Thus, in alternate course, The tyrant passions, hope and fear, And flashed upon the soul with equal force. Returns, and wins upon the shore; The watery herd, affrighted at the roar, At prodigies but rarely seen before, And cries, a king must fall, or kingdoms change their sway. Such were our counter-tides at land, and so In their prodigious ebb and flow. The royal soul, that, like the labouring moon, Forced with regret to leave her native sphere, Soon weary of the painful strife, Soon shut in night; A strong distemper, and a weak relief, Short intervals of joy, and long returns of grief. Hurls up the scaly ooze, and makes the scaly brood O'erturns the toiling barch whose steersman does not launch, Poly-Albion, Song VII. * To engage upon liking, (an image rather too familiar for the occasion,) is to take a temporary trial of a service, or business, with licence to quit it at pleasure. V. The sons of art all med'cines tried, His utmost skill; nay, more, they prayed: Nor e'er was fate so near a foil: But, like a fortress on a rock, The impregnable disease their vain attempts did mock; They mined it near, they battered from afar As none but Cæsar could sustain: The malice of their art, nor bent Beneath whate'er their pious rigour could invent. In five such days he suffered more Than any suffered in his reign before; More, infinitely more, than he, Against the worst of rebels could decree, A traitor, or twice pardoned enemy. Now art was tired without success, No racks could make the stubborn malady confess. The vain insurancers of life, And he who most performed, and promised less, Even Short* himself, forsook the unequal strife. Death and despair was in their looks, No longer they consult their memories or books; Like helpless friends, who view from shore * Note IV. The labouring ship, and hear the tempest roar; The inevitable loss. VI. Death was denounced; that frightful sound He looked as when he conquered and forgave. As if some angel had been sent Of his departing breath, Nor shrunk nor stept aside for death; When he resigned the throne. Still he maintained his kingly state, On all he loved before his dying beams he cast: Oh truly good, and truly great, For glorious as he rose, benignly so he set! All that on earth he held most dear, To whom both heaven The right had given, And his own love bequeathed supreme command: * Which could, in peace, secure his reign; Well, for so great a trust, he chose A prince, who never disobeyed; Not when the most severe commands were laid; Nor want, nor exile, with his duty weighed:† A prince on whom, if heaven its eyes could close, The welfare of the world it safely might repose. VIII. That king, who lived to God's own heart, For schoolmen, with laborious art, To save from cruelty: Those, for whom love could no excuses frame, * Note V. Alluding to the Duke's banishment to Flanders. See note on "Absalom and Achitophel," Vol. IX. p. 384. The testament of king David, by which he bequeathed to his son the charge of executing vengeance on those enemies whom he had spared during his life, has been much canvassed by divines. I indulge myself in a tribute to a most venerable character, when I state, that the most ingenious discourses I ever heard from the pulpit, were upon this and other parts of David's conduct, in a series of lectures by the late Reverend Dr John Erskine, one of the ministers of the Old Greyfriars church in Edinburgh. Thus far my muse, though rudely, has designed Though that's a term too mean and low; Like painters, when their heightening arts are spent, I cast into a shade. That all-forgiving king, And asked that pardon which he ne'er refused; Of godless men, and of rebellious times; For an hard exile, kindly meant, When his ungrateful country sent Their best Camillus into banishment, And forced their sovereign's act, they could not his consent. Oh how much rather had that injured chief Which yet the brother and the friend so plenteously confest. |