While flattering crouds officiously appear To give themselves, not you, an 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. Decayed by time and wars, they only prove Their former beauty by their former love; 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 suffered banishment. Thus once, when Troy was wrapped in fire and smoke, The helpless gods their burning shrines forsook; They with the vanquished 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. In open prospect nothing bounds our eye, Until the earth seems joined 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 joined, 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 inclose, and yours to be inclosed: 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. Justice, that sits and frowns where public laws Exclude soft mercy from a private cause, In your tribunal most herself does please; There only smiles because she lives at ease; And, like young David, finds her strength the more, When disincumbered from those arms she wore. Heaven would your royal master should exceed Most in that virtue, which we most did need; And his mild father (who too late did find All mercy vain but what with power was joined) His fatal goodness left to fitter times, Not to increase, but to absolve our crimes: But when the heir of this vast treasure knew