The trembling Lover broke his tuneless Lute,
And said be thou for ever mute:
Mute as the silent shades of night,
Whither Orinda's gone,
Thy musicks best instructress and thy musicks song;
She that could make
Thy inarticulated strings to speak,
In language soft as young desires,
In language chaste as Vestal fires;
But she hath ta'n her Everlasting flight:
Ah! cruel Death,
How short's the date of Learned breath!
No sooner do's the blooming Rose,
Drest fresh and gay,
In the embroy'dries of her Native May,
Her odorous sweets expose,
But with thy fatal knife,
The fragrant flow'r is crop't from off the stalk of life.
III.
Come, ye Stoicks, come away,
You that boast an Apathy,
And view our Golgotha;
See how the mourning Virgins all around,
With Tributary Tears bedew the sacred ground;
And tell me, tell me where's the Eye
That can be dry,
Unless in hopes (nor are such hopes in vain)
Their universal cry,
Should mount the vaulted sky,
And of the Gods obtain,
A young succeeding Phœnix might arise
From Orinda's spicy obsequies.
In Heaven the voice was heard,
Heaven does the Virgins pray'rs regard;
And none that dwells on high,
If once the beauteous Ask, the beauteous can deny.
IV.
'Tis done, 'tis done, th' imperial grant is past,
We have our wish at last,
And now no more with sorrow be it said,
Orinda's dead;
Since in her seat Astræa does Appear,
The God of Wit has chosen her,
To bear Orinda's and his Character.
The Laurel Chaplet seems to grow
On her more gracefull Brow;
And in her hand
Look how she waves his sacred Wand:
Loves Quiver's tyde
In an Azure Mantle by her side,
And with more gentle Arts
Than he who owns the Aureal darts,
At once she wounds, and heals our hearts.
V.
Hark how the gladded Nymphs rejoyce,
And with a gracefull voice,
Commend Apollo's Choice.
The gladded Nymphs their Guardian Angel greet,
And chearfully her name repeat,
And chearfully admire and praise,
The Loyal musick of her layes;
Whilst they securely sit,
Beneath the banners of her wit,
And scorn th'ill-manner'd Ignorance of those,
Whose Stock's so poor they cannot raise
To their dull Muse one subsidy of praise,
Unless they're dubb'd the Sexes foes,
These squibbs of sense themselves expose.
Or if with stolen light
They shine one night,
The next their earth-born Lineage shows,
They perish in their slime,
And but to name them, wou'd defile Astræa's Rhime.
IV.
But you that would be truely wise,
And vertues fair Idea prize;
You that would improve
In harmless Arts of not indecent Love:
Arts that Romes fam'd Master never taught,
Or in the Shops of fortune's bought.
Would you know what Wit doth mean,
Pleasant wit yet not obscene,
The several garbs that Humours wear,
The dull, the brisk, the jealous, the severe?
Wou'd you the pattern see
Of spotless and untainted Loyalty,
Deck't in every gracefull word
That language that afford;
Tropes and Figures, Raptures and Conceits that ly,
Disperst in all the pleasant Fields of poesie?
Reade you then Astræa's lines,
'Tis in those new discover'd Mines,
Those golden Quarries that this Ore is found
With which in Worlds as yet unknown Astræa shall be crown'd.
VII.