Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

'Tis not to force fome lifeless verses meet

With their five gouty feet.

All, every where, like man's, must be the soul,
And Reafon the inferior powers control.

Such were the numbers which could call

The stones into the Theban wall.

Such miracles are ceas'd; and now we fee
No towns or houses rais'd by poetry.

Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part;
That shows more cost than art.
Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear;
Rather than all things Wit, let none be there.
Several lights will not be seen,
If there be nothing else between.
Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' th' sky,
If those be stars which paint the Galaxy.

'Tis not when two like words make up one noise
(Jests for Dutch men and English boys);

In which who finds out Wit, the fame may fee
In an'grams and acrostick poetry :

Much less can that have any place
At which a virgin hides her face;

Such dross the fire must purge away: 'tis just
The author blush there, where the reader muft.

'Tis not fuch lines as almost crack the stage
When Bajazet begins to rage;

Nor a tall metaphor in the bombast way;
Nor the dry chips of short-lung'd Seneca;

Nor

Nor upon all things to obtrude
And force fome odd fimilitude..
What is it then, which, like the Power Divine,
We only can by negatives define ?

In a true piece of Wit all things must be,
Yet all things there agree;

As in the ark, join'd without force or strife,
All creatures dwelt; all creatures that had life:
Or, as the primitive forms of all

(If we compare great things with small)

Which, without difcord or confufion, lie
In that strange mirror of the Deity.

But Love, that moulds one man up out of two,
Makes me forget, and injure you :
I took you for myself, fure, when I thought
That you in any thing were to be taught.
Correct my error with thy pen;
And, if any ask me then

What thing right Wit and height of Genius is,
I'll only shew your lines, and say, 'Tis this.

TO THE LORD FALKLAND.

For his fafe Return from the Northern Expedition against the SCOTS.

REAT is

G thy charge, O North! be wife and just,

England commits her Falkland to thy trust;

H2

Return

3882224

Return him fafe; Learning would rather choose
Her Bodley or her Vatican to lose :

All things that are but writ or printed there,
In his unbounded breast engraven are.
There all the sciences together meet,
And every art does all her kindred greet,
Yet justle not, nor quarrel; but as well
Agree as in some common principle.
So, in an army govern'd right, we fee
(Though out of several countries rais'd it be)
That all their order and their place maintain,
The English, Dutch, the Frenchmen, and the Dane :
So thousand divers species fill the air,
Yet neither crowd nor mix confus'dly there;
Beasts, houses, trees, and men, together lie,
Yet enter undisturb'd into the eye.

And this great prince of knowledge is by Fate
Thrust into th' noife and business of a state.
All virtues, and some customs of the court,
Other men's labour, are at least his sport;
Whilft we, who can no action undertake,
Whom idleness itself might learned make;
Who hear of nothing, and as yet scarce know,
Whether the Scots in England be or no;
Pace dully on, oft tire, and often stay,
Yet fee his nimble Pegafus fly away.
'Tis Nature's fault, who did thus partial grow,
And her eftate of wit on one bestow;

Whilft we, like younger brothers, get at best
But a fmall stock, and must work out the rest.

How

How could he answer 't, should the state think fit
To question a monopoly of wit ?

Such is the man whom we require the same
We lent the North; untouch'd, as is his fame.
He is too good for war, and ought to be
As far from danger, as from fear he 's free.
Those men alone (and those are useful too)
Whose valour is the only art they know,
Were for fad war and bloody battles born;
Let them the state defend, and he adorn.

:

ON THE DEATH OF

SIR HENRY WOOTTON.

W

HAT shall we fay, fince filent

now is he

Who when he spoke, all things would filent be?

Who had so many languages in store,
That only fame shall speak of him in more;
Whom England now no more return'd must fee;
He's gone to heaven on his fourth embafly.
On earth he travel'd often; not to say

H' had been abroad, or pafs loose time away.
In whatsoever land he chanc'd to come,
He read the men and manners, bringing home
Their wisdom, learning, and their piety,
As if he went to conquer, not to fee.
So well he understood the most and best

Of tongues, that Babel sent into the Weit;

[blocks in formation]

Spoke them so truly, that he had (you 'd swear)
Not only liv'd, but been born every where.
Justly each nation's speech to him was known,
Who for the world was made, not us alone;
Nor ought the language of that man be less,
Who in his breast had all things to express.
We say that learning 's endless, and blame Fate
For not allowing life a longer date :
He did the utmost bounds of knowledge find,
He found them not so large as was his mind;
But, like the brave Pellæan youth, did moan
Because that art had no more worlds than one;
And, when he saw that he through ali had past,
He dy'd, left he should idle grow at last.

ON THE DEATH OF MR. JORDAN, Second Master at Westminster School.

H

Ence, and make room

for me, all you who come

Only to read the epitaph on this tomb!

Here lies the master of my tender years,
The guardian of my parents' hope and fears;
Whose government ne'er stood me in a tear;
All weeping was referv'd to spend it here.
Come hither, all who his rare virtues knew,
And mourn with me: he was your tutor too.
Let's join our fighs, till they fly far, and shew
His native Belgia what the 's now to do.

The

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »