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POETS OF THE RESTORATION.

COOPER'S HILL.

My eye, descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays.
Thames! the most loved of all the ocean's sons

By his old sire, to his embraces runs,

Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,

Like mortal life to meet eternity.

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold:
His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring;
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,

Like mothers who their infants overlay ;

Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,

Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.

No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, or mock the ploughman's toil;

But Godlike his unwearied bounty flows;

First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,

But free and common as the sea or wind:
When he to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,

Visits the world, and in his flying towers

Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities, plants.

So that to us no thing, no place, is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.

Oh, could I flow like thee! and make thy stream

My great example, as it is my theme;

Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong, without rage; without o'erflowing, full.
The stream is so transparent, pure, and clear,
That had the self-enamoured youth gazed here,
So fatally deceived he had not been,
While he the bottom, not his face, had seen.
But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes; his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows,
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat—
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is placed,
Between the mountain and the stream embraced,
Which shade and shelter from the hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives,
And in the mixture of all these appears

Variety, which all the rest endears.

DENHAM.

HYMN TO LIGHT.

FIRST-BORN of Chaos, who so fair didst come

From the old Negro's darksome womb;

Which, when it saw the lovely child,

The melancholy mass put on kind looks and smiled.

Thou tide of glory which no rest doth know,

But ever ebb and ever flow!

Thou golden shower of a true Jove!

Who does in thee descend, and heaven to earth make love!

Say, from what golden quivers of the sky

Do all thy winged arrows fly?

Swiftness and power by birth are thine;

From thy great Sire they come, thy Sire, the Word Divine.

Thou in the moon's bright chariot, proud and gay,
Dost thy bright wood of stars survey,

And all the year dost with thee bring

Of thousand flowery lights thine own nocturnal spring.

Thou, Scythian-like, dost round thy lands above
The Sun's gilt tent for ever move,

And still, as thou in pomp dost go,

The shining pageants of the world attend thy show.

TO THE GRASSHOPPER.

HAPPY insect! what can be

In happiness compared to thee?
Fed with nourishment divine,
The dewy morning's gentle wine!
Nature waits upon thee still,

And thy verdant cup does fill.

COWLEY.

Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing,
Happier than the happiest king!
All the fields which thou dost see,
All the plants, belong to thee;
All that summer hours produce,
Fertile made with early juice.

Man for thee does sow and plough;
Farmer he, and landlord thou!
Thou dost innocently enjoy,

Nor does thy luxury destroy.

Thee country hinds with gladness hear,
Prophet of the ripened year!

To thee, of all things upon earth,

Life's no longer than thy mirth.

Happy insect! happy thou

Dost neither age nor winter know.

But when thou'st drunk, and danced, and sung

Thy fill, the flow'ry leaves among,

Sated with thy summer feast,

Thou retir'st to endless rest.

COWLEY.

GOD'S THRONE.

ABOVE the subtle foldings of the sky,
Above the well-set orbs' soft harmony,

Above those petty lamps that gild the night,
There is a place, o'erflown with hallowed light,
Where Heaven, as if it left itself behind,

Is stretched out far, nor its own bounds confined;
Here peaceful flames swell up the sacred place,
Nor can the glory contain itself in th' endless space :

For there no twilight of the sun's dull ray
Glimmers upon the pure and native day;

No pale-faced moon does in stolen beams appear,
Or with dim taper scatters darkness there:
On no smooth sphere the restless seasons slide,
No circling ocean doth swift time divide.
Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal Now does always last.
There sits the Almighty, first of all, and end,
Whom nothing but himself can comprehend:
Who with his word commandeth all to be,
And all obeyed Him, for that word was He.
Only He spoke, and everything that is
From out the womb of fertile Nothing rise.
Oh who shall tell, who shall describe thy throne,
Thou great Three-One?

There thou thyself dost in full presence show,

Not absent from these meaner worlds below:

No; if thou wert, the Elements' league would cease, And all thy creatures break thy nature's peace.

COWLEY.

TO THE ETERNAL WISDOM.

O THOU eternal Mind! whose wisdom sees
And rules our changes by unchanged decrees
As with delight on thy grave works we look,
Say, art thou too with our light follies took?
For when thy bounteous hand, in liberal showers,
Each way diffused thy various blessings pours,
We catch at them with strife, as vain to sight,
As children when for nuts they scrambling fight.

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