Ye pow'rs! that thought improves e'en Terror's king,
Adds horrors to his brow, and torments to his fting.
No, try me, prince; each word, each action weigh,
My rage could dictate, or my fears betray;
Each figh, each smile, each diftant hint that hung
On broken founds of an unmeaning tongue;
Recount each glance of these unguarded eyes,
The feats where paffion, void of reason, lies:
In those clear mirrors ev'ry thought appears;
Tell all their frailties-oh, explain their tears!
Yes, try me, prince; but, ah! let truth prevail,
And justice only hold the equal scale.

Ah! let not those the fatal fentence give,
Whom brothels blush to own, yet courts receive;
Bafe, vulgar fouls-and fhall fuck wretches raise
A queen's concern? To fear them, were to praise.
Yet, oh! (dread thought!) oh, muft I, muft I fay,
Henry commands, and these constrain'd obey?
Too well I know his faithlefs bofom pants
For charms, alas! which hapless Anna wants:
Yet once those charms this faded face could boaft,
Too cheaply yielded, and too quickly loft.
Will fhe*, O think, whom now your fnares purfue,
Will fhe for ever please, be ever new?

Or muft fhe, meteor like, awhile be great,
Then weeping fall, and share thy Anna's fate?
Mifguided maid! who now perhaps has form'd,
In tranfport melting, with ambition warm'd,
Long future greatness in extatick schemes,
Loose plans of wild delight, and golden dreams!
Alas! fhe knows not with how swift decay

Those vifionary glories fleet away;

Alas! fhe knows not the fad time will come,

When Henry's eyes to other nymphs fhall roam;

When she shall vainly figh, plead, tremble, rave,'
And drop, perhaps, a tear on Anna's grave;
Elfe would fhe fooner truft the wint'ry fea,
Rocks, defarts, monfters-any thing than thee;
Thee, whom deceit infpires, whofe ev'ry breath
Soothes to defpair, and ev'ry fmile is death.

Fool that I was! I faw my rifing fame
Gild the fad ruins of a nobler name
For me the force of facred ties difown'd,
A realm infulted, and a queen dethron'd:
Yet, fondly wild, by love, by fortune led, -
Excus'd the crime, and fhar'd the guilty bed;
With fpecious reafon lull'd each rifing care,
And hugg'd deftruction in a form fo fair.

'Tis juft, ye pow'rs! no longer I complain;
Vain be my tears, my boafted virtues vain!
Let rage, let flames, this deftin'd wretch purfue,
Who begs to die-but begs that death from you.
Ah! why muft Henry the dread mandate feal?
Why muft his hand, uninjur'd, point the steel?
Say, for you search the images that roll
In deep receffes of the inmoft foul;

Say, did ye e'er, amid thofe number, find
One with difloyal, or one thought unkind?
Then snatch me, blaft me, let the lightning's wing
Avert this ftroke, and fave the guilty king!
Let not my blood, by lawlefs paffion fhed,
Draw down Heav'n's vengeance on his facred head;
But Nature's pow'r prevent the dire decree,
And my hard lord, without a crime, be free.
Still, ftill I live; Heav'n hears not what I fay,
Or turns, like Henry, from my pray'rs away.
Rejected, loft, O whither fhall I fly!

I fear not death, yet dread the means to die.

*Catharine of Arragon.

Το

.

To thee, O God, to thee again I come,
The finner's refuge, and the wretch's home.
Since fuch thy will, farewel my blasted fame!
Let foul detraction feize my injur'd name:
No pang, no fear, no fond concern, I'll know;
Nay, fmile in death, tho' Henry gives the blow.

And now, refign'd, my bofom lighter grows,
And hope, foft-beaming, brightens all my woes.
Release me, earth; ye mortal bonds, untie:
Why loiters Henry when I pant to die?

For angels call, heav'n opens at the sound,
And glories blaze, and mercy streams around.
Adieu, ye fanes, whose purer flames anew
Rose with my rife, and as I flourish'd grew:,
Well may ye now my weak protection spare;
The pow'r that fix'd you shall preserve you there.
Small was my part, yet all I could employ,
And Heav'n repays it with eternal joy.

