Cowley. Denham. Milton. Butler. Rochester. Roscommon. Otway. Waller. Pomfret ...

Nature to thee does reverence pay,

Ill omens and ill fights removes out of thy way.
At thy appearance, Grief itfelf is faid

To fhake his wings and rouze his head:
And cloudy Care has often took

A gentle beamy fmile, reflected from thy look.

At thy appearance, Fear itself grows bold;
Thy fun-fhine melts away his cold.
Encourag'd at the fight of thee,

To the cheek colour comes, and firmnefs to the
knee.

Ev'n Luft, the mafter of a harden'd face,
Blufhes, if thou be'ft in the place,

To Darknefs' curtains he retires;
In fympathizing night he rolls his fmoky fires.
When, Goddefs! thou lift'ft up thy waken'd head,
Out of the morning's purple bed,
Thy quire of birds about thee play,
And all the joyful world falutes the rifing day.
The ghofts, and monster-spirits, that did prefume
A body's privilege to affume,
Vanish again invifibly,

And bodies gain again their vifibility.

All the world's bravery, that delights our eyes,
Is but thy feveral liveries;

Thou the rich dye on them beftow'st,
Thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as thou
go'ft.

A crimson garment in the rpfe thou wear'ft;

A crown of fludded goid thou bear'ft;

The virgin-lilies, in their white,

But the vaft ocean of unbounded day

In th' empyræan heaven does ftay.
Thy rivers, lakes, and fprings, below,
From thence took firft their rife, thither at laft
muft flow.

ΤΟ THE

ROYAL SOCIETY.

PHILOSOPHY, the great and only heir

Of all that human knowledge which has been
Unforfeited by man's rebellious fin,
Though full of years he do appear
(Philofophy, I fay, and call it He;
For, whatfoe'er the painter's fancy be,

It a male-virtue feems to me)

Has ftill been kept in nonage till of late,
Nor manag'd or enjoy'd his vaft estate.
Three or four thousand years, one would have

thought,

To ripeness and perfection might have brought
A fcience fo well bred and nurft,
And of fuch hopeful parts too at the firft:
But, oh! the guardians and the tutors, then
(Some negligent and fome ambitious men)

Would ne'er confent to fet him free,

Or his own natural powers to let him fee
Left that should put an end to their authority,.
That his own bufinefs he might quite forget,
They' amus'd him with the fports of wanton wit;
With the defferts of poetry they fed him,

Are clad but with the lawn of almoft naked light. Inftead of folid meats t' increase his force;

The violet, Spring's little infant, ftands

Girt in thy purple fwaddling-bands:
On the fair tulip thou doft doat;

Thou cloath'ft it in a gay and party-colour'd coat.
With flame condens'd thou do'ft thy jewels fix,
And folid colours in it mix :
Flora herself envies to fee

Flowers fairer than her own, and durable as the.
Ah, Goddess! would thou could'ft thy hand
withhold,

And be lefs liberal to gold!

Didft thou lefs value to it give,

Of how much care, alas! might'ft thou poor man relieve!

To me the fun is more delightful far,

And all fair days much fairer are.
But few, ah! wondrous few, there be,
Who do not gold prefer, O Goddess ev'n to thec.
Through the foft ways of heaven, and air, and fea,

Which open all their pores to thee,
Like a clear river thou doft glide,
And with thy living ftream through the clofe
channels flide.

But, where firm bodies thy free courfe oppose,
Gently thy fource the land o'crflows;
Takes there poffeffion, and does make,
Of colours mingled light, a thick and standing lake.

Inftead of vigorous exercife, they led him
into the pleafant labyrinths of ever-fresh difcourfe:
Inftead of carrying him to fee

The riches which do hoarded for him lie
In Nature's endless treasury,

They chofe his eye to entertain
(His curious but not covetous eye)
With painted feenes and pageants of the brain.
Some few exalted fpirits this latter age has fhown,
That labour'd to affert the liberty

(From guardians who were now ufurpers grown.
Of this old minor ftill, captiv'd Philofophy;
But 't was rebellion call'd, to fight
For fuch a long-oppreffed right.

Bacon at laft, a mighty man, arofe,

(Whem a wife king, and Nature, chofe,
Lerd chancellor of beth their jaws
And boldy undertook the injur'd pupil's caufe.
Authority-which did a body boast,
Though 'twas but air condens'd, and stalk'd

about,

Like fome old giant's more gigantic ghoft,

To terrify the learned rout

With the plain magic of true Reafon's light-
He chac'd out of our fight;

Nor fuffer'd living men to be misled

By the vain fhadows of the dead: To graves, from whence it rofe, the conquer'd phantom fled.

Yet ftill, methinks, we fain would be
Catching at the forbidden tree-

We would be like the Deity

When truth and falfehood, good and evil, we,
Without the feufes' aid, within ourselves would fee;
For 'tis God only who can find
All Nature in his mind.

From words, which are but pictures of the thought (Though we our thoughts from them perverfely drew)

To things, the mind's right object, he it brought:
Like foolish birds, to painted grapes we flew ;
He fought and gather'd for our ule the true:
And, when on heaps the chofen bunches lay,
He preil them wifely the mechanic way,
Till all their juice did in one veffel join,
Ferment into a nourishment divine,

The thirty foul's refreshing wine.
Who to the life an exac piece would make,
Mut not from others' work a copy take;

No, not from Rubens or Vandyke;

Mach lefs content himself to make it like
Th' ideas and the images which lie
in his own fancy or his memory.

No, he before his fight must place
The natural and living face;
The real object must command

}

Each judgment of his eye and motion of his hand,

From thefe and all long errors of the way,
In which our wandering predeceffors went,
And, like th' old Hebrews, many years did ftray,
In deferts but of fmall extent,

Bacon, like Mofes, led us forth at last:
The barren wilderness he paft;
Did on the very border stand

Of the bleft promis'd land;

And from the mountain's top of his exalted wit,
Saw it himself, and fhew'd us it.

But life did never to one man allow
Time
ne to difcover worlds and conquer too;
Nor can fo fhort a line fufficient be
To fathom the vait depths of Nature's fea.
The work he did we ought t' admire;
And were unjuft if we fhould more require
From his few years, divided 'twixt th' excefs
Of low affliction and high happiness:
For who on things remote can fix his fight,
That's always in a triumph or a fight?

From you, great champions! we expect to get
Thefe fpacious countries, but difcover'd yet;

"Too many to o'ercome for me;"
And now he choofes out his men,
Much in the way that he did then;
Not thofe many whom he found
Idly' extended on the ground,

To drink with their dejected head
The stream, juft fo as by their mouths it fled :
No; but thofe few who took the waters up,
And made of their laborious hands the cup.

Thus you prepar'd, and in the glorious fight
Their wondrous pattern too you take;
Their old and empty pitchers first they brake,
And with their hands then lifted up the light.
lo! found too the trumpets here!
A'ready your victorious lights appear;
New fcenes of heaven already we cfpy,
And crowds of gelden worlds on high,
Which from the fpacious plains of earth and fea
Could never yet difcover'd be,
By failors' or Chaldeans' watchful cye.
Nature's great works no diftance can obfcure,
No fmallnefs her ncar objects can fecure;
Y' have taught the curious fight to prefs
Into the privatest recels

Of her imperceptible littleness!

}

Y' have learn'd to read her fmalleft hand,
And well begun her decpeft fenfe to understand!

Mifchief and true difhonour fall on thofe
Who would to laughter or to fcorn expofe
So virtuous and fo noble a defign,

So human for its ufe, for knowledge fo divine.
The things which thefe proud men despise, and call
Impertinent, and vain, and fmall,

Thofe fmalleft things of nature let me know,
Rather than all their greatest actions do!
Whoever would depofed Truth advance
Into the throne ufurp'd from it,

Muft feel at first the blows of Ignorance,
And the fharp points of envious Wit.

So, when, by various turns of the celestial dance,
In many thoufand years

A ftar, fo long unknown, appears,
Though heaven itfelf more beauteous by

grow,

It troubles and alarms the world below;
Does to the wife a flar, to fools a meteor, fhow.

With courage and fuccefs you the bold work

begin;

Your cradle has not idle been: None e'er, but Hercules and you, would be At five years age worthy a history. And ne'er did Fortune better yet

Th' hiftorian to the story fit:

As you from all old errors free
And purge the body of Philofophy;
So from all modern follies he
Has vindicated Eloquence and Wit.

His candid ftyle like a clear ftream does flide,
And his bright fancy, all the way,
Does like the fun-fhine in it play;

It does, like Thames, the best of rivers! glide.
Where the God does not rudely overturn,
But gently pour, the crystal urn,

And with judicious hand does the whole current
guide:

'T has all the beauties Nature can impart,
And all the comely drefs, without the paint, of

SIR

Art.

UPON THE

CHAIR MADE OUT OF

There are seven, eight, nine-stay—there are

behind

Ten plays at least, which wait but for a wind,
And the glad news that we the enemy mifs;
And thofe are all your own, if you spare this.
Some are but new trimm'd up, others quite new;
Some by known fhipwrights built, and others too
By that great author made, whoe'er he be,
That ftyles himself " Person of Quality;"
All thefe, if we miscarry here to-day,
Will rather till they rot in th' harbour stay;
Nay, they will back again, though they were

come

Ev'n to their laft fafe road, the tyring-room.
Therefore again I fay, if you be wife,
Let this for once pafs free; let it fuffice
That we, your fovereign power here to avow,
Thus humbly, ere we pafs, ftrike fail to you.

ADDED AT COURT.

STAY, gentlemen; what I have faid was all

FRANCIS DRAKE'S SHIP, But forc'd fubmiffion, which I now recall

PRESENTED TO THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

OF OXFORD, BY JOHN DAVIS, OF
DEPTFORD, ESQUIRE.

Ye're all but pirates now again; for here
Does the true fovereign of the feas appear,
The fovereign of thefe narrow feas of wit;
"Tis his own Thames; he knows and governs it.
'Tis his dominion and domain; as he

To this great fhip, which round the globe Pleafes, 'tis either shut to us, or free.

has run,

And match'd in race the chariot of the fun,
This Pythagorean fhip (for it may claim
Without prefumption fo deferv'd a name,
By knowledge once, and transformation now)
In her new fhape, this facred port allow.
Drake and his fhip could not have wifh'd from Fate
A more bleft ftation, or more bleft eftate;

For lo! a feat of endless reft is given
To her in Oxford, and to him in heaven.

Not only, if his paffport we obtain,
We fear no little rovers of the main:
But, if our Neptune his calm visage show,
No waye fhall dare to rife or wind to blow.

PROLOGUE

TO THE CUTTER OF COLMAN STREET.

THE MISTRESS,

SEVERAL COPIES OF LOVE-VERSES.

"Haret lateri lethalis arundo."-VIRG.

THE REQUEST.

'AVE often wifh'd to love; what fhall I do?

AS, when the midlar of Tianis and Argier-Me fill the cruel boy does spares

From dreadful fleets

Which coaft about, to all they meet with foes,

I a double task muft

And upon which nought can be got but blows-Firft to wooe him, and then a mistress too.

The merchant-fhips fo much their paffage doubt,
That, though full-freighted, none dares venture

Come at last and ftrike, for fhame,
If thou art any thing befides a name;
I'll think thee elfe no God to be,

But poets rather Gods, who first created thee.

I ask not one in whom all beauties grow;
Let me but love, whate'er fhe be,
She cannot feem deform'd to me;
And I would have her feem to others fo.
Defire takes wings and ftrait does fly,

It stays not dully to enquire the Why.
That happy thing, a lover, grown,

I fhall not fce with others' eyes, fcarce with mine

own.

If fhe be coy, and fcorn my noble fire;
If her chill heart I cannot move;

Why I'll enjoy the very love,
And make a mistress of my own defire.

Flames their most vigorous heat do hold, And pureft light, if compafs'd round with cold: So, when fharp winter means most harm, The fpringing plants are by the snow itself kept

warm.

