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Alternately they sway'd,

And sometimes Mary was the fair,

And sometimes Anne the crown did wear,
And sometimes both I obey'd.

Another Mary then arose,

And did rigorous laws impose;
A mighty tyrant she!
Long, alas! should I have been
Under that iron-scepter'd queen,

Had not Rebecca set me free.

When fair Rebecca set me free,

'Twas then a golden time with me:
But soon those pleasures fled;

For the gracious princess dy'd,
In her youth and beauty's pride,

And Judith reigned in her stead.

One month, three days, and half an hour,
Judith held the sovereign power:
Wondrous beautiful her face!

But so weak and small her wit,
That she to govern was unfit,

And so Susanna took her place.

But when Isabella came,

Arm'd with a resistless flame, And th' artillery of her eye; Whilst she proudly march'd about, Greater conquests to find out,

She beat out Susan by the by.

But in her place I then obey'd

Black-ey'd Bess, her vice:oy-maid; To whom ensued a vacancy: Thousand worse passions then possest The interregnum of my breast;

Bless me from such an anarchy!

Gentle Henrietta then,

And a third Mary, next began; Then Joan, and Jane, and Audria; And then a pretty Thomasine, And then another Katharine,

And then a long et cætera.

But should I now to you relate

The strength and riches of their state,
The powder, patches, and the pins,

The ribbons, jewels, and the rings,
The lace, the paint, and warlike things,
That make up all their magazines;

If I should tell the politic arts

To take and keep men's hearts; The letters, embassies, and spies, The frowns, and smiles, and flatteries, The quarrels, tears, and perjuries,

(Numberless, nameless, mysteries!) And all the little lime-twigs laid,

By Machiavel the waiting maid;
I more voluminous should grow
(Chiefly if I like them should tell
All change of weathers that befell)
Than Holinshed or Stow.

But I will briefer with them be,

Since few of them were long with me.
An higher and a nobler strain

My present emperess does claim,
Heleonora, first o' th' name;

Whom God grant long to reign!

TO SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT,

UPON HIS TWO FIRST BOOKS OF GONDIBERT,
FINISHED BEFORE HIS VOYAGE TO AMERICA.

METHINKS heroic poesy till now,

Like some fantastic fairy-land did show;
Gods, devils, nymphs, witches, and giants' race,
And all but man, in man's chief work had place.
Thou, like some worthy knight with sacred arms,
Dost drive the monsters thence, and end the charms,
Instead of those dost men and manners plant,
The things which that rich soil did chiefly want.
Yet ev'n thy mortals do their gods excel,
Taught by thy Muse to fight and love so well.
By fatal hands whilst present empires fall,
Thine from the grave past monarchies recall;
So much more thanks from human-kind does
merit

The poet's fury than the zealot's spirit:
And from the grave thou mak'st this empire rise,
Not like some dreadful ghost, t' affright our eyes,
But with more lustre and triumphant state,
Than when it crown'd at proud Verona sate.
So will our God rebuild man's perish'd frame,
And raise him up much better, yet the same:
So god-like poets do past things rehearse,
Not change, but heighten, Nature by their verse.
With shame, methinks, great Italy must sec
Her conquerors rais'd to life again by thee:
Rais'd by such powerful verse, that ancient Rome
May blush no less to see her wit o'ercome.
Some men their fancies, like their faith, derive,
And think all ill but that which Rome does give ;
The marks of old and Catholic would find;
To the same chair would truth and fiction bind.
Thou in those beaten paths disdain'st to tread,
And scorn'st to live by robbing of the dead.
Since Time does all things change, thou think'st
not fit

This latter age should see all new but wit;
Thy fancy, like a flame, its way does make,
And leave bright tracts for following pens to take.
Sure 'twas this noble boldness of the Muse
Did thy desire to seek new worlds infuse;
And ne'er did Heaven so much a voyage bless,
If thou canst plant but there with like success.

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Brave Jersey Muse! and he's for this high style
Call'd to this day the Homer of the isle.
Alas! to men here no words less hard be
To rhyme with, than 4 Mount Orgueil is to me;
Mount Orgueil! which, in scorn o' th' Muses law,
With no yoke-fellow word will deign to draw.
Stubborn Mount Orgueil !' tis a work to make it
Come into rhyme, more hard than 'twere to take it.
Alas! to bring your tropes and figures here,
Strange as to bring camels and elephants were;
And metaphor is so unknown a thing,
'Twould need the preface of God save the king.
Yet this I'll say, for th' honour of the place,
That, by God's extraordinary grace

(Which shows the people have judgment, if not wit)
The land is undefil'd with clinches yet;
Which, in my poor opinion, I confess,

Is a most singular blessing, and no less
Than Ireland's wanting spiders.

And, so far

From th' actual sin of bombast too they are,
(That other crying sin o' th' English Muse)
That even Satan himself can accuse
None here (no not so much as the divines)
For th' motus primò primi to strong lines.
Well, since the soil then does not naturally bear
Verse, who (a devil) should import it here?
For that to me would seem as strange a thing
As who did first wild beasts int' islands bring;
Unless you think that it might taken be,
As Green did Gondibert, in a prize at sea:
But that's a fortune falls not every day;
'Tis true Green was made by it; for they say
The parl'ament did a noble bounty do,

And gave him the whole prize, their tenths and fifteenths too.

THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.

THAT THERE IS NO KNOWLEDGE.

Against the Dogmatists.

THE sacred tree midst the fair orchard grew;
The Phoenix Truth did on it rest,
And built his perfum'd nest:

That right Porphyrian tree which did true logic

shew.

Each leaf did learned notions give, And th' apples were demonstrative:

So clear their colour and divine,

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THE USE OF IT IN DIVINE MATTERS.

SOME blind themselves, 'cause possibly they may
Be led by others a right way;

They build on sands, which if uninov'd they find,
'Tis but because there was no wind.
Less hard 'tis, not to err ourselves, than know
If our forefathers err'd or no.

When we trust men concerning God, we then
Trust not God concerning men.

Visions and inspirations some expect

Their course here to direct;

Like senseless chymists their own weal h destroy, Imaginary gold t' enjoy:

So stars appear to drop to us from sky,

And gild the passage as they fly;

But when they fall, and meet th' opposing ground, What but a sordid slime is found?

Sometimes their fancies they 'bove reason set,

And fast, that they may dream of meat; Sometimes ill spirits their sickly souls delude, And bastard forms obtrude;

So Endor's wretched sorceress, although

She Saul through his disguise did know, Yet, when the devil comes up disguis'd, she cries, "Behold! the Gods arise."

In vain alas! these outward hopes are try'd ;
Reason within's our only guide;
Reason, which (God be prais'd!) still walks, for a
Its old original fall;

And, since itself the boundless Godhead join'd
With a reasonable mind,

The very shade they cast did other lights out-shine. It plainly shows that mysteries divine

"Taste not," said God, "tis mine and angels'

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May with our reason join.

The holy book,like the eighth sphere, does shine
With thousand lights of truth divine:

So numberless the stars, that to the eye
It makes but all one galaxy.
Yet Reason must assist too; for, in seas
So vast and dangerous as these,
Our course by stars above we cannot know,
Without the compass too below.

1

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ON THE

DEATH OF MR. CRASHAWV.

POET and saint! to thee lone are given

The two most sacred names of Earth and Heaven;
The hard and rarest union which can be,
Next that of Godhead with humanity.
Long did the Muses' banish'd slaves abide,
And built vain pyramids to mortal pride;

Like Moses thou (though spells and charms with-
stand)

Hast brought them nobly home back to their holy land.

