Some nor the fhrines nor temples fpar'd,

Nor Gods nor Heavens fear'd,

Though fuch example of their power appear'd.
Virtue was now efteem'd an empty name,
And Honefty the foolish voice of fame;

For, having past those torturing flames before, They thought the punishment already o'er,

Thought heaven no worse torments had in store; Here having felt one hell, they thought there was no more.

Upon the Poems of the English Ovid, Anacreon, Pindar, and Virgil, ABRAHAM COWLEY,

L

in Imitation of his own Pindaric Odes.

I.

ET all this meaner rout of books stand by
The common people of our library;

Let them make way for Cowley's leaves to come,

And be hung up within this facred room :
Let no prophane hands break the chain,
Or give them unwish'd liberty again,
But let his holy relick be laid here,
With the fame religious care
As Numa once the target kept,
Which down from heaven leapt ;
Juft fuch another is this book,

Which its original from divine hands took,

And brings as much good too, to thofe that on it look.

But

But yet in this they differ. That could be
Eleven times liken'd by a mortal hand;

But this which here doth stand

Will never any of its own sort see,
But muft ftill live without fuch company.

For never yet was writ,

In the two learned ages which Time left behind,
Nor in this ever fhall we find,

Nor any one like to it,

Of all the numerous monuments of wit.

II.

Cowley! what God did fill thy breast,
And taught thy hand t' indite

(For God 's a poet too,

He doth create, and so do you?)

Or elfe at least

What angel fat upon thy pen when thou didst write? There he fat, and mov'd thy hand,

As proud of his command,

As when he makes the dancing orbs to reel
And spins out poetry from heaven's wheel.
Thy hand too, like a better sphere,

Gives us more ravishing music made for men to hear. Thy hand too, like the fun which angels move, Has the fame influence from above,

Produces gold and filver of a nobler kind;

Of greater price, and more refin’d.

Yet in this it exceeds the fun, 't has no degenerate race, Brings forth no lead, nor any thing so base.

III.

What holy vestal hearth,

What immortal breath,

Did give fo pure poetic flame its birth?
Just such a fire as thine,

Of fuch an unmix'd glorious fhine,
Was Prometheus's flame,

Which from no lefs than heaven came.
Along he brought the sparkling coal,
From fome cœleftial chimney ftole;
Quickly the plunder'd ftars he left,
And as he haften'd down

With the robb'd flames his hands ftill fhone,
And seem'd as if they were burnt for the theft.
Thy poetry's compounded of the fame,

Such a bright immortal flame;

Juft fo temper'd is thy rage,

Thy fires as light and pure as they,

And go as high as his did, if not higher,

That thou may'st seem to us

A true Prometheus,

But that thou didst not steal the leaft fpark of thy fire.

IV.

Such as thine was Arion's verfe,

Which he did to the liftening fish rehearse;

Which when they heard play'd on his lute,

They first curft nature that she made them mute.

So noble were his lines, which made the very waves

Strive to turn his flaves,

Lay

Lay down their boisterous noife,

And dance to his harmonious voice,

Which made the Syrens lend their ear,

And from his fweeter tunes fome treachery fear;
Which made the dolphin proud,

That he was allow'd

With Atlas, the great porter of the skies, to take
Such heavenly mufic up, and carry 't on his back,
So full and graceful thy words go,

And with the fame majestic sweetness flow.
Yet his verfe only carried him o'er the feas
But there's a very fea of wit in these,
As falt and boundless as the other occan is.

V.

Such as thine are, was great Amphion's fong,

;

Which brought the wondering stones along; The wondering stones skipt from their mother earth, And left their father cold as his first birth;

They rofe, and knew not by what magic force they hung.
So were his words, fo'plac'd his founds,

Which forc'd the marbles rife from out their grounds,
Which cut and carved, made them fhine,
A work which can be outdone by none but thine.
Th' amazed poet faw the building rise,

And knew not how to trust his eyes:

The willing mortar came, and all the trees

Leap into beams he fees.

He faw the ftreets appear,

Streets, that muft needs be harmonions there :

He

He faw the walls dance round t' his pipe,
The glorious temple fhew its head,
He faw the infant city ripe,

And all like the creation by a word was bred.

So great a verfe is thine, which though it will not raise Marble monuments to thy praife;

Yet 'tis no matter, cities they must fall,

And houfes, by the greatest glutton Time be eaten all :
But thy verse builds a fame for thee,
Which fire cannot devour, nor purify,
Which fword and thunder doth defy,
As round, and full, as the great circle of eternity.

VI.

To thee the English tongue doth owe,

That it need not feek

For elegancy from the round-mouth'd Greek ;
To thee, that Roman poets now may hide,
In their own Latium, their head :

To thee, that our enlarged fpeech can fhew,

Far more than the three western daughters born
Out of the afhes of the Roman urn:

Daughters born of a mother, which did yield to admit
The adulterate feed of feveral tongues with it;

More than the fmooth Italian, though nature gave
That tongue in poetry a genius to have,

And that the might the better fit it to 't,
Made the very land a foot.

More than the Spanish, though that in one mass
The Moorish, Jewish, Gothish treasures has,

And