Born to the spacious empire of the Nine, One would have thought she should have been content To manage well that mighty government; But what can young ambitious souls confine? To the next realm she stretched her sway, For Painture near adjoining lay, A plenteous province and alluring prey. A Chamber of Dependences was framed, As conquerors will never want pretense, (When armed to justify the offense,) And the whole fief in right of Poetry she claimed. The country open lay without defense; For poets frequent inroads there had made, And perfectly could represent The shape, the face, with every lineament, And all the large demains which the dumb Sister swayed; All bowed beneath her government. Received in triumph wheresoe'er she went. Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed, And oft the happy draught surpassed the image in her mind; The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks And fruitful plains and barren rocks; Of shallow brooks that flowed so clear, The bottom did the top appear; Of deeper too and ampler floods Which, as in mirrors, showed the woods; Of lofty trees, with sacred shades And perspectives of pleasant glades, Where nymphs of brightest form appear, And shaggy satyrs standing near, Which them at once admire and fear. The ruins too of some majestic piece, Boasting the power of ancient Rome or Greece, Whose statues, friezes, columns, broken lie, And, though defaced, the wonder of the eye; What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durst frame, Her forming hand gave feature to the name. So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before, But when the peopled Ark the whole creation bore. The scene then changed; with bold erected look Our martial King the sight with reverence strook: For, not content to express his outward part, Her hand called out the image of his heart: His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear, His high-designing thoughts were figured there, As when by magic ghosts are made appear. Our phoenix Queen was portrayed too so bright Beauty alone could beauty take so right: Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace, Were all observed, as well as heavenly face. With such a peerless majesty she stands, As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands; Before a train of heroines was seen, In beauty foremost, as in rank the Queen. Thus nothing to her genius was denied, But like a ball of fire, the farther thrown, Still with a greater blaze she shone, And her bright soul broke out on every side. What next she had designed, Heaven only knows: To such immoderate growth her conquest rose That Fate alone its progress could oppose.