'Tis all in vain what we can do: All our roses and perfumes Will but officious folly show, And pious nothings to fuch mighty tombs. The poets may their fpices fpare, Their coftly numbers, and their tuneful feet : II. We know to praise thee is a dangerous proof The one's extinguish'd quite; And yet the other never is more bright. So they that write of thee, and join Their feeble names with thine; Their weaker fparks with thy illuftrious light, Will lofe themfelves in that ambitious thought; It's for our pens too high, and full of theme : And in thy facred urn furvive, Without the food of oil, which we can give. 'Tis true; but yet our duty calls our fongs; Duty commands our tongues : Though Though thou want not our praises, we Are not excus'd for what we owe to thee For fo men from religion are not freed, But from the altars clouds must rise, Though heaven itself doth nothing need, And though the gods don't want an earthly facrifice. III. Great life of wonders, whofe each year Full of new miracles did appear! Alone a chronicle, or history! But thinly fcatter'd here and there; All one continued light, of undistinguish'd day; Thou may'st in double fhapes be shown, Like Jove, fometimes with warlike thunder, and In what thy head, or what thy arm hath done, So full of fubftance, and fo ftrongly join'd, That the least grain of it, If fully spread and beat, Would many leaves and mighty volumes hold. IV. Before thy name was publish'd, and whilst yet Whilft yet the happy bud Was not quite feen or understood, It then fure figns of future greatness shew'd : Then thy domestic worth Did tell the world what it would be, When it fhould fit occafion fee, When a full fpring fhould call it forth : As bodies in the dark and night Have the fame colours, the fame red and white, As in the open day and light; The fun doth only fhew That they are bright, not make them fo. So whilft but private walls did know What we to fuch a mighty mind should owe, Though in a lefs and more contracted sphere, Though then thine was not fo enlarg'd a flood; V. 'Tis true thou was not born unto a crown, Thy fceptre's not thy father's, but thy own: Thy Thy purple was not made at once in haste, It took the deepest princely dye at last. And private thoughts took up thy private years: Practis'd at firft that vaft defign On meaner things with equal mien. That foul which fhould fo many fceptres fway, From family, and single man, Was by the small relation first Of husband and of father nurs'd, And from thofe lefs beginnings past, To fpread itself o'er all the world at last. VI.. But when thy country (then almost enthrall'd) Thy virtue and thy courage call'd; When England did thy arms intreat, Was a true vein of earth, and run with blood: Fill'd every place, and every ear; When the great storms and difmal night Did all the land affright; 'Twas time for thee to bring forth all our light. Thou Thou left'st thy more delightful peace, VII. Thy country wounded was, and fick, before Unto the weapon didst apply; Thou didst not draw the fword, and fo. As if thy country shou’d Be the inheritance of Mars and blood: That peace might land again upon the fhore, The husbandmen no fteel shall know, With a destructive red, 'Twas but till thou our fun didft in full light appear. '. |