But look aloft, and if thou kenn'st from far,
Among the Pleiades a new-kindled star,
If any sparkles than the rest more bright,
'Tis she that shines in that propitious light.

X.

When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,
To raise the nations under ground:

When, in the valley of Jehoshaphat,

The judging God shall close the book of Fate,
And there the last assizes keep

For those who wake, and those who sleep;
When ratling bones together fly

From the four corners of the sky;

When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread,

175

180

185

Those cloth'd with flesh, and life inspires the dead; The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,

189

And foremost from the tomb shall bound,
For they are cover'd with the lightest ground;
And straight, with inborn vigour, on the wing,
Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing:
There thou, sweet Saint! before the quire shall ge,'
As harbinger of Heav'n, the way to show,
The way which thou so well hast learnt below.J

194

VIII.

Now all those charms, that blooming grace,

The well proportion'd shape and beauteous face,
Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes ;

In earth the much-lamented virgin lies.
Not wit nor piety could Fate prevent;
Nor was the cruel Destiny content

151

To finish all the murder at a blow,

155

To sweep, at once, her life and beauty too;

But, like a harden'd felon, took a pride

To work more mischievously slow,

And plunder'd first, and then destroy'd.
A double sacrilege on things divine,

160

To rob the relic, and deface the shrine!

But thus Orinda dy'd:

Heav'n by the same disease did both translate:
As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.

IX.

Mean time her warlike brother on the seas

His waving streamers to the winds displays,

165

And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.

Ah, gen'rous youth! that wish forbear,

The winds too soon will waft thee here:

Slack all thy sails, and fear to come,

170

Alas! thou know'st not thou art wreck'd at home?

No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face,

Thou hast already had her last embrace.

from a shipwreck, but have only gained a rock by hard swimming, where I may pant a while and gather breath for the doctors give me a sad assurance that my disease never took its leave of any man but with a purpose to return. However, my Lord, I have laid hold on the interval, and managed the small stock, which age has left me, to the best advantage, in performing this inconsiderable service to myLady's memory. We, who are priests of Apollo, have not the inspiration when we please; but must wait till the gods come rushing on us,'and invades us with a fury which we are not able to resist; which gives us double strength while the fit continues, and leaves us languishing and spent at its departure. Let me not seem to boast, my Lord; for I have really felt it on this occasion, and prophesied beyond my natural power. Let me add, and hope to be believed, that the excellency of the subject contributed much to the hap. piness of the execution; and that the weight of thirty years was taken cff me while I was writing. I swam with the tide, and the water under me was buoyant. The reader will easily observe that I was transported by the multitude and variety of my similitudes, which are generally the product of a luxuriant fancy, and the wantonness, of wit. Had I called in my judgment to my assistance, I had certainly retrenched many of them. But I defend them not; let them pass for beautiful faults amongst the better

A PANEGYRICAL POEM.

Dedicated to the Memory of

THE LATE COUNTESS OF ABINGDON.

To the Right Honourable

THE EARL OF ABINGDON. &c.

MY LORD,

THE Commands with which you honoured me some months ago are now performed: they had been sooner, but, betwixt ill health, some business, and many troubles, I was forced to defer them till this time. Ovid, going to his banishment, and writing from on shipboard to his friends, excused the faults of his poetry by his misfortunes, and told them that good verses never flow but from a serene and composed spirit. Wit, which is a kind of Mercury, with wings fasten'd to his head and heels, can fly but slowly in a damp air. I therefore chose rather to obey you late than ill, if at least I am capable of writing any thing, at any time, which is worthy your perusal and your patronage. I cannot say that I have escaped

a relation given him of such and such features by an acquaintance or a friend, without the nice touches, which give the best resemblance, and make the graces of the picture. Every artist is apt enough to flatter himself (and I among the rest) that his own ocular observations would have discovered more perfec tions, at least others, than have been delivered to him though I have received mine from the best hands, that is, from persons who neither want a just understanding of my Lady's worth, nor a due veneration for her memory.

Doctor Donne, the greatest wit, though not the greatest poet, of our nation, acknowledges that he had never seen Mrs. Drury, whom he has made immortal in his admirable Anniversaries. I have had the same fortune, though I have not succeeded to the same genius. However, I have followed his footsteps in the design of his panegyric, which was to raise an emulation in the living to copy out the example of the dead and therefore it was that I once intended to have called this Poem The Pattern; and though, on a second consideration, I changed the title into the name of the illustrious person, yet the design continues, and Eleonora is still the pattern of charity, devotion, and humility; of the best wife, the best mother, and the best of friends.

:

And now, my Lord, though I have endeavoured to answer your commands, yet I could not answer it