Yet could the author, who appears here to have enjoyed the confidence of nature, lament the death of queen Mary in lines like these:
The rocks are cleft, and new-descending rills
Furrow the brows of all th’ impending hills.
The water-gods to floods their rivulets turn,
And each, with streaming eyes, supplies his wanting urn.
The fauns forsake the woods, the nymphs the grove,
And round the plain in sad distractions rove:
In prickly brakes their tender limbs they tear,
And leave on thorns their locks of golden hair.
With their sharp nails, themselves the satyrs wound,
And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground.
Lo Pan himself, beneath a blasted oak,
Dejected lies, his pipe in pieces broke.
See Pales weeping too, in wild despair,
And to the piercing winds her bosom bare.
And see yon fading myrtle, where appears
The queen of love, all bath’d in flowing tears;
See how she wrings her hands, and beats her breast,
And tears her useless girdle from her waist!
Hear the sad murmurs of her sighing doves!
For grief they sigh, forgetful of their loves.
And, many years after, he gave no proof that time had improved his wisdom or his wit; for, on the death of the marquis of Blandford, this was his song:
And now the winds, which had so long been still.
Began the swelling air with sighs to fill:
The water-nymphs, who motionless remain’d,
Like images of ice, while she complain’d,
Now loos’d their streams; as when descending rains
Roll the steep torrents headlong o’er the plains.
The prone creation, who so long had gaz’d,
Charm’d with her cries, and at her griefs amaz’d,
Began to roar and howl with horrid yell,
Dismal to hear and terrible to tell!
Nothing but groans and sighs were heard around,
And echo multiplied each mournful sound.
In both these funeral poems, when he has yelled out many syllables of senseless dolour, he dismisses his reader with senseless consolation: from the grave of Pastora rises a light that forms a star; and where Amaryllis wept for Amyntas, from every tear sprung up a violet.
But William is his hero, and of William he will sing:
The hov’ring winds on downy wings shall wait around,
And catch, and waft to foreign lands, the flying sound.
It cannot but be proper to show what they shall have to catch and carry:
’Twas now, when flow’ry lawns the prospect made,
And flowing brooks beneath a forest shade,
A lowing heifer, loveliest of the herd,
Stood feeding by; while two fierce bulls prepar’d
Their armed heads for fight, by fate of war to prove
The victor worthy of the fair one’s love.
Unthought presage of what met next my view;
For soon the shady scene withdrew.
And now, for woods, and fields, and springing flowers,
Behold a town arise, bulwark’d with walls and lofty towers;
Two rival armies all the plain o’erspread,
Each in battalia rang’d, and shining arms array’d;
With eager eyes beholding both from far
Namur, the prize and mistress of the war.
The Birth of the Muse is a miserable fiction. One good line it has, which was borrowed from Dryden. The concluding verses are these: