Genteel her motion when she walks,
Sweetly she sings, and loudly talks;
Knows all the world, and its affairs,
Who goes to court, to plays, to prayers;
WHILE o'er the cloth thy happy pencil strays,
And the pleas'd eye its artful course surveys,
Behold the magic pow'r of shade and light!
A new creation opens to our sight.
Here tufted groves rise boldly to the sky,
There spacious lawns more distant charm the eye;
The crystal lakes in borrow'd tinctures shine,
And misty hills the fair horizon join,
Lost in the azure borders of the day,
Like sounds remote that die in air away.
The peopled prospect various pleasure yields, Sheep grace the hills, and herbs or swains the fields; Harmonious order o'er the whole presides,
And Nature crowns the work which Judgment guides.
Nor with less skill display'd by thee appear
The different products of the fertile year;
While fruits with imitated ripeness glow,
And sudden flowers beneath thy pencil blow.
Such, and so various, thy extensive hand,
Oft in suspense the pleas'd spectators stand,
Doubtful to choose, and fearing still to err,
When to thyself they would thyself prefer.
So when the rival gods at Athens strove,
By wondrous works, their power divine to prove,
As Neptune's trident struck the teeming earth,
Here the proud horse upstarted to his birth;
And there, as Pallas bless'd the fruitful scene,
The spreading olive rear'd its stately green;
In dumb surprise the gazing crowds were lost,
Nor knew on which to fix their wonder most.
MONUMENTAL ODE,
TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. ELIZABETH HUGHES, Late Wife of Edward Hughes, Esq. of Herting fordbury in the Coun. ty of Hertford, and Daughter of Richard Harrison, Esq. of Balls, in the same County. Obiit Nov. 15, 1714.
SEE! how those drooping monuments decay!
Frail mansions of the silent dead,
Whose souls, to uncorrupting regions fled,
With a wise scorn their mouldering dust survey.
Their tombs are rais'd from dust as well as they.
For see! to dust they both return,
And time consumes alike the ashes and the urn.
We ask the sculptor's art in vain
To make us for a space ourselves survive ;
In Parian stone we proudly breathe again,
Or seem in figur'd brass to live.
Yet stone and brass our hopes betray,
Age steals the mimic forms and characters away.
In vain, O Egypt, to the wondering skies
With giant pride thy pyramids arise;
Whate'er their vast and gloomy vaults contain ; No names distinct of their great dead remain.
Beneath the mass, confus'd, in heaps thy monarchs Unknown, and blended in mortality.
To death ourselves and all our works we owe.
But is there nought, O muse, can save
Our memories from darkness and the grave,
And some short after-life bestow?
"That task is mine,' the muse replies:-
And hark! she tunes the sacred lyre!
Verse is the last of human works that dies,
When virtue does the song inspire.
Then look, Eliza, happy saint, look down!
Pause from immortal joys a while
To hear, and gracious with a smile
The dedicated numbers own;
Say how in thy life's scanty space,
So short a space, so wondrous bright, Bright as a summer's day, short as a summer's night, Could'st thou find room for every crowded grace As if the thrifty soul foreknew,
Like a wise envoy, Heaven's intent, Soon to recal whom it had sent, And all its task resolv'd at once to do. Or wert thou but a traveller below, That hither didst a while repair, Curious our customs and our laws to know? And, sickening in our grosser air, And tir'd of vain repeated sights, Our foolish cares, our false delights, Back to thy native seats would'st go? Oh! since to us thou wilt no more return, Permit thy friends, the faithful few, Who best thy numerous virtues knew, Themselves, not thee, to mourn.
Beneath the mass, confus'd, in heaps thy monarchs Unknown, and blended in mortality.
To death ourselves and all our works we owe.
But is there nought, O muse, can save
Our memories from darkness and the grave,
And some short after-life bestow?
'That task is mine,' the muse replies:-
And hark! she tunes the sacred lyre!
Verse is the last of human works that dies,
When virtue does the song inspire.
Then look, Eliza, happy saint, look down!
Pause from immortal joys a while
To hear, and gracious with a smile
The dedicated numbers own;
Say how in thy life's scanty space,
So short a space, so wondrous bright,
Bright as a summer's day, short as a summer's night,
Could'st thou find room for every crowded grace?
As if the thrifty soul foreknew,
Like a wise envoy, Heaven's intent,
Soon to recal whom it had sent,
And all its task resolv'd at once to do.
Or wert thou but a traveller below,
That hither didst a while repair,
Curious our customs and our laws to know?
And, sickening in our grosser air,
And tir'd of vain repeated sights,
Our foolish cares, our false delights,
Back to thy native seats would'st go?
Oh! since to us thou wilt no more return,
Permit thy friends, the faithful few,
Who best thy numerous virtues knew,
Themselves, not thee, to mourn.
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