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Small lofs it is that thence can come unto thee,
I know my tongue but little grace can do thee:
Thou need'ft not be ambitious to be firft,
Believe me I have thither packt the worst :
And, if it happen as I did forecast,

The daintieft dishes shall be ferv'd up laft.
pray thee then deny me not thy aid

I

For this fame fmall neglect that I have made :
But hafte thee ftrait to do me once a Pleasure,
And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefeft treasure;
Not thofe new fangled toys, and trimmings flight,
Which take our late fantasticks with delight;
But cull thofe richest Robes, and gay'st Attire,
Which deepest Spirits and choiceft Wits defire.
I have fome naked thoughts that rove about,
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
And weary of their place do only stay,
Till thou haft deck'd them in thy best array;
That so they may without fufpect or fears
Fly fwiftly to this fair Affembly's ears.
Yet I had rather, if I were to chufe,
Thy fervice in some graver subject use,
Such as may make thee fearch thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit found:
Such where the deep tranfported mind may foar
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heav'n's door
Look in, and fee each blissful Deity,

How he before the thund'rous throne doth lie,
Lift'ning to what unfhorn Apollo fings

To th' touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal Nectar to her kingly Sire:

Then paffing through the Sphears of watchful fire,
And mifty Regions of wide air next under,
And hills of Snow, and lofts of piled Thunder,
May tell at length how green-ey'd Neptune raves,
In Heav'n's defiance muftering all his waves;
Then fing of fecret things, that came to pass
When Beldame Nature in her cradle was;

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And laft of Kings, and Queens, and Heroes old,
Such as the wife Demodocus once told
In folemn Songs at King Alcinous' feast,
While fad Ulyffes' foul and all the rest
Are held with his melodious harmony
In willing chains and fweet captivity.
But fie, my wand'ring Mufe, how thou doft ftray!
Expectance calls thee now another way;
Thou know't it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compafs of thy Predicament:
Then quick about thy purpos'd business come,
That to the next I may refign my Room.

Then Ens is reprefented as Father of the Predicaments his ten Sons, whereof. the eldest food for Subftance with his Canons; which Ens, thus speaking,

explains.

G

OOD luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy birth
The Fairy Ladies danc'd upon the hearth;

Thy drowfie Nurse hath fworn, she did them spie
Come tripping to the Room where thou didst fie;
And fweetly finging round about thy Bed,

Strew all their bleffings on thy fleeping Head.

She heard them give thee this, that thou fhould'ift ftill
From eyes of mortals walk invifible:

Yet there is fomething, that doth force my fear;
For once it was my difmal hap to hear
A Sybil old, bow-bent with crooked Age,
That far Events full wifely could prefage,
And in Time's long and dark Profpective Glafs
Fore-faw 'what future days fhould bring to pass:

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Your

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Your Son, faid fhe, (nor can you it prevent)
Shall fubject be to many an Accident;
O'er all his Brethren he fhall reign as King,
Yet every one fhall make him underling;
And thofe, that cannot live from him afunder,
Ungratefully fhall ftrive to keep him under;
In worth and excellence he fhall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them;
From others he fhall ftand in need of nothing.
Yet on his Brothers fhall depend for Clothing.
To find a Foe it fhall not be his hap,
And Peace fhall lull him in her flow'ry lap;
Yet fhall he live in ftrife, and at his door
Devouring War fhall never cease to roar:
Yea, it fhall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.

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What pow'r, what force, what mighty fpell, if not
Your learned hands, can loose his Gordian knot?

M

The next Quantity and Quality Spake in Profe, then Relation was call'd by his name.

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IVERS, arife; whether thou be the Son
Of utmost Taweed, or Oofe, or gulphie Dun,
Or Trent, who like fome earth-born Giant fpreads
His thirty Arms along th' indented Meads,
Or fullen Mole that runneth underneath,
Or Severn fwift, guilty of Maiden's death,
Or rockie Avon, or of fedgy Lee,

Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythians Name,
Or Medway fmooth, or royal tow'red Thame.

The reft was Profe.

The

E

The PASSION.

I.

RE while of Mufick, and Ethereal mirth,
Wherewith the ftage of Air and Earth did ring,
And joyous news of heav'nly Infant's birth,
My Mufe with Angels did divide to fing;
But headlong joy is ever on the wing,

In wintry folftice like the shorten'd light,
Soon fwallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.

II.

For now to forrow muft I tune my fong,
And fet my Harp to notes of faddeft woe,
Which on our deareft Lord did feize ere long,
Dangers, and fnares, and wrongs, and worse than fo,
Which he for us did freely undergo;

Moft perfect Heroe, try'd in heaviest plight
Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight,

III.

He fov'reign Prieft ftooping his regal head
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshly Tabernacle entered,

His starry front low-rooft beneath the fkies;
O what a mask was there, what a disguise!

Yet more; the ftroke of death he must abide, Then lies him meekly down faft by his Brethrens fide. IV. ››

These latter scenes confine my roving verse,
To this Horizon is my Phabus bound:
His Godlike ads, and his temptations fierce,
And former fufferings, otherwhere are found;
Loud' o'er the reft Cremona's Trump doth found:
Me fofter airs befit, and fofter ftrings

Of Lute, or Viol ftill, more apt for mournful things.
V..

Befriend me, Night, beft Patronefs of grief,
Over the Pole thy thickeft mantle throw,
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And

And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,

That Heav'n and earth are colour'd with my wo;
My forrows are too dark for day to know:

The leaves fhould all be black whereon I write,

And letters, where my tears have wafht, a wannish whise.
VI.

See, fee the Chariot, and thofe rufhing wheels,"
That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood;
My fpirit fome tranfporting Cherub feels,

To bear me where the Tow'rs of Salem ftood
Once glorious Towers, now funk in guiltless blood;
There doth my Scul in holy vision fit
In penfive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.

VII.

lock,

Mine eye hath found that fad Sepulchral rock,
That was the Cafket of Heav'n's richeft ftore;
And here through grief my feeble hands
Yet on the foftned Quarry would I fcore
My plaining verfe as lively as before;

up

For fure fo well inftructed are my tears,
That they would fitly fall in order'd Characters.
VIII.

Or fhould I thence, hurried on viewless wing,
Take up a weeping on the Mountains wild,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
Would foon unbofom all their Echoes mild,
And I (for grief is easily beguil'd)

Might think th' infection of my forrows loud,
Had got a race of mourners on fome pregnant cloud.

This Subject the Author finding to be above the years he bad, when he wrote it, and nothing fatisfy'd with what was begun, left it unfinisht.

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