ELEGY to the memory of

WHAT

LADY *.

an Unfortunate

7HAT beck'ning ghoft, along the moon-
light fhade

Invites my fleps, and points to yonder glade?
'Tis the!--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 reverfion in the sky,

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15

For those who greatly think, or bravely die? 10
Why bade ye elfe, ye pow'rs! her foul aspire
Above the vulgar fight of low defire ?
Ambition firft fprung from your bless'd abodes;
The glorious fault of angels and of gods:
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breafts 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.

NOTES.

20

* See the Duke of Buckingham's verfes to a lady defiguing to retire into a monaftery, compared with Mr Pope's letters to feveral ladies, lett. 22. vol. 3. She feemed to be the fame perion whofe unfortunate death is the fubject of this poem.

From

From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die) Fate fnatch'd her early to the pitying fky.

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.

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35

But thou, falfe guardian of a charge too good, Thou, mean deferter of thy brother's blood! 30 See on thefe ruby lips the trembling breath, These cheeks now fading at the blast of death; Cold is that breaft which warm'd the world before, And thofe love-darting eyes muft roll no more. Thus, if eternal Justice rules the ball, Thus fhall your wives, and thus your children fali: On all the line a fudden vengeance waits, And frequent herfes fhall befiege your gates; There paflengers fhall ftand, and pointing fay, (While the long fun'rals blacken all the way), 4° Lo! these were they, whofe fouls the furies steel'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 perith all, whofe breaft ne'er learn'd to glow For other's good, or melt at others' woe. What can atone (oh ever-injur'd fhade!) Thy fate unpity'd, and thy rites unpaid? No friend's complaint, no kind domeftic tear Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier; By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd, 51 By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, By ftrangers honour'd, and by ftrangers mourn'd! What tho' no friends in fable weeds appear, Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,

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55

And

1

бо

And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight-dances, and the public fhow?
What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polifh'd marble emulate thy face?
What though no facred earth allow the room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb?
Yet fhall thy grave with rifing flow'rs be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow, 65
There the first rofes of the year shall blow;
While angels with their filver wings o'ershade
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 proud shall be!

72

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 fhortly want the gen'rous tear he pays; Then from his clofing eyes thy form shall part, And the last pang fhall tear thee from his heart, Life's idle bus'nefs at one gasp be o'er,

The Mufe forgot, and thou belov'd no more!

81

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE to Mr ADDISON's Tragedy of CATO.

O wake the foul by tender ftrokes of art;

Taife the genius, and to mend the heart;

5

IQ

To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold: For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage, Commanding tears to ftream through ev'ry age; Tyrants no more their favage nature kept, And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept. Our author fhuns by vulgar springs to move The hero's glofy, or the virgin's love; In pitying love, we but our weakness show, And wild ambition well deferves its woe. Here tears fhall flow from a more gen'rous caufe, Such tears as patriots fhed for dying laws: He bids your breafts with ancient ardour rife, 15 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 pleasure Heav'n itself surveys; 20 A brave man struggling 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? Who fees him act, but envies ev'ry deed? Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed? Ev'n when proud Cæfar; 'midft triumphal cars, The fpoils of nations, and the pomp of wars, Ignobly

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Ignobly vain and impotently great,

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35

Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in ftate;
As her dead father's rev'rend image past,
The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercaft;
The triumph ceas'd, tears gufh'd from ev'ry eye;
The world's great victor pafs'd unheaded by;
Her laft good man dejected Rome ador'd,
And honour'd Cæfar's lefs than Cato's fword.
Britons, attend: be worth like this approv'd,
And show, you have the virtue to be mov'd.
With honeft fcorn the firft fam'd Cato view'd
Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdu'd;
Your fcene precarioufly fubfifts too long
On French tranflation, and Italian fong.
Dare to have fenfe yourselves; affert the ftage,
Be juftly warm'd with your own native rage:
Such plays alone should, win a British ear,
As Cato's felf had not difdain'd to hear.

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EPILOGUE to Mr Rowe's JANE SHORE.

[Defigned for Mrs OLDFIELD.]

this! the macros

From her own fex fhould mercy find to-day! You might have held the pretty head afide, Peep'd in your fans, been ferious thus, and cry'd, The play may pafs---but that ftrange creature,

Shore,

I can't--indeed now----I fo hate a whore----
Juft as a blockhead rubs his thoughtless fcull,
And thanks his ftars he was not born a fool;

5

So