thing that encourages virtue, or disheartens vice, let it intercede for pardon of my many defects and errors.
THAT your reign may be as pious as it is glorious, and give pofterity as many instances of exemplary virtue and religion as it will of eminent talents, and extraordinary capacities; that it may not only shine in hiftory, and be great in the annals of the earth, but alfo be set down in the obfervation of angels, and with diftinguished characters be written in the book of life, to give joy at the Great Day; is the conftant prayer of him who is, as moft-particularly obliged to be,
Your Majesty's most humble,
And most obedient Subject,
Ipfe pater media nimborum in nočte, corufca Fulmina molitur dextra; quo maxima motu Terra tremit, fugere feræ, et mortalia corda Per gentes, humilis ftravit pavor.
HILE others fing the fortune of the great; Empire and arms, and all the pomp of state;
With Britain's hero * fet their fouls on fire, And grow immortal as his deeds afpire; I draw a deeper scene: a scene that yields A louder trumpet, and more dreadful fields; The world alarm'd, both earth and heav'n o'erthrown, And gafping nature's last tremendous groans Death's ancient fceptre broke, the teeming tomb, The righteous judge, and man's eternal doom. 'Twixt joy and pain I view the bold design, And ask my anxious heart, if it be mine.
* The Duke of Marlborough..
Whatever great or dreadful has been done, Within the fight of confcious stars or fun, Is far beneath my daring: I look down On all the fplendors of the British crown! This globe is for my verse a narrow bound; Attend me all ye glorious worlds around! O! all ye Angels, howfoe'er disjoin'd, Of ev'ry various order, place, and kind, Hear and affift a feeble mortal's lays,. 'Tis your Eternal King I strive to praise,
But chiefly thou, Great Ruler! Lord of all! Before whose throne arch-angels proftrate fall; If at thy nod, from difcord, and from night Sprang Beauty, and yon sparkling worlds of light, Exalt e'en me: all inward tumults quell; The clouds and darkness of my mind dispell; To my great subject thou my breast inspire, And raise my labouring foul with equal fire. Man bear thy brow aloft, view ev'ry grace In God's great offspring, beauteous nature's face: See spring's gay bloom; fee golden auturan's store; See how earth fmiles, and hear old ocean roar. Leviathians but heaves their cumbrous mail, It makes a tide, and wind-bound navies fail. Here, forests rife, the mountain's awful price; Here, rivers measure climes, and worlds divide: -There, valties fraught with gold's refplendent feeds, Hold kings, and kingdoms fortunes in their beds :
There, to the skies, afpiring hills ascend, And into distant lands their fhade extend. View cities, armies, fleets; of fleets the pride, Sce Europe's law, in Albion's channel ride. View the whole earth's vast landskip unconfin'd, Or view in Britain all her glories join'd.
Then let the firmament thy wonder raise ; 'Twill raise thy wonder, but transcend thy praise, How far from east to weft? the lab'ring eye Can scarce the diftant azure bounds descry: Wide theatre; where tempests play at large, And God's right hand can all its wraths discharge. Mark how these radiant lamps inflame the pole, Call forth the feasons, and the year controul: They shine thro' time, with an unalter'd ray : See this grand period rise, and that decay: So vaft, this world's a grain; yet myriads grace With golden pomp the throng'd ethereal space; So bright, with such a wealth of glory flor'd 'Twere fin in heathens not to have ador'd.
How great, how firm, how facred all appears! How worthy an immortal round of years! Yet all must drop, as autumn's ficklieft grain, And earth and firmament be fought in vain : The track forgot where conftellations shone, Or where the Stuarts fill'd an awful throne: Time shall be flain, all nature be destroy'd, Nor leave an atom in the mighty void.
Sooner or latter, in fome future date, (A dreadful fecret in the book of fate!) This hour, for aught all human wisdom knows, Or when ten thousand harvests more have rofe; When scenes are chang'd on this revolving earth, Old empires fall, and give new empires birth. While other Bourbons rule in other lands, And (ifman's fin forbids not) other Annes; While the still busy world is treading o'er The paths they trod five thousand years before, Thoughtless as those who now life's mazes run, Of earth diffolv'd or an extinguish'd fun.
(Ye fublunary worlds, awake, awake! Ye rulers of the nations, hear and shake !) Thick clouds of darkness shall arife on day; In fudden night all earth's dominions lay; Impetuous winds the scatter'd forests rend; Eternal mountains, like their cedars, bend; The valleys yawn, the troubled ocean roar, And break the bondage of his wonted shore; A fanguine ftain the filver moon d'er-fpread; Darkness the circle of the fun invade; From inmost heav'rincessant thunders roll And the strong echo bound from pole to pole. When lo! a mighty trump, one half conceal'd In clouds, one half to mortal-eye reveal'd, Shall pour a dreadful note: the piercing call, Shall rattle in the centre of the ball;
![[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]](https://books.google.ch/books/content?id=yokgAAAAMAAJ&hl=de&output=html_text&pg=RA3-PA8&img=1&zoom=3&q=editions:ISBN0371680980&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U0swgfnONDsmk2Ng_MCm4Tmzi4mpw&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=807,1281,72,229)
« ZurückWeiter » |