POEMS

OF

DR. BROOME, .

HABAKKUK,

When through the mighty flood

He led the murmuring crowd,
CHAP. III. PARAPHRASED.

What ail'd the rivers that they backward fed ?
AN ODE,

Why was the mighty flood afraid ?

March'd he against the rivers ? or was he, WRITTEN IN 1710, AS AN EXERCISE.

Thou mighty Flood ! displeas'd at thce? WHEN, in a glorious terrible array,

The flood beheld from far
From Paran's towering height th’Almighty took his The deity in all his equipage of war;

Borne on a cherub's wings he rode, (way; And lo! at once it bursts ! in diverse falls
Intolerable day proclaim'd the God;

On either hand ! it suells in chrystal walls !
No earthly cloud

Th' eternal rocks disclose! the tossing waves Could his effulgent brightness shroud : Rush in loud thunder from a thousand caves ! Glory, and Majesty, and Power,

Why tremble ye, O faithless ! to behold March'd in a dreadful pomp before;

The opening deeps their gulphs unfold ? Behind, a grim and meagre train,

Enter the dreadful chasms! 'tis God, who guides Pining Sickness, frantic Pain,

Your wondrous way! the God who rules the tides ! Stalk'd widely on! with all the dismal band, And lo! they march amid the deafening roar Which Heaven in anger sends to scourge a guilty Of tumbling seas ! they inount the adverse shore ! land.

Advance, ye chosen tribes !Arabia's sands, With terrour cloth'd, he downward flew,

Lonely, uncomfortable lands! And wither'd half the nations with a view;

Void of fountain, void of rain,

Oppose their burning coasts in vain! Through half the nations of th' astonish'd Earth;

See! the great prophet stand,
He scatter'd war, and plagues, and dearth!

Waving his wonder-working wand !
And when he spoke,
The everlasting hills from their foundations shook; The stubborn rock feels the Almighty blow !

He strikes the stubborn rock, and lo!
The trembling mountains, by a lowly nod,

His stony entrails burst, and rushing torrents flow. With reverence struck, confess'd the God: On Sion's holy hill he took his stand,

? Then did the Sun his fiery coursers stay, Grasping omnipotence in his right hand;

And backward held the falling day ; Then mighty earthquakes rock'd the ground,

VARIATION. And the Sun darken'd as he frown'd: ? Ah, what new scenes unfold, what voice I bear! He dealt Amfiction froin his van,

Sun, stand thou still : thou Moon, thy course forAnd wild Confusion from his rear;

Ah, Sun, thy wheels obedient stay, [bear: They through the tents of Cushan ran,

Doubling the splendours of the wondrous day. The tents of Cushan quak'd with fear,

The nimble-footed Minutes cease to runo And Midian trembled with despair.

And urge the lazy Hours on. "I see his sword wave naked in the air :

Time hangs his unexpanded wings, It sheds around a baleful ray,

And all the secret springs The rains pour down, the lightnings play,

That carry on the year And on their wings vindictive thunders bear.

Stop in their full career,

At once th' astonish'd Moon
VARIATION.

Forgets her going down, ! I see his sword wave with redoubled ire !

And paler grows, Ah! has it set the very clouds on fire ?

To view th' amazing train of woes ; The clouds burst down in deluges of showers; While through the trembling Pagan nation, Fierce lightning flames, vindictive thunder roars. Th’ Almighty ruin deals, and ghastly desolation.

The nimble-footed Minutes ceas'd to run, Nor can even Sickness, which disarms And urge the lazy Hours on.

All other nymphs, destroy your charms ; Time hung his unexpanded wings,

A thousand beauties you can spare,
And all the secret springs

And still be fairest of the fair.
That carry on the year,

But see! the pain begins to fly ;
Stopp'd in their full career:

Though Venus bled, she could

die : Then the astonish'd Moon

See the new Phenix point her eyes,
Forgot her going down ;

And lovelier from her ashes rise:
And paler grew,
The dismal scene to view,

Thus roses, when the storm is o'er,

Draw beauties from th' inclement shower. How through the trembling Pagan nation, Th' Almighty ruin dealt, and ghastly desolation. Welcome, ye Hours ! which thus repay

What envious Sickness stole away! But why, ah! why, O Sion, reigns

Welcome as those which kindly bring, Wide wasting Havock o'er thy plains ?

And usher in the joyous Spring : Ah, me! Destruction is abroad!

That to the smiling Earth restore Vengeance is loose, and Wrath from God! The beauteous herb, and blooming flower, See hosts of spoilers seize their prey !

And give her all the charms she lost See ! laughter marks in blood his way ! By wintery storms, and hoary frost ! See! how embattled Babylon,

And yet how well did she sustain, Like an unruly deluge, rushes on!

And greatly triumph o'er her pain !
Lo! the field with millions swarms !

So tioners, when blasting winds invade,
I hear their shouts! their clashing arnis !
Now the conflicting hosts engage,

Breathe sweet, and beautifully fade.
With more than mortal rage !-

Now in her cheeks, and radiant eyes, Oh! Heaven ! ! faint- die!

New blushes glow, new lightnings rise ; The yielding powers of Israel Ay!

Behold a thousand charms succeed, Now banner'd hosts surround the walls

For which a thousand hearts must bleed ! Of Sion ! now she sinks, she falls !

Brighter from her disease she shines,
Ah Sion ! how for thee I mourn!

As fire the precious gold rclines.
What pangs for thee I feel !
Ah! how art thou becoine the Pagan's scorn,

Thus when the silent grave becomes

Pregnant with life, as fruitful wombs ;
Lovely, unhappy Israel !
A shivering damp invades my heart,

When the wide seas, and spacious earth, A trembling horrour shoots through every part; | Our moulder'd frame, rebuilt, assumes

Resign us to our second birth;
My nodding frame can scarce sustain

New beauty, and for ever blooms;
Th’ oppressive load I undergo :

And, crown'd with youth's immortal pride,
Speechless I sigh! the envious woe
Forbids the very pleasure to complain:

We angels rise, who mortals dy'd.
Forbids my faultering tongue to tell
What pangs for thee I feel,
Lovely, unhappy Israel !

TO BELINDA,
Yet though the fig-tree should no burthen bear,
Though vines delude the promise of the year;
Yet though the olive should not yield her oil,
Nor the parch'd glebe reward the peasant's toil; : The listening trees Amphion drew
Though the tir'd ox beneath his labours fall, To dance from hills, where once they grew:
And herds in nullions perish from the stall;

But

you express a power more great ;
Yet shall my grateful strings

The flowers you draw not, but create.
For ever praise thy name,

Behold your own creation rise,
For ever thee proclaim,

And smile beneath your radiant eyes !
Thee everlasting God, the mighty King of Kings.

"Tis beauteous all! and yet receives
From you more graces than it gives.

But say, amid the softer charms
Of blooming flowers, what mean these arms?
So round the fragrance of the rose,

The pointed thorn, to guard it, grows.
TO BELINDA,

But cruel you, who thus employ
Both arms and beauty to destroy!
So Venus marches to the fray

In armour, formidably gay.
Sure never pain such beauty wore,
Or look'd so amiable before !
You graces give to a disease,

3 The lovely Flora paints the Earth, Adorn the pain, and make it please :

And calls the inorning flowers to birth: Thus burning incense sheds perfumes,

Put you display a power more great ; Still fragrant as it still consumes.

She calls forth flowers, but you create.

AX

ON HER APROX EMBROIDERED WITII ARM

FLOWERS.

ON HER SICKNESS AND RECOVERY.

VARIATION.

A PARAPHRASE.

It is a dreadful pleasing sight!

No air of breath disturbs the drowzy woods, The flowers attract, the arms affright;

No whispers murmur from the silent floods! The flowers with lively beauty bloom,

The Moon sheds down a silver-streaming light, The arms denounce an instant doom.

