W

O DE

ON ORINDA'S POEMS.

'E allow'd you beauty, and we did fubmit
To all the tyrannies of it;

Ah! cruel fex, will you depofe us too in wit?
Orinda* does in that too reign;

Does man behind her in proud triumph draw,
And cancel great Apollo's Salic law.
We our old title plead in vain,

Man may be head, but woman 's now the brain.
Verfe was Love's fire-arms heretofore,

In Beauty's camp it was not known;
Too many arms besides that conqueror bore :
'Twas the great cannon we brought down
T'affault a ftubborn town;

Orinda first did a bold fally make,

Our ftrongest quarter take,

And fo fuccefsful prov'd, that fhe

Turn'd upon Love himself his own artillery.

Women, as if the body were their whole,
Did that, and not the foul,
Transmit to their posterity ;

If in it fometime they conceiv'd,

Th' abortive iffue never liv'd.

'Twere fhame and pity', Orinda, if in thee

Mrs. Catharine Philips.

A fpirit

A fpirit fo rich, fo noble, and fo high,

Should unmanur'd or barren lie.
But thou induftriously haft fow'd and till'd
The fair and fruitful field;

And 'tis a strange increase that it does yield.
As, when the happy Gods above
Meet all together at a feast,

A fecret joy unspeakable does move

In their great mother Cybele's contented breast :
With no lefs pleasure thou, methinks, should see,
This, thy no lefs immortal progeny.

And in their birth thou no one touch doft find,
Of th' ancient curfe to woman-kind :

Thou bring'ft not forth with pain;
It neither travail is nor labour of the brain:
So eafily they from thee come,

And there is fo much room

In th' unexhausted and unfathom'd womb, That, like the Holland Countess, thou may'st bear A child for every day of all the fertile year.

Thou doft my wonder, wouldft my envy, raise, If to be prais'd I lov'd more than to praise :

Where'er I fee an excellence,

I must admire to see thy well-knit sense,

Thy numbers gentle, and thy fancies high;

Those as thy forehead smooth, these sparkling as thine

'Tis folid, and 'tis manly all,

Or rather 'tis angelical;

[eye.

For,

For, as in angels, we

Do in thy verses see

Both improv'd fexes eminently meet;

They are than man more strong, and more than woman: fweet.

They talk of Nine, I know not who,
Female chimera's, that o'er poets reign;
I ne'er could find that fancy true,

But have invok'd them oft, I 'm fure, in vain ::
They talk of Sappho ; but, alas! the shame!·
Ill-manners foil the luftre of her fame ;
Orinda's inward virtue is fo bright,

That, like a lantern's fair inclofed light,
It through the paper fhines where she does write..
Honour and friendship, and the generous fcorn
Of things for which we were not born
(Things that can only by a fond disease,
Like that of girls, our vicious ftomachs please)
Are the instructive subjects of her pen ;

And, as the Roman victory

Taught our rude land arts and civility,

At once the overcomes; enflaves, and betters, men..

But Rome with all her arts could ne'er inspire,
A female breaft with fuch a fire:
The warlike Amazonian train,

Who in Elyfium now do peaceful reign,
And Wit's mild empire before arms prefer,
Hope 'twill be fettled in their fex by her.

Merlin.

Merlin the feer (and sure he would not lye,
In fuch a facred company)

Does prophecies of learn'd Orinda show,
Which he had darkly spoke so long ago;
Ev'n Boadicia's angry ghost

Forgets her own misfortune and difgrace,

And to her injur'd daughters now does boast,. That Rome 's o'ercome at laft, by a woman of her race.

O DE

UPON OCCASION OF A COPY OF VERSES OF MY LORD BROGHILL'S.

B

E gone (faid I) ingrateful Mufe! and fee
What others thou canft fool, as well as me.

Since I grew man, and wiser ought to be,
My business and my hopes I left for thee:
For thee (which was more hardly given away).
I left, even when a boy, my play.

But fay, ingrateful mistress! say,

What for all this, what didft thou ever pay
Thou 'It fay, perhaps, that riches are
Not of the growth of lands where thou dost trade,
And I as well my country might upbraid ·

Because I have no vineyard there.

Well: but in love thou dost pretend to reign;

There thine the power and lordship is;
Thou bad'ft me write, and write, and write again;
'Twas fuch a way as could not mifs.
M

VOL. I.

I, like.

I, like a fool, did thee obey:

I wrote, and wrote, but ftill I wrote in vain;
For, after all my expence of wit and pain,
A rich, unwriting hand, carried the prize away.

Thus I complain'd, and strait the Mufe reply'd,
That he had given me fame.

Bounty immenfe ! and that too must be try'd
When I myself am nothing but a name.

Who now, what reader does not strive
T' invalidate the gift whilst we 're alive?
For, when a poet now himself doth fhow,
As if he were a common foe,

All draw upon him, all around,

And every part of him they wound,

Happy the man that gives the deepest blow:
And this is all, kind Mufe! to thee we owe.
Then in rage I took,

And out at window threw,

Ovid and Horace, all the chiming crew;
Homer himself went with them too;
Hardly efcap'd the facred Mantuan book ;
I my own offspring, like Agave, tore,
And I refolv'd, nay, and I think I swore,
That I no more the ground would till and fow,
Where only flowery weeds instead of corn did grow.

When (fee the fubtle ways which Fate docs find,

Rebellious man to bind !!

Just to the work for which he is affign'd).

The