Wherewith they now affift the choir
Of angels, who their fongs admire!
What-ever those inspired fouls.
Were urged to exprefs, did shake
The aged Deep, and both the Poles ;
Their numerous thunder could awake
Dull earth, which does with heav'n confent
To all they wrote, and all they meant,
Say, facred Bard! what could bestow
Courage on thee, to foar fo high?
Tell me, brave friend! what help'd thee fo
To fhake off all mortality?
To light this torch, thou haft climb'd high'r
Than* he who ftole cœleftial fire.
To Mr. HENRY LAWES, who had then newly fet a fong of mine in the Year 1635.
ERSE makes Heroic virtue live;
But you can life to verfes give.
As when in open air we blow,
The breath (tho' ftrain'd) founds flat and low :
But if a trumpet take the blast
It lifts it high, and makes it laft:
Sɔ in your Airs our numbers dreft,
Make a fhrill fally from the breaft
Of nymphs, who finging what we penn'd,
Our paffions to themselves commend;
While Love, victorious with thy art,
Governs at once their voice, and heart.
You, by the help of tune, and time,
Can make that fong, which was but rhyme :
Noy pleading, no man doubts the cause;
Or questions verfes fet by LA WES.
As a church-window, thick with paint,
Lets in a light but dim, and faint :
So others, with divifion, hide
The light of fenfe, the Poets' pride:
But you alone may truly boaft
That not a fyllable is loft:
The writers and the fetter's fkill
At once the ravish'd ears do fill.
Let thofe which only warble long,
And gargle in their throats a fong,
Content themselves with Ut, Re, Mi:
Let words, and fenfe, be fet by thee.
To Sir WILLIAM D'AVENANT, upon his Two Firft Books of GONDIBERT, written in FRANCE.
HUS the wife nightingale, that leaves her home,
Purfuing conftantly the chearful spring,
To foreign groves does her old mufic bring.
The drooping HEBREWS' banifh'd harps, unftrung
At BABYLON, upon the willows hung:
Yours founds aloud, and tells us you excell
No lefs in courage, than in finging well;
While unconcern'd, you let your country know,
They have impoverish'd themselves, not you:
Who, with the MUSES' help, can mock thofe fates
Which threaten kingdoms, and diforder ftates.
So OVID, when from CESAR's rage he fled,
The ROMAN Mufe to PONTUS with him led:
Where he fo fung, that we thro' pity's glass,
See NERO milder than AUGUSTUS was.
Hereafter fuch, in thy behalf, fhall be
Th' indulgent cenfure of pofterity.
To banish those who with fuch art can fing,
Is a rude crime, which its own curfe doth bring:
Ages to come fhall ne'er know how they fought.
Nor how to love their prefent youth be taught.
This to thy felf---Now to thy matchless book:
Wherein those few that can with judgment look,
May find old love in pure fresh language told;
Like new stamp'd coin, made out of Angel-gold':
Such truth in love as th' antique world did know,
In fuch a ftile as courts may boast of now:
Which no bold tales of Gods or monfters fwell;
But human paffions, fuch as with us dwell.
Man is thy theme; his virtue, or his rage,
Drawn to the light in each élab'rate page.
MARS nor BELLONA, are not named here ;
But fuch a GONDIBERT as both might fear :
VENUS had here, and HEBE, been out shin'd,
By thy bright BIRTHA, and thy RHODALIND.
Such is thy happy fkill, and fuch the odds
Betwixt thy Worthies, and the GRECIAN Gods!
Whofe Deities in vain had here gone down,
Where mortal beauty wears the fov'reign crown:
Such as of fresh compos'd, by flesh and blood,
Though not refifted, may be understood.
To my Worthy Friend,, Mr. WASE, the Tranflator of GRA. TEU S..
HUS, by the music, we may
When noble wits a hunting go,
Through groves that on PARNASSUS grow.
The MUSES all the chase adorn;
My friend on PEGASUS is born;
And young APOLLO winds the horn,
Having old GRATIUS in the wind,
No pack of criticks e'er could find,
Or he know more of his own mind.
Here huntfmen with delight may read
How to chufe dogs,. for fcent, or speed;
And how to change, or mend,, the breed.
What arms to ufe, or nets to frame,
Wild beafts to combat, or to tame;
With all the myft'ries of that game..
But, worthy friend! the face of war
In antient times doth differ far,,
From what our fiery battles are..
Nor is it like, fince powder known,,
That man, fo cruel to his own,
Should spare the race of beafts alone...
No quarter now, but with the gun
Men wait in trees, from fun to fun ;
And all is in a moment done.
And therefore we expect your next
Should be no comment, but a text;:
To tell how modern beafts are vext.
Thus would I further yet engage
Your gentle Muse, court the age
With fomewhat of your proper rage:
Since none doth more to PHOEBUS OWE,
Or in more languages can show
Thofe arts, which you fo early know.
To his worthy Friend Mafter EVELYN, upon his Tranflation of LUCRETIUS.
UCRETIUS, (with a ftork-like fate,
Born and tranflated in a state)
Comes to proclaim in ENGLISH verse,
No monarch rules the universe :
But chance and atoms make this ALL
In order democratical;
Where bodies freely run their courfe,
Without defign, or fate, or force.
And this in fuch a strain he fings,
As if his Mufe, with Angel's wings,
Had foar'd beyond our utmoft fphere,
And other worlds difcover'd there.
For his immortal, boundless wit,
To nature does no bounds permit;
But boldly has remov'd those bars
Of heav'n, and earth, and feas, and stars,
By which they were before fuppos'd,
By narrow wits, to be inclos'd;
'Till his free Mufe threw down the pale,
And did at once difpark them all,
So vaft this argument did feem,
That the wife author did esteem
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