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POEMS

OF

MATTHEW PRIOR.

ON THE MARRIAGE OF

GEORGE PRINCE OF DENMARK, AND THE LADY ANNE1.

BY MR. PRIOR, 1683.

CONJUNCTUM Veneri Martem, Danosque Britannis
Dum canit altisonis docta caterva modis,
Affero sincerum culto pro carmine votum,
Quod minus ingenii, plus pietatis habet.
Vivant Ambo diu, vivant feliciter, opto;
Diligat hic sponsam, diligat illa virum.
Junctos perpetuâ teneas, Hymenæe, catenâ ;
Junctos, Juno, die protege; nocte, Venus!
Exultent simili felices prole parentes,
Ut petat hinc multos natio bina duces!

From the Hymenæus Cantabrigiensis, Cantabrigiæ, 1683. This copy, notwithstanding the signature, beyond a doubt the property of the facetious Matt. Prior. See the Miscellany Poems, 1781, Vol. VII. p. 93.-All our college exercises are given up, signed only by us, with our surname. The dean of the college, to whom, in right of his office, Prior's verses were delivered, not knowing, or mistaking Prior's name, who was then a freshman, marked them with A. instead of M. when he gave them into the university inspectors for their approbation: or, probably, he might have made so aukward an M. that they mistook it for an A. They bear internal evidence of their being written by one, though a freshman, used to write Latin verse; and to write it too, in a great school, under a great master-as was Prior'sDr. Busby. There is a classical terseness in the diction, and ease and harmony in the numbers. And the distant imitation of Martial's admirable lines on the Happy Married Pair--or rather the allusion to that excellent little piece (for it can hardly be called an imitation of it) shows the taste of a master, at the years of a boy, and is not unworthy the name, or the fame, of Prior.

VOL. X.

KYNASTON.

Cumque senes pariter cupiant valedicere terris,
Nè mors augustum dividat atra jugum :
Sed qualis raptum transvexit currus Elijam,
Transvehat ad superas talis utrumque domos!

A. PRIOR, Coll. Div. Joh. Alumn.

ON EXODUS III. 14.

I AM THAT I AM.

AN ODE.

WRITTEN 1688, AS AN EXERCISE AT ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

MAN! foolish man!

Scarce know'st thou how thyself began;
Scarce hast thou thought enough to prove thou art;
Yet, steel'd with study'd boldness, thou dar'st try
To send thy doubting Reason's dazzled eye
Through the mysterious gulph of vast immensity.
Much thou canst there discern, much thence im-
part.

Vain wretch suppress thy knowing pride;

Vain are thy thoughts, while thou thyself art dust.
Mortify thy learned lust.
Let Wit her sails, her oars let Wisdom lend;
The helm let politic Experience guide:
Yet cease to hope thy short-liv'd bark shall ride
Down spreading Fate's unnavigable tide.

What though still it farther tend,

Still 'tis farther from its end;
And, in the bosom of that boundless sea,
Still finds its errour lengthen'd with its way.
With daring pride and insolent delight,
Your doubts resolv'd you boast, your labours
crown'd,

And, “ETPHKA! your God, forsooth, is found
But is he therefore found? vain searcher! no:
Incomprehensible and infinite.
That nothing you, the weak definer, know.
Let your imperfect definition show

Say, why should the collected Main
Itself within itself contain ?

K

Why to its caverns should it sometimes creep,

And with delighted silence sleep

On the lov'd bosom of its parent Deep!

Why should its numerous waters stay In comely discipline, and fair array, Till winds and tides exert their high command! Then prompt and ready to obey, Why do the rising surges spread Their opening ranks o'er Earth's submissive head, Marching through different paths to different lands?

Why does the constant Sun,

With measur'd steps, his radiant journies run?
Why does he order the diurnal hours

To leave Earth's other part, and rise in ours?
Why does he wake the correspondent Moon,
And fill her willing lamp with liquid light,
Commanding her with delegated powers
To beautify the world, and bless the night?
Why does each animated star
Love the just limits of its proper sphere?
Why does each consenting sign
With prudent harmony combine

In turns to move, and subsequent appear,
To gird the globe, and regulate the year?

Man does, with dangerous curiosity,
These unfathom'd wonders try :
With fancied rules and arbitrary laws
Matter and motion he restrains;
And studied lines and fictious circles draws:
Then, with imagin'd sovereignty,
Lord of his new hypothesis he reigns.

He reigns: how long? till some usurper rise;
And he too, mighty thoughtful, mighty wise,
Studies new lines, and other circles feigns.
From this last toil again what knowledge flows?
Just as much, perhaps, as shows
That all his predecessor's rules
Were empty cant, all jargon of the schools;
That he on t'other's ruin rears his throne ;
And shows his friend's mistake, and thence con-
firms his own.

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On earth, in air, amidst the seas and skies,
Mountainous heaps of wonders rise,
Whose towering strength will ne'er submit
To Reason's batteries, or the mines of Wit:
Yet still inquiring, still mistaken man,
Each hour repuls'd, each hour dares onward press:
And, levelling at God his wandering guess,
(That feeble engine of his reasoning war, [spair)
Which guides his doubts, and combats his de-
Laws to his Maker the learn'd wretch can give:
Can bound that nature, and prescribe that will,
Whose pregnant word did either ocean fill:

Can tell us whence all beings are, and how they

move and live.

Through either ocean, foolish man!
That pregnant word sent forth again,
Might to a world extend each atom there; [star.
For every drop call forth a sea, a heaven for every

Let cunning Earth her fruitful wonders hide;
And only lift thy staggering reason up

To trembling Calvary's astonish'd top;

Then down with all thy boasted volumes, down; Only reserve the sacred one :

Low, reverently low,

Make thy stubborn knowledge bow;
Weep out thy reason's and thy body's eyes;
Deject thyself, that thou may'st rise;
To look to Heaven, be blind to all below.

Then Faith, for Reason's glimmering light, shall
Her immortal perspective;
[give

And Grace's presence Nature's loss retrieve:
Then thy enliven'd soul shall see,
That all the volumes of Philosophy,
With all their comments, never could invent
So politic an instrument,

To reach the Heaven of heavens, the high abode,
Where Moses places his mysterious God,
As was the ladder which old Jacob rear'd,
When light divine had human darkness clear'd;
And his enlarg'd ideas found the road,
Which Faith had dictated, and angels trod.

CONSIDERATIONS ON

PART OF THE LXXXVIIITH PSALM. A COLLEGE EXERCISE, 1690. HEAVY, O Lord, on me thy judgments lie, Accurst I am, while God rejects my cry. O'erwhelm'd in darkness and despair I groan ; And every place is hell; for God is gone. O! Lord, and let thy beam control Those horrid clouds, that press my frighted soul Save the poor wanderer from eternal night, Thou that art the God of Light.

Downward I hasten to my destin'd place;
There none obtain thy aid, or sing thy praise.
Soon I shall lie in Death's deep ocean drown'd:
Is mercy there, or sweet forgiveness found?
O save me yet, whilst on the brink I stand
Rebuke the storm, and waft my soul to land.
O let her rest beneath thy wing secure,
Thou that art the God of Power.

Behold the prodigal! to thee I come,
To hail my father, and to seck my home.
Nor refuge could I find, nor friend abroad,
Straying in vice, and destitute of God.
O let thy terrours, and my anguish end!
Be thou my refuge and be thou my friend :

Receive the son thou didst so long reprove,
Thou that art the God of Love.

TO THE

;

REV. DR. F. TURNER, BISHOP OF ELY,

WHO HAD ADVISED A TRANSLATION OF PRUDENTIUS

IF

IF poets, ere they cloth'd their infant thought, And the rude work to just perfection brought, Did still some god, or godlike man invoke,

Then mock thy knowledge, and confound thy pride, Whose mighty name their sacred silence broke :

Explaining how Perfection suffer'd pain Almighty languish'd, and Eternal died :, How by her patient victor Death was slain ; And Earth profan'd, yet bless'd, with Deicide.

Your goodness, sir, will easily excuse
The bold requests of an aspiring Muse;
Who, with your blessing, would your aid implore,
And in her weakness justify your power.—

From your fair pattern she would strive to write,
And with unequal strength pursue your flight;
Yet hopes she ne'er can err that follows you,
Led by your blest commands, and great example
too.

Then smiling and aspiring influence give,
And make the Muse and her endeavours live;
Claim all her future labours as your due,
Let every song begin and end with you:
So to the blest retreat she'll gladly go,
Where the saints' palm and Muses' laurel grow;
Where kindly both in glad embrace shall join,
And round your brow their mingled honours twine;
Both to the virtue due, which could excel,
As much in writing, as in living well-
So shall she proudly press the tuneful string,
And mighty things in mighty numbers sing;
Nor doubt to strike Prudentius' daring lyre,
And humbly bring the verse which you inspire.

