Great Love pervades the deep; to please his mate, The whale, in gambols, moves his monstrous
Heav'd by his wayward mirth old Ocean roars, And scatter'd navies bulge on distant shores.
All Nature smiles; come now, nor fear, my love,
To taste the odours of the woodbine grove,
To pass the evening glooms in harmless play,
And, sweetly swearing, languish life away.
An altar, bound with recent flowers, I rear
To thee, best season of the various year;
All hail! such days in beauteous order ran,
So swift, so sweet, when first the world began,
In Eden's bowers, when man's great sire assign'd
The names and natures of the brutal kind.
Then lamb and lion friendly walk'd their round,
And hares, undaunted, lick'd the fondling hound;
Wondrous to tell! but when, with luckless hand,
Our daring mother broke the sole command,
Then Want and Envy brought their meagre train,
Then Wrath came down, and Death had leave to
reign:
Hence foxes earth'd, and wolves abhorr'd the day,
And hungry churls ensnar'd the nightly prey;
Rude arts at first; but witty Want refin'd
The huntsman's wiles, and Famine form'd the mind.
Bold Nimrod first the lion's trophies wore,
The panther bound, and lanc'd the bristling boar;
He taught to turn the hare, to bay the deer,
And wheel the courser in his mid career:
Ah! had he there restrain'd his tyrant hand!
Let me, ye powers, an humbler wreath demand.
No pomps I ask, which crowns and sceptres yield,
Nor dangerous laurels in the dusty field;
Fast by the forest, and the limpid spring,
Give me the warfare of the woods to sing,
To breed my whelps, and healthful press the
A mean, inglorious, but a guiltless name.
And now thy female bears in ample womb The bane of hares, and triumphs yet to come. No sport, I ween, nor blast of sprightly horn, Should tempt me then to hurt the whelps unborn. Unlock'd, in covers let her freely run,
To range thy courts, and bask before the sun; Near thy full table let the favourite stand, Strok'd by thy son's, or blooming daughter's hand. Caress, indulge, by arts the matron bride, T'improve her breed, and teem a vigorous tribe.
So, if small things may be compar'd with great, And Nature's works the Muses imitate,
So stretch'd in shades, and lull'd by murmuring streams,
Great Maro's breast receiv'd the heavenly dreams.
Recluse, serene, the musing prophet lay,
Till thoughts in embryo, ripening, burst their way.
Hence bees in state, and foaming coursers come,
Heroes, and gods, and walls of lofty Rome.
FROM MONSIEUR FONTENELLE.
I AM, cry'd Apollo, when Daphne he woo'd,
And panting for breath, the coy virgin pursued,
When his wisdom, in manner most ample, exprest,
The long list of the graces his godship possest:
I'm the god of sweet song, and inspirer of lays; Nor for lays, nor sweet song, the fair fugitive stays; I'm the god of the harp-stop my fairest-in vain; Nor the harp, nor the harper could fetch her again.
Every plant, every flower, and their virtues I know,
God of light I'm above, and of physic below:
At the dreadful word physic, the nymph fled more
At the fatal word physic she doubled her haste.
Thou fond god of wisdom, then, alter thy phrase, Bid her view the young bloom, and thy ravishing rays,
Tell her less of thy knowledge, and more of thy charms,
life for't, the damsel will fly to thy arms.
MUCH had I heard of fair Francelia's name,
The lavish praises of the babbler, Fame:
I thought them such, and went prepar❜d to pry,
And trace the charmer, with a critic's eye;
Resolv'd to find some fault, before unspy'd,
And disappointed, if but satisfy'd.
Love pierc❜d the vassal heart, that durst rebel,
And where a judge was meant, a victim fell:
On those dear eyes, with sweet perdition gay,
I gaz'd, at once, my pride and soul away;
All o'er I felt the luscious poison run,
And, in a look, the hasty conquest won.
Thus the fond moth around the taper plays, And sports and flutters near the treacherous blaze; Ravish'd with joy, he wings his eager flight, Nor dreams of ruin in so clear a light; He tempts his fate, and courts a glorious doom, A bright destruction, and a shining tomb.
WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE PHENIX.
LAVISH of wit, and bold, appear the lines,
Where Claudian's genius in the Phenix shines;
A thousand ways each brilliant point is turn'd,
And the gay poem, like its theme, adorn'd:
A tale more strange ne'er grac'd the poet's art,
Nor e'er did fiction play so wild a part.
Each fabled charm in matchless Cælia meets,
The heavenly colours, and ambrosial sweets;
Her virgin bosom chaster fires supplies,
And beams more piercing guard her kindred eyes.
O'erflowing with th' imagin'd wonder drew,
But fertile fancy ne'er can reach the true.
Now buds your youth, your cheeks their bloom
disclose,
The untainted lily, and unfolding rose;
Ease in your mien, and sweetness in your face,
You speak a Syren, and you move a Grace;
Nor time shall urge these beauties to decay,
While virtue gives, what years shall steal away:
The fair, whose youth can boast the worth of age,
In
age shall with the charms of youth engage;
In every change still lovely, still the same,
A fairer Phenix in a purer flame.
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