SIR SAMUEL GARTH (1661-1719)

FROM THE DISPENSARY

Speak, Goddess! since 'tis thou that best canst tell
How ancient leagues to modern discord fell;
And why physicians were so cautious grown
Of others' lives, and lavish of their own;
How by a journey to the Elysian plain,
Peace triumphed, and old time returned again.
Not far from that most celebrated place
Where angry Justice shews her awful face;
Where little villains must submit to fate,
That great ones may enjoy the world in state;
There stands a dome, majestic to the sight,
And sumptuous arches bear its oval height;
A golden globe, placed high with artful skill,
Seems to the distant sight a gilded pill;
This pile was, by the pious patron's aim,
Raised for a use as noble as its frame;
Nor did the learn'd Society decline
The propagation of that great design;
In all her mazes, Nature's face they viewed,
And, as she disappeared, their search pursued. 20
Wrapt in the shade of night the goddess lies,
Yet to the learn'd unveils her dark disguise,
But shuns the gross access of vulgar eyes.
Now she unfolds the faint and dawning strife
Of infant atoms kindling into life;
How ductile matter new meanders takes,
And slender trains of twisting fibres makes;
And how the viscous seeks a closer tone,
By just degrees to harden into bone;

While the more loose flow from the vital urn, 30
And in full tides of purple streams return;
How lambent flames from life's bright lamps arise,
And dart in emanations through the eyes;
How from each sluice a gentle torrent pours,
To slake a feverish heat with ambient showers;
Whence their mechanic powers the spirits claim;
How great their force, how delicate their frame;
How the same nerves are fashioned to sustain
The greatest pleasure and the greatest pain;
Why bilious juice a golden light puts on,
And floods of chyle in silver currents run;

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Hence 'tis we wait the wondrous cause to find How body acts upon impassive mind; How fumes of wine the thinking part can fire, Past hopes revive, and present joys inspire; Why our complexions oft our soul declare, And how the passions in the features are; How touch and harmony arise between Corporeal figure and a form unseen; How quick their faculties the limbs fulfil, And act at every summons of the will; With mighty truths, mysterious to descry, Which in the womb of distant causes lie.

LADY WINCHILSEA (1661-1720)

THE PETITION FOR AN ABSOLUTE RETREAT

Give me, O indulgent Fate!
Give me yet, before I die,

A sweet, but absolute retreat,
'Mongst paths so lost, and trees so high,
That the world may ne'er invade,
Through such windings and such shade,
My unshaken liberty.

No intruders thither come, Who visit, but to be from home; None who their vain moments pass, Only studious of their glass. News, that charm to listning ears, That false alarm to hopes and fears, That common theme for every fop, From the statesman to the shop, In those coverts ne'er be spread. Of who's deceas'd, or who's to wed, Be no tidings thither brought, But silent, as a midnight thought, Where the world may ne'er invade, Be those windings, and that shade!

ΙΟ

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For my garments, let them be
What may with the time agree;
Warm, when Phoebus does retire,
And is ill-supplied by fire;
But when he renews the year
And verdant all the fields appear,
Beauty every thing resumes,

Birds have dropt their winter-plumes;
When the lily full displayed
Stands in purer white arrayed
Than that vest which heretofore
The luxurious monarch wore
When from Salem's gates he drove
To the soft retreat of love,
Lebanon's all burnish'd house,
And the dear Egyptian spouse,
Clothe me, Fate, tho' not so gay,
Clothe me light, and fresh as May.
In the fountains let me view
All my habit cheap and new,
Such as, when sweet zephyrs fly,
With their motions may comply,
Gently waving, to express
Unaffected carelessness.

No perfumes have there a part,
Borrow'd from the chymist's art;

But such as rise from flow'ry beds,

Or the falling jasmin sheds! 'Twas the odour of the field

Esau's rural coat did yield
That inspir'd his Father's prayer
For blessings of the earth and air.
Of gums or powders had it smelt,
The supplanter, then unfelt,
Easily had been descry'd

For one that did in tents abide,

For some beauteous handmaid's joy
And his mother's darling boy.

Let me then no fragrance wear

But what the winds from gardens bear

In such kind, surprising gales
As gather'd from Fidentia's vales
All the flowers that in them grew;
Which intermixing, as they flew,
In wreathen garlands dropt again
On Lucullus, and his men,
Who, cheer'd by the victorious sight
Trebled numbers put to flight.

Let me, when I must be fine,
In such natural colours shine;
Wove, and painted by the sun,
Whose resplendent rays to shun,
When they do too fiercely beat,
Let me find some close retreat
Where they have no passage made
Thro' those windings, and that shade.

TO THE NIGHTINGALE

Exert thy voice, sweet harbinger of Spring!
This moment is thy time to sing,
This moment I attend to praise,

And set my numbers to thy lays.
Free as thine shall be my song;
As thy music, short, or long.
Poets, wild as thee, were born,

Pleasing best when unconfin'd,
When to please is least design'd,
Soothing but their cares to rest;

Cares do still their thoughts molest, And still th' unhappy poet's breast, Like thine, when best he sings, is plac'd against a

In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confin'd,
And only gentle zephyr fans his wings,
And lonely Philomel, still waking, sings;
Or from some tree, fam'd for the owl's delight,
She, hollowing clear, directs the wand'rer right;
In such a night, when passing clouds give place,
Or thinly vail the Heav'ns mysterious face;
When in some river, overhung with green,
The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen;
When freshen'd grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,
Whence springs the woodbind and the bramble-

rose,

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And where the sleepy cowslip shelter'd grows;
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet chequers still with red the dusky brakes;
When scatter'd glow-worms, but in twilight fine,
Show trivial beauties watch their hour to shine,
Whilst Salisb'ry stands the test of every light
In perfect charms and perfect virtue bright;
When odours which declin'd repelling day
Thro' temp'rate air uninterrupted stray;
When darken'd groves their softest shadows wear,
And falling waters we distinctly hear;
When thro' the gloom more venerable shows
Some ancient fabric, awful in repose,
While sunburnt hills their swarthy looks conceal
And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale;
When the loos'd horse now, as his pasture leads,
Comes slowly grazing thro' th' adjoining meads,
Whose stealing pace, and lengthen'd shade we fear,
Till torn up forage in his teeth we hear;
When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food,
And unmolested kine re-chew the cud;
When curlews cry beneath the village-walls,
And to her straggling brood the partridge calls;
Their shortliv'd jubilee the creatures keep,
Which but endures whilst tyrant-man does sleep;
When a sedate content the spirit feels,
And no fierce light disturb, whilst it reveals;

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TO A CHILD OF QUALITY FIVE
YEARS OLD

Lords, knights, and 'squires, the numerous band,
That wear the fair Miss Mary's fetters,
Were summoned by her high command,

To show their passions by their letters.

My pen among the rest I took,

Lest those bright eyes that cannot read Should dart their kindling fires, and look The power they have to be obeyed.

Nor quality, nor reputation,

Forbid me yet my flame to tell,
Dear Five-years-old befriends my passion,
And I may write till she can spell.

For, while she makes her silk-worms beds
With all the tender things I swear;
Whilst all the house my passion reads,
In papers round her baby's hair;

She may receive and own my flame,

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what.

JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745)

FROM VERSES ON THE DEATH OF DR. SWIFT

Vain human kind! fantastic race! Thy various follies who can trace? Self-love, ambition, envy, pride,

Their empire in our hearts divide.

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Give others riches, power, and station, 'Tis all on me a usurpation.

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I have no title to aspire;

Yet, when you sink, I seem the higher.

In Pope I cannot read a line

But with a sigh I wish it mine;
When he can in one couplet fix

So fares it with those merry blades, That frisk it under Pindus's shades.

In noble songs, and lofty odes,

They tread on stars, and talk with gods;

More sense than I can do in six, It gives me such a jealous fit

I cry, "Pox take him and his wit!"

I grieve to be outdone by Gay

In my own humorous biting way.

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From Dublin soon to London spread, 'Tis told at court, "the Dean is dead." And Lady Suffolk, in the spleen, Runs laughing up to tell the queen. The queen, so gracious, mild, and good, Cries, "Is he gone: 'tis time he should. He's dead, you say; then let him rot: I'm glad the medals were forgot. I promised him, I own; but when? I only was the princess then; But now, as consort of the king, You know, 'tis quite another thing." Now Chartres, at Sir Robert's levee, Tells with a sneer the tidings heavy: "Why, if he died without his shoes," Cries Bob, "I'm sorry for the news: O, were the wretch but living still, And in his place my good friend Will! Or had a mitre on his head, Provided Bolingbroke were dead!" Now Curll his shop from rubbish drains: Three genuine tomes of Swift's remains! And then, to make them pass the glibber, Revised by Tibbalds, Moore, and Cibber. He'll treat me as he does my betters, Publish my will, my life, my letters: Revive the libels born to die;

Which Pope must bear, as well as I.

Here shift the scene, to represent

How those I love my death lament.

Poor Pope would grieve a month, and Gay

A week, and Arbuthnot a day.

St. John himself will scarce forbear

To bite his pen, and drop a tear.

The rest will give a shrug, and cry,
"I'm sorry
but we all must die!"

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With favour some, and some without,

One, quite indifferent in the cause,
My character impartial draws:

"The Dean, if we believe report,
Was never ill-received at court.
As for his works in verse and prose,
I own myself no judge of those;
Nor can I tell what critics thought 'em,
But this I know, all people bought 'em.
As with a moral view design'd
To cure the vices of mankind,
His vein, ironically grave,

Exposed the fool, and lash'd the knave.
To steal a hint was never known,
But what he writ was all his own.

"He never thought an honour done him,
Because a duke was proud to own him;
Would rather slip aside and choose
To talk with wits in dirty shoes;

Despised the fools with stars and garters,
So often seen caressing Chartres.
He never courted men in station,
Nor persons held in admiration;
Of no man's greatness was afraid,
Because he sought for no man's aid.
Though trusted long in great affairs
He gave himself no haughty airs.
Without regarding private ends,
Spent all his credit for his friends;
And only chose the wise and good;
No flatterers; no allies in blood:
But succour'd virtue in distress,
And seldom fail'd of good success;
As numbers in their hearts must own,
Who, but for him, had been unknown.