Miscellaneous Poems

Now bad his Highness bid farewell to Spain,And reach'd the sphere of his own power--the main;With British bounty in his ship he feastsTh' Hesperian princes, his amazed guests,To find that watery wilderness exceedThe entertainment of their great Madrid.Healths to both kings, attended with the roarOf cannons, echo'd from th'affrighted shore,With loud resemblance of his thunder, proveBacchus the seed of cloud-compelling Jove;While to his harp divine Arion singsThe loves and conquests of our Albion kings.

Of the Fourth Edward was his noble song,Fierce, goodly, valiant, beautiful, and young;He rent the crown from vanquish'd Henry's head,Raised the White Rose, and trampled on the Red;Till love, triumphing o'er the victor's pride,Brought Mars and Warwick to the conquer'd side:Neglected Warwick (whose bold hand, like Fate,Gives and resumes the sceptre of our state)Woos for his master; and with double shame,Himself deluded, mocks the princely dame,The Lady Bona, whom just anger burns,And foreign war with civil rage returns.Ah! spare your swords, where beauty is to blame;Love gave th'affront, and must repair the same;When France shall boast of her, whose conqu'ring eyesHave made the best of English hearts their prize;Have power to alter the decrees of Fate,And change again the counsels of our state.What the prophetic Muse intends, aloneTo him that feels the secret wound is known.With the sweet sound of this harmonious lay,About the keel delighted dolphins play,Too sure a sign of sea's ensuing rage,Which must anon this royal troop engage;To whom soft sleep seems more secure and sweet,Within the town commanded by our fleet.These mighty peers placed in the gilded barge,Proud with the burden of so brave a charge,With painted oars the youths begin to sweepNeptune's smooth face, and cleave the yielding deep;Which soon becomes the seat of sudden warBetween the wind and tide that fiercely jar.As when a sort of lusty shepherds tryTheir force at football, care of victoryMakes them salute so rudely breast to breast,That their encounter seems too rough for jest;They ply their feet, and still the restless ball,Toss'd to and fro, is urged by them all:So fares the doubtful barge 'twixt tide and winds,And like effect of their contention finds.Yet the bold Britons still securely row'd;Charles and his virtue was their sacred load;Than which a greater pledge Heaven could not give,That the good boat this tempest should outlive.But storms increase, and now no hope of graceAmong them shines, save in the Prince's face;The rest resign their courage, skill, and sight,To danger, horror, and unwelcome night.The gentle vessel (wont with state and prideOn the smooth back of silver Thames to ride)Wanders astonish'd in the angry main,As Titan's car did, while the golden reinFill'd the young hand of his adventurous son,When the whole world an equal hazard runTo this of ours, the light of whose desireWaves threaten now, as that was scared by fire.Th' impatient sea grows impotent, and raves,That, night assisting, his impetuous wavesShould find resistance from so light a thing;These surges ruin, those our safety bring.Th' oppress'd vessel doth the charge abide,Only because assail'd on every side;So men with rage and passion set on fire,Trembling for haste, impeach their mad desire.

The pale Iberians had expired with fear,But that their wonder did divert their care,To see the Prince with danger moved no moreThan with the pleasures of their court before;Godlike his courage seem'd, whom nor delightCould soften, nor the face of death affright.Next to the power of making tempests cease,Was in that storm to have so calm a peace.Great Maro could no greater tempest feign,When the loud winds usurping on the main,For angry Juno labour'd to destroyThe hated relics of confounded Troy;His bold Aeneas, on like billows toss'dIn a tall ship, and all his country lost,Dissolves with fear; and both his hands upheld,Proclaims them happy whom the Greeks had quell'dIn honourable fight; our hero, setIn a small shallop, Fortune in his debt,So near a hope of crowns and sceptres, moreThan ever Priam, when he flourish'd, wore;His loins yet full of ungot princes, allHis glory in the bud, lets nothing fallThat argues fear; if any thought annoysThe gallant youth, 'tis love's untasted joys,And dear remembrance of that fatal glance,For which he lately pawn'd his heart in France;Where he had seen a brighter nymph than sheThat sprung out of his present foe, the sea.That noble ardour, more than mortal fire,The conquer'd ocean could not make expire;Nor angry Thetis raise her waves aboveTh' heroic Prince's courage or his love;'Twas indignation, and not fear he felt,The shrine should perish where that image dwelt.Ah, Love forbid! the noblest of thy trainShould not survive to let her know his pain;Who nor his peril minding, nor his flame,Is entertain'd with some less serious game,Among the bright nymphs of the Gallic court,All highly born, obsequious to her sport;They roses seem, which in their early prideBut half reveal, and half their beauties hide;She the glad morning, which her beams does throwUpon their smiling leaves, and gilds them so;Like bright Aurora, whose refulgent rayForetells the fervour of ensuing day,And warns the shepherd with his flocks retreatTo leafy shadows from the threaten'd heat.

From Cupid's string, of many shafts that fledWing'd with those plumes which noble Fame had shed,As through the wond'ring world she flew, and toldOf his adventures, haughty, brave, and bold,Some had already touch'd the royal maid,But Love's first summons seldom are obey'd;Light was the wound, the Prince's care unknown,She might not, would not, yet reveal her own.His glorious name had so possess'd her ears,That with delight those antique tales she hearsOf Jason, Theseus, and such worthies old,As with his story best resemblance hold.And now she views, as on the wall it hung,What old Musæus so divinely sung;Which art with life and love did so inspire,That she discerns and favours that desire,Which there provokes th'advent'rous youth to swim,And in Leander's danger pities him;Whose not new love alone, but fortune, seeksTo frame his story like that amorous Greek's.

For from the stern of some good ship appearsA friendly light, which moderates their fears;New courage from reviving hope they take,And climbing o'er the waves that taper make,On which the hope of all their lives depends,As his on that fair Hero's hand extends.The ship at anchor, like a fixed rock,Breaks the proud billows which her large sides knock;Whose rage restrainèd, foaming higher swells,And from her port the weary barge repels,Threat'ning to make her, forcèd out again,Repeat the dangers of the troubled main.Twice was the cable hurl'd in vain; the FatesWould not be movèd for our sister states;For England is the third successful throw,And then the genius of that land they know,Whose prince must be (as their own books devise)Lord of the scene where now his danger lies.

Well sung the Roman bard, 'All human thingsOf dearest value hang on slender strings.'Oh, see the then sole hope, and, in designOf Heaven, our joy, supported by a line!Which for that instant was Heaven's care aboveThe chain that's fixèd to the throne of Jove,On which the fabric of our world depends;One link dissolved, the whole creation ends.

'St. Andero': St. Andrews. He had newly abandoned his suitfor the Infanta.--'Arion sings': Alluding to the deliverance of Charles I., on hisreturn from Spain, from a violent storm in the Bay of Biscay,October 1623.'Sort': a company.'Adventurous son': Phaeton.Henrietta, afterwards Queen.Venus.