Tho' bold these truths, thou Muse! with truths like those Will none offend when 'tis a praise to please.
Let others flatter to be flatter d, thou
Like just tribunals, bend an awful brow.
How terrible it were to common sense,
To write a satire which gave none offence?
And since from life I take the draught you see,
If men dislike them, co they censure me;
The food and knave 'tis glorious to offend,
And godlike an attempt the word to mend:
The world where lucky throws to blockheads fail,
Kaaves know the game, and honest men pay all.
PRINTED AT THE Apollo Press,
BY GEORGE CAWTHORN, NO. 132, STRAND; BOOKSELLER AND PRINTER TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS
THE PRINCESS OF WALES.
WHILE
HILE others sing the fortune of the great,
Empire and arms, and all the pomp of state,
With Britain's hero* set their souls on fire,
And grow immortal as his deeds inspire,
I draw a deeper scene; a scene that yields
A louder trumpet, and more dreadful fields;
The world alarm'd, both earth and heav'n o'erthrown,
And gasping Nature's last tremendous groan;
Death's ancient sceptre broke, the teeming tomb,
The righteous Judge, and man's eternal doom.
'Twixt joy and pain I view the bold design,
And ask my anxious heart if it be mine.
*The Duke of Marlborough.
Whatever great or dreadful has been done
Within the sight of conscious stars or sun,
Is far beneath my daring. I look down
On all the splendours of the British crown.
This globe is for my verse a narrow bound;
Attend me, all ye glorious worlds around!
O! all ye angels, howsoe'er disjoin'd,
Of ev'ry various order, place, and kind,
Hear, and assist, a feeble mortal's lays:
'Tis our eternal King I strive to praise.
But chiefly thou, great Ruler! Lord of all! Before whose throne archangels prostrate fall, If at thy nod, from discord, and from night, Sprang beauty, and yon' sparkling worlds of light, Exalt ev'n me; all inward tumults quell; The clouds and darkness of my soul dispel; To my great subject thou my breast inspire, And raise my lab'ring soul with equal fire.
Man! bear thy brow aloft, view ev'ry grace In God's great offspring, beautecus Nature's face; See spring's gay bloom, see goiden Autumn's store, See how Earth smiles, and hear old Ocean rear, Leviathans but heave their cumb'rous mail, It makes a tide, and wind-bound navies sail. Here forests ise, the mountain's awful pride; Here rivers measure climes, and worlds divide; Their vallies, fraught with gold's resplendent seeds, Hold kings' and kingdoms' fortunes in their beas: 40
There to the skies aspiring hills ascend,
And into distant lands their shades extend.
View cities, armies, fleets; of fleets the pride,
See Europe's law in Albion's channel ride,
View the whole earth's vast landscape unconfin'd,
Or view in Britain all her glories join'd.
Then let the firmament thy wonder raise;
'Twill raise thy wonder, but transcend thy praise.
How far from east to west? the lab'ring eye
Can scarce the distant azure bounds descry:
Wide theatre! where tempests play at large,
And God's right hand can all its wrath discharge.
Mark how those radiant lamps inflame the pole,
Call forth the seasons, and the year control:
They shine thro' time with an unalter'd ray,
See this grand period rise, and that decay:
So vast, this world's a grain; yet myriads grace,
With golden pomp, the throng'd ethereal space;
So bright, with such a wealth of glory stor`d,
'I were sin in Heathens not to have ador'd.
How great, how firm, how sacred all appears!
How worthy an immortal round of years!
Yet all must deop, as autumn's fickliest grain,
And earth and firmament be sought in vain:
The track forgot where constellation shone,
Or where the Stuarts fill'd an awful throne:
Time shall be slain, all nature be destroy'd,
Nor leave an atom in the mighty void.
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