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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume
+II, by Henry Vaughan, et al, Edited by E. K. Chambers
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II
+
+
+Author: Henry Vaughan
+
+Editor: E. K. Chambers
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2009 [eBook #28375]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF HENRY VAUGHAN, SILURIST,
+VOLUME II***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Susan Skinner, David Cortesi, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+ The ligatures oe and OE are indicated by [oe] and [OE].
+
+ The carat (^) indicates a superscript in the original. One
+ carat indicates that the following single letter is
+ superscript. A pair of carats indicates that the enclosed
+ letters are superscript; for example the abbreviations
+ 8^vo^ and 12^mo^ are used for the printer's page sizes
+ octavo and duodecimo respectively.
+
+ In the poem "In Etesiam Lachrymantem" (Page 221) the
+ initial letter of the final line is missing in all extant
+ editions; either "C" or "D" seems possible.
+
+ In the Boethius translation Lib. IV. Metrum VI. (page 230),
+ the letter 'y' has been added to make line 9/10 read
+ "...though they/See other stars..." although it is missing
+ in all available editions.
+
+ At many points a period, comma or hyphen seems to be
+ omitted in the original. Obvious typographical errors have
+ been corrected, but where missing punctuation is not clearly
+ an error, or the omission is harmless to the sense, the text
+ remains as in the original.
+
+ Footnotes in the original appear on the page where they are
+ referenced and are numbered from 1 on each page. Here
+ footnotes are numbered consecutively throughout the book and
+ are grouped following each chapter or poem to which they
+ refer. To locate footnote 17 (for example) search for [17].
+ Another search for [17] returns to the point of reference.
+
+
+
+
+
+POEMS OF HENRY VAUGHAN
+
+SILURIST.
+
+VOL. II.
+
+The Muses' Library
+
+
+POEMS OF HENRY VAUGHAN
+
+SILURIST
+
+Edited by E. K. Chambers
+
+With an Introduction by Canon Beeching
+
+VOL. II.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London:
+George Routledge & Sons, Limited
+New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
+
+ PAGE
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE xv
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HENRY VAUGHAN'S WORKS lvii
+
+
+POEMS WITH THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL ENGLISHED, 1646 1
+
+ To all Ingenious Lovers of Poesy 3
+
+ To my Ingenuous Friend, R. W. 5
+
+ Les Amours 8
+
+ To Amoret. The Sigh 10
+
+ To his Friend, Being in Love 11
+
+ Song: [Amyntas go, thou art Undone] 12
+
+ To Amoret. Walking in a Starry Evening 13
+
+ To Amoret Gone from him 15
+
+ A Song to Amoret 16
+
+ An Elegy 17
+
+ A Rhapsodis 18
+
+ To Amoret, of the Difference 'twixt him and other Lovers, 21
+ and what True Love is
+
+ To Amoret Weeping 23
+
+ Upon the Priory Grove, his Usual Retirement 26
+
+ Juvenal's Tenth Satire Translated 28
+
+
+OLOR ISCANUS. 1651.
+
+ Ad Posteros 51
+
+ To the ... Lord Kildare Digby 53
+
+ The Publisher to the Reader 55
+
+ Upon the Most Ingenious Pair of Twins, Eugenius 57
+ Philalethes and the Author of those Poems [by T. Powell,
+ Oxoniensis]
+
+ To my Friend the Author upon these his Poems [by I. 58
+ Rowlandson, Oxoniensis]
+
+ Upon the following Poems [by Eugenius Philalethes, 59
+ Oxoniensis]
+
+ Olor Iscanus. To the River Isca 61
+
+ The Charnel-House 65
+
+ In Amicum Foeneratorem 68
+
+ To his Friend ---- 70
+
+ To his Retired Friend, An Invitation to Brecknock 73
+
+ Monsieur Gombauld 77
+
+ An Elegy on the Death of Mr. R. W., Slain in the late 79
+ Unfortunate Differences at Routon Heath, near Chester,
+ 1645
+
+ Upon a Cloak lent him by Mr. J. Ridsley 83
+
+ Upon Mr. Fletcher's Plays, Published 1647 87
+
+ Upon the Poems and Plays of the Ever-Memorable Mr. William 90
+ Cartwright
+
+ To the Best and Most Accomplished Couple ---- 92
+
+ An Elegy on the Death of Mr. R. Hall, Slain at Pontefract, 94
+ 1648
+
+ To my Learned Friend, Mr. T. Powell, upon his Translation 97
+ of Malvezzi's Christian Politician
+
+ To my Worthy Friend, Master T. Lewes 99
+
+ To the Most Excellently Accomplished Mrs. K. Philips 100
+
+ An Epitaph upon the Lady Elizabeth, Second Daughter to his 102
+ Late Majesty
+
+ To Sir William Davenant upon his Gondibert 104
+
+
+TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID.
+
+ To his Fellow Poets at Rome, upon the Birthday of Bacchus 106
+
+ To his Friends--after his Many Solicitations--Refusing to 109
+ Petition Caesar for his Releasement
+
+ To his Inconstant Friend, Translated for the Use of all 112
+ the Judases of this Touchstone Age
+
+ To his Wife at Rome, when he was Sick 115
+
+ Ausonii. Idyll vi. Cupido [Cruci Affixus] 119
+
+ [Translations from Boethius] 125
+
+ [Translations from Casimirus] 144
+
+ The Praise of a Religious Life of Mathias Casimirus. In 152
+ Answer to that Ode of Horace, Beatus Ille Qui Procul
+ Negotiis.
+
+ Ad Fluvium Iscam 157
+
+ Venerabili Viro, Praeceptori Suo Olim Et Semper 158
+ Colendissimo Magistro Mathaeo Herbert
+
+ Praestantissimo Viro, Thomae Poello In Suum De Elementis 159
+ Opticae Libellum
+
+ Ad Echum 160
+
+
+THALIA REDIVIVA. 1678.
+
+ To ... Henry Lord Marquis and Earl of Worcester, &c. 163
+ [by J. W.]
+
+ To the Reader [by I. W.] 167
+
+ To Mr. Henry Vaughan, the Silurist: upon These and his 169
+ Former Poems. [By Orinda]
+
+ Upon the Ingenious Poems of his Learned Friend, Mr. Henry 171
+ Vaughan, the Silurist. [By Tho. Powell, D.D.]
+
+ To the Ingenious Author of Thalia Rediviva [By N. W., 172
+ Jes. Coll., Oxon.]
+
+ To my Worthy Friend Mr. Henry Vaughan, the Silurist. 175
+ [by I. W., A.M., Oxon.]
+
+
+CHOICE POEMS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS.
+
+ To his Learned Friend and Loyal Fellow-Prisoner, Thomas 178
+ Powel of Cant[reff], Doctor of Divinity
+
+ The King Disguised 181
+
+ The Eagle 184
+
+ To Mr. M. L. upon his Reduction of the Psalms into Method 187
+
+ To the Pious Memory of C[harles] W[albeoffe] Esquire, Who 189
+ Finished his Course Here, and Made his Entrance into
+ Immortality upon the 13 of September, in the Year of
+ Redemption, 1653
+
+ In Zodiacum Marcelli Palingenii 193
+
+ To Lysimachus, the Author Being with him in London 195
+
+ On Sir Thomas Bodley's Library, the Author Being Then in 197
+ Oxford
+
+ The Importunate Fortune, Written to Dr. Powel, of 200
+ Cant[reff]
+
+ To I. Morgan of Whitehall, Esq., upon his Sudden Journey 204
+ and Succeeding Marriage
+
+ Fida; or, The Country Beauty. To Lysimachus 206
+
+ Fida Forsaken 209
+
+ To the Editor of the Matchless Orinda 211
+
+ Upon Sudden News of the Much-Lamented Death of Judge 213
+ Trevers
+
+ To Etesia (for Timander); The First Sight 214
+
+ The Character, to Etesia 217
+
+ To Etesia Looking from her Casement at the Full Moon 219
+
+ To Etesia Parted from Him, and Looking Back 220
+
+ In Etesiam Lachrymantem 221
+
+ To Etesia Going Beyond Sea 222
+
+ Etesia Absent 223
+
+
+TRANSLATIONS.
+
+ Some Odes of the Excellent and Knowing [Anicius Manlius] 224
+ Severinus [Boethius], Englished
+
+ The Old Man of Verona, out of Claudian 236
+
+ The Sphere of Archimedes, out of Claudian 238
+
+ The Ph[oe]nix, out of Claudian 239
+
+
+PIOUS THOUGHTS AND EJACULATIONS.
+
+ To his Books 245
+
+ Looking Back 247
+
+ The Shower 248
+
+ Discipline 249
+
+ The Eclipse 250
+
+ Affliction 251
+
+ Retirement 252
+
+ The Revival 254
+
+ The Day Spring 255
+
+ The Recovery 257
+
+ The Nativity 259
+
+ The True Christmas 261
+
+ The Request 263
+
+ Jordanis 265
+
+ Servilii Fatum, Sive Vindicta Divina 266
+
+ De Salmone 267
+
+ The World 268
+
+ The Bee 272
+
+ To Christian Religion 276
+
+ Daphnis 278
+
+
+FRAGMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS. 1641-1661.
+
+ From Eucharistica Oxoniensia (1641) 289
+
+ From Of the Benefit we may get by our Enemies (1651) 291
+
+ From Of the Diseases of the Mind and the Body (1651) 293
+
+ From The Mount of Olives (1652) 294
+
+ From Man in Glory (1652) 298
+
+ From Flores Solitudinis (1654) 299
+
+ From Of Temperance and Patience (1654) 300
+
+ From Of Life and Death (1654) 305
+
+ From Primitive Holiness (1654) 307
+
+ From Hermetical Physic (1655) 322
+
+ From Cerbyd Fechydwiaeth (1657) 323
+
+ From Humane Industry (1661) 324
+
+
+NOTES TO VOL. II 329
+
+LIST OF FIRST LINES 355
+
+
+
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.
+
+
+Recent inquiries into the life of Henry Vaughan have added but little to
+the information already contained in the memoirs of Mr. Lyte and Dr.
+Grosart. I have, however, been enabled to put together a few notes on
+this somewhat obscure subject, which may be taken as supplementary to
+Mr. Beeching's _Introduction_ in Vol. I. It will be well to preface them
+by reprinting the account of Anthony a Wood, our chief original
+authority (_Ath. Oxon._, ed. Bliss, 1817, iv. 425):
+
+"Henry Vaughan, called the _Silurist_ from that part of Wales whose
+inhabitants were in ancient times called Silures, brother twin (but
+elder)[1] to Eugenius Philalethes, alias Tho. Vaughan ... was born at
+Newton S. Briget, lying on the river Isca, commonly called Uske, in
+Brecknockshire, educated in grammar learning in his own country for six
+years under one Matthew Herbert, a noted schoolmaster of his time, made
+his first entry into Jesus College in Mich. term 1638, aged 17 years;
+where spending two years or more in logicals under a noted tutor, was
+taken thence and designed by his father for the obtaining of some
+knowledge in the municipal laws at London. But soon after the civil war
+beginning, to the horror of all good men, he was sent for home, followed
+the pleasant paths of poetry and philology, became noted for his
+ingenuity, and published several specimens thereof, of which his _Olor
+Iscanus_ was most valued. Afterwards applying his mind to the study of
+physic, became at length eminent in his own country for the practice
+thereof, and was esteemed by scholars an ingenious person, but proud and
+humorous.... [A list of Vaughan's works follows.] ... He died in the
+latter end of April (about the 29th day) in sixteen hundred ninety and
+five, and was buried in the parish church of Llansenfreid, about two
+miles distant from Brecknock, in Brecknockshire."
+
+Anthony a Wood seems to have had some personal acquaintance with the
+poet, for in his account of Thomas Vaughan (_Ath. Oxon._ iii. 725) he
+says that "Olor Iscanus sent me a catalogue of his brother's works."
+
+
+(a) THE VAUGHAN GENEALOGY.
+
+Henry Vaughan's descent from the Vaughans of Tretower, County Brecon,
+has been accurately traced by Dr. Grosart and others. Little has been
+hitherto known about his immediate family. Theophilus Jones, in his
+_History of Brecknockshire_ (1805-9), ii. 544, says: "Henry Vaughan died
+in 1695, aged 75,[2] leaving by his first wife two sons and three
+daughters, and by his second a daughter Rachel, who married John
+Turberville. His grand-daughter, Denys, or Dyenis, a corruption or
+abbreviation of Dyonisia, who was the daughter of Jenkin Jones of
+Trebinshwn, by Luce his wife, died single in 1780, aged 92, and is
+buried in the Priory churchyard.[3] What became of the remainder of his
+family, or whether they are extinct, I know not." To this statement Mr.
+Lyte added nothing but some errors, and Dr. Grosart nothing but the
+following hypothesis:--
+
+"I am inclined to think that William Vaughan, censor of the College of
+Physicians, physician to William III^d., was one of the sons of our
+worthy mentioned by Mr. Lyte.... William Vaughan's 'age 20' in 1668
+represents 1648 as the birth-date, and that fits in with the love-verse
+of the Poems of 1646."
+
+Mr. G. T. Clark, in his _Genealogies of Glamorgan_, p. 240, gives the
+following account:--
+
+Henry [Vaughan], ob. 1695, aet. 75, father by first wife of (1) a son,
+s.p.; (2) Lucy ob. 29 Aug., 1780, aet. 92,[4] m. Jenkin Jones of
+Trebinshwn. Their d. Denise Jones, died single, 1780, aet. 92. By second
+wife (3) Rachel, m. John Turberville; (4) Edmund; (5) Alexander, ob.
+1622 [!], s.p.; (6) Catharine, m. Wm. Harris; (7) Mary, m. John
+Walbeoffe of Llanhamlach; (8) Elizabeth, m. John Arnold; (9) Frances, m.
+Wm. Johns of Cwm Dhu.
+
+Unfortunately Mr. Clark is unable to remember his authority for this
+pedigree. I have found another, which differs from it in many ways, and
+is exceedingly interesting, inasmuch as it gives, for the first time,
+the names of Henry Vaughan's two wives, who appear to have been sisters.
+It is in a volume of _Brecknockshire Pedigrees_ collected by the Welsh
+Herald, Hugh Thomas, and now amongst the Harleian MSS. Hugh Thomas was
+born and lived hard by Llansantffread, and must have known Vaughan and
+his family personally.
+
+ PEDIGREE OF VAUGHAN OF TRETOWER AND NEWTON.
+
+ (From Harl. MS. 2289, f. 81.)
+
+ Thomas m. Denis, d. and h. to Gwillims of Newton Skethrog.
+ |
+ Henry, of Newton.
+ |
+ Henry, of Newton Skethrog, Doctor of Phisick, m.
+ Catharine, d. to Charles Wise, of Ritsonhall,
+ Staffordshire, and secondly Elizabeth, her sister.
+ | |
+ Lucy, m. Ch. Greenleafe of Grisill, m. Roger Prosser.
+ Streton-upon-Trent, Staff.
+ Lucy, m. Jenkin Jones of Trebinshwn.
+
+ Catharine, m. Rachel, m. John Turberville
+ Tho. Vaughan, of Newton of Llangattock.
+ Skethrog, m. Frances, Henry, Parson of Penderin,
+ d. to m. Janet, d. of Robert
+ Walbeoffe of Talyllyn.
+
+It will be observed that neither Mr. Clark's pedigree nor Hugh Thomas'
+agrees with the number of children assigned to each marriage by
+Theophilus Jones, and that neither of them helps out Dr. Grosart's
+hypothesis that Dr. William Vaughan was a son of the poet. Mr. W. B. Rye
+(_Genealogist_, iii. 33) has made it appear likely that this Dr.
+Vaughan, who married Anne Newton, of Romford in Essex, belonged to a
+branch of the Vaughans who had been settled in Romford since 1571.
+
+I now proceed to confirm and illustrate the pedigrees by giving such
+further facts concerning Vaughan's immediate family as I have been able
+with Miss Morgan's assistance, to glean. I can trace no family of Wises
+in Staffordshire so early as the seventeenth century, nor any place in
+that county called Ritsonhall. It is possible that the R. W. of the
+_Elegy_ (vol. ii., p. 79, _note_) may have been a Wise, and also that
+the connection between Vaughan and the Staffordshire Egertons may have
+been through this family (vol. ii., p. 294, _note_). Vaughan's first
+wife Catharine was probably dead before 1658. Thomas Vaughan, in his
+diary (MS. Sloane, 1741, f. 106 (b)), makes mention in that year of
+"eyewater made at the Pinner of Wakefield by my dear wife and my Sister
+Vaughan, who are both now with God." The second wife, Elizabeth,
+survived her husband. Administration of his goods was granted to her as
+the widow of an intestate in May, 1695.[5] The fine old manor-house at
+Newton was pulled down by a stupid land-agent within the memory of man,
+but a stone has been found built into the wall of a house half-a-mile
+from the site, bearing the inscription "H^VE, 1689." This may well
+stand for H[enry and] E[lizabeth] V[aughan]. Newton probably passed to
+the poet's eldest son Thomas and his wife Frances.[6] Of their
+descendants, if any, we know nothing. There was a William Vaughan of
+Llansantffread who, later than 1714, married Mary Games of Tregaer in
+Llanfrynach. But this was probably a Vaughan not of Newton, but of
+Scethrog, also in Llansantffread (_cf._ footnote to p. xxv. below.) In
+1733 William Vaughan was churchwarden of Llanfrynach. In 1740 William
+Vaughan of Tregaer was high sheriff of Brecknock. In 1760 Tregaer had
+passed by purchase to a Mr. Phillips. The registers of Llanfrynach from
+1695-1756 are now lost. Lucy Greenleafe and her sister Catharine are
+quite obscure. One of them may have been the niece who was living with
+Thomas Vaughan when news came from the country in 1658 of his father's
+death (MS. Sloane, 1741, f. 89 (b)). Of the second family, Henry became
+Rector of Penderin in 1684, and vacated the living, probably through
+death, in 1713. A tablet to his memory hung during the present century
+in the church at Penderin, but when the church was restored the tablets
+were taken down and buried under the tiles of the chancel. His wife, a
+Walbeoffe of Talyllyn, belonged to the same family as the Walbeoffes of
+Llanhamlach (vol. ii., p. 189, _note_). The eldest girl, Grisill,
+married Roger Prosser. The Prossers were the younger branch of a
+Brecknockshire family who had become sadlers and mercers in Brecon. Many
+of their tombs are in the Priory church, but Theophilus Jones states
+that by his time they were extinct. Grisill Prosser was married a second
+time, in 1709, to Morgan Watkins, an attorney, and was buried on August
+21, 1737. The second girl, Lucy, married Jenkin Jones of Trebinshwn, a
+cousin of Colonel Jenkin Jones, the local Parliamentary leader. Her
+daughter, Denise Jones, died single in 1780, as Theophilus Jones states,
+and her tombstone in the Priory church records her descent. The third
+girl, Rachel, married John Turberville, one of the Turbervilles of
+Llangattock, who claimed kinship with the Elizabethan poet of that name.
+The following pedigree shows the descendants of the three daughters of
+Henry Vaughan's second marriage, so far as they can be traced.[7]
+
+ Henry Vaughan = 2. Elizabeth Wise.
+ _________________|____________________
+ | | |
+ 1. Roger =Grisill ...=2. Morgan Lucy=Jenkin Rachel=John
+ Prosser,| Watkins, |Jones, |Turberville
+ Mercer. | Attorney. |of Trebinshwn. |of Llangattock.
+ | | |
+ _______|___ | Richard = Mary----?
+ | | | of Llamwyse |
+ Walter, Elizabeth = Morgan Denise and Glan y |
+ bapt. 1693. bapt. 1686. | Davies, nat. 1688, rhyd, ob. |
+ | mercer, o.s.p. 29 1720. |
+ | ob. 1727. Aug., 1780. |
+ | |
+ | John.
+ _________________|_________________ |
+ | | | |
+ Thomas Morgan, Elizabeth, |
+ bapt. 8 July, bapt. 4 April, |
+ 1720, 1725, |
+ sep. 20 Nov., sep. 6 July, |
+ 1737. 1730. Margaret,
+ o.s.p. 1765.
+
+It will be seen that I can give no evidence of the existence of any
+living descendants of Henry Vaughan.
+
+Henry's grandfather, Thomas Vaughan, a younger son of Charles Vaughan of
+Tretower, seems to have come into the possession of Newton through his
+marriage with an heiress of the family of Gwillims or Williams. Newton,
+or in Welsh Trenewydd, is a farm of about 200 acres in the manor or
+lordship, and near the village of Scethrog, both being in the parish of
+Llansantffread and hundred of Penkelley. Williams is a common name in
+Breconshire, and I cannot trace the descent of Thomas Vaughan's wife. In
+the sixteenth century Newton belonged to a family who finally settled on
+the name of Howel, ap Howell or Powell.[8] The last of these is
+described on his tombstone in Llansantffread Church as "David Morgan
+David Howel, who married ... William of Llanhamoloch: and they had issue
+one daughter called Denys. He died 2nd June, 1598." Perhaps Newton
+passed in some way from David Morgan David Howel to his wife's family,
+and so to Thomas Vaughan, who married Denise Gwillims. Theophilus Jones
+(ii. 538) records that at a later date other Williams's, also
+apparently connected with Llanhamlach, were succeeded by other Vaughans
+at Scethrog, hard by Newton. His account is that David Williams,
+youngest brother of Sir Thomas Williams of Eltham, married a daughter of
+John Walbeoffe of Llanhamlach (_cf._ pedigree in vol. ii., p. 189,
+_note_), and bought Scethrog. Their son Charles died without issue, and
+the property passed to his wife Mary (Anne in Harl. MS., 2289, t. 39;
+_cf._ vol. ii., p. 204, _note_), the daughter of Morgan John of
+Wenallt.... She afterwards married Hugh Powell, clerk, parson of
+Llansanffread and precentor of St. David's, and her daughter Margaret
+married Charles Vaughan, son to Vaughan Morgan of Tretower.[9]
+
+A trace of Thomas Vaughan is probably preserved in a window-head from
+the old church of Llansantffread, now destroyed, which has the
+inscription:--
+
+ 1626. E. G. T. V. W. T.
+ W. F. I. [bold reversed 'D'].
+
+T. V. may stand for T[homas] V[aughan].[10]
+
+Of Henry Vaughan, the poet's father, very little is known. His name
+appears in a list of Breconshire magistrates for 1620. And we learn from
+Thomas Vaughan's diary in Sloane MS. 1741, f. 89 (b), that he died in
+August 1658.
+
+The only additional definite fact which I can here record of the poet
+himself is that in 1691 he entered a caveat against any institution to
+the vicarage of Llandevalley, he claiming the next presentation under a
+grant from William Winter, Esq.[11] Mr. Rye has shown that the specimen
+of handwriting facsimiled by Dr. Grosart in his edition of Henry
+Vaughan's _Works_ cannot possibly be the poet's. The signatures,
+however, on the margin of a copy of _Olor Iscanus_, once in the library
+of Lady Isham, might be genuine.
+
+
+(b) VAUGHAN AND JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD.
+
+Anthony a Wood's statement as to Vaughan's residence at Jesus College,
+Oxford, has been generally accepted, but I venture to doubt it on the
+following grounds:--
+
+(1) Vaughan's name does not occur in the University Matriculation
+Register, although his brother Thomas Vaughan is duly entered as
+matriculating from Jesus on 14th December, 1638. The only College
+records which help us are the Battel-books for 1638 and 1640. That for
+1639 is unfortunately missing. The Rev. Llewellyn Thomas kindly informs
+me that he can only trace one undergraduate Vaughan in the two books in
+question. The Christian name is not given, but I think that we must
+assume it to be Thomas.
+
+(2) Vaughan does not describe himself on any title-page as of Jesus
+College; nor does he ever speak of himself as an Oxford man. This
+omission is the more noticeable as he would naturally have done so in
+the lines _Ad Posteros_ (vol. ii., p. 51), and might well have done so
+in those _On Sir Thomas Bodley's Library, the Author being then in
+Oxford_ (vol. ii., p. 197).
+
+(3) Anthony a Wood cannot be depended on. He describes Thomas Carew, for
+instance, as of C.C.C., whereas he was a most certainly of Merton. And
+there was another Henry Vaughan of Jesus, who may have been confused
+with the poet. This Henry Vaughan, a son of John Vaughan of Cathlin,
+Merionethshire, matriculated at Oriel on July 4, 1634. He afterwards
+became a Scholar and Fellow of Jesus, taking his B.A. in 1637 and his
+M.A. in 1639. In 1643 he became vicar of Penteg, co. Monmouth, and died
+at Abergavenny in 1661. (Wood, _Ath. Oxon._, iii. 531; Foster, _Alumni
+Oxon._)
+
+(4) The only confirmation of Anthony a Wood's statement is the poem
+(vol. ii., p. 289) taken by Dr. Grosart from the _Eucharistica
+Oxoniensia_ (1641), and signed "H. Vaughan, Jes. Col." If I am right,
+this may be by Vaughan's namesake. He has indeed another poem in that
+volume signed "Hen. Vaugh., Jes. Soc." but that is in Latin, and it is
+not unexampled for one man to contribute more than one poem, especially
+in different tongues, to such collections. Or it may be by Herbert
+Vaughan, who was a Gentleman-commoner of the College in 1641, and has,
+with Henry Vaughan the Fellow, verses in the [Greek: proteleia] _Anglo
+Batava_ of the same year.
+
+
+(c) VAUGHAN IN THE CIVIL WAR.
+
+There are several passages which make it probable that Vaughan, like his
+brother Thomas, bore arms on the King's side in the Civil War. The most
+important is in the poem _To Mr. Ridsley_ (vol. ii., p. 83), where he
+speaks of the time
+
+ "when this juggling fate
+ Of soldiery first seiz'd me."
+
+In the same poem he mentions
+
+ "that day, when we
+ Left craggy Biston and the fatal Dee."
+
+"Craggy Biston" is clearly Beeston Castle, one of the outlying defences
+of Chester, situated on a steep rock not very far east of the Dee. This
+castle was besieged on several occasions during the Civil War,
+especially during the campaign of 1645, when Chester was also besieged
+by the Parliamentarians.[12] Between Beeston and the Dee was fought, on
+September 24, 1645, the battle of Rowton Heath, after which Charles the
+First, who had hoped to raise the siege of Chester, was obliged to
+retreat to Denbigh.[13] The following lines from Vaughan's _Elegy on Mr.
+R. W._ (vol. ii., p. 79), who fell in that battle, seem to have been
+written by an eye-witness:
+
+ "O that day
+ When like the fathers in the fire and cloud
+ I miss'd thy face! I might in ev'ry crowd
+ See arms like thine, and men advance, but none
+ So near to lightning mov'd, nor so fell on.
+ Have you observ'd how soon the nimble eye
+ Brings th' object to conceit, and doth so vie
+ Performance with the soul, that you would swear
+ The act and apprehension both lodg'd there?
+ Just so mov'd he: like shot his active hand
+ Drew blood, ere well the foe could understand.
+ But here I lost him."
+
+This appears to me pretty conclusive evidence; against it, however, must
+be set the passage on the Civil War in the autobiographical poem _Ad
+Posteros_ (vol. ii., p. 51).
+
+ Vixi, divisos cum fregerat haeresis Anglos
+ Inter Tysiphonas presbyteri et populi.
+ His primum miseris per amoena furentibus arva
+ Prostravit sanctam vilis avena rosam.
+ Turbarunt fontes, et fusis pax perit undis,
+ Moestaque coelestes obruit umbra dies.
+ Duret ut integritas tamen, et pia gloria, partem
+ Me nullam in tanta strage fuisse, scias;
+ Credidimus nempe insonti vocem esse cruori,
+ Et vires quae post funera flere docent.
+ Hinc castae, fidaeque pati me more parentis
+ Commonui, et lachrimis fata levare meis;
+ Hinc nusquam horrendis violavi sacra procellis,
+ Nec mihi mens unquam, nec manus atra fuit.
+
+The natural interpretation of this certainly is that Vaughan took no
+share in the disturbances of his time, except to grieve over them in
+retirement. Yet, in the first place, the lines may have been written
+before he took up arms in 1645, and, in the second, they may only mean
+that he had no share in _bringing about_ the troubles of England, or in
+shedding _innocent_ blood. Similarly when elsewhere, as in _Abel's
+Blood_ (vol. i. p. 254), and in the prayer to be quoted below, he
+expresses horror of blood-guiltiness, this need not necessarily be taken
+as extending to the man who fights in a righteous cause.
+
+Miss Morgan, I may add, suggests that Vaughan was at Rowton Heath, not
+as a combatant, but as a physician. The description which he gives of
+the battle reads like that of a man who saw it from some commanding
+point of view, but was not himself engaged. I think it not improbable
+that Vaughan was one of the garrison of Beeston Castle, which is
+described to me as "a sort of grand stand for the battle-field." Beeston
+Castle was invested by the Parliamentarians in the course of September
+1645. On the approach of Charles the troops were drawn off on 19th
+September to Chester.[14] Charles no doubt took the opportunity to
+strengthen the garrison. After Rowton Heath Beeston Castle was again
+besieged, and on November 16th it surrendered. The garrison were allowed
+to march across the Dee to Denbigh. I think that this winter ride from
+the fallen fortress is the one described by Vaughan in the poem to Mr.
+Ridsley. It is the more probable that Vaughan took part in this campaign
+of 1645, in that Charles's force was largely recruited from Wales. After
+the battle of Naseby on June 14th, the King had marched through Wales,
+collecting such levies as he could. He was in Brecon on August 5th.[15]
+It is quite possible that Vaughan, whose kinsman Sir William Vaughan was
+in command of a brigade, volunteered on this occasion. From Brecon
+Charles marched through Radnorshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire,
+Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, and so to Oxford. In September
+he set out again, and after some delay at Hereford and Raglan, finally
+made for Chester.
+
+It is just conceivable that it is to some occasion in this campaign that
+Vaughan refers when he calls Dr. Powell his "fellow-prisoner" (vol. ii.,
+p. 178). The poet may even have been the Captain Vaughan whose name
+appears in the official list of prisoners taken at Rowton Heath.[16]
+Powell's name is not there, but then the list does not profess to be
+complete. But on the whole I think that Vaughan and Powell were only
+fellow-prisoners in the Platonic sense of imprisonment in the flesh, and
+even if a literal imprisonment is intended, it may have been due to some
+act of persecution which Vaughan had to suffer as a Royalist at a later
+date. There is in _The Mount of Olives_ (1652) a _Prayer in Adversity
+and Troubles occasioned by our Enemies_ (Grosart, vol. iii., p. 75),
+which, if it is to be taken--I think it is not--as autobiographical,
+seems to show that, at least for a time, he lost his estate. The prayer
+runs: "Thou seest, O God, how furious and implacable mine enemies are:
+they have not only robbed me of that portion and provision which Thou
+hast graciously given me, but they have also washed their hands in the
+blood of my friends, my dearest and nearest relations. I know, O God,
+and I am daily taught by that disciple whom Thou didst love, that no
+murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Keep me, therefore, O my
+God, from the guilt of blood, and suffer me not to stain my soul with
+the thoughts of recompense and vengeance, which is a branch of Thy great
+prerogative, and belongs wholly unto Thee. Though they persecute me unto
+death, and pant after the very dust upon the heads of Thy poor, though
+they have taken the bread out of Thy children's mouth, and have made me
+a desolation; yet, Lord, give me Thy grace, and such a measure of
+charity as may fully forgive them."
+
+It may have been during some such time of trouble, or imprisonment, if
+imprisonment there was, that Vaughan's wife lived with Thomas Vaughan,
+as will be seen below, in London.
+
+
+(d) THOMAS VAUGHAN.
+
+It has not been thought necessary to reprint in this edition of Henry
+Vaughan's poems the scanty English and Latin verses of his brother,
+Thomas Vaughan. They may be found, together with verses by Virgil and
+Campion ascribed to him, in vol. ii. of Dr. Grosart's _Fuller Worthies_
+edition. But some account of so curious a person will not be out of
+place.
+
+As for his brother, our chief authority is Anthony a Wood (_Ath. Oxon._,
+iii. 722), who says that he was the son of Thomas Vaughan of
+Llansantffread,[17] that he was born in 1621, educated under Matthew
+Herbert and at Jesus College, Oxford, of which he became Fellow, took
+orders and received [in 1640] the living of Llansanffread from his
+kinsman, Sir George Vaughan [of Fallerstone, Wilts]. He lost his living
+in the unquiet times of the Civil War, retired to Oxford, and became an
+eminent chemist, afterwards moving to London, where he worked under the
+patronage of Sir Robert Murray. He was a great admirer of Cornelius
+Agrippa, "a great chymist, a noted son of the fire, an experimental
+philosopher, a zealous brother of the Rosicrucian fraternity ... neither
+papist nor sectary, but a true resolute protestant in the best sense of
+the Church of England." In the great plague he fled with Murray from
+London to Oxford, and thence went to the house of Samuel Kem at Albury,
+where he died on February 27, 1665/6, of mercury accidentally getting
+into his nose while he was operating. He was buried at Albury on March
+1st. Writing in 1673, Anthony a Wood gives a list of his alchemical and
+mystical treatises published between 1650 and 1655. Of these he had
+received a list from Olor Iscanus (Henry Vaughan). They all bear the
+name of Eugenius Philalethes, except the _Aula Lucis_ (1652), which was
+issued as by S. N., _i.e._ [Thoma]S [Vaugha]N. Some of these pamphlets
+contain Vaughan's share of a vigorous and scurrilous controversy with
+Henry More, the Platonist. Anthony a Wood distinguishes from Vaughan
+another Eugenius Philalethes, author of the _Brief Natural History_
+(1669), also one Eirenaeus Philalethes, author of _Ripley Redivivus_ and
+other works, and Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes, author of _The Marrow
+of Alchemy_ (1654-5).[18]
+
+A few facts, from well-known sources, may be added to Anthony a Wood's
+account. The University Registers show that "Thos. Vaughan, son of
+Thomas of Llansanfraid, co. Brecon, pleb., matriculated from Jesus
+College on 14 Dec, 1638, aged 16." He took his B.A. on 18 Feb., 1641/2,
+but does not appear to have taken his M.A., though he became Fellow of
+his College (Foster, _Alumni Oxon._). John Walker (_Sufferings of the
+Clergy_ (1714), p. 389) states that he was ejected from his living on
+the charges of "drunkenness, immorality, and bearing arms for the
+King."[19] This must have been in 1649, under the Act for the
+Propagation of the Gospel in Wales. There exists a letter from Thomas
+Vaughan to a friend in London, dated from "Newtown, Ash Wednesday,
+1653;"[20] and it appears from Jones' _History of Brecknockshire_ (ii.,
+542), that at one time he lived with his brother Henry there. The
+allusions to Henry More, to Murray, and to the Isis and Thames seem to
+show that he is the Daphnis of his brother's _Eclogue_ (vol. ii., p.
+278). No trace of his death or burial can however be now found at
+Albury. Mr. Gordon Goodwin points out to me that Dr. Samuel Kem was a
+somewhat notorious character (_Dict. Nat. Biog._, s.v. _Kem_): perhaps
+this friendship, together with the personal confession quoted below,
+throws light on the charges which lost Vaughan his living. On the other
+hand Anthony a Wood speaks well of him, and the tone of his writings
+bears out this more kindly judgment, at any rate so far as his later
+years are concerned.
+
+What has been said fairly well exhausted the available information on
+Thomas Vaughan until a few years ago, when Mr. A. E. Waite discovered in
+Sloane MS. 1741 a valuable manuscript of his, containing amongst other
+things a number of autobiographical memoranda. He printed some extracts
+from this in the preface to an edition of some of _The Magical Writings
+of Thomas Vaughan_ (Redway, 1888), and has been kind enough to furnish
+me with a reference to the MS. itself, which I have carefully examined.
+It bears the title _Aqua Vitae non Vitis_, and the inscription "Ex
+libris Thomas et Rebecca Vaughan, 1651, Sept. 28. Quos Deus coniunxit
+quis separabit?" The contents are partly personal jottings and records
+of dreams, partly alchemical formulae. They appear to cover the period
+1658-1662. We learn from them the following facts:--Vaughan was married
+on September 28, 1651, to a lady named Rebecca (f. 106 (b)). With her
+and his "Sister Vaughan" he lived and studied alchemy at the Pinner of
+Wakefield.[21] He had previously lodged at Mr. Coalman's in Holborn (f.
+104 (b)). His wife died on Saturday, April 17, 1658, and was buried at
+Mappersall, in Bedfordshire (f. 106 (b)).[22] In 1658 his father and his
+brother W. were both dead, and he mentions the news of his father's
+death coming to his niece in a letter from the country (f. 89 (b)). On
+April 9, 1659, he saw his brother H. in a dream. On 16 July, 1658, he
+was living at Wapping (f. 103 (b)), and at an earlier period at
+Paddington. There is an inventory of his wife's goods left at Mrs.
+Highgate's, and mention of a Mr. Highgate and a Sir John Underhill (f.
+107). He names his cousin, Mr. J. Walbeoffe, with whom he had some money
+transactions (f. 18), and speaks of "a certain person with whom I had in
+former times revelled away my years in drinking" (f. 103). Perhaps this
+also was John Walbeoffe, on whom _see_ vol. ii., p. 189, _note_. The
+alchemical formulae and receipts are interesting. In one place (f. 12)
+Vaughan announces the discovery of the "Extract of Oil of Halcaly,"
+which he had previously found in his wife's days and had lost again.
+This he calls "the greatest joy I can ever have in this world after her
+death." He seems to have regarded it as the key to an universal solvent.
+Nearly every receipt is followed by his and his wife's initials in the
+form T. R. V. or T. ^V. R., and by some expression of devotion to her or
+of religious piety.
+
+I now come to the remarkable statements made with respect to Thomas
+Vaughan in the _Memoires d'une ex-Palladiste_, now in course of
+publication by Miss Diana Vaughan. Miss Vaughan is a lady who has
+created a considerable sensation in Paris. Her own account of herself is
+that she was brought up as a worshipper of Lucifer, and was for some
+years a leading spirit amongst certain androgynous lodges of Freemasons,
+in which the worship of Lucifer is largely practised. She has now, owing
+to the direct interposition of Joan of Arc, become a Catholic, and has
+made it her mission to combat Luciferian Freemasonry in every way. Her
+_Memoirs_ are partly a biography, partly an account of this cult.[23]
+Miss Vaughan claims to be a great-grand-daughter of Thomas Vaughan's.
+She declares him to have been a Luciferian, Grand-master of the
+Rosicrucian order, and the founder of modern Freemasonry; and gives an
+exhaustive account of his career on the authority of family archives.
+The following paragraphs contain the substance of her narrative, the
+"legend of Philalethes," as it was told to Miss Vaughan by her father
+and her uncle, who were intimate friends of Albert Pike.
+
+The traditional accounts of Thomas Vaughan, says Miss Vaughan, contain
+serious errors. The dates of his birth and of his death, and the
+pseudonym under which he wrote are all incorrectly stated[24] (p. 110).
+He was born in Monmouth in 1612, being two years the elder of his
+brother Henry. The two boys were brought up at Oxford, after their
+father's death, by their uncle, Robert Vaughan the antiquary,[25] and
+entered at Jesus College (p. 114). In 1636, at the age of 24, Thomas
+Vaughan went to London, and became the disciple of Robert Fludd, who was
+a Rosicrucian (p. 148). The real nature of the Rosicrucians has hitherto
+been a mystery. They were in reality Luciferians, and carried on in
+secret during the seventeenth century that warfare against Adonai, the
+god of the Catholics, out of which had already sprung Wiclif, Luther,
+and the Reformation, and out of which was some day to spring, more
+deadly and more dangerous still, Freemasonry. The Fraternity of
+Rosie-Cross was founded by Faustus Socinus in 1597. He was succeeded as
+head of it by Caesar Cremonini (1604-1617), Michael Maier (1617-1622),
+Valentin Andreae (1622-1654), and Thomas Vaughan (1654-1678).[26] When
+Thomas Vaughan first came to London in 1636, Valentin Andreae was
+_Summus Magister_ of the Fraternity, and amongst its leading members
+were Robert Fludd and Amos Komenski, or Comenius (pp. 129-148). Robert
+Fludd initiated Thomas Vaughan into the lower degrees of the Golden
+Cross (p. 148), and sent him to Andreae at Calw, near Stuttgart, with a
+letter in which he prophesied for him a miraculous future (p. 163).
+After this visit to Germany, Vaughan returned to London, and after
+Fludd's death, in 1637, undertook in 1638 his first visit to America. In
+many of his writings he speaks as a Christian minister, and at this time
+he probably passed as a Nonconformist (p. 164). He was back in London
+early in June, 1639 (p. 165), and in the same year visited Denmark, and
+made a report to Komenski on the mysterious golden horn found at Tondern
+in that country (p. 166). In 1640 Vaughan received from Komenski the
+first initiation of the Rosie Cross, and chose the pseudonym of
+Eirenaeus Philalethes.[27] He now became exceedingly active, going and
+coming upon the face of the earth. When in England, he divided his time
+between Oxford and London (p. 167). Between 1640 and 1644 he visited
+Hamburg, the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden (pp. 171-174). It was at this
+period that he conceived the design of obtaining a far wider circulation
+than they had yet met with for the ideas of Faustus Socinus. Some of the
+Rosicrucians were already "accepted masons." Vaughan determined to
+capture the vast organization of craft masonry by permeating the lodges
+with Luciferianism. His associate in this task was Elias Ashmole, with
+whose aid, a few years later, he composed the degrees of Apprentice
+(1646), Companion (1648), and Master (1649) (pp. 142, 169-175, 197-206).
+The Civil War had now approached. Oliver Cromwell was a freemason, a
+Rosicrucian, and a friend of Vaughan's (p. 176). With the execution of
+Laud came the crisis of Vaughan's life, his initiation into the highest
+degree of Rosie Cross by the hands of Lucifer himself. It took place in
+this wise. At the last moment Vaughan was substituted for the intended
+executioner of Laud.[28] He had prepared a sacramental cloth which he
+soaked in the martyr's blood, and on the same night he sacrificed the
+relic to Lucifer. The divinity appeared, consecrated Vaughan as
+_Magus_, named him as the next _Summus Magister_ of the Fraternity, and
+signed a pact, granting him thirty-three years more life, at the end of
+which he should be borne away from earth without death (p. 177). In 1645
+Vaughan wrote, but did not yet publish, his most important treatise, the
+_Introitus Apertus ad Occlusum Regis Palatium_. In 1645, still following
+the direct command of Lucifer, he departed for America. Here he met the
+apothecary George Starkey, and in his presence performed the alchemical
+feat of making gold (p. 179).[29] Here, too, he lived amongst the
+Lenni-Lennaps, where he was united to the demon Venus-Astarte in the
+form of a beautiful woman, who after eleven days bore him a daughter.
+This girl was brought up among the Lenni-Lennaps under the name of Diana
+Wulisso-Waghan, and became Miss Diana Vaughan's great-great-grandmother
+(p. 181). In 1648 Vaughan returned to England, and after composing the
+masonic degree of Master in 1649 (p. 197), he began the publication of
+a series of alchemical and, in reality, Luciferian writings. In 1650
+appeared the _Anthroposophia Theomagica_ and the _Magia Adamica_, in
+1651 the _Lumen de Lumine_; in 1652 the _Aula Lucis_ (p. 211). In 1654
+Valentin Andreae died, and Vaughan succeeded him as _Summus Magister_ of
+the Rosie Cross, the event being announced to him by the homage of three
+demons, Leviathan, Cerberus, and Belphegor (p. 214). In 1655 he
+published his _Euphrates_, and in 1656 made his head-quarters at
+Amsterdam or Eirenaeopolis. In 1659 came his _Fraternity of R. C._; in
+1664 his _Medulla Alchymiae_.[30] In 1666 he exhibited the philosopher's
+stone to Helvetius at La Haye and converted him to occultism: in 1667 he
+at last resolved to publish his Opus Magnum, the _Introitus Apertus_,
+already written in 1645 (p. 215). In 1668 this was followed by the
+_Experimenta de Praeparatione Mercurii Sophici_ and the _Tractatus Tres_
+(p. 236). The time was now approaching when Vaughan, in fulfilment of
+the pact of 1644, must disappear from earth. He named Charles Blount as
+his successor (p. 237), and was granted a magical vision of his
+grandson, the child of Diana Wulisso-Waghan and a Lenni-Lennap (p. 239).
+He finished his _Memoirs_, published the _Ripley Revised_[31] and the
+_Enarratio Methodica trium Gebri Medicinarum_, left his poems to his
+brother Henry, who published them in the next year as the _Thalia
+Rediviva_,[32] and on March 25, 1678, disappeared in the company of
+_Lucifer Dieu-Bon_ himself (p. 240). This event is vouched for, not only
+by a written statement of Henry Vaughan (p. 114), but also by the
+existence in a masonic triangle at Valetta of a magical talisman into
+which, when properly evoked, the spirit of Philalethes enters and
+records his glorious end for the edification of the Luciferians
+present[33] (p. 243).
+
+I fear that I have taken Miss Vaughan with undue seriousness. Her
+account of Thomas Vaughan is not only unsupported by direct
+evidence,[34] but much of it is of a character which we should not be
+justified in accepting, even were direct evidence forthcoming. And it is
+all discordant with the little that we do happen to know of Thomas
+Vaughan from other sources. The whole thing is, in fact, a pretty
+obvious romance of very modern fabrication. It appears to have been
+compiled from such information as to the alchemical and mystical writers
+of the seventeenth century as was within the reach of Albert Pike and
+the brothers Vaughan about the year 1870.[35] It is always better to
+explain than to refute an error; and the nature of the Luciferian
+tradition of Thomas Vaughan is pretty clearly shown by the fact that it
+is not corroborated in a single particular by any of the new facts about
+him that have come to light since this probable date of its
+composition.[36] The fabricator put Thomas Vaughan's birth-place in
+Monmouth instead of Brecon, because he had never seen Dr. Grosart's
+_Fuller Worthies_ Edition of Henry Vaughan. He makes no mention of any
+of the facts contained in Sloane MS. 1741, because that MS. was still
+unknown. And, most fatal of all, he puts Thomas Vaughan's birth in 1612
+instead of 1621-2, because Foster's _Alumni Oxonienses_ being yet
+unpublished, he was ignorant of the record of that date preserved in the
+University Registers. But we can go a step further. We can confute him,
+not only by pointing to the books he did not use, but by pointing to
+those he did. It has already been shown that the ascription to Vaughan
+of the English translation of Maier's _Themis Aurea_ is due to a
+misunderstanding of a phrase used by Anthony a Wood. The _Athenae
+Oxonienses_ then was one source of the compilation. Another was the
+_Histoire de la Philosophie Hermetique_, written by Lenglet-Dufresnoy in
+1742. Here is the proof. Miss Vaughan supports her statement as to the
+birth-date in 1612 by a quotation from the _Introitus Apertus_, in which
+the writer states it to have been composed "en l'an 1645 de notre salut,
+et le trente-troisieme de mon age." This she professes to translate from
+the _editio princeps_ published by Jean Lange in 1667. As a matter of
+fact it is taken from the version given in Lenglet-Dufresnoy's book. And
+Lenglet-Dufresnoy followed, not the edition of 1667, but the later
+edition published by J. M. Faust at Frankfort in 1706. In this the words
+are "trigesimo tertio," whereas in the _editio princeps_ they are
+"vicesimo tertio," and in W. Cooper's English translation of 1669, "in
+the 23rd year of my age," thus bringing the date of the birth of
+Eirenaeus Philalethes not to 1612, but to 1622. The "legend of
+Philalethes" need detain us no longer. Miss Vaughan's narrative is a
+very insufficient basis for regarding the pious minister and mystic
+which Thomas Vaughan appears to have been as a secret enemy of
+Christianity and a worshipper of Lucifer.
+
+But when the legend is set aside, there still remain certain questions
+suggested by it which may be considered without much reference to the
+statements of Miss Vaughan. Was Thomas Vaughan a Rosicrucian? And was
+he, admittedly the author of a series of tracts under the name of
+Eugenius Philalethes, also the author of those which bear the name of
+Eirenaeus Philalethes? The first question is, I am afraid, insoluble,
+until it has been decided whether the Fraternity of R. C. ever had an
+actual existence. Anthony a Wood states that Thomas Vaughan was a
+zealous Rosicrucian, but probably Anthony a Wood took the term in the
+general sense of mystic and alchemist. On the other hand Vaughan
+himself, in his preface to the English translation of the Rosicrucian
+manifestoes, seems to disavow any personal acquaintance with the members
+of the fraternity. Even this is not conclusive, for the Rosicrucian
+rule, as given in the _Laws of the Brotherhood_, published by Sincerus
+Renatus in 1710,[37] obliges the members to deny their membership.
+
+There is more material for the discussion of the second question, but I
+do not know that it is more possible to come to a definite conclusion.
+The personality of the anonymous adept who took the name of Eirenaeus
+Philalethes was shrouded in mystery even to his contemporaries. The
+fullest account given of him on any of his title-pages is on that of the
+_Experimenta de Praeparatione Mercurii Sophici_ (1668), which is said to
+be "ex manuscripto Philosophi Americani alias Eyrenaei Philalethis,
+natu Angli, habitatione Cosmopolitae."[38] We have also the description
+given by George Starkey, or whoever it was, in the _Marrow of Alchemy_
+(1654-5), p. 25. Starkey says:--
+
+ "His present place in which he doth abide
+ I know not, for the world he walks about,
+ Of which he is a citizen; this tide
+ He is to visit artists and seek out
+ Antiquities a voyage gone and will
+ Return when he of travel hath his fill.
+
+ "By nation an Englishman, of note
+ His family is in the place where he
+ Was born, his fortune's good, and eke his coat
+ Of arms is of a great antiquity;
+ His learning rare, his years scarce thirty-three;
+ Fuller description get you not from me."
+
+
+Starkey gives the age of Eirenaeus Philalethes as 33 in 1654. This
+precisely confirms the writer's own statement in the earlier editions of
+the _Introitus Apertus_ that he was 23 in 1645, and fixes the birth-date
+as 1621 or 1622. Now this agrees remarkably with the birth-date
+ascertained from other sources of Thomas Vaughan. But Thomas died in
+1666, and it is usually asserted that Eirenaeus Philalethes lived until
+at least 1678. Miss Vaughan states that he must have been alive in that
+year, because he then published the _Ripley Revived_, and the _Enarratio
+Trium Gebri Medicinarum_. She declares that the author of the
+_Enarratio_ mentions the pains taken about that edition (p. 240). I do
+not find any prefatory matter in this book at all. There is a preface to
+the _Ripley Revived_, but this was written long before 1678, for it
+mentions the _Introitus Apertus_, published in 1667, as still in
+manuscript. Neither Jean Lange, the editor of the _Introitus Apertus_ of
+1667, writing 9th December, 1666, nor William Cooper, the editor of the
+English translation[39] of 1669, writing 15th September, 1668, know
+whether the author is still alive. In fact he cannot be shown to have
+outlived Thomas Vaughan, for there is no proof that the adept who showed
+the philosopher's stone to Helvetius on December 27th, 1666,[40] was the
+same as he who showed it to George Starkey many years before. I will
+briefly enumerate a few other links which connect Eirenaeus Philalethes
+with Thomas Vaughan. A German translation of the _Introitus Apertus_,
+published at Hamburg under the title of _Abyssus Alchemiae_ (1704), is
+said on the title-page to be "von T. de Vagan." Miss Vaughan states that
+a similar translation of the first of the _Tres Tractatus_, published at
+Hamburg in 1705, also bears this name (p. 237), and this is borne out by
+Lenglet-Dufresnoy (iii. 261-6), who speaks of a French MS. of the _Tres
+Tractatus_ inscribed "par Thomas de Vagan, dit Philalethe ou Martin
+Birrhius." Birrhius, however, was only the editor. These ascriptions are
+probably made on the authority of G. W. Wedelius, who in his preface,
+dated 2nd Sept., 1698, to an edition of the _Introitus Apertus_,
+published at Jena in 1699, says of the author:--"Ex Anglia tamen vulgo
+habetur oriundus ... et Thomas De Vagan appellatus." The English _Three
+Tracts_ (1694) are stated on the title-page to have been written in
+Latin by Eirenaeus Philalethes; but there is a note in the British
+Museum Catalogue to the effect that the Latin original has the name
+_Eugenius_ Philalethes. Unfortunately this Latin _Tres Tractatus_,
+published in 1668 by Martin Birrhius at Amsterdam, is not in the
+Library, and I cannot verify the statement. Finally, I may note that the
+_Ripley Revived_ (1678) has an engraved title-page by Robert Vaughan,
+who also did the title-page to _Olor Iscanus_, and that Starkey's
+_Marrow of Alchemy_ contains, at the end of the preface to Part ii.,
+some lines by William Sampson, which mention
+
+ "Harry Mastix Moor
+ Who judged of Nature when he did not know her";
+
+clearly an allusion to More's controversy with Thomas Vaughan.
+
+It will be seen that there is some _prima facie_ evidence for
+identifying Eirenaeus Philalethes with Thomas Vaughan, whereas he was
+probably not George Starkey (Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes), and
+cannot be shown to have been anyone else. But I am not satisfied. We do
+not know that Thomas Vaughan was ever in America, and there is the
+strong evidence of Anthony a Wood, who distinguishes between Eirenaeus
+and Eugenius, and who appears to have had information from Henry Vaughan
+himself. Mr. A. E. Waite argues against the identification on the ground
+that Eirenaeus Philalethes was a "physical alchemist," whereas Thomas
+Vaughan's alchemy was spiritual and mystical. But we have Vaughan's
+authority for saying that he had pursued the physical alchemy also.[41]
+And he was clearly doing so when he wrote Sloane MS. 1741. A more
+pertinent objection is perhaps that Eirenaeus Philalethes appears to
+have been in possession of the grand secret when he wrote the _Introitus
+Apertus_ in 1645, whereas Thomas Vaughan was still seeking it in 1658.
+To pursue the matter further would require a wide knowledge of the
+alchemical writings of the seventeenth century, which unfortunately I do
+not possess.[42]
+
+My gratitude is due for help received in compiling the biographical and
+other notes in these volumes to Dr. Grosart, Mr. C. H. Firth, Mr. W. C.
+Hazlitt, Mr. A. E. Waite, and the Rev. Llewellyn Thomas; notably to Miss
+G. E. F. Morgan of Brecon, whose knowledge of local genealogy and
+antiquities has been invaluable.
+
+ July, 1896. E. K. Chambers.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Dr. Grosart, however, says (ii. 298), "In all the pedigrees that
+have been submitted to me, Thomas is placed as the first of the twins."
+But, as Henry inherited Newton, and Thomas took orders, Anthony a Wood
+is probably right.
+
+[2] The tombstone says 73. G. T. Clark repeats Jones' error.
+
+[3] The tombstone is actually in the north aisle of the church itself.
+
+[4] Obviously Mr. Clark has confused Lucy Jones with her daughter,
+Denise Jones.
