Look in, and see each blissful deity,
How he before the thundrous throne doth lie,
Listening to what unshorn Apollo sings
To the touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly sire;
Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire,
And misty regions of wide air next under,
And hills of snow, and lofts of piled thunder,
May tell at length how green-eyed Neptune raves,
In heaven's defiance mustering all his waves;
Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When beldame Nature in her cradle was;
And last of kings, and queens, and heroes old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told
In solemn songs at king Alcinous' feast,
While sad Ulysses' soul, and all the rest,
Are held, with his melodious harmony,
In willing chains and sweet captivity.
But fie, my wandering muse, how dost thou stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way;
Thou know'st it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy predicament:
Then quick about thy purposed business come,
That to the next I may resign my room.
Then Ens is represented as father of the Predicaments
his two sons, whereof the eldest stood for Substance
with his canons, which Ens, thus speaking, explains:
GOOD luck befriend thee, son; for, at thy birth,
The faery ladies danced upon the hearth;
Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spy
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,
And, sweetly singing round about thy bed,
Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head.
She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst still
From eyes of mortals walk invisible:
Yet there is something that doth force my fear;
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wisely could presage,
And in time's long and dark prospective glass,
Foresaw what future days should bring to pass;
Your son,' said she, (nor can you it prevent)
Shall subject be to many an accident.
O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king,
Yet every one shall make him underling;
And those, that cannot live from him asunder,
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under:
In worth and excellence he shall out-go them;
Yet, being above them, he shall be below them;
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on, his brothers shall depend for clothing.
To find a foe it shall not be his hap,
And peace shall lull him in her flowery lap:
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring war shall never cease to roar:
Yea, it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.
What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not
Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?
The next, Quantity and Quality, spake in prose: then
Relation was called by his name.
RIVERS, arise: whether thou be the son
Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulfy Dun,
Or Trent, who, like some earth-born giant, spreads
His thirsty arms along the indented meads;
Or sullen Mole, that runneth underneath;
Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death;
Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lee,
Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee;
Or Humber loud, that keeps the Scythian's name;
Or Medway smooth, or royal-tower'd Thame.
[The rest was prose.]
On the admirable Dramatic Poet, William Shakspeare.
WHAT needs my Shakspeare for his honour'd bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallow'd relics should be hid
Under a starry pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Has built thyself a livelong monument.
For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easy numbers flow; and that each heart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die.
ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER,
Who sickened in the Time of his Vacancy; being for
bid to go to London, by Reason of the Plague.
HERE lies old Hobson; death hath broke his girt,
And here, alas! hath laid him in the dirt;
Or else the ways being foul, twenty to one,
He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.
'Twas such a shifter, that, if truth were known,
Death was half-glad when he had got him down;
For he had, any time this ten years full,
Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and The Bull.
And surely Death could never have prevail'd,
Had not his weekly course of carriage fail'd;
But lately finding him so long at home,
And thinking now his journey's end was come,
And that he had ta'en up his latest inn,
In the kind office of a chamberlin
Shew'd him his room where he must lodge that night,
Pull'd off his boots, and took away the light:
any ask for him, it shall be said,
'Hobson has supp'd, and 's newly gone to bed.'.
ANOTHER ON THE SAME.
HERE lieth one, who did most truly prove
That he could never die while he could move;
So hung his destiny, never to rot
While he might still jog on and keep his trot;
Made of sphere metal, never to decay
Until his revolution was at stay.
Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime
'Gainst old truth) motion number'd out his time:
And, like an engine moved with wheel and weight,
His principles being ceased, he ended straight.
Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,
And too much breathing put him out of breath;
Nor were it contradiction to affirm,
Too long vacation hasted on his term.
Merely to drive the time away he sicken'd,
Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quicken'd;
Nay,' quoth he, on his swooning bed outstretch'd,
'If I mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetch'd,
But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers,
For one carrier put down to make six bearers.'
Ease was his chief disease; and to judge right,
He died for heaviness that his cart went light:
His leisure told him that his time was come,
And lack of load made his life burdensome,
That even to his last breath (there be that say't),
As he were press'd to death, he cried,' More
But, had his doings lasted as they were,
He had been an immortal carrier.
Obedient to the moon he spent his date
In course reciprocal, and had his fate
Link'd to the mutual flowing of the seas,
Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase:
His letters are deliver'd all and gone,
Only remains this superscription.
ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE,
Under the Long Parliament.
BECAUSE you have thrown off your prelate lord,
And with stiff vows renounced his Liturgy,
To seize the widow'd whore Plurality
From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorr'd
Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword
To force our consciences that Christ set free,
And ride us with a classic hierarchy
Taught ye by mere A. S. and Rotherford?
Men, whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent,
Would have been held in high esteem with Paul,
Must now be named and printed heretics
By shallow Edwards and Scotch what d'ye call:
But we do hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packing worse than those of Trent;
That so the Parliament
May, with their wholesome and preventive shears,
Clip your phylacteries, though balk your ears,
And succour our just fears,
When they shall read this clearly in your charge, New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large.
THE FIFTH ODE OF HORACE, LIB. I. WHAT slender youth, bedew'd with liquid odours, Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave, Pyrrha? For whom bind'st thou
In wreaths thy golden hair,
Plain in thy neatness? O, how oft shall he
On faith, and changed gods, complain; and seas
Rough with black winds, and storms
Unwonted shall admire!
Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold,
Who always vacant, always amiable,
Hopes thee, of flattering gales
Unmindful. Hapless they,
To whom thou untried seem'st fair! Me, in my vow'd
Picture, the sacred wall declares to have hung
My dank and dropping weeds
To the stern god of sea.
FROM GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.
Brutus thus addresses Diana in the Country of Leogocia GODDESS of shades, and huntress, who at will Walk'st on the rolling spheres, and through the deep; On thy third reign, the earth, look now, and tell What land, what seat of rest, thou bidd'st me seek, What certain seat, where I may worship thee For aye, with temples vow'd and virgin quires.
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