Complete Works of Matthew Prior
Page 10
They compliment; they sit; they chat;
Fight o’er the wars; reform the state:
A thousand knotty points they clear,
Till supper and my wife appear.
Jove made his leg, and kiss’d the dame:
Obsequious Hermes did the same. 100
Jove kiss’d the farmer’s wife, you say:
He did — but in an honest way:
Oh! not with half that warmth and life,
With which he kiss’d Amphitryon’s wife.
Well then, things handsomely were serv’d:
My mistress for the strangers carv’d.
How strong the beer, how good the meat,
How loud they laugh’d, how much they eat,
In epic sumptuous would appear;
Yet shall be pass’d in silence here: 110
For I should grieve to have it said,
That, by a fine description led,
I made my episode too long,
Or tir’d my friend, to grace my song.
The grace-cup serv’d, the cloth away,
Jove thought it time to show his play:
Landlord and landlady, he cried,
Folly and jesting laid aside,
That ye thus hospitably live,
And strangers with good cheer receive, 120
Is mighty grateful to your betters,
And makes e’en gods themselves your debtors,
To give this thesis plainer proof,
You have to-night beneath your roof
A pair of gods (nay, never wonder),
This youth can fly, and I can thunder.
I’m Jupiter, and he Mercurius,
My page, my son indeed, but spurious.
Form then three wishes, you and madam;
And sure, as you already had ’em, 130
The things desir’d in half an hour
Shall all be here, and in your power.
Thank ye, great gods, the woman says:
Oh! may your altars ever blasé!
A ladle for our silver dish
Is what I want, is what I wish. —
A ladle! cries the man, a ladle!
‘Odzooks, Corisca, you have pray’d ill;
What should be great, you turn to farce;
I wish the ladle in your a — . 140
With equal grief and shame my Muse
The sequel of the tale pursues;
The ladle fell into the room,
And stuck in old Corisca’s burn.
Our couple weep two wishes past,
And kindly join to form the last;
To ease the woman’s awkward pain,
And get the ladle out again.
MORAL.
This commoner has worth and parts,
Is prais’d for arms, or lov’d for arts: 150
His head aches for a coronet:
And who is bless’d that is not great?
Some sense, and more estate, kind Heaven
To this well-lotted peer has given:
What then? he must have rule and sway;
And all is wrong, ‘till he’s in play.
The miser must make up his plum,
And dares not touch the hoarded sum;
The sickly dotard wants a wife,
To draw off his last dregs of life. 160
Against our peace we arm our will:
Amidst our plenty, something still
For horses, houses, pictures, planting,
To thee, to me, to him is wanting.
That cruel something unpossess’d
Corrodes and leavens all the rest.
That something, if we could obtain,
Would soon create a future pain;
And to the coffin, from the cradle,
’Tis all a Wish, and all a Ladle.
WRITTEN AT PARIS, MDCC, IN THE BEGINNING OF ROBBE’S GEOGRAPHY.
OF all that William rules, or Robbe
Describes, great Rhea, of thy globe;
When or on post-horse, or in chaise,
With much expense, and little ease,
My destin’d miles I shall have gone,
By Thames or Maese, by Po or Rhone,
And found no foot of earth my own;
Great Mother, let me once be able
To have a garden, house, and stable;
That I may read, and ride, and plant, 10
Superior to desire, or want;
And as health fails, and years increase,
Sit down, and think, and die in peace.
Oblige thy favourite undertakers
To throw me in but twenty acres:
This number sure they may allow;
For pasture ten, and ten for plough:
’Tis all that I would wish, or hope,
For me and John, and Nell, and Crop.
Then, as thou wilt, dispose the rest 20
(And let not Fortune spoil the jest)
To those, who at the market-rate
Gan barter honour for estate.
Now if thou grant’st me my request,
To make thy votary truly blest,
Let curst revenge, and saucy pride
To some bleak rock far off be tied,
Nor e’er approach my rural seat,
To tempt me to be base and great.
And, Goddess, this kind office done, 30
Charge Venus to command her son,
(Where-ever else she lets him rove)
To shun my house, and field, and grove:
Peace cannot dwell with hate or love.
Hear, gracious Rhea, what I say:
And thy petitioner shall pray.
WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF MEZERAY’S HISTORY OF FRANCE.
WHATE’ER thy countrymen have done
By law and wit, by sword and gun,
In thee is faithfully recited:
And all the living world, that view
Thy work, give thee the praises due,
At once instructed and delighted.
Yet for the fame of all these deeds,
What beggar in the Invalides,
With lameness broke, with blindness smitten,
Wish’d ever decently to die, — lo
To have been either Mezeray,
Or any monarch he has written?
