Short Poems

THE Welch girl is pretty,
The E NGLISH girl fair,
The I RISH deem'd witty,
The F RENCH debonnaire ;
Tho' all may invite me,
I'd value them not;
The charms that delight me
I find in a S COT .

While taste refines a polish'd age,
While her own Hurd shall bid us trace
The lustre of the finish'd page
Where symmetry sheds perfect grace;
With sober and collected ray
To fancy, judgment shall display
The faultless model, where accomplish'd art
From nature draws a charm that leads the heart.

SCENE IV.

Phra. Come from the croud, Orbasius ; hear and obey.
Haste to the Prison, and bring forth that woman
(Who freed Sophernes from the hand of power)
To publick justice. She shall bleed before me.
Let her be led a publick spectacle.
Dispatch. Remember that the King expects you.

SCENE XIII.

Astarbe. Hydarnes. Araxes.

Ara. Excuse this entrance,
The pris'ner must attend.
Ast. I'm satisfy'd.
This man seems open, and may be of service.

SCENE XI.

Astarbe.

Revenge, I thank thee for this ready thought.
Death now shall reach Sophernes , shamefull death
Thus will I satiate love. His death alone
Can raze him from my heart, and give me peace.

SCENE VII.

It is not meet, while in the royal presence,
That he should wear these irons. Take them off.
Now leave me; and without attend my pleasure.

STAVE.

Our stage Play has a moral — and no doubt
You all have sense enough to find it out.

PREFACE

When Orpheus sought repose and, lulling his song to sleep, had long laid aside his neglected task, the Nymphs complained that their joy had been reft from them and the sad rivers mourned the loss of his tuneful lays. Nature's savagery returned and the heifer in terror of the lion looked in vain for help from the now voiceless lyre. The rugged mountains lamented his silence and the woods that had so often followed his Thracian lute.

BOOK I

PREFACE

After years of sloth my Muse, as if startled from long slumber, rejoices to sing a Roman song to Roman ears. Once more the same halls bring the gathering I longed for, and Apollo's temple echoes to the voice of a familiar bard. 'Twas here I sang of the consular fasces and of the winning back of Libya and here must I sing of the war that overthrew the Getae.