Whatever happy region is thy place, But such as thy own voice did practise here, II. If by traduction came thy mind, A soul so charming from a stock so good; Was formed, at first, with myriads more, And was that Sappho last, which once it was before. If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind! Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore: Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find, Than was the beauteous frame she left behind:( Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind. * Henry Killigrew, D.D., the young lady's father, was himself a poet. He wrote The Conspiracy," a tragedy much praised by Ben Jonson and the amiable Lord Falkland, published in 1634. This edition being pirated and spurious, the author altered the play, and changed the title to “ Paliantus and Eudora.” published in 1002.-See Wood's driene Oron, Vol. II. p. 1030. III. May we presume to say, that, at thy birth, New joy was sprung in heaven, as well as here on earth. For sure the milder planets did combine Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high, On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew, 'Twas that such vulgar miracles Heaven had not leisure to renew : For all thy blest fraternity of love Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above. IV. O gracious God! how far have we (Nay, added fat pollutions of our own) Tincrease the streaming ordures of the stage? What can we say t'excuse our second fall? Let this thy vestal, heaven, atone for all: Her Arethusian stream remains unsoiled, Unmixed with foreign filth, and undefiled; V. Art she had none, yet wanted none; That it seemed borrowed where 'twas only born. By great examples daily fed, What in the best of books, her father's life, she read: Light as the vapours of a morning dream, VI. sway, Born to the spacious empire of the Nine, This line certainly gave rise to that of Pope in Gay's epitaph: In wit a man, simplicity a child. And the whole fief, in right of poetry, she claimed. For poets frequent inroads there had made, The shape, the face, with every lineament, And all the large domains which the Dumb Sister swayed; All bowed beneath her government, Received in triumph wheresoe'er she went. Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed, And oft the happy draught surpassed the image in her mind. The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks, And fruitful plains and barren rocks, Of shallow brooks that flowed so clear, The bottom did the top appear; Of deeper too and ampler floods, Which, as in mirrors, shewed the woods; Of lofty trees, with sacred shades, And perspectives of pleasant glades, Where nymphs of brightest form appear, And shaggy satyrs standing near, Which them at once admire and fear. The ruins too of some majestic piece, Boasting the power of ancient Rome or Greece, Whose statues, frizes, columns, broken lie, And, though defaced, the wonder of the eye; What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durst frame, Her forming hand gave feature to the name. So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before, But when the peopled ark the whole creation bore. VII. The scene then changed; with bold erected look Our martial king* the sight with reverence strook : * James II. painted by Mrs Killigrew. For, not content to express his outward part, As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands: In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen. VIII. Now all those charms, that blooming grace, The well-proportioned shape, and beauteous face, Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes; In earth the much-lamented virgin lies. Not wit, nor piety, could fate prevent; Nor was the cruel destiny content To finish all the murder at a blow, To sweep at once her life and beauty too; But, like a hardened felon, took a pride To work more mischievously slow, And plundered first, and then destroyed. + Mary of Este, as eminent for beauty as rank, also painted by the subject of the elegy. |