The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase. John Gay

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The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase - John Gay

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      TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR JOHN SOMERS,

      LOKD KEEPER OF THE GREAT SEAL.

      If yet your thoughts are loose from state affairs,

       Nor feel the burden of a kingdom's cares,

       If yet your time and actions are your own,

       Receive the present of a Muse unknown:

       A Muse that in adventurous numbers sings

       The rout of armies, and the fall of kings,

       Britain advanced, and Europe's peace restored,

       By Somers' counsels, and by Nassau's sword.

       To you, my lord, these daring thoughts belong,

       Who helped to raise the subject of my song;

       _10

       To you the hero of my verse reveals

       His great designs; to you in council tells

       His inmost thoughts, determining the doom

       Of towns unstormed, and battles yet to come.

       And well could you, in your immortal strains,

       Describe his conduct, and reward his pains:

       But since the state has all your cares engross'd,

       And poetry in higher thoughts is lost,

       Attend to what a lesser Muse indites,

       Pardon her faults and countenance her flights.

       _20

       On you, my lord, with anxious fear I wait,

       And from your judgment must expect my fate,

       Who, free from vulgar passions, are above

       Degrading envy, or misguided love;

       If you, well pleased, shall smile upon my lays,

       Secure of fame, my voice I'll boldly raise;

       For next to what you write, is what you praise.

      TO THE KING.

      When now the business of the field is o'er,

       The trumpets sleep, and cannons cease to roar;

       When every dismal echo is decay'd,

       And all the thunder of the battle laid;

       Attend, auspicious prince, and let the Muse

       In humble accents milder thoughts infuse.

       Others, in bold prophetic numbers skill'd,

       Set thee in arms, and led thee to the field;

       My Muse, expecting, on the British strand

       Waits thy return, and welcomes thee to land:

       _10

       She oft has seen thee pressing on the foe,

       When Europe was concerned in every blow;

       But durst not in heroic strains rejoice; is

       The trumpets, drums, and cannons drowned her voice:

       She saw the Boyne run thick with human gore,

       And floating corps lie beating on the shore:

       She saw thee climb the banks, but tried in vain

       To trace her hero through the dusty plain,

       When through the thick embattled lines he broke,

       Now plunged amidst the foes, now lost in clouds of smoke.

       _20

       Oh that some Muse, renowned for lofty verse,

       In daring numbers would thy toils rehearse!

       Draw thee beloved in peace, and feared in wars,

       Inured to noonday sweats, and midnight cares!

       But still the godlike man, by some hard fate,

       Receives the glory of his toils too late;

       Too late the verse the mighty act succeeds;

       One age the hero, one the poet breeds.

       A thousand years in full succession ran

       Ere Virgil raised his voice, and sung the man

       _30

       Who, driven by stress of fate, such dangers bore

       On stormy seas and a disastrous shore,

       Before he settled in the promised earth,

       And gave the empire of the world its birth.

       Troy long had found the Grecians bold and fierce,

       Ere Homer mustered up their troops in verse;

       Long had Achilles quelled the Trojans' lust,

       And laid the labour of the gods in dust,

       Before the towering Muse began her flight,

       And drew the hero raging in the fight,

       _40

       Engaged in tented fields and rolling floods,

       Or slaughtering mortals, or a match for gods.

       And here, perhaps, by fate's unerring doom,

       Some mighty bard lies hid in years to come,

       That shall in William's godlike acts engage,

       And with his battles warm a future age.

       Hibernian fields shall here thy conquests show,

       And Boyne be sung when it has ceased to flow;

       Here Gallic labours shall advance thy fame,

       And here Seneffe[3] shall wear another name.

       _50

       Our late posterity, with secret dread,

       Shall view thy battles, and with pleasure read

       How, in the bloody field, too near advanced,

       The guiltless bullet on thy shoulder glanced.

      

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