1

Landscapes how gay the bow'ry grotto yields,
Which thought creates, and lavish fancy builds!
What art can trace the visionary scenes,
The flow'ry groves, and everlasting greens,
The babbling sounds that mimic echo plays,
The fairy shade, and its eternal maze,
Nature and art in all their charms combin'd,
And all Elysium to one view confin'd!
No farther could imagination roam,

Till Vanbrugh fram'd, and Marlbro' rais'd the dome.
Ten thousand pangs my anxious bosom tear,
When drown'd in tears I see th' imploring fair:
When bards less soft the moving words supply,
A seeming justice dooms the nymph to die :
But here she begs, nor can she beg in vain,
(In dirges thus expiring swans complain)
Each verse so swells, expressive of her woes,
And ev'ry tear in lines so mournful flows;
We, spite of fame, her fate revers'd believe,
O'erlook her crimes, and think she ought to live.

Let joy transport fair Rosamonda's shade,
And wreaths of myrtle crown the lovely maid.
While now perhaps with Dido's ghost she roves,
And hears and tells the story of their loves;

Alike they mourn, alike they bless their fate,

Since love, which made them wretched, makes them great;

Nor longer that relentless doom bemoan,
Which gain'd a Virgil and an Addison.

Accept, great monarch of the British lays,
The tribute song an humble subject pays.
So tries the artless lark her early flight,
And soars, to hail the god of verse and light.

Unrival'd as thy merit be thy fame,

And thy own laurels shade thy envied name:
Thy name, the boast of all the tuneful choir,
Shall tremble on the strings of ev'ry lyre;
While the charm'd reader with thy thought complies;
Feels corresponding joys or sorrows rise,
And views thy Rosamond with Henry's eyes.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

MEN.

KING HENRY.

SIR TRUSTY, keeper of the bower.

PAGE.

MESSENGER.

WOMEN.

QUEEN ELEANOR.

ROSAMOND.

GRIDELINE, wife to Sir Trusty.

GUARDIAN ANGELS, etc.

SCENE, WOODSTOCK PARK.

ROSAMON D.

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I.

A prospect of Woodstock park, terminating in the bower.
Enter QUEEN and PAGE.

From hill to hill the voice is tost,
Rocks rebounding,

Caves resounding,
Not a single word is lost.

Alluding to the famous echo in Woodstock park.

PAGE. There gentle Rosamond immured Lives from the world and you secured.

QUEEN. Curse on the name! I faint, I die, With secret pangs of jealousy.

PAGE. There does the pensive beauty mourn, And languish for her lord's return.

QUEEN. Death and confusion! I'm too slow-
Show me the happy mansion, show-

PAGE. Great Henry there-
QUEEN. Trifler, no more!-

PAGE. -Great Henry there
Will soon forget the toils of war.

QUEEN. No more! the happy mansion show That holds this lovely guilty foe.

My wrath, like that of heav'n, shall rise,

And blast her in her paradise.

PAGE. Behold on yonder rising ground
The bower, that wanders

In meanders,

Ever bending,

Never ending,
Glades on glades,

Shades in shades,

Running an eternal round.

QUEEN. In such an endless maze I rove,

Lost in labyrinths of love,

My breast with hoarded vengeance burns,
While fear and rage

With hope engage,

And rule my wav'ring soul by turns.

PAGE. The path yon verdant field divides, Which to the soft confinement guides.

[Aside.

-[Aside.