Ah wretched we, poets of Earth! but thou
Wert living the same poet which thou'rt now;
Whilst angels sing to thee their airs divine,
And joy in an applause so great as thine,
Equal society with them to hold,

Thou need'st not make new songs, but say the old;
And they (kind spirits!) shall all rejoice, to see
How little less than they exalted man may be,
Still the old Heathen gods in numbers dweil;
The heavenliest thing on Earth still keeps up Hell;
Nor have we quite purg'd the Christian land;
Still idols here, like calves at Bethel, stand.
And, though Pan's death long since all oracles

broke,

Yet still in rhyme the fiend Apollo spoke :
Nay, with the worst of heathen dotage, we,
(Vain men!) the monster Woman deify;
Find stars, and tie our fates there in a face,
And Paradise in them, by whom we lost it, place.
What different faults corrupt our Muses thus ?
Wanton as girls, as old wives fabulous!

Thy spotless Muse, like Mary, did contain
The boundless Godhead; she did well disdain
That her eternal verse employ'd should be
On a less subject than eternity;

And for a sacred mistress scorn'd to take,

But her whom God himself scorn'd not his spouse to make.

t (in a kind) her miracle did do;

A fruitful mother was, and virgin too.

Hail, bard triumphant! and some care bestow
On us the poets militant below!
Oppos'd by our old enemy, adverse Chance,
Attack'd by Envy and by Ignorance;
Enchain'd by Beauty, tortur'd by desires,
Expos'd by tyrant Love to savage beasts and fires.
Thou from low Earth in nobler flames didst rise,
And, like Elijah, mount alive the skies.
Elisha-like, (but with a wish much less,
More fit thy greatness and my littleness)
Lo! here I beg (I, whom thou once didst prove
So humble to esteem, so good to love)
Not that thy spirit might on me doubled be,
I ask but half thy mighty spirit for me:
And, when my Muse soars with so strong a wing,
"Twill learn of things divine, and first of thee, to
sing.

A POEM ON THE LATE CIVIL WAR

THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER, 1679.

MEETING accidentally with this poem in manuscript, and being informed, that it was a piece of the incomparable Mr. A. C.'s, I thought it unjust to hide such a treasure from the world. I remembered that our author, in his preface to his works,7 makes mention of some poems written by him on the late civil war, of which the following copy is unquestionably a part. In his most imperfect and unfinished pieces, you will discover the hand of so great a master. And (whatever his own modesty might have advised to the contrary) there is not one careless stroke of his but what should be kept sacred to posterity. He could write nothing that was not worth the preserving, being habitually a poet, and always inspired. In this piece the judicious reader will find the turn of the verse to be his; the same copious and lively imagery of fancy, the same warmth of passion and

How well (blest swan!) did Fate contrive thy delicacy of wit, that sparkles in all his writings.

deaths,

And made thee render up thy tuneful breath
In thy great mistress' arms, thou most divine
And richest offering of Loretto's shrine!
Where, like some holy sacrifice t' expire,
A fever burns thee, and Love lights the fire.
Angels (they say) brought the fam'd chapel there,
And bore the sacred load in triumph through the
air:

"Tis surer much they brought thee there; and they,
And thou, their charge, went singing all the way.
Pardon, my Mother Church! if I consent
That angels led him when from thee he went;
For ev'n in errour sure no danger is,
When join'd with so much piety as his.

Ah, mighty God! with shame I speak't, and grief,
Ah, that our greatest faults were in belief!
And our weak reason were ev'n weaker yet,
Rather than thus our wills too strong for it!
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right;
And I myself a Catholic will be,

So far at least, great saint! to pray to thee.

5 Mr. Crashaw died of a fever at Loretto, being newly chosen canon of that church.

And certainly no labours of a genius so rich in it-
self, and so cultivated with learning and manners,
can prove an unwelcome present to the world.
WHAT rage does England from itself divide,

More than the seas from all the world beside?
From every part the roaring cannons play,
From every part blood roars as loud as they.
What English ground but still some moisture bears,
Of young men's blood, and more of mothers' tears!
What air's unthicken'd with the sighs of wives,
Though more of maids for their dear lovers' lives?
Alas! what triumphs can this victory shew,
That dyes us red in blood and blushes too!
How can we wish that conquest, which bestows
Cypress, not bays, upon the conquering brows?
It was not so when Henry's dreadful name,
Not sword, nor cause, whole nations overcame.
To farthest West did his swift conquests run,
Nor did his glory set but with the Sun.

This and the two following poems are not given with certainty as Cowley's. They have been ascribed to him; are possibly genuine; and therefore are preserved in this collection.

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In vain did Roderic to his hold retreat,
In vain had wretched Ireland call'd him great;
Ireland! which now most basely we begin
To labour more to lose than he to win.
It was not so when in the happy East,
Pichard, our Mars, Venus's Isle possest: [play'd,
'Gainst the proud Moon, he th' English cross dis-
Eclips'd one horn, and th' other paler made;
When our dear lives we ventur'd bravely there,
And digg'd our own to gain Christ's sepulchre.
That sacred tomb, which, should we now enjoy,
We should with as much zeal fight to destroy!
The precious signs of our dead Lord we scorn,
And see his cross worse than his body torn;
We hate it now both for the Greek and Jew,
To us 'tis foolishness and scandal too.
To what with worship the fond papist falls,
That the fond zealot a curs'd idol calls:
So, 'twixt their double madness, here's the odds,
One makes false devils, t' other makes false gods.
It was not so when Edward prov'd his cause,
By a sword stronger than the salique laws,
Tho' fetch'd from Pharamond; when the French
did fight,

With women's hearts, against the women's right.
Th' afflicted Ocean his first conquest bore,
And drove red waves to the sad Gallic shore:
As if he 'ad angry with that element been,
Which his wide soul bound with an island in.
Where's now that spirit with which at Cressy we,
And Poictiers, forc'd from Fate a victory?
Two kings at once we brought sad captives home,
A triumph scarcely known to ancient Rome!
Two foreign kings: but now, alas! we strive,
Our own, our own good sovereign to captive!

It was not so when Agincourt was won;
Under great Henry serv'd the Rain and Sun:
A nobler fight the Sun himself ne'er knew,
Not when he stopt his course a fight to view!
Then Death's old archer did more skilful grow,
And learn'd to shoot more sure from th' English bow;
Then France was her own story sadly taught,
And felt how Cæsar and how Edward fought.
It was not so when that vast fleet of Spain
Lay torn and scatter'd on the English main;
Through the proud world a virgin terrour strook;
The Austrian crowns, and Rome's seven hills, she
shook!

To her great Neptune homag'd all his streams,
And all the wide-stretch'd ocean was her Thames.
Thus our forefathers fought, thus bravely bled,
Thus still they live, whilst we alive are dead;
Such acts they did, that Rome, and Cæsar too,
Might envy those whom once they did subdue.
We 're not their offspring; sure our heralds lie;
But born we know not how, as now we die;
Their precious blood we could not venture thus:
Some Cadmus, sure, sow'd serpent's teeth for us;
We could not else by mutual fury fall,
Whilst Rhine and Sequan for our armies call:
Chuse war or peace, you have a prince, you know,
As fit for both, as both are fit for you;
Furious as lightning, when war's tempest came,
But calm in peace, calm as a lambent flame.

Have you forgot those happy years of late,
That saw nought ill, but us that were ingrate;
Such years, as if Earth's youth return'd had been,
And that old serpent, Time, had cast his skin?
As gloriously and gently did they move,
As the bright Sun that measures them above;

Then only in books the learn'd could misery see,
And the unlearn'd ne'er heard of misery.
Then happy James with as deep quiet reign'd,
As in his heavenly throne, by death, he gain'd;
And, lest this blessing with h's life should cease,
He left us Charles, the pledge of future peace;
Charles, under whom, with much ado, no less
Than sixteen years we endur'd our happiness;
Till in a moment, in the North, we find
A tempest conjur'd up without a wind.
As soon the North her kindness did repent;
First the peace-maker, and next war, she sent.
Just Tweed, that now had with long peace forgot
On which side dwelt the English, which the Scot,
Saw glittering arms shine sadly on his face,
Whilst all th' affrighted fish sank down apace.
No blood did then from this dark quarrel grow,
It gave blunt wounds, that bled not out till now!
For Jove, who might have us'd his thundering power,
Chose to fall calmy in a golden shower!