But do not touch my heart, and fo begone;
Strike deep thy burning arrows in!
Lukewarmnefs I account a fin,

As great in love as in religion.

Come arm'd with flames; for I would prove All the extremities of mighty Love.

Th' excefs of heat is but a fable;

We know the torrid zone is now found habitable.

Among the woods and forefts thou art found,
There bears and lions thou doft tame;
Is not my heart a nobler game?
Let Venus, men; and beafts Diana wound!
Thou doft the birds thy fubjects make;
Thy nimble feathers do their wings o'ertake:
Thou all the fpring their fongs doft hear;
Make me love too, I'll fing to' thee all the year!
What fervice can mute fishes do to thee?
Yet against them thy dart prevails,
Piercing the armour of their fcales;
And fill thy fea-born mother lives i' th' faa.
Doft thou deny only to me

The no-great privilege of captivity?

I beg or challenge here thy bow;

Either thy pity to me, or clfe thine anger, fhow.
Come! or I'll teach the world to fcorn that bow:
I'll teach them thousand wholesome arts
Both to refift and cure thy darts,
More than thy skilful Ovid e'er did know.
Mufic of fighs thou shalt not hear,

Nor drink one wretched lover's tafteful tear:
Nay, unless foon thou woundest me,

I am thy flave then; let me know, Hard mafter the great tafk I have to do: Who pride and scorn do undergo. In tempefts and rough feas thy galleys row; They pant, and groan, and figh; but find Their fighs increase the angry wind. Like an Egyptian tyrant, fome Thou wearieft out in building but a tomb; Others, with fad and tedious art, Labour i' th' quarries of a flony heart: Of all the works thou doft affign, To all the feveral flaves of thine, Employ me, mighty Love! to dig the mine.

THE GIVEN LOVE. 'LL on; for what fhould hinder me From loving and enjoying thet? Thou canst not thofe exceptions make, | Which vulgar, fordid mortais takeThat my fate's too mean and low; 'Twere pity I should love thee fo, If that dull caufe could hinder me In loving and enjoying thee.

It does not me a whit difpleafe,
That the rich all honours feize:
That you all titles make your own,
Are valiant, learned, wife, alone:
But, if you claim o'er women too
The power which over men ye do;
If you alone muft lovers be;

For that, Sirs, you must pardon me.

Rather than lofe what does fo near
Concern my life and being here,

I'll fome fuch crooked ways invent,

My verfes fhall not only wound, but murder, thee. As you, or your forefathers, went :

run;

A pointed pain pierc'd deep my heart;
A fwift cold trembling feiz'd on every part;
My head turn'd round, nor could it bear
The poifon that was enter'd there.

So a destroying-angel's breath
Blows-in the plague, and with it hasty death:
Such was the pain, did fo begin,

To the poor wretch, when Legion enter'd in.
"Forgive me, God!" I cry'd; "for I
"Flatter'd myself I was to die."

But quickly to my coft I found,

'Twas cruel Love, not Death, had made the wound;

Death a more generous rage does ufe;
Quarter to all he conquers does refuf::

Whilft Love with barbarous mercy faves
The vanquish'd lives, to make them slaves.
Vol. II.

I'll flatter or oppofe the king,
Turn Puritan, or any thing;
I'll force my mind to arts fo new:
Grow rich, and love as well as you.
But rather thus let me remain,
As man in paradife did reign;
When perfect love did fo agree
With innocence and poverty,
Adam did no jointure give;
Himfelf was jointure to his Eve:
Untouch'd with avarice yet, or pride,
The rib came freely back this fide.
A curfe upon the man who taught
Women, that love was to be bought;
Rather doat only on your gold,
And that with greedy avarice hold,
For, if women too fubmit
To that, and fell herfelf for it,
Fond lover! you a miftref, have
Of her that's but your fellow-flave.
What fhould thofe poets mean of old,
That made their God to wooe in gold?
Of all men, fure, they had no caufe
To bind love to fuch coftly laws;

And yet I fcarcely blame them now;
For who, alas! would not allow,
That women should fuch gifts receive,
Could they, as he, be what they give.

If thou, my dear, thyself fhouldst prize,
As what value would fulfice?
The Spaniard could not do 't, though he
Should to both Indies jointure thee.
Thy beauties therefore wrong will take,
If thou shouldst any bargain make;
To give all, will befit thee well;
But not at under-rates to fell.

Below thy beauty then on me,
Freely, as nature gave 't to thee;
'Tis an exploded popish thought
To think that heaven may be bought.
Prayers, hymns, and praifes, are the way,
And thofe my thankful Muse shall pay :
Thy body, in my verfe enfhrin'd,
Shall grow immortal as thy mind.

I'll fix thy title next in fame
To Sachariffa's well-fung name.
So faithfully will I declare

What all thy wond'rous beauties are,
That when, at the last great allize,
All women shall together rife,
Men ftrait fhall caft their eyes on thee,
And know at first that thou art the.

In vain did Nature bid them stay,
When Orpheus had his fong begun→
They call'd their wondering roots away,
And bade them filent to him run.

How would thofe learned trees have follow'd you!
You would have drawn them and their poet too.

But who can blame them now? for, fince you're gone,

They're here the only fair, and fhine alone:
You did their natural rights invade;
Wherever you did walk or fit,

The thickeft boughs could make no shade,
Although the fun had granted it :

The fairest flowers could please no more, near you,
Than painted flowers, fet next to them, could do.
Whene'er then you come hither, that shall be
The time, which this to others is, to me.

The little joys which here are now,
The name of punishments do bear;
When by their fight they let us know
How we depriv'd of greater are:

'Tis you the best of feafons with you bring;
This is for beafts, and that for men, the Spring.

THE SPRING.

HOUGH you be absent here, I needs muft
fay

The trees as beauteous are, and flowers as gay,
As ever they were wont to be;
Nay, the birds' rural mufic too
Is as melodious and as free,

As if they fung to pleasure you:

I faw a rofe-bud ope this morn-I'll fwear
The blufhing morning open'd not more fair.

How could it be fo fair, and you away?
How could the trees be beauteous, flowers fo gay?
Could they remember but last year,
How you did them, they you, delight,
The fprouting leaves which faw you here,
And call'd their fellows to the fight,
Would, looking round for the fame fight in vain,
Creep back into their filent barks again.

Where'er you walk'd, trees were as reverend made,
As when of old Gods dwelt in every shade,
Is 't poffible they fhould not know,
What lofs of honour they sustain,
That thus they fmile and flourish now,
And ftill their former pride retain?
Dull creatures! 'tis not without cause that she,
Who fled the God of Wit, was made a tree.

In ancient times, fure, they much wiser were,
When they rejoic'd the Thracian verfe to hear;

WRITTEN IN

JUICE OF LEMON.

HILST what I write I do not fee,

Wildare thus, cv'n to you, write poetry.

Ah, foolish Mufe! which doft fo high aspire,
And know'ft her judgment well,

How much it does thy power excel,
Yet dar'ft be read by, thy juft doom, the fire.

Alas! thou think'it thyself fecure,
Because thy form is innocent and pure :
Like hypocrites, which feem unspotted here;
But, when they fadly come to die,
And the last fire their truth must try,
Scrawl'd o'er like thee, and blotted, they appear.

Go then, but reverently go,

And, fince thou needs muft fin, confefs it too:
Confefs 't, and with humility clothe thy fhame;
For thou, who else muft burned be
An heretic, if the pardon thee,
May't like a martyr then enjoy the flame.

But, if her wifdom grow fevere,
If her large mercies cruelly' it restrain;
And fuffer not her goodness to be there;
Be not difcourag'd, but require
A more gentle ordeal fire,

And bid her by Love's flames read it again.

Strange power of heat! thou yet doft fhow Like winter-earth, naked or cloath'd withinow; But as, the quickening fun approaching near, The plants arife up by degrees; A fudden paint adorns the trees, And all kind Nature's characters appear.

So, nothing yet in thee is feen';

But, when a genial heat warms thee within,

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