Poems and songs by Thomas Flatman.

The Retirement.

Pindarique Ode made in the time of the Great Sickness 1665.

Stanza I.

IN the milde close of an hot Summers day, When a cool Breeze had fann'd the air, And Heaven's face look't smooth and fair;

Lovely as sleeping Infants be, That in their slumbers smilingly, Dandled on the Mothers knee, You hear no cry, No harsh, nor inharmon••ous voice, But all is innocence without a noise: When every sweet, which the Sun's greedy ray So lately from us drew, Began to trickle down again in dew; Weary, and faint, and full of thought, Tho for what cause I knew not well, What I ail'd, I could not tell, I sate me down at an ag'd Poplar's root, Whose chiding leaves excepted and my breast, All the impertinently-busi'd-world enclin'd to rest.

II.

I list'ned heedfully around, But not a whisper there was found.

The murmuring Brook hard by, As heavy, and as dull as I, Seem'd drowsily along to creep; It ran with undiscovered pace, And if a pibble stopt the lazy race, 'Twas but as if it started in its sleep, Eccho her self, that ever lent an ear To any piteous tone; Wont to grone, with them that grone, Eccho herself, was speechless here. Thrice did I sigh, Thrice miserably cry, Ai me! the Ny••ph ai me! would not reply, Or churlish, or she was a sleep for company.

III.

I thought on every pensive thing, That might my passion strongly move, That might the sweetest sadness bring; Oft did I tkink on death, and oft on Love, The triumphs of the little God, and that same gast∣ly King;

The ghastly King what has he done, How his pale Territories spread! Strait scantlings now of consecrated ground His swelling Empire cannot bound, But every day new Colonies of dead Enhance his Conquests, and advance his Throne. The mighty City say'd from storms of war, Exempted from the Crimson floud, When all the Land o're flow'd with blood, Stoop's yet once more to a new Conqueror: The City which so many Rivals bred, Sackcloath is on her loyns, and ashes on her head.

IV.

When will the frowning heav'n begin to smile? Those pitchy clouds be overblown, That hide the mighty Town, That I may see the mighty pyle! When will the angry Angel cease to slay; And turn his brandish't sword away From that illustrous Golgotha,

London, the great Aceldama! When will that stately Landscape open lie, The mist withdrawn that intercepts my ey! That heap of Pyramids appear, Which now, too much like those of Egypts are: Eternal Monuments of Pride and Sin, Magnificent and tall without, but Dead mens bones within.