In full five thousand rings;
To thee were ever purer offerings
Sent on the wings of Faith? and thou of Night
Curtain of their delight,
By these made bright,
Have you not marked their celestial play,
And no more peek'd the gaieties of day?
Come then, pale virgins, roses strew,
Mingled with Io's as you go;
The snowy ox is kill'd,
The fane with pros❜lyte lads and lasses fill'd;
You too may hope the same seraphic joy,
Old Time cannot destroy,
When like these, you shall stamp by sympathies, Thousands of new-born-loves with your chaste eyes.
Paris's Second Judgment,
UPON THE THREE DAUGHTERS OF MY DEAR BROTHER, MR. R. CÆSAR.
BEHOLD! three sister wonders, in whom met,
Distinct and chaste, the splendours counterfeit
Of Juno, Venus, and the warlike maid,
Each in their three divinities array'd!
The majesty and state of heav'n's great queen,
And when she treats the gods, her noble mien;
The sweet victorious beauties, and desires
O'th' sea-born princess, empress too of fires;
The sacred arts, and glorious laurels, torn
From the fair brow o'th' goddess father-born;
All these were quarter'd in each snowy coat,
With canton'd honours of their own to boot:
Paris by Fate new-wak'd from his dead cell,
Is charg'd to give his doom impossible.
He views in each the brav'ry of all Ide;
Whilst one, as once three, doth his soul divide.
Then sighs! so equally they're glorious all,
What pity the whole world is but one ball.
A PANEGYRIC TO THE BEST PICTURE OF FRIENDSHIP,
IF Pliny, Lord High Treasurer of all
Nature's exchequer, shuffled in this our ball;
Peinture, her richer rival, did admire,
And cried she wrought with more almighty fire,
That judg'd the unnumber'd issue of her scroll,
Infinite and various as her mother soul,
That contemplation into matter brought,
Bodied ideas, and could form a thought:
Why do I pause to couch the cataract,
And the gross pearls from our dull eyes abstract,
That pow'rful Lilly now awakened, we
This new creation may behold by thee.
To thy victorious pencil, all that eyes
And minds can reach, do bow; the deities'
Bold poets first but feign'd, you do, and make,
And from your awe they our devotion take.
Your beauteous pallet first defin'd love's queen,
And made her in her heav'nly colours seen,
You strung the bow of the Bandite, her son,
And tipp'd his arrows with religion.
Neptune, as unknown as his fish might dwell,
But that you seat him in his throne of shell.
The thunderer's artillery, and brand
You fancied Rome in his fantastic hand.
And the pale frights, the pains and fears of hell,
First from your sullen melancholy fell.
Who cleft th' infernal dog's loath'd head in three,
And spun out Hydra's fifty necks? by thee
As prepossess'd w'enjoy th' Elysian plain,
Which but before was flatter'd in our brain.
Who ere yet view'd air's child invisible,
A hollow voice, but in thy subtle skill?
Faint stamm'ring echo, you so draw, that we
The very repercussion do see.
Cheat hocus-pocus-nature an essay
O'th' Spring affords us, Presto and away;
You all the year do chain her, and her fruits,
Roots to their beds, and flowers to their roots.
Have not mine eyes feasted i'th' frozen zone,
Upon a fresh new-grown collation
Of apples, unknown sweets, that seem'd to me
Hanging to tempt as on the fatal tree?
So delicately limn'd I vow'd to try
My appetite impos'd upon my eye.
You, sir, alone, Fame and all-conqu’ring rhyme, Files the set teeth of all-devouring Time.
When beauty once thy virtuous paint hath on,
Age needs not call her to vermilion ;
Her beams ne'er shed or change, like th' heir of day, She scatters fresh her everlasting ray;
Nay, from her ashes her fair virgin fire
Ascends, that doth new massacres conspire,
Whilst we wipe off the num'rous score of years,
And do behold our grandsire as our peers,
With the first father of our house, compare
We do the features of our new-born heir;
For though each copied a son, they all
Meet in thy first and true original.
Sacred luxurious! what princess not But comes to you to have herself begot?
As when first man was kneaded, from his side
Is born to's hand a ready made up bride.
He husband to his issue then doth play,
And for more wives remove the obstructed way:
So by your art you spring up in two noons
What could not else be form'd by fifteen suns;
Thy skill doth an'mate the prolific flood,
And thy red oil assimilates to blood.
Where then, when all the world pays its respect, Lies our transalpine barbarous neglect? When the chaste hands of pow'rful Titian, Had drawn the scourges of our God and man, And now the top of th' altar did ascend, To crown the heav'nly piece with a bright end, Whilst he who to seven languages gave law, And always like the Sun his subjects saw; Did in his robes imperial and gold,
The basis of the doubtful ladder hold.
Oh, Charles! a nobler monument than that,
Which thou, thine own executor, wert at;
When to our huffling Henry there complain'd
A grieved earl, that thought his honour stain'd;
Away (frown'd he) for your own safeties, hast
In one cheap hour ten coronets I'll cast:
But Holbein's noble and prodigious worth,
Only the pangs of an whole age brings forth.
Henry! a word so princely saving said,
It might new raise the ruins thou hast made.
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