Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 1 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/249

$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$He's come, he's safe at shore; I hear the noise
Of a whole land which does at once rejoice,
I hear th' united people's sacred voice.
The sea, which circles us around,
Ne'er sent to land so loud a sound;
The mighty shout sends to the sea a gale,
And swells up every sail:
The bells and guns are scarcely heard at all;
The artificial joy's drown'd by the natural.
All England but one bonfire seems to be,
One Ætna shooting flames into the sea:
The starry worlds, which shine to us afar,
Take ours at this time for a star.
With wine all rooms, with wine the conduits, flow;
And we, the priests of a poetic rage,
Wonder that in this golden age
The rivers too should not do so.
There is no Stoick, sure, who would not now
Ev'n some excess allow;
And grant that one wild fit of cheerful folly
Should end our twenty years of dismal melancholy.

Where's now the royal mother, where,
To take her mighty share
In this so ravishing sight,
And, with the part she takes, to add to the delight?
Ah! why art thou not here,
Thou always best, and now the happiest Queen!
To see our joy, and with new joy be seen?