ELEGIES AND EPITAPHS. TO THE MEMORY OF MR. OLDHAM. 5 FAREWELL, too little, and too lately known, 1 Farewell, too little] This short elegy is finished with the most exquisite art and skill. Not an epithet or expression can be changed for a better. It is also the most harmonious in its numbers of all that this great master of harmony has produced. Oldham's Satire on the Jesuits is written with vigour and energy. It is remarkable that Dryden calls Oldham his brother in satire, hinting that this was the characteristical turn of both their geniuses. To the same goal did both our studies drive.' Ver. 7. Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue. When poets are by too much force betray'd. Once more, hail, and farewell; farewell, thou TO THE PIOUS MEMORY OF THE ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG LADY, MRS. ANNE KILLIGREW, EXCELLENT IN THE TWO SISTER ARTS OF POESY AND PAINTING. AN ODE. I. THOU youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, 5 Thou roll'st above us, in thy wand'ring race, Mov'st with the heaven's majestic pace; Or, call'd to more superior bliss, But such as thy own voice did practise here, And candidate of heaven. II. If by traduction came thy mind, A soul so charming from a stock so good; But if thy preexisting soul Was form'd, at first, with myriads more, It did through all the mighty poets roll, Who Greek or Latin laurels wore, And was that Sappho last, which once it was before. 33 And was that Sappho last, &c.] Our author here compliments Mrs. Killigrew, with admitting the doctrine of me If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:' Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find, Than was the beauteous frame she left behind : Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind. III. May we presume to say, that, at thy birth New joy was sprung in heaven, as well as here on earth. For sure the milder planets did combine Strung each his lyre, and tun'd it high, Might know a poetess was born on earth. 40 45 50 On thy sweet mouth distill'd their golden dew, 'Twas that such vulgar miracles [above. For all thy blest fraternity of love Solemniz'd there thy birth, and kept thy holiday tempsychosis, and supposing the soul that informs her body to be the same with that of Sappho's, who lived six hundred years before the birth of Christ, and was equally renowned for poetry and love. She was called the tenth Muse. Phaon whom she loved, treating her with indifference, she jumped into the sea and was drowned. D. IV. O gracious God! how far have we (Nay added fat pollutions of our own) 60 To increase the steaming ordures of the stage? What can we say to excuse our second fall? Let this thy vestal, heaven, atone for all: Her Arethusian stream remains unsoil'd, Unmix'd with foreign filth, and undefil'd; Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child. V. Art she had none, yet wanted none; So rich in treasures of her own, She might our boasted stores defy Such noble vigour did her verse adorn, 75 That it seem'd borrow'd, where 'twas only born. Her morals too were in her bosom bred, By great examples daily fed, 80 What in the best of books, her father's life, she read. |