Ye Gods! what justice rules the ball?
Freedom and arts together fall;
Fools grant whate'er Ambition craves,
And men, once ignorant, are flaves.
Oh curs'd effects of civil hate,
In ev'ry age, in ev'ry state!
Still, when the luft of tyrant pow'r fucceeds,
Some Athens perifhes, fome Tully bleeds.
CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS.
OH tyrant Love! haft thou possest
The prudent, learn'd, and virtuous breast?
Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,
And arts but foften us to feel thy flame.
Love, foft intruder, enters here,
But ent'ring learns to be fincere.
Marcus with blushes owns he loves,
And Brutus tenderly reproves.
Why, Virtue, doft thou blame defire
Which Nature hath impreft?
Why, Nature, doft thou foonest fire
The mild and gen’rous breast?
Love's purer flames the gods approve;
The gods and Brutus bend to love:
Brutus for abfent Porcia fighs,
And fterner Caffius melts at Junia's eyes.
What is loose love? a tranfient guft,
Spent in a fudden ftorm of luft,
A vapour fed from wild defire,
A wand'ring, felf-confuming fire.
But Hymen's kinder flames unite,
And burn for ever one;
Chafte as cold Cynthia's virgin light,
Productive as the fun.
SEMICHORUS.
Oh, fource of ev'ry focial tye,
United with, and mutual joy!
What various joys on one attend,
As fon, as father, brother, husband, friend!
Whether his hoary fire he spies,
While thousand grateful thoughts arife;
Or meets his spouse's fonder eye,
Or views his smiling progeny;
What tender paffions take their turns,
What home-felt raptures move!
His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,
With rev'rence, hope, and love.
Hence guilty joys, diftaftes, furmifes,
Hence falfe tears, deceits, difguifes,
Dangers, doubts, delays, furprises,
Fires that scorch, yet dare not fhinę.
Pureft love's unwasting treasure,
Conftant faith, fair hope, long leifure,
Days of eafe, and nights of pleasure;
Sacred Hymen! these are thine.
TO THE MEMORY OF
AN UNFORTUNATE LADY.
WHAT beck'ning ghoft along the moon-light shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade ?
'Tis fhe !---but why that bleeding bofom gor'd!
Why dimly gleams the vifionary fword?
Oh ever beauteous, ever-friendly! tell,
Is it, in heav'n, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender or too firm a heart,
To act a lover's or a Roman's part?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky
For thofe who greatly think, or bravely die?
Why bade ye elfe, ye Pow'rs, her foul afpire
Above the vulgar flight of low defire ?
bleft abodes,
Ambition firft fprung from your
The glorious fault of angels and of gods:
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.
Moft fouls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull fullen pris'ners in the body's cage:
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years
Ufelefs, unfeen, as lamps in fepulchres;
Like eaftern kings a lazy ftate they keep,
And, clofe confin'd to their own palace, fleep.
From thefe, perhaps, (cre Nature bade her die,)
Fate fnatch'd her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer fpirits flow,
And fep'rate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the foul to its congenial place,
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.
But thou, falfe guardian of a charge too good,
Thou, mean deferter of thy brother's blood!
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
Thefe cheeks now fading at the blast of death :.
Cold is that breast which warm'd the world before,
And thofe love-darting eyes must roll no more.
5
Thus, if eternal Juftice rules the ball,
Thus fhall your wives, and thus your children fall:
On all the line a fudden vengeance waits,
And frequent herfes fhall befiege your gates;
There paffengers fhall ftand, and pointing fay,
(While the long fun'rals blacken all the way,)
Lo! these were they whofe fouls the Furies fteel'd,
And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield.
Thus unlamented pafs the proud away,
The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!
So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others' good, or melt at others' woe.
What can atone, (oh ever injur'd shade!)
Thy fate unpity'd, and thy rites unpaid?
No friend's complaint, no kind domeftic tear,
Pleas'd thy pale ghoft, or grac'd thy mournful bier.
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
By ftrangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd!
What though no friends in fable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances, and the public show?
What though no weeping Loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polifh'd marble emulate thy face?
What though no facred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb?
Yet fhall thy grave with rifing flow'rs be dreis'd,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There fhall the Morn her earlieft tears beftow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their filver wings o'erfhade
The ground, now facred by thy relics made.
So peaceful refts, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.
How lov'd, how honour'd once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of duft alone remains of thee;
Tis all thou art, and all the
VOL. I.
Poets themselves muft fall like those they fung,
Deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
Ev'n he, whofe foul now melts in mournful lays,
Shall shortly want the gen'rous tear he pays;
Then from his clofing eyes thy form fhall part,
And the laft pang fhall tear thee from his heart;
Life's idle bus'nefs at one gafp be o'er,
The mufe forgot, and thou belov'd no more!
PROLOGUE
TO MR. ADDISON'S
TRAGEDY OF CATO.
wake the foul by tender ftrokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart;
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each fcene, and be what they behold;
For this the Tragic Muse first trod the ftage,
Commanding tears to ftream through every age.
Tyrants no more their favage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our Author fhuns by vulgar fprings to move
The hero's glory, or the virgin's love:
In pitying love we but our weakness show,
And wild ambition well deferves its woe.
Here tears fall flow from a more gen'rous cause,
Such tears as patriots fhed for dying laws:
He bids your breafts with ancient ardour rife,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.
Virtue confefs'd in human fhape he draws;
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your fight difplays,
But what with pleafure Heav'n itfelf furveys,
A brave man ftruggling in the ftorms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling ftate.
While Cato gives his little fenate laws,
What bofom beats not in his country's cause?
|