[7]

To the Right Honourable

Sir JOHN SOMERS.

Lord Keeper of the Great Seal.

yet your thoughts are loofe from state affairs,

Nor feel the burden of a kingdom's cares, If yet your time and actions are your own, Receive the present of a Muse unknown: A Mufe that in advent'rous numbers fings The rout of armies, and the fall of Kings, Britain advanc'd, and Europe's peace reftor'd, By SOMERS' Counfels, and by Nassau's fword. To you, my Lord, thefe daring thoughts belong Who help'd to raise the fubject of my fong;

To

you

the Hero of my verse reveals
His great defigns, to you in council tells

His inmost thoughts, determining the doom
Of towns unstorm'd, and battles yet to come.

And well could you, in your immortal strains,
Defcribe his conduct, and reward his pains:
But fince the ftate has all your cares ingroft,
And poetry in higher thoughts is loft,
Attend to what a leffer Mufe indites,
Pardon her faults, and countenance her flights.
On you, my Lord, with anxious fear I wait,
And from your judgment must expect my fate,
Who, free from vulgar paffions, are above
Degrading envy, or misguided love;

1

If you, well pleas'd, shall smile upon my lays,

Secure of fame, my voice I'll boldly raise,

For next to what you write, is what you praise.

TO THE

KIN

G.

HEN now the bufinefs of the field is o'er,

WHE

The trumpets fleep, and cannons cease

When ev'ry dismal echo is decay'd,

And all the thunder of the battle laid;

[to roar,

Attend, aufpicious Prince, and let the Mufe
In humble accents milder thoughts infuse.
Others, in bold prophetic numbers skill'd,
Set thee in arms, and led thee to the field;
My Mufe expecting on the British ftrand
Waits thy return, and welcomes thee to land:
She oft has seen thee preffing on the foe,
When Europe was concern'd in ev'ry blow;
But durft not in heroic ftrains rejoice;

[voice:

The trumpets, drums and cannons drown'd her

She

She faw the Boyn run thick with human gore,
And floating corps lie beating on the shore;
She faw thee climb the banks, but try'd in vain
To trace her Hero through the dusty plain,

When through the thick embattel'd lines he broke, Now plung'd amidit the foes, now loft in clouds of smoke.

O that fome Muse, renown'd for lofty verse, In daring numbers would thy toils rehearse! Draw thee belov'd in peace, and fear'd in wars, Inur'd to noon-day sweats, and mid-night cares! But still the God-like man, by fome hard fate, Receives the glory of his toils too late; Too late the verse the mighty act fucceeds, One

age the hero, one the poet breeds.

A thousand years in full fucceffion ran,

Ere Virgil rais'd his voice, and fung the man

Who, driv'n by stress of fate, such dangers bore On ftormy feas, and a difaftrous fhore,

Before he fettled in the promis'd earth,

And gave the empire of the world its birth.

Troy