Thus rapt, O king, thus lab'ring to be free,
My gentleft paffport ftill depends on thee.
My hov'ring foul, tho' rais'd to Heav'n by pray'r,
Still bends to earth, and finds one forrow there;
Breathes for another's life it's latest

groan

Refign'd and happy, might I part alone!

Why frowns my lord? Ere yet the ftroke's decreed,
O hear a fifter for a brother + plead.

By Heav'n, he's wrong'd!-Alas! why that to you?
You know he's wrong'd-you know, and yet purfue.
Unhappy youth! what anguifh he endures !-
Was it for this he prefs'd me to be yours,

When ling'ring, wav'ring, on the brink I ftood,

And ey'd obliquely the too tempting flood?

Her marriage with King Henry was a means of introducing the proteftant religion, of which she was a great patronefs.

George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford.

Was

Was it for this his lavish tongue difplay'd
A monarch's graces to a love-fick maid?
With ftudied art confenting nature fir'd,
And forc'd my will to what it most defir'd?
Did he, enchanted by the flatt'ring fcene,
Delude the fifter and exalt the queen,
To fall attendant on that fifter's fhade,

And die a victim with the queen he made?

And, witness Heav'n! I'd bear to see him die, Did not that thought bring back the dreadful why; The blafting foulnefs, that muft ftill defame

Our lifeless afhes, and united name.

-Ah! ftop, my foul, nor let one thought purfue
That fatal track, to wake thy pangs anew!
Perhaps fome pitying bard fhall fave from death.
Our mangled fame, and teach our woes to breathe;
Some kind historian's pious leaves display

Our hapless loves, and wash the stains away.
Fair Truth shall blefs them, Virtue guard their cause,
And ev'ry chafte-ey'd matron weep applause.

Yet, tho' no bard fhould fing, or fage record,

I still shall vanquish my too faithlefs lord;
Shall fee at last my injur'd caufe prevail,
When pitying angels hear the mournful tale.
-And muft thy wife, by Heav'n's fevere command,
Before his throne thy fad accufer ftand?

O Henry, chain my tongue, thy guilt atone,
Prevent my fuff'rings-ah! prevent thy own!
Or hear me, Heav'n: fince Henry's flill unkind,
With strong repentance touch his guilty mind;
And, oh! when anguish tears his lab'ring foul,
Thro' his rack'd breaft when keeneft horrors roll,
When, weeping, grov'ling in the duft, he lies,
An humbled wretch, a bleeding facrifice,
Then let me bear, ('tis all my griefs fhall claim,
For life's loft honours, and polluted fame)

Then

Then let me bear thy mandate from on high,
With kind forgiveness let his Anna fly;
From ev'ry pang the much-lov'd fuff'rer free,
And breathe that mercy he denies to me.

ODE TO MIRTH.

BY DR. SMOLLETT.

ARENT of Joy! heart-eafing Mirth!
Whether of Venus or Aurora born,

Yet goddess fure of heav'nly birth,
Vifit benign a fon of Grief forlorn :
Thy glitt'ring colours gay,
Around him, Mirth, display;
And o'er his raptur'd fenfe
Diffuse thy living influence.

So fhall each hill, in purer green array'd,

And flow'r, adorn'd in new-born beauty, glow;
The grove shall smooth the horrors of his fhade,
And streams in murmurs fhall forget to flow.
Shine, goddefs, fhine with unremitted ray,
And gild (a fecond fun) with brighter beam our day.

Labour with thee forgets his pain,

And aged Poverty can fmile with thee;

If thou be nigh, Grief's hate is vain,
And weak th' uplifted arm of Tyranny.
The Morning opes on high

His univerfal eye;

And on the world doth pour

His glories in a golden fhow'r.

Lo! Darkness, trembling 'fore the hoftile ray,
Shrinks to the cavern deep and wood forlorn;
The brood obfcene, that own her gloomy fway,
Troop in her rear, and fly th' approach of morn.

Pale