POEMS

SONG
LOVE ARMED¹

LOVE in fantastic triumph sat,²

Whilst bleeding hearts around him flowed,

For whom fresh pains he did create,

And strange tyrannic power he showed,

From thy bright eyes he took his fire,

Which round about, in sport he hurled;

But ’twas from mine, he took desire,

Enough to undo the amorous world.

From me he took his sighs and tears,

From thee his pride and cruelty;

From me his languishments and fears,

And every killing dart from thee;

Thus thou and I, the god have armed,

And set him up a deity;

But my poor heart alone is harmed,

Whilst thine the victor is, and free.

EPILOGUE¹
SPOKEN BY MRS GWIN²

I HERE, and there, o’erheard a coxcomb cry

Ah, rot it – ’tis a woman’s comedy, [Looking about.

One, who because she lately chanced to please us,

With her damned stuff will never cease to tease us,

What has poor woman done that she must be,

Debarred from sense and sacred poetry?

Why in this age has Heaven allowed you more,

And women less of wit than heretofore?

We once were famed in story, and could write

Equal to men; could govern, nay could fight.

We still have passive valour, and can show

Would custom give us leave the active too,

Since we no provocations want from you.

For who but we, could your dull fopperies bear,

Your saucy love, and your brisk nonsense hear;

Endure your worse than womanish affectation,

Which renders you the nuisance of the nation;

Scorned even by all the Misses of the town,

A jest to vizard mask,³ the pit-buffoon;

A glass by which the admiring country fool

May learn to dress himself in ridicule:

Both striving who shall most ingenious grow

In lewdness, foppery, nonsense, noise and show.

And yet to these fine things we must submit

Our reason, arms, our laurels, and our wit.

Because we do not laugh at you when lewd,

And scorn and cudgel ye when you are rude;

That we have nobler souls than you, we prove,

By how much more we’re sensible of love;

Quickest in finding all the subtlest ways

To make your joys: why not to make you plays?

We best can find your foibles, know our own,

And jilts⁴ and cuckolds now best please the town;

Your way of writing’s out of fashion grown.

Method, and rule⁵ – you only understand,

Pursue that way of fooling, and be damned.

Your learned cant of action, time, and place,

Must all give way to the unlaboured farce.

To all the men of wit we will subscribe:

But for you half wits, you unthinking tribe,

We’ll let you see, what e’er besides we do,

How artfully we copy some of you:

And if you’re drawn to th’ life, pray tell me then

Why women should not write as well as men.

THE DISAPPOINTMENT¹

I.

ONE day the amorous Lysander,

By an impatient passion swayed,

Surprised fair Cloris, that loved maid,

Who could defend herself no longer.²

All things did with his love conspire;

The gilded planet of the day,

In his gay chariot drawn by fire,

Was now descending to the sea,

And left no light to guide the world,

But what from Cloris’ brighter eyes was hurled.

II.

In a lone thicket made for love,

Silent as yielding maid’s consent,

She with a charming languishment,

Permits his force, yet gently strove;

Her hands his bosom softly meet,

But not to put him back designed,

Rather to draw him³ on inclined;

Whilst he lay trembling at her feet,

Resistance ’tis in vain⁴ to show;

She wants the power to say – ‘Ah! What d’ye do?’

III.

Her bright eyes sweet, and yet severe,

Where love and shame confusedly strive,

Fresh vigour to Lysander give;

And breathing faintly⁵ in his ear,

She cried – ‘Cease, cease – your vain desire,

Or I’ll call out – what would you do?⁶

My dearer honour even to you

I cannot, must not give – retire,

Or take this life, whose chiefest part

I gave you with the conquest of my heart.’

IV.

But he as much unused to fear,

As he was capable of love,

The blessed minutes to improve,

Kisses her mouth,⁷ her neck, her hair;

Each touch her new desire⁸ alarms,⁹

His burning trembling hand he pressed

Upon her swelling¹⁰ snowy breast,

While she lay panting in his arms.

