Meanwhile, his lovèd banks, now dry, The Muses with their tears supply.
UPON MR. STANINOUGH'S DEATH.*
EAR relics of a dislodged soul, whose lack Makes many a mourning paper put on black,
O, stay awhile, ere thou draw in thy head,
And wind thyself up close in thy cold bed; Stay but a little while, until I call
A summons worthy of thy funeral !
Come then, youth, beauty, blood! all ye soft pow'rs, Whose silken flatteries swell a few fond hours
Into a false eternity! Come, man—
Hyperbolized nothing!-know thy span!
Take thine own measure here; down, down, and bow Before thyself in thy idea! thou
Huge emptiness! contract thy bulk, and shrink All thy wild circle to a point! O, sink
Lower, and lower yet; till thy small size
Call heaven to look on thee with narrow eyes!
Lesser, and lesser yet; till thou begin
To show a face fit to confess thy kin,
Thy neighbourhood to nothing!
Proud looks, and lofty eyelids, here put on
Yourselves in this unfeign'd reflection!
Repeated, with alterations, at the end of the edition of 1670, under the title, " Death's Lecture-the Funeral of a Young Gentleman.”
Here, gallant ladies, this impartial glass,
Though you be painted, shows you your own face. These death-seal'd lips do dare to give the lie To the proud hopes of poor mortality. These curtain'd windows, this self-prison'd eye Out-stares the lids of large-look'd tyranny. This posture is the brave one! this that lies Thus low stands up, methinks, thus, and defies The world. All-daring dust and ashes! only you, Of all interpreters, read nature true!
UPON THE DUKE OF YORK'S* BIRTH.
RITAIN, the mighty ocean's lovely bride, Now stretch thyself, fair isle, and grow; spread wide
Thy bosom, and make room; thou art oppress'd With thine own glories: and art strangely bless'd Beyond thyself: for lo! the gods, the gods, Come fast upon thee, and those glorious odds Swell thy full glories to a pitch so high, As sits above thy best capacity!
Are they not odds? and glorious? that to thee Those mighty Genii throng, which well might be Each one an age's labour; that thy days Are gilded with the union of those rays, Whose each divided beam would be a sun,
To glad the sphere of any nation.
* Afterwards king James II.
O, if for these thou mean'st to find a seat, Th' hast need, O Britain, to be truly great! And so thou art, their presence makes thee so; They are thy greatness; gods, where'er they go, Bring their heav'n with them, their great footsteps place An everlasting smile upon the face
Of the glad earth they tread on; while with thee Those beams that ampliate mortality,
And teach it to expatiate, and swell
To majesty and fulness, deign to dwell; Thou by thyself may'st sit, blest isle, and see How thy great mother Nature doats on thee! Thee, therefore, from the rest apart she hurl'd, And seem'd to make an isle, but made a world! Great Charles! thou sweet dawn of a glorious day, Centre of those thy grandsires, shall I say, Henry, and James, or Mars and Phoebus rather? If this were wisdom's god, that war's stern father, 'Tis but the same, is said, Henry and James Are Mars and Phoebus under divers names. O thou full mixture of those mighty souls Whose vast intelligences tuned the poles Of peace and war; thou for whose manly brow Both laurels twine into one wreath, and woo To be thy garland; see, sweet prince, O see Thou and the lovely hopes that smile in thee Are ta'en out, and transcribed by thy great mother! See, see thy real shadow, see thy brother,
Thy little self in less, read in these eyne
The beams that dance in those full stars of thine.
From the same snowy alabaster rock
These hands and thine were hewn, these cherries mock The coral of thy lips. Thou art of all This well-wrought copy the fair principal.
Justly, great Nature, may'st thou brag and tell How even th' hast drawn this faithful parallel, And match'd thy master-piece: O, then, go on, Make such another sweet comparison:-
See'st thou that Mary there? O, teach her, mother, To show her to herself in such another.
Fellow this wonder, too, nor let her shine Alone; light such another star, and twine Their rosy beams, so that the morn for one Venus may have a constellation.
So have I seen, to dress their mistress, May, Two silken sister-flowers consult, and lay Their bashful cheeks together; newly they
Peep'd from their buds, show'd like the garden's eyes
Scarce waked like was the crimson of their joys,
Like were the pearls they wept; so like, that one Seem'd but the other's kind reflection.
But stay, what glimpse was that? why blush'd the day? Why trembling ran the started air away? Who's this that comes circled in rays that scorn Acquaintance with the sun? what second morn At mid-day opes a presence, which heaven's eye Stands off and points at ? is't some deity, Stepp'd from her throne of stars, deigns to be seen? Is it some deity? or is't our queen?
'Tis she, 'tis she, her awful beauties chase
The day's abashed glories, and in face
Of noon wear their own sunshine! O, thou bright
Mistress of wonders! Cynthia's is the night; But thou at noon dost shine, and art all day— Nor does the sun deny 't-our Cynthia. Illustrious sweetness! in thy faithful womb, That nest of heroes, all our hopes find room; Thou art the mother Phoenix, and thy breast Chaste as that virgin honour of the East, But much more fruitful is; nor does, as she, Deny to mighty love a deity.
Then let the Eastern world brag and be proud Of one coy Phoenix, while we have a brood, A brood of Phoenixes, and still the mother ;* And may we long; long may'st thou live, t' increase The house and family of Phoenixes:
Nor may the light that gives their eyelids light E'en prove the dismal morning of thy night; Ne'er may a birth of thine be bought so dear To make his costly cradle of thy bier. O, may'st thou thus make all the year And see such names of joy sit white The brow of every month; and when that's done, May'st in a son of his find every son
Repeated, and that son still in another,
And so in each child often prove a mother! Long may'st thou, laden with such clusters, lean Upon thy royal elm, fair vine! and when The heavens will stay no longer, may thy glory And name dwell sweet in some eternal story! Pardon, bright excellence! an untuned string, That in thy ears thus keeps a murmuring;
* Here a line seems deficient.
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