look she now devour'd
My nearer face; and now recall'd her eye,
And heaved, and strove to hide a sudden sigh.
And whence, said I, canst thou have dread or pain?
What can thy imag'ry of sorrow mean?
Secluded from the world and all its care,
Hast thou to grieve or joy, to hope or fear?
For sure, I added, sure thy little heart
Ne'er felt Love's anger or received his dart.

Abash'd she blush'd, and with disorder spoke;
Her rising shame adorn'd the words it broke.

If the great master will descend to hear
The humble series of his handmaid's care,
O! while she tells it, let him not put on
The look that awes the nations from the throne;
O! let not death severe in glory lie
In the king's frown and terror of his eye.

Mine to obey, thy part is to ordain:
And though to mention be to suffer pain,
If the king smiles whilst I my wo recite
If weeping I find favour in his sight,
Flow fast my tears, full rising his delight.

O! witness earth beneath and heaven above,
For can I hide it? I am sick of love!
If madness may the name of passion bear,
Or love be call'd what is indeed despair.

Thou sovereign Power, whose secret will controls
The inward bent and motion of our souls!
Why hast thou placed such infinite degrees
Between the cause and cure of my disease?
The mighty object of that raging fire
In which unpitied Abra must expire,
Had he born some simple shepherd's heir,
The lowing herd or fleecy sheep his care,
At morn with him I o'er the hills had run,
Scornful of winter's frost and summer's run,
Still asking here he made his flock to rest at noon.
For him at night, the dear expected guest,
Had with hasty joy prepared the feast,
And from the cottage, o'er the distant plain,
Sent forth my longing eye to meet the swain,
Wavering, impatient, toss'd by hope and fear,
Till he and joy together should appear,
And the loved dog declare his master near.
On my declining neck and open breast
I should have lull'd the lovely youth to rest,
And from beneath is head at dawning day,
With softest care, have stolen my arm away,
To rise, and from the fold release the sheep,
Fond of his flock, indulgent to his sleep.

Or if kind Heaven, propitious to my flame,
(For sure from Heaven the faithful ardour came)
Had blest my life, and deck'd my natal hour
With height of title and extent of power,
Without a crime my passion had aspired,
Found the loved prince, and told what I desired
Then I had come, preventing Sheba's queen,
To see the comeliest of the sons of men:
To hear the charming poet's amorous song,
And gather honey falling from his tongue;
To take the fragrant kisses of his mouth,
Sweeter than breezes of her native south,
Likening his grace, his person, and his mien,
To all that great or beauteous I had seen.
Serene and bright his eyes, as solar beams,
Reflecting temper'd light from crystal streams;
Ruddy as gold his cheek; his bosom fair
As silve;r the curled ringlets of his hair
Black as the raven's wing; his lips more red
Than eastern coral or the scarlet thread;
Even his teeth, and white like a young flock,
Coeval, newly shorn, from the clear brook
Recent, and blanching on the sunny rock.
Ivory with sapphires interspersed, explains
How white his hands, how blue the manly veins;
Columns of polish'd marble, firmly set
On golden bases, are his legs and feet:
His stature all majestic, all divine,
Strait as the palm tree, strong as is the pine;
Saffron and myrrh are on his garments shed,
And everlasting sweets bloom round his head,
What utter I! where am I! wretched maid!
Die, Abra, die; too plainly thou hast said
Thy soul's desire to meet his high embrace,
And blessing stamp'd upon thy future race;
To bid attentive nations bless thy womb,
With unborn monarchs charged, and Solomon to come.

Here o'er her speech her flowing eyes prevail.
O foulish maid! and O unhappy tale!
My suffering heart for ever shall defy
New wounds and danger from a future eye.
O! yet my tortured senses deep retain
The wretched memory of my former pain,
The dire affront, and my Egyptian chain.

As time, I said, may happily efface
That cruel image of the King's disgrace,
Imperial Reason shall resume her seat,
And Solomon, once fall'n again be great.
Betray'd by passion, as subdued in war,
We wisely should exert a double care,
Nor ever ought a second time to err.

