O how unlike the thing was lately feen
Groaning and panting on the bed,
With ghastly air, and languish'd head,
Life on this fide, there the dead,
While the delaying flesh lay fhivering between.

Long did the earthy house restrain

In toil fome flavery that ethereal guest;
Prifon'd her round in walls of pain,

And twisted cramps and aches with her chain;
Till by the weight of numerous days oppreft
The earthy house began to reel,

The pillars trembled, and the building fell;
The captive foul became her own again :
Tir'd with the forrows and the cares,

A tedious train of fourfcore years,

The prifoner fmil'd to be releat,

She felt her fetters loofe, and mounted to her reft.

Gaze on, my foul, and let a perfect view

Paint her idea all anew;

Rafe out thofe melancholy fhapes of woe

That hang around the memory, and becloud it fo.
Come Fancy, come, with effences refin'd,

With youthful green, and fpotlefs white;
Deep be the tincture, and the colours bright
T'exprefs the beauties of a naked mind.
Provide no glooms to form a fhade;
All things above of vary'd light are made,
Nor can the heavenly piece require a mortal aid,

But if the features too divine

Beyond the power of fancy fhine,

Conceal th' inimitable strokes behind a graceful shrine.

Defcribe the faint from head to feet, Make all the lines in juft proportion meet; But let her pofture be

Filling a chair of high degree;

Obferve how near it stands to the Almighty feat.
Paint the new graces of her eyes;
Fresh in her looks let sprightly youth arise,
And joys unknown below the skies.
Virtue, that lives conceal'd below,
And to the breast confin'd,
Sits here triumphant on the brow,
And breaks with radiant glories through
The features of the mind.
Exprefs her paffion still the fame,

But more divinely fweet;
Love has an everlasting flame,

And makes the work complete.

The painter Mufe with glancing eye
Obferv'd a manly spirit nigh*,

*My grandfather Mr. Thomas Watts had fuch acquaintance with the mathematicks, painting, mufic, and poefy, &c. as gave him confiderable esteem among his contemporaries. He was commander of a thip of war 1656, and by blowing up of the hip in the Dutch war he was drowned in his youth.

5

W.

That

That death had long disjoin'd :

"In the fair tablet they fhall ftand

"United by a happier band :"

She faid, and fix'd her fight, and drew the manly mind,
Recount the years, my fong, (a mournful round!)
Since he was feen on earth no more:

He fought in lower feas and drown'd;
But victory and peace he found

On the fuperior fhore.

There now his tuneful breath in facred fongs

Employs the European and the Eastern tongues.
Let th' awful truncheon and the flute,
The pencil and the well-known lute,
Powerful numbers, charming wit,

And every art and science meet,

[feet.

And bring their laurels to his hand, or lay them at his

'Tis done. What beams of glory fall

(Rich varnish of immortal art)

To gild the bright original!

'Tis done. The Mufe has now perform'd her part.

Bring down the piece, Urania, from above,

And let my Honour and my Love

Drefs it with chains of gold to hang upon my heart.

A Funeral Poem on the Death of THOMAS GUNSTON, Efq; prefented to the Right Honourable the Lady ABNEY, Lady-Mayoress of London.

MADAM,

July 1701.

AD I been a common mourner at the funeral of H the dear gentleman deceafed, I fhould have laboured after more of art in the following compofition, to fupply the defect of nature, and to feign a forrow; but the uncommon condefcenfion of his friendship to me, the inward efteem I pay his memory, and the vast and tender fenfe I have of the lofs, make all the methods of art needlefs, whilft natural grief supplies more

than all.

I had refolved indeed to lament in fighs and filence, and frequently checked the too forward Mufe: but the importunity was not to be refifted; long lines of forrow flowed in upon me ere I was aware, whilft I took many a folitary walk in the garden adjoining to his feat at Newington; nor could I free myself from the crowd of melancholy ideas. Your ladyfhip will find throughout the poem, that the fair and unfinished building which he had just raised for himself, gave almost all the turns of mourning to my thoughts; for I purfue no other topics of elegy than what my paffion and my fenfes led me to.

The

The poem roves, as my eyes and grief did, from one part of the fabrick to the other: It rifes from the foundation, falutes the walls, the doors, and the windows, drops a tear upon the roof, and climbs the turret, that pleasant retreat, where I promifed myself many fweet hours of his converfation; there my fong wanders amongst the delightful fubjc&s divine and moral, which used to entertain our happy leifure; and thence defcends to the fields and the fhady walks, where I fo often enjoyed his pleafing difcourfe; my forrows diffufe themfelves there without a limit: I had quite forgotten all scheme and method of writing, til! I correct myself, and rife to the turret again to lament that defolate feat. Now if the critics laugh at the folly of the Mufe for taking too much notice of the golden ball, let them confider that the meaneft thing that belonged to fo valuable a perfon ftill gave some fresh and doleful reflections: And I transcribe nature without rule, and reprefent friendship in a mourning drefs, abandoned to deepest forrow, and with a negligence becoming woe unfeigned.

Had I defigned a compleat elegy, Madam, on your dearest brother, and intended it for public view, I should have followed the ufual forms of poetry, fo far at least, as to spend some pages in the character and praises of the deceased, and thence have taken occafion to call mankind to complain aloud of the univerfal and unfpeakable lofs: But I wrote merely for myself as a friend of the dead, and to eafe my full foul by breath