To The Right Honourable Lord Boyle Poem by Samuel Bowden

Ye nymphs of Helicon begin the song,
For themes of love to heavenly nymphs belong.
What swain, what savage can a song refuse,
When Hymen calls, and Boyle inspires the muse.


With every virtue blest, a youthful Peer,
Friend to the shades, and to the muses dear,
Yields to the soft captivity of love,
What breast so hard that beauty cannot move?
When sweetness, sense, and innocence conspire,
With blended charms, to fan the gentle fire.
Thrice happy Peer! possest of such a Bride;
Thrice happy Nymph! to such a Peer ally'd.


Let lawless libertines licentious live;
Virtue alone true happiness can give.
Let cavern'd anchorites, in cell, or bower,
With sullen pleasure spend the gloomy hour;
Born for a social life-the bliss we boast
Is half in monkish celibacy lost;
But in connubial harmony ally'd,
We both our pleasures and our pains divide.
Soft are the chains, when friendship mingles hands,
And Cupid yokes the doves in silken bands.
Love fixt on Virtue, always burns the same;
Love stirs the fire, but Friendship fans the flame.
If storms of adverse fortune war shou'd wage,
Her gentle bosom softens half its rage;
Her peaceful smiles will smooth the rugged way,
Brighten the gloom, and make the desart gay.


Hail happy Pair! in such blest union join'd,
By mutual love, and sympathy of mind.
Hark! whispering zephyrs propagate the tale
Thro' every conscious grove, and vocal vale:
From hill to hill the joyful echos fly,
And waft the pleasing tidings to the sky.
See how gay Flora paints th' enamel'd ground,
And nature smiles in all her pride around;
For you new beauties deck the dawning year,
And halcyon skys in azure robes appear:
For you the fields new liveries assume,
And sudden verdures open thro' the gloom:
While morn and eve the amorous planet light,
Gilds with unclouded beams the bridal night.
See from afar the mountain nymphs advance,
And Sylphs and Dryads in the valleys dance:
See Paphos queen with all her train of loves,
To Sturton fly, and leave the Idalian groves;
The bowers of Cythera no longer please,
But yield in beauty, and in bliss to these.


Hail happy Sturton! elegant retreat!
At once the Graces and the Muses' seat;
And Love now makes the Paradise compleat.


O! cou'd my humble muse, in equal strains,
Paint thy fair landskips, and thy verdant plains;
Thy silver fountains, and thy fragrant flowers;
Thy nodding forests, and romantic bowers:
Where solemn grottos blend with sunny glades,
And lyric birds inspire poetic shades;
Then shou'd thy seat, when all these scenes decay,
When groves, and grotts, and temples fade away,
Smile with the laurels which the muses give,
And in the smooth description always live.
Thy trees should then unfading greens display,
Thy streams still murmur in the Poet's lay;
Clad in eternal verdure, bloom as long
As Windsor Walks, immortaliz'd in song:
Long as the Name of Boyle's illustrious Line
Shall grace the Seat, or in the Senate shine.