Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II

by Henry Vaughan

TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID

[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 Cæsar 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.

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[OVID, EPISTOLARUM] DE PONTO, LIB. III. [EPIST. VII.].
TO HIS FRIENDS—AFTER HIS MANY SOLICITATIONS—REFUSING TO PETITION CÆSAR 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 Æmus, 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. Cæsar 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.

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[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 Crœsus' 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.

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[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 Cæsar!—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!

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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 Phædra 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 unadvisèd 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!

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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 Ætna'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 Ætna'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' expansèd 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 distressèd 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 phœnix, 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 dispersèd 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 mæstos hyacinthos, et picti ἄνθεα tophi
Mulces susurris humidis;
Dumque novas pergunt menses consumere lunas
Cœlumque mortales terit,
Accumulas cum sole dies, ævumque 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 PRÆCEPTORI SUO OLIM ET SEMPER COLENDISSIMO MAGISTRO MATHÆO HERBERT.

Quod vixi, Mathæe, dedit pater, hæc tamen olim
Vita fluat, nec erit fas meminisse datam.
Ultra curasti solers, perituraque mecum
Nomina post cineres das resonare meos.
Divide discipulum: brevis hæc et lubrica nostri
Pars vertat patri, posthuma vita tibi.

---

PRÆSTANTISSIMO VIRO THOMÆ POËLLO IN SUUM DE ELEMENTIS OPTICÆ 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] Poëlle, libro,
Excursusque situsque ut Lynceus opticus, edis,
Quotque modis fallunt, quotque adhibenda fides.
Æmula Naturæ manus! et mens conscia cœli.
Ilia videre dedit, vestra videre docet.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] The version in Elementa Opticæ has Eximio viro, et amicorum longè optimo, T. P. in hunc suum de Elementis Opticæ libellum.

[57] El. Opt. has docte.

AD ECHUM.

O quæ frondosæ per amœna cubilia silvæ
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 vitæ
Ultima, palantisque precor suspiria linguæ.
Da quo secretæ hæc incædua devia silvæ,
Anfractusque loci dubios, et lustra repandam.
Sic tibi perpetua—meritoque—hæc regna juventa
Luxurient, dabiturque tuis, sine fine, viretis
Intactas lunæ lachrymas, et lambere rorem
Virgineum, cœlique animas haurire tepentis.
Nec cedant ævo stellis, sed lucida semper
Et satiata sacro æterni medicamine veris
Ostendant longe vegetos, ut sidera, vultus!
Sic spiret muscata comas, et cinnama passim!
Diffundat levis umbra, in funere qualia spargit
Phœnicis rogus aut Pancheæ nubila flammæ!

---

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.

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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 disabusèd 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 Tyrtæus, 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
Tyrtæus 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 Phœnix 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 phœnix 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 deposèd 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 dispersèd 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 Ætna, 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 chargèd 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 learnèd 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 learnèd 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.
Cæsar 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 livèd 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 confinèd see,
My boundless thoughts have their ubiquity.
And shall I then forsake the stars and signs,
To dote upon thy dark and cursèd 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 archèd 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,
Phœbus 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 phœnix, 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 tacitæ spirant auræ! vultusque nitentes
Contristant veneres, collachrimantque suæ!
Ornat gutta genas, oculisque simillima gemma:
Et tepido vivas irrigat imbre rosas.
Dicite Chaldæi! quæ me fortuna fatigat,
?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 æthera 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 feignèd 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 PHŒNIX OUT OF CLAUDIAN, [IDYLL I.]

Oceani summo circumfluus æquore 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 Phœnix' 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 usèd 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 Phœbus 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 Phœnix, when straight stays
The chariot of th' amazèd 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 Phæton 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 crookèd 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;

}

S. Mark,

c. 1, v. 35-

}

Job, c. 38,

v. 7

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 wingèd 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 quæ serit æthra salo?
Æternum refluis si pernoctaret in undis
Phœbus, et incertam sidera suda Tethyn
Si colerent, tantæ gemmæ! nil cærula 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 aquæ currunt, et apostata Parphar,
Atque Abana immundo turbidus amne fluit,
Ethnica te totam cum fœdavere fluenta,
Mansit Christicolâ Jordanis unus aqua.

---

SERVILII FATUM, SIVE VINDICTA DIVINA.

Et sic in cithara, sic in dulcedine vitæ
Et facti et luctus regnat amarities.
Quam subito in fastum extensos atque esseda[68] vultus
Ultrici oppressit vilis arena sinu!
Si violæ, spiransque crocus: si lilium ἀέινον
Non nisi justorum nascitur e cinere:
Spinarum, tribulique atque infelicis avenæ
Quantus in hoc tumulo et qualis acervus erit?
Dii superi! damnosa piis sub sidera longum
Mansuris stabilem conciliate fidem!
Sic olim in cœlum post nimbos clarius ibunt,
Supremo occidui tot velut astra die.
Quippe ruunt horæ, 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. Theologiæ Doctorem.

Accipe prærapido salmonem in gurgite captum,
Ex imo in summas cum penetrasset aquas,
Mentitæ 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! miseræ merces ditissima vitæ,
Quam tuto in tacitis hic latuisset aquis!
Qui dum spumosi fremitus et murmura rivi
Quæritat, hamato sit cita præda 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 seër 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 diffusèd 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 learnèd 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,
Phœbus 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 joinèd 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 professèd, 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 armèd 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.

---

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, learnèd 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 redeemèd 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 distinguishèd 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 Cæsar.

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 naïvely 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 Poëllo in suum de Elementis Opticæ 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 £20. (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. 136b; Jones, History of Brecknockshire, ii., 484; Miss G. E. F. Morgan, in Brecon County Times for May 13, 1887.

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. Kölbing, 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:

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.