On Mr. Hall’s Essays [Horae Vacivae, 1646].[13:1]
Wits that matur’d by time have courted praise,
Shall see their works outdone in these essays,
And blush to know thy earlier years display
A dawning clearer than their brightest day.[13:2]
Yet I’ll not praise thee, for thou hast outgrown5
The reach of all men’s praises but thine own.
Encomiums to their objects are exact:
To praise, and not at full, is to detract.
And with most justice are the best forgot;
For praise is bounded when the theme is not:10
Since mine is thus confin’d, and far below
Thy merit, I forbear it, nor will show
How poor the autumnal pride of some appears,[13:3]
To the ripe fruit thy vernal season bears!
Yet though I mean no praise, I come t’invite15
Thy forward aims still to advance their flight.
Rise higher yet; what though thy spreading wreath
Lessen, to their dull sight who stay beneath?
To thy full learning how can all allow
Just praise, unless that all were learn’d as thou?20
Go on, in spite of such low souls, and may
Thy growing worth know age, though not decay,
Till thou pay back thy theft, and live to climb
As many years as thou hast snatch’d from Time.
On Sir J[ohn] S[uckling] his Picture and Poems [1646].[14:1]
Suckling, whose numbers could invite
Alike to wonder and delight,
And with new spirit did inspire
The Thespian scene, and Delphic lyre,
Is thus express’d in either part,5
Above the humble reach of Art.
Drawn by the pencil, here you find
His form; by his own pen, his mind.
Answer [to “The Union,” Poem addressed to Stanley by his Friend and Tutor, William Fairfax].[15:1]
If we are one, dear Friend! why shouldst thou be
At once unequal to thyself and me?
By thy release thou swell’st my debt the more,
And dost but rob thyself to make me poor.
What part can I have in thy luminous cone,5
What flame, since my love’s thine, can call my own,
(The palest star is less the son of night,)
Who but thy borrow’d know no native light?[15:2]
Was’t not enough thou freely didst bestow
The Muse, but thou must[15:3] give the laurel too,10
And twice my aims by thy assistance raise,
Conferring first the merit, then the praise?
But I should do thee greater injury,
Did I believe this praise were meant to me,
Or thought, though thou hast worth enough to spare15
T’enrich another soul, that mine should share.
Thy Muse, seeming to lend, calls home her fame,
And her due wreath doth, in renouncing, claim.