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XVIII.

We were the happiest pair of human kind:
The rolling year its varying courfe perform'd,

And back return'd again;
Another and another fmiling came,

And faw our happiness unchang'd remain:
Still in her golden chain

Harmonious Concord did our wifes bind:
Our studies, pleasures, tafte, the fame.
O fatal, fatal ftroke,

That all this pleasing fabric Love had rais'd
Of rare felicity,

On which ev'n wanton Vice with envy gaz'd,
And every scheme of blifs our hearts had formed,
With foothing hope, for many a future day,
In one fad moment broke!

Yet, O my foul, thy rifing murmurs stay;
Nor dare the all-wife Difpofer to arraign,
Or against his fupreme decree-

With impious grief complain.

That all thy full-blown joys at once should fade; Was his most righteous will-and be that will obey'd. XIX.

Would thy fond love his grace to her control,
And in these low abodes of fin and pain

Her pure exalted foul

Unjustly for thy partial good detain.?.

No-rather strive thy groveling mind to raise

Up to that unclouded blaze,

That

That heavenly radiance of eternal light,
In which enthron'd she now with pity fees
How frail, how infecure, how flight,
Is every mortal blifs;

Ev'n Love itself, if rifing by degrees
Beyond the bounds of this imperfect state,
Whose fleeting joys so soon must end,
It does not to its fovereign good afcend.
Rife then, my foul, with hope elate,
And feek thofe regions of ferene delight,
Whofe peaceful path and ever-open gate
No feet but thofe of harden'd Guilt fhall mifs.
There death himself thy Lucy fhall restore,
There yield up all his power e'er to divide you more.

VER SE S,

MAKING PART OF

AN EPITAPH ON THE SAME LADY.

M

ADE to engage all hearts, and charm all eyes;
Though meek, magnanimous; though witty,

wife;

Polite, as all her life in courts had been ;
Yet good, as fhe the world had never seen;
The noble fire of an exalted mind,
With gentle female tenderness combin'd.
Her fpeech was the melodious voice of Love,
Her fong the warbling of the vernal grove;

Her

Her eloquence was sweeter than her song,
Soft as her heart, and as her reason strong;
Her form each beauty of her mind exprefs'd,
Her mind was Virtue by the Graces drefs'd.

HORACE. BOOK IV. O DE IV. ›

Written at Oxford 1725 *.

"Qualem miniftrum fulminis alitem, &c."

I.

S the wing'd minifter of thundering Jove,

AS

To whom he gave his dreadful bolts to bear,

Faithful affiftant of his master's love,

King of the wandering nations of the air,

II.

When balmy breezes fann'd the vernal sky,
On doubtful pinions left his parent nest,
In flight effays his growing force to try,
While inborn courage fir'd his generous breaft;

III. Then

*First printed with Mr. Weft's tranflation of Pindar. See the Preface to that gentleman's Poems.

In the rape of Ganymede, who was carried up to Jupiter by an eagle, according to the Poetical History.

III.

Then, darting with impetuous fury down,
The flocks he flaughter'd, an unpractis'd foe
Now his ripe valour to perfection grown
The fcaly fnake and crested dragon know:

IV.

Or, as a lion's youthful progeny,

Wean'd from his favage dam and milky food, The grazing kid beholds with fearful eye, Doom'd first to ftain his tender fangs in blood:

V.

Such Drufus, young in arms, his foes beheld
The Alpine Rhæti, long unmatch'd in fight
So were their hearts with abject terror quell'd;
So funk their haughty spirit at the fight:

VI.

Tam'd by a boy, the fierce Barbarians find

:

How guardian Prudence guides the youthful flame, And how great Cæfar's fond paternal mind Each generous Nero forms to early fame;

VII.

A valiant for fprings from a valiant firee ·

Their race by mettle sprightly courfers prove ; Nor can the warlike eagle's active fire

Degenerate to form the timorous dove.

VIII.

But education can the genius raise,
And wife inftructions native virtue aid;
Nobility without them is difgrace,

And Honour is by vice to fhame betray'd..

IX. Let

IX.

Let red Metaurus, ftain'd with Punic blood,
Let mighty Afdrubal fubdued, confefs
How much of empire and of fame is ow'd
By thee, O Rome, to the Neronian race.
X.

Of this be witness that aufpicious day,

Which, after a long, black, tempeftuous night, Firft fimil'd on Latium with a milder ray,

And chear'd our drooping hearts with dawning light.

XI.

Since the dire African with wafteful ire

Rode o'er the ravag'd towns of Italy;
As through the pine-trees flies the raging fire,
Or Eurus o'er the vext Sicilian fea.

XII.

From this bright æra, from this profperous field,
The Roman glory dates her rifing power;

From hence 'twas given her conquering fword to wield,
Raife her fall'n gods, and ruin'd shrines restore.

XIII.

Thus Hannibal at length despairing spoke :
"Like ftags to ravenous wolves an easy prey,

"Our feeble arms a valiant foe provoke,
“Whom to elude and 'scape were victory;
XIV.

"A dauntless nation, that from Trojan fires,
"Hoftile Aufonia, to thy deftin'd shore

“Her gods, her infant fons, and aged fires,

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