+
+[5] This was noted by Mr W. B. Rye in _The Genealogist_, iii. 33, from
+the Entry Book of the Registry at Hereford. Since then Mr. Clark of
+Hereford has kindly sent me, through Miss Morgan, a copy of the bond
+entered into by the administratrix, Elizabetha Vaughan de Llansanfread,
+and her son-in-law and surety, Roger Prosser de Villa Brecon. The bond,
+or the copy, is dated in error "30 May, 1694, et 7th Wm. iii."
+Administration was granted on May 29, 1695. The inventory of the
+personal property amounted to L49 4s. 0d. The witnesses are Walter
+Prosser and David Thomas.
+
+[6] An old alphabetical catalogue of wills in the Hereford Registry,
+between 1660-1677, has the following entries:--
+
+Thomas Vaughan, Lansamfread, 11 Dec., 1660.
+Franca Vaughan, Lansamfread, 16 Nov., 1677.
+
+The wills cannot, in the present state of the Registry, be found
+(_Genealogist_, iii., 33). These dates are much too early for the poet's
+son and daughter-in-law; but whose are the wills?
+
+[7] The _Turberville_ and _Jones_ lines are taken from Theophilus Jones'
+_History of Brecknockshire_ (ii. 444), and from Harl. MS. 2289, f. 70,
+respectively. Miss Morgan has kindly traced the Prossers from the
+_Registers_ of St. John's and St. Mary's Churches, Brecon.
+
+[8] Miss Morgan tells me that David Morgan David Howel's father, Morgan
+ap Howel, is described in a pedigree as "of Trenewydd in Penkelley"; and
+I find from Harl. MS. 2289, ff. 84 (b), 85, that the Powells "of Newton
+Penkelley" were related to the Powells of Cantreff. (_See_ vol. ii., p.
+57, _note_.)
+
+[9] The will of this Charles Vaughan has been abstracted by Mr. W. B.
+Rye (_Genealogist_, iii. 33) from the Hereford Will Office. It was made
+9th April, 1707, and proved 29th May, 1707. The testator is described as
+of Skellrog, Llansanffread, and mention is made of his wife Margaret
+Powell, and of a son William. This William, therefore, and not a
+grandson of Henry Vaughan, may be the William Vaughan of Llansantffread,
+who married Mary Games of Tregaer (p. xxi). Skellrog appears to have
+passed to another and probably elder son, Charles.
+
+[10] S. W. Williams, _Llansaintffread Church_ in _Archaeologia
+Cambrensis_ (1887.)
+
+[11] W. B. Rye in _Genealogist_, iii. 36, from Entry Book in Hereford
+Will Office.
+
+[12] An account of the part played by Beeston Castle during the Civil
+War will be found in Ormerod's _History of Cheshire_ (ed. Helsby), ii.
+272 _sqq._
+
+[13] Gardiner, _The Great Civil War_, ch. xxxvi.; J. R. Phillips, _The
+Civil War in Wales and the Marches_, i. 329; ii. 270.
+
+[14] Ormerod, i. 243.
+
+[15] Phillips, i. 314.
+
+[16] Phillips, ii. 272.
+
+[17] Both Wood and Foster give the father's name as Thomas, but it
+appears to be Henry in all the pedigrees.
+
+[18] The following list of Vaughan's admitted prose treatises is mainly
+taken from Dr. Grosart:--_Anthroposophia Theomagica_ (1650); _Anima
+Magica Abscondita_ (1650); _Magia Adamica_ with the _Coelum Terrae_
+(1650); _The Man-Mouse taken in a Trap_ (1650); _The Second Wash; or,
+the Moor scoured once more_ (1651) [These two are polemics against Henry
+More]; _Lumen de Lumine_, with the _Aphorismi Magici Eugeniani_ (1651);
+_The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity of R:C:_ (1653); _Aula Lucis_
+(1652); _Euphrates_ (1655); _Nollius' Chymist's Key_ (1657); _A Brief
+Natural History_ (1669); [Wood ascribes this to another writer, as it
+was not in the list furnished him by Henry Vaughan].--Henry More's
+pamphlets against Vaughan are the _Observations upon Anthroposophia
+Theomagica and Anima Magica Abscondita_ (1650), issued under the name of
+Alazonomastix Philalethes and _The Second Lash of Alazonomastix_ (1651).
+
+[19] Walker falls into the curious confusion of supposing that there
+were two Thomas Vaughans, one rector of Llansantffread, the other of
+Newton St. Bridget. But "St. Bridget" is only the English form of the
+Welsh "Santffread."
+
+[20] Printed from the Rawl. MSS. in Thurloe's _State Papers_, ii. 120.
+
+[21] Is this the inn of that name once in the Gray's Inn Road?
+(Cunningham and Wheatley, _Handbook to London_.)
+
+[22] The Rev. Henry Howlett has kindly sent me the following extract
+from the registers of Meppershall:--
+
+ "1658.
+ Buried.
+ Rebecka, the Wife of Mr. Vahanne
+ the 26th of Aprill."
+
+
+
+[23] An entire literature has grown up in Paris during the last year
+around the question whether the cultus of Lucifer is practised in
+certain Masonic Lodges. A number of Catholic journalists and
+pamphleteers assert very categorically that this is the case, that the
+centre of this cultus, containing the full Luciferian initiates, is the
+33^rd^ degree of a so-called New and Reformed Palladian Rite, having its
+head-quarters at Charlestown, and that the chiefs of this Rite have
+obtained a controlling influence over the whole of Freemasonry. The
+creed is described as Manichaean in character, with Lucifer as Dieu-Bon
+and Adonai, the God of the Catholics, as Dieu-Mauvais. Adonai is the
+principle of asceticism, Lucifer of natural humanity and _la joie de
+vivre_. The rituals and the accepted interpretation of the Masonic
+symbolism used in the lodges, or "triangles," are of a phallic type.
+Women are admitted to membership. Immorality, a parody of the Eucharist,
+known as the black mass, and the practice of black magic, take place at
+the meetings. Lucifer is worshipped in the form of Baphomet, but from
+time to time he is personally evoked, and manifested to his followers.
+Luciferianism tends to become identical with Satanism, in which Lucifer
+and Satan are identified and frankly worshipped as evil. The first
+mention of Luciferian Freemasonry was in the _Y-a-t-il des Femmes dans
+la Franc Maconnerie?_ (1891), of the somewhat notorious Leo Taxil. But
+the case rests mainly on the alleged revelations of writers who claim to
+have themselves been members of the Palladian Rite. The chief of these
+are Dr. Hacke or Bataille, Signor Margiotta and Miss Diana Vaughan.
+Unfortunately very little evidence is forthcoming as to the identity of
+any of these personages. Many leading Masons, _e.g._, M. Papus in his
+_Le Diable et l'Occultisme_, deny that Luciferian Freemasonry exists at
+all, and it is freely stated (_cf._ _Light_ for 27 June and 4 July,
+1896, pp. 305, 322) that Miss Diana Vaughan is a myth, and that her
+_Memoires_ with the rest of the revelations are the ingenious concoction
+of a band of irresponsible journalists of whom Leo Taxil is the chief.
+No one appears to have seen Miss Vaughan, and she is alleged to be
+hiding in some convent from the vengeance of the Luciferians. Probably
+there will be some further light thrown on the matter before long: in
+the meantime a good summary of the evidence up-to-date may be found in
+A. E. Waite's _Devil-Worship in France_ (1896). Assuming that
+Luciferianism really exists, I do not for a moment believe that it has
+the antiquity which Miss Vaughan claims for it. The various Rites of
+modern Freemasonry, with their fantastic and high-sounding degrees, are
+comparatively recent excrescences upon the original Craft Masonry. The
+New and Reformed Palladian Rite is said to have been founded at
+Charlestown by the well-known Mason, Albert Pike, in 1870. It is based
+on the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, which dates from the
+beginning of the century. If there is such a thing as Luciferianism, I
+do not think we need look further back than 1870 for its origin. As
+expounded by Miss Vaughan and others, it is pretty clearly a compilation
+from Eliphaz Levi and other occultist and Cabbalistic writers, with a
+good deal of modern American Spiritualism thrown in. Albert Pike, a man
+of considerable learning, could easily have invented it. Masonic
+symbolism lends itself readily enough to a wide range of
+interpretations. I do not say that seventeenth-century occultism has
+left no traces upon Freemasonry which modern ritual-mongers may have
+elaborated; but it is a far cry from this to the belief that Thomas
+Vaughan and Luther were Manichaean worshippers of Lucifer and
+Protestantism an organized warfare on Adonai.
+
+[24] Miss Vaughan quotes from Allibone's _History of English
+Literature_. Allibone only repeats Anthony a Wood's account.
+
+[25] Robert Vaughan belonged to quite a different branch from the
+Vaughans of Newton: and, as Sl. MS. 1741 shows, the father of Henry and
+Thomas Vaughan did not die until 1658.
+
+[26] Miss Vaughan gives an elaborate account of the Rosicrucians and of
+their famous manifestoes, which I have no room to reproduce.
+
+[27] Miss Vaughan states that Thomas Vaughan signed "not _Eugenius
+Philalethes_, but _Eirenaeus Philalethes_" (p. 114). But she ascribes to
+him the _Anthroposophia Theomagica_ and other writings which are signed,
+though she does not mention it, _Eugenius Philalethes_ (p. 211). She
+quotes from Anthony a Wood the assertion, which he does not make, that
+the English translations of the _Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis_ (1652)
+and of Maier's _Themis Aurea_ (1656) both bear the name of Eugenius, and
+were by another Thomas Vaughan! The manuscripts of both are, she says,
+signed _Eirenaeus_ (p. 163). What Wood says is that he has seen a
+translation of Maier's tract, dedicated to Elias Ashmole by [N. L.]/[T.
+S.] H. S., and that Ashmole has forgotten whose the initials are. He
+does not suggest that this translation is by a Thomas Vaughan. (_Ath.
+Oxon._, iii. 724.)
+
+[28] This episode has previously done duty in the _Vingt Ans Apres_
+(vol. iii., ch. 8-10), of Alexandre Dumas, in which Mordaunt acts as the
+executioner of Charles. There is a Latin poem amongst Vaughan's remains
+in _Thalia Rediviva_ entitled _Epitaphium Gulielmi Laud Episcopi
+Cantuariensis_, full of sorrow for the archbishop's death.
+
+[29] Miss Vaughan refers to Lenglet-Dufresnoy's _Histoire de la
+Philosophie Hermetique_ as an authority on Starkey's relations with
+Eirenaeus Philalethes. Lenglet-Dufresnoy probably took his account from
+_The Marrow of Alchemy_ (1654-5). The prefaces to this are signed with
+anagrams of George Starkey's name. But he ascribes the poem to a friend,
+who is called in the _Breve Manuductorium ad Campum Sophiae_ Agricola
+Rhomaeus. Perhaps Starkey himself was the real author. The title-page
+has the name Eirenaeus Philoponus Philalethes, apparently a distinct
+designation from that of Eirenaeus Philalethes.
+
+[30] The _Medulla Alchemiae_ (1664) is only a Latin translation of the
+_Marrow of Alchemy_ (1654-5) of Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes.
+
+[31] The actual name of the tract is _Ripley Revived_.
+
+[32] The _Thalia Rediviva_ was actually published in 1678, not 1679.
+
+[33] Miss Vaughan has herself witnessed this, in the presence of
+Lucifer. Moreover, the spirit of Philalethes has appeared, and conversed
+with her (pp. 257-267).
+
+[34] Miss Vaughan refers to several family documents, but does not offer
+them for inspection. They include (a) the will of her grandfather James,
+enumerating the proofs of his descent (p. 111); (b) the autobiographical
+Memoirs of Philalethes, from which Miss Vaughan quotes largely (pp. 174,
+240); (c) a letter from Fludd to Andreae (pp. 114, 149); (d) a MS. of
+the _Introitus Apertus_, of which the margin has been covered by Vaughan
+with a comment for Luciferian initiates (pp. 111, 217, 225); (e) a
+letter from Andreae in the archives of the Sovereign Patriarchal Council
+of Hamburg (p. 197); (f) Henry Vaughan's account of his brother's
+disappearance in the archives of the Supreme Dogmatic Directory of
+Charleston (p. 114); (g) Masonic rituals in the archives of Masonic
+chapters at Bristol and Gibraltar (p. 200); (h) Rosicrucian rituals
+drawn up by one Nick Stone in the hands of Dr. W. W. W[estcott] of
+London (p. 141). The documents in Masonic hands are presumably, like the
+Valetta talisman, now out of Miss Vaughan's reach. A communication
+signed Q. V. in _Light_ for May 16, 1896, denies, on Dr. Westcott's
+authority, that his rituals have anything to do with Nick Stone, or that
+Miss Vaughan ever saw them. Dr. Westcott is the head of the modern
+_Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia_. This body does not even pretend to be
+the _Fraternity of R. C._ Finally, there is (i) Thomas Vaughan's
+original pact with Lucifer, now, according to Miss Vaughan, in holy
+hands, and to be destroyed on the day she takes the veil.
+
+[35] Miss Vaughan somewhat naively gives us a lead. After describing
+Thomas Vaughan's sojourn with Venus-Astarte among the Lenni-Lennaps, she
+adds: "This legend is not accepted by all the Elect Mages; there are
+those who regard it as fabricated by my grandfather James of Boston, who
+was, they believe, of Delaware origin, or, at any rate, a half-breed;
+and they even assert that, in the desire to Anglicize himself, he
+invented an entirely false genealogy, by way of justifying his change of
+the Lennap name Waghan into Vaughan. Herein the opponents of the
+Luciferian legend of Thomas Vaughan go too far" (p. 181).
+
+[36] I have already pointed out that Miss Vaughan is quite possibly a
+myth. But, if she exists, I do not see any reason to suppose that she
+personally invented the "legend of Philalethes." It lies between Leo
+Taxil and his friends in 1895, and the alleged founders of Palladism in
+or about 1870, that is Albert Pike and Miss Vaughan's father and uncle.
+And, so far as it goes, the ignorance shown in the legend of all books
+published in the last twenty years is evidence for the earlier date, and
+therefore, to some extent, for the actual existence of Luciferianism.
+
+[37] _Cf._ A. E. Waite, _Real History of the Rosicrucians_, p. 274.
+
+[38] The principal writings ascribed to Eirenaeus Philalethes are
+_Introitus Apertus in Occlusum Regis Palatium_ (1667), _Tres Tractatus_
+(1668), _Experimenta de Praeparatione Mercurii Sophici_ (1668), _Ripley
+Revived_ (1678), _Enarratio Trium Gebri Medicinarum_ (1678). The works
+of Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes (George Starkey?) are often
+attributed to him in error. The B. M. Catalogue, s.vv. _Philaletha,
+Philalethes_, is a mass of confusions. Lenglet-Dufresnoy, _Histoire de
+la Philosophie Hermetique_ (iii. 261-266), gives a long list of printed
+and manuscript works. Most of these he had probably never seen. He
+probably took many items in his list from one in J. M. Faust's edition
+of the _Introitus Apertus_ (Frankfort, 1706); and this, in its turn, was
+based on what Eirenaeus Philalethes himself says he has written in the
+preface to _Ripley Revived_. He there says, after naming other works:
+"Two English Poems I wrote, declaring the whole secret, which are lost.
+Also an Enchiridion of Experiments, together with a Diurnal of
+Meditations, in which were many Philosophical receipts, declaring the
+whole secret, with an Aenigma annexed; which also fell into such hands
+which I conceive will never restore it. This last was written in
+English." Can this Enchiridion and Diurnal be Sl. MS. 1741? I find no
+"Aenigma." Can Starkey have stolen the poems and published them as the
+_Marrow of Alchemy_?
+
+[39] The preface to _Ripley Revived_ makes it clear that the _Introitus
+Apertus_ was originally written in Latin, not in English.
+
+[40] This is recorded in Helvetius' _Vitulus Aureus_ (1667). Helvetius
+describes his master as 43 or 44 years old, and calls him Elias
+Artistes.
+
+[41] _See_ the passage from the Epistle to _Euphrates_, quoted by
+Grosart (Vol. ii., p. 312).
+
+[42] The "legend of Philalethes" has already been exposed by Mr. A. E.
+Waite in his _Devil Worship in France_ (ch. xiii.). I am also indebted
+to what Mr. Waite has written on Eirenaeus Philalethes in that book, as
+well as in his _True History of the Rosicrucians_ (1887) and his _Lives
+of Alchymistical Philosophers_ (1888).
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HENRY VAUGHAN'S WORKS.
+
+
+(1)
+
+POEMS, | WITH | The tenth SATYRE of | IUVENAL | ENGLISHED. | By _Henry
+Vaughan_, Gent. |--_Tam nil, nulla tibi vendo_ | _Illiade_--| _LONDON_,
+| Printed for _G. Badger_, and are to be sold at his | shop under Saint
+_Dunstan's_ Church in | Fleet-street. 1646. [8^vo^.]
+
+The translation from Juvenal has a separate title-page.
+
+IVVENAL'S | TENTH | SATYRE | TRANSLATED. | _Nec verbum verbo curabit
+reddere fidus_ | _Interpres_--| _LONDON_, | Printed for G. B., and are
+to be sold at his Shop | under Saint _Dunstan's_ Church. 1646.
+
+
+(2)
+
+[Emblem] | Silex Scintillans: | _or_ | _SACRED POEMS_ | _and_ | _Priuate
+Eiaculations_ | _By_ | Henry Vaughan _Silurist_ | LONDON | _Printed by
+T. W. for H. Blunden_ | _at ye Castle in Cornehill._ 1650. [8^vo^.]
+
+
+(3)
+
+_OLOR ISCANUS._ | A COLLECTION | OF SOME SELECT | POEMS, | AND |
+TRANSLATIONS, | Formerly written by | _Mr._ Henry Vaughan _Silurist_. |
+Published by a Friend. | Virg. Georg. | _Flumina amo, Sylvasq.
+Inglorius_--| LONDON | Printed by _T. W._ for _Humphrey Moseley_, | and
+are to be sold at his shop, at the | Signe of the Princes Arms in St.
+_Pauls_ | Church-yard, 1651. [8^vo^.]
+
+The Preface is dated "Newton by Usk this 17 of Decemb. 1647."
+
+The prose translations in this volume have separate title-pages:
+
+(a) OF THE | BENEFIT | Wee may get by our | ENEMIES. | A DISCOURSE |
+Written originally in the | Greek by _Plutarchus Chaeronensis_, |
+translated in to Latin by _I. Reynolds_ Dr. | of Divinitie and lecturer
+of the Greeke Tongue | In _Corpus Christi_ College In _Oxford_. |
+_Englished By_ H: V: _Silurist_. |--_Dolus, an virtus quis in hoste
+requirat._ |--_fas est, et ab hoste doceri._ | LONDON. | Printed for
+_Humphry Moseley_ [etc.].
+
+(b) OF THE | DISEASES | OF THE | MIND | And the BODY. | A DISCOURSE |
+Written originally in the | Greek by _Plutarchus Chaeronensis_, | put in
+to latine by _I. Reynolds D.D._ | Englished by _H: V:_ Silurist. |
+_Omnia perversae poterunt Corrumpere mentes._ | LONDON. | Printed for
+_Humphry Moseley_ [etc.].
+
+(c) OF THE DISEASES | OF THE | MIND, | AND THE | BODY, | and which of
+them is | most pernicious. | The Question stated, and decided | by
+_Maximus Tirius_, a Platonick Philosopher, written originally in | the
+Greek, put into Latine by | _John Reynolds_ D.D. | _Englished_ by Henry
+Vaughan _Silurist_. | LONDON, | Printed for _Humphry Moseley_ [etc.].
+
+(d) THE | PRAISE | AND | HAPPINESSE | OF THE | _COUNTRIE-LIFE_; |
+Written Originally in | _Spanish_ by _Don Antonio de Guevara_, | Bishop
+of _Carthagena_, and | Counsellour of Estate to | _Charls_ the Fifth
+Emperour | of _Germany_. |_Put into English by_ H. Vaughan _Silurist._ |
+Virgil. Georg. | _O fortunatos nimium, bona si sua norint,_ |
+_Agricolas!_--| LONDON, | Printed for _Humphry Moseley_ [etc.].
+
+
+(4)
+
+THE | MOUNT of OLIVES: | OR, | SOLITARY DEVOTIONS. | By | HENRY VAUGHAN
+_Silurist_. | With | An excellent Discourse of the | blessed State of
+MAN in GLORY, | written by the most Reverend and | holy Father ANSELM
+Arch-| Bishop of _Canterbury_, and now | done into English. | Luke 21,
+v. 39, 37. | [quoted in full]. | LONDON, Printed for WILLIAM LEAKE at
+the | Crown in Fleet-Street between the two | Temple-Gates. 1652
+[12^mo^].
+
+The preface is dated "Newton by Usk this first of October 1651."
+
+The translation from Anselm has a separate title-page:
+
+MAN | IN | GLORY: | OR, | A Discourse of the blessed | state of the
+Saints in the | New JERUSALEM. | Written in Latin by the most | Reverend
+and holy Father | _ANSELMUS_ | Archbishop of _Canterbury_, and now |
+done into English. | Printed _Anno Dom._ 1652.
+
+
+(5)
+
+_Flores Solitudinis._ | Certaine Rare and Elegant | PIECES; | _Viz._ |
+Two Excellent Discourses | Of 1. _Temperance, and Patience_; | 2. _Life
+and Death_. | BY | _I. E._ NIEREMBERGIUS. | THE WORLD | CONTEMNED; | BY
+| EUCHERIUS, Bp. of LYONS. | And the Life of | PAULINUS, | Bp. of
+_NOLA_. | Collected in his Sicknesse and Retirement, | BY | _HENRY
+VAUGHAN_, Silurist. | _Tantus Amor Florum, & generandi gloria Mellis._ |
+_London_, Printed for _Humphry Moseley_ at the | _Princes Armes_ in St.
+_Pauls_ Church-yard. 1654. [12^mo^.]
+
+The Preface is dated "Newton by Usk, in South-Wales, April 17, 1652."
+The pieces have separate title-pages:
+
+(a) Two Excellent | DISCOURSES | Of 1. Temperance and Patience. | 2.
+Life and Death. | Written in Latin by | _Johan: Euseb: Nierembergius_. |
+Englished by | HENRY VAUGHAN, Silurist. | ... _Mors vitam temperet, &
+vita Mortem_. | _LONDON:_ | Printed for _Humphrey Moseley_, etc.
+
+The Preface is dated "Newton by Uske neare Sketh-Rock. 1653."
+
+(b) THE WORLD | CONTEMNED, | IN A | Parenetical Epistle written by | the
+Reverend Father | _EUCHERIUS_, | Bishop of _Lyons_, to his Kinsman |
+_VALERIANUS_. | [Texts] | _London_, Printed for _Humphrey Moseley_ [etc.].
+
+(c) Primitive Holiness, | Set forth in the | LIFE | of blessed |
+PAULINUS, | The most Reverend, and | Learned BISHOP of | _NOLA_: |
+Collected out of his own Works, | and other Primitive Authors by |
+_Henry Vaughan_, Silurist. | 2 Kings _cap._ 2. _ver._ 12 | _My Father,
+my Father, the Chariot of_ | Israel, _and the Horsmen thereof._ |
+_LONDON_, | Printed for _Humphry Moseley_ [etc.].
+
+
+(6)
+
+Silex Scintillans: | SACRED | POEMS | And private | EJACULATIONS. | The
+second Edition, In two Books; | By _Henry Vaughan_, Silurist. | Job
+chap. 35 ver. 10, 11. | [quoted in full] | _London_, Printed for _Henry
+Crips_, and _Lodo-_ | _wick Lloyd_, next to the Castle in _Cornhil_, |
+and in _Popes-head Alley_. 1655. [8^vo^.]
+
+A reissue, with additions and a fresh title-page, of (2). The Preface is
+dated "Newton by Usk, near Sketh-rock Septem. 30, 1654."
+
+
+(7)
+
+HERMETICAL | PHYSICK: | _OR_, | The right way to pre-| serve, and to
+restore | HEALTH | _BY_ | That famous and faith-| full Chymist, | _HENRY
+NOLLIUS_. | Englished by | HENRY UAUGHAN, Gent. | _LONDON._ | Printed
+for _Humphrey Moseley_, and | are to be sold at his shop, at the |
+_Princes Armes_, in S^t _Pauls Church-Yard_, 1655. [12^mo^.]
+
+
+(8)
+
+_Thalia Rediviva:_ | THE | _Pass-Times_ and _Diversions_ | OF A |
+COUNTREY-MUSE, | In Choice | POEMS | On several Occasions. | WITH | Some
+Learned _Remains_ of the Eminent | _Eugenius Philalethes_. | Never made
+Publick till now. |--Nec erubuit sylvas habitare Thalia. _Virgil._ |
+Licensed, _Roger L'Estrange_. | _London_, Printed for _Robert Pawlet_ at
+the Bible in | _Chancery-lane_, near _Fleetstreet_, 1678 [8^vo^.]
+
+The Remains of Eugenius Philalethes [Thomas Vaughan] have a separate
+title-page.
+
+_Eugenii Philalethis_, | VIRI | INSIGNISSIMI | ET | Poetarum | Sui
+Saeculi, merito Principis: | _VERTUMNUS_ | ET | _CYNTHIA_, &c. | Q.
+Horat. |--_Qui praegravat artes Infra se positas,_ | _extinctus
+am[a]bitur._--| _LONDINI_, | Impensis _Roberti Pawlett_, M.DC.LXXVIII.
+[12^mo^.]
+
+
+(9)
+
+Olor Iscanus. A collection of some Select Poems, Together with these
+Translations following, etc. All Englished by H. Vaughan, Silurist.
+London: Printed and are to be sold by Peter Parker ... 1679. [8^vo^.]
+
+A reissue, according to Dr. Grosart (ii. 59) and W. C. Hazlitt
+(_Supplement to Third Series Of Collections_, p. 106), of the 1651 _Olor
+Iscanus_, with a fresh title-page. I have not seen a copy.
+
+
+(10)
+
+[Miss L. I. Guiney writes in her essay on _Henry Vaughan, the Silurist_
+(Atlantic Monthly, May, 1894): "Mr. Carew Hazlitt has been fortunate
+enough to discover the advertisement of an eighteenth-century Vaughan
+reprint."
+
+As to this Mr. Hazlitt writes to me: "I cannot tell where Miss Guiney
+heard about the Vaughan--not certainly from me. But there is an edition
+of his 'Spiritual Songs,' 8^vo^, 1706, of which, however, I don't at
+present know the whereabouts."]
+
+
+(11)
+
+Silex Scintillans: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations of Henry
+Vaughan, with Memoir by the Rev. H. F. Lyte. London: William Pickering,
+1847. [12^mo^.]
+
+An edition of (6) and part of (8).
+
+
+(12)
+
+The Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations of Henry Vaughan, with a
+Memoir by the Rev. H. F. Lyte. Boston [U. S. A.]: Little, Brown and
+Company, 1856. [8^vo^.]
+
+A reprint of (11).
+
+
+(13)
+
+Silex Scintillans, etc.: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations, by Henry
+Vaughan. London: Bell and Daldy. 1858.
+
+A reprint, with a revised text, of (11).
+
+
+(14)
+
+The Fuller Worthies' Library. The Works in Verse and Prose complete of
+Henry Vaughan, Silurist, for the first time collected and edited: with
+Memorial-Introduction: Essay on Life and Writings: and Notes: by the
+Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, St. George's, Blackburn, Lancashire. In four
+Volumes.... Printed for Private Circulation. 1871.
+
+A reprint of the original editions, with biographical and critical
+matter. Only 50 4^to^, 106 8^vo^, and 156 12^mo^ copies printed. In Vol.
+II. are included the Poems of Thomas Vaughan, with a separate
+title-page.
+
+The English and Latin Verse-Remains of Thomas Vaughan ('Eugenius
+Philalethes'), twin-brother of the Silurist. For the first time
+collected and edited: with Memorial-Introduction and Notes: by the Rev.
+Alexander B. Grosart [etc.].
+
+
+(15)
+
+Silex Scintillans, etc. Sacred Poems and Pious Ejaculations. By Henry
+Vaughan, "Silurist." With a Memoir by the Rev. H. F. Lyte. Job xxxv. 10,
+11 [in full]. London: George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden.
+1883. [8^vo^.]
+
+A reprint, with a text further revised, of (11) and (13), forming a
+volume of the _Aldine Poets_. Since reprinted in 1891.
+
+
+(16)
+
+The Jewel Poets. Henry Vaughan. Edinburgh. Macniven and Wallace. 1884.
+
+A selection, with a short preface by W. R. Nicoll.
+
+
+(17)
+
+Silex Scintillans. Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations, by Henry
+Vaughan (Silurist). Being a facsimile of the First Edition, published in
+1650, with an Introduction by the Rev. William Clare, B.A. (Adelaide).
+London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row. 1885. [12^mo^.]
+
+A facsimile reprint of (2).
+
+
+(18)
+
+Secular Poems by Henry Vaughan, Silurist. Including a few pieces by his
+twin-brother Thomas ("Eugenius Philalethes"). Selected and arranged,
+with Notes and Bibliography, by J. R. Tutin, Editor of "Poems of Richard
+Crashaw," etc. Hull: J. R. Tutin. 1893.
+
+A selection from Vol. II. of (14).
+
+
+(19)
+
+The Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist. With an Introduction by H. C.
+Beeching, Rector of Yattendon. [Publishers' Device.] London: Lawrence
+and Bullen, 16, Henrietta Street, W.C. New York: Charles Scribner's
+Sons, 153-157 Fifth Avenue. 1896. [Two vols. 8^vo^.]
+
+The present edition. A hundred copies are printed on large paper.
+
+
+ POEMS,
+
+ WITH THE
+
+ TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL
+
+ ENGLISHED.
+
+ 1646.
+
+
+
+
+TO ALL INGENIOUS LOVERS OF POESY.
+
+
+Gentlemen,
+
+To you alone, whose more refined spirits out-wing these dull times, and
+soar above the drudgery of dirty intelligence, have I made sacred these
+fancies: I know the years, and what coarse entertainment they afford
+poetry. If any shall question that courage that durst send me abroad so
+late, and revel it thus in the dregs of an age, they have my silence:
+only,
+
+ Languescente seculo, liceat aegrotari.
+
+My more calm ambition, amidst the common noise, hath thus exposed me to
+the world: you have here a flame, bright only in its own innocence, that
+kindles nothing but a generous thought: which though it may warm the
+blood, the fire at highest is but Platonic; and the commotion, within
+these limits, excludes danger. For the satire, it was of purpose
+borrowed to feather some slower hours; and what you see here is but the
+interest: it is one of his whose Roman pen had as much true passion for
+the infirmities of that state, as we should have pity to the
+distractions of our own: honest--I am sure--it is, and offensive cannot
+be, except it meet with such spirits that will quarrel with antiquity,
+or purposely arraign themselves. These indeed may think that they have
+slept out so many centuries in this satire and are now awakened; which,
+had it been still Latin, perhaps their nap had been everlasting. But
+enough of these,--it is for you only that I have adventured thus far,
+and invaded the press with verse; to whose more noble indulgence I shall
+now leave it, and so am gone.--
+
+ H. V.
+
+
+
+
+TO MY INGENUOUS FRIEND, R. W.
+
+
+ When we are dead, and now, no more
+ Our harmless mirth, our wit, and score
+ Distracts the town; when all is spent
+ That the base niggard world hath lent
+ Thy purse, or mine; when the loath'd noise
+ Of drawers, 'prentices and boys
+ Hath left us, and the clam'rous bar
+ Items no pints i' th' Moon or Star;
+ When no calm whisp'rers wait the doors,
+ To fright us with forgotten scores;
+ And such aged long bills carry,
+ As might start an antiquary;
+ When the sad tumults of the maze,
+ Arrests, suits, and the dreadful face
+ Of sergeants are not seen, and we
+ No lawyers' ruffs, or gowns must fee:
+ When all these mulcts are paid, and I
+ From thee, dear wit, must part, and die;
+ We'll beg the world would be so kind,
+ To give's one grave as we'd one mind;
+ There, as the wiser few suspect,
+ That spirits after death affect,
+ Our souls shall meet, and thence will they,
+ Freed from the tyranny of clay,
+ With equal wings, and ancient love
+ Into the Elysian fields remove,
+ Where in those blessed walks they'll find
+ More of thy genius, and my mind.
+ First, in the shade of his own bays,
+ Great Ben they'll see, whose sacred lays
+ The learned ghosts admire, and throng
+ To catch the subject of his song.
+ Then Randolph in those holy meads,
+ His _Lovers_ and _Amyntas_ reads,
+ Whilst his Nightingale, close by,
+ Sings his and her own elegy.
+ From thence dismiss'd, by subtle roads,
+ Through airy paths and sad abodes,
+ They'll come into the drowsy fields
+ Of Lethe, which such virtue yields,
+ That, if what poets sing be true,
+ The streams all sorrow can subdue.
+ Here, on a silent, shady green,
+ The souls of lovers oft are seen,
+ Who, in their life's unhappy space,
+ Were murder'd by some perjur'd face.
+ All these th' enchanted streams frequent,
+ To drown their cares, and discontent,
+ That th' inconstant, cruel sex
+ Might not in death their spirits vex.
+ And here our souls, big with delight
+ Of their new state, will cease their flight:
+ And now the last thoughts will appear,
+ They'll have of us, or any here;
+ But on those flow'ry banks will stay,
+ And drink all sense and cares away.
+ So they that did of these discuss,
+ Shall find their fables true in us.
+
+
+
+
+LES AMOURS
+
+
+ Tyrant, farewell! this heart, the prize
+ And triumph of thy scornful eyes,
+ I sacrifice to heaven, and give
+ To quit my sins, that durst believe
+ A woman's easy faith, and place
+ True joys in a changing face.
+ Yet ere I go: by all those tears
+ And sighs I spent 'twixt hopes and fears;
+ By thy own glories, and that hour
+ Which first enslav'd me to thy power;
+ I beg, fair one, by this last breath,
+ This tribute from thee after death.
+ If, when I'm gone, you chance to see
+ That cold bed where I lodged be,
+ Let not your hate in death appear,
+ But bless my ashes with a tear:
+ This influx from that quick'ning eye,
+ By secret pow'r, which none can spy,
+ The cold dust shall inform, and make
+ Those flames, though dead, new life partake
+ Whose warmth, help'd by your tears, shall bring
+ O'er all the tomb a sudden spring
+ Of crimson flowers, whose drooping heads
+ Shall curtain o'er their mournful beds:
+ And on each leaf, by Heaven's command,
+ These emblems to the life shall stand
+ Two hearts, the first a shaft withstood;
+ The second, shot and wash'd in blood;
+ And on this heart a dew shall stay,
+ Which no heat can court away;
+ But fix'd for ever, witness bears
+ That hearty sorrow feeds on tears.
+ Thus Heaven can make it known, and true
+ That you kill'd me, 'cause I lov'd you.
+
+
+
+
+TO AMORET.
+
+
+The Sigh.
+
+ Nimble sigh, on thy warm wings,
+ Take this message and depart;
+ Tell Amoret, that smiles and sings,
+ At what thy airy voyage brings,
+ That thou cam'st lately from my heart.
+
+ Tell my lovely foe that I
+ Have no more such spies to send,
+ But one or two that I intend,
+ Some few minutes ere I die,
+ To her white bosom to commend.
+
+ Then whisper by that holy spring,
+ Where for her sake I would have died,
+ Whilst those water-nymphs did bring
+ Flowers to cure what she had tried;
+ And of my faith and love did sing.
+
+ That if my Amoret, if she
+ In after-times would have it read,
+ How her beauty murder'd me,
+ With all my heart I will agree,
+ If she'll but love me, being dead.
+
+
+
+
+TO HIS FRIEND BEING IN LOVE.
+
+
+ Ask, lover, ere thou diest; let one poor breath
+ Steal from thy lips, to tell her of thy death;
+ Doating idolater! can silence bring
+ Thy saint propitious? or will Cupid fling
+ One arrow for thy paleness? leave to try
+ This silent courtship of a sickly eye.
+ Witty to tyranny, she too well knows
+ This but the incense of thy private vows,
+ That breaks forth at thine eyes, and doth betray
+ The sacrifice thy wounded heart would pay;
+ Ask her, fool, ask her; if words cannot move,
+ The language of thy tears may make her love.
+ Flow nimbly from me then; and when you fall
+ On her breast's warmer snow, O may you all,
+ By some strange fate fix'd there, distinctly lie,
+ The much lov'd volume of my tragedy.
+ Where, if you win her not, may this be read,
+ The cold that freez'd you so, did strike me dead.
+
+
+
+
+SONG.
+
+
+ Amyntas go, thou art undone,
+ Thy faithful heart is cross'd by fate;
+ That love is better not begun,
+ Where love is come to love too late.[43]
+
+ Had she professed[44] hidden fires,
+ Or show'd one[45] knot that tied her heart,
+ I could have quench'd my first desires,
+ And we had only met to part.
+
+ But, tyrant, thus to murder men,
+ And shed a lover's harmless blood,
+ And burn him in those flames again,
+ Which he at first might have withstood.
+
+ Yet, who that saw fair Chloris weep
+ Such sacred dew, with such pure[46] grace;
+ Durst think them feigned tears, or seek
+ For treason in an angel's face.
+
+ This is her art, though this be true,
+ Men's joys are kill'd with[47] griefs and fears,
+ Yet she, like flowers oppress'd with dew,
+ Doth thrive and flourish in her tears.
+
+
+ This, cruel, thou hast done, and thus
+ That face hath many servants slain,
+ Though th' end be not to ruin us,
+ But to seek glory by our pain.[48]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[43] MS. _Whose pure offering comes too late._
+
+[44] MS. _profess'd her._
+
+[45] MS. _the._
+
+[46] MS. _such a._
+
+[47] MS. _by._
+
+[48]
+
+ MS. _Your aime is sure to ruine us._
+ _Seeking your glory by our paine_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO AMORET.
+
+Walking in a Starry Evening.
+
+
+ If, Amoret, that glorious eye,
+ In the first birth of light,
+ And death of Night,
+ Had with those elder fires you spy
+ Scatter'd so high,
+ Received form and sight;
+
+ We might suspect in the vast ring,
+ Amidst these golden glories,
+ And fiery stories;[49]
+ Whether the sun had been the king
+ And guide of day,
+ Or your brighter eye should sway.
+
+ But, Amoret, such is my fate,
+ That if thy face a star
+ Had shin'd from far,
+ I am persuaded in that state,
+ 'Twixt thee and me,
+ Of some predestin'd sympathy.[50]
+
+
+ For sure such two conspiring minds,
+ Which no accident, or sight,
+ Did thus unite;
+ Whom no distance can confine,
+ Start, or decline,
+ One for another were design'd.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[49] MS.
+
+ MS. _We may suspect in the vast ring_,
+ _Which rolls those fiery spheres_
+ _Thro' years and years._
+
+
+
+[50] MS. _There would be perfect sympathy._
+
+
+
+
+
+TO AMORET GONE FROM HIM.
+
+
+ Fancy and I, last evening, walk'd,
+ And Amoret, of thee we talk'd;
+ The West just then had stolen the sun,
+ And his last blushes were begun:
+ We sate, and mark'd how everything
+ Did mourn his absence: how the spring
+ That smil'd and curl'd about his beams,
+ Whilst he was here, now check'd her streams:
+ The wanton eddies of her face
+ Were taught less noise, and smoother grace;
+ And in a slow, sad channel went,
+ Whisp'ring the banks their discontent:
+ The careless ranks of flowers that spread
+ Their perfum'd bosoms to his head.
+ And with an open, free embrace,
+ Did entertain his beamy face,
+ Like absent friends point to the West,
+ And on that weak reflection feast.
+ If creatures then that have no sense,
+ But the loose tie of influence,
+ Though fate and time each day remove
+ Those things that element their love,
+ At such vast distance can agree,
+ Why, Amoret, why should not we?
+
+
+
+
+A SONG TO AMORET.
+
+
+ If I were dead, and in my place
+ Some fresher youth design'd
+ To warm thee with new fires, and grace
+ Those arms I left behind;
+
+ Were he as faithful as the sun,
+ That's wedded to the sphere;
+ His blood as chaste and temp'rate run,
+ As April's mildest tear;
+
+ Or were he rich, and with his heaps
+ And spacious share of earth,
+ Could make divine affection cheap,
+ And court his golden birth:
+
+ For all these arts I'd not believe,
+ --No, though he should be thine--
+ The mighty amorist could give
+ So rich a heart as mine.
+
+ Fortune and beauty thou might'st find,
+ And greater men than I:
+ But my true resolved mind
+ They never shall come nigh.[51]
+
+ For I not for an hour did love,
+ Or for a day desire,
+ But with my soul had from above
+ This endless, holy fire.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[51]
+
+ MS. _But with my true steadfast minde_
+ _None can pretend to vie._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AN ELEGY.
+
+
+ 'Tis true, I am undone: yet, ere I die,
+ I'll leave these sighs and tears a legacy
+ To after-lovers: that, rememb'ring me,
+ Those sickly flames which now benighted be,
+ Fann'd by their warmer sighs, may love; and prove
+ In them the metempsychosis of love.
+ 'Twas I--when others scorn'd--vow'd you were fair,
+ And sware that breath enrich'd the coarser air,
+ Lent roses to your cheeks, made Flora bring
+ Her nymphs with all the glories of the spring
+ To wait upon thy face, and gave my heart
+ A pledge to Cupid for a quicker dart,
+ To arm those eyes against myself; to me
+ Thou ow'st that tongue's bewitching harmony.
+ I courted angels from those upper joys,
+ And made them leave their spheres to hear thy voice.
+ I made the Indian curse the hours he spent
+ To seek his pearls, and wisely to repent
+ His former folly, and confess a sin,
+ Charm'd by the brighter lustre of thy skin.
+ I borrow'd from the winds the gentler wing
+ Of Zephyrus, and soft souls of the spring;
+ And made--to air those cheeks with fresher grace--
+ The warm inspirers dwell upon thy face.
+ _Oh! jam satis_ ...
+
+
+
+
+A RHAPSODIS:
+
+_Occasionally written upon a meeting with some of his friends at the
+ Globe Tavern, in a chamber painted overhead with a cloudy sky and
+ some few dispersed stars, and on the sides with landscapes, hills,
+ shepherds and sheep._
+
+
+ Darkness, and stars i' th' mid-day! They invite
+ Our active fancies to believe it night:
+ For taverns need no sun, but for a sign,
+ Where rich tobacco and quick tapers shine;
+ And royal, witty sack, the poet's soul,
+ With brighter suns than he doth gild the bowl;
+ As though the pot and poet did agree,
+ Sack should to both illuminator be.
+ That artificial cloud, with its curl'd brow,
+ Tells us 'tis late; and that blue space below
+ Is fir'd with many stars: mark! how they break
+ In silent glances o'er the hills, and speak
+ The evening to the plains, where, shot from far,
+ They meet in dumb salutes, as one great star.
+ The room, methinks, grows darker; and the air
+ Contracts a sadder colour, and less fair.
+ Or is't the drawer's skill? hath he no arts
+ To blind us so we can't know pints from quarts?
+ No, no, 'tis night: look where the jolly clown
+ Musters his bleating herd and quits the down.
+ Hark! how his rude pipe frets the quiet air,
+ Whilst ev'ry hill proclaims Lycoris fair.
+ Rich, happy man! that canst thus watch and sleep,
+ Free from all cares, but thy wench, pipe and sheep!
+ But see, the moon is up; view, where she stands
+ Sentinel o'er the door, drawn by the hands
+ Of some base painter, that for gain hath made
+ Her face the landmark to the tippling trade.
+ This cup to her, that to Endymion give;
+ 'Twas wit at first, and wine that made them live.
+ Choke may the painter! and his box disclose
+ No other colours than his fiery nose;
+ And may we no more of his pencil see
+ Than two churchwardens, and mortality.
+ Should we go now a-wand'ring, we should meet
+ With catchpoles, whores and carts in ev'ry street:
+ Now when each narrow lane, each nook and cave,
+ Sign-posts and shop-doors, pimp for ev'ry knave,
+ When riotous sinful plush, and tell-tale spurs
+ Walk Fleet Street and the Strand, when the soft stirs
+ Of bawdy, ruffled silks, turn night to day;
+ And the loud whip and coach scolds all the way;
+ When lust of all sorts, and each itchy blood
+ From the Tower-wharf to Cymbeline, and Lud,
+ Hunts for a mate, and the tir'd footman reels
+ 'Twixt chairmen, torches, and the hackney wheels.
+ Come, take the other dish; it is to him
+ That made his horse a senator: each brim
+ Look big as mine: the gallant, jolly beast
+ Of all the herd--you'll say--was not the least.
+ Now crown the second bowl, rich as his worth
+ I'll drink it to; he, that like fire broke forth
+ Into the Senate's face, cross'd Rubicon,
+ And the State's pillars, with their laws thereon,
+ And made the dull grey beards and furr'd gowns fly
+ Into Brundusium to consult, and lie.
+ This, to brave Sylla! why should it be said
+ We drink more to the living than the dead?
+ Flatt'rers and fools do use it: let us laugh
+ At our own honest mirth; for they that quaff
+ To honour others, do like those that sent
+ Their gold and plate to strangers to be spent.
+ Drink deep; this cup be pregnant, and the wine
+ Spirit of wit, to make us all divine,
+ That big with sack and mirth we may retire
+ Possessors of more souls, and nobler fire;
+ And by the influx of this painted sky,
+ And labour'd forms, to higher matters fly;
+ So, if a nap shall take us, we shall all,
+ After full cups, have dreams poetical.
+
+ Let's laugh now, and the press'd grape drink,
+ Till the drowsy day-star wink;
+ And in our merry, mad mirth run
+ Faster, and further than the sun;
+ And let none his cup forsake,
+ Till that star again doth wake;
+ So we men below shall move
+ Equally with the gods above.
+
+
+
+
+TO AMORET, OF THE DIFFERENCE 'TWIXT HIM AND OTHER LOVERS,
+AND WHAT TRUE LOVE IS.
+
+
+ Mark, when the evening's cooler wings
+ Fan the afflicted air, how the faint sun,
+ Leaving undone,
+ What he begun,
+ Those spurious flames suck'd up from slime and earth
+ To their first, low birth,
+ Resigns, and brings.
+
+ They shoot their tinsel beams and vanities,
+ Threading with those false fires their way;
+ But as you stay
+ And see them stray,
+ You lose the flaming track, and subtly they
+ Languish away,
+ And cheat your eyes.
+
+ Just so base, sublunary lovers' hearts
+ Fed on loose profane desires,
+ May for an eye
+ Or face comply:
+ But those remov'd, they will as soon depart,
+ And show their art,
+ And painted fires.
+
+
+ Whilst I by pow'rful love, so much refin'd,
+ That my absent soul the same is,
+ Careless to miss
+ A glance or kiss,
+ Can with those elements of lust and sense
+ Freely dispense,
+ And court the mind.
+
+ Thus to the North the loadstones move,
+ And thus to them th' enamour'd steel aspires:
+ Thus Amoret
+ I do affect;
+ And thus by winged beams, and mutual fire,
+ Spirits and stars conspire:
+ And this is Love.
+
+
+
+
+TO AMORET WEEPING.
+
+
+ Leave Amoret, melt not away so fast
+ Thy eyes' fair treasure; Fortune's wealthiest cast
+ Deserves not one such pearl; for these, well spent,
+ Can purchase stars, and buy a tenement
+ For us in heaven; though here the pious streams
+ Avail us not; who from that clue of sunbeams
+ Could ever steal one thread? or with a kind
+ Persuasive accent charm the wild loud wind?
+ Fate cuts us all in marble, and the Book
+ Forestalls our glass of minutes; we may look
+ But seldom meet a change; think you a tear
+ Can blot the flinty volume? shall our fear
+ Or grief add to their triumphs? and must we
+ Give an advantage to adversity?
+ Dear, idle prodigal! is it not just
+ We bear our stars? What though I had not dust
+ Enough to cabinet a worm? nor stand
+ Enslav'd unto a little dirt, or sand?
+ I boast a better purchase, and can show
+ The glories of a soul that's simply true.
+ But grant some richer planet at my birth
+ Had spied me out, and measur'd so much earth
+ Or gold unto my share: I should have been
+ Slave to these lower elements, and seen
+ My high-born soul flag with their dross, and lie
+ A pris'ner to base mud, and alchemy.
+ I should perhaps eat orphans, and suck up
+ A dozen distress'd widows in one cup;
+ Nay, further, I should by that lawful stealth,
+ Damn'd usury, undo the commonwealth;
+ Or patent it in soap, and coals, and so
+ Have the smiths curse me, and my laundress too;
+ Geld wine, or his friend tobacco; and so bring
+ The incens'd subject rebel to his king;
+ And after all--as those first sinners fell--
+ Sink lower than my gold, and lie in hell.
+ Thanks then for this deliv'rance! blessed pow'rs,
+ You that dispense man's fortune and his hours,
+ How am I to you all engag'd! that thus
+ By such strange means, almost miraculous,
+ You should preserve me; you have gone the way
+ To make me rich by taking all away.
+ For I--had I been rich--as sure as fate,
+ Would have been meddling with the king, or State,
+ Or something to undo me; and 'tis fit,
+ We know, that who hath wealth should have no wit,
+ But, above all, thanks to that Providence
+ That arm'd me with a gallant soul, and sense,
+ 'Gainst all misfortunes, that hath breath'd so much
+ Of Heav'n into me, that I scorn the touch
+ Of these low things; and can with courage dare
+ Whatever fate or malice can prepare:
+ I envy no man's purse or mines: I know
+ That, losing them, I've lost their curses too;
+ And Amoret--although our share in these
+ Is not contemptible, nor doth much please--
+ Yet, whilst content and love we jointly vie,
+ We have a blessing which no gold can buy.
+
+
+
+
+UPON THE PRIORY GROVE, HIS USUAL RETIREMENT.
+
+
+ Hail, sacred shades! cool, leafy house!
+ Chaste treasurer of all my vows
+ And wealth! on whose soft bosom laid
+ My love's fair steps I first betray'd:
+ Henceforth no melancholy flight,
+ No sad wing, or hoarse bird of night,
+ Disturb this air, no fatal throat
+ Of raven, or owl, awake the note
+ Of our laid echo, no voice dwell
+ Within these leaves, but Philomel.
+ The poisonous ivy here no more
+ His false twists on the oak shall score;
+ Only the woodbine here may twine,
+ As th' emblem of her love, and mine;
+ The amorous sun shall here convey
+ His best beams, in thy shades to play;
+ The active air the gentlest show'rs
+ Shall from his wings rain on thy flowers;
+ And the moon from her dewy locks
+ Shall deck thee with her brightest drops.
+ Whatever can a fancy move,
+ Or feed the eye, be on this grove!
+ And when at last the winds and tears
+ Of heaven, with the consuming years,
+ Shall these green curls bring to decay,
+ And clothe thee in an aged grey
+ --If ought a lover can foresee,
+ Or if we poets prophets be--
+ From hence transplanted, thou shalt stand
+ A fresh grove in th' Elysian land;
+ Where--most bless'd pair!--as here on earth
+ Thou first didst eye our growth, and birth;
+ So there again, thou'lt see us move
+ In our first innocence and love;
+ And in thy shades, as now, so then,
+ We'll kiss, and smile, and walk again.
+
+
+
+
+JUVENAL'S TENTH SATIRE TRANSLATED.
+
+
+ In all the parts of earth, from farthest West,
+ And the Atlantic Isles, unto the East
+ And famous Ganges, few there be that know
+ What's truly good, and what is good, in show,
+ Without mistake: for what is't we desire,
+ Or fear discreetly? to whate'er aspire,
+ So throughly bless'd, but ever as we speed,
+ Repentance seals the very act, and deed?
+ The easy gods, mov'd by no other fate
+ Than our own pray'rs, whole kingdoms ruinate,
+ And undo families: thus strife, and war
+ Are the sword's prize, and a litigious bar
+ The gown's prime wish. Vain confidence to share
+ In empty honours and a bloody care
+ To be the first in mischief, makes him die
+ Fool'd 'twixt ambition and credulity.
+ An oily tongue with fatal, cunning sense,
+ And that sad virtue ever, eloquence,
+ Are th' other's ruin, but the common curse;
+ And each day's ill waits on the rich man's purse;
+ He, whose large acres and imprison'd gold
+ So far exceeds his father's store of old,
+ As British whales the dolphins do surpass.
+ In sadder times therefore, and when the laws
+ Of Nero's fiat reign'd, an armed band
+ Seiz'd on Longinus, and the spacious land
+ Of wealthy Seneca, besieg'd the gates
+ Of Lateranus, and his fair estate
+ Divided as a spoil: in such sad feasts
+ Soldiers--though not invited--are the guests.
+ Though thou small pieces of the blessed mine
+ Hast lodg'd about thee, travelling in the shine
+ Of a pale moon, if but a reed doth shake,
+ Mov'd by the wind, the shadow makes thee quake.
+ Wealth hath its cares, and want has this relief,
+ It neither fears the soldier nor the thief;
+ Thy first choice vows, and to the gods best known,
+ Are for thy stores' increase, that in all town
+ Thy stock be greatest, but no poison lies
+ I' th' poor man's dish; he tastes of no such spice.
+ Be that thy care, when, with a kingly gust,
+ Thou suck'st whole bowls clad in the gilded dust
+ Of some rich mineral, whilst the false wine
+ Sparkles aloft, and makes the draught divine.
+ Blam'st thou the sages, then? because the one
+ Would still be laughing, when he would be gone
+ From his own door; the other cried to see
+ His times addicted to such vanity?
+ Smiles are an easy purchase, but to weep
+ Is a hard act; for tears are fetch'd more deep.
+ Democritus his nimble lungs would tire
+ With constant laughter, and yet keep entire
+ His stock of mirth, for ev'ry object was
+ Addition to his store; though then--alas!--
+ Sedans, and litters, and our Senate gowns,
+ With robes of honour, fasces, and the frowns
+ Of unbrib'd tribunes were not seen; but had
+ He liv'd to see our Roman praetor clad
+ In Jove's own mantle, seated on his high
+ Embroider'd chariot 'midst the dust and cry
+ Of the large theatre, loaden with a crown,
+ Which scarce he could support--for it would down,
+ But that his servant props it--and close by
+ His page, a witness to his vanity:
+ To these his sceptre and his eagle add,
+ His trumpets, officers, and servants clad
+ In white and purple; with the rest that day,
+ He hir'd to triumph, for his bread, and pay;
+ Had he these studied, sumptuous follies seen,
+ 'Tis thought his wanton and effusive spleen
+ Had kill'd the Abderite, though in that age
+ --When pride and greatness had not swell'd the stage
+ So high as ours--his harmless and just mirth
+ From ev'ry object had a sudden birth.
+ Nor was't alone their avarice or pride,
+ Their triumphs or their cares he did deride;
+ Their vain contentions or ridiculous fears,
+ But even their very poverty and tears.
+ He would at Fortune's threats as freely smile
+ As others mourn; nor was it to beguile
+ His crafty passions; but this habit he
+ By nature had, and grave philosophy.
+ He knew their idle and superfluous vows,
+ And sacrifice, which such wrong zeal bestows,
+ Were mere incendiaries; and that the gods,
+ Not pleas'd therewith, would ever be at odds.
+ Yet to no other air, nor better place
+ Ow'd he his birth, than the cold, homely Thrace;
+ Which shows a man may be both wise and good,
+ Without the brags of fortune, or his blood.
+ But envy ruins all: what mighty names
+ Of fortune, spirit, action, blood, and fame,
+ Hath this destroy'd? yea, for no other cause
+ Than being such; their honour, worth and place,
+ Was crime enough; their statues, arms and crowns
+ Their ornaments of triumph, chariots, gowns,
+ And what the herald, with a learned care,
+ Had long preserv'd, this madness will not spare.
+ So once Sejanus' statue Rome allow'd
+ Her demi-god, and ev'ry Roman bow'd
+ To pay his safety's vows; but when that face
+ Had lost Tiberius once, its former grace
+ Was soon eclips'd; no diff'rence made--alas!--
+ Betwixt his statue then, and common brass,
+ They melt alike, and in the workman's hand
+ For equal, servile use, like others stand.
+ Go, now fetch home fresh bays, and pay new vows
+ To thy dumb Capitol gods! thy life, thy house,
+ And state are now secur'd: Sejanus lies
+ I' th' lictors' hands. Ye gods! what hearts and eyes
+ Can one day's fortune change? the solemn cry
+ Of all the world is, "Let Sejanus die!"
+ They never lov'd the man, they swear; they know
+ Nothing of all the matter, when, or how,
+ By what accuser, for what cause, or why,
+ By whose command or sentence he must die.
+ But what needs this? the least pretence will hit,
+ When princes fear, or hate a favourite.
+ A large epistle stuff'd with idle fear,
+ Vain dreams, and jealousies, directed here
+ From Caprea does it; and thus ever die
+ Subjects, when once they grow prodigious high.
+ 'Tis well, I seek no more; but tell me how
+ This took his friends? no private murmurs now?
+ No tears? no solemn mourner seen? must all
+ His glory perish in one funeral?
+ O still true Romans! State-wit bids them praise
+ The moon by night, but court the warmer rays
+ O' th' sun by day; they follow fortune still,
+ And hate or love discreetly, as their will
+ And the time leads them. This tumultuous fate
+ Puts all their painted favours out of date.
+ And yet this people that now spurn, and tread
+ This mighty favourite's once honour'd head,
+ Had but the Tuscan goddess, or his stars
+ Destin'd him for an empire, or had wars,
+ Treason, or policy, or some higher pow'r
+ Oppress'd secure Tiberius; that same hour
+ That he receiv'd the sad Gemonian doom,
+ Had crown'd him emp'ror of the world and Rome
+ But Rome is now grown wise, and since that she
+ Her suffrages, and ancient liberty
+ Lost in a monarch's name, she takes no care
+ For favourite or prince; nor will she share
+ Their fickle glories, though in Cato's days
+ She rul'd whole States and armies with her voice.
+ Of all the honours now within her walls,
+ She only dotes on plays and festivals.
+ Nor is it strange; for when these meteors fall,
+ They draw an ample ruin with them: all
+ Share in the storm; each beam sets with the sun,
+ And equal hazard friends and flatt'rers run.
+ This makes, that circled with distractive fear
+ The lifeless, pale Sejanus' limbs they tear,
+ And lest the action might a witness need,
+ They bring their servants to confirm the deed;
+ Nor is it done for any other end,
+ Than to avoid the title of his friend.
+ So falls ambitious man, and such are still
+ All floating States built on the people's will:
+ Hearken all you! whom this bewitching lust
+ Of an hour's glory, and a little dust
+ Swells to such dear repentance! you that can
+ Measure whole kingdoms with a thought or span!
+ Would you be as Sejanus? would you have,
+ So you might sway as he did, such a grave?
+ Would you be rich as he? command, dispose,
+ All acts and offices? all friends and foes?
+ Be generals of armies and colleague
+ Unto an emperor? break or make a league?
+ No doubt you would; for both the good and bad
+ An equal itch of honour ever had.
+ But O! what state can be so great or good,
+ As to be bought with so much shame and blood?
+ Alas! Sejanus will too late confess
+ 'Twas only pride and greatness made him less:
+ For he that moveth with the lofty wind
+ Of Fortune, and Ambition, unconfin'd
+ In act or thought, doth but increase his height,
+ That he may loose it with more force and weight;
+ Scorning a base, low ruin, as if he
+ Would of misfortune make a prodigy.
+ Tell, mighty Pompey, Crassus, and O thou
+ That mad'st Rome kneel to thy victorious brow,
+ What but the weight of honours, and large fame
+ After your worthy acts, and height of name,
+ Destroy'd you in the end? The envious Fates,
+ Easy to further your aspiring States,
+ Us'd them to quell you too; pride, and excess.
+ In ev'ry act did make you thrive the less.
+ Few kings are guilty of grey hairs, or die
+ Without a stab, a draught, or treachery.
+ And yet to see him, that but yesterday
+ Saw letters first, how he will scrape, and pray;
+ And all her feast-time tire Minerva's ears
+ For fame, for eloquence, and store of years
+ To thrive and live in; and then lest he dotes,
+ His boy assists him with his box and notes.
+ Fool that thou art! not to discern the ill
+ These vows include; what, did Rome's consul kill
+ Her Cicero? what, him whose very dust
+ Greece celebrates as yet; whose cause, though just,
+ Scarce banishment could end; nor poison save
+ His free-born person from a foreign grave?
+ All this from eloquence! both head and hand
+ The tongue doth forfeit; petty wits may stand
+ Secure from danger, but the nobler vein
+ With loss of blood the bar doth often stain.
+
+ } Carmen
+ _O fortunatam natam me Consule Romam._ } Ciceronianum
+ }
+
+ Had all been thus, thou might'st have scorn'd the sword
+ Of fierce Antonius; here is not one word
+ Doth pinch; I like such stuff, 'tis safer far
+ Than thy Philippics, or Pharsalia's war.
+ What sadder end than his, whom Athens saw
+ At once her patriot, oracle, and law?
+ Unhappy then is he, and curs'd in stars
+ Whom his poor father, blind with soot and scars,
+ Sends from the anvil's harmless chine, to wear
+ The factious gown, and tire his client's ear
+ And purse with endless noise. Trophies of war,
+ Old rusty armour, with an honour'd scar,
+ And wheels of captiv'd chariots, with a piece
+ Of some torn British galley, and to these
+ The ensign too, and last of all the train
+ The pensive pris'ner loaden with his chain,
+ Are thought true Roman honours; these the Greek
+ And rude barbarians equally do seek.
+ Thus air, and empty fame, are held a prize
+ Beyond fair virtue; for all virtue dies
+ Without reward; and yet by this fierce lust
+ Of fame, and titles to outlive our dust,
+ And monuments--though all these things must die
+ And perish like ourselves--whole kingdoms lie
+ Ruin'd and spoil'd: put Hannibal i' th' scale,
+ What weight affords the mighty general?
+ This is the man, whom Afric's spacious land
+ Bounded by th' Indian Sea, and Nile's hot sand
+ Could not contain--Ye gods! that give to men
+ Such boundless appetites, why state you them
+ So short a time? either the one deny,
+ Or give their acts and them eternity.
+ All Aethiopia, to the utmost bound
+ Of Titan's course,--than which no land is found
+ Less distant from the sun--with him that ploughs
+ That fertile soil where fam'd[52] Iberus flows,
+ Are not enough to conquer; pass'd now o'er
+ The Pyrrhene hills, the Alps with all its store
+ Of ice, and rocks clad in eternal snow,
+ --As if that Nature meant to give the blow--
+ Denies him passage; straight on ev'ry side
+ He wounds the hill, and by strong hand divides
+ The monstrous pile; nought can ambition stay.
+ The world and Nature yield to give him way.
+ And now pass'd o'er the Alps, that mighty bar
+ 'Twixt France and Rome, fear of the future war
+ Strikes Italy; success and hope doth fire
+ His lofty spirits with a fresh desire.
+ All is undone as yet--saith he--unless
+ Our Paenish forces we advance, and press
+ Upon Rome's self; break down her gates and wall,
+ And plant our colours in Suburra's vale.
+ O the rare sight! if this great soldier we
+ Arm'd on his Getick elephant might see!
+ But what's the event? O glory, how the itch
+ Of thy short wonders doth mankind bewitch!
+ He that but now all Italy and Spain
+ Had conquer'd o'er, is beaten out again;
+ And in the heart of Afric, and the sight
+ Of his own Carthage, forc'd to open flight.
+ Banish'd from thence, a fugitive he posts
+ To Syria first, then to Bithynia's coasts,
+ Both places by his sword secur'd, though he
+ In this distress must not acknowledg'd be;
+ Where once a general he triumphed, now
+ To show what Fortune can, he begs as low.
+ And thus that soul which through all nations hurl'd
+ Conquest and war, and did amaze the world,
+ Of all those glories robb'd, at his last breath,
+ Fortune would not vouchsafe a soldier's death.
+ For all that blood the field of Cannae boasts,
+ And sad Apulia fill'd with Roman ghosts,
+ No other end--freed from the pile and sword--
+ Than a poor ring would Fortune him afford.
+ Go now, ambitious man! new plots design,
+ March o'er the snowy Alps and Apennine;
+ That, after all, at best thou may'st but be
+ A pleasing story to posterity!
+ The Macedon one world could not contain,
+ We hear him of the narrow earth complain,
+ And sweat for room, as if Seriphus Isle
+ Or Gyara had held him in exile;
+ But Babylon this madness can allay,
+ And give the great man but his length of clay.
+ The highest thoughts and actions under heaven
+ Death only with the lowest dust lays even.
+ It is believed--if what Greece writes be true--
+ That Xerxes with his Persian fleet did hew
+ Their ways through mountains, that their sails full blown
+ Like clouds hung over Athos and did drown
+ The spacious continent, and by plain force
+ Betwixt the mount and it, made a divorce;
+ That seas exhausted were, and made firm land,
+ And Sestos joined unto Abydos strand;
+ That on their march his Medes but passing by
+ Drank thee, Scamander, and Melenus dry;
+ With whatsoe'er incredible design
+ Sostratus sings, inspir'd with pregnant wine.
+ But what's the end? He that the other day
+ Divided Hellespont, and forc'd his way
+ Through all her angry billows, that assign'd
+ New punishments unto the waves, and wind,
+ No sooner saw the Salaminian seas
+ But he was driven out by Themistocles,
+ And of that fleet--supposed to be so great,
+ That all mankind shar'd in the sad defeat--
+ Not one sail sav'd, in a poor fisher's boat,
+ Chas'd o'er the working surge, was glad to float,
+ Cutting his desp'rate course through the tir'd flood,
+ And fought again with carcases, and blood.
+ O foolish mad Ambition! these are still
+ The famous dangers that attend thy will.
+ Give store of days, good Jove, give length of years,
+ Are the next vows; these with religious fears
+ And constancy we pay; but what's so bad
+ As a long, sinful age? what cross more sad
+ Than misery of years? how great an ill
+ Is that which doth but nurse more sorrow still?
+ It blacks the face, corrupt and dulls the blood,
+ Benights the quickest eye, distastes the food,
+ And such deep furrows cuts i' th' checker'd skin
+ As in th' old oaks of Tabraca are seen.
+ Youth varies in most things; strength, beauty, wit,
+ Are several graces; but where age doth hit
+ It makes no difference; the same weak voice,
+ And trembling ague in each member lies:
+ A general hateful baldness, with a curs'd
+ Perpetual pettishness; and, which is worst,
+ A foul, strong flux of humours, and more pain
+ To feed, than if he were to nurse again;
+ So tedious to himself, his wife, and friends,
+ That his own sons, and servants, wish his end.
+ His taste and feeling dies; and of that fire
+ The am'rous lover burns in, no desire:
+ Or if there were, what pleasure could it be,
+ Where lust doth reign without ability?
+ Nor is this all: what matters it, where he
+ Sits in the spacious stage? who can nor see,
+ Nor hear what's acted, whom the stiller voice
+ Of spirited, wanton airs, or the loud noise
+ Of trumpets cannot pierce; whom thunder can
+ But scarce inform who enters, or what man
+ He personates, what 'tis they act, or say?
+ How many scenes are done? what time of day?
+ Besides that little blood his carcase holds
+ Hath lost[53] its native warmth, and fraught with colds
+ Catarrhs, and rheums, to thick black jelly turns,
+ And never but in fits and fevers burns.
+ Such vast infirmities, so huge a stock
+ Of sickness and diseases to him flock,
+ That Hyppia ne'er so many lovers knew,
+ Nor wanton Maura; physic never slew
+ So many patients, nor rich lawyers spoil
+ More wards and widows; it were lesser toil
+ To number out what manors and domains
+ Licinius' razor purchas'd: one complains
+ Of weakness in the back, another pants
+ For lack of breath, the third his eyesight wants;
+ Nay, some so feeble are, and full of pain,
+ That infant-like they must be fed again.
+ These faint too at their meals; their wine they spill,
+ And like young birds, that wait the mother's bill,
+ They gape for meat; but sadder far than this
+ Their senseless ignorance and dotage is;
+ For neither they, their friends, nor servants know,
+ Nay, those themselves begot, and bred up too,
+ No longer now they'll own; for madly they
+ Proscribe them all, and what, on the last day,
+ The misers cannot carry to the grave
+ For their past sins, their prostitutes must have.
+ But grant age lack'd these plagues: yet must they see
+ As great, as many: frail mortality,
+ In such a length of years, hath many falls,
+ And deads a life with frequent funerals.
+ The nimblest hour in all the span can steal
+ A friend, or brother from's; there's no repeal
+ In death, or time; this day a wife we mourn,
+ To-morrow's tears a son; and the next urn
+ A sister fills. Long-livers have assign'd
+ These curses still, that with a restless mind,
+ An age of fresh renewing cares they buy,
+ And in a tide of tears grow old and die.
+ Nestor,--if we great Homer may believe--
+ In his full strength three hundred years did live:
+ Happy--thou'lt say--that for so long a time
+ Enjoy'd free nature, with the grape and wine
+ Of many autumns; but, I prithee thee, hear
+ What Nestor says himself, when he his dear
+ Antilochus had lost; how he complains
+ Of life's too large extent, and copious pains?
+ Of all he meets, he asks what is the cause
+ He liv'd thus long; for what breach of their laws
+ The gods thus punish'd him? what sin had he
+ Done worthy of a long life's misery.
+ Thus Peleus his Achilles mourned, and he
+ Thus wept that his Ulysses lost at sea.
+ Had Priam died before Phereclus' fleet
+ Was built, or Paris stole the fatal Greek,
+ Troy had yet stood, and he perhaps had gone
+ In peace unto the lower shades; his son
+ Sav'd with his plenteous offspring, and the rest
+ In solemn pomp bearing his fun'ral chest.
+ But long life hinder'd this: unhappy he,
+ Kept for a public ruin, liv'd to see
+ All Asia lost, and ere he could aspire,
+ In his own house saw both the sword and fire;
+ All white with age and cares, his feeble arm
+ Had now forgot the war; but this alarm
+ Gathers his dying spirits; and as we
+ An aged ox worn out with labour see
+ By his ungrateful master, after all
+ His years of toil, a thankless victim fall:
+ So he by Jove's own altar; which shows we
+ Are nowhere safe from heaven, and destiny:
+ Yet died a man; but his surviving queen,
+ Freed from the Greekish sword, was barking seen.
+ I haste to Rome, and Pontus' king let pass,
+ With Lydian Cr[oe]sus, whom in vain--alas!--
+ Just Solon's grave advice bad to attend,
+ That happiness came not before the end.
+ What man more bless'd in any age to come
+ Or past, could Nature show the world, or Rome,
+ Than Marius was? if amidst the pomp of war,
+ And triumphs fetch'd with Roman blood from far,
+ His soul had fled; exile and fetters then
+ He ne'er had seen, nor known Minturna's fen;
+ Nor had it, after Carthage got, been said
+ A Roman general had begg'd his bread.
+ Thus Pompey th' envious gods, and Rome's ill stars
+ --Freed from Campania's fevers, and the wars--
+ Doom'd to Achilles' sword: our public vows
+ Made Caesar guiltless; but sent him to lose
+ His head at Nile: this curse Cethegus miss'd:
+ This Lentulus, and this made him resist
+ That mangled by no lictor's axe, fell dead
+ Entirely Catiline, and sav'd his head.
+ The anxious matrons, with their foolish zeal,
+ Are the last votaries, and their appeal
+ Is all for beauty; with soft speech, and slow,
+ They pray for sons, but with a louder vow
+ Commend a female feature: all that can
+ Make woman pleasing now they shift, and scan
+ And when[54] reprov'd, they say, Latona's pair
+ The mother never thinks can be too fair.
+ But sad Lucretia warns to wish no face
+ Like hers: Virginia would bequeath her grace
+ To crook-back Rutila in exchange; for still
+ The fairest children do their parents fill
+ With greatest cares; so seldom chastity
+ Is found with beauty; though some few there be
+ That with a strict, religious care contend
+ Th' old, modest, Sabine customs to defend:
+ Besides, wise Nature to some faces grants
+ An easy blush, and where she freely plants
+ A less instruction serves: but both these join'd,
+ At Rome would both be forc'd or else purloin'd.
+ So steel'd a forehead Vice hath, that dares win,
+ And bribe the father to the children's sin;
+ But whom have gifts defiled not? what good face
+ Did ever want these tempters? pleasing grace
+ Betrays itself; what time did Nero mind
+ A coarse, maim'd shape? what blemish'd youth confin'd
+ His goatish pathic? whence then flow these joys
+ Of a fair issue? whom these sad annoys
+ Wait, and grow up with; whom perhaps thou'lt see
+ Public adulterers, and must be
+ Subject to all the curses, plagues, and awe
+ Of jealous madmen, and the Julian law;
+ Nor canst thou hope they'll find a milder star,
+ Or more escapes than did the god of war.
+ But worse than all, a jealous brain confines
+ His fury to no law; what rage assigns
+ Is present justice: thus the rash sword spills
+ This lecher's blood; the scourge another kills.
+ But thy spruce boy must touch no other face
+ Than a patrician? is of any race
+ So they be rich; Servilia is as good,
+ With wealth, as she that boasts Iulus' blood.
+ To please a servant all is cheap; what thing
+ In all their stock to the last suit, and king,
+ But lust exacts? the poorest whore in this
+ As generous as the patrician is.
+ But thou wilt say what hurt's a beauteous skin
+ With a chaste soul? Ask Theseus' son, and him
+ That Stenob[oe]a murder'd; for both these
+ Can tell how fatal 'twas in them to please.
+ A woman's spleen then carries most of fate,
+ When shame and sorrow aggravate her hate.
+ Resolve me now, had Silius been thy son,
+ In such a hazard what should he have done?
+ Of all Rome's youth, this was the only best,
+ In whom alone beauty and worth did rest.
+ This Messalina saw, and needs he must
+ Be ruin'd by the emp'ror, or her lust.
+ All in the face of Rome, and the world's eye
+ Though Caesar's wife, a public bigamy
+ She dares attempt; and that the act might bear
+ More prodigy, the notaries appear,
+ And augurs to't; and to complete the sin
+ In solemn form, a dowry is brought in.
+ All this--thou'lt say--in private might have pass'd
+ But she'll not have it so; what course at last?
+ What should he do? If Messaline be cross'd,
+ Without redress thy Silius will be lost;
+ If not, some two days' length is all he can
+ Keep from the grave; just so much as will span
+ This news to Hostia, to whose fate he owes
+ That Claudius last his own dishonour knows.
+ But he obeys, and for a few hours' lust
+ Forfeits that glory should outlive his dust;
+ Nor was it much a fault; for whether he
+ Obey'd or not, 'twas equal destiny.
+ So fatal beauty is, and full of waste.
+ That neither wanton can be safe, nor chaste.
+ What then should man pray for? what is't that he
+ Can beg of Heaven, without impiety?
+ Take my advice: first to the gods commit
+ All cares; for they things competent and fit
+ For us foresee; besides, man is more dear
+ To them than to himself; we blindly here,
+ Led by the world and lust, in vain assay
+ To get us portions, wives and sons; but they
+ Already know all that we can intend,
+ And of our children's children see the end.
+ Yet that thou may'st have something to commend
+ With thanks unto the gods for what they send;
+ Pray for a wise and knowing soul; a sad,
+ Discreet, true valour, that will scorn to add
+ A needless horror to thy death; that knows
+ 'Tis but a debt which man to nature owes;
+ That starts not at misfortunes, that can sway
+ And keep all passions under lock and key;
+ That covets nothing, wrongs none, and prefers
+ An honest want, before rich injurers.
+ All this thou hast within thyself, and may
+ Be made thy own, if thou wilt take the way;
+ What boots the world's wild, loose applause? what [can]
+ Frail, perilous honours add unto a man?
+ What length of years, wealth, or a rich fair wife?
+ Virtue alone can make a happy life.
+ To a wise man nought comes amiss: but we
+ Fortune adore, and make our deity.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[52] The original has _framed_.
+
+[53] The original has _low_.
+
+[54] The original has _why_
+
+
+
+ OLOR ISCANUS.
+
+ 1651.
+
+
+ ----O quis me gelidis in vallibus Iscae
+ Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra!
+
+
+
+
+AD POSTEROS.
+
+
+ Diminuat ne sera dies praesentis honorem
+ Quis, qualisque fui, percipe Posteritas.
+ Cambria me genuit, patulis ubi vallibus errans
+ Subjacet aeriis montibus Isca pater.
+ Inde sinu placido suscepit maximus arte
+ Herbertus, Latiae gloria prima scholae.
+ Bis ternos, illo me conducente, per annos
+ Profeci, et geminam contulit unus opem;
+ Ars et amor, mens atque manus certare solebant,
+ Nec lassata illi mensue, manusue fuit.
+ Hinc qualem cernis crevisse: sed ut mea certus
+ Tempora cognoscas, dura mere, scias.
+ Vixi, divisos cum fregerat haeresis Anglos
+ Inter Tysiphonas presbyteri et populi.
+ His primum miseris per am[oe]na furentibus arva
+ Prostravit sanctam vilis avena rosam,
+ Turbarunt fontes, et fusis pax perit undis,
+ Moestaque coelestes obruit umbra dies.
+ Duret ut integritas tamen, et pia gloria, partem
+ Me nullam in tanta strage fuisse, scias;
+ Credidimus nempe insonti vocem esse cruori,
+ Et vires quae post funera flere docent.
+ Hinc castae, fidaeque pati me more parentis
+ Commonui, et lachrymis fata levare meis;
+ Hinc nusquam horrendis violavi sacra procellis,
+ Nec mihi mens unquam, nec manus atra fuit.
+ Si pius es, ne plura petas; satur ille recedat
+ Qui sapit et nos non scripsimus insipidis.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE TRULY NOBLE AND MOST EXCELLENTLY ACCOMPLISHED,
+THE LORD KILDARE DIGBY.
+
+
+My Lord,
+
+It is a position anciently known, and modern experience hath allowed it
+for a sad truth, that absence and time,--like cold weather, and an
+unnatural dormition--will blast and wear out of memory the most
+endearing obligations; and hence it was that some politicians in love
+have looked upon the former of these two as a main remedy against the
+fondness of that passion. But for my own part, my Lord, I shall deny
+this aphorism of the people, and beg leave to assure your Lordship,
+that, though these reputed obstacles have lain long in my way, yet
+neither of them could work upon me: for I am now--without adulation--as
+warm and sensible of those numerous favours and kind influences received
+sometimes from your Lordship, as I really was at the instant of
+fruition. I have no plot by preambling thus to set any rate upon this
+present address, as if I should presume to value a return of this nature
+equal with your Lordship's deserts, but the design is to let you see
+that this habit I have got of being troublesome flows from two
+excusable principles, gratitude and love. These inward counsellors--I
+know not how discreetly--persuaded me to this attempt and intrusion upon
+your name, which if your Lordship will vouchsafe to own as the genius to
+these papers, you will perfect my hopes, and place me at my full height.
+This was the aim, my Lord, and is the end of this work, which though but
+a _pazzarello_ to the _voluminose insani_, yet as jessamine and the
+violet find room in the bank as well as roses and lilies, so happily may
+this, and--if shined upon by your Lordship--please as much. To whose
+protection, sacred as your name and those eminent honours which have
+always attended upon it through so many generations, I humbly offer it,
+and remain in all numbers of gratitude,
+
+ My honoured Lord,
+ Your most affectionate, humblest Servant,
+ Vaughan.
+Newton by Usk this 17 of Decemb. 1647.
+
+
+
+
+THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.
+
+
+It was the glorious Maro that referred his legacies to the fire, and
+though princes are seldom executors, yet there came a Caesar to his
+testament, as if the act of a poet could not be repealed but by a king.
+I am not, Reader, _Augustus vindex_: here is no royal rescue, but here
+is a Muse that deserves it. The Author had long ago condemned these
+poems to obscurity, and the consumption of that further fate which
+attends it. This censure gave them a gust of death, and they have partly
+known that oblivion which our best labours must come to at last. I
+present thee then not only with a book, but with a prey, and in this
+kind the first recoveries from corruption. Here is a flame hath been
+sometimes extinguished, thoughts that have been lost and forgot, but now
+they break out again like the Platonic reminiscency. I have not the
+Author's approbation to the fact, but I have law on my side, though
+never a sword. I hold it no man's prerogative to fire his own house.
+Thou seest how saucy I am grown, and it thou dost expect I should
+commend what is published, I must tell thee, I cry no Seville oranges. I
+will not say, Here is fine or cheap: that were an injury to the verse
+itself, and to the effects it can produce. Read on, and thou wilt find
+thy spirit engaged: not by the deserts of what we call tolerable, but by
+the commands of a pen that is above it.
+
+
+
+
+UPON THE MOST INGENIOUS PAIR OF TWINS,
+EUGENIUS PHILALETHES, AND THE AUTHOR OF THESE POEMS.
+
+
+ What planet rul'd your birth? what witty star?
+ That you so like in souls as bodies are!
+ So like in both, that you seem born to free
+ The starry art from vulgar calumny.
+ My doubts are solv'd, from hence my faith begins,
+ Not only your faces but your wits are twins.
+
+ When this bright Gemini shall from Earth ascend,
+ They will new light to dull-ey'd mankind lend,
+ Teach the star-gazers, and delight their eyes,
+ Being fix'd a constellation in the skies.
+
+ T. Powell, Oxoniensis.
+
+
+
+
+TO MY FRIEND THE AUTHOR UPON THESE HIS POEMS.
+
+
+ I call'd it once my sloth: in such an age
+ So many volumes deep, I not a page?
+ But I recant, and vow 'twas thrifty care
+ That kept my pen from spending on slight ware,
+ And breath'd it for a prize, whose pow'rful shine
+ Doth both reward the striver, and refine.
+ Such are thy poems, friend: for since th' hast writ,
+ I can't reply to any name, but wit;
+ And lest amidst the throng that make us groan,
+ Mine prove a groundless heresy alone,
+ Thus I dispute, Hath there not rev'rence been
+ Paid to the beard at door, for Lord within?
+ Who notes the spindle-leg or hollow eye
+ Of the thin usher, the fair lady by?
+ Thus I sin freely, neighbour to a hand
+ Which, while I aim to strengthen, gives command
+ For my protection; and thou art to me
+ At once my subject and security.
+
+ I. Rowlandson, Oxoniensis.
+
+
+
+
+UPON THE FOLLOWING POEMS.
+
+
+ I write not here, as if thy last in store
+ Of learned friends; 'tis known that thou hast more;
+ Who, were they told of this, would find a way
+ To raise a guard of poets without pay,
+ And bring as many hands to thy edition,
+ As th' City should unto their May'r's petition.
+ But thou wouldst none of this, lest it should be
+ Thy muster rather than our courtesy;
+ Thou wouldst not beg as knights do, and appear
+ Poet by voice and suffrage of the shire;
+ That were enough to make my Muse advance
+ Amongst the crutches; nay, it might enhance
+ Our charity, and we should think it fit
+ The State should build an hospital for wit.
+ But here needs no relief: thy richer verse
+ Creates all poets, that can but rehearse,
+ And they, like tenants better'd by their land,
+ Should pay thee rent for what they understand.
+ Thou art not of that lamentable nation
+ Who make a blessed alms of approbation,
+ Whose fardel-notes are briefs in ev'rything,
+ But, that they are not _Licens'd by the king_.
+ Without such scrape-requests thou dost come forth
+ Arm'd--though I speak it--with thy proper worth,
+ And needest not this noise of friends, for we
+ Write out of love, not thy necessity.
+ And though this sullen age possessed be
+ With some strange desamour to poetry,
+ Yet I suspect--thy fancy so delights--
+ The Puritans will turn thy proselytes,
+ And that thy flame, when once abroad it shines,
+ Will bring thee as many friends as thou hast lines.
+
+ Eugenius Philalethes, Oxoniensis.
+
+
+
+
+OLOR ISCANUS.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE RIVER ISCA.
+
+
+ When Daphne's lover here first wore the bays,
+ Eurotas' secret streams heard all his lays,
+ And holy Orpheus, Nature's busy child,
+ By headlong Hebrus his deep hymns compil'd;
+ Soft Petrarch--thaw'd by Laura's flames--did weep
+ On Tiber's banks, when she--proud fair!--could sleep;
+ Mosella boasts Ausonius, and the Thames
+ Doth murmur Sidney's Stella to her streams;
+ While Severn, swoln with joy and sorrow, wears
+ Castara's smiles mix'd with fair Sabrin's tears.
+ Thus poets--like the nymphs, their pleasing themes--
+ Haunted the bubbling springs and gliding streams;
+ And happy banks! whence such fair flow'rs have sprung,
+ But happier those where they have sat and sung!
+ Poets--like angels--where they once appear
+ Hallow the place, and each succeeding year
+ Adds rev'rence to't, such as at length doth give
+ This aged faith, that there their genii live.
+ Hence th' ancients say, that from this sickly air
+ They pass to regions more refin'd and fair,
+ To meadows strew'd with lilies and the rose,
+ And shades whose youthful green no old age knows;
+ Where all in white they walk, discourse, and sing
+ Like bees' soft murmurs, or a chiding spring.
+ But Isca, whensoe'er those shades I see,
+ And thy lov'd arbours must no more know me,
+ When I am laid to rest hard by thy streams,
+ And my sun sets, where first it sprang in beams,
+ I'll leave behind me such a large, kind light,
+ As shall redeem thee from oblivious night,
+ And in these vows which--living yet--I pay,
+ Shed such a previous and enduring ray,
+ As shall from age to age thy fair name lead,
+ 'Till rivers leave to run, and men to read.
+ First, may all bards born after me
+ --When I am ashes--sing of thee!
+ May thy green banks or streams,--or none--
+ Be both their hill and Helicon!
+ May vocal groves grow there, and all
+ The shades in them prophetical,
+ Where laid men shall more fair truths see
+ Than fictions were of Thessaly!
+ May thy gentle swains--like flow'rs--
+ Sweetly spend their youthful hours,
+ And thy beauteous nymphs--like doves--
+ Be kind and faithful to their loves!
+ Garlands, and songs, and roundelays,
+ Mild, dewy nights, and sunshine days,
+ The turtle's voice, joy without fear,
+ Dwell on thy bosom all the year!
+ May the evet and the toad
+ Within thy banks have no abode,
+ Nor the wily, winding snake
+ Her voyage through thy waters make!
+ In all thy journey to the main
+ No nitrous clay, nor brimstone-vein
+ Mix with thy streams, but may they pass
+ Fresh on the air, and clear as glass,
+ And where the wand'ring crystal treads
+ Roses shall kiss, and couple heads!
+ The factor-wind from far shall bring
+ The odours of the scatter'd Spring,
+ And loaden with the rich arrear,
+ Spend it in spicy whispers there.
+ No sullen heats, nor flames that are
+ Offensive, and canicular,
+ Shine on thy sands, nor pry to see
+ Thy scaly, shading family,
+ But noons as mild as Hesper's rays,
+ Or the first blushes of fair days!
+ What gifts more Heav'n or Earth can add,
+ With all those blessings be thou clad!
+ Honour, Beauty,
+ Faith and Duty,
+ Delight and Truth,
+ With Love and Youth,
+ Crown all about thee! and whatever Fate
+ Impose elsewhere, whether the graver state
+ Or some toy else, may those loud, anxious cares
+ For dead and dying things--the common wares
+ And shows of Time--ne'er break thy peace, nor make
+ Thy repos'd arms to a new war awake!
+ But freedom, safety, joy and bliss,
+ United in one loving kiss,
+ Surround thee quite, and style thy borders
+ The land redeem'd from all disorders!
+
+
+
+
+THE CHARNEL-HOUSE.
+
+
+ Bless me! what damps are here! how stiff an air!
+ Kelder of mists, a second fiat's care,
+ Front'spiece o' th' grave and darkness, a display
+ Of ruin'd man, and the disease of day,
+ Lean, bloodless shamble, where I can descry
+ Fragments of men, rags of anatomy,
+ Corruption's wardrobe, the transplantive bed
+ Of mankind, and th' exchequer of the dead!
+ How thou arrests my sense! how with the sight
+ My winter'd blood grows stiff to all delight!
+ Torpedo to the eye! whose least glance can
+ Freeze our wild lusts, and rescue headlong man.
+ Eloquent silence! able to immure
+ An atheist's thoughts, and blast an epicure.
+ Were I a Lucian, Nature in this dress
+ Would make me wish a Saviour, and confess.
+ Where are you, shoreless thoughts, vast tenter'd hope,
+ Ambitious dreams, aims of an endless scope,
+ Whose stretch'd excess runs on a string too high,
+ And on the rack of self-extension die?
+ Chameleons of state, air-monging band,
+ Whose breath--like gunpowder--blows up a land,
+ Come see your dissolution, and weigh
+ What a loath'd nothing you shall be one day.
+ As th' elements by circulation pass
+ From one to th' other, and that which first was
+ I so again, so 'tis with you; the grave
+ And Nature but complot; what the one gave
+ The other takes; think, then, that in this bed
+ There sleep the relics of as proud a head,
+ As stern and subtle as your own, that hath
+ Perform'd, or forc'd as much, whose tempest-wrath
+ Hath levell'd kings with slaves, and wisely then
+ Calm these high furies, and descend to men.
+ Thus Cyrus tam'd the Macedon; a tomb
+ Check'd him, who thought the world too straight a room.
+ Have I obey'd the powers of face,
+ A beauty able to undo the race
+ Of easy man? I look but here, and straight
+ I am inform'd, the lovely counterfeit
+ Was but a smoother clay. That famish'd slave
+ Beggar'd by wealth, who starves that he may save,
+ Brings hither but his sheet; nay, th' ostrich-man
+ That feeds on steel and bullet, he that can
+ Outswear his lordship, and reply as tough
+ To a kind word, as if his tongue were buff,
+ Is chap-fall'n here: worms without wit or fear
+ Defy him now; Death hath disarm'd the bear.
+ Thus could I run o'er all the piteous score
+ Of erring men, and having done, meet more,
+ Their shuffled wills, abortive, vain intents,
+ Fantastic humours, perilous ascents,
+ False, empty honours, traitorous delights,
+ And whatsoe'er a blind conceit invites;
+ But these and more which the weak vermins swell,
+ Are couch'd in this accumulative cell,
+ Which I could scatter; but the grudging sun
+ Calls home his beams, and warns me to be gone;
+ Day leaves me in a double night, and I
+ Must bid farewell to my sad library.
+ Yet with these notes--Henceforth with thought of thee
+ I'll season all succeeding jollity,
+ Yet damn not mirth, nor think too much is fit;
+ Excess hath no religion, nor wit;
+ But should wild blood swell to a lawless strain,
+ One check from thee shall channel it again.
+
+
+
+
+IN AMICUM F[OE]NERATOREM.
+
+
+ Thanks, mighty Silver! I rejoice to see
+ How I have spoil'd his thrift, by spending thee.
+ Now thou art gone, he courts my wants with more,
+ His decoy gold, and bribes me to restore.
+ As lesser lode-stones with the North consent,
+ Naturally moving to their element,
+ As bodies swarm to th' centre, and that fire
+ Man stole from heaven, to heav'n doth still aspire,
+ So this vast crying sum draws in a less;
+ And hence this bag more Northward laid I guess,
+ For 'tis of pole-star force, and in this sphere
+ Though th' least of many, rules the master-bear.
+ Prerogative of debts! how he doth dress
+ His messages in chink! not an express
+ Without a fee for reading; and 'tis fit,
+ For gold's the best restorative of wit.
+ Oh how he gilds them o'er! with what delight
+ I read those lines, which angels do indite!
+ But wilt have money, Og? must I dispurse
+ Will nothing serve thee but a poet's curse?
+ Wilt rob an altar thus? and sweep at once
+ What Orpheus-like I forc'd from stocks and stones?
+ 'Twill never swell thy bag, nor ring one peal
+ In thy dark chest. Talk not of shreeves, or gaol;
+ I fear them not. I have no land to glut
+ Thy dirty appetite, and make thee strut
+ Nimrod of acres; I'll no speech prepare
+ To court the hopeful cormorant, thine heir.
+ For there's a kingdom at thy beck if thou
+ But kick this dross: Parnassus' flow'ry brow
+ I'll give thee with my Tempe, and to boot
+ That horse which struck a fountain with his foot.
+ A bed of roses I'll provide for thee,
+ And crystal springs shall drop thee melody.
+ The breathing shades we'll haunt, where ev'ry leaf
+ Shall whisper us asleep, though thou art deaf.
+ Those waggish nymphs, too, which none ever yet
+ Durst make love to, we'll teach the loving fit;
+ We'll suck the coral of their lips, and feed
+ Upon their spicy breath, a meal at need:
+ Rove in their amber-tresses, and unfold
+ That glist'ring grove, the curled wood of gold;
+ Then peep for babies, a new puppet play,
+ And riddle what their prattling eyes would say.
+ But here thou must remember to dispurse,
+ For without money all this is a curse.
+ Thou must for more bags call, and so restore
+ This iron age to gold, as once before.
+ This thou must do, and yet this is not all,
+ For thus the poet would be still in thrall,
+ Thou must then--if live thus--my nest of honey
+ Cancel old bonds, and beg to lend more money.
+
+
+
+
+TO HIS FRIEND----
+
+
+ I wonder, James, through the whole history
+ Of ages, such entails of poverty
+ Are laid on poets; lawyers--they say--have found
+ A trick to cut them; would they were but bound
+ To practise on us, though for this thing we
+ Should pay--if possible--their bribes and fee.
+ Search--as thou canst--the old and modern store
+ Of Rome and ours, in all the witty score
+ Thou shalt not find a rich one; take each clime,
+ And run o'er all the pilgrimage of time,
+ Thou'lt meet them poor, and ev'rywhere descry
+ A threadbare, goldless genealogy.
+ Nature--it seems--when she meant us for earth
+ Spent so much of her treasure in the birth
+ As ever after niggards her, and she,
+ Thus stor'd within, beggars us outwardly.
+ Woful profusion! at how dear a rate
+ Are we made up! all hope of thrift and state
+ Lost for a verse. When I by thoughts look back
+ Into the womb of time, and see the rack
+ Stand useless there, until we are produc'd
+ Unto the torture, and our souls infus'd
+ To learn afflictions, I begin to doubt
+ That as some tyrants use from their chain'd rout
+ Of slaves to pick out one whom for their sport
+ They keep afflicted by some ling'ring art;
+ So we are merely thrown upon the stage
+ The mirth of fools and legend of the age.
+ When I see in the ruins of a suit
+ Some nobler breast, and his tongue sadly mute
+ Feed on the vocal silence of his eye,
+ And knowing cannot reach the remedy;
+ When souls of baser stamp shine in their store,
+ And he of all the throng is only poor;
+ When French apes for foreign fashions pay,
+ And English legs are dress'd th' outlandish way,
+ So fine too, that they their own shadows woo,
+ While he walks in the sad and pilgrim shoe;
+ I'm mad at Fate, and angry ev'n to sin,
+ To see deserts and learning clad so thin;
+ To think how th' earthly usurer can brood
+ Upon his bags, and weigh the precious food
+ With palsied hands, as if his soul did fear
+ The scales could rob him of what he laid there.
+ Like devils that on hid treasures sit, or those
+ Whose jealous eyes trust not beyond their nose,
+ They guard the dirt and the bright idol hold
+ Close, and commit adultery with gold.
+ A curse upon their dross! how have we sued
+ For a few scatter'd chips? how oft pursu'd
+ Petitions with a blush, in hope to squeeze
+ For their souls' health, more than our wants, a piece?
+ Their steel-ribb'd chests and purse--rust eat them both!--
+ Have cost us with much paper many an oath,
+ And protestations of such solemn sense,
+ As if our souls were sureties for the pence.
+ Should we a full night's learned cares present,
+ They'll scarce return us one short hour's content.
+ 'Las! they're but quibbles, things we poets feign,
+ The short-liv'd squibs and crackers of the brain.
+ But we'll be wiser, knowing 'tis not they
+ That must redeem the hardship of our way.
+ Whether a Higher Power, or that star
+ Which, nearest heav'n, is from the earth most far,
+ Oppress us thus, or angell'd from that sphere
+ By our strict guardians are kept luckless here,
+ It matters not, we shall one day obtain
+ Our native and celestial scope again.
+
+
+
+
+TO HIS RETIRED FRIEND, AN INVITATION TO BRECKNOCK.
+
+
+ Since last we met, thou and thy horse--my dear--
+ Have not so much as drunk, or litter'd here;
+ I wonder, though thyself be thus deceas'd,
+ Thou hast the spite to coffin up thy beast;
+ Or is the palfrey sick, and his rough hide
+ With the penance of one spur mortified?
+ Or taught by thee--like Pythagoras's ox--
+ Is then his master grown more orthodox
+ Whatever 'tis, a sober cause't must be
+ That thus long bars us of thy company.
+ The town believes thee lost, and didst thou see
+ But half her suff'rings, now distress'd for thee,
+ Thou'ldst swear--like Rome--her foul, polluted walls
+ Were sack'd by Brennus and the savage Gauls.
+ Abominable face of things! here's noise
+ Of banged mortars, blue aprons, and boys,
+ Pigs, dogs, and drums, with the hoarse, hellish notes
+ Of politicly-deaf usurers' throats,
+ With new fine Worships, and the old cast team
+ Of Justices vex'd with the cough and phlegm.
+ 'Midst these the Cross looks sad, and in the Shire-
+ Hall furs of an old Saxon fox appear,
+ With brotherly ruffs and beards, and a strange sight
+ Of high monumental hats, ta'en at the fight
+ Of 'Eighty-eight; while ev'ry burgess foots
+ The mortal pavement in eternal boots.
+ Hadst thou been bach'lor, I had soon divin'd
+ Thy close retirements, and monastic mind;
+ Perhaps some nymph had been to visit, or
+ The beauteous churl was to be waited for,
+ And like the Greek, ere you the sport would miss,
+ You stay'd, and strok'd the distaff for a kiss.
+ But in this age, when thy cool, settled blood
+ Is ti'd t'one flesh, and thou almost grown good,
+ I know not how to reach the strange device,
+ Except--Domitian-like--thou murder'st flies.
+ Or is't thy piety? for who can tell
+ But thou may'st prove devout, and love a cell,
+ And--like a badger--with attentive looks
+ In the dark hole sit rooting up of books.
+ Quick hermit! what a peaceful change hadst thou,
+ Without the noise of haircloth, whip, or vow!
+ But there is no redemption? must there be
+ No other penance but of liberty?
+ Why, two months hence, if thou continue thus,
+ Thy memory will scarce remain with us,
+ The drawers have forgot thee, and exclaim
+ They have not seen thee here since Charles, his reign,
+ Or if they mention thee, like some old man,
+ That at each word inserts--"Sir, as I can
+ Remember"--so the cyph'rers puzzle me
+ With a dark, cloudy character of thee.
+ That--certs!--I fear thou wilt be lost, and we
+ Must ask the fathers ere't be long for thee.
+ Come! leave this sullen state, and let not wine
+ And precious wit lie dead for want of thine.
+ Shall the dull market-landlord with his rout
+ Of sneaking tenants dirtily swill out
+ This harmless liquor? shall they knock and beat
+ For sack, only to talk of rye and wheat?
+ O let not such prepost'rous tippling be
+ In our metropolis; may I ne'er see
+ Such tavern-sacrilege, nor lend a line
+ To weep the rapes and tragedy of wine!
+ Here lives that chymic, quick fire which betrays
+ Fresh spirits to the blood, and warms our lays.
+ I have reserv'd 'gainst thy approach a cup
+ That were thy Muse stark dead, shall raise her up,
+ And teach her yet more charming words and skill
+ Than ever C[oe]lia, Chloris, Astrophil,
+ Or any of the threadbare names inspir'd
+ Poor rhyming lovers with a mistress fir'd.
+ Come then! and while the slow icicle hangs
+ At the stiff thatch, and Winter's frosty pangs
+ Benumb the year, blithe--as of old--let us
+ 'Midst noise and war of peace and mirth discuss.
+ This portion thou wert born for: why should we
+ Vex at the time's ridiculous misery?
+ An age that thus hath fool'd itself, and will
+ --Spite of thy teeth and mine--persist so still.
+ Let's sit then at this fire, and while we steal
+ A revel in the town, let others seal,
+ Purchase or cheat, and who can, let them pay,
+ Till those black deeds bring on the darksome day.
+ Innocent spenders we! a better use
+ Shall wear out our short lease, and leave th' obtuse
+ Rout to their husks; they and their bags at best
+ Have cares in earnest; we care for a jest.
+
+
+
+
+MONSIEUR GOMBAULD.
+
+
+ I've read thy soul's fair nightpiece, and have seen
+ Th' amours and courtship of the silent Queen,
+ Her stoln descents to Earth, and what did move her
+ To juggle first with Heav'n, then with a lover,
+ With Latmos' louder rescue, and--alas!--
+ To find her out a hue and cry in brass;
+ Thy journal of deep mysteries, and sad
+ Nocturnal pilgrimage, with thy dreams clad
+ In fancies darker than thy cave, thy glass
+ Of sleepy draughts; and as thy soul did pass
+ In her calm voyage what discourse she heard
+ Of spirits, what dark groves and ill-shap'd guard
+ Ismena led thee through, with thy proud flight
+ O'er Periardes, and deep, musing night
+ Near fair Eurotas' banks; what solemn green
+ The neighbour shades wear, and what forms are seen
+ In their large bowers, with that sad path and seat
+ Which none but light-heel'd nymphs and fairies beat;[55]
+ Their solitary life, and how exempt
+ From common frailty, the severe contempt
+ They have of man, their privilege to live
+ A tree, or fountain, and in that reprieve
+ What ages they consume, with the sad vale
+ Of Diophania, and the mournful tale,
+ Of th' bleeding vocal myrtle; these and more
+ Thy richer thoughts, we are upon the score
+ To thy rare fancy for, nor dost thou fall
+ From thy first majesty, or ought at all
+ Betray consumption; thy full vig'rous bays
+ Wear the same green, and scorn the lean decays
+ Of style, or matter. Just so have I known
+ Some crystal spring, that from the neighbour down
+ Deriv'd her birth, in gentle murmurs steal
+ To their next vale, and proudly there reveal
+ Her streams in louder accents, adding still
+ More noise and waters to her channel, till
+ At last swoln with increase she glides along
+ The lawns and meadows in a wanton throng
+ Of frothy billows, and in one great name
+ Swallows the tributary brooks' drown'd fame.
+ Nor are they mere inventions, for we
+ In th' same piece find scatter'd philosophy
+ And hidden, dispers'd truths that folded lie
+ In the dark shades of deep allegory;
+ So neatly weav'd, like arras, they descry
+ Fables with truth, fancy with history.
+ So that thou hast in this thy curious mould
+ Cast that commended mixture wish'd of old,
+ Which shall these contemplations render far
+ Less mutable, and lasting as their star,
+ And while there is a people or a sun,
+ Endymion's story with the moon shall run.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[55] So Grosart, for the _heat_ of the original.
+
+
+
+
+AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MR. R. W., SLAIN IN THE LATE UNFORTUNATE
+DIFFERENCES AT ROUTON HEATH, NEAR CHESTER, 1645.
+
+
+ I am confirmed, and so much wing is given
+ To my wild thoughts, that they dare strike at heav'n.
+ A full year's grief I struggled with, and stood
+ Still on my sandy hopes' uncertain good,
+ So loth was I to yield; to all those fears
+ I still oppos'd thee, and denied my tears.
+ But thou art gone! and the untimely loss
+ Like that one day hath made all others cross.
+ Have you seen on some river's flow'ry brow
+ A well-built elm or stately cedar grow,
+ Whose curled tops gilt with the morning-ray
+ Beckon'd the sun, and whisper'd to the day,
+ When unexpected from the angry North
+ A fatal sullen whirlwind sallies forth,
+ And with a full-mouth'd blast rends from the ground
+ The shady twins, which rushing scatter round
+ Their sighing leaves, whilst overborn with strength
+ Their trembling heads bow to a prostrate length?
+ So forc'd fell he; so immaturely Death
+ Stifled his able heart and active breath.
+ The world scarce knew him yet, his early soul
+ Had but new-broke her day, and rather stole
+ A sight than gave one; as if subtly she
+ Would learn our stock, but hide his treasury.
+ His years--should Time lay both his wings and glass
+ Unto his charge--could not be summ'd--alas!--
+ To a full score; though in so short a span
+ His riper thoughts had purchas'd more of man
+ Than all those worthless livers, which yet quick
+ Have quite outgone their own arithmetic.
+ He seiz'd perfections, and without a dull
+ And mossy grey possess'd a solid skull;
+ No crooked knowledge neither, nor did he
+ Wear the friend's name for ends and policy,
+ And then lay't by; as those lost youths of th' stage
+ Who only flourish'd for the Play's short age
+ And then retir'd; like jewels, in each part
+ He wore his friends, but chiefly at his heart.
+ Nor was it only in this he did excel,
+ His equal valour could as much, as well.
+ He knew no fear but of his God; yet durst
+ No injury, nor--as some have--e'er purs'd
+ The sweat and tears of others, yet would be
+ More forward in a royal gallantry
+ Than all those vast pretenders, which of late
+ Swell'd in the ruins of their king and State.
+ He weav'd not self-ends and the public good
+ Into one piece, nor with the people's blood
+ Fill'd his own veins; in all the doubtful way
+ Conscience and honour rul'd him. O that day
+ When like the fathers in the fire and cloud
+ I miss'd thy face! I might in ev'ry crowd
+ See arms like thine, and men advance, but none
+ So near to lightning mov'd, nor so fell on.
+ Have you observ'd how soon the nimble eye
+ Brings th' object to conceit, and doth so vie
+ Performance with the soul, that you would swear
+ The act and apprehension both lodg'd there;
+ Just so mov'd he: like shot his active hand
+ Drew blood, ere well the foe could understand.
+ But here I lost him. Whether the last turn
+ Of thy few sands call'd on thy hasty urn,
+ Or some fierce rapid fate--hid from the eye--
+ Hath hurl'd thee pris'ner to some distant sky,
+ I cannot tell, but that I do believe
+ Thy courage such as scorn'd a base reprieve.
+ Whatever 'twas, whether that day thy breath
+ Suffer'd a civil or the common death,
+ Which I do most suspect, and that I have
+ Fail'd in the glories of so known a grave;
+ Though thy lov'd ashes miss me, and mine eyes
+ Had no acquaintance with thy exequies,
+ Nor at the last farewell, torn from thy sight
+ On the cold sheet have fix'd a sad delight,
+ Yet whate'er pious hand--instead of mine--
+ Hath done this office to that dust of thine,
+ And till thou rise again from thy low bed
+ Lent a cheap pillow to thy quiet head,
+ Though but a private turf, it can do more
+ To keep thy name and memory in store
+ Than all those lordly fools which lock their bones
+ In the dumb piles of chested brass, and stones
+ Th'art rich in thy own fame, and needest not
+ These marble-frailties, nor the gilded blot
+ Of posthume honours; there is not one sand
+ Sleeps o'er thy grave, but can outbid that hand
+ And pencil too, so that of force we must
+ Confess their heaps show lesser than thy dust.
+ And--blessed soul!--though this my sorrow can
+ Add nought to thy perfections, yet as man
+ Subject to envy, and the common fate,
+ It may redeem thee to a fairer date.
+ As some blind dial, when the day is done,
+ Can tell us at midnight there was a sun,
+ So these perhaps, though much beneath thy fame,
+ May keep some weak remembrance of thy name,
+ And to the faith of better times commend
+ Thy loyal upright life, and gallant end.
+
+ _Nomen et arma locum servant, te, amice, nequivi_
+ _Conspicere_------------
+
+
+
+
+UPON A CLOAK LENT HIM BY MR. J. RIDSLEY.
+
+
+ Here, take again thy sackcloth! and thank heav'n
+ Thy courtship hath not kill'd me; Is't not even
+ Whether we die by piecemeal, or at once?
+ Since both but ruin, why then for the nonce
+ Didst husband my afflictions, and cast o'er
+ Me this forc'd hurdle to inflame the score?
+ Had I near London in this rug been seen
+ Without doubt I had executed been
+ For some bold Irish spy, and 'cross a sledge
+ Had lain mess'd up for their four gates and bridge.
+ When first I bore it, my oppressed feet
+ Would needs persuade me 'twas some leaden sheet;
+ Such deep impressions, and such dangerous holes
+ Were made, that I began to doubt my soles,
+ And ev'ry step--so near necessity--
+ Devoutly wish'd some honest cobbler by;
+ Besides it was so short, the Jewish rag
+ Seem'd circumcis'd, but had a Gentile shag.
+ Hadst thou been with me on that day, when we
+ Left craggy Biston, and the fatal Dee,
+ When beaten with fresh storms and late mishap
+ It shar'd the office of a cloak, and cap,
+ To see how 'bout my clouded head it stood
+ Like a thick turban, or some lawyer's hood,
+ While the stiff, hollow pleats on ev'ry side
+ Like conduit-pipes rain'd from the bearded hide:
+ I know thou wouldst in spite of that day's fate
+ Let loose thy mirth at my new shape and state,
+ And with a shallow smile or two profess
+ Some Saracen had lost the clouted dress.
+ Didst ever see the good wife--as they say--
+ March in her short cloak on the christ'ning day,
+ With what soft motions she salutes the church,
+ And leaves the bedrid mother in the lurch;
+ Just so jogg'd I, while my dull horse did trudge
+ Like a circuit-beast, plagu'd with a gouty judge.
+ But this was civil. I have since known more
+ And worser pranks: one night--as heretofore
+ Th' hast known--for want of change--a thing which I
+ And Bias us'd before me--I did lie
+ Pure Adamite, and simply for that end
+ Resolv'd, and made this for my bosom-friend.
+ O that thou hadst been there next morn, that I
+ Might teach thee new Micro-cosmo-graphy!
+ Thou wouldst have ta'en me, as I naked stood,
+ For one of the seven pillars before the flood.
