This if thou do, he will an offering give
That till the world's last end shall make thy name to live.
Anno Etatis 19. (1627.) At a Vacation Exercise in the College, part Latin, part English. The Latin Speeches ended, the English thus began:
HALL, native language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And mad'st imperfect words with childish trips,
Half unpronounc'd, slide through my infant lips
Driving dumb Silence from the portal door,
Where he had mutely sat two years before;
Here I salute thee, and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,
I know my tongue but little grace can do thee:
Thou need'st not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither pack'd the worst:
And, if it happen as I did forecast,
The daintiest dishes shall be serv'd up last.
I pray thee then deny me not thy aid
For this same small neglect that I have made :
But haste thee straight to do me once a pleasure,
And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefest treasure,
Not those new fangled toys, and trimming slight
Which takes our late fantastics with delight,
But cull those richest robes, and gay'st attire
Which deepest spirits, and choicest wits desire:
I have some naked thoughts that rove about,
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
And weary of their place do only stay
Till thou hast deck'd them in thy best array ;
That so they may without suspect or fears
Fly swiftly to this fair assembly's ears.
Yet I had rather, if I were to chose,
O
Thy service in some graver subject use,
Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound:
Such where the deep transported mind may soar
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heaven's door
Look in, and see each blissful Deity
How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
List'ning to what unshorn Apollo sings
To th' 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-ey'd Neptune raves,
In Heaven's defiance mustering all his waves;
Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When beldam 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 wand'ring Muse, how thou dost 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 purpos'd business come,
That to the next I may resign my room.
Then Ens is represented as Father of the Predicaments his ten Sons, whereof the eldest stood for Substance with his Canons, which thus speaking explains:
Good luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy birth
The fairy ladies danc'd 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,
Strow 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 assunder
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 Don,
Or Trent, who like some earth-born giant spreads
His thirty arms along th' indented meads;
Or sullen Mole, that runneth underneath
Or Severn swift, guilty of maidens' 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 Meday smooth, or royal tower'd Thame. [The rest was prose]
ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.
This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin-Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.
That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal-Unity,
He laid aside; and, here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the Heaven by the sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons
bright ?
See how from far upon the eastern road
The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet;
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the Angel choir, From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.
It v was the winter wild,
While the Heaven-born child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to him
Had doff'd her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize; It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour,
Only, with speeches fair,
She woes the gentle air,
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; Confounded, that her Maker's eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities,
But he her fears to cease
Sent down the meek-ey'd Peace;
She, crown'd with olive green, came softly-sliding,
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