William Whitehead (Уильям Уайтхед)

Hymn to Venus, on a great Variety of Roses being planted around her Cottage

O Venus, whose inspiring breath
First waken'd Nature's genial power,
And cloth'd the teeming Earth beneath
With every plant, with every flower,
Which paints the verdant lap of Spring,
Or wantons in the Summer's ray;
Which, brush'd by Zephyr's dewy wing,
With fragrance hails the opening day;
Or, pour'd profuse on hill, on plain, on dale,
Reserves its treasur'd sweets for evening's softer gale!

To thee, behold, what new delights
The master of this shade prepares!
Induc'd by far inferior rites,
You've heard a Cyprian's softest prayers;
There form'd to wreaths, the sickly flower
Has on thy altars bloom'd and died;
But here, around thy fragrant bower,
Extends the living incense wide;
From the first rose the fost'ring Zephyrs rear,
To that whose fainter blush adorns the dying year.

Behold one beauteous flower assume
The lustre of th' unsullied snow!
While there the Belgic's softer bloom
Improves the damask's deeper glow;
The Austrian here in purple breaks,
Or flaunts in robes of yellow light;
While there, in more fantastic streaks,
The red rose mingles with the white,
And in its name records poor Albion's woes,
Albion, that oft has wept the colours of the rose!

Then VENUS, come; to every thorn
Thy kind prolific influence lend;
And bid the tears of eve and morn
In gently dropping dews descend;
Teach every sunbeam's warmth and light
To pierce thy thicket's inmost shade;
Nor let th' ungenial damps of night
The breeze's searching wings evade,
But every plant confess the power that guides,
And all be beauty here where beauty's queen presides.

So shall the master's bounteous hand
New plans design, new temples raise
To thee, and wide as his command
Extend the trophies of thy praise.
So daily, nightly, to thy star
The bard shall tribute pay,
Whether it guilds AURORA'S car,
Or loiters in the train of day;
And each revolving year new hymns shall grace
Thy showery month, which wakes the vegetable race.

1. The Sweepers
2. Nature to Dr. Hoadly
3. To the Honourable [Charles Townsend]
4. The Lyric Muse to Mr. Mason
5. Ode for the New Year, 1763

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