Tell how the moon-beam trembling falls,
And tips with silver all the walls;
Palladian walls, Venetian doors,
Grotesco roofs, and stucco floors:
But let it (in a word) be said,
The moon was up, and men a-bed,
The napkins white, the carpet red;
The guests withdrawn had left the treat,
And down the mice sat, 'tête à tête.'

Our courtier walks from dish to dish,
Tastes for his friend of fowl and fish;
Tells all their names, lays down the law:
Que ça est bon! Ah, goûtez ça!
That jelly's rich, this malmsey healing,
Pray dip your whiskers and your tail in.
Was ever such a happy swain?
He stuffs, and swills, and stuffs again.
I'm quite ashamed-'tis mighty rude
To eat so much-but all's so good.
I have a thousand thanks to give-
My lord alone knows how to live.'
No sooner said, but from the hall
Rush chaplain, butler, dogs and all:
'A rat, a rat! clap to the door-'
The cat comes bouncing on the floor
O for the heart of Homer's mice,

Or gods to save them in a trice!

(It was by Providence they think,

For your damn'd stucco has no chink.)

'An't please your honour,' quoth the peasant,

This same desert is not so pleasant:

Give me again my hollow tree,

A crust of bread, and liberty!'

BOOK IV.—ODE I.

TO VENUS.

AGAIN? new tumults in my breast?
Ah spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest!
alas! the man

I am not now,

As in the gentle reign of my queen Anne.

Ah! sound no more thy soft alarms,

Nor circle sober fifty with thy charms!

Mother too fierce of dear desires!

Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires:

To number five direct your doves,

There spread round Murray all your blooming loves Noble and young, who strikes the heart

With every sprightly, every decent part;

Equal the injured to defend,

To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend.

He, with a hundred arts refined,

Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind:

To him each rival shall submit,

Make but his riches equal to his wit.

Then shall thy form the marble grace,

(Thy Grecian form) and Chloe lend the face;

His house, embosom'd in the grove,

Sacred to social life and social love,

Shall glitter o'er the pendent green,

Where Thames reflects the visionary scene:

Thither the silver-sounding lyres

Shall call the smiling loves and young desires There, every grace and muse shall throng,

Exalt the dance, or animate the song; There youths and nymphs, in concert gay, Shall hail the rising, close the parting day With me, alas! those joys are o'er;

For me the vernal garlands bloom no more Adieu! fond hope of mutual fire,

The still-believing, still renew'd desire:

Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl,

And all the kind deceivers of the soul! But why? ah tell me, ah too dear!

Steals down my cheek the involuntary tear? Why words so flowing, thoughts so free,

Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee? Thee, dress'd in Fancy's airy beam,

Absent I follow through the extended dream; Now, now I cease, I clasp thy charms,

And now you burst (ah cruel) from my arms! And swiftly shoot along the Mall,

Or softly glide by the canal;

Now shown by Cynthia's silver ray,

And now on rolling waters snatch'd away

ART OF ODE IX. OF BOOK IV

A FRAGMENT.

LEST you should think that verse shall die,

Which sounds the silver Thames along,

Taught on the wings of truth to fly

Above the reach of vulgar song;
Though daring Milton sits sublime,
In Spenser native muses play;
Nor yet shall Waller yield to time,
Nor pensive Cowley's moral lay-
Sages and chiefs, long since had birth

Ere Cæsar was, or Newton named;
These raised new empires o'er the earth,

And those new heavens and systems framed.

Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride!

They had no poet, and they died;

In vain they schemed, in vain they bled!
They had no rost, and are dead

MISCELLANIES.

On Receiving from the Right Hon. Lady Frances Shirley, a Standish and two Pens.

YES, I beheld the Athenian queen
Descend in all her sober charms;
And, 'Take,' she said, and smiled serene,
"Take at this hand celestial arins:
Secure the radiant weapons wield;
This golden lance shall guard desert,
And if a vice dares keep the field,

This steel shall stab it to the heart.'
Awed, on my bended knees I fell,
Received the weapons of the sky,
And dipp'd them in the sable well,
The fount of fame or infamy.
What well? what weapon?' Flavia cries
'A standish, steel and golden pen;
It came from Bertrand's, not the skies;
I gave it you to write again.

'But, friend, take heed whom you attack,
You'll bring a house, I mean of peers,
Red, blue, and green, nay, white and black.
L***** and all about your ears.

'You'd write as smooth again on glass,
And run on ivory so glib,
As not to stick at fool or ass,
Nor stop at flattery or fib.
'Athenian queen! and sober charms!
I tell you, fool, there's nothing in 't:
"Tis Venus, Venus gives these arms;
In Dryden's Virgil see the print.

Come, if you'll be a quiet soul,

That dares tell neither truth nor lies,

I'll list you in the harmless roll

Of those that sing of these poor eyes.

EPISTLE TO ROBERT, EARL OF OXFORD,

AND EARL MORTIMER.

Sent to the Earl of Oxford, with Dr. Parnell's Poems published by our Author, after the said Earl's im prisonment in the Tower and Retreat into the Coun try, in the Year 1721.

SUCH were the notes thy once-loved poet sung, fill death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue. Oh, just beheld, and lost : admired, and mourn'd! With softest manners, gentlest arts adorn'd! Bless'd in each science, bless'd in every strain! Dear to the muse! to Harley dear-in vain! For him, thou oft hast bid the world attend, Fond to forget the statesman in the friend; For Swift and him, despised the farce of state, The sober follies of the wise and great; Dexterous, the craving, fawning crowd to quit, And pleased to escape from flattery to wit.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear,
(A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear,)
Recall those nights that closed thy toilsome days,
Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays,
Who, careless now of interest, fame, or fate,
Perhaps forgets that Oxford e'er was great;
Or, deeming meanest what we greatest call,
Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.

And sure, if aught below the scats divine
Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine:
A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,
Above all pain, and passion, and all pride,
The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
The lust of lucre and the dread of death.
In vain to deserts thy retreat is made;
The muse attends thee to thy silent shade:
"Tis hers the brave man's latest steps to trace,
Re-judge his acts, and dignify disgrace.