Complete Works of Matthew Prior
Page 18
To the close rock the frighted raven flies,
Soon as the rising eagle cuts the air
The shaggy wolf unseen and trembling lies,
When the hoarse roar proclaims the lion near:
Ill starr’d did we our forts and lines forsake,
To dare our British foes to open fight:
Our conquest we by stategem should make:
’Tis ours by craft and by surprise to gain:
’Tis theirs, to meet in arms, and battle in the plain.
The ancient father of this hostile brood,
Their boasted Brute, undaunted snatch’d his gods
From burning Troy, and Xanthus red with blood,
And fix’d on silver Thames his dire abodes:
And this be Trynovante, he said, the seat
By Heaven ordain’d, my sons, your lasting place:
Superior here to all the bolts of fate
Live, mindful of the author of your race,
Whom neither Greece, nor war, nor want, nor flame,
Nor great Pelides’ arm, nor Juno’s rage, could tame.
Their Tudors hence, and Stuart’s offspring flow:
Hence Edward, dreadful with his sable shield,
Talbot to Gallia’s power eternal foe,
And Seymour, famed in council or in field:
Hence Nevel, great to settle or dethrone,
And Drake, and Ca’ndish, terrors of the sea:
Hence Butler’s sons, o’er land and ocean known,
Herbert’s and Churchill’s warring progeny:
Hence the long roll which Gallia should conceal:
For, oh! who, vanquish’d, loves the victor’s fame to tell?
Envy’d Britannia, sturdy as the oak,
Which on her mountain top she proudly bears,
Eludes the axe, and sproutes against the stroke;
Strong from her wounds, and greater by her wars.
And as those teeth, which Cadmus sow’d in earth,
Produced new youth, and furnish’d fresh supplies;
So with young vigour, and succeeding birth,
Her losses more than recompensed arise;
And every age she with a race is crown’d,
For letters more polite, in battles more renown’d.
Obstinate power, whom nothing can repel;
Not the fierce Saxon, nor the cruel Dane,
Nor deep impression of the Norman steel,
Nor Europe’s force amass’d by envious Spain.
Nor France on universal sway intent,
Oft breaking leagues, and oft renewing wars;
Nor (frequent bane of weaken’d government)
Their own intestine feuds and mutual jars;
Those feuds and jars, in which I trusted more,
Than in my troops, and fleets, and all the Gallic power.
To fruitful Rheims, or fair Lutetia’s gate,
What tidings shall the messenger convey?
Shall the loud herald our success relate,
Or mitred priest appoint the solemn day?
Alas! my praises they no more must sing;
They to my statue now must bow no more;
Broken, repulsed is their immortal king:
Fall’n, fall’n for ever, is the Gallic power.�
The woman chief is master of the war:
Earth she has freed by arms, and vanquish’d Heaven by prayer.
While thus the ruin’d foe’s despair commends
Thy council and thy deed, victorious queen,
What shall thy subjects say, and what thy friends;
How shall thy triumphs in our joy be seen?
Oh! deign to let the eldest of the nine
Recite Britannia great and Gallia free;
Oh! with her sister Sculpture let her join
To raise, great Anne, the monument to thee;
To thee, of all our good the sacred spring;
To thee, our dearest dread; to thee, our softer king.
Let Europe, saved, the column high erect,
Than Trojan’s higher, or than Antonine’s,
Where sembling art may carve the fair effect
And full achievement of thy great designs,
In a calm heaven and a serener air
Sublime the queen shall on the summit stand,
From danger far, as far removed from fear,
And pointing down to earth her dread command.
All winds, all storms, that threaten human wo
Shall sink beneath her feet, and spread their rage below.
There fleets shall strive, by winds and waters tost,
Till the young Austrian on Iberia’s strand,
Great as AEneas on the Latian coast
Shall fix his foot: And this, be this the land,
Great Jove, where I for ever will remain,
(The empire’s other hope shall say) and here
Vanquish’d, intomb’d I’ll lie, or crown’d I’ll reign,
O Virtue, to thy British Mother dear!
Like the famed Trojan suffer and abide:
For Anne is thine, I ween, as Venus was his guide.
There, in eternal characters engraved,
Vigo, and Gibraltar, and Barcelone,
Their force destroy’d, their privileges saved,
Shall Anna’s terrors and her mercies own:
Spain, from the usurper Bourbon’s arms retrieved,
Shall with new life and grateful joy appear,
Numbering the wonders which that youth achieved
Whom Anna clad in arms and sent to war,
Whom Anna sent to claim Iberia’s throne,
And made him more than king in calling him her son.
