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MR. WALLER,

WHEN HE WAS AT SEA.

WHILST I was free I wrote with high conceit,
And love and beauty rais'd above their height:
Love, that bereaves us both of brain and heart,
Sorrow and silence doth at once impart.
What hand at once can wield a sword and write?
Or battle paint, engaged in the fight?

Who will describe a storm must not be there :
Passion writes well, neither in love nor fear.
Why on the naked boy have poets then

Feathers and wings bestow'd, that wants a pen?

A PRESAGE OF

もち

THE RUIN OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE:

PRESENTED TO

HIS MAJESTY KING JAMES IL. ON HIS BIRTH-DAY.

SINCE James the Second grac'd the British throne,
Trúce, well observ'd, has been infring'd by none:
Christians to him their present union owe,
And late success against the common foe;
While neighbouring princes, loth to urge their fate,
Court his assistance, and suspend their hate:
So angry bulls the combat do forbear,
When from the wood a lion does appear.
This happy day peace to our island sent,

As now he gives it to the Continent.

A prince more fit for such a glorious task
Than England's King, from Heav'n we cannot ask:
He (great and good !) proportion'd to the work,
Their ill-drawn swords shall turn against the Turk.
Such kings, like stars with influence unconfin'd,
Shine with aspect propitious to mankind; ›
Favour the innocent, repress the bold,

And, while they flourish, make an age of gold.
Bred in the camp, fam'd for his valour young ;
At sea successful, vigorons, and strong;
His fleet, his army, and his mighty mind,
Esteem and reverence through the world do find.
A prince with such advantages as these,

Where he persuades not, may command a peace.
Britain declaring for the juster side,

The most ambitious will forget their pride:
They that complain will their endeavours cease,
Advis'd by him, inclin'd to present peace,
Join to the Turk's destruction, and then bring
All their pretences to so just a king.

If the successful troublers of mankind,
With laurel crown'd, so great applause do find,
Shall the vex'd world less honour yield to those
That stop their progress, and their rage oppose?
Next to that pow'r which does the ocean awe,
Is to set bounds, and give ambition law.

The British Monarch shall the glory have, That famous Greece remains no longer slave; That source of art and cultivated thought! Which they to Rome, and Romans hither brought. The banish'd Muses shall no longer mourn, But may with liberty to Greece return: Though slaves, (like birds that sing not in a cage) They lost their genius and poetic rage:

Homers again, and Pindars, may be found,
And his great actions with their numbers crown'd.
The Turk's vast empire does united stand:
Christians, divided under the command
Of jarring princes, would be soon undone,
Did not this hero make their int'rest one;
Peace to embrace, ruin the common foe,
Exalt the Cross, and lay the Crescent low.
Thus may the Gospel to the rising sun
Be spread, and flourish where it first begun;
And this great day, (so justly honour'd here!)
Known to the East, and celebrated there.
"Hæc ego longævus cecini tibi, maxime regum!
Ausus et ipse manu juvenum tentare laborem."

VIRG.

THESE VERSES

WERE WRIT IN THE TASSO OF HER ROYAL
HIGHNESS.

TASSO knew how the fairer sex to grace,
But in no one durst all perfection place.
In her alone that owns this book is seen
Clorinda's spirit, and her lofty mien,
Sophronia's piety, Erminia's truth,

Armida's charms, her beauty, and her youth.
Our Princess here, as in a glass, does dress
Her well-taught mind, and every grace express.
More to our wonder than Rinaldo fought,
The hero's race excels the poet's thought.

THE

BATTLE OF THE SUMMER-ISLANDS.

CANTO I.

What fruits they have, and how Heav'n smiles
Upon those late-discover'd isles!

AID me, Bellona! while the dreadful fight
Betwixt a nation and two whales I write.
Seas stain'd with gore I sing, adventrous toil!
And how these monsters did disarm an isle.
Bermuda, wall'd with rocks, who does not know?
That happy island where huge lemons grow,
And orange trees, which golden fruit do bear,
The' Hesperian garden boasts of none so fair;
Where shining pearl, and coral, many a pound,
On the rich shore, of ambergris is found.
The lofty cedar, which to Heav'n aspires,
The prince of trees! is fuel for their fires :
The smoke by which their loaded spits do turn,
For incense might on sacred altars burn:
Their private roofs on odorous timber borne,
Such as might palaces for kings adorn.
The sweet palmettos a new Bacchus yield,
With leaves as ample as the broadest shield,
Under the shadow of whose friendly boughs
They sit, carousing where their liquor grows.
Figs there unplanted through the fields do grow,
Such as fierce Cato did the Romans show,

With the rare fruit inviting them to spoil
Carthage, the mistress of so rich a soil.
The naked rocks are not unfruitful there,
But at some constant seasons, every year
Their barren tops with luscious food abound,
And with the eggs of various fowls are crown'd.
Tobacco is the worst of things, which they
To English landlords, as their tribute, pay.
Such is the mould, that the blest tenant feeds
On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds.
With candied plantains and the juicy pine,
On choicest melons and sweet grapes they dine,
And with potatoes fat their wanton swine.
Nature these cates with such a lavish hand
Pours out among them, that our coarser land
Tastes of that bounty, and does cloth return,
Which not for warmth, but ornament, is worn:
For the kind Spring, which but salutes us here,
Inhabits there, and courts them all the year.
Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live;
At once they promise what at once they give.
So sweet the air, so moderate the clime,
None sickly lives, or dies before his time.
Heav'n sure has kept this spot of earth uncurst,
To show how all things were created first.
The tardy plants in our cold orchards plac'd,
Reserve their fruit for the next age's taste:
There a small grain in some few months will be
A firm, a lofty, and a spacious tree.

The palma-christi, and the fair papà,
Now but a seed, (preventing Nature's law)
In half the circle of the hasty year

Project a shade, and lovely fruits do wear.

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