PART III.

Or, The account balanced.

I.

SHOULD fov'reign Love before me ftand
With all his train of pomp and flate,

And bid the daring Muse relate
His comforts and his cares,

Mitio, I would not ask the fand

ૐ

For metaphors t' exprefs their weight,

Nor borrow numbers from the stars.

Thy cares and comforts, fov'reign Love,

Vaftly outweigh the fand below,

And to a larger audit grow

Than all the stars above.

Thy mighty loffes and thy gains

Are their own mutual measures;

Only the man that knows thy pains
Can reckon up thy pleasures.

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II.

Say, Damon, fay how bright the scene,

Damon is half divinely bleft,

Leaning his head on his Florella's breast

Without a jealous thought or bufy care between;
Then the sweet paffions mix and share,

Florella tells thee all her heart,

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Nor can thy foul's remoteft part

Conceal a thought or wish from the beloved fair.
Say what a pitch thy pleasures fly

When friendship all fincere grows up to ecftafy, 25
Nor felf contracts the blifs nor vice pollutes the joy;
While thy dear offspring round thee fit,

Or fporting innocently at thy feet,

Thy kindeft thoughts engage;

Thofe little images of thee,

What pretty toys of youth they be,

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And growing props of age!

III.

But short is earthly blifs! the changing wind
Blows from the fickly fouth, and brings
Malignant fevers on its fultry wings;
Relentless Death fits close behind:

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Now gafping infants and a wife in tears

With piercing groans falutes his ears,

Thro' ev'ry vein the thrilling torments roll,
While sweet and bitter are at ftrife

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In those dear miseries of life,

Thofe tend'reft pieces of his bleeding foul.

The pleasing sense of love a while,

Mixt with the heart-ach, may the pain beguile,

And make a feeble fight,

Till forrows like a gloomy deluge rise,

Then ev'ry fmiling paffion dies,

And hope alone with wakeful eyes,

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Darkling and folitary, waits the flow returning light.

IV.

Here then let my ambition reft,

May I be moderately bleft

When I the laws of love obey:

Let but my pleasure and my pain
In equal balance ever reign,

Or mount by turns and fink again,

And share just measures of alternate fway.
So Damon lives and ne'er complains;

Scarce can we hope diviner scenes

On this dull flage of clay :

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On the death of the Duke of Gloucefter just after Mr. Dryden, 1700.

An epigram.

DRYDEN is dead ; Dryden alone could fing
The full grown glories of a future king.
Now Glo'fter dies: thus leffer heroes live
By that immortal breath that poets give,
And scarce furvive the Mufe, but William ftands,
Nor afks his honours from the poet's hands:
William fhall fhine without a Dryden's praise ;
His laurels are not grafted on the bays.

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· An epigram of Martial to Cirinus.

Sic tua, Cirini, promas epigrammata vulgo
Ut mecum poflis, &c.

Infcribed to Mr. Jofiah Hort, 1694.

Now Lord Bishop of Kilmore in Ireland.

Sofmooth your numbers, friend, your verse so sweet,
So fharp the jeft, and yet the turn fo neat,
That with her Martial Rome would place Cirine,
Rome would prefer your sense and thought to mine.
Yet modeft you decline the publick stage

To fix your friend alone amidst th' applauding age;
So Maro did: the mighty Maro fings

In vaft heroick notes of vaft heroick things, [ftrings.
And leaves the ode to dance upon his Flaccus'
He scorn'd to daunt the dear Horatian lyre,
Tho' his brave genius flash'd Pindarick fire,
And at his will could filence all the Lyrick quire.
So to his Varius he refign'd the praise

Of the proud bufkin and the tragick bays,
When he could thunder with a loftier vein,
And fing of gods and heroes in a bolder strain.
A handsome treat, a piece of gold, or so,
And compliments, will ev'ry friend bestow.
Rarely a Virgil, a Cirine, we meet,
Who lays his laurels at inferiour feet,

And yields the tend'reft point of honour, wit. 21

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}

Epiftola fratri fuo dilecto, R. W. I. W. S. P. D.

RURSUM tuas, amande frater, accepi literas, eodem fortaffè momento, quo meæ ad te pervenerunt ; idemque qui te fcribentem vidit dies, meum ad epiftolare munus excitavit calamum; non inane eft inter nos fraternum nomen, unicus enim fpiritus nos intùs animat, agitque, et concordes in ambobus efficit motus: O utinam crefcat indies et vigefcat mutua charitas! faxit Deus, ut amor fui nostra incendat et defæcet pectora, tunc etenim et alternis puræ amicitiæ flammis erga nos invicem divinum in modum ardebimus; contemplemur Jefum noftrum, cœlefte illud et adorandum exemplar charitatis. Ille eft

Qui quondam æterno delapfus ab æthere vultus
Induit humanos, ut poffet corpore noftras
(Heu miferas!) fufferre vices; fponforis obivit
Munia, et in fefe tabulæ maledicta minacis
Tranftulit, et fceleris pœnas hominifque reatum.
Ecce jace defertus humi, diffufus in herbam
Integer, innocuas verfus fua fidera palmas
Et placidum attollens vultum, nec ad ofcula Patris
Amplexus folitofve; artus nudatus amicu
Sidereos, et fponte finum patefactus ad iras
Numinis armati. Pater, hic infige * fagittas,
† Job iv. 6.