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No more, fond Isle! no more thyself engage
In civil fury and intestine rage:
No rebel zeal thy duteous land molest,
But a smooth calm sooth every peaceful breast.
While in such charming notes divinely sings
The best of Poets, of the best of Kings.

TO MR. DRYDEN,

ON HIS RELIGIO LAICI,

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J. ADAMS.

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THOSE gods the pious Ancients did adore,
They learnt in verse devoutly to implore,
Thinking it rude to use the common way
Of talk, when they did to such beings pray.
Nay, they that taught religion first, thought fit
In verse its sacred precepts to transmit:
So Solon, too, did his first statutes draw,
And every little stanza was a law.
By these few precedents we plainly see
The primitive design of poetry;
Which, by restoring to its native use,
You generously have rescu'd from abuse.
Whilst your lov'd Muse does in sweet numbers sing,

She vindicates her God, and godlike king.

Atheist, and rebel too, she does oppose;
(God and the King have always the same foes.)
Legions of verse you raise in their defence,
And write the factious to obedience;

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You the bold Arian to arms defy,
A conqu'ring champion for the Deity,
Against the Whigs' first parents, who did dare
To disinherit God Almighty's Heir.
And what the hot-brain'd Arian first began,
Is carried on by the Socinian,
Who still associates to keep God a man.

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But 'tis the Prince of poets' task alone

T' assert the rights of God's and Charles's throne.

Whilst vulgar poets purchase vulgar fame,

By chaunting Chloris' or fair Phillis' name;

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And he, by frequent practising that part,
Could draw a minor god with wondrous art;
But when great Jove did to the workman sit,
The Thunderer such horror did beget,
That put the frighted artist to a stand,

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And made his pencil drop from's baffled hand.

A Poem on the happy restoration and return of his Sacred Majesty, Charles II, 1660.

"Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna,"
The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes,
Renews its finish'd course; Saturnian times
Roll round again.

Virg.

Now with a general peace the world was bless'd,
While ours, a world divided from the rest,

A dreadful quiet felt, and, worser far

Than arms, a sullen interval of war:

Thus when black clouds draw down the lab'ring skies,

Ere yet abroad the winged thunder flies,

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An horrid stilness first invades the ear,
And in that silence we the tempest fear.
Th' ambitious Swede, like restless billows toss'd,
On this hand gaining what on that he lost,
Though in his life he blood and ruin breath'd,
To his now guideless kingdom peace bequeath'd:
And Heav'n, that seem'd regardless of our fate,
For France and Spain did miracles create;
Such mortal quarrels to compose in peace,
As Nature bred, and Int'rest did increase.
We sigh'd to hear the fair Iberian bride
Must grow a lily to the lily's side,

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While our cross stars deny'd us Charles' bed,
Whom our first flames and virgin love did wed. 20
For his long absence Church and State did groan;
Madness the pulpit, faction seiz'd the throne;
Experienc'd age in deep despair was lost,
To see the rebel thrive, the loyal cross'd:
Youth, that with joys had unacquainted been,
Envy'd grey hairs that once good days had seen:
We thought our sires, not with their own content,
Had, ere we came to age, our portion spent.
Nor could our nobles hope their bold attempt,
Who ruin'd crowns, would coronets exempt:
For when, by their designing leaders taught
To strikeat pow'r, which for themselves they sought,
The vulgar, gull'd into rebellion, arm'd,
Their blood to action by their prize was warm'd,
The sacred purple then, and scarlet gown,
Like sanguine dye, to elephants was shown.
Thus when the bold Typhoeus scal'd the sky,
And forc'd great Jove from his own heav'n to fly,
(What king, what crown, from Treason's reach is free,
If Jove and heav'n can violated be?)
The lesser gods, that shar'd his prosp'rous state,
All suffer'd in the exil'd Thund'rers fate.

The rabble now such freedom did enjoy,
As winds at sea, that use it to destroy:
Blind as the Cyclop, and as wild as he,
They own'd a lawless savage liberty,

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Like that our painted ancestors so priz'd,
Ere empire's arts their breasts had civiliz'd.
How great were then our Charles' woes, who thus
Was forc'd to suffer for himself and us !

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He toss'd by Fate, and hurry'd up and down,
Heir to his father's sorrows with his crown,
Could taste no sweets of youth's desired age,
But found his life too true a pilgrimage.

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Unconquer'd yet in that forlorn estate,
His manly courage overcame his fate.
His wounds he took, like Romans, on his breast,
Which by his virtue were with laurels dress'd.
As souls reach heav'n while yet in bodies pent,
So did he live above his banishment.

That sun, which we beheld with cozen'd eyes
Within the water, mov'd along the skies.
How easy 'tis, when Destiny proves kind,
With full spread sails to run before the wind'
But those that 'gainst stiff gales laveering go,
Must be at once resolv'd and skiful too.

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He would not, like soft Otho, hope prevent,
But stay'd and suffer'd Fortune to repent.
These virtues Galba in a stranger sought,

And Piso to adopted empire brought.

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How shall I then my doubtful thoughts express,
That must his suff'rings both regret and bless!
For when his early valour Heav'n had cross'd,

And all at Worc'ster but the honour lost,

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