Where, with like haste, though several ways they
Some to undo, and some to be undone;
While luxury and wealth, like war and peace,
Are each the other's ruin and increase;
As rivers lost in seas some secret vein
Thence reconveys, there to be lost again.
Oh happiness of sweet retir'd content!
To be at once secure and innocent.
Windsor the next (where Mars with Venus dwells,
Beauty with strength) above the valley swells
Into my eye, and doth itself present
With such an easy and unforc'd ascent,
That no stupendous precipice denies
Access, no horror turns away our eyes;
But such a rise as doth at once invite
A pleasure and a rev'rence from the sight:
Thy mighty master's emblem, in whose face
Sat meekness, heighten'd with majestic grace;
Such seems thy gentle height, made only proud
To be the basis of that pompous load;
Than which a nobler weight no mountain bears,
But Atlas only which supports their spheres.
When Nature's hand this ground did thus advance,
"Twas guided by a wiser pow'r than Chance;
Mark'd out for such an use, as if 'twere meant
Tinvite the builder, and his choice prevent.
Nor can we call it choice, when what we choose
Folly or blindness only could refuse.
A crown of such majestic tow'rs doth grace
The god's great mother, when her heav'nly race
Do homage to her; yet she cannot boast,
Among that num'rous and celestial host,
More heroes than can Windsor; nor doth Fame's
Immortal book record more noble names,
Not to look back so far, to whom this isle,
Owes the first glory of so brave a pile,
Whether to Cæsar, Albanact, or Brute,
The British Arthur, or the Danish Cnute,
(Though this of old no less contest did move,
Than when for Homer's birth seven cities strove
Like him in birth, thou shouldst be like in fame,
As thine his fate, if mine had been his flame)
But whosoe'er it was, Nature design'd
First a brave place, and then as brave a mind.
Not to recount those sev'ral kings to whom
It gave a cradle, or to whom a tomb;
But thee, great Edward, and thy greater son,*
(The lilies which his father wore he won),
And thy Bellona,f who the consort came
Not only to thy bed, but to thy fame.
She to thy triumph led one captive king,t
And brought that son which did the second bring.‡
Then didst thou found that order (whether love
Or victory thy royal thoughts did move,
Each was a noble cause, and nothing less
Than the design has been the great success),
With foreign kings and emperors esteem
The second honour to their diadem.
Had thy great destiny but given thee skill
To know, as well as pow'r to act, her will;
That from those kings, who then thy captives were,
In after-times should spring a royal pair,
Who should possess all that thy mighty pow'r,
Or thy desires, more mighty, did devour;
To whom their better fates reserves whate'er
The victor hopes for, or the vanquish'd fear;
*Edward III. and the Black Prince.
+ Queen Philippa. The kings of France and Scotland.
That blood which thou and thy great grandsire
And all that since these sister nations bled, [shed,
Had been unspilt, had happy Edward known
That all the blood he spilt had been his own.
When he that patron chose, in whom are join'd
Soldier and martyr, and his arms confin'd
Within the azure circle, he did seem
But to fortel and prophecy of him
Who to his realms that azure round hath join'd, Which Nature for their bound at first design'd; That bound to which the world's extremest ends, Endless itself, its liquid arms extends.
Nor doth he need those emblems which we paint,
But is himself the soldier and the saint.
Here should my wonder dwell, and here my praise,
But my fix'd thoughts my wand'ring eye betrays,
Viewing a neighb'ring hill, whose top of late
A chapel crown'd, till in the common fate
Th' adjoining abbey fell (may no such storm
Fall on our times, where ruin must reform!)
Tell me, my Muse, what monstrous dire offence,
What crime, could any Christian king incense
To such a rage? Was't luxury, or lust?
Was he so temperate, so chaste, so just?
Were these their crimes? They were his own much
But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor:
Who, having spent the treasure of his crown,
Condemns their luxury to feed his own.
And yet this act, to varnish o'er the shame
Of sacrilege, must bear Devotion's name,
No crime so bold but would be understood
A real, or at least a seeming, good:
Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name,
And, free from conscience, is a slave to fame:
Thus he the church at once protects and spoils :
But princes' swords are sharper than their styles.
And thus to th' ages past he makes amends,
Their charity destroys, their faith defends.
Then did religion in a lazy cell,
In empty airy contemplations dwell;
And, like the block, unmoved lay: but ours,
As much too active, like the stork devours.
Is there no temperate region can be known
Betwixt their frigid and our torrid zone?
Could we not wake from that lethargic dream,
But to be restless in a worse extreme?
And for that lethargy was there no cure,
But to be cast into a calenture?
Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance
So far, to make us wish for ignorance;
And rather in the dark to grope our way,
Than, led by a false guide, to err by day?
Who sees these dismal heaps, but would demand
What barbarous invader sack'd the land?
But when he hears, no Goth, no Turk did bring
This desolation, but a Christian king;
When nothing but the name of zeal appears,
"Twixt our best actions and the worst of theirs ;
What does he think our sacrilege would spare,
When such th' effects of our devotions are?
Parting from thence 'twixt anger, shame, and fear,
Those for what's past, and this for what's too near,
My eye, descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays.
Thames, the most lov'd of all the Ocean's sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs ;
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity.
Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold,
His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for the ensuing spring:
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers who their infants overlay ;
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil
The mower's hopes, or mock the ploughman's toil:
But godlike his unwearied bounty flows;
First loves to do, then loves the good he does:
Nor are his blessings to his banks confin'd,
But free and common, as the sea or wind;
When he, to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying tow'rs
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants;
Cities in deserts, woods in cities, plants.
So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.
Oh, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full.
Heaven her Eridanus no more shall boast,
Whose fame in thine, like lesser current, 's lost,
Thy nobler streams shall visit Jove's abodes,
To shine among the stars,* and bathe the gods.
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