But when Old Age has on your temples shed
Her silver-frost, there's no returning sun;
Swift flies our autumn, swift our summer's fled,
When youth, and love, and spring, and golden joys
are gone.

Then cold, and winter, and your aged snow,
Stick fast upon you; not the rich array,
Not the green garland, nor the rosy bough,
Shall cancel or conceal the melancholy gray.
The chase of pleasures is not worth the pains,
While the bright sands of health run wasting down;
And honour calls you from the softer scenes,
To sell the gaudy hour for ages of renown.
'Tis but one youth, and short, that mortals have,
And one old age dissolves our feeble frame;
But there's a heavenly art t' elude the grave,
And with the hero-race immortal kindred claim.
The man that has his country's sacred tears
Redewing his cold hearse, has liv'd his day: [heirs;
Thus, Blackbourn, we should leave our names our
Old Time and waning moons sweep all the rest away.

TRUE MONARCHY.

1701.

THE rising year beheld the imperious Gaul
Stretch his dominion, while a hundred towns
Crouch'd to the victor: but a steady soul
Stands firm on its own base, and reigns as wide,
As absolute; and sways ten thousand slaves,
Lusts and wild fancies, with a sovereign hand.

We are a little kingdom; but the man
That chains his rebel Will to Reason's throne,
Forms it a large one, while his royal mind
Makes Heaven its council, from the rolls above
Draws its own statutes, and with joy obeys.

'Tis not a troop of well-appointed guards
Create a monarch, not a purple robe
Dy'd in the people's blood, not all the crowns
Or dazzling tiars that bend about the head,
Though gilt with sun-beams and set round with stars.
A monarch he that conquers all his fears,
And treads upon them; when he stands alone,
Makes his own camp; four guardian virtues wait
His nightly slumbers, and secure his dreams.
Now dawns the light; he ranges all his thoughts
In square battalions, bold to meet th' attacks
Of Time and Chance, himself a numerous host,
All eye, all ear, all wakeful as the day,
Firm as a rock, and moveless as the centre.

In vain the harlot Pleasure spreads her charms,
To lull his thoughts in Luxury's fair lap,
To sensual ease (the bane of little kings,
Monarchs whose waxen images of souls
Are moulded into softness); still his mind
Wears its own shape, nor can the heavenly form
Stoop to be modell'd by the wild decrees
Of the mad vulgar, that unthinking herd.

He lives above the crowd, nor hears the noise
Of wars and triumphs, nor regards the shouts
Of popular applause, that empty sound;
Nor feels the flying arrows of Reproach,
Or Spite or Envy. In himself secure,
Wisdom his tower, and conscience is his shield,
His peace all inward, and his joys his own.

TRUE COURAGE.

HONOUR demands my song. Forget the ground,
My generous Muse, and sit among the stars!
There sing the soul, that, conscious of her birth,
Lives like a native of the vital world
Among these dying clods, and bears her state
Just to herself: how nobly she maintains
Her character! superior to the flesh,

She wields her passions like her limbs, and knows
The brutal powers were only born t' obey.

This is the man whom storms could never make
Meanly complain; nor can a flattering gale
Make him talk proudly: he hath no desire
To read his secret fate: yet unconcern'd
And calm could meet his unborn destiny,
In all its charming or its frightful shapes.

He that, unshrinking, and without a groan,
Bears the first wound, may finish all the war
With mere courageous silence, and come off
Conqueror: for the man that well conceals
The heavy strokes of Fate, he bears them well,

He, though th' Atlantic and the Midland seas
With adverse surges meet, and rise on high
Suspended 'twixt the winds, then rush amain,
Mingled with flames, upon his single head,
And clouds, and stars, and thunder, firm he stands,
Secure of his best life; unhurt, unmov'd;
And drops his lower nature, born for death:
Then from the lofty castle of his mind
Sublime looks down, exulting, and surveys
The ruins of creation (souls alone
Are heirs of dying worlds); a piercing glance
Shoots upwards from between his closing lids,
To reach his birth-place, and without a sigh
He bids his batter'd flesh lie gently down
Amongst his native rubbish; whilst the spirit
Breathes and flies upward, an undoubted guest
Of the third Heaven, th' unruinable sky.

Thither when Fate has brought our willing souls,
No matter whether 'twas a sharp disease
Or a sharp sword that help'd the travellers on,
And push'd us to our home-Bear up, my friend,
Serenely, and break through the stormy brine
With steady prow; know, we shall once arrive
At the fair haven of eternal bliss,

To which we ever steer; whether as kings
Of wide command we've spread the spacious sea
With a broad painted fleet, or row'd along
In a thin cock-boat with a little oar.

There let my native plank shift me to land, And I'll be happy: thus I'll leap ashore Joyful and fearless on th' immortal coast, Since all I leave is mortal, and it must be lost.

TO THE MUCH HONOURED

MR. THOMAS ROWE,

THE DIRECTOR OF MY YOUTHFUL STUDIES.

FREE PHILOSOPHY.

CUSTOM, that tyranness of fools,

That leads the learned round the schools,

In magic chains of forms and rules!

My genius storms her throne:

No more, ye slaves, with awe profound
Beat the dull track, nor dance the round;
Loose hands, and quit th' enchanted ground:
Knowledge invites us each alone.

I hate these shackles of the mind
Forg'd by the haughty wise;
Souls were not born to be confin'd,
And led, like Samson, blind and bound;
But when his native strength he found
He well aveng'd his eyes.

I love thy gentle influence, Rowe,
Thy gentle influence, like the Sun,
Only dissolves the frozen snow,
Then bids our thoughts like rivers flow,
And choose the channels where they run.
Thoughts should be free as fire or wind;
The pinions of a single mind

Will through all nature fly:
But who can drag up to the poles
Long fetter'd ranks of leaden souls?
A genius which no chain controls
Roves with delight, or deep, or high:
Swift I survey the globe around,

Dive to the centre through the solid ground,
Or travel o'er the sky.

TO THE REV. MR. BENONI ROWE. THE WAY OF THE MULTITUDE. Rowe, if we make the crowd our guide

Through life's uncertain road,

Mean is the chase; and, wandering wide,
We miss th' immortal good;
Yet if my thoughts could be confin'd
To follow any leader-mind,

I'd mark thy steps, and tread the same:
Drest in thy notions I'd appear
Not like a soul of mortal frame,
Nor with a vulgar air.

Men live at random and by chance,
Bright Reason never leads the dance;
While in the broad and beaten way
O'er dales and hills from truth we stray,
To ruin we descend, to ruin we advance.
Wisdom retires; she hates the crowd:
And with a decent scorn
Aloof she climbs her steepy seat,
Where nor the grave nor giddy feet,
Of the learn'd vulgar or the rude,

Have e'er a passage worn,

Mere Hazard first began the track,
Where Custom leads her thousands blind
In willing chains and strong;
There's scarce one bold, one noble mind
Dares tread the fatal errour back,
But hand in hand ourselves we bind,
And drag the age along.

Mortals, a savage herd, and loud
As billows on a noisy flood

In rapid order roll:

Example makes the mischief good :
With jocund heel we beat the road,
Unheedful of the goal.

Me let Ithuriel's 8 friendly wing
Snatch from the crowd, and bear sublime
To Wisdom's lofty tower,

Thence to survey that wretched thing,
Mankind; and in exalted rhyme

Bless the delivering Power.

TO THE REVEREND

MR. JOHN HOWE

GREAT man, permit the Muse to climb
And seat her at thy feet,

Bid her attempt a thought sublime,
And consecrate her wit.

I feel, I feel th' attractive force
Of thy superior soul:

My chariot flies her upward course,
The wheels divinely roll.

Now let me chide the mean affairs
And mighty toil of men:

How they grow gray in trifling cares,
Or waste the motions of the spheres
Upon delights as vain!