A way we found to conquer, which by none
Of all our thrifty ancestors was known;
So strangely prodigal of late we are,
We there buy peace, and here at home buy war.

How could a war so sad and barbarous please,
But first by slandering those blest days of peace?
Through all the excrements of state they pry,
Like emp'ricks, to find out a malady;
And then with desperate boldness they endeavour,
Th' ague to cure by bringing in a fever:
The way is sure to expel some ill, no doubt;
The plague, we know, drives all diseases out.
What strange wild fears did every morning breed,
Till a strange fancy made us sick indeed!
And cowardice did valour's place supply,
Like those that kill themselves for fear to die!
What frantic diligence in these men appears,
That fear all ills, and act o'er all their fears!
Thus into war we scar'd ourselves; and who
But Aaron's sons, that the first trumpet blew ?
Fond men! who knew not that they were to keep
For God, and not for sacrifice, their sheep!
The churches first this murderous doctrine sow,
And learn to kill, as well as bury, now:
The marble tombs where our forefathers lie,
Sweated with dread of too much company;
And all their sleeping ashes shook for fear,
Lest thousand ghosts should come and shroud
them there.

Petitions next from every town they frame,
To be restor❜d to them from whom they came:
The same style all, and the same sense, does pen,
Alas; they allow set forms of prayer to men.
Oh happy we, if men would neither hear
Their studied form, nor God their sudden prayer.
They will be heard, and, in unjustice wise,
The many headed rout for justice cries;
They call for blood, which now I fear does call
For blood again, much louder than they all.
In senseless clamours, and confused noise,
We lost that rare, and yet unconquer'd voice;
So, when the sacred Thracian lyre was drown'd
In the Bistonian women's mixen sound,
The wondering stones, that came before to hear,
Forgot themselves, and turn'd his murderers there.
The same loud storm blew the grave mitre down;
It blew down that, and with it shook the crown.
Then first a state, without a church, begun;
Comfort hyself, dear Church! for then 'twas done.
The sam great storm to sea great Mary drove;

The sea could not such dangerous tempests move:
The same drove Charles into the North, and then
Would readilier far have driven him back again.
To fly from noise of tumults is no shame;
Ne'er will their armies force them to the same;
They all his castles, all his towns, invade,
He's a large prisoner in all England made!
He must not pass to Ireland's weeping shore;
The wounds these surgeons make must yield them
more;

He must not conquer his lewd rebels there,
Lest he should learn by that to do it here.
The sea they subject next to their command;
The sea, that crowns our kings and all their land.
Thus poor they leave him, their base pride and scorn,
As poor as these, now mighty men, were born;
When straight whole armies meet in Charles's right;
A man would swear, that saw this altered state,
Kings were call'd gods because they could create
Vain men; 'tis Heaven this first assistance brings,
The same is Lord of Hosts that 's King of Kings.
Had men forsook him, angels from above
(Th' Assyrian did less their justice move)
Would all have muster'd in his righteous aid,
And thunder 'gainst your cannon would have play'd.
It needs not so, for man desires to right
Abus'd mankind, and wretches you must fight.
Wor'ster first saw 't, and trembled at the view;
Too well the ills of civil war she knew.
Twice did the flames of old her towers invade,
Twice call'd she in vain for her own Severn's aid.
Here first the rebel winds began to roar,
Brake loose from the just fetters which they bore;
Here mutinous waves above their shore did swell,
And the first storm of that dire winter fell.
But when the two great brethren once appear'd,
And their bright heads, like Leda's offspring, rear'd;
When those sea-calming sons from Jove were spied,
The winds all fled, the waves all sunk and died!
How fought great Rupert, with what rage and skill!
Enough to have conquer'd had his cause been ill!
Comely young man! and yet his dreadful sight
The rebels' blood to their faint hearts does fright.
In vain, alas! it seeks so weak defence;
For his keen sword brings it again from thence.
Yet grieves he at the laurels thence he bore;
Alas, poor prince! they'll fight with him no more;
His virtue 'll be eclips'd with too much fame,
Henceforth he will not conquer, but his name.
Here with tainted blood the field did stain,
By his own sacrilege, and 's country's curses, slain.
The first commander did Heaven's vengeance show,
And led the rebels' van to shades below.

On two fair bills both armies next are seen,
Th' affrighted valley sighs and sweats between ;
Here angels did with fair expectance stay,
And wish'd good things to a king as mild as they;
There fiends with hunger waiting did abide,
And cursed both, but spurr'd-on th' guilty side.
Here stood Religion, her looks gently sage,
Aged, but much more comely for her age!
There Schism, old hag, tho' seeming young, appears,
As snakes by casting skins renew their years;
Undecent rags of several dyes she wore,

And in her hand torn liturgies she bore.

Here Loyalty an humble cross display'd,

Her knotty hairs were with dire serpents twist,
And every serpent at each other hiss'd.
Here stood white Truth, and her own host does bless,
Clad with those arms of proof, her nakedness;
There perjuries like cannons roar aloud,
And lyes flew thick, like cannons' smoky cloud,
Here Learning and th' Arts met; as much they
fear'd

As when the Hunns of old and Goths appear'd.
What should they do? Unapt themselves to fight,
They promis'd noble pens the acts to write.
There Ignorance advanc'd, and joy'd to spy
So many that durst fight they know not why;
From those who most the slow-soul'd monks disdain,
From those she hopes the monks' dull age again.
Here Mercy waits, with sad but gentle look,
Never, alas! had she her Charles forsook!
For mercy on her friends to Heaven she cries,
Whilst Justice pulls down vengeance from the skies.
Oppression there, Rapine, and Murder, stood,
Ready, as was the field, to drink their blood:
A thousand wronged spirits amongst them moan'd,
And thrice the ghost of mighty Strafford groan'd.
Now flew their cannon thick through wounded air,
Sent to defend, and kill, their sovereign there.
More than he them, the bullets fear'd his head,
And at his feet lay innocently dead;

They knew not what those men that sent them
meant,

And acted their pretence, not their intent.

This was the day, this the first day, that show'd
How much to Charles for our long peace we ow'd:
By this skill here, and spirit, we understood,
From war nought kept him but his country's good.
In his great looks what chearful anger shone !
Sad war, and joyful triumphs, mix'd in one.
In the same beams of his majestic eye,
His own men life, his foes did death, espy.
Great Rupert this, that wing great Wilmot leads,
White-feather'd Conquest flies o'er both their
heads.

They charge, as if alone they'd beat the foe,
Whether their troops follow'd them up or no.
They follow close, and haste into the fight,
As swift as straight the rebels make their flight.
So swift the miscreants fly, as if each fear
And jealousy they fram'd had met them there.
They heard war's music, and away they flew,
The trumpets fright worse than the organs do.
Their souls, which still new bye-ways do invent,
Out at their wounded backs perversely went.
Pursue no more; ye noble victors, stay,
Lest too much conquest lose so brave a day!
For still the battle sounds behind, and Fate
Will not give all; but sets us here a rate:
Too dear a rate she sets; and we must pay
One honest man for ten such knaves as they.
Streams of black tainted blood the field besmear,
But pure, well-colour'd drops shine here and there;
They scorn to mix with floods of baser veins,
Just as the nobler moisture oil disdains.
Thus fearless Lindsey, thus bold Aubigny,
Amidst the corpse of slaughter'd rebels lie:
More honourably than - e'er was found,
With troops of living traitors circled round.
Rest, valiant souls, in peace! ye sacred pair,

And still, as Charles pass'd by, she bow'd and And all whose deaths attended on you there, pray'd.

Sedition there her crimson banner spreads,

Shakes all her hands, and roars with all her heads:

You're kindly welcom'd to Heaven's peaceful

coast,

By all the reverend martyrs' noble host:

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