DR. THOMAS PARNELL, Late Archdeacon of CLOGHER:
Including those published by Mr. POPE,
POEMS MORAL AND DIVINE.
"Dignum laude virum Mufa vetat mori,”
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
ROBERT, EARL OF OXFORD,
EARL MORTIMER.
UCH were the notes thy once-lov'd Poet fung,
S
Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.
Oh, just beheld, and loft! admir'd, and mourn'd!
With fofteft manners, gentleft arts adorn'd!
Bleft in each science, bleft in every strain;
Dear to the Mufe, to Harley dear-in vain!
For him thou oft haft bid the world attend,
Fond to forget the statesman in the friend :
For Swift and him, despis'd the farce of state,
The fober follies of the wife and great;
Dextrous, the craving, fawning croud to quit,
And pleas'd to fcape from flattery to wit.
Abfent or dead, ftill let a friend be dear,
(A figh the absent claims, the dead a tear)
Recall those nights that clos'd thy toilfome days,
Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays :
Who, careless now, of intereft, fame, or fate,
Perhaps forgets that Oxford e'er was great;
Or, deeming meanest what we greatest call,
Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.
And fure, if aught below the seats divine
Can touch immortals, 'tis a foul like thine :
B 2
A foul fupreme, in each hard inftance try'd,
Above all pain, all anger, and all pride;
The rage of power, the blaft of public breath,
The luft of lucre, and the dread of death.
In vain to deserts thy retreat is made;
The Muse attends thee to thy filent shade:
Tis hers, the brave man's latest steps to trace,
Re-judge his acts, and dignify disgrace,
When intereft calls off all her sneaking train,
When all th' oblig'd defert, and all the vain;
She waits, or to the fcaffold, or the cell,
When the last lingering friend has bid farewell.
Ev'n now she shades thy evening-walk with bays,
(No hireling fhe, no prostitute to praise)
Ev'n now obfervant of the parting ray,
Eyes the calm fun-fet of thy various day;
Through Fortune's cloud one truly great can fee,
Nor fears to tell, that Mortimer is he.
Sept. 25, 1721.
WHAT antient times (thofe times we fancy wife)
Have left on long record of woman's rife,
What morals teach it, and what fables hide,
What author wrote it, how that author dy'd,
All these.I fing. In Greece they fram'd the tale
‹ (In Greece 'twas thought a woman might be frail);
Ye modern beauties! where the Poet drew
His fofteft pencil, think he dreamt of you;
And, warn'd by him, ye wanton pens beware
How Heaven's concern'd to vindicate the fair.
The cafe was Hefiod's; he the fable writ;
. Some think with meaning, fome with idle wit:
Perhaps 'tis either, as the Ladies please.;.·
I wave the conteft, and commence the lays.
In days of yore (no matter where or when,
'Twas ere the low creation fwarm'd with men).
That one Prometheus, fprung of heavenly birth,
(Our Author's fong can witness) liv'd on earth:
He carv'd the turf to mold a manly frame,
And ftole from Jove his animating flame.
The fly contrivance o'er Olympus.ran,
When thus the Monarch of the Stars began.
B 3
|