FOR HIS MAJESTY’S BIRTH-DAY, JUNE 4. 1762.

“Go Flora” (said the impatient queen
Who shares great Jove’s eternal reign)
“Go breathe on yonder thorn:
“Wake into bloom th’ emerging rose,
“And let the fairest flower that blows
     “The fairest month adorn.
“Sacred to me that month shall rise,
“Whatever † contests shake the skies
     “To give that month a name:
“Her April buds let Venus boast,
     “Let Maia range her painted host:
     “But June is Juno’s claim.

“And goddess, know, in after-times
“(I name not days, I name not climes)
     “From nature’s noblest throes
“A human flower shall glad the earth,
“And the same month disclose his birth,
     “Which bears the blushing rose.
“Nations shall bless his mild command,
“And fragrance fill th’ exulting land,
     “Where’er I fix his throne.” —
Britannia listen’d as she spoke,
And from her lips prophetic broke,
     “The flower shall be my own.”

O goddess of cunnubial love,
Thou sister, and thou wife of Jove,
To thee the suppliant voice we raise!
We name not months, we name not days,
For where thy smiles propitious shine,
The whole prolific year is thine.
     Accordant to the trembling strings,
          Hark, the general chorus swells,
     From every heart it springs,
          On every tongue it dwells.
Goddess of connubial love,
Sister thou, and wife of Jove,
Bid the genial powers that glide
On ether’s all pervading tide,
          Or from the fount of life that stream
          Mingling with the solar beam
          Bid them here at virtue’s shrine,
          In chastest bands of union join.
Till many a George and many a Charlotte prove,
How much to thee we owe, queen of connubial love!

† Alluding to tbe contention between the goddesses in Ovid’s Fasti about naming the mouth of June.