Whatever happy region is thy place,
Cease thy celestial song a little space;
Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,

Sinee heaven's eternal year is thine.
Hear, then, a mortal muse thy praise rehearse,

In no ignoble verse ;
But such as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy first fruits of poesy were given,
To make thyself a welcome inmate there;

While yet a young probationer,

And candidate of heaven,

II.
If by traduction came thy mind,

Our wonder is the less to find
A soul so charming from a stock so good;
Thy father was transfused into thy blood :
So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein. *

But if thy pre-existing soul

Was formed, at first, with myriads more, It did through all the mighty poets roll,

Who Greek or Latin laurels wore, And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.

If so, then cease thy flight, О heaven-born mind! Thou hast no druss 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.

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
On thy auspicious horoscope to shine,
And e'en the most malicious were in trine.
Thy brother-angels at thy birth
Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high,

That all the people of the sky
Might know a poetess was born on earth;

And then, if ever, mortal ears
Had heard the music of the spheres.
And if no clustering swarm of bees
On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew,

'Twas that such vulgar miracles

Heaven had not leisure to renew : For alị thy blest fraternity of love Solemnized there thy bịrth, and kept thy holiday

above.

such vn distillet bees

IV.
O gracious God! how far have we
Prophaned thy heavenly gift of poesy?
Made prostitute and profligate the muse,
Debased to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordained above
For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love?
O wretched we! why were we hurried down

This lubrique and adulterate age,
(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;
Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child. *

V.

Such noble via borrowed wh hosom bred,

Art she had none, yet wanted none;
For nature did that want supply:
So rich in treasures of her own,

She might our boasted stores defy:
Such noble vigour did her verse adorn,
That it seemed borrowed where 'twas only born.
Her morals, too, were in her bosom bred,

By great examples daily fed,
What in the best of books, her father's life, she read:
And to be read herself she need not fear;
Each test, and every light, her muse will bear,
Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
E'en love (for love sometimes her muse exprest)
Was but a lambent flame which played about her

breast : Light as the vapours of a morning dream, So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest, 'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.

VI. Born to the spacious empire of the Nine, One would have thought she should have been content To manage well that mighty government; But what can young ambitious souls confine?

To the next realm she stretched her sway,

For Painture near adjoining lay,
A plenteous province, and alluring prey.

A chamber of dependencies was framed, (As conquerors will never want pretence,

When armed, to justify the offence,);

* 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.
The country open lay without defence;. ,',in?
For poets frequent inroads there had made,
. And perfectly could represent ..
· 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, Aud 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,
Her hand called out the image of his heart:
His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear,
His high-designing thoughts were figured there,
As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear.

Our phenix queent was pourtrayed too so bright,
Beauty alone could beauty take so right:
Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace,
Were all observed, as well as heavenly face.
With such a peerless majesty she stands,
As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands:
Before a train of heroines was seen,
In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen.

Thus nothing to her genius was denied,
But like a ball of fire the further thrown,

Still with a greater blaze she shone,
And her bright soul broke out on every side.
What next she had designed, heaven only knows:
To such immoderate growth her conquest rose,
That fate alone its progress could oppose.

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.