25

30

35

Shall glitter o'er the pendent green,
Where Thames reflects the visionary scene :
Thither the silver sounding lyres
Shall call the smiling Loves and young Desires;
There ev'ry Grace and Mușe shall throng,
Exalt the dance, or animate the song :
There youths and nymphs, in consort gay,
Shall hail the rising, close the parting day.
With me alas! those joys are o'er ;
For me the vernal garlands bloom no more.
Adieu ! fond hope of mutual fire,
The still-believing, still renew'd desire:
Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl,
And all the kind deceivers of the soul !
But why ; ah! tell me, ah! too dear!
Steals down my cheek th'involuntary tear?
Why words so flowing thoughts so free,
Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee !
Thee dress'd in Fancy's airy beam,
Absent I follow tho’ th'extended dream;
Now, now I seize, I clasp thy charms,
And now you burst (ah, cruel !) from my arms !
And swiftly shoot along the Mall,
Or softly glide by the Canal ;
Now shown by Cynthia's silver ray,
And now on rolling waters snatch'd away.

40

45

48

A FRAGMENT.

LEST you should think that verse shall die

Which sounds the silver Thames along, Taught on the wings of Truth to fly

Above the reach of vulgar song ;

5

Tho' daring Milton sits sublime,

In Spenser native Muses play ; Nor yet shall Waller yield to time,

Nor pensive Cowley's moral lay

10

and Chiefs long since had birth Ere Cæsar was or Newton nam’d; These rais'd new empires o'er the earth,

And those new heav'ns and systems fram'd.

Vain was the chief 's, the sage's pride!
They had no poet, and they died.
In vain they schem’d, in vain they bled!
They had no poet, and are dead.

EPISTLE I.

TO ROBERT EARL OF OXFORD AND LORD

MORTIMER*.

5

SUCH were the notes thy once lov'd poet sung,
Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.
Oh, just beheld and lost! admir'd and mourn'd!
With softest manners, gentlest arts, adorn'd!
Bless'd in each science ! bless'd in ev'ry strain!
Dear to the Muse! to Harley dear-in vain !

For him thou oft hast bid the world attend,
Fond to forget the statesman in the friend;
For Swift and him despis'd the farce of state,
The sober follies of the wise and great ;

10

* Sent to the Earl of Oxford with Dr. Parnell's Poems, published by our Author after the Earl's imprisonment in the Tower, and retreat into the country, in the year 1721.

Dextrous the craving, fawning, crowd to quit,
And pleas'd to 'scape from flattery to wit.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear,
(A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear,)
Recall those nights that clos'd thy toilsome days, 15
Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays,
Who, careless now of intärest, fame, or fate,
Perhaps forgets that Oxford e'er was great;
Or deeming meanest what we greatest call,
Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.

20
And sure if aught below the seats divine,
Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine ;
A soul supreme, in each hard instance try'd,
Above all pain, all passion, and all pride,
The rage of pow'r, the blast of public breath, 25
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.

In vain to desarts thy retreat is made,
The Muse attends thee to thy silent shade:
'Tis her's the brave man's latest steps to trace,
Rejudge his acts, and dignify disgrace.

30 When Int'rest calls off all her sneaking train, And all th’ oblig'd desert, and all the vain, She waits, or to the scaffold or the cell, When the last ling'ring friend has bid farewell. Ev’n now she shades thy ev’ning walk with bays, 35 (No hireling she, no prostitute to praise,)