Time shall accomplish that; and I shall see
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lready have the Fates your path prepared,And sure presage your future sway declared:When westward, like the sun, you took your way,And from benighted Britain bore the day,Blue Triton gave the signal from the shore,The ready Nereids heard, and swam beforeTo smooth the seas; a soft Etesian galeBut just inspired, and gently swelled the sail;Portunus took his turn, whose ample handHeaved up the lightened keel, and sunk the sand,And steered the sacred vessel safe to land.The land, if not restrained, had met your way,Projected out a neck, and jutted to the sea.Hibernia, prostrate at your feet, adoredIn you the pledge of her expected lord, Due to her isle; a venerable name;His father and his grandsire known to fame;Awed by that house, accustomed to command,The sturdy kerns in due subjection stand,Nor bear the reins in any foreign hand. At your approach, they crowded to the port;And scarcely landed, you create a court:As Ormond's harbinger, to you they run,For Venus is the promise of the Sun. The waste of civil wars, their towns destroyed,Pales unhonoured, Ceres unemployed,Were all forgot; and one triumphant dayWiped all the tears of three campaigns away.Blood, rapines, massacres, were cheaply bought,So mighty recompense your beauty brought.As when the dove returning bore the markOf earth restored to the long-labouring ark,The relics of mankind, secure of rest,Oped every window to receive the guest,And the fair bearer of the message blessed:So, when you came, with loud repeated cries,The nation took an omen from your eyes,And God advanced his rainbow in the skies,To sign inviolable peace restored;The saints with solemn shouts proclaimed the new accord. When at your second coming you appear,(For I foretell that millenary year)The sharpened share shall vex the soil no more,But earth unbidden shall produce her store;The land shall laugh, the circling ocean smile,And Heaven's indulgence bless the holy isle. Heaven from all ages has reserved for youThat happy clime, which venom never knew;Or if it had been there, your eyes aloneHave power to chase all poison, but their own. Now in this interval, which Fate has castBetwixt your future glories and your past,This pause of power, 'tis Ireland's hour to mourn;While England celebrates your safe return,By which you seem the seasons to command,And bring our summers back to their forsaken land. The vanquished isle our leisure must attend,Till the fair blessing we vouchsafe to send;Nor can we spare you long, though often we may lend.The dove was twice employed abroad, beforeThe world was dried, and she returned no more. Nor dare we trust so soft a messenger,New from her sickness, to that northern air;Rest here awhile your lustre to restore,That they may see you, as you shone before;For yet, the eclipse not wholly past, you wadeThrough some remains and dimness of a shade. A subject in his prince may claim a right,Nor suffer him with strength impaired to fight;Till force returns, his ardour we restrain,And curb his warlike wish to cross the main. Now past the danger, let the learned beginThe inquiry, where disease could enter in;How those malignant atoms forced their way,What in the faultless frame they found to make their prey,Where every element was weighed so well,That Heaven alone, who mixed the mass, could tellWhich of the four ingredients could rebel;And where, imprisoned in so sweet a cage,A soul might well be pleased to pass an age. And yet the fine materials made it weak;Porcelain by being pure is apt to break.Even to your breast the sickness durst aspire,And forced from that fair temple to retire,Profanely set the holy place on fire.In vain your lord, like young Vespasian, mourned,When the fierce flames the sanctuary burned;And I prepared to pay in verses rudeA most detested act of gratitude:Even this had been your Elegy, which nowIs offered for your health, the table of my vow. Your angel sure our Morley's mind inspired,To find the remedy your ill required;As once the Macedon, by Jove's decree,Was taught to dream an herb for Ptolemy:Or Heaven, which had such over-cost bestowedAs scarce it could afford to flesh and blood,So liked the frame, he would not work anew,To save the charges of another you;Or by his middle science did he steer,And saw some great contingent good appear,Well worth a miracle to keep you here,And for that end preserved the precious mould,Which all the future Ormonds was to hold;And meditated, in his better mind,An heir from you who may redeem the failing kind. Blessed be the power which has at once restoredThe hopes of lost succession to your lord;Joy to the first and last of each degree,Virtue to courts, and, what I longed to see,To you the Graces, and the Muse to me. O daughter of the Rose, whose cheeks uniteThe differing titles of the Red and White;Who heaven's alternate beauty well display,The blush of morning and the milky way;Whose face is Paradise, but fenced from sin;For God in either eye has placed a cherubin. All is your lord's alone; even absent, heEmploys the care of chaste Penelope.For him you waste in tears your widowed hours,For him your curious needle paints the flowers;Such works of old imperial dames were taught,Such for Ascanius fair Elisa wrought.The soft recesses of your hours improveThe three fair pledges of your happy love:All other parts of pious duty done,You owe your Ormond nothing but a son,To fill in future times his father's place,And wear the garter of his mother's race. PALAMON AND ARCITE;
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