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| KNELLER, with silence and surprise | |
| We see Britannia’s monarch rise, | |
| A godlike form, by thee displayed | |
| In all the force of light and shade; | |
| And, awed by thy delusive hand, | 5 |
| As in the presence-chamber stand. | |
| The magic of thy art calls forth | |
| His secret soul and hidden worth, | |
| His probity and mildness shows, | |
| His care of friends and scorn of foes: | 10 |
| In every stroke, in every line, | |
| Does some exalted virtue shine, | |
| And Albion’s happiness we trace | |
| Through all the features of his face. | |
| O may I live to hail the day, | 15 |
| When the glad nation shall survey | |
| Their sovereign, through his wide command, | |
| Passing in progress o’er the land! | |
| Each heart shall bend, and every voice | |
| In loud applauding shouts rejoice, | 20 |
| Whilst all his gracious aspect praise, | |
| And crowds grow loyal as they gaze. | |
| This image on the medal placed, | |
| With its bright round of titles graced, | |
| And stampt on British coins shall live, | 25 |
| To richest ores the value give, | |
| Or, wrought within the curious mould, | |
| Shape and adorn the running gold. | |
| To bear this form, the genial sun | |
| Has daily, since his course begun, | 30 |
| Rejoiced the metal to refine, | |
| And ripened the Peruvian mine. | |
| Thou, Kneller, long with noble pride, | |
| The foremost of thy art, has vied | |
| With nature, in a generous strife, | 35 |
| And touched the canvass into life. | |
| Thy pencil has, by monarchs sought, | |
| From reign to reign in ermine wrought, | |
| And, in their robes of state arrayed, | |
| The kings of half an age displayed. | 40 |
| Here swarthy Charles appears, and there | |
| His brother with dejected air: | |
| Triumphant Nassau here we find, | |
| And with him bright Maria joined; | |
| There Anna, great as when she sent | 45 |
| Her armies through the continent. | |
| Ere yet her hero was disgraced: | |
| O may famed Brunswick be the last, | |
| (Though heaven should with my wish agree, | |
| And last, preserve thy art in thee) | 50 |
| The last, the happiest British king, | |
| Whom thou shalt paint, or I shall sing! | |
| Wise Phidias, thus his skill to prove, | |
| Through many a god advanced to Jove, | |
| And taught the polished rocks to shine | 55 |
| With airs and lineaments divine; | |
| Till Greece, amazed, and half afraid, | |
| Th’ assembled deities surveyed. | |
| Great Pan, who wont to chase the fair, | |
| And loved the spreading oak, was there; | 60 |
| Old Saturn too, with upcast eyes; | |
| Beheld his abdicated skies; | |
| And mighty Mars, for war renowned, | |
| In adamantine armour frowned; | |
| By him the childless goddess rose, | 65 |
| Minerva, studious to compose | |
| Her twisted threads; the web she strung, | |
| And o’er a loom of marble hung: | |
| Thetis, the troubled ocean’s queen, | |
| Matched with a mortal, next was seen, | 70 |
| Reclining on a funeral urn, | |
| Her short-lived darling son to mourn. | |
| The last was he, whose thunder slew | |
| The Titan race, a rebel crew, | |
| That from a hundred hills allied | 75 |
| In impious leagues their king defied. | |
| This wonder of the sculptor’s hand | |
| Produced, his art was at a stand: | |
| For who would hope new fame to raise, | |
| Or risk his well-established praise, | 80 |
| That, his high genius to approve, | |
| Had drawn a GEORGE, or carved a Jove! | |
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