Under this pine the glorious angel stay'd:'
Then show my wondering progeny the shade.
In woods and lawns, where'er thou didst appear,
Each place some monument of thee should bear.
I, with green turfs, would grateful altars raise,
And heaven, with gums and offer'd incense, praise.
Raph. Where'er thou art, He is, th' eternal mind
Acts through all places; is to none confined:
Fills ocean, earth, and air, and all above,
And through the universal mass does move.
Thou canst be nowhere distant; yet this place
Had been thy kingly seat, and here thy race,
From all the ends of peopled earth, had come
To reverence thee, and see their native home.
Immortal then, now sickness, care, and age,
And war, and luxury's more direful rage,
Thy crimes have brought, to shorten mortal breath,
With all the numerous family of death.
Adam. The deaths thou show'st are forced and full of strife, Cast headlong from the precipice of life.
Is there no smooth descent-no painless way
Of kindly mixing with our native clay ?
Raph. There is-but rarely shall that path be trod,
Which, without horror, leads to death's abode.
Some few, by temperance taught, approaching slow,
So distant fate by easy journeys go;
Gently they lay them down, as evening sheep
On their own woolly fleeces softly sleep.
Adam. So noiseless would I live, such death to find,
Like timely fruit, not shaken by the wind,
But ripely dropping from the sapless bough,
And, dying, nothing to myself would owe.
Eve. Thus daily changing, with a duller taste
Of lessening joys, I, by degrees, would waste:
Still quitting ground, by unperceived decay,
And steal myself from life, and melt away.
ALEXANDER'S FEAST.
"T was at the royal feast, for Persia won, By Philip's warlike son:
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne:
His valiant peers were plac'd around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtle bound;
So should desert in arms be crown'd.
The lovely Thais by his side
Sat, like a blooming Eastern bride,
In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
Happy, happy, happy pair;
None but the brave,
None but the brave,
None but the brave deserves the fair.
Timotheus, plac'd on high
Amid the tuneful choir
With flying fingers touch'd the lyre:
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.
The song began from Jove,
Who left his blissful seats above,
Such is the power of mighty Love!
A dragon's fiery form belied the god:
Sublime on radiant spheres he rode,
When he to fair Olympia press'd;
And while he sought her snowy breast,
Then round her slender waist he curl'd,
And stamp'd an image of himself, a sov'reign of the world.
The list'ning crowd admire the lofty sound;
A present deity, they shout around;
A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound:
With ravish'd ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.
The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,
Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young:
The jolly god in triumph comes:
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums;
Flush'd with a purple grace
He shows his honest face.
Now, give the hautboys breath! he comes! he comes!
Bacchus, ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did first ordain:
Bacchus' blessings are a treasure;
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure:
Rich the treasure
Sweet the pleasure
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain:
Fought all his battles o'er again:
And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.
The master saw the madness rise;
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And, while he heav'n and earth defied,
Chang'd his head, and check'd his pride.
He chose a mournful muse.
Soft pity to infuse:
He sang Darius great and good,
By too severe a fate
Fall'n, fall'n, fall'n, fall'n,
Fall'n from his high estate,
And welt'ring in his blood:
Deserted at his utmost need
By those his former bounty fed,
On the bare earth expos'd he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
With downcast look the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his alter'd soul
The various turns of fate below;
And now and then a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.
The mighty master smil'd to see
That love was in the next degree;
'Twas but a kindred sound to move;
For pity melts the mind to love.
Softly sweet in Lydian measures,
Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures;
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying;
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O think it worth enjoying!
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,
Take the good the gods provide thee.
The many rend the skies with loud applause;
So love was crown'd, but music won the cause.
The prince, unable to conceal his pain.
Gazed on the fair
Who caus'd his care,
And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd,
Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again.
At length with love and wine at once oppress'd,
The vanquish'd victor sunk upon her breast.
Now strike the golden lyre again;
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,
And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark! hark! the horrid sound
Has rais'd up his head,
As awak'd from the dead,
And, amazed, he stares around.
Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries;
See the Furies arise;
See the snakes that they rear!
How they hiss in the air,
And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
Behold a ghastly band,
Each a torch in his hand!
These are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,
And unburied remain
Inglorious on the plain;
Give the vengeance due
To the valiant crew:
Behold how they toss their torches on high!
How they point to the Persian abodes,
And glitt'ring temples of their hostile gods!
The princes applaud, with a furious joy;
And the king seiz'd a flambeau, with zeal to destroy; Thais led the way,
To light him to his prey,
And, like another Helen, fir'd another Troy.
Ere heaving billows learn'd to blow,
While organs yet were mute,
Timotheus to his breathing flute
And sounding lyre,
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal flame;
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarg'd the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,
With Nature's mother-wit and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown:
He rais'd a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.
CHARACTER OF SHAFTESBURY.
Of these the false Achitophel was first;
A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs and crooked counsels fit;
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfix'd in principles and place;
In power unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace:
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high,
He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeather'd two-legged thing, a son;
Got, while his soul did huddled notions try,
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
In friendship false, implacable in hate;
Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state:
To compass this, the triple bond he broke,
The pillars of the public safety shook,
And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke:
Then, seiz'd with fear, yet still affecting fame,
Usurp'd a patriot's all-atoning name.
So easy still it proves, in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes;
How safe is treason, and how sacred ill
Where none can sin against the people's will!
Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own!
Yet fame deserv'd no enemy can grudge;
The statesman we abhor, yet praise the judge.
In Israel's court ne'er sat an Abethdin
With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean,
Unbrib'd, unsought, the wretched to redress,
Swift of dispatch, and easy of access.
Oh! had he been content to serve the crown
With virtues only proper for the gown;
Or had the rankness of the soil been freed
From cockle, that oppress'd the noble seed;
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand;
And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land.
Achitophel, grown weary to possess
A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,
Disdain'd the golden fruit to gather free,
And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.
Some of their chiefs were princes of the land:
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand;
A man so various that he seem'd to be,
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was ev'ry thing by starts, and nothing long,
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking.
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman! who could every hour employ
With something new to wish, or to enjoy,
Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes;
So over-violent, so over-civil,
That every man with him was God or devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert:
Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate;
He laugh'd himself from court, then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;
For, spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom and wise Achitophel;
Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left.
|
