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Orinda, on the female coasts of Fame,
Engrosses all the goods of a poetic name;
She does no partner with her see;
Does all the business there alone, which we
Are forc'd to carry on by a whole company.
But wit's like a luxuriant vine;

Unless to virtue's prop it join,

Firm and erect towards Heaven bound; Though it with beauteous leaves and pleasant fruit be crown'd,

It lies, deform'd and rotting, on the ground.
Now shame and blushes on us all,
Who our own sex superior call!
Orinda does our boasting sex out-do,
Not in wit only, but in virtue too:

She does above our best examples rise,
In hate of vice and scorn of vanities.
Never did spirit of the manly make,

And dip'd all o'er in Learning's sacred lake,
A temper more invulnerable take.

No violent passion could an entrance find
Into the tender goodness of her mind :
Through walls of stone those furious bullets may
Force their impetuous way;

When her soft breast they hit, powerless and dead they lay!

The Fame of Friendship, which so long had told
Of three or four illustrious names of old,
Till hoarse and weary with the tale she grew,
Rejoices now t' have got a new,
A new and more surprizing story,
Of fair Lucasia's and Orinda's glory.
As when a prudent man does once perceive
That in some foreign country he must live,
The language and the manners he does strive
To understand and practise here,
That he may come no stranger there:
So well Orinda did herself prepare,
In this much different clime, for her remove
To the glad world of Poetry and Love.

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And skill in painting, dost bestow, Upon thy ancient arms, the gaudy heavenly bow.

Swift as light thoughts their empty career run,
Thy race is finish'd when begun;
Let a post-angel start with thee,

And thou the goal of Earth shalt reach as soon as he.

Thou in the Moon's bright chariot,proud and gay,
Dost thy bright wood of stars survey;
And all the year dost with thee bring
Of thousand flowery lights thine own nocturnal
spring.

Thou, Scythian-like, dost round thy lands above
The Sun's gilt tents for ever move,
And still, as thou in pomp dost go,
The shining pageants of the world attend thy
show.

Nor amidst all these triumphs dost thou scorn
The humble glow-worms to adorn,
And with those living spangles gild
(O greatness without pride!) the bushes of the

field.

Night, and her ugly subjects, thou dost fright,
And Sleep, the lazy owl of night;
Asham'd, and fearful to appear,
They screen their horrid shapes with the black
hemisphere.

With them there hastes, and wildly takes th' alarm,

Of painted dreams a busy swarm: At the first opening of thine eye The various clusters break, the antic atoms fly. The guilty serpents, and obscener beasts,

Creep, conscious, to their secret rests:
Nature to thee does reverence pay,
Ill omens and ill sights removes out of thy way.
At thy appearance, Grief itself is said

To shake his wings, and rouse his head:
And cloudy Care has often took

A gentle beamy smile, reflected from thy look.
At thy appearance, Fear itself grows bold;
Thy sun-shine melts away his cold.
Encourag'd at the sight of thee,

To the check colour comes, and firmness to the

knee.

Ev'n Lust, the master of a harden'd face,
Blushes, if thou be'st in the place,
To Darkness' curtains he retires;

In sympathizing night he rolls his smoky fires. When, goddess! thou lift'st up thy waken'd head,

Out of the morning's purple bed,
Thy quire of birds about thee play

And all the joyful world salutes the rising day.
The ghosts, and monster-spirits, that did presume
A body's privilege to assume,
Vanish again invisibly,

And bodies gain again their visibility.

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

Thou the rich dye on them bestow`st, Thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as theu

go'st.

A crimson garment in the rose thou wear'st;
A crown of studded gold thou bear'st;
The virgin-lilies, in their white,

Are clad but with the lawn of almost naked light.
The violet, Spring's little infant, stands

Girt in thy purple swaddling-bands On the fair tulip thou dost doat; Thou cloth'st it in a gay and party-colour'd coat. With flame condens'd thou do'st thy jewels fix, And solid colours in it mix: Flora herself envies to see Flowers fairer than her own, and durable as she. Ah, goddess! would thou could'st thy hand withhold,

And be less liberal to gold!

Didst thou less value to it give,

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

To me the Sun 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 thee.
Through the soft ways of Heaven, and air,and sea,
Which open all their pores to thee,
Like a clear river thou dost glide,
And with thy living stream through the close
channels slide.

But, where firm bodies thy free course oppose,
Gently thy source the land o'erflows;
Takes there possession, and does make,
Of colours mingled light, a thick and standing
lake.

But the vast ocean of unbounded day,

In th' empyræan Heaven does stay. Thy rivers, lakes, and springs, below, From thence took first their rise, thither at last must flow,

TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY. PHILOSOPHY, the great and only heir

Of all that human knowledge which has been Unforfeited by man's rebellious sin,

Though full of years he do appear, (Philosophy, I say, and call it he, For, whatsoe'er the painter's fancy be,

It a male-virtue seems to me)

Has still been kept in nonage till of late,

Nor manag'd or enjoy'd his vast estate.

Instead of carrying him to see

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

They chose his eye to entertain

(His curious but not covetous eye)

With painted scenes and pageants of the brain. Some few exalted spirits this latter age has shown,

That labour'd to assert the liberty

(From guardians who were now usurpers grown).
Of this old minor still, captiv'd Philosophy;
But 'twas rebellion call'd, to fight
For such a long-oppressed right.
Bacon at last, a mighty man, arose,

(Whom a wise king, and Nature, chose,
Lord chancellor of both their laws)
And boldly undertook the injur'd pupil's cause.
Authority-which did a body boast,

Though 'twas but air condens'd, and stalk'd

about,

Like some old giant's more gigantic ghost,

To terrify the learned rout

With the plain magic of true Reason's light-
He chas'd out of our sight;

Nor suffer'd living men to be misled
By the vain shadows of the dead:
To graves, from whence it rose, the conquer'd
phantom fled.

He broke that monstrous god which stood
In midst of th' orchard, and the whole did claim;
Which with a useless scythe of wood,
And something else not worth a name,
(Both vast for show, yet neither fit
Or to defend, or to beget;

Ridiculous and senseless terrours!) made
Children and superstitious men afraid.
The orchard's open now, and free,

Bacon has broke the scare-crow deity :
Come, enter, all that will,

Behold the ripen'd fruit, come gather now your

fill!

Yet still, methinks, we fain would be

Catching at the forbidden tree

We would be like the Deity

When truth and falsehood, good and evil, we,

Without the senses' aid, within ourselves would

see;

For 'tis God only who can find

All Nature in his mind.

From words, which are but pictures of the

thought,

Three or four thousand years, one would have (Though we our thoughts from them perverse y

thought,

To ripeness and perfection might have brought
A science so well bred and nurst,
And of such hopeful parts too at the first:
But, oh! the guardians and the tutors, then
(Some negligent and some ambitious men)

Would ne'er consent to set him free,
Or his own natural powers to let him see,
Lest that should put an end to their authority.
That his own business he might quite forget,
They' amus'd him with the sports of wanton wit;
With the deserts of poetry they fed him,
Instead of solid meats t' increase his force;
Instead of vigorous exercise, they led him
Into the pleasant labyrinths of ever-fresh dis-

course;

drew)

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

The thirsty soul's refreshing wine.
Who to the life an exact piece would make,
Must not from others' work a copy take;

No, not from Rubens or Vandyke;
Much less content himself to make it like
Th' ideas and the images which lie
In his own fancy or his memory.

No, he before his sight must place
The natural and living face ¿

The real object must command
Each judgment of his eye and motion of his hand.
From these and all long errours of the way
In which our wandering predecessors went,
And, like th' old Hebrews, many years did stray
In deserts, but of small extent,

Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last :
The barren wilderness he past;

Did on the very border stand

Of the blest Promis'd land;

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

But life did never to one man allow

Time to discover worlds, and conquer too;
Nor can so short a line sufficient be
To fathom the vast depths of Nature's sea.
The work he did we ought t' admire;
And were unjust if we should more require
From his few years, divided 'twixt th' excess
Of low affliction and high happiness:
For who on things remote can fix his sight,
That's always in a triumph or a fight?
From you, great champions! we expect to get
These spacious countries, but discover'd yet;
Countries, where yet, instead of Nature, we
Her images and idols worship'd see :
These large and wealthy regions to subdue,
Though Learning has whole armies at command,
Quarter'd about in every land,

A better troop she ne'er together drew:
Methinks, like Gideon's little band,
God with design has pick'd out you,
To do those noble wonders by a few :

When the whole host he saw, "They are" (said he)

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

To drink with their dejected head
The stream, just so as by their mouths it fled:
No; but those 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.

Io! sound too the trumpets here!
Already your victorious lights appear;
New scenes of Heaven already we espy,
And crowds of golden worlds on high,
Which from the spacious plains of earth and sea
Could never yet discover'd be,

By sailors' or Chaldeans' watchful eye.
Nature's great works no distance can obscure,
No smallness her near objects can secure ;
Y' have taught the curious sight to press
Into the privatest recess

Of her imperceptible littleness!

Y' have learn'd to read her smallest hand, And well begun her deepest sense to understand! Mischief and true dishonour fall on those Who would to laughter or to scorn expose So virtuous and so noble a design, So human for its use, for knowledge so divine. The things which these proud men despise, and call Impertinent, and vain, and small,

Those smallest things of Nature let me know, Rather than all their greatest actions do! Whoever would deposed Truth advance

Into the throne usurp'd from it,

Must feel at first the blows of Ignorance,
And the sharp points of envious Wit.
So, when, by various turns of the celestial dance,
In many thousand years

A star, so long unknown, appears,
Though Heaven itself more beauteous by it grow,
It troubles and alarms the world below,

Does to the wise a star, to fools a meteor, show.

With courage and success 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' historian to the story fit:
As you from all old errours free
And purge the body of Philosophy;
So from all modern follies he
Has vindicated Eloquence and Wit.
His candid style like a clean stream does slide,
And his bright fancy, all the way,
Does like the sun-shine 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 dress, without the paint, of

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Though laded, to put forth upon the stage,
Affrighted by the critics of this age.
It is a party numerous, watchful, bold;

All these, if we miscarry here to-day,
Will rather till they rot in th' harbour stay;
Nay, they will back again, though they were come

They can from nought, which sails in sight, with- Ev'n to their last safe road, the tyring-room.

hold;

Nor do their cheap, though mortal, thunder spare;
They shoot, alas! with wind-guns charg'd with air.
But yet, gentlemen-critics of Argier,
For your own interest I'd advise ye here,
To let this little forlorn-hope go by

Safe and untouch'd. "That must not be" (you'll cry.)

If ye be wise, it must; I'll tell you why.
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 miss;
And those are all your own, if you spare this.
Some are but new trimm'd up, others quite new ;
Some by known shipwrights built, and others too
By that great author made, whoe'er he be,
That styles himself" Person of Quality."

Therefore again I say, if you be wise,
Let this for once pass free; let it suffice
That we, your sovereign power here to avow,
Thus humbly, ere we pass, strike sail to you.

ADDED AT COURT.

STAY, gentlemen: what I have said was all
But forc'd submission, which I now recall.
Ye 're all but pirates now again; for here
Does the true sovereign of the seas appear,
The sovereign of these narrow seas of wit;
'Tis his own Thames; he knows and governs it.
'Tis his dominion and domain: as he
Pleases, 'tis either shut to us, or free.
Not only, if his passport we obtain,
We fear no little rovers of the main;
But, if our Neptune his calm visage show,
No wave shall dare to rise or wind to blow.

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THE REQUEST.

I'AVE often wish'd to love; what shall I do?
Me still the cruel boy does spare;
And I a double task must bear,
First to woo him, and then a mistress too.
Come at last and strike, for shame,
If thou art any thing besides a name ;
I'll think thee else 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 she be,
She cannot seem deform'd to me,
And I would have her seem to others so.
Desire takes wings and straight does fly,

It stays not dully to inquire the why.

That happy thing, a lover, grown,

I shall not see with others' eyes, scarce with mine own.

If she be coy, and scorn my noble fire;
If her chill heart I cannot move;
Why I'll enjoy the very love,
And make a mistress of my own desire.

Flames their most vigorous heat do hold,
And purest light, if compass'd round with cold:
So, when sharp Winter means most harm,
The springing plants are by the snow itself kept

warm.

Eut do not touch my heart, and so be gone; Strike deep thy burning arrows in! Lukewarmness I account a sin,

As great in love as in religion.

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

Virg.

Th' excess of heat is but a fable; We know the torrid zone is now found habitable. Among the woods and forests thou art found, There boars and lions thou dost tame; Is not my heart a nobler game? Let Venus, men; and beasts, Diana, wound! Thon dost the birds thy subjects make; Thy nimble feathers do their wings o'ertake:

Thou all the spring their songs dost hear; Make me love too, I'll sing to thee all the year! What service can mute fishes do to thee? Yet against them thy dart prevails, Piercing the armour of their scales; And still thy sca-born mother lives i' th' sea. Dost thou deny only to me

The no great privilege of captivity?

