Classic Poem

ON THE MARRIAGE OF THE FAIR AND VIRTUOUS LADY
MRS. ANASTASIA STAFFORD, WITH THAT TRULY WORTHY
AND PIOUS GENT., GEORGE HOLMAN, ESQ.

A PINDARIC ODE, BY MR. DRYDEN

I

W HEN nature in our northern hemisphere
Had shorten'd daylight and deform'd the year;
When the departing sun
Was to our adverse tropic run;
And fair St. Lucy with the borrow'd light
Of moon and stars had lengthen'd night:
What more then summer's day slipp'd in by chance
To beautify the calendar?
What made a spring in midst of winter to advance,
And the cold seasons leap into a youthful dance,
To rouse the drooping year?
Was this by miracle, or did they rise
By the bright beams of Anastasia's eyes,
To light our frozen clime;
And, happily for us, mistook their time?
'T was so, and 't was imported in her name;
From her their glorious resurrection came,
And she renew'd their perish'd flame.
The God of nature did the same:
His birth the depth of winter did adorn;
And she to marriage then, her second birth, was born.
Her pious family, in every state,
Their great Redeemer well can imitate.
They have a right in heaven, an early place;
The beauteous bride is of a martyr's race:
And he above with joy looks down;
I see, I see him blaze with his immortal crown.
He on her nuptials does his beams dispense,
Blessing the day with better influence;
He looks from heaven with joy and gives her joy from thence.

II

Now let the reasonable beast, call'd man;
Let those who never truly scan
The effects of sacred Providence,
But measure all by the gross rules of sense;
Let those look up and steer their sight
By the great Stafford's light!
The God that suffer'd him to suffer here
Rewards his race and blesses them below,
Their father's innocence and truth to show,
To show he holds the blood of martyrs dear.
He crown'd the father with a deathless diadem;
And all the days from him he took
He number'd out in his eternal book,
And said, Let these be safely kept for them,
The long descendants of that hallow'd stem.
To dry the mournful widow's tears,
Let all those days be turn'd to years,
And all those years be whiten'd too:
Still some new bless let 'em bring
To those who from my martyr spring;
Still let them bloom, and still bestow
Some new content upon his race below.
Let their first revolution
Bestow a bride upon his darling son
And crown those nuptials with a swift increase
Such as the emptied ark did bless;
Then, as the storms are more allay'd
And waves decay'd,
Send out the beauteous blooming maid,
And let that virgin dove bring to her house again
An olive branch of peace, in triumph o'er the main.
For whom, ye Heavens! have ye reserv'd this joy?
Let us behold the man you chose;
How well you can your cares employ,
And to what arms your maid dispose,
Your maid whom you have chang'd, but cannot lose:
Chang'd as the morn into the day,
As virgin snow that melts away
And by its kindly moisture makes new flowers to grow.
See then a bridegroom worthy such a bride!
Never was happy pair so fitly tied;
Never were virtues more allied:
United in a most auspicious hour —
A martyr's daughter weds a confessor!
When innocence and truth became a crime,
By voluntary banishment
He left our sacrilegious clime
And to a foreign country went,
Or rather there by Providence was sent:
For Providence design'd him to reside
Where he from his abundant stock
Might nourish God's afflicted flock
And, as his steward, for their wants provide.
A troop of exiles on his bounty fed;
They sought and found with him their daily bread:
As the large troop increas'd, the larger table spread.
The cruse ne'er emptied, nor the store
Decreas'd the more;
For God supplied him still to give, who gave in God's own stead.
Thus, when the raging dearth
Afflicted all the Egyptian earth;
When scanty Nile no more his bounty dealt,
And Jacob even in Canaan famine felt,
God sent a Joseph out before,
His father and his brethren to restore:
Their sacks were fill'd with corn, with generous wine
Their souls refresh'd; their ebbing store,
Still when they came, supplied with more;
And doubled was their corn.
Joseph himself by giving greater grew,
And from his loins a double tribe increas'd the chosen crew.