When I resolved t' exalt thy anointed name, Thou, changeling! thou, bewitch'd with noise and Thou wouldst, forsooth, be something in a state, Of human lusts to shake off innocence; "Go, renegado! cast up thy account, Thy foolish gains by quitting me: Thou thought'st, if once the public storm were past, But, whilst thy fellow-voyagers I see “As a fair morning of the blessed spring,, Such was the glorious entry of our king; One of old Gideon's miracles was shown; And upon all the quicken'd ground The fruitful seed of heaven did brooding lie, When God to his own people said (The men whom through long wanderings he had led) That he would give them ev'n a heaven of brass : They look'd up to that heaven in vain, That bounteous heaven, which God did not restrain "The Rachel, for which twice seven years and more Given to another, who had store Of fairer and of richer wives before, Into the court's deceitful lottery: But think how likely 'tis that thou, With the dull work of thy unwieldly plough, Thou, to whose share so little bread did fall, "Ah, wanton foe! dost thou upbraid The ills which thou thyself hast made? When in the cradle innocent I lay, And my abused soul didst bear Into thy new-found worlds, I know not where, And ever since I strive in vain The foolish sports I did on thee bestow, "When my new mind had no infusion known, To wash away th' inherent dye; Long work, perhaps, may spoil thy colours quite, But never will reduce the native white: To all the ports of honour and of gain, I often steer my course in vain; Thy gale comes cross, and drives me back again. The tinkling strings of thy loose minstrelsy. As they who only heaven desire Do from the world retire. This was my error, this my gross mistake, Thus, with Sapphira and her husband's fate And perish for the part which I retain. "Teach me not then, oh thou fallacious muse! The heaven under which I live is fair, Thine, thine is all the barrenness; if thou His long misfortunes' fatal end; To wait on his, oh thou fallacious Muse! Kings have long hands, they say; and, though I be So distant, they may reach at length to me. [slow; However, of all the princes, thou Shouldst not reproach rewards for being small or Thou! who rewardest but with popular breath, And that, too, after death." THE WISH. WELL, then; I now do plainly see Does of all meats the soonest cloy; Who for it can endure the stings, Ah, yet, ere I descend to th' grave, And, since love ne'er will from me flee, A mistress moderately fair, And good as guardian-angels are, Only beloved, and loving me! Oh, fountains! when in you shall I Myself, eased of unpeaceful thoughts, espy; Oh fields, oh woods! when, when shall I be made The happy tenant of your shade? Here's the spring-head of Pleasure's flood; Where all the riches lie, that she Has coin'd and stamp'd for good. Pride and ambition here Only in far-fetch'd metaphors appear; Here naught but winds can hurtful murmurs scatter, And naught but Echo flatter. The gods, when they descended, hither From heaven did always choose their way; And therefore we may boldly say, That 'tis the way to thither. How happy here should I, And one dear she, live and, embracing, die! I should have then this only fear, THE PRAISE OF POETRY. "Tis not a pyramid of marble stone, Though high as our ambition; "Tis not a tomb cut out in brass, which can Give life to th' ashes of a man, But verses only; they shall fresh appear Whilst there are men to read or hear;. When time shall make the lasting brass decay, And eat the pyramid away; Turning that monument wherein men trust |