How Are Thy Servants Blest, O Lord!
How are Thy servants blest, O Lord!
How sure is their defense!
Eternal wisdom is their guide,
Their help Omnipotence.
In foreign realms, and lands remote,
Supported by Thy care,
Through burning climes they pass unhurt,
And breathe in tainted air.
When by the dreadful tempest borne
High on the broken wave,
They know Thou art not slow to her,
Nor impotent to save.
The storm is laid, the winds retire,
Obedient to Thy will,
The sea, that roars at Thy command,
At Thy command is still.
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poem by Joseph Addison
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Immortality
O Liberty! thou goddess, heavenly bright,
profuse of bliss and pregnant with delight,
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
And smiling Plenty leads thy smiling train.
Eased of her load Subjection grows more light,
And Poverty looks cheerful in thy sight.
Giv'st beauty to the sun and pleasures to the day.
thee, goddess, thee, Britannia's isle adores!
How oft has she exhausted all her stores!
How oft on fields of death thy presence sought,
Nor thinks the mighty prize too dearly bought!
On foreign mountains may the sun refine
the grape's soft juice and mellow it in wine.
With citron groves adorn a distant soil.
And the fat olives swell with floods of oil.
We envy not the warmer clime, that lies
in ten degrees of more indulgent skies;
Nor at the coarseness of our heaven repine,
Though o'er our heads the frozen Pleiads shine.
'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle,
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poem by Joseph Addison
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A Poem To His Magesty, Presented To The Lord Keeper. To The Right Hon. Sir John Somers, Lord Keeper
If yet your thoughts are loose from state affairs,
Nor feel the burden of a kingdom's cares;
If yet your time and actions are your own;
Receive the present of a Muse unknown:
A Must that, in adventurous numbers, sings
The rout of armies,a nd the fall of Kings,
Britain advanc'd, and Europe's peace restor'd,
By Somers' counsels, and by Nassau's sword.
To you, my Lord, these daring thoughts belong
Who help'd to raise the subject of my song;
To you the hero of my verse reveals
His great designs, to you in council tells
His inmost thoughts, determining the doom
Of towns unstorm'd, and battles yet to come.
And well could you, in your immortal strains,
Describe His conduct, and reward his pains:
But, since the state has all your cares ingross'd
And poetry in higher thoughts is lost,
Attend to what a lesser Muse indites,,
Pardon her faults, and countenance her flights.
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poem by Joseph Addison
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To Mr. Dryden
How long, great Poet, shall thy sacred lays
Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praise?
Can eneither injuries of time, or age,
Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage?
No so thy Ovid in his exile wrote,
Grief chill'd his breast,and check'd his rising thought:
Pensive and sad, his drooping Muse betrays
The Roman genius in its last decays.
Prevailing warmth has still thy mind possest,
And second youth is kindled in thy breast;
Thou mak'st the beauties of the Romans known,
And England boasts of riches not her own;
Thy lines have heighten'd Virgil's majesty,
And Horace wonders at himself in thee.
Thou teachest Persius to inform our isle
In smoother numbers, and a clearer style;
And Juvenal, instructed in thy page,
Edges his satire, and improves his rage,
Thy copy casts a fairer light on all,
And still out-shines, the bright original.
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poem by Joseph Addison
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Prologue To Steele's Tender Husband
In the first rise and infancy of farce,
When fools were many, and when plays were scarce
The raw unpractis'd authors could, with ease,
A young and unexperienc'd audience please:
No single character had e'er been shown,
But the whole herd of fops was all their own;
Rich in originals, they set to view,
In every piece, a coxcomb that was new.
But now our British theatre can boast
Drolls of all kinds, a vast unthinking host!
Fruitful of folly and of vice, it shows
Cuckolds, and cits, and bawds, and pimps, and beaux;
Rough country knights are found of every shire;
Of every fashion gentle fops appear;
And punks of different characters we meet,
As frequent on the stage as in the pit.
Our modern wits are forc'd to pick and cull,
And here and there by chance glean up a fool:
Long ere they find the necessary spark,
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poem by Joseph Addison
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When all Thy Mercies, O My God
When all Thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I’m lost
In wonder, love and praise.
Thy Providence my life sustained,
And all my wants redressed,
While in the silent womb I lay,
And hung upon the breast.
To all my weak complaints and cries
Thy mercy lent an ear,
Ere yet my feeble thoughts had learned
To form themselves in prayer.
Unnumbered comforts to my soul
Thy tender care bestowed,
Before my infant heart conceived
From Whom those comforts flowed.
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poem by Joseph Addison
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An Ode For St. Cecilia's Day
I.
Prepare the hallow'd strain, My Muse,
Thy softest sounds and sweetest numbrs chuse;
the bright Cecilia's praise rehearse,
In warbling words,a nd glittering verse,
that smootly run into a song,
and gently die away,and melt upon the tongue.
II.
First let the sprightly violin
The joyful melody begin,
And none of all her strings be mute,
while the sharp sound and shriller lay
In sweet harmonious notes decay,
Soften and mellow'd by the flute.
'The Flute that sweetly can complain,
'Disolve the frozen nymph's disdain;
'Panting sympathy impart,
'Till she partake of her lover's smart.'
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A Song For St. Cecilia's Day, At Oxford
I.
Cecilia, whose exalted hymns
With joy and wonder fill the blest,
In choirs of warbling seraphims
Known and distinguish'd fom the rest;
Attend, harmonious saint, and see
Thy vocal sons of harmony;
Attend, harmonious saint, and hear our prayers;
Enliven all our earthly airs,
and, as thou sing'st thy God, teach us to sing of thee:
Tune every string and every tongue,
Be thou the Muse and subject of our song.
II.
Let all Cecilia's praise proclaim,
Enploy the echo in her name.
Hark how the flutes and trumpets raise,
At bright Cecilia's name, their lays;
The organ labours in her praise.
Cecilia's name does all our numbers grace,
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poem by Joseph Addison
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An Account Of The Greatest English Poets
Since, dearest Harry, you will needs request
A short account of all the Muse possest,
That, down from Chaucer's days to Dryden's Times,
Have spent their Noble Rage in British Rhimes;
Without more Preface, wrote in Formal length,
To speak the Undertakers want of strength,
I'll try to make they're sev'ral Beauties known,
And show their Verses worth, tho' not my Own.
Long had our dull Fore-Fathers slept Supine,
Nor felt the Raptures of the Tuneful Nine;
Till Chaucer first, the merry Bard, arose;
And many a Story told in Rhime and Prose.
But Age has Rusted what the Poet writ,
Worn out his Language, and obscur'd his Wit:
In vain he jests in his unpolish'd strain,
And tries to make his Readers laugh in vain.
Old Spencer next, warm'd with Poetick Rage,
In Antick Tales amus'd a Barb'rous Age;
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poem by Joseph Addison
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A Letter from Italy
Salve magna parens frugum Saturnia tellus,
Magna virûm! tibi res antiquæ laudis et artis
Aggredior, sanctos ausus recludere fontes.
Virg. Geor. 2.
While you, my Lord, the rural shades admire,
And from Britannia's public posts retire,
Nor longer, her ungrateful sons to please,
For their advantage sacrifice your ease;
Me into foreign realms my fate conveys,
Through nations fruitful of immortal lays,
Where the soft season and inviting clime
Conspire to trouble your repose with rhyme.
For wheresoe'er I turn my ravish'd eyes,
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise,
Poetic fields encompass me around,
And still I seem to tread on classic ground;
For here the Muse so oft her harp has strung
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poem by Joseph Addison
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