SURE there are poets which did never dream
Upon Parnassus, nor did taste the stream
Of Helicon; we therefore may suppose
Those made not poets, but the poets those.
And as courts make not kings, but kings the court,
So where the Muses and their train resort
Parnassus stands; if I can be to thee
A poet, thou Parnassus art to me.
Nor wonder if (advantaged in my flight,
By taking wing from thy auspicious height)
Through untraced ways and airy paths I fly,
More boundless in my fancy than my eye;
My eye, which, swift as thought, contracts the space
That lies between, and first salutes the place
Crown'd with that sacred pile, so vast, so high,
That whether 'tis a part of earth or sky
Uncertain seems, and may be thought a proud
Aspiring mountain, or descending cloud;
Paul's, the late theme of such a Muse', whose flight
Has bravely reach'd and soar'd above thy height;
Now shalt thou stand, though sword, or time, or fire,
Or zeal, more fierce than they, thy fall conspire;
Secure, whilst thee the best of poets sings,
Preserved from ruin by the best of kings.
Under his proud survey the City lies,
And like a mist beneath a hill doth rise, [crowd,
Whose state and wealth, the business and the
Seems at this distance but a darker cloud,
And is, to him who rightly things esteems,
No other in effect than what it seems;
Where with like haste, though several ways, they
Some to undo, and some to be undone;
While luxury and wealth, like war and peace,
Are each the other's ruin and increase;
As rivers lost in seas, some secret vein
Thence reconveys, there to be lost again.
Oh! happiness of sweet retired content!
To be at once secure and innocent.
Windsor the next (where Mars with Venus dwells,
Beauty with strength) above the valley swells
Into my eye, and doth itself present
With such an easy and unforced ascent,
That no stupendous precipice denies
Access, no horror turns away our eyes;
But such a rise as doth at once invite
A pleasure and a reverence from the sight:
Thy mighty master's emblem, in whose face
Sat meekness, heighten'd with majestic grace;
Such seems thy gentle height, made only proud
To be the basis of that pompous load.
Than which a nobler weight no mountain bears,
But Atlas only, which supports the spheres.
When Nature's hand this ground did thus advance
"Twas guided by a wiser power than Chance ;
Mark'd out for such an use, as if 'twere meant
To' invite the builder, and his choice prevent.
Nor can we call it choice, when what we choose
Folly or blindness only could refuse.
A crown of such majestic towers doth grace
The gods' great mother, when her heavenly race
Do homage to her; yet she cannot boast,
Among that numerous and celestial host,
More heroes than can Windsor, nor doth Fame's
Immortal book record more noble names.
Not to look back so far, to whom this isle
Owes the first glory of so brave a pile,
Whether to Cæsar, Albanact, or Brute,
The British Arthur, or the Danish C'nute;
(Though this of old no less contest did move
Than when for Homer's birth seven cities strove;)
(Like him in birth, thou should't be like in fame,
As thine his fate, if mine had been his flame ;)
But whosoe'er it was, Nature design'd
First a brave place, and then as brave a mind.
Not to recount those several kings to whom
It gave a cradle, or to whom a tomb;
But thee, great Edward! and thy greater son',
(The lilies which his father wore he won)
And thy Bellona3, who the consort came
Not only to thy bed, but to thy fame;
She to thy triumph led one captive king4,
And brought that son which did the second bring;
Then didst thou found that Order (whether love
Or victory thy royal thoughts did move :)
Each was a noble cause, and nothing less
Than the design has been the great success,
Which foreign kings and emperors esteem
The second honour to their diadem.
Had thy great destiny but given thee skill
To know, as well as power to act her will,
2 Edw. III. and the Black Prince.
The Kings of France and Scotland.
That from those kings who then thy captives were,
In after-times should spring a royal pair,
Who should possess all that thy mighty power,
Or thy desires more mighty, did devour;
To whom their better fate reserves whate'er
The victor hopes for, or the vanquish'd fear:
That blood which thou and thy great grandsire shed,
And all that since these sister nations bled,
Had been unspilt, and happy Edward known
That all the blood he spilt had been his own.
When he that patron chose, to whom are join'd
Soldier and martyr, and his arms confined
Within the azure circles, he did seem
But to foretel and prophesy of him;
Who to his realms that azure round hath join'd, Which Nature for their bound at first design'd: That bound which to the world's extremest ends, Endless itself, its liquid arms extends.
Nor doth he need those emblems which we paint,
But is himself the soldier and the saint.
Here should my wonder dwell, and here my praise,
But my fix'd thoughts my wandering eye betrays,
Viewing a neighbouring hill, whose top of late
A chapel crown'd, till in the common fate
The' adjoining abbey fell. (May no such storm
Fall on our times, where ruin must reform!)
Tell me, my Muse! what monstrous dire offence,
What crime, could any Christian king incense
To such a rage? Was 't luxury or lust?
Was he so temperate, so chaste, so just? [more;
Were these their crimes? they were his own much
But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor,
Who, having spent the treasures of his crown,
Condemns their luxury to feed his own;
And yet this art, to varnish o'er the shame
Of sacrilege, must bear Devotion's name.
No crime so bold but would be understood
A real, or at least, a seeming good.
Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name,
And, free from conscience, is a slave to fame.
Thus he the church at once protects and spoils;
But princes' swords are sharper than their styles:
And thus to the ages pass'd he makes amends;
Their charity destroys, their faith defends.
Then did Religion, in a lazy cell,
In empty air contemplations dwell,
And like the block unmoved lay; but ours,
As much too active, like the stork devours.
Is there no temperate region can be known
Betwixt their frigid and our torrid zone?
Could we not wake from that lethargic dream,
But to be restless in a worse extreme?
And for that lethargy was there no cure
But to be cast into a calenture?
Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance
So far, to make us wish for ignorance,
And rather in the dark to grope our way
Than, led by a false guide, to err by day?
Who sees these dismal heaps, but would demand
What barbarous invader sack'd the land?
But when he hears no Goth, no Turk, did bring
This desolation, but a Christian king;
When nothing but the name of zeal appears
"Twixt our best actions and the worst of theirs ;
What does he think our sacrilege would spare,
When such the effects of our devotion are?
Parting from thence 'twixt anger, shame, and fear,
Those for what's pass'd, and this for what's too near,
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