Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

See on her Titian's and her Guido's urns,
Her failing arts, forlorn Hefperia mourns;
While Britain wins each garland from her brow,
Her wit and freedom firft, her painting now.
Let the faint copier, on old Tyber's fhore,
(Nor mean the task) each breathing bust explore,
Line after line with painful patience trace,
This Roman grandeur, that Athenian grace;
Vain care of parts; if, impotent of foul,

Th' industrious workman fails to warm the whole!
Each theft betrays the marble whence it came,
And a cold statue ftiffens in the frame.

[ocr errors]

Thee Nature taught, nor Art her aid deny'd,
(The kindest mistress and the fureft guide)
To catch a likeness at one piercing fight,
And place the fairest in the fairest light.
Ere yet the pencil tries her nicer toils,
Or on the palette lie the blended oyls,
Thy careless chalk has half atchiev'd thy art,
And her juft image makes Cleora start.

A mind that grafps the whole is rarely found,
Half learn'd, half painters, and half wits abound:
Few, like thy genius, at proportion aim,
All great, all graceful, and throughout the fame.

Such be thy life. O fince the glorious rage
That fir'd thy youth, flames unfubdu'd by age;
Tho' wealth nor fame now touch thy fated mind,
Still tinge the canvas, bounteous to mankind.

[blocks in formation]

Since after thee may rise an impious line,
Coarfe manglers of the human face divine,
Paint on, till fate diffolve thy mortal part,
And live and die the monarch of thy art.

ΟΝ ΤΗ Ε

DEATH of the EARL of CADOGAN.

[ocr errors]

By the Same.

F Marlb'rough's captains and Eugenio's friends,
The laft, CADOGAN to the grave defcends:

Low lies each head, whence Bleinheim's glory fprung,
The chiefs who conquer'd, and the bards who fung.
From his cold corfe tho' every friend be fled,
Lo! Envy waits, that lover of the dead.
Thus did the feign o'er Naffau's herse to mourn;
Thus wept infidious, Churchill, o'er thy urn;
To blaft the living, give the dead their due,
And wreathes, herself had tainted, trim'd anew.
Thou yet unnam'd to fill his empty place,
And lead to war thy country's growing race,
Take every wish a British heart can frame,
Add palm to palm, and rife from fame to fame.

An

An hour must come, when thou shalt hear with Thyfelf traduc'd, and curfe a thankless age: Nor yet for this decline the gen'rous ftrife,

rage

These ill, brave man, shall quit thee with thy life;
Alive though ftain'd by every abject slave,

Secure of Fame, and juftice in the grave.

Ah! no-when once the mortal yields to fate,
The blast of Fame's sweet trumpet founds too late,
Too late to stay the spirit on its flight,

Or footh the new inhabitant of light;

Who hears regardlefs, while fond man, diftrefs'd,
Hangs on the abfent, and laments the bleft.

Farewel then fame, ill fought thro' fields of blood,

Farewel unfaithful promifer of good:

Thou mufick, warbling to the deafen'd ear!
Thou incense wafted on the fun'ral bier!

Through life purfu'd in vain, by death obtain'd,

When afk'd, deny'd us, and when giv'n, disdain'd.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

HOU dome, where Edward first enroll'd

This red-crofs knights and barons bold,

Whofe vacant feats, by virtue bought,

Ambitious emperors have fought;

Where Britain's foremost names are found,
In peace belov'd, in war renown'd,
Who made the hoftile nations moan,
Or brought a bleffing on their own:

II.

Once more a fon of SPENCER waits,
A name familiar to thy gates,

Sprung from the chief whofe prowess gain'd
The garter, while thy founder reign'd.

He

He offer'd here his dinted shield,
The dread of Gauls in Creffi's field,
Which in thy high-arch'd temple rais'd,
For four long centuries hath blaz'd.
III.

These feats our fires, a hardy kind,
To the fierce fons of war confign'd,
The flow'r of chivalry, who drew
With finewy arm the stubborn yew;
Or with heav'd poll-axe clear'd the field,
Or who in joufts and tourneys skill'd,
Before their ladies' eyes renown'd,
Threw horfe and horseman to the ground,
IV.

In after-times, as courts refin'd,

Our patriots in the lift were join'd,
Nor only Warwick ftain'd with blood,
Or Marlb'rough near the Danube's flood,
Have in their crimson croffes glow'd;
But, on juft law-givers bestow'd,
These emblems Cecil did invest,

And gleam'd on wife Godolphin's breaft,
V.

So Greece, ere arts began to rise,
Fix'd huge Orion in the skies,
And ftern Alcides, fam'd in wars,
Befpangled with a thousand stars;

C 4

"Till

« ZurückWeiter »