Not only those I nam'd I there shall greet,
But my own gallant, virtuous Cato meet.
Nor did I weep, when I to ashes turn’d
His belov'd body, who should mine have burn'd.
I in my thoughts beheld his soul ascend,
Where his fixt hopes our interview attend :
Then cease to wonder that I feel no grief
From age, which is of my delights the chief.
My hopes, if this assurance hath deceiv’d,
(That I man's foul immortal have believ'd)
And if I err, no power shall dispossess
My thoughts of that expected happiness.
Though fome minute philofophers pretend,
That with our days our pains and pleasures end.
If it be fo, I hold the fafer fide,
For none of them my error shall deride.
And if hereafter no rewards appear,
Yet virtue hath itself rewarded here,
If those, who this opinion have despis’d,
And their whole life to pleaiure facrific’d,
Should feel their error, they, when undeceiv'd,
Too late will wish, that me they had believ'd.
If souls no immortality obtain,
'Tis fit our bodies should be out of pain.
The same uneasiness which every thing
Gives to our nature, life must allo bring.
Good acts, if long, seem tedious ; so is age,
Acting too long upon this earth her ftage.
Thus much for age, to which when you arrive,
That joy to you, which it gives me, 'twill give.

CON

TO THE HON. EDWARD HOWARD

N

THE BRITISH PRINCES.

5

WHAT mighty gale hatla rais'd a fight fo ftrong ?

So high above all vulgar eyes ? so long?
One single rapture scarce itself confines
Within the limits of four thousand lines :
And yet I hope to see this noble heat
Continue, till it makes the piece compleat,
That to the latter age it may descend,
And to the end of time its beams extend.
When poesy joins profit with delight,
Her images should be most exquifite,

10
Since man to that perfection cannot rise,
of always virtuous, fortunate, and wife;
Therefore the patterns man should imitate
Above the life our masters should create.
Herein, if we consult with Greece and Rome, 15
Greece (as in war) by Rome was overcome ;
Though mighty raptures we in Homer find,
Yet, like himself, his characters were blind :
Virgil's fublimed eyes not only gaz'd,
But his fublimed thoughts to Heaven were rais'd.
Who reads the honours which he paid the gods,
Would think he had beheld their bleit abodes;
DENHAM
* K 8

And

20

And, that his hero might accomplish'd be,
From divine blood he draws his pedigree. T
From that great judge your judgment takes its law; 25
And by the best original does draw
Bonduca's honour, with those heroes Time- is,
Had in oblivion wrapt, his saucy cțime;
To them and to your nation you are just,
In raising up their glories from the dust;
And to Old England you that right have done, șr
To Thew, no story nobler than her own.

El pago 100

رم

HENRY LORD HASTINGS.

1650. R

EADER, preserve thy peace; those busy eyes
Will weep

at their own fad discoveries is in
When every line they add improves thy loss, , isht!
Till, having view'd the whole, they sum a cross;
Such as derides thy passions' best relief,
And scorns the succours of thy eafy grief. stariat
Yet, left thy ignorance betray thy name: *
Of man and pious,' read and mourn: the Name in
Of an exemption, from just fense, doth hew 22:17
Irrational, beyond excess of woe.
Since reason, then, can privilege a tear,
Manhood, uncensur'd, pay that tribute here,

Upon

10

145*

15

ON THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS.
Upon this noble urn. Here, here remains
Duft far more precious

then?

in India's veins : ..
Within these cold embraces, ravishd, "lies
That which compleats the age's tyrannies :
Who weak to fuch another ill appear,
For what destroys our hope, secures our fear.
What fin unexpiated, in this land
Of groans, hath guided fo severe a liand?
The late great victim * that your altars knew,
Ye angry göds, might have excus'd this new
Oblation, and have spar'd one lofty light
Of virtue, to inform our steps aright;
By whose example good, condemned we
Might have run on to kinder destiny.
But, as the leader of the herd fell first

to quench raging
Of inflam'd
But this white-fatted youngling could atone,
By his untimely fate, that impious smoke,
That fullied earth, and did Heaven's pity choak.
Let it suffice for us, that we have lost
In him, more than the widow'd world can boast
In any lump of her remaining clay.
Fair as the grey-ey'd morn he was ; the day,
Youthful, and climbing upwards still, imparts
No haste like that of his increasing parts;
Like the meridianbeam, his virtue's light
Was seen, as full of comfort, and as bright.

30

.35

45

Had his noon been as fix'd as clear-but he,

That only wanted immortality
To make him perfect, now submits to night,
In the black bosom of whose fable fpite,
He leaves a cloud of Aesh behind, and flies,
Refin'd, all ray and glory, to the skies.

Great faint! shine there in an eternal sphere,
And tell those powers to whom thou now draw'st near,
That by our trembling sense, in HASTINGS dead,
Their anger and our ugly faults are read ;

50 The short lines of whose life did to our eyes Their love and majesty epitomize. Tell them, whose stern decrees impose our laws, The feasted grave may close her hollow jaws ; Though sin search nature, to provide her here A second entertainment half so dear, She'll never meet a plenty like this hearse, Till Time present her with the Universe.

55

CON.