And glads the melancholic face of night : Thus, when the Britons in array

Now clouds swift-skimming veil her sullied ray, Their ensigns to the Sun display,

6 Now bright she blazes with a fuller day! In the same flag are lilies shown,

The stars in order twinkle in the skies, And angry lions sternly frown;

And fall in silence, and in silence rise : On high the glittering standard fies,

Till, as a giant strong, a bridegroom gay,
And conquers all things like your eyes.

The Sun springs dancing through the gates of day:
He shakes his dewy locks, and hurls his beams
O'er the proud hills, and down the glowing streams:
His fiery coursers bound above the main,

And whirl the car along th' etherial plain :
PART OF THE XXXVIIITH AND XXXIXTH CHAPTERS OF The fiery coursers and the car display
JOB.

A stream of glory, and a flood of day.
Did e'er thy eye descend into the deep,
Or hast thou seen where infant tempests sleep?

Was e'er the grave, or regions of the night,
Now from the splendours of his bright abode Yet trod by thee, or open'd to thy sight?
On wings of all the winds th’ Almighty rode, Has Death disclos'd to thee her gloomy state,
And the loud voice of thunder spoke the God. The ghastly forms, the various woes that wait
Cherubs and seraphs from celestial bowers, In terrible array before her awful gate?
Ten thousand thousand ! bright ethereal powers ! Know'st thou where Darkness bears eternal sway,
Ministrant round, their radiant files unfold, Or where the source of everlasting day?
Arm'd in eternal adamant, and gold !

Say, why the thriving hail with rushing sound Whirlwinds and thundrous storms his chariot drew | Pours from on high, and rattles on the ground? "Tween worlds and worlds, triumphant as it flew: Why hover snows, down-wavering by degrees, He stretch'd his dark pavilion o'er the floods, Shine from the bills, or glitter from the trees? Bade hills subside, and rein'd th' obedient clouds ; Say, why, in lucid drops, the balmy rain Then from his awful gloom the godhead spoke, With sparklings gems impearls the spangled plain! And at his voice affrighted Nature shook.

Or, gathering in the vale, a current flows, Vain man! who boldly with dim Reason's ray

And on each flower a sudden spring bestows ? Vies with his God, and rivals his full day!

Say, why with gentle sighs the evening breeze But tell me now, say how this beauteous frame

Salutes the flowers, or murmurs through the trees? Of all things, from the womb of nothing came;

Or why loud winds in storms of vengeance fly, When Nature's Iord, with one almighty call,

Howl o'er the main, and thunder in the sky? From no-where rais'd the world's capacious ball?

Say, to what wondrous magazines repair Say if thy hand directs the various rounds

The viewless beings, when serene the air? Of the vast Earth, and circumscribes the bounds ?

Till, from their dungeons loos’d, they roar aloud, How orbs oppos'd to orbs amid the sky,

Upturn whole oceans, and toss cloud on cloud, In concert move, and dance in harmony?

While waves encountering waves, in mountains What wondrous pillars their foundations bear

driv'n When hung self-balanc'd in the fluid air?

Swell to the starry vault, and dash the Heaven. Why the vast tides sometimes with wanton play

Know'st thou, why comets threaten in the air, In shining mazes gently glide away ;

Heralds of woe, dertruction, and despair, Anon, why swelling with impetuous stores

The plague, the sword, and all the forms of war? Tumultuous tumbling, thunder to the shores;

On ruddy wings why forky lightning flies, By thy command does fair Aurora rise,

And rolling thunder grumbles in the skies? And gild with purple beams the blushing skies;

Say, can thy voice, when sultry Sirius reigns, The warbling lark salutes her chearful ray,

And suns intensely glowing cleave the plains, And welcomes with his song the rising day;

Th’exhausted urns of thirsty springs supply, The rising day ambrosial dew distils,

And mitigate the fever of the sky? Th' ambrosial dew with balmy odour fills

Or, when the heavens are charg'd with gloomy The flowers, the flowers rejoice, and Nature smiles.

And half the skies precipitate in floods, [clouds, Why Night, in sable rob'd, as day-light fades,

Chase the dark horrour of the storm away, O'er half the nations draws her awful shades;

Restrain the deluge, and restore the day? Now peaceful Nature lies diffus'd in ease;

By thee doth Summer deck herself with charms, A solemn stillness reigns o'er land and seas.

Or hoary Winter lock his frozen arms? Sleep sheds o'er all his balm: to sleep resign'd,

Say, if thy hand instruct the rose to glow,
Birds, beasts lie hush'd, and busy human-kind.

Or to the lily give unsullied snow?
Teach fruits to knit from blossoms by degrees,

Swell into orbs, and load the bending trees,
* But tell me, mortal, when th' Almighty said,
“Be made, ye worlds!" how worlds at once were The fowl, the fishes, to repose resign'd,
When hosts of angels wrapt in wonder sung (mnade; all, all lie hush'd, and busy human-kind.
His praise, as order from disorder sprung?

The fainting murmur dies upon the floods, "No more the monsters of the desert roar,

And sighing breezes lull the drowzy woods. Doubling the terrours of the midnight hour. 6 Now bright she blazes, and supplies the day.

3

VARIATION.

VARIATIONS.

Whose various kinds a various hue unfold,

Come, blissful mourner, wisely sad,
With crimson blush, or burnish into gold? In sorrow's garb, in sable clad,
Say, why the Sun arrays with shining dyes

Henceforth, thou, Care, my hours employ!
The gaudy bow, that gilds the gloomy skies? Sorrow, be thou henceforth my joy!
He from his urn pours forth his golden streams, By tombs where sullen spirits stalk,
And humid clouds imbibe the glittering beams; Familiar with the dead I walk;
Sweetly the varying colours fade or rise,

While to my sighs and groans by turns,
And the vast arch embraces half the skies.

From graves the midnight Echo moums
Say, didst thou give the mighty seas their bars,
Fill air with fowl, or light up Heaven with stars,

Open thy marble jaws, O Tomb,
Whose thousand times ten thousand lamps display

Though earth conceal me in thy womb ! A friendly radiance, mingling ray with ray?

And you, ye worms, this frame confound, Say, canst thou rule the coursers of the Sun,

Ye brother reptiles of the ground ! Or lash the lazy sign, Boötes, on?

O life, frail offspring of a day! Dost thou instruct the eagle how to fly,

"Tis puff'd with one short gasp away! To mount the viewless winds, and tower the sky ?

Swift as the short-liv'd flower it fies,
On sounding pinions borne, he soars, and shrouds It springs, it blooms, it fades, it dies.
His proud aspiring head among the clouds ;

With cries we usher in our birth;
Strong-pounc'd, and fierce, he darts upon his prey, With groans resign our transient breath:
He sails in triumph through th' ethereal way, While round, stern ministers of Fate,
Bears on the Sun, and basks in open day.

Pain, and Disease, and Sorrow wait.
Does the dread king, and terrour of the wood, While childhood reigns, the sportive boy
The lion, from thy hand expect his food ?

Learns only prettily to toy ;
Stung with keen hunger from his den he comes, And, while he roves from play to play,
Ranges the plains, and o'er the forest roams :

The wanton trifles life away.
• He snutts the track of beasts, he fiercely roars,
Doubling the horrors of the midnight hours :

When to the noon of life we rise, With sullen majesty lie stalks away,

The man grows elegant in vice; And the rocks tremble while he seeks his prey :

To glorious guilt in courts he climbs, Dreadful he grins, he rends the savage brood

Vilely judicious in his crimes.
With unsheath'd paws, and churns the spouting When youth and strength in age are lost,
blood.

Man seems already half a ghost;
Dost thou with thunder arm the generous horse, Wither'd, and wan, to earth he bows,
Add nervous limbs, or swiftness for the course ? A walking hospital of woes.
Fleet as the wind, he shoots along the plain, Oh! Happiness, thou empty name!
And knows no check, nor hears the curbing rein; Say, art thou bought by gold or Fame?
His fiery eye-balls, formidably bright,

What art thou, Gold, but shining earth?
Dart a fierce glory, and a dreadful light:
Pleas’d with the clank of arms, and trumpets' sound, If Virtue contradict the voice

Thou, common Fame, but common breath?
He bounds, and, prancing,paws the trembling ground; of public Fame, applause is noise ;
He snuffs the promis'd battle from afar, (war: Ev'n victors are by conquest curst,
Neighs at the captains, shouts, and thunder of the The bravest warrior is the worst.
Rous'd with the noble din and martial sight,
He pants with tumults of severe delight:

Look round on all that man below
His sprightly blood an even course disdains,

Idly calls great, and all is show! Pours from his heart, and charges in his veins ;

All, to the coffin from our birth, He braves the spear, and mocks the twanging bow,

In this vast toy-shop of the Earth.
Demands the fight, and rushes on the foe.

Come then, O friend of virtuous woe,
With solemn pace, demure, and slow :
Lo! sad and serious, I pursue

Thy steps... adieu, vain world, adieu !
MELANCHOLY:

AN ODE.
OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF A BELOVED DAUGHTER.

DAPHNIS AND LYCIDAS:
1723.

A PASTORAL. Apreu vain mirth, and noisy joys!

THEY SING THE DIFFERENT SUCCESS AND ABSENCE OF Ye gay desires, deluding toys!

THEIR LOVES.
Thou, thoughtful Melancholy, deign
To hide me in thy pensive train !
If by the fall of murmuring floods,

LORD VISCOUNT TOWNSHEND, Where awful shades embrown the woods,

OF RAINHAM, IN NORFOLK.
Or if, where winds in caverns groan,
Thou wanderest silent and alone;

Sylvæ sunt consule dignæ.

Virg.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE

DAPHNIS.

VARIATION. He mocks the beating storms and wintery showers, How calm the evening ! see the falling day Making night hideous, as he sternly roars. Gilds every mountain with a ruddy ray!

DAPHNIS.

LYCIDAS.

DAPHNIS.

LYCIDAS.

LYCIDAS.

DAPHNIS.

LYCIDAS.

In gentle sighs the softly whispering breeze
Salutes the flowers, and waves the trembling trees; | With a feign’d passion, she I love, beguiles,
Hark! the night-warbler, from yon vocal boughs, And, gayly false, the dear dissembler smiles;
Glads every valley with melodious woes!

But let her still those blest deceits employ,
Swift through the air her rounds the swallow takes, Still may she feign, and cheat me into joy!
Or sportive skims the level of the lakes.
The timorcus deer, swift-starting as they graze, On yonder bank the yielding nymph reclin'd,
Bound off in crowds, then turn again, and gaze. Gods! how transported I, and she how kind!
See! how yon swans, with snowy pride elate, There rise, ye flowers, and there your pride display,
Arch their high necks, and sail along in state ! There shed your odours where the fair one lay!
Thy frisking tocks safe-wandering crop the plain,
And the glad season claims a gladsome strain.
Begin-Ye echoes listen to the song,

Once, as my fair one in the rosy bower And, with its sweetness pleas'd, each note prolong! Soft I approach'd, and, rapturd with the bliss,

In gentle slumbers pass'd the noon-tide hour,

At leisure gaz'd, then stole a silent kiss: Sing, Museoand oh! may Townshend deign to view She wak’d; when conscious smiles, but ill represt What the Muse sings, to Townshend this is due ! Spoke no disdain !Was ever swain so blest? Who, carrying with him all the world admires, From all the world illustriously retires;

