ON THE

TAKING OF SALLEE.

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.
Sallee, that scorn'd all power and laws of men,
Goods with their owners hurrying to their den,
And future ages threatening with a rude
And savage race, successively renew'd;
Their king despising with rebellious pride,
And foes profess'd to all the world beside;
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
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,

Who, for revenge, and mortals' glad relief,
Sack'd the dark cave, and crush'd that horrid thief.
Morocco's monarch, wondering at this fact,
Save that his presence his affairs exact,
Had come in person to have seen and known
The injured world's avenger 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.

UPON

HIS MAJESTY'S REPAIRING OF ST. PAUL'S.

THAT shipwreck'd vessel which the' 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' 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;
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. [kings,
Those antique minstrels sure were Charles-like
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
Those state-obscuring shades, 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 we divide

The creeping ivy from his injured side.

Ambition rather would affect the fame
Of some new structure, to have borne her name.
Two distant virtues in one act we find,
The modesty and greatness of his mind;
Which not content to be above the rage
And injury of all-impairing age,

In its own worth secure, doth higher climb,
And things half swallowed from the jaws of time
Reduce; an earnest of his grand design,

To frame no new church, but the old refine ;
Which, spouse-like, may with comely grace com-
More than by force of argument or hand. [mand,
For doubtful reason few can apprehend,
And war brings ruin where it should amend ;
But beauty, with a bloodless conquest, finds
A welcome sovereignty in rudest minds.

held

Not aught which Sheba's wondering queen beAmongst the works of Solomon, excell'd His ships and building; emblems of a heart Large both in magnanimity and art.

While the propitious heavens this work attend, The showers long-wanted they forget to send; As if they meant to make it understood Of more importance than our vital food. The sun, which riseth to salute the quire

Already finish'd, setting shall admire

How private bounty could so far extend:
The King built all, but Charles the western end.
So proud a fabric to devotion given,

At once it threatens and obliges Heaven!
Laomedon, that had the gods in pay,
Neptune, with him that rules the sacred day',
Could no such structure raise: Troy wall'd so high,
The' Atrides might as well have forced the sky.

Glad, though amazed, are our neighbour kings,
To see such power employ'd in peaceful things:
They list not urge it to the dreadful field;
The task is easier to destroy than build,

THE lark, that shuns on lofty boughs to build
Her humble nest, lies silent in the field;
But if (the promise of a cloudless day)
Aurora smiling bids her rise and play;

Then straight she shows 'twas not for want of voice,
Or power to climb, she made so low a choice;
Singing she mounts; her airy wings are stretch'd
Toward Heaven, as if from Heaven her note she
fetch'd.

So we, retiring from the busy throng,

Use to restrain the' ambition of our song ;
But since the light which now informs our age
Breaks from the court, indulgent to her rage,
Thither my Muse, like bold Prometheus, flies,
To light her torch at Gloriana's eyes.

2 Apollo.

Those sovereign beams which heal the wounded And all our cares, but once beheld, control! [soul, There the poor lover, that has long endured Some proud nymph's scorn, of his fond passion Fares like the man who first upon the ground [cured, A glow-worm spy'd, supposing he had found A moving diamond, a breathing stone; For life it had, and like those jewels shone; He held it dear, till, by the springing day Inform'd, he threw the worthless worm away.

She saves the lover, as we gangrenes stay, By cutting hope, like a lop'd limb, away: This makes her bleeding patients to accuse High Heaven, and these expostulations use: Could Nature then no private woman grace, Whom we might dare to love, with such a face, Such a complexion, and so radiant eyes, Such lovely motion, and such sharp replies? Beyond our reach, and yet within our sight, What envious power has placed this glorious light?" Thus in a starry night fond children cry For the rich spangles that adorn the sky, Which, though they shine for ever fixed there, With light and influence relieve us here. All her affections are to one inclined; Her bounty and compassion to mankind; To whom, while she so far extends her grace, She makes but good the promise of her face; For Mercy has, could Mercy's self be seen, No sweeter look than this propitious queen. Such guard and comfort the distressed find From her large power, and from her larger mind, That whom ill Fate would ruin it prefers,

For all the miserable are made her's,