Small-beer and gruel are his meat and drink,
The diet he prefcribes himself to think;
Rhyme next his heart he takes at the morn peep,
Some love-epiftles at the hour of sleep;
So betwixt elegy and ode we fee
Strephon is in a courfe of poetry:
This is the man ordain'd to do thee good,
The pelican to feed thee with his blood;
Thy wit, thy poet, nay thy friend, for he
Is fit to be a friend to none but thee.
Make fure of him and of his Mufe betimes,
For all his ftudy is hung round with rhymes.
Laugh at him, juftle him, yet still he writes,
In rhyme he challenges, in rhyme he fights;
Charg'd with the laft, and bafeft infamy,
His business is to think what rhymes to lye ;
Which found, in fury he retorts again,
Strephon's a very dragon at his pen ;
His brother murder'd, and his mother whor'd,
His mistress loft, and yet his pen's his sword.
To the Memory of Mr. OLD HAM.
FAREWELL, too little and too lately known,
Whom I began to think, and call my own :
For fure our fouls were near allied, and thine
Caft in the fame poetic mould with mine.
One common note on either lyre did strike,
And knaves and fools we both adhorr'd alike.
To the fame goal did both our studies drive;
The last fet out, the fooneft did arrive.
Thus Nifus fell upon the flippery place,
Whilft his young friend perform'd, and won the race.
O early ripe to thy abundant store
What could advancing age have added more?
It might (what nature never gives the young)
Have taught the smoothness of thy native tongue.
But fatire needs not those, and wit will fhine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
A noble error, and but feldom made,
When poets are by too much force betray'd.
VOL. II,
Thy generous fruits, though gather'd ere their prime, Still fhew'd a quickness; `and maturing time
But mellows what we write, to the dull fweets of rhyme.
Once more, hail, and farewel; farewel, thou young,
But ah too fhort, Marcellus of our tongue!
Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound;
But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.
To the pious Memory of the accomplished young Lady Mrs. ANNE KILLIGREW, excellent in the two Sifter-Arts of POESY and PAINTING.
THOU youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
Made in the laft promotion of the bleft;
Whofe palms, new-pluck'd from paradise,
In fpreading branches more fublimely rife,
Rich with immortal green above the rest:
Whether, adopted to fome neighbouring star,
Thou roll'ft above us, in thy wandering race,
Or, in proceffion fix'd and regular,
Mov'd with the heaven majestic pace;
Or, call'd to more fuperior blifs,
Thou treadft, with feraphims, the vast abyss:
Whatever happy region is thy place,
Ceafe thy celeftial fong a little space;
Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
Since heaven's eternal year is thine.
Hear then a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse,
In no ignoble verse;
But fuch as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy first fruits of Poefy were given ;
To make thyself a welcome inmate there :
While yet a young probationer,
And candidate of heaven.
If by traduction came thy mind,
Our wonder is the lefs to find
A foul fo charming from a stock so good;
Thy father was transfus'd into thy blood:
So wert thou born into a tuneful ftrain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
But if thy pre-existing foul
Was form'd, at firft, with myriads more,
It did through all the mighty poets roll,
Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,
And was that Sappho laft, which once it was before. If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind! Thou haft no drofs to purge from thy rich ore: Nor can thy foul a fairer manfion find,
Than was the beauteous frame she left behind : Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind. III.
May we prefume to say, that, at thy birth,
New joy was fprung in heaven, as well as here on earth.
For fure the milder planets did combine
On thy aufpicious horofcope to fhine,
And ev'n the moft malicious were in trine.
Thy brother-angels at thy birth
Strung each his lyre, and tun'd it high,
That all the people of the fky
Might know a poetess was born on earth.
And then, if ever, mortal ears
Had heard the mufic of the fpheres.
And if no clustering swarm of bees
On thy fweet mouth diftill'd their golden dew, 'Twas that fuch vulgar miracles
Heaven had not leifure to renew :
For all thy bleft fraternity of love
Solemniz'd there thy birth, and kept thy holy-day above.
IV.
O gracious God! how far have we
Prophan'd thy heavenly gift of poefy?
Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
Debas'd to each obfcene and impious use,
Whofe harmony was first ordain'd above
For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love?
O wretched we! why were we hurry'd down
This lubrique and adulterate age,
(Nay added fat pollutions of our own)
Tincrease the ftreaming ordures of the ftage?
What can we fay t' excufe our fecond fall?
Let this thy veftal, heaven, atone for all :
Her Arethufian Atream remains unfoil'd,
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