The god of wine grows jealous of his art,
He only fires the head, but Hyde the heart.
The queen of love looks on, and smiles to see
A nymph more mighty than a deity.
ON LADY HYDE IN CHILD-BED.
Hyde, though in agonies, her graces keeps,
A thousand charms the nymph's complaints
In tears of dew so mild Aurora weeps, [adorn;
But her bright offspring is the cheerful Morn.
When Jove to Ida did the gods invite, And in immortal toasting pass'd the night, With more than nectar he the banquet bless'd, For Wharton was the Venus of the feast.
DESIGNED FOR TAMERLANE.
TO DAY a mighty hero comes, to warm
Your curdling blood, and bid you, Britons, arm.
To valour much he owes, to virtue more;
He fights to save, and conquers to restore.
He strains no text, nor makes dragoons persuade;
He likes religion, but he hates the trade.
Born for mankind, they by his labour live;
Their property is bis prerogative.
His sword destroys less than his mercy saves,
And none, except his passions, are his slaves.
Such, Britons, is the prince that you possess,
In council greatest, and in camps no less:
Brave, but not cruel; wise without deceit;
Born for an age curs'd with a Bajazet.
But you, disdaining to be too secure,
Ask his protection, and yet grudge his power.
With you a monarch's right is in dispute;
Who gives supplies, are only absolute.
Britons, for shame! your factious feuds decline,
Too long you've labour'd for the Bourbon line:
Assert lost rights, an Austrian prince alone
Is born to nod upon a Spanish throne.
A cause no less could on great Eugene call;
Steep Alpine rocks require an Hannibal:
He shows you your lost honour to retrieve;
Our troops will fight, when once the senate give.
Quit your cabals and factions, and in spight
Of Whig and Tory in this cause unite.
One vote will then send Anjou back to France;
There let the meteor end his airy dance:
Else to the Mantuan soil he may repair,
Ev'n abdicated gods were Latium's care,
At worst, he'll find some Cornish borough here.
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Behold this scene of beauty, and confess
The wonder greater, and the fiction less.
Like human victims here we stand decreed
To worship those bright altars where we bleed.
Who braves his fate in fields, must tremble here;
Triumphant love more vassals makes than fear.
No faction homage to the fair denies;
The right divine's apparent in their eyes.
That empire's fix'd, that's founded in desire;
Those flames, the vestals guard, can ne'er expire.
TO THE CORNISH SQUIRE, A COMEDY.
WHO dares not plot in this good-natur'd age?
Each place is privileg'd except the stage;
There the dread phalanx of reformers come,
Sworn foes to wit, as Carthage was to Rome;
Their ears so sanctify'd, no scenes can please,
But heavy hymns, or pensive homilies;
Truths, plainly told, their tender nature wound,
Young rakes must, like old patriarch's expound;
The painted punk the proselyte must play,
And bawds, like fille-devotes, procure and pray.
How nature is inverted! soon you'll see
Senates unanimous, and sects agree,
Jews at extortion rail, and monks at mystery.
Let characters be represented true,
An airy sinner makes an awkward Prue.
With force and fitting freedom vice arraign;
Though pulpits flatter, let the stage speak plain.
If Verres gripes the poor, or Nænius write,
Call that the robber, this the parasite.
Ne'er aim to make an eagle of an owl;
Cinna's a statesman; Sydrophel, a tool.
Our censurers with want of thought dispense,
But tremble at the hideous sin of sense.
Who would not such hard fate as ours bemoan,
Indicted for some wit, and damn'd for none?
But if, to day, some scandal should appear,
Let those precise Tartuffs bind o'er Moliere.
Poet, and papist too, they'll surely maul,
There's no indulgences at Hicks's-hall.
Gold only can their pious spite allay,
They call none criminals that can but pay:
The heedless shrines with victims they invoke,
They take the fat, and give the gods the smoke.
SPOKEN AT the opening OF THE QUEEN'S THE-
ATRE IN THE HAYMARKET.
SUCH was our builder's art, that, soon as nam'd,
This fabric, like the infant world, was fram'd.
The architect must on dull order wait,
But 'tis the poet only can create.
None else, at pleasure, can duration give:
When marble fails, the Muses' structures live.
The Cyprian fane is now no longer seen,
Though sacred to the name of love's fair queen.
E'en Athens scarce in pompous ruin stands,
Though finish'd by the learn'd Minerva's hands.
More sure presages from these walls we find,.
By beauty founded, and by wit design'd.
In the good age of ghostly ignorance,
How did cathedrals rise, and zeal advance!
The merry monks said orisous at ease,
Large were their meals, and light their penances;
Pardons for sins were purchas'd with estates,
And none but rogues in rags dy'd reprobates.
But, now that pious pageantry's no more,
And stages thrive, as churches did before:
Your own magnificence you here survey,
Majestic columns stand, where dunghilis lay,
And carrs triumphal rise from carts of hay.
Swains here are taught to hope, and nymphs to
fear,
And big Almanzor's fight mocks Blenheim's here.
Descending goddesses adorn our scenes,
And quit their bright abodes for gilt machines.
Should Jove, for this fair circle, leave his throne,
He'd meet a lightning fiercer than his own.
Though to the Sun his towering eagles rise,
They scarce could bear the lustre of these eyes.
A SOLILOQUY,
OUT OF ITALIAN.
COULD he whom my dissembled rigour grieves,
But know what torment to my soul it gives;
He'd find how fondly I return his fame,
And want myself the pity he would claim.
Tommortal gods! why has your doom decreed
Two wounded hearts with equal pangs should
bleed?
Has join'd in love whom destiny divides;
Since that great law, which your tribunal guides,
Or change our natures, or reform your laws.
Repent, ye powers, the injuries you cause,
Unhappy partner of my killing pain,
Think what I feel the moment you complain.
Each sigh you utter wounds my tenderest part,
So much my lips misrepresent my heart.
When from your eyes the falling drops distil,
My vital blood in every tear you spill:
And all those mournful agonies I hear,
Are but the echoes of my own despair.
WHAT odd fantastic things we women do!
Who would not listen when young lovers woo?
What! die a maid, yet have the choice of two!
Ladies are often cruel to their cost:
To give you pain, themselves they punish most.
Vows of virginity should well be weigh'd;
Too oft' they're cancel'd, though in convents made.
Would you revenge such rash resolves
Be spiteful-and believe the thing we say;
We hate you, when you're easily said nay.
How needless, if you knew us, were your fears!
Let love have eyes, and beauty will have ears.
Our hearts are form'd, as you yourselves would
choose,
Too proud to ask, too humble to refuse:
We give to merit, and to wealth we sell;
He sighs with most success that settles well.
The woes of wedlock with the joys we mix;
'Tis best repenting in a coach and six.
Blame not our conduct, since we but pursue
Those lively lessons we have learn'd from you:
Your breasts no more the fire of beauty warms,
But wicked wealth usurps the power of charms.
What pains to get the gaudy thing you hate,
To swell in show, and be a wretch in state!
At plays you ogle, at the ring you bow;
E'en churches are no sanctuaries now;
There golden idols all your vevs receive;
She is no goddess who has nought to give.
Oh may once more the happy age appear,
When words were artless, aud the thoughts sincere;
When gold and grandeur were unenvy'd things,
And courts less coveted than groves and springs.
Love then shall only mourn when truth complains,
And constancy feel transport in its chains;
Sighs with success their own soft anguish tell,
And eyes shall utter what the lips conceal :
Virtue again to its bright station climb,
And beauty fear no enemy but time:
The fair shall listen to desert alone,
And every Lucia find a Cato's son.
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WHEN Fame did o'er the spacious plain
The lays she once had learn'd repeat;
All listen'd to the tuneful strain,
And wonder'd who could sing so sweet.
'Twas thus. The Graces held the lyre,
Th' harmonious frame the Muses strung,
The Loves and Smiles compos'd the choir,
And Gay transcrib'd what Phoebus sung.
TO THE MERRY POETASTER
AT SADLERS-HALL IN CHEAPSIDE.
UNWIELDY pedant, let thy awkward Muse.
To lash, and not be felt, in thee's an art;
With censures praise, with flatteries abuse.
Thou ne'er mad'st any, but thy school-boys, smart.
Then be advis'd, and scribble not again;
Thou'rt fashion'd for a flail, and not a pen.
If B-l's immortal wit thou would'st decry,
Pretend 'tis he that writ thy poetry.
Thy feeble satire ne'er can do him wrong;
Thy poems and thy patients live net long.
THE EARL OF Godolphin to DR. GARTH, UPON ( Till Echo, chanting it by just degree,
THE LOSS OF MISS DINGLE: IN RETURN TO
THE DOCTOR'S CONSOLATORY VERSES TO HIM,
UPON THE LOSS OF HIS ROD
THOU, who the pangs of my embitter'd rage
Could'st, with thy never-dying verse, assuage:
Immortal verse, secure to live as long
As that curs'd prose that did condemn thy song:
Thou, happy bard, whose double-gifted pen,
Alike can cure an aching corn, or spleen;
Whose lucky hand administers repose
As well to breaking heart, as broken nose;
Accept this tribute: think it all I had,
In recompense of thine, when I was sad.
What though it comes from an unpractis'd
Bad at the best, grown worse by long disuse;
In silence lost, since once I did complain
Of Wiv-l's cold neglect in humble strain;
When check'd by slavish conscience, she deny'd
To throw aside the niece, and act the bride :
Yet sure I may be thought among the throng,
If not to sing, to whistle out a song:
Then take the kind remembrance of my verse,
While Dingle's loss with sorrow I rehearse.
Dingle is lost, the hollow caves resound
Dingle is lost, and multiply the sound;
Shortens to ding, then softens it to D.
Dingle is lost; where's now the parent's care, The boasted force of piety and prayer? No more shall she within thy spacious hall Lead up the dance, and animate the ball; Deserted thus, no more shalt thou engage Under the roof to Whartonize the age.
Train'd by thy care, by thy example led, Early she learnt to scorn the nuptial bed; In vain by thy advice enlarg'd her mind, And vow'd, like thee, to multiply her kind: For Dingle thou didst bless the nether skies; la hopes a mingled race might once arise, To sooth thy hoary age, and close thy dying eyes. Think not compliance e'er will influence. Learn, ye indulging parents, learn from hence The fifth command alone you did enjoin, And frankly gave her up the other nine: Yet she, though that, and that alone, was press'd, Regardless of your will, the fifth transgress'd.
But oh! my friend, consider, though she's gone She left no coffers empty but her own; Her mind, that did direct the great machine, Mov'd, like the universe, by springs unseen; And, though from thy instructions she retreats, Her globe of light grows larger as she sets: For nought could brighter make her lustre shine Than to withdraw, and single it from thine. Then think of this; and pardon, when you see Those virtues, you so late admir'd in me.
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