Afhes! more worth than all their fun'ral coft, Than the huge treasure which was with them loft. These dying lovers, and their floating fons,
Sufpend the fight, and filence all our guns:
Beauty and youth about to perifh, finds
Such noble pity in brave English minds,
That (the rich spoil forgot, their valour's prize)
All labour now to fave their enemies.
How frail our paffions! how foon changed are
Our wrath and fury to a friendly care!
They that but now for honour and for plate
Made the fea blush with blood, refign their hate;
And, their young foes endeav'ring to retrieve,
With greater hazard than they fought they dive. 100
With these returns victorious Montagu,
With laurels in his hand, and half Peru.
Let the brave generals divide that bough,
Our great Protector hath fuch wreaths enough:
His conqu❜ring head has no more room for bays: res
Then let it be as the glad nation prays;
Let the rich ore forthwith be melted down,
And the state fix'd by making him a crown:
With ermine clad, and purple, let him hold
A royal fceptre, made of Spanish gold.
THE LORD PROTECTOR.
We must refign! Heav'n his great foul does claim
In ftorms, as loud as his immortal fame:
His dying groans, bis last breath, shakes our ifle,
And trees uncut fall for his fun'ral pile ;
About his palace their broad roots are toft
Into the air.So Romulus was loft!
New Rome in fuch a tempest miss'd her king,
And from obeying fell to worshipping.
On Oeta's top thus Hercules lay dead,
With ruin'd oaks and pines about him fpread.
The poplar, too, whose bough he wont to wear
On his victorious head, lay postrate there.
Those his last fury from the mountain rent :
Our dying hero from the continent
Ravifh'd whole towns, and forts from Spaniards reft,
As his laft legacy to Britain left.
The ocean, which fo long our hopes confin'd,
Could give no limits to his vafter mind;
Our bounds' enlargement was his latest toil,
Nor hath he left us pris'ners to our isle:
Under the tropick is our language fpoke,
And part of Flanders hath receiv'd our yoke.
From civil broils he did us difengage,
Found nobler objects for our martial rage;
And, with wife conduct, to his country show'd
The ancient way of conquering abroad.
Ungrateful then! if we no tears allow
To him that gave us peace and empire too.
Princes that fear'd him grieve, concern'd to fee
No pitch of glory from the grave is free.
Nature herself took notice of his death,
And, fighing, fwell'd the fea with such a breath,
That to remotest shores her billows roll'd,
Th' approaching fate of their great ruler told. 34
AS LATELY IMPROVED BY HIS MAJESTY.
Or the first Paradife there's nothing found;
Plants fet by Heav'n are vanish'd, and the ground;
Yet the description lafls; who knows the fate
Of lines that shall this paradise relate?
Instead of rivers rolling by the fide
Of Eden's garden, here flows in the tide :
The fea, which always ferv'd his empire, now
Pays tribute to our Prince's pleasure too.
Of famous cities we the founders know;
But rivers, old as feas, to which they go,
Are Nature's bounty: 't is of more renown
To make a river than to build a town.
For future fhade, young trees upon the banks
Of the new stream appear in even ranks:
The voice of Orpheus, or Amphion's hand, 15 In better order could not make them stand:
May they increase as fast, and spread their boughs,
As the high fame of their great owner grows!
May he live long enough to fee them all
Dark fhadows caft, and as his palace tall!
Methinks I fee the love that shall be made,
The lovers walking in that am'rous shade,
The gallants dancing by the river fide;
They bathe in fummer, and in winter flide.
Methinks I hear the musick in the boats,
And the loud echo which returns the notes,
While over head a flock of new sprung fowl
Hangs in the air, and does the fun control,
Dark'ning the sky: they hover o'er, and fhrowd
The wanton failors with a feather'd cloud.
Beneath a fhoal of filver fifhes glides,
And plays about the gilded barges' fides:
The ladies angling in the crystal lake,
Feast on the waters with the prey they take:
At once victorious with their lines and eyes,
They make the fishes and the men their prize.
A thousand Cupids on the billows ride,
And fea-nymphs enter with the fwelling tide;
From Thetis fent as fpies, to make report,
And tell the wonders of her fov'reign's court.
All that can, living, feed the greedy eye,
Or dead, the palate, here you may defcry:
The choiceft things that furnish'd Noah's ark,
Or Peter's sheet, inhabiting this Park;
All with a border of rich fruit-trees crown'd,
Whose loaded branches hide the lofty mound.
Such various ways the fpacious alleys lead,
My doubtful Mufe knows not what path to tread.
Yonder, the harvest of cold months laid up,
Gives a fresh coolness to the royal cup:
There ice, like crystal firm, and never loft,
Tempers hot July with December's froft;
Winter's dark prison, whence he cannot fly,
Tho' the warm fpring, his enemy draws nigh.
Strange! that extremes fhould thus preserve the fnow,
High on the Alps, or in deep caves below. 36
Here a well-polish'd Mall gives us the joy
To see our Prince his matchless force employ;
His manly posture, and his graceful mien,
Vigour and youth, in all his motions feen;
His fhape fo lovely, and his limbs so strong,
Confirm our hopes we shall obey him long.
No fooner has he touch'd the flying ball,
But 't is already more than half the Mall;
And fuch a fury from his arm has got,
As from a fmoking culv'rin it were shot.
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