Then all the wide-extended sky,
And all th' harmonious worlds on high,
And Virgil's sacred work shall die;

And he himself shall see in one fire shine

Figures, Conceits, Raptures, and Sentences, in a well-worded dress;

And innocent Loves, and pleasant Truths, and useful Lies,

In all their gaudy liveries.

Mount, glorious queen! thy travelling throne, And bid it to put on;

For long, though cheerful, is the way, And life, alas! allows but one ill winter's day.

hands divine.

Whom thunder's dismal noise,

And all that prophets and apostles louder spake,
And all the creatures' plain conspiring voice,

Could not, whilst they liv'd, awake,
This nightier sound shall make

When dead t' arise;

And open tombs, and open eyes,
To the long sluggards of five thousand years!
This mightier sound shall make its hearers ears.
Then shall the scatter'd atoms crowding come

Back to their ancient home;
Some from birds, from fishes some;
Some from earth, and some from seas;
Some from beasts, and some from trees;
Some descend from clouds on high,
Some from meta's upwards fly,

And, where th' attending soul naked and shivering stands,

Meet, salute, and join their hands;
As dispers'd soldiers, at the trumpet's call,
Haste to their colours all.
Unhappy most, like tortur'd meu,
Their joints new set, to be new-rack'd again,
To mountains they for shelter pray,

The mountains shake, and run about no less confus'd than they.

Stop, stop, my Muse! allay thy vigorous heat, Kindled at a hint so great;

Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in,

Which does to rage begin,

And this steep hill would gallop up with violent

course;

'Tis an unruly and a hard-mouth'd horse,

Fierce and unbroken yet,

Impatient of the spur or bit;

Now prances stately, and anon flies o'er the place;
Disdains the servile law of any settled pace,
Conscious and proud of his own natural force:
"Twill no unskilful touch endure,

But flings writer and reader too, that sits not

sure.

THE MUSE.

Go, the rich chariot instantly prepare;
The queen, my Muse, will take the air:
Unruly Fancy with strong Judgment trace;
Put in nimble-footed Wit,
Smooth-pac'd Eloquence join with it;
Sound Memory with young Invention place;
Harness all the winged race:

Let the postillion Nature mount, and let
The coachman Art be set;

And let the airy footmen, running all beside,
Make a long row of goodly pride,

The passage press'd;

Where never fish did fly,

And with short silver wings cut the low liquid sky; Row through the trackless ocean of the air; Where bird with painted oars did ne'er

Where never yet did pry

The busy Morning's curious eye;

The wheels of thy bold coach pass quick and free,
And all's an open road to thee;
Whatever God did say,

Is all thy plain and smooth uninterrupted way!
Nay, ev'n beyond his works thy voyages are

known,

Thou hast thousand worlds too of thine own. Thou speak'st, great queen! in the same style as he;

And a new world leaps forth when thou say'st, "Let it be."

Thou fathom'st the deep gulf of ages past,
And canst pluck up with ease

The

years which thou dost please;

Like shipwreck'd treasures, by rude tempests

With an unwearied wing the other way on high,
Where Fates among the stars do grow;
There into the close nests of Time dost peep,
And there, with piercing eye,

Through the firm shell and the thick white, dost spy

Years to come a-forming lie,

Close in their sacred fecundine asleep,

Till hatch'd by the Sun's vital heat,
Which o'er them yet does brooding set,
They life and motion get,

And, ripe at last, with vigorous might

Break through the shell, and take their everlasting flight!

And sure we may

The same too of the present say,

If past and future times do thee obey.
Thou stop'st this current, and dost make
This running river settle like a lake;

Thy certain hand holds fast this slippery snake:
The fruit which does so quickly waste,
Men scarce can see it, much less taste,
Thou comfitest in sweets to make it last.
This shining piece of ice,
Which melts so soon away
With the Sun's ray,

Thy verse does solidate and crystallize,
Till it a lasting mirror be!

Nay, thy inmortal rhyme
Makes this one short point of time
To fill up half the orb of round eternity.

TO MR. HOBBES.

VAST bodies of philosophy
I oft have seen and read;
But all are bodies dead,
Or bodies by art fashioned;
I never yet the living soul could see,
But in thy books and thee!
'Tis only God can know

Whether the fair idea thou dost show
Agree entirely with his own or no.

This I dare boldly tell,

'Tis so like truth, 'twill serve our turn as well.
Just, as in Nature, thy proportions be,
As full of concord their variety,

As firm the parts upon their centre rest,
And all so solid are, that they, at least
As much as Nature, emptiness detest.

Long did the mighty Stagyrite retain
The universal intellectual reign,

Saw his own country's short-liv'd leopard slain;
The stronger Roman eagle did out-fly,
Oftener renew'd his age, and saw that die.
Mecca itself, in spite of Mahomet, possest,
And, chac'd by a wild deluge from the East,
His monarchy new planted in the West.
But, as in time each great imperial race
Degenerates, and gives some new one place:
So did this noble empire waste,
Sunk by degrees from glories past,

And in the school-mea's hands it per.sh'd quite at
Then nought but words it grew,

[last:

[ty air!

And those all barbarous too: It perish'd, and it vanish'd there; The life and soul, breath'd out, became but empThe fields, which answer'd well the ancients'

plough,

Spent and out-worn, return ǹo harvest now;
In barren age wild and unglorious lie,

And boast of past fertility,

The poor relief of present poverty.
Food and fruit we now must want,
Unless new lands we plant.

We break-up tombs with sacrilegious hands;
Old rubbish we remove;

To walk in ruins, like vain ghosts, we love,
And with fond divining wands

We search among the dead
For treasures buried;

Whilst still the liberal Earth does hold
So many virgin-mines of undiscover'd gold.

The Baltic, Euxine, and the Caspian,
And slender-limb'd Mediterranean,
Seem narrow creeks to thee, and only fit
For the poor wretched fisher-boats of wit:
Thy nobler vessel the vast ocean tries,

And nothing sees but seas and skies,
Till unknown regions it descries.

Thou great Columbus of the golden lands of new philosophies!

Thy task was harder much than his;
For thy learn'd America is

Not only found-out first by thee,
And rudely left to future industry;

But thy eloquence and thy wit,

Has planted, peopled, built, and civiliz❜d it.

I little thought before,

(Nor, being my own self so poor,
Could comprehend sø vast a store)

That all the wardrobe of rich Eloquence Could have afforded half enough,

Of bright, of new, and lasting stuff, To cloathe the mighty limbs of thy gigantic Sense Thy solid reason, like the shield from Heaven

To the Trojan hero given,

Too strong to take a mark from any mortal dart,
Yet shines with gold and gems in every part,
And wonders on it grav'd by the learn'd hand of
A shield that gives delight
[Art!
Ev'n to the enemies' sight,

Then, when they 're sure to lose the combat by't.

Nor can the snow, which now cold Age does shed Upon thy reverend head,

Quench or allay the noble fires within;,

But all which thou hast been,

And all that youth can be thou 'rt yet!
So fully still dost thou

Enjoy the manhood and the bloom of Wit,
And all the natural heat, but not the fever too!
So contraries on Etna's top conspire;

Here hoary frosts, and by them breaks out fire!
A secure peace the faithful neighbours keep;
Th' embolden'd snow next to the flame does sleep!
And if we weigh, like thee,

Nature and causes, we shall see
That thus it needs must be-

To things immortal, Time can do no wrong,
And that which never is to die, for ever must be

Here a proud Pawn I admire,

That, still advancing higher,
At top of all became

Another thing and name;

Here I'm amaz'd at th' actions of a Knignt,
That does bold wonders in the fight;

Here I the losing party blame,

For those false moves that break the game, That to their grave, the bag, the conquer'd pieces bring,

And, above all, th' ill-conduct of the Mated king.

"Whate'er these seem, whate'er philosophy

And sense or reason tell," said I, "These things have life, election, liberty;

'Tis their own wisdom moulds their state, Their faults and virtues make their fate. They do, they do," said I; but straight, Lo! from my enlighten'd eyes the mists and shadows fell,

That hinder spirits from being visible;
And, lo! I saw two angels play'd the Mate.
With man, alas! no otherwise it proves;

An unseen band makes all their moves;
And some are great, and some are small,
Some climb to good, some from good-fortune fall;

Some wise-men, and some fools, we call; Figures, alas! of speech, for Destiny plays us all.

Me from the womb the midwife Muse did take: She cut my navel, wash'd me, and mine head

With her own hands she fashioned;

She did a covenant with me make, [spake: And circumcis'd my tender soul, and thus she "Thou of my church shalt be;

Hate and renounce," said she, [me. "Wealth, honour, pleasures, all the world, for Thou neither great at court, nor in the war, Nor at th' exchange, shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar:

Content thyself with the small barren praise,
That neglected verse does raise."
She spake, and all my years to come
Took their unlucky doom.

Their several ways of life let others chuse,
Their several pleasures let them use,
But I was born for love, and for a Muse.

With Fate what boots it to contend?
Such I began, such am, aud so must end.
The star that did my being frame,
Was but a lambent flame,

And some small light it did dispense,
But neither heat nor influence.

No matter, Cowley! let proud Fortune see,
That thou canst her despise no less than she does

Let all her gifts the portion be

Of Folly, Lust, and Flattery,
Fraud, Extortion, Calumny,
Murder, Infidelity,

Rebellion and Hypocrisy ;

Do thou not grieve, nor blush to be,

As all th' inspired tuneful men,

[thee.

But as her beams reflected pass

Through our own Nature or Ill-custom's glass: As 'tis no wonder, so,

If with dejected eye

In standing pools we seek the sky,
That stars, so high above,should seem to us below.
Can we stand by and see

Our mother robb'd, and bound, and ravish'd be,
Yet not to her assistance stir,
Fleas'd with the strength and beauty of the ra-
Or shall we fear to kill him, if before [visher?

The cancell'd name of friend he bore?
Ingrateful Brutus do they call?
Ingrateful Cæsar, who could Rome enthrall!
An act more barbarous and unnatural
(In th' exact balance of true virtue try'd)
Than his successor Nero's parricide!

There's none but Brutus could deserve
That all men else should wish to serve,
And Cæsar's usurp'd place to him should proffer;
None can deserve 't but he who would refuse the

offer.

Ill Fate assum'd a body thee t' affright, And wrap'd itself i' th' terrours of the night: "I'll meet thee at Philippi," said the sprite; "I'll meet thee there," saidst thou, With such a voice, and such a brow, As put the trembling ghost to sudden flight; It vanish'd, as a taper's light

Goes out when spirits appear in sight. One would have thought 't had heard the morn ing crow,

Or seen her well-appointed star Come marching up the eastern hill afar. Nor durst it in Philippi's field appear,

But, unseen, attack'd thee there:

down to Ben.

BRUTUS.

EXCELLENT Brutus! of all human race

The best, till Nature was improv'd by Grace;
Till men above themselves Faith raised more
Than Reason above beasts before.
Virtue was thy life's centre, and from thence
Did silently and constantly dispense
The gentle, vigorous influence
To all the wide and fair circumference;
And all the parts upon it lean'd so easily,
Obey'd the mighty force so willingly,
That none could discord or disorder see
In all their contrariety:

Each had his motion natural and free,
And the whole no more mov'd, than the whole

world, could be.

Thou would'st have forc'd it back upon thy foes:
Or slain 't, like Cæsar, though it be
A conqueror and a monarch mightier far than he.
What joy can human things to us afford,
When we see perish thus, by odd events,

[sword?'

Ill men, and wretched accidents, The best cause and best man that ever drew a When we see

The false Octavius and wild Antony,

God-like Brutus! conquer thee?

What can we say, but thine own tragic word—
That Virtue, which had worship'd been by thee
As the most solid good, and greatest deity,
By this fatal proof became
An idol only, and a name.
Hold, noble Brutus! and restrain
The bold voice of thy generous disdain :

These mighty gulphs are yet

Too deep for all thy judgment and thy wit.

Stiff Reason, when it offers to rebel;
Which these great secrets shall unseal,
And new philosophies reveal:

A few years more, so soon hadst thou not dy'd,
Would have confounded human Virtue's pride,
And show'd thee a God crucify'd.

TO DR. SCARBOROUGH. How long, alas! has our mad nation been Of epidemic war the tragic scene,

When Slaughter all the while
Seem'd, like its sea, embracing round the isle,
With tempests, and red waves, noise, and af-
fright!

Albion no more, nor to be nam'd from white!
What province or what city did it spare?
It, like a plague, infected all the air.

Sure the unpeopled land

Would now untill'd, desert, and naked stand,
Had God's all-mighty hand

At the same time let loose Diseases' rage
Their civil wars in man to wage.

But thou by Heaven wert sent
This desolation to prevent,

▲ med'cine, and a counter-poison, to the age. Scarce could the sword dispatch inore to the grave Than thou didst save;

By wondrous art, and by successful care,
The ruins of a civil war thou dost alone repair!

The inundations of all liquid pain,

And deluge Dropsy, thou dost drain.
Fevers so hot, that one would say,
Thou might'st as soon hell-fires allay

(The damn'd scarce more incurable than they)
Thou dost so temper, that we find,
Like gold, the body but refin'd,
No unhealthful dross behind.

The subtle Ague, that for sureness' sake
Takes its own times th' assault to make,

And at each battery the whole fort does shake,
When thy strong guards, and works, it spies,
Trembles for itself, and flies.
The cruel Stone, that restless pain,

That's sometimes roll'd away in vain,
But still, like Sysiphus's stone, returns again,
Thou break'st and meltest by learn'd juices' force,
(A greater work, though short the way appear,
Than Hannibal's by vinegar !)
Oppressed Nature's necessary course
It stops in vain; like Moses, thou
Strik'st but the rock, and straight the waters
freely flow.

[seize,

The Indian son of Lust (that foul disease
Which did on this his new-found world but lately
Yet since a tyranny has planted here,
As wide and cruel as the Spaniard there)
Is so quite rooted out by thee,
That thy patients seem to be

Restor'd, not to health only, but virginity.
The Plague itself, that proud imperial ill,
Which destroys towns, and does whole armies
kill,

If thou but succour the besieged heart,
Calls all its poisons forth and does depart,
As if it fear'd no less thy art,

Than Aaron's incense, or than Phineas' dart.
What need there here repeated be by me
The vast and barbarous lexicon
Of man's infirmity?

At thy strong charms it must be gone Though a disease, as well as devil, were called Legion.

From creeping moss to soaring cedar thou
Dost all the powers and several portions know,
Which father-Sun, and mother-Earth below,

On their green infants here bestow : Canst all those magic virtues from them draw, That keep Disease and Death in awe;

Who, whilst thy wondrous skill in plants they see, Fear lest the tree of life should be found out by thee.

And thy well-travell'd knowledge, too, does give
No less account of th' empire sensitive;
Chiefly of man, whose body is

That active soul's metropolis.

As the great artist in his sphere of glass
Saw the whole scene of heavenly motions pass;
So thou know'st all so well that 's done within,
As if some living crystal man thou 'dst seen.
Nor does this science make thy crown alone,
But whole Apollo is thine own;
His gentler arts, belov'd in vain by me,
Are wedded and enjoy'd by thee.
Thou 'rt by this noble mixture free
From the physician's frequent malady,
Fantastic incivility:

There are who all their patients' chagrin have,
As if they took each morn worse potions than they

As certainly as I;

[tality.

And all thy noble reparations sink
Into the sure-wrought mine of treacherous mor-
Like Archimedes, honourably in vain,
Thou hold'st out towns that must at last be ta'en,
And thou thyself, their great defender, slain.
Let's e'en compound, and for the present live,
'Tis all the ready-money Fate can give;

Unbend sometimes thy restless care,
And let thy friends so happy be

T' enjoy at once their health and thee: Some hours, at least, to thine own pleasures spare: Since the whole stock may soon exhausted be, Bestow 't not all in charity.

Let Nature and let Art do what they please,
When all 's done, life is an incurable disease,

What's somebody, or nobody?

In all the cobwebs of the schoolmen's trade,
We no such nice distinction woven see,
As 'tis "to be," or " not to be."
Dream of a shadow ! a reflection made
From the false glories of the gay reflected bow,
Is a more solid thing than thou.

Vain weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise
Up betwixt two eternities!

Yet canst nor wave nor wind sustain, But, broken and o'erwhelm'd, the endless oceans meet again.

And with what rare inventions do we strive
Ourselves then to survive?
Wise, subtle arts, and such as well befit
That Nothing, man's no wit!-