There Isther, pleased by Blenheim’s glorious field,
Rolling, shall bid his eastern waves declare
Germania saved by Britain’s ample shield,
And bleeding Gaul afflicted by her spear;
Shall bid them mention Marlbro’, on that shore
Leading his islanders renown’d in arms,
Through climes where never British chief before
Or pitch’d his camp, or sounded his alarms;
Shall bid them bless the queen, who made his streams
Glorious as those of Boyne, and safe as those of Thames.
Brabantia, clad with fields, and crown’d with towers,
With decent joy shall her deliverer meet,
Shall own thy arms, great queen, and bless thy powers,
Laying the keys beneath thy subject’s feet.
Flandria, by plenty made the home of war,
Shall weep her crime, and bow to Charles restored,
With double vows shall bless thy happy care
In having drawn and having sheathed the sword,
From these their sister provinces shall know
How Anne supports a friend, and how forgives a foe.
Bright swords, and crested helms, and pointed spears,
In artful piles around the work shall lie;
And shields indented deep in ancient wars,
Blazon’d with signs of Gallic heraldry;
And standards with distinguish’d honours bright,
Marks of high power and national command,
Which Valois’ sons, and Bourbon’s bore in fight,
Or gave to Foix’, or Montmorancy’s hand;
Great spoils, which Gallia must to Britain yield,
From Cressy’s battle saved to grace Ramilia’s field.
And, as fine art the spaces may dispose,
The knowing thought and curious eye shall see
Thy emblem, gracious queen, the British rose,
Type of sweet rule and gentle majesty:
The northern thistle, whom no hostile hand
Unhurt too rudely may provoke, I ween;
Hibernia’s harp, device of her command,
And parent of her mirth shall there be seen:
Thy vanquish’d lilies, France, decay’d and torn,
&nbs
p; Shall with disorder’d pomp the lasting work adorn.
Beneath, great queen, oh! very far beneath,
Next to the ground and on the humble base,
To save herself from darkness and from death,
That muse desires the last, the lowest place;
Who, though unmeet, yet touch’d the trembling string,
For the fair fame of Anne and Albion’s land,
Who durst of war and martial fury sing;
And when thy will, and when thy subject’s hand,
Had quell’d those wars, and bid that fury cease,
Hangs up her grateful harp to conquest, and to peace.
CANTATA. SET BY MONS. GALLIARD
Recit.
Beneath a verdant laurel’s ample shade
His lyre to mournful numbers strung,
Horace, immortal bard supinely laid,
To Venus thus address’d the song;
Ten thousand little loves around,
Listening dwelt on every sound.
Ariet.
Potent Venus, bid thy son
Sound no more his dire alarms:
Youth on silent wings is flown;
Graver years come rolling on,
Spare my age unfit for arms:
Safe and humble let me rest,
From all amorous care released.
Potent Venus, bid thy son
Sound no more his dire alarms.
Recit.
Yet, Venus, why do I each morn prepare
The fragrant wreath for Cloe’s hair?
Why, why do I all day lament and sigh,
Unless the beauteous maid be nigh?
And why all night pursue her in my dreams
Through flowery meads and crystal streams?
Recit.
Thus sung the bard, and thus the goddess spoke:
Submissive bow to Love’s imperious yoke;
Every state and every age
Shall own my rule and fear my rage:
Compell’d by me, thy Muse shall prove
That all the world was born to love.
Ariet.
Bid thy destined lyre discover
Soft desire and gentle pain:
Often praise, and always love her;
Through her ear her heart obtain.
Verse shall please and sight shall move her,
Cupid does with Phoebus reign.
HER RIGHT NAME.
As Nancy at her toilette sat,
Admiring this, and blaming that,
Tell me, she said, but tell me true,
The nymph who could your heart subdue.
What sort of charms does she possess?
Absolve me, fair one, I’ll confess
With pleasure, I replied: Her hair,
In ringlets rather dark than fair,
Does down her ivory bosom roll,
And hiding half adorns the whole,
In her high forehead’s fair half round
Love sits, in open triumph crown’d;
He, in the dimple of her chin,
In private state, by friends is seen.
Her eyes are neither black nor grey,
Nor fierce nor feeble is their ray;
Their dubious lustre seems to show
Something that speaks nor yes nor no.
Her lips no living bard, I weet,
May say how red, how round, how sweet:
Old Homer only could indite
Their vagrant grace and soft delight:
They stand recorded in his book,
When Helen smiled, and Hebe spoke -
The gypsy, turning to her glass,
Too plainly show’d she knew the face;
And which am I most like, she said,
Your Cloe or your Nut-brown Maid!
LINES WRITTEN IN AN OVID.
OVID is the surest guide,
You can name, to show the way
To any woman, maid, or bride,
Who resolves to go astray.
A TRUE MAID.
NO, no; for my virginity,
When I lose that, says Rose, I’ll die:
Behind the elms, last night, cried Dick,
Rose, were you not extremely sick?
ANOTHER.
TEN months after Florimel happen’d to wed,
And was brought in a laudable manner to bed,
She warbled her groans with so charming a voice,
Thatone half of the parish was stunn’d with the noise;
But when Florimel deign’d to lie privately in,
Ten months before she and her spouse were a-kin,
She chose with such prudence her pangs to conceal,
That her nurse, nay, her midwife, scarce heard her once squeal.
Learn, husbands, from hence, for the peace of your lives,
That maids make not half such a tumult as wives.
A REASONABLE AFFLICTION.
ON his death-bed poor Lubin lies;
His spouse is in despair:
With frequent sobs, and mutual cries,
They both express their care.
A different cause, says parson Sly,
The same effect may give:
Poor Lubin fears that he shall die;
His wife, that he may live.
ANOTHER.
FROM her own native France as old Alison past,
She reproach’d English Nell with neglect or with malice,
That the slattern had left, in the hurry and haste.
Her lady’s complexion and eye-brows at Calais.
ANOTHER.
HER eye-brow box one morning lost,
(The best of folks are oftenest crost)
Sad Helen thus to Jenny said,
Her careless but afflicted maid,
Put me to bed then, wretched Jane;
Alas! when shall I rise again?
I can behold no mortal now:
For what’s an eye without a brow?
ON THE SAME SUBJECT.
IN a dark corner of the house
Poor Helen sits, and sobs and ones;
She will not see her loving spouse,
Nor her more dear picquet-allies:
Unless she finds her eye-brows,
She’ll e’en weep out her eyes.
ON THE SAME SUBJECT.
HELEN was just slipt into bed:
Her eye-brows on the toilet lay:
Away the kitten with them fled,
As fees belonging to her prey.
For this misfortune careless Jane,
Assure yourself, was loudly rated:
And madam, getting up again,
With her own hand the mouse-trap baited.
On little things, as sages write,
Depends our human joy or sorrow: 10
If we don’t catch a mouse to-night,
Alas! no eye-brows for to-morrow
PHILLIS’S AGE.
HOW old may Phillis be, you ask,
Whose beauty thus all hearts engages?
To answer is no easy task:
For she has really two ages.
Stiff in brocade, and pinch’d in stays,
Her patches, paint, and jewels on;
All day let envy view her face,
And Phillis is but twenty-one.
Paint, patches, jewels laid aside,
At night astronomers agree, 10
The evening has the day belied;
And Phillis is some forty-three.
FORMA BONUM FRAGILE.
WHAT a frail thing is beauty! says Baron Le Gras,
Perceiving his mistress had one eye of glass:
And scarcely had he spoke it,
When she more confus’d as more angry she grew,
By a negligent rage prov’d the maxim too true:
She dropt the eye, and broke it.
A CRITICAL MOMENT.
HOW capricious were Nature and Art to poor Nell!
She was painting her cheeks at the time her nose fell.
AN EPIGRAM.
/> WRITTEN TO THE DUKE DE NOALLES.
VAIN the concern which you express,
That uncall’d Alard will possess
Your house and coach, both day and night.
And that Macbeth was haunted less
By Banquo’s restless spright.
With fifteen thousand pounds a year,
Do you complain, you cannot bear
An ill, you may so soon retrieve?
Good Alard, faith, is modester
By much, than you believe. 10
Lend him but fifty louis-d’or;
And you shall never see him more;
Take the advice; probatum est.
Why do the gods indulge our store,
But to secure our rest?
EPILOGUE TO PHÆDRA AND HIPPOLITUS.
A TRAGEDY, BY MR. EDMUND SMITH. SPOKEN BY MRS. OLDFIELD, WHO ACTED ISMENA.
LADIES, to-night your pity I implore
For one, who never troubled you before;
An Oxford man, extremely read in Greek,
Who from Euripides makes Phaedra speak;
And comes to town to let us moderns know,
How women lov’d two thousand years ago.
If that be all, said I, e’en burn your play:
Egad! we know all that, as well as they:
Show us the youthful, handsome charioteer,
Firm in his seat, and running his career; 10
Our souls would kindle with as generous flames,
As e’er inspir’d the ancient Grecian dames:
Every Ismena would resign her breast;
And every dear Hippolitus be blest.
But, as it is, six flouncing Flanders mares
Are even as good as any two of theirs:
And if Hippolitus can but contrive
To buy the gilded chariot; John can drive.
Now of the bustle you have seen to-day,
And Phædra’s morals in this scholar’s play, 20
Something at least in justice should be said;
But this Hippolitus so fills one head —