Their beauties all become your beauty’s due,
They are all fair, because they’re all like you.
If every Cavendish great and charming look;
From you that air, from you the charms they took.
In their each limb your image is exprest; 30
But on their brow firm courage stands confest;
There, their great father, by a strong increase,
Adds strength to beauty, and completes the piece:
Thus still your beauty, in your sons, we view,
Wiessen seven times one great perfection drew;
Whoever sat, the picture still is you.
So when the parent sun, with genial beams,
Has animated many goodly gems,
He sees himself improv’d, while every stone,
With a resembling light, reflects a sun. 40
So when great Rhea many births had given,
Such as might govern earth, and people Heaven;
Her glory grew diffus’d, and fuller known,
She saw the deity in every son:
And to what God soe’er men altars rais’d,
Honouring the offspring, they the mother prais’d.
In short-liv’d charms let others place their joys,
Which sickness blasts, and certain age destroys:
Your stronger beauty time can ne’er deface,
’Tis still renew’d, and stamp’d in all your race, 50
Ah! Wiessen, had thy art been so refin’d,
As with their beauty to have drawn their mind:
Through circling years thy labours would survive,
And living rules to fairest virtue give,
To men unborn and ages yet to live:
’Twould still be wonderful, and still be new,
Against what time, or spite, or fate, could do;
Till thine confus’d with Nature’s pieces lie,
And Cavendish’s name and Cecil’s honour die.
A FABLE FROM PHÆDRUS.
TO THE AUTHOR OF THE MEDLEY, 1710.
THE fox an actor’s vizard found,
And peer’d, and felt, and turn’d it round:
Then threw it in contempt away,
And thus old Phædrus heard him say:
“What noble part canst thou sustain,
Thou specious head without a brain?”
ON MY BIRTHDAY, JULY 21.
I, MY dear, was born to-day,
So all my jolly comrades say;
They bring me music, wreaths, and
And ask to celebrate my birth:
Little, alas! my comrades know,
That I was born to pain and woe;
To thy denial, to thy scorn;
Better I had ne’er been born:
I wish to die e’en whilst I say,
I, my dear, was born to-day. 10
I, my dear, was born to-day,
Shall I salute the rising ray?
Well-spring of all my joy and woe,
Clotilda, thou alone dost know:
Shall the wreath surround my hair?
Or shall the music please my ear? —
Shall I my comrades’ mirth receive,
And bless my birth, and wish to live?
Then let me see great Venus chase
Imperious anger from thy face; 20
Then let me hear thee smiling say,
Thou, my dear, wert born to-day.
EPITAPH. EXTEMPORE.
NOBLES and heralds, by your leave,
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior;
The son of Adam and of Eve,
Can Bourbon or Nassau go higher?
FOR MY OWN MONUMENT.
doctors give physic by way of prevention,
Mat, alive and in health, of his tombstone took care;
For delays are unsafe, and his pious intention
May haply be never fulfill’d by his heir.
Then take Mat’s word for it, the sculptor is paid,
That the figure is fine, pray believe your own eye;
Yet credit but lightly what more may be said,
For we flatter ourselves, and teach marble to lie.
Yet, counting as far as to fifty his years,
His virtues and vices were as other men’s are;
High hopes he conceiv’d, and he smother’d great fears, 11
In life party-colour’d, half pleasure, half care.
Nor to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave,
He strove to make interest and freedom agree;
In public employments industrious and grave,
And alone with his friends, lord, how merry was he!
Now in equipage stately, now humbly on foot,
Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust;
And whirl’d in the round, as the wheel turn’d about,
He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust. 21
This verse little-polish’d, though mighty sincere,
Sets neither his titles nor merit to view;
It says that his relics collected lie here,
And no mortal yet knows too if this may be true.
Fierce robbers there are that infest the highway,
So Mat may be kill’d, and his bones never found;
False witness at court, and fierce tempests at sea,
So Mat may yet chance to be hang’d, or be drown’d.
If his bones lie in earth, roll in sea, fly in air, 30
To fate we must yield, and the thing is the same,
And if passing thou giv’st him a smile, or a tear,
He cares not — yet prithee be kind to his fame.
CUPID IN AMBUSH.
IT oft to many has successful been,
Upon his arm to let his mistress lean;
Or with her airy fan to cool her heat,
Or gently squeeze her knees, or press her feet.
All public sports, to favour young desire,
With opportunities like this conspire.
E’en where his skill the gladiator shows,
With human blood where the arena flows;
There oftentimes love’s quiver-bearing boy
Prepares his bow and arrows to destroy: 10
While the spectator gazes on the fight,
And sees them wound each other with delight;
While he his pretty mistress entertains,
And wagers with her who the conquest gains;
Slily the god takes aim, and hits his heart,
And in the wounds he sees he bears his part.
