Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham. Edmund Waller

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СКАЧАТЬ the ancient poets had not brought

       Our Charles's pedigree from Heaven, and taught

       How some bright dame, compress'd by mighty Jove,

       Produced this mix'd Divinity and Love?

      [1] 'Buckingham's death': Buckingham was murdered by Felton at

       Portsmouth, on the 23d of August 1628, while equipping a fleet for

       the relief of Rochelle. Lord Lindsey succeeded him. The king was at

       prayers when the news arrived, and had the resolution to disguise

       his emotion till they were over.

       [2] 'Pattern': Achilles.

       [3] 'Painter': Timanthes in his picture of Iphigenia.

       [4] 'Fair boy': Cyparissus.

ON THE TAKING OF SALLÈ.[1]

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      Of Jason, Theseus, and such worthies old,

       Light seem the tales antiquity has told;

       Such beasts and monsters as their force oppress'd,

       Some places only, and some times, infest.

       Sallè, that scorn'd all power and laws of men,

       Goods with their owners hurrying to their den,

       And future ages threat'ning with a rude

       And savage race, successively renew'd;

       Their king despising with rebellious pride,

       And foes profess'd to all the world beside; 10

       This pest of mankind gives our hero fame,

       And through the obliged world dilates his name.

       The prophet once to cruel Agag said,

       'As thy fierce sword has mothers childless made,

       So shall the sword make thine;' and with that word

       He hew'd the man in pieces with his sword.

      Just Charles like measure has return'd to these 17

       Whose Pagan hands had stain'd the troubled seas;

       With ships they made the spoiled merchant mourn;

       With ships their city and themselves are torn.

       One squadron of our winged castles sent,

       O'erthrew their fort, and all their navy rent;

       For, not content the dangers to increase,

       And act the part of tempests in the seas,

       Like hungry wolves, those pirates from our shore

       Whole flocks of sheep, and ravish'd cattle bore.

       Safely they might on other nations prey—

       Fools to provoke the sovereign of the sea!

       Mad Cacus so, whom like ill fate persuades,

       The herd of fair Alcmena's seed invades, 30

       Who for revenge, and mortals' glad relief,

       Sack'd the dark cave and crush'd that horrid thief.

      Morocco's monarch, wond'ring at this fact,

       Save that his presence his affairs exact,

       Had come in person to have seen and known

       The injured world's revenger and his own.

       Hither he sends the chief among his peers,

       Who in his bark proportion'd presents bears,

       To the renown'd for piety and force,

       Poor captives manumised, and matchless horse.[2] 40

      [1] 'Sallè': Sallè, a town of Fez, given to piracy, was taken and

       destroyed in 1632 by the army of the Emperor of Morocco, assisted by

       some English vessels.

       [2] 'Horse': the Emperor of Morocco, in gratitude to Charles, sent him a

       present of Barbary horses, and three hundred manumitted Christian

       slaves.—

UPON HIS MAJESTY'S REPAIRING OF ST PAUL'S.[1]

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      That shipwreck'd vessel which th'Apostle bore,

       Scarce suffer'd more upon Melita's shore,

       Than did his temple in the sea of time,

       Our nation's glory, and our nation's crime.

       When the first monarch[2] of this happy isle,

       Moved with the ruin of so brave a pile,

       This work of cost and piety begun,

       To be accomplish'd by his glorious son,

       Who all that came within the ample thought

       Of his wise sire has to perfection brought; 10

       He, like Amphion, makes those quarries leap

       Into fair figures from a confused heap;

       For in his art of regiment is found

       A power like that of harmony in sound.

      Those antique minstrels, sure, were Charles-like kings,

       Cities their lutes, and subjects' hearts their strings,

       On which with so divine a hand they strook,

       Consent of motion from their breath they took:

       So all our minds with his conspire to grace

       The Gentiles' great Apostle, and deface 20

       Those state-obscuring sheds, that like a chain

       Seem'd to confine and fetter him again;

       Which the glad saint shakes off at his command,

       As once the viper from his sacred hand:

       So joys the aged oak, when СКАЧАТЬ