+ Such characters and hieroglyphics were
+ In one night worn, that thou mightst justly swear
+ I'd slept in cere-cloth, or at Bedlam, where
+ The madmen lodge in straw. I'll not forbear
+ To tell thee all; his wild impress and tricks
+ Like Speed's old Britons made me look, or Picts;
+ His villanous, biting, wire-embraces
+ Had seal'd in me more strange forms and faces
+ Than children see in dreams, or thou hast read
+ In arras, puppet-plays, and gingerbread,
+ With angled schemes, and crosses that bred fear
+ Of being handled by some conjurer;
+ And nearer, thou wouldst think--such strokes were drawn--
+ I'd been some rough statue of Fetter-lane.
+ Nay, I believe, had I that instant been
+ By surgeons or apothecaries seen,
+ They had condemned my raz'd skin to be
+ Some walking herbal, or anatomy.
+ But--thanks to th' day!--'tis off. I'd now advise
+ Thee, friend, to put this piece to merchandise.
+ The pedlars of our age have business yet,
+ And gladly would against the Fair-day fit
+ Themselves with such a roof, that can secure
+ Their wares from dogs and cats rained in shower.
+ It shall perform; or if this will not do
+ 'Twill take the ale-wives sure; 'twill make them two
+ Fine rooms of one, and spread upon a stick
+ Is a partition, without lime or brick.
+ Horn'd obstinacy! how my heart doth fret
+ To think what mouths and elbows it would set
+ In a wet day! have you for twopence ere
+ Seen King Harry's chapel at Westminster,
+ Where in their dusty gowns of brass and stone
+ The judges lie, and mark'd you how each one,
+ In sturdy marble-pleats about the knee,
+ Bears up to show his legs and symmetry?
+ Just so would this, that I think't weav'd upon
+ Some stiffneck'd Brownist's exercising loom.
+ O that thou hadst it when this juggling fate
+ Of soldiery first seiz'd me! at what rate
+ Would I have bought it then; what was there but
+ I would have giv'n for the compendious hut?
+ I do not doubt but--if the weight could please--
+ 'Twould guard me better than a Lapland-lease.
+ Or a German shirt with enchanted lint
+ Stuff'd through, and th' devil's beard and face weav'd in't.
+ But I have done. And think not, friend, that I
+ This freedom took to jeer thy courtesy.
+ I thank thee for't, and I believe my Muse
+ So known to thee, thou'lt not suspect abuse.
+ She did this, 'cause--perhaps--thy love paid thus
+ Might with my thanks outlive thy cloak, and us.
+
+
+
+
+UPON MR. FLETCHER'S PLAYS, PUBLISHED 1647.
+
+
+ I knew thee not, nor durst attendance strive,
+ Label to wit, verser remonstrative,
+ And in some suburb-page--scandal to thine--
+ Like Lent before a Christmas scatter mine.
+ This speaks thee not, since at the utmost rate
+ Such remnants from thy piece entreat their date;
+ Nor can I dub the copy, or afford
+ Titles to swell the rear of verse with lord;
+ Nor politicly big, to inch low fame,
+ Stretch in the glories of a stranger's name,
+ And clip those bays I court; weak striver I,
+ But a faint echo unto poetry.
+ I have not clothes t'adopt me, nor must sit
+ For plush and velvet's sake, esquire of wit.
+ Yet modesty these crosses would improve,
+ And rags near thee, some reverence may move.
+ I did believe--great Beaumont being dead--
+ Thy widow'd Muse slept on his flow'ry bed;
+ But I am richly cozen'd, and can see
+ Wit transmigrates: his spirit stay'd with thee;
+ Which, doubly advantag'd by thy single pen,
+ In life and death now treads the stage again.
+ And thus are we freed from that dearth of wit
+ Which starv'd the land, since into schisms split,
+ Wherein th' hast done so much, we must needs guess
+ Wit's last edition is now i' th' press.
+ For thou hast drain'd invention, and he
+ That writes hereafter, doth but pillage thee.
+ But thou hast plots; and will not the Kirk strain
+ At the designs of such a tragic brain?
+ Will they themselves think safe, when they shall see
+ Thy most abominable policy?
+ Will not the Ears assemble, and think't fit
+ Their Synod fast and pray against thy wit?
+ But they'll not tire in such an idle quest;
+ Thou dost but kill, and circumvent in jest;
+ And when thy anger'd Muse swells to a blow
+ 'Tis but for Field's, or Swansted's overthrow.
+ Yet shall these conquests of thy bays outlive
+ Their Scottish zeal, and compacts made to grieve
+ The peace of spirits: and when such deeds fail
+ Of their foul ends, a fair name is thy bail.
+ But--happy thou!--ne'er saw'st these storms, our air
+ Teem'd with even in thy time, though seeming fair.
+ Thy gentle soul, meant for the shade and ease,
+ Withdrew betimes into the Land of Peace.
+ So nested in some hospitable shore
+ The hermit-angler, when the mid-seas roar,
+ Packs up his lines, and--ere the tempest raves--
+ Retires, and leaves his station to the waves.
+ Thus thou died'st almost with our peace, and we
+ This breathing time thy last fair issue see,
+ Which I think such--if needless ink not soil
+ So choice a Muse--others are but thy foil.
+ This, or that age may write, but never see
+ A wit that dares run parallel with thee.
+ True, Ben must live! but bate him, and thou hast
+ Undone all future wits, and match'd the past.
+
+
+
+
+UPON THE POEMS AND PLAYS OF THE EVER-MEMORABLE MR. WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT.
+
+
+ I did but see thee! and how vain it is
+ To vex thee for it with remonstrances,
+ Though things in fashion; let those judge, who sit
+ Their twelve pence out, to clap their hands at wit
+ I fear to sin thus near thee; for--great saint!--
+ 'Tis known true beauty hath no need of paint.
+ Yet, since a label fix'd to thy fair hearse
+ Is all the mode, and tears put into verse
+ Can teach posterity our present grief
+ And their own loss, but never give relief;
+ I'll tell them--and a truth which needs no pass--
+ That wit in Cartwright at her zenith was.
+ Arts, fancy, language, all conven'd in thee,
+ With those grand miracles which deify
+ The old world's writings, kept yet from the fire
+ Because they force these worst times to admire.
+ Thy matchless genius, in all thou didst write,
+ Like the sun, wrought with such staid heat and light,
+ That not a line--to the most critic he--
+ Offends with flashes, or obscurity.
+ When thou the wild of humours track'st, thy pen
+ So imitates that motley stock in men,
+ As if thou hadst in all their bosoms been,
+ And seen those leopards that lurk within.
+ The am'rous youth steals from thy courtly page
+ His vow'd address, the soldier his brave rage;
+ And those soft beauteous readers whose looks can
+ Make some men poets, and make any man
+ A lover, when thy slave but seems to die,
+ Turn all his mourners, and melt at the eye.
+ Thus thou thy thoughts hast dress'd in such a strain
+ As doth not only speak, but rule and reign;
+ Nor are those bodies they assum'd dark clouds,
+ Or a thick bark, but clear, transparent shrouds,
+ Which who looks on, the rays so strongly beat
+ They'll brush and warm him with a quick'ning heat;
+ So souls shine at the eyes, and pearls display
+ Through the loose crystal-streams a glance of day.
+ But what's all this unto a royal test?
+ Thou art the man whom great Charles so express'd!
+ Then let the crowd refrain their needless hum,
+ When thunder speaks, then squibs and winds are dumb.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE BEST AND MOST ACCOMPLISHED COUPLE----
+
+
+ Blessings as rich and fragrant crown your heads
+ As the mild heav'n on roses sheds,
+ When at their cheeks--like pearls--they wear
+ The clouds that court them in a tear!
+ And may they be fed from above
+ By Him which first ordain'd your love!
+
+ Fresh as the hours may all your pleasures be,
+ And healthful as eternity!
+ Sweet as the flowers' first breath, and close
+ As th' unseen spreadings of the rose,
+ When he unfolds his curtain'd head,
+ And makes his bosom the sun's bed!
+
+ Soft as yourselves run your whole lives, and clear
+ As your own glass, or what shines there!
+ Smooth as heav'n's face, and bright as he
+ When without mask or tiffany!
+ In all your time not one jar meet
+ But peace as silent as his feet!
+
+ Like the day's warmth may all your comforts be,
+ Untoil'd for, and serene as he,
+ Yet free and full as is that sheaf
+ Of sunbeams gilding ev'ry leaf,
+ When now the tyrant-heat expires
+ And his cool'd locks breathe milder fires!
+
+ And as those parcell'd glories he doth shed
+ Are the fair issues of his head,
+ Which, ne'er so distant, are soon known
+ By th' heat and lustre for his own;
+ So may each branch of yours we see
+ Your copies and our wonders be!
+
+ And when no more on earth you must remain,
+ Invited hence to heav'n again,
+ Then may your virtuous, virgin-flames
+ Shine in those heirs of your fair names,
+ And teach the world that mystery,
+ Yourselves in your posterity!
+
+ So you to both worlds shall rich presents bring,
+ And, gather'd up to heav'n, leave here a spring.
+
+
+
+
+AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MR. R. HALL, SLAIN AT PONTEFRACT, 1648.
+
+
+ I knew it would be thus! and my just fears
+ Of thy great spirit are improv'd to tears.
+ Yet flow these not from any base distrust
+ Of a fair name, or that thy honour must
+ Confin'd to those cold relics sadly sit
+ In the same cell an obscure anchorite.
+ Such low distempers murder; they that must
+ Abuse thee so, weep not, but wound thy dust.
+ But I past such dim mourners can descry
+ Thy fame above all clouds of obloquy,
+ And like the sun with his victorious rays
+ Charge through that darkness to the last of days.
+ 'Tis true, fair manhood hath a female eye,
+ And tears are beauteous in a victory,
+ Nor are we so high-proof, but grief will find
+ Through all our guards a way to wound the mind;
+ But in thy fall what adds the brackish sum
+ More than a blot unto thy martyrdom?
+ Which scorns such wretched suffrages, and stands
+ More by thy single worth than our whole bands.
+ Yet could the puling tribute rescue ought
+ In this sad loss, or wert thou to be brought
+ Back here by tears, I would in any wise
+ Pay down the sum, or quite consume my eyes.
+ Thou fell'st our double ruin; and this rent
+ Forc'd in thy life shak'd both the Church and tent.
+ Learning in others steals them from the van,
+ And basely wise emasculates the man,
+ But lodg'd in thy brave soul the bookish feat
+ Serv'd only as the light unto thy heat.
+ Thus when some quitted action, to their shame,
+ And only got a discreet coward's name,
+ Thou with thy blood mad'st purchase of renown,
+ And died'st the glory of the sword and gown.
+ Thy blood hath hallow'd Pomfret, and this blow
+ --Profan'd before--hath church'd the Castle now.
+ Nor is't a common valour we deplore,
+ But such as with fifteen a hundred bore,
+ And lightning-like--not coop'd within a wall--
+ In storms of fire and steel fell on them all.
+ Thou wert no woolsack soldier, nor of those
+ Whose courage lies in winking at their foes,
+ That live at loopholes, and consume their breath
+ On match or pipes, and sometimes peep at death;
+ No, it were sin to number these with thee,
+ But that--thus pois'd--our loss we better see.
+ The fair and open valour was thy shield,
+ And thy known station, the defying field.
+ Yet these in thee I would not virtues call,
+ But that this age must know that thou hadst all.
+ Those richer graces that adorn'd thy mind
+ Like stars of the first magnitude, so shin'd,
+ That if oppos'd unto these lesser lights
+ All we can say is this, they were fair nights.
+ Thy piety and learning did unite,
+ And though with sev'ral beams made up one light,
+ And such thy judgment was, that I dare swear
+ Whole councils might as soon and synods err.
+ But all these now are out! and as some star
+ Hurl'd in diurnal motions from far,
+ And seen to droop at night, is vainly said
+ To fall and find an occidental bed,
+ Though in that other world what we judge West
+ Proves elevation, and a new, fresh East;
+ So though our weaker sense denies us sight,
+ And bodies cannot trace the spirit's flight,
+ We know those graces to be still in thee,
+ But wing'd above us to eternity.
+ Since then--thus flown--thou art so much refin'd
+ That we can only reach thee with the mind,
+ I will not in this dark and narrow glass
+ Let thy scant shadow for perfections pass,
+ But leave thee to be read more high, more quaint,
+ In thy own blood a soldier and a saint.
+
+ ----_Salve aeternum mihi maxime Palla!_
+ _Aeternumque vale!_----
+
+
+
+
+TO MY LEARNED FRIEND, MR. T. POWELL, UPON HIS TRANSLATION OF MALVEZZI'S
+CHRISTIAN POLITICIAN.
+
+
+ We thank you, worthy Sir, that now we see
+ MALVEZZI languag'd like our infancy,
+ And can without suspicion entertain
+ This foreign statesman to our breast or brain;
+ You have enlarg'd his praise, and from your store
+ By this edition made his worth the more.
+ Thus by your learned hand--amidst the coil--
+ Outlandish plants thrive in our thankless soil,
+ And wise men after death, by a strange fate,
+ Lie leiger here, and beg to serve our State.
+ Italy now, though mistress of the bays,
+ Waits on this wreath, proud of a foreign praise;
+ For, wise Malvezzi, thou didst lie before
+ Confin'd within the language of one shore,
+ And like those stars which near the poles do steer
+ Were't but in one part of the globe seen clear.
+ Provence and Naples were the best and most
+ Thou couldst shine in; fix'd to that single coast,
+ Perhaps some cardinal, to be thought wise,
+ And honest too, would ask, what was thy price?
+ Then thou must pack to Rome, where thou mightst lie
+ Ere thou shouldst have new clothes eternally,
+ For though so near the sev'n hills, ne'ertheless
+ Thou cam'st to Antwerp for thy Roman dress.
+ But now thou art come hither, thou mayst run
+ Through any clime as well known as the sun,
+ And in thy sev'ral dresses, like the year,
+ Challenge acquaintance with each peopled sphere.
+ Come then, rare politicians of the time,
+ Brains of some standing, elders in our clime,
+ See here the method. A wise, solid State
+ Is quick in acting, friendly in debate,
+ Joint in advice, in resolutions just,
+ Mild in success, true to the common trust.
+ It cements ruptures, and by gentle hand
+ Allays the heat and burnings of a land;
+ Religion guides it, and in all the tract
+ Designs so twist, that Heav'n confirms the act.
+ If from these lists you wander as you steer,
+ Look back, and catechize your actions here.
+ These are the marks to which true statesmen tend,
+ And greatness here with goodness hath one end.
+
+
+
+
+TO MY WORTHY FRIEND, MASTER T. LEWES.
+
+
+ Sees not my friend, what a deep snow
+ Candies our country's woody brow?
+ The yielding branch his load scarce bears,
+ Oppress'd with snow and frozen tears;
+ While the dumb rivers slowly float,
+ All bound up in an icy coat.
+ Let us meet then! and while this world
+ In wild eccentrics now is hurl'd,
+ Keep we, like nature, the same key,
+ And walk in our forefathers' way.
+ Why any more cast we an eye
+ On what may come, not what is nigh?
+ Why vex ourselves with fear, or hope
+ And cares beyond our horoscope?
+ Who into future times would peer,
+ Looks oft beyond his term set here,
+ And cannot go into those grounds
+ But through a churchyard, which them bounds.
+ Sorrows and sighs and searches spend
+ And draw our bottom to an end,
+ But discreet joys lengthen the lease,
+ Without which life were a disease;
+ And who this age a mourner goes,
+ Doth with his tears but feed his foes
+
+
+
+
+TO THE MOST EXCELLENTLY ACCOMPLISHED MRS. K. PHILIPS.
+
+
+ Say, witty fair one, from what sphere
+ Flow these rich numbers you shed here?
+ For sure such incantations come
+ From thence, which strike your readers dumb.
+ A strain, whose measures gently meet
+ Like virgin-lovers or Time's feet;
+ Where language smiles, and accents rise
+ As quick and pleasing as your eyes;
+ The poem smooth, and in each line
+ Soft as yourself, yet masculine;
+ Where not coarse trifles blot the page
+ With matter borrow'd from the age,
+ But thoughts as innocent and high
+ As angels have, or saints that die.
+ These raptures when I first did see
+ New miracles in poetry,
+ And by a hand their good would miss
+ His bays and fountains but to kiss,
+ My weaker genius--cross to fashion--
+ Slept in a silent admiration:
+ A rescue, by whose grave disguise
+ Pretenders oft have pass'd for wise.
+ And yet as pilgrims humbly touch
+ Those shrines to which they bow so much,
+ And clouds in courtship flock, and run
+ To be the mask unto the sun,
+ So I concluded it was true
+ I might at distance worship you,
+ A Persian votary, and say
+ It was your light show'd me the way.
+ So loadstones guide the duller steel,
+ And high perfections are the wheel
+ Which moves the less, for gifts divine
+ Are strung upon a vital line,
+ Which, touch'd by you, excites in all
+ Affections epidemical.
+ And this made me--a truth most fit--
+ Add my weak echo to your wit;
+ Which pardon, Lady, for assays
+ Obscure as these might blast your bays;
+ As common hands soil flow'rs, and make
+ That dew they wear weep the mistake.
+ But I'll wash off the stain, and vow
+ No laurel grows but for your brow.
+
+
+
+
+AN EPITAPH UPON THE LADY ELIZABETH, SECOND DAUGHTER TO HIS LATE MAJESTY.
+
+
+ Youth, beauty, virtue, innocence,
+ Heav'n's royal and select expense,
+ With virgin-tears and sighs divine
+ Sit here the genii of this shrine;
+ Where now--thy fair soul wing'd away--
+ They guard the casket where she lay.
+ Thou hadst, ere thou the light couldst see,
+ Sorrows laid up and stor'd for thee;
+ Thou suck'dst in woes, and the breasts lent
+ Their milk to thee but to lament;
+ Thy portion here was grief, thy years
+ Distill'd no other rain but tears,
+ Tears without noise, but--understood--
+ As loud and shrill as any blood.
+ Thou seem'st a rosebud born in snow,
+ A flower of purpose sprung to bow
+ To headless tempests, and the rage
+ Of an incensed, stormy age.
+ Others, ere their afflictions grow,
+ Are tim'd and season'd for the blow,
+ But thine, as rheums the tend'rest part,
+ Fell on a young and harmless heart.
+ And yet, as balm-trees gently spend
+ Their tears for those that do them rend,
+ So mild and pious thou wert seen,
+ Though full of suff'rings; free from spleen,
+ Thou didst not murmur, nor revile,
+ But drank'st thy wormwood with a smile.
+ As envious eyes blast and infect,
+ And cause misfortunes by aspect,
+ So thy sad stars dispens'd to thee
+ No influx but calamity;
+ They view'd thee with eclipsed rays,
+ And but the back side of bright days.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ These were the comforts she had here,
+ As by an unseen Hand 'tis clear,
+ Which now she reads, and, smiling, wears
+ A crown with Him who wipes off tears.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIR WILLIAM D'AVENANT UPON HIS GONDIBERT.
+
+
+ Well, we are rescued! and by thy rare pen
+ Poets shall live, when princes die like men.
+ Th' hast clear'd the prospect to our harmless hill,
+ Of late years clouded with imputed ill,
+ And the soft, youthful couples there may move,
+ As chaste as stars converse and smile above.
+ Th' hast taught their language and their love to flow
+ Calm as rose-leaves, and cool as virgin-snow,
+ Which doubly feasts us, being so refin'd,
+ They both delight and dignify the mind;
+ Like to the wat'ry music of some spring,
+ Whose pleasant flowings at once wash and sing.
+ And where before heroic poems were
+ Made up of spirits, prodigies, and fear,
+ And show'd--through all the melancholy flight--
+ Like some dark region overcast with night,
+ As if the poet had been quite dismay'd,
+ While only giants and enchantments sway'd;
+ Thou like the sun, whose eye brooks no disguise,
+ Hast chas'd them hence, and with discoveries
+ So rare and learned fill'd the place, that we
+ Those fam'd grandezas find outdone by thee,
+ And underfoot see all those vizards hurl'd
+ Which bred the wonder of the former world.
+ 'Twas dull to sit, as our forefathers did,
+ At crumbs and voiders, and because unbid,
+ Refrain wise appetite. This made thy fire
+ Break through the ashes of thy aged sire,
+ To lend the world such a convincing light
+ As shows his fancy darker than his sight.
+ Nor was't alone the bars and length of days
+ --Though those gave strength and stature to his bays--
+ Encounter'd thee, but what's an old complaint
+ And kills the fancy, a forlorn restraint.
+ How couldst thou, mur'd in solitary stones,
+ Dress Birtha's smiles, though well thou mightst her groans?
+ And, strangely eloquent, thyself divide
+ 'Twixt sad misfortunes and a bloomy bride?
+ Through all the tenour of thy ample song,
+ Spun from thy own rich store, and shar'd among
+ Those fair adventurers, we plainly see
+ Th' imputed gifts inherent are in thee.
+ Then live for ever--and by high desert--
+ In thy own mirror, matchless Gondibert,
+ And in bright Birtha leave thy love enshrin'd
+ Fresh as her em'rald, and fair as her mind,
+ While all confess thee--as they ought to do--
+ The prince of poets, and of lovers too.
+
+
+
+
+[OVID,] TRISTIUM, LIB. V. ELEG. III.
+
+TO HIS FELLOW-POETS AT ROME, UPON THE BIRTHDAY OF BACCHUS.
+
+
+ This is the day--blithe god of sack--which we,
+ If I mistake not, consecrate to thee,
+ When the soft rose we marry to the bays,
+ And, warm'd with thy own wine, rehearse thy praise;
+ 'Mongst whom--while to thy poet fate gave way--
+ I have been held no small part of the day.
+ But now, dull'd with the cold Bear's frozen seat,
+ Sarmatia holds me, and the warlike Gete.
+ My former life, unlike to this my last,
+ With Rome's best wits of thy full cup did taste,
+ Who since have seen the savage Pontic band,
+ And all the choler of the sea and land.
+ Whether sad chance or Heav'n hath this design'd,
+ And at my birth some fatal planet shin'd,
+ Of right thou shouldst the sisters' knots undo,
+ And free thy votary and poet too;
+ Or are you gods--like us--in such a state
+ As cannot alter the decrees of fate?
+ I know with much ado thou didst obtain
+ Thy jovial godhead, and on earth thy pain
+ Was no whit less, for, wand'ring, thou didst run
+ To the Getes too, and snow-weeping Strymon,
+ With Persia, Ganges, and whatever streams
+ The thirsty Moor drinks in the mid-day beams.
+ But thou wert twice-born, and the Fates to thee
+ --To make all sure--doubled thy misery.
+ My sufferings too are many--if it be
+ Held safe for me to boast adversity--
+ Nor was't a common blow, but from above,
+ Like his that died for imitating Jove;
+ Which, when thou heardst, a ruin so divine
+ And mother-like should make thee pity mine,
+ And on this day, which poets unto thee
+ Crown with full bowls, ask what's become of me?
+ Help, buxom god, then! so may thy lov'd vine
+ Swarm with the num'rous grape, and big with wine
+ Load the kind elm, and so thy orgies be
+ With priests' loud shouts and satyrs' kept to thee!
+ So may in death Lycurgus ne'er be blest,
+ Nor Pentheus' wand'ring ghost find any rest!
+ And so for ever bright--thy chief desires--
+ May thy wife's crown outshine the lesser fires!
+ If but now, mindful of my love to thee,
+ Thou wilt, in what thou canst, my helper be.
+ You gods have commerce with yourselves; try then
+ If Caesar will restore me Rome again.
+ And you, my trusty friends--the jolly crew
+ Of careless poets! when, without me, you
+ Perform this day's glad myst'ries, let it be
+ Your first appeal unto his deity,
+ And let one of you--touch'd with my sad name--
+ Mixing his wine with tears, lay down the same,
+ And--sighing--to the rest this thought commend,
+ O! where is Ovid now, our banish'd friend?
+ This do, if in your breasts I e'er deserv'd
+ So large a share, nor spitefully reserv'd,
+ Nor basely sold applause, or with a brow
+ Condemning others, did myself allow.
+ And may your happier wits grow loud with fame
+ As you--my best of friends!--preserve my name.
+
+
+
+
+[OVID, EPISTOLARUM] DE PONTO, LIB. III. [EPIST. VII.].
+
+TO HIS FRIENDS--AFTER HIS MANY SOLICITATIONS--REFUSING TO PETITION CAESAR
+FOR HIS RELEASEMENT.
+
+
+ You have consum'd my language, and my pen,
+ Incens'd with begging, scorns to write again.
+ You grant, you knew my suit: my Muse and I
+ Had taught it you in frequent elegy.
+ That I believe--yet seal'd--you have divin'd
+ Our repetitions, and forestall'd my mind,
+ So that my thronging elegies and I
+ Have made you--more than poets--prophesy.
+ But I am now awak'd; forgive my dream
+ Which made me cross the proverb and the stream,
+ And pardon, friends, that I so long have had
+ Such good thoughts of you; I am not so mad
+ As to continue them. You shall no more
+ Complain of troublesome verse, or write o'er
+ How I endanger you, and vex my wife
+ With the sad legends of a banish'd life.
+ I'll bear these plagues myself: for I have pass'd
+ Through greater ones, and can as well at last
+ These petty crosses. 'Tis for some young beast
+ To kick his bands, or wish his neck releas'd
+ From the sad yoke. Know then, that as for me
+ Whom Fate hath us'd to such calamity,
+ I scorn her spite and yours, and freely dare
+ The highest ills your malice can prepare.
+ 'Twas Fortune threw me hither, where I now
+ Rude Getes and Thrace see, with the snowy brow
+ Of cloudy Aemus, and if she decree
+ Her sportive pilgrim's last bed here must be,
+ I am content; nay, more, she cannot do
+ That act which I would not consent unto.
+ I can delight in vain hopes, and desire
+ That state more than her change and smiles; then high'r
+ I hug a strong despair, and think it brave
+ To baffle faith, and give those hopes a grave.
+ Have you not seen cur'd wounds enlarg'd, and he
+ That with the first wave sinks, yielding to th' free
+ Waters, without th' expense of arms or breath,
+ Hath still the easiest and the quickest death.
+ Why nurse I sorrows then? why these desires
+ Of changing Scythia for the sun and fires
+ Of some calm kinder air? what did bewitch
+ My frantic hopes to fly so vain a pitch,
+ And thus outrun myself? Madman! could I
+ Suspect fate had for me a courtesy?
+ These errors grieve: and now I must forget
+ Those pleas'd ideas I did frame and set
+ Unto myself, with many fancied springs
+ And groves, whose only loss new sorrow brings.
+ And yet I would the worst of fate endure,
+ Ere you should be repuls'd, or less secure.
+ But--base, low souls!--you left me not for this,
+ But 'cause you durst not. Caesar could not miss
+ Of such a trifle, for I know that he
+ Scorns the cheap triumphs of my misery.
+ Then since--degen'rate friends--not he, but you
+ Cancel my hopes, and make afflictions new,
+ You shall confess, and fame shall tell you, I
+ At Ister dare as well as Tiber die.
+
+
+
+
+[OVID, EPISTOLARUM] DE PONTO, LIB. IV. EPIST. III.
+
+TO HIS INCONSTANT FRIEND, TRANSLATED FOR THE USE OF ALL THE JUDASES OF
+THIS TOUCHSTONE-AGE.
+
+
+ Shall I complain, or not? or shall I mask
+ Thy hateful name, and in this bitter task
+ Master my just impatience, and write down
+ Thy crime alone, and leave the rest unknown?
+ Or wilt thou the succeeding years should see
+ And teach thy person to posterity?
+ No, hope it not; for know, most wretched man,
+ 'Tis not thy base and weak detraction can
+ Buy thee a poem, nor move me to give
+ Thy name the honour in my verse to live.
+ Whilst yet my ship did with no storms dispute,
+ And temp'rate winds fed with a calm salute
+ My prosp'rous sails, thou wert the only man
+ That with me then an equal fortune ran;
+ But now since angry heav'n with clouds and night
+ Stifled those sunbeams, thou hast ta'en thy flight;
+ Thou know'st I want thee, and art merely gone
+ To shun that rescue I reli'd upon;
+ Nay, thou dissemblest too, and dost disclaim
+ Not only my acquaintance, but my name.
+ Yet know--though deaf to this--that I am he
+ Whose years and love had the same infancy
+ With thine, thy deep familiar that did share
+ Souls with thee, and partake thy joys or care;
+ Whom the same roof lodg'd, and my Muse those nights
+ So solemnly endear'd to her delights.
+ But now, perfidious traitor, I am grown
+ The abject of thy breast, not to be known
+ In that false closet more; nay, thou wilt not
+ So much as let me know I am forgot.
+ If thou wilt say thou didst not love me, then
+ Thou didst dissemble: or if love again,
+ Why now inconstant? Came the crime from me
+ That wrought this change? Sure, if no justice be
+ Of my side, thine must have it. Why dost hide
+ Thy reasons then? For me, I did so guide
+ Myself and actions, that I cannot see
+ What could offend thee, but my misery.
+ 'Las! if thou wouldst not from thy store allow
+ Some rescue to my wants, at least I know
+ Thou couldst have writ, and with a line or two
+ Reliev'd my famish'd eye, and eas'd me so.
+ I know not what to think! and yet I hear,
+ Not pleas'd with this, th'art witty, and dost jeer.
+ Bad man! thou hast in this those tears kept back
+ I could have shed for thee, shouldst thou but lack.
+ Know'st not that Fortune on a globe doth stand,
+ Whose upper slipp'ry part without command
+ Turns lowest still? the sportive leaves and wind
+ Are but dull emblems of her fickle mind.
+ In the whole world there's nothing I can see
+ Will throughly parallel her ways but thee.
+ All that we hold hangs on a slender twine,
+ And our best states by sudden chance decline.
+ Who hath not heard of Cr[oe]sus' proverb'd gold,
+ Yet knows his foe did him a pris'ner hold?
+ He that once aw'd Sicilia's proud extent
+ By a poor art could famine scarce prevent;
+ And mighty Pompey, ere he made an end,
+ Was glad to beg his slave to be his friend.
+ Nay, he that had so oft Rome's consul been,
+ And forc'd Jugurtha and the Cimbrians in,
+ Great Marius! with much want and more disgrace,
+ In a foul marsh was glad to hide his face.
+ A Divine hand sways all mankind, and we
+ Of one short hour have not the certainty.
+ Hadst thou one day told me the time should be
+ When the Getes' bows, and th' Euxine I should see,
+ I should have check'd thy madness, and have thought
+ Th' hadst need of all Anticyra in a draught.
+ And yet 'tis come to pass! nor, though I might
+ Some things foresee, could I procure a sight
+ Of my whole destiny, and free my state
+ From those eternal, higher ties of fate.
+ Leave then thy pride, and though now brave and high,
+ Think thou mayst be as poor and low as I.
+
+
+
+
+[OVID,] TRISTIUM, LIB. III. ELEG. III.
+
+TO HIS WIFE AT ROME, WHEN HE WAS SICK.
+
+
+ Dearest! if you those fair eyes--wond'ring--stick
+ On this strange character, know I am sick;
+ Sick in the skirts of the lost world, where I
+ Breathe hopeless of all comforts, but to die.
+ What heart--think'st thou?--have I in this sad seat,
+ Tormented 'twixt the Sauromate and Gete?
+ Nor air nor water please: their very sky
+ Looks strange and unaccustom'd to my eye;
+ I scarce dare breathe it, and, I know not how,
+ The earth that bears me shows unpleasant now.
+ Nor diet here's, nor lodging for my ease,
+ Nor any one that studies a disease;
+ No friend to comfort me, none to defray
+ With smooth discourse the charges of the day.
+ All tir'd alone I lie, and--thus--whate'er
+ Is absent, and at Rome, I fancy here.
+ But when thou com'st, I blot the airy scroll,
+ And give thee full possession of my soul.
+ Thee--absent--I embrace, thee only voice.
+ And night and day belie a husband's joys.
+ Nay, of thy name so oft I mention make
+ That I am thought distracted for thy sake.
+ When my tir'd spirits fail, and my sick heart
+ Draws in that fire which actuates each part,
+ If any say, th'art come! I force my pain,
+ And hope to see thee gives me life again.
+ Thus I for thee, whilst thou--perhaps--more blest,
+ Careless of me dost breathe all peace and rest,
+ Which yet I think not, for--dear soul!--too well
+ Know I thy grief, since my first woes befell.
+ But if strict Heav'n my stock of days hath spun,
+ And with my life my error will be gone,
+ How easy then--O Caesar!--were't for thee
+ To pardon one, that now doth cease to be?
+ That I might yield my native air this breath,
+ And banish not my ashes after death.
+ Would thou hadst either spar'd me until dead,
+ Or with my blood redeem'd my absent head!
+ Thou shouldst have had both freely, but O! thou
+ Wouldst have me live to die an exile now.
+ And must I then from Rome so far meet death,
+ And double by the place my loss of breath?
+ Nor in my last of hours on my own bed
+ --In the sad conflict--rest my dying head?
+ Nor my soul's whispers--the last pledge of life,--
+ Mix with the tears and kisses of a wife?
+ My last words none must treasure, none will rise
+ And--with a tear--seal up my vanquish'd eyes;
+ Without these rites I die, distress'd in all
+ The splendid sorrows of a funeral;
+ Unpitied, and unmourn'd for, my sad head
+ In a strange land goes friendless to the dead.
+ When thou hear'st this, O! how thy faithful soul
+ Will sink, whilst grief doth ev'ry part control!
+ How often wilt thou look this way, and cry,
+ O! where is't yonder that my love doth lie?
+ Yet spare these tears, and mourn not thou for me,
+ Long since--dear heart!--have I been dead to thee.
+ Think then I died, when thee and Rome I lost,
+ That death to me more grief than this hath cost.
+ Now, if thou canst--but thou canst not--best wife,
+ Rejoice, my cares are ended with my life.
+ At least, yield not to sorrows, frequent use
+ Should make these miseries to thee no news.
+ And here I wish my soul died with my breath,
+ And that no part of me were free from death;
+ For, if it be immortal, and outlives
+ The body, as Pythagoras believes,
+ Betwixt these Sarmates' ghosts, a Roman I
+ Shall wander, vex'd to all eternity.
+ But thou--for after death I shall be free--
+ Fetch home these bones, and what is left of me;
+ A few flow'rs give them, with some balm, and lay
+ Them in some suburb grave, hard by the way;
+ And to inform posterity, who's there,
+ This sad inscription let my marble wear;
+ "Here lies the soft-soul'd lecturer of love,
+ Whose envi'd wit did his own ruin prove.
+ But thou,--whoe'er thou be'st, that, passing by,
+ Lend'st to this sudden stone a hasty eye,
+ If e'er thou knew'st of love the sweet disease,
+ Grudge not to say, May Ovid rest in peace!"
+ This for my tomb: but in my books they'll see
+ More strong and lasting monuments of me,
+ Which I believe--though fatal--will afford
+ An endless name unto their ruin'd lord.
+ And now thus gone, it rests, for love of me,
+ Thou show'st some sorrow to my memory;
+ Thy funeral off'rings to my ashes bear,
+ With wreaths of cypress bath'd in many a tear.
+ Though nothing there but dust of me remain,
+ Yet shall that dust perceive thy pious pain.
+ But I have done, and my tir'd, sickly head,
+ Though I would fain write more, desires the bed;
+ Take then this word--perhaps my last--to tell,
+ Which though I want, I wish it thee, farewell!
+
+
+
+
+AUSONII. IDYLL VI.
+
+CUPIDO [CRUCI AFFIXUS].
+
+
+ In those bless'd fields of everlasting air
+ --Where to a myrtle grove the souls repair
+ Of deceas'd lovers--the sad, thoughtful ghosts
+ Of injur'd ladies meet, where each accosts
+ The other with a sigh, whose very breath
+ Would break a heart, and--kind souls--love in death.
+ A thick wood clouds their walks, where day scarce peeps,
+ And on each hand cypress and poppy sleeps;
+ The drowsy rivers slumber, and springs there
+ Blab not, but softly melt into a tear;
+ A sickly dull air fans them, which can have,
+ When most in force, scarce breath to build a wave.
+ On either bank through the still shades appear
+ A scene of pensive flow'rs, whose bosoms wear
+ Drops of a lover's blood, the emblem'd truths
+ Of deep despair, and love-slain kings and youths.
+ The Hyacinth, and self-enamour'd boy
+ Narcissus flourish there, with Venus' joy,
+ The spruce Adonis, and that prince whose flow'r
+ Hath sorrow languag'd on him to this hour;
+ All sad with love they hang their heads, and grieve
+ As if their passions in each leaf did live;
+ And here--alas!--these soft-soul'd ladies stray,
+ And--O! too late!--treason in love betray.
+ Her blasted birth sad Semele repeats,
+ And with her tears would quench the thund'rer's heats,
+ Then shakes her bosom, as if fir'd again,
+ And fears another lightning's flaming train.
+ The lovely Procris here bleeds, sighs, and swoons,
+ Then wakes, and kisses him that gave her wounds.
+ Sad Hero holds a torch forth, and doth light
+ Her lost Leander through the waves and night,
+ Her boatman desp'rate Sappho still admires,
+ And nothing but the sea can quench her fires.
+ Distracted Phaedra with a restless eye
+ Her disdain'd letters reads, then casts them by.
+ Rare, faithful Thisbe--sequest'red from these--
+ A silent, unseen sorrow doth best please;
+ For her love's sake and last good-night poor she
+ Walks in the shadow of a mulberry.
+ Near her young Canace with Dido sits,
+ A lovely couple, but of desp'rate wits;
+ Both di'd alike, both pierc'd their tender breasts,
+ This with her father's sword, that with her guest's.
+ Within the thickest textures of the grove
+ Diana in her silver beams doth rove;
+ Her crown of stars the pitchy air invades,
+ And with a faint light gilds the silent shades,
+ Whilst her sad thoughts, fix'd on her sleepy lover,
+ To Latmos hill and his retirements move her.
+ A thousand more through the wide, darksome wood
+ Feast on their cares, the maudlin lover's food;
+ For grief and absence do but edge desire,
+ And death is fuel to a lover's fire.
+ To see these trophies of his wanton bow,
+ Cupid comes in, and all in triumph now--
+ Rash unadvised boy!--disperseth round
+ The sleepy mists; his wings and quiver wound
+ With noise the quiet air. This sudden stir
+ Betrays his godship, and as we from far
+ A clouded, sickly moon observe, so they
+ Through the false mists his eclips'd torch betray.
+ A hot pursuit they make, and, though with care
+ And a slow wing, he softly stems the air,
+ Yet they--as subtle now as he--surround
+ His silenc'd course, and with the thick night bound
+ Surprise the wag. As in a dream we strive
+ To voice our thoughts, and vainly would revive
+ Our entranc'd tongues, but cannot speech enlarge,
+ 'Till the soul wakes and reassumes her charge;
+ So, joyous of their prize, they flock about
+ And vainly swell with an imagin'd shout.
+ Far in these shades and melancholy coasts
+ A myrtle grows, well known to all the ghosts,
+ Whose stretch'd top--like a great man rais'd by Fate--
+ Looks big, and scorns his neighbour's low estate;
+ His leafy arms into a green cloud twist,
+ And on each branch doth sit a lazy mist,
+ A fatal tree, and luckless to the gods,
+ Where for disdain in life--Love's worst of odds--
+ The queen of shades, fair Proserpine, did rack
+ The sad Adonis: hither now they pack
+ This little god, where, first disarm'd, they bind
+ His skittish wings, then both his hands behind
+ His back they tie, and thus secur'd at last,
+ The peevish wanton to the tree make fast.
+ Here at adventure, without judge or jury,
+ He is condemn'd, while with united fury
+ They all assail him. As a thief at bar
+ Left to the law, and mercy of his star,
+ Hath bills heap'd on him, and is question'd there
+ By all the men that have been robb'd that year;
+ So now whatever Fate or their own will
+ Scor'd up in life, Cupid must pay the bill.
+ Their servant's falsehood, jealousy, disdain,
+ And all the plagues that abus'd maids can feign,
+ Are laid on him, and then to heighten spleen,
+ Their own deaths crown the sum. Press'd thus between
+ His fair accusers, 'tis at last decreed
+ He by those weapons, that they died, should bleed.
+ One grasps an airy sword, a second holds
+ Illusive fire, and in vain wanton folds
+ Belies a flame; others, less kind, appear
+ To let him blood, and from the purple tear
+ Create a rose. But Sappho all this while
+ Harvests the air, and from a thicken'd pile
+ Of clouds like Leucas top spreads underneath
+ A sea of mists; the peaceful billows breathe
+ Without all noise, yet so exactly move
+ They seem to chide, but distant from above
+ Reach not the ear, and--thus prepar'd--at once
+ She doth o'erwhelm him with the airy sconce.
+ Amidst these tumults, and as fierce as they,
+ Venus steps in, and without thought or stay
+ Invades her son; her old disgrace is cast
+ Into the bill, when Mars and she made fast
+ In their embraces were expos'd to all
+ The scene of gods, stark naked in their fall.
+ Nor serves a verbal penance, but with haste
+ From her fair brow--O happy flow'rs so plac'd!--
+ She tears a rosy garland, and with this
+ Whips the untoward boy; they gently kiss
+ His snowy skin, but she with angry haste
+ Doubles her strength, until bedew'd at last
+ With a thin bloody sweat, their innate red,
+ --As if griev'd with the act--grew pale and dead.
+ This laid their spleen; and now--kind souls--no more
+ They'll punish him; the torture that he bore
+ Seems greater than his crime; with joint consent
+ Fate is made guilty, and he innocent.
+ As in a dream with dangers we contest,
+ And fictious pains seem to afflict our rest,
+ So, frighted only in these shades of night,
+ Cupid--got loose--stole to the upper light,
+ Where ever since--for malice unto these--
+ The spiteful ape doth either sex displease.
+ But O! that had these ladies been so wise
+ To keep his arms, and give him but his eyes!
+
+
+
+
+BOET[HIUS, DE CONSOLATIONE]
+
+LIB. I. METRUM I.
+
+
+ I whose first year flourish'd with youthful verse,
+ In slow, sad numbers now my grief rehearse.
+ A broken style my sickly lines afford,
+ And only tears give weight unto my words.
+ Yet neither fate nor force my Muse could fright,
+ The only faithful consort of my flight.
+ Thus what was once my green years' greatest glory,
+ Is now my comfort, grown decay'd and hoary;
+ For killing cares th' effects of age spurr'd on,
+ That grief might find a fitting mansion;
+ O'er my young head runs an untimely grey,
+ And my loose skin shrinks at my blood's decay.
+ Happy the man, whose death in prosp'rous years
+ Strikes not, nor shuns him in his age and tears!
+ But O! how deaf is she to hear the cry
+ Of th' oppress'd soul, or shut the weeping eye!
+ While treach'rous Fortune with slight honours fed
+ My first estate, she almost drown'd my head,
+ And now since--clouded thus--she hides those rays,
+ Life adds unwelcom'd length unto my days.
+ Why then, my friends, judg'd you my state so good?
+ He that may fall once, never firmly stood.
+
+
+
+
+METRUM II.
+
+
+ O in what haste, with clouds and night
+ Eclips'd, and having lost her light,
+ The dull soul whom distraction rends
+ Into outward darkness tends!
+ How often--by these mists made blind--
+ Have earthly cares oppress'd the mind!
+ This soul, sometimes wont to survey
+ The spangled Zodiac's fiery way,
+ Saw th' early sun in roses dress'd,
+ With the cool moon's unstable crest,
+ And whatsoever wanton star,
+ In various courses near or far,
+ Pierc'd through the orbs, he could full well
+ Track all her journey, and would tell
+ Her mansions, turnings, rise and fall,
+ By curious calculation all.
+ Of sudden winds the hidden cause,
+ And why the calm sea's quiet face
+ With impetuous waves is curl'd,
+ What spirit wheels th' harmonious world,
+ Or why a star dropp'd in the west
+ Is seen to rise again by east,
+ Who gives the warm Spring temp'rate hours,
+ Decking the Earth with spicy flow'rs,
+ Or how it comes--for man's recruit--
+ That Autumn yields both grape and fruit,
+ With many other secrets, he
+ Could show the cause and mystery.
+ But now that light is almost out,
+ And the brave soul lies chain'd about
+ With outward cares, whose pensive weight
+ Sinks down her eyes from their first height.
+ And clean contrary to her birth
+ Pores on this vile and foolish Earth.
+
+
+
+
+METRUM IV.
+
+
+ Whose calm soul in a settled state
+ Kicks under foot the frowns of Fate,
+ And in his fortunes, bad or good,
+ Keeps the same temper in his blood;
+ Not him the flaming clouds above,
+ Nor Aetna's fiery tempests move;
+ No fretting seas from shore to shore,
+ Boiling with indignation o'er,
+ Nor burning thunderbolt that can
+ A mountain shake, can stir this man.
+ Dull cowards then! why should we start
+ To see these tyrants act their part?
+ Nor hope, nor fear what may befall,
+ And you disarm their malice all.
+ But who doth faintly fear or wish,
+ And sets no law to what is his,
+ Hath lost the buckler, and--poor elf!--
+ Makes up a chain to bind himself.
+
+
+
+
+METRUM V.
+
+
+ O Thou great builder of this starry frame,
+ Who fix'd in Thy eternal throne doth tame
+ The rapid spheres, and lest they jar
+ Hast giv'n a law to ev'ry star.
+ Thou art the cause that now the moon
+ With fall orb dulls the stars, and soon
+ Again grows dark, her light being done,
+ The nearer still she's to the sun.
+ Thou in the early hours of night
+ Mak'st the cool evening-star shine bright,
+ And at sun-rising--'cause the least--
+ Look pale and sleepy in the east.
+ Thou, when the leaves in winter stray,
+ Appoint'st the sun a shorter way,
+ And in the pleasant summer light,
+ With nimble hours dost wing the night.
+ Thy hand the various year quite through
+ Discreetly tempers, that what now
+ The north-wind tears from ev'ry tree
+ In spring again restor'd we see.
+ Then what the winter stars between
+ The furrows in mere seed have seen,
+ The dog-star since--grown up and born--
+ Hath burnt in stately, full-ear'd corn.
+ Thus by creation's law controll'd
+ All things their proper stations hold,
+ Observing--as Thou didst intend--
+ Why they were made, and for what end.
+ Only human actions Thou
+ Hast no care of, but to the flow
+ And ebb of Fortune leav'st them all.
+ Hence th' innocent endures that thrall
+ Due to the wicked; whilst alone
+ They sit possessors of his throne.
+ The just are kill'd, and virtue lies
+ Buried in obscurities;
+ And--which of all things is most sad--
+ The good man suffers by the bad.
+ No perjuries, nor damn'd pretence
+ Colour'd with holy, lying sense
+ Can them annoy, but when they mind
+ To try their force, which most men find,
+ They from the highest sway of things
+ Can pull down great and pious kings.
+ O then at length, thus loosely hurl'd,
+ Look on this miserable world,
+ Whoe'er Thou art, that from above
+ Dost in such order all things move!
+ And let not man--of divine art
+ Not the least, nor vilest part--
+ By casual evils thus bandied, be
+ The sport of Fate's obliquity.
+ But with that faith Thou guid'st the heaven
+ Settle this earth, and make them even.
+
+
+
+
+METRUM VI.
+
+
+ When the Crab's fierce constellation
+ Burns with the beams of the bright sun,
+ Then he that will go out to sow,
+ Shall never reap, where he did plough,
+ But instead of corn may rather
+ The old world's diet, acorns, gather.
+ Who the violet doth love,
+ Must seek her in the flow'ry grove,
+ But never when the North's cold wind
+ The russet fields with frost doth bind.
+ If in the spring-time--to no end--
+ The tender vine for grapes we bend,
+ We shall find none, for only--still--
+ Autumn doth the wine-press fill.
+ Thus for all things--in the world's prime--
+ The wise God seal'd their proper time,
+ Nor will permit those seasons, He
+ Ordain'd by turns, should mingled be;
+ Then whose wild actions out of season
+ Cross to Nature, and her reason,
+ Would by new ways old orders rend,
+ Shall never find a happy end.
+
+
+
+
+METRUM VII.
+
+
+ Curtain'd with clouds in a dark night,
+ The stars cannot send forth their light.
+ And if a sudden southern blast
+ The sea in rolling waves doth cast,
+ That angry element doth boil,
+ And from the deep with stormy coil
+ Spews up the sands, which in short space
+ Scatter, and puddle his curl'd face.
+ Then those calm waters, which but now
+ Stood clear as heaven's unclouded brow,
+ And like transparent glass did lie
+ Open to ev'ry searcher's eye,
+ Look foully stirr'd and--though desir'd--
+ Resist the sight, because bemir'd.
+ So often from a high hill's brow
+ Some pilgrim-spring is seen to flow,
+ And in a straight line keep her course,
+ 'Till from a rock with headlong force
+ Some broken piece blocks up the way,
+ And forceth all her streams astray.
+ Then thou that with enlighten'd rays
+ Wouldst see the truth, and in her ways
+ Keep without error; neither fear
+ The future, nor too much give ear
+ To present joys; and give no scope
+ To grief, nor much to flatt'ring hope.
+ For when these rebels reign, the mind
+ Is both a pris'ner, and stark blind.
+
+
+
+
+LIB. II. METRUM I.
+
+
+ Fortune--when with rash hands she quite turmoils
+ The state of things, and in tempestuous foils
+ Comes whirling like Euripus--beats quite down
+ With headlong force the highest monarch's crown,
+ And in his place, unto the throne doth fetch
+ The despis'd looks of some mechanic wretch:
+ So jests at tears and miseries, is proud,
+ And laughs to hear her vassals groan aloud.
+ These are her sports, thus she her wheel doth drive,
+ And plagues man with her blind prerogative;
+ Nor is't a favour of inferior strain,
+ If once kick'd down, she lets him rise again.
+
+
+
+
+METRUM II.
+
+
+ If with an open, bounteous hand
+ --Wholly left at man's command--
+ Fortune should in one rich flow
+ As many heaps on him bestow
+ Of massy gold, as there be sands
+ Toss'd by the waves and winds rude bands,
+ Or bright stars in a winter night
+ Decking their silent orbs with light;
+ Yet would his lust know no restraints,
+ Nor cease to weep in sad complaints.
+ Though Heaven should his vows regard,
+ And in a prodigal reward
+ Return him all he could implore,
+ Adding new honours to his store,
+ Yet all were nothing. Goods in sight
+ Are scorn'd, and lust in greedy flight
+ Lays out for more; what measure then
+ Can tame these wild desires of men?
+ Since all we give both last and first
+ Doth but inflame, and feed their thirst.
+ For how can he be rich, who 'midst his store
+ Sits sadly pining, and believes he's poor.
+
+
+
+
+METRUM III.
+
+
+ When the sun from his rosy bed
+ The dawning light begins to shed,
+ The drowsy sky uncurtains round,
+ And the--but now bright--stars all drown'd
+ In one great light look dull and tame,
+ And homage his victorious flame.
+ Thus, when the warm Etesian wind
+ The Earth's seal'd bosom doth unbind,
+ Straight she her various store discloses,
+ And purples every grove with roses;
+ But if the South's tempestuous breath
+ Breaks forth, those blushes pine to death.
+ Oft in a quiet sky the deep
+ With unmov'd waves seems fast asleep,
+ And oft again the blust'ring North
+ In angry heaps provokes them forth.
+ If then this world, which holds all nations,
+ Suffers itself such alterations,
+ That not this mighty massy frame,
+ Nor any part of it can claim
+ One certain course, why should man prate,
+ Or censure the designs of Fate?
+ Why from frail honours, and goods lent
+ Should he expect things permanent?
+ Since 'tis enacted by Divine decree
+ That nothing mortal shall eternal be.
+
+
+
+
+METRUM IV.
+
+
+ Who wisely would for his retreat
+ Build a secure and lasting seat,
+ Where stov'd in silence he may sleep
+ Beneath the wind, above the deep;
+ Let him th' high hills leave on one hand,
+ And on the other the false sand.
+ The first to winds lies plain and even,
+ From all the blust'ring points of heaven;
+ The other, hollow and unsure,
+ No weight of building will endure.
+ Avoiding then the envied state
+ Of buildings bravely situate,
+ Remember thou thyself to lock
+ Within some low neglected rock.
+ There when fierce heaven in thunder chides,
+ And winds and waves rage on all sides,
+ Thou happy in the quiet sense
+ Of thy poor cell, with small expense
+ Shall lead a life serene and fair,
+ And scorn the anger of the air.
+
+
+
+
+METRUM V.
+
+
+ Happy that first white age! when we
+ Lived by the Earth's mere charity.
+ No soft luxurious diet then
+ Had effeminated men,
+ No other meat, nor wine had any
+ Than the coarse mast, or simple honey,
+ And by the parents' care laid up
+ Cheap berries did the children sup.
+ No pompous wear was in those days
+ Of gummy silks, or scarlet baize,
+ Their beds were on some flow'ry brink,
+ And clear spring-water was their drink.
+ The shady pine in the sun's heat
+ Was their cool and known retreat,
+ For then 'twas not cut down, but stood
+ The youth and glory of the wood.
+ The daring sailor with his slaves
+ Then had not cut the swelling waves,
+ Nor for desire of foreign store
+ Seen any but his native shore.
+ No stirring drum had scarr'd that age,
+ Nor the shrill trumpet's active rage,
+ No wounds by bitter hatred made
+ With warm blood soil'd the shining blade;
+ For how could hostile madness arm
+ An age of love, to public harm?
+ When common justice none withstood,
+ Nor sought rewards for spilling blood.
+ O that at length our age would raise
+ Into the temper of those days!
+ But--worse than Aetna's fires!--debate
+ And avarice inflame our State.
+ Alas! who was it that first found
+ Gold, hid of purpose under ground,
+ That sought our pearls, and div'd to find
+ Such precious perils for mankind!
+
+
+
+
+METRUM VII.
+
+
+ He that thirsts for glory's prize,
+ Thinking that the top of all,
+ Let him view th' expansed skies,
+ And the earth's contracted ball;
+ 'Twill shame him then: the name he wan
+ Fills not the short walk of one man.
+
+
+2.
+
+ O why vainly strive you then
+ To shake off the bands of Fate,
+ Though Fame through the world of men
+ Should in all tongues your names relate,
+ And with proud titles swell that story:
+ The dark grave scorns your brightest glory.
+
+
+3.
+
+ There with nobles beggars sway,
+ And kings with commons share one dust.
+ What news of Brutus at this day,
+ Or Fabricius the just?
+ Some rude verse, cut in stone, or lead,
+ Keeps up the names, but they are dead.
+
+
+4.
+
+ So shall you one day--past reprieve--
+ Lie--perhaps--without a name.
+ But if dead you think to live
+ By this air of human fame,
+ Know, when Time stops that posthume breath,
+ You must endure a second death.
+
+
+
+
+METRUM VIII.
+
+
+ That the world in constant force
+ Varies her concordant course;
+ That seeds jarring hot and cold
+ Do the breed perpetual hold;
+ That in his golden coach the sun
+ Brings the rosy day still on;
+ That the moon sways all those lights
+ Which Hesper ushers to dark nights;
+ That alternate tides be found
+ The sea's ambitious waves to bound,
+ Lest o'er the wide earth without end
+ Their fluid empire should extend;
+ All this frame of things that be,
+ Love which rules heaven, land, and sea,
+ Chains, keeps, orders as we see.
