Which from all coasts thy fleet supplies,
Can to atone this crime suffice.
Next o'er the upper town it spread,
With mad and undiscerning speed;
In every corner, every street,
Without a guide did set its feet,
And too familiar every house did greet.
Unhappy queen of Greece! great Theseus now
Did thee a mortal injury do,

When first in walls he did thee close,
When first he did thy citizens reduce,
Houses and government, and laws to use.
It had been better if thy people still

Dispersed in some field or hill,
Though savage and undisciplin'd, did dwell,

Though barbarous, untame, and rude, Than by their numbers thus to be subdu'd, To be by their own swarms annoy'd, And to be civiliz'd only to be destroy'd.

Minerva started when she heard the noise,
And dying men's confused voice.

From Heaven in haste she came, to see
What was the mighty prodigy.
Upon the castle pinnacles she sat,
And dar'd not nearer fly,

Nor midst so many deaths to trust her very deity.
With pitying look she saw at every gate

Death and Destruction wait;

She wrung her hands, and call'd on Jove,
And all th' immortal powers above;
But though a goddess now did pray,

The Heavens refus'd, and turn'd their ear away.
She brought her olive and her shield,
Neither of these, alas! assistance yield.
She lookt upon Medusa's face,
Was angry that she was

Herself of an immortal race,

Was angry that her Gorgon's head

Could not strike her as well as others dead:

She sat and wept a while, and then away she fled.

Now Death began her sword to whet,
Not all the Cyclops sweat,
Nor Vulcan's mighty anvils, could prepare
Weapons enough for her.

No weapons large enough, but all the age
Men felt the heat within them rage,

And hop'd the air would it assuage,
Call'd for its help, but th' air did them deceive,
And aggravate the ills it should relieve.

The air no more was vital now,

But did a mortal poison grow;

The lungs, which us'd to fan the heart,

Only now serv'd to fire each part;

What should refresh, increas'd the smart:

And now their very breath,

The chiefest sign of life, was turn'd the cause of

death.

Upon the head first the disease,

As a bold conqueror, doth seize,
Begins with man's metropolis,
Secur'd the capitol, and then it knew

It could at pleasure weaker parts subdue.
Blood started through each eye;
The redness of that sky
Foretold a tempest nigh.

The tongue did flow all o'er

With clotted filth and gore;

As doth a lion's when some innocent prey
He hath devour'd and brought away:

Hoarseness and sores the throat did fill,
And stopt the passages of speech and life;
No room was left for groans or grief;
Too cruel and imperious ill!
Which, not content to kill,

With tyrannous and dreadful pain,
Dost take from men the very power to complain.

Then down it went into the breast,

There all the seats and shops of life possess'd. Such noisome smells from thence did come, As if the stomach were a tomb;

No food would there abide,

Or if it did, turn'd to the enemy's side,
The very meat new poisons to the plague supply'd.
Next, to the heart the fires came,

The heart did wonder what usurping flame,
What unknown furnace, should

On its more natural heat intrude;

Straight call'd its spirits up, but found too well,
It was too late now to rebel.

The tainted blood its course began,
And carried death where'er it ran;

That which before was Nature's noblest art,
The circulation from the heart,

Was most destructful now,
And nature speedier did undo,
For that the sooner did impart
The poison and the smart,

Th' infectious blood to every distant part.

The belly felt at last its share,
And all the subtile labyrinths there
Of winding bowels did new monsters bear.
Here seven days it rul'd and sway'd,

And oftner kill'd, because it death so long delay'd.
But if through strength and heat of age
The body overcame its rage,

The plague departed as the Devil doth,
When driven by prayers away he goeth.
If prayers and Heaven do him control,
And if he cannot have the soul,
Himself out of the roof or window throws,
And will not all his labour lose,
But takes away with him part of the house:
So here the vanquish'd evil took from them
Who conquer'd it, some part, some limb.
Some lost the use of hands and eyes,
Some arms, some legs, some thighs;
Some all their lives before forgot,

Their minds were but one darker blot;

Those various pictures in the head,

And all the numerous shapes were fled;
And now the ransack'd memory

Languish'd in naked poverty,

Had lost its mighty treasury;

They pass'd the Lethe lake, although they did not

die.

