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Look in, and fee each blissful Deity,
How he before the thund'rous throne doth lię,
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 misty 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 mustering all his waves;
Then fing of fecret things, that came to pafs
When Beldame Nature in her cradle was;
And last 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 sweet captivity,

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But fie, my wand'ring Mufe, how thou doft ftray!
Expectance calls thee now another way;
Thou know'ft 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 resign my Room.

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

OOD luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy birth

GOOD

The Fairy Ladies danc'd upon the hearth;
Thy drownie Nurse hath fworn, she did them spie
Come tripping to the Room where thou didft lie;
And sweetly finging round about thy Bed,

Strew all their bleffings on thy fleeping head. [still
She heard them give thee this, that thou should'st
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 Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far Events full wifely could prefage,
And in Time's long and dark Prospective Glass
Fore-faw what future days fhould bring to pass:
Your Son, faid she, (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 shall make him underling;
And those, that cannot live from him asunder,
Ungratefully fhall ftrive to keep him under:
In worth and excellence he shall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them;

From

From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his Brothers fhall depend for Clothing.
To find a Foe it shall not be his hap,

And Peace shall full 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 shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.

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

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

R

IVERS, arife; whether thou be the Son Of utmost Tweed, or Oofe, or gulphie Dun, Or Trent, who like fome earth-born Giant spreads 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.

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E

The PASSION.

1.

RE while of Mufick, and Ethereal mirth,
Wherewith the stage 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 dearest Lord did feize ere long, [fo, Dangers, and fnares, and wrongs, and worse than 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 Priest stooping his regal head
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshly Tabernacle entered,

His farry front low-rooft beneath the skies;
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,

IV.

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

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

Befriend me, Night, best Patronefs of grief,
Over the Pole thy thickest mantle throw,
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 should all be black whereon I write, And letters, where my tears have washt, a wannish

white.

VI.

See, fee the Chariot, and those rushing wheels,
That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood;
My spirit some transporting Cherub feels,
To bear me where the Tow'rs of Salem ftood
Once glorious Towers, now funk in guiltless blood;
There doth my Soul in holy vision fit

In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.

VII.

Mine eye hath found that fad Sepulchral rock,
That was the Casket of Heav'n's richeft ftore;
And here though grief my feeble hands up lock,
Yet on the softened Quarry would I score
My plaining verfe as lively as before;

For

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