With awful silence stalk'd before the gate,
But when he saw the trophies of his fate,
High on a column rais'd against the door,
And his rich chariot still deform'd with gore,
He starts with horrour back; ev'n Jove's command
Could scarce control him, nor the vital wand.
"Twas now the solemn day, when Jove, array'd
In all his thunders, grasp'd the Theban maid :
Then took from blasted Semele her load,
And in himself conceiv'd the future god.
For this the Thebans revel'd in delight,
And gave to play and luxury the night;
A national debauch! confus'd they lie
Stretch'd o'er the fields, their canopy the sky.
The sprightly trumpets sound, the timbrels play,
And wake with sacred harmony the day.
The matron's breast the gracious power inspires
With milder raptures, and with softer fires.
So the Bistonian race, a madding train,
Exult and revel on the Thracian plain;
With milk their bloody banquets they allay,
Or from the lion rend his panting prey:
On some abandon'd savage fiercely fly,
Seize, tear, devour, and think it luxury.
But if the rising fumes of wine conspire

To warm their rage, and fan the brutal fire,
Then scenes of horrour are their dear delight,
They whirl the goblets, and provoke the fight:
Then on the slain the revel is renew'd
And all the horrid banquet floats in blood.

And now the winged Hermes from on high
Shot in deep silence from the dusky sky;
Then hover'd o'er the Theban tyrant's head,
As stretch'd at ease he prest his gorgeous bed:
Where labour'd tapestry from side to side,
Glow'd with rich figures, and Assyrian pride.
Oh! the precarious terms of human state!
How blind is man! how thoughtless of his fate;

See! through his limbs the dews of slumber creep,
Sunk as he lies, in luxury and sleep.

The reverend shade commission'd from above,
Hastes to fulfil the high behests of Jove:
Like blind Tiresias to the bed he came,
In form, in habit, and in voice the same.
Pale, as before, the phantom still appear'd,
Down his wan bosom flow'd a length of beard;
His head an imitated fillet wore,

His hand a wreath of peaceful olive bore:
With this he touch'd the sleeping monarch's breast,
And in his own, the voice of Fate, exprest.
"Then canst thou sleep, to thoughtless rest resign'd?
And drive thy brother's image from thy mind?
Yon gathering storm demands thy timely care,
See! how it rolls this way the tide of war.
When o'er the seas the sweeping whirlwinds fly,
And roar from every quarter of the sky;
The pilot, in despair the ship to save,
Gives up the helm, a sport to every wave:
Such is thy errour, and thy fate the same
(For know, I speak the common voice of Fame.)
Proud in his new alliances, from far
Against thy realm he meditates the war;
Big with ambitious hopes to reign alone,
And swell unrival'd on the Theban throne.
New signs and fatal prodigies inspire
His mad ambition, with his boasted sire;
And Argos' ample realms in dower bestow'd,
And Tydeus reeking from his brother's blood,
League and conspire to raise him to the throne,
And make his tedious banishment thy own.

For this, with pity touch'd, almighty love,
The sire of gods, dispatch'd me from above.
Be still a monarch; let him swell in vain
With a gay prospect of a fancy'd reign:
Still let him hope by fraud, or by the sword,
To bumble Thebes beneath a foreign lord."

Thus the majestic ghost; but ere he fled,
He pluck'd the wreaths and fillets from his head.
For now the sickening stars were chas'd away,
And Heaven's immortal coursers breath'd the day.
Awful to sight confest the grandsire stood,
Bared his wide wound, and all his bosom show'd,
Then dash'd the sleeping monarch with his blood.
With a distracted air, and sudden spring,
Starts from his broken sleep the trembling king.
Shakes off amaz'd th' imaginary gore,

While fancy paints the scene he saw before:
Deep in his soul his grandsire's image wrought,
And all his brother rose in every thought

So while the toils are spread, and from behind
The hunter's shouts come thickening in the wind;
The tiger starts from sleep the war to wage,
Collects his powers, and rouses all his rage:
Sternly he grinds his fangs, he weighs his might,
And whets his dreadful talons for the fight;
Then to his young he bears his foe away,
His foe at once the chaser and the prey,
Thus on his brother he in every thought,
Waged future wars, and battles yet unfought.

ON

THE DEATH OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN.

