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TO THE REVEREND

DOCTOR WILKINS,

WARDEN OF WADHAM COLLEGE IN OXFORD.

SIR,

SEEING you are pleased to think fit that these papers should come into the public, which were at first designed to live only in a desk, or some private friend's hands; I humbly take the boldness to commit them to the security which your name and protection will give them with the most knowing part of the world. There are two things especially in which they stand in need of your defence: one is, that they fall so infinitely below the full and lofty genius of that excellent poet, who made this way of writing free of our nation: the other, that they are so little proportioned and equal to the renown of that prince on whom they were written. Such great actions and lives deserving rather to be the subjects of the noblest pens and divine fancies, than of such small beginners and weak essayers in poetry as myself. Against these dangerous prejudices, there remains no other shield, than the universal esteem and authority which your judgment and approbation carries with it. The right you have to them, sir, is not only on the account of the relation you had to this great person, nor of the general favour which all arts receive from you; but more particularly by reason of that obligation and zeal with which I am bound to dedicate myself to your service: for, having been a long time the object of your care and indulgence towards the advantage of my studies and fortune, having been moulded as it were by your own hands, and formed under your government, not to entitle you to any thing which my meanness produces, would not only be injustice, but sacrilege: so that if there be any thing here tolerably said, which deserves pardon, it is yours, sir, as well as he, who is,

your most devoted,

and obliged servant,

THO. SPRAT.

POEMS

OF

BISHOP SPRAT

TO THE HAPPY MEMORY OF THE LATE LORD PROTECTOR.

"TIS true, great name, thou art secure

From the forget.ulness and rage

Of Death, or Envy, or devouring Age;

Thou canst the force and teeth of Time endure:
Thy fame, like men, the elder it doth grow,
Will of itself turn whiter too,
Without what needless art can do ;

Will live beyond thy breath, beyond thy hearse,
Though it were never heard or sung in verse.
Without our help thy memory is safe;
They only want an epitaph,

That do remain alone

Alive in an inscription,

Remember'd only on the brass, or marble-stone. 'Tis all in vain what we can do:

All our roses and perfumes
Will but officious folly show,

And pious nothings to such mighty tombs.
All our incense, gums and balm,
Are but unnecessary duties here:
The poets may their spices spare,

Their costly numbers, and their tuneful feet:

That need not be embalm'd, which of itself is sweet.

We know to praise thee is a dangerous proof
Of our obedience and our love:

For when the Sun and fire meet,
The one's extinguish'd quite :

And yet the other never is more bright.
So they that write of thee and join
Their feeble names with thine;
Their weaker sparks with thy illustrious light,

Will lose themselves in that ambitious thought;
And yet no fame to thee from hence be brought.
We know, bless'd spirit, thy mighty name
Wants no addition of another's beam;
It's for our pens too high, and full of theme:
The Muses are made great by thee, not thou by
Thy fame's eternal lamp will live,
And in thy sacred urn survive,
Without the food of oil, which we can give.
'Tis true; but yet our duty calls our songs;
Duty commands our tongues:

[them,

Though thou want not our praises, we
Are not excus'd for what we owe to thee;
For so men from religion are not freed,
But from the altars clouds must rise,
Though Heaven itself doth nothing need,
And though the gods don't want an earthly sacrifice.
Great life of wouders, whose each year
Full of new miracles did appear!
Whose every month might be
Alone a chronicle, or history!
Others great actions are

But thinly scatter'd here and there;
At best, but all one single star;
But thine the milky-way,

All one continued light, of undistinguish'd day;
They throng'd so close, that nought else could be

seen,

Scarce any common sky did come between:
What shall I say, or where begin?

Thou may'st in double shapes be shown
Or in thy arms, or in thy gown;

Like Jove, sometimes with warlike thunder, and
Sometimes with peaceful sceptre in his hand;
Or in the field, or on the throne.

In what thy head, or what thy arm hath done, All that thou didst was so refin'd,

So full of substance, and so strongly join'd, So pure, so weighty gold,

That the least grain of it,

If fully spread and beat,

Would many leaves and mighty volumes hold. Before thy name was publish'd, and whilst yet Thou only to thyself wert great,

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Whilst yet the happy bud

Was not quite seen or understood,

It then sure signs of future greatness show'd:
Then thy domestic worth

Did tell the world what it would be,
When it should fit occasion see,

When a full spring should call it forth:
As bodies in the dark and night

Have the same colours, the same red and white,
As in the open day and light;

The Sun doth only show

That they are bright, not make them so.