A PASTORAL.

TO THE BISHOP OF ELY,

ON HIS DEPARTURE FROM CAMBRIDGE.

DAMON.

TELL, dear Alexis, tell thy Damon, why
Dost thou in mournful shades obscurely lie?
Why dost thou sigh, why strike thy panting breast?
And steal from life the needful hours of rest?
Are thy kids starv'd by winter's early frost?
Are any of thy bleating stragglers lost? [ground?
Have strangers' cattle trod thy new-plough'd
Has great Joanna, or her greater shepherd, frown'd?

ALEXIS.

See my kids browzc, my lambs securely play:
(Ah! were their master unconcern'd as they !)
No beasts (at noon I look'd) had trod my ground;
Nor has Joanna, or her shepherd, frown'd.

DAMON.

Then stop the lavish fountain of your eyes,
Nor let those sighs from your swoln bosom rise;
Chase sadness, friend, and solitude away;
And once again rejoice, and once again look gay.

ALEXIS.

Say what can more our tortur'd souls annoy, } Than to behold, admire, and lose our joy? Whose fate more hard than those who sadly run, For the last glimpse of the departing Sun? Or what severer sentence can be given, Than, having seen, to be excluded Heaven?

DAMON.

Kone, shepherd, none—

ALEXIS.

Then cease to chide my cares! And rather pity than restrain my tears; Those tears, my Damon, which I justly shed, To think how great my joys; how soon they fied. I told thee, friend, (now bless the shepherd's name, From whose dear care the kind occasion came) That I, even I, might happily receive [give: The sacred wealth, which Heaven and Daphnis

That I might see the lovely awful swain, Whose holy crosier guides our willing plain; Whose pleasing power and ruling goodness keep | Our souls with equal care as we our sheep; Whose praise excites each lyre, employs each tongue :

Whilst only he who caus'd, dislikes the song.
To this great, humble, parting man I gain'd
Access, and happy for an hour I reign'd;
Happy as new-form'd man in paradise,
Ere sin debauch'd his innoffensive bliss ;
Happy as heroes after battles won,
Prophets entranc'd, or monarchs on the throne;
But (oh, my friend !) those joys with Daphnis
To them these tributary tears are due. [tlew:

DAMON.

Was he so humble then? those joys so vast?
Cease to admire that both so quickly past.
Too happy should we be, would smiling Fate
Render one blessing durable and great;
But (oh the sad vicissitude!) how soon
Unwelcome night succeeds the cheerful noon;
And rigid winter nips the flowery pomp of June!
Then grieve not, friend, like you, since all man-
A certain change of joy and sorrow find. [kind
Suppress your sigh, your down-cast eyelids raise,
Whom present you revere, him absent praise.

TO THE COUNTESS OF EXETER,

PLAYING ON THE LUTE.

WHAT charms you have, from what high race

you sprung,

Have been the pleasing subjects of my song:
Unskill'd and young, yet something still I writ,
Of Ca'ndish' beauty join'd to Cecil's wit.
But when you please to show the labouring Muse,
My babbling praises I repeat no more,
What greater theme your music can produce;
But hear, rejoice, stand silent, and adore.

The Persians thus, first gazing on the Sun, Admir'd how high'twas plac'd, how bright it shone : But, as his power was known, their thoughts were rais'd;

And soon they worship'd, what at first they prais'd
Eliza's glory lives in Spenser's song;
And Cowley's verse keeps fair Orinda young.
That as in birth, in beauty you excel,
The Muse might dictate, and the poet tell:
Your art no other art can speak; and you,
To show how well you play, must play anew:
Your music's power your music must disclose;
For what light is, 'tis only light that shows.

Strange force of harmony, that thus controls
Our thoughts, and turns and sanctifies our souls:
While with its utmost art your sex could move
Our wonder only, or at best our love:
You far above both these your God did place,

That your high power might worldly thoughts destroy;

That with your numbers you our zeal might raise, And, like himself, communicate your jov. When to your native Heaven you shall repair, And with your presence crown the blessings there, Your lute may wind its strings but little higher, To tune their notes to that immortal`quire.

Your art is perfect here; your numbers do,
More than our books, make the rude atheist know
That there's a Heaven by what he hears below.

As in some piece, while Luke his skill exprest,
A cunning angel came, and drew the rest :
So when you play, some godhead does impart
Harmonious ait, divinity helps art ;
Some cherub finishes what you begun,
And to a miracle improves a tune.

