O THOU, whose tender serious eyes
Expressive speak the mind I love;
The gentle azure of the skies,
The pensive shadows of the grove :
O mix their bounteous beams with mine,
And let us interchange our hearts;
Let all their sweetness on me shine,
Pour'd through my soul be all their darts.
Ah! 'tis too much! I cannot bear
At once so soft, so keen a ray:
In pity then, my lovely fair,
O turn those killing eyes away.
But what avails it to conceal
One charm, where nought but charms I see? Their lustre then again reveal,
And let me, Myra, die of thee!
RECTOR OF STRADISHALL, IN SUFFOLK. 1738.
THUS safely low, my friend, thou can'st not fall:
Here reigns a deep tranquillity o'er all;
No noise, no care, no vanity, no strife;
Men, woods, and fields, all breathe untroubled life.
Then keep each passion down, however dear;
Trust me, the tender are the most severe.
Guard, while 'tis thine, thy philosophic ease,
And ask no joy but that of virtuous peace;
That bids defiance to the storms of fate:
High bliss is only for a higher state!
THE INCOMPARABLE SOPORIFIC DOCTOR.
SWEET, sleeky Doctor! dear pacific soul !
Lay at the beef, and suck the vital bowl!!
Still let the' involving smoke around thee fly,
And broad-look'd dulness settle in thine eye.
Ah! soft in down these dainty limbs repose,
And in the very lap of slumber doze;
But chiefly on the lazy day of grace,
Call forth the lambent glories of thy face;
If aught the thoughts of dinner can prevail—
And sure the Sunday's dinner cannot fail.
To the thin church in sleepy pomp proceed,
And lean on the lethargic book thy head.
These eyes wipe often with the hallow'd lawn,
Profoundly nod, immeasurably yawn.
Slow let the prayers by thy meek lips be sung,
Now let thy thoughts be distanced by thy tongue,
If ere the lingerers are within a call,
Or if on prayers thou deign'st to think at all.
Yet-only yet-the swimming head we bend;
But when serene, the pulpit you ascend,
Through every joint a gentle horror creeps,
And round you the consenting audience sleeps.
So when an ass with sluggish front appears,
The horses start, and prick their quivering ears ;
But soon as e'er the sage is heard to bray,
The fields all thunder, and they bound away.
TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES.
WHILE secret-leaguing nations frown around,
Ready to pour the long-expected storm;
While she, who wont the restless Gaul to bound,
Britannia, drooping, grows an empty form;
While on our vitals selfish parties prey,
And deep corruption eats our soul away:
Yet in the goddess of the main appears
A gleam of joy, gay-flushing every grace,
As she the cordial voice of millions hears,
Rejoicing, zealous, o'er thy rising race:
Straight her rekindling eyes resume their fire,
The Virtues smile, the Muses tune the lyre.
But more enchanting than the Muses' song,
United Britons thy dear offspring hail :
The city triumphs through her glowing throng,
The shepherd tells his transport to the dale;
The sons of roughest toil forget their pain,
And the glad sailor cheers the midnight main.
Can aught from fair Augusta's gentle blood,
And thine, thou friend of liberty! be born:
Can aught save what is lovely, generous, good;
What will, at once, defend us and adorn?
From thence prophetic Joy new Edwards eyes,
New Henrys, Annas, and Elizas rise.
May fate my fond devoted days extend,
To sing the promised glories of thy reign! What though, by years depress'd, my Muse might bend; My heart will teach her still a nobler strain: How, with recover'd Britain, will she soar, When France insults, and Spain shall rob no more!
HE's not the happy man, to whom is given
A plenteous fortune by indulgent Heaven;
Whose gilded roofs on shining columns rise,
And painted walls enchant the gazer's eyes;
Whose table flows with hospitable cheer,
And all the various bounty of the year;
Whose valleys smile, whose gardens breathe the spring,
Whose curved mountains bleat, and forests sing;
For whom the cooling shade in summer twines,
While his full cellars give their generous wines;
From whose wide fields unbounded autumn pours
A golden tide into his swelling stores ·
Whose winter laughs; for whom the liberal gales
Stretch the wide sheet, and toiling commerce sails;
When yielding crowds attend, and pleasure serves;
While youth and health, and vigour string his nerves.
E'en not all these, in one rich lot combined,
Can make the happy man, without the mind;
Where judgment sits clear-sighted, and surveys
'he chain of reason with unerring gaze;
Where fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes,
His fairer scenes, and bolder figures rise;
Where social love exerts her soft command,
And plays the passions with a tender hand,
Whence every virtue flows, in rival strife,
And all the moral harmony of life.
Nor canst thou, Dodington, this truth decline.
Thine is the fortune, and the mind is thine.
PROLOGUE TO MALLET'S TRAGEDY OF "MUSTAPHA.”
SINCE Athens first began to draw mankind,
To picture life, and show the' impassion'd mind;
The truly wise have ever deem'd the stage
The moral school of each enlighten'd age.
There, in full pomp the tragic Muse appears,
Queen of soft sorrows, and of useful fears.
Faint is the lesson reason'd rules impart :
She pours it strong, and instant through the heart.
If virtue is the theme; we sudden glow
With generous flame: and, what we feel, we grow.
If vice she paints; indignant passions rise;
The villain sees himself with loathing eyes.
His soul starts, conscious, at another's groan,
And the pale tyrant trembles on his throne.
To-night our meaning scene attempts to show
What fell events from dark suspicion flow;
Chief when it taints a lawless monarch's mind,
To the false herd of flattering slaves confined.
The soul sinks gradual to so dire a state;
E'en excellence but serves to feed its hate:
To hate remorseless, cruelty succeeds
And every worth, and every virtue bleeds.
Behold, our author at your bar appears,
His modest hopes depress'd by conscious fears.
Faults he has many-but to balance those,
His verse with heart-felt love of virtue glows:
All slighter errors let indulgence spare,
And be his equal trial full and fair.
For this best British privilege we call,
Then as he merits, let him stand, or fall.
ODE IN THE MASQUE OF "ALFRED."
WHEN Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung this strain :
Rule, Britannia! rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."
The nations not so bless'd as thee,
Must in their turns to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Rule," &c.
Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke; As the loud blast that tears the skies Serves but to root thy native oak. 'Rule," &c.
Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame,
All their attempts to bend thee down,
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
But work their woe, and thy renown.
"Rule," &c.
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