So whilst but private walls did know
What we to such a mighty mind should owe,
Then the same virtues did appear,
Though in a less and more contracted sphere,
As full, though not as large as since they were:
And like great rivers' fountains, though
At first so deep thou didst not go:
Though then thine was not so enlarg'd a flood;
Yet when 'twas little, 'twas as clear, as good.

'Tis true thou was not born unto a crown,

Thy sceptre's not thy father's, but thy own:
Thy purple was not made at once in haste,
But after many other colours past,
It took the deepest princely dye at last.
Thou didst begin with lesser cares,

And private thoughts took up thy private years:
Those hands which were ordain'd by Fates
To change the world and alter states,
Practis'd at first that vast design

On meaner things with equal mien.`

That soul, which should so many sceptres sway, To whom so many kingdoms should obey, Learn'd first to rule in a domestic way:

So government itself began

From family, and single man,

Was by the small relation first

Of husband and of father nurs'd,

And from those less beginnings past,
To spread itself o'er all the world at last.

But when thy country (then almost enthrall'd)
Thy virtue and thy courage call'd;
When England did thy arms entreat,
And 't had been sin in thee not to be great:
When every stream, and every flood,
Was a true vein of earth, and run with blood:
When unus'd arms, and unknown war,
Fill'd every place, and every ear;
When the great storms and dismal night
Did all the land affright;

'Twas time for thee to bring forth all our light.
Thou left'st thy more delightful peace,
Thy private life and better ease;
Then down thy steel and armour took,
Wishing that it still hung upon the hook:
When Death had got a large commission out,
Throwing the arrows and her sting about;
Then thou (as once the healing serpent rose)
Wast lifted up, not for thyself but us.

Thy country wounded was, and sick, before
Thy wars and arms did her restore:
Thou know'st where the disease did lie,
And, like the cure of sympathy,
The strong and certain remedy
Unto the weapon didst apply;
Thou didst not draw the sword, and so
Away the scabbard throw,

As if thy country shou'd

Be the inheritance of Mars and blood:
But that, when the great work was spun,
War in itself should be undone :
That peace might land again upon the shore,
Richer and better than before:

The husbandmen no steel shall know,
None but the useful iron of the plough;
That bays might creep on every spear:
And though our sky was overspread

With a destructive red,

'Twas but till thou our Sun didst in full light appear.

When Ajax dy'd, the purple blood,

That from his gaping wound had flow'd,
Turn'd into letter, every leaf

Had on it wrote his epitaph:
So from that crimson flood,

Which thou by fate of times wert led
Unwillingly to shed,

Letters and learning rose, and arts renew'd:
Thou fought'st, not out of envy, hope, or hate,
But to refine the church and state;

And like the Romans, whate'er thou
In the field of Mars didst mow,

Was, that a holy island hence might grow.
Thy wars, as rivers raised by a shower,
Which welcome clouds do pour,

Though they at first may seem

To carry all away with an enraged stream;
Yet did not happen that they might destroy,
Or the better parts annoy,

But all the filth and mud to scour,
And leave behind another slime,

To give a birth to a more happy power.

In fields unconquer'd, and so well

Thou didst in battles and in arms excel;
That steely arms themselves might be
Worn out in war as soon as thee;
Success so close upon thy troops did wait,
As if thou first hadst conquer'd Fate;

As if uncertain Victory

Had been first o'ercome by thee;

As if her wings were clipt, and could not flee:
Whilst thou didst only serve,

Before thou hadst what first thou didst deserve,
Others by thee did great things do,
Triumph'dst thyself, and mad'st them triumph too;
Though they above thee did appear,

As yet in a more large and higher sphere:
Thou, the great Sun, gav'st light to every star:
Thyself an army wert alone,

And mighty troops contain'd in one.
Thy only sword did guard the land,
Like that which, flaming in the Angel's hand,
From men God's garden did defend;

But yet thy sword did more than his,

Not only guarded, but did make this land a Paradise.

Thou fought'st not to be high or great,
Nor for a sceptre or a crown,
Or ermin, purple, or the throne;
But, as the vestal heat,

Thy fire was kindled from above alone:
Religion, putting on thy shield,
Brought thee victorious to the field.
Thy arms, like those which ancient heroes wore,
Were given by the God thou didst adore:
And all the swords thy armies had,
Were on an heavenly anvil made;
Not interest, or any weak desire
Of rule or empire, did thy mind inspire:
Thy valour, like the holy fire,

Which did before the Persian armies go,
Liv'd in the camp, and yet was sacred too:
Thy mighty sword anticipates
What was design'd by Heaven and those blest feats,
And makes the church triumphant here below.

Though Fortune did hang on thy sword,
And did obey thy mighty word;
Though Fortune, for thy side and thee,
Forgot her lov'd inconstancy:

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