Whatever lesser maladies men had,

They all gave place and vanished;
Those petty tyrants fled,

And at this mighty conqueror shrunk their head.

Fevers, agues, palsies, stone,
Gout, colic, and consumption,

And all the milder generation,

By which mankind is by degrees undone,
Quickly were rooted out and gone;

Men saw themselves freed from the pain,
Rejoic'd, but all, alas, in vain:

'Twas an unhappy remedy,

Which cur'd them that they might both worse and sooner die.

Physicians now could nought prevail,

They the first spoils to the proud victor fall;
Nor would the Plague their knowledge trust,
But fear'd their skill, and therefore slew them first:
So tyrants, when they would confirm their yoke,
First make the chiefest men to feel the stroke,
The chiefest and the wisest heads, lest they
Should soonest disobey,
[way.
Should first rebel, and others learn from them the
No aid of herbs, or juices' power,
None of Apollo's art could cure,

But help'd the Plague the speedier to devour,
Physic itself was a disease,
Physic the fatal tortures did increase,
Prescriptions did the pains renew,
And Esculapius to the sick did come,
As afterwards to Rome,

[too.

In form of serpent, brought new poisons with him

The streams did wonder that, so soon As they were from their native mountains gone, They saw themselves drunk up, and fear Another Xerxes' army near. Some cast into the pit the urn, And drink it dry at its return:

Again they drew, again they drank;

At first the coolness of the stream did thank,
But straight the more were scorch'd, the more

did burn;

And, drunk with water, in their drinking sank:
That urn, which now to quench their thirst they
Shortly their ashes shall enclose:
Others into the crystal brook

[use,

With faint and wondering eyes did look, Saw what a ghastly shape themselves had took, Away they would have fled, but them their legs

forsook.

Some snatch the waters up,

Their hands, their mouths the cup; They drunk, and found they flam'd the more, And only added to the burning store. So have I seen on lime cold water thrown, Straight all was to a ferment grown, And hidden seeds of fire together run: The heap was calm and temperate before, Such as the finger could endure; But, when the moistures it provoke, Did rage, did swell, did smoke, [ashes broke. Did move, and flame, and burn, and straight to

So strong the heat, so strong the torments were,
They like some mighty burthen bear
The lightest covering of air.

All sexes and all ages do invade

The bounds which Nature laid,

The laws of modesty which Nature made: The virgins blush not, yet uncloath'd appear, Undress'd to run about, yet never fear. The pain and the disease did now

Unwillingly reduce men to

That nakedness once more,

Upon their souls and eyes
Hell and eternal horrour lies,
Unusual shapes and images,

Dark pictures and resemblances

Of things to come, and of the world below, O'er their distemper'd fancies go: Sometimes they curse, sometimes they pray unto The gods above, the gods beneath; Sometimes they cruelties and fury breathe, Not sleep, but waking now was sister unto Death.

Scatter'd in fields the bodies lay,

[away. The Earth call'd to the fowls to take their flesh In vain she call'd, they come not nigh,

Nor would their food with their own ruin buy:
But at full meals they hunger, pine, and die.
The vultures afar off did see the feast,
Rejoic'd, and call'd their friends to taste,
They rally'd up their troops in haste;

Along came mighty droves,
Forsook their young ones and their groves,
Each one his native mountain and his nest;
They come, but all their carcases abhor,
And now avoid the dead men more
Than weaker birds did living men before.
But if some bolder fowls the flesh assay,

They were destroy'd by their own prey.
The dog no longer bark'd at coming guest,
Repents its being a domestic beast,

Did to the woods and mountains haste:
The very owls at Athens are
But seldom seen and rare,
The owls depart in open day,

Rather than in infected ivy more to stay.

Mountains of bones and carcases,
'The streets, the market-place possess,
Threatening to raise a new Acropolis.
Here lies a mother and her child,

The infant suck'd as yet and smil'd,
But straight by its own food was kill'd.
Their parents hugg'd their children last,
Here parting lovers last embrac'd,
But yet not parting neither,
They both expird and went away together.
Here prisoners in the dungeon die,
And gain a two-fold liberty;
They meet and thank their pains,
Which them from double chains
Of body and of iron free.

Here others, poison'd by the scent
Which from corrupted bodies went,
Quickly return the death they did receive,

And death to others give;
Themselves now dead the air pollute the more,
For which they others curs'd before,
Their bodies kill all that come near,
And even after death they all are murderers here.

The friend doth hear his friend's last cries,
Parteth his grief for him, and dies,
Lives not enough to close his eyes.
The father at his death

Speaks his son heir with an infectious breath;
In the same hour the son doth take
His father's will and his own make.
The servant need not here be slain,

No sleep, no peace, no rest,

Their wandering and affrighted minds possess'd;

They languishing together lie, Their souls away together fly;

The husband gaspeth, and his wife lies by,
It must be her turn next to die:

The husband and the wife

Too truly now are one, and live one life.
That couple which the gods did entertain,
Had made their prayer here in vain ;

No fates in death could them divide, They must without their privilege together both have dy'd.

There was no number now of death,

The sisters scarce stood still themselves to breathe: The sisters now quite wearied

In cutting single thread,

Began at once to part whole looms,

One stroke did give whole houses dooms:
Now dy'd the frosty hairs,

The aged and decrepid years;
They fell, and only begg'd of Fate

Some few months more, but 'twas, alas, too late.
Then Death, as if asham'd of that,
A conquest so degenerate,

Cut off the young and lusty too:
The young were reckoning o'er

What happy days, what joys, they had in store: But Fate, ere they had finish'd their account, them slew.

The wretched usurer died,

And had no time to tell where he his treasures hid; The merchant did behold

His ships return with spice and gold;

He saw't, and turn'd aside his head, [dead. Nor thank'd the gods, but fell amidst his riches

The meetings and assemblies cease; no more
The people throng about the orator,

No course of justice did appear,
No noise of lawyers fill'd the ear,
The senate cast away

The robe of honour, and obey

Death's more resistless sway,
Whilst that with dictatorian power

Doth all the great and lesser officers devour.
No magistrates did walk about;

No purple aw'd the rout:
The common people too

A purple of their own did show:
And all their bodies o'er
The ruling colours bore.
No judge, no legislators sit,
Since this new Draco came,
And harsher laws did frame,

Laws that, like his, in blood are writ.
The benches and the pleading-place they leave,
About the streets they run and rave:
The madness which great Solon did of late
But only counterfeit

For the advantage of the state,
Now his successors do too truly imitate.

Up starts the soldier from his bed,
He, though Death's servant, is not freed,
Death him cashier'd, 'cause now his help she did
not need.

He that ne'er knew before to yield,
Or to give back, or leave the field,
Would fain now from himself have fled.
He snatch'd his sword now rusted o'er,
Dreadful and sparkling now no more,
And thus in open streets did roar;

"How have I, Death, so ill deserv'd of thee,
That now thyself thou should'st revenge on me?
Have I so many lives on thee bestow'd?
Have the earth so often dy'd in blood?
Have I, to flatter thee, so many slain?
And must I now thy prey remain ?
Let me at least, if I must die,
Meet in the field some gallant enemy.

Send, gods, the Persian troops again:
No, they're a base and a degenerate train;
They by our women may be slain.
Give me, great Heavens, some manful foes,
Let me my death amidst some valiant Grecians
Let me survive to die at Syracuse, [choose,
Where my dear country shall her glory lose.
For you, great gods! into my mind infuse,
What miseries, what doom,

Must on my Athens shortly come! My thoughts inspir'd presage Slaughters and battles to the coming age: Oh! might I die upon that glorious stage: Oh! that!" but then he grasp'd his sword, and death concludes bis rage.