I beg or challenge here thy bow;
Either thy pity to me, or else thine anger, show.
Come! or I'll teach the world to scorn that bow:
I'll teach them thousand wholesome arts
Both to resist and cure thy darts,

More than thy skilful Ovid e'er did know.
Music of sighs thou shalt not hear,

Nor drink one wretched lover's tasteful tear:
Nay, unless soon thou woundest me,
My verses shall not only wound, but murder,thee;

THE THRALDOM.

I CAME, I saw, and was undone ;
Lightning did through my bones and marrow runs
A pointed pain piere'd deep my heart;

A swift cold trembling seiz'd on every part;
My head turn'd round, nor could it bear
The poison 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 so 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 cost I found,

'Twas cruel Love, not Death, had made the wound; Death a more generous rage does use ; Quarter to all he conquers does refuse:

Whilst Love with barbarous mercy saves The vanquish'd lives, to make them slaves.

I am thy slave then; let me know, Hard master! the great task I have to do: Who pride and scorn do undergo, In tempests and rough seas thy galleys row; They pant, and groan, and sigh; but find Their sighs increase the angry wind. Like an Egyptian tyrant, some Thou weariest out in building but a tomb; Others, with sad and tedious art, Labour i' th' quarries of a stony heart: Of all the works thou dost assign, To all the several slaves of thine, Employ me, mighty Love! to dig the mine.

THE GIVEN LOVE.
I'LL on; for what should hinder me
From loving and enjoying thee?
Thou canst not those exceptions make,
Which vulgar, sordid mortals take,
That my fate's too mean and low;
Twere pity I should love thee so,
If that dull cause could hinder me
In loving and enjoying thee.
It does not me a whit displease,
That the rich all honours seize;
That you all titles make your own,
Are valiant, learned, wise, alone:
But, if you claim o'er women too
The power which over men ye do;
If you alone must lovers be;

For that, sirs, you must pardon me,
Rather than lose what does so near
Concern my life and being here,
I'll some such crooked ways invent,
As you, or your forefathers, went:
I'll flatter or oppose the king,
Turn Puritan, or any thing;
I'll force my mind to arts so new?
Grow rich, and love as well as you.
But rather thus let me remain,
As man in Paradise did reign;
When perfect love did so agree
With innocence and poverty,
Adam did no jointure give;
Himself was jointure to his Eve:
Untouch'd with avarice yet, or pride,
The rib came freely back t' his side.
A curse 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 woman too submit

To that, and sell herself for it,

Fond lover! you a mistress have
Of her that's but your fellow-slave.
What should those poets mean of old,
That made their god to woo in gold?
Of all men, sure, they had no cause
To bind Love to such costly laws;
And yet I scarcely blame them now;
For who, alas! would not allow,
That women should such gifts receive,
Could they, as he, be what they give.

If thou, my dear, thyself shouldst prize,
Alas! what value would suffice?
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 sell.

Bestow 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 praises, are the way,
And those my thankful Muse shall pay:
Thy body, in my verse enshrin'd,
Shall grow immortal as thy mind.

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

What all thy wondrous beauties are,
That when, at the last great assize,
All women shall together rise,

Men straight shall cast their eyes on thee,
And know at first that thou art she

THOUGH

you

THE SPRING.

be absent here, I needs must say The trees as beauteous are, and flowers as gay,

As ever they were wont to be;
Nay, the birds' rural music too

Is as melodious and free,

As if they sung to pleasure you :

I saw a rose-bud ope this morn-I'll swear
The blushing Morning open'd not more fair.
How could it be so fair, and you away?
How could the trees be beauteous, flowers so gay?
Could they remember but last year,
How you did them, they you, delight,
The sprouting leaves which saw you here,
And call'd their fellows to the sight,
Would, looking round for the same sight in vain,
Creep back into their silent barks again.
Where'er you walk'd, trees were as reverend

made,

As when of old gods dwelt in every shade.
Is 't possible they should not know,
What loss of honour they sustain
That thus they smile and flourish now,
And still 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, sure, they much wiser were,
When they rejoic'd the Thracian verse to hear;
In vain did Nature bid them stay,
When Orpheus had his song begun-
They call'd their wondering roots away,
And bade them silent to him run,

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