The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake,
Pleas'd, the green lustre of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.
Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem,* rise! 5
Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!

6

See a long race thy spacious courts adorn;
See future sons and daughters, yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations" at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend!
See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabæan springs!
For thee Idume's spicy forests blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.

8

4 Isaiah, ch. Ix. ver. 1.

IMITATIONS.

5 The thoughts of Isaiah, which compose the latter part of the poem, are wonderfully elevated, and much above those general exclamations of Virgil, which make the loftiest parts of his Pollio.

Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo
-toto surget gens aurea mundo!

-incipient magni procedere menses!

Aspice, venturo lætentur ut omnia sæclo! &c.

The reader needs only to turn to the passages of Isaiah here cited.

6 Ch. lx. ver. 4.

8 Ch. lx. ver. 6.

7 Ch. lx. ver. 3.

See Heaven its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day.

No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolv'd in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O'erflow thy courts: the light himself shall shine
Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine!

The seas
1 shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fix'd his word, his saving power remains ;—
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns!

9 Isaiah, ch. lx. ver. 19, 20.

1 Ch. li. ver. 6, and ch. liv. ver. 10.

WINDSOR FOREST.

TO THE

RIGHT HON. GEORGE LORD LANSDOWN.

Non injussa cano: te nostræ, Vare, myricæ,

Te Nemus omne canet: nec Phoebo gratior ulla est,
Quam sibi quæ Vari præscripsit pagina nomen.

VIRG.

WINDSOR FOREST.

THY forest, Windsor! and thy green retreats,
At once the monarch's and the muse's seats,
Invite my lays. Be present, sylvan maids!
Unlock your springs, and open all your shades.
Granville commands: your aid, O Muses, bring!
What muse for Granville can refuse to sing?

The groves of Eden, vanish'd now so long,
Live in description, and look green in song:
These, were my breast inspir'd with equal flame,
Like them in beauty, should be like in fame.
Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain,
Here earth and water seem to strive again;
Not chaos-like together crush'd and bruis'd,
But, as the world, harmoniously confus'd:
Where order in variety we see,

And where, though all things differ, all agree.
Here waving groves a chequer'd scene display,
And part admit, and part exclude the day;
As some coy nymph her lover's warm address
Nor quite indulges, nor can quite repress.