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BRITANNIA REDIVIVA:

A POEM on the PRINCE, born on the
Tenth of June, 1688.

UR vows are heard betimes, and heaven takes care

OUR

To grant, before we can conclude the prayer :
Preventing angels met it half the way,

And fent us back to praise, who came to pray.
Just on the day, when the high-mounted fun
Did fartheft in its northern progress run,
He bended forward, and ev'n stretch'd the sphere
Beyond the limits of the lengthen'd year,
To view a brighter fun in Britain born;
That was the business of his longest morn;
The glorious object seen, 'twas time to turn.
Departing Spring could only stay to shed
Her gloomy beauties on the genial bed,
But left the manly fummer in her ftead,
With timely fruit the longing land to chear,
And to fulfil the promise of the year.
Betwixt two seasons comes th' aufpicious heir,
This age to blossom, and the next to bear.

Laft folemn fabbath faw the Church attend,
The Paraclete in fiery pomp descend;
But when his wondrous octave roll'd again,
He brought a royal infant in his train.
So great a bleffing to fo good a king,
None but th' Eternal Comforter could bring.

VOL. II.

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Or

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Or did the mighty Trinity conspire,
As once in council to create our fire?
It feems as if they fent the new-born guest
To wait on the proceffion of their feast ;
And on their facred anniverfe decreed
To stamp their image on the promis'd feed.
Three realms united, and on one bestow'd,
An emblem of their mystic union show'd:
The mighty trine the triple empire shar'd :
As every perfon would have one to guard.

Hail, Son of prayers! by holy violence

Drawn down from heaven; but long be banish'd thence,

And late to thy paternal skies retire :

To mend our crimes, whole ages would require;

To change th' inveterate habit of our fins,
And finish what thy godlike fire begins.
Kind heaven, to make us Englishmen again,
No lefs can give us than a patriarch's reign.
The facred cradle to your charge receive,
Ye feraphs, and by turns the guard relieve;
Thy father's angel, and thy father join,
To keep poffeffion, and fecure the line;
But long defer the honours of thy fate:
Great may they be like his, like his be late;
That James his running century may view,
And give this Son an aufpice to the new.

Our wants exact at least that moderate stay :

For fee the dragon winged on his way,

To watch the travail, and devour the prey.

Or, if allufions may not rise so high,

Thus, when Alcides rais'd his infant cry,
The fnakes befieg'd his young divinity:

But vainly with their forked tongues they threat;
For oppofition makes a hero great.

To needful fuccour all the good will run,
And Jove affert the godhead of his Son.

O ftill repining at your present state,
Grudging yourselves the benefits of fate,
Look up, and read in characters of light
A bleffing fent you in your own despight.
The manna falls, yet that celestial bread
Like Jews you munch, and murmur while
you feed.
May not your fortune be like theirs, exil'd,
Yet forty years to wander in the wild!
Or if it be, may Mofes live at least,
To lead you to the verge of promis'd reft!

Though poets are not prophets, to foreknow
What plants will take the blight, and what will grow,
By tracing heaven, his footfteps may be found:
Behold! how awfully he walks the round!
God is abroad, and, wondrous in his ways,
The rife of empires, and their fall furveys;
More, might I say, than with an usual eye,
He fees his bleeding church in ruin lie,

And hears the fouls of faints beneath his altar cry.

Already has he lifted high the fign,

Which crown'd the conquering arms of Constantine:
The moon grows pale at that presaging fight,
And half her train of stars have loft their light.

Behold another Sylvefter, to bless
The facred standard, and fecure fuccefs;
Large of his treasures, of a soul so great,
As fills and crowds his universal feat.
Now view at home a second Conftantine
(The former too was of the British line);
Has not his healing balm your breaches clos'd,
Whofe exile many fought, and few oppos'd?
O, did not heaven by its eternal doom
Permit thofe evils, that this good might come?
So manifeft, that ev'n the moon-ey'd fects
See whom and what this Providence protects.
Methinks, had we within our minds no more
Than that one shipwreck on the fatal ore,
That only thought may make us think again,
What wonders God referves for fuch a reign.
To dream that chance his preservation wrought,
Were to think Noah was preferv'd for nought;
Or the furviving eight were not defign'd
To people earth, and to restore their kind.
When humbly on the royal babe we gaze,
The manly lines of a majestic face
Give awful joy: 'tis paradife to look
On the fair frontispiece of Nature's book:
If the first opening page fo charms the fight,
Think how th' unfolded volume will delight!
See how the venerable infant lies

In early pomp; how through the mother's eyes
The father's foul, with an undaunted view,
Looks out, and takes our homage as his due.

See

See on his future fubjects how he smiles,
Nor meanly flatters, nor with craft beguiles ;
But with an open face, as on his throne,

Affures our birthrights, and affumes his own:
Born in broad day-light, that th' ungrateful rout
May find no room for a remaining doubt;
Truth, which itself is light, does darkness shun,
And the true eaglet fafely dares the fun.

Fain would the fiends have made a dubious birth,
Loth to confefs the Godhead cloath'd in earth :.
But ficken'd after all their baffled lies,
To find an heir apparent in the skies :

Abandon'd to defpair, ftill may they grudge,
And, owning not the Saviour, prove the judge.
Not great Æneas ftood in plainer day,
When the dark mantling mist dissolv'd away,
He to the Tyrians fhew'd his fudden face,
Shining with all his goddess mother's grace :
For the herself had made his countenance bright,
Breath'd honour on his eyes, and her own purple light.
If our victorious Edward, as they say,
Gave Wales a prince on that propitious day,
Why may not years revolving with his fate
Produce his like, but with a longer date?
One, who may carry to a distant shore
The terror that his fam'd forefather bore.
But why should James or his young hero stay
For flight prefages of a name or day?

We need no Edward's fortune to adorn

That happy moment when our prince was born

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