It strange, dear author, yet it true is,
That, down from Pharamond to Louis,
All covet life, yet call it pain:
All feel the ill, yet shun the cure:
Can sense this paradox endure?
Resolve me, Cambray, or Fontaine.
The man in graver tragic known
(Though his best part long since was done)
Still on the stage desires to tarry: 21
And he who play’d the Harlequin,
After the jest still loads the scene
Unwilling to retire, though weary.
WRITTEN IN THE NOUVEAUX INTERETS DES PRINCES DE L’EUROPE.
BLEST be the princes, who have fought
For pompous names, or wide dominion;
Since by their error we are taught,
That happiness is but opinion.
ADRIANI MORIENTIS AD ANIMAM SUAM.
ANIMULA, vagula, blandula,
Hospes, comesque corporis,
Quæ nunc abibis in loca,
Pallidula, rigida, nudula?
Nec, ut soles, dabis joca.
BY MONSIEUR FONTENELLE.
MA petite âme, ma mignonne,
Tu t’en vas donc, ma fille, et Dieu sçache où tu vas:
Tu pars seulette, nuë, et tremblotante, helas!
Que deviendra ton humeur folichonne?
Que deviendront tant de jolis ébats?
IMITATED.
POOR little, pretty, fluttering thing,
Must we no longer live together?
And dost thou prune thy trembling wing;
To take thy flight thou know’st not whither?
Thy humorous vein, thy pleasing folly
Lies all neglected
, all forgot:
And pensive, wavering, melancholy,
Thou dread’st and hop’st thou know’st not what.
A PASSAGE IN THE MORIÆ ENCOMIUM OF ERASMUS IMITATED.
IN awful pomp, and melancholy state,
See settled Reason on the judgment seat;
Around her crowd Distrust, and Doubt, and Fear,
And thoughtful Foresight, and tormenting Care:
Far from the throne, the trembling Pleasures stand,
Chain’d up, or exil’d by her stem command.
Wretched her subjects, gloomy sits the queen;
Till happy Chance reverts the cruel scene:
And apish Folly with her wild resort.
Of wit and jest disturbs the solemn court. 10
See the fantastic minstrelsy advance,
To breathe the song, and animate the dance.
Blest the usurper! happy the surprise!
Her mimic postures catch our eager eyes:
Her jingling bells affect our captive ear;
And in the sights we see, and sounds we hear,
Against our judgment she our sense employs;
The laws of troubled Reason she destroys:
And in their place rejoices to indite 19
Wild schemes of mirth, and plans of loose delight.
TO DR. SHERLOCK.
ON HIS PRACTICAL DISCOURSE CONCERNING DEATH.
(Dr. William Sherlock, master of the Temple; father of Dr. Thomas Sherlock, sometime Bishop of London.)
FORGIVE the Muse, who, in unhallow’d strains,
The Saint one moment from his God detains:
For sure, Whate’er you do, where’er you are,
’Tis all but one good work, one constant prayer:
Forgive her; and intreat that God, to whom
Thy favour’d vows with kind acceptance come,
To raise her notes to that sublime degree,
Which suits a song of piety and thee.
Wondrous good man t whose labours may repel
The force of sin, may stop the rage of hell: 10
Thou, like the Baptist, from thy God wast sent,
The crying voice, to bid the world repent.
Thee Youth shall study, and no more engage
Their flattering wishes for uncertain age;
No more with fruitless care, and cheated strife,
Chase fleeting Pleasure through this maze of life:
Finding the wretched all they here can have,
But present food, and but a future grave:
Each, great as Philip’s victor son, shall view
This abject world, and weeping, ask a new. 20
Decrepid Age shall read thee, and confess,
Thy labours can assuage, where medicines cease;
Shall bless thy words, their wounded soul’s relief,
The drops that sweeten their last dregs of life;
Shall look to Heaven, and laugh at all beneath;
Own riches gather’d, trouble; fame a breath;
And life an ill, whose only cure is death.
Thy even thoughts with so much plainness flow,
Their sense untutor’d infancy may know:
Yet to such height is all that plainness wrought,
Wit may admire, and letter’d Pride be taught: 31
Easy in words thy style, in sense sublime,
On its blest steps each age and sex may rise;
’Tis like the ladder in the Patriarch’s dream,
Its foot on earth, its height above the skies,
Diffus’d its virtue, boundless is its power;
’Tis public health, and universal cure;
Of heavenly manna ’tis a second feast;
A nation’s food, and all to every taste. 39
To its last height mad Britain’s guilt was rear’d;
And various death for various crimes she fear’d.
With your kind work her drooping hopes revive;
You bid her read, repent, adore, and live:
You wrest the bolt from Heaven’s avenging hand;
Stop ready death, and save a sinking land.
O! save us still; still bless us with thy stay:
O! want thy Heaven, till we have learnt the way:
Refuse to leave thy destin’d charge too soon:
And for the church’s good, defer thy own.
O! live: and let thy works urge our belief; 50
Live to explain thy doctrine by thy life;
Till future infancy, baptiz’d by thee,
Grow ripe in years, and old in piety;
Till Christians, yet unborn, be taught to die.
Then in full age, and hoary holiness,
Retire, great teacher! to thy promis’d bliss:
Untouch’d thy tomb, uninjur’d be thy dust,
As thy own fame among the future just;
Till in last sounds the dreadful trumpet speaks;
Till Judgment calls; and quicken’d Nature wakes:
Till through the utmost earth, and deepest sea, 61
Our scatter’d atoms find their destin’d way,
In haste to clothe their kindred souls again,
Perfect our state, and build immortal man:
Then fearless thou, who well sustaind’st the fight,
To paths of joy, or tracts of endless light,
Lead up all those who heard thee, and believ’d;
‘Midst thy own flock, great shepherd, be receiv’d;
And glad all Heaven with millions thou hast sav’d.
CARMEN SECULARE, FOR THE YEAR MDOO.
TO THE KING.
Adspice, ventaro lætentur ut omnia saeclo:
O mihi tam longæ maneat pars ultima vita,
Spiritus et, quantum sat erit tua dicere facta!
VIRG. Eclog. 4.
THY elder look, great Janus, cast
Into the long records of ages past:
Review the years in fairest action dress’d
With noted white, superior to the rest;
Æras deriv’d, and chronicles begun,
From empires founded, and from battles won;
Show all the spoils by valiant kings achiev’d;
And groaning nations by their arms reliev’d;
The wounds of patriots in their country’s cause,
And happy power sustain’d by wholesome laws;
In comely rank call every merit forth; 11
Imprint on every act its standard worth;
The glorious parallels then downward bring
To modern wonders, and to Britain’s king:
With equal justice and historic care,
Their laws, their toils, their arms with his compare:
Confess the various attributes of fame
Collected and complete in William’s name:
To all the listening world relate,
(As thou dost his story read), 20
That nothing went before so great,
And nothing greater can succeed.
Thy native Latium was thy darling care,
Prudent in peace, and terrible in war:
The boldest virtues that have govern’d earth
From Latium’s fruitful womb derive their birth.
Then turn to her fair written page;
From dawning childhood to establish’d age,
The glories of her empire trace;
Confiront the heroes of thy Roman race; 30
And let the justest palm the victor’s temples grace.
The son of Mars reduc’d the trembling swains,
And spread his empire o’er the distant plains:
But yet the Sabines’ violated charms
Obscur’d the glory of his rising arms.
Numa the rights of strict religion knew;
On every altar laid the incense due;
Unskill’d to dart the pointed spear,
Or lead the forward youth to noble war.
Stern Brutus was with too much horror good, 40
Holding his f
asces stain’d with filial blood.
Fabius was wise, but with excess of care:
He sav’d his country; but prolong’d the war.
While Decius, Paulus, Curius, greatly fought,
And by their strict examples taught,
How wild desires should be controll’d,
And how much brighter virtue was, than gold:
They scarce their swelling thirst of fame could hide;
And boasted poverty with too much pride.
Excess in youth made Scipio less rever’d; 50
And Cato dying, seem’d to own, he fear’d.
Julius with honour tamed Rome’s foreign foes;
But patriots fell, ere the dictator rose.
And, while with clemency Augustus reign’d,
The monarch was ador’d; the city chain’d.
With justest honour be their merits dress’d;
But be their failings too confess’d:
Their virtue, like their Tyber’s flood,
Rolling its course, design’d the country’s good:
But oft the torrent’s too impetuous speed 60
From the low earth tore some polluting weed;
And with the blood of Jove there always ran,
Some viler part, some tincture of the man.
Few virtues after these so far prevail,
But that their vices more than turn the scale:
Valour grown wild by pride, and power by rage,
Did the true charms of majesty impair;
Rome by degrees advancing more in age,
Show’d sad remains of what had once been fair;
Till Heaven a better race of men supplies: 70
And glory shoots new beams from western skies.
Turn then to Pharamond, and Charlemain,
And the long heroes of the Gallic strain;
Experienc’d chiefs, for hardy prowess known,
And bloody wreaths in venturous battles won.
From the first William, our great Norman king,
The bold Plantagenets, and Tudors bring;
Illustrious virtues, who by turns have rose
In foreign fields to check Britannia’s foes;
With happy laws her empire to sustain, 80
And with full power assert her ambient main.
But sometimes too industrious to be great,
Nor patient to expect the turns of fate,
They open’d camps deform’d by civil fight,
And made proud conquest trample over right;