To burning Rome, when frantic Nero play'd, Viewing that face, no more he had survey'd The raging flames; but, struck with strange sur

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AT THE EARL OF EXETER'S, AT BURLEIGH-HOUSE.
WHILE cruel Nero only drains

The moral Spaniard's ebbing veins,
By study worn, and slack with age,
How dull, how thoughtless, is his rage!
Heighten'd revenge would he have took,
He should have burnt his tutor's book;
And long have reign'd supreme in vice:
One nobler wretch can only rise;
"Tis he whose fury shall deface
The Stoic's image in this piece;
For while unhurt, divine Jordain,
Thy work and Seneca's remain,
He still has body, still has soul,

And lives and speaks, restor'd and whole.

AN ODE.

WHILE blooming youth and gay delight
Sit on thy rosy checks confest,
Thou hast, my dear, undoubted right

To triumph o'er this destin'd breast. My reason bends to what thy eyes ordain; For I was born to love, and thou to reign.

But would you meanly thus rely
On power you know I must obey?
Exert a legal tyranny,

?

And do an ill, because you may Still must I thee, as atheists Heaven, adore; Not see thy mercy, and yet dread thy power? Take heed, my dear: youth flies apace; As well as Cupid, Time is blind: Soon must those glories of thy face The fate of vulgar beauty find : The thousand Loves, that arm thy potent eye, Must drop their quivers, flag their wings, and die. Then wilt thou sigh, when in each frown A hateful wrinkle more appears; And putting peevish humours on, Seeins but the sad effect of years:

Kindness itself too weak a charm will prove
To raise the feeble fires of aged love.

Forc'd compliments, and formal bows,
Will show thee just above neglect:
The heat with which thy lover glows,
Will settle into cold respect :

A talking dull Platonic I shall turn:
Learn to be civil, when I cease to burn.
Then shun the ill, and know, my dear,
Kindness and constancy will prove
The only pillars, fit to bear

So vast a weight as that of love.

If thou canst wish to make my flames endure,
Thine must be very fierce, and very pure.

Haste, Celia, haste, while youth invites,
Obey kind Cupid's present voice;
Fill every sense with soft delights,

And give thy soul a loose to joys:
Let millions of repeated blisses prove
That thou all kindness art, and I all love.
Be mine, and only mine; take care
Thy looks, thy thoughts, thy dreams,to guide
To me alone; nor come so far,

As liking any youth beside:

What men e'er court thee, fly them, and believe
They're serpents all, and thou the tempted Eve,
So shall I court thy dearest truth,
When beauty ceases to engage;
So, thinking on thy charming youth,
I'll love it o'er again in age:

So time itself our raptures shall improve,
While still we wake to joy, and live to love.

AN EPISTLE

TO FLEETWOOD SHEPHARD, ES2.
WHEN crowding folks, with strange ill faces,
Were making legs, and begging places,
And some with patents, some with merit,
Tir'd out my good lord Dorset's spirit:
Sneaking I stood amongst the crew,
Desiring much to speak with you.
I waited while the clock struck thrice,
And footman brought out fifty lies;
Till, patience vext, and legs grown weary,
I thought it was in vain to tarry:
But did opine it might be better
By penny-post to send a letter;
Now, if you miss of this epistle,

I'm baulk'd again, and may go whistle.
My business, sir, you'll quickly guess,
Is to desire some little place;
And fair pretensions I have for 't,
Much need, and very small desert.
Whene'er I writ to you, I wanted;
I always begg'd, you always granted.
Now, as you took me up when little,
Gave me my learning and my vittle;
Ask'd for me, from my lord, things fitting,
Kind as I'ad been your own begetting;
Confirm what formerly you've given,
Nor leave me now at six and seven,
As Sunderland has left Mun Stephen.
No family, that takes a whelp
When first he laps, and scarce can yelp,

Neglects or turns him out of gate
When he's grown up to dog's estate:
Nor parish, if they once adopt
The spurious brats by strollers dropt,
Leave them, when grown up lusty fellows,
To the wide world, that is, the gallows:
No, thank them for their love, that's worse,
Than if they'd throttled them at nurse.

