Classic Poem

FOR THE NEW YEAR 1707.

I.

Begin, celestial Source of light!
To gild the new-revolving sphere,
And from the pregnant womb of Night
Urge on to birth the infant year.
Rich with auspicious lustre rise,
Thou fairest regent of the skies!
Conspicuous with thy silver bow:
To thee, a god, 't was giv'n by Jove
To rule the radiant orbs above,
To Gloriana this below.

II.

With joy renew thy destin'd race,
And let the mighty months begin;
Let no ill omen cloud thy face;
Thro' all thy circle smile serene.
While the stern ministers of Fate
Watchful o'er pale Lutetia wait,
To grieve the Gaul's perfidious head,
The Hours, thy offspring, heav'nly fair!
Their whitest wings should ever wear,
And gentle joys on Albion shed.

III.

When Ilia bore the future fates of Rome,
And the long honours of her race began,
Thus, to prepare the graceful age to come,
They from thy stores in happy order ran:
Heroes, elected to the list of fame,
Fix'd the sure columns of her rising state,
Till the loud triumphs of the Julian name
Render'd the glories of her reign complete;
Each year advanc'd a rival to the rest,
In comely spoils of war and great achievements drest.

I.

Say, Phœbus! for thy searching eye
Saw Rome, the darling child of Fate,
When nothing equal here could vie
In strength with her imperious state;
Say if high virtues there did reign
Exalted in a nobler strain
Than in fair Albion thou hast seen?
Or can her demi-gods compare
Their trophies for successful war
To those that rise for Albion's Queen?

II.

When Albion first majestic shew'd
High o'er the circling seas her head,
Her the great Father smiling view'd,
And thus to bright Victoria said:
Mindful of Phlegra's happy plain,
On which, fair Nymph! you fix'd my reign,
This Isle to you shall sacred be;
Her hand shall hold the rightful scale,
And crowns be vanquish'd or prevail
As Gloriana shall decree.

III.

Victoria, triumph in thy great increase!
With joy the Julian stem the Tiber claims,
Young Ammon's might the Granic waves consess;
The Heber had a Mars, a Churchill Thames:
Roll sov'reign of the streams thy rapid tide,
And bid thy brother floods revere the Queen
Whose voice the hero's happy hand employ'd
To save the Danube and subdue the Seine;
And, boldly just to Gloriana's fame,
Exalt thy silver urn, and duteous homage claim.

I.

Advanc'd to thy meridian height,
On earth, great god of Day! look down;
Let Windsor entertain thy sight,
Clad in fair emblems of renown;
Ev'n with our nourishment we death receive;
For here our guiltless mothers give
Poison for food when first we live.
Hence noisome humours sweat thro' ev'ry pore,
And blot us with an undistinguish'd sore:
Nor, mov'd with beauty, will the dire disease
Forbear on faultless forms to seize;
But vindicates the good, the gay,
The wise, the young, its common prey.
Had all, conjoin'd in one, had pow'r to save,
The Muses had not wept o'er Blandford's grave.

IV.

The spark of pure ethereal light
That actuates this fleeting frame,
Darts thro' the cloud of flesh a sickly flame,
And seems a glow-worm in a winter-night.
But man would yet look wondrous wise,
And equal chains of thought devise;
Intends his mind on mighty schemes,
Resutes, defines, confirms, declaims;
And diagrams he draws, t' explain
The learn'd chimeras of his brain;
And, with imaginary wisdom proud,
Thinks on the goddess while he clips the cloud.

V.

Thro' Error's mazy grove, with fruitless toil,
Perplex'd with puzzling doubts, we roam;
False images our fight beguile,
But still we stumble thro' the gloom,
And Science seek, which still deludes the mind.
Yet, more enamour'd with the race,
With disproportion'd speed we urge the chase:
In vain! the various prey no bounds restrain;
Fleeting, it only leaves, t' increase our pain,
A cold unsatisfying scent behind.

VI.

Yet, gracious God! presumptuous man,
With random guesses, makes pretence
To sound thy searchless providence,
From which he first began:
Like hooded hawks we blindly tow'r,
And circumscribe, with fancy'd laws, thy pow'r.
Thy will the rolling orbs obey;
The moon, presiding o'er the sea,
Governs the waves with equal sway:
But man, perverse, and lawless still,
Boldly runs counter to thy will;
Thy patient thunder he defies,
Lays down false principles, and moves
By what his vicious choice approves,
And when he's vainly wicked thinks he's wife.

VII.

Return, return, too long misled!
With filial fear adore thy God:
Ere the vast deep of heav'n was spread,
Or body first in space abode,
Glories ineffable adorn'd his head.
Unnumber'd seraphs round the burning throne
Sung to th' incomprehensible Three-One:
Yet then his clemency did please
With lower formst' augment his train,
And made thee, wretched creature, Man!
Probationer of happiness.

VIII.

On the vast ocean of his wonders here,
We momentary bubbles ride,
Till, crush'd by the tempestuous tide,
Sunk in the parent flood we disappear:
We, who so gawdy on the waters shone,
Proud, like the show'ry bow, with beauties not our own.

IX.

But,at the signal giv'n, this earth and sea
Shall set their sleeping vassals free,
And the belov'd of God,
The faithful and the just,
Like Aaron's chosen rod,
Tho'dry, shall blossom in the dust:
Then, gladly bounding from their dark restraints,
The skeletons shall brighten into saints,
And, from mortality refin'd, shall rise
To meet their Saviour coming in the skies.
Instructed then by intuition, we
Shall the vain efforts of our wisdom see;
Shall then impartially confess
Our demonstration was but guess;
That knowledge, which from human reason flows,
Unless Religion guide its course,
And Faith her steady mounds oppose,
Is ignorance at best, and often worse.