WAS night; and Flavia, to her room retir'd,
With evening chat and fober reading tir'd ;
There, melancholy, penfive, and alone,
She meditates on the forfaken town:
On her rais'd arm reclin'd her drooping head,
She figh'd and thus in plaintive accents faid:
Ah, what avails it to be young and fair; "To move with negligence, to dress with care?
"What worth have all the charms our pride can boast, "If all in envious folitude are loft?
"Where none admire, 'tis ufelefs to excell;
"Where none are beaux, 'tis vain to be a belle;
Beauty, like wit, to judges should be shown; "Both most are valued, where they beft are known, "With every grace of nature or of art,
"We cannot break one stubborn country heart: "The brutes, infenfible, our power defy:
"To love, exceeds a fquire's capacity.
"The town, the court, is Beauty's proper fphere;
"That is our Heaven, and we are angels there:
"In that gay circle thoufand Cupids rove,
"The court of Britain is the court of Love.
"How has my conscious heart with triumph glow'd, "How have my fparkling eyes their tranfport fhew'd,
"At each diftinguish'd birth-night ball, to fee
"The homage, due to Empire, paid to me! "When every eye was fix'd on me alone,
"And dreaded mine more than the Monarch's frown; "When rival statesmen for my favour, ftrove,
"Lefs jealous in their power than in their love.
Chang'd is the fcene; and all my glories die,
"Like flowers tranfplanted to a colder sky :
"Loft is the dear delight of giving pain,
"The tyrant joy of hearing flaves complain.
"In ftupid indolence my life is spent,
Supinely calm, and dully innocent: "Unbleft I wear my ufelefs time away;
Sleep (wretched maid!) all night, and dream all
"Go at fet hours to dinner and to prayer
"(For dullness ever must be regular.)
"Now with mamma at tedious whift I play; "Now without scandal drink infipid tea;
Or in the garden breathe the country air, "Secure from meeting any tempter there; "From books to work, from work to books, I rove, "And am (alas!) at leifure to improve !
Is this the life a Beauty ought to lead?
"Were eyes fo radiant only made to read?
"Thefe fingers, at whofe touch ev'n age would glow, "Are thefe of ufe for nothing but to few? "Sure erring Nature never could defign
To form a housewife in a mould like mine!
"O Venus, queen and guardian of the fair,
"Attend propitious to thy votary's prayer:
"Let me revifit the dear town again :
"Let me be feen!—could I that wish obtain,
"All other wishes my own power would gain."
Written at the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD, In the Year 1727.
ARENT of arts, whose skilful hand first taught
P The towering pile to rife, and form'd the plan
With fair proportion; architect divine.
Minerva; thee to my adventurous lyre
Affiftant I invoke, that means to fing
Blenheim, proud monument of British fame,
Thy glorious work! for thou the lofty towers
Didst to his virtue raife, whom oft thy shield
In peril guarded, and thy wifdom steer'd
Through all the ftorms of war.-Thee too I call,
Thalia, fylvan Mufe, who lov'ft to rove
Along the fhady paths and verdant bowers
Of Woodstock's happy grove: there tuning fweet
Thy rural pipe, while all the Dryad train
Attentive liften; let thy warbling fong
Paint with melodious praife the pleafing fcene,
And equal thefe to Pindus' honor'd shades.
When Europe freed, confefs'd the faving power
Of Marlborough's hand; Britain, who fent him forth
Chief of Confederate hofts, to fight the cause
Of Liberty and Juftice, grateful rais'd
This palace, facred to her leader's fame :
A trophy of fuccefs; with fpoils adorn'd
Of conquer'd towns, and glorying in the name
Of that aufpicious field, where Churchill's fword
Vanquish'd the might of Gallia, and chaftis'd
Rebel Bavar.-Majeftic in its ftrength,
Stands the proud dome, and fpeaks its great defign.
Hail, happy chief, whofe valour could deferve
Reward fo glorious! grateful nation, hail,
Who paid'ft his fervice with fo rich a meed!
Which most shall I admire, which worthieft praife,
The hero or the people? Honour doubts,
And weighs their virtues in an equal scale.
Not thus Germania pays th' uncancel'd debt
Of Gratitude to us-Blush, Cæfar, blush,
When thou behold'ft thefe towers; ingrate, to thee
A monument of shame! Canst thou forget
Whence they are nam'd, and what an English arm
Did for thy throne that day? But we disdain
Or to upbraid or imitate thy guilt.
Still thy obdurate heart against the sense
Of obligation infinite; and know,
Britain, like Heaven, protects a thankless world
For her own glory, nor expects reward.
Pleas'd with the noble theme, her task the Mufe
Purfues untir'd, and through the palace roves
With ever-new delight. The tapestry rich
With gold, and gay with all the beauteous paint
Of various colour'd filks, difpos'd' with skill,
Attracts her curious eye. Here Ifter rolls
His purple wave; and there the Granick flood
With paffing fquadrons foams: here hardy Gaul
Flies from the fword of Britain; there to Greece
Effeminate Perfia yields.-In arms oppos'd,
Marlborough and Alexander vie for fame
With glorious competition; equal both
In valour and in fortune: but their praise
Be different, for with different views they fought;
This to fubdue, and that to free mankind.
Now, through the ftately portals iffuing forth,
The Mufe to fofter glories turns, and seeks
The woodland fhade, delighted. Not the vale
Of Tempe fam'd in fong, or Ida's grove,
Such beauty boafts. Amid the mazy gloom
Of this romantic wilderness once stood
The bower of Rofamonda, hapless fair,
Sacred to grief and Love; the crystal fount
In which the us'd to bathe her beauteous limbs
Still warbling flows, pleas'd to reflect the face
Of Spencer, lovely maid, when tir'd she fits
Befide its flowery brink, and views thofe charms
Which only Rofamond could once cxcell.
But fee where, flowing with a nobler ftream,
A limpid lake of pureft waters rolls
Beneath the wide-ftretch'd arch, ftupendous work,
Through which the Danube might collected pour
His fpacious urn! Silent a while and smooth
The current glides, till with an headlong force
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