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EPIGRAM ON MILTON

[This epigram is engraved, without the name of the author, beneath the portrait of Milton which forms the frontispiece to Tonson's folio edition of Paradise Lost, 1688. Dryden's name is first joined to it in the second edition, 1716, of the Sixth Part of Miscellany Poems.] THREE poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd, The next in majesty, in both the last: The force of Nature could no farther go; To make a third, she join'd the former

two.

BRITANNIA REDIVIVA

A POEM ON THE PRINCE, BORN ON THE TENTH OF JUNE, 1688

Dii Patrii Indigetes, et Romule, Vestaque Mater,
Qua Tuscum Tiberim, et Romana Palatia servas,
Hunc saltem everso Puerum succurrere sæclo

Ne prohibete: satis jampridem sanguine nostro

Laomedontea luimus perjuria Troja. VIRG. Georg. I.

[This poem celebrates the birth of a son to James II on Trinity Sunday, June 10, 1688. It was prepared in haste and licensed for the press on June 19. Two editions, one in folio and one in quarto, were published by Tonson in 1688; a third, in quarto, was printed in Edinburgh in the same year. After the Revolution the poem was not reprinted until it was included in the folio Poems and Translations, 1701.]

OUR vows are heard betimes! and Heaven

takes care

To grant, before we can conclude the pray❜r:

Preventing angels met it half the way,
And sent us back to praise, who came to

pray.

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The Paraclete in fiery pomp descend;
But when his wondrous (b) octave roll'd
again,

He brought a royal infant in his train.
So great a blessing to so good a king,
None but th' Eternal Comforter could
bring.

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Or did the mighty Trinity conspire, As once, in council to create our sire ? It seems as if they sent the newborn guest To wait on the procession of their feast; And on their sacred anniverse decreed To stamp their image on the promis'd seed. Three realms united, and on one bestow'd, An emblem of their mystic union show'd: The Mighty Trine the triple empire shar'd, As every person would have one to guard.

Hail, son of pray'rs, by holy violence Drawn down from heav'n; but long be banish'd thence,

And late to thy paternal skies retire!
To mend our crimes whole ages would re-
quire;

To change th' inveterate habit of our sins,
And finish what thy godlike sire begins. 40
Kind Heav'n, to make us Englishmen again,
No less can give us than a patriarch's reign.
The sacred cradle to your charge receive,
Ye seraphs, and by turns the guard relieve;
Thy father's angel, and thy father join,
To keep possession, and secure the line;

(a) Whit Sunday. (b) Trinity Sunday.

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To watch the (d) travail, and devour the prey.

Or, if allusions may not rise so high,
Thus, when Alcides rais'd his infant cry,
The snakes besieg'd his young divinity;
But vainly with their forked tongues they
threat,

For opposition makes a hero great.
To needful succor all the good will run,
And Jove assert the godhead of his son. 60
O still repining at your present state,
Grudging yourselves the benefits of fate,
Look up, and read in characters of light
A blessing sent you in your own despite.
The manna falls, yet that celestial bread
Like Jews you munch, and murmur while
you feed.

May not your fortune be like theirs, exil'd,
Yet forty years to wander in the wild;
Or if it be, may Moses live at least,
To lead you to the verge of promis'd rest.
Tho' poets are not prophets, to fore-

know

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What plants will take the blight, and what will grow,

By tracing Heav'n his footsteps may be found:

Behold! how awfully he walks the round! God is abroad, and, wondrous in his ways, The rise of empires and their fall surveys; More (might I say) than with an usual

eye,

He sees his bleeding Church in ruin lie, And hears the souls of saints beneath his

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away,

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He to the Tyrians shew'd his sudden face, Shining with all his goddess mother's grace: For she herself had made his count'nance bright,

Breath'd honor on his eyes, and her own purple light.

If our victorious (1) Edward, as they say, Gave Wales a prince on that propitious day, Why may not years revolving with his fate, Produce his like, but with a longer date? One who may carry to a distant shore The terror that his fam'd forefather bore? But why should James or his young hero

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Minerva's name to Venus had debas'd;
So this imperial babe rejects the food
That mixes monarchs' with plebeian blood:
Food that his inborn courage might control,
Extinguish all the father in his soul,

And, for his Estian race, and Saxon strain, Might reproduce some second Richard's reign.

Mildness he shares from both his parents' blood,

But kings too tame are despicably good: Be this the mixture of this regal child, 220 By nature manly, but by virtue mild.

Thus far the furious transport of the

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That, still depending on his daily grace, His every mercy for an alms may pass; With sparing hands will diet us to good, Preventing surfeits of our pamper'd blood. So feeds the mother bird her craving young With little morsels, and delays 'em long.

True, this last blessing was a royal feast; But where's the wedding garment on the guest?

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Our manners, as religion were a dream,
Are such as teach the nations to blaspheme.
In lusts we wallow, and with pride we swell,
And injuries with injuries repel;
Prompt to revenge, not daring to forgive,
Our lives unteach the doctrine we believe.
Thus Israel sinn'd, impenitently hard,
And vainly thought the (y) present ark
their guard;

But when the haughty Philistines appear,
They fled, abandon'd to their foes and fear;
Their God was absent, tho' his ark was
there.

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