Page images
PDF
EPUB

Such music (as 'tis said)

The lonely mountains o'er, Before was never made,

And the resounding shore, But when of old the sons of morning sung, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; While the Creator great

From haunted spring and dale, His constellations set,

Edg’d with poplar pale, And the well-balanc'd world on hinges hung ; The parting genius is with sighing sent; And cast the dark foundations deep, [keep. With flower-inwoven tresses torn, (mourn. And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets Ring out, ye crystal spheres,

In consecrated earth, Once bless our human ears,

And on the holy hearth,

(plaint; If ye have power to touch our senses so; The Lars, and Lemures, moan with midnight And let your silver chime

In urns, and altars round, Move in melodious time;

A drear and dying sound And let the base of Heaven's deep organ blow; Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint ; And with your ninefold harmony,

And the chill marble seems to sweat, Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat. For, if such holy song

Peor and Baälim
Enwrap our fancy long,

Forsake their temples dim,
Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold; With that twice-batier'd god of Palestine ;
And speckled Vanity

And mooned Ashtaroth,
Will sicken soon and die,

Heaven's queen and mother both,
And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould; Now sits not girt with taper's holy shine ;
And Hell itself will pass away,

The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn, (mourn. And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz Yea, Truth and Justice then

And sullen Moloch, fled,
Will down return to men,

Hath left in shadows dread
Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, His burning idol all of blackest hue;
Mercy will sit between,

In vain with cymbals' ring
Thron'd in celestial sheen,

They call the grisly king,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; In dismal dance about the furnace blue :
And Heaven, as at some festival,

The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall. Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.
But wisest Fate says no,

Nor is Osiris seen
This must not yet be so,

In Memphian grove or green,

[loud. The babe yet lies in smiling infancy,

Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings That on the bitter cross

Nor can he be at rest Must redeem our loss;

Within his sacred chest; So both himself and us to glorify:

Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud; Yet first, to those ychain’d in sleep, (the deep; In vain with timbrellid anthems dark The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark. With such a horrid clang

He feels from Judah's land As on mount Sinai rang,

[brake: The dreaded infant's hand, While the red fire and smouldering clouds out- The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; The aged Earth, aghast

Nor all the gods beside With terror of that blast,

Longer dare abide, Shall from the surface to the centre shake ; Not Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine : When, at the world's last session, [throne. Our babe, to show his Godhead true, [crew The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his Can in his swaddling bands control the damned And then at last our bliss

So, when the Sun in bed,
Full and perfect is,

Curtain'd with cloudy red,
But now begins; for, from this happy day, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
The old Dragon, under ground

The flocking shadows pale
In straiter limits bound,

Troop to the infernal jail, Not half so far casts his usurped sway;

Each fetter'd ghost ships to his several grave; And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,

And the yellow-skirted Fayes

(maze. Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd The oracles are dumb,

But see, the Virgin blest No voice or hideous hum

Hath laid her babe to rest; Runs through the arched roof in, words deceiving. Time is, our tedious song should here have ending: Apollo from his shrine

Heaven'e youngest-teemed star Can no more divine,

Hath fix'd her polish'd car, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending No nightly trance, or breathed spell,

And all about the courtly stable Inepires the pale-ey'd priests from the prophetic cell. Bright-harness'd angels sit in order serviceable.

EDMUND WALLER.

[ocr errors]

EDMUND WALLER, born at Coleshil, Hertford- Waller had a brother-in-law, named Tomkyns shire, in March, 1605, was the son of Robert Wal- who was clerk of the queen's council, and possessler, Esq., a gentleman of an ancient family and good ed great influence in the city among the warın fortune, who married a sister of the celebrated John loyalists. On consulting together, they thought it Hampden. The death of his father during his infancy would be possible to raise a powerful party, which left him heir to an estate of 35001. a year, at that might oblige the parliament to adopt pacific meas. period an ample fortune. He was educated first at ures, by resisting the payment of the taxes levied Eton, whence he was removed to King's College for the support of the war. About this time Sir in Cambridge. His election to parliament was as Nicholas Crispe formed a design of more dangerous early as between his sixteenth or seventeenth year; import, which was that of exciting the king's and it was not much later that he made his appear friends in the city to an open resistance of the auance as a poet: and it is remarkable that a copy of thority of parliament; and for that purpose he obverses which he addressed to Prince Charles, in his tained a commission of array from his majesty. eighteenth year, exhibits a style and character of This plan appears to have been originally unconversification as perfectly formed as those of his nected with the other; yet the commission was maturest productions. He again served in parlia- made known to Waller and Tomkyns, and the whole ment before he was of age; and he continued his was compounded into a horrid and dreadful plot. services to a later period. Not insensible of the Waller and Tomkyns were apprehended, when the value of wealth, he augmented his paternal fortune pusillanimity of the former disclosed the whole by marriage with a rich city heiress. In the long secret. “He was so confounded with fear," (says intermissions of parliament which occurred after Lord Clarendon,) "that he confessed whatever he 1628, he retired to his mansion of Beaconsfield, had heard, said, thought, or seen, all that he knew where he continued his classical studies, under the of himself, and all that he suspected of others, withdirection of his kinsman Morley, afterwards bishop out concealing any person, of what degree or qualiof Winchester; and he obtained admission to a ty soever, or any discourse which he had ever upon society of able men and polite scholars, of whom any occasion entertained with them." The concluLord Falkland was the connecting medium. sion of this business was, that Tomkyns, and Cha

Waller became a widower at the age of twenty- loner, another conspirator, were hanged, and that five: he did not, however, spend much time in Waller was expelled the House, tried, and conmourning, but declared himself the suitor of Lady demned; but after a year's imprisonment, and a fine Dorothea Sydney, eldest daughter of the Earl of lof ten thousand pounds, was suffered to go into Leicester, whom he has immortalized under the exile. He chose Rouen for his first place of foreign poetical name of Saccharissa. She is described by exile, where he lived with his wife till his removal him as a majestic and scornful beanty; and he to Paris. In that capital he maintained the appearseems to delight more in her contrast, the gentler ance of a man of fortune, and entertained hospitaAmoret, who is supposed to have been a Lady So- bly, supporting this style of living chiefly by the phia Murray. Neither of these ladies, however, sale of his wife's jewels. At length, after the lapse was won by his poetie strains; and, like another of ten years, being reduced to what he called his man, he consoled himself in a second marriage. rump jewel, he thought it time to apply for per

When the king's necessities compelled him, in mission to return to his own country. He obtained 1640, once more to apply to the representatives this license, and was also restored to his estate, of the people, Walter, who was returned for Ag- though now diminished to half its former rental. mondesham, decidedly took part with the members Here he fixed his abode, at a house built by himwho thought that the redress of grievances should self, at Beaconsfield; and he renewed his courtly precede a vote for supplies; and he made an ener- strains by adulation to Cromwell, now Protector, getic speech on the occasion. He continued during to whom his mother was related. To this usurper three years to vote in general with the Opposition the noblest tribute of his muse was pai in the Long Parliament, but did not enter into all When Charles II. was restored to the crown, their measures. In particular, he employed much and past character was lightly regarded, the stains cool argument against the proposal for the abolition of that of Waller were forgotten, and his wit and of Episcopacy; and he spoke with freedom and poetry procured him notice at court, and admission severity against some other plans of the House to the highest circles. He had also sufficient inIn fact, he was at length become a zealous loyalist terest to obtain a seat in the House of Commons, in his inclinations; and his conduct under the dif- in all the parliaments of that reign. The king's ficulties into which this attachment involved him gracious manners emboldened him to ask for the became a source of his indelible disgrace. A short vacant place of provost of Eton college, which was Tarrative will suffice for the elucidation of this granted him; but Lord Clarendon, then Lord Chanmatter.

cellor, refused to set the seal to the grant, alleging

that by the statutes laymen were excluded from died at Beaconsfield in October, 1687, the 83d year that provostship. This was thought the reason why of his age. He left several children by his second Waller joined the Duke of Buckingham, in his wife, of whom, the inherilor of his estate, Edmund, hostility against Clarendon.

