We must lie down, and after all our cost,
Keep holiday, like watermen in frost:
While you turn players on the world's great stage,
And act yourselves the farce of your own age.
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 1681.
THE famed Italian Muse, whose rhymes advance Orlando, and the Paladins of France,
Records, that when our wit and sense is flown, 'Tis lodged within the circle of the moon
In earthen jars, which one, who thither soar'd,
Set to his nose, snuff'd up, and was restored.
Whate'er the story be, the moral's true;
The wit we lost in Town we find in you.
Our poets their fled parts may draw from hence,
And fill their windy heads with sober sense.
When London votes with Southwark's disagree,
Here may they find their long-lost loyalty.
Here busy senates, to the' old cause inclined,
May snuff the votes their fellows left behind: [dear,
Your country neighbours, when their grain grows
May come, and find their last provision here:
Whereas we cannot much lament our loss,
Who neither carried back nor brought one cross.
We look'd what Representatives would bring,
But they help'd us just as they did the King,
Yet we despair not; for we now lay forth
The sibyls' books to those who know their worth;
And though the first was sacrificed before,
These volumes doubly will the price restore,
Our poet bade us hope this grace to find,
To whom by long prescription you are kind.
He, whose undaunted Muse, with loyal rage,
Has never spared the vices of the age,
Here finding nothing that his spleen can raise,
Is forced to turn his satire into praise.
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS,
UPON HIS FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE DUKE'S THEATRE,
AFTER HIS RETURN FROM SCOTLAND, 1682.
IN those cold regions which no summers cheer,
Where brooding Darkness covers half the year,
To hollow caves the shivering natives go;
Bears range abroad, and hunt in tracks of snow;
But when the tedious twilight wears away,
And stars grow paler at the' approach of day,
The longing crowds to frozen mountains run,
Happy who first can see the glimmering sun:
The surly, savage offspring disappear,
And curse the bright successor of the year.
Yet, though rough bears in covert seek defence,
White foxes stay, with seeming innocence ;
That crafty kind with day-light can dispense.
Still we are throng'd so full with Reynard's race,
That loyal subjects scarce can find a place.
Thus modest truth is cast behind the crowd:
Truth speaks too low; Hypocrisy too loud.
Let them be first to flatter in success;
Duty can stay, but guilt has need to press.
Once, when true zeal the sons of God did call,
To make their solemn show at Heaven's Whitehall,
The fawning Devil appear'd among the rest,
And made as good a courtier as the best.
The friends of Job, who rail'd at him before,
Came cap in hand when he had three times more,
Yet late repentance may, perhaps, be true;
Kings can forgive, if rebels can but sue.
A tyrant's power in rigour is express'd;
The father yearns in the true prince's breast.
We grant an o'ergrown Whig no grace can mend:
But most are babes that know not they offend.
The crowd, to restless motion still inclined,
Are clouds that tack according to the wind;
Driven by their chiefs they storms of hailstones pour,
Then mourn, and soften to a silent shower.
O welcome to this much-offending land,
The prince that brings forgiveness in his hand!
Thus angels on glad messages appear;
Their first salute commands us not to fear:
Thus Heaven, that could constrain us to obey,
(With reverence if we might presume to say)
Seems to relax the rights of sovereign sway;
Permits to man the choice of good and ill,
And makes us happy by our own free-will.
SPOKEN TO THE KING AND THE QUEEN, AT THEIR COMING TO THE HOUSE.
WHEN first the ark was landed on the shore And Heaven had vow'd to curse the ground no more; When tops of hills the longing patriarch saw, And the new scene of earth began to draw,
The dove was sent to view the waves' decrease,
And first brought back to man the pledge of peace.
"Tis needless to apply, when those appear
Who bring the olive, and who plant it here.
We have before our eyes the Royal dove,
Still innocent as harbinger to Love:
The ark is open'd to dismiss the train,
And people with a better race the plain.
Tell me, ye Powers, why should vain man pursue,
With endless toil, each object that is new,
And for the seeming substance leave the true?
Why should he quit for hopes his certain good,
And loathe the manna of his daily food?
Must England still the scene of changes be,
Toss'd, and tempestuous, like our ambient sea?
Must still our weather and our wills agree?
Without our blood our liberties we have:
Who that is free would fight to be a slave?
Or, what can wars to after-times assure,
Of which our present age is not secure?
All that our Monarch would for us ordain,
Is but to enjoy the blessings of his reign.
Our land's an Eden, and the main's our fence,
While we preserve our state of innocence:
That lost, then beasts their brutal force employ,
And first their lord, and then themselves destroy.
What civil broils have cost we know too well;
Oh! let it be enough that once we fell;
And every heart conspire, and every tongue,
Still to have such a King, and this King long.
POETS, like lawful monarchs, ruled the stage,
Till Critics, like damn'd Whigs, debauch'd our age.
Mark how they jump: Critics would regulate
Our theatres, and Whigs reform our state: [hate.
Both pretend love, and both (plague rot them!)
The Critic humbly seems advice to bring;
The fawning Whig petitions to the King:
But one's advice into a satire slides:
The' other's petition a remonstrance hides.
These will no taxes give, and those no pence;
Critics would starve the poet, Whigs the prince.
The Critic all our troops of friends discards;
Just so the Whig would fain pull down the guards.
Guards are illegal, that drive foes away,
As watchful shepherds, that fright beasts of prey.
Kings, who disband such needless aids as these,
Are safe-as long as e'er their subjects please;
And that would be till next Queen Bess's night,
Which thus grave penny chroniclers indite.
Sir Edmund Bury first, in woful wise,
Leads up the show, and milks their maudlin eyes,
There's not a butcher's wife but dribs her part,
And pities the poor pageant from her heart;
Who, to provoke revenge, rides round the fire,
And, with a civil congé, does retire.
|