ODE 5.

[An Amouret Anacreontic.]

Ost good! most fair!

Or thing as rare!

To call you's lost;

For all the cost

Words can bestow

So poorly show

Upon your praise,

That all the ways

Sense hath, come short.

Whereby Report

Falls them under:

That when Wonder

More hath seized;

Yet not pleased

That it, in kind,

Nothing can find,

You to express.

Nevertheless

As by globes small

This mighty ALL

Is shewed, though far

From life; each star

A World being:

So we seeing

You, like as that,

Only trust what

Art doth us teach.

And when I reach

At Moral Things,

And that my strings

Gravely should strike;

Straight some mislike

Blotteth mine Ode;

As, with the Load,

The Steel we touch:

Forced ne'er so much;

Yet still removes

To that it loves,

Till there it stays.

So to your praise

I turn ever:

And though never

From you moving;

Happy so loving.