To thee, my delight, in the evening I come,
No matter what beauties I saw in my way;
They were but my visits, and thou art my home.”
Remember, these lines were written by a poet, who on an important occasion represented the Government of Queen Anne at the great court of Louis XIV. of France. This Prior—when Queen Mary died—had his consolatory verses for King William. Indeed that death of Queen Mary set a great deal of poetry upon the flow. There was William Congreve,[97] who though a young man, not yet turned of thirty, had won a great rank in those days by his witty comedies. He wrote a pastoral—cleaner than most of his writing—in honor of William’s lost Queen:
“No more these woods shall with her sight be blest,
Nor with her feet these flowery plains be prest;
No more the winds shall with her tresses play,
And from her balmy breath steal sweets away.
Oh, she was heavenly fair, in face and mind,