THE TURTLE AND SPARROW.
AN ELEGIAC TALE, OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF PRINCE GEORGE, 1708.
BEHIND an unfrequented glade,
Where yew and myrtle mix their shade,
A. widow turtle pensive sat,
And wept her murder’d lover’s fete.
The sparrow chanc’d that way to walk
(A bird that loves to chirp and talk);
Be sure he did the turtle greet;
She answer’d him as she thought meet.
Sparrows and turtles, by the bye,
Can think as well as you or I: 10
But how they did their thoughts express,
The margin shows by T. and S.
T. My hopes are lost, my joys are fled;
Alas! I weep Columbo dead:
Come, all ye winged lovers, come,
Drop pinks and daisies on his tomb:
Sing, Philomel, his funeral verse;
Ye pious redbreasts, deck his hearse:
Fair swans, extend your dying throats,
Columbo’s death requires your notes: 20
“For him, my friends, for him I moan,
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.”
Stretch’d on the bier Columbo lies;
Pale are his cheeks, and clos’d his eyes;
Those cheeks, where beauty smiling lay;
Those eyes, where love was us’d to play.
Ah! cruel Fate, alas! how soon
That beauty
and those joys are flown!
Columbo is no more: ye floods,
Bear the sad sound to distant woods; 30
The sound let echo’s voice restore,
And say, Columbo is no more,
“Ye floods, ye woods, ye echoes, moan,
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.”
The dryads all forsook the wood,
And mournful naiads round me stood,
The tripping fawns and fairies came,
All conscious of our mutual flame,
“To sigh for him, with me to moan
My dear Columbo dead and gone.” 40
Venus disdain’d not to appear,
To lend my grief a friendly ear;
But what avails her kindness now?
She ne’er shall hear my second vow:
The lores, that round their mother flew,
Did in her face her sorrows view;
Their drooping wings they pensive hung,
Their arrows broke, their bows unstrung:
They heard attentive what I said,
And wept, with me, Columbo dead: 50
“For him I sigh, for him I moan,
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.”
“’Tis ours to weep,” great Venus said;
“’Tis Jove’s alone to be obey’d:
Nor birds nor goddesses can move
The just behests of fatal Jove;
I saw thy mate with sad regret,
And curs’d the fowler’s cruel net:
Ah, dear Columbo! how he fell,
Whom Turturella lov’d so well! 60
I saw him bleeding on the ground,
The sight tore up my ancient wound;
And, whilst you wept, alas! I cried,
Columbo and Adonis died.”
“Weep, all ye streams; ye mountains, groan;
I mourn Columbo, dead and gone;
Still let my tender grief complain,
Nor day nor night that grief restrain:”
I said; and Venus still replied,
“Columbo and Adonis died.” 70
S. Poor Turturella, hard thy case,
And just thy tears, alas, alas!
T. And hast thou lov’d; and canst thou hear
With piteous heart a lover’s care?
Come then, with me thy sorrows join,
And ease my woes by telling thine:
For thou, poor bird, perhaps mayst moan
Some Passerella dead and gone.
S. Dame Turtle, this runs soft in rhyme,
But neither suits the place nor time; 80
The fowler’s hand, whose cruel care
For dear Columbo set the snare,
The snare again for thee may set;
Two birds may perish in one net:
Thou shouldst avoid this cruel field,
And sorrow should to prudence yield.
’Tis sad to die! —
T. It may be so;
’Tis sadder yet to live in woe.
S. When widows use this canting strain, 90
They seem resolv’d to wed again.
T. When widowers would this truth disprove,
They never tasted real love.
S. Love is soft joy and gentle strife,
His efforts all depend on life:
When he has thrown two golden darts,
And struck the lovers’ mutual hearts;
Of his black shafts let death send one,
Alas! the pleasing game is done:
Ill is the poor survivor sped, 100
A corpse feels mighty cold in bed.
Venus said right—” Nor tears can move,
Nor plaints revoke the will of Jove.”
All must obey the general doom,
Down from Alcides to Tom Thumb.
Grim Pluto will not be withstood
By force or craft. Tall Robinhood,
As well as Little John, is dead
(You see how deeply I am read):
With Fate’s lean tipstaff none can dodge, 110
He’ll find you out where’er you lodge.
Ajax, to shun his general power,
In vain absconded in a flower;
An idle scene Tythonus acted,
When to a grasshopper contracted;
Death struck them in those shapes again,
As once he did when they were men.
