Or wert thou of the golden-winged host,
Who, having clad thyself in human weed,
To Earth from thy prefixèd seat didst post,
And after short abode fly back with speed,
As if to shew what creatures Heaven doth breed,
Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire

To scorn the sordid world, and unto Heaven aspire!

But oh! why didst thou not stay here below
To bless us with thy Heaven-loved innocence,
To slake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe,
To turn swift-rushing black Perdition hence
Or drive away the slaughtering Pestilence,

To stand 'twixt us and our deservèd smart?

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But thou canst best perform that office where thou art. 70

Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child
Her false imagined loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild:
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent;

This if thou do, he will an offspring give

That till the world's last end shall make thy name to live.

(Anno Ætatis 19.)

AT A VACATION EXERCISE IN THE COLLEGE,

Part Latin, part English. The Latin speeches ended, the English thus began.

HAIL native Language! that by sinews weak
Didst move my first-endeavouring tongue to speak,
And madest imperfect words with childish trips,
Half-unpronounced, slide through my infant lips,
Driving dumb Silence from the portal door,
Where he had mutely sat two years before:

Here I salute thee, and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:

Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee;
I know my tongue but little grace can do thee:
Thou need'st not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me, I have thither packed the worst:
And, if it happen as I did forecast,

The daintiest dishes shall be served up last.
I pray thee, then, deny me not thy aid

For this same small neglect that I have made:
But haste thee straight to do me once a pleasure,
And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefest treasure;
Not those new-fangled toys, and trimming slight,
Which takes our late fantastics with delight;
But cull those richest robes, and gayest attire,
Which deepest spirits, and choicest wits desire.
I have some naked thoughts that rove about,
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
And, weary of their place, do only stay
Till thou hast decked them in thy best array;
That so they may, without suspect or fears,
Fly swiftly to this fair assembly's ears; ́
Yet I had rather, if I were to choose,
Thy service in some graver subject use,

Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound;
Such where the deep transported mind may soar
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heaven's door
Look in, and see each blissful deity

How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
Listening to what unshorn Apollo sings

To the touch of golden wires, while Hebè brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly sire:

Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire,
And misty regions of wide air next under,
And hills of snow, and lofts of piled thunder,
May tell at length how green-eyed Neptune raves,
In Heaven's defiance mustering all his waves;

Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When Beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last, of kings and queens and heroes old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told
In solemn songs at king Alcinous' feast,
While sad Ulysses' soul, and all the rest
Are held, with his melodious harmony,
In willing chains and sweet captivity.

But fie, my wandering Muse, how thou dost stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way:
Thou know'st it must be now thy holy bent
To keep in compass of thy predicament:
Then quick about thy purposed business come,
That to the next I may resign my room.

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Then ENS is represented as father of the Predicaments his ten sons, whereof the eldest stood for Substance with his canons, which ENS, thus speaking, explains:

Good luck befriend thee, son! for at thy birth
The fairy ladies danced upon the hearth;
Thy drousy nurse hath sworn she did them spy
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie;
And, sweetly singing round about thy bed,

Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head.
She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst still
From eyes of mortals walk invisible:

Yet there is something that doth force my fear,
For once it was my dismal hap to hear

A Eybil old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wisely could presage,
And in Time's long and dark prospective glass
Foresaw what future days should bring to pass;
Your son, said she,-nor can you it prevent,—
Shall subject be to many an accident:
O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king,
Yet every one shall make him underling;
And those that cannot live from him asunder,
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under,

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70

In worth and excellence he shall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them;
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his brother shall depend for clothing.
To find a foe it shall not be his hap,

And peace shall lull him in her flowery lap;
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring War shall never cease to roar;
Yea it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.

What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not
Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?

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90

The next, QUANTITY and QUALITY spake in prose; then RELATION was called by his name.

Rivers, arise! whether thou be the son

Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulphy Dun,

Or Trent, who, like some Earth-born giant, spreads

His thirty arms along the indented meads;
Or sullen Mole, that runneth underneath;
Or Severn swift, guilty of maidens' death;
Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lee,

Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallowed Dee;

Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name,
Or Medway smooth, or royal towered Thame.

[The rest was prose.]

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ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

[Composed 1629.]

THIS is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King,
Of wedded Maid and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;

For so the holy Sages once did sing,

That he our deadly forfeit should release, And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far beaming blaze of majesty,

Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid aside; and here with us to be,

Forsook the courts of everlasting day,

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

III.

Say, heavenly Muse! shall not thy sacred vein

Afford a present to the Infant God?

Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,

To welcome him to this his new abode,

Now, while the Heaven, by the sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,

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20

And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

IV.

See, how from far, upon the eastern road

The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet:

O, run! prevent them with thy humble ode,

And lay it lowly at his blessèd feet;

Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,

And join thy voice unto the angel quire,

From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.

While the Heaven-born child

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to him

Had doffed her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize:

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