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Love, making all things elfe his foes,
Like a fierce torrent, overflows
Whatever doth his courfe oppofe

This was the cause the poets füng,
Thy mother from the fea was fprung,
But they were mad to make thee young.

Her father, not her fon, art thou:
From our defires our actions grow;

And from the caufe th' effect muft flow.

Love is as old as place or time;
'Twas he the fatal tree did climb,

Grandfire of father Adam's crime.

Well may'st thou keep this world in awe;
Religion, wisdom, honour, law,

The tyrant in his triumph draw.

'Tis he commands the powers above; Phoebus refigns his darts, and Jove His thunder, to the God of Love.

To him doth his feign'd mother yield;
Nor Mars (her champion) 's flaming fhield.
Guards him, when Cupid takes the field.

He clips Hope's wings, whofe airy blifs
Much higher than fruition is;
But less than nothing, if it`mifs.

When

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When matches Love alone projects,

The cause transcending the effects,

That wild-fire's quench'd in cold neglects.

Whilft thofe conjunctions prove the best,
Where Love's of blindness difpoffeft,
By perfpectives of intereft.

Though Solomon with a thousand wives,
To get a wife fucceffor ftrives,
But one (and he a fool) furvives.

Old Rome of children took no care,

They with their friends their beds did share,
Secure t'adopt a hopeful heir.

Love, drowsy days and ftormy nights
Makes; and breaks friendship, whose delights
Feed, but not glut our appetites.

Well-chofen friendship, the most noble
Of virtues, all our joys makes double,
And into halves divides our trouble.

But when th' unlucky knot we tie,
Care, avarice, fear, and jealousy,
Make friendship languish till it die.

The wolf, the lion, and the bear,
When they their prey in pieces tear,
To quarrel with themselves forbear.

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Yet timorous deer, and harmless sheep,
When love into their veins doth creep,
That law of nature cease to keep.

Who then can blame the amorous boy,
Who, the fair Helen to enjoy,
To quench his own, fet fire on Troy?

Such is the world's prepofterous fate,
Amongst all creatures, mortal hate
Love (though immortal) doth create.

But love may beafts excufe, for they
Their actions not by reafon fway,

But their brute appetites obey.

But man's that favage beaft, whose mind
From reafon to felf-love declin'd,

Delights to prey upon his kind.

On Mr. ABRAHAM COWLEY'S Death, and Burial amongst the ancient Poets.

LD Chaucer, like the morning star,

OLD

To us difcovers day from far;

His light those mists and clouds diffolv❜d,
Which our dark nation long involv'd :
But he defcending to the fhades,
Darkness again the age invades.
Next (like Aurora) Spenser rose,
Whose purple blush the day foreshews;

The

The other three, with his own fires,

Phoebus, the poets' god, infpires ;

By Shakespeare's, Jonfon's, Fletcher's lines,
Our stage's luftre Rome's out-fhines :
These poets near our princes fleep, 1
And in one grave their mansion keep. !
They liv'd to fee so many days,

Till time had blasted all their bays
But curfed be the fatal hour

:

That pluck'd the fairest, sweetest flower
That in the Mufes' garden grew,

And amongst wither'd laurels threw.

Time, which made them their fame out-live,

To Cowley scarce did ripeness give.

Old mother Wit, and Nature, gave
Shakespeare and Fletcher all they have;
In Spenfer, and in Jonfon, Art
Of flower Nature got the start;

But both in him fo equal are,

None knows which bears the happiest share :

To him no author was unknown,

Yet what he wrote was all his own;

He melted not the ancient gold,

Nor, with Ben Jonfon, did make bold
To plunder all the Roman ftores
Of poets, and of orators :

Horace's wit, and Virgil's ftate,

He did not fteal, but emulate!

And when he would like them appear,

Their garb, but not their cloaths, did wear :

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He not from Rome alone, but Greece,
Like Jafon, brought the golden fleece
To him that language (though to none
Of th' others) as his own was known.
On a stiff gale (as Flaccus fings)
The Theban fwan extends his wings,
When through th' ætherial clouds he flies,
To the fame pitch our swan doth rise;
Old Pindar's flights by him are reach'd,
When on that gale his wings are stretch'd;"
His fancy and his judgment fuch,
Each to the other feem'd too much,
His fevere judgment (giving law)
His modeft fancy kept in awe :
As rigid husbands jealous are,
When they believe their wives too fair.
His English ftreams fo pure did flow,
As all that faw and tafted know,
But for his Latin vein, fo clear,
Strong, full, and high it doth appear,
That were immortal Virgil here,
Him, for his judge, he would not fear;
Of that great portraiture, so true
A copy, pencil never drew.

My Mufe her fong had ended here,
But both their Genii straight appear,
Joy and amazement her did strike,
Two twins fhe never faw fo like.
'Twas taught by wife Pythagoras,

One foul might through more bodies pass.

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