But you, propitious queen, translated
here,
From your mild heaven, to rule our rugged
sphere,
Beyond the sunny walks, and circling year:
You, who your native climate have bereft
Of all the virtues, and the vices left;
Whom piety and beauty make their boast,
310
Though beautiful is well in pious lost;
So lost, as star-light is dissolved away,
And melts into the brightness of the day;
Or gold about the regal diadem,
Lost to improve the lustre of the gem.
What can we add to your triumphant day?
Let the great gift the beauteous giver
pay.
For should our thanks awake the rising
sun,
And lengthen, as his latest shadows run,
That, though the longest day, would soon,
too soon be done. 320
Let angels’ voices with their harps
conspire,
But keep the auspicious infant from the
quire;
Late let him sing above, and let us know
No sweeter music than his cries below.
Nor can I wish to you, great
Monarch, more
Than such an annual income to your store;
The day which gave this Unit, did not
shine
For a less omen, than to fill the Trine.
After a prince, an admiral beget;
The Royal Sovereign wants an anchor yet.
330
Our isle has younger titles still in store,
And when the exhausted land can yield
no more,
Your line can force them from a foreign
shore.
The name of Great your martial
mind will suit;
But justice is your darling attribute:
Of all the Greeks, ’twas but one
hero’s[186] due,
And, in him, Plutarch prophesied of you.
A prince’s favours but on few can
fall,
But justice is a virtue shared by all.
Some kings the name of conquerors
have assumed, 340
Some to be great, some to be gods presumed;
But boundless power and arbitrary lust
Made tyrants still abhor the name of just;
They shunn’d the praise this godlike
virtue gives,
And fear’d a title that reproach’d
their lives.
The Power, from which all
kings derive their state,
Whom they pretend, at least, to imitate,
Is equal both to punish and reward;
For few would love their God, unless they
fear’d.
Resistless force and immortality
350
Make but a lame, imperfect, deity:
Tempests have force unbounded to destroy,
And deathless being, even the damn’d
enjoy;
And yet Heaven’s attributes, both
last and first,
One without life, and one with life accurst:
But justice is Heaven’s self, so
strictly he,
That could it fail, the Godhead could
not be.
This virtue is your own; but life and
state
Are one to Fortune subject, one to Fate:
Equal to all, you justly frown or smile;
360
Nor hopes nor fears your steady hand beguile;
Yourself our balance hold, the world’s
our isle.