THE

AFFLICTIONS OF A FRIEND.

1702.

Now let my cares all buried lie,
My griefs for ever dumb :

Your sorrows swell my heart so high,
They leave my own no room.

Sickness and pains are quite forgot,
The spleen itself is gone;
Plung'd in your woes I feel them not,
Or feel them all in one.

Infinite grief puts sense to flight,
And all the soul invades:

So the broad gloom of spreading night
Devours the evening shade.

Thus am I born to be unbless'd!

This sympathy of woe

Drives my own tyrants from my breast,
To' admit a foreign foe.

Sorrows in long succession reign;

Their iron rod I feel:

Friendship has only chang'd the chain,

But I'm the prisoner still.

Why was this life for misery made?

Or why drawn out so long?

Is there no room amongst the dead?
Or is a wretch too young?

Move faster on, great Nature's wheel;
Be kind, ye rolling powers,
Hurl my days headlong down the hill
With undistinguish'd hours.

Be dusky, all my rising suns,
Nor smile upon a slave:
Darkness and death, make haste at once
To hide me in the grave.

THE REVERSE.

OR, THE COMFORTS OF A FRIEND.

THUS Nature tun'd her mournful tongue,
Till Grace lift up her head,
Revers'd the sorrow and the song,
And, smiling, thus she said;

'Were kindred spirits born for cares,
Must every grief be mine?

Is there a sympathy in tears,
Yet joys refuse to join?

'Forbid it Heaven, and raise my love,
And make our joys the same :

So bliss and friendship join'd above
Mix an immortal flame.

'Sorrows are lost in vast delight
That brightens all the soul;
As deluges of dawning light
O'erwhelm the dusky pole.

'Pleasures in long succession reign,
And all my powers employ :
Friendship but shifts the pleasing scene,
And fresh repeats the joy.

'Life has a soft and silver thread,
Nor is it drawn too long;

Yet when my vaster hopes persuade,
I'm willing to be gone.

'Fast as ye please roll down the hill,
And haste away, my years:
Or I can wait my Father's will,
And dwell beneath the spheres.

'Rise glorious, every future sun, Gild all my following days;

But make the last dear moment known By well-distinguish'd rays.'

TO THE

RIGHT HON. JOHN LORD CUTTS,

AT THE SIEGE OF NAMUR.

THE HARDY SOLDIER.

'O WHY is man so thoughtless grown?
Why guilty souls in haste to die?
Venturing the leap to worlds unknown,
Heedless to arms and blood they fly.

'Are lives but worth a soldier's pay? Why will ye join such wide extremes, And stake immortal souls, in play

At desperate chance, and bloody games?

• Valour's a nobler turn of thought, Whose pardon'd guilt forbids her fears: Calmly she meets the deadly shot,

Secure of life above the stars.

'But Frenzy dares eternal fate,
And, spur'd with honour's airy dreams,
Flies to attack the' infernal gate,
And force a passage to the flames.'

Thus hovering o'er Namuria's plains,
Sung heavenly love in Gabriel's form:
Young Thraso felt the moving strains,

And vow'd to pray before the storm.

Anon the thundering trumpet calls;

Vows are but wind, the hero cries:

Then swears, by Heaven! and scales the walls, Drops in the ditch, despairs and dies.

BURNING SEVERAL POEMS

OF OVID, MARTIAL, OLDHAM, DRYDEN, &c.

I JUDGE the Muse of lewd desire:

Her sons to darkness, and her works to fire.

In vain the flatteries of their wit

Now with a melting strain, now with an heavenly

Would tempt my virtue to approve

Those gaudy panders of a lawless love.
So harlots dress: they can appear
Sweet, modest, cool, divinely fair,

[flight,

To charm a Cato's eye: but all whithin,
Stench, impudence, and fire, and ugly raging sin.

Die, Flora, die in endless shame,
Thou prostitute of blackest fame,
Stript of thy false array.

Ovid, and all ye wilder pens

Of modern lust, who gild our scenes,

Poison the British stage, and paint damnation gay,

Attend your mistress to the dead;

[shade.

When Flora dies, her imps should wait upon her

Strephon,* of noble blood and mind,

(Forever shine his name!)

As death approach'd, his soul refin❜d, And gave his looser sonnets to the flame: * John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.