The AFFLICTIONS of a FRIEND.

Now let my cares all bury'd lie,

My griefs for ever dumb :

Your forrows fwell my heart fo high,
They leave my own no room.

Sickness and pains are quite forgot,
The spleen itself is gone;
Plung'd in your woes I feel them not,
Or feel them all in one.

Infinite grief puts fenfe to flight,

And all the foul invades :

So the broad gloom of spreading night
Devours the evening fhades.

Thus am I born to be unbleft!

This fympathy of woe

Drives my own tyrants from my breaft
T'admit a foreign foe.

Sorrows in long fucceffion reign;

Their iron rod I feel:

Friendship has only chang'd the chain,
But I'm the prisoner ftill.

Why was this life for misery made ?
Or why drawn out fo long?
Is there no room amongst the dead?

Or is a wretch too young?
P 2

1702

Move

Move faster on, great nature's wheel,

Be kind, ye rolling powers,
Hurl my days headlong down the hill
With undistinguish'd hours.

Be dufky, all my rifing funs,
Nor fmile upon a slave :

Darkness, and death, make hafte at once

To hide me in the grave.

The Reverse: Or, The Comforts of a Friend.

TH

HUS nature tun'd her mournful tongue,
Till grace lift up her head,

Revers'd the forrow and the fong,
And, fmiling, thus fhe faid:

Were kindred spirits born for cares?
Must every grief be mine?

Is there a fympathy in tears,
Yet joys refufe to join?

love,

Forbid it, heaven, and raise my
And make our joys the fame :
So blifs and friendship join'd above
Mix an immortal flame.

Sorrows are loft in vaft delight
That brightens all the soul,
As deluges of dawning light
O'erwhelm the dusky pole.

Pleasures

Pleasures in long fucceffion reign,

And all my powers employ :

Friendship but shifts the pleasing scene,

And fresh repeats the joy.

Life has a foft and filver thread,
Nor is it drawn too long;

Yet, when my vafter hopes perfuade,
I'm willing to be gone.

Faft as ye please roll down the hill,
And hafte away, my years;
Or I can wait my father's will,

And dwell beneath the spheres.

Rife glorious, every future fun,
Gild all my following days,

But make the last dear moment known

By well-diftinguish'd rays.

To the Right Honourable JOHN Lord CUTTS.

At the Siege of Namur.

The Hardy SOLDIER.

Ο

WHY is man fo thoughtless grown? "Why guilty fouls in hafte to die? "Venturing the leap to worlds unknown, "Heedless to arms and blood they fly.

"Are lives but worth a foldier's pay?
"Why will ye join fuch wide extremes,
"And take immortal fouls, in play
"At desperate chance, and bloody games?
"Valour 's a nobler turn of thought,
"Whofe pardon'd guilt forbids her fears :
Calmly the meets the deadly fhot!
"Secure of life above the stars.

"But frenzy dares eternal fate,

"And, fpurr'd with honour's airy dreams,
"Flies to attack th' infernal gate,
"And force a passage to the flames."

Thus hovering o'er Namuria's plains,
Sung heavenly love in Gabriel's form:
Young Thrafo left the moving strains,
And vow'd to pray before the ftorm.

Anon the thundering trumpet calls;
Vows are but wind, the hero cries;
Then fwears by heaven, and scales the walls,
Drops in the ditch, despairs, and dies.

Burning feveral Poems of Ovid, Martial,
Oldham, Dryden, &c.

1708.

I

JUDGE the Mufe of lewd defire ;

Her fons to darkness, and her works to fire.

In vain the flatteries of their wit

Now with a melting strain, now with an heavenly flight,

7

Would

Would tempt my virtue to approve
Those gaudy tinders of a lawless love.

So harlots drefs: They can appear
Sweet, modeft, cool, divinely fair,
To charm a Cato's eye; but all within,
Stench, impudence, and fire, and ugly raging fin.

Die, Flora, die in endless fhame,

Thou prostitute of blackest fame,

Stript of thy falfe array.

Ovid, and all ye wilder pens

Of modern luft, who gild our fcenes,

Poison the British stage, and paint damnation gay,

Attend your mistress to the dead; When Flora dies, her imps should wait

Strephon, of noble blood and mind,

(For ever fhine his name!)

upon

As death approach'd, his foul refin'd, And gave his loofer fonnets to the flame. "Burn, burn, he cry'd with facred rage, "Hell is the due of every page,

her fhade.

“ Hell be the fate. (But O indulgent heaven!
"So vile the Muse, and yet the man forgiven !)
"Burn on my fongs: For not the filver Thames
"Nor Tyber with his yellow streams

"In endless currents rolling to the main,

"Can e'er dilute the poison, or wash out the stain.”

*Earl of Rochester.