All her unguarded beauties lie

The spoils and trophies of the enemy.

V.

And now without respect or fear,

He seeks the object of his vows,

(His love no modesty allows)

By swift degrees advancing – where

His daring hand that altar seized,

Where gods of love do sacrifice:

That awful throne, that paradise

Where rage is calmed,¹¹ and anger pleased,

That fountain where delight still flows,

And gives the universal world repose.¹²

VI.

Her balmy lips encountering his,

Their bodies, as their souls, are joined;

Where both in transports unconfined

Extend themselves upon the moss.

Cloris half dead and breathless lay;

Her soft eyes cast a humid light,¹³

Such as divides the day and night;

Or falling stars, whose fires decay:

And now no signs of life she shows,

But what in short-breathed sighs returns and goes.¹⁴

VII.

He saw how at her length she lay;

He saw her rising bosom bare;

Her loose thin robes, through which appear

A shape designed for love and play;

Abandoned by her pride and shame

She does her softest joys dispense,

Offering her virgin innocence

A victim to love’s sacred flame;

While¹⁵ the o’er-ravished shepherd lies

Unable to perform the sacrifice.

VIII.

Ready to taste a thousand joys,

The too transported hapless swain

Found the vast pleasure turned to pain;

Pleasure which too much love destroys.

The willing garments¹⁶ by he laid,

And Heaven all opened¹⁷ to his view,

Mad to possess, himself he threw

On the defenceless lovely maid.

But oh what envious gods conspire ¹⁸

To snatch his power, yet leave him the desire!

IX.

Nature’s support (without whose aid

She can no human being give)

Itself now wants the art to live;

Faintness its slackened nerves invade;

In vain th’enraged youth essayed

To call its fleeting vigour back,

No motion ’twill from motion take;

Excess of love his love betrayed.

In vain he toils, in vain commands;

The insensible fell weeping in his hand.

X.

In this so amorous cruel strife,

Where love and fate were too severe,

The poor Lysander in despair

Renounced his reason with his life.

Now all the brisk and active fire

That should the nobler part inflame,

Served to increase his rage and shame,¹⁹

And left no spark for new desire:

Not all her naked charms could move

Or calm that rage that had debauched his love.

XI.

Cloris returning from the trance

Which love and soft desire had bred,

Her timorous hand she gently laid

(Or guided by design or chance)

Upon that fabulous Priapas,²⁰

That potent god, as poets feign;

But never did young shepherdess,

Gathering of fern upon the plain,

More nimbly draw her fingers back,

Finding beneath the verdant leaves, a snake,

XII.

Then Cloris her fair hand withdrew,

Finding that god of her desires

Disarmed of all his awful fires,

And cold as flowers bathed in the morning dew.

Who can the nymph’s confusion guess?

The blood forsook the hinder²¹ place,

And strewed with blushes all her face,

Which both disdain and shame expressed:

And from Lysander’s arms she fled,

Leaving him fainting on the gloomy bed.

XIII.

Like lightning through the grove she hies,

Or Daphne from the Delphic god,²²

No print upon the grassy road

She leaves, t’instruct pursuing eyes.

The wind that wantoned in her hair,

And with her ruffled garments played,

Discovered in the flying maid

All that the gods e’er made, of fair.²³

So Venus, when her love was slain,

With fear and haste flew o’er the fatal plain.²⁴

XIV.

The nymph’s resentments none but I

Can well imagine or²⁵ condole:

But none can guess Lysander’s soul,

But those who swayed his destiny.

His silent griefs swell up to storms,

And not one god his fury spares;

He cursed his birth, his fate, his stars

But more the shepherdess’s charms,²⁶

Whose soft bewitching influence

Had damned him to the hell of impotence.

TO MR CREECH (UNDER THE NAME OF DAPHNIS) ON HIS EXCELLENT TRANSLATION OF LUCRETIUS¹

THOU great young man! Permit amongst the crowd

Of those that sing thy mighty praises loud,

My humble Muse to bring its tribute too.

