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Cleft as the
top of the inspired hill,
Struggles the soul of my
divided quill,
Whilst this foot doth the watry mount
aspire,
That Sinai's living and enlivening fire,
Behold my powers storm'd by a twisted light
O' th'
Sun and his, first kindled his sight,
And my lost
thoughts invoke the prince of day,
My right to th'
spring of it and him do pray.
Say, happy youth,
crown'd with a heav'nly ray
Of the first flame, and
interwreathed bay,
Inform my soul in labour to begin,
Ios or Anthems, Poeans or a Hymne.
Shall I a
hecatombe on thy tripod slay,
Or my devotions at thy
altar pay?
While which t' adore th' amaz'd world
cannot tell,
The sublime Urim or deep oracle.
Heark! how the moving chords temper our brain,
As
when Apollo serenades the main,
Old Ocean smooths his
sullen furrow'd front,
And Nereids do glide soft
measures on't;
Whilst th' air puts on its sleekest,
smoothest face,
And each doth turn the others
looking-glasse;
So by the sinewy lyre now strook we
see
Into soft calms all storm of poesie,
And
former thundering and lightning lines,
And verse now
in its native lustre shines.
How wert thou hid
within thyself! how shut!
Thy pretious Iliads lock'd
up in a nut!
Not hearing of thee thou dost break out
strong,
Invading forty thousand men in song;
And
we, secure in our thin empty heat,
Now find ourselves
at once surprised and beat,
Whilst the most valiant
of our wits now sue,
Fling down their arms, ask
quarter too of you.
So cabin'd up in its
disguis'd coarse rust,
And scurf'd all ore with its
unseemly crust,
The diamond, from 'midst the humbler
stones,
Sparkling shoots forth the price of nations.
Ye safe unriddlers of the stars, pray tell,
By what
name shall I stamp my miracle?
Thou strange inverted
Aeson, that leap'st ore
From thy first infancy into
fourscore,
That to thine own self hast the midwife
play'd,
And from thy brain spring'st forth the
heav'nly maid!
Thou staffe of him bore him, that bore
our sins,
Which, but set down, to bloom and bear
begins!
Thou rod of Aaron, with one motion hurl'd,
Bud'st a perfume of flowers through the world!
You
strange calcined seeds within a glass,
Each species
Idaea spring'st as 'twas!
Bright vestal flame that,
kindled but ev'n now,
For ever dost thy sacred fires
throw!
Thus the repeated acts of Nestor's age,
That now had three times ore out-liv'd the stage,
And
all those beams contracted into one,
Alcides in his
cradle hath outdone.
But all these flour'shing
hiews, with which I die
Thy virgin paper, now are
vain as I:
For 'bove the poets Heav'n th' art taught
to shine
And move, as in thy proper crystalline;
Whence that mole-hill Parnassus thou dost view,
And
us small ