thy page,And warmed thee to a more exalted rage!
What scenes of death and horror had we view'd,
And how had Boyne's wide current reeked in blood!
Or, if Maria's charms thou wouldst rehearse,
In smoother numbers and a softer verse,
Thy pen had well described her graceful air,
And Gloriana would have seemed more fair.
Nor must Roscommon pass neglected by,
That makes even rules a noble poetry:
Rules, whose deep sense and heavenly numbers show
The best of critics, and of poets too.
Nor, Denham, must we e'er forget thy strains,
While Cooper's Hill commands the neighbouring plains.
But see where artful Dryden next appears,
Grown old in rhyme, but charming even in years.
Great Dryden next, whose tuneful Muse affords
The sweetest numbers, and the fittest words.
Whether in comic sounds or tragic airs
She forms her voice, she moves our smiles or tears.
If satire or heroic strains she writes,
Her hero pleases and her satire bites.
From her no harsh unartful numbers fall,
She wears all dresses, and she charms in all.
How might we fear our English poetry,
That long has flourished, should decay with thee;
Did not the Muses' other hope appear,
Harmonious Congreve, and forbid our fear:
Congreve! whose fancy's unexhausted store
Has given already much, and promised more.
Congreve shall still preserve thy fame alive,
And Dryden's Muse shall in his friend survive.
I'm tired with rhyming, and would fain give o'er,
But justice still demands one labour more:
The noble Montague remains unnamed,
For wit, for humour, and for judgment famed;
To Dorset he directs his artful Muse,
In numbers such as Dorset's self might use.
How negligently graceful he unreins
His verse, and writes in loose familiar strains!
How Nassau's godlike acts adorn his lines,
And all the hero in full glory shines!
We see his army set in just array,
And Boyne's dyed waves run purple to the sea.
Nor Simois choked with men, and arms, and blood;
Nor rapid Xanthus' celebrated flood,
Shall longer be the poet's highest themes,
Though gods and heroes fought promiscuous in their streams.
But now, to Nassau's secret councils raised,
He aids the hero, whom before he praised.
I've done at length; and now, dear friend, receive
The last poor present that my Muse can give.
I leave the arts of poetry and verse
To them that practise them with more success.
Of greater truths I'll now prepare to tell,
And so at once, dear friend and Muse, farewell.
A LETTER FROM ITALY,
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES LORD HALIFAX, IN THE YEAR 1701
Salve magna parens frugum Saturnia tellus, Magna virûm! tibi res antiquæ laudis et artis Aggredior, sanctos ausus recludere fontes.
While you, my lord, the rural shades admire,
And from Britannia's public posts retire,
Nor longer, her ungrateful sons to please,
For their advantage sacrifice your ease;
Me into foreign realms my fate conveys,
Through nations fruitful of immortal lays,
Where the soft season and inviting clime
Conspire to trouble your repose with rhyme.
For wheresoe'er I turn my ravished eyes,
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise,
Poetic fields encompass me around
And still I seem to tread on classic ground;
For here the Muse so oft her harp has strung,
That not a mountain rears its head unsung,
Renowned in verse each shady thicket grows,
And every stream in heavenly numbers flows.
How am I pleased to search the hills and woods
For rising springs and celebrated floods!
To view the Nar, tumultuous in his course,
And trace the smooth Clitumnus to his source,
To see the Mincio draw his watery store
Through the long windings of a fruitful shore,
And hoary Albula's infected tide
O'er the warm bed of smoking sulphur glide.
Fired with a thousand raptures I survey
Eridanus5 through flowery meadows stray,
The king of floods! that, rolling o'er the plains,
The towering Alps of half their moisture drains,
And proudly swoln with a whole winter's snows,
Distributes wealth and plenty where he flows.
Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng
I look for streams immortalised in song,
That lost in silence and oblivion lie,
(Dumb are their fountains and their channels dry,)
Yet run for ever by the Muse's skill,
And in the smooth description murmur still.
Sometimes to gentle Tiber I retire,
And the famed river's empty shores admire,
That, destitute of strength, derives its course
From thrifty urns and an unfruitful source,
Yet sung so often in poetic lays,
With scorn the Danube and the Nile surveys;
So high the deathless Muse exalts her theme!
Such was the Boyne, a poor inglorious
'Eridanus:' the Po.
