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XVI.

O beft of wives! O dearer far to me
Than when thy virgin charms,
Were yielded to my arms,

How can my foul endure the loss of thee?
How in the world, to me a defart grown,
Abandon'd and alone,

Without my fweet companion can I live?
Without thy lovely file,

The dear reward of every virtuous toil,
What pleafures now can pall'd Ambition give?
Ev'n the delightful fenfe of well-earn'd praife,
Unshar'd by thee, no more my lifelefs thoughts could
raife.

XVII.

For my diftracted mind

What fuccour can I find?

On whom for confolation fhall I call?

Support me, every friend;

Your kind affiftance lend,

To bear the weight of this oppreffive woe.
Alas! each friend of mine,

My dear departed love, so much was thine,
That none has any comfort to bestow.

My books, the best relief

In every other grief,

Are now with your idea fadden'd all :

Each favourite author we together read

My tortur'd memory wounds, and speaks of Lucy dead.

XVIII. We

XVIII.

We were the happieft 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, pleafures, tafte, the fame.
O fatal, fatal ftroke,

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

On which ev'n wanton Vice with envy gaz'd,
And every scheme of blifs 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 ftay;
Nor dare the all-wife Disposer to arraign,
Or against his fupreme decree

With impious grief complain.

That all thy full blown joys at once should fade; Was his moft righteous will-and be that will obey'd.

XIX.

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

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Unjuftly for thy partial good detain?

No-rather ftrive thy groveling mind to raife

Up to that unclouded blaze,

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

Ev'n Love itself, if rifing by degrees
Beyond the bounds of this imperfect state,
Whofe fleeting joys fo foon must end,
It does not to its fovereign good afcend..
Rife then, my foul, with hope elate,
And feek thofe regions of ferene delight,.
Whofe peaceful path and ever-open gate
No feet but those of harden'd Guilt fhall mifs.
There death himself thy Lucy fhall restore,

There yield up all his power ne'er to divide you more..

ON THE SAME LADY.

To the

Memory of Lucy Lyttelton,
Daughter of Hugh Fortefcue of Filleigh
In the county of Devon, Efq.
Father to the prefent Earl of Clinton,
By Lucy his wife,

The daughter of Matthew Lord Aylmer,
Who departed this life the 19th of Jan. 1746-7..
Aged twenty-nine,

Having employed the short time affigned to

her here

In the uniform practice of Religion and Virtue..

Made

Made 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 fhe the world had never feen;
The noble fire of an exalted mind,
With gentle female tenderness combin'd.
Her fpeech was the melodious voice of Love,
Her fong the warbling of the vernal grove;
Her eloquence was sweeter than her fong,
Soft as her heart, and as her reason ftrong;
Her form each beauty of her mind express'd,
Her mind was Virtue by the Graces drefs'd.

HORACE, BOOK IV. O DE IV.

WRITTEN AT OXFORD 1725*.

Qualem miniftrum fulminis alitem, &c.”

I.

AS the wing'd minifter of thundering Jove,

To whom he gave his dreadful bolts to bear,,

Faithful + affiftant of his master's love,

King of the wandering nations of the air,

*First printed with Mr. Weft's translation 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.

Y 3

II. When

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II.

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

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 fnake and crefted dragon know:
IV.

Or, as a lion's youthful progeny,

Wean'd from his favage dam and milky food, The gazing 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 fpirit 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 fon fprings from a valiant fire:
Their race by mettle fprightly courfers prove;
Nor can the warlike eagle's active fire
Degenerate to form the timorous dove.

VIII. But

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