This Abra then -------
I saw her; 'twas humanity; it gave
Some respite to the sorrows of my slave.
Her fond excess proclaim'd her passion true,
And generous pity to that truth was due.
Well I entreated her who well deserved;
I call'd her often, for she always served:
Use made her person easy to my sight,
And ease insensibly produced delight.

Whene'er I revell'd in the women's bowers
(For first I sought her but at looser hours)
The apples she had gather'd smelt most sweet,
The cake she kneaded was the savoury meat;
But fruits their odour lost, and meats their taste,
If gentle Abra had not deck'd the feast:
Dishonour'd did the sparkling goblet stand,
Unless received from gentle Abra's hand;
And when the virgins form'd the evening choir,
Raising their voices to the master-lyre,
Too that I thought this voice, and that too shrill;
One show'd too much, and one too little skill;
Nor could my soul approve the music's tone,
Till all was hush'd, and Abra sung alone.
Fairer she seem'd distinguish'd from the rest,
And better mien disclosed, as better drest:
A bright tiara round her forehead tied,
To juster bounds confined its rising pride:
The blushing ruby on her snowy breast
Render'd its panting whiteness more confest;
Bracelets of pearl gave roundness to her arm,
And every gem augmented every charm:
Her senses pleased, her beauty still improved,
And she more lovely grew as more beloved.

And now I could behold, avow, and blame,
The several follies of my former flame,
Willing my heart for recompence to prove
The certain joys that lie in prosperous love.
For what, said I, from Abra can I fear,
Too humble to insult, too soft to be severe?
The damsel's sole ambition is to please;
With freedom I may like, and quit with ease;
She soothes, but never can enthral my mind:
Why may not peace and love for once be join'd?

Great Heaven! how frail thy creature man is made!
How by himself insensibly betray'd!
In our own strength unhappily secure,
Too little cautious of the adverse power,
And by the blast of self-opinion moved,
We wish to charm, and seek to be beloved.
On pleasure's flowing brink we idly stray,
Masters as yet of our returning way;
Seeing no danger we disarm our mind,
And give our conduct to the waves and wind;
Then in the flowery mead or verdant shade
To wanton dalliance negligently laid,
We weave the chaplet and we crown the bowl,
And smiling see the nearer waters roll,
Till the strong gusts of raging passion rise,
Till the dire tempest mingles earth and skies,
And swift into the boundless ocean borne,
Our foolish confidence too late we mourn;
Round our devoted heads the billows beat,
And from our troubled view the lessen'd lands retreat.

O mighty Love! from thy unbounded power
How shall the human bosom rest secure?
How shall our thought avoid the various snare,
Or wisdom to our caution'd soul declare
The different shapes thou pleasest to employ
When bent to hurt, and certain to destroy;

The haughty nymph, in open beauty drest,
To-day encounters our unguarded breast;
She looks with majesty, and moves with state:
Unbent her soul, and in misfortune great,
She scorns the world, and dares the rage of Fate.

Here whilst we take stern manhood for our guide,
And guard our conduct with becoming pride,
Charm'd with the courage in her action shown,
We praise her mind, the image of our own,
She that can please is certain to persuade;
To-day beloved, to-morrow is obey'd.
We think we see through Reason's optics right,
Nor find how Beauty's rays elude our sight:
Struck with her eye whilst we applaud her mind,
And when we speak her great we wish her kind.

To-morrow, cruel Power! thou arm'st the fair
With flowing sorrow and dishevell'd hair.
Sad her complaint, and humble is her tale,
Her sighs explaining where her accents fail;
Here generous softness warms the honest breast;
We raise the sad, and succour the distrest,
And whilst our wish prepares the kind relief,
Whilst pity mitigates her rising grief,
We sicken soon from her contagious care,
Grieve for her sorrows, groan for her despair,
And against love, too late, those bosoms arm,
Which tears can soften, and which sighs can warm.

Against this nearest, cruelest of foes,
What shall wit meditate, or force oppose?
Whence, feeble Nature, shall we summon aid,
If by our pity and our pride betray'd?
External remedy shall we hope to find,
When the close fiend has gain'd our treacherous mind,
Insulting there does Reason's power deride,
And, blind himself, conducts the dazzled guide?