+ This, if the reins he once cast by,
+ All things that now by turns comply
+ Would fall to discord, and this frame
+ Which now by social faith they tame,
+ And comely orders, in that fight
+ And jar of things would perish quite.
+ This in a holy league of peace
+ Keeps king and people with increase;
+ And in the sacred nuptial bands
+ Ties up chaste hearts with willing hands;
+ And this keeps firm without all doubt
+ Friends by his bright instinct found out.
+ O happy nation then were you,
+ If love, which doth all things subdue,
+ That rules the spacious heav'n, and brings
+ Plenty and peace upon his wings,
+ Might rule you too! and without guile
+ Settle once more this floating isle!
+
+
+
+
+CASIMIRUS, [LYRICORUM] LIB. IV. ODE XXVIII.
+
+
+ Almighty Spirit! Thou that by
+ Set turns and changes from Thy high
+ And glorious throne dost here below
+ Rule all, and all things dost foreknow!
+ Can those blind plots we here discuss
+ Please Thee, as Thy wise counsels us?
+ When Thou Thy blessings here doth strow,
+ And pour on earth, we flock and flow,
+ With joyous strife and eager care,
+ Struggling which shall have the best share
+ In Thy rich gifts, just as we see
+ Children about nuts disagree.
+ Some that a crown have got and foil'd
+ Break it; another sees it spoil'd
+ Ere it is gotten. Thus the world
+ Is all to piecemeals cut, and hurl'd
+ By factious hands. It is a ball
+ Which Fate and force divide 'twixt all
+ The sons of men. But, O good God!
+ While these for dust fight, and a clod,
+ Grant that poor I may smile, and be
+ At rest and perfect peace with Thee!
+
+
+
+
+CASIMIRUS, [LYRICORUM] LIB. II. ODE VII.
+
+
+ It would less vex distressed man
+ If Fortune in the same pace ran
+ To ruin him, as he did rise.
+ But highest States fall in a trice;
+ No great success held ever long;
+ A restless fate afflicts the throng
+ Of kings and commons, and less days
+ Serve to destroy them than to raise.
+ Good luck smiles once an age, but bad
+ Makes kingdoms in a minute sad,
+ And ev'ry hour of life we drive,
+ Hath o'er us a prerogative.
+ Then leave--by wild impatience driv'n,
+ And rash resents--to rail at heav'n;
+ Leave an unmanly, weak complaint
+ That death and fate have no restraint.
+ In the same hour that gave thee breath,
+ Thou hadst ordain'd thy hour of death,
+ But he lives most who here will buy,
+ With a few tears, eternity.
+
+
+
+
+CASIMIRUS, [LYRICORUM] LIB. III. ODE XXII.
+
+
+ Let not thy youth and false delights
+ Cheat thee of life; those heady flights
+ But waste thy time, which posts away
+ Like winds unseen, and swift as they.
+ Beauty is but mere paint, whose dye
+ With Time's breath will dissolve and fly;
+ 'Tis wax, 'tis water, 'tis a glass,
+ It melts, breaks, and away doth pass.
+ 'Tis like a rose which in the dawn
+ The air with gentle breath doth fawn
+ And whisper to, but in the hours
+ Of night is sullied with smart showers.
+ Life spent is wish'd for but in vain,
+ Nor can past years come back again.
+ Happy the man, who in this vale
+ Redeems his time, shutting out all
+ Thoughts of the world, whose longing eyes
+ Are ever pilgrims in the skies,
+ That views his bright home, and desires
+ To shine amongst those glorious fires!
+
+
+
+
+CASIMIRUS, LYRIC[ORUM] LIB. III. ODE XXIII.
+
+
+ 'Tis not rich furniture and gems,
+ With cedar roofs and ancient stems,
+ Nor yet a plenteous, lasting flood
+ Of gold, that makes man truly good.
+ Leave to inquire in what fair fields
+ A river runs which much gold yields;
+ Virtue alone is the rich prize
+ Can purchase stars, and buy the skies.
+ Let others build with adamant,
+ Or pillars of carv'd marble plant,
+ Which rude and rough sometimes did dwell
+ Far under earth, and near to hell.
+ But richer much--from death releas'd--
+ Shines in the fresh groves of the East
+ The ph[oe]nix, or those fish that dwell
+ With silver'd scales in Hiddekel.
+ Let others with rare, various pearls
+ Their garments dress, and in forc'd curls
+ Bind up their locks, look big and high,
+ And shine in robes of scarlet dye.
+ But in my thoughts more glorious far
+ Those native stars and speckles are
+ Which birds wear, or the spots which we
+ In leopards dispersed see.
+ The harmless sheep with her warm fleece
+ Clothes man, but who his dark heart sees
+ Shall find a wolf or fox within,
+ That kills the castor for his skin.
+ Virtue alone, and nought else can
+ A diff'rence make 'twixt beasts and man;
+ And on her wings above the spheres
+ To the true light his spirit bears.
+
+
+
+
+CASIMIRUS, [LYRICORUM] LIB. IV. ODE XV.
+
+
+ Nothing on earth, nothing at all
+ Can be exempted from the thrall
+ Of peevish weariness! The sun,
+ Which our forefathers judg'd to run
+ Clear and unspotted, in our days
+ Is tax'd with sullen eclips'd rays.
+ Whatever in the glorious sky
+ Man sees, his rash audacious eye
+ Dares censure it, and in mere spite
+ At distance will condemn the light.
+ The wholesome mornings, whose beams clear
+ Those hills our fathers walk'd on here,
+ We fancy not; nor the moon's light
+ Which through their windows shin'd at night
+ We change the air each year, and scorn
+ Those seats in which we first were born.
+ Some nice, affected wand'rers love
+ Belgia's mild winters, others remove,
+ For want of health and honesty,
+ To summer it in Italy;
+ But to no end; the disease still
+ Sticks to his lord, and kindly will
+ To Venice in a barge repair,
+ Or coach it to Vienna's air;
+ And then--too late with home content--
+ They leave this wilful banishment.
+ But he, whose constancy makes sure
+ His mind and mansion, lives secure
+ From such vain tasks, can dine and sup
+ Where his old parents bred him up.
+ Content--no doubt!--most times doth dwell
+ In country shades, or to some cell
+ Confines itself; and can alone
+ Make simple straw a royal throne.
+
+
+
+
+CASIMIRUS, [LYRICORUM] LIB. IV. ODE XIII.
+
+
+ If weeping eyes could wash away
+ Those evils they mourn for night and day,
+ Then gladly I to cure my fears
+ With my best jewels would buy tears.
+ But as dew feeds the growing corn,
+ So crosses that are grown forlorn
+ Increase with grief, tears make tears' way,
+ And cares kept up keep cares in pay.
+ That wretch whom Fortune finds to fear,
+ And melting still into a tear,
+ She strikes more boldly, but a face
+ Silent and dry doth her amaze.
+ Then leave thy tears, and tedious tale
+ Of what thou dost misfortunes call.
+ What thou by weeping think'st to ease,
+ Doth by that passion but increase;
+ Hard things to soft will never yield,
+ 'Tis the dry eye that wins the field;
+ A noble patience quells the spite
+ Of Fortune, and disarms her quite.
+
+
+
+
+THE PRAISE OF A RELIGIOUS LIFE BY MATHIAS CASIMIRUS. [EPODON ODE III.]
+IN ANSWER TO THAT ODE OF HORACE, BEATUS ILLE QUI PROCUL NEGOTIIS, &c.
+
+
+ Flaccus, not so! that worldly he
+ Whom in the country's shade we see
+ Ploughing his own fields, seldom can
+ Be justly styl'd the blessed man.
+ That title only fits a saint,
+ Whose free thoughts, far above restraint
+ And weighty cares, can gladly part
+ With house and lands, and leave the smart,
+ Litigious troubles and loud strife
+ Of this world for a better life.
+ He fears no cold nor heat to blast
+ His corn, for his accounts are cast;
+ He sues no man, nor stands in awe
+ Of the devouring courts of law;
+ But all his time he spends in tears
+ For the sins of his youthful years;
+ Or having tasted those rich joys
+ Of a conscience without noise,
+ Sits in some fair shade, and doth give
+ To his wild thoughts rules how to live.
+ He in the evening, when on high
+ The stars shine in the silent sky,
+ Beholds th' eternal flames with mirth,
+ And globes of light more large than Earth;
+ Then weeps for joy, and through his tears
+ Looks on the fire-enamell'd spheres,
+ Where with his Saviour he would be
+ Lifted above mortality.
+ Meanwhile the golden stars do set,
+ And the slow pilgrim leave all wet
+ With his own tears, which flow so fast
+ They make his sleeps light, and soon past.
+ By this, the sun o'er night deceas'd
+ Breaks in fresh blushes from the East,
+ When, mindful of his former falls,
+ With strong cries to his God he calls,
+ And with such deep-drawn sighs doth move
+ That He turns anger into love.
+ In the calm Spring, when the Earth bears,
+ And feeds on April's breath and tears,
+ His eyes, accustom'd to the skies,
+ Find here fresh objects, and like spies
+ Or busy bees, search the soft flow'rs,
+ Contemplate the green fields and bow'rs,
+ Where he in veils and shades doth see
+ The back parts of the Deity.
+ Then sadly sighing says, "O! how
+ These flow'rs with hasty, stretch'd heads grow
+ And strive for heav'n, but rooted here
+ Lament the distance with a tear!
+ The honeysuckles clad in white,
+ The rose in red, point to the light;
+ And the lilies, hollow and bleak,
+ Look as if they would something speak;
+ They sigh at night to each soft gale,
+ And at the day-spring weep it all.
+ Shall I then only--wretched I!--
+ Oppress'd with earth, on earth still lie?"
+ Thus speaks he to the neighbour trees,
+ And many sad soliloquies
+ To springs and fountains doth impart,
+ Seeking God with a longing heart.
+ But if to ease his busy breast
+ He thinks of home, and taking rest,
+ A rural cot and common fare
+ Are all his cordials against care.
+ There at the door of his low cell,
+ Under some shade, or near some well
+ Where the cool poplar grows, his plate
+ Of common earth without more state
+ Expect their lord. Salt in a shell,
+ Green cheese, thin beer, draughts that will tell
+ No tales, a hospitable cup,
+ With some fresh berries, do make up
+ His healthful feast; nor doth he wish
+ For the fat carp, or a rare dish
+ Of Lucrine oysters; the swift quist
+ Or pigeon sometimes--if he list--
+ With the slow goose that loves the stream,
+ Fresh, various salads, and the bean
+ By curious palates never sought,
+ And, to close with, some cheap unbought
+ Dish for digestion, are the most
+ And choicest dainties he can boast.
+ Thus feasted, to the flow'ry groves
+ Or pleasant rivers he removes,
+ Where near some fair oak, hung with mast,
+ He shuns the South's infectious blast.
+ On shady banks sometimes he lies,
+ Sometimes the open current tries,
+ Where with his line and feather'd fly
+ He sports, and takes the scaly fry.
+ Meanwhile each hollow wood and hill
+ Doth ring with lowings long and shrill,
+ And shady lakes with rivers deep
+ Echo the bleating of the sheep;
+ The blackbird with the pleasant thrush
+ And nightingale in ev'ry bush
+ Choice music give, and shepherds play
+ Unto their flock some loving lay!
+ The thirsty reapers, in thick throngs,
+ Return home from the field with songs,
+ And the carts, laden with ripe corn,
+ Come groaning to the well-stor'd barn.
+ Nor pass we by, as the least good,
+ A peaceful, loving neighbourhood,
+ Whose honest wit, and chaste discourse
+ Make none--by hearing it--the worse,
+ But innocent and merry, may
+ Help--without sin--to spend the day.
+ Could now the tyrant usurer,
+ Who plots to be a purchaser
+ Of his poor neighbour's seat, but taste
+ These true delights, O! with what haste
+ And hatred of his ways, would he
+ Renounce his Jewish cruelty,
+ And those curs'd sums, which poor men borrow
+ On use to-day, remit to-morrow!
+
+
+
+
+AD FLUVIUM ISCAM.
+
+
+ Isca parens florum, placido qui spumeus ore
+ Lambis lapillos aureos;
+ Qui maestos hyacinthos, et picti [Greek: anthea] tophi
+ Mulces susurris humidis;
+ Dumque novas pergunt menses consumere lunas
+ C[oe]lumque mortales terit,
+ Accumulas cum sole dies, aevumque per omne
+ Fidelis induras latex;
+ O quis inaccessos et quali murmure lucos
+ Mutumque solaris nemus!
+ Per te discerpti credo Thracis ire querelas
+ Plectrumque divini senis.
+
+
+
+
+VENERABILI VIRO PRAECEPTORI SUO OLIM ET SEMPER COLENDISSIMO MAGISTRO
+MATHAEO HERBERT.
+
+
+ Quod vixi, Mathaee, dedit pater, haec tamen olim
+ Vita fluat, nec erit fas meminisse datam.
+ Ultra curasti solers, perituraque mecum
+ Nomina post cineres das resonare meos.
+ Divide discipulum: brevis haec et lubrica nostri
+ Pars vertat patri, posthuma vita tibi.
+
+
+
+
+PRAESTANTISSIMO VIRO THOMAE POELLO IN SUUM DE ELEMENTIS OPTICAE
+LIBELLUM.[56]
+
+
+ Vivaces oculorum ignes et lumina dia
+ Fixit in angusto maximus orbe Deus;
+ Ille explorantes radios dedit, et vaga lustra
+ In quibus intuitus lexque, modusque latent.
+ Hos tacitos jactus, lususque, volubilis orbis
+ Pingis in exiguo, magne[57] Poelle, libro,
+ Excursusque situsque ut Lynceus opticus, edis,
+ Quotque modis fallunt, quotque adhibenda fides.
+ Aemula Naturae manus! et mens conscia c[oe]li.
+ Ilia videre dedit, vestra videre docet.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[56] The version in _Elementa Opticae_ has _Eximio viro, et amicorum
+longe optimo, T. P. in hunc suum de Elementis Opticae libellum_.
+
+[57] _El. Opt._ has _docte_.
+
+
+
+
+
+AD ECHUM.
+
+
+ O quae frondosae per am[oe]na cubilia silvae
+ Nympha volas, lucoque loquax spatiaris in alto,
+ Annosi numen nemoris, saltusque verendi
+ Effatum, cui sola placent postrema relatus!
+ Te per Narcissi morientis verba, precesque
+ Per pueri lassatam animam, et conamina vitae
+ Ultima, palantisque precor suspiria linguae.
+ Da quo secretae haec incaedua devia silvae,
+ Anfractusque loci dubios, et lustra repandam.
+ Sic tibi perpetua--meritoque--haec regna juventa
+ Luxurient, dabiturque tuis, sine fine, viretis
+ Intactas lunae lachrymas, et lambere rorem
+ Virgineum, c[oe]lique animas haurire tepentis.
+ Nec cedant aevo stellis, sed lucida semper
+ Et satiata sacro aeterni medicamine veris
+ Ostendant longe vegetos, ut sidera, vultus!
+ Sic spiret muscata comas, et cinnama passim!
+ Diffundat levis umbra, in funere qualia spargit
+ Ph[oe]nicis rogus aut Pancheae nubila flammae!
+
+
+ THALIA REDIVIVA.
+
+ 1678.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE MOST HONOURABLE AND TRULY NOBLE HENRY, LORD MARQUIS AND EARL OF
+WORCESTER, &c.
+
+My Lord,
+
+Though dedications are now become a kind of tyranny over the peace and
+repose of great men; yet I have confidence I shall so manage the present
+address as to entertain your lordship without much disturbance; and
+because my purposes are governed by deep respect and veneration, I hope
+to find your Lordship more facile and accessible. And I am already
+absolved from a great part of that fulsome and designing guilt, being
+sufficiently removed from the causes of it: for I consider, my Lord,
+that you are already so well known to the world in your several
+characters and advantages of honour--it was yours by traduction, and the
+adjunct of your nativity; you were swaddled and rocked in't, bred up and
+grew in't, to your now wonderful height and eminence--that for me under
+pretence of the inscription, to give you the heraldry of your family, or
+to carry your person through the famed topics of mind, body, or estate,
+were all one as to persuade the world that fire and light were very
+bright bodies, or that the luminaries themselves had glory. In point of
+protection I beg to fall in with the common wont, and to be satisfied by
+the reasonableness of the thing, and abundant worthy precedents; and
+although I should have secret prophecy and assurance that the ensuing
+verse would live eternally, yet would I, as I now do, humbly crave it
+might be fortified with your patronage; for so the sextile aspects and
+influences are watched for, and applied to the actions of life, thereby
+to make the scheme and good auguries of the birth pass into Fate, and a
+success infallible.
+
+My Lord, by a happy obliging intercession, and your own consequent
+indulgence, I have now recourse to your Lordship, hoping I shall not
+much displease by putting these twin poets into your hands. The minion
+and vertical planet of the Roman lustre and bravery, was never better
+pleased than when he had a whole constellation about him: not his
+finishing five several wars to the promoting of his own interest, nor
+particularly the prodigious success at Actium where he held in chase the
+wealth, beauty and prowess of the East; not the triumphs and absolute
+dominions which followed: all this gave him not half that serene pride
+and satisfaction of spirit as when he retired himself to umpire the
+different excellencies of his insipid friends, and to distribute laurels
+among his poetic heroes. If now upon the authority of this and several
+such examples, I had the ability and opportunity of drawing the value
+and strange worth of a poet, and withal of applying some of the
+lineaments to the following pieces, I should then do myself a real
+service, and atone in a great measure for the present insolence. But
+best of all will it serve my defence and interest, to appeal to your
+Lordship's own conceptions and image of genuine verse; with which so
+just, so regular original, if these copies shall hold proportion and
+resemblance, then am I advanced very far in your Lordship's pardon: the
+rest will entirely be supplied me by your Lordship's goodness, and my
+own awful zeal of being, my Lord,
+
+ Your Lordship's most obedient,
+ most humbly devoted servant,
+
+ J. W.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE READER.
+
+
+The Nation of Poets above all Writers has ever challenged perpetuity of
+name, or as they please by their charter of liberty to call it,
+Immortality. Nor has the World much disputed their claim, either easily
+resigning a patrimony in itself not very substantial; or, it may be, out
+of despair to control the authority of inspiration and oracle. Howsoever
+the price as now quarrelled for among the poets themselves is no such
+rich bargain: it is only a vanishing interest in the lees and dregs of
+Time, in the rear of those Fathers and Worthies in the art, who if they
+know anything of the heats and fury of their successors, must extremely
+pity them.
+
+I am to assure, that the Author has no portion of that airy happiness to
+lose, by any injury or unkindness which may be done to his Verse: his
+reputation is better built in the sentiment of several judicious
+persons, who know him very well able to give himself a lasting monument,
+by undertaking any argument of note in the whole circle of learning.
+
+But even these his Diversions have been valuable with the matchless
+Orinda; and since they deserved her esteem and commendations, who so
+thinks them not worth the publishing, will put himself in the opposite
+scale, where his own arrogance will blow him up.
+
+ I. W.
+
+
+
+
+TO MR. HENRY VAUGHAN THE SILURIST: UPON THESE AND HIS FORMER POEMS.[58]
+
+
+ Had I ador'd the multitude, and thence
+ Got an antipathy to wit and sense,
+ And hugg'd that fate, in hope the world would grant
+ 'Twas good affection to be ignorant;[59]
+ Yet the least ray of thy bright fancy seen,
+ I had converted, or excuseless been.
+ For each birth of thy Muse to after-times
+ Shall expiate for all this Age's crimes.
+ First shines thy Amoret, twice crown'd by thee,
+ Once by thy love, next by thy poetry;
+ Where thou the best of unions dost dispense,
+ Truth cloth'd in wit, and Love in innocence;
+ So that the muddy lover may learn here,
+ No fountains can be sweet that are not clear.
+ There Juvenal, by thee reviv'd, declares
+ How flat man's joys are, and how mean his cares;
+ And wisely doth upbraid[60] the world, that they
+ Should such a value for their ruin pay.
+ But when thy sacred Muse diverts her quil
+ The landscape to design of Sion's hill,[61]
+ As nothing else was worthy her, or thee,
+ So we admire almost t' idolatry.
+ What savage breast would not be rapt to find
+ Such jewels in such cabinets enshrin'd?
+ Thou fill'd with joys--too great to see or count--
+ Descend'st from thence, like Moses from the Mount,
+ And with a candid, yet unquestion'd awe
+ Restor'st the Golden Age, when Verse was Law.
+ Instructing us, thou so secur'st[62] thy fame,
+ That nothing can disturb it but my name:
+ Nay, I have hopes that standing so near thine
+ 'Twill lose its dross, and by degrees refine.
+ Live! till the disabused world consent
+ All truths of use, of strength or ornament,
+ Are with such harmony by thee display'd
+ As the whole world was first by number made,
+ And from the charming rigour thy Muse brings
+ Learn, there's no pleasure but in serious things!
+
+ Orinda.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[58] 1664-1667 have To _Mr. Henry Vaughan, Silurist, on his Poems_.
+
+[59] So 1664-1667. _Thalia Rediviva_ has _the ignorant_.
+
+[60] 1664 has _generally upbraids_; 1667, _generously upbraids_
+
+[61] 1664-1667 have _Leon's hill_.
+
+[62] 1664 has _thou who securest_.
+
+
+
+
+UPON THE INGENIOUS POEMS OF HIS LEARNED FRIEND, MR. HENRY VAUGHAN, THE
+SILURIST.
+
+
+ Fairly design'd! to charm our civil rage
+ With verse, and plant bays in an iron age!
+ But hath steel'd Mars so ductible a soul,
+ That love and poesy may it control?
+ Yes! brave Tyrtaeus, as we read of old,
+ The Grecian armies as he pleas'd could mould;
+ They march'd to his high numbers, and did fight
+ With that instinct and rage, which he did write.
+ When he fell lower, they would straight retreat,
+ Grow soft and calm, and temper their bold heat.
+ Such magic is in Virtue! See here a young
+ Tyrtaeus too, whose sweet persuasive song
+ Can lead our spirits any way, and move
+ To all adventures, either war or love.
+ Then veil the bright Etesia, that choice she,
+ Lest Mars--Timander's friend--his rival be.
+ So fair a nymph, dress'd by a Muse so neat,
+ Might warm the North, and thaw the frozen Gete.
+
+ Tho. Powell, D.D.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE INGENIOUS AUTHOR OF THALIA REDIVIVA.
+
+
+ODE I.
+
+ Where reverend bards of old have sate
+ And sung the pleasant interludes of Fate,
+ Thou takest the hereditary shade
+ Which Nature's homely art had made,
+ And thence thou giv'st thy Muse her swing, and she
+ Advances to the galaxy;
+ There with the sparkling Cowley she above
+ Does hand in hand in graceful measures move.
+ We grovelling mortals gaze below,
+ And long in vain to know
+ Her wondrous paths, her wondrous flight:
+ In vain, alas! we grope,[63]
+ In vain we use our earthly telescope,
+ We're blinded by an intermedial night.
+ Thine eagle-Muse can only face
+ The fiery coursers in their race,
+ While with unequal paces we do try
+ To bear her train aloft, and keep her company.
+
+
+II.
+
+ The loud harmonious Mantuan
+ Once charm'd the world; and here's the Uscan swan
+ In his declining years does chime,
+ And challenges the last remains of Time.
+ Ages run on, and soon give o'er,
+ They have their graves as well as we;
+ Time swallows all that's past and more,
+ Yet time is swallow'd in eternity:
+ This is the only profits poets see.
+ There thy triumphant Muse shall ride in state
+ And lead in chains devouring Fate;
+ Claudian's bright Ph[oe]nix she shall bring
+ Thee an immortal offering;
+ Nor shall my humble tributary Muse
+ Her homage and attendance too refuse;
+ She thrusts herself among the crowd,
+ And joining in th' applause she strives to clap aloud
+
+
+III.
+
+ Tell me no more that Nature is severe,
+ Thou great philosopher!
+ Lo! she has laid her vast exchequer here.
+ Tell me no more that she has sent
+ So much already, she is spent;
+ Here is a vast America behind
+ Which none but the great Silurist could find.
+ Nature her last edition was the best,
+ As big, as rich as all the rest:
+ So will we here admit
+ Another world of wit.
+ No rude or savage fancy here shall stay
+ The travelling reader in his way,
+ But every coast is clear: go where he will,
+ Virtue's the road Thalia leads him still.
+ Long may she live, and wreath thy sacred head
+ For this her happy resurrection from the dead.
+
+ N. W., Jes. Coll., Oxon.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[63] The original has _flight In raine; alas! we grope_.
+
+
+
+
+
+TO MY WORTHY FRIEND, MR. HENRY VAUGHAN THE SILURIST.
+
+
+ See what thou wert! by what Platonic round
+ Art thou in thy first youth and glories found?
+ Or from thy Muse does this retrieve accrue?
+ Does she which once inspir'd thee, now renew,
+ Bringing thee back those golden years which Time
+ Smooth'd to thy lays, and polish'd with thy rhyme?
+ Nor is't to thee alone she does convey
+ Such happy change, but bountiful as day,
+ On whatsoever reader she does shine,
+ She makes him like thee, and for ever thine.
+
+ And first thy manual op'ning gives to see
+ Eclipse and suff'rings burnish majesty,
+ Where thou so artfully the draught hast made
+ That we best read the lustre in the shade,
+ And find our sov'reign greater in that shroud:
+ So lightning dazzles from its night and cloud,
+ So the First Light Himself has for His throne
+ Blackness, and darkness his pavilion.
+
+ Who can refuse thee company, or stay,
+ By thy next charming summons forc'd away,
+ If that be force which we can so resent,
+ That only in its joys 'tis violent:
+ Upward thy Eagle bears us ere aware,
+ Till above storms and all tempestuous air
+ We radiant worlds with their bright people meet,
+ Leaving this little all beneath our feet.
+ But now the pleasure is too great to tell,
+ Nor have we other bus'ness than to dwell,
+ As on the hallow'd Mount th' Apostles meant
+ To build and fix their glorious banishment.
+ Yet we must know and find thy skilful vein
+ Shall gently bear us to our homes again;
+ By which descent thy former flight's impli'd
+ To be thy ecstacy and not thy pride.
+ And here how well does the wise Muse demean
+ Herself, and fit her song to ev'ry scene!
+ Riot of courts, the bloody wreaths of war,
+ Cheats of the mart, and clamours of the bar,
+ Nay, life itself thou dost so well express,
+ Its hollow joys, and real emptiness,
+ That Dorian minstrel never did excite,
+ Or raise for dying so much appetite.
+
+ Nor does thy other softer magic move
+ Us less thy fam'd Etesia to love;
+ Where such a character thou giv'st, that shame
+ Nor envy dare approach the vestal dame:
+ So at bright prime ideas none repine,
+ They safely in th' eternal poet shine.
+
+ Gladly th' Assyrian ph[oe]nix now resumes
+ From thee this last reprisal of his plumes;
+ He seems another more miraculous thing,
+ Brighter of crest, and stronger of his wing,
+ Proof against Fate in spicy urns to come,
+ Immortal past all risk of martyrdom.
+
+ Nor be concern'd, nor fancy thou art rude
+ T' adventure from thy Cambrian solitude:
+ Best from those lofty cliffs thy Muse does spring
+ Upwards, and boldly spreads her cherub wing.
+
+ So when the sage of Memphis would converse
+ With boding skies, and th' azure universe,
+ He climbs his starry pyramid, and thence
+ Freely sucks clean prophetic influence,
+ And all serene, and rapt and gay he pries
+ Through the ethereal volume's mysteries,
+ Loth to come down, or ever to know more
+ The Nile's luxurious, but dull foggy shore.
+
+ I. W., A.M. Oxon.
+
+ CHOICE POEMS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS.
+
+
+
+
+TO HIS LEARNED FRIEND AND LOYAL FELLOW-PRISONER, THOMAS POWEL OF
+CANT[REFF], DOCTOR OF DIVINITY.
+
+
+ If sever'd friends by sympathy can join,
+ And absent kings be honour'd in their coin;
+ May they do both, who are so curb'd? but we
+ Whom no such abstracts torture, that can see
+ And pay each other a full self-return,
+ May laugh, though all such metaphysics burn.
+ 'Tis a kind soul in magnets, that atones
+ Such two hard things as iron are and stones,
+ And in their dumb compliance we learn more
+ Of love, than ever books could speak before.
+ For though attraction hath got all the name,
+ As if that power but from one side came,
+ Which both unites; yet, where there is no sense
+ There is no passion, nor intelligence:
+ And so by consequence we cannot state
+ A commerce, unless both we animate.
+ For senseless things, though ne'er so called upon,
+ Are deaf, and feel no invitation,
+ But such as at the last day shall be shed
+ By the great Lord of life into the dead.
+ 'Tis then no heresy to end the strife
+ With such rare doctrine as gives iron life.
+ For were it otherwise--which cannot be,
+ And do thou judge my bold philosophy--
+ Then it would follow that if I were dead,
+ Thy love, as now in life, would in that bed
+ Of earth and darkness warm me, and dispense
+ Effectual informing influence.
+ Since then 'tis clear, that friendship is nought else
+ But a joint, kind propension, and excess
+ In none, but such whose equal, easy hearts
+ Comply and meet both in their whole and parts,
+ And when they cannot meet, do not forget
+ To mingle souls, but secretly reflect
+ And some third place their centre make, where they
+ Silently mix, and make an unseen stay:
+ Let me not say--though poets may be bold--
+ Thou art more hard than steel, than stones more cold,
+ But as the marigold in feasts of dew
+ And early sunbeams, though but thin and few,
+ Unfolds itself, then from the Earth's cold breast
+ Heaves gently, and salutes the hopeful East:
+ So from thy quiet cell, the retir'd throne
+ Of thy fair thoughts, which silently bemoan
+ Our sad distractions, come! and richly dress'd
+ With reverend mirth and manners, check the rest
+ Of loose, loath'd men! Why should I longer be
+ Rack'd 'twixt two evils? I see and cannot see.
+
+
+
+
+THE KING DISGUISED.
+
+_Written about the same time that Mr. John Cleveland wrote his._
+
+
+ A king and no king! Is he gone from us,
+ And stoln alive into his coffin thus?
+ This was to ravish death, and so prevent
+ The rebels' treason and their punishment.
+ He would not have them damn'd, and therefore he
+ Himself deposed his own majesty.
+ Wolves did pursue him, and to fly the ill
+ He wanders--royal saint!--in sheepskin still.
+ Poor, obscure shelter, if that shelter be
+ Obscure, which harbours so much majesty.
+ Hence, profane eyes! the mystery's so deep,
+ Like Esdras books, the vulgar must not see't.
+ Thou flying roll, written with tears and woe,
+ Not for thy royal self, but for thy foe!
+ Thy grief is prophecy, and doth portend,
+ Like sad Ezekiel's sighs, the rebel's end.
+ Thy robes forc'd off, like Samuel's when rent,
+ Do figure out another's punishment.
+ Nor grieve thou hast put off thyself awhile,
+ To serve as prophet to this sinful isle;
+ These are our days of Purim, which oppress
+ The Church, and force thee to the wilderness.
+ But all these clouds cannot thy light confine,
+ The sun in storms and after them, will shine.
+ Thy day of life cannot be yet complete,
+ 'Tis early, sure, thy shadow is so great.
+ But I am vex'd, that we at all can guess
+ This change, and trust great Charles to such a dress.
+ When he was first obscur'd with this coarse thing,
+ He grac'd plebeians, but profan'd the king:
+ Like some fair church, which zeal to charcoals burn'd,
+ Or his own court now to an alehouse turn'd.
+ But full as well may we blame night, and chide
+ His wisdom, Who doth light with darkness hide,
+ Or deny curtains to thy royal bed,
+ As take this sacred cov'ring from thy head.
+ Secrets of State are points we must not know;
+ This vizard is thy privy-council now,
+ Thou royal riddle, and in everything
+ The true white prince, our hieroglyphic king!
+ Ride safely in His shade, Who gives thee light,
+ And can with blindness thy pursuers smite.
+ O! may they wander all from thee as far
+ As they from peace are, and thyself from war!
+ And wheresoe'er thou dost design to be
+ With thy--now spotted--spotless majesty,
+ Be sure to look no sanctuary there,
+ Nor hope for safety in a temple, where
+ Buyers and sellers trade: O! strengthen not
+ With too much trust the treason of a Scot!
+
+
+
+
+THE EAGLE.
+
+
+ Tis madness sure; and I am in the fit,
+ To dare an eagle with my unfledg'd wit.
+ For what did ever Rome or Athens sing
+ In all their lines, as lofty as his wing?
+ He that an eagle's powers would rehearse
+ Should with his plumes first feather all his verse.
+ I know not, when into thee I would pry,
+ Which to admire, thy wing first, or thine eye;
+ Or whether Nature at thy birth design'd
+ More of her fire for thee, or of her wind.
+ When thou in the clear heights and upmost air
+ Dost face the sun and his dispersed hair,
+ Ev'n from that distance thou the sea dost spy
+ And sporting in its deep, wide lap, the fry.
+ Not the least minnow there but thou canst see:
+ Whole seas are narrow spectacles to thee.
+ Nor is this element of water here
+ Below of all thy miracles the sphere.
+ If poets ought may add unto thy store,
+ Thou hast in heav'n of wonders many more.
+ For when just Jove to earth his thunder bends,
+ And from that bright, eternal fortress sends
+ His louder volleys, straight this bird doth fly
+ To Aetna, where his magazine doth lie,
+ And in his active talons brings him more
+ Of ammunition, and recruits his store.
+ Nor is't a low or easy lift. He soars
+ 'Bove wind and fire; gets to the moon, and pores
+ With scorn upon her duller face; for she
+ Gives him but shadows and obscurity.
+ Here much displeas'd, that anything like night
+ Should meet him in his proud and lofty flight,
+ That such dull tinctures should advance so far,
+ And rival in the glories of a star,
+ Resolv'd he is a nobler course to try,
+ And measures out his voyage with his eye.
+ Then with such fury he begins his flight,
+ As if his wings contended with his sight.
+ Leaving the moon, whose humble light doth trade
+ With spots, and deals most in the dark and shade,
+ To the day's royal planet he doth pass
+ With daring eyes, and makes the sun his glass.
+ Here doth he plume and dress himself, the beams
+ Rushing upon him like so many streams;
+ While with direct looks he doth entertain
+ The thronging flames, and shoots them back again.
+ And thus from star to star he doth repair,
+ And wantons in that pure and peaceful air.
+ Sometimes he frights the starry swan, and now
+ Orion's fearful hare, and then the crow.
+ Then with the orb itself he moves, to see
+ Which is more swift, th' intelligence or he.
+ Thus with his wings his body he hath brought
+ Where man can travel only in a thought.
+ I will not seek, rare bird, what spirit 'tis
+ That mounts thee thus; I'll be content with this,
+ To think that Nature made thee to express
+ Our soul's bold heights in a material dress.
+
+
+
+
+TO MR. M. L. UPON HIS REDUCTION OF THE PSALMS INTO METHOD.
+
+
+ Sir,
+
+ You have oblig'd the patriarch, and 'tis known
+ He is your debtor now, though for his own.
+ What he wrote is a medley: we can see
+ Confusion trespass on his piety.
+ Misfortunes did not only strike at him,
+ They charged further, and oppress'd his pen;
+ For he wrote as his crosses came, and went
+ By no safe rule, but by his punishment.
+ His quill mov'd by the rod; his wits and he
+ Did know no method, but their misery.
+ You brought his Psalms now into tune. Nay all
+ His measures thus are more than musical;
+ Your method and his airs are justly sweet,
+ And--what's church music right--like anthems meet.
+ You did so much in this, that I believe
+ He gave the matter, you the form did give.
+ And yet I wish you were not understood,
+ For now 'tis a misfortune to be good!
+ Why then you'll say, all I would have, is this:
+ None must be good, because the time's amiss.
+ For since wise Nature did ordain the night,
+ I would not have the sun to give us light.
+ Whereas this doth not take the use away,
+ But urgeth the necessity of day.
+ Proceed to make your pious work as free,
+ Stop not your seasonable charity.
+ Good works despis'd or censur'd by bad times
+ Should be sent out to aggravate their crimes.
+ They should first share and then reject our store,
+ Abuse our good, to make their guilt the more.
+ 'Tis war strikes at our sins, but it must be
+ A persecution wounds our piety.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE PIOUS MEMORY OF C[HARLES] W[ALBEOFFE] ESQUIRE, WHO FINISHED HIS
+COURSE HERE, AND MADE HIS ENTRANCE INTO IMMORTALITY UPON THE 13 OF
+SEPTEMBER, IN THE YEAR OF REDEMPTION, 1653.
+
+
+ Now that the public sorrow doth subside,
+ And those slight tears which custom springs are dried;
+ While all the rich and outside mourners pass
+ Home from thy dust, to empty their own glass;
+ I--who the throng affect not, nor their state--
+ Steal to thy grave undress'd, to meditate
+ On our sad loss, accompanied by none,
+ An obscure mourner that would weep alone.
+ So, when the world's great luminary sets,
+ Some scarce known star into the zenith gets,
+ Twinkles and curls, a weak but willing spark,
+ As glow-worms here do glitter in the dark.
+ Yet, since the dimmest flame that kindles there
+ An humble love unto the light doth bear,
+ And true devotion from an hermit's cell
+ Will Heav'n's kind King as soon reach and as well,
+ As that which from rich shrines and altars flies,
+ Led by ascending incense to the skies:
+ 'Tis no malicious rudeness, if the might
+ Of love makes dark things wait upon the bright,
+ And from my sad retirements calls me forth,
+ The just recorder of thy death and worth.
+ Long didst thou live--if length be measured by
+ The tedious reign of our calamity--
+ And counter to all storms and changes still
+ Kept'st the same temper, and the selfsame will.
+ Though trials came as duly as the day,
+ And in such mists, that none could see his way,
+ Yet thee I found still virtuous, and saw
+ The sun give clouds, and Charles give both the law.
+ When private interest did all hearts bend,
+ And wild dissents the public peace did rend,
+ Thou, neither won, nor worn, wert still thyself,
+ Not aw'd by force, nor basely brib'd with pelf.
+ What the insuperable stream of times
+ Did dash thee with, those suff'rings were, not crimes.
+ So the bright sun eclipses bears; and we,
+ Because then passive, blame him not. Should he
+ For enforc'd shades, and the moon's ruder veil
+ Much nearer us than him, be judg'd to fail?
+ Who traduce thee, so err. As poisons by
+ Correction are made antidotes, so thy
+ Just soul did turn ev'n hurtful things to good,
+ Us'd bad laws so they drew not tears, nor blood.
+ Heav'n was thy aim, and thy great, rare design
+ Was not to lord it here, but there to shine.
+ Earth nothing had, could tempt thee. All that e'er
+ Thou pray'd'st for here was peace, and glory there.
+ For though thy course in Time's long progress fell
+ On a sad age, when war and open'd hell
+ Licens'd all arts and sects, and made it free
+ To thrive by fraud, and blood, and blasphemy:
+ Yet thou thy just inheritance didst by
+ No sacrilege, nor pillage multiply.
+ No rapine swell'd thy state, no bribes, nor fees,
+ Our new oppressors' best annuities.
+ Such clean pure hands hadst thou! and for thy heart,
+ Man's secret region, and his noblest part;
+ Since I was privy to't, and had the key
+ Of that fair room, where thy bright spirit lay,
+ I must affirm it did as much surpass
+ Most I have known, as the clear sky doth glass.
+ Constant and kind, and plain, and meek, and mild
+ It was, and with no new conceits defil'd.
+ Busy, but sacred thoughts--like bees--did still
+ Within it stir, and strive unto that hill
+ Where redeem'd spirits, evermore alive,
+ After their work is done, ascend and hive.
+ No outward tumults reach'd this inward place:
+ 'Twas holy ground, where peace, and love, and grace
+ Kept house, where the immortal restless life,
+ In a most dutiful and pious strife,
+ Like a fix'd watch, mov'd all in order still;
+ The will serv'd God, and ev'ry sense the will!
+ In this safe state Death met thee, Death, which is
+ But a kind usher of the good to bliss,
+ Therefore to weep because thy course is run,
+ Or droop like flow'rs, which lately lost the sun,
+ I cannot yield, since Faith will not permit
+ A tenure got by conquest to the pit.
+ For the great Victor fought for us, and He
+ Counts ev'ry dust that is laid up of thee.
+ Besides, Death now grows decrepit, and hath
+ Spent the most part both of its time and wrath.
+ That thick, black night, which mankind fear'd, is torn
+ By troops of stars, and the bright day's forlorn.
+ The next glad news--most glad unto the just!--
+ Will be the trumpet's summons from the dust.
+ Then I'll not grieve; nay, more, I'll not allow
+ My soul should think thee absent from me now.
+ Some bid their dead "Good night!" but I will say
+ "Good morrow to dear Charles!" for it is day.
+
+
+
+
+IN ZODIACUM MARCELLI PALINGENII.
+
+
+ It is perform'd! and thy great name doth run
+ Through ev'ry sign, an everlasting sun,
+ Not planet-like, but fixed; and we can see
+ Thy genius stand still in his apogee.
+ For how canst thou an aux eternal miss,
+ Where ev'ry house thy exaltation is?
+ Here's no ecliptic threatens thee with night,
+ Although the wiser few take in thy light.
+ They are not at that glorious pitch, to be
+ In a conjunction with divinity.
+ Could we partake some oblique ray of thine,
+ Salute thee in a sextile, or a trine,
+ It were enough; but thou art flown so high,
+ The telescope is turn'd a common eye.
+ Had the grave Chaldee liv'd thy book to see,
+ He had known no astrology but thee;
+ Nay, more--for I believe't--thou shouldst have been
+ Tutor to all his planets, and to him.
+ Thus, whosoever reads thee, his charm'd sense
+ Proves captive to thy zodiac's influence.
+ Were it not foul to err so, I should look
+ Here for the Rabbins' universal book:
+ And say, their fancies did but dream of thee,
+ When first they doted on that mystery.
+ Each line's a _via lactea_, where we may
+ See thy fair steps, and tread that happy way
+ Thy genius led thee in. Still I will be
+ Lodg'd in some sign, some face, and some degree
+ Of thy bright zodiac; thus I'll teach my sense
+ To move by that, and thee th' intelligence.
+
+
+
+
+TO LYSIMACHUS, THE AUTHOR BEING WITH HIM IN LONDON.
+
+
+ Saw not, Lysimachus, last day, when we
+ Took the pure air in its simplicity,
+ And our own too, how the trimm'd gallants went
+ Cringing, and pass'd each step some compliment?
+ What strange, fantastic diagrams they drew
+ With legs and arms; the like we never knew
+ In Euclid, Archimede, nor all of those
+ Whose learned lines are neither verse nor prose?
+ What store of lace was there? how did the gold
+ Run in rich traces, but withal made bold
+ To measure the proud things, and so deride
+ The fops with that, which was part of their pride?
+ How did they point at us, and boldly call,
+ As if we had been vassals to them all,
+ Their poor men-mules, sent thither by hard fate
+ To yoke ourselves for their sedans, and state?
+ Of all ambitions, this was not the least,
+ Whose drift translated man into a beast.
+ What blind discourse the heroes did afford!
+ This lady was their friend, and such a lord.
+ How much of blood was in it! one could tell
+ He came from Bevis and his Arundel;
+ Morglay was yet with him, and he could do
+ More feats with it than his old grandsire too.
+ Wonders my friend at this? what is't to thee,
+ Who canst produce a nobler pedigree,
+ And in mere truth affirm thy soul of kin
+ To some bright star, or to a cherubin?
+ When these in their profuse moods spend the night,
+ With the same sins they drive away the light.
+ Thy learned thrift puts her to use, while she
+ Reveals her fiery volume unto thee;
+ And looking on the separated skies,
+ And their clear lamps, with careful thoughts and eyes,
+ Thou break'st through Nature's upmost rooms and bars
+ To heav'n, and there conversest with the stars.
+ Well fare such harmless, happy nights, that be
+ Obscur'd with nothing but their privacy,
+ And missing but the false world's glories do
+ Miss all those vices which attend them too!
+ Fret not to hear their ill-got, ill-giv'n praise;
+ Thy darkest nights outshine their brightest days.
+
+
+
+
+ON SIR THOMAS BODLEY'S LIBRARY, THE AUTHOR BEING THEN IN OXFORD.
+
+
+ Boast not, proud Golgotha, that thou canst show
+ The ruins of mankind, and let us know
+ How frail a thing is flesh! though we see there
+ But empty skulls, the Rabbins still live here.
+ They are not dead, but full of blood again;
+ I mean the sense, and ev'ry line a vein.
+ Triumph not o'er their dust; whoever looks
+ In here, shall find their brains all in their books.
+ Nor is't old Palestine alone survives;
+ Athens lives here, more than in Plutarch's Lives.
+ The stones, which sometimes danc'd unto the strain
+ Of Orpheus, here do lodge his Muse again.
+ And you, the Roman spirits, learning has
+ Made your lives longer than your empire was.
+ Caesar had perish'd from the world of men
+ Had not his sword been rescu'd by his pen.
+ Rare Seneca, how lasting is thy breath!
+ Though Nero did, thou couldst not bleed to death.
+ How dull the expert tyrant was, to look
+ For that in thee which lived in thy book!
+ Afflictions turn our blood to ink, and we
+ Commence, when writing, our eternity.
+ Lucilius here I can behold, and see
+ His counsels and his life proceed from thee.
+ But what care I to whom thy Letters be?
+ I change the name, and thou dost write to me;
+ And in this age, as sad almost as thine,
+ Thy stately Consolations are mine.
+ Poor earth! what though thy viler dust enrolls
+ The frail enclosures of these mighty souls?
+ Their graves are all upon record; not one
+ But is as bright and open as the sun.
+ And though some part of them obscurely fell,
+ And perish'd in an unknown, private cell,
+ Yet in their books they found a glorious way
+ To live unto the Resurrection-day!
+ Most noble Bodley! we are bound to thee
+ For no small part of our eternity.
+ Thy treasure was not spent on horse and hound,
+ Nor that new mode which doth old states confound.
+ Thy legacies another way did go:
+ Nor were they left to those would spend them so.
+ Thy safe, discreet expense on us did flow;
+ Walsam is in the midst of Oxford now.
+ Th' hast made us all thine heirs; whatever we
+ Hereafter write, 'tis thy posterity.
+ This is thy monument! here thou shalt stand
+ Till the times fail in their last grain of sand.
+ And wheresoe'er thy silent relics keep,
+ This tomb will never let thine honour sleep,
+ Still we shall think upon thee; all our fame
+ Meets here to speak one letter of thy name.
+ Thou canst not die! here thou art more than safe,
+ Where every book is thy large epitaph.
+
+
+
+
+THE IMPORTUNATE FORTUNE, WRITTEN TO DR. POWEL, OF CANTRE[FF].
+
+
+ For shame desist, why shouldst thou seek my fall?
+ It cannot make thee more monarchical.
+ Leave off; thy empire is already built;
+ To ruin me were to enlarge thy guilt,
+ Not thy prerogative. I am not he
+ Must be the measure to thy victory.
+ The Fates hatch more for thee; 'twere a disgrace
+ If in thy annals I should make a clause.
+ The future ages will disclose such men
+ Shall be the glory, and the end of them.
+ Nor do I flatter. So long as there be
+ Descents in Nature, or posterity,
+ There must be fortunes; whether they be good,
+ As swimming in thy tide and plenteous flood,
+ Or stuck fast in the shallow ebb, when we
+ Miss to deserve thy gorgeous charity.
+ Thus, Fortune, the great world thy period is;
+ Nature and you are parallels in this.
+ But thou wilt urge me still. Away, be gone,
+ I am resolv'd, I will not be undone.
+ I scorn thy trash, and thee: nay, more, I do
+ Despise myself, because thy subject too.
+ Name me heir to thy malice, and I'll be;
+ Thy hate's the best inheritance for me.
+ I care not for your wondrous hat and purse,
+ Make me a Fortunatus with thy curse.
+ How careful of myself then should I be,
+ Were I neglected by the world and thee?
+ Why dost thou tempt me with thy dirty ore,
+ And with thy riches make my soul so poor?
+ My fancy's pris'ner to thy gold and thee,
+ Thy favours rob me of my liberty.
+ I'll to my speculations. Is't best
+ To be confin'd to some dark, narrow chest
+ And idolize thy stamps, when I may be
+ Lord of all Nature, and not slave to thee?
+ The world's my palace. I'll contemplate there,
+ And make my progress into ev'ry sphere.
+ The chambers of the air are mine; those three
+ Well-furnish'd stories my possession be.
+ I hold them all _in capite_, and stand
+ Propp'd by my fancy there. I scorn your land,
+ It lies so far below me. Here I see
+ How all the sacred stars do circle me.
+ Thou to the great giv'st rich food, and I do
+ Want no content; I feed on manna too.
+ They have their tapers; I gaze without fear
+ On flying lamps and flaming comets here.
+ Their wanton flesh in silks and purple shrouds,
+ And fancy wraps me in a robe of clouds.
+ There some delicious beauty they may woo,
+ And I have Nature for my mistress too.
+ But these are mean; the archetype I can see,
+ And humbly touch the hem of majesty.
+ The power of my soul is such, I can
+ Expire, and so analyze all that's man.
+ First my dull clay I give unto the Earth,
+ Our common mother, which gives all their birth.
+ My growing faculties I send as soon,
+ Whence first I took them, to the humid moon.
+ All subtleties and every cunning art
+ To witty Mercury I do impart.
+ Those fond affections which made me a slave
+ To handsome faces, Venus, thou shalt have.
+ And saucy pride--if there was aught in me--
+ Sol, I return it to thy royalty.
+ My daring rashness and presumptions be
+ To Mars himself an equal legacy.
+ My ill-plac'd avarice--sure 'tis but small--
+ Jove, to thy flames I do bequeath it all.
+ And my false magic, which I did believe,
+ And mystic lies, to Saturn I do give.
+ My dark imaginations rest you there,
+ This is your grave and superstitious sphere.
+ Get up, my disentangled soul, thy fire
+ Is now refin'd, and nothing left to tire
+ Or clog thy wings. Now my auspicious flight
+ Hath brought me to the empyrean light.
+ I am a sep'rate essence, and can see
+ The emanations of the Deity,
+ And how they pass the seraphims, and run
+ Through ev'ry throne and domination.
+ So rushing through the guard the sacred streams
+ Flow to the neighbour stars, and in their beams
+ --A glorious cataract!--descend to earth,
+ And give impressions unto ev'ry birth.
+ With angels now and spirits I do dwell,
+ And here it is my nature to do well.
+ Thus, though my body you confined see,
+ My boundless thoughts have their ubiquity.
+ And shall I then forsake the stars and signs,
+ To dote upon thy dark and cursed mines?
+ Unhappy, sad exchange! what, must I buy
+ Guiana with the loss of all the sky?
+ Intelligences shall I leave, and be
+ Familiar only with mortality?
+ Must I know nought, but thy exchequer? shall
+ My purse and fancy be symmetrical?
+ Are there no objects left but one? must we
+ In gaining that, lose our variety?
+ Fortune, this is the reason I refuse
+ Thy wealth; it puts my books all out of use.
+ 'Tis poverty that makes me wise; my mind
+ Is big with speculation, when I find
+ My purse as Randolph's was, and I confess
+ There is no blessing to an emptiness!
+ The species of all things to me resort
+ And dwell then in my breast, as in their port.
+ Then leave to court me with thy hated store;
+ Thou giv'st me that, to rob my soul of more.
+
+
+
+
+TO I. MORGAN OF WHITEHALL, ESQ., UPON HIS SUDDEN JOURNEY AND SUCCEEDING
+MARRIAGE.
+
+
+ So from our cold, rude world, which all things tires,
+ To his warm Indies the bright sun retires.
+ Where, in those provinces of gold and spice,
+ Perfumes his progress, pleasures fill his eyes,
+ Which, so refresh'd, in their return convey
+ Fire into rubies, into crystals, day;
+ And prove, that light in kinder climates can
+ Work more on senseless stones, than here on man.
+ But you, like one ordain'd to shine, take in
+ Both light and heat, can love and wisdom spin
+ Into one thread, and with that firmly tie
+ The same bright blessings on posterity:
+ Which so entail'd, like jewels of the crown,
+ Shall, with your name, descend still to your own.
+ When I am dead, and malice or neglect
+ The worst they can upon my dust reflect;
+ --For poets yet have left no names, but such
+ As men have envied or despis'd too much--
+ You above both--and what state more excels,
+ Since a just fame like health, nor wants, nor swells?--
+ To after ages shall remain entire,
+ And shine still spotless, like your planet's fire.
+ No single lustre neither; the access
+ Of your fair love will yours adorn and bless;
+ Till, from that bright conjunction, men may view
+ A constellation circling her and you.
+ So two sweet rose-buds from their virgin-beds
+ First peep and blush, then kiss and couple heads,
+ Till yearly blessings so increase their store,
+ Those two can number two-and-twenty more,
+ And the fair bank--by Heav'n's free bounty crown'd--
+ With choice of sweets and beauties doth abound,
+ Till Time, which families, like flowers, far spreads,
+ Gives them for garlands to the best of heads.
+ Then late posterity--if chance, or some
+ Weak echo, almost quite expir'd and dumb,
+ Shall tell them who the poet was, and how
+ He liv'd and lov'd thee too, which thou dost know--
+ Straight to my grave will flowers and spices bring,
+ With lights and hymns, and for an offering
+ There vow this truth, that love--which in old times
+ Was censur'd blind, and will contract worse crimes
+ If hearts mend not--did for thy sake in me
+ Find both his eyes, and all foretell and see.
+
+
+
+
+FIDA; OR, THE COUNTRY BEAUTY. TO LYSIMACHUS.
+
+
+ Now I have seen her; and by Cupid
+ The young Medusa made me stupid!
+ A face, that hath no lovers slain,
+ Wants forces, and is near disdain.
+ For every fop will freely peep
+ At majesty that is asleep.
+ But she--fair tyrant!--hates to be
+ Gaz'd on with such impunity.
+ Whose prudent rigour bravely bears
+ And scorns the trick of whining tears,
+ Or sighs, those false alarms of grief,
+ Which kill not, but afford relief.
+ Nor is it thy hard fate to be
+ Alone in this calamity,
+ Since I who came but to be gone,
+ Am plagu'd for merely looking on.
+ Mark from her forehead to her foot
+ What charming sweets are there to do't.
+ A head adorn'd with all those glories
+ That wit hath shadow'd in quaint stories,
+ Or pencil with rich colours drew
+ In imitation of the true.
+ Her hair, laid out in curious sets
+ And twists, doth show like silken nets,
+ Where--since he play'd at hit or miss--
+ The god of Love her pris'ner is,
+ And fluttering with his skittish wings
+ Puts all her locks in curls and rings.
+ Like twinkling stars her eyes invite
+ All gazers to so sweet a light,
+ But then two arched clouds of brown
+ Stand o'er, and guard them with a frown.
+ Beneath these rays of her bright eyes,
+ Beauty's rich bed of blushes lies.
