The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 1 | Page 9

was ambassador to the States of
Holland, and had a principal share in the negotiations which preceded
the treaty of Nimeguen, 1679.]
ODE TO KING WILLIAM
ON HIS SUCCESSES IN IRELAND
To purchase kingdoms and to buy renown,
Are arts peculiar to
dissembling France;
You, mighty monarch, nobler actions crown,

And solid virtue does your name advance.
Your matchless courage with your prudence joins,
The glorious
structure of your fame to raise;
With its own light your dazzling glory
shines,
And into adoration turns our praise.
Had you by dull succession gain'd your crown,
(Cowards are
monarchs by that title made,)
Part of your merit Chance would call
her own,
And half your virtues had been lost in shade.
But now your worth its just reward shall have:
What trophies and
what triumphs are your due!
Who could so well a dying nation save,

At once deserve a crown, and gain it too.
You saw how near we were to ruin brought,
You saw th'impetuous
torrent rolling on;
And timely on the coming danger thought,

Which we could neither obviate nor shun.
Britannia stripp'd of her sole guard, the laws,
Ready to fall Rome's
bloody sacrifice;
You straight stepp'd in, and from the monster's jaws

Did bravely snatch the lovely, helpless prize.
Nor this is all; as glorious is the care
To preserve conquests, as at first
to gain:
In this your virtue claims a double share,
Which, what it

bravely won, does well maintain.
Your arm has now your rightful title show'd,
An arm on which all
Europe's hopes depend,
To which they look as to some guardian God,

That must their doubtful liberty defend.
Amazed, thy action at the Boyne we see!
When Schomberg started at
the vast design:
The boundless glory all redounds to thee,
The
impulse, the fight, th'event, were wholly thine.
The brave attempt does all our foes disarm;
You need but now give
orders and command,
Your name shall the remaining work perform,

And spare the labour of your conquering hand.
France does in vain her feeble arts apply,
To interrupt the fortune of
your course:
Your influence does the vain attacks defy
Of secret
malice, or of open force.
Boldly we hence the brave commencement date
Of glorious deeds,
that must all tongues employ;
William's the pledge and earnest given
by fate,
Of England's glory, and her lasting joy.
ODE TO THE ATHENIAN SOCIETY[1]
Moor Park, Feb. 14, 1691.
I
As when the deluge first began to fall,
That mighty ebb never to flow
again,
When this huge body's moisture was so great,
It quite
o'ercame the vital heat;
That mountain which was highest, first of all

Appear'd above the universal main,
To bless the primitive sailor's
weary sight;
And 'twas perhaps Parnassus, if in height
It be as great
as 'tis in fame,
And nigh to Heaven as is its name;
So, after the
inundation of a war,
When learning's little household did embark,

With her world's fruitful system, in her sacred ark,
At the first ebb of

noise and fears,
Philosophy's exalted head appears;
And the
Dove-Muse will now no longer stay,
But plumes her silver wings,
and flies away;
And now a laurel wreath she brings from far,
To
crown the happy conqueror,
To show the flood begins to cease,
And
brings the dear reward of victory and peace.
II
The eager Muse took wing upon the waves' decline,
When war her
cloudy aspect just withdrew,
When the bright sun of peace began to
shine,
And for a while in heavenly contemplation sat,
On the high
top of peaceful Ararat;
And pluck'd a laurel branch, (for laurel was
the first that grew, The first of plants after the thunder, storm and rain,)

And thence, with joyful, nimble wing,
Flew dutifully back again,

And made an humble chaplet for the king.[2]
And the Dove-Muse is
fled once more,
(Glad of the victory, yet frighten'd at the war,)
And
now discovers from afar
A peaceful and a flourishing shore:
No
sooner did she land
On the delightful strand,
Than straight she sees
the country all around,
Where fatal Neptune ruled erewhile,

Scatter'd with flowery vales, with fruitful gardens crown'd,
And many a pleasant wood;
As if the universal Nile
Had rather
water'd it than drown'd:
It seems some floating piece of Paradise,

Preserved by wonder from the flood,
Long wandering through the
deep, as we are told
Famed Delos[3] did of old;
And the transported Muse imagined it

To be a fitter birth-place for the God of wit,
Or the much-talk'd-of oracular grove;
When, with amazing joy, she
hears
An unknown music all around,
Charming her greedy ears
With many a heavenly song
Of nature
and of art, of deep philosophy and love;
While angels tune the voice,
and God inspires the tongue.
In vain she catches at the empty sound,


In vain pursues the music with her longing eye,
And courts the
wanton echoes as they fly.
III
Pardon, ye great unknown, and far-exalted men,
The wild excursions
of a youthful pen;
Forgive a young and (almost) virgin Muse,

Whom blind and eager curiosity
(Yet curiosity, they say,
Is in her sex a crime needs no excuse)
Has forced to grope her uncouth way,
After a mighty light that leads
her wandering eye:
No wonder then she quits the narrow path of
sense
For a dear ramble through