Were these their crimes? they were his own much more;
But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor,
Who, having spent the treasures of his crown,
Condemns their luxury to feed his own;
And yet this art, to varnish o'er the shame
Of sacrilege, must bear Devotion's name.
No crime so bold but would be understood
A real, or at least, a seemimg good.
Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name,
And, free from conscience, is a slave to fame.
Thus he the church at once protects and spoils
But princes' swords are sharper than their styles :
And thus to the' ages past he makes amends;
Their charity destroys, their faith defends,
Then did Religion, in a lazy cell,

In empty airy contemplations dwell,

And like the block unmoved lay; but ours,
As much too active, like the stork devours.
Is there no temperate region can be known
Betwixt their frigid and our torrid zone?
Could we not wake from that lethargic dream,
But to be restless in a worse extreme?

And for that lethargy was there no cure
But to be cast into a calenture;

Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance
So far, to make us wish for ignorance,

And rather in the dark to grope our way

Than, led by a false guide, to err by day?

Who sees these dismal heaps, but would demand
What barbarous invader sack'd the land?
But when he hears no Goth, no Turk, did bring
This desolation, but a Christian king;
When nothing but the name of zeal appears
'Twixt our best actions and the worst of theirs ;
What does he think our sacrilege would spare,
When such the' effects of our devotions are?
Parting from thence 'twixt anger, shame, and fear,
Those for what's past, and this for what's too near
My eye descending from the Hill, surveys
Where Thames among the wanton vallies strays:
Thames the most lov'd of all the Ocean's sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs,

Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,

Like mortal life to meet eternity;

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold:

His genuine and less guilty wealth to' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring;
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay ;
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil
But godlike his unwearied bounty flows;
First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confin'd,
But free and common as the sea or wind;
When he, to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying tow'rs

Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth were 'tis, bestows it where it wants
Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants.

So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.
O could I flow like thee; and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme;

Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full;
Heaven her Eridanus no more shall boast,
Whose fame in thine, like lesser current, 's lost:
Thy nobler streams shall visit Jove's abodes,
To shine among the stars, and bathe the gods.
Here Nature, whether more intent to please
Us for herself, with strange varieties,
(For things of wonder give no less delight
To the wise Maker's than beholder's sight;
Though these delights from several causes move,
For so our children, thus our friends, we love)
Wisely she knew the harmony of things,
As well as that of sounds, from discord springs.
Such was the discord which did first disperse
Form, order, beauty, through the universe :
While dryness moisture, coldness heat resists,
All that we have, and that we are, subsists:
While the steep horrid roughness of the wood
Strives with the gentle calmness of the flood.
Such huge extremes when Nature doth unite,
Wonder from thence results, from thence delight.

The stream is so transparent, pure, and clear,
That had the self-enamour'd youth gaz'd here,
So fatally deceiv'd he had not been,

While he the bottom, not his face, had seen.
But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes: his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows,
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat;
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is plac'd,
Between the mountain and the stream embrac'd,
Which shade and shelter from the Hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives.
And in the mixture of all these appears
Variety, which all the rest endears.

This scene had some bold Greek or British bard
Beheld of old, what stories had we heard
Of Faries, Satyrs, and the Nymphs, their dames,
Their feasts, their revels, and their amorous flames?
'Tis still the same, although their airy shape
All but a quick poetic sight escape.

There Faunus and Sylvanus keep their courts,
And thither all the horned host resorts
To graze the ranker mead; that noble herd
On whose sublime and shady fronts is rear'd
Nature's great masterpiece, to show how soon
Great things are made, but sooner are undone.
Here have I seen the king, when great affairs
Gave leave to slacken and unbend his cares,
Attended to the chase by all the flow'r
Of youth, whose hopes a nobler prey devour
Pleasure with praise and danger they would buy,
And wish a foe that would not only fly.
The stag now conscious of his fatal growth,
At once iudulgent to his fear and sloth,
To some dark covert his retreat had made,
Where nor man's eye, nor Heaven's, should invade
His soft repose; when the' unexpected sound
Of dogs and men his wakeful ear does wound.
Rous'd with the noise, he scarce believes his ear,
Willing to think the' illusions of his fear
Had given this false alarm, but straight his view
Confirms, that more than all he fears is true.
Betray'd in all his strengths, the wood beset,
All instruments, all arts of ruin met,