Inspired by thy vast flight of verse,

Methinks I should some wondrous thing rehearse,

Worthy divine Lucretius, and diviner thou.

But I of feebler seeds designed,

Whilst² the slow moving atoms strove

With careless heed to form my mind:

Composed it all of softer love.

In gentle numbers all my songs are dressed,

And when I would thy glories sing,

What in strong manly verse I would express

Turns all to womanish tenderness within.

Whilst that which admiration does inspire,

In other souls, kindles in mine a fire.

Let them admire thee on – whilst I this newer way

Pay thee yet more than they:

For more I owe, since thou hast taught me more,

Than all the mighty bards that went before.

Others long since have palled³ the vast delight;

In duller Greek and Latin satisfied the appetite;

But I unlearned in schools, disdain that mine

Should treated be at any feast but thine.

Till now, I cursed my birth, my education,⁴

And more the scanted customs of the nation:

Permitting not the female sex to tread,

The mighty paths of learned heroes dead.

The god-like Virgil, and great Homer’s verse,⁵

Like divine mysteries are concealed from us.

We are forbid all grateful themes,

No ravishing thoughts approach our ear,

The fulsome jingle of the times,

Is all we are allowed to understand or hear.

But as of old, when men unthinking lay,

Ere gods were worshipped, or ere laws were framed

The wiser bard that taught ’em first t’ obey,

Was next to what he taught, adored and famed;

Gentler they grew, their words and manners changed,

And savage now no more the woods they ranged.

So thou by this translation dost advance

Our knowledge from the state of ignorance,

And equals us to man: Ah how can we,

Enough adore, or sacrifice enough to thee!

The mystic terms of rough philosophy,

Thou dost so plain and easily express;

Yet deck’st them in so soft and gay a dress:

So intelligent to each capacity,

That they at once instruct and charm the sense,

With heights of fancy, heights of eloquence;

And reason over all unfettered plays,

Wanton and undisturbed as summer’s breeze;

That gliding murmurs o’er the trees:

And no hard notion meets or stops its way.

It pierces, conquers and compels,

Beyond poor feeble Faith’s dull oracles.⁶

Faith the despairing⁷ soul’s content,

Faith the last shift⁸ of routed argument.

Hail sacred Wadham!⁹ whom the Muses grace

And from the rest of all the reverend pile

Of noble palaces, designed thy space:

Where they in soft retreat might dwell.

They blessed thy fabric, and said – Do thou,

Our darling sons contain;

We thee our sacred nursery ordain:

They said and blessed, and it was so.

And if of old the fanes of silvian gods,

Were worshipped as divine abodes;

If Courts are held as sacred things,

For being the awful seats of Kings.

What veneration should be paid,

To thee that hast such wondrous poets made!

To gods for fear, devotion was designed,

And safety made us bow to majesty;

Poets by nature awe and charm the mind,

Are born not made by dull¹⁰ religion or necessity.

The learned Thirsis¹¹ did to thee belong,

Who Athens plague has so divinely sung.

Thirsis to wit, as sacred friendship true,

Paid mighty Cowley’s memory its due.

Thirsis who whilst a greater plague did reign,

Than that which Athens did depopulate:

Scattering rebellious fury o’er the plain,

That threatened ruin to the Church and State,

Unmoved he stood, and feared no threats of Fate.

That loyal champion for the Church and Crown,

That noble ornament of the sacred gown,

Still did his sovereign’s cause espouse,

And was above the thanks of the mad Senate house.

Strephon¹² the great, whom last you sent abroad,

Who writ, and loved, and looked like any god;

For whom the Muses mourn, the love-sick maids

Are languishing in melancholy shades.

The Cupids flag¹³ their wings, their bows untie,

And useless quivers hang neglected by,

And scattered arrows all around them lie,

By murmuring brooks the careless deities are laid,

Weeping their rifled power now noble Strephon’s dead.

Ah sacred Wadham! should’st thou never own

But this delight of all mankind and thine;

For ages past of dullness, this alone,

This charming hero would atone.

And make thee glorious to succeeding time;

But thou like Nature’s self disdain’st to be,

Stinted to singularity.

Even as fast as she thou dost produce,

And over all the sacred mystery infuse.

No sooner was famed Strephon’s glory set,

Strephon the soft, the lovely and the¹⁴ great;

But Daphnis rises like the morning star,

That guides the wandering traveller from afar.

Daphnis whom every grace, and Muse inspires,

Scarce Strephon’s ravishing poetic fires

So kindly warm, or so divinely cheer.

Advance young Daphnis, as thou hast begun,

So let thy mighty race be run.

Thou in thy large poetic chase,

Begin’st where others end the race.

If now thy grateful numbers are so strong,

If they so early can such graces show,

Like beauty so surprising, when so young,

What Daphnis will thy riper judgment do,

When thy unbounded verse in their own streams shall flow!

What wonder will they not produce,

When thy immortal fancy’s loose;

Unfettered, unconfined by any other Muse!

Advance young Daphnis then, and mayst thou prove

Still sacred¹⁵ in thy poetry and love.

May all the groves with Daphnis’ songs be blessed,

Whilst every bark is with thy distichs dressed.¹⁶

May timorous maids learn how to love from thence

And the glad shepherd arts of eloquence.

And when to solitude thou would’st retreat,

May their tuned pipes thy welcome celebrate.

And¹⁷ all the nymphs strow garlands at thy feet.

May all the purling streams that murmuring pass,

The shady groves and banks of flowers,

The kind¹⁸ reposing beds of grass,

Contribute to their¹⁹ softer hours.

May’st thou thy Muse and mistress there caress,

And may one heighten t’other’s happiness.

And whilst thou so divinely dost converse,

We are content to know and to admire thee in thy sacred ²⁰ verse.²¹

A LETTER TO MR CREECH AT OXFORD, WRITTEN IN THE LAST GREAT FROST¹

DAPHNIS, because I am your debtor,

(And other causes which are better)

I send you here my debt of letter.

You should have had a scrap of nonsense,

You may remember left at Tonson’s.²

(Though by the way that’s scurvy rhyme Sir,

But yet ’twill serve to tag a line Sir.)

A billet-doux I had designed then,

But you may think I was in wine then;

Because it being cold, you know

We warmed it with a glass – or so,

I grant you that shie wine’s ³ the Devil,

To make one’s memory uncivil;

But when ’twixt every sparkling cup,

I so much brisker wit took up;

Wit, able to inspire a thinking;

And make one solemn even in drinking;

Wit that would charm and stock a poet,

Even instruct — who has no wit;

Wit that was hearty, true, and loyal,

Of wit, like Bays’⁴ Sir, that’s my trial;

I say ’twas most impossible,

That after that one should be dull.

Therefore because you may not blame me,

Take the whole truth as — shall sa’me.

From White-Hall⁵ Sir, as I was coming,

His sacred Majesty from dunning;

Who oft in debt is, truth to tell,

For Tory farce, or doggerel,

When every street as dangerous was,

As ever the Alpian hills to pass,

When melted snow and ice confound one,

Whether to break one’s neck or drown one,

And billet-doux in pocket lay,

To drop as coach should jolt that way,

Near to that place of fame called Temple,⁶

(Which I shall note by sad example)

Where college dunce is cured of simple,⁷

Against that sign of whore called Scarlet,⁸

My coachman fairly laid pilgarlic.⁹

Though scribbling fist was out of joint,

And every limb made great complaint;

Yet missing the dear assignation,

Gave me most cause of tribulation.

To honest H—le¹⁰ I should have shown ye,

A wit that would be proud t’have known ye;

A wit uncommon, and facetious,

A great admirer of Lucretius;¹¹

But transitory hopes do vary,

And high designments oft miscarry,

Ambition never climbed so lofty,

But may descend too fair and softly,

But would you’d seen how sneakingly

I looked with this catastrophe.

