Unmix'd with foreign filth, and undefil'd;
Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.
Art fhe had none, yet wanted none;
For nature did that want fupply:
So rich in treafures of her own,
She might our boafted ftores defy:
Such noble vigour did her verse adorn,
That it feem'd borrow'd, where 'twas only born.
Her morals too were in her bofom bred,
By great examples daily fed,
What in the best of books, her father's life, the read.
And to be read herself the need not fear;
Each teft, and every light, her Muse will bear,
Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
Ev'n love (for love fometimes her Muse expreft)
Was but a lambent flame which play'd about her breast:
Light as the vapours of a morning dream,
So cold herself, whilft fhe fuch warmth expreft,
'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's ftream.
Born to the spacious empire of the Nine,
One would have thought, fhe fhould have been content
To manage well that mighty government;
But what can young ambitious fouls confine?
To the next realm fhe ftretch'd her fway,
For Painture near adjoining lay,
A plenteous province, and alluring prey.
A Chamber of Dependencies was fram'd.
(As conquerors will never want pretence,
When arm'd, to justify th' offence)
And the whole fief, in right of Poetry, she claim'd.
The country open lay without defence :
For Poets frequent inroads there had made,
And perfectly could reprefent
The fhape, the face, with every lineament;
And all the large domains which the Dumb Sister sway'd. All bow'd beneath her government,
Receiv'd in triumph wherefoe'er fhe went.
Her pencil drew, whate'er her foul design'd,
And oft the happy draught furpass'd the image in her mind.
The fylvan fcenes of herds and flocks,
And fruitful plains and barren rocks,
Of fhallow brooks that flow'd fo clear,
The bottom did the top appear;
Of deeper too and ampler floods,
Which, as in mirrors, fhew'd the woods;
Of lofty trees, with facred fhades,
And perspectives of pleasant glades,
Where nymphs of brighteft form appear,
And fhaggy Satyrs standing near,
Which them at once admire and fear.
The ruins too of fome majestic piece,
Boafting the power of ancient Rome or Greece,
Whofe ftatues, freezes, columns, broken lie,
And, though defac'd, the wonder of the eye;
What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durft frame,
Her forming hand gave feature to the name.
So ftrange a concourfe ne'er was seen before,
But when the peopled ark the whole creation bore.
The scene then chang'd, with bold erected look
Our martial king the fight with reverence ftrook :
For, not content t' exprefs his outward part,
Her hand call'd out the image of his heart:
His warlike mind, his foul devoid of fear,
His high-designing thoughts were figur'd there,
As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear.
Our phoenix queen was pourtray'd too fo bright,
Beauty alone could beauty take fo right:
Her drefs, her fhape, her matchlefs grace,
Were all obferv'd, as well as heavenly face.
With fuch a peerlefs majefty fhe ftands,
As in that day fhe took the crown from facred hands:
Before a train of heroines was seen,
In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen.
Thus nothing to her genius was deny'd,
But like a ball of fire the further thrown,
Still with a greater blaze the fhone,
And her bright foul broke out on every fide.
What next she had defign'd, heaven only knows:
To fuch immoderate growth her conquest role,
That Fate alone its progrefs could oppose.
Now all those charms, that blooming grace,
The well-proportion'd shape, and beauteous face,
Shall never more be feen by mortal eyes ;
In earth the much-lamented virgin lies.
Not wit, nor piety, could fate prevent;
Nor was the cruel deftiny content
To finish all the murder at a blow,
To fweep at once her life and beauty too;
But, like a harden'd felon, took a pride
To work more mischievously flow,
And plunder'd first, and then destroy'd.
O double facrilege on things divine,
To rob the relick, and deface the shrine!
But thus Orinda dy'd :
Heaven, by the fame difeafe, did both translate; As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate. IX.
Meantime her warlike brother on the feas
His waving ftreamers to the winds displays,
And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.
Ah, generous youth, that wish forbear,
The winds too foon will waft thee here!
Slack all thy fails, and fear to come,
Alas, thou know'ft not, thou art wreck'd at home!
No more fhalt thou behold thy fifter's face,
Thou hast already had her last embrace.
But look aloft, and if thou ken'ft from far
Among the Pleiads a new-kindled ftar,
If any sparkles than the rest more bright ;
"Tis fhe that shines in that propitious light.
When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,
To raise the nations under ground;
When in the valley of Jehoshaphat,
The judging God fhall close the book of fate;
And there the last affizes keep,
For those who wake, and those who fleep:
When rattling bones together fly,
From the four corners of the fky;
When finews o'er the fkeletons are spread,
Those cloth'd with flesh, and life inspires the dead;
The facred poets first shall hear the found,
And foremost from the tomb fhall bound,
For they are cover'd with the lightest ground;
And straight, with in-born vigour, on the wing,
Like mounting larks, to the new morning fing.
There thou, fweet Saint, before the quire shall go,
As harbinger of heaven, the way to show,
The way which thou fo well haft learnt below.
Upon the Death of the EARL of DUNDEE. Tranflated from the Latin of Dr. PITCAIRN.
H laft and beft of Scots! who didft maintain
Thy country's freedom from a foreign reign;
New people fill the land, now thou art gone,
New gods the temples, and new kings the throne.
Scotland and thou did each in other live;
Nor would't thou her, nor could fhe thee furvive.
Farewell, who dying didft support the state,
And couldst not fall but with thy country's fate.
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