XVIII.

We were the happiest pair of human kind:
The rolling year its varying course perform'd,
And back return'd again;

Another and another smiling came,
And faw our happiness unchang'd remain:
Still in her golden chain
Harmonious Concord did our wishes bind:

Our studies, pleasures, taste, the fame.
O fatal, fatal stroke,

That all this pleasing fabric Love had rais'd
Of rare felicity,

On which ev'n wanton Vice with envy gaz'd,
And every scheme of bliss our hearts had form'd,
With foothing hope, for many a future day,
In one fad moment broke! -

Yet, O my foul, thy rifing murmurs stay;
Nor dare the all-wise Disposer to arraign,
Or against his fupreme decree

With impious grief complain.

That all thy full-blown joys at once should fade;

Was his most righteous will--and be that will obey'd.

X1X.

Would thy fond love his grace to her control,
And in these low abodes of fin and pain
Her pure exalted foul

Unjustly for thy partial good detain ?
No-rather strive thy groveling mind to raise
Up to that unclouded blaze,

That

That heavenly radiance of eternal light,
In which enthron'd she now with pity sees
How frail, how infecure, how flight,
Is every mortal blifs;

Ev'n Love itself, if rising by degrees
Beyond the bounds of this imperfect state,
Whose fleeting joys so soon must end,
It does not to its fovereign good afcend.
Rife then, my foul, with hope elate,
And seek those regions of ferene delight,
Whose peaceful path and ever-open gate
No feet but those of harden'd Guilt shall miss.
There death himself thy Lucy shall restore,
There yield up all his power e'er to divide you more.

V

E R S E S,

MAKING PART OF

ΑΝ ΕΡΙΤΑΡΗ ON THE SAME LADY.

M

ADE to engage all hearts, and charm all eyes;
Though meek, magnanimous; though witty,
wife;

Polite, as all her life in courts had been;
Yet good, as she the world had never feen;
The noble fire of an exalted mind,
With gentle female tenderness combin'd.
Her speech was the melodious voice of Love,
Her fong the warbling of the vernal grove;

Her

Her eloquence was sweeter than her fong,
Soft as her heart, and as her reason strong;
Her form each beauty of her mind express'd,
Her mind was Virtue by the Graces dress'd.

HORACE. BOOK IV. ODE IV.

A

Written at Oxford 1725

"Qualem ministrum fulminis alitem, &c."

I.

S the wing'd minifter of thundering Jove,
To whom he gave his dreadful bolts to bear,

Faithful + afsistant of his master's love,
King of the wandering nations of the air,

When balmy breezes fann'd the vernal sky,
On doubtful pinions left his parent nest,
In flight essays his growing force to try,
While inborn courage fir'd his generous breast;

III. Then

* First printed with Mr. West's tranflation of Pindar. See the Preface to that gentleman's Poems.

+ In the rape of Ganymede, who was carried up to Jupiter by an eagle, according to the Poetical History.

III.

Then, darting with impetuous fury down,

The flocks he flaughter'd, an unpractis'd foe;

Now his ripe valour to perfection grown.

The scaly snake and crested dragon know:

IV.

Or, as a lion's youthful progeny,

Wean'd from his favage dam and milky food,.

The grazing kid beholds with fearful eye,

Doom'd first to stain his tender fangs in blood:

V.

Such Drufus, young in arms, his foes beheld,
The Alpine Rhæti, long unmatch'd in fight:
So were their hearts with abject terror quell'd;
So funk their haughty spirit at the fight.

VI.

Tam'd by a boy, the fierce Barbarians find
How guardian Prudence guides the youthful flame,

And how great Cæfar's fond paternal mind
Each generous Nero forms to early fame;

VII.

A valiant son springs from a valiant fire:
Their race by mettle sprightly coursers prove;;
Nor can the warlike eagle's active fire
Degenerate to form the timorous dove.

VIII.

But education can the genius raise,
And wife inftructions native virtue aid;

Nobility without them is disgrace,
And Honour is by vice to shame betray'd.

IX. Let

IX.

Let red Metaurus, stain'd with Punic blood,
Let mighty Afdrubal fubdued, confefs
How much of empire and of fame is ow'd
By thee, O Rome, to the Neronian race.

Χ.

Of this be witness that auspicious day,

Which, after a long, black, tempestuous night,
First smil'd on Latium with a milder ray,

And chear'd our drooping hearts with dawning light.

XI.

Since the dire African with wasteful ire

Rode o'er the ravag'd towns of Italy;

As through the pine-trees flies the raging fire,
Or Eurus o'er the vext Sicilian sea.

XII.

From this bright æra, from this profperous field,

The Roman glory dates her rising power;

From hence 'twas given her conquering sword to wield,

Raife her fall'n gods, and ruin'd Thrines restore.

XIII.

Thus Hannibal at length despairing spoke:

" Like stags to ravenous wolves an easy prey,
"Our feeble arms a valiant foe provoke,

"Whom to elude and 'scape were victory;
XIV.

"A dauntless nation, that from Trojan fires,
"Hoftile Aufonia, to thy destin'd shore

" Her gods, her infant fons, and aged fires,