after representing Agmondesham in parliament, On the accession of James II., Waller, then in became a convert to Quakerism. his 80th year, was chosen representative for Saltash. Waller was one of the earliest poets, who obHaving now considerably passed the usual limit of tained reputation by the sweetness and sonorousness human life, he turned his thoughts to devotion, and of his strains ; and there are perhaps few masters composed some divine poems, the usual task in at the present day who surpass him in this parwhich men of gaiety terminate their career. He ticular.

TO AMORET.

Unto that adored dame :
For 'tis not unlike the same,
Which I thither ought to send.
So that if it could take end,
"Twould to Heaven itself be due,
To succeed her, and not you :
Who already have of me
All that's not idolatry:
Which, though not so fierce a flame,
Is longer like to be the same.

Then smile on me, and I will prove
Wonder is shorter-liv'd than love.

TO AMORET.

Fair! that you may truly know,
What you unto Thyrsis owe;
I will tell you how I do
Sacharissa love, and you.

Joy salutes me, when I set
My blest eyes on Amoret :
But with wonder I am strook,
While I on the other look.

If sweet Amoret complains,
I have sense of all her pains :
But for Sacharissa I
Do not only grieve, but die.

All that of myself is mine,
Lovely Amoret! is thine,
Sacharissa's captive fain
Would untie his iron chain;
And, those scorching beams to shun,
To thy gentle shadow run.

If the soul had free election
To dispose of her affection;
I would not thus long have borne
Haughty Sacharissa's scom:
But 'tis sure some power above,
Which controls our wills in love!

If not a love, a strong desire
To create and spread that fire
In my breast, solicits me,
Beauteous Amoret! for thee.

"Tis amazement more than love,
Which her radiant eyes do move :
If less splendor wait on thine,
Yet they so benignly shine,
I would turn my dazzled sight
To behold their milder light
But as hard 'tis to destroy
That high flame, as to enjoy:
Which how eas'ly I may do,
Heaven (as eas'ly scal'd) does know!

Amoret! as sweet and good
As the most delicious food,
Which, but tasted, does impart
Life and gladness to the heart.

Sacharissa's beauty's wine,
Which to madness doth incline :
Such a liquor, as no brain
That is mortal can sustain.

Scarce can I to Heaven excuse
The devotion, which I use

AMORET, the Milky Way,

Fram'd of many nameless stars !
The smooth stream, where none can say,

He this drop to that prefers !
Amoret, my lovely foe!

Tell me where thy strength does lie!
Where the power that charms us so ?

In thy soul, or in thy eye?
By that snowy neck alone,

Or thy grace in motion seen,
No such wonders could be done ;

Yet thy waist is straight, and clean,
As Cupid's shaft, or Hermes' rod :
And powerful too, as either god.

OF LOVE.
ANGER, in hasty words, or blows,
Itself discharges on our foes ;
And sorrow too finds some relief
In tears, which wait upon our grief:
So every passion but fond love,
Unto its own redress does move :
But that alone the wretch inclines
To what prevents his own designs ;
Makes him lament, and sigh, and weep,
Disorder'd, tremble, fawn, and creep;
Postures which render him despis'd,
Where he endeavors to be priz'd:

A PANEGYRIC

TO MY LORD PROTECTOR, Of the Present Greatness, and Joint Interest, of his

Highness and this Nation. WHILE with a strong, and yet a gentle, hand, You bridle faction, and our hearts command, Protect us from ourselves, and from the foe, Make us unite, and make us conquer too ; Let partial spirits, still aloud complain, Think themselves injur'd that they cannot reig), And own no liberty, but where they may Without control upon their fellows prey.

