* * * * * TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR HYDE.[31] PRESENTED ON NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1662. My Lord, While flattering crowds officiously appear To give themselves, not you, a happy year; And by the greatness of their presents prove How much they hope, but not how well they love; The Muses, who your early courtship boast, Though now your flames are with their beauty lost, Yet watch their time, that, if you have forgot They were your mistresses, the world may not: Decay'd by time and wars, they only prove Their former beauty by your former love; 10 And now present, as ancient ladies do, That, courted long, at length are forced to woo. For still they look on you with such kind eyes, As those that see the church's sovereign rise; From their own order chose, in whose high state, They think themselves the second choice of fate. When our great monarch into exile went, Wit and religion suffer'd banishment. Thus once, when Troy was wrapp'd in fire and smoke, The helpless gods their burning shrines forsook; 20 They with the vanquish'd prince and party go, And leave their temples empty to the foe. At length the Muses stand, restored again To that great charge which Nature did ordain; And their loved Druids seem revived by fate, While you dispense the laws, and guide the state. The nation's soul, our monarch, does dispense, Through you, to us his vital influence: You are the channel where those spirits flow, And work them higher, as to us they go. 30 In open prospect nothing bounds our eye, Until the earth seems join'd unto the sky: So, in this hemisphere, our utmost view Is only bounded by our king and you: Our sight is limited where you are join'd, And beyond that no farther heaven can find. So well your virtues do with his agree, That, though your orbs of different greatness be, Yet both are for each other's use disposed, His to enclose, and yours to be enclosed. 40 Nor could another in your room have been, Except an emptiness had come between. Well may he then to you his cares impart, And share his burden where he shares his heart. In you his sleep still wakes; his pleasures find Their share of business in your labouring mind. So when the weary sun his place resigns, He leaves his light, and by reflection shines.