Heaven's greater lamps illumine it; each spark Adds only this, to make the sky less dark. 20 Nay, She, who is the glory of her sex, Did sadly droop for lack of Your reflex: Oft did She her fair brow in loneness shroud, And dimly shone, like Venus in a cloud.
Now are those gloomy mists dry'd up by You, As the world's eye scatters the ev'ning dew: And You bring home that blessing to the land, Which absence made us rightly understand.
Here may You henceforth stay! there need no charms To hold You, but the circle of her arms, 30 Whose fruitful love yields You a rich increase, Seals of Your joy, and of the kingdom's peace. O may those precious pledges fix You here, And You grow old within that crystal sphere!
Pardon this bold detention. Else our love Will merely an officious trouble prove. Each busy minute tells us, as it flies, That there are better objects for Your eyes. To them let us leave You, whilst we go pray, Raising this triumph to a Holy-day. 40
And may that soul the Church's blessing want, May his content be short, his comforts scant, Whose bosom-altar does no incense burn, In thankful sacrifice for Your return.
[_Upon the King's happy return, &c._] Hannah notes that this appears with variants, but signed, in MS. Ashm. 38, fol. 51. I have not thought it necessary to collate this version from a work described by good authorities as 'a bad MS.'. The piece itself, however, with others of King's, may well have been in Dryden's mind when he composed his own batch of Restoration welcome-poems to Charles II and Clarendon, within three or four years of the publication of these. There is no plagiarism: Heaven forbid that I should take part in plagiarism-hunting. But there is a sort of resemblance in form and tone (especially in the use of 'You' and 'Your' as pivots), and (though with great improvement) in versification.--The capital Y's here are almost complete in the original, and I have completed them.]
Great Lady! that thus, quite against our use, We speak your welcome by an English Muse, And in a vulgar tongue our zeals contrive, Is to confess your large prerogative, Who have the pow'rful freedom to dispense With our strict Rules, or Custom's difference.
'Tis fit, when such a Star deigns to appear, And shine within the academic sphere, That ev'ry college, grac'd by your resort, Should only speak the language of your Court; 10 As if Apollo's learned quire, but You, No other Queen of the Ascendent knew.