A puff of honour fills the mind,
And yellow dust is solid good;
Thus, like the ass of savage kind,
We snuff the breezes of the wind,
Or steal the serpent's food.
Could all the choirs

That charm the poles
But strike one doleful sound,
'Twould be employ'd to mourn our souls,
Souls that were fram'd of sprightly fires

In floods of folly drown'd.

Souls made of glory seek a brutal joy;

1704.

How they disclaim their heavenly birth, Melt their bright substance down with drossy earth, And hate to be refin'd from that impure alloy !

Oft has thy genius rous'd us hence

With elevated song,

Eid us renounce this world of sense,
Bid us divide th' immortal prize

With the seraphic throng:

"Knowledge and love make spirits blest, Knowledge their food, and love their rest;" But Flesh, th' unmanageable beast,

Resists the pity of thine eyes,

And music of thy tongue.

Then let the worms of grovelling mind
Round the short joys of earthly kind

In restless windings roam;

The name of an angel in Milton's Paradise Lost.

Howe hath an ample orb of soul, Where shining worlds of knowledge roll, Where love, the centre and the pole,

Completes the Heaven at home.

THE DISAPPOINTMENT AND RELIEF. VIRTUE, permit my fancy to impose

Upon my better powers:

She casts sweet fallacies on half our woes,

And gilds the gloomy hours.
How could we bear this tedious round
Of waning moons, and rolling years,
Of flaming hopes, and chilling fears,
If (where no sovereign cure appears)
No opiates could be found?

Love, the most cordial stream that flows,
Is a deceitful good:

Young Doris, who nor guilt nor danger knows,
On the green margin stood,

Pleas'd with the golden bubbles as they rose,
And with more golden sands her fancy pav'd the flood:
Then fond to be entirely blest,

And tempted by a faithless youth,
As void of goodness as of truth,
She plunges in with heedless haste,
And rears the nether mud:

Darkness and nauseous dregs arise

O'er thy fair current, Love, with large supplies
Of pain to tease the heart, and sorrow for the eyes.
The golden bliss that charm'd her sight

Is dash'd, and drown'd, and lost :
A spark, or glimmering streak at most,
Shines here and there, amidst the night,
Amidst the turbid waves, and gives a faint delight.
Recover'd from the sad surprise,

Doris awakes at last,

Grown by the disappointment wise;
And manages with art th' unlucky cast;

When the lowering frown she spies
On her haughty tyrant's brow,

With humble love she meets his wrathful eyes,
And makes her sovereign beauty bow;
Cheerful she smiles upon the grisly form;
So shines the setting Sun on adverse skies,
And paints a rainbow on the storm.
Anon she lets the sullen humour spend,
And with a virtuous book, or friend,
Beguiles th' uneasy hours:
Well-colouring every cross she meets,
With heart serene she sleeps and eats,
She spreads her board with fancied sweets,
And strews her bed with flowers.

THE HERO'S SCHOOL OF MORALITY.

THERON, amongst his travels, found
A broken statue on the ground;
And searching onward as he weut
He trac'd a ruin'd monument.

Mould, moss, and shades, had overgrown
The sculpture of the crumbling stone;
Yet ere he pass'd, with much ado,
He guess'd, and spell'd out, ScI-PI-O.

"Enough," he cried; "I'll drudge no more

In turning the dull Stoics o'er;

Let pedants waste their hours of ease

To sweat all night at Socrates;

And feed their boys with notes and rules,
Those tedious recipes of schools,
To cure ambition: I can learn
With greater ease the great concern
Of mortals; how we may despise
All the gay things below the skies.

"Methinks a mouldering pyramid
Says all that the old sages said;
For me these shatter'd tombs contain
More morals than the Vatican.
The dust of heroes cast abroad,
And kick'd and trampled in the road,
The relics of a lofty mind,
That lately wars and crowns design'd,
Tost for a jest from wind to wind,
Bid me be humble, and forbear
Tall monuments of fame to rear,
They are but castles in the air.
The towering heights, and frightful falls,
The ruin'd heaps and funerals,

Of smoking kingdoms and their kings,
Tell me a thousand mournful things
In melancholy silence.-

-He,

That living could not bear to see
An equal, now lies torn and dead;
Here his pale trunk, and there his head ;
Great Pompey! while I meditate,
With solemn horrour, thy sad fate,
Thy carcase, scatter'd on the shore
Without a name, instructs me more.
Than my whole library before.

