Who fed on poisonous herbs, all winter lay
Under the ground, and now reviews the day
Fresh in his new apparel, proud and young,
Rolls up his back, and brandishes his tongue,
And lifts his fcaly breast against the sun;
With him his father's fquire, Automedon,
And Peripas who drove his winged fteeds,
Enter the court; whom all the youth fucceeds
Of Scyros' ifle, who flaming firebrands flung
Up to the roof; Pyrrhus himself among
The foremost with an axe an entrance hews
Through beams of folid oak, then freely views
The chambers, galleries, and rooms of state,
Where Priam and the ancient monarchs fate.
At the first gate an armed guard appears ;
But th' inner court with horror, noife, and tears,
Confus'dly fill'd, the womens fhrieks and cries
The arched vaults re-echo to the skies;
Sad matrons wandering through the fpacious rooms
Embrace and kifs the pofts: then Pyrrhus comes
Full of his father, neither men nor walls
His force sustain, the torn port-cullis falls,
Then from the hinge their strokes the gates divorce,
And where the way they cannot find, they force.
Not with fuch rage a fwelling torrent flows
Above his banks, th' oppofing dams o'erthrows,
Depopulates the fields, the cattle, sheep,
Shepherds and folds, the foaming furges fweep.
And now between two fad extremes I ftood,
Here Pyrrhus and th' Atridæ drunk with blood,
There th' hapless queen amongst an hundred dames,
And Priam quenching from his wounds thofe flames
Which his own hands had on the altar laid;
Then they the fecret cabinets invade,
Where ftood the fifty nuptial beds, the hopes
Of that great race; the golden pofts, whose tops
Old hoftile spoils adorn'd, demolish'd lay,
Or to the foe, or to the fire a prey,
Now Priam's fate perhaps you may enquire :
Seeing his empire loft, his Troy on fire,
And his own palace by the Greeks possest,
Arms long difus'd his trembling limbs inveft;
Thus on his foes he throws himself alone,
Not for their fate, but to provoke his own:
There stood an altar open to the view
Of heaven, near which an aged laurel grew,
Whofe fhady arms the houfhold gods embrac'd;
Before whose feet the queen herself had caft
With all her daughters, and the Trojan wives,
As doves whom an approaching tempeft drives
And frights into one flock; but having spy'd
Old Priam clad in youthful arms, he cried,
Alas, my wretched husband, what pretence
To bear thofe arms, and in them what defence?
Such aid fuch times require not, when again
If Hector were alive, he liv'd in vain;
Or here we shall a fanctuary find,
Or as in life we shall in death be join'd.
Then weeping, with kind force held and embrac'd, And on the fecret feat the king fhe plac'd.
Meanwhile Polites, one of Priam's fons,
Flying the rage of bloody Pyrrhus, runs
Through foes and fwords, and ranges all the court
And empty galleries, amaz'd and hurt;
Pyrrhus purfues him, now o'ertakes, now kills,
And his last blood in Priam's prefence fpills.
The king (though him so many deaths inclofe)
Nor fear, nor grief, but indignation shows;
The gods requite thee (if within the care
Of those above th' affairs of mortals are)
Whofe fury on the fon but lost had been,
Had not his parents' eyes his murder feen :
Not that Achilles (whom thou feign'st to be
Thy father) fo inhuman was to me;
He blusht, when I the rights of arms implor'd;
To me my Hector, me to Troy restor❜d:
This faid, his feeble arm a javelin flung,
Which on the founding fhield, fcarce entering, rung. Then Pyrrhus; Go a meffenger to hell
my black deeds, and to my father tell
The acts of his degenerate race. So through
His fon's warm blood the trembling king he drew
To th' altar; in his hair one hand he wreaths;
His fword the other in his bofom fheaths.
Thus fell the king, who yet furviv'd the state,
With fuch a fignal and peculiar fate,
Under fo vast a ruin, not a grave,
Nor in fuch flames a funeral fire to have:
He whom fuch titles fwell'd, fuch power made proud, To whom the fceptres of all Afia bow'd,
On the cold earth lies th' unregarded king,
A headless carcafe, and a nameless thing.
On the Earl of STAFFORD's Trial and Death.
REAT Stafford! worthy of that name, though all
Of thee could be forgotten, but thy fall,
Crush'd by imaginary treafon's weight,
Which too much merit did accumulate :
As chemifts gold from brafs by fire would draw,
Pretexts are into treason forg'd by law.
His wisdom fuch, at once it did appear
Three kingdoms wonder, and three kingdoms fear; Whilst single he stood forth, and seem'd, although Each had an army, as an equal foe.
Such was his force of eloquence, to make
The hearers more concern'd than he that spake;
Each feem'd to act that part he came to fee,
And none was more a looker-on than he;
So did he move our paffions, fome were known
To wifh, for the defence, the crime their own.
Now private pity ftrove with public hate,
Reason with rage, and eloquence with fate :
Now they could him, if he could them forgivę;
He's not too guilty, but too wife to live ;
Lefs feem thofe facts which treafon's nick-name bore,
Than fuch a fear'd ability for more.
They after death their fears of him express,
His innocence and their own guilt confefs
Their legislative frenzy they repent:
Enacting it should make no precedent.
This fate he could have 'feap'd, but would not lofe
Honour for life, but rather nobly chofe
Death from their fears, than fafety from his own,
That his last action all the reft might crown.
On my Lord CROFT'S and my Journey into Poland, from whence we brought 10,000l. for his Majefty, by the Decimation of his Scottish Subjects there.
TOLE, tole,
Gentle bell, for the foul
Of the pure ones in Pole,
Which are damn'd in our fcroul.
Who having felt a touch
Of Cockram's greedy clutch,
Which though it was not much,
Yet their stubbornnefs was fuch,
That when we did arrive,
'Gainft the ftream we did ftrive;
They would neither lead nor drive :
An ear to a friend,
Nor an answer would fend
To our letter fo well penn'd.
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