+ Blushes which lightning-like come on,
+ Yet stay not to be gaz'd upon;
+ But leave the lilies of her skin
+ As fair as ever, and run in,
+ Like swift salutes--which dull paint scorn--
+ 'Twixt a white noon and crimson morn.
+ What coral can her lips resemble?
+ For hers are warm, swell, melt, and tremble:
+ And if you dare contend for red,
+ This is alive, the other dead.
+ Her equal teeth--above, below--
+ All of a size and smoothness grow.
+ Where under close restraint and awe
+ --Which is the maiden tyrant law--
+ Like a cag'd, sullen linnet, dwells
+ Her tongue, the key to potent spells.
+ Her skin, like heav'n when calm and bright,
+ Shows a rich azure under white,
+ With touch more soft than heart supposes,
+ And breath as sweet as new-blown roses.
+ Betwixt this headland and the main,
+ Which is a rich and flow'ry plain,
+ Lies her fair neck, so fine and slender,
+ That gently how you please 'twill bend her.
+ This leads you to her heart, which ta'en,
+ Pants under sheets of whitest lawn,
+ And at the first seems much distress'd,
+ But, nobly treated, lies at rest.
+ Here, like two balls of new fall'n snow,
+ Her breasts, Love's native pillows, grow;
+ And out of each a rose-bud peeps,
+ Which infant Beauty sucking sleeps.
+ Say now, my Stoic, that mak'st sour faces
+ At all the beauties and the graces,
+ That criest, unclean! though known thyself
+ To ev'ry coarse and dirty shelf:
+ Couldst thou but see a piece like this,
+ A piece so full of sweets and bliss,
+ In shape so rare, in soul so rich,
+ Wouldst thou not swear she is a witch?
+
+
+
+
+FIDA FORSAKEN.
+
+
+ Fool that I was! to believe blood,
+ While swoll'n with greatness, then most good;
+ And the false thing, forgetful man,
+ To trust more than our true god, Pan.
+ Such swellings to a dropsy tend,
+ And meanest things such great ones bend.
+
+ Then live deceived! and, Fida, by
+ That life destroy fidelity.
+ For living wrongs will make some wise,
+ While Death chokes loudest injuries:
+ And screens the faulty, making blinds
+ To hide the most unworthy minds.
+
+ And yet do what thou can'st to hide,
+ A bad tree's fruit will be describ'd.
+ For that foul guilt which first took place
+ In his dark heart, now damns his face;
+ And makes those eyes, where life should dwell,
+ Look like the pits of Death and Hell.
+
+ Blood, whose rich purple shows and seals
+ Their faith in Moors, in him reveals
+ A blackness at the heart, and is
+ Turn'd ink to write his faithlessness.
+ Only his lips with blood look red,
+ As if asham'd of what they fed.
+
+ Then, since he wears in a dark skin
+ The shadows of his hell within,
+ Expose him no more to the light,
+ But thine own epitaph thus write
+ "Here burst, and dead and unregarded
+ Lies Fida's heart! O well rewarded!"
+
+
+
+
+TO THE EDITOR OF THE MATCHLESS ORINDA.
+
+
+ Long since great wits have left the stage
+ Unto the drollers of the age,
+ And noble numbers with good sense
+ Are, like good works, grown an offence.
+ While much of verse--worse than old story--
+ Speaks but Jack-Pudding or John-Dory.
+ Such trash-admirers made us poor,
+ And pies turn'd poets out of door;
+ For the nice spirit of rich verse
+ Which scorns absurd and low commerce,
+ Although a flame from heav'n, if shed
+ On rooks or daws warms no such head.
+ Or else the poet, like bad priest,
+ Is seldom good, but when oppress'd;
+ And wit as well as piety
+ Doth thrive best in adversity
+ For since the thunder left our air
+ Their laurels look not half so fair.
+ However 'tis, 'twere worse than rude,
+ Not to profess our gratitude
+ And debts to thee, who at so low
+ An ebb dost make us thus to flow;
+ And when we did a famine fear,
+ Hast bless'd us with a fruitful year.
+ So while the world his absence mourns,
+ The glorious sun at last returns,
+ And with his kind and vital looks
+ Warms the cold earth and frozen brooks,
+ Puts drowsy Nature into play,
+ And rids impediments away,
+ Till flow'rs and fruits and spices through
+ Her pregnant lap get up and grow.
+ But if among those sweet things, we
+ A miracle like that could see
+ Which Nature brought but once to pass,
+ A Muse, such as Orinda was,
+ Ph[oe]bus himself won by these charms
+ Would give her up into thy arms;
+ And recondemn'd to kiss his tree,
+ Yield the young goddess unto thee.
+
+
+
+
+UPON SUDDEN NEWS OF THE MUCH LAMENTED DEATH OF JUDGE TREVERS.
+
+
+ Learning and Law, your day is done,
+ And your work too; you may be gone
+ Trever, that lov'd you, hence is fled:
+ And Right, which long lay sick, is dead.
+ Trever! whose rare and envied part
+ Was both a wise and winning heart,
+ Whose sweet civilities could move
+ Tartars and Goths to noblest love.
+ Bold vice and blindness now dare act,
+ And--like the grey groat--pass, though crack'd;
+ While those sage lips lie dumb and cold,
+ Whose words are well-weigh'd and tried gold.
+ O, how much to discreet desires
+ Differs pure light from foolish fires!
+ But nasty dregs outlast the wine,
+ And after sunset glow-worms shine.
+
+
+
+
+TO ETESIA (FOR TIMANDER); THE FIRST SIGHT.
+
+
+ What smiling star in that fair night
+ Which gave you birth gave me this sight,
+ And with a kind aspect tho' keen
+ Made me the subject, you the queen?
+ That sparkling planet is got now
+ Into your eyes, and shines below,
+ Where nearer force and more acute
+ It doth dispense, without dispute;
+ For I who yesterday did know
+ Love's fire no more than doth cool snow,
+ With one bright look am since undone,
+ Yet must adore and seek my sun.
+ Before I walk'd free as the wind
+ And if but stay'd--like it--unkind;
+ I could like daring eagles gaze
+ And not be blinded by a face;
+ For what I saw till I saw thee,
+ Was only not deformity.
+ Such shapes appear--compar'd with thine--
+ In arras, or a tavern-sign,
+ And do but mind me to explore
+ A fairer piece, that is in store.
+ So some hang ivy to their wine,
+ To signify there is a vine.
+ Those princely flow'rs--by no storms vex'd--
+ Which smile one day, and droop the next,
+ The gallant tulip and the rose,
+ Emblems which some use to disclose
+ Bodied ideas--their weak grace
+ Is mere imposture to thy face.
+ For Nature in all things, but thee,
+ Did practise only sophistry;
+ Or else she made them to express
+ How she could vary in her dress:
+ But thou wert form'd, that we might see
+ Perfection, not variety.
+ Have you observ'd how the day-star
+ Sparkles and smiles and shines from far;
+ Then to the gazer doth convey
+ A silent but a piercing ray?
+ So wounds my love, but that her eyes
+ Are in effects the better skies.
+ A brisk bright agent from them streams
+ Arm'd with no arrows, but their beams,
+ And with such stillness smites our hearts,
+ No noise betrays him, nor his darts.
+ He, working on my easy soul,
+ Did soon persuade, and then control;
+ And now he flies--and I conspire--
+ Through all my blood with wings of fire,
+ And when I would--which will be never--
+ With cold despair allay the fever,
+ The spiteful thing Etesia names,
+ And that new-fuels all my flames.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHARACTER, TO ETESIA.
+
+
+ Go catch the ph[oe]nix, and then bring
+ A quill drawn for me from his wing.
+ Give me a maiden beauty's blood,
+ A pure, rich crimson, without mud,
+ In whose sweet blushes that may live,
+ Which a dull verse can never give.
+ Now for an untouch'd, spotless white,
+ For blackest things on paper write,
+ Etesia, at thine own expense
+ Give me the robes of innocence.
+ Could we but see a spring to run
+ Pure milk, as sometimes springs have done,
+ And in the snow-white streams it sheds,
+ Carnations wash their bloody heads,
+ While ev'ry eddy that came down
+ Did--as thou dost--both smile and frown.
+ Such objects, and so fresh would be
+ But dull resemblances of thee.
+ Thou art the dark world's morning-star,
+ Seen only, and seen but from far;
+ Where, like astronomers, we gaze
+ Upon the glories of thy face,
+ But no acquaintance more can have,
+ Though all our lives we watch and crave.
+ Thou art a world thyself alone,
+ Yea, three great worlds refin'd to one;
+ Which shows all those, and in thine eyes
+ The shining East and Paradise.
+ Thy soul--a spark of the first fire--
+ Is like the sun, the world's desire;
+ And with a nobler influence
+ Works upon all, that claim to sense;
+ But in summers hath no fever,
+ And in frosts is cheerful ever.
+ As flow'rs besides their curious dress
+ Rich odours have, and sweetnesses,
+ Which tacitly infuse desire,
+ And ev'n oblige us to admire:
+ Such, and so full of innocence
+ Are all the charms, thou dost dispense;
+ And like fair Nature without arts
+ At once they seize, and please our hearts.
+ O, thou art such, that I could be
+ A lover to idolatry!
+ I could, and should from heav'n stray,
+ But that thy life shows mine the way,
+ And leave a while the Deity
+ To serve His image here in thee.
+
+
+
+
+TO ETESIA LOOKING FROM HER CASEMENT AT THE FULL MOON.
+
+
+ See you that beauteous queen, which no age tames?
+ Her train is azure, set with golden flames:
+ My brighter fair, fix on the East your eyes,
+ And view that bed of clouds, whence she doth rise.
+ Above all others in that one short hour
+ Which most concern'd me,[64] she had greatest pow'r.
+ This made my fortunes humorous as wind,
+ But fix'd affections to my constant mind.
+ She fed me with the tears of stars, and thence
+ I suck'd in sorrows with their influence.
+ To some in smiles, and store of light she broke,
+ To me in sad eclipses still she spoke.
+ She bent me with the motion of her sphere,
+ And made me feel what first I did but fear.
+ But when I came to age, and had o'ergrown
+ Her rules, and saw my freedom was my own,
+ I did reply unto the laws of Fate,
+ And made my reason my great advocate:
+ I labour'd to inherit my just right;
+ But then--O, hear Etesia!--lest I might
+ Redeem myself, my unkind starry mother
+ Took my poor heart, and gave it to another.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[64] The original has _concerned in_.
+
+
+
+
+TO ETESIA PARTED FROM HIM, AND LOOKING BACK.
+
+
+ O, subtle Love! thy peace is war,
+ It wounds and kills without a scar,
+ It works unknown to any sense,
+ Like the decrees of Providence,
+ And with strange silence shoots me through,
+ The fire of Love doth fell like snow.
+ Hath she no quiver, but my heart?
+ Must all her arrows hit that part?
+ Beauties like heav'n their gifts should deal
+ Not to destroy us, but to heal.
+ Strange art of Love! that can make sound,
+ And yet exasperates the wound:
+ That look she lent to ease my heart,
+ Hath pierc'd it, and improv'd the smart.
+
+
+
+
+IN ETESIAM LACHRYMANTEM.
+
+
+ O Dulcis Iuctus, risuque potentior omni!
+ Quem decorant lachrimis sidera tanta suis.
+ Quam tacitae spirant aurae! vultusque nitentes
+ Contristant veneres, collachrimantque suae!
+ Ornat gutta genas, oculisque simillima gemma:
+ Et tepido vivas irrigat imbre rosas.
+ Dicite Chaldaei! quae me fortuna fatigat,
+ [C?D?]um formosa dies et sine nube perit[65]?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[65] The original has _peruit_.
+
+
+
+
+
+TO ETESIA GOING BEYOND SEA.
+
+
+ Go, if you must! but stay--and know
+ And mind before you go, my vow.
+ To ev'ry thing, but heav'n and you,
+ With all my heart I bid adieu!
+ Now to those happy shades I'll go
+ Where first I saw my beauteous foe!
+ I'll seek each silent path where we
+ Did walk; and where you sat with me
+ I'll sit again, and never rest
+ Till I can find some flow'r you press'd.
+ That near my dying heart I'll keep,
+ And when it wants dew I will weep:
+ Sadly I will repeat past joys
+ And words, which you did sometimes voice
+ I'll listen to the woods, and hear
+ The echo answer for you there.
+ But famish'd with long absence I,
+ Like infants left, at last shall cry,
+ And tears--as they do milk--will sup
+ Until you come, and take me up.
+
+
+
+
+ETESIA ABSENT.
+
+
+ Love, the world's life! what a sad death
+ Thy absence is! to lose our breath
+ At once and die, is but to live
+ Enlarg'd, without the scant reprieve
+ Of pulse and air; whose dull returns
+ And narrow circles the soul mourns.
+ But to be dead alive, and still
+ To wish, but never have our will,
+ To be possess'd, and yet to miss,
+ To wed a true but absent bliss,
+ Are ling'ring tortures, and their smart
+ Dissects and racks and grinds the heart!
+ As soul and body in that state
+ Which unto us, seems separate,
+ Cannot be said to live, until
+ Reunion; which days fulfil
+ And slow-pac'd seasons; so in vain
+ Through hours and minutes--Time's long train--
+ I look for thee, and from thy sight,
+ As from my soul, for life and light.
+ For till thine eyes shine so on me,
+ Mine are fast-clos'd and will not see.
+
+
+
+
+ TRANSLATIONS.
+
+ SOME ODES OF THE EXCELLENT AND KNOWING
+ [ANICIUS MANLIUS] SEVERINUS [BOETHIUS], ENGLISHED.
+
+
+
+
+[DE CONSOLATIONE] LIB. III. METRUM XII.
+
+
+ Happy is he, that with fix'd eyes
+ The fountain of all goodness spies!
+ Happy is he that can break through
+ Those bonds which tie him here below!
+ The Thracian poet long ago,
+ Kind Orpheus, full of tears and woe,
+ Did for his lov'd Eurydice
+ In such sad numbers mourn, that he
+ Made the trees run in to his moan,
+ And streams stand still to hear him groan.
+ The does came fearless in one throng
+ With lions to his mournful song,
+ And charmed by the harmonious sound,
+ The hare stay'd by the quiet hound.
+ But when Love height'n'd by despair
+ And deep reflections on his fair
+ Had swell'd his heart, and made it rise
+ And run in tears out at his eyes,
+ And those sweet airs, which did appease
+ Wild beasts, could give their lord no ease;
+ Then, vex'd that so much grief and love
+ Mov'd not at all the gods above,
+ With desperate thoughts and bold intent,
+ Towards the shades below he went;
+ For thither his fair love was fled,
+ And he must have her from the dead.
+ There in such lines, as did well suit
+ With sad airs and a lover's lute,
+ And in the richest language dress'd
+ That could be thought on or express'd,
+ Did he complain; whatever grief
+ Or art or love--which is the chief,
+ And all ennobles--could lay out,
+ In well-tun'd woes he dealt about.
+ And humbly bowing to the prince
+ Of ghosts begg'd some intelligence
+ Of his Eurydice, and where
+ His beauteous saint resided there.
+ Then to his lute's instructed groans
+ He sigh'd out new melodious moans;
+ And in a melting, charming strain
+ Begg'd his dear love to life again.
+ The music flowing through the shade
+ And darkness did with ease invade
+ The silent and attentive ghosts;
+ And Cerberus, which guards those coasts
+ With his loud barkings, overcome
+ By the sweet notes, was now struck dumb.
+ The Furies, us'd to rave and howl
+ And prosecute each guilty soul,
+ Had lost their rage, and in a deep
+ Transport, did most profusely weep.
+ Ixion's wheel stopp'd, and the curs'd
+ Tantalus, almost kill'd with thirst,
+ Though the streams now did make no haste,
+ But wait'd for him, none would taste.
+ That vulture, which fed still upon
+ Tityus his liver, now was gone
+ To feed on air, and would not stay,
+ Though almost famish'd, with her prey.
+ Won with these wonders, their fierce prince
+ At last cried out, "We yield! and since
+ Thy merits claim no less, take hence
+ Thy consort for thy recompense:
+ But Orpheus, to this law we bind
+ Our grant: you must not look behind,
+ Nor of your fair love have one sight,
+ Till out of our dominions quite."
+ Alas! what laws can lovers awe?
+ Love is itself the greatest law!
+ Or who can such hard bondage brook
+ To be in love, and not to look?
+ Poor Orpheus almost in the light
+ Lost his dear love for one short sight;
+ And by those eyes, which Love did guide,
+ What he most lov'd unkindly died!
+ This tale of Orpheus and his love
+ Was meant for you, who ever move
+ Upwards, and tend into that light,
+ Which is not seen by mortal sight.
+ For if, while you strive to ascend,
+ You droop, and towards Earth once bend
+ Your seduc'd eyes, down you will fall
+ Ev'n while you look, and forfeit all.
+
+
+
+
+LIB. III. METRUM II.
+
+
+ What fix'd affections, and lov'd laws
+ --Which are the hid, magnetic cause--
+ Wise Nature governs with, and by
+ What fast, inviolable tie
+ The whole creation to her ends
+ For ever provident she bends:
+ All this I purpose to rehearse
+ In the sweet airs of solemn verse.
+ Although the Libyan lions should
+ Be bound in chains of purest gold,
+ And duly fed were taught to know
+ Their keeper's voice, and fear his blow:
+ Yet, if they chance to taste of blood,
+ Their rage which slept, stirr'd by that food
+ In furious roaring will awake,
+ And fiercely for their freedom make.
+ No chains nor bars their fury brooks,
+ But with enrag'd and bloody looks
+ They will break through, and dull'd with fear
+ Their keeper all to pieces tear.
+ The bird, which on the wood's tall boughs
+ Sings sweetly, if you cage or house,
+ And out of kindest care should think
+ To give her honey with her drink,
+ And get her store of pleasant meat,
+ Ev'n such as she delights to eat:
+ Yet, if from her close prison she
+ The shady groves doth chance to see,
+ Straightway she loathes her pleasant food,
+ And with sad looks longs for the wood.
+ The wood, the wood alone she loves!
+ And towards it she looks and moves:
+ And in sweet notes--though distant from--
+ Sings to her first and happy home!
+ That plant, which of itself doth grow
+ Upwards, if forc'd, will downwards bow;
+ But give it freedom, and it will
+ Get up, and grow erectly still.
+ The sun, which by his prone descent
+ Seems westward in the evening bent,
+ Doth nightly by an unseen way
+ Haste to the East, and bring up day.
+ Thus all things long for their first state,
+ And gladly to't return, though late.
+ Nor is there here to anything
+ A course allow'd, but in a ring:
+ Which, where it first began, must end,
+ And to that point directly tend.
+
+
+
+
+LIB. IV. METRUM VI.
+
+
+ Who would unclouded see the laws
+ Of the supreme, eternal Cause,
+ Let him with careful thoughts and eyes
+ Observe the high and spacious skies.
+ There in one league of love the stars
+ Keep their old peace, and show our wars.
+ The sun, though flaming still and hot,
+ The cold, pale moon annoyeth not.
+ Arcturus with his sons--though they
+ See other stars go a far way,
+ And out of sight--yet still are found
+ Near the North Pole, their noted bound.
+ Bright Hesper--at set times--delights
+ To usher in the dusky nights:
+ And in the East again attends
+ To warn us, when the day ascends.
+ So alternate Love supplies
+ Eternal courses still, and vies
+ Mutual kindness; that no jars
+ Nor discord can disturb the stars.
+
+ The same sweet concord here below
+ Makes the fierce elements to flow
+ And circle without quarrel still,
+ Though temper'd diversely; thus will
+ The hot assist the cold; the dry
+ Is a friend to humidity:
+ And by the law of kindness they
+ The like relief to them repay.
+ The fire, which active is and bright,
+ Tends upward, and from thence gives light.
+ The earth allows it all that space
+ And makes choice of the lower place;
+ For things of weight haste to the centre,
+ A fall to them is no adventure.
+
+ From these kind turns and circulation
+ Seasons proceed, and generation.
+ This makes the Spring to yield us flow'rs,
+ And melts the clouds to gentle show'rs.
+ The Summer thus matures all seeds
+ And ripens both the corn and weeds.
+ This brings on Autumn, which recruits
+ Our old, spent store, with new fresh fruits.
+ And the cold Winter's blust'ring season
+ Hath snow and storms for the same reason.
+ This temper and wise mixture breed
+ And bring forth ev'ry living seed.
+ And when their strength and substance spend
+ --For while they live, they drive and tend
+ Still to a change--it takes them hence
+ And shifts their dress! and to our sense
+ Their course is over, as their birth:
+ And hid from us they turn to earth.
+
+ But all this while the Prince of life
+ Sits without loss, or change, or strife:
+ Holding the reins, by which all move
+ --And those His wisdom, power, love
+ And justice are--and still what He
+ The first life bids, that needs must be,
+ And live on for a time; that done
+ He calls it back, merely to shun
+ The mischief, which His creature might
+ Run into by a further flight.
+ For if this dear and tender sense
+ Of His preventing providence,
+ Did not restrain and call things back,
+ Both heav'n and earth would go to rack,
+ And from their great Preserver part;
+ As blood let out forsakes the heart
+ And perisheth, but what returns
+ With fresh and brighter spirits burns.
+
+ This is the cause why ev'ry living
+ Creature affects an endless being.
+ A grain of this bright love each thing
+ Had giv'n at first by their great King;
+ And still they creep--drawn on by this--
+ And look back towards their first bliss.
+ For, otherwise, it is most sure,
+ Nothing that liveth could endure:
+ Unless its love turn'd retrograde
+ Sought that First Life, which all things made.
+
+
+
+
+LIB. IV. METRUM III.
+
+
+ If old tradition hath not fail'd,
+ Ulysses, when from Troy he sail'd
+ Was by a tempest forc'd to land
+ Where beauteous Circe did command.
+ Circe, the daughter of the sun,
+ Which had with charms and herbs undone
+ Many poor strangers, and could then
+ Turn into beasts the bravest men.
+ Such magic in her potions lay,
+ That whosoever passed that way
+ And drank, his shape was quickly lost.
+ Some into swine she turn'd, but most
+ To lions arm'd with teeth and claws;
+ Others like wolves with open jaws
+ Did howl; but some--more savage--took
+ The tiger's dreadful shape and look.
+ But wise Ulysses, by the aid
+ Of Hermes, had to him convey'd
+ A flow'r, whose virtue did suppress
+ The force of charms, and their success:
+ While his mates drank so deep, that they
+ Were turn'd to swine, which fed all day
+ On mast, and human food had left,
+ Of shape and voice at once bereft;
+ Only the mind--above all charms--
+ Unchang'd did mourn those monstrous harms.
+ O, worthless herbs, and weaker arts,
+ To change their limbs, but not their hearts!
+ Man's life and vigour keep within,
+ Lodg'd in the centre, not the skin.
+ Those piercing charms and poisons, which
+ His inward parts taint and bewitch,
+ More fatal are, than such, which can
+ Outwardly only spoil the man.
+ Those change his shape and make it foul,
+ But these deform and kill his soul.
+
+
+
+
+LIB. III. METRUM VI.
+
+
+ All sorts of men, that live on Earth,
+ Have one beginning and one birth.
+ For all things there is one Father,
+ Who lays out all, and all doth gather.
+ He the warm sun with rays adorns,
+ And fills with brightness the moon's horns.
+ The azur'd heav'ns with stars He burnish'd,
+ And the round world with creatures furnish'd.
+ But men--made to inherit all--
+ His own sons He was pleas'd to call,
+ And that they might be so indeed,
+ He gave them souls of divine seed.
+ A noble offspring surely then
+ Without distinction are all men.
+ O, why so vainly do some boast
+ Their birth and blood and a great host
+ Of ancestors, whose coats and crests
+ Are some rav'nous birds or beasts!
+ If extraction they look for,
+ And God, the great Progenitor,
+ No man, though of the meanest state,
+ Is base, or can degenerate,
+ Unless, to vice and lewdness bent,
+ He leaves and taints his true descent.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD MAN OF VERONA OUT OF CLAUDIAN, [EPIGRAMMA II.]
+
+ _Felix, qui propriis avum transegit in arvis,
+ Una domus puerum, &c._
+
+ Most happy man! who in his own sweet fields
+ Spent all his time; to whom one cottage yields
+ In age and youth a lodging; who, grown old,
+ Walks with his staff on the same soil and mould
+ Where he did creep an infant, and can tell
+ Many fair years spent in one quiet cell!
+ No toils of fate made him from home far known,
+ Nor foreign waters drank, driv'n from his own.
+ No loss by sea, no wild land's wasteful war
+ Vex'd him, not the brib'd coil of gowns at bar.
+ Exempt from cares, in cities never seen,
+ The fresh field-air he loves, and rural green.
+ The year's set turns by fruits, not consuls, knows;
+ Autumn by apples, May by blossom'd boughs.
+ Within one hedge his sun doth set and rise,
+ The world's wide day his short demesnes comprise;
+ Where he observes some known, concrescent twig
+ Now grown an oak, and old, like him, and big.
+ Verona he doth for the Indies take,
+ And as the Red Sea counts Benacus' Lake.
+ Yet are his limbs and strength untir'd, and he,
+ A lusty grandsire, three descents doth see.
+ Travel and sail who will, search sea or shore;
+ This man hath liv'd, and that hath wander'd more.
+
+
+
+
+THE SPHERE OF ARCHIMEDES OUT OF CLAUDIAN, [EPIGRAMMA XVIII.]
+
+ _Jupiter in parvo cum cerneret aethera vitro_
+ _Risit, et ad superos, &c._
+
+ When Jove a heav'n of small glass did behold,
+ He smil'd, and to the gods these words he told.
+ "Comes then the power of man's art to this?
+ In a frail orb my work new acted is,
+ The poles' decrees, the fate of things, God's laws,
+ Down by his art old Archimedes draws.
+ Spirits inclos'd the sev'ral stars attend,
+ And orderly the living work they bend.
+ A feigned Zodiac measures out the year,
+ Ev'ry new month a false moon doth appear.
+ And now bold industry is proud, it can
+ Wheel round its world, and rule the stars by man.
+ Why at Salmoneus' thunder do I stand?
+ Nature is rivall'd by a single hand."
+
+
+
+
+THE PH[OE]NIX OUT OF CLAUDIAN, [IDYLL I.]
+
+ _Oceani summo circumfluus aequore lucus_
+ _Trans Indos, Eurumque viret, &c._
+
+ A grove there grows, round with the sea confin'd,
+ Beyond the Indies and the Eastern wind,
+ Which, as the sun breaks forth in his first beam,
+ Salutes his steeds, and hears him whip his team;
+ When with his dewy coach the Eastern bay
+ Crackles, whence blusheth the approaching Day,
+ And blasted with his burnish'd wheels the Night
+ In a pale dress doth vanish from the light.
+ This the bless'd Ph[oe]nix' empire is, here he,
+ Alone exempted from mortality,
+ Enjoys a land, where no diseases reign,
+ And ne'er afflicted like our world with pain.
+ A bird most equal to the gods, which vies
+ For length of life and durance with the skies,
+ And with renew'd limbs tires ev'ry age
+ His appetite he never doth assuage
+ With common food. Nor doth he use to drink
+ When thirsty on some river's muddy brink.
+ A purer, vital heat shot from the sun
+ Doth nourish him, and airy sweets that come
+ From Tethys lap he tasteth at his need;
+ On such abstracted diet doth he feed.
+ A secret light there streams from both his eyes,
+ A fiery hue about his cheeks doth rise.
+ His crest grows up into a glorious star
+ Giv'n t' adorn his head, and shines so far,
+ That piercing through the bosom of the night
+ It rends the darkness with a gladsome light.
+ His thighs like Tyrian scarlet, and his wings
+ --More swift than winds are--have sky-colour'd rings
+ Flow'ry and rich: and round about enroll'd
+ Their utmost borders glister all with gold.
+ He's not conceiv'd, nor springs he from the Earth,
+ But is himself the parent, and the birth.
+ None him begets; his fruitful death reprieves
+ Old age, and by his funerals he lives.
+ For when the tedious Summer's gone about
+ A thousand times: so many Winters out,
+ So many Springs: and May doth still restore
+ Those leaves, which Autumn had blown off before;
+ Then press'd with years his vigour doth decline,
+ Foil'd with the number; as a stately pine
+ Tir'd out with storms bends from the top and height
+ Of Caucasus, and falls with its own weight,
+ Whose part is torn with daily blasts, with rain
+ Part is consum'd, and part with age again;
+ So now his eyes grown dusky, fail to see
+ Far off, and drops of colder rheums there be
+ Fall'n slow and dreggy from them; such in sight
+ The cloudy moon is, having spent her light.
+ And now his wings, which used to contend
+ With tempests, scarce from the low earth ascend.
+ He knows his time is out! and doth provide
+ New principles of life; herbs he brings dried
+ From the hot hills, and with rich spices frames
+ A pile, shall burn, and hatch him with its flames.
+ On this the weakling sits; salutes the sun
+ With pleasant noise, and prays and begs for some
+ Of his own fire, that quickly may restore
+ The youth and vigour, which he had before.
+ Whom, soon as Ph[oe]bus spies, stopping his reins,
+ He makes a stand and thus allays his pains.
+ O thou that buriest old age in thy grave,
+ And art by seeming funerals to have
+ A new return of life, whose custom 'tis
+ To rise by ruin, and by death to miss
+ Ev'n death itself, a new beginning take,
+ And that thy wither'd body now forsake!
+ Better thyself by this thy change! This said
+ He shakes his locks, and from his golden head
+ Shoots one bright beam, which smites with vital fire
+ The willing bird; to burn is his desire,
+ That he may live again: he's proud in death,
+ And goes in haste to gain a better breath.
+ The spicy heap fir'd with celestial rays
+ Doth burn the aged Ph[oe]nix, when straight stays
+ The chariot of th' amazed moon; the pole
+ Resists the wheeling swift orbs, and the whole
+ Fabric of Nature at a stand remains,
+ Till the old bird a new young being gains.
+ All stop and charge the faithful flames, that they
+ Suffer not Nature's glory to decay.
+ By this time, life which in the ashes lurks
+ Hath fram'd the heart, and taught new blood new works;
+ The whole heap stirs, and ev'ry part assumes
+ Due vigour; th' embers too are turn'd to plumes;
+ The parent in the issue now revives,
+ But young and brisk; the bounds of both these lives,
+ With very little space between the same,
+ Were parted only by the middle flame.
+ To Nilus straight he goes to consecrate
+ His parent's ghost; his mind is to translate
+ His dust to Egypt. Now he hastes away
+ Into a distant land, and doth convey
+ The ashes in a turf. Birds do attend
+ His journey without number, and defend
+ His pious flight, like to a guard; the sky
+ Is clouded with the army, as they fly.
+ Nor is there one of all those thousands dares
+ Affront his leader: they with solemn cares
+ Attend the progress of their youthful king;
+ Not the rude hawk, nor th' eagle that doth bring
+ Arms up to Jove, fight now, lest they displease;
+ The miracle enacts a common peace.
+ So doth the Parthian lead from Tigris' side
+ His barbarous troops, full of a lavish pride
+ In pearls and habit; he adorns his head
+ With royal tires: his steed with gold is led;
+ His robes, for which the scarlet fish is sought,
+ With rare Assyrian needle-work are wrought;
+ And proudly reigning o'er his rascal bands,
+ He raves and triumphs in his large commands.
+ A city of Egypt, famous in all lands
+ For rites, adores the sun; his temple stands
+ There on a hundred pillars by account,
+ Digg'd from the quarries of the Theban mount.
+ Here, as the custom did require--they say--
+ His happy parent's dust down he doth lay;
+ Then to the image of his lord he bends
+ And to the flames his burden straight commends.
+ Unto the altars thus he destinates
+ His own remains; the light doth gild the gates;
+ Perfumes divine the censers up do send:
+ While th' Indian odour doth itself extend
+ To the Pelusian fens, and filleth all
+ The men it meets with the sweet storm. A gale,
+ To which compar'd nectar itself is vile,
+ Fills the sev'n channels of the misty Nile.
+ O happy bird! sole heir to thy own dust!
+ Death, to whose force all other creatures must
+ Submit, saves thee. Thy ashes make thee rise;
+ 'Tis not thy nature, but thy age that dies.
+ Thou hast seen all! and to the times that run
+ Thou art as great a witness as the sun.
+ Thou saw'st the deluge, when the sea outvied
+ The land, and drown'd the mountains with the tide.
+ What year the straggling Phaeton did fire
+ The world, thou know'st. And no plagues can conspire
+ Against thy life; alone thou dost arise
+ Above mortality; the destinies
+ Spin not thy days out with their fatal clue;
+ They have no law, to which thy life is due.
+
+
+
+
+ PIOUS THOUGHTS AND EJACULATIONS.
+
+
+
+
+TO HIS BOOKS.
+
+
+ Bright books! the perspectives to our weak sights,
+ The clear projections of discerning lights,
+ Burning and shining thoughts, man's posthume day,
+ The track of fled souls, and their Milky Way,
+ The dead alive and busy, the still voice
+ Of enlarg'd spirits, kind Heav'n's white decoys!
+ Who lives with you, lives like those knowing flow'rs,
+ Which in commerce with light spend all their hours:
+ Which shut to clouds, and shadows nicely shun,
+ But with glad haste unveil to kiss the sun.
+ Beneath you, all is dark, and a dead night,
+ Which whoso lives in, wants both health and sight.
+ By sucking you, the wise--like bees--do grow
+ Healing and rich, though this they do most slow,
+ Because most choicely; for as great a store
+ Have we of books, as bees of herbs, or more:
+ And the great task, to try, then know, the good.
+ To discern weeds, and judge of wholesome food,
+ Is a rare, scant performance: for man dies
+ Oft ere 'tis done, while the bee feeds and flies.
+ But you were all choice flow'rs, all set and drest
+ By old sage florists, who well knew the best:
+ And I amidst you all am turned a weed!
+ Not wanting knowledge, but for want of heed.
+ Then thank thyself, wild fool, that wouldst not be
+ Content to know--what was too much for thee!
+
+
+
+
+LOOKING BACK.
+
+
+ Fair shining mountains of my pilgrimage
+ And flowery vales, whose flow'rs were stars,
+ The days and nights of my first happy age;
+ An age without distaste and wars!
+ When I by thoughts ascend your sunny heads,
+ And mind those sacred midnight lights
+ By which I walk'd, when curtain'd rooms and beds
+ Confin'd or seal'd up others' sights:
+ O then, how bright,
+ And quick a light
+ Doth brush my heart and scatter night;
+ Chasing that shade,
+ Which my sins made,
+ While I so spring, as if I could not fade!
+ How brave a prospect is a bright back-side!
+ Where flow'rs and palms refresh the eye!
+ And days well spent like the glad East abide,
+ Whose morning-glories cannot die!
+
+
+
+
+THE SHOWER.
+
+
+ Waters above! eternal springs!
+ The dew that silvers the Dove's wings!
+ O welcome, welcome to the sad!
+ Give dry dust drink; drink that makes glad!
+ Many fair ev'nings, many flow'rs
+ Sweeten'd with rich and gentle showers,
+ Have I enjoy'd, and down have run
+ Many a fine and shining sun;
+ But never, till this happy hour,
+ Was blest with such an evening-shower!
+
+
+
+
+DISCIPLINE.
+
+
+ Fair Prince of Light! Light's living Well
+ Who hast the keys of death and Hell!
+ If the mole[66] man despise Thy day,
+ Put chains of darkness in his way.
+ Teach him how deep, how various are
+ The counsels of Thy love and care.
+ When acts of grace and a long peace,
+ Breed but rebellion, and displease,
+ Then give him his own way and will,
+ Where lawless he may run, until
+ His own choice hurts him, and the sting
+ Of his foul sins full sorrows bring.
+ If Heaven and angels, hopes and mirth,
+ Please not the mole so much as earth:
+ Give him his mine to dig, or dwell,
+ And one sad scheme of hideous Hell.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[66] The original edition has _mule_.
+
+
+
+
+THE ECLIPSE.
+
+
+ Whither, O whither didst thou fly
+ When I did grieve Thine holy eye?
+ When Thou didst mourn to see me lost,
+ And all Thy care and counsels cross'd.
+ O do not grieve, where'er Thou art!
+ Thy grief is an undoing smart,
+ Which doth not only pain, but break
+ My heart, and makes me blush to speak.
+ Thy anger I could kiss, and will;
+ But O Thy grief, Thy grief, doth kill.
+
+
+
+
+AFFLICTION.
+
+
+ O come, and welcome! come, refine!
+ For Moors, if wash'd by Thee, will shine.
+ Man blossoms at Thy touch; and he,
+ When Thou draw'st blood is Thy rose-tree.
+ Crosses make straight his crooked ways,
+ And clouds but cool his dog-star days;
+ Diseases too, when by Thee blest,
+ Are both restoratives and rest.
+ Flow'rs that in sunshines riot still,
+ Die scorch'd and sapless; though storms kill,
+ The fall is fair, e'en to desire,
+ Where in their sweetness all expire.
+ O come, pour on! what calms can be
+ So fair as storms, that appease Thee?
+
+
+
+
+RETIREMENT.
+
+
+ Fresh fields and woods! the Earth's fair face!
+ God's footstool! and man's dwelling-place!
+ I ask not why the first believer
+ Did love to be a country liver?
+ Who, to secure pious content,
+ Did pitch by groves and wells his tent;
+ Where he might view the boundless sky,
+ And all those glorious lights on high,
+ With flying meteors, mists, and show'rs,
+ Subjected hills, trees, meads, and flow'rs,
+ And ev'ry minute bless the King
+ And wise Creator of each thing.
+
+ I ask not why he did remove
+ To happy Mamre's holy grove,
+ Leaving the cities of the plain
+ To Lot and his successless train?
+ All various lusts in cities still
+ Are found; they are the thrones of ill,
+ The dismal sinks, where blood is spill'd,
+ Cages with much uncleanness fill'd:
+ But rural shades are the sweet sense
+ Of piety and innocence;
+ They are the meek's calm region, where
+ Angels descend and rule the sphere;
+ Where Heaven lies leiguer, and the Dove
+ Duly as dew comes from above.
+ If Eden be on Earth at all,
+ 'Tis that which we the country call.
+
+
+
+
+THE REVIVAL.
+
+
+ Unfold! unfold! Take in His light,
+ Who makes thy cares more short than night.
+ The joys which with His day-star rise
+ He deals to all but drowsy eyes;
+ And, what the men of this world miss,
+ Some drops and dews of future bliss.
+
+ Hark! how His winds have chang'd their note!
+ And with warm whispers call thee out;
+ The frosts are past, the storms are gone,
+ And backward life at last comes on.
+ The lofty groves in express joys
+ Reply unto the turtle's voice;
+ And here in dust and dirt, O here
+ The lilies of His love appear!
+
+
+
+
+THE DAY SPRING.
+
+
+ Early, while yet the dark was gay
+ And gilt with stars, more trim than day,
+ Heav'n's Lily, and the Earth's chaste Rose,
+ The green immortal Branch arose; }
+ And in a solitary place } S. Mark,
+ Bow'd to His Father His blest face. } c. 1, v. 35-
+ If this calm season pleased my Prince,
+ Whose fulness no need could evince,
+ Why should not I, poor silly sheep,
+ His hours, as well as practice, keep?
+ Not that His hand is tied to these,
+ From whom Time holds his transient lease
+ But mornings new creations are,
+ When men, all night sav'd by His care,
+ Are still reviv'd; and well He may
+ Expect them grateful with the day.
+ So for that first draught of His hand, }
+ Which finish'd heav'n, and sea, and land, } Job, c. 38,
+ The sons of God their thanks did bring, } v. 7-
+ And all the morning stars did sing. }
+ Besides, as His part heretofore
+ The firstlings were of all that bore
+ So now each day from all He saves
+ Their soul's first thoughts and fruits He craves.
+ This makes Him daily shed and show'r
+ His graces at this early hour;
+ Which both His care and kindness show,
+ Cheering the good, quickening the slow.
+ As holy friends mourn at delay,
+ And think each minute an hour's stay,
+ So His Divine and loving Dove
+ With longing throes[67] doth heave and move,
+ And soar about us while we sleep;
+ Sometimes quite through that lock doth peep,
+ And shine, but always without fail,
+ Before the slow sun can unveil,
+ In new compassions breaks, like light,
+ And morning-looks, which scatter night.
+ And wilt Thou let Thy creature be,
+ When Thou hast watch'd, asleep to Thee?
+ Why to unwelcome loath'd surprises
+ Dost leave him, having left his vices?
+ Since these, if suffer'd, may again
+ Lead back the living to the slain.
+ O, change this scourge; or, if as yet
+ None less will my transgressions fit,
+ Dissolve, dissolve! Death cannot do
+ What I would not submit unto.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[67] The original has _throws_.
+
+
+
+
+THE RECOVERY.
+
+
+I.
+
+ Fair vessel of our daily light, whose proud
+ And previous glories gild that blushing cloud;
+ Whose lively fires in swift projections glance
+ From hill to hill, and by refracted chance
+ Burnish some neighbour-rock, or tree, and then
+ Fly off in coy and winged flames again:
+ If thou this day
+ Hold on thy way,
+ Know, I have got a greater light than thine;
+ A light, whose shade and back-parts make thee shine.
+ Then get thee down! then get thee down!
+ I have a Sun now of my own.
+
+
+II.
+
+ Those nicer livers, who without thy rays
+ Stir not abroad, those may thy lustre praise;
+ And wanting light--light, which no wants doth know--
+ To thee--weak shiner!--like blind Persians bow.
+ But where that Sun, which tramples on thy head,
+ From His own bright eternal eye doth shed
+ One living ray,
+ There thy dead day
+ Is needless, and man to a light made free,
+ Which shows that thou canst neither show nor see.
+ Then get thee down! then get thee down!
+ I have a Sun now of my own.
+
+
+
+
+THE NATIVITY.
+
+Written in the year 1656.
+
+
+ Peace? and to all the world? Sure One,
+ And He the Prince of Peace, hath none!
+ He travels to be born, and then
+ Is born to travel more again.
+ Poor Galilee! thou canst not be
+ The place for His Nativity.
+ His restless mother's call'd away,
+ And not deliver'd till she pay.
+
+ A tax? 'tis so still! we can see
+ The Church thrive in her misery,
+ And, like her Head at Beth'lem, rise,
+ When she, oppress'd with troubles, lies.
+ Rise?--should all fall, we cannot be
+ In more extremities than He.
+ Great Type of passions! Come what will,
+ Thy grief exceeds all copies still.
+ Thou cam'st from Heav'n to Earth, that we
+ Might go from Earth to Heav'n with Thee:
+ And though Thou found'st no welcome here,
+ Thou didst provide us mansions there.
+ A stable was Thy Court, and when
+ Men turn'd to beasts, beasts would be men:
+ They were Thy courtiers; others none;
+ And their poor manger was Thy throne.
+ No swaddling silks Thy limbs did fold,
+ Though Thou couldst turn Thy rays to gold.
+ No rockers waited on Thy birth,
+ No cradles stirr'd, nor songs of mirth;
+ But her chaste lap and sacred breast,
+ Which lodg'd Thee first, did give Thee rest.
+
+ But stay: what light is that doth stream
+ And drop here in a gilded beam?
+ It is Thy star runs page, and brings
+ Thy tributary Eastern kings.
+ Lord! grant some light to us, that we
+ May with them find the way to Thee!
+ Behold what mists eclipse the day!
+ How dark it is! Shed down one ray,
+ To guide us out of this dark night,
+ And say once more, "Let there be light!"
+
+
+
+
+THE TRUE CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+ So, stick up ivy and the bays,
+ And then restore the heathen ways.
+ Green will remind you of the spring,
+ Though this great day denies the thing;
+ And mortifies the earth, and all
+ But your wild revels, and loose hall.
+ Could you wear flow'rs, and roses strow
+ Blushing upon your breasts' warm snow,
+ That very dress your lightness will
+ Rebuke, and wither at the ill.
+ The brightness of this day we owe
+ Not unto music, masque, nor show,
+ Nor gallant furniture, nor plate,
+ But to the manger's mean estate.
+ His life while here, as well as birth,
+ Was but a check to pomp and mirth;
+ And all man's greatness you may see
+ Condemned by His humility.
+
+ Then leave your open house and noise,
+ To welcome Him with holy joys,
+ And the poor shepherds' watchfulness,
+ Whom light and hymns from Heav'n did bless.
+ What you abound with, cast abroad
+ To those that want, and ease your load.
+ Who empties thus, will bring more in;
+ But riot is both loss and sin.
+ Dress finely what comes not in sight,
+ And then you keep your Christmas right.
+
+
+
+
+THE REQUEST.
+
+
+ O thou who didst deny to me
+ This world's ador'd felicity,
+ And ev'ry big imperious lust,
+ Which fools admire in sinful dust,
+ With those fine subtle twists, that tie
+ Their bundles of foul gallantry--
+ Keep still my weak eyes from the shine
+ Of those gay things which are not Thine!
+ And shut my ears against the noise
+ Of wicked, though applauded, joys!
+ For Thou in any land hast store
+ Of shades and coverts for Thy poor;
+ Where from the busy dust and heat,
+ As well as storms, they may retreat.
+ A rock or bush are downy beds,
+ When Thou art there, crowning their heads
+ With secret blessings, or a tire
+ Made of the Comforter's live fire.
+ And when Thy goodness in the dress
+ Of anger will not seem to bless,
+ Yet dost Thou give them that rich rain,
+ Which, as it drops, clears all again.
+ O what kind visits daily pass
+ 'Twixt Thy great self and such poor grass:
+ With what sweet looks doth Thy love shine
+ On those low violets of Thine,
+ While the tall tulip is accurst,
+ And crowns imperial die with thirst!
+ O give me still those secret meals,
+ Those rare repasts which Thy love deals!
+ Give me that joy, which none can grieve,
+ And which in all griefs doth relieve!
+ This is the portion Thy child begs;
+ Not that of rust, and rags, and dregs.
+
+
+
+
+JORDANIS.
+
+
+ Quid celebras auratam undam, et combusta pyropis
+ Flumina, vel medio quae serit aethra salo?
+ Aeternum refluis si pernoctaret in undis
+ Ph[oe]bus, et incertam sidera suda Tethyn
+ Si colerent, tantae gemmae! nil caerula librem:
+ Sorderet rubro in littore dives Eos.
+ Pactoli mea lympha macras ditabit arenas,
+ Atque universum gutta minuta Tagum.
+ O caram caput! O cincinnos unda beatos
+ Libata! O Domini balnea sancta mei!
+ Quod fortunatum voluit spectare canalem,
+ Hoc erat in laudes area parva tuas.
+ Jordanis in medio perfusus flumine lavit,
+ Divinoque tuas ore beavit aquas.
+ Ah! Solyma infelix rivis obsessa prophanis!
+ Amisit genium porta Bethesda suum.
+ Hic Orientis aquae currunt, et apostata Parphar,
+ Atque Abana immundo turbidus amne fluit,
+ Ethnica te totam cum f[oe]davere fluenta,
+ Mansit Christicola Jordanis unus aqua.
+
+
+
+
+SERVILII FATUM, SIVE VINDICTA DIVINA.
+
+
+ Et sic in cithara, sic in dulcedine vitae
+ Et facti et luctus regnat amarities.
+ Quam subito in fastum extensos atque esseda[68] vultus
+ Ultrici oppressit vilis arena sinu!
+ Si violae, spiransque crocus: si lilium [Greek: aeinon]
+ Non nisi justorum nascitur e cinere:
+ Spinarum, tribulique atque infelicis avenae
+ Quantus in hoc tumulo et qualis acervus erit?
+ Dii superi! damnosa piis sub sidera longum
+ Mansuris stabilem conciliate fidem!
+ Sic olim in c[oe]lum post nimbos clarius ibunt,
+ Supremo occidui tot velut astra die.
+ Quippe ruunt horae, qualisque in corpore vixit,
+ Talis it in tenebras bis moriturus homo.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[68] The original edition misprints _essera_.
+
+
+
+
+DE SALMONE
+
+_Ad virum optimum, et sibi familiarius notum: D. Thomam Poellum
+ Cantrevensem: S. S. Theologiae Doctorem._
+
+
+ Accipe praerapido salmonem in gurgite captum,
+ Ex imo in summas cum penetrasset aquas,
+ Mentitae culicis quem forma elusit inanis:
+ Picta coloratis plumea musca notis.
+ Dum captat, capitur; vorat inscius, ipse vorandus;
+ Fitque cibi raptor grata rapina mali.
+ Alma quies! miserae merces ditissima vitae,
+ Quam tuto in tacitis hic latuisset aquis!
+ Qui dum spumosi fremitus et murmura rivi
+ Quaeritat, hamato sit cita praeda cibo,
+ Quam grave magnarum specimen dant ludicra rerum?
+ Gurges est mundus: salmo, homo: pluma, dolus.
+
+
+
+
+THE WORLD.
+
+
+ Can any tell me what it is? Can you
+ That wind your thoughts into a clue
+ To guide out others, while yourselves stay in,
+ And hug the sin?
+ I, who so long have in it liv'd,
+ That, if I might,
+ In truth I would not be repriev'd,
+ Have neither sight
+ Nor sense that knows
+ These ebbs and flows:
+ But since of all all may be said,
+ And likeliness doth but upbraid
+ And mock the truth, which still is lost
+ In fine conceits, like streams in a sharp frost;
+ I will not strive, nor the rule break,
+ Which doth give losers leave to speak.
+ Then false and foul world, and unknown
+ Ev'n to thy own,
+ Here I renounce thee, and resign
+ Whatever thou canst say is thine.
+
+ Thou art not Truth! for he that tries
+ Shall find thee all deceit and lies,
+ Thou art not Friendship! for in thee
+ 'Tis but the bait of policy;
+ Which like a viper lodg'd in flow'rs,
+ Its venom through that sweetness pours;
+ And when not so, then always 'tis
+ A fading paint, the short-liv'd bliss
+ Of air and humour; out and in,
+ Like colours in a dolphin's skin;
+ But must not live beyond one day,
+ Or convenience; then away.
+ Thou art not Riches! for that trash,
+ Which one age hoards, the next doth wash
+ And so severely sweep away,
+ That few remember where it lay.
+ So rapid streams the wealthy land
+ About them have at their command;
+ And shifting channels here restore,
+ There break down, what they bank'd before.
+ Thou art not Honour! for those gay
+ Feathers will wear and drop away;
+ And princes to some upstart line
+ Gives new ones, that are full as fine.
+ Thou art not Pleasure! for thy rose
+ Upon a thorn doth still repose;
+ Which, if not cropp'd, will quickly shed,
+ But soon as cropp'd, grows dull and dead.
+ Thou art the sand, which fills one glass,
+ And then doth to another pass;
+ And could I put thee to a stay,
+ Thou art but dust! Then go thy way,
+ And leave me clean and bright, though poor;
+ Who stops thee doth but daub his floor;
+ And, swallow-like, when he hath done,
+ To unknown dwellings must be gone!
+ Welcome, pure thoughts, and peaceful hours,
+ Enrich'd with sunshine and with show'rs;
+ Welcome fair hopes, and holy cares,
+ The not to be repented shares
+ Of time and business; the sure road
+ Unto my last and lov'd abode!
+ O supreme Bliss!
+ The Circle, Centre, and Abyss
+ Of blessings, never let me miss
+ Nor leave that path which leads to Thee,
+ Who art alone all things to me!
+ I hear, I see, all the long day
+ The noise and pomp of the broad way.
+ I note their coarse and proud approaches,
+ Their silks, perfumes, and glittering coaches.
+ But in the narrow way to Thee
+ I observe only poverty,
+ And despis'd things; and all along
+ The ragged, mean, and humble throng
+ Are still on foot; and as they go
+ They sigh, and say, their Lord went so.
+ Give me my staff then, as it stood
+ When green and growing in the wood;
+ --Those stones, which for the altar serv'd,
+ Might not be smooth'd, nor finely carv'd--
+ With this poor stick I'll pass the ford,
+ As Jacob did; and Thy dear word,
+ As Thou hast dress'd it, not as wit
+ And deprav'd tastes have poison'd it,
+ Shall in the passage be my meat,
+ And none else will Thy servant eat.
+ Thus, thus, and in no other sort,
+ Will I set forth, though laugh'd at for't;
+ And leaving the wise world their way,
+ Go through, though judg'd to go astray.
+
+
+
+
+THE BEE.
+
+
+ From fruitful beds and flow'ry borders,
+ Parcell'd to wasteful ranks and orders,
+ Where State grasps more than plain Truth needs,
+ And wholesome herbs are starv'd by weeds,
+ To the wild woods I will be gone,
+ And the coarse meals of great Saint John.
+
+ When truth and piety are miss'd
+ Both in the rulers and the priest;
+ When pity is not cold, but dead,
+ And the rich eat the poor like bread;
+ While factious heads with open coil
+ And force, first make, then share, the spoil;
+ To Horeb then Elias goes,
+ And in the desert grows the rose.
+ Hail crystal fountains and fresh shades,
+ Where no proud look invades,
+ No busy worldling hunts away
+ The sad retirer all the day!
+ Hail, happy, harmless solitude!
+ Our sanctuary from the rude
+ And scornful world; the calm recess
+ Of faith, and hope, and holiness!
+ Here something still like Eden looks;
+ Honey in woods, juleps in brooks,
+ And flow'rs, whose rich, unrifled sweets
+ With a chaste kiss the cool dew greets,
+ When the toils of the day are done,
+ And the tir'd world sets with the sun.
+ Here flying winds and flowing wells
+ Are the wise, watchful hermit's bells;
+ Their busy murmurs all the night
+ To praise or prayer do invite,
+ And with an awful sound arrest,
+ And piously employ his breast.
+
+ When in the East the dawn doth blush,
+ Here cool, fresh spirits the air brush;
+ Herbs straight get up, flow'rs peep and spread,
+ Trees whisper praise, and bow the head:
+ Birds, from the shades of night releas'd,
+ Look round about, then quit the nest,
+ And with united gladness sing
+ The glory of the morning's King.
+ The hermit hears, and with meek voice
+ Offers his own up, and their joys:
+ Then prays that all the world may be
+ Bless'd with as sweet an unity.
+
+ If sudden storms the day invade,
+ They flock about him to the shade:
+ Where wisely they expect the end,
+ Giving the tempest time to spend;
+ And hard by shelters on some bough
+ Hilarion's servant, the sage crow.
+
+ O purer years of light and grace!
+ The diff'rence is great as the space
+ 'Twixt you and us, who blindly run
+ After false fires, and leave the sun.
+ Is not fair Nature of herself
+ Much richer than dull paint or pelf?
+ And are not streams at the spring-head
+ More sweet than in carv'd stone or lead?
+ But fancy and some artist's tools
+ Frame a religion for fools.
+
+ The truth, which once was plainly taught,
+ With thorns and briars now is fraught.
+ Some part is with bold fables spotted,
+ Some by strange comments wildly blotted;
+ And Discord--old Corruption's crest--
+ With blood and blame hath stain'd the rest.
+ So snow, which in its first descents
+ A whiteness, like pure Heav'n, presents,
+ When touch'd by man is quickly soil'd,
+ And after, trodden down and spoil'd.
+
+ O lead me, where I may be free
+ In truth and spirit to serve Thee!
+ Where undisturb'd I may converse
+ With Thy great Self; and there rehearse
+ Thy gifts with thanks; and from Thy store,
+ Who art all blessings, beg much more.
+ Give me the wisdom of the bee,
+ And her unwearied industry!
+ That from the wild gourds of these days,
+ I may extract health, and Thy praise,
+ Who canst turn darkness into light,
+ And in my weakness show Thy might.
+
+ Suffer me not in any want
+ To seek refreshment from a plant
+ Thou didst not set; since all must be
+ Pluck'd up, whose growth is not from Thee.
+ 'Tis not the garden, and the bow'rs,
+ Nor sense and forms, that give to flow'rs
+ Their wholesomeness, but Thy good will,
+ Which truth and pureness purchase still.
+
+ Then since corrupt man hath driv'n hence
+ Thy kind and saving influence,
+ And balm is no more to be had
+ In all the coasts of Gilead;
+ Go with me to the shade and cell,
+ Where Thy best servants once did dwell.
+ There let me know Thy will, and see
+ Exil'd Religion own'd by Thee;
+ For Thou canst turn dark grots to halls,
+ And make hills blossom like the vales;
+ Decking their untill'd heads with flow'rs,
+ And fresh delights for all sad hours;
+ Till from them, like a laden bee,
+ I may fly home, and hive with Thee
+
+
+
+
+TO CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
+
+
+ Farewell, thou true and tried reflection
+ Of the still poor, and meek election:
+ Farewell, soul's joy, the quick'ning health
+ Of spirits, and their secret wealth!
+ Farewell, my morning-star, the bright
+ And dawning looks of the True Light!
+ O blessed shiner, tell me whither
+ Thou wilt be gone, when night comes hither!
+ A seer that observ'd thee in
+ Thy course, and watch'd the growth of sin,
+ Hath giv'n his judgment, and foretold,
+ That westward hence thy course will hold;
+ And when the day with us is done,
+ There fix, and shine a glorious sun.
+ O hated shades and darkness! when
+ You have got here the sway again,
+ And like unwholesome fogs withstood
+ The light, and blasted all that's good,
+ Who shall the happy shepherds be,
+ To watch the next nativity
+ Of truth and brightness, and make way
+ For the returning, rising day?
+ O what year will bring back our bliss?
+ Or who shall live, when God doth this?
+ Thou Rock of Ages! and the Rest
+ Of all, that for Thee are oppress'd!
+ Send down the Spirit of Thy truth,
+ That Spirit, which the tender youth,
+ And first growths of Thy Spouse did spread
+ Through all the world, from one small head!
+ Then if to blood we must resist,
+ Let Thy mild Dove, and our High-Priest,
+ Help us, when man proves false or frowns,
+ To bear the Cross, and save our crowns.
+ O honour those that honour Thee!
+ Make babes to still the enemy!
+ And teach an infant of few days
+ To perfect by his death Thy praise!
+ Let none defile what Thou didst wed,
+ Nor tear the garland from her head!
+ But chaste and cheerful let her die,
+ And precious in the Bridegroom's eye
+ So to Thy glory and her praise,
+ These last shall be her brightest days.
+
+ Revel[ation] chap. last, vers. 17.
+ "_The Spirit and the Bride say, Come._"
+
+
+
+
+DAPHNIS.
+
+_An Elegiac Eclogue. The Interlocutors, Damon, Menalcas._
+
+
+_Damon._
+
+ What clouds, Menalcas, do oppress thy brow,
+ Flow'rs in a sunshine never look so low?
+ Is Nisa still cold flint? or have thy lambs
+ Met with the fox by straying from their dams?
+
+_Menalcas._
+
+ Ah, Damon, no! my lambs are safe; and she
+ Is kind, and much more white than they can be.
+ But what doth life when most serene afford
+ Without a worm which gnaws her fairest gourd?
+ Our days of gladness are but short reliefs,
+ Giv'n to reserve us for enduring griefs:
+ So smiling calms close tempests breed, which break
+ Like spoilers out, and kill our flocks when weak.
+ I heard last May--and May is still high Spring--
+ The pleasant Philomel her vespers sing.
+ The green wood glitter'd with the golden sun.
+ And all the west like silver shin'd; not one
+ Black cloud; no rags, nor spots did stain
+ The welkin's beauty; nothing frown'd like rain.
+ But ere night came, that scene of fine sights turn'd
+ To fierce dark show'rs; the air with lightnings burn'd;
+ The wood's sweet syren, rudely thus oppress'd,
+ Gave to the storm her weak and weary breast.
+ I saw her next day on her last cold bed:
+ And Daphnis so, just so is Daphnis, dead!
+
+_Damon._
+
+ So violets, so doth the primrose, fall,
+ At once the Spring's pride, and its funeral.
+ Such easy sweets get off still in their prime,
+ And stay not here to wear the soil of time;
+ While coarser flow'rs, which none would miss, if past,
+ To scorching Summers and cold Autumns last.
+
+_Menalcas._
+
+ Souls need not time. The early forward things
+ Are always fledg'd, and gladly use their wings.
+ Or else great parts, when injur'd, quit the crowd,
+ To shine above still, not behind, the cloud.
+ And is't not just to leave those to the night
+ That madly hate and persecute the light?
+ Who, doubly dark, all negroes do exceed,
+ And inwardly are true black Moors indeed?
+
+_Damon._
+
+ The punishment still manifests the sin,
+ As outward signs show the disease within.
+ While worth oppress'd mounts to a nobler height,
+ And palm-like bravely overtops the weight.
+ So where swift Isca from our lofty hills
+ With loud farewells descends, and foaming fills
+ A wider channel, like some great port-vein
+ With large rich streams to fill the humble plain:
+ I saw an oak, whose stately height and shade,
+ Projected far, a goodly shelter made;
+ And from the top with thick diffused boughs
+ In distant rounds grew like a wood-nymph's house.
+ Here many garlands won at roundel-lays
+ Old shepherds hung up in those happy days
+ With knots and girdles, the dear spoils and dress
+ Of such bright maids as did true lovers bless.
+ And many times had old Amphion made
+ His beauteous flock acquainted with this shade:
+ His flock, whose fleeces were as smooth and white
+ As those the welkin shows in moonshine night.
+ Here, when the careless world did sleep, have I
+ In dark records and numbers nobly high,
+ The visions of our black, but brightest bard
+ From old Amphion's mouth full often heard;
+ With all those plagues poor shepherds since have known,
+ And riddles more, which future time must own:
+ While on his pipe young Hylas play'd, and made
+ Music as solemn as the song and shade.
+ But the curs'd owner from the trembling top
+ To the firm brink did all those branches lop;
+ And in one hour what many years had bred,
+ The pride and beauty of the plain, lay dead.
+ The undone swains in sad songs mourn'd their loss,
+ While storms and cold winds did improve the cross;
+ But nature, which--like virtue--scorns to yield,
+ Brought new recruits and succours to the field;
+ For by next spring the check'd sap wak'd from sleep,
+ And upwards still to feel the sun did creep;
+ Till at those wounds, the hated hewer made,
+ There sprang a thicker and a fresher shade.
+
+_Menalcas._
+
+ So thrives afflicted Truth, and so the light
+ When put out gains a value from the night.
+ How glad are we, when but one twinkling star
+ Peeps betwixt clouds more black than is our tar:
+ And Providence was kind, that order'd this
+ To the brave suff'rer should be solid bliss:
+ Nor is it so till this short life be done,
+ But goes hence with him, and is still his sun.
+
+_Damon._
+
+ Come, shepherds, then, and with your greenest bays
+ Refresh his dust, who lov'd your learned lays.
+ Bring here the florid glories of the spring,
+ And, as you strew them, pious anthems sing,
+ Which to your children and the years to come
+ May speak of Daphnis, and be never dumb.
+ While prostrate I drop on his quiet urn
+ My tears, not gifts; and like the poor that mourn
+ With green but humble turfs, write o'er his hearse
+ For false, foul prose-men this fair truth in verse.
+
+ "Here Daphnis sleeps, and while the great watch goes
+ Of loud and restless Time, takes his repose.
+ Fame is but noise; all Learning but a thought;
+ Which one admires, another sets at nought,
+ Nature mocks both, and Wit still keeps ado:
+ But Death brings knowledge and assurance too."
+
+_Menalcas._
+
+ Cast in your garlands! strew on all the flow'rs,
+ Which May with smiles or April feeds with show'rs,
+ Let this day's rites as steadfast as the sun
+ Keep pace with Time and through all ages run;
+ The public character and famous test
+ Of our long sorrows and his lasting rest.
+ And when we make procession on the plains,
+ Or yearly keep the holiday of swains,
+ Let Daphnis still be the recorded name,
+ And solemn honour of our feasts and fame.
+ For though the Isis and the prouder Thames
+ Can show his relics lodg'd hard by their streams:
+ And must for ever to the honour'd name
+ Of noble Murrey chiefly owe that fame:
+ Yet here his stars first saw him, and when Fate
+ Beckon'd him hence, it knew no other date.
+ Nor will these vocal woods and valleys fail,
+ Nor Isca's louder streams, this to bewail;
+ But while swains hope, and seasons change, will glide
+ With moving murmurs because Daphnis died.
+
+_Damon._
+
+ A fatal sadness, such as still foregoes,
+ Then runs along with public plagues and woes,
+ Lies heavy on us; and the very light,
+ Turn'd mourner too, hath the dull looks of night.
+ Our vales, like those of death, a darkness show
+ More sad than cypress or the gloomy yew;
+ And on our hills, where health with height complied,
+ Thick drowsy mists hang round, and there reside.
+ Not one short parcel of the tedious year
+ In its old dress and beauty doth appear.
+ Flow'rs hate the spring, and with a sullen bend
+ Thrust down their heads, which to the root still tend.
+ And though the sun, like a cold lover, peeps
+ A little at them, still the day's-eye sleeps.
+ But when the Crab and Lion with acute
+ And active fires their sluggish heat recruit,
+ Our grass straight russets, and each scorching day
+ Drinks up our brooks as fast as dew in May;
+ Till the sad herdsman with his cattle faints,
+ And empty channels ring with loud complaints.
+
+_Menalcas._
+
+ Heaven's just displeasure, and our unjust ways,
+ Change Nature's course; bring plagues, dearth, and decays.
+ This turns our lands to dust, the skies to brass,
+ Makes old kind blessings into curses pass:
+ And when we learn unknown and foreign crimes,
+ Brings in the vengeance due unto those climes.
+ The dregs and puddle of all ages now,
+ Like rivers near their fall, on us do flow.
+ Ah, happy Daphnis! who while yet the streams
+ Ran clear and warm, though but with setting beams,
+ Got through, and saw by that declining light,
+ His toil's and journey's end before the night.
+
+_Damon._
+
+ A night, where darkness lays her chains and bars,
+ And feral fires appear instead of stars.
+ But he, along with the last looks of day,
+ Went hence, and setting--sunlike--pass'd away.
+ What future storms our present sins do hatch
+ Some in the dark discern, and others watch;
+ Though foresight makes no hurricane prove mild,
+ Fury that's long fermenting is most wild.
+ But see, while thus our sorrows we discourse,
+ Ph[oe]bus hath finish'd his diurnal course;
+ The shades prevail: each bush seems bigger grown;
+ Darkness--like State--makes small things swell and frown:
+ The hills and woods with pipes and sonnets round,
+ And bleating sheep our swains drive home, resound.
+
+_Menalcas._
+
+ What voice from yonder lawn tends hither? Hark!
+ 'Tis Thyrsis calls! I hear Lycanthe bark!
+ His flocks left out so late, and weary grown,
+ Are to the thickets gone, and there laid down.
+
+_Damon._
+
+ Menalcas, haste to look them out! poor sheep,
+ When day is done, go willingly to sleep:
+ And could bad man his time spend as they do,
+ He might go sleep, or die, as willing too.
+
+_Menalcas._
+
+ Farewell! kind Damon! now the shepherd's star
+ With beauteous looks smiles on us, though from far.
+ All creatures that were favourites of day
+ Are with the sun retir'd and gone away.
+ While feral birds send forth unpleasant notes,
+ And night--the nurse of thoughts--sad thoughts promotes:
+ But joy will yet come with the morning light,
+ Though sadly now we bid good night!
+
+_Damon._
+
+ Good night!
+
+
+
+
+ FRAGMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS.
+
+From _Eucharistica Oxoniensia in Caroli Regis nostri e Scotia Reditum
+ Gratulatoria_ (1641).
+
+
+
+
+[TO CHARLES THE FIRST.]
+
+
+ As kings do rule like th' heavens, who dispense
+ To parts remote and near their influence;
+ So doth our Charles move also; while he posts
+ From south to north, and back to southern coasts;
+ Like to the starry orb, which in its round
+ Moves to those very points; but while 'tis bound
+ For north, there is--some guess--a trembling fit
+ And shivering in the part that's opposite.
+ What were our fears and pantings, what dire fame
+ Heard we of Irish tumults, sword, and flame!
+ Which now we think but blessings, as being sent
+ Only as matter, whereupon 'twas meant,
+ The British thus united might express,
+ The strength of joined Powers to suppress,
+ Or conquer foes. This is Great Britain's bliss;
+ The island in itself a just world is.
+ Here no commotion shall we find or fear,
+ But of the Court's removal, no sad tear
+ Or cloudy brow, but when you leave us. Then
+ Discord is loyalty professed, when
+ Nations do strive, which shall the happier be
+ T' enjoy your bounteous rays of majesty
+ Which yet you throw in undivided dart,
+ For things divine allow no share or part.
+ The same kind virtue doth at once disclose
+ The beauty of their thistle and our rose.
+ Thus you do mingle souls and firmly knit
+ What were but join'd before; you Scotsmen fit
+ Closely with us, and reuniter prove;
+ You fetch'd the crown before, and now their love.
+
+ H. Vaughan, Ies. Col.
+
+From _Of the Benefit we may get by our Enemies_: translated from
+ Plutarch (1651).
+
+
+
+
+1. [HOMER. ILIAD, I. 255-6.]
+
+ Sure Priam will to mirth incline,
+ And all that are of Priam's line.
+
+
+
+
+2. [AESCHYLUS. SEPTEM CONTRA THEBES, 600-1.]
+
+ Feeding on fruits which in the heavens do grow,
+ Whence all divine and holy counsels flow.
+
+
+
+
+3. [EURIPIDES. ORESTES, 251-2.]
+
+ Excel then if thou canst, be not withstood,
+ But strive and overcome the evil with good.
+
+
+
+
+4. [EURIPIDES. FRAGM. MLXXI.]
+
+ You minister to others' wounds a cure,
+ But leave your own all rotten and impure.
+
+
+
+
+5. [EURIPIDES. CRESPHONTES, FRAGM. CCCCLV.]
+
+ Chance, taking from me things of highest price,
+ At a dear rate hath taught me to be wise.
+
+
+
+
+6. [INCERTI.]
+
+ [He] Knaves' tongues and calumnies no more doth prize
+ Than the vain buzzing of so many flies.
+
+
+
+
+7. [PINDAR. FRAGM. C.]
+
+ His deep, dark heart--bent to supplant--
+ Is iron, or else adamant.
+
+
+
+
+8. [SOLON. FRAGM. XV.]
+
+ What though they boast their riches unto us?
+ Those cannot say that they are virtuous.
+
+From _Of the Diseases of the Mind and the Body_: translated from
+ Plutarch (1651).
+
+
+
+
+1. [HOMER. ILIAD, XVII. 446-7.]
+
+ That man for misery excell'd
+ All creatures which the wide world held.
+
+
+
+
+2. [EURIPIDES. BACCHAE, 1170-4.]
+
+ A tender kid--see, where 'tis put--
+ I on the hills did slay,
+ Now dress'd and into quarters cut,
+ A pleasant, dainty prey.
+
+From _Of the Diseases of the Mind and the Body_: translated from Maximus
+ Tyrius (1651).
+
+
+
+
+1. [ARIPHRON.]
+
+ O health, the chief of gifts divine!
+ I would I might with thee and thine
+ Live all those days appointed mine!
+
+From _The Mount of Olives_ (1652).
+
+
+
+
+1. [DEATH.]
+
+ Draw near, fond man, and dress thee by this glass,
+ Mark how thy bravery and big looks must pass
+ Into corruption, rottenness and dust;
+ The frail supporters which betray'd thy trust.
+ O weigh in time thy last and loathsome state!
+ To purchase heav'n for tears is no hard rate.
+ Our glory, greatness, wisdom, all we have,
+ If mis-employ'd, but add hell to the grave:
+ Only a fair redemption of evil times
+ Finds life in death, and buries all our crimes.
+
+
+
+
+2. [HADRIAN'S ADDRESS TO HIS SOUL.]
+
+ My soul, my pleasant soul, and witty,
+ The guest and consort of my body.
+ Into what place now all alone
+ Naked and sad wilt thou be gone?
+ No mirth, no wit, as heretofore,
+ Nor jests wilt thou afford me more.
+
+
+
+
+3. [PAULINUS. CARM. APP. I. 35-40.]
+
+ What is't to me that spacious rivers run
+ Whole ages, and their streams are never done?
+ Those still remain: but all my fathers died,
+ And I myself but for few days abide.
+
+
+
+
+4. [ANEURIN. ENGLYNION Y MISOEDD, III. 1-4.]
+
+ In March birds couple, a new birth
+ Of herbs and flow'rs breaks through the earth;
+ But in the grave none stirs his head,
+ Long is the impris'ment of the dead.
+
+
+
+
+5. [INCERTI.]
+
+ So our decays God comforts by
+ The stars' concurrent state on high.
+
+
+
+
+6. [JUVENAL. SATIRE XIII. 86-8.]
+
+ There are that do believe all things succeed
+ By chance or fortune: and that nought's decreed
+ By a divine, wise Will; but blindly call
+ Old Time and Nature rulers over all.
+
+
+
+
+7. [INCERTI.]
+
+ From the first hour the heavens were made
+ Unto the last, when all shall fade,
+ Count--if thou canst--the drops of dew,
+ The stars of heav'n and streams that flow,
+ The falling snow, the dropping show'rs,
+ And in the month of May, the flow'rs,
+ Their scents and colours, and what store
+ Of grapes and apples Autumn bore,
+ How many grains the Summer bears,
+ What leaves the wind in Winter tears;
+ Count all the creatures in the world,
+ The motes which in the air are hurl'd,
+ The hairs of beasts and mankind, and
+ The shore's innumerable sand,
+ The blades of grass, and to these last
+ Add all the years which now are past,
+ With those whose course is yet to come,
+ And all their minutes in one sum.
+ When all is done, the damned's state
+ Outruns them still, and knows no date.
+
+
+
+
+8. [VIRGIL. GEORGICS, IV. 12-138.]
+
+ I saw beneath Tarentum's stately towers
+ An old Cilician spend his peaceful hours.
+ Some few bad acres in a waste, wild field,
+ Which neither grass, nor corn, nor vines would yield,
+ He did possess. There--amongst thorns and weeds--
+ Cheap herbs and coleworts, with the common seeds
+ Of chesboule or tame poppies, he did sow,
+ And vervain with white lilies caused to grow.
+ Content he was, as are successful kings,
+ And late at night come home--for long work brings
+ The night still home--with unbought messes laid
+ On his low table he his hunger stay'd.
+ Roses he gather'd in the youthful Spring,
+ And apples in the Autumn home did bring:
+ And when the sad, cold Winter burst with frost
+ The stones, and the still streams in ice were lost,
+ He would soft leaves of bear's-foot crop, and chide
+ The slow west winds and ling'ring Summer-tide!
+
+
+
+
+9. [VIRGIL. AENEID, III. 515.]
+
+ And rising at midnight the stars espied,
+ All posting westward in a silent glide.
+
+
+
+
+10. [VIRGIL. GEORGICS, II. 58.]
+
+ The trees we set grow slowly, and their shade
+ Stays for our sons, while we--the planters--fade.
+From _Man in Glory_: translated from Anselm (1652).
+
+
+
+
+1. [ANSELM.]
+
+ Here holy Anselm lives in ev'ry page,
+ And sits archbishop still, to vex the age.
+ Had he foreseen--and who knows but he did?--
+ This fatal wrack, which deep in time lay hid,
+ 'Tis but just to believe, that little hand
+ Which clouded him, but now benights our land,
+ Had never--like Elias--driv'n him hence,
+ A sad retirer for a slight offence.
+ For were he now, like the returning year,
+ Restor'd, to view these desolations here,
+ He would do penance for his old complaint,
+ And--weeping--say, that Rufus was a saint.
+
+From the Epistle-Dedicatory to _Flores Solitudinis_ (1654).
+
+
+
+
+1. [BISSELLIUS.]
+
+ The whole wench--how complete soe'er--was but
+ A specious bait; a soft, sly, tempting slut;
+ A pleasing witch; a living death; a fair,
+ Thriving disease; a fresh, infectious air;
+ A precious plague; a fury sweetly drawn;
+ Wild fire laid up and finely dress'd in lawn.
+
+
+
+
+2. [AUGURELLIUS.]
+
+ Peter, when thou this pleasant world dost see,
+ Believe, thou seest mere dreams and vanity,
+ Not real things, but false, and through the air
+ Each-where an empty, slipp'ry scene, though fair.
+ The chirping birds, the fresh woods' shady boughs,
+ The leaves' shrill whispers, when the west wind blows,
+ The swift, fierce greyhounds coursing on the plains,
+ The flying hare, distress'd 'twixt fear and pains,
+ The bloomy maid decking with flow'rs her head,
+ The gladsome, easy youth by light love led;
+ And whatsoe'er here with admiring eyes
+ Thou seem'st to see, 'tis but a frail disguise
+ Worn by eternal things, a passive dress
+ Put on by beings that are passiveless.
+
+From a Discourse _Of Temperance and Patience_: translated from
+ Nierembergius (1654).
+
+
+
+
+1. [INCERTI.]
+
+ The naked man too gets the field,
+ And often makes the armed foe to yield.
+
+
+
+
+2. [LUCRETIUS, IV. 1012-1020.]
+
+ [Some] struggle and groan as if by panthers torn,
+ Or lions' teeth, which makes them loudly mourn;
+ Some others seem unto themselves to die;
+ Some climb steep solitudes and mountains high,
+ From whence they seem to fall inanely down,
+ Panting with fear, till wak'd, and scarce their own
+ They feel about them if in bed they lie,
+ Deceiv'd with dreams, and Night's imagery.
+
+ In vain with earnest strugglings they contend
+ To ease themselves: for when they stir and bend
+ Their greatest force to do it, even then most
+ Of all they faint, and in their hopes are cross'd.
+ Nor tongue, nor hand, nor foot will serve their turn,
+ But without speech and strength within, they mourn.
+
+
+
+
+3. [INCERTI.]
+
+ Thou the nepenthe easing grief
+ Art, and the mind's healing relief.
+
+
+
+
+4. [INCERTI.]
+
+ Base man! and couldst thou think Cato alone
+ Wants courage to be dry? and but him, none?
+ Look'd I so soft? breath'd I such base desires,
+ Not proof against this Lybic sun's weak fires?
+ That shame and plague on thee more justly lie!
+ To drink alone, when all our troops are dry.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ For with brave rage he flung it on the sand,
+ And the spilt draught suffic'd each thirsty band
+
+
+
+
+5. [INCERTI.]
+
+ [Death keeps off]
+ And will not bear the cry
+ Of distress'd man, nor shut his weeping eye
+
+
+
+
+6. [MAXIMUS.]
+
+ It lives when kill'd, and brancheth when 'tis lopp'd.
+
+
+
+
+7. [MAXIMUS.]
+
+ Like some fair oak, that when her boughs
+ Are cut by rude hands, thicker grows;
+ And from those wounds the iron made
+ Resumes a rich and fresher shade.
+
+
+
+
+8. [GREGORY NAZIANZEN.]
+
+ Patience digesteth misery.
+
+
+
+
+9. [MARIUS VICTOR.]
+
+ ----They fain would--if they might--
+ Descend to hide themselves in Hell. So light
+ Of foot is Vengeance; and so near to sin,
+ That soon as done, the actors do begin
+ To fear and suffer by themselves: Death moves
+ Before their eyes; sad dens and dusky groves
+ They haunt, and hope--vain hope which Fear doth guide!--
+ That those dark shades their inward guilt can hide.
+
+
+
+
+10. [INCERTI.]
+
+ But night and day doth his own life molest,
+ And bears his judge and witness in his breast.
+
+
+
+
+11. [THEODOTUS.]
+
+ Virtue's fair cares some people measure
+ For poisonous works that hinder pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+12. [INCERTI.]
+
+ Man should with virtue arm'd and hearten'd be,
+ And innocently watch his enemy:
+ For fearless freedom, which none can control,
+ Is gotten by a pure and upright soul.
+
+
+
+
+13. [INCERTI.]
+
+ Whose guilty soul, with terrors fraught, doth frame
+ New torments still, and still doth blow that flame
+ Which still burns him, nor sees what end can be
+ Of his dire plagues, and fruitful penalty;
+ But fears them living, and fears more to die;
+ Which makes his life a constant tragedy.
+
+
+
+
+14. [INCERTI.]
+
+ And for life's sake to lose the crown of life.
+
+
+
+
+15. [INCERTI.]
+
+ Nature even for herself doth lay a snare,
+ And handsome faces their own traitors are.
+
+
+
+
+16. [MENANDER.]
+
+ True life in this is shown,
+ To live for all men's good, not for our own.
+
+
+
+
+17. [INCERTI.]
+
+ As Egypt's drought by Nilus is redress'd,
+ So thy wise tongue doth comfort the oppress'd.
+
+
+
+
+18. [INCERTI.]
+
+ [Like] to speedy posts, bear hence the lamp of life.
+
+
+
+
+19. [DIONYSIUS LYRINENSIS.]
+
+ All worldly things, even while they grow, decay;
+ As smoke doth, by ascending, waste away.
+
+
+
+
+20. [INCERTI.]
+
+ To live a stranger unto life.
+
+From a _Discourse of Life and Death_: translated from Nierembergius
+ (1654).
+
+
+
+
+1. [INCERTI.]
+
+ Whose hissings fright all Nature's monstrous ills;
+ His eye darts death, more swift than poison kills.
+ All monsters by instinct to him give place,
+ They fly for life, for death lives in his face;
+ And he alone by Nature's hid commands
+ Reigns paramount, and prince of all the sands.
+
+
+
+
+2. [INCERTI.]
+
+ The plenteous evils of frail life fill the old:
+ Their wasted limbs the loose skin in dry folds
+ Doth hang about: their joints are numb'd, and through
+ Their veins, not blood, but rheums and waters flow.
+ Their trembling bodies with a staff they stay,
+ Nor do they breathe, but sadly sigh all day.
+ Thoughts tire their hearts, to them their very mind
+ Is a disease; their eyes no sleep can find.
+
+
+
+
+3. [MIMNERMUS.]
+
+ Against the virtuous man we all make head,
+ And hate him while he lives, but praise him dead.
+
+
+
+
+4. [INCERTI.]
+
+ Long life, oppress'd with many woes,
+ Meets more, the further still it goes.
+
+
+
+
+5. [JUVENAL. SATIRE X. 278-286.]
+
+ What greater good had deck'd great Pompey's crown
+ Than death, if in his honours fully blown,
+ And mature glories he had died? those piles
+ Of huge success, loud fame, and lofty styles
+ Built in his active youth, long lazy life
+ Saw quite demolish'd by ambitious strife.
+ He lived to wear the weak and melting snow
+ Of luckless age, where garlands seldom grow,
+ But by repining Fate torn from the head
+ Which wore them once, are on another shed.
+
+
+
+
+6. [MENANDER. FRAGM. CXXVIII.]
+
+ Whom God doth take care for, and love,
+ He dies young here, to live above.
+
+
+
+
+7. [INCERTI.]
+
+ Sickness and death, you are but sluggish things,
+ And cannot reach a heart that hath got wings.
+
+From _Primitive Holiness, set forth in the Life of Blessed Paulinus_
+ (1654).
+
+
+
+
+1. [AUSONIUS. EPIST. XXIV. 115-16.]
+
+ Let me not weep to see thy ravish'd house
+ All sad and silent, without lord or spouse,
+ And all those vast dominions once thine own
+ Torn 'twixt a hundred slaves to me unknown.
+
+
+
+
+2. [AUSONIUS. EPIST. XXIII. 30-1; XXV. 5-9, 14, 17.]
+
+ How could that paper sent,
+ That luckless paper, merit thy contempt?
+ Ev'n foe to foe--though furiously--replies,
+ And the defied his enemy defies.
+ Amidst the swords and wounds, there's a salute,
+ Rocks answer man, and though hard are not mute.
+ Nature made nothing dumb, nothing unkind:
+ The trees and leaves speak trembling to the wind.
+ If thou dost fear discoveries, and the blot
+ Of my love, Tanaquil shall know it not.
+
+
+
+
+3. [PAULINUS. CARM. XI. 1-5; X. 189-92.]
+
+ Obdurate still and tongue-tied, you accuse
+ --Though yours is ever vocal--my dull muse;
+ You blame my lazy, lurking life, and add
+ I scorn your love, a calumny most sad;
+ Then tell me, that I fear my wife, and dart
+ Harsh, cutting words against my dearest heart.
+ Leave, learned father, leave this bitter course,
+ My studies are not turn'd unto the worse;
+ I am not mad, nor idle, nor deny
+ Your great deserts, and my debt, nor have I
+ A wife like Tanaquil, as wildly you
+ Object, but a Lucretia, chaste and true.
+
+
+
+
+4. [PAULINUS. CARM. XXXI. 581-2, 585-90, 601-2, 607-12.]
+
+ This pledge of your joint love, to heaven now fled,
+ With honey-combs and milk of life is fed.
+ Or with the Bethlem babes--whom Herod's rage
+ Kill'd in their tender, happy, holy age--
+ Doth walk the groves of Paradise, and make
+ Garlands, which those young martyrs from him take.
+ With these his eyes on the mild Lamb are fix'd,
+ A virgin-child with virgin-infants mix'd.
+ Such is my Celsus too, who soon as given,
+ Was taken back--on the eighth day--to heaven
+ To whom at Alcala I sadly gave
+ Amongst the martyrs' tombs a little grave.
+ He now with yours--gone both the blessed way--
+ Amongst the trees of life doth smile and play;
+ And this one drop of our mix'd blood may be
+ A light for my Therasia, and for me.
+
+
+
+
+5. [AUSONIUS. EPIST. XXV. 50, 56-7, 60-2.]
+
+ Sweet Paulinus, and is thy nature turn'd?
+ Have I so long in vain thy absence mourn'd?
+ Wilt thou, my glory, and great Rome's delight,
+ The Senate's prop, their oracle, and light,
+ In Bilbilis and Calagurris dwell,
+ Changing thy ivory-chair for a dark cell?
+ Wilt bury there thy purple, and contemn
+ All the great honours of thy noble stem?
+
+
+
+
+6. [PAULINUS. CARM. X. 110-331.]
+
+ Shall I believe you can make me return,
+ Who pour your fruitless prayers when you mourn,
+ Not to your Maker? Who can hear you cry,
+ But to the fabled nymphs of Castaly?
+ You never shall by such false gods bring me
+ Either to Rome, or to your company.
+ As for those former things you once did know,
+ And which you still call mine, I freely now
+ Confess, I am not he, whom you knew then;
+ I have died since, and have been born again.
+ Nor dare I think my sage instructor can
+ Believe it error, for redeemed man
+ To serve his great Redeemer. I grieve not
+ But glory so to err. Let the wise knot
+ Of worldlings call me fool; I slight their noise,
+ And hear my God approving of my choice.
+ Man is but glass, a building of no trust,
+ A moving shade, and, without Christ, mere dust.
+ His choice in life concerns the chooser much:
+ For when he dies, his good or ill--just such
+ As here it was--goes with him hence, and stays
+ Still by him, his strict judge in the last days.
+ These serious thoughts take up my soul, and I,
+ While yet 'tis daylight, fix my busy eye
+ Upon His sacred rules, life's precious sum
+ Who in the twilight of the world shall come
+ To judge the lofty looks, and show mankind
+ The diff'rence 'twixt the ill and well inclin'd.
+ This second coming of the world's great King
+ Makes my heart tremble, and doth timely bring
+ A saving care into my watchful soul,
+ Lest in that day all vitiated and foul
+ I should be found--that day, Time's utmost line,
+ When all shall perish but what is divine;
+ When the great trumpet's mighty blast shall shake
+ The earth's foundations, till the hard rocks quake
+ And melt like piles of snow; when lightnings move
+ Like hail, and the white thrones are set above:
+ That day, when sent in glory by the Father,
+ The Prince of Life His blest elect shall gather;
+ Millions of angels round about Him flying,
+ While all the kindreds of the Earth are crying;
+ And He enthron'd upon the clouds shall give
+ His last just sentence, who must die, who live.
+ This is the fear, this is the saving care
+ That makes me leave false honours, and that share
+ Which fell to me of this frail world, lest by
+ A frequent use of present pleasures I
+ Should quite forget the future, and let in
+ Foul atheism, or some presumptuous sin.
+ Now by their loss I have secur'd my life,
+ And bought my peace ev'n with the cause of strife.
+ I live to Him Who gave me life and breath,
+ And without fear expect the hour of death.
+ If you like this, bid joy to my rich state,
+ If not, leave me to Christ at any rate.
+
+
+
+
+7. [PAULINUS.]
+
+ And is the bargain thought too dear,
+ To give for heaven our frail subsistence here?
+ To change our mortal with immortal homes,
+ And purchase the bright stars with darksome stones?
+ Behold! my God--a rate great as His breath!--
+ On the sad cross bought me with bitter death,
+ Did put on flesh, and suffer'd for our good,
+ For ours--vile slaves!--the loss of His dear blood.
+
+
+
+
+8. [EPITAPH ON MARCELLINA.]
+
+ Life, Marcellina, leaving thy fair frame,
+ Thou didst contemn those tombs of costly fame,
+ Built by thy Roman ancestors, and liest
+ At Milan, where great Ambrose sleeps in Christ.
+ Hope, the dead's life, and faith, which never faints,
+ Made thee rest here, that thou mayst rise with saints.
+
+
+
+
+9. [PAULINUS. VERSUS APUD EPIST. XXXII. 3.]
+
+ You that to wash your flesh and souls draw near,
+ Ponder these two examples set you here:
+ Great Martin shows the holy life, and white,
+ Paulinus to repentance doth invite;
+ Martin's pure, harmless life, took heaven by force,
+ Paulinus took it by tears and remorse;
+ Martin leads through victorious palms and flow'rs,
+ Paulinus leads you through the pools and show'rs;
+ You that are sinners, on Paulinus look,
+ You that are saints, great Martin is your book;
+ The first example bright and holy is,
+ The last, though sad and weeping, leads to bliss
+
+
+
+
+10. [PAULINUS. VERSUS APUD EPIST. XXXII. 5.]
+
+ Here the great well-spring of wash'd souls with beams
+ Of living light quickens the lively streams;
+ The Dove descends, and stirs them with her wings,
+ So weds these waters to the upper springs.
+ They straight conceive; a new birth doth proceed
+ From the bright streams by an immortal seed.
+ O the rare love of God! sinners wash'd here
+ Come forth pure saints, all justified and clear.
+ So blest in death and life, man dies to sins,
+ And lives to God: sin dies, and life begins
+ To be reviv'd: old Adam falls away
+ And the new lives, born for eternal sway.
+
+
+
+
+11. [PAULINUS. VERSUS APUD EPIST. XXXII. 12.]
+
+ Through pleasant green fields enter you the way
+ To bliss; and well through shades and blossoms may
+ The walks lead here, from whence directly lies
+ The good man's path to sacred Paradise.
+
+
+
+
+12. [PAULINUS. VERSUS APUD EPIST. XXXII. 14.]
+
+ The painful cross with flowers and palms is crown'd,
+ Which prove, it springs; though all in blood 'tis drown'd;
+ The doves above it show with one consent,
+ Heaven opens only to the innocent.
+
+
+
+
+13. [PAULINUS. CARM. XXVII. 387-92.]
+
+ You see what splendour through the spacious aisle,
+ As if the Church were glorified, doth smile.
+ The ivory-wrought beams seem to the sight
+ Engraven, while the carv'd roof looks curl'd and bright.
+ On brass hoops to the upmost vaults we tie
+ The hovering lamps, which nod and tremble by
+ The yielding cords; fresh oil doth still repair
+ The waving flames, vex'd with the fleeting air.
+
+
+
+
+14. [PAULINUS. VERSUS APUD EPIST. XXXII. 17.]
+
+ The pains of Saints and Saints' rewards are twins,
+ The sad cross, and the crown which the cross wins.
+ Here Christ, the Prince both of the cross and crown,
+ Amongst fresh groves and lilies fully blown
+ Stands, a white Lamb bearing the purple cross:
+ White shows His pureness, red His blood's dear loss.
+ To ease His sorrows the chaste turtle sings,
+ And fans Him, sweating blood, with her bright wings;
+ While from a shining cloud the Father eyes
+ His Son's sad conflict with His enemies,
+ And on His blessed head lets gently down
+ Eternal glory made into a crown.
+ About Him stand two flocks of diff'ring notes,
+ One of white sheep, and one of speckled goats;
+ The first possess His right hand, and the last
+ Stand on His left; the spotted goats are cast
+ All into thick, deep shades, while from His right
+ The white sheep pass into a whiter light.
+
+
+
+
+15. [PAULINUS.]
+
+ Those sacred days by tedious Time delay'd,
+ While the slow years' bright line about is laid,
+ I patiently expect, though much distrest
+ By busy longing and a love-sick breast.
+ I wish they may outshine all other days;
+ Or, when they come, so recompense delays
+ As to outlast the summer hours' bright length;
+ Or that fam'd day, when stopp'd by divine strength
+ The sun did tire the world with his long light,
+ Doubling men's labours, and adjourning night.
+ As the bright sky with stars, the field with flow'rs,
+ The years with diff'ring seasons, months and hours,
+ God hath distinguished and mark'd, so He
+ With sacred feasts did ease and beautify
+ The working days: because that mixture may
+ Make men--loth to be holy ev'ry day--
+ After long labours, with a freer will,
+ Adore their Maker, and keep mindful still
+ Of holiness, by keeping holy days:
+ For otherwise they would dislike the ways
+ Of piety as too severe. To cast
+ Old customs quite off, and from sin to fast
+ Is a great work. To run which way we will,
+ On plains is easy, not so up a hill.
+ Hence 'tis our good God--Who would all men bring
+ Under the covert of His saving wing--
+ Appointed at set times His solemn feasts,
+ That by mean services men might at least
+ Take hold of Christ as by the hem, and steal
+ Help from His lowest skirts, their souls to heal.
+ For the first step to heaven is to live well
+ All our life long, and each day to excel
+ In holiness; but since that tares are found
+ In the best corn, and thistles will confound
+ And prick my heart with vain cares, I will strive
+ To weed them out on feast-days, and so thrive
+ By handfuls, 'till I may full life obtain,
+ And not be swallow'd of eternal pain.
+
+
+
+
+16. [PAULINUS (?). CARM. APP. I.]
+
+ Come, my true consort in my joys and care!
+ Let this uncertain and still wasting share
+ Of our frail life be giv'n to God. You see
+ How the swift days drive hence incessantly,
+ And the frail, drooping world--though still thought gay[69]--
+ In secret, slow consumption wears away.
+ All that we have pass from us, and once past
+ Return no more; like clouds, they seem to last,
+ And so delude loose, greedy minds. But where
+ Are now those trim deceits? to what dark sphere
+ Are all those false fires sunk, which once so shin'd,
+ They captivated souls, and rul'd mankind?
+ He that with fifty ploughs his lands did sow,
+ Will scarce be trusted for two oxen now;
+ His rich, loud coach, known to each crowded street,
+ Is sold, and he quite tir'd walks on his feet.
+ Merchants that--like the sun--their voyage made
+ From East to West, and by wholesale did trade,
+ Are now turn'd sculler-men, or sadly sweat
+ In a poor fisher's boat, with line and net.
+ Kingdoms and cities to a period tend;
+ Earth nothing hath, but what must have an end;
+ Mankind by plagues, distempers, dearth and war,
+ Tortures and prisons, die both near and far;
+ Fury and hate rage in each living breast,
+ Princes with princes, States with States contest;
+ An universal discord mads each land,
+ Peace is quite lost, the last times are at hand.
+ But were these days from the Last Day secure,
+ So that the world might for more years endure,
+ Yet we--like hirelings--should our term expect,
+ And on our day of death each day reflect.
+ For what--Therasia--doth it us avail
+ That spacious streams shall flow and never fail,
+ That aged forests hie to tire the winds,
+ And flow'rs each Spring return and keep their kinds!
+ Those still remain: but all our fathers died,
+ And we ourselves but for few days abide.
+ This short time then was not giv'n us in vain,
+ To whom Time dies, in which we dying gain,
+ But that in time eternal life should be
+ Our care, and endless rest our industry.
+ And yet this task, which the rebellious deem
+ Too harsh, who God's mild laws for chains esteem,
+ Suits with the meek and harmless heart so right
+ That 'tis all ease, all comfort and delight.
+ "To love our God with all our strength and will;
+ To covet nothing; to devise no ill
+ Against our neighbours; to procure or do
+ Nothing to others, which we would not to
+ Our very selves; not to revenge our wrong;
+ To be content with little, not to long
+ For wealth and greatness; to despise or jeer
+ No man, and if we be despised, to bear;
+ To feed the hungry; to hold fast our crown;
+ To take from others naught; to give our own,"
+ --These are His precepts: and--alas!--in these
+ What is so hard, but faith can do with ease?
+ He that the holy prophets doth believe,
+ And on God's words relies, words that still live
+ And cannot die; that in his heart hath writ
+ His Saviour's death and triumph, and doth yet
+ With constant care, admitting no neglect,
+ His second, dreadful coming still expect:
+ To such a liver earthy things are dead,
+ With Heav'n alone, and hopes of Heav'n, he's fed,
+ He is no vassal unto worldly trash,
+ Nor that black knowledge which pretends to wash,
+ But doth defile: a knowledge, by which men
+ With studied care lose Paradise again.
+ Commands and titles, the vain world's device,
+ With gold--the forward seed of sin and vice--
+ He never minds: his aim is far more high,
+ And stoops to nothing lower than the sky.
+ Nor grief, nor pleasures breed him any pain,
+ He nothing fears to lose, would nothing gain,
+ Whatever hath not God, he doth detest,
+ He lives to Christ, is dead to all the rest.
+ This Holy One sent hither from above
+ A virgin brought forth, shadow'd by the Dove;
+ His skin with stripes, with wicked hands His face
+ And with foul spittle soil'd and beaten was;
+ A crown of thorns His blessed head did wound.
+ Nails pierc'd His hands and feet, and He fast bound
+ Stuck to the painful Cross, where hang'd till dead,
+ With a cold spear His heart's dear blood was shed.
+ All this for man, for bad, ungrateful man,
+ The true God suffer'd! not that suff'rings can
+ Add to His glory aught, Who can receive
+ Access from nothing, Whom none can bereave
+ Of His all-fulness: but the blest design
+ Of His sad death was to save me from mine:
+ He dying bore my sins, and the third day
+ His early rising rais'd me from the clay.
+ To such great mercies what shall I prefer,
+ Or who from loving God shall me deter?
+ Burn me alive, with curious, skilful pain,
+ Cut up and search each warm and breathing vein;
+ When all is done, death brings a quick release,
+ And the poor mangled body sleeps in peace.
+ Hale me to prisons, shut me up in brass,
+ My still free soul from thence to God shall pass.
+ Banish or bind me, I can be nowhere
+ A stranger, nor alone; my God is there.
+ I fear not famine; how can he be said
+ To starve who feeds upon the Living Bread?
+ And yet this courage springs not from my store,
+ Christ gave it me, Who can give much, much more
+ I of myself can nothing dare or do,
+ He bids me fight, and makes me conquer too.
+ If--like great Abr'ham--I should have command
+ To leave my father's house and native land,
+ I would with joy to unknown regions run,
+ Bearing the banner of His blessed Son.
+ On worldly goods I will have no design,
+ But use my own, as if mine were not mine;
+ Wealth I'll not wonder at, nor greatness seek,
+ But choose--though laugh'd at--to be poor and meek.
+ In woe and wealth I'll keep the same staid mind,
+ Grief shall not break me, nor joys make me blind:
+ My dearest Jesus I'll still praise, and He
+ Shall with songs of deliv'rance compass me.
+ Then come, my faithful consort! join with me
+ In this good fight, and my true helper be;
+ Cheer me when sad, advise me when I stray,
+ Let us be each the other's guide and stay;
+ Be your lord's guardian: give joint aid and due,
+ Help him when fall'n, rise, when he helpeth you,
+ That so we may not only one flesh be,
+ But in one spirit and one will agree.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[69] The original has _gry_.
+
+
+From _Hermetical Physic_: translated from Henry Nollius (1655).
+
+
+
+
+1. [HORACE. EPIST. I. 1, 14-5.]
+
+ Where'er my fancy calls, there I go still,
+ Not sworn a slave to any master's will.
+
+
+
+
+2. [INCERTI.]
+
+ There's need, betwixt his clothes, his bed and board,
+ Of all that Earth and Sea and Air afford.
+
+
+
+
+3. [INCERTI.]
+
+ With restless cares they waste the night and day,
+ To compass great estates, and get the sway.
+
+
+
+
+4. [JUVENAL. SATIRE XV. 160-164.]
+
+ Whenever did, I pray,
+ One lion take another's life away?
+ Or in what forest did a wild boar by
+ The tusks of his own fellow wounded die?
+ Tigers with tigers never have debate;
+ And bears among themselves abstain from hate
+
+
+
+
+5. [JUVENAL. SATIRE XV. 169-171.]
+
+ [Some] esteem it no point of revenge to kill,
+ Unless they may drink up the blood they spill:
+ Who do believe that hands, and hearts, and heads,
+ Are but a kind of meat, etc.
+
+
+
+
+6. [INCERTI.]
+
+ The strongest body and the best
+ Cannot subsist without due rest.
+
+From Thomas Powell's _Cerbyd Fechydwiaeth_ (1657).
+
+
+
+
+1. [THE LORD'S PRAYER.]
+
+ Y Pader, pan trier, Duw-tri a'i dododd
+ O'i dadol ddaioni,
+ Yn faen-gwaddan i bob gweddi,
+ Ac athrawieth a wnaeth i ni.
+
+ Ol[or] Vaughan.
+
+From Thomas Powell's _Humane Industry_ (1661).
+
+
+
+
+1. [CAMPION. EPIGR. I. 151.]
+
+ Time's-Teller wrought into a little round,
+ Which count'st the days and nights with watchful sound;
+ How--when once fix'd--with busy wheels dost thou
+ The twice twelve useful hours drive on and show;
+ And where I go, go'st with me without strife,
+ The monitor and ease of fleeting life.
+
+
+
+
+2. [GROTIUS. LIB. EPIGR. II.]
+
+ The untired strength of never-ceasing motion,
+ A restless rest, a toilless operation,
+ Heaven then had given it, when wise Nature did
+ To frail and solid things one place forbid;
+ And parting both, made the moon's orb their bound,
+ Damning to various change this lower ground.
+ But now what Nature hath those laws transgress'd,
+ Giving to Earth a work that ne'er will rest?
+ Though 'tis most strange, yet--great King--'tis not new:
+ This work was seen and found before, in you.
+ In you, whose mind--though still calm--never sleeps,
+ But through your realms one constant motion keeps:
+ As your mind--then--was Heaven's type first, so this
+ But the taught anti-type of your mind is.
+
+
+
+
+3. [JUVENAL. SATIRE III.]
+
+ How oft have we beheld wild beasts appear
+ From broken gulfs of earth, upon some part
+ Of sand that did not sink! How often there
+ And thence, did golden boughs o'er-saffron'd start!
+ Nor only saw we monsters of the wood,
+ But I have seen sea-calves whom bears withstood;
+ And such a kind of beast as might be named
+ A horse, but in most foul proportion framed.
+
+
+
+
+4. [MARTIAL. EPIGR. I. 105.]
+
+ That the fierce pard doth at a beck
+ Yield to the yoke his spotted neck,
+ And the untoward tiger bear
+ The whip with a submissive fear;
+ That stags do foam with golden bits.
+ And the rough Libyc bear submits
+ Unto the ring; that a wild boar
+ Like that which Calydon of yore
+ Brought forth, doth mildly put his head
+ In purple muzzles to be led;
+ That the vast, strong-limb'd buffles draw
+ The British chariots with taught awe,
+ And the elephant with courtship falls
+ To any dance the negro calls:
+ Would not you think such sports as those
+ Were shows which the gods did expose?
+ But these are nothing, when we see
+ That hares by lions hunted be, etc.
+
+
+
+
+ NOTES TO VOL. II.
+
+
+
+
+POEMS WITH THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL ENGLISHED.
+
+Most of the poems in this volume of 1646 appear to belong to Vaughan's
+sojourn as a law-student in London: that, however, on the Priory Grove
+must have been written after he had retired to Wales on the outbreak of
+the Civil War.
+
+
+P. 5. To my Ingenious Friend, R. W.
+
+It is probable that this is the R. W. of the Elegy in _Olor Iscanus_ (p.
+79). On the attempts to identify him, see the note to that poem. The
+_Poems_ of 1646 must have been published while his fate was still
+unknown.
+
+_Pints i' th' Moon or Star._ These are names of rooms, rather than of
+inns. _Cf._ Shakespeare, 1 _Henry IV._, ii. 4, 30, "Anon, anon, sir!
+Score a pint of bastard in the Half-moon."
+
+
+P. 6. _Randolph._
+
+The works of Randolph here referred to are his comedy _The Jealous
+Lovers_, his pastoral _Amyntas; or, The Impossible Dowry_, and the
+following verses _On the Death of a Nightingale_:--
+
+ "Go, solitary wood, and henceforth be
+ Acquainted with no other harmony
+ Than the pie's chattering, or the shrieking note
+ Of boding owls, and fatal raven's throat.
+ Thy sweetest chanter's dead, that warbled forth
+ Lays that might tempests calm, and still the north,
+ And call down angels from their glorious sphere,
+ To hear her songs, and learn new anthems there.
+ That soul is fled, and to Elysium gone,
+ Thou a poor desert left; go then and run.
+ Beg there to want a grove, and if she please
+ To sing again beneath thy shadowy trees,
+ The souls of happy lovers crowned with blisses
+ Shall flock about thee, and keep time with kisses."
+
+
+P. 8. Les Amours.
+
+Lines 22-24 are misprinted in the original; they there run:--
+
+ "O'er all the tomb a sudden spring:
+ If crimson flowers, whose drooping heads
+ Shall curtain o'er their mournful heads:"
+
+
+P. 10. To Amoret.
+
+The Amoret of these _Poems_ may or may not be the Etesia of _Thalia
+Rediviva_; and she may or may not have been the poet's first wife. _Cf._
+_Introduction_ (vol. i, p. xxxiii).
+
+_To her white bosom._ _Cf._ _Hamlet_, ii. 2, 113, where Hamlet addresses
+a letter to Ophelia, "in her excellent white bosom, these."
+
+
+P. 12. Song.
+
+The MS. variant readings to this and to two of the following poems are
+written in pencil on a copy of the _Poems_ in the British Museum, having
+the press-mark 12304, a 24. There is no indication of their author, or
+of the source from which they are taken.
+
+
+P. 13. To Amoret.
+
+_The vast ring._ _Cf._ _Silex Scintillans_ (vol. i., pp. 150, 284).
+
+
+P. 18. _A Rhapsodis._
+
+_The Globe Tavern._ This appears to have been near, or even a part of,
+the famous theatre. There exists a forged letter of George Peele's, in
+which it is mentioned as a resort of Shakespeare's, but there is no
+authentic allusion to it by name earlier than an entry in the registers
+of St. Saviour's, Southwark, for 1637. An "alehouse" is, however,
+alluded to in a ballad on the burning of the old Globe in 1613. (Rendle
+and Norman, _Inns of Old Southwark_, p. 326.)
+
+_Tower-Wharf to Cymbeline and Lud_; that is, from the extreme east to
+the extreme west of the City. Statues of the mythical kings of Britain
+were set up in 1260 in niches on Ludgate. They were renewed when the
+gate was rebuilt in 1586. It stood near the Church of St. Martin's,
+Ludgate.
+
+_That made his horse a senator_; _i.e._ Caligula. _Cf._ Suetonius Vit.
+Caligulae, 55: "_Incitato equo, cuius causa pridie circenses, ne
+inquietaretur, viciniae silentium per milites indicere solebat, praeter
+equile marmoreum et praesepe eburneum praeterque purpurea tegumenta ac
+monilia e gemmis, domum etiam et familiam et suppellectilem dedit, quo
+lautius nomine eius invitati acciperentur; consulatum quoque traditur
+destinasse._"
+
+_he that ... crossed Rubicon_, _i.e._ Julius Caesar.
+
+
+P. 21. To Amoret.
+
+The third stanza is closely modelled on Donne; _cf._ Introduction (vol.
+i., p. xxi). The curious reader may detect many other traces of Donne's
+manner of writing in these _Poems_ of 1646.
+
+
+P. 23. To Amoret Weeping.
+
+_Eat orphans ... patent it._ The ambition of a courtier under the
+Stuarts was to get the guardianship of a royal ward, or the grant of a
+monopoly in some article of necessity. Dr. Grosart quotes from Tustin's
+_Observations; or, Conscience Emblem_ (1646): "By me, John Tustin, who
+hath been plundered and spoiled by the patentees for white and grey
+soap, eighteen several times, to his utter undoing."
+
+
+P. 26. Upon the Priory Grove, his usual Retirement.
+
+Mr. Beeching, in the _Introduction_ (vol. i., p. xxiii), states
+following Dr. Grosart, that the Priory Grove was "the home of a famous
+poetess of the day, Katherine Phillips, better known as 'the Matchless
+Orinda.'" Vaughan was certainly a friend of Mrs. Phillips (_cf._ pp.
+100, 164, 211, with notes), whose husband, Colonel James Phillips, lived
+at the Priory, Cardigan; but she was not married until 1647.
+
+Miss Morgan points out that there is still a wood on the outskirts of
+Brecon which is known as the Priory Grove. It is near the church and
+remains of a Benedictine Priory on the Honddu.
+
+
+P. 28. Juvenal's Tenth Satire Translated.
+
+This translation has a separate title-page; _cf._ the _Bibliography_
+(vol. ii., p. lvii).
+
+
+
+
+OLOR ISCANUS.
+
+
+This volume, published in 1651, contains, besides the poems here
+reprinted, some prose translations from Plutarch and other writers. The
+separate title-pages of these are given in the _Bibliography_ (vol. ii.,
+p. lviii): the incidental scraps of verse in them appear on pp. 291-293
+of the present volume. The edition of 1651 has, besides the printed
+title-page, an engraved title-page by the well-known engraver, who may
+or may not have been a kinsman of the poet, Robert Vaughan. It
+represents a swan on a river shaded by trees. The _Olor Iscanus_ was
+reissued with a fresh title-page in 1679.