With fragrant apples from the bending bough And, calmly wandering in his Rainham, roves By lake, or spring, by thicket, lawn, or groves;

In sport my charmer gave her swain a blow:

The fair offender, of my wrath afraid, Where verdant hills, or vales, where fountains stray, Fled, till I seiz'd and kiss'd the blooining maid : Charm every thought of idle pomp away;

She smil'd, and vow'd if thus her crimes I pay, Unenvy'd views the splendid toils of state, She would offend a thousand times a day! In private happy, as in public great. Thus godlike Scipio, on whose cares reclin'd

O'er the steep mountain, and the pathless meau, 'The burthen and repose of half mankind,

From my embrace the lovely scorner fled; Left to the vain their pomp, and calmly stray'd,

But, stumbling in the flight, by chance she felle The world forgot, beneath the laurel sbade;

I saw--but what-her lover will not tell!
Nor longer would be great, but void of strife,
Clos'd in soft peace his eve of glorious life.

From me my fair one fled, dissembling play,
Feed round, my goats; ye sheep, in safety graze;

And in the dark conceal'd the wanton lay; Ye winds, breathe gently while I tune my lays.

But laugh'd, and show'd by the directing sound The joyous Spring draws nigh! ambrosial showers She only irid, in secret to be found. Unbind the earth, the earth unbinds the flowers, The flowers blow sweet, the daffodils unfold

Far hence to happier climes Belinda strays, The spreading glories of their blooining gold. But in my breast her lovely image stays;

Oh! to these plains again, bright nymph, repair, As the gay hours advance, the blossoms shoot, Or from my breast far hence thy image bear! The knitting blossoms harden into fruit; And as the Autumn by degrees ensues,

Come, Delia, come! till Delia bless these sex.ts, The mellowing fruits display their streaky hues. Hide me, ye groves, within your dark retreats! LYCIDAS.

In hollow groans, ye winds, around me blow!
When the winds whistle, and the tempest roars, Ye bubbling fountains, murmur to my woe!
When foaming billows lash the sounding shores,
The bloomy beauties of the pastures die,

Where'er Belinda roves, ye Zephyrs, play!
And in gay heaps of fragrant ruin lie.

Where'er shc treads, ye flowers, adorn the way! DAPHNIS.

From sultry suns, ye groves, my charmer keep! Serere the storms! when shuddering Winter binds Ye bubbling fountains, murmur her to sleep! The earth! but Winter yields to vernal winds. Oh! Love, thy rigour my whole life deforms, If streams smooth-wandering, Delia, yield delight; More cold than Winter, more severe than storms! | If the gay rose, or lily, please thy sight ; LYCIDAS.

Sinooth streams here wander, here the roses glow, Sweet is the Spring, and gay the Summer hours, Here the proud lilies rise to shade thy brow! When balmy odours breathe from painter flowers ; But neither sweet the Spring, nor Summer gay, Aid me, ye Muses, while I loud proclaim When she I love, my charmer, is away.

What love inspires, and sing Delinda's name:

Waft it, ye breezes, to the hills around; To savage rocks, through bleak inclement skies, And sport, ye echoes, with the favourite sound. Deaf as those rocks, from me my fair one fies: Oh! virgin, cease to fly! th' inclement air (spare! Thy name, my Delia, shall improve my song, May hurt thy charms!-but thou hast charms to the pleasing labour of my ravish'd tongue:

Her name to Heaven propitious Zephyrs bear,
I love, and ever shall my love remain,

And breathe it to her kindred angels there!
The fairest, kindest virgin of the plain;
With equal passion her soft bosom glows,

But see! the Night displays her starry train,
Feels the sweet pains, and shares the hearenly woes, Soft silver dews impeari the glittering plain;
VOL. XII,

C

DAPUNIS.

DAPHNIS.

LYCIDAS.

DAPHNIS.

LYCIDAS.

DAPHNIS.

DAPIINIS.

LYCIDAS.

LYCIDAS.

DAPHN19.