And carefully re-peopled us again, Throughout his lazy, long, lascivious reign, With such a blest and true-born English fry, As much illustrates our nobility.

A gratitude which will so black appear, 240 As future ages must abhor to hear: When they look back on all that crimson flood,

Which streamed in Lindsey's, and Caernarvon's blood;

Bold Stafford, Cambridge, Capel, Lucas, Lisle,

Who crowned in death his father's fun'ral pile.

The loss of whom, in order to supply
With true-born English nobility,

245

300

And with the English Saxon all unite:
And these the mixture have so close pur-
sued,

The very name and memory's subdued;
No Roman now, no Briton does remain;
Wales strove to separate, but strove in vain:
The silent nations undistinguished fall, 305
And Englishman 's the common name for all.
Fate jumbled them together, God knows
how;

Whate'er they were, they 're true-born English now.

The wonder which remains is at our pride, To value that which all wise men deride; 310 For Englishmen to boast of generation Cancels their knowledge, and lampoons the nation.

A true-born Englishman 's a contradiction, In speech an irony, in fact a fiction:

A banter made to be a test of fools,

315

15

Our life is carried with too strong a tide,
A doubtful cloud our substance bears
And is the horse of all our years;
Each day doth on a winged whirlwind ride.
We and our glass run out, and must
Both render up our dust.

But his past life who without grief can see,
Who never thinks his end too near
But says to fame, 'Thou art mine heir,'
That man extends life's natural brevity:
This is, this is the only way

To outlive Nestor in a day.

20

It feeds it strongly, and it clothes it gay; And when it dies, with comely pride Embalms it, and erects a pyramide

That never will decay

Till heaven itself shall melt away
And naught behind it stay.

II

10

Begin the song, and strike the living lyre! Lo, how the years to come, a numerous and well-fitted quire,

15

All hand in hand do decently advance, And to my song with smooth and equal measures dance.

Whilst the dance lasts, how long soe'er it be,

My music's voice shall bear it company,
Till all gentle notes be drowned

In the last trumpet's dreadful sound. 20 That to the spheres themselves shall silence bring,

Untune the universal string:

Then all the wide extended sky,

25

And all th' harmonious worlds on high, And Virgil's sacred work shall die; And he himself shall see in one fire shine Rich Nature's ancient Troy, though built by hands divine.

III

She might our boasted stores defy: Such noble vigor did her verse adorn 75 That it seemed borrowed, where 't was only born.

Her morals too were in her bosom bred, By great examples daily fed, What in the best of books, her father's life, she read.

And to be read herself she need not fear; 80 Each test, and ev'ry light, her Muse will bear,

Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.

Ev'n love (for love sometimes her Muse expressed)

Was but a lambent flame which played about her breast,

Light as the vapors of a morning dream:

85

So cold herself, whilst she such warmth expressed,

'T was Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.

VI

Born to the spacious empire of the Nine, One would have thought she should have been content

Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed, And oft the happy draught surpassed the image in her mind.

The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks,
And fruitful plains and barren rocks,
Of shallow brooks that flowed so clear 110
The bottom did the top appear;
Of deeper too and ampler floods,
Which, as in mirrors, showed the woods;
Of lofty trees, with sacred shades,
And perspectives of pleasant glades, 115
Where nymphs of brightest form appear,
And shaggy satyrs standing near,
Which them at once admire and fear:
The ruins too of some majestic piece,
Boasting the pow'r of ancient Rome, or
Greece,

120

Whose statues, friezes, columns broken lie,

And, though defaced, the wonder of the