+
+
+P. 52. Ad Posteros.
+
+On the account of Vaughan's life here given, see the _Biographical note_
+(vol. ii., p. xxx).
+
+_Herbertus._ Matthew Herbert, Rector of Llangattock. Cf. the poem to him
+on p. 158, with its note.
+
+_Castae fidaeque ... parentis_, _i.e._, perhaps, his mother the Church.
+
+_Nec manus atra fuit._ Dr. Grosart omitted the _fuit_, together with the
+final _s_ of the preceding line. In this he is naively followed by Mr.
+J. R. Tutin, in his selection of Vaughan's _Secular Poems_.
+
+
+P. 53. To the ... Lord Kildare Digby.
+
+Lord Kildare Digby was the eldest son of Robert, first Baron Digby, in
+the peerage of Ireland. He succeeded to the title in 1642. He was about
+21 at the time of this dedication, and died in 1661 (Dr. Grosart)
+
+
+The date of the dedication is 17th of December, 1647. A volume was
+therefore probably prepared for publication at that date, and
+afterwards, as we learn from the publisher's preface, "condemned to
+obscurity," and given surreptitiously to the world. At the same time, as
+Miss Morgan points out to me, some of the poems in _Olor Iscanus_ must
+be of later date than 1647. The death of Charles I. is apparently
+alluded to in the lines _Ad Posteros_, and certainly in the "since
+Charles his reign" of the _Invitation to Brecknock_ (p. 74). This event
+took place on January 30th, 1648/9. The _Epitaph upon the Lady
+Elizabeth_ (p. 102), again, cannot be earlier than her death on
+September 8th, 1650.
+
+
+P. 54. The Publisher to the Reader.
+
+_Augustus vindex._ The lives of Vergil attributed to Donatus and others
+relate that the poet, in his will, directed that his unfinished _Aeneid_
+should be burnt. Augustus, however, interfered and ordered its
+publication.
+
+
+P. 57. Commendatory Verses.
+
+These are signed by _T. Powell, Oxoniensis_; _I. Rowlandson,
+Oxoniensis_; and _Eugenius Philalethes, Oxoniensis_. Thomas Powell, one
+of the Powells of Cantreff, in Breconshire, was born in 1608. He
+matriculated from Jesus College on January 25th, 1627/8, took his B.A.
+in 1629 and his M.A. in 1632, and became a Fellow of the College. He was
+Rector of Cantreff and Vicar of Brecknock, but was ejected by the
+Commissioners for the Propagation of the Gospel and went abroad. At the
+Restoration he returned to Cantreff and was made D.D. and Canon of St.
+David's. But for his death, on the 31st December, 1660, he would
+probably have become Bishop of Bristol. He was the author of several
+books of no great importance. He appears to have been a close friend of
+Vaughan, who addresses various poems to him, and contributed others to
+his books. See _Olor Iscanus_, pp. 97, 159; _Thalia Rediviva_, pp. 178,
+200, 267; _Fragments and Translations_, pp. 323-326. Powell, in return,
+wrote commendatory poems to both the _Olor Iscanus_ and the _Thalia
+Rediviva_.
+
+_I. Rowlandson._ This may have been John Rowlandson, of Queen's College,
+Oxford, who matriculated the 17th October, 1634, aged 17, took his B.A.
+in 1636, and his M.A. in 1639. Either he or his father, James
+Rowlandson, also of Queen's College, was sequestered by the Westminster
+Assembly to the vicarage of Battle, Sussex, in 1644. He left it shortly
+after and "returned to his benefice from whence he was before thence
+driven by the forces raised against the parliament." (_See_ Addl. MS.
+15,669, f. 17). There was also another James Rowlandson, son of James
+Rowlandson, D.D., Canon of Windsor, who matriculated from Queen's
+College on the 9th November, 1632, aged 17, and took his B.A. in
+1637.--G. G.
+
+_Eugenius Philalethes._ The author's brother, Thomas Vaughan. See the
+_Biographical Note_ (vol. ii., p. xxxiii).
+
+P. 39. _that lamentable nation_, _i.e._ the Scotch.
+
+
+P. 61. Olor Iscanus.
+
+_Ausonius._ The famous schoolmaster, rhetorician and courtier of the
+early fourth century, was born at Bordeaux. One of his most famous poems
+is the _Mosella_ (Idyll X), a description of the river and its fish.
+
+_Castara_, Lucy, daughter of William Herbert, Lord Powys, and wife of
+the Worcestershire poet, William Habington, who celebrated her in his
+poems under that name. The _Castara_ was published in 1634.
+
+_Sabrina_, the tutelar nymph of the Severn. _Cf._ the invocation of her
+in Milton's "Comus."
+
+_May the evet and the toad._ This passage is imitated from W. Browne's
+_Britannia's Pastorals_, Bk. I., Song 2, II., 277 _sqq._:
+
+ "May never evet nor the toad
+ Within thy banks make their abode!
+ Taking thy journey from the sea,
+ May'st thou ne'er happen in thy way
+ On nitre or on brimstone mine,
+ To spoil thy taste! this spring of thine
+ Let it of nothing taste but earth,
+ And salt conceived, in their birth
+ Be ever fresh! Let no man dare
+ To spoil thy fish, make lock or ware;
+ But on thy margent still let dwell
+ Those flowers which have the sweetest smell.
+ And let the dust upon thy strand
+ Become like Tagus' golden sand.
+ Let as much good betide to thee,
+ As thou hast favour show'd to me."
+
+ G. G.
+
+_flames that are ... canicular. Cf. A Dialogue between Sir Henry Wotton
+and Mr. Donne_ (Poems of John Donne, _Muse's Library_, Vol. I., p. 79):
+
+ "I'll never dig in quarry of a heart
+ To have no part,
+ Nor roast in fiery eyes, which always are
+ Canicular."
+
+
+P. 65. The Charnel-house.
+
+_Kelder_, a caldron; cf. J. Cleveland, _The King's Disguise_:
+
+ "The sun wears midnight; day is beetle-brow'd,
+ And lightning is in kelder of a cloud."
+
+_A second fiat's care._ The allusion is to _Genesis_ i. 3: "And God
+said, Let there be light (in the Vulgate, _Fiat lux_), and there was
+light"; _cf._ Donne, _The Storm_ (_Muses' Library_, II. 4):
+
+ "Since all forms uniform deformity
+ Doth cover; so that we, except God say
+ Another _Fiat_, shall have no more day."
+
+
+P. 70. To his Friend ----.
+
+Miss Morgan thinks that the "friend" of this poem, whose name is shown
+by the first line to have been James, may perhaps be identified with the
+James Howell of the _Epistolae Ho-Elianae_. Howell had Vaughans amongst
+his cousins and correspondents, but these appear to have been of the
+Golden Grove family.
+
+
+P. 73. To his retired Friend--an Invitation to Brecknock.
+
+_her foul, polluted walls._ Miss Morgan quotes a statement from Grose's
+_Antiquities_ to the effect that the walls of Brecknock were pulled down
+by the inhabitants during the Civil War in order to avoid having to
+support a garrison or stand a siege.
+
+_the Greek_, _i.e._ Hercules when in love with Omphale.
+
+_Domitian-like_: _Cf._ Suetonius, _Vita Domitiani_, 3: "_Inter initia
+principatus cotidie secretum sibi horarum sumere solebat, nec quicquam
+amplius quam muscas captare ac stilo praeacuto configere._"
+
+_Since Charles his reign._ This poem must date from after the execution
+of Charles I., on January 30, 1648/9. It would appear therefore that
+Vaughan was living in Brecknock and not at Newton about the time that
+the _Olor Iscanus_ was published.
+
+
+P. 77. Monsieur Gombauld.
+
+The writer referred to is John Ogier de Gombauld (1567-1666). His prose
+tale of _Endymion_ was translated by Richard Hurst in 1637. _Ismena_ and
+_Diophania_ who was metamorphosed into a myrtle, are characters in the
+story. _Periardes_ is a hill in Armenia whence the Euphrates takes its
+course.
+
+
+P. 79. An Elegy on the Death of Mr. R. W., slain in the late unfortunate
+differences at Routon Heath, near Chester.
+
+The battle of Routon, or Rowton, Heath took place on September 24, 1645.
+The Royalist forces, under Charles I. and Sir Marmaduke Langdale,
+advancing to raise the siege of Chester, were met and routed by the
+Parliamentarians under Poyntz. The contemporary pamphlets give a long
+list of the prisoners taken at Routon Heath, but name hardly any of
+those slain. It is therefore difficult to say who R. W., evidently a
+dear friend of Vaughan's, may have been. He appears to have been missing
+for a year before he was finally given up. From lines 25-27 we learn
+that he was a young man of only twenty. The most likely suggestion for
+his identification seems to me that of Mr. C. H. Firth, who points out
+to me that the name of one Roger Wood occurs in the list of Catholics
+who fell in the King's service as having been slain at Chester. Miss
+Southall (_Songs of Siluria_, 1890, p. 124) suggests that he may have
+been either Richard Williams, a nephew of Sir Henry Williams, of
+Gwernyfed, who died unmarried, or else a son of Richard Winter, of
+Llangoed. He might also, I think, have been one of Vaughan's wife's
+family, the Wises, and possibly also a Walbeoffe. A reference to the
+Walbeoffe pedigree in the note to p. 189 will show that there was a
+Robert Walbeoffe, brother of C. W. Miss Morgan thinks that he is a
+generation too old, and that the unnamed son of C. W., who, according to
+his tombstone, did not survive him, may have been a Robert, and the R.
+W. in question. On the question whether Vaughan was himself present at
+Routon Heath, _see_ the _Biographical Note_ (vol. ii., p. xxviii).
+
+
+P. 83. Upon a Cloak lent him by Mr. J. Ridsley.
+
+I do not know who Mr. Ridsley was. On the references to Vaughan's
+"juggling fate of soldiery" in this poem, _see_ the _Biographical Note_
+(vol. ii., p. xxviii).
+
+_craggy Biston, and the fatal Dee._ Chester stands, of course, on the
+Dee, which is "fatal" as the scene of disasters to the Royalist cause.
+Dr. Grosart explains Biston as "Bishton (or Bishopstone) in
+Monmouthshire," and adds, "'Craggie Biston' refers, no doubt, to certain
+caves there. The Poet's school-boy rambles from Llangattock doubtless
+included Bishton." I think that Biston is clearly Beeston Castle, one of
+the outlying defences of Chester, which played a considerable part in
+the siege. It surrendered on November 5, 1645, and the small garrison
+was permitted to march to Denbigh (J. R. Phillips, _The Civil War in
+Wales and the Marshes_, vol. i., p. 343).
+
+_Micro-cosmography_, the world represented on a small scale in man.
+Vaughan means that he had as many lines on him as a map.
+
+_Speed's Old Britons._ John Speed (1555-1629) published his _History of
+Great Britain_ in 1614.
+
+_King Harry's Chapel at Westminster_, with its tombs, was already one of
+the sights of London.
+
+_Brownist._ The Brownists were the religious followers of Robert Browne
+(c. 1550-c. 1633); they were afterwards known as Independents or
+Congregationalists.
+
+
+P. 86. Upon Mr. Fletcher's Plays.
+
+The first folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher's _Comedies and
+Tragedies_ was published in 1647. Vaughan's lines are not, however,
+amongst the commendatory verses there given.
+
+_Field's or Swansted's overthrow._ Nathaniel Field and Eliard Swanston,
+who appears to be meant by Swansted, were well-known actors. They were
+both members of the King's Company about 1633.
+
+
+P. 90. Upon the Poems and Plays of the ever-memorable Mr. William
+Cartwright.
+
+This was printed, together with verses by Tho. Vaughan and many other
+writers, in William Cartwright's _Comedies, Tragi-comedies, with other
+Poems_, 1651.
+
+
+P. 94. An Elegy on the Death of Mr. R. Hall, slain at Pontefract, 1648.
+
+Miss Southall thinks that the subject of this elegy may have been a son
+of Richard Hall, of High Meadow, in the Forest of Dean, co. Gloucester.
+These Halls were connected with the Winters, a Breconshire family. Mr.
+C. H. Firth ingeniously suggests to me that for R. Hall we should read
+R. Hall[ifax], and points out that a Robert Hallyfax was one of the
+garrison at the first siege of Pontefract in 1645. He may have been at
+the second siege also. (R. Holmes, _Sieges of Pontefract_, p. 20.)
+
+
+P. 97. To my learned Friend, Mr. T. Powell, upon his Translation of
+Malvezzi's "Christian Politician."
+
+The book referred to is _The Pourtract of the Politicke
+Christian-Favourite_. By Marquesse Virgilio Malvezzi, 1647. This is a
+translation of _Il Ritratto del Privato Politico Christiano_, published
+at Bologna in 1635. It does not contain Vaughan's verses, and no
+translator's name is given. The preface of another translation from
+Malvezzi, the _Stoa Triumphans_ (1651), is, however, signed "T. P."
+
+
+P. 99. To my worthy Friend, Master T. Lewes.
+
+Some of the lines in this poem are borrowed from Horace's verses, _Ad
+Thaliarcham_ (Book I., Ode 9):
+
+ "Vides, ut alta stet nive candida
+ Soracte, nec iam sustineant onus
+ Sylvae laborantes, geluque
+ Flumina constiterint acuto?
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quaerere;
+ Quam sors dierum cunque debit; lucro
+ Appone."
+
+ G. G.
+
+Dr. Grosart thinks that T. Lewes was "probably of Maes-mawr, opposite
+Newton, on the south side of the Usk." Miss Southall identifies him with
+Thomas Lewis, incumbent in 1635 of Llanfigan, near Llansantffread. He
+was expelled from his living, but returned to it at the Restoration.
+
+
+P. 100. To the most excellently accomplished Mrs. K. Philips.
+
+Katherine Philips, by birth Katherine Fowler, became the wife in 1647 of
+Colonel James Philips, of the Priory, Cardigan. She was a wit and
+poetess, and well-known to a large circle of friends as "the matchless
+Orinda." Each member of her coterie had a similar fantastic pseudonym,
+and it is possible that this may account for the Etesia and Timander,
+the Fida and Lysimachus, of Vaughan's poems. The poems of Orinda were
+surreptitiously published in 1664, and in an authorised version in 1667.
+They include her poem on Vaughan, afterwards prefixed to _Thalia
+Rediviva_ (cf. p. 169), but are not accompanied by the present verses
+nor by those to her editor in _Thalia Rediviva_ (p. 211).
+
+_A Persian votary_--_i.e._, a Parsee, or fire-worshipper.
+
+
+P. 102. An Epitaph upon the Lady Elizabeth, Second Daughter to his late
+Majesty.
+
+Elizabeth, second daughter of Charles I., was born in 1635. She suffered
+from ill-health and grief after her father's execution, and died at
+Carisbrooke on September 8, 1650. This poem, therefore, like others in
+the volume, must be of later date than the dedication.
+
+
+P. 104. To Sir William Davenant, upon his Gondibert.
+
+Davenant's _Gondibert_ was first published in 1651. It does not contain
+Vaughan's verses.
+
+_thy aged sire._ Is this an allusion to the story that Davenant was in
+reality the son of William Shakespeare?
+
+_Birtha_, the heroine of _Gondibert_.
+
+
+P. 119. Cupido [Cruci Affixus].
+
+Another translation of Ausonius' poems was published by Thomas Stanley
+in 1649. There is nothing in the original corresponding to the last four
+lines of Vaughan's translation.
+
+Ll. 89-94. The Latin is:
+
+ "Se quisque absolvere gestit,
+ Transferat ut proprias aliena in crimina culpas."
+
+Vaughan's simile is borrowed from Donne's _Fourth Elegy_ (_Muses'
+Library_, I., 107):
+
+ "as a thief at bar is questioned there,
+ By all the men that have been robb'd that year."
+
+
+P. 125. Translations from Boethius.
+
+These translations are from the _De Consolatione Philosophiae_, a medley
+of prose and verse. Vaughan has translated all the verse in the first
+two books except the Metrum 3 of Book I. and Metrum 6 of Book II. The
+headings of Metra 7 and 8 of Book II. are given in error in _Olor
+Iscanus_ as Metra 6 and 7. Some further translations from Books III. and
+IV. will be found in _Thalia Rediviva_, pp. 224-235.
+
+
+P. 144. Translations from Casimirus.
+
+These translations are from the Polish poet Mathias Casimirus
+Sarbievius, or Sarbiewski (1595-1640). His Latin _Lyrics_ and _Epodes_,
+modelled on Horace, were published in 1625-1631. Sarbiewski was a
+Jesuit, and a complete edition of his poems was published by the Jesuits
+in 1892.
+
+
+P. 158. Venerabili viro, praeceptori suo olim et semper colendissimo
+Magistro Mathaeo Herbert.
+
+Matthew Herbert was Rector of Llangattock, and apparently acted as tutor
+to the young Vaughans. He is mentioned in the lines _Ad Posteros_ (p.
+51). Thomas Vaughan also has two sets of Latin verses to him (Grosart,
+II., 349), and dedicated to him his _Man-Mouse taken in a Trap_ (1650).
+On July 19, 1655, he petitioned for the discharge of the sequestration
+on his rectory, which had been sequestered for the delinquency of the
+Earl of Worcester (_Cal. Proc. Ctee. for Compositions_, p. 1713). He
+died in 1660.
+
+
+P. 159. Praestantissimo viro Thomae Poello in suum de Elementis Opticae
+Libellum.
+
+The _Elementa Opticae_ appeared in 1649. It has no name on the
+title-page, but the preface is signed "T. P.," and dated 1649. It
+contains the present prefatory verses, together with some others, also
+in Latin, by Eugenius Philalethes (Thomas Vaughan).
+
+
+
+
+THALIA REDIVIVA.
+
+
+This volume, published in 1578, at a late date in Henry Vaughan's life,
+twenty-three years after the second part of _Silex Scintillans_, must
+have been written, at least in part, much earlier. The poem on _The King
+Disguised_, for instance, goes back to 1646. At the end of the volume,
+with a separate title-page (_cf. Bibliography_), come the Verse Remains
+of the poet's brother, Thomas Vaughan. This is the rarest of Vaughan's
+collections of poems. The copy once in Mr. Corser's collection, and now
+in the British Museum, was believed to be unique. It was used both by
+Lyte and Dr. Grosart. But Miss Morgan has come across two other copies,
+one in Mr. Locker-Lampson's library at Rowfant, the other in that of Mr.
+Joseph, at Brecon.
+
+
+P. 163. The Epistle-Dedicatory.
+
+Henry Somerset, third Marquis of Worcester, was created Duke of
+Beaufort in 1682. He was a distant kinsman of Vaughan's, whose
+great-great-grandfather, William Vaughan of Tretower, married Frances
+Somerset, granddaughter of Henry, Earl of Worcester. He was a firm
+adherent of the Stuarts, and refused to take the oath of allegiance to
+William III. (Dr. Grosart).
+
+
+P. 164. Commendatory Verses.
+
+These are signed by _Orinda_; _Tho. Powell, D.D._; _N. W., Ies. Coll.,
+Oxon._; _I. W., A.M. Oxon._
+
+On Orinda, _cf._ the note to p. 100, and on Dr. Powell, that to P. 57.
+
+Mr. Firth suggests that N. W., of Jesus, probably a young man, who
+imitates Cowley's _Pindarics_, and does not claim any personal
+acquaintance with Vaughan, may be N[athaniel] W[illiams], son of Thomas
+Williams, of Swansea, who matriculated in 1672, or N[icholas] W[adham],
+of Rhydodyn, Carmarthen, who matriculated in 1669.
+
+I. W., also an Oxford man, is probably the writer of the prefaces to the
+Marquis of Worcester and to the Reader, which are signed respectively J.
+W. and I. W. Mr. Firth suggests that he may be J[ohn] W[illiams], son of
+Sir Henry Williams of Gwernevet, Brecon, who matriculated at Brasenose
+in 1642. I have thought that he might be Vaughan's cousin, the second
+John Walbeoffe (_cf._ p. 189, note), who is mentioned in Thomas
+Vaughan's diary (_cf. Biographical Note_, vol. ii., p. xxxviii), but
+there is no proof that Walbeoffe was an Oxford man. Perhaps he is the
+friend James to whom a poem in _Olor Iscanus_ is addressed (p. 70).
+
+
+P. 178. To his Learned Friend and loyal Fellow-prisoner, Thomas Powel of
+Cant[reff], Doctor of Divinity.
+
+On Dr. Powell, _cf._ note to p. 57. Vaughan's reason for calling him a
+"fellow-prisoner" is discussed in the _Biographical Note_ (vol. ii., p.
+xxxii).
+
+
+P. 181. The King Disguised.
+
+John Cleveland's poem, _The King's Disguise_, here referred to, was
+first published as a pamphlet on January 21, 1646. It appears in
+Cleveland's _Works_ (1687). The disguising was on the occasion of
+Charles the First's flight, on April 27, 1646, from Oxford to the
+Scottish camp, of which Dr. Gardiner writes (_History of the Civil War_,
+Ch. xli): "At three in the morning of the 27th, Charles, disguised as a
+servant, with his beard and hair closely trimmed, passed over Magdalen
+Bridge in apparent attendance upon Ashburnham and Hudson."
+
+
+P. 187. To Mr. M. L., upon his Reduction of the Psalms into Method.
+
+Dr. Grosart identifies M. L. with Matthew Locke, of whom Roger North
+says, in his _Memoirs of Music_ (4to, 1846, p. 96): "He set most of the
+Psalms to music in parts, for the use of some vertuoso ladyes in the
+city." Locke's setting of the _Psalms_ exists only in MS. A copy was in
+the library of Dr. E. F. Rimbault, who thinks that the author assisted
+Playford in his _Whole Book of Psalms_ (1677). In 1677 he died.
+
+
+P. 189. To the pious Memory of C[harles] W[albeoffe] Esquire.
+
+Charles Walbeoffe was a man of considerable importance in
+Brecknockshire. His name occurs several times in State papers of the
+period. A petition of his concerning a ward is dated October 12, 1640.
+(_Cal. S. P. Dom._, Car. I., 470, 113). He was High Sheriff in 1648
+(Harl. MS. 2,289, f. 174), and a fragment of a warrant signed by him on
+April 17 of that year to Thomas Vaughan, treasurer of the county, for
+the monthly assessment, is in Harl. MS. 6,831, f. 13. As we might
+perhaps gather from Vaughan's poem, he does not seem to have taken an
+active part in the Civil War. He did not, like some other members of his
+family, sign the _Declaration_ of Brecknock for the Parliament on
+November 23, 1645 (J. R. Phillips, _Civil War in Wales and the Marches_,
+ii. 284). And he seems to have joined the Royalist rising in Wales of
+1648. Information was laid on February 10, 1649, that he "was
+Commissioner of Array and Association, raised men and money, subscribed
+warrants to raise men against the Parliament's generals, and sat as J.P.
+in the court at Brecon when the friends of Parliament were prosecuted"
+(_Cal. Proc. Ctee. for Advance of Money_, p. 1017). Afterwards he was
+reconciled, sat on the local Committee for Compositions, and again got
+into trouble with the authorities. On May 14, 1652, the Brecon Committee
+wrote to the Central Committee that, being one of the late Committee, he
+would not account for sums in his hands. He was fined L20. (_Cal. Proc.
+Ctee. for Compositions_, p. 578.)
+
+Miss Morgan has copied the inscription on his tombstone in Llanhamlach
+Church.
+
+ [Arms of Walbeoffe.]
+
+ "Here lieth the body of Charles Walbeoffe, Esqre., who departed
+ this life the 13th day of September, 1653, and was married to Mary,
+ one of the daughters of Sir Thomas Aubrey of Llantryddid, in the
+ county of Glamorgan, Knt., by whom he had issue two sonnes, of whom
+ only Charles surviveth."
+
+Charles Walbeoffe the younger died in 1668, and was succeeded by his
+cousin John. "This gentleman," says Jones (_Hist. of Brecknock_, ii.,
+482), "being of a gay and extravagant turn, left the estate, much
+encumbered, to his son Charles, and soon after his death it was
+foreclosed and afterwards sold."
+
+This John Walbeoffe is mentioned in Thomas Vaughan's _Diary_ (_cf._ vol.
+ii., p. xxxviii). He may be the writer of the preface to _Thalia
+Rediviva_ (_cf._ p. 164, note).
+
+It is possible that the R. W. of another of Vaughan's Elegies may also
+have been a Walbeoffe. _Cf._ p. 79, _note_.
+
+Dr. Grosart was unable to identify the initials C. W. The Walbeoffes, or
+Walbieffes, of Llanhamlach, the next village to Llansantfread, were
+among the most important of the _Advenae_, or Norman settlers of
+Brecknockshire. They were related, as the following table shows, to the
+Vaughans of Tretower. The following extract from the genealogy of the
+Walbeoffes of Llanhamlach is compiled from Harl. MS. 2,289. f. 136_b_;
+Jones, _History of Brecknockshire_, ii., 484; Miss G. E. F. Morgan, in
+_Brecon County Times_ for May 13, 1887.
+
+ William Vaughan
+ of Tretower.
+ |
+ -----------------------
+ | |
+ Charles. Margaret = John Walbeoffe.
+ | |
+ | +-------------+--------------------+---+
+ | | | |
+ Thomas = Denise Williams. Charles = Mary, d. of Sir | Robert.
+ | ob. 1653. | Thomas Aubrey |
+ | | of Llantrithid. |
+ | | |
+ Henry. +----------------+ |
+ | | | |
+ +-------+---------+ | Son |
+ | | | | (name unknown.) |
+ Henry. Thomas. W[illiam?] | |
+ | |
+ Charles = Elizabeth, d. and |
+ nat. 1646, matr. h. to Thomas Aubrey |
+ 19, vii., 1661, ob. of Llantrithid. |
+ s.p. 1668. |
+ |
+ +-----------------------+
+ |
+ John = Catherine Watkins.
+ |
+ John = Susan, d. of Humphry
+ | Howarth of Whitehouse,
+ | Herefordshire.
+ |
+ +----------+------------+
+ | |
+ Charles. John, Rector of Llanhamlach,
+ nat. 1675, matr. 3, ii., 1696.
+
+
+P. 193. In Zodiacum Marcelli Palingenii.
+
+Marcellus Palingenius, or Petro Angelo Manzoli, wrote his didactic and
+satirical poem, the _Zodiacus Vitae_, about 1535. It was translated into
+English by Barnabee Googe in 1560-1565. The latest edition of the
+original is that by C. C. Weise (1832). As we may gather from Vaughan's
+lines, Manzoli was an earnest student of occult lore. _Cf._ Gustave
+Reynier, _De Marcelli Palingenii Stellatae Poctae Zodiaco Vitae_ (1893).
+
+
+P. 195. To Lysimachus.
+
+_Bevis ... Arundel ... Morglay_. The allusion is to the _Romance of Sir
+Bevis of Hampton_ (ed. E. Koelbing, E. E. T. S., 1885). Arundel was Sir
+Bevis' horse, and Morglay his sword.
+
+
+P. 197. On Sir Thomas Bodley's Library.
+
+If Vaughan was not himself an Oxford man (_Biog. Note_, vol. ii., p.
+xxvi), he may have been in Oxford with the King's troops at the end of
+August, 1645 (_Biog. Note_, vol. ii., p. xxxi).
+
+_Walsam_, Walsingham, in Norfolk, famous for the rich shrine of Our Lady
+of Walsingham, to which many offerings were made.
+
+
+P. 200. The Importunate Fortune.
+
+I. 105. _My purse, as Randolph's was._ The allusion is to Randolph's _A
+Parley with his Empty Purse_, which begins:
+
+ "Purse, who'll not know you have a poet's been,
+ When he shall look and find no gold herein?"
+
+
+P. 204. To I. Morgan, of Whitehall, Esq.
+
+Whitehall appears to be an Anglicised form of Wenallt, more properly
+Whitehill. John Morgan, or Morgans, of Wenallt, in Llandetty, was a
+kinsman of Vaughan's, as the following table (from Harl. MS., 2,289, f.
+39) shows:
+
+ John Morgans.
+ |
+ Morgan Jones = Frances, d. of Charles
+ | Vaughan of Tretower
+ _________________________|_______________
+ | |
+John Morgans = Mary, d. to Thomas Anne =
+ Aubrey of Llantrithid. 1. Charles Williams
+ of Scethrog.
+ 2. Hugh Powell, parson
+ of Llansantffread.
+
+
+P. 211. To the Editor of the Matchless Orinda.
+
+_cf._ p. 100, _note_. These lines do not appear in either the 1664 or
+the 1667 edition of Orinda's poems.
+
+
+P. 213. Upon Sudden News of the Much Lamented Death of Judge Trevers.
+
+"This was probably Sir Thomas Trevor, youngest son of John Trevor, Esq.,
+of Trevallyn, co. Denbigh, by Mary, daughter of Sir George Bruges, of
+London. He was born 6th July, 1586. He was made one of the Barons of the
+Exchequer 12th May, 1625; and was one of the six judges who refused to
+accept the new commission offered them by the ruling powers under the
+Commonwealth. He died 21st December, 1656, and is buried at
+Lemington-Hastang, in Warwickshire." (Dr. Grosart.)
+
+
+P. 214. To Etesia (for Timander) The First Sight.
+
+I do not think we need look for anything autobiographical in this and
+the following poems written to Etesia. They are written "for Timander,"
+that is, either to serve the suit of a friend, or as copies of verses
+with no personal reference at all. The names Etesia and Timander smack
+of Orinda's poetic circle.
+
+
+P. 224. Translations from Severinus.
+
+Dr. Grosart hunted out an obscure Neapolitan, Marcus Aurelius Severino,
+and ascribed to him the originals of these translations. They are of
+course from the _De Consolatione Philosophiae_ of Anicius Manlius
+Severinus Boethius, and are a continuation of the pieces already printed
+in _Olor Iscanus_ (pp. 125-143).
+
+
+P. 245. Pious Thoughts and Ejaculations.
+
+These are much in the vein of _Silex Scintillans_. They probably belong
+to various dates later than 1655, when the second part of that
+collection appeared. _The Nativity_ (p. 259) is dated 1656, and _The
+True Christmas_ (p. 261) was apparently written after the Restoration.
+
+
+P. 261. The True Christmas.
+
+Vaughan was no Puritan; _cf._ his lines on _Christ's Nativity_ (vol. i.,
+p. 107)--
+
+ "Alas, my God! Thy birth now here
+ Must not be numbered in the year,"
+
+but he was not much in sympathy with the ideals of the Restoration
+either; _cf._ the passage on "our unjust ways" in _Daphnis_ (p. 284).
+
+
+P. 267. De Salmone.
+
+On Thomas Powell, _cf._ p. 57, note.
+
+
+P. 272. The Bee.
+
+_Hilarion's servant, the sage crow._ There seems to be some confusion
+between Hilarion, an obscure fourth-century Abbot, and Paul the Hermit,
+of whom it is related in his _Life by S. Jerome_ that for sixty years he
+was daily provided with half a loaf of bread by a crow.
+
+
+P. 278. Daphnis.
+
+The subject of the Eclogue appears to be Vaughan's brother Thomas, who
+died 27th February, 1666. On him _see_ the _Biographical Note_ (vol.
+ii., p. xxxiii).
+
+_true black Moors_; an allusion, perhaps, to Thomas Vaughan's
+controversy with Henry More.
+
+_Old Amphion_; perhaps Matthew Herbert, on whom see note to p. 158.
+
+_The Isis and the prouder Thames._ Thomas Vaughan was buried at Albury,
+near Oxford.
+
+_Noble Murray._ Thomas Vaughan's patron, himself a poet and alchemist,
+Sir Robert Murray, Secretary of State for Scotland. His poems have been
+collected by the Hunterian Club.
+
+
+
+
+FRAGMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS.
+
+
+The larger number of the verses in this section are translated
+quotations scattered through Vaughan's prose-pamphlets. Dr. Grosart
+identified some of the originals; I have added a few others; but the
+larger number remain obscure and are hardly worth spending much labour
+upon. The title-pages of the pamphlets will be found in the
+_Bibliography_ (vol. ii., p. lvii).
+
+
+P. 289. From Eucharistica Oxoniensia.
+
+I have already, in the _Biographical Note_ (vol. ii., p. xxviii), given
+reasons for doubting whether this poem is by the Silurist. It was first
+printed as his by Dr. Grosart. Charles the First was in Scotland, trying
+to settle his differences with the Scots, during the closing months of
+1641.
+
+
+P. 291. Translations from Plutarch and Maximus Tyrius.
+
+These, together with a translation of Guevara's _De vitae rusticae
+laudibus_, were appended to the _Olor Iscanus_. Vaughan did not
+translate directly from the Greek, but from a Latin version published in
+1613-14 amongst some tracts by John Reynolds, Lecturer in Greek at, and
+afterwards President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
+
+
+P. 294. From the Mount of Olives.
+
+A volume of Devotions published by Vaughan in 1652. The preface, dated
+1st October, 1651, is addressed to Sir Charles Egerton, Knight, and in
+it Vaughan speaks of "that near relation by which my dearest friend
+lays claim to your person." It is impossible to say who is the "dearest
+friend" referred to. The _Flores Solitudinis_ (1654) is also dedicated
+to Sir Charles Egerton. He was probably of Staffordshire. Dr. Grosart
+(II. xxxiii) states that in Hanbury Church, co. Stafford, is a monument
+_Caroli Egertoni Equitis Aurati_, who died 1662. Perhaps therefore he
+was connected with Vaughan's wife's family, the Wises of Staffordshire.
+
+
+P. 298. From Man in Glory.
+
+This translation from a work attributed to St. Anselm and published as
+his in 1639 is appended to the Mount of Olives.
+
+In the original lines 5, 6, are printed in error after lines 7, 8.
+
+
+P. 299. From Flores Solitudinis.
+
+In 1654 Vaughan published a volume containing (1) translations of two
+discourses by Eusebius Nierembergius, (2) a translation of Eucherius,
+_De Contemptu Mundi_, (3) an original life of S. Paulinus, Bishop of
+Nola. These were poems "collected in his sickness and retirement." The
+Epistle-dedicatory to Sir Charles Egerton is dated 1653, and that to the
+reader which precedes the translations from Nierembergius on 17th April,
+1652.
+
+_Bissellius._ John Bissel a Jesuit, (1601-1677), wrote _Deliciae
+Aetatis_, _Argonauticon Americanorum_, etc. (Grosart).
+
+_Augurellius._ Johannes Aurelius Augurellius of Rimini (1454-1537),
+wrote _Carmina_, _Chrysopoeia_, _Geronticon_, etc. (Grosart).
+
+
+P. 307. From Primitive Holiness.
+
+This original life of S. Paulinus of Nola, by far the most striking of
+Vaughan's prose works, contains a number of poems, pieced together by
+Vaughan from lines in Paulinus' own poems and in those of Ausonius
+addressed to him. The edition used by Vaughan seems to have been that
+published by Rosweyd at Antwerp in 1622. I have traced the sources of
+the poems so far as I can in the edition published by W. de Hartel in
+the _Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum_ (vols. xxix, xxx
+1894).
+
+
+P. 322. From Hermetical Physic.
+
+A translation from the _Naturae Sanctuarium! quod est Physica Hermetica_
+(1619) of the alchemist Henry Nollius, published by Vaughan in 1655.
+
+
+P. 323. From Cerbyd Fechydwiaeth.
+
+This tract is bound up with the Brit. Mus. copy of [Thomas Powell's]
+_Quadriga Salutis_ (1657), of which it appears to be a Welsh
+translation. The verses, to which nothing corresponds in the English
+version, are signed Ol[or] Vaughan (_cf._ Olor Iscanus). Professor
+Palgrave (_Y Cymrodor_, 1890-1) translates them as follows: "The Lord's
+Prayer, when looked into (we see), the Trinity of His Fatherly goodness
+has given it as a foundation-stone of all prayer, and has made it for
+our instruction in doctrine." He adds that this Englyn occurs with
+others written in an eighteenth-century hand on the fly-leaf of a MS. of
+Welsh poetry by Iago ab Duwi.
+
+
+P. 324. From Humane Industry.
+
+On Thomas Powell _cf._ p. 57, note. The first three of these
+translations are marked H. V. in the margin; of the fourth Powell says,
+"The translation of Mr. Hen. Vaughan, Silurist, whose excellent Poems
+are published." Many other translations are scattered through the book,
+but there is nothing to connect them with Vaughan.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF FIRST LINES.
+
+ Vol. page
+A grove there grows, round with the sea confin'd, ii. 239
+
+A king and no king! Is he gone from us, ii. 181
+
+A tender kid--see, where 'tis put-- ii. 293
+
+A ward, and still in bonds, one day i. 19
+
+A wit most worthy in tried gold to shine, i. 2
+
+Accept, dread Lord, the poor oblation; i. 92
+
+Accipe praerapido salmonem in gurgite captum, ii. 267
+
+Against the virtuous man we all make head, ii. 305
+
+Ah! He is fled! i. 40
+
+Ah! what time wilt Thou come? when shall that cry i. 123
+
+All sorts of men, who live on Earth, ii. 235
+
+All worldly things, even while they grow, decay ii. 304
+
+Almighty Spirit! Thou that by ii. 144
+
+Amyntas go, thou art undone ii. 12
+
+And do they so? have they a sense i. 87
+
+And for life's sake to lose the crown of life. ii. 303
+
+And is the bargain thought too dear ii. 311
+
+And rising at midnight the stars espied ii. 297
+
+And will not bear the cry ii. 301
+
+As Egypt's drought by Nilus is redress'd ii. 304
+
+As kings do rule like th' heavens, who dispense ii. 289
+
+As Time one day by me did pass, i. 234
+
+As travellers, when the twilight's come i. 146
+
+Ask, lover, e'er thou diest; let one poor breath ii. 11
+
+Awake, glad heart! get up and sing! i. 105
+
+Base man! and couldst thou think Cato alone ii. 301
+
+Be dumb, coarse measures, jar no more; to me i. 195
+
+Be still, black parasites, i. 187
+
+Bless me! what damps are here! how stiff an air! ii. 65
+
+Blessed, unhappy city! dearly lov'd, i. 218
+
+Blessings as rich and fragrant crown your heads ii. 92
+
+Blest be the God of harmony and love! i. 76
+
+Blest infant bud, whose blossom-life i. 120
+
+Boast not, proud Golgotha, that thou canst show ii. 197
+
+Bright and blest beam! whose strong projection, i. 121
+
+Bright books! the perspectives to our weak sights: ii. 245
+
+Bright Queen of Heaven! God's Virgin Spouse! i. 225
+
+Bright shadows of true rest! some shoots of bliss; i. 114
+
+But night and day doth his own life molest, ii. 302
+
+Can any tell me what it is? Can you ii. 268
+
+Chance taking from me things of highest price ii. 292
+
+Come, come! what do I here? i. 61
+
+Come, drop your branches, strew the way i. 216
+
+Come, my heart! come, my head, i. 52
+
+Come, my true consort in my joys and care! ii. 317
+
+Come sapless blossom, creep not still on earth, i. 166
+
+Curtain'd with clouds in a dark night ii. 132
+
+Darkness, and stars i' th' mid-day! They invite ii. 18
+
+Dear, beauteous saint! more white than day i. 227
+
+Dear friend, sit down, and bear awhile this shade i. 193
+
+Dear friend! whose holy, ever-living lines i. 91
+
+Dearest! if you those fair eyes--wond'ring--stick ii. 115
+
+Death and darkness, get you packing, i. 133
+
+Diminuat ne sera dies praesentis honorem ii. 51
+
+Draw near, fond man, and dress thee by this glass, ii. 294
+
+Dust and clay, i. 180
+
+Early, while yet the dark was gay ii. 255
+
+Eternal God! Maker of all i. 285
+
+Et sic in cithara, sic in dulcedine vitae ii. 266
+
+Excel then if thou canst, be not withstood, ii. 291
+
+Fair and young light! my guide to holy i. 236
+
+Fair order'd lights--whose motion without noise i. 155
+
+Fair Prince of Light! Light's living well! ii. 249
+
+Fair, shining mountains of my pilgrimage ii. 247
+
+Fair, solitary path! whose blessed shades i. 256
+
+Fair vessel of our daily light, whose proud ii. 257
+
+Fairly design'd! to charm our civil rage ii. 171
+
+False life! a foil and no more, when i. 282
+
+Fancy and I, last evening, walk'd, ii. 15
+
+Farewell! I go to sleep; but when i. 73
+
+Farewell thou true and tried reflection ii. 276
+
+Farewell, you everlasting hills! I'm cast i. 43
+
+Father of lights! what sunny seed, i. 189
+
+Feeding on fruits which in the heavens do grow, ii. 291
+
+Flaccus, not so: that worldly he ii. 152
+
+Fool that I was! to believe blood ii. 209
+
+For shame desist, why shouldst thou seek my fall? ii. 200
+
+Fortune--when with rash hands she quite turmoils ii. 134
+
+Fresh fields and woods! the Earth's fair face ii. 252
+
+From fruitful beds and flow'ry borders, ii. 272
+
+From the first hour the heavens were made ii. 296
+
+Go catch the ph[oe]nix, and then bring ii. 217
+
+Go, go, quaint follies, sugar'd sin, i. 113
+
+Go, if you must! but stay--and know ii. 222
+
+Had I adored the multitude and thence ii. 169
+
+Hail, sacred shades! cool, leafy house! ii. 26
+
+Happy is he, that with fix'd eyes ii. 224
+
+Happy that first white age! when we ii. 138
+
+Happy those early days, when I i. 59
+
+Have I so long in vain thy absence mourn'd? ii. 309
+
+He that thirsts for glory's prize, ii. 140
+
+Here holy Anselm lives in ev'ry page, ii. 298
+
+Here, take again thy sackcloth! and thank heav'n ii. 83
+
+Here the great well-spring of wash'd souls, with beams ii. 313
+
+His deep, dark heart--bent to supplant-- ii. 292
+
+Hither thou com'st: the busy wind all night i. 207
+
+How could that paper sent, ii. 307
+
+How is man parcell'd out! how ev'ry hour i. 139
+
+How kind is Heav'n to man! if here i. 107
+
+How oft have we beheld wild beasts appear ii. 325
+
+How rich, O Lord, how fresh Thy visits are! i. 105
+
+How shrill are silent tears! when sin got head i. 124
+
+I am confirm'd, and so much wing is given ii. 79
+
+I call'd it once my sloth: in such an age ii. 58
+
+I cannot reach it; and my striving eye i. 249
+
+I did but see thee! and how vain it is ii. 90
+
+I have consider'd it; and find i. 90
+
+I have it now: i. 238
+
+I knew it would be thus! and my just fears ii. 94
+
+I knew thee not, nor durst attendance strive ii. 87
+
+I saw beneath Tarentum's stately towers ii. 296
+
+I saw Eternity the other night i. 150
+
+I see the Temple in thy pillar rear'd; i. 261
+
+I see the use: and know my blood i. 69
+
+I've read thy soul's fair nightpiece, and have seen ii. 77
+
+I walk'd the other day, to spend my hour, i. 171
+
+I whose first year flourished with youthful verse, ii. 125
+
+I wonder, James, through the whole history ii. 70
+
+I write not here, as if thy last in store ii. 59
+
+I wrote it down. But one that saw i. 264
+
+If Amoret, that glorious eye, ii. 13
+
+"If any have an ear," i. 242
+
+If I were dead, and in my place ii. 16
+
+If old tradition hath not fail'd, ii. 233
+
+If sever'd friends by sympathy can join, ii. 178
+
+If this world's friends might see but once i. 232
+
+If weeping eyes could wash away ii. 151
+
+If with an open, bounteous hand ii. 135
+
+In all the parts of earth, from farthest West, ii. 28
+
+In March birds couple, a new birth ii. 295
+
+In those bless'd fields of everlasting air ii. 119
+
+Isca parens florum, placido qui spumeus ore ii. 157
+
+It is perform'd! and thy great name doth run ii. 193
+
+It lives when kill'd, and brancheth when 'tis lopp'd ii. 301
+
+It would less vex distressed man ii. 145
+
+Jesus, my life! how shall I truly love Thee? i. 200
+
+Joy of my life while left me here! i. 67
+
+Knave's tongues and calumnies no more doth prize ii. 292
+
+King of comforts! King of Life! i. 127
+
+King of mercy, King of love, i. 174
+
+Learning and Law, your day is done, ii. 213
+
+Leave Amoret, melt not away so fast ii. 23
+
+Let me not weep to see thy ravish'd house ii. 307
+
+Let not thy youth and false delights ii. 146
+
+Life, Marcellina, leaving thy fair frame, ii. 312
+
+Like some fair oak, that when her boughs ii. 302
+
+[Like] to speedy posts, bear hence the lamp of life ii. 304
+
+Long life, oppress'd with many woes, ii. 306
+
+Long since great wits have left the stage ii. 211
+
+Lord, bind me up, and let me lie i. 161
+
+Lord Jesus! with what sweetness and delights, i. 177
+
+Lord, since Thou didst in this vile clay i. 116
+
+Lord! what a busy restless thing i. 48
+
+Lord, when Thou didst on Sinai pitch, i. 148
+
+Lord, when Thou didst Thyself undress, i. 51
+
+Lord, with what courage, and delight i. 80
+
+Love, the world's life! What a sad death ii. 223
+
+Man should with virtue arm'd and hearten'd be ii. 303
+
+Mark, when the evening's cooler wings ii. 21
+
+Most happy man! who in his own sweet fields ii. 236
+
+My dear, Almighty Lord! why dost Thou weep? i. 220
+
+My God and King! to Thee i. 259
+
+My God, how gracious art Thou! I had slipt i. 89
+
+My God! Thou that didst die for me, i. 13
+
+My God, when I walk in those groves i. 30
+
+My soul, my pleasant soul, and witty, ii. 294
+
+My soul, there is a country i. 83
+
+Nature even for herself doth lay a snare, ii. 303
+
+Nimble sigh on thy warm wings, ii. 10
+
+Nothing on earth, nothing at all ii. 149
+
+Now I have seen her; and by Cupid ii. 206
+
+Now that the public sorrow doth subside ii. 189
+
+O book! Life's guide! how shall we part; i. 287
+
+O come, and welcome! come, refine! ii. 251
+
+O come away, i. 274
+
+O day of life, of light, of love! i. 267
+
+O do not go! Thou know'st I'll die! i. 214
+
+O dulcis luctus, risuque potentior omni! ii. 221
+
+O health, the chief of gifts divine! ii. 293
+
+O holy, blessed, glorious Three, i. 201
+
+O in what haste, with clouds and night ii. 126
+
+O joys! infinite sweetness! with what flowers i. 71
+
+O knit me, that am crumbled dust! the heap i. 46
+
+O my chief good! i. 84
+
+O quae frondosae per am[oe]na cubilia silvae ii. 160
+
+O, subtle Love! thy peace is war; ii. 220
+
+O tell me whence that joy doth spring i. 284
+
+O the new world's new-quick'ning Sun! i. 289
+
+O Thou great builder of this starry frame, ii. 129
+
+O Thou that lovest a pure and whiten'd soul; i. 130
+
+O Thou! the first-fruits of the dead, i. 78
+
+O Thou who didst deny to me ii. 263
+
+O Thy bright looks! Thy glance of love i. 197
+
+O when my God, my Glory, brings i. 260
+
+Obdurate still and tongue-tied, you accuse ii. 308
+
+Oft have I seen, when that renewing breath i. 25
+
+Patience digesteth misery ii. 302
+
+Peace? and to all the world? Sure One, ii. 259
+
+Peace, peace! I blush to hear thee; when thou art i. 108
+
+Peace, peace! I know 'twas brave; i. 65
+
+Peace, peace! it is not so. Thou dost miscall i. 137
+
+Peter, when thou this pleasant world dost see, ii. 299
+
+Praying! and to be married! It was rare, i. 37
+
+Quid celebras auratam undam, et combusta pyropis ii. 265
+
+Quite spent with thoughts, I left my cell, and lay i. 57
+
+Quod vixi, Mathaee dedit pater, haec tamen olim ii. 158
+
+Sacred and secret hand! i. 223
+
+Sad, purple well! whose bubbling eye i. 254
+
+Saw not, Lysimachus, last day, when we ii. 195
+
+Say, witty fair one, from what sphere ii. 100
+
+See what thou wert! by what Platonic round ii. 175
+
+See you that beauteous queen, which no age tames? ii. 219
+
+Sees not my friend, what a deep snow ii. 99
+
+Shall I believe you can make me return, ii. 306
+
+Shall I complain, or not? or shall I mask ii. 112
+
+Sickness and death, you are but sluggish things, ii. 309
+
+Silence and stealth of days! 'Tis now, i. 74
+
+Since dying for me, Thou didst crave no more i. 278
+
+Since I in storms us'd most to be, i. 283
+
+Since in a land not barren still, i. 145
+
+Since last we met, thou and thy horse--my dear-- ii. 73
+
+Sion's true, glorious God! on Thee i. 269
+
+So from our cold, rude world, which all things tires, ii. 204
+
+So our decays God comforts by ii. 295
+
+So, stick up ivy and the bays, ii. 261
+
+Some esteem it no point of revenge to kill ii. 323
+
+Some struggle and groan as if by panthers torn, ii. 300
+
+Still young and fine! but what is still in view i. 230
+
+Sure, it was so. Man in those early days i. 101
+
+Sure Priam will to mirth incline, ii. 291
+
+Sure, there's a tie of bodies! and as they i. 82
+
+Sure thou didst flourish once! and many springs, i. 209
+
+Sweet, harmless live[r]s!--on whose leisure i. 158
+
+Sweet, sacred hill! on whose fair brow i. 49
+
+Tentasti, fateor, sine vulnere saepius et me i. liv
+
+Thanks, mighty Silver! I rejoice to see ii. 68
+
+That man for misery excell'd ii. 293
+
+That the fierce pard doth at a beck ii. 325
+
+That the world in constant force ii. 142
+
+The lucky World show'd me one day i. 226
+
+The naked man too gets the field, ii. 300
+
+The painful cross with flowers and palms is crown'd, ii. 314
+
+The pains of Saints and Saints' rewards are twins, ii. 314
+
+The plenteous evils of frail life fill the old: ii. 305
+
+The strongest body and the best ii. 323
+
+The trees we set grow slowly, and their shade ii. 297
+
+The untired strength of never-ceasing motion, ii. 324
+
+The whole wench--how complete soe'er--was but ii. 298
+
+There are that do believe all things succeed ii. 295
+
+There's need, betwixt his clothes, his bed and board ii. 322
+
+They are all gone into the world of light! i. 182
+
+--They fain would--if they might-- ii. 302
+
+This is the day--blithe god of sack--which we, ii. 106
+
+This pledge of your joint love, to heaven now fled, ii. 308
+
+Those sacred days by tedious Time delay'd, ii. 315
+
+Though since thy first sad entrance by i. 272
+
+Thou that know'st for whom I mourn, i. 54
+
+Thou the nepenthe easing grief ii. 301
+
+Thou who didst place me in this busy street i. 244
+
+Thou, who dost flow and flourish here below, i. 198
+
+Thou, whose sad heart, and weeping head lies low i. 133
+
+Through pleasant green fields enter you the way ii. 313
+
+Through that pure virgin shrine, i. 251
+
+Time's teller wrought into a little round, ii. 324
+
+'Tis a sad Land, that in one day i. 23
+
+'Tis dead night round about: Horror doth creep i. 41
+
+'Tis madness sure; and I am in the fit, ii. 184
+
+'Tis not rich furniture and gems, ii. 147
+
+'Tis now clear day: I see a rose i. 33
+
+'Tis true, I am undone: yet, ere I die, ii. 17
+
+To live a stranger unto life ii. 304
+
+True life in this is shown, ii. 304
+
+'Twas so; I saw thy birth. That drowsy lake i. 45
+
+Tyrant, farewell! this heart, the prize ii. 8
+
+Unfold! Unfold! Take in His light, ii. 254
+
+Up, O my soul! and bless the Lord! O God, i. 202
+
+Up to those bright and gladsome hills, i. 136
+
+Vain, sinful art! who first did fit i. 219
+
+Vain wits and eyes i. 16
+
+Virtue's fair cares some people measure ii. 303
+
+Vivaces oculorum ignes et lumina dia ii. 159
+
+Waters above! eternal springs! ii. 248
+
+Weary of this same clay and straw, I laid i. 153
+
+We thank you, worthy Sir, that now we see ii. 97
+
+Weighing the steadfastness and state i. 169
+
+Welcome, dear book, soul's joy and food! The feast i. 103
+
+Welcome sweet and sacred feast! welcome life! i. 134
+
+Welcome, white day! a thousand suns, i. 184
+
+Well, we are rescued! and by thy rare pen ii. 104
+
+What can the man do that succeeds the king? i. 247
+
+What clouds, Menalcas, do oppress thy brow, ii. 278
+
+What fix'd affections, and lov'd laws ii. 228
+
+What happy, secret fountain, i. 241
+
+What greater good hath decked great Pompey's crown ii. 306
+
+What is't to me that spacious rivers run ii. 295
+
+What planet rul'd your birth? what witty star? ii. 57
+
+What smiling star in that fair night, ii. 214
+
+What though they boast their riches unto us? ii. 292
+
+Whatever 'tis, whose beauty here below i. 191
+
+When Daphne's lover here first wore the bays, ii. 61
+
+When first I saw True Beauty, and Thy joys i. 168
+
+When first Thou didst even from the grave i. 110
+
+When first thy eyes unveil, give thy soul leave i. 94
+
+When Jove a heav'n of small glass did behold, ii. 238
+
+When the Crab's fierce constellation ii. 131
+
+When the fair year i. 212
+
+When the sun from his rosy bed ii. 136
+
+When through the North a fire shall rush i. 28
+
+When to my eyes, i. 63
+
+When we are dead, and now, no more ii. 5
+
+When with these eyes, clos'd now by Thee, i. 271
+
+Whenever did, I pray, ii. 322
+
+Where reverend bards of old have sate ii. 172
+
+Where'er my fancy calls, there I go still, ii. 322
+
+Whither, O whither didst thou fly ii. 250
+
+Who wisely would for his retreat ii. 137
+
+Who would unclouded see the laws ii. 230
+
+Who on you throne of azure sits, i. 142
+
+Whom God doth take care for, and love, ii. 306
+
+Whose calm soul in a settled state ii. 128
+
+Whose guilty soul, with terrors fraught, doth frame, ii. 303
+
+Whose hissings fright all Nature's monstrous ills, ii. 305
+
+With restless cares they waste the night and day, ii. 322
+
+With what deep murmurs, through Time's silent stealth, i. 280
+
+Y Pader, pan trier, Duw-tri a'i dododd ii. 323
+
+You have consum'd my language, and my pen, ii. 109
+
+You have oblig'd the patriarch: and 'tis known ii. 187
+
+You minister to others' wounds a cure, ii. 291
+
+You see what splendour through the spacious aisle, ii. 314
+
+You that to wash your flesh and souls draw near, ii. 312
+
+Youth, beauty, virtue, innocence ii. 102
+
+
+
+Woodfall & Kinder, Printers, 70-76, Long Acre., W.C.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF HENRY VAUGHAN, SILURIST,
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