For women, born to be controllid,
Stoop to the forward and the bold;
Affect the haughty and the proud,
The gay, the frolic, and the loud.
Who first the generous steed opprest,
Not kneeling did salute the beast;
But with high courage, life, and force,
Approaching, tam'd th' unruly horse.
Unwisely we the wiser East
Pity, supposing them opprest
With tyrants' force, whuse law is will,
By which they govern, spoil, and kill:
Each nymph, but moderately fair,
Commands with no less rigor here.
Should some brave Turk, that walks among
His twenty lasses, bright and young,
And beckons to the willing dame,
Preferrd to quench his present flame,
Behold as many gallants here,
With modest guise, and silent fear,
All to one female idol bend,
While her high pride does scarce descend
To mark their follies, he would swear.
That these her guard of eunuchs were ;
And that a more majestic queen,
Or humbler slaves, he had not seen.

All this with indignation spoke,
In vain I struggled with the yoke
Of mighty love: that conquering look,
When next beheld, like lightning strook
My blasted soul, and made me bow
Lower than those I pitied now.

So the tall stag, upon the brink
Of some smooth stream, about to drink,
Surveying there his armed head,
With shame rememb'ring that he fled
The scorned dogs, resolves to try
The combat' next: but, if their cry
Invades again his trembling ear,
He strait resumes his wonted care ;
Leaves the untasted spring behind,
And, wing'd with fear, outflies the wind.

[ocr errors]

Above the waves as Neptune show'd his face, To chide the winds, and save the Trojan race, So bas your highness, rais'd above the rest,

Storms of ambition, tossing us, represt.
Your drooping country, torn with civil halo,
Restor'd by you, is made á glorious state;
The seat of empire, where the Irish come,

And the unwilling Scots, to fetch their door
The sea's our own : and now, all nations greci,
With bending sails, each vessel of our fleet:
Your power extends as far as winds can blow,
Or swelling sails upon the globe may go.
Heaven (that hath plac'd this island to give law,
To balance Europe, and her states to awe,)
In this conjunction doth on Britain smile,
The greatest leader, and the greatest isle !
Whether this portion of the world were rent,
By the rude ocean, from the continent,
Or thus created; it was sure design'd
To be the sacred refuge of mankind.

OF THE

MARRIAGE OF THE DWARFS.
DESIGN or Chance make others wive,
But Nature did this match contrive :
Eve might as well have Adam fled,
As she deny'd her little bed
To him, for whom Heav'n seem'd to frame,
And measure out this only dame.

Thrice happy is that humble pair,
Beneath the level of all care!
Over whose heads those arrows fly
Of sad distrust and jealousy:
Secured in as high extreme,
As if the world held none but them.

To him the fairest nymphs do show
Like moving mountains topp'd with snow;
And every man a Polypheme
Does to his Galatea seem:
None may presume her faith to prove;
He proffers death, that proffers love.

Ah! Chloris! that kind Nature thus
From all the world had sever'd us :
Creating for ourselves us two,
As Love has me for only you!

Hither th' oppressed shall henceforth resort,
Justice to crave, and succor, at your court;
And then your highness, not for ours alone,
But for the world's protector shall be known.
Fame, swifter than your winged navy, flies
Through every land, that near the ocean lies;
Sounding your name, and telling dreadful news
To all that piracy and rapine use.
With such a chief the meanest nation blest,

Might hope to lift her head above the rest :
What may be thought impossible to do
By us, embraced by the sea and you ?
Lords of the world's great waste, the ocean, we
Whole forests send to reign upon the sea ;
And every coast may trouble, or relieve :
But none can visit us without your leave.
Angels and we have this prerogative,
That none can at our happy seats arrive ;
While we descend at pleasure, to invade
The bad with vengeance, and the good to aid.

Our little world, the image of the great,
Like that, amidst the boundless ocean set,
Of her own growth hath all that nature craves,
And all that's rare, as tribute from the waves.

As Egypt does not on the clouds rely,

Your never-failing sword made war to cease, But to the Nile owes more than to the sky; And now you heal us with the acts of peace; So, what our Earth, and what our Heaven, denies, Our minds with bounty and with awe engage, Our ever-constant friend, the sea, supplies.

