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Their ashes no distinction had;

Too truly all by death are equal made.

The ghosts of those great heroes that had filed
From Athens, long fince banished,

Now o'er the city hovered;

Their anger yielded to their love,

They left th' immortal joys above,
So much their Athens' danger did them move.
They came to pity, and to aid,

But now, alas! were quite difmay'd,
When they beheld the marbles open lay'd,
And poor men's bones the noble urns invade;
Back to the bleffed feats they went,

And now did thank their banishment,

By which they were to die, in foreign countries fent.

XXXI.

But what, great Gods! was worst of all, Hell forth its magazines of luft did call,

Nor would it be content

With the thick troops of fouls were thither fent

;

Into the upper world it went.

Such guilt, fuch wickedness,

Such irreligion did increase,

That the few good which did furvive

Were angry with the plague for fuffering them to live: More for the living than the dead did grieve. Some robb'd the very dead,

Though fure to be infected ere they fled,

Though in the very air fure to be punished.

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Some nor the fhrines nor temples fpar'd,

Nor Gods nor Heavens fear'd,

Though fuch example of their power appear❜d.
Virtue was now esteem'd an empty name,
And Honefty the foolish voice of fame ;

For, having paft thofe torturing flames before, They thought the punishment already o'er,

Thought heaven no worse torments had in ftore; Here having felt one hell, they thought there was no more.

Upon the Poems of the English Ovid, Anacreon, Pindar, and Virgil, ABRAHAM COWLEY,

in Imitation of his own Pindaric Odes.

I.

LET all this meaner rout of books ftand by

The common people of our library;

Let them make way for Cowley's leaves to come,
And be hung up within this facred room :
Let no prophane hands break the chain,
Or give them unwish'd liberty again,
But let his holy relick be laid here,
With the fame religious care
As Numa once the target kept,
Which down from heaven leapt ;
Juft fuch another is this book,

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
Eleven times liken'd by a mortal hand

But this which here doth ftand

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Will never any of its own fort fee,
But muft ftill live without fuch company.

For never yet was writ,

In the two learned ages which Time left behind,
Nor in this ever fhall we find,

Nor any one like to it,

Of all the numerous monuments of wit.

II.

Cowley! what God did fill thy breast,
And taught thy hand t' indite

(For God 's a poet too,

He doth create, and fo 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
And fpins out poetry from heaven's wheel.
Thy hand too, like a better sphere,

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 fo bafe.

III.

What holy veftal hearth,

What immortal breath,

Did give fo pure poetic flame its birth ?
Juft fuch a fire as thine,

Of fuch an unmix'd glorious fhine,
Was Prometheus's flame,

Which from no less than heaven came.
Along he brought the sparkling coal,
From fome cœleftial chimney ftole;
Quickly the plunder'd stars he left,

And as he haften'd down

With the robb'd flames his hands still fhone, And seem'd as if they were burnt for the theft. Thy poetry's compounded of the fame,

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 least spark of thy fire.

IV.

Such as thine was Arion's verse,

Which he did to the listening fish rehearse;

Which when they heard play'd on his lute,

They firit 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 noise,

And dance to his harmonious voice,

Which made the Syrens lend their ear,

And from his fweeter tunes fome treachery fear;
Which made the dolphin proud,

That he was allow'd

With Atlas, the great porter of the skies, to take
Such heavenly mufic up, and carry 't on his back.
So full and graceful thy words go,

And with the fame majestic sweetness flow.
Yet his verfe only carried him o'er the feas ;
But there's a very sea of wit in these,
As falt and boundless as the other ocean is.

V.

Such as thine are, was great Amphion's fong,

Which brought the wondering ftones 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.
So were his words, fo plac'd his founds,

Which forc'd the marbles rife from out their grounds,
Which cut and carved, made them shine,
A work which can be outdone by none but thine.
Th' amazed poet faw the building rife,

And knew not how to trust his eyes:

The willing mortar came, and all the trees
Leap into beams he fees.

He faw the streets appear,

Streets, that must needs be harmonions there :

He

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