LOVE is by fancy led about
From hope to fear, from joy to doubt;
Whom we now an angel call,
Divinely grac❜d in every feature,
Straight's a deform'd, a perjur'd creature ;
Love and hate are fancy all.
'Tis but as fancy shall present Objects of grief, or of content,
That the lover's bless'd, or dies: Visions of mighty pain, or pleasure, Imagin'd want, imagin'd treasure, All in powerful fancy lies.
WHEN fam'd Apelles sought to frame
Some image of the' Idalian dame,
To furnish graces for the piece,
He summon'd all the nymphs of Greece;
So many mortals were combin❜d,
To show how one immortal shin'd.
Had Hyde thus sat by proxy too,
As Venus then was said to do,
Venus herself, and all the train
Of goddesses, had summon'd been;
Afterwards Countess of Clarendon and Rochester.
The painter must have search'd the skies,
To match the lustre of her eyes.
Comparing then, while thus we view
The ancient Venus, and the new;
In her we many mortals see,
As many goddesses in thee.
SITTING AT SIR GODFREY KNELLER'S FOR HER
PICTURE.
WHILE Kneller, with inimitable art,
Attempts that face whose print's on every heart,
The poet, with a pencil less confin'd,
Shall paint her virtues, and describe her mind;
Unlock the shrine, and to the sight unfold
The secret gems, and all the inward gold.
Two only patterns do the muses name,
Of perfect beauty, but of guilty fame;
A Venus and a Helen have been seen,
Both perjur'd wives, the goddess and the queen:
In this, the third, are reconcil'd at last
Those jarring attributes of fair and chaste,
With graces that attract, but not ensnare,
Divinely good, as she's divinely fair;
With beauty, not affected, vain, nor proud;
With greatness, easy, affable, and good :
Others by guilty artifice, and arts
Of promis'd kindness, practise on our hearts;
With expectation blow the passion up;
She fans the fire, without one gale of hope;
Like the chaste moon, she shines to all mankind,
But to Endymion is her love confin'd.
What cruel destiny on beauty waits,
When on one face depends so many fates!
Oblig'd by honour to relieve but one,
Unhappy men by thousands are undone.
MACHAON sick, in every face we find,
His danger is the danger of mankind;
Whose art protecting, nature could expire
But by a deluge, or the general fire.
More lives he saves than perish in our wars,
And faster than a plague destroys, repairs.
The bold carouser, and advent'rous dame,
Nor fear the fever, nor refuse the flame;
Safe in his skill, from all restraints set free,
But conscious shame, remorse, or piety.
Sire* of all arts, defend thy darling son;
O! save the man whose life's so much our own!
On whom, like Atlas, the whole world's reclin'd
And, by restoring Garth, preserve mankind.
* Apollo, god of poetry and physic.
LOVE, like a tyrant whom no laws constrain,
Now for some ages kept the world in pain;
Beauty, by vast destructions got renown,
And lovers only by their rage were known;
But Granville, more auspicious to mankind,
Conquering the heart, as much instructs the mind;
Bless'd in the fate of her victorious eyes,
Seeing, we love; and hearing, we grow wise;
So Rome for wisdom, as for conquest fam'd,
Improv'd with arts, whom she by arms had tam'd.
Above the clouds is plac'd this glorious light,
Nothing lies hid from her inquiring sight;
Athens and Rome for arts restor❜d rejoice,
Their language takes new music from her voice;
Learning and love, in the same seat we find,
So bright her eyes, and so adorn'd her mind.
Long had Minerva govern'd in the skies,
But now descends, confess'd to human eyes;
Behold, in Granville, that inspiring queen,
Whom learned Athens so ador'd unseen.
WHY, cruel creature, why so bent
To vex a tender heart?
To gold and title you relent,
Love throws in vain his dart.
Let glittering fools in courts be great;
For pay let armies move;
Beauty shall have no other bait
But gentle vows, and love.
If on those endless charms you lay
The value that's their due ;
Kings are themselves too poor to pay,
A thousand worlds too few.
But if a passion without vice,
Without disguise or art,
Ah, Myra! if true love's your price,
Behold it in my heart.
THE syrens, once deluded, vainly charm'd,
Tied to the mast, Ulysses sail'd unharm'd;
Had Myra's voice entic'd his listening ear,
The Greek had stop'd and would have died to hear.
When Myra sings, we seek the' enchanting sound,
And bless the notes that do so sweetly wound.
What music needs must dwell upon that tongue,
Whose speech is tuneful as another's song;
Such harmony! such wit! a face so fair!
So many pointed arrows who can bear!
Who from her wit, or from her beauty flies,
If with her voice she overtakes him, dies.
Like soldiers, so in battle we succeed,
One peril 'scaping, by another bleed;
In vain the dart or glittering sword we shun,
Condemn'd to perish by the slaughtering gun.
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