For reptiles perish, plants decay;
Flesh is but grass, grass turns to hay;
And hay to dung, and dung to clay. 120
Thus heads extremely nice discover,
That folks may die some ten times over;
But oft, by too refin’d a touch,
To prove things plain, they prove too much.
Whate’er Pythagoras may say
(For each, you know, will have his way),
With great submission I pronounce,
That people die no more than once:
But once is sure: and death is common
To bird and man, including woman; 130
From the spread eagle to the wren,
Alas! no mortal fowl knows when;
All that wear feathers first or last
Must one day perch on Charon’s mast
Must lie beneath the cypress shade,
Where Strada’s nightingale was laid;
Those fowl who seem alive to sit,
Assembled by Dan Chaucer’s wit,
In prose have slept three hundred years:
Exempt from worldly hopes and fears, 140
And, laid in state upon their hearse,
Are truly but embalm’d in verse;
As sure as Lesbia’s sparrow I,
Thou sure as Prior’s dove, must die,
And ne’er again from Lethe’s streams,
Return to Adige, or to Thames.
T. I therefore weep Columbo dead,
My hopes bereav’d, my pleasures fled;
“I therefore must for ever moan
My dear Columbo dead and gone.” 150
S. Columbo never sees your tears,
Your cries Columbo never hears;
A wall of brass, and one of lead,
Divide the living from the dead,
Repell’d by this, the gather’d rain
Of tears beats back to earth again;
In t’other the collected sound
Of groans, when once receiv’d, is drown’d.
’Tis therefore vain one hour to grieve,
What time itself can ne’er retrieve. 160
By nature soft, I know a dove
Can never live without her love;
Then quit this flame, and light another;
Dame, I advise you like a brother.
T. What, I to make a second choice!
In other nuptials to rejoice!
S. Why not, my bird? —
T. — No, sparrow, no!
Let me indulge my pleasing woe:
Thus sighing, cooing, ease my pain, 170
But never wish, nor love, again:
Distress’d for ever, let me moan
“My dear Columbo, dead and gone.”
S. Our winged friends through all the grove
Contemn thy mad excess of love:
I tell thee, dame, the other day
I met a parrot and a jay.
Who mock’d thee in their mimic tone,
And “wept Columbo, dead and gone.”
T. Whate’er the jay or parrot said, 180
My hopes are lost, my joys are fled:
And I for ever must deplore
“Columbo dead and gone.” — S. Encore?
For shame! forsake this Bion-style,
We’ll talk an hour, and walk a mile.
Does it with sense or health agree,
To sit thus moping on a tree?
To throw away a widow’s life,
When you again may be a wife?
Come on! I’ll tell you my amours; 190
Who knows but they may influence yours;
“Example draws where precept fails,
And sermons are less read than tales.”
T. Sparrow, I take thee for my friend,
As such will hear thee: I descend;
Hop on, and talk; but, honest bird,
Take care that no immodest word
May venture to offend my ear.
S. Too saint-like turtle, never fear.
By method things are best discours’d, 200
Begin we then with wife the first:
A handsome, senseless, awkward fool,
Who would not yield, and could not rule:
Her actions did her charms disgrace,
And still her tongue talk’d of her face:
Count me the leaves on yonder tree,
So many different wills had she,
And, like the leaves, as chance inclin’d,
Those wills were chang’d with every wind:
She courted the beau-monde to-night, 210
L’assemblée, her supreme delight;
The next she sat immur’d, unseen,
And in full health enjoy’d the spleen;
She censur’d that, she alter’d this,
And with great care set all amiss;
She now could chide, now laugh, now cry,
Now sing, now pout, all God knows why:
Short was her reign, she cough’d, and died.
Proceed we to my second bride;
Well born she was, genteelly bred, 220
And buxom both at board and bed;
Glad to oblige, and pleas’d to please,
And, as Tom Southern wisely says,
“No other fault had she in life,
But only that she was my wife.”
O widow turtle! every she
(So Nature’s pleasure does decree)
Appears a goddess till enjoy’d;
But birds, and men, and gods, are cloy’d.
Was Hercules one woman’s man? 330
Or Jove for ever Leda’s swan?
Ah! madam, cease to be mistaken,
Few married fowl peck Dunmow-bacon.
Variety alone gives joy,
The sweetest meats the soonest cloy.
What sparrow-dame, what dove alive,
Though Venus should the chariot drive,
But would accuse the harness’ weight,
If always coupled to one mate;
And often wish the fetter broke? 240
’Tis freedom but to change the yoke.
T. Impious! to wish to wed again,
Ere death dissolv’d the former chain!
S. Spare your remark, and hear the rest;
She brought me sons; but (Jove be blest!)
She died in childbed on the nest.
Complete Works of Matthew Prior Page 40
