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His fhips and building; emblems of a heart
Large both in magnanimity and art.

While the propitious heavens this work attend,
The showers long wanted they forget to fend:
As if they meant to make it understood
Of more importance than our vital food.
The fun, which rifeth to falute the Quire
Already finish'd, fetting fhall admire
How private bounty cou'd fo far extend:

The King built all; but Charles the western-end ;
So proud a fabric to devotion giv'n,
At once it threatens, and obliges, heaven!
Laomedon, that had the Gods in pay,

Neptune, with him † that rules the facred day,
Could no fuch ftructure raife: Troy wall'd fo high,
Th' Atrides might as well have forc'd the sky.
Glad, though amazed, are our neighbour Kings,
To fee fuch power employ'd in peaceful things:
They lift not urge it to the dreadful field;
The talk is easier to destroy, than build.

Sic gratia Regum

Pieriis tentata modis. ***

HORAT.

† Apollo.

To

To the QUEEN, occafioned upon fight of Her Majesty's

WE

Picture.

WELL fare the hand! which to our humble fight
Presents that beauty, which the dazzling light

Of Royal fplendor hides from weaker eyes:

And all accefs, fave by this art, denies.
Here only we have courage to behold
This beam of glory: here we dare unfold
In numbers thus the wonders we conceive :
The gracious image, feeming to give leave,
Propitious ftands, vouchfafing to be seen;
And by our Muse faluted, Mighty Queen:
In whom th' extremes of power and beauty move,
The Queen of Britain, and the Queen of Love!
As the bright fun (to which we owe no fight
Of equal glory to your beauty's light)
Is wifely plac'd in fo fublime a feat,

T'extend his light, and moderate his heat :
So, happy 'tis you move in such a sphere,
As your high Majefty with awful fear
In human breafts might qualify that fire,
Which kindled by those eyes had flamed higher,
Than when the fcorched world like hazard run,
By the approach of the ill-guided fun.

No other nymphs have title to men's hearts,
But as their meannefs larger hope imparts:
Your beauty more the fondeft lover moves
With admiration, than his private loves;

With admiration! for a pitch fo high
(Save facred Charles's) never love durft fly.
Heaven, that prefer'd a scepter to your hand,
Favor'd our freedom more than your command:
Beauty had crown'd you, and you must have been
The whole world's miftrefs, other than a Queen.
All had been rivals, and you might have spar'd,
Or kill'd, and tyranniz'd, without a guard.
No power atchiev'd, either by arms or birth,
Equals Love's empire, both in heaven and earth:
Such eyes as yours, on Jove himself have thrown
As bright and fierce a lightning as his own:
Witness our Jove, prevented by their flame
In his swift paffage to th' Hefperian Dame :
When, like a lion, finding in his way
To fome intended fpoil, a fairer prey;
The Royal Youth, purfuing the report
Of beauty, found it in the Gallic Court:
There public care with private paffion fought
A doubtful combat in his noble thought:
Should he confefs his greatness and his love,
And the free faith of your + Great Brother prove;
With his Achates, breaking through the cloud
Of that disguise which did their Graces shroud;
And mixing with thofe Gallants at the Ball,
Dance with the Ladies, and outshine them all?
Or on his journey o'er the mountains ride?—
So, when the fair Leucothoë he espy'd,

Lewis XIII. K. of France. D. of Buckingham.

To

To check his steeds impatient Phoebus yearn'd,

Though all the world was in his courfe concern'd.
What may hereafter her meridian do,

Whofe dawning beauty warm'd his bofom fo?
Not fo divine a flame, fince deathless Gods
Forbore to vifit the defil'd abodes

Of men, in any mortal breaft did burn;
Nor fhall, till Piety and They return.

THE

OF THE QUEEN.

HE lark, that fhuns on lofty boughs to build
Her humble neft, lies filent in the field:

But if (the promife of a cloudlefs Day)

Aurora fmiling bids her rife and play;

Then strait she shews, 'twas not for want of voice,
Or power to climb, fhe made fo low a choice;
Singing the mounts, her airy wings are ftretch'd
Tow'rds heaven, as if from heaven her note the fetch'd.
So we, retiring from the bufy throng,

Ufe to restrain th' ambition of our fong;

But fince the light which now informs our age,
Breaks from the Court, indulgent to her rage;
Thither my Mufe, like bold Prometheus, flies,

To light her torch at Gloriana's eyes.

Thofe fovereign beams, which heal the wounded foul, And all our cares, but once beheld, control! There the poor lover that has long endur'd Some proud nymph's fcorn, of his fond paffion cur'd, Fares like the man who firft upon the ground. A glow-worm fpy'd; fuppofing he had found

A moving

A moving diamond, a breathing stone;
For life it had, and like those jewels fhone:
He held it dear, till, by the fpringing day
Inform'd, he threw the worthlefs worm away.
She faves the lover, as we gangrenes stay,
By cutting hope, like a lopt limb, away:
This makes her bleeding patients to accufe
High Heaven, and these expoftulations use.
"Could nature then no private woman grace,
"Whom we might dare to love, with fuch a face,
"Such a complexion, and so radiant eyes,
"Such lovely motion, and fuch sharp replies?

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Beyond our reach, and yet within our fight, "What envious Power has plac'd this glorious light?" Thus, in a starry night fond children cry For the rich spangles that adorn the sky; Which, though they fhine for ever fixed there, With light and influence relieve us here. All her affections are to one inclin'd; Her bounty and compaffion, to mankind : To whom, while fhe fo far extends her grace, She makes but good the promise of her face: For mercy has, could mercy's felf be seen, No sweeter look than this propitious Queen. Such guard, and comfort, the diftreffed find From her large power, and from her larger mind, That whom ill fate would ruin, it prefers; For all the miferable are made her's.

So the fair tree, whereon the eagle builds,

Poor sheep from tempefts, and their fhepherds, fhields a

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