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 speech can show,
Far more than the three western daughters born
Out of the ashes of the Roman urn: [mit
Daughters born of a mother, which did yield to ad-
The adulterate seed of several tongues with it;
More than the smooth Italian, though Nature gave
That tongue in poetry a genius to have,

And that she 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 just as in their kingdom, in their tongue, Most quarters of the Earth together throng: More than the courtly French, though that doth And not trot o'er the tongue its race: [pace, That has not any thing, so elaborate wit; [it. Though it by its sliding seems to have more oil in Thy soul hath gone through all the Muses' track;

Where never poets feet were seen before, Hath pass'd those sands where others left their wrecks,

And sail'd an ocean through, which some thought had no shore.

Thy spirit has discover'd all poetry; Thou found'st no tropics in the poets sky. More than the Sun can do, hast brought a sacred flower

To Mount Parnassus; and hast open'd to our hand

Apollo's holy land,

Which yet hid in the frigid zone did lie.

Thou hast sail'd the Muses' globes,

Not as the other Drake, or Ca'ndish did, to rob. Thou hast brought home the treasure too, Which yet no Spaniard can claim his due: Thou hast search'd through every creek, From the East-Indies of the poets' world, the Greek,

To the America of wit,

Which was last known, and has most gold in it.
That mother-tongue which we do speak,
This world thy greater spirit has run through,
And view'd and conquer'd too,

A world as round and large as th' other is,
And yet in it there can be no antipodes,
For none hereafter will go contrary to you.

Poets till now deserv'd excuse, not praise,
Till now the Muses liv'd in taverns, and the bays
That they were truly trees did show,
Because by sucking liquor they did only grow
Verses were counted fiction, and a lye
The very nature of good poetry.

He was a poet that could speak least truth: Sober and grave men scorn'd the name, Which once was thought the greatest fame. Poets had nought else of Apollo, but his youth: Few ever spake in rhyme, but that their feet The trencher of some liberal man might meet. Or else they did some rotten mistress paint, Call her their goddess, or their saint. Though contrary in this they to their master run, For the great god of wit, the Sun, [Moon, When he doth show his mistress, the white He makes her spots, as well as beauty to be shown.

Till now the sisters were too old, and therefore Extremely fabulous too: [grew

Till you, sir, came, they were despis'd;

They were all heathens yet,

Nor ever into the church could get; And though they had a font so long, yet never were baptis'd.

You, sir, have rais'd the price of wit,
By bringing in more store of it:
Poetry, the queen of arts, can now

Reign without dissembling too.
You've shown a poet must not needs be bad;
That one may be Apollo's priest,
And be fill'd with his oracles, without being mad:
Till now, wit was a curse (as to Lot's wife
'Twas to be turn'd to salt)

Because it made men lead a life Which was nought else but one continual fault. You first the Muses to the Christians brought, And you then first the holy language taught: In you good poetry and divinity meet, You are the first bird of Paradise with feet.

Your miscellanies do appear
Just such another glorious indigested heap
As the first mass was, where
All Heavens and stars enclosed were,
Before they each one to their place did leap.
Before God, the great censor, them bestow'd,
According to their ranks, in several tribes abroad;
Whilst yet Sun and Moon

Were in perpetual conjunction:
Whilst all the stars were but one milky way,

And in natural embraces lay.

Whilst yet none of the lamps of Heaven might Call this their own, and that another's light. So glorious a lump as thine, Which chymistry may separate, but not refine: So mixt, so pure, so united does it shine, A chain of sand, of which each link is all divine.

Thy mistress shows, that Cupid is not always blind,

Where we a pure exalted Muse do find, Such as may well become a glorified mind.

Such songs tune angels when they love, And do make courtship to some sister-mind above (For angels need not scorn such soft desires, Seeing thy heart is touch'd with the same fires), So when they clothe themselves in flesh, And their light some human shapes do dress (For which they fetch'd stuff from the neighbouring air):

So when they stoop, to like some mortal fair, Such words, such odes as thine they use, With such soft strains, love into her heart infuse.

Thy love is on the top, if not above mortality;

Clean, and from corruption free,

Such as affections in eternity shall be;

Which shall remain unspotted there,
Only to show what once they were:
Thy Cupid's shafts all golden are;

Thy Venus has the salt, but not the froth o'th' sea.

Thy high Pindarics soar

So high, where never any wing till now could get; And yet thy wit

Doth seem so great, as those that do fly lower. Thou stand'st on Pindar's back;

And therefore thou a higher flight dost take:
Only thou art the eagle, he the wren,

Thou hast brought him from the dust,
And made him live again.

More majesty; a greater soul is given to him, by you,

Than ever he in happy Thebes or Greece could shew.

Thy David, too

But hold thy headlong pace, my Muse;
None but the priest himself doth use
Into the holiest place to go.

Check thy young Pindaric heat,

Which makes thy pen too much to sweat; 'Tis but an infant yet,

And just now left the teat,

By Cowley's matchless pattern nurst:
Therefore it is not fit

That it should dare to speak so much at first.
No more, no more, for shame.

BESTRIDE an ant, a Pigmy, great and tall, Was thrown, alas! and got a dreadful fall; Under th' unruly beat's proud feet he lies, All torn; but yet with generous ardour cries,

on

For thus 1 fall, and thus fell Phaëton!”