My uncle, rest his soul! when living,
Might have contriv'd me ways of thriving;
Taught me with cider to replenish
My vats, or ebbing tide of Rhenish.
So when for hock I drew prickt white-wine,
Swear 't had the flavour, and was right wine.
Or sent me with ten pounds to Furni-
val's inn, to some good rogue-attorney;
Where now, by forging deeds, and cheating,
l'ad found some handsome ways of getting.
All this you made me quit, to follow
That sneaking whey-fac'd god Apollo;
Sent me among a fiddling crew
Of folks, I'ad never scen nor knew,
Calliope, and God knows who.
To add no more invectives to it,
You spoil'd the youth, to make a poet.
In common justice, sir, there's no man
That makes the whore, but keeps the woman,
Among all honest christian people,
Whoe'er breaks limbs, maintains the cripple.
The sum of all I have to say,
Is, that you'd put me in some way;
And your petitioner shall pray-

There's one thing more I had almost slipt,
But that may do as well in postscript:
My friend Charles Montague's preferr'd;
Nor would I have it long observ'd,
That one mouse eats, while t'other's starv'd,

ANOTHER EPISTLE TO THE SAME.

SIR,

Then take it, sir, as it was writ,
To pay respect, and not shew wit:
Nor look askew at what it saith;
There's no petition in it-'faith.

Here some would scratch their heads, and try
What they should write, and how, and why;
But, I conceive, such folks are quite in
Mistakes, in theory of writing.

If once for principle 'tis laid,
That thought is trouble to the head;

I argue thus: the world agrees

That he writes well, who writes with ease:
Then he, by sequel logical,

Writes best, who never thinks at all.

Verse comes from Heaven, like inward light;
More human pains can ne'er come by 't:
The god, not we, the poem makes ;
We only tell folks what he speaks.
Hence, when anatomists discourse,
How like brutes' organs are to ours;
They grant, if higher powers think fit,
A bear might soon be made a wit;
And that, for any thing in nature,
Pigs might squeak love-odes, dogs bark satire.
Memnon, though stone, was counted vocal;
But 'twas the god, meanwhile, that spoke all.
Rome oft has heard a cross haranguing,
With prompting priest behind the hanging:
The wooden head resolv'd the question;
While you and Pettis help'd the jest on.

Your crabbed rogues, that read Lucretius,
Are against gods, you know; anl teach us,
The gods make not the poet; but
The thesis, vice-versa put,
Should Hebrew-wise be understood;
And means, the poet makes the god.

Egyptian gardeners thus are said to
Have set the leeks they after pray'd to:
And Romish bakers praise the deity
They chipp'd while yet in its paneity.

That when you poets swear and cry,
"The god inspires! I rave, I die!"
If inward wind does truly swell ye,

BURLEIGH, MAY 14, 1689. "T must be the colic in your belly:

As once a twelvemonth to the priest,
Holy at Rome, here antichrist,
The Spanish king presents a jennet,
To show his love;-that's all that's in it;
For if his holiness would thump
His reverend bum 'gainst horse's rump,
He might b' equipt from his own stable
With one more white, and eke more able.
Or as, with gondolas and men, his
Good excellence the duke of Venice
(I wish, for rhyme, 't had been the king)
Sails out, and gives the Gulph a ring;
Which trick of state, he wisely maintains,
Keeps kindness up 'twixt old acquaintance;
For else, in honest truth, the sea
Has much less need of gold than he.
Or, not to rove, and pump one's fancy
For popish similies beyond sea;
As folks from mud-wall'd tenement
Bring landlords pepper-corn for rent ;
Present a turkey, or a hen,

To those might better spare them ten;
Ev'n so, with all submission, I
(For first men instance, then apply)
Send you each year a homely letter,
Who may return me much a better.

That writing is but just like dice,
And lucky mains make people wise:
That jumbled words, if Fortune throw 'em,
Shall, well as Dryden, form a poem;
Or make a speech, correct and witty,
As you know who-at the committee.

So atoms dancing round the centre,
They urge, made all things at a venture.
But, granting matters should be spoke
By method, rather than by luck;
This may confine their younger styles,
Whom Dryden pedagogues at Will's;
But never could be meant to tye
Authentic wits, like you and I:
For as young children, who are tied in
Go-carts, to keep their steps from sliding;
When members knit, and legs grow stronger,
Make use of such machine no longer;
But leap pro libitu, and scout
On horse call'd hobby, or without;
So when at school we first declaim,
Old Busby walks us in a theme,
Whose props support our infant vein,
And help the rickets in the brain :
But, when our souls their force dilate,
And thoughts grow up to wit's estate;

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