The AFFLICTIONS of a FRIEND. Now let my cares all bury'd lie, My griefs for ever dumb : Your forrows fwell my heart fo high, Sickness and pains are quite forgot, Infinite grief puts fenfe to flight, And all the foul invades : So the broad gloom of spreading night Thus am I born to be unbleft! This fympathy of woe Drives my own tyrants from my breaft Sorrows in long fucceffion reign; Their iron rod I feel: Friendship has only chang'd the chain, Why was this life for misery made ? Or is a wretch too young? 1702 Move Move faster on, great nature's wheel, Be kind, ye rolling powers, Be dufky, all my rifing funs, Darkness, and death, make hafte at once To hide me in the grave. The Reverse: Or, The Comforts of a Friend. TH HUS nature tun'd her mournful tongue, Revers'd the forrow and the fong, Were kindred spirits born for cares? Is there a fympathy in tears, love, Forbid it, heaven, and raise my Sorrows are loft in vaft delight Pleasures Pleasures in long fucceffion reign, And all my powers employ : Friendship but shifts the pleasing scene, And fresh repeats the joy. Life has a foft and filver thread, Yet, when my vafter hopes perfuade, Faft as ye please roll down the hill, And dwell beneath the spheres. Rife glorious, every future fun, But make the last dear moment known By well-diftinguish'd rays. To the Right Honourable JOHN Lord CUTTS. At the Siege of Namur. The Hardy SOLDIER. Ο WHY is man fo thoughtless grown? "Why guilty fouls in hafte to die? "Venturing the leap to worlds unknown, "Heedless to arms and blood they fly. "Are lives but worth a foldier's pay? "But frenzy dares eternal fate, "And, fpurr'd with honour's airy dreams, Thus hovering o'er Namuria's plains, Anon the thundering trumpet calls; Burning feveral Poems of Ovid, Martial, 1708. I JUDGE the Mufe of lewd defire ; Her fons to darkness, and her works to fire. In vain the flatteries of their wit Now with a melting strain, now with an heavenly flight, 7 Would Would tempt my virtue to approve So harlots drefs: They can appear Die, Flora, die in endless fhame, Thou prostitute of blackest fame, Stript of thy falfe array. Ovid, and all ye wilder pens Of modern luft, who gild our fcenes, Poison the British stage, and paint damnation gay, Attend your mistress to the dead; When Flora dies, her imps should wait Strephon, of noble blood and mind, (For ever fhine his name!) upon As death approach'd, his foul refin'd, And gave his loofer fonnets to the flame. "Burn, burn, he cry'd with facred rage, "Hell is the due of every page, her fhade. “ Hell be the fate. (But O indulgent heaven! "In endless currents rolling to the main, "Can e'er dilute the poison, or wash out the stain.” *Earl of Rochester. |