Look in, and see each blissful Deity,
How he before the thund'rous throne doth lie,
List’ning to what unshorn Apollo sings
To th' touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal Nectar to her kingly Sire :
Then passing 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 secret things, that came to pass
When Beldame Nature in her cradle was;
And last. of Kings, and Queens, and Heroes old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told
In folemn Songs at King Alcinous' feast,
While fad Ulyles foul and all the rest
Are held with his melodious harmony
In willing chains and sweet captivity,
But fie, my wand'ring Muse, how thou doft stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way;
Thou know'ft it must be now thy only bent,
To keep in compass of thy Predicament :
Then quick about thy purpos'd business come,
That to the next I may resign my Room,

Then Ens is represented as Father of

the Predicaments bis ten Sons, wbereof the eldest food for Sub

stance with his Canons ; which Ens, ., thus speaking, explains. Goof OOD luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy

birth The Fairy Ladies danc'd upon the hearth ; Thy drowsie Nurse hath sworn, she did them spie Come tripping to the Room where thou didft lie; And sweetly finging round about thy Bed, Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head. (stif! She heard them give thee this, that thou should'ft From eyes of mortals walk invisible: Yet there is something, that doth force my fear ; For once it was my dismal hap to hear A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age, That far Events full wisely could prefage, And in Time's long and dark Prospective Glass Fore-law what future days fhould bring to pass : Your Son, said she, (nor can you it prevent) Shall subject be to many an Accident; O'er all his Brethren he shall reign as King, Yet every one Mall make him underling ; And those, that cannot live from him asunder, Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under : In worth and excellence he shall out-go them, Yet being above them, he hall be below them ;

From

From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his Brothers shall depend for Clothing.
To find a Foe it shall not be his hap,
And Peace shall lull him in her flow'ry lap;
Yet Thall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring War shall 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 Prose, then Relation was

call’d by his name.

R

IVERS, arise; whether thou be the Son

Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulphie Dun,
Or Trent, who like some earth-born Giant spreads
His thirty Arms along th' indented Meado,
Or sullen Mole that runneth underneath,
Or Severn swift, guilty of Maiden's death,
Or rockie Avon, or of sedgy Lee,
Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythians Name,
Or Medway smooth, or royal tow'red Thame,

The rest was Profe.

L 5

The

3

The PASSION.

E E

1.
R E while of Musick, and Ethereal mirth,
Wherewith the stage of Air and Earth did

ring,
And joyous news of heav'nly Infant's birth,
My Muse with Angels did divide to Ang ;
But headlong joy is ever on the wing,

In wintry folstice like the Morten'd light, Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.

II. For now to forrow must I tune my song, And fet my Harp to notes of saddest woe, Which on our deareft Lord did seize ere long, (fo, Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse than Which he for us did freely undergo;

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

III. He sov'reign Priest stooping his regal head That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes, Poor fieshly Tabernacle entered, His itarry front low-rooft beneath the skies; O what a mask was there, what a disguise!

Yet more; the stroke of death he must abide, Then lies him meekly down fast by his Brethrens

fde,

IV,

IV. These latter fçenes confine my roving verse, To this Horizon is my Pbæbus bound:. His Godlike acts, and his temptations fierce, And former sufferings, otherwhere are found; Loud o'er the reft Cremona's Trump doth sound:

Me softer airs befit, and softer strings Of Lute, or Viol ftill, more apt for mournful things,

V. Befriend me, Night, best Patroness 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 sorrows are too dark for day to know :

The leaves should all be black whereon I write, And letters, where my tears have walht, a wannith white,

VI.
See, see 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 stood
Once glorious Towers, now sunk 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 storey
And here though grief my feeble hands up lock,
Yet on the softened Quarry would I score
My plaining verfe as lively as before ;