But let it (in a word) be said,
The moon was up, and men a-bed,
The napkins white, the carpet red;
The guests withdrawn had left the treat,
And down the mice sat, 'tête-à-tête."
Our courtier walks from dish to dish,
Tastes for his friend of fowl and fish;
Tells all their names, lays down the law:
• Que ça est bon! Ah goûtez ça!
That jelly's rich, this malmsey healing,
Pray dip your whiskers and your tail in."
Was ever such a happy swain?
He stuffs, and swills, and stuffs again.
'I'm quite ashamed-'tis mighty rude
To eat so much but all's so good.
I have a thousand thanks to give-
My lord alone knows how to live.'
No sooner said, but from the ball
Rush chaplain, butler, dogs and all :
A rat, a rat! clap to the door'-
The cat comes bouncing on the floor.
O for the heart of Homer's mice,
Or gods to save them in a trice!
(It was by Providence they think,
For your damn'd stucco has no chink).
'An't please your honour,' quoth the peasant:
This same dessert is not so pleasant:
Give me again my hollow tree,
A crust of bread, and liberty!'
AGAIN? new tumults in my breast;
Ah spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest!
I am not now, alas! the man
As in the gentle reign of my queen Anne. Ah! sound no more thy soft alarms,
Nor circle sober fifty with thy charms! Mother too fierce of dear desires!
Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires :
To number five direct your doves,
There spread round Murray all your blooming loves;
Noble and young, who strikes the heart
With every sprightly, every decent part;
Equal the injured to defend,
To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend.
He, with a hundred arts refined,
Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind:
To him each rival shall submit,
Make but his riches equal to his wit.
Then shall thy form the marble grace,
(Thy Grecian form) and Chloe lend the face;
His house, embosom'd in the grove,
Sacred to social life and social love,
Shall glitter o'er the pendent green,
Where Thames reflects the visionary scene:
Thither the silver-sounding lyres
Shall call the smiling Loves and young Desires;
There, every grace and muse shall throng,
Exalt the dance, or animate the song;
There youths and nymphs, in consort gay,
Shall hail the rising, close the parting day,
With me, alas! those joys are o'er;
For me the vernal garlands bloom no more.
Adieu! fond hope of mutual fire,
The still-believing, still renew'd desire:
Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl,
And all the kind deceivers of the soul !
But why? ah tell me, ah too dear!
Steals down my cheek, th' involuntary tear?
Why words so flowing, thoughts so free,
Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee? Thee, dress'd in fancy's airy beam,
Absent I follow, through th' extended dream; Now, now I cease, I clasp thy charms,
And now you burst (ah cruel) from my arms!
And swiftly shoot along the Mall,
Or softly glide by the canal;
Now shewn by Cynthia's silver ray,
And now on rolling waters snatch'd away.
THE NINTH ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK.
LEST you should think that verse shall die
Which sounds the silver Thames along,
Taught on the wings of Truth to fly
Above the reach of vulgar song;
Though daring Milton sits sublime,
In Spenser native muses play;
Nor yet shall Waller yield to time,
Nor pensive Cowley's moral lay-
Sages and chiefs long since had birth
Ere Cæsar was, or Newton named;
These raised new empires o'er the earth,
And those new heavens and systems framed.
Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride!
They had no poet, and they died:
In vain they schemed, in vain they bled!
They had no poet, and are dead.
ON RECEIVING FROM THE RIGHT HON. LADY FRANCES SHIRLEY A STANDISH AND TWO PENS.
YES, I beheld th' Athenian queen
Descend in all her sober charms;
And, 'Take,' she said, and smiled serene,
'Take at this hand celestial arms :
Secure the radiant weapons wield;
This golden lance shall guard desert,
And if a vice dares keep the field,
This steel shall stab it to the heart.'
Q
Awed, on my bended knees I fell,
Received the weapons of the sky;
And dipp'd them in the sable well,
The fount of fame or infamy.
What well? what weapon? Flavia cries,
'A standish, steel and golden pen!
It came from Bertrand's, not the skies;
I gave it you to write again.
But, friend, take heed whom you attack;
You'll bring a house, I mean of peers,
Red, blue, and green, nay, white, and black,
L***** and all about your ears.
'You'd write as smooth again on glass,
And run on ivory so glib,
As not to stick at fool or ass,
Nor stop at flattery or fib.
'Athenian queen! and sober charms!
I tell you, fool, there 's nothing in 't:
'Tis Venus, Venus gives these arms :
In Dryden's Virgil see the print.
'Come, if you'll be a quiet soul,
That dares tell neither truth nor lies,
I'll list you in the harmless roll
Of those that sing of these poor eyes.'
ROBERT, EARL OF OXFORD, AND EARL MORTIMER. Sent to the Earl of Oxford, with Dr. Parnell's Poems, published by our Author, after the said Earl's Imprisonment in the Tower and Retreat into the Coun try, in the Year 1721.
SUCH were the notes thy once-lov'd poet sung,
Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.
Oh, just beheld, and lost! admired, and mourn'd!
With softest manners, gentlest arts adorn'd!
Bless'd in each science, bless'd in every strain!
Dear to the muse! to Harley dear-in vain!
For him, thou oft hast bid the world attend,
Fond, to forget the statesman in the friend:
For Swift and him, despised the farce of state,
The sober follies of the wise and great;
Dexterous, the craving, fawning crowd to quit,
And pleased t' escape from flattery to wit.
Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear
(A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear).
Recal those nights that closed thy toilsome days,
Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays,
Who, careless now of interest, fame, or fate,
Perhaps forgets that Oxford e'er was great:
Or, deeming meanest what we greatest call,
Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.
And sure, if aught below the seats divine Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine: A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried, Above all pain, and passion, and all pride, The rage of power, the blast of public breath, The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.
In vain to deserts thy retreat is made: The muse attends thee to thy silent shade: 'Tis hers the brave man's latest steps to trace, Re-judge his acts, and dignify disgrace. When interest calls off all her sneaking train, And all the obliged desert, and all the vain; She waits, or to the scaffold, or the cell, When the last lingering friend has bid farewell. E'en now, she shades thy evening-walk with bays (No hireling she, no prostitute to praise); E'en now, observant of the parting ray, Eyes the calm sun-set of the various day, Through fortune's cloud one truly great can see, Nor fears to tell that Mortimer is he.
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