A Letter To Monsieur Boileau Despreaux, Occasioned By The Victory At Blenheim
Since hired for life, thy servile Muse must sing
Successive conquests and a glorious King;
Must of a man immortal vainly boast,
And bring him laurels whatsoe'er they cost,
What turn wilt thou employ, what colours lay,
On the event of that superior day,
In which one English subject's prosperous hand
(So Jove did will, so Anna did command)
Broke the proud column of thy master's praise,
Which sixty winters had conspired to raise?
From the lost field a hundred standards brought
Must be the work of Chance, and Fortune's fault.
Bavaria's stars must be accused, which shone,
That fatal day the mighty work was done,
With rays oblique upon the Gallic sun.
Some demon envying France misled the sight,
And Mars mistook, though Louis order'd right.
When thy young Muse invoked the tuneful Nine,
To say how Louis did not pass the Rhine,
What work had we with Wageninghen, Arnheim,
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Prior
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Down-Hall. A Ballad.
Tune. - 'King John and the Abbot of Canterbury.'
I sing not old Jason who travell'd through Greece
To kiss the fair maids and possess the rich fleece,
Nor sing I AEneas, who, led by his mother,
Got rid of one wife and went far for another.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
Nor him who through Asia and Europe did roam,
Ulysses by name, who ne'er cared to go home,
But rather desired to see cities and men
Than return to his farms and converse with old Pen.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
Hang Homer and Virgil; their meaning to seek,
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Prior
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Nut-Brown Maid. A Poem.
Written three hundred years since.
Be it right or wrong, these men among
On women do complayne;
Affyrmynge this, how that it is
A labour spent in vaine
To love them wele; for never a dele
They love a man againe:
For lete a man do what he can
Ther favour to attayne,
Yet yf a new do them pursue,
Ther furst trew lover than
Laboureth for nought; for from her thought
He is a banishyd man.
I say not nay, but that all day
It is bothe writ and sayde
That woman's fayth is as who saythe,
All utterly decayed.
But nevertheless right good witness
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Prior
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
An Ode - In Imitation of Horace, Book III. Ode II.
How long, deluded Albion, wilt thou lie
In the lethargic sleep, the sad repose
By which thy close thy constant enemy
Has softly lull'd thee to thy woes?
Or wake, degenerate isle, or cease to own
What thy old kings in Gallic camps have done,
The spoils they brought thee back, the crowns they won,
William (so Fate requires) again is arm'd,
Thy father to the field is gone,
Again Maria weeps her absent lord,
For thy repose content to rule alone.
Are thy enervate sons not yet alarm'd?
When William fights dare they look tamely on,
So slow to get their ancient fame restored,
As not to melt at Beauty's tears nor follow Valour's sword?
See the repenting isle awakes,
Her vicious chains the generous goddess breaks;
The fogs around her temples are dispell'd;
Abroad she looks, and sees arm'd Belgia stand
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Prior
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
An Ode - Humbly Inscribed To The Queen, On the Glorious Success of Her Majesty's Arms
When great Augustus govern'd ancient Rome,
And sent his conquering bands to foreign wars,
Abroad when dreaded, and beloved at home,
He saw his fame increasing with his years,
Horace, great bard, (so fate ordain'd) arose,
And, bold as were his countryman in fight,
Snatch'd their fair actions from degrading prose,
And set their battles in eternal light:
High as their trumpets tune his lyre he strung,
And with his prince's arms he moralized his song.
When bright Eliza ruled Britannia's state,
Widely distributing her high commands,
And, boldly wise and fortunately great,
Freed the glad nations from tyrannic bands,
An equal genius was in Spenser found;
To the high theme he match'd his noble lays;
He travelled England o'er on fairy ground,
In mystic notes to sing his monarch's praise:
Reciting wondrous truths in pleasing dreams
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Prior
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Turtle And Sparrow. An Elegiac Tale
Behind an unfrequented glade,
Where yew and myrtle mix their shade,
A widow Turtle pensive sat,
And wept her murder'd lover's fate.
The Sparrow chanced that way to walk,
(A bird that loves to chirp and talk)
Be sure he did the Turtle greet,
She answer'd him as she thought meet.
Sparrows and Turtles, by the bye,
Can think as well as you or I;
But how they did their thoughts express
The margin shows by T. and S.
T. My hopes are lost, my joys are fled,
Alas! I weep Columbo dead:
Come, all ye winged Lovers, come,
Drop pinks and daisies on his tomb;
Sing, Philomel, his funeral verse,
Ye pious Redbreasts deck his hearse;
Fair Swans, extend your dying throats,
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Prior
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Alma; or, The Progress of the Mind. In Three Cantos. - Canto I.
Matthew met Richard, when or where
From story is not mighty clear:
Of many knotty points they spoke,
And pro and con by turns they took:
Rats half the manuscript have ate;
Dire hunger! which we still regret;
O! may they ne'er again digest
The horrors of so sad a feast;
Yet less our grief, if what remains,
Dear Jacob, by thy care and pains
Shall be to future times convey'd:
It thus begins:
** Here Matthew said,
Alma in verse, in prose, the mind,
By Aristotle's pen defined,
Throughout the body squat or tall,
Is
bona fide
, all in all;
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Prior
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Alma; or, The Progress of the Mind. In Three Cantos. - Canto II.
But shall we take the Muse abroad,
To drop her idly on the road,
And leave our subject in the middle,
As Butler did his Bear and Fiddle?
Yet he, consummate master, knew
When to recede and where pursue:
His noble negligence teach
What others' toils despair to reach.
He, perfect dancer, climbs the rope,
And balances your fear and hope.
If, after some distinguished leap,
He drops his pole, and seems to slip,
Straight gathering all his active strength,
He rises higher half his length:
With wonder you approve his sleight,
And owe your pleasure to your fright:
But like poor Andrew I advance,
False mimic of my master's dance;
Around the chord a while I sprawl,
And thence, though low, in earnest fall.
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Prior
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Carmen Seculare. For the Year 1700. To The King
Thy elder Look, Great Janus, cast
Into the long Records of Ages past:
Review the Years in fairest Action drest
With noted White, Superior to the rest;
Aera's deriv'd, and Chronicles begun
From Empires founded, and from Battels won:
Show all the Spoils by valiant Kings achiev'd,
And groaning Nations by Their Arms reliev'd;
The Wounds of Patriots in their Country's Cause,
And happy Pow'r sustain'd by wholesom Laws:
In comely Rank call ev'ry Merit forth:
Imprint on ev'ry Act it's Standard Worth:
The glorious Parallels then downward bring
To Modern Wonders, and to Britain's King:
With equal Justice and Historic Care
Their Laws, Their Toils, Their Arms with His compare:
Confess the various Attributes of Fame
Collected and compleat in William's Name:
To all the list'ning World relate
(As Thou dost His Story read)
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Prior
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Henry And Emma. A Poem.
Upon the Model of The Nut-Brown Maid. To Cloe.
Thou, to whose eyes I bend, at whose command
(Though low my voice, though artless be my hand.
I take the sprightly reed, and sing and play,
Careless of what the censuring world may say;
Bright Cloe! object of my constant vow,
Wilt thou a while unbend thy serious brow?
Wilt thou with pleasure hear thy lover's strains,
And with one heavenly smile o'erpay his pains?
No longer shall the Nut-brown Maid be old,
Though since her youth three hundred years have roll'd:
At thy desire she shall again be raised,
And her reviving charms in lasting verse be praised.
No longer man of woman shall complain,
That he may love and not be loved again;
That we in vain the fickle sex pursue,
Who change the constant lover for the new.
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Prior
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!