The Works of the English Poets: Denham and Spratt

POEMS

And, that his hero might accomplish'd be,
From divine blood he draws his pedigrée.

From that great judge your judgment takes its law, 25
And by the best original does draw

Bonduca's honour, with thofe heroes Time-
Had in oblivion wrapt, his faucy crime;""
To them and to your nation you are just,
In raising up their glories from the duft;

And to Old England you that right have done, ✅ F
To fhew, no ftory nobler than her own.

When every line they add improves thy lofs,
Till, having view'd the whole, they fum a cross;
Such as derides thy paffions' beft relief,

And scorns the fuccours of thy eafy grief. to? Yet, left thy ignorance betray thy name

Of man and pious, read and mourns the shame

Of an exemption, from just sense, doth shewayy
Irrational, beyond excess of woe.

Since reafon, then,
n, can privilégé a fear,

Manhood, uncenfur'd, pay that tribute here,

Upon

Upon this noble urn. Here, here remains
Duft far more precious than in India's veins :
Within these cold embraces, ravish'd, lies
That which compleats the age's tyrannies =
Who weak to fuch another ill appear,

For what destroys our hope, fecures our fear.
What fin unexpiated, in this land

Of groans, hath guided fo fevere a hand?

The late great victim * that your
altars knew,
Ye angry gods, might have excus'd this new
Oblation, and have spar'd one lofty light
Of virtue, to inform our fteps aright;
By whofe example good, condemned we
Might have run on to kinder destiny.
But, as the leader of the herd fell firft
A facrifice, to quench the raging thirst

d vengeance for paft crimes; fonone

But this white-fatted youngling could atone,

By his untimely fate, that impious smoke,

That fullied earth, and did Heaven's pity choak.
Let it fuffice for us, that we have loft

In him, more than the widow'd world can boast

In any lump of her remaining clay.

Fair as the grey-ey'd morn he was; the day,
Youthful, and climbing upwards ftill, imparts
No hafte like that of his increasing parts;
Like the meridian beam, his virtue's light
Was feen, as full of comfort, and as bright.

hoorns Had

Had his noon been as fix'd as clear-but he,
That only wanted immortality.
To make him perfect, now submits to night,
In the black bofom of whofe fable spite,
He leaves a cloud of flesh behind, and flies,
Refin'd, all ray and glory, to the skies.

Great faint! shine there in an eternal sphere,

And tell those powers to whom thou now draw'st near, That by our trembling fenfe, in HASTINGS dead,

Their anger and our ugly faults are read;

The fhort lines of whofe life did to our eyes

Their love and majesty epitomize.

Tell them, whofe ftern decrees impose our laws,
The feafted grave may close her hollow jaws;

Though fin fearch nature, to provide her here
A fecond entertainment half fo dear,

She'll never meet a plenty like this hearse,
Till Time present her with the Universe.

CON

CONTENTS

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DENHA M'S POEM S.