He calls to mind his strength, and then his speed, His winged heels, and then his armed head; With these to' avoid, with that his fate to meet, But fear prevails, and bids him trust his feet. So fast he flies, that his reviewing eye Has lost the chasers, and his ear the cry; Exulting, till he finds their nobler sense Their disproportion'd speed doth recompense : Then curses his conspiring feet, whose scent Betrays that safety which their swiftness lent: Then tries his friends; among the baser herd, Where he so lately was obey'd and fear'd, His safety seeks: the herd, unkindly wise, Or chases him from thence or from him flies. Like a declining statesman, left forlorn To his friends' pity, and pursuers' scorn, With shame remembers while himself was one Of the same herd, himself the same had done. Thence to the coverts and the conscious groves The scenes of his past triumphs and his loves, Sadly surveying where he rang'd alone, Prince of the soil, and all the herd his own And like a bold knight-errant did proclaim Combat to all, and bore away the dame, And taught the woods to echo to the stream His dreadful challenge and his clashing beam: Yet faintly now declines the fatal strife, So much his love was dearer than his life. Now every leaf, and every moving breath Presents a foe, and every foe a death. Wearied, forsaken, and pursued, at last All safety in despair of safety plac'd; Courage he thence resumes, resolv'd to bear All their assaults, since 'tis in vain to fear. And now, too late, he wishes for the fight That strength he wasted in ignoble flight : But when he sees the eager chase renew'd, Himself by dogs, the dogs by men pursued, He straight revokes his hold resolve, and more Repents his courage than his fear before; Finds that uncertain ways unsafest are, And doubt a greater mischief than despair

Then to the stream, when neither friends, nor force, Nor speed, nor art avail, he shapes his course;

Thinks not their rage so desperate to' essay

An element more merciless than they.

But fearless they pursue, nor can the flood
Quench their dire thirst: alas! they thirst for blood.
So toward a ship the oar-finn'd gallies ply,
Which, wanting sea to ride, or wind to fly,
Stands but to fall reveng'd on those that dare
Tempt the last fury of extreme despair.

So fares the stag; among the enrag'd hounds
Repels their force, and wounds returns for wounds:
And as a hero, whom his baser foes

In troops surround, now these assails, now those,
Though prodigal of life, disdains to die
By common hands: but if he can descry
Some nobler foe approach, to him he calls,
And begs his fate, and then contented falls
So when the king a mortal shaft lets fly
From his unerring hand, then glad to die,
Proud of the wound, to it resigns his blood,
And stains the crystal with a purple flood.
This a more innocent and happy chase
Than when of old, but in the self-same place,
Fair Liberty pursued, and meant a prey

To lawless power, here turn'd, and stood at bay;
When in that remedy all hope was plac'd

Which was, or should have been at least, the last.
Here was that Charter seal'd, wherein the crown
All marks of arbitrary power lays down:
Tyrant and slave, those names of hate and fear,
The happier style of king and subject bear:
Happy, when both to the same centre move,
When kings give liberty, and subjects love.
Therefore not long in force this Charter stood;
Wanting that seal, it must be seal'd in blood.
The subjects arm'd, the more their princes gave,
The' advantage only took the more to crave:
Till kings, by giving, gave themselves away,
And ev'n that power that should deny betray.
Who gives constrain'd, but his own fear reviles,
Not thank'd, but scorn'd; nor are they gifts, but spoils.
Thus kings, by grasping more than they could hold,
First made their subjects by oppression bold;
And popular sway, by forcing kings to give
More than was fit for subjects to receive,
Ran to the same extremes; and one excess
Made both, by striving to be greater, less.
When a calm river, rais'd with sudden rains,
Or snows dissolv'd, o'erflows the' adjoining plains