Invite affection, and restrain our rage. The taste of hot Arabia's spice we know, Less pleasure take brave minds in battles won, Free from the scorching sun that makes it grow: Than in restoring such as are undone : Without the worm, in Persian silks we shine ; Tigers have courage, and the rugged bear, And, without planting, drink of every vine. But man alone can, whom he conquers, spare.

To dig for wealth, we weary not our limbs ; To pardon, willing, and to punish, loth,
Gold, though the heaviest metal, hither swims. You strike with one hand, but you heal with both;
Ours is the harvest where the Indians mow, Lifting up all that prostrate lie, you grieve
We plow the deep, and reap what others sow. You cannot make the dead again to live.
Things of the noblest kind our own soil breeds ; When Fate or error had our age misled,
Stout are our men, and warlike are our steeds : And o'er this nation such confusion spread;
Rome, though her eagle through the world had flown, Theonly cure, which could from Heaven come down
Could never make this island all her own. Was so much power and piety in one.
Here the third Edward, and the Black Prince too, One! whose extraction from an ancient line
France-conquering Henry, flourish'd, and now you ; Gives hope again, that well-born men may shine
For whom we stay'd, as did the Grecian state, The meanest in your nature, mild and good ; .
Till Alexander came to urge their fate.

The noblest rest secured in your blood.
When for more worlds the Macedonian cried, of have we wonder'd, how you hid in peace
He wist not Thetis in her lap did hide

A mind proportion'd to such things as these ; Another yet: a world reserv'd for you,

How such a ruling spirit you could restrain, To make more great than that he did subdue. And practise first over yourself to reign. He safely might old troops to battle lead, Your private life did a just pattern give, Against th' unwarlike Persian and the Mede, How fathers, husbands, pious sons, should live ; Whose hasty fight did, from a bloodless field, Born to command, your princely virtues slept, More spoils than honor to the victor yield. Like humble David's, while the flock he kept. A race unconquer'd, by their clime made bold, But when your troubled country callid you forth, The Caledonians, arm'd with want and cold, Your flarning courage and your matchless worth, Have, by a fate indulgent to your fame,

Dazzling the eyes of all that did pretend,
Been from all ages kept for you to tame.

To fierce contention gave a prosperous end.
Whom the old Roman wall, so ill confin'd, Still, as you rise, the state, exalted too,
With a new chain of garrisons you bind :

Finds no distemper while 'tis changed by you; Here foreign gold no rwore shall make them come; Chang'd like the world's great scene ! when withou Our English iron holds them fast at home.

noise,

The rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys. They, that henceforth must be content to know No warmer region than their hills of snow,

Had you, some ages past, this race of glory May blame the sun; but must extol your grace,

Run, with amazement we should read your story: Which in our senate hath allow'd them place.

But living virtue, all achievements past,

Meets envy still, to grapple with at last. Preferr'd by conquest, happily o'erthrown,

This Cæsar found; and that ungrateful age, Falling they rise, to be with us made one:

With losing him, went back to blood and rage; So kind dictators made, when they came home,

Mistaken Brutus thought to break their yoke, Their vanquish'd foes free citizens of Rome.

But cut the bond of union with that stroke. Like favor find the Irish, with like fate

That sun once set, a thousand meaner stars Advanc'd to be a portion of our state ;

Gave a dim light to violence and wars ; While by your valor, and your bounteous mind,

To such a tempest as now threatens all, Nations divided by the sea are join'd.

Did not your mighty arm prevent the fall. Holland, to gain your friendship, is content If Rome's great senate could not wield that sword To be our out-guard on the continent:

Which of the conquer'd world had made them lord ; She from her fellow-provinces would go,

What hope had ours, while yet their power was new, Rather than hazard to have you her foe.

To rule victorious armies, but by you? In our late fight, when cannons did diffuse, You! that had taught them to subdue their foes, Preventing posts, the terror and the news,

Could order teach, and their high spirits compose. Our neighbor princes trembled at their roar : To every duty could their minds engage, But our conjunction makes them tremble more Provoke their courage, and command their rage

« PreviousContinue »