So saucy Whig, when Plot¹² broke out,

Dejected hung his snivelling snout;

So Oxford Member looked, when Rowley¹³

Kicked out the rebel crew so foully;

So Perkin once that God of Wapping,¹⁵

Whom slippery turn of State took napping,

From hopes of James the second¹⁴ fell

In to the native scounderel.

So lover looked of joy defeated,

When too much fire his vigour cheated,¹⁶

Even so looked I, when bliss depriving,

Was caused by over-hasty driving,

Who saw me could not choose but think,

I looked like brawn in sousing drink.

Or Lazarello¹⁷ who was showed

For a strange fish, to’th’ gaping crowd.

Thus you by fate (to me, sinister)

At shop of book my billet missed Sir.

And home I went as discontent,

As a new routed Parliament,

Not seeing Daphnis ere he went.

And sure his grief beyond expressing,

Of joy proposed to want the blessing;

Therefore to pardon pray incline,

Since disappointment all was mine;

Of Hell we have no other notion,

Than all the joys of Heaven’s privation;

So Sir with recommendments fervent,

I rest your very humble servant.

POSTSCRIPT

On Twelfth Night Sir, by that good token,

When lamentable cake¹⁸ was broken,

You had a friend, a man of wit,

A man whom I shall ne’er forget;

For every word he did impart,

’Twas worth the keeping in a heart:

True Tory all! and when he spoke,

A god in wit, though man in look.

– To this your friend – Daphnis address

The humblest of my services;

Tell him how much – yet do not too,

My vast esteem no words can show;

Tell him – that he is worthy – you.

SONG
ON HER LOVING TWO EQUALLY¹

Set by Captain Pack²

I.

HOW strongly does my passion flow,

Divided equally ’twixt two?

Damon had ne’er subdued my heart,

Had not Alexis took his part;

Nor could Alexis powerful prove,

Without my Damon’s aid, to gain my love.

II.

When my Alexis present is,

Then I for Damon sigh and mourn;

But when Alexis I do miss,

Damon gains nothing but my scorn.

But if it chance they both are by,

For both alike I languish, sigh, and die.

III.

Cure then, thou mighty winged god,

This restless fever in my blood;

One golden-pointed dart take back:

But which, O Cupid, wilt thou take?

If Damon’s, all my hopes are crossed;

Or that of my Alexis, I am lost.

TO THE FAIR CLARINDA,¹ WHO MADE LOVE TO ME, IMAGINED MORE THAN WOMAN

FAIR lovely maid, or if that title be

Too weak, too feminine for nobler thee,

Permit a name that more approaches truth,

And let me call thee, lovely charming youth.

This last will justify my soft complaint,

While that may serve to lessen my constraint;

And without blushes I the youth pursue,

When so much beauteous woman is in view.

Against thy charms we struggle but in vain

With thy deluding form thou giv’st us pain,

While the bright nymph betrays us to the swain.

In pity to our sex sure thou wert sent,

That we might love, and yet be innocent:

For sure no crime with thee we can commit;

Or if we should – thy form excuses it.

For who, that gathers fairest flowers believes

A snake lies hid beneath the fragrant leaves.²

Thou beauteous wonder of a different kind,

Soft Cloris with the dear Alexis joined;

When e’er the manly part of thee, would plead

Thou tempts us with the image of the maid,

While we the noblest passions do extend

The love to Hermes, Aphrodite³ the friend.

ON DESIRE¹

A PINDARIC

WHAT art thou, oh! thou new-found pain?

From what infection dost thou spring?

Tell me – oh! tell me, thou enchanting thing,

Thy nature, and thy name;

Inform me by what subtle art,

What powerful influence,

You got such vast dominion in a part

Of my unheeded, and unguarded, heart,

That fame and honour cannot drive ye thence.

Oh! mischievous usurper of my peace;

Oh! soft intruder on my solitude,

Charming disturber of my ease,

That hast my nobler fate pursued,

And all the glories of my life subdued.

Thou haunt’st my inconvenient hours;

The business of the day, nor silence of the night,

That should to cares and sleep invite,

Can bid defiance to thy conquering powers.

Where hast thou been this live-long age

That from my birth till now,

Thou never couldst one thought engage,

Or charm my soul with the uneasy rage

That made it all its humble feebles know?

Where wert thou, oh, malicious sprite,

When shining honour did invite?

When interest called, then thou wert shy,

Nor to my aid one kind propension² brought,

Nor wouldst inspire one tender thought,

When Princes at my feet did lie.

When thou couldst mix ambition with my joy,

Then peevish phantom thou wert nice and coy,

Not beauty could invite thee then

Nor all the arts of lavish men!

Not all the powerful rhetoric of the tongue

Not sacred wit could charm thee on;

Not the soft play that lovers make,

Nor sigh could fan thee to a fire,

Not pleading tears, nor vows could thee awake,

Or warm the unformed something – to desire.

Oft I’ve conjured thee to appear

By youth, by love, by all their powers,

Have searched and sought thee everywhere,

In silent groves, in lonely bowers:

On flowery beds where lovers wishing lie,

In sheltering woods where sighing maids

To their assigning shepherds hie,

And hide their blushes in the gloom of shades.

Yet there, even there, though youth assailed,

Where beauty prostrate lay and fortune wooed,

My heart insensible to neither bowed:

Thy lucky aid was wanting to prevail.

In courts I sought thee then, thy proper sphere

But thou in crowds wert stifled there,

Interest did all the loving business do,

Invites the youths and wins the virgins too.

Or if by chance some heart thy empire own

(Ah power ingrate!) the slave must be undone.

Tell me, thou nimble fire, that dost dilate

Thy mighty force through every part,

What god, or human power did thee create

In my, till now, unfacile heart?

Art thou some welcome plague sent from above

In this dear form, this kind disguise?

Or the false offspring of mistaken love,

Begot by some soft thought that faintly strove,

With the bright piercing beauties of Lysander’s eyes?

Yes, yes, tormenter, I have found thee now;

And found to whom thou dost thy being owe,

’Tis thou the blushes dost impart,

For thee this languishment I wear,

’Tis thou that tremblest in my heart

When the dear shepherd does appear,

I faint, I die with pleasing pain,

My words intruding sighing break

When e’er I touch the charming swain

When e’er I gaze, when e’er I speak.

Thy conscious fire is mingled with my love,

As in the sanctified abodes

Misguided worshippers approve

The mixing idol with their gods.

In vain, alas! in vain I strive

With errors, which my soul do please and vex,

For superstition will survive,

Purer religion to perplex.

Oh! tell me you, philosophers, in love,

That can its burning feverish fits control,

By what strange arts you cure the soul,

And the fierce calenture³ remove?

Tell me, ye fair ones, that exchange desire,

How ’tis you hid the kindling fire.

Oh! would you but confess the truth,

It is not real virtue makes you nice:

But when you do resist the pressing youth,

’Tis want of dear desire, to thaw the virgin ice.

And while your young adorers lie

All languishing and hopeless at your feet,

Raising new trophies to your chastity,

Oh tell me, how you do remain discreet?

How you suppress the rising sighs,

And the soft yielding soul that wishes in your eyes?

While to th’ admiring crowd you nice are found;

Some dear, some secret, youth that gives the wound

Informs you, all your virtue’s but a cheat

And honour but a false disguise,

Your modesty a necessary bait

To gain the dull repute of being wise.

Deceive the foolish world – deceive it on,

And veil your passions in your pride;

But now I’ve found your feebles by my own,

From me the needful fraud you cannot hide.

Though ’tis a mighty power must move

The soul to this degree of love,

And though with virtue I the world perplex,

Lysander finds the weakness of my sex,

So Helen while from Theseus’ arms she fled,

To charming Paris yields her heart and bed.⁴

A PINDARIC POEM TO THE REVEREND DOCTOR BURNET¹

I.

WHEN old Rome’s candidates² aspired to fame,

And did the people’s suffrages obtain

For some great Consul, or a Caesar’s name;

The victor was not half so pleased and vain,

As I, when given the honour of your choice,

And preference had in that one single voice;

That voice, from whence immortal wit still flows,

Wit that at once is solemn all and sweet,

Where noblest eloquence and judgment shows

The inspiring mind illustrious, rich, and great;

A mind that can inform your wondrous pen

In all that’s perfect and sublime:

And with an art beyond the wit of men,

On what e’er theme, on what e’er great design,

It carries a commanding force, like that of writ divine.

II.

With powerful reasoning dressed in finest sense,

A thousand ways my soul you can invade,

And spite of my opinion’s weak defence,

Against my will, you conquer and persuade.

Your language soft as love, betrays the heart,

And at each period fixes a resistless dart,

While the fond listener, like a maid undone,

Inspired with tenderness she fears to own,

In vain essays her freedom to regain:

The fine ideas in her soul remain,

And please, and charm, even while they grieve and pain.

III.

But yet how well this praise can recompense

For all the welcome wounds (before) you’d given!³

Scarce anything but you and Heaven

Such grateful bounties can dispense

As that eternity of life can give;

So famed by you my verse eternally shall live:

Till now, my careless Muse no higher strove

T’enlarge her glory, and extend her wings;

Than underneath Parnassus grove,

To sing of shepherds, and their humble love;

But never durst, like Cowley, tune her strings,

To sing of heroes and of Kings.⁴

But since by an authority divine,

She is allowed a more exalted thought;

She will be valued now as current coin,

Whose stamp alone gives it the estimate,

Though out of an inferior metal wrought.⁵

IV.

But oh! if from your praise I feel

A joy that has no parallel!

What must I suffer when I cannot pay

Your goodness, your own generous way?

And make my stubborn Muse your just commands obey.

My Muse that would endeavour fain to glide

With the fair prosperous gale, and the full driving tide.

But loyalty commands with pious force,

That stops me in the thriving course.

The breeze that wafts the crowding nations o’er,

Leaves me unpitied far behind

On the forsaken barren shore,

To sigh with Echo,⁶ and the murmuring wind;

While all the inviting prospect I survey,

With melancholy eyes I view the plains,

Where all I see is ravishing and gay,

And all I hear is mirth in loudest strains;

Thus while the chosen seed possess the Promised Land,

I like the excluded prophet stand,

The fruitful happy soil can only see,

But am forbid by Fate’s decree

To share the triumph of the joyful victory.⁷

V.

’Tis to your pen, great Sir, the nation owes

For all the good this mighty change has wrought;⁸

’Twas that the wondrous method did dispose,

E’er the vast work was to perfection brought.

Oh strange effect of a seraphic quill!

That can by unperceptible degrees

Change every notion, every principle

To any form, its great dictator please.

The sword a feeble power, compared to that,

And to the nobler pen subordinate;

And of less use in bravest turns of State:

While that to blood and slaughter has recourse,

This conquers hearts with soft prevailing force:

So when the wiser Greeks o’ercame their foes,

It was not by the barbarous force of blows.

When a long ten years’ fatal war had failed,

With luckier wisdom they at last assailed,

Wisdom and counsel which alone prevailed.

Not all their numbers the famed town could win,

’Twas nobler stratagem that let the conqueror in.⁹

VI.

Tho’ I the wondrous change deplore,

That makes me useless and forlorn,

Yet I the great design adore,

Though ruined in the universal turn.

Nor can my indigence and lost repose,

Those meagre Furies that surround me close,

Convert my sense and reason more

To this unprecedented enterprise,

Than that a man so great, so learned, so wise,

The brave achievement owns and nobly justifies.

’Tis you, great Sir, alone, by Heaven preserved,

Whose conduct has so well the nation served,

’Tis you that to posterity shall give

This age’s wonders, and its history.

And great Nassau¹⁰ shall in your annals live

To all futurity.

Your pen shall more immortalize his name,

Than even his own renowned and celebrated fame.