A POEM Occasioned by the Death of Her Majesty.
WEep,
Britons, ease your Pangs of Grief;
Your Breasts, o'reswoln with unborn sighs,
Now heave and labour for Relief;
The melting Vapors claim a Passage thro your Eyes.
While Majesty falls from the Throne,
By Sorrow's greatness only known,
While all the universal Loss condole,
While Cruelty it self can boast a pitying Soul,
Let not due Pomp to Sadness be deny'd:
We can no more our Sighs and Tears controul,
Than hush the Wind or stop the Tyde:
This may for ever cease to flow,
And That forget to blow,
E're the sad Tributes fail to be,
Divine
MARIA, paid to thee!
See! how affrighted Nature's Face,
With ghastly Paleness, her Despair betrays;
Alas! she finds the toylsom Cost
Of num'rous Ages in a Moment lost:
So long design'd! so soon destroy'd!
She scarce the Master-piece enjoy'd,
Which she so labour'd to create,
But ne're can hope to imitate.
She sees what scarce can gain belief,
Myriads of her surviving Children moan,
Whole Nations joyn in one incessant Groan,
And Mortal Foes confed'rates now in Grief;
With Looks black as our Weeds, and drooping Head,
Each seems to mourn a Parent dead.
These, these become thee, wretched orphan Isle;
For, what can now thy Cares beguile?
MARIA lives to thee no more;
Heav'n now is rich, and Earth is poor.
Nor can she want, or we bestow,
More than a Monument below;
A Monument, exalted as her Birth,
And if Art this allows, expressive of her Worth.
But what rich Mines will not the Charge exhaust?
Worlds will be bankrupt by the Cost:
In vain the New wou'd load the Old
With Mountain-heaps of tributary Gold;
In vain, his Queen to honour more,
The subject Ocean yield his richer store;
Cou'd this suffice to speak her Praise,
What more than Man, what God the mighty Pile cou'd raise?
O Noble
Montague, whose Muse,
Second in Zeal and Force to none,
Words equal to your Theme can chuse,
Words which the God of Verse might own;
Sedate, yet sprightly; young, yet wise;
At once you act, and can advise:
Your towring Genius still appears
Superior to whate're it dares;
Oh wo'ud you now but for a while
The Poet and the Statesman reconcile,
The World might, in your speaking Pictures, find
The Charms of
MARY's Face, the Graces of her Mind.
And you who teach us how to write,
Much by your Rules, by your Examples more,
Great
Normanby, in whom unite
The noblest Gifts of Nature's store,
Still like those great Intelligences prove,
Who Man inform and cheer, while mighty Orbs they move.
You did to Death a
The Temple of Death,
a Poem.
Temple raise,Which shall be lasting as its Reign;
Now its best Victim claims your Lays,
Erect a Monument to blest
MARIA's Praise,
And spight of Death she'll live again.
A fairer
The
Picture of
Anacreon, by the Marquess of
Normanby.
Picture now begin,Than e're in
Greece or
Rome was seen;
And, while
MARIA's Face and Mind
Most lively in your Thoughts you find,
Draw ev'ry Vertue, ev'ry Grace,
A Soul divine, an Angel's Face;
And, from the bright Ideas, paint
A Queen, a Beauty, and a Saint.
Let
Dorset, or
Apollo, 'tis the same,
(For, who but
Dorset does inspire
And doubly warm the whole harmonious Quire?)
In equal Numbers celebrate her Fame:
If Verse divine can reach her Praise,
Immortal
Dorset, she commands your Lays;
Your Lays, soft, moving, strong, refin'd,
And above Man in ev'ry kind.
More good than great, tho high as Soveraigns plac'd,
You too were from a Beauty torn
Fit for some God, but more in
Dorset blest;
And best can right a Queen, whom others can but mourn.
Then, while those Children of your Mind,
Which Wit produc'd, and Modesty does hide,
Are to a longing World deny'd,
Wou'd you describe that Wonder of her kind,
How wou'd that
Best-good-man (whose Wit so true
Exposes Follies) her Perfections shew!