Draw back, draw back thy sword, O Fate!
Lest thou repent when 'tis too late,
Lest, by thy making now so great a waste,
By spending all mankind upon one feast,
Thou starve thyself at last:

What men wilt thou reserve in store,
Whom in the time to come thou may'st devour,
When thou shalt have destroyed all before?
But, if thou wilt not yet give o'er,
If yet thy greedy stomach calls for more,
If more remain whom thou must kill,
And if thy jaws are craving still,
Carry thy fury to the Scythian coasts,
The northern wilderness and eternal frosts!
Against those barbarous crowds thy arrows whet,
Where arts and laws are strangers yet;
Where thou may'st kill, and yet the loss will not
be great.

[air,

There rage, there spread, and there infect the Murder whole towns and families there, Thy worst against those savage nations dare, Those whom mankind can spare, Those whom mankind itself doth fear; Amidst that dreadful night and fatal cold,

There thou may'st walk unseen, and bold, There let thy flames their empire hold. Unto the farthest seas, and nature's ends, Where never summer's Sun its beams extends, Carry thy plagues, thy pains, thy heats, Thy raging fires, thy torturing sweats, Where never ray or heat did come,« They will rejoice at such a doom, They'll bless thy pestilential fire, Though by it they expire,

They'll thank the very flames with which they do

consume.

Then if that banquet will not thee suffice, Seek out new lands where thou may'st tyrannize; Search every forest, every hill,

And all that in the hollow mountains dwell;
Those wild and untame troops devour,
Thereby thou wilt the rest of men secure,
And that the rest of men will thank thee for.

Let all those human beasts be slain,
Till scarce their memory remain;

Thyself with that ignoble slaughter fill, "Twill be permitted thee that blood to spill.

Measure the ruder world throughout,
March all the ocean's shores about,
Only pass by and spare the British isle.
Go on, and (what Columbus once shall do
When days and time unto their ripeness grow)
Find out new lands and unknown countries too:
Attempt those lands which yet are hid
From all mortality beside:
There thou may'st steal a victory,
And none of this world hear the cry
Of those that by thy wounds shall die;
No Greek shall know thy cruelty,
And tell it to posterity.

Go, and unpeople all those mighty lands,
Destroy with unrelenting hands;
Go, and the Spaniard's sword prevent,
Go, make the Spaniard innocent;
Go, and root out all mankind there,

That when the European armies shall appear
Their sin may be the less,

They may find all a wilderness,

So when the elephants did first affright The Romans with unusual sight, They many battles lose,

Before they knew their foes,

Before they understood such dreadful troops t' op

pose.

Now every different sect agrees

Against their common adversary, the disease,
And all their little wranglings cease;

The Pythagoreans from their precepts swerve,
No more their silence they observe,
Out of their schools they run,
Lament, and cry, and groan;

They now desir'd their metempsychosis;
Not only to dispute, but wish

That they might turn to beasts, or fowls, or fish.
If the Platonics had been here,

They would have curs'd their master's year, When all things shall be as they were, When they again the same disease shall bear: All the philosophers would now, What the great Stagyrite shall do,

Nor is this all which we thee grant; Rather than thou should'st full employment want, (We do permit) in Greece thy kingdom plant. Ransack Lycurgus' streets throughout, They've no defence of walls to keep thee out. On wanton and proud Corinth seize, Nor let her double waves thy flames appease. Let Cyprus feel more fires than those of love: Let Delos, which at first did give the Sun,

See unknown flames in her begun, Now let her wish she might unconstant prove, And from her place might truly move: Let Lemnos all thy anger feel, And think that a new Vulcan fell, And brought with him new anvils, and new Hell. Nay, at Athens too we give thee up,

All that thou find'st in field, or camp, or shop:
Make havock there without control

Of every ignorant and common soul.
But then, kind Plague, thy conquests stop;

Let arts, and let the learned, there escape,
Upon Minerva's self commit no rape;
Touch not the sacred throng,

And let Apollo's priests be, like him, young,
Like him, be healthful too, and strong.
But ah! too ravenous Plague, whilst I
Strive to keep off the misery,

The learned too, as fast as others, round me die;
They from corruption are not free,

Are mortal, though they give an immortality.

They turn'd their authors o'er, to try

What help, what cure, what remedy, All Nature's stores against this plague supply; And though besides they shunn'd it every where, They search'd it in their books, and fain would meet it there;

They turn'd the records of the ancient times, And chiefly those that were made famous by their crimes,

To find if men were punish'd so before;
But found not the disease nor cure.
Nature, alas! was now surpris'd,
And all her forces seiz'd,

Before she was bow to resist advis'd.

The Stoics felt the deadly stroke,

At first assault their courage was not broke,
They call'd in all the cobweb aid

Of rules and precepts, which in store they had;

They bid their hearts stand out,
Bid them be calm and stout,

But all the strength of precept will not do't.
They can't the storms of passion now assuage;
As common men, are angry, grieve, and rage.
The gods are call'd upon in vain,
The gods gave no release unto their pain,
The gods to fear ev'n for themselves began.
For now the sick unto their temples came,
And brought more than an holy flame,
There at the altars made their prayer,
They sacrific'd, and died there,

A sacrifice not seen before;

That Heaven, only us'd unto the gore
Of lambs or bulls, should now

Loaded with priests see its own altars too!

The woods gave funeral piles no more,
The dead the very fire devour,
And that almighty conqueror o'erpower.
The noble and the common dust
Into each other's graves are thrust.
No place is sacred, and no tomb;
"Tis now a privilege to consume;
Their ashes no distinction had;
Too truly all by death are equal made.
The ghosts of those great heroes that had fled
From Athens, long since banished,
Now o'er the city hovered;
Their anger yielded to their love,
They left th' immortal joys above,

So much their Athens' danger did then move.
They came to pity, and to aid,

But now, alas! were quite dismay'd,
When they beheld the marbles open lay'd,
And poor men's bones the noble urns invade;
Back to the blessed seats they went,
And now did thank their banishment,
By which they were to die in foreign countries

sent.

But what, great gods! was worst of all, Hell forth its magazines of lust did call,

Nor would it be content

With the thick troops of souls were thither sent;
Into the upper world it went.
Such guilt, such wickedness,
Such irreligion did increase,

That the few good which did survive

Were angry with the Plague for suffering them to live:

More for the living than the dead did grieve.
Some robb'd the very dead,

Though sure to be infected ere they fled,
Though in the very air sure to be punished.
Some nor the shrines nor temples spar'd,

Nor gods nor heavens fear'd,
Though such example of their power appear'd.
Virtue was now esteem'd an empty nanie,
And honesty 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; [no more.

Here having felt one Hell, they thought there was

UPON THE POEMS OF THE

English Ovid, Anacreon, Pindar, and Virgil,

ABRAHAM COWLEY,

IN IMITATION OF HIS OWN PINDARIC ODES.

LET 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 sacred room:

Let no prophane hands break the chain,
Or give them unwish'd liberty again.
But let his holy relic be laid here,

With the same religious care
As Numa once the target kept,
Which down from Heaven leapt;
Just such another is this book,

Which its original from divine hands took," And brings as much good too, to those that on it look. 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 must still live without such company.
For never yet was writ,

In the two learned ages which time left behind,
Nor in this ever shall we find,

What holy vestal hearth,
What immortal breath,

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

Of such an unmix'd glorious shine,

Was Prometheus's flame,

Which from no less than Heaven came.
Along he brought the sparkling coal,
From some celestial chimney stole;
Quickly the plunder'd stars he left,

And as he hasten'd down

With the robb'd flames his hands still shone, And seem'd as if they were burnt for the theit. Thy poetry's compounded of the same, Such a bright immortal flame; Just so 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,

[fire.

hung.

So were his words, so plac'd his sounds, Which forc'd the marbles rise from out their grounds,

Which cut and carved, made them shine, A work which can be outdone by none but thine Th' amazed poet saw the building rise,

And knew not how to trust his eyes: The willing mortar came, and all the trees Leap into beams he sees.

He saw the streets appear,

Streets, that must needs be harmonious there:
He saw the walls dance round t' his pipe,
The glorious temple show its head,
He saw the infant city ripe,