Nor could another in your room have been,
Except an emptiness had come between.
Well may he then to you his cares impart,
And share his burden where he shares his heart.
In you his sleep still wakes; his pleasures find
Their share of business in your labouring mind.
So when the weary Sun his place resigns,
He leaves his light, and by reflection shines.
Justice, that sits and frowns where public laws
Exclude soft mercy from a private cause,
In your tribunal most herself does please;
There only smiles, because she lives at ease;
And, like young David, finds her strength the more,
When disencumber'd from those arms she wore.
Heaven would our royal master should exceed
Most in that virtue, which we most did need;
And his mild father (who too late did find
All mercy vain but what with power was join'd)
His fatal goodness left to fitter times,
Not to increase, but to absolve our crimes:
But when the heir of this vast treasure knew
How large a legacy was left to you,
(Too great for any subject to retain)
He wisely tied it to the crown again:
Yet, passing through your hands, it gathers more,
As streams, through mines, bear tincture of their
While empiric politicians use deceit,
[ore.
Hide what they give, and cure but by a cheat,
You boldly show that skill which they pretend,
And work by means as noble as your end;
Which should you veil, we might unwind the clue,
As men do Nature, till we came to you.
And as the Indies were not found, before
Those rich perfumes which, from the happy shore,
The winds upon their balmy wings convey'd,
Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd;
So by your counsels we are brought to view
A rich and undiscover'd world in you.
By you our monarch does that fame assure,
Which kings must have, or cannot live secure :
For prosperous princes gain their subjects' heart,
Who love that praise in which themselves have part.
By you he fits those subjects to obey;
As Heaven's eternal Monarch does convey
His
power unseen, and man to his designs
By his bright ministers, the stars, inclines.
Our setting sun, from his declining seat,
Shot beams of kindness on you, not of heat:
And, when his love was bounded in a few
That were unhappy that they might be true,
Made you the favourite of his last sad times,
That is, a sufferer in his subjects' crimes.
Thus those first favours you received were sent,
Like Heaven's rewards, in earthly punishment,
Yet Fortune, conscious of your destiny,
E'en then took care to lay you softly by;
And wrapp'd your fate among her precious things,
Kept fresh to be unfolded with your King's.
Shown all at once you dazzled so our eyes,
As new-born Pallas did the gods surprise, [wound,
When, springing forth from Jove's new-closing
She struck the warlike spear into the ground,
Which sprouting leaves did suddenly inclose,
And peaceful olives, shaded as they rose.
How strangely active are the arts of peace, Whose restless motions less than wars do cease! Peace is not freed from labour, but from noise; And war more force, but not more pains, employs.
Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind,
That, like the earth, it leaves our sense behind,
While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere,
That rapid motion does but rest appear.
For, as in Nature's swiftness, with the throng
Of flying orbs while ours is borne along,
All seems at rest to the deluded eye,
Moved by the soul of the same harmony:
So, carried on by your unwearied care,
We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.
Let Envy, then, those crimes within you see,
From which the happy never must be free;
Envy, that does with Misery reside,
The joy and the revenge of ruin'd pride.
Think it not hard if, at so cheap a rate,
You can secure the constancy of Fate,
Whose kindness sent what does their malice seem,
By lesser ills the greater to redeem.
Nor can we this weak shower a tempest call,
But drops of heat, that in the sunshine fall.
You have already wearied Fortune so,
She cannot farther be your friend or foe;
But sits all breathless, and admires to feel
A fate so weighty, that it stops her wheel.
In all things else above our humble fate,
Your equal mind yet swells not into state,
But, like some mountain in those happy isles,
Where in perpetual spring young Nature smiles,
Your greatness shows; no horror to affright,
But trees for shade, and flowers to court the sight.
Sometimes the hill submits itself a while
In small descents, which do its height beguile;
And sometimes mounts, but so as billows play,
Whose rise not hinders but makes short our way.
Your brow, which does no fear of thunder know,
Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below;
And, like Olympus' top, the' impression wears
Of love and friendship writ in former years:
Yet, unimpair'd with labours, or with time,
Your age but seems to a new youth to climb.
Thus heavenly bodies do our time beget,
And measure change, but share no part of it:
And still it shall without a weight increase,
Like this New-year, whose motions never cease:
For since the glorious course you have begun
Is led by Charles, as that is by the sun,
It must both weightless and immortal prove,
Because the centre of it is above.
ON HIS LEARNED AND USEFUL WORKS; BUT MORE PAR-
TICULARLY HIS TREATISE OF STONE-HENGE, BY HIM
RESTORED TO THE TRUE FOUNDER.
THE longest tyranny that ever sway'd,
Was that wherein our ancestors betray'd
Their free-born reason to the Stagyrite,
And made his torch their universal light.
So truth, while only one supplied the state,
Grew scarce and dear, and yet sophisticate.
Still it was bought (like empiric wares or charms,
Hard words) seal'd up with Aristotle's arms.
Columbus was the first that shook his throne,
And found a Temperate in a Torrid zone;
The feverish air, fann'd by a cooling breeze,
The fruitful vales set round with shady trees,
And guiltless men, who danced away their time,
Fresh as their groves, and happy as their clime.
Had we still paid that homage to a name,
Which only God and Nature justly claim,
The western seas had been our utmost bound,
Where poets still might dream the sun was drown'd;
And all the stars that shine in southern skies
Had been admired by none but savage eyes.
Among the' asserters of free Reason's claim,
Our nation's not the least in worth or fame.
The world to Bacon does not only owe
Its present knowledge, but its future too.
Gilbert' shall live till loadstones cease to draw,
Or British fleets the boundless ocean awe;
And noble Boyle, not less in Nature seen,
Than his great brother read in states and men,
The circling streams, once thought but pools of
(Whether life's fuel or the body's food) [blood,
From dark oblivion Harvey's name shall save;
While Ent3 keeps all the honour that he gave.
Nor are you, learned friend, the least renown'd,
Whose fame, not circumscribed with English
Flies, like the nimble journies of the light, [ground,
And is, like that, unspent too in its flight.
Whatever truths have been by Art or Chance
Redeem'd from error or from ignorance,
Thin in their authors, like rich veins of ore,
Your works unite, and still discover more:
I William Gilbert, M. D. ob. Nov. 30, 1603.
2 William Harvey, M. D. ob. June 30, 1657.
3 Sir George Ent, President of the College of Physicians, &c. ob. 1689.
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