WITH joy, blest youth, we saw thee reach thy goal;
Fair was thy frame, and beautiful thy soul;
The Graces and the Muses came combin'd,
These to adorn the body, those the mind;
"Twas there we saw the softest manners meet,

Truth, sweetness, judgment, innocence, and wit.
So form'd, he flew his race; 'twas quickly won;
'Twas but a step, and finish'd when begun.
Nature herself surpris'd would add no more,
His life complete in all its parts before;
But his few years with pleasing wonder told,
By virtues, not by days; and thought him old.
So far beyond his age those virtues ran,
That in a boy she found him more than man.
Till, at the long expense of anguish wise,
For years let wretches importune the skies,
They live, to count their days by miseries.
Those win the prize, who soonest run the race,
And life burns brightest in the shortest space.
So to the convex-glass embody'd run,

Drawn to a point, the glories of the Sun;
At once the gathering beams intensely glow,
And through the streighten'd circle fiercely flow:
In one strong flaine conspire the blended rays,
Run to a fire, and crowd into a blaze.

CHRIST's PASSION,

FROM A GREEK ODE OF MR. MASTER'S, FORMERLY OF

NEW COLLEGE,

AN ODE.

No more of earthly subjects sing,

To Heaven, my Muse aspire;

To raise the song, charge every string, And strike the living lyre,

In faithful lines her history declare,
And trace the causes of her civil war ;
Your pen no partial prejudices sway,

But truth decides, and virtue wins the day. [pass,
Through what gay fields and flowery scenes we
Where fancy sports, and fiction leads the chase?
Where life, as through her various acts she tends,
Like other comedies, in marriage ends.

What Muse but yours so justly could display Th' embattled passions marshal'd in array ? Bid the rang'd appetites in order move, Give lust a figure, and a shape to love? To airy notions solid forms dispense, And make our thoughts the images of sense? Discover all the rational machine, [within? And show the movements, springs, and wheels But Hymen waves his torch, all discords cease; All parley, drop their arms, and sue for peace. Soon as the signal flames, they quit the fight, For all at first but differ'd to unite. From every part the lines in order move, And sweetly centre in the point of love.

Let blockheads to the musty schools repair, And poach for morals and the passions there, Where Virtue, like a dwarf in giant's arms, Cumber'd with words, and manacled in terms, Serves to amuse the philosophic fool, By method dry, and regularly dull. Who sees thy lines so visibly express The soul herself in such a pleasing dress, May from thy labours be convine'd and taught, How Spencer would have sung, and Plato thought.

THE TWELFTH ODE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE,

TRANSLATED..

WHAT man, what hero will you raise,
By the shrill pipe, or deeper lyre?
What god, O Clio, will you praise,
And teach the echoes to admire ?
Amidst the shades of Helicon,

Cold Hamus' tops, or Pindus' head,
Whence the glad forests hasten'd down,

And danc'd as tuneful Orpheus play'd. Taught by the Muse, he stopp'd the fall Of rapid floods, and charm'd the wind; The listening oaks obey'd the call,

And left their wondering hills behind. Whom should I first record, but Jove, Whose sway extends o'er sea and land, The king of men and gods above,

Who holds the seasons in command?

To rival Jove, shall none aspire,
None shall to equal glory rise;
But Pallas claims beneath her sire,
The second honours of the skies.
To thee, O Bacchus, great in war,
To Dian will I strike the string,
Of Phoebus wounding from afar,

In numbers like his own I'll sing.

The Muse Alcides shall resound;
The twins of Leda shall succeed ;
This for the standing fight renown'd,
And that for managing the steed,

Whose star shines innocently still;
The clouds disperse, the tempests cease,
The waves obedient to their will,

Sink down, and hush their rage to peace.

Next shall I Numa's pious reign,

Or thine, O Romulus, relate: Or Rome by Brutus freed again,

Or haughty Cato's glorious fate? Or dwell on noble Paulus' fame? Too lavish of the patriot's blood? Or Regulus' immortal name,

Too obstinately just and good?
These with Camillus brave and bold,
And other chiefs of matchless might,
Rome's virtuous poverty of old,

Severely season'd to the fight.
Like trees, Marcellus' glory grows,
With an insensible advance;
The Julian star, like Cynthia, glows,
Who leads the planetary dance.
The Fates, O sire of human race,

Entrust great Cæsar to thy care,
Give him to hold thy second place,
And reign thy sole vicegerent here.
And whether India he shall tame,

Or to his chains the Seres doom; Or mighty Parthia dreads his name,

And bows her haughty neck to Rome. While on our groves thy bolts are hurl'd, And thy loud car shakes Heaven above, He shall with justice awe the world, To none inferior but to Jove.

THE TWENTY-SECOND ode of thÉ FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.

THE

man unsully'd with a crime,
Disdains the pangs of fear,
He scorns to dip the poison'd shaft,
Or poise the glittering spear.
Nor with the loaded quiver goes
To take the dreadful field:
His solid virtue is his helm,

And innocence his shield.

In vain the fam'd Hydaspes' tides
Obstruct and bar the road,
He smiles on danger, and enjoys
The roarings of the flood.

All climes are native, and forgets
Th' extremes of heats and frosts,
The Scythian Caucasus grows warm,
And cool the Libyan coasts.

For while I wander'd through the woods,
And rang'd the lonely grove,
Lost and bewilder'd in the songs
And pleasing cares of love;

A wolf beheld me from afar,
Of monstrous bulk and might;
But, naked as I was, he fled

And trembled at the sight.

A beast so huge, nor Daunia's grove,
Nor Afric ever view'd,

Though nurst by her, the lion reigns
The monarch of the wood.
Expose me in those horrid climes,
Where not a gentle breeze
Revives the vegetable race,

Or cheers the drooping trees: Where on the world's remotest verge

Th' unactive seasons lie,

And not one genial ray unbinds
The rigour of the sky :
On that unhabitable shore,
Expose me all alone,

Where I may view without a shade,
The culminating Sun.
Beneath th' equator, or the pole,
In safety could I rove,

And in a thousand different climes
Could live for her I love.

A PROLOGUE FOR THE STROLLERS.

GENTEELS, of old pert prologues led the way,
To guide, defend, and usher in the play,
As powder'd footmen run before the coach,
And thunder at the door my lord's approach.
But though they speak your entertainment near,
Most prologues speed like other bills of fare
Seldom the languid stomach they excite,
And oftner pall, than raise the appetite.

As for the play-'tis hardly worth our care,
The prologue craves your mercy for the player;
That is, your money-for by Jove I swear,
White gloves and lodging are confounded dear.
Since here are none but friends, the truth to own,
Hasp'd in a coach our company came down,
But I most shrewdly fear we shall depart,
Ev'n in our old original, a cart.

With pride inverted, and fantastic power,
We strut the fancy'd monarchs of an hour;
While duns our emperors and heroes fear,
And Cleomenes' starves in earnest here:
The mightiest kings and queens we keep in pay,
Support their pomp on eighteen-pence a day.
Great Cyrus for a dram has pawn'd his coat,
And all our Cæsars can't command a groat;
Our Scipios, Hannibals, and Pompeys break,
And Cleopatra shifts but once a week.

To aggravate the case we have not one,
Of all the new refinements of the town:
No moving statues, no lewd harlequins,
No pasteboard-players, no heroes in machines;
No rosin to flash lightning-'twould exhaust us,
To buy a devil and a Doctor Faustus.

No windmills, dragons, millers, conjurers,
To exercise your eyes, and spare your ears;
No paper-seas, no thunder from the skies,
No witches to descend, no stage to rise;
Scarce one for us the actors-we can set
Nothing before you but mere sense and wit.

'The Spartan Hero, a tragedy, by Mr. Dryden.

A bare downright old-fashion'd English feast,
Such as true Britons only can digest;
Such as your homely fathers us'd to love,
Who only came to hear and to improve :
Humbly content and pleas'd with what was drest,
When Otway, Lee, and Shakespeare rang'd the
feast.

PSALM VIII.

TRANSLATED.

O KING eternal and divine!
The world is thine alone :
Above the stars thy glories shine,
Above the heavens thy throne.

How far extends thy mighty name!
Where'er the Sun can roll,

That Sun thy wonders shall proclaim,
Thy deeds from pole to pole.

The infant's tongue shall speak thy power,
And vindicate thy laws;

The tongue that never spoke before,
Shall labour in thy cause.

For when I lift my thoughts and eyes,
And view the heavens around,
Yon stretching waste of azure skies,
With stars and planets crown'd;
Who in their dance attend the Moon,
The empress of the night,
And pour around her silver throne,
Their tributary light:

Lord! what is mortal man? that he
Thy kind regard should share?
What is his son, who claims from thee
And challenges thy care?

Next to the blest angelic kind,
Thy hands created man,
And this inferior world assign'd,
To dignify his span.

Him all revere, and all obey

His delegated reign,

The flocks that through the valley stray,
The herds that graze the plain.

The furibus tiger speeds his flight,
And trembles at his power;
In fear of his superior might,
The lions cease to roar.

Whatever horrid monsters tread

The paths beneath the sea,
Their king at awful distance dread,
And sullenly obey.

O Lord, how far extends thy name!
Where-e'er the Sun can roll,
That Sun thy wonders shall proclaim,
Thy deeds from pole to pole.