The fate of James with pitying eyes I view,
And wish my homage were not Brunswick's due:
To James my passion and my weakness guide,
But reason sways me to the victor's side.
Though griev'd I speak it; let the truth appear;
You know my language and my heart sincere.
In vain did falsehood his fair fame disgrace;
What force had falsehood when he show'd his face?
In vain to war aur boastful clans were led;
Heaps driv'n on heaps in the dire shock they fled.
France shuns his wrath, nor raises to our shame
A second Dunkirk in another name.
In Britain's funds their wealth all Europe throws,
And up the Thames the world's abundance flows.
Spite of feign'd fears and artificial cries,
The pious Town sees fifty churches rise.
The hero triumphs as his worth is known,
And sits more firmly on his shaken throne.
To my sad thought no beam of hope appears
Through the long prospect of succeeding years.
The son, aspiring to his father's fame,
Shows all his sire, another and the same :
He blest in lovely Carolina's arms
To future ages propagates her charms.
With pain and joy at strife I often trace
The mingled parents in each daughter's face;
Half sickening at the sight, too well I spy
The father's spirit through the mother's eye:
In vain new thoughts of rage I entertain,
And strive to hate their innocence in vain.
O Princess! happy by thy foes confest, Blest in thy husband, in thy children blest, As they from thee, from them new beauties born While Europe lasts shall Europe's thrones adorn
Transplanted to each court, in times to come
Thy smile celestial and unfading bloom
Great Austria's sons with softer lines shall grace,
And smooth the frowns of Bourbon's haughty race;
The fair descendants of thy sacred bed
Wide branching o'er the western world shall spread,
Like the fam'd Banian tree, whose pliant shoot
To earthward bending, of itself takes root;
Till, like their mother plant, ten thousand stand
In verdant arches on the fertile land;
Beneath her shade the tawny Indians rove,
Or hunt at large through the wide echoing grove.
O thou! to whom these mournful lines I send,
My promis'd husband and my dearest friend,
Since Heav'n appoints this favour'd race to reign,
And blood has drench'd the Scottish fields in vain,
Must I be wretched, and thy flight partake?
Or wilt not thou, for thy lov'd Chloe's sake,
Tir'd out at length, submit to fate's decree?
If not to Brunswick, O return to me!
Prostrate before the victor's mercy bend;
What spares whole thousands may to thee extend.
Should blinded friends thy doubtful conduct blame,
Great Brunswick's virtues will secure thy fame :
Say these invite thee to approach his throne,
And own the monarch Heaven vouchsafes to own:
The world convinc'd, thy reasons will approve ;
Say this to them, but swear to me 'twas love.
THE greatest swain that treads the' Arcadian grove,
Our shepherds envy, and our virgins love,
His charming nymph his softer fair obtains,
The bright Diana of our flowery plains;
He 'midst the graceful of superior grace,
And she the loveliest of the loveliest race.
Thy fruitful influence guardian Juno shed,
And crown the pleasures of the genial bed;
Raise thence, their future joy, a smiling heir,
Brave as the father, as the mother fair.
Well may'st thou shower thy choicest gifts on those,
Who boldly rival thy most hated foes;
The vigorous bridegroom with Alcides vies,
And the fair bride has Cytherea's eyes.
OH! form'd by Nature and refin❜d by art,
With charms to win and sense to fix the heart,
By thousands sought, Clotilda! canst thou free
Thy crowd of captives and descend to me;
Content in shades obscure to waste thy life,
A hidden beauty and a country wife?
O! listen while thy summers are my theme,
Ah! sooth thy partner in his waking dream.
In some small hamlet on the lonely plain, [train;
Where Thames through meadows rolls his mazy
Or where high Windsor, thick with greens array'd,
Waves his old oaks and spreads his ample shade,
Fancy has figur'd out our calm retreat;
Already round the visionary seat
Our limes begin to shoot, our flowers to spring,
The brooks to murmur, and the birds to sing.
Where dost thou lie, thou thinly-peopled green,
Thou nameless lawn and village yet unseen,
Where sons contented with their native ground
Ne'er travell❜d further than ten furlongs round,
And the tann'd peasant and his ruddy bride
Were born together, and together died;
Where early larks best tell the morning light,
And only Philomel disturbs the night?
'Midst gardens here my humble pile shall rise,
With sweets surrounded of ten thousand dies;
All savage where the' embroider'd gardens end,
The haunt of echoes shall my woods ascend;
And oh! if Heav'n the' ambitious thought approve,
A rill shall warble cross the gloomy grove;
A little rill, o'er pebbly beds convey'd,
Gush down the steep and glitter through the glade.
What cheering scents these bordering banks exhale!
How loud that heifer lows from yonder vale!
That thrush how shrill! his note so clear, so high,
He drowns each feather'd minstrel of the sky.
Here let me trace beneath the purpled morn,
The deep-mouth'd beagle and the sprightly horn,
Or lure the trout with well-dissembled flies,
Or fetch the fluttering partridge from the skies.
Nor shall thy hand disdain to crop the vine,
The downy peach or flavour'd nectarine,
Or rob the bee-hive of its golden hoard,
And bear the' unbought luxuriance to thy board.
Sometimes my books by day shall kill the hours,
While from thy needle rise the silken flow'rs,
And thou by turns, to ease my feeble sight,
Resume the volume and deceive the night.
Oh! when I mark thy twinkling eyes opprest,
Soft whispering let me warn my love to rest,
Then watch thee, charm'd, while sleep locks every
And to sweet Heav'n commend thy innocence !
Thus reign'd our fathers o'er the rural fold,
Wise, hale, and honest, in the days of old;
Till courts arose, where substance pays for show,
And specious joys are bought with real woe.
See Flavia's pendants large, well spread and right;
The ear that wears them hears a fool each night.
Mark how the' embroider'd col'nel sneaks away
To shun the withering dame that made him gay.
That knave to gain a title lost his fame;
That rais'd his credit by a daughter's shame:
This coxcomb's ribband cost him half his land,
And oaks unnumber'd bought that fool a wand.
Fond man, as all his sorrows were too few,
Acquires strange wants that Nature never knew;
By midnight lamps he emulates the day,
And sleeps perverse the cheerful suns away;
From goblets high-embost his wine must glide,
Round his clos'd sight the gorgeous curtain slide.
Fruits ere their time to grace his pomp must rise,
And three untasted courses glut his eyes:
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