Who but such Noble Bards, with Sacred Rage,
Can such a
Sacred Theme engage?
Arise then, great
Triumvirate! arise;
Warmth! Softness! Wit! together blend,
To Urge, to Mourn, and to Commend:
Raise, raise her Fame high as her Seat the Skies.
While I, who only dare excite,
Amidst the Throng, am ravish'd with your Flight;
I,
drivn, and shipwrack'd on the Muse's
Rock,
Your Smiles my only hopes, your Bounty all my stock;
To rove like other Wretches forc'd,
From our
delicious Plains divorc'd,
Till
William, of good Kings the best,
Force an ungrateful Nation to be blest.
But if the whole Poetic Throng
Must with her Praises make
Parnassus ring,
Ah! let me late begin the Song;
For, who so deeply griev'd can sing?
Yet once I'll try if nothing can compose
Our too tempestuous Woes:
Come,
Horace, thou who best canst heal
Substantial Pains, which Spirits feel;
While thy close sense I boldly paraphrase,
And strive my Thoughts by thine to raise,
Teach me the Grief of others to asswage;
And, if thou canst, make mine less fiercely rage.
Vain is our hope, and vain our strife,
To stem the rapid stream of Life:
None can that Flux of Moments, Time, controul;
hheu! fugaces Posthume▪
&c. The 14th Ode of Horace'
s 2d Book partly imitated and p
[...]raphras'd.
Driv'n down the boist'rous Torrent all
Impetuously we roul;
Into that boundless Ocean sure to fall
Where, as Time ends, Eternity begins,
And Man is ever lost, or endless Pleasure wins.
In vain, when Age the Forehead rudely ploughs,
Self-Love is frighted into Pray'rs and Vows,
And Man to change Heav'ns stedfast Will wou'd try;
Unfit to live, Yet more unfit to dye;
Spight of the holy Charm, the feeble Wretch must move:
Not e'vn true Piety could save
Or but reprieve him from the Grave:
While hoary Vertue does the Soul improve,
The frailer Body does decay,
And wither while we pray.
Almighty Pow'r, could long Converse with thee
From Death thy truest Vot'ries free,
Vot'ries, who, wing'd with Zeal, can rise,
And, ev'n below, familiar in the Skies;
Thou know'st, that thy
MARIA's Frame
Had been immortal as her Fame.
Say, Guides of Souls, who best her Zeal have known,
And by its Flames reviv'd your own,
Was not what is
your Business her Delight,
While better than your words, her actions led us right?
Ev'n Sports, Pomps, Cares and Toyls of State,
By which religious Fires abate,
But made her pious Flames aspire,
As Rains, that quench a weak, increase a vig'rous Fire.
Yet soon she dy'd; but dy'd to live in Bliss:
Too good for such a World, in vain it pray'd;
A better Life the loss of This repay'd,
The Saint was call'd to raise the Joys of Paradice.
What then shall angry Fate appease?
Nor Pray'rs, nor Gifts can make it kind;
It changes all, but its Decrees,
And still is deaf as well as blind.
What by three Bodies could
Geryon gain,
But thrice to feel a mortal Pain?
Death from its triple Hold can force reluctant Life;
The struggling Spirits, with unequal Strife,
Member by Member quit, and Post by Post:
Scar'd, trembling, pale, unwilling to depart,
Life leaves its inmost Fort, the Heart;
Unknowing where to fly, when that Retreat is lost.
Not so
MARIAs left its beauteous Seat;
Her will was Heav'ns; nor cou'd she show
Less than a Mind firm, like her self, and great:
Yet mov'd by weeping Kingdoms once her Care,
And more by her lov'd
WILLIAM's deep despair,
She but consented, not desir'd, to go.
So Royal Brides, whom Native Lands bemoan,
Shou'd unconcern'd depart, t' ascend a distant Throne.
Proud humane Emmets, 'tis in vain
Your fellow Emmets think you great;
The Queen, who o're three Kingdoms and the Main,
O're her more noble Self, and
WILLIAM's Heart did reign,
Submits to stronger Fate.
Mean Souls, then learn to dye and be forgot,
Nor murmur at your Lot.
What tho a
Tytius proudly rise,
And dare affront the neighb'ring Skies?
Behold! the more than Giant stalk along,
Ev'n
Titan's Brood around,
Seem but a Pigmy Throng:
But see! a Dart now makes him bite the ground:
Tho Heav'n and Earth, at once, seem'd his abode,
Yet down he headlong fell, and shook the groaning Plain,
At once its Measure and its Load,
No more to rise again.
How weak he seem'd to Death, how small!
How sudden was his Fall!
The Poor, the Rich, the Weak, the Strong,
The Fool, the Wise, the Coward and the Brave,
The pious few, the guilty Throng,
All (cruel Fate!) all hasten to the Grave:
Th' insatiate Grave will swallow all
The little things we great and mighty call:
Time does produce, record, and then deface;
Man dyes, and then his Fame, tho Life it self it cost:
Distance of Time, like that of Place,
Will lessen Things till they are lost.
Curst thought! must then thy Fame,
MARIA, dye?
It must; but yet it shall survive
While Men or Learning are alive,
Till all in one vast Ruin buried lye.
In vain, to scape th' inevitable Dart,
We move immur'd in Steel;
Soon as 'tis shot, 'tis lodg'd within the heart,
We feel that last of Woes, then ever cease to feel:
Fierce storms of War we shun in vain,
Or those on the less boist'rous Main;
Dishonourably to be safe,
To tempting Gain and prompting Glory deaf,
And, within Skreens intrench'd, defy
Infectious Atoms scatter'd thro the Sky,
And make a foreign Warmth our dying Heat supply:
Alas! whate're began must end,
To the same fatal Port by various Ways we tend;
Nor can we stray, but downwards go;
Our Centre is below.
At least the Centre of our Dust is there;
Our Fire, the Soul, springs to its native Skies,
And there
MARIA claim'd the loftiest Sphere;
That Sun set here, more gloriously to rise:
So, to become supremely bright,
Some sov'raign Orb removes the Throne
Where in the vast Expanse it shone;
Leaves subject Globes awhile in night,
Then gilds new Worlds, with purest streams of Light.
While in those blest Empyreal Plains
The Royal Saint triumphant reigns,
Were guilty Souls their Fate to chuse,
They wou'd the Loan of curst Humanity refuse;
So small the Principal, so great the Use!
The Gain so doubtful, and the Loss so sure!
So soon that hasty Moment, Life, to lose,
So long a living Death endure!
All on which Vanity depends
Is, like it, vain, aud quickly past;
House, Gardens, Lands, Wealth, Honours, Friends,
Vanish from us, or we from them in haste.
Ev'n that which most a Lover charms,
The dear kind Beauty, in whose circling Arms,
Lost in fierce Raptures of Delight,
He lives an Age each fleeting Night;
Ev'n that, (ah killing thought!) must go;
That earthly Heav'n is transitory too.
WILLIAM himself, commission'd by the Sky
To do its Work and fix the World again,
Sees th' only Charm, which made that easy, dye;
The best of Women leaves the best of Men.
By Birth, by Merit, and by Choice a Queen,
And something more as godlike
WILLIAM's Wife,
She on a glorious Throne was seen
To reconcile two Opposites in Life;
The King still courted, while the Husband sway'd,
The Queen commanded, and the Wife obey'd.
Her Royal hands, above debasing Pride,
Could weild a Scepter, yet a Needle guide:
So
Pallas could at once the Loom attend,
And States adorn, teach, govern, and defend.
