Classic Poem

PRESENTED ON NEW YEAR'S DAY

M Y Lord ,
W HILE flattering crowds officiously appear,
To give themselves, not you, an happy year;
And by the greatness of their presents prove
How much they hope, but not how well they love;
The Muses, who your early courtship boast,
Tho' now your flames are with their beauty lost,
Yet watch their time, that, if you have forgot
They were your mistresses, the world may not:
Decay'd by time and wars, they only prove
Their former beauty by your former love;
And now present as ancient ladies do,
That courted long, at length are forc'd to woo.
For still they look on you with such kind eyes,
As those that see the Church's sovereign rise;
From their own order chose, in whose high state
They think themselves the second choice of fate.
When our great monarch into exile went,
Wit and religion suffer'd banishment.
Thus once, when Troy was wrapp'd in fire and smoke,
The helpless gods their burning shrines forsook:
They with the vanquish'd prince and party go,
And leave their temples empty to the foe.
At length the Muses stand, restor'd again
To that great charge which Nature did ordain;
And their lov'd Druids seem reviv'd by fate,
While you dispense the laws and guide the State.
The nation's soul (our monarch) does dispense,
Thro' you to us his vital influence;
You are the channel where those spirits flow,
And work them higher, as to us they go
In open prospect nothing bounds our eye,
Until the earth seems join'd unto the sky:
So in this hemisphere our utmost view
Is only bounded by our king and you;
Our sight is limited where you are join'd,
And beyond that no farther heav'n can find.
So well your virtues do with his agree,
That, tho' your orbs of different greatness be,
Yet both are for each other's use dispos'd,
His to inclose, and yours to be inclos'd.
Nor could another in your room have been,
Except an emptiness had come between.
Well may he then to you his cares impart,
And share his burden where he shares his heart.
In you his sleep still wakes; his pleasures find
Their share of bus'ness in your lab'ring mind:
So, when the weary sun his place resigns,
He leaves his light and by reflection shines.
Justice, that sits and frowns where public laws
Exclude soft Mercy from a private cause,
In your tribunal most herself does please;
There only smiles because she lives at ease;
And, like young David, finds her strength the more,
When disincumber'd from those arms she wore.
Heav'n would your royal master should exceed
Most in that virtue which we most did need;
And his mild father (who too late did find
All mercy vain but what with pow'r was join'd)
His fatal goodness left to fitter times;
Not to increase, but to absolve our crimes:
But when the heir of this vast treasure knew
How large a legacy was left to you,
(Too great for any subject to retain,)
He wisely tied it to the crown again:
Yet passing thro' your hands it gathers more,
As streams, thro' mines, bear tincture of their ore.
While emp'ric politicians use deceit,
Hide what they give, and cure but by a cheat;
You boldly show that skill which they pretend,
And work by means as noble as your end;
Which should you veil, we might unwind the clue,
As men do nature, till we came to you.
And as the Indies were not found before
Those rich perfumes, which from the happy shore
The winds upon their balmy wings convey'd,
Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd;
So by your counsels we are brought to view
A rich and undiscover'd world in you.
By you our monarch does that fame assure
Which kings must have, or cannot live secure:
For prospirous princes gain their subjects heart,
Who love that praise in which themselves have part.
By you he fits those subjects to obey,
As heaven's eternal monarch does convey
His pow'r unseen, and man to his designs
By his bright ministers the stars inclines.
Our setting sun from his declining seat
Shot beams of kindness on you, not of heat;
And, when his love was bounded in a few,
That were unhappy that they might be true,
Made you the fav'rite of his last sad times,
That is, a suff'rer in his subjects' crimes:
Thus those first favors you receiv'd were sent,
Like Heav'n's rewards, in earthly punishment.
Yet Fortune, conscious of your destiny,
Ev'n then took care to lay you softly by;
And wrapp'd your fate among her precious things,
Kept fresh to be unfolded with your king's.
Shown all at once, you dazzled so our eyes,
As newborn Pallas did the gods surprise;
When, springing forth from Jove's newclosing wound,
She struck the warlike spear into the ground;
Which sprouting leaves did suddenly inclose,
And peaceful olives shaded as they rose.
How strangely active are the arts of peace,
Whose restless motions less than war's do cease!
Peace is not freed from labor, but from noise;
And war more force, but not more pains employs:
Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind,
That, like the earth's, it leaves our sense behind,
While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere,
That rapid motion does but rest appear.
For as in nature's swiftness, with the throng
Of flying orbs while ours is borne along,
All seems at rest to the deluded eye,
(Mov'd by the soul of the same harmony,)
So carried on by your unwearied care,
We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.
Let Envy then those crimes within you see
From which the happy never must be free;
(Envy, that does with Misery reside,
The joy and the revenge of ruin'd Pride.)
Think it not hard, if at so cheap a rate
You can secure the constancy of Fate,
Whose kindness sent what does their malice seem,
By lesser ills the greater to redeem.
Nor can we this weak show'r a tempest call,
But drops of heat, that in the sunshine fall.
You have already wearied Fortune so,
She cannot farther be your friend or foe;
But sits all breathless, and admires to feel
A fate so weighty that it stops her wheel.
In all things else above our humble fate,
Your equal mind yet swells not into state;
But like some mountain in those happy isles,
Where in perpetual spring young nature smiles,
Your greatness shows: no horror to affright,
But trees for shade, and flow'rs to court the sight:
Sometimes the hill submits itself a while
In small descents, which do its height beguile;
And sometimes mounts, but so as billows play,
Whose rise not hinders but makes short our way.
Your brow, which does no fear of thunder know,
Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below;
And, (like Olympus top,) th' impression wears
Of love and friendship writ in former years.
Yet, unimpair'd with labors or with time,
Your age but seems to a new youth to climb.
Thus heav'nly bodies do our time beget,
And measure change, but share no part of it.
And still it shall without a weight increase,
Like this new-year, whose motions never cease:
For since the glorious course you have begun
Is led by C HARLES , as that is by the sun,
It must both weightless and immortal prove,
Because the center of it is above.