Let Liberty and Right, with plumes display'd, Clap their glad wings around their guardian's head, Religion o'er the rest her starry pinions spread. 65 Religion guards him; round th' imperial queen Place waiting Virtues, each of heav'nly mien: Learn their bright air and paint it from his eyes; The juft, the bold, the temp'rate, and the wife, Dwell in his looks, majestick but ferene, 70 Sweet with no fondness, cheerful but not vain, Bright without terrour, great without difdain. His foul infpires us what his lips command, And spreads his brave example thro' the land. Not fo the former reigns
Bend down his earth to each afflicted cry,
Let beams of grace dart gently from his eye;
But the bright treasures of his facred breast
Are too divine, too vast, to be exprest:
Colours must fail where words and numbers faint,80 And leave the hero's heart for thought alone to paint.
Now Mufe, pursue the fatirist again,
Wipe off the blots of his envenom'd pen.
Hark how he bids the fervile painter draw
In monftrous shapes the patrons of our law;
At one flight dash he cancels ev'ry name
From the white rolls of honefty and fame:
This fcribbling wretch marks all he meets for knave,
Shoots fudden bolts promifcuous at the base and brave,
And with unpardonable malice sheds
Poison and spite on undistinguish'd heads.
Painter, forbear! or if thy bolder hand
Dares to attempt the villains of the land,
Draw first this poet, like fome baleful star
With filent influence fhedding civil war,
Or factious trumpeter, whose magick found
Calls off the fubjects to the hoftile ground
And scatters hellifh feuds the nations round.
Thefe are the imps of hell, that cursed tribe
That first create the plague and then the pain defcribe.
Draw next above the great ones of our isle,
Still from the good distinguishing the vile;
Seat 'em in pomp, in grandeur and command,
Peeling the fubjects with a greedy hand:
Paint forth the knavès that have the nations fold,
And tinge their greedy looks with fordid gold: 25
Mark what a felfifh faction undermines
The pious monarch's generous defigns,
Spoil their own native land as vipers do,
Vipers that tear their mothers' bowels thro'.
Let great Naffau beneath a careful crown,
Mournful in majefty, look gently down,
Mingling foft pity with an awful frown.
He grieves to fee how long in vain he strove
To make us blefs'd, how vain his labours prove 34
To fave the ftubborn land he condefcends to love.
Imitated partly from Cafimire, Lib. iv. Od. I§.
VARIA! there's nothing here that's free
From wearifome anxiety,
And the whole round of mortal joys
With fhort poffeffion tires and cloys.
'Tis a dull circle that we tread,
Juft from the window to the bed:
We rife to fee and to be seen,
Gaze on the world a while, and then
We yawn, and stretch to fleep again.
But Fancy, that aneafy gueft,
Still holds a lodging in our breaft;
She finds or frames vexation ftill,
Herfelf the greatest plague we feel.
We take ftrange pleasure in our pain,
And make a mountain of a grain,
Affume the load, and pant and sweat
Beneath th' imaginary weight.
With our dear felves we live at ftrife:
While the most constant scenes of life
From peevish humours are not free
Still we affect variety.
Rather than pafs an easy day
We fret and chide the hours away,
Grow weary of this circling fun,
And vex'd that he should ever run
The fame old track, and still and still
Rife red behind yon' eastern hill,
And chide the moon that darts her light
Thro' the fame cafement ev'ry night.
We fhift our chambers and our homes
To dwell where trouble never comes.
Sylvia has left the city crowd,
Against the court exclaims aloud,
Flies to the woods, a hermit faint!
She loathes her patches, pins, and paint ;
Dear diamonds from her neck are torn ;
But humour that eternal thorn
Sticks in her heart; she's hurry'd still
'Twixt her wild paffions and her will;
Haunted and hagg'd where'er fhe roves,
By purling streams and filent groves,
Or with her Furies or her Loves.
Then our own native land we hate,
Too cold, to windy, or too wet;
Change the thick climate and repair
To France or Italy for air.
In vain we change, in vain we fly:
Go, Sylvia, mount the whirling sky,
Or ride upon the feather'd wind.
In vain, if this diseased mind
Clings fast, and still fits clofe behind;
Faithful difeafe, that never fails
Attendance at her lady's fidé,
Over the defert or the tide,
On rolling wheels or flying fails.
Happy the foul that Virtue shows
To fix the place of her repofe,
Needless to move, for fhe can dwell.
In her old grandfire's hall as well;
Virtue, that never loves to roam,
But fweetly hides herself at home,
And easy on a native throne
Of humble turf fits gently down.
Yet fhould tumultuous forms arife
And mingle earth, and feas, and skies,
Should the waves fwell and make her roll
Across the line or near the pole,
Still he's at peace, for well fhe knows
To lanch the stream that Duty fhows,
And make her home where'er fhe goes.
Bear her ye feas upon your breast,
Or waft her winds from east to west
On the foft air; she cannot find
A couch fo eafy as her mind,
Nor breathe a climate half fo kind.
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