My conqueror now, my lovely Abra, held
My freedom in her chains; my heart was fill'd
With her, with her alone, in her alone
It sought its peace and joy: while she was gone
It sigh'd, and grieved, impatient of her stay:
Return'd she chased those sighs, that grief, away;
Her absence made the night, her presence brought the day.

The ball, the play, the mask, by turns succeed:
For her I make the song; the dance with her I lead:
I court her, various, in each shape and dress
That luxury may form or thought express.

To-day beneath the palm-tree, on the plains,
In Deborah's arms and habit Abra reigns:
The wreath, denoting conquest, guides her brow,
And low, like Barak, at her feet I bow.
The mimic Chorus sings her prosperous hand,
As she had slain the foe and saved the land.

To-morrow she approves a softer air,
Forsakes the pomp and pageantry of war,
The form peaceful Abigail assumes,
And from the village with the present comes:
The youthful band depose their glittering arms,
Receive her bounties and recite her charms,
Whilst I assume my father's step and mien,
To meet with due regard my future queen.

If hap'ly Abra's will be now inclined
To range the woods or chase the flying hind,
Soon as the sun awakes, the sprightly court
Leave their repose, and hasten to the sport.
In lessen'd royalty, and humble state,
Thy king, Jerusalem! descends to wait
Till Abra comes. She comes; a milk-white steed
Mixture of Persia's and Arabia's breed,
Sustains the nymph: her garments flying loose,
(As the Sidonian maids or Thracian use)
And half her knee and half her breast appear
By art, like negligence disclosed and nare.
Her left hand guides the hunting courser's flight,
A silver bow she carries in her right,
And from the golden quiver at her side
Rustles the ebon arrow's feather'd pride;
Sapphires and diamonds on her front display
An artificial moon's increasing ray.
Diana, huntress, mistress of the groves,
The favourite Abra speaks, and looks, and moves.
Her as the present goddess, I obey,
Beneath her feet the captive game I lay;
The mingled Chorus sing Diana's fame,
Clarions and horns in louder peals proclaim
Her mystic praise, the vocal triumphs bound
Against the hills; the hills reflect the sound.

If tired this evening with the hunted woods,
To the large fish-pools or the glassy floods
Her mind to-morrow points a thousand hands
To-night employ'd obey the king's commands;
Upon the wat'ry beach an artful pile
Of planks is join'd, and forms a moving isle;
A golden chariot in the midst is set,
And silver cygnets seem to feel its weight.
Abra, bright queen, ascends her gaudy throne,
In semblance of the Grecian Venus knows;
Tritons and sea-green naiads round her move,
And sing in moving strains the force of love;
Whilst, as th' approaching pageant does appear,
And echoing crowds speak mighty Venus near,
I, her adorer, too devoutly stand
Fast on the utmost margin of the land,
With arms and hopes extended, to receive
The fancied goddess rising from the wave.

O subject Reason! O imperious Love!
Whither yet further would my folly rove?
Is it enough that Abra should be great
In the wall'd palace or the rural seat;
That masking habits and a borrow'd name
Contrive to hide my plenitude of shame?
No, no: Jerusalem combined must see
My open fault and regal infamy.
Solemn a month is destined for the feast;
Abra invites; the nation is the guest.
To have the honour of each day sustain'd
The woods are travers'd, and the lakes are drain'd:
Arabia's wilds and Egypt's are explored;
The edible creation decks the board:
Hardly the phenix 'scapes ---------
The men their lyres, the maids their voices raise,
To sing my happiness and Abra's praise,
And slavish bards our mutual loves rehearse
In lying strains and ignominious verse;
While from the banquet leading forth the bride,
Whom prudent love from public eyes should hide,
I show her to the world, confess'd and known
Queen of my heart, and partner of my throne.

And now her friends and flatterers fill the court;
From Dan and from Beersheba they resort;
They barter places and dispose of grants,
Whole provinces unequal to their wants;
They teach her to recede or to debate;
With toys of love to mix affairs of state;
By practised rules her empire to secure,
And in my pleasure make my ruin sure.
They gave and she transferr'd the cursed advice,
That monarchs should their inward soul disguise,
Dissemble and command, be false and wise;
By ignominious arts, for servile ends,
Should compliment their foes and shun their friends.
And now I leave the true and just supports
Of legal princes and of honest courts,
Barzillai's and the fierce Benaiah's heirs,
Whose sires, great partners in my father's cares,
Saluted their young king, at Hebron crown'd,
Great by their toil, and glorious by their wound:
And now unhappy counsel, I prefer
Those whom my follies only made me fear,
Old Corah's brood and taunting Shimei's race,
Miscreants who owed their lives to David's grace,
Though they had spurn'd his rule and cursed him to his face.

Still Abra's power, my scandal, still increased;
Justice submitted to what Abra pleased:
Her will alone could settle or revoke,
And law was fixt by what she latest spoke.

Israel neglected, Abra was my care;
I only acted, thought, and lived for her,
I durst not reason with my wounded heart;
Abra possess'd; she was its better part.
O! had I now review'd the famous cause
Which gave my righteous youth so just applause,
In vain on the dissembled mother's tongue
Had cunning art and sly persuasion hung,
And real care in vain, and native love,
And real care in vain, and native love,
In the true parent's panting breast had strove,
While both deceived had seen the destined child
Or slain, or saved, as Abra frown'd or smiled.

Uknowing to command, proud to obey,
A lifeless king, a royal shade I lay.
Unheard the injured orphans now complain;
The widow's cries address the throne in vain.
Causes unjudged disgrace the loaded file,
And sleeping laws the king's neglect revile.
No more the Elders throng'd around my throne
To hear my maxims, and reform their own;
No more the young nobility were taught
How Moses govern'd and how David fought.
Loose and undisciplined the soldier lay,
Or lost in drink and game the solid day;
Porches and schools, design'd for public good,
Uncover'd, and with scaffolds cumber'd stood,
Or nodded, threatening ruin --
Half pillars wanted their expected height,
And roofs imperfect prejudiced the sight.
The artists grieve; the labouring people droop;
My father's legacy, my country's hope,
God's temples, lie unfinish'd -

The wise and grave deplored their monarch's fate,
And future mischiefs of a sinking state.
In this the serious said, is this the man,
Whose active soul through every science ran?
Who by just rule and elevated skill
Prescribed the dubious bounds of good and ill?
Whose golden sayings and immortal wit
On large phylacteries expressive writ,
Were to the forehead of the Rabbins tied,
Our youth's instruction and our age's pride?
Could not the wise his wild desires restrain?
Then was our hearing and his preaching vain!
What from his life and letters were we taught
But that his knowledge aggravates his fault?

In lighter mood, the humorous and the gay
(As crown'd with roses at their feasts they lay)
Sent the full goblet charged with Abra's name,
And charms superior to the master's fame.
Laughing, some praise the king, who let them see
How aptly luxe and empire might agree:
Some gloss'd how love and wisdom were at strife,
And brought my proverbs to confront my life.
However, friend, here's to the king, one cries
To him who was the king, the friend replies.
The king, for Judah's and for wisdom's curse
To Abra yields; could I or thou do worse?
Our looser lives let Chance or Folly steer,
If thus the prudent and determined err.
Let Dinah bind with flowers her flowing hair,
And touch the lute and sound the wanton air,
Let us the bliss without the sting receive,
Free as we will or to enjoy or leave.
Pleasures on levity's smooth surface flow;
Thought brings the weight that sinks the soul to wo.
Now be this maxim to the king convey'd,
And added to the thousand he has made.

Sadly, O Reason, is thy power express'd,
Thou gloomy tyrant of the frighted beast!
And harsh the rules which we fom thee receive,
If for our wisdom we our pleasure give,
And more to think be only more to grieve:
If Judah's king, at thy tribunal tried,
Forsakes his joy to vindicate his pride,
And, changing sorrows, I am only found
Loosed from the chains of love, in thine more strictly bound.

But do I call thee tyrant, or complain
How hard thy laws, how absolute thy reign?
While thou, alas! art but an empty name,
To no two men who e'er discoursed the same;
The idle product of a troubled thought,
In borrow'd shapes and airy colours wrought,
A fancied line, and a reflected shade;
A chain which man to fetter man has made,
By artifice imposed, by fear obey'd.

Yet, wretched name, or arbitrary thing,
Whence-ever I thy cruel essence bring,
I own thy influence, for I feel thy sting.
Reluctant I perceive thee in my soul,
Form'd to command, and destind to control,
Yes, thy insulting dictates shall be heard;
Virtue for once shall be her own reward:
Yes, rebel Israel, this unhappy maid
Shall be dismiss'd; the crowd shall be obey'd:
The king his passion and his rule shall leave,
No longer Abra's but the people's slave:
My coward soul shall bear its wayward fate;
I will, alas! be wretched to be great,
And sigh in royalty, and grieve in state.

I said, resolved to plunge into my grief
At once, so far as to expect relief
From my despair alone --
To her I loved, toher I must forsake.
How inconsistent majesty and love.
I always should, it said, esteem her well,
But never see her more: it bid her feel
No future pain for me; but instant wed
A lover more proportion'd to her bed,
And quiet dedicate her remnant life
To the just duties of an humble wife.

She read, and forth to me she wildly ran,
To me, the ease of all her former pain.
She kneel'd, entreated, struggled, threaten'd, cried,
And with alternate passion lived and died;
Till now denied the liberty to mourn,
And by rude fury from my presence torn,
This only object of my real care
Cut off from hope, abandon'd to despair,
In some few posting fatal hours is hurl'd
From wealth, from power, from love, and from the world.

Here tell me, if thou darest, my conscious soul,
What different sorrows did within thee roll?
What pangs, what fires, what racks, did thou sustain?
What sad vicissitudes of smarting pain?
How oft from pomp and state did I remove,
To feed despair, and cherish hopeless love?
How oft all day recall'd I Abra's charms,
Her beauties press'd, and panting in my arms?
How oft with sighs view'd every female face
Where mimic Fancy might her likeness trace?
How oft desired to fly from Isreal's throne,
And live in shades with her and love alone?
How oft all night pursued her in my dreams,
O'er flowery valleys and through crystal streams,
And waking, view'd with grief the rising sun,
And fondly mourn'd the dear delusion gone?

When thus the gather'd storms of wretched love
In my swollen bosom with long war had strove,
At length they broke their bounds; at length their force
Bore down whatever met its stronger course;
Laid all the civil bonds of manhood waste,
And scatter'd ruin as the torrent pass'd.
So from the hills, whose hollow caves contain
The congregated snow and swelling rain,
Till the full stores their ancient bounds disdain,
Precipitate the furious torrent flows:
In vain would speed avoid or strength oppose:
Towns, forests, herds, and men, promiscuous drown'd,
With one great death deform the dreary ground;
The echoed woes from distant rocks resound.
And now what impious ways, my wishes took,
How they the monarch and the man forsook,
And how I follow'd an abandon'd will
Through crooked paths and sad retreats of ill;
By turns my prostituted bed receives,
Through tribes of women how I loosely ranged
Impatient, liked to-night, to-morrow changed,
And by the instinct of capricious lust
Enjoy'd, disdain'd, was grateful or unjust;
O, be these scenes from human eyes conceal'd,
In clouds of decent silence justly veil'd!
O, be the wanton images convey'd
To black oblivion and eternal shade!
Or let their sad epitome alone
And outward lines to future ages be known,
Enough to propagate the sure belief
That vice engenders shame, and folly broods o'er grief.

Buried in sloth and lost in ease I lay;
The night I revell'd, and I slept the day.
New heaps of fuel damp'd my kindling fires,
And daily change extinguish'd young desires,
By its own force destroy'd, fruition ceased;
And always wearied, I was never pleased.
No longer now does my neglected mind
Its wonted stores and old ideas find.
Fix'd judgement there no longer does abide
To take the true or set the false aside,
No longer does swift Memory trace the cells
Where springing Wit or young Invention dwells,
Frequent debauch to habitude prevails;
Patience of toil and love of virtue fails.
By sad degrees impair'd my vigour dies,
Till I command no longer e'en in vice.
The women on my dotage build their sway:
In regal garments now I gravely stride,
Awed by the Persian damsels' haughty pride;
Now with the looser Syrian dance and sing,
In robes tuck'd up, opprobrious to the king.

Charm'd by their eyes, their manners I acquire,
And shape my foolishness to their desire;
Seduced and awed by the Philistine dame,
At Dagon's shrine I kindle impious flame.
With the Chaldean's charms her rites prevail,
And curling frankincense ascends to Baal.
To each new harlot I new altars dress,
And serve her god whose person I caress.

Where, my deluded sense, was reason flown?
Where the high majesty of David's throne?
Where all the maxims of eternal truth,
With which the living God inform'd my youth,
When with the lewd Egyptian I adore
Vain idols, deities that ne'er before
In Isreal's land had fix'd their dire abodes,
Beastly divinities, and droves of gods;
Osiris, Apis, powers that chew the cud,
And dog Anubis, flatterer for his food?
When in the woody hill's forbidden shade
I carved the marble and invoked its aid:
When in the fens to snake and flies, with zeal
Unworthy human thought, I prostrate fell;
To shrubs and plants my vile devotion paid,
And set the bearded leek to which I pray'd;
When to all beings sacred rites were given,
forgot the Arbiter of earth and heaven?

Through these sad shades, this chaos in my soul,
Some seeds of light at length began to roll:
The rising motion of an infant ray
Shot glimmering through the cloud, and promised day.
And now one moment able to reflect,
I found the king abandon'd to neglect,
Seen without awe, and served without respect.
I found my subjects amicably join
To lessen their defects by citing mine.
The priest with pity prays for David's race,
And left his text to dwell on my disgrace.
The father, whilst he warn'd his erring son,
The sad examples which he ought to shun,
Described, and only named not, Solomon.
Each bard, each sire, did to his pupil sing,
A wise child better than a foolish king.

Into myself my reason's eye I turn'd,
And as I much reflected much I mourn'd.
A mighty king I am, an earthly god;
Nations obey my word and wait my nod:
I raise or sink, imprison or set free,
And life or death, depends on my decree.
Fond of the idea, and the thought is vain;
O'er Judah's king ten thousand tyrants reign,
Legions of lust and various powers of ill
Insult the master's tributary will;
And he from whom the nations should receive
Justice and freedom, lies himself a slave,
Tortured by cruel change of wild desires,
Lash'd by mad rage, and scorch'd by brutal fires.

O Reason! once again to thee I call;
Accept my sorrow and retrieve my fall.
Wisdom, thou say'st, from heaven received her birth,
Her beams transmitted to the subject earth:
Yet thi great empress of the human soul
Does only with the imagined power control,
If restless passion, by rebellious sway,
Compels the weak usurper to obey.

O troubled, weak, and coward, as thou art,
Without thy poor advice the labouring heart
To worse extremes with swifter steps would run,
Not saved by virtue, yet vice undone.

Oft have I said, the praise of doing well
Is to the ear as ointment to the smell.
Now if some flies perchance, however small,
Into the alabaster urn should fall,
The odours of the sweets enclosed would die,
And stench corrupt (sad change) their place supply:
So the least faults, if mixed with fairest deed,
Of future ill become the fatal seed;
Into the balm of purest virtue cast,
Annoy all life with one contagious blast.

Lost Solomon! pursue this thought no more;
Of thy past errors recollect the store;
And silent weep, that while the deathless Muse
Shall sing the just, shall o'er their head diffuse
Perfumes with lavish hand, she shall proclaim
Thy crimes alone, and to thy evil fame
Impartial, scatter damps and poisons on thy name.
Awaking therefore, as who long had dream'd,
Much of my women and their gods ashamed,
From this abyss of exemplary vice
Resolved, as time might aid my thought, to rise,
Again I bid the mournful goddess write
Of human hope by cross event destroy'd,
Of useless wealth and greatness enjoy'd;
Of lust and love, with their fantastic train,
Their wishes, smiles, and looks, deceitful all and vain.