Britain! the mighty Ocean's lovely bride!1
Now stretch thy self, fair isle, and grow: spread wide
Thy bosome, and make roome. Thou art opprest
With thine own glories, and art strangely blest
Beyond thy self: for (lo!) the gods, the gods5
Come fast upon thee; and those glorious ods
Swell thy full honours to a pitch so high
As sits above thy best capacitie.
Are they not ods? and glorious? that to thee
Those mighty genii throng, which well might be10
Each one an Age's labour? that thy dayes
Are gilded with the union of those rayes
Whose each divided beam would be a sunne
To glad the sphere of any Nation?
Sure, if for these thou mean'st to find a seat,15
Th' hast need, O Britain, to be truly Great.
And so thou art; their presence makes thee so:
They are thy greatnesse. Gods, where-e're they go,
Bring their Heav'n with them: their great footsteps place
An everlasting smile upon the face20
Of the glad Earth they tread on: while with thee
Those beames that ampliate mortalitie,
And teach it to expatiate and swell
To majestie and fulnesse, deign to dwell,
Thou by thy self maist sit, (blest Isle) and see25
How thy great mother Nature dotes on thee.
Thee therefore from the rest apart she hurl'd,
And seem'd to make an Isle, but made a World.
Time yet hath dropt few plumes since Hope turn'd Joy,
And took into his armes the princely boy,30
Whose birth last blest the bed of his sweet mother,
And bad us first salute our prince, a brother.
The Prince and Duke of York.
Bright Charles! thou sweet dawn of a glorious Day!
Centre of those thy grandsires (shall I say,
Henry and James? or, Mars and Phœbus rather?35
If this were Wisdome's god, that War's stern father;
'Tis but the same is said: Henry and James
Are Mars and Phœbus under diverse names):
O thou full mixture of those mighty souls
Whose vast intelligences tun'd the poles40
Of Peace and War; thou, for whose manly brow
Both lawrels twine into one wreath, and woo
To be thy garland: see (sweet prince), O see,
Thou, and the lovely hopes that smile in thee,
Art ta'n out and transcrib'd by thy great mother:45
See, see thy reall shadow; see thy brother,
Thy little self in lesse: trace in these eyne
The beams that dance in those full stars of thine.
From the same snowy alabaster rock
Those hands and thine were hewn; those cherries mock50
The corall of thy lips: thou wert of all
This well-wrought copie the fair principall.
Lady Mary.
Iustly, great Nature, didst thou brag, and tell
How ev'n th' hadst drawn that faithfull parallel,
And matcht thy master-piece. O then go on,55
Make such another sweet comparison.
Seest thou that Marie there? O teach her mother
To shew her to her self in such another.
Fellow this wonder too; nor let her shine
Alone; light such another star, and twine60
Their rosie beams, that so the Morn for one
Venus, may have a constellation.
Lady Elizabeth.
These words scarce waken'd Heaven, when—lo!—our vows
Sat crown'd upon the noble infant's brows.
Th' art pair'd, sweet princesse: in this well-writ book65
Read o're thy self; peruse each line, each look.
And when th' hast summ'd up all those blooming blisses,
Close up the book, and clasp it with thy kisses.
So have I seen (to dresse their mistresse May)
Two silken sister-flowers consult, and lay70
Their bashfull cheeks together: newly they
Peep't from their buds, show'd like the garden's eyes
Scarce wak't: like was the crimson of their joyes;
Like were the tears they wept, so like, that one
Seem'd but the other's kind reflexion.75
The new-borne Prince.
And now 'twere time to say, sweet queen, no more.
Fair source of princes, is thy pretious store
Not yet exhaust? O no! Heavens have no bound,
But in their infinite and endlesse round
Embrace themselves. Our measure is not their's;80
Nor may the pov'rtie of man's narrow prayers
Span their immensitie. More princes come:
Rebellion, stand thou by; Mischief, make room:
War, blood, and death—names all averse from Ioy—
Heare this, we have another bright-ey'd boy:85
That word's a warrant, by whose vertue I
Have full authority to bid you dy.
Dy, dy, foul misbegotten monsters! dy:
Make haste away, or e'r the World's bright eye
Blush to a cloud of bloud. O farre from men90
Fly hence, and in your Hyperborean den
Hide you for evermore, and murmure there
Where none but Hell may heare, nor our soft aire
Shrink at the hatefull sound. Mean while we bear
High as the brow of Heaven, the noble noise95
And name of these our just and righteous joyes,
Where Envie shall not reach them, nor those eares
Whose tune keeps time to ought below the spheres.
But thou, sweet supernumerary starre,
Shine forth; nor fear the threats of boyst'rous Warre.100
The face of things has therefore frown'd a while
On purpose, that to thee and thy pure smile
The World might ow an universall calm;
While thou, fair halcyon, on a sea of balm
Shalt flote; where while thou layst thy lovely head,105
The angry billows shall but make thy bed:
Storms, when they look on thee, shall straigt relent;
And tempests, when they tast thy breath, repent
To whispers, soft as thine own slumbers be,
Or souls of virgins which shall sigh for thee.110
Shine then, sweet supernumerary starre,
Nor feare the boysterous names of bloud and warre:
Thy birth-day is their death's nativitie;
They've here no other businesse but to die.