Ev'n Sloth in its most sure Retreat the Court,
Learn'd to make Work its sport:
No more on downy Beds of state,
Proudly unactive, idly great,
Supinely layd, it loll'd in lazy ease;
But, rous'd from its lethargic Rest,
In vain it sought the the Fair to please;
By her example Industry was blest;
Ev'n City Matrons darling Sloth disclaim,
And sleeping Deans awake at great
MARIA's Name.
From Court, Deceit and Envy disappear,
And Truth and Charity no more are stangers there.
Ready when e're her People's Want did call,
The Manna still did regularly fall.
[Page 11] Oh! had not those, who wish again
For
Egypt's Food with
Egypt's Chain,
Join'd with our sins, and caus'd her Flight,
Ere we could reach the Promis'd Land of Peace,
Not distant, but in Sight;
She then had bid all Want and Sorrow cease;
And you had seen, ungrateful murm'ring Band,
Wine, Milk, and Honey, streaming thro the Land.
Hence, Flattry; pleasing Poyson, hence;
Of all Addressers, only thou
Could'st Force a Frown from so serene a Brow;
Her fragrant Vertues truest Sweets dispence,
She shunn'd thee living, and disclaims thee▪ now▪
Come, Truth, relate—But hold my Muse, nor try
With feeble Wings to reach the loftiest Sky:
Thou mayst, thy Sorrow to deceive,
Think on the Queen, as if still here she reign'd▪
But, lest the Goddess be profan'd,
Now to some God her Praises leave.
And lo! he's found! her Royal Mourner's Love,
His Tears, his Grief, that long, that killing Scene
The highest Panegyric prove,
As her least Praise is that she was a Queen.
Hear him ev'n Death, his Foe; implore;
There's nothing now worth living for,
he cries:
She lost a Life; He, who survives her, more;
She dy'd but once, He ev'ry Moment dyes.
He nothing loves but Grief and Grief renewd,
Sighs, Tears, and Groans, the dismal Train of Woe,
The Night's black shades, the Desart's solitude,
The Raven's Croak, the widdow'd Turtle's Cooe,
The murm'ring Fall of Streams, the Sight of Graves,
The Hopes of dying, and the Thoughts of
Her.
He, who the World from Ruin saves,
Can to that World those dearer Thoughts prefer.
Ah, Widdow'd Prince, who hopeless grieve,
Since none thy Blessings can retrieve,
That we but cou'd asswage thy Woe!
Yet, for the tott'ring World, still condescend to live,
[Page 12] Nor, be thy self our Foe.
See,
Britain's Genius seiz'd with dire affright,
Dreading to think thou too mayst dye!
See that of haughty
Gallia by,
With ghastly Joy betray his Spight!
A half-smile on his horrid Visage see,
Yet check'd by Fear of Thee!
See mournful
Europe dread the coming Spring,
And in the Husband miss the King;
The King, who firm, while all was trembling, stood,
Resolv'd like Fate, and dauntless like a God.
To Arms, Heroic Prince, to Arms;
Glory, like Love, has pow'rful Charms:
Let Glory now thy Soul engross,
And recompence its Rival's Loss.
Bid Trumpets sound, and nothing name
But Battels, Conquests, Triumphs, Fame:
So shall, with Tears of Blood, insulting Foes
Weep in their Turn, and doubly feel our Woes.
Look up, the ruling Planets smile,
And say to
Britain as they roul;
"Soon shall thy Genius, warlike Isle,
"That of declining
France controul:
"This Year, rul'd by thy Monarch and the Sun,
"Shall finish what the last begun:
"Severely just, a while we frown'd,
"But thy
MARIA for thy Crimes atton'd.
What shou'd prevail against a State
Secure in
WILLIAM and his Fate?
Be this your task, ye Orbs, and with Success
His great Atchievements crown:
Your Revolutions, by themselves, are less
Than by the Hero's Valour known;
In
WILLIAM's Fame secure your own:
A fleeting Year to him you give,
His Deeds, even when 'tis past, for ever bid it live;
As when a Prince inspires a Muse to sing,
Her Lays immortalize the Poet and the King.
FINIS.