Ivy-crown’d Bacchus iterate in thy praises,
O Muse; whose voice all loftiest echoes raises,
And he with all th’ illustrious Seed of Jove
Is join’d in honour, being the fruit of love
To him, and Semele the-great-in-graces;
And from the King his father’s kind embraces
By fair-hair’d Nymphs was taken to the dales
Of Nyssa, and with curious festivals
Given his fair grought, far from his father’s view,
In caves from whence eternal odours flew,
And in high number of the Deities plac’d.
Yet when the many-hymn-given God had past
His Nurses’ cares, in ivies and in bays
All over thicketed, his varied ways
To sylvan coverts evermore He took,
With all his Nurses, whose shrill voices shook
Thickets, in which could no foot’s entry fall,
And he himself made captain of them all.
And so, O grape-abounding Bacchus, be
Ever saluted by my Muse and me!
Give us to spend with spirit our hours out here,
And every hour extend to many a year.
A Hymn to Diana
Diana, that the golden spindle moves,
And lofty sounds as well as Bacchus loves,
A bashful virgin, and of fearful hearts
The death-affecter with delighted darts,
By sire and mother Phœbus’ sister born,
Whose thigh the golden falchion doth adorn,
I sing; who likewise over hills of shade
And promontories that vast winds invade,
Amorous of hunting, bends her all-gold bow,
And sigh-begetting arrows doth bestow
In fates so dreadful that the hill-tops quake,
And bristled woods their leafy foreheads shake,
Horrors invade earth, and [the] fishy seas
Impassion’d furies; nothing can appease
The dying brays of beasts. And her delight
In so much death affects so with affright
Even all inanimate natures; for, while she
Her sports applies, their general progeny
She all ways turns upon to all their banes.
Yet when her fiery pleasures find their wanes,
Her yielding bow unbent, to th’ ample house,
Seated in Delphos, rich and populous,
Of her dear brother, her retreats advance.
Where th’ instauration of delightsome dance
Amongst the Muses and the Graces she
Gives form; in which herself the regency
(Her unbent bow hung up, and casting on
A gracious robe) assumes, and first sets gone
The dances’ entry; to which all send forth
Their heavenly voices, and advance the worth
Of her fair-ankled mother, since to light
She children brought the far most exquisite
In counsels and performances of all
The Goddesses that grace the heavenly hall.
Hail then, Latona’s fair-hair’d Seed, and Jove’s!
My song shall ever call to mind your loves.
A Hymn to Pallas
Pallas-Minerva’s deity, the renown’d,
My Muse in her variety must resound;
Mighty in councils; whose illustrous eyes
In all resemblance represent the skies.
A reverend maid of an inflexible mind;
In spirit and person strong; of triple kind;
Fautress of cities that just laws maintain;
Of Jove, the-great-in-councils, very brain
Took prime existence, his unbounded brows
Could not contain her, such impetuous throes
Her birth gave way to, that abroad she flew,
And stood, in gold arm’d, in her Father’s view,
Shaking her sharp lance. All Olympus shook
So terribly beneath her, that it took
Up in amazes all the Deities there.
All earth resounded with vociferous fear.
The sea was put up all in purple waves,
And settled suddenly her rudest raves.
Hyperion’s radiant son his swift-hov’d steeds
A mighty time stay’d, till her arming weeds,
As glorious as the Gods’, the blue-ey’d Maid
Took from her deathless shoulders; but then stay’d
All these distempers, and heaven’s counsellor, Jove,
Rejoic’d that all things else his stay could move.
So I salute thee still; and still in praise
Thy fame, and others’, shall my memory raise.
A Hymn to Vesta and Mercury
Vesta I sing, who, in bequest of fate,
Art sorted out an everlasting state
In all th’ Immortals’ high-built roofs, and all
Those of earth-dwelling men, as general
And ancient honours given thee for thy gift
Of free-liv’d chastity, and precious thrift.
Nor can there amongst mortals banquets be,
In which, both first and last, they give not thee
Their endless gratitudes in pour’d-out wine,
As gracious sacrifice to thy divine
And useful virtues; being invok’d by all,
Before the least taste of their festival
In wine or food affect their appetites.
And Thou, that of th’ adorn’d-with-all-delights
Art the most useful angel, born a God
Of Jove and Maia, of heaven’s golden rod
The sole sustainer, and hast pow’r to bless
With all good all men, great Argicides,
Inhabit all good houses, see’ng no wants
Of mutual minds’ love in th’ inhabitants,
Join in kind blessing with the bashful maid
And all-lov’d virgin, Vesta; either’s aid
Combin’d in every hospitable house;
Both being best seen in all the gracious
House-works of mortals. Jointly follow then,
Even from their youths, the minds of dames and men.
Hail then, old Daughter of the oldest God,
And thou Great Bearer of Heaven’s golden rod!
Yet not to you alone my vows belong,
Others as well claim th’ homage of my song.
A Hymn to Earth, the Mother of All
Mother of all things, the well-founded Earth,
My Muse shall memorize; who all the birth
Gives food that all her upper regions breed,
All that in her divine diffusions feed
In under continents, all those that live
In all the seas, and all the air doth give
Wing’d expeditions, of thy bounties eat;
Fair children, and fair fruits, thy labour’s sweat,
O great in reverence; and referr’d to thee,
For life and death is all the pedigree
Of mortal humans. Happy then is he
Whom the innate propensions of thy mind
Stand bent to honour. He shall all things find
In all abundance; all his pastures yield
Herds in all plenties; all his roofs are fill’d
With rich possessions; he, in all the sway
Of laws best order’d, cuts out his own way
In cities shining with delicious dames,
And takes his choice of all those striving flames;
High happiness and riches, like his train,
Follow his fortunes, with delights that reign
In all their princes; glory invests his sons;
His daughters, with their crown’d selections
Of all the city, frolic through the meads,
And everyone her call’d-for dances treads
Along the soft-flow’r of the claver-grass.
All this, with all those, ever comes to pass,
That thy love blesses, Goddess full of grace,
And treasurous Angel t’ all the human race.
Hail, then, Great Mother of the Deified Kind,
Wife to the cope of stars! Sustain a mind
Propitious to me for my praise, and give
(Answering my mind) my vows fit means to live.