"Lie still, my Phitarch, then, and sleep,
And you, good Seneca, may keep
Your volumes clos'd for ever too,
I have no further use for you:
For when I feel my virtue fail,
And my ambitious thoughts prevail,
I'll take a turn among the tombs,
And see whereto all glory comes:
There the vile foot of every clown
Tramples the sons of honour down;
Beggars with awful ashes sport,
And tread the Cæsars in the dirt.”

FREEDOM.

1697.

"TEMPT me no more. My soul can ne'er comport
With the gay slaveries of a court;
I've an aversion to those charms,
And hug dear Liberty in both mine arms.
Go, vassal-souls, go, cringe and wait,
And dance attendance at Honorio's gate,
Then run in troops before him to compose his state;
Move as he moves; and when he loiters, stand;
You're but the shadows of a man.

Bend when he speaks; and kiss the ground:
Go, catch th' impertinence of sound:
Adore the follies of the great;

Wait till he smiles:-But lo, the idol frown'd

And drove them to their fate.

And as I stand, and as I go,

It keeps my body so;

No, I can never part with my creation-right.

Let slaves and asses stoop and bow,

[free." Bend to a meaner power than that which form'd it

I cannot make this iron knee

Thus my bold harp profusely play'd
Pindarical; then on a branchy shade

I hung my harp aloft, myself beneath it laid,
Nature, that listen'd to my strain,
Resum'd the theme, and acted it again.

Sudden rose a whirling wind
Swelling like Honorio proud,
Around the straws and feathers crowd,
Types of a slavish mind;
Upwards the stormy forces rise,

The dust flies up and climbs the skies,
And as the tempest fell th' obedient vapours sunk:
Again it roars with bellowing sound,
The meaner plants that grew around, [ground:
The willow, and the asp, trembled and kiss'd the
Hard by there stood the iron trunk
Of an old oak, and all the storm defied;
In vain the winds their forces tried,
In vain they roar'd; the iron oak
Bow'd only to the heavenly thunder's stroke,

ON

MR. LOCKE'S ANNOTATIONS UPON SEVERAL PARTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT,

LEFT BEHIND HIM AT HIS DEATH.

Taus Reason learns by slow degrees

What Faith reveals; but still complains
Of intellectual pains,

And darkness from the too exuberant light,
The blaze of those bright mysteries
Pour'd all at once on Nature's eyes
Offend and cloud her feeble sight.

Reason could scarce sustain to see
Th' Almighty One, th' Eternal Three,
Or bear the infant Deity;

Scarce could her pride descend to own
Her Maker stooping from his throne,
And drest in glories so unknown.
A ransom'd world, a bleeding God,
And Heaven appeas'd with flowing blood,
Were themes too painful to be understood.

Faith, thou bright cherub, speak, and say,
Did ever mind of mortal race

Cost thee more toil, or larger grace,

To melt and bend it to obey?

'Twas hard to make so rich a soul submit,

TRUE RICHES.

I AM not concern'd to know
What tomorrow Fate will do:
'Tis enough that I can say,
I've possess'd myself to-day:
Then if haply midnight-death
Seize my flesh and stop my breath,
Yet tomorrow I shall be
Heir to the best part of me.

Glittering stones, and golden things, Wealth and honours that have wings, Ever fluttering to be gone,

I could never call my own:
Riches that the world bestows,
She can take, and I can lose ;
But the treasures that are mine
Lie afar beyond her line.
When I view my spacious soul,
And survey myself awhole,
And enjoy myself alone,
I'm a kingdom of my own.

I've a mighty part within
That the world hath never seen,
Rich as Eden's happy ground,
And with choicer plenty crown'd
Here on all the shining boughs
Knowledge fair and useless grows;
On the same young flowery tree
All the seasons you may see;
Notions in the bloom of light,
Just disclosing to the sight;
Here are thoughts of larger growth,
Ripening into solid truth;
Fruits refin'd, of noble taste;
Seraphs feed on such repast.
Here, in a green and shady grove,
Streams of pleasure mix with love:
There beneath the smiling skies
Hills of contemplation rise:
Now upon some shining top
Angels light, and call me up;
I rejoice to raise my feet,
Both rejoice when there we meet.

There are endless beauties more,
Earth hath no resemblance for;
Nothing like them round the pole,
Nothing can describe the soul:

Sister of Faith, fair Charity,

Show me the wondrous man on high,

Tell how he sees the Godhead Three in One;
The bright conviction fills his eye,

His noblest powers in deep prostration lie
At the mysterious throne.

That has treasures of its own, More remote from public view Than the bowels of Peru; Broader 'tis, and brighter far, Than the golden Indies are; Ships that trace the watery stage Cannot coast it in an age;

Harts, or horses, strong and fleet,
Had they wings to help their feet,
Could not run it half way o'er
In ten thousand days and more.

Yet the silly wandering mind,
Loth to be too much confin'd,
Roves and takes her daily tours,
Coasting round the narrow shores,
Narrow shores of flesh and sense,
Picking shells and pebbles thence:
Or she sits at Fancy's door,
Calling shapes and shadows to her,
Foreign visits still receiving,
And t' herself a stranger living.
Never, never would she buy
Indian dust, or Tyrian dye,
Never trade abroad for more,
If she saw her native store;

If her inward worth were known, She might ever live alone.

THE ADVENTUROUS MUSE.

URANIA takes her morning flight

With an inimitable wing:

Through rising deluges of dawning light

She cleaves her wondrous way,

She tunes immortal anthems to the growing day; Nor Rapin gives her rules to fly, nor Purcell 2

notes to sing.

She nor inquires, nor knows, nor fears [sand; Where lie the pointed rocks, or where th' ingulfing Climbing the liquid mountains of the skies, She meets descending angels as she flies, Nor asks them where their country lies, Or where the sea-marks stand. Touch'd with an empyreal ray, She springs, unerring, upward to eternal day, Spreads her white sails aloft, and steers, With bold and safe attempt, to the celestial land. Whilst little skiffs along the mortal shores With humble toil in order creep, Coasting in sight of one another's oars,

Nor venture through the boundless deep, Such low pretending souls are they Who dwell enclos'd in solid orbs of skull;

Plodding along their sober way,

The snail o'ertakes them in their wildest play,
While the poor labourers sweat to be correctly dull.

Give me the chariot whose diviner wheels
Mark their own route, and unconfin'd
Bound o'er the everlasting bills,

[hind.

1 A French critic.

2 An English master of music.

TO MR. NICHOLAS CLARK.

THE COMPLAINT.

'Twas in a vale where osiers grow,
By murmuring streams we told our woe,
And mingled all our cares:
Friendship sat pleas'd in both our eyes,
In both the weeping dews arise,
And drop alternate tears.

The vigorous monarch of the day,
Now mounting half his morning way,
Shone with a fainter bright;
Still sickening, and decaying still,
Dimly he wander'd up the hill
With his expiring light.

In dark eclipse his chariot roll'd,
The queen of night obscur'd his gold
Behind her sable wheels;
Nature grew sad to lose the day,
The flowery vales in mourning lay,

In mourning stood the hills.

"Such are our sorrows, Clark," I cried, "Clouds of the brain grow black, and hide Our darken'd souls behind;

In the young morning of our years Distempering fogs have climb'd the spheres, And choke the labouring mind.

"Lo, the gay planet pears his head, And overlooks the lofty shade,

New-brightening all the skies: Bu say, dear partner of my moan, When will our long eclipse be gone, Or when our suns arise?

"In vain are potent herbs applied, Harmonious sounds in vain have tried To make the darkness fly: