Pipe on, thou sweetest of th' Arcadian-train, Tho' low my numbers, and tho' rude my style; Come then Ianthe! milder than the Spring, Let us our steps direct where father-Thames, Amid the pleasaunce of Arcadian scenes, With line of silk, with hook of barbed steel, And carp, all burnish'd o'er with drops of scaly gold. Or shall the meads invite, with Iris-hues Fair is the lily clad in balmy snow; Weep not; but, rather taught by this, improve In chaste endearments, innocently gay, Now up the chalky mazes of yon hill, If e'er to thee and Venus, May, I strung And Eden's nymphs and Isis' damsels sung Long, Theron, with thy Annabell enjoy Where'er the Muses haunt, or poets muse, On Twit'nam-bow'rs (Aonian Twit'nam bow'rs!) Hail, happy scenes, where Joy wou'd choose to dwell; Hail, golden days, which Saturn deems his own; All-bail to thee, O May! the crown of all! 8 Liveliness. 9 Stella; sive Amores: Elegiarum Tres Libri. Written in the year 1736. I Six pastorals: written in the year 1734. 2 tho' • Scarcely. 4 Adorned. THE NEW LYRE. TO A FRIEND. 1 I STRUNG my lyre, when Love appear'd, The strings rebellious to my hand The strings are mute to my demand1 broke the old, and form'd a new. "Christ!" I began: the sacred lyre O wake to life this springing grace, Direct my soul, direct my hand:- And, you, whose pious pains unfold Those truths, receive this tribute due; You once endur'd my Muse of old, Nor scorn the firstfruits of the new. SICKNESS, A POEM: IN FIVE BOOKS. BOOK I. The Lord comfort him, when he lieth sick upon his bed; make thou all his bed in his sickness. Psalms. ARGUMENT. Subject proposed. The folly of employing poetry on wanton or trifling subjects. Invocation of Urania. Reflections on the instability of life itself: frailuess of youth, beauty, and health. The suddenness and first attacks of a distemper, in particular of the small pox. Moral and religious observations resulting from sickness. Of days with pain acquainted, and of nights groans He lent me a MS. discourse on these words "Old things are passed away, and lo! all things arc become new." And hollow wailings, through the damps of night, Me other scenes than laughing Joy, and Health Ye myrtle walks, ye lily-mantied meads, Their glowing features, at the noontide hour, To lead thy votary (with rapt’rous zeal The prophets, eagle-ey'd, celestial maid, We dream of shadows, when we talk of life, As day-spring, swelling from its slender stem, Hail, Valentine! at thy approach benign, Quick o'er the soft'ning soul the gentle gales Of Spring, awaking bliss, instinctive move The ardent youth to breathe the sighs of faith Into the virgin's heart; who, sick of love, With equal fires, and purity of truth, Consenting, blushes while she chants thy praise." So sung lanthe: to my heart I prest Her spotless sweetness: when, (with wonder, hear!) Tho' she shone smiling by, the torpid pow'rs Of heaviness weigh'd down my beamless eyes, And press'd them into night. The dews of death Hung, clammy, on my forehead, like the damps Of midnight sepulchres; which, silent, op'd By weeping widows, or by friendship's hand, Yawn hideous on the Moon, and blast the stars With pestilential reek. My head is torn With pangs insufferable, pulsive starts, And pungent aches, gliding thro' the brain, To madness hurrying the tormented sense, To Thomalin? forbid it, gracious Heav'n!" No, beauteous innocence! as soon the rose Shall poison with its balm; as soon the dove Become a white dissembler, and the stream With lulling murmurs, creeping thro' the grove, Offend the shepherd's slumber"-Scarce my tongue These fault'ring accents stammer'd, down I sink, And a lethargic stupor steeps my sense In dull oblivion: till returning pain, Too faithful monitor! and dire disease Bid me remember, pleasure is a dream, That health has eagle's wings, nor tarries long. New horrours rise. For in my pricking veins I feel the forky flame: the rapid flood Of throbbing life, excursive from the laws Of sober Nature and harmonious Health, Boils in tumultuary eddies round Its bursting channels. Parching thirst, anon, Drinks up the vital maze, as Simois dry, Or Xanthus, by the arm-ignipotent, With a red torrent of involving flames Exhausted; when Achilles with their floods Wag'd more than mortal war: the god of fire Wide o'er the waters pour'd th' inundant blaze, The shrinking waters to the bottom boil And biss in ruin. O! ye rivers, roll Your cooling crystal o'er my burning breast, For Ætna rages here! ye snows descend; Bind me in icy chains, ye northern winds, And mitigate the furies of the fire! Good Heav'n! what hoards of unrepented guilt Have drawn this vengeance down, have rais'd this To lash me with his flames? But, O, forgive [fiend My rashness, that dares blame thy just decrees. It is thy rod: I kiss it with my heart, As well as lips: like Aaron's may it bloom With fruits of goodness: not, like Moses, turn A serpent; or, to tempt me to accuse The kind oppression of thy righteous hand, Or, sting me to despair.-Affliction, hail! Thou school of virtue! open wide thy gates, Thy gates of cbony! Yet, O, correct Thy servant, but with judgment, not in wrath, But with thy mercy, Lord! thy stripes will heal. Thus without heresy, afflictions prove A purgatory; save us as by fire: And purifying off the dross of sin, Like old Elijah's chariot, rap the soul, On wings of Meditation, to the skies. In health we have no time to visit Truth: Health's the disease of morals: few in health Turn o'er the volumes which will make us wise. What are ye, now, ye tuneful triflers! once The eager solace of my easy hours, Ye dear deluders or of Greece or Rome, Anacreon, Horace, Virgil, Homer, what? The gay, the bright, the sober, the sublime? And ye of softer strain, ye amorous fools, Correctly indolent, and sweetly vain, Tibullus, Ovid, and the female-verse Of her, who, plunging from Leucadia's heights, Extinguish'd, with her life, her hopeless fires, Or rose a swan, as love-struck Fancy deem'd. Who wou'd not, in these hours of wisdom, give A Vatican of wits for one saint Paul? Dare Tully, with the golden mouth of Greece, The Sun's refulgent throne; when, high, in noon If life be vain, on what shall man depend! NOTES AND ALLUSIONS. Barbiton hic paries habebit. Lib. iii. Ode 26. And a greater than Horace in lyric poetry, the royal psalmist, represents the same image: As for our harps we hanged them up, upon the trees that are therein. Psalm cxxxvii. 2. P. 38. Paphos, a city of Cyprus; formerly dedicated to Venus. Acidale. A fountain in Orchomenus, a city of Boeotia, where the Graces were supposed to bathe themselves. The genealogy of the Graces is very diversely related. But Hesiod says, they were the offspring of Jupiter and Eurynome. Theog. Page 38. Burst on the tingling ears of Job, &c. The book of Job is ascribed to various authors, and amongst the rest to Moses. I am proud to observe that Dr. Young has strengthened this opinion in his notes to his admirable poem on Job. Most of the arguments on each side of the question may be found in Pole's Synopsis Critic. in the beginning of his notes on the book of Job: and in Mr. S. Wesley's curious dissertation on the same subject. Ajax; and, to dignify the sentiment, he puts it Όρω γαρ ημας εδεν οντας άλλο πλην The scholiast observes, that he borrowed the sen→ P. 38. We dream, &c. Of Pelops' shoulderThe poets feign that Tantalus served up his son Pelops to the table of the gods: they reunited the fragments, and formed his shoulder, which was lost, of ivory. Ovid. Met. Lib. vi. I shall add this beautiful passage from Tibullus: Ex humero Pelopis non nituisset ebur. P. 38. Of Pythagoras' thigh. This is told with so much humour by Mr. Addison in one of his finest works, that I rather choose to give an authority from him, than any of the ancients. "The next man astonished the whole table with his appearance: he was slow, solemn and silent, in his behaviour, and wore a raiment curiously wrought with hieroglyphics. As he came into the middle of the room, he throw back the skirt of it, and discovered a golden thigh. Socrates, at the sight of it, declared against keeping company with any who were not made of flesh and blood; and therefore desired Diogenes the Laertian to lead him to the apartment allotted the fabulous heroes, and worthies of dubious existence, &c. The Table of Fame, Tatler, Vol. II. No. 81. P. 38. Of Surius's saints. Surius writ the voluminous legend of the Romish saints, in six volumes in folio. Dr. Donne in his Satyrs has given him this character: outlie either Jovius, or Surius, or both together. Sat. 4. P. 39. Ianthe by my side. Sickness being a subject so disagreeable in itself to human nature, it was thought necessary, as fable is the soul of poetry, to relieve the imagination with the following, and some other episodes. For to describe the anguish of a distemper without a mixture of some more pleasing inciand tender reader. dents, would, no doubt, disgust every good-natured P. 40. Salmoncus, of thy brazen bridge, &c. Salmoneus king of Elis, a province in the Peloponnesus. He was so arrogant as to affect being thought a god: for which end he built a bridge of brass, by driving over which in his chariot, he endeavoured to make himself be believed the Thunderer. But Jupiter, enraged at P. 38. We dream of shadows, when we talk of his impiety, struck him dead with a real thunder life. Σκιας αναρ ανθρωποι Pind. Pith. Ode 8. Sophocles has much the same thought in his Seneca was born at Corduba in Spain. bolt. Vidi crudeles dantem Salmonca pænas, P. 40. And to Harpocrates consigns the door. Si quicquam tacite commissum est fido ab amico, Catull. Hence Erasmus, Lib. Adag. tells us, that redere Harpocratem is the same as mutum reddere. So Catullus in another place : Patruum reddidit Harpocratem. Ovid describes him in the same manner, without taking notice of his name, amongst the attendants of Isis: Quique premit vocem, digiteque silentia suadet. Metam. Lib. ix. This description entirely agrees with the several medals and statues of Harpocrates, which the learned antiquary Gisb. Cuperus exhibits in his laborious dissertation on that subject, printed with Monumenta Antiqua. [safe. Which, humid, dim the mirror of the mind; (As Venus gave Eneas to behold The angry gods with flame o'erwhelming Troy, Neptune and Pallas) not in vain, I'll sing The mystic terrours of this gloomy reign: And, led by her, with dangerous courage press Through dreary paths, and haunts, by mortal foot Rare visited; unless by thee, I ween, Father of Fancy, of descriptive verse, And shadowy beings, gentle Edmund, hight Spenser! the sweetest of the tuneful throng, Or recent, or of eld1. Creative bard, Thy springs unlock, expand thy fairy scenes, Thy unexhausted stores of fancy spread, And with thy images enrich my song. Come, Hertford! with the Muse, awhile, vouch(The softer virtues melting in thy breast, The tender graces glowing in thy form) Vouchsafe, in all the beauty of distress, To take a silent walk among the tombs: There lend a charm to Sorrow, smooth her brow, As when the dove3, (thy emblem, matchless dame! And sparkle through her tears in shining woe. But upon another account likewise, Harpocrates Spread all its colours o'er the boundless deep, For beauty, innocence, and truth are thine) may justly be appointed to attend upon the sick; (Empyreal radiance quivering round the gloom) for he is numbered amongst the salutary gods, Chaos reform'd, and bade distraction smile! who assisted in extreme dangers; as appears from Artemidorus, Oneir. L. ii. C. 44. where, after Sublimely mournful: to the eye it seems Deep in a desert-vale, a palace frowns having mentioned Serapis, Isis, Anubis, and Har-The mansion of Despair, or ancient Night. pocrates, he goes on thus: " Semper enim servatores crediti sunt hi dii, eorum qui per omnia To shed their bounty here, or smiling, bless The graces of the Seasons never knew exercitati sunt, & ad extremum periculum per- With hospitable foot, its bleak domain, venerunt, &c." Kircher also, in his Oedip. Egyp. Uncultivated. Nor the various robe p. 2. vol. II. p. 315. amongst others to the same Of flushing Spring, with purple gay, invests purpose, has these remarkable words: Its blighted plains; nor Summer's radiant hand Profusive, scatters o'er its baleful fields The rich abundance of her glorious days; And golden Autumn here forgets to reign. Here only hemlock, and whatever weeds Medea gather'd, or Canidia brew'd, Wet with Avernus' waves, or Pontus yields, Or Colchos, er Thessalia, taint the winds, And choke the ground unhallow'd. But the soil Refuses to embrace the kindly seeds Of healing vegetation, sage, and rue, Dittany and amello, blooming still In Virgil's rural page. The bitter yew, The church-yard's shade! and cypress' wither'd In formidable ranks surround its courts With umbrage dun; administ'ring a roof To birds of ominous portent; the bat, The raven boding death, the screaming owl Of heavy wing, while serpents, rustling, hiss, And croaking toads the odious concert aid. Reverebantur Ægypti, præter cætera numina maximè Isin & Osirin, ac horum sive Harpocratem, tanquam Iatricos genios. THE PALACE OF DISEASE. Diseases dire, of which a monstrous crew ARGUMENT. DEATH was not man's inheritance, but life [arms The peevish East, the rheumy South, the North The gifts of God's right-hand! till monstrous Sin, O'er fair Britannia's plains, and wake her flow'rs. The motly child of Satan and of Hell, The portion and the scourge of mortal man. Eternal damps, and deadly humours, drawn And darkness, almost to be felt, forbid |