Some nor the fhrines nor temples fpar'd, Nor Gods nor Heavens fear'd, Though fuch example of their power appear'd. For, having past those torturing flames before, They thought the punishment already o'er, Thought heaven no worse torments had in store; Here having felt one hell, they thought there was no more. Upon the Poems of the English Ovid, Anacreon, Pindar, and Virgil, ABRAHAM COWLEY, L in Imitation of his own Pindaric Odes. I. ET all this meaner rout of books stand by Let them make way for Cowley's leaves to come, And be hung up within this facred room : Which its original from divine hands took, And brings as much good too, to thofe that on it look. But But yet in this they differ. That could be But this which here doth stand Will never any of its own sort see, For never yet was writ, In the two learned ages which Time left behind, Nor any one like to it, Of all the numerous monuments of wit. II. Cowley! what God did fill thy breast, (For God 's a poet too, He doth create, and so do you?) Or elfe at least What angel fat upon thy pen when thou didst write? There he fat, and mov'd thy hand, As proud of his command, As when he makes the dancing orbs to reel Gives us more ravishing music made for men to hear. Thy hand too, like the fun which angels move, Has the fame influence from above, Produces gold and filver of a nobler kind; Of greater price, and more refin’d. Yet in this it exceeds the fun, 't has no degenerate race, Brings forth no lead, nor any thing so base. III. What holy vestal hearth, What immortal breath, Did give fo pure poetic flame its birth? Of fuch an unmix'd glorious fhine, Which from no lefs than heaven came. With the robb'd flames his hands ftill fhone, Such a bright immortal flame; Juft fo temper'd is thy rage, Thy fires as light and pure as they, And go as high as his did, if not higher, That thou may'st seem to us A true Prometheus, But that thou didst not steal the leaft fpark of thy fire. IV. Such as thine was Arion's verfe, Which he did to the liftening fish rehearse; Which when they heard play'd on his lute, They first curft nature that she made them mute. So noble were his lines, which made the very waves Strive to turn his flaves, Lay Lay down their boisterous noife, And dance to his harmonious voice, Which made the Syrens lend their ear, And from his fweeter tunes fome treachery fear; That he was allow'd With Atlas, the great porter of the skies, to take And with the fame majestic sweetness flow. V. Such as thine are, was great Amphion's fong, ; Which brought the wondering stones along; The wondering stones skipt from their mother earth, And left their father cold as his first birth; They rofe, and knew not by what magic force they hung. Which forc'd the marbles rife from out their grounds, And knew not how to trust his eyes: The willing mortar came, and all the trees Leap into beams he fees. He faw the ftreets appear, Streets, that muft needs be harmonions there : He He faw the walls dance round t' his pipe, And all like the creation by a word was bred. So great a verfe is thine, which though it will not raise Marble monuments to thy praife; Yet 'tis no matter, cities they must fall, And houfes, by the greatest glutton Time be eaten all : VI. To thee the English tongue doth owe, That it need not feek For elegancy from the round-mouth'd Greek ; To thee, that our enlarged fpeech can fhew, Far more than the three western daughters born Daughters born of a mother, which did yield to admit More than the fmooth Italian, though nature gave And that the might the better fit it to 't, More than the Spanish, though that in one mass And |