Next to the sacred temple you are led,

Where waits a crown for your more sacred head:
How justly from the church that crown is due,
Preserved from ruin, and restored by you!
The grateful choir their harmony employ,
Not to make greater, but more solemn joy.
Wrapt soft and warm your name is sent on high,
As flames do on the wings of incense fly:
Music herself is lost; in vain she brings
Her choicest notes to praise the best of kings:
Her melting strains in you a tomb have found,
And lie like bees in their own sweetness drown'd.
He that brought peace, all discord could atone,
His name is music of itself alone.

Now while the sacred oil anoints your head,

And fragrant scents, begun from you, are spread
Through the large dome; the people's joyful sound,
Sent back, is still preserved in hallow'd ground;
Which in one blessing mix'd descends on you;
As heighten'd spirits fall in richer dew.

Not that our wishes do increase your store,
Full of yourself, you can admit no more:
We add not to your glory, but employ
Our time, like angels, in expressing joy.
Nor is it duty, or our hopes alone,

Create that joy, but full fruition:

We know those blessings, which we must possess,
And judge of future by past happiness.

No promise can oblige a prince so much
Still to be good, as long to have been such.
A noble emulation heats your breast,

And your own fame now robs you of your rest.
Good actions still must be maintain'd with good,
As bodies nourish'd with resembling food.

You have already quench'd sedition's brand;
And zeal, which burnt it, only warms the land.
The jealous sects, that dare not trust their cause
So far from their own will as to the laws,
You for their umpire and their synod take,
And their appeal alone to Cæsar make.
Kind Heaven so rare a temper did provide,
That guilt, repenting, might in it confide.
Among our crimes oblivion may be set;
But 'tis our king's perfection to forget.

79

Virtues unknown to these rough northern climes
From milder heavens you bring, without their crimes. 90
Your calmness does no after-storms provide,

Nor seeming patience mortal anger hide.
When empire first from families did spring,
Then every father govern'd as a king:
But you, that are a sovereign prince, allay
Imperial power with your paternal sway.
From those great cares when ease your soul unbends,
Your pleasures are design'd to noble ends :

Born to command the mistress of the seas,

Your thoughts themselves in that blue empire please. 100
Hither in summer evenings you repair

To taste the fraicheur of the purer air:
Undaunted here you ride, when winter raves,
With Cæsar's heart that rose above the waves.
More I could sing, but fear my numbers stays;
No loyal subject dares that courage praise.
In stately frigates most delight you find,
Where well-drawn battles fire your martial mind.
What to your cares we owe, is learnt from hence,
When even your pleasures serve for our defence.
Beyond your court flows in th' admitted tide,
Where in new depths the wondering fishes glide:

110

Here in a royal bed1 the waters sleep;
When tired at sea, within this bay they creep.
Here the mistrustful fowl no harm suspects,
So safe are all things which our king protects.
From your loved Thames a blessing yet is due,
Second alone to that it brought in you;

A queen, near whose chaste womb, ordain'd by fate,
The souls of kings unborn for bodies wait.

It was your love before made discord cease:
Your love is destined to your country's peace.
Both Indies, rivals in your bed, provide
With gold or jewels to adorn your bride.
This to a mighty king presents rich ore,
While that with incense does a god implore.
Two kingdoms wait your doom, and, as you choose,
This must receive a crown, or that must lose.
Thus from your royal oak, like Jove's of old,
Are answers sought, and destinies foretold:
Propitious oracles are begg'd with vows,
And crowns that grow upon the sacred boughs.
Your subjects, while you weigh the nation's fate,
Suspend to both their doubtful love or hate :
Choose only, Sir, that so they may possess,
With their own peace their children's happiness.

'Royal bed:' the river led from the Thames through St James' Park.

113

120

130

TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR HYDE, 1

PRESENTED ON NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1662.

MY LORD,

While flattering crowds officiously appear
To give themselves, not you, a happy year;
And by the greatness of their presents prove
How much they hope, but not how well they love;
The Muses, who your early courtship boast,
Though now your flames are with their beauty lost,
Yet watch their time, that, if you have forgot
They were your mistresses, the world may not:
Decay'd by time and wars, they only prove
Their former beauty by your former love;
And now present, as ancient ladies do,
That, courted long, at length are forced to woo.
For still they look on you with such kind eyes,
As those that see the church's sovereign rise;
From their own order chose, in whose high state,
They think themselves the second choice of fate.
When our great monarch into exile went,
Wit and religion suffer'd banishment.

Thus once, when Troy was wrapp'd in fire and smoke,
The helpless gods their burning shrines forsook;
They with the vanquish'd prince and party go,
And leave their temples empty to the foe.
At length the Muses stand, restored again
To that great charge which Nature did ordain ;
And their loved Druids seem revived by fate,
While you dispense the laws, and guide the state.

Hyde: the far-famed historian Clarendon.

10

20

20

The nation's soul, our monarch, does dispense,
Through you, to us his vital influence:
You are the channel where those spirits flow,
And work them higher, as to us they go.

In open prospect nothing bounds our eye,
Until the earth seems join'd unto the sky :
So, in this hemisphere, our utmost view
Is only bounded by our king and you :
Our sight is limited where you are join'd,
And beyond that no farther heaven can find.
So well your virtues do with his agree,
That, though your orbs of different greatness be,
Yet both are for each other's use disposed,
His to enclose, and yours to be enclosed.
Nor could another in your room have been,
Except an emptiness had come between.
Well may he then to you his cares impart,
And share his burden where he shares his heart.
In
you his sleep still wakes; his pleasures find
Their share of business in your labouring mind.
So when the weary sun his place resigns,
He leaves his light, and by reflection shines.

Justice, that sits and frowns where public laws
Exclude soft mercy from a private cause,
In your tribunal most herself does please;
There only smiles because she lives at ease;
And, like young David, finds her strength the more,
When disencumber'd from those arms she wore.
Heaven would our royal master should exceed
Most in that virtue which we most did need;

And his mild father (who too late did find
All mercy vain but what with power was join'd)
His fatal goodness left to fitter times,

Not to increase, but to absolve, our crimes: