Oh! happy on your breast to lie,
As that bright ftar that gilds the sky, Who ceafing in the fpheres to fhine, Would, for your breaft, his heaven refign Yet, oh! fair virgin, caution take,
Left fome bold cheat affume the fnake. When Jove compreft the Grecian dame, Aloof he threw the lightning's flame, On radiant fpires the lover rode, And in the fnake conceal'd the God.
No more let youth its beauty boaft, S- -n at thirty reigns a toast, And, like the fun as he declines, More mildly, but more sweetly hines. The hand of Time alone difarms Her face of its fuperfluous charms; But adds, for every grace refign'd, A thousand to adorn her mind. Yonth was her too inflaming time; This, her more habitable clime : How muft the then each heart engage, Who blooms like youth, is wife like age!
Thus the rich orange-trees produce At once both ornament, and use: Here opening bloffoms we behold,
There fragrant orbs of ripen'd gold.
BEING THREE YEARS OLD, MARCH 22, 1710-11.
AWAKE, fweet babe! the fun's emerging ray, That gave you birth, renews the happy day! Calmly ferene, and glorious to the view, He marches forth, and ftrives, to look like you, Fair beauty's bud! when time shall stretch thy fpan,
Confirm thy charms, and ripen thee to man, What plenteous fruits thy bloffoms fhall produce, And yield not barren ornament, but use!
Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great.
VARIATIONS.
WHY, lovely babe, does flumber feal your eyes? e, fair Aurora blushes in the fkies! The fun, which gave you birth, in bright array Begins his courfe, and ushers in the day.. Calmly ferene, and glorious to the new, He marches forth, and frives to look like you:
Ev'n now thy fpring a rich increafe prepares Tocrown thy riper growth, and manly years! Thus in the kernel's intricate difguife,
In miniature a little orchard lies;
The fibrous labyrinths by jult degrees
Stretch their fwoln cells, replete with future trees; By time evolv'd, the spreading branches rife, Yield their rich fruits, and shoot into the kies.
O lovely babe, what luftre shall adorn Thy noon of beauty, when so bright thy morn! Shine forth advancing with a brighter ray, And may no vice o'ercloud thy future day! With nobler aims inftruct thy foul to glow. Than thefe gay trifles, titles, wealth, and fhow: May valour, wifdom, learning, crown thy days! Thofe fools admire-thefe heaven and angels praise *1 With riches bleft, to heaven thofe riches lend, The poor man's guardian, and the good man's friend : Bid virtuous forrow file, fcorn'd merit chear, And o'er affliction pour the generous tear. Some, wildly liberal, fquander, not beiłow, And gave unprais'd, because they give for fhow: To fanctify thy wealth, on worth employ Thy gold, and to a bleding turn the toy: Thus offerings from th'-unjuft pollute the skies, The good, turn fmoke into a facrifice.
As when an artift plans a favourite draught, The ftructures rife refponfive to the thought; A palace grows beneath his forming hands, Or worthy of a God a temple ftands:
How shall each fwain, each beauteous nymph complain, For love each nymph, for envy every fwain! What matchless charms fhall thy full noon_adern! When fo admir'd, fo gloricas, is thy morn ! So glorious is thy morn of life begun, That all to thee with admiration run, Turn Perfians, and adore the rifing Sun. So fair thou art, that if great Cupid be A child, as Poets fay; fure thou art he. Fair Venus would mistake thee for her own, Did not thy eyes proclaim thee not her fon. There all the lightnings of thy mother's fine, Their radiant glory and their sweetness join, To fhew their fatal power, and all their charms, in
If fond Narciffus in the cryftal flood, A form like thine, Olovely infant, view'd,' Well might the flame the pining youth destroy ; Excefs of beauty juftified the bay.
*To brace the mind to dignity of thought, To emulate what Godlike Tully wrote, Be this thy early with! The garden breeds, If unimprov'd, at leaft but gaudy weeds: And finbborn youth, by culture unfubdued, Lies wildly barren, or but gayly rude. Yet, as fome Phidias gives the marble life, While Art with Nature holds a dubious ftrife, Adorns a rock with graces not its own, And calls a Venus from the rugged flone; So culture aids the human foul to rife, To fcorn the ferdid earth, and mount the fkies,"|
Fair beauty's bud! when time shall firetch thy fpan, Till by degrees the noble guest refines,
Confirm thy charms, and ripen thee to maną.
Claims her high birthright, and divinely fhines.
Such is thy rifing frame! by heaven defign'd A temple, worthy of a godlike mind; Nobly adorn'd, and finish'd to display A fuller beam of heaven's ethereal ray.
May all thy charms increafe, O lovely boy! Spare them, ye pains, and age alone destroy ! So fair thou art, that if great Cupid be
A child, the God might boaft to look like thee ! When young Iülus' form he' deign'd to wear, Such were his fmiles, and fuch his winning air: Ev'n Venus might mistake thee for her own, Did not thy eyes proclaim thee not her fon, Thence all the lightning of thy mother's flies, A Cupid, grac'd with Cytherea's eyes!
Yet ah! how fhort a date the powers decree To that bright frame of beauties, and to thee País a few days, and all thofe beauties fly ! Pafsa few years, and thou, alas! fhalt die! Then all thy kindred, all thy friends fall fee With tears, what now thou art, and they must be; A pale, cold, lifeless lump of earth deplore! Such fhalt thou be, and kings fhall be no more! But ch! when, ripe for death, fate calls thee hence, Sure lot of every mortal excellence!
When, pregnant as the womb, the teeming earth Refgns thee quicken'd to thy fecond birth, Rife, cloath'd with beauties that shall never die ! A faint on earth! an angel in fky!
O! Power fupreme! O! high above all height! Thou gav'ft the fun to fhine, and thou art ligh:: Whether he falls or rifes in the kies,
He by thy voice is taught to fall or rife; Swiftly he moves, refulgent in his fphere, And measures out the day, the month, and year; He drives the hours along with flower pace, The minutes rush away impetuous in their race: He wakes the flowers that fleep within the ear.h, And calls the fragrant infants out to birth; The fragrant infants paint th' enamel'd vales, And native incenfe loads the balmy gales; The balmy gales the fragrancy convey To heaven, and to their God an offering pay.
By thy command the moon, as day-light fades, Lifts her broad circle in the deepening shades ; Array'd in glory, and enthron'd in light, She breaks the folemn terrors of the night: Sweetly inconftant in her varying flame, She changes ftill, another, yet the fame ! Now in decrease by flow degrees the throuds Her fading luftre in a veil of clouds ; Now at increafe, her gathering beams difplay A blaze of light, and give a paler day; Ten thousand stars adorn her glittering train, Fall when the falls, and rife with her again; And o'er the deferts of the sky unfold Their burning fpangles of fidereal gold : Through the wide heavens the moves ferenely bright, Queen of the gay attendants of the night; Orb above orb in fweet confufion lies, And with a bright diforder paints the skies.
The Lord of Nature fram'd the showery bow, Turn'd its gay arch, and bade its colours glow: Its radiant circle compaffes the skies, And sweetly the rich tinctures faint, and rife; It bids the horrors of the ftorm to cease.
Adorns the clouds, and makes the tempeft please.
He, when deep-rolling clouds blot out the day, And thunderous forms a folemn gloom difplay, Pours down a watery deluge from on high, And opens all the fluices of the fky: High o'er the fhores the rufhing furge prevails, Burts o'er the plain, and roars along the vales; Dashing abruptly, dreadful down it comes, Tumbling through rocks, and toffes, whirls and foams:
Mean time, from every region of the sky, Red burning bolts in forky vengeance fly; Dreadfully bright o'er feas and earth they glare, And bursts of thunder rend th' encumber'd air ; At once the thunders of th' Almighty found, Heaven lours, defcend the floods, and rocks the
He gives the furious whirlwind wings to fly, To rend the earth, and wheel along the sky; In circling eddies whirl'd, it roars aloud, Drives wave on wave, and dashes cloud on cloud; Where'er it moves, it lays whole forests low; And at the blaft, eternal mountains bow; While, tearing up the fands, in drifts they rife, And half the daferts mount the burthen'd skies. He from aërial treasures downward pours Sheets of unfully'd fnow in lucid fhowers; Flake after flake, through air thick-wavering fiet, Till one vaft shining wafte all natyre lies :
Then the proud hills a virgin whiteness shed, A dazzling brightness glitters from the mead; The hoary trees reflect a filver show, Ani groves beneath the lovely burden bow. He from loofe vapours with an icy chain Binds the round hail, and moulds the harden'd rain: The ftony tempeft, with a rushing found, Beats the firm glebe, refulting from the ground; Swiftly it falls, and as it falls invades
The rifing herb, or breaks the spreading blades: While infant flowers that rais'd their bloomy heads, Crush'd by its fury, fink into their beds.
When ftormy Winter from the frozen North Borne on his icy chariot issues forth, The blafted groves their verdant pride refign, And billows harden'd into crystal fhine: Sharp blows the rigour of the piercing winds, And the proud floods as with a breaft-plate binds : Ev'n the proud feas forget in tides to roll Beneath the freezings of the Northern pole ; There waves on waves in folid mountains rife, And Alps of ice invade the wondering skies ; While gulphs below, and flippery vallies lie, And with a dreadful brightnefs pain the eye: But if warm winds a warmer air restore, And fofter breezes bring a genial fhower, The genial shower revives the cheerful plain, And the huge hills flow down into the main.
When the feas rage, and loud the ocean roars, When foaming billows lafh the founding shores; If he in thunder bid the waves fubfide, The waves obedient fink upon the tide, A fudden peace controls the limpid deep, And the ftill waters in foft filence fleep. The heaven lets down a golden-ftreaming ray, And all the broad expanfion flames with day: In the clear glafs the mariners defcry A fun inverted, and a downward fky.
They who adventurous plough the watery way, The dreadful wonders of the deep furvey; Familiar with the ftorms, their fails unbind, Tempt the loud blast, and bound before the wind : Now high they mount, now shoot into a vale, Now Imooth their courfe, and feud before the gale;. There rolling monsters, arm'd in fcaly pride, Flounce in the billows, and dash round the tide; There huge Leviathan unwieldy moves,
And through the waves, a living ifland, roves; In dreadful paftime terribly he fports, And the vast ocean fearce his weight fupports; Where'er he turns, the hoary deeps divide; He breathes a tempeft, and he spouts a tide. Thus, Lord, the wonders of earth, fea, and air,
Thy boundlefs wifdom and thy power declare; Thou high in glory, and in might ferene, See'ft and mov't all, thyfelf unmov'd, unfeen : Should men and angels join in fongs to raise A grateful tribute equal to thy praise, Yet far thy glory would their praise outshine, Though men and angels in the fong should join; For though this earth with skill divine is wrought, Above the guess of man, or angel's thought, Yet in the fpecious regions of the skies
New fcenes unfold, and worlds on worlds arife;
There other orbs round other funs advance, Float on the air, and run their mystic dance; And yet the power of thy Almighty hand Can build another world from every fand: And though vain man arraign thy high decree, Still this is juft! what is, that ought to be.
THE CONCLUSION OF AN EPILOGUE
To Mr. SOUTHERN's laft Play, called MONEY THE MISTRESS.
THERE was a time, when in his younger years,
Our author's fcenes commanded fmiles or tears; And though beneath the weight of days he bends, Yet, like the fun, he fhines as he defcends: Then with applaufe, in honour to his age, Difmifs your veteran foldier off the stage; Crown his latt exit with diftinguith'd praife, And kindly hide his † baldnes with the bays.
Set by DR. TUDWAY, Profeffer of Mufic in Cambridge. WHEN from the plains Belinda fled,
The fad Amyntor figh'd;
And thus, while streams of tears he shed, The mournful fhepherd cry'd:
Move flow, ye hours! thou time, delay! "Prolong the bright Belinda's ftay : "Bat you, like her, my prayer deny, And cruelly away ye fly.
"Yet though the flies, fhe leaves behind Her lovely image in my mind. "Oh! fair Behinda, with me stay, Or take thy image too away.
"See how the fields are gay around, "How painted flowers adorn the ground! "As if the fields, as well as 1, "Were proud to please my fair-one's eye.
"But now, ye fields, no more be gay ; "No more, ye flowers, your charms difplay! 'Tis defert all, now you are fled, "And Paradife is where you tread."
Unmov'd the virgin flies his cares,
To fhine at court and play : To lonely fhades the youth repairs, To weep his life away.
Alluding to a vote of the Roman fenate, by they decreed Coejar a crown of laurel to cover his bald
O pity me, O weep my care. A thousand, thousand pains I bear,
WHICH BELINDA GAVE ME FROM HER I love, I die through deep defror!
O lovely offspring of the May,
Whence flow thy balmy ocours, fay! Such odours-not the orient boafts! Though Paradife adorn'd the coafts! O! Tweeter than each flower that blooms, This fragrance from thy bofom comes! Thence, thence fuch tweets are spread abroad, As might be incenfe for a God!
When Venus food conceal'd from view, Her fon, the latent Goddefs knew, Such fweets breath'd round and thus we know
Our other Venus here below.
But fee! my faireft, fee this flower, This fhort-liv'd beauty of an hour! Such are thy charms!--yet Zephyrs bring The flower to bloom again in fpring: But beauty, when it once declines, No more to warm the lover fhines; Alas! inceffant speeds the day, When thou fhalt be but common clay! When I, who now ado e, may fee, And ev'n with horror ftart from Thee!
But ere, fweet gift, thy grace confumes, Show thou my fair-one how the blooms! Put forth thy charms and then declare Thyfelf lefs fweet, thyfelf lefs fair! Then fudden, by afwift decay, Let all thy beauties fade away; And let her in thy glass defcry, How youth, and how frail beauty die.
Ah! turn, my charmer, turn thy eyes! See! how at once it fades, it dies! While thine-it gaily pleas'd the view, Unfaded, as before it grew!
Now, from thy bofom doom'd to stray, 'Tis only beauteous in decay:
So the fweet-fmelling Indian flowers,
Griev'd when they leave those happier shores, Sicken, and die away in curs.
So flowers, in Eden fond to blow, In Paradife would only grow.
Nor wonder, fairest, to survey The flower fo fuddenly decay!
Too cold thy breaft! † nor can it grow Between fuch little hills of snow.
I now, vain infidel, no more Deride th' Ægyptians, who adore The rifing herb, and blooming flower; Now, now their convert I will be, O lovely flower! to worship thee.
But if thou 'rt one of their fad train Who dy'd for love, and cold difdain, Who, chang'd by fome kind pitying power, A lover once, art now a flower;
The queen of est a Crete There Talus, whi
Rocks fheer up e
A giant, fpung from glatt Their births from er all
Fierce guard of Crete By Jove Bhitam, van Tot legiflators, ftyl'd the fons of heaven: To mercy deaf, he thrice each year explores The trembling ifle, and ftrides from theres a fhores :
A form of living brafs! one part beneath Alone he bears, a path to let in death, Where o'er the ankle fwells the turgid vein, Soft to the ftroke, and fenfible of pun.
And now her magic spells Medea tries, Bids the red fiends, the dogs of Orcus rife, That, ftarting dreadful from th' infernal fhade, Ride heaven in ftorms, and all that breathe invade ;
Thrice the applies the power of magic prayer, Thrice, hellward bending, mutters charms in air; Then, turning tow'rd the foe, bids mischief fly, And looks destruction as the points her eye: Then fpectres, rifing from Tartarean bowers, Howl round in air, or grin along the shores; While, tearing up whole hills, the giant throws Outrageous, rocks on rocks, to crush the foes: But, frantic as he strides, a fudden wound Burfts the life-vein, and blood o'erspreads the ground:
As from the furnace, in a burning flood, Pours molten lead, fe pours in streams his blood; And now he staggers, as the fpirit flies, He faints, he finks, he tumbles, and he dies. As fome huge cedar on a mountain's brow, Pierc'd by the fteel expects the final blow, A while it totters with alternate fway, Till freshening breezes through the branches play i
Then, tumbling downward with a thundering | Blaz'd on his limbs, and bright as Jove's dire bolts found,
Falls headlong, and o'erfpreads a breadth of ground: So, as the giant falls, the ocean roars; Out-ftretch'd he lies, and covers half the fhores.
Flafi'd o'er the field, and lighten'd to the skies.
As toiling reapers in fome fpacious field, Rang'd in two bands, move adveife, rank on rank Where o'er the tilth the grain in ears of gold Waves nodding to the breeze! at once they bend, At once the copious harvest fwells the ground: So ruth to battle o'er the dreadful field Hoft against hoft; they meet, they clofe, and ranks
From the ELEVENTH BOOK of the ILIAD Tumble on ranks; no thoughts appear of flight,
NOW gay Aurora from Tithonus' bed
Rofe in the orient, to proclaim the day To Gods and men down to the Grecian tents Saturnian Jove fends Difcord, red with blood; War in her hand the grafps, enfigns of war; On brave Ulyffes' thip the took her ftand, The centre of the hot, that all might hear Her dreadful voice: her dreadful voice fhe rais'd; Jarring along the rattling fhores it ran
To the fleet's wide extremes. Achilles heard, And Ajax heard the found: with martial fires Now every bofom burns; arms, glorious arms, Fierce they demand: the noble Orthian song Swells every heart; no coward thoughts of flight Rife in their fouls, but blood they breathe and
Now by the trench profound, the charioteers Range their proud fteeds; now car by car difplays direful front; now o'er the trembling field Rushes th' embattled foot; noife rends the skies, Noife unextinguish'd: ere the beamy day Flam'd in the aerial vault, ftretch'd in the van Stood the bold infantry: the rushing cars Form'd the deep rear in battailous array.
Now from his heavens Jove hurls his burning bolta;
Hoarfe muttering thunders grumble in the sky; While from the clouds, inftead of morning-dews, Huge drops of blood diftain the crimfon ground; Fatal presage! that in that dreadful day The great should bleed, imperial heads lie low!
Mean time the bands of Troy in proud array Stand in their arms, and from a rifing ground Breathe furious war: Here gatherings hofts attend The towering Hector: there refulgent bands Surround Polydamas, Æneas there Marthals his dauntless files; nor unemploy'd Stand Polybus, Agenor great in arms, And Acamas, whofe frame the Gods endow'd With more than mortals charms: fierce in the
None of difmay: dubious in even fcales
The battle hangs: not fiercer, ravenous wolves Difpute the prey the deathful scene with joy Difcord, dire parent of tremendous woes, Surveys exultant; of th' immortal train Difcord alone defcends, aflits alone
The horrors of the field; in peace the Gods High in Olympian bowers on radiant thrones Lament the works of man; but loud complaints From every God arofe; Jove favour'd Troy, At partial Jove they murmur'd: he unmov'd All heaven in murmurs heard, apart he fate Enthron'd in glory: down to earth he turn'd His fedraft eye, and from his throne furvey'd The rifing towers of Troy, the tented shores, The blaze of arms, the flayer and the flain.
While, with his morning wheels, the God of
Beat the firm glebes; thick duft in rifing clouds Darkens the fky. Indignant o'er the plain Atrides ftalks; death every step attends. As when, in fome huge foreft, fudden flames Rage dreadful, when rough winds affift the blaze, From tree to tree the fiery torrent rolls, And the vaft foreft links with all its groves Beneath the burning deluge; fo whole hofts Yield to Atrides' arm: car againft car Rush'd rattling o'er the field, and through the
Unguided broke, while breathlefs on the ground Lay the pale charioteers, in death deform'd;
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