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, 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 royal 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.} Let angels' voices with their harps conspire, But keep the auspicious infant from the choir; 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. 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 due,[329] 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, Some to be great, some to be gods presumed; But boundless power, and arbitrary lust, Made tyrants still abhor the name of just; They shunned the praise this godlike virtue gives, And feared a title that reproached 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 feared. Resistless force and immortality Make but a lame, imperfect deity; Tempests have force unbounded to destroy, And deathless being even the damned 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; } Nor hopes nor fears your steady hand beguile; } Yourself our balance hold, the world's our isle.} FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 289: The 10th of June.] [Footnote 290: Whitsunday.] [Footnote 291: Trinity Sunday, the octave of Whitsunday.] [Footnote 292: Note I.]