Return from SCOTLAND in the Year 1682.
HEN factious rage to cruel exile drove
The queen of beauty, and the court of love, The Mufes droop'd, with their forfaken arts, And the fad Cupids broke their useless darts: Our fruitful plains to wilds and defarts turn'd, Like Eden's face, when banish'd man it mourn'd
- Love was no more, when loyalty was gone,
The great supporter of his awful throne.
Love could no longer after beauty stay,
But wander'd northward to the verge of day,
As if the fun and he had lost their way.
But now th'illuftrious nymph, return'd again,
Brings every grace triumphant in her train.
The wond'ring Nereids, tho they rais'd no storm,
Foreflow'd her paffage, to behold her form:
Some cry'd, A Venus; fome, A Thetis paft;
But this was not fo fair, nor that so chaste.
Far from her fight flew Faction, Strife, and Pride;
And Envy did but look on her, and dy'd.
Whate'er we fuffer'd from our fullen fate,
Her fight is purchas'd at an easy rate.
Three gloomy years against this day were set;
But this one mighty fum has clear'd the debt:
Like Jofeph's dream, but with a better doom,
The famine paft, the plenty ftill to come.
For her the weeping heavens become ferene;
For her the ground is clad in cheerful green :
For her the nightingales are taught to fing,
And Nature has for her delay'd the spring.
The Muse resumes her long-forgotten lays,
And Love reftor'd his ancient realm furveys,
Recals our beauties, and revives our plays;
His waste dominions peoples once again,
And from her presence dates his second reign. But awful charms on her fair forehead fit, Difpenfing what she never will admit: Pleafing, yet cold, like Cynthia's filver beam, The people's wonder, and the poet's theme. Distemper'd Zeal, Sedition, canker'd Hate,
No more fhall vex the church, and tear the ftate: No more fhall Faction civil difcords move,
Or only difcords of too tender love :
Difcord, like that of mufic's various parts;
Difcord, that makes the harmony of hearts; Difcord, that only this difpute fhall bring,
Who best shall love the duke, and serve the king.
LETTER to Sir GEORGE ETHEREDGE.
O you who live in chill degree,
As map informs, of fifty-three,
And do not much for cold atone,
By bringing thither fifty-one,
Methinks all climes fhould be alike,
From tropic e'en to pole artique;
Since you have fuch a conftitution
As no where fuffers diminution.
You can be old in grave debate,
And young in love-affairs of state;
And both to wives and husbands show
The vigor of a plenipo.
Like mighty miffioner you come
"Ad Partes Infidelium."
A work of wond'rous merit fure,
So far to go, fo much t'endure;
And all to preach to German dame,
Where found of Cupid never came.
Lefs had you done, had you been fent
As far as Drake or Pinto went,
For cloves or nutmegs to the line-a,
Or e'en for oranges to China.
That had indeed been charity;
Where love-fick ladies helplefs lie,
Chapt, and for want of liquor dry.
But you have made your zeal
Within the circle of the Bear.
What region of the earth's fo dull,
That is not of your labors full?
Triptolemus (fo fung the Nine)
Strew'd plenty from his cart divine.
But fpite of all these fable-makers,
He never fow'd on Almain acres:
No, that was left by fate's decree,
To be perform'd and fung by thee.
Thou break'ft thro forms with as much ease
As the French king thro articles.
In grand affairs thy days are spent,
In waging weighty compliment,
With fuch as monarchs reprefent.
They, whom fuch vaft fatigues attend,
Want fome foft minutes to unbend,
To fhew the world that now and then
Great minifters ar mortal men.
Then Rhenish rummers walk the round;
In bumpers ev'ry king is crown'd;
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