SONG

BY A PERSON OF QUALITY.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733.

I.. Flutt’RING spread thy purple pinions,

Gentle Cupid, o'er my Heart; I a Slave in thy dominions ;

Nature must give way to Art.

II.
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,

Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming,

All beneath yon flow'ry rocks.

III.
Thus the Cyprian Goddess weeping,

Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth:
Him the Boar, in Silence creeping,

Gor’d with unrelenting tooth.

IV.
Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;

Fair Discretion, string the Lyre;
Soothe my ever-waking slumbers ;

Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.

V.
Gloomy Pluto, King of Terrors,

Arm’d in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrors,

Wat’ring soft Elysian plains.

VI.
Mournful Cypress, verdant Willow,

Gilding my Aurelia's brows,
Morpheus, hov’ring o'er my pillow,

Hear me pay my dying vows.

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VII.
Melancholy, smooth Meander,

Swiftly purling in a round,
On thy margin Lovers wander,

With thy flow'ry chaplets crown'd.

VIII.
Thus when Philomela, drooping,

Softly seeks her silent mate,
See the Bird of Juno stooping;

Melody resigns to Fate.

It is remarkable, that this song imposed upon one of Pope's professed Commentators, the late learned Gilbert Wakefield, who took it for a serious composition: “ It appears,” he says, “ disjointed and obscure," and asks, in reference to the fourth verse, “ what is the propriety of this observation? and what its application to the present subject ?" On this occasion Mr. Toulmin, a friend of Mr. Wakefield's, addressed to him a copy of verses, which Mr. Wakefield, VOL. III.

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with a good-humoured confession of his mistake, has printed in the subsequent volume of his Observations on Pope, 8vo. 1769, conceiving that "they will form an agreeable termination of his Preface."

“ Watchful Wakefield, late and early

Slumbering o'er the page of Pope,
Wit has caught her critic fairly,

Twisting sand into a rope," &c. But perhaps the most solemn and successful imposition that ever was practised on an inconsiderate reader, is the Ode on Science; printed (as is also the Love Song by a person of quality) in Pope and Swift's Miscellanies; and which, like that, to judge from the style, is not unlikely to have been the work of Pope.

ODE ON SCIENCE.
O, Heavenly born! in deepest dells
If fairest Science ever dwells

Beneath the mossy cave;
Indulge the verdure of the woods,
With azure beauty gild the floods,

And flow'ry carpets lave.

For melancholy ever reigns
Delighted in the sylvan scenes

With scientific light;
While Dian, huntress of the vales,
Seeks lulling sounds and fanning gales,

Though wrapt from mortal sight.

Yet, Goddess, yet the way explore
With magic rites and heathen lore

Obstructed and depress'd;
Till Wisdom give the sacred Nine,
Untaught, not uninspir'd, to shine

By reason's power redress'd.

When Solon and Lycurgus taught
To moralize the human thought

Of mad opinion's maze,
To erring zeal they gave new laws,
Thy charms, O Liberty, the cause

That blends congenial rays.

Bid bright Astræa gild the morn,
Or bid a hundred suns be born,

To hecatomb the year;
Without thy aid, in vain the poles,
In vain the zodiac system rolls

In vain the lunar sphere.

Come, fairest princess of the throng, Bring sweet philosophy along

In metaphysic dreams; While raptur'd bards no more behold A vernal age of purer gold,

In Heliconian streams.

Drive Thraldom with malignant hand,
To curse some other destin'd land,

By Folly led astray;
Iërne bear on azure wing,
Energic let her soar, and sing

Thy universal sway.

So when Amphion bade the lyre
To more majestic sound aspire,

Behold the madding throng,
In wonder and oblivion drown'd,
To sculpture turn'd by magic sound

And petrifying song!

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT.

I know the thing that's most uncommon;

(Envy be silent, and attend !) I know a reasonable Woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a Friend.

Not warp'd by Passion, aw'd by Rumour,

Not grave through Pride, or gay through Folly, An equal Mixture of good Humour,

And sensible soft Melancholy.

“ Has she no faults then, (Envy says,) Sir ?"

Yes, she has one, I must aver;
When all the World conspires to praise her,

The Woman's deaf, and does not hear.

NOTES.

Ver. 1. I know the thing] Equal in elegance to any compliment that Waller has paid to Saccharissa, especially the last stanza, and the answer to Envy. The Lady addrest was Mrs. Howard, of Marble-hill, bed-chamber woman to Queen Caroline, and afterwards Countess of Suffolk.

Warton.