А РОЕМ

ON THE SEAT OF WAR IN FLANDERS,

Chiefly with relation to the SIECES:

With the Praife of PEACE and RETIREMENT.

Written in 1710.

Seceffus mei non defidiæ nomen, fed tranquillitatis accipiant." PLIN.

HAPPY, thou Flandria, on whofe fertile plains,
In wanton pride luxurious plenty reigns;
Happy! had heaven beftow'd one bleffing more,
And plac'd thee diftant from the Gallic power!
But now in vain thy lawns attract the view,
They but invite the victor to fubdue:
War, horrid war, the fylvan fcene invades,
And angry trumpets pierce the woodland shades;
Here fhatter'd towers, proud works of many an age,
Lie dreadful monuments of human rage;
There palaces and hallow'd domes difplay
Majeftic ruins, awful in decay!

Thy very duft, though undistinguish'd trod,
Compos'd, perhaps, fome hero, great and good,
Who nebly for his country loft his blood!
Ev'n with the grave, the haughty spoilers war!
And death's dark manfions wide difclofe to air:
O'er kings and faints infulting talk, nor dread
To fpurn the ashes of the glorious dead.

See the Britannic lions wave in air!
See! mighty Marlborough breathing death and war,
From Albion's fhores, at Anna's high commands,
The dauntless hero pours his martial bands.
As when in wrath ftern Mars the thunderer fends
To fcourge his foes; in pomp the God defcends ;
He mounts his iron car; with fury burns;
The car fierce-rattling thunders as it turns;
Gloomy he grafps his adamantine shield,
And fcatters armies o'er th' enfanguin'd field:
With delegated wrath thus Marlborough glows,
In vengeance rushing on his country's foes.
See! round the hoftile towers embattled ftands
His banner'd hoft, embodied bands by bands!-
Hark! the fhrill trumpet fends a mortal found,
And prancing horfes fhake the folid ground;
The furly drums beat terrible afar,

With all the dreadful mufic of the war;
From the drawn fwords effulgent flames arife,
Flash o'er the plains, and lighten to the skies;
The heavens above, the fields and floods beneath,
Glare formidably bright, and shine with death;
In fiery storms defcends a murderous shower,
Thick flash the lightnings, fierce the thunders roar.
As when in wrathful mood Almighty Jove
Aims his dire bolts red-hiffing from above;
Through the fing'd air, with unrefifted sway,
The forky vengeance rends its flaming way,
Aad, while the firmament with thunder roars,
From their foundation's hurl imperial towers;
So rush the globes with many a fiery round,
Tear up the rock, or rend the stedfast mound.

Death shakes aloft her dart, and o'er her prey
Stalks with dire joy, and marks in blood her way
Mountains of heroes flain deform the ground,
The thape of man half bury'd in the wound:
And lo! while in the fhock of war they clofe,
While fwords meet fwords, and foes encounter foes,
The treacherous earth beneath their footsteps cleaves,
Her entrails tremble, and her bofom heaves;
Sudden in burits of fire eruptions rite,

And whil the torn battalions to the skies.

Thus earthquakes, rumbling with a thundering found,

Shake the firm world, and rend the cleaving ground;
Rocks, hills, and groves, are coft into the sky,
And in one mighty ruin nations die.

See! through th' encumber'd air the ponderous bomb

Bears magazines of death within its womb;
The glowing orb difplays a blazing train,
And darts bright horror through th' ethereal plain;
*It mounts tempeftuous, and with hideous found
Wheels down the heavens, and thunders o'er the

From palaces, and domes, and kindle half the skies. Thus terribly in air the comets roll,

And fhoot malignant gleams from pole to pole; 'Tween worlds and worlds they move, and from their hair

Shake the blue plague, the peftilence, and war.

But who is he, who ftern beftrides the plain,
Who drives triumphant o'er huge hills of flain;
Serene, while engines from the hoftile tower
Rain from their brazen mouths an iron shower;
While turbid fiery fmoke obfcures the day,
Hews through the deathful breach his defperato
way?

Sure Jove defcending joins the martial toil;
Or is it Marlborough, or the great Argyle?

Thus, when the Grecians, furious to deftroy,
Level'd the ftructures of imperial Troy;
Here angry Neptune hurl'd his vengeful mace,
There Jove overturn'd it from its inmost base:
Though brave, yet vanquish'd, the confefs'd thre

odds;

Her fons were heroes, but they fought with Gods. Ah! what new horrors rife? In deep array The fquadrons form! aloft the standards play!

VARIATIONS

Eon the ferr fouls of heroes feel difmay;
Proud temples nod, afpiring towers gave way,
Dreadful it mounts, tempeftuous in its flight,
It finks, it falls, earth groans beneath its weight.
Th imprifon'd deaths rush out in fmoke and fire,
The mighty bleed, heaps crufh'd on heaps expire.

The barriers burf, wide-fpreading flames arife.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES LORD CORNWALLIS, Baron of Eyre, Warden, Chief Justice, and Justice in Eyre of all his Majefty's Forefts, Chajes, Parks, and Warrens, on the jouth fide of Trent.

Odyfiey, Lib. 15. O THOU whofe virtues fanctify thy ftate! O great, without the vices of the great! Form'd by a dignity of mind to please, To think, to act with elegance and cafe !* Say, wilt thou liften whilst I tune the ftring, And fing to thee, who gav'it me cafe to fing? Unfkill'd in verfe, I haunt the filent grove; Yet lowly thepherds fing to mighty jove; And mighty Jove attends the thepherds' vows, And gracious what his fuppliants afks beltows: So by thy favour may the Mufe be crown'd, And plant her laurels in more fruitful ground; The grateful Mufe fhall in return beftow Hipreading laurels to adorn thy brow.

Tas, guarded by the tree of Jove, a flower

Inflant the heavenly guardian cleaves the skies,
And, pleas'd to fave, on wings of lightning flies.*
Some the vin promifes of courts betray;
And gayly straying, they are pleas'd to itray;
The flattering nothing ftill deludes their eyes,
Seems ever Lear, yet ever diftant flies:
As perfpectives p.cfent the object nign,
Though far remov'd from the mistaking eye;
Against our reafon fondly we believe,
Affit the fraud, and teach it to deceive:
As the faint traveller, when night invades,
Secs a falfe light relieve the ambient fhades,
Pleas'd he beholds the bright delufion play,
But the falle guide shines only to betray:
Swift he purlues, yet till the path mistakes,"
O'er dangerous maithes, or through thorny brakes
Yet obitinate in wrong he toils to fray,
With many a weary itride, o'er many a painful way,
So man puifies the phantom of his brain,
And buys his dilappointment with his pain:
At length when years invidiously destroy
The power to taste the long expected joy,
Then fortune envicus fheds her golden showers,
Maligoly fmiles, and curfes him with ftores.

Thus o'er the urns of friends departed weep
The mournful kindred, and fond vigils keep;
Ambrotial ointments o'er their afhes fhed,
And fcattter ufelefs roles on the dead;
And when no more avail the world's delights,
The fpicy odours, and the folemn rites,
With ufeleis pomp they deck the fenfelefs tombs,
And waite protutely floods of vain perfumes.

THE ROSE-BUD,

fhower; And, when the fury of the ftorm is laid, Repays with fweets the hofpitable shade.

Severe their lot, who, when they long endure The wounds of fortune, late receive a cure! Like thips in ftorms o'er liquid mountains toft, Ere they are fav'd must almost first be loft; But you with fpeed forbid diftrefs to grieve: He gives hy halves, † who hentates to give. Thus, when an angel views mankind distreft, He feels compaflion pleading in his breaft ;

ADDITION.

* Fam to thy king, and to thy ecuntry brave; Loyal, yet free; a jubježž, net a flave; Say, &c.

Few know to ask, or decently receive; And fewer fill with dignity to give : If earn'd by flattery, gifts of highest price Are not a bounty, but the pay of vice. Some wildly lavish, yet no friend obtain; Nor are they generous, but abfurd and vain. Some give with furly pride and boisterous hands, As Jove pours rain in thunders o'er the lands. When merit pleads, you meet it and embrace, And give the favour luftre by thegrace; So Phoebus to his warmth a glory joins, Bleffing theord, and while he blerjes fhines.

WHARTON.

QUEEN of fragrance, lovely Rofe,

The beauties of thy leaves difclofe!
The winter 's paft, the tempefts fly,
Soft g des breathe gently through the sky;
The lark fweet warbling on the wing
Salutes the gay return of fpring:
The silver dews, the vernal fhowers;
Call forth a bloomy waste of flowers;
The joyous fields, the shady woods,

Are cloth'd with graen, or fwell with buds :
Then hate thy beauties to difclofe,
Queen of fragrance, lovely Rofe !

Thou, beauteous flower, a welcome gueft,
Shalt fourth on the fair-one's breaft,
Shalt grace her hand, or deck her hair,
The flower most sweet, the nymph most fair.
Breathe foft, ye winds! be calm, ye kies!
Arife, ye flowery race, arife!

And hate thy beauties to disclose,
Queen of fragrance, lovely Rofe !

But thou, fair nymph, thyfelf furvey
In this fweet of spring of a day:

That miracle of face muft fail;

Thy charms are fweet, but charms are frail:

The Lord Corvallis, in a most obliging manner recommended the author to the rectory of Pallam,

Swift as the short liv'd flower they fly,
At morn they bloom, at evening die:
Though fickness yet a while forbears,
Yet time deftroys what fickness fpares.
Now Helen lives alone in fame,
And Cleopatra's but a name.

Time muft indent that heavenly brow,
And thou must be, what they are now:
This moral to the fair difclofe,
Queen of fragrance, lovely Rose.

BELINDA AT THE BATH.

WHILE in these fountains bright Belinda

laves,

She adds new virtues to the healing waves:
Thus in Bethesda's pool an angel stood,
Bad the foft waters heal, and bleit the flood;
But from her eye fuch bright deftruction flies,
In vain they flow! for her, the lover dies.

No more let Tagus boaft, whose beds unfold
A shining treasure of all-conquering gold!
No more the Po! whofe wandering waters ftray,
In mazy errors, through the ftarry way:
Henceforth thefe fprings fuperior honours share ;
There Venus laves, but my Belinda here.

THE

COY:

AN OD E.

LOVE is a noble rich repaft,

But feldom fhould the lover taste ;
When the kind fair no more restrains,
The glutton furfeits, and difdains.

To move the nymph, he tears beftows,
He vainly fighs, he falfely vows:
The tears deceive, the vows betray;
He conquers, and contemns the prey.
Thus Ammen's fon with fierce delight
Smil'd at the terrors of the fight;
The thoughts of conqueft charm'd his eyes,
He conquer'd, and he wept the prize.
Love, like a profpect, with delight
Sweetly deceives the diftant fight,
Where the tir'd travellers furvey,
C'er hanging rocks, a dangerous way.
Ye fair that would victorious prove,
Seem but half kind, when moft you love :)
Damon purfues, if Cælia flies;
Int when her love is born, his dies.

Jad Danae the young, the fair,

Been free and unconfin'd as air,

Free from the guards and brazen tower,
She'd ne'er been worth a golden fhower

-Eridanum cernes in parte locatum cœli.”
Tull. in Arates.

"Gurgite fidereo fubterluit Oriona." Claud.

ΤΟ THE HONOURABLE

MRS. ELIZABETH TOWNSHEND,
AFTERWARDS LADY CorNWALLIS,

ON HER PICTURE, AT RAINHAM.
Ody Jey, Lib. 18.

AH! cruel hand, that could fuch power-employ

To teach the pictur'd beauty to destroy !
Singly the charm'd before, but by his skill
The living beauty and her likeness kill !
Thus when in parts the broken mirrours fall,
A face in all is feen, and charms in all !

Think then, O faireft of the fairer race,

What fatal beauties arm thy heavenly face,
Whose very fhadow can fuch flames infpire ;
We fee 'tis paint, and yet we feel 'tis fire.

See! with falfe life the lovely image glows,
And every wondrous grace transplanted shows;
Fatally fair the new creation reigns,

Charms in her shape, and multiplies our pains: Hence the fond youth, that eafe by absence found,

Views the dear form, and bleeds at every wound; Thus the bright Venus, though to heaven the foar'd,

Reign'd in her image, by the world ador❜d.

Oh! wondrous power of mingled light and

fhades !

Where beauty with dumb eloquence perfuadee,
Where paffions are beheld in picture wrought,
And animated colours look a thought:

Rare art! on whofe command all nature waits!
It copies all Omnipotence creates :

Here crown'd with mountains earth expanded lies,
There the proud feas with all their billows rife :
If life be drawn, refponfive to the thought
The breathing figures live throughout the draught;
The mimic bird in fkies fictitious moves,
Or fancy'd beafts in imitated groves :
Ev'n heaven it climbs; and from the forming hands
An angel here, and there a Townshend stands.

Yet, painter, yet, though art with nature ftrive,
Though ev'n the lovely phantom feem alive,
Submit thy vanquish'd art! and own the draught,
Though fair, defective, and a beauteous fault:
Charms, fuch as hers, inimitably great,
He only can exprefs, that can create.
Couldst thou extract the whiteness of the fnow,
Or of its coleurs rob the heavenly bow,
Yet would her beauty triumph o'er thy skill,
Lovely in thee, herfelf more lovely ftill!

Thus in the limpid fountain we descry
The faint refemblance of the glittering sky;
Another fun difplays his leffen'd beams,
Another heaven adorns th' enlighten'd streams
But though the scene be fair, yet high above
Th' exalted fkies in nobler beauties move;
There the true heaven's eternal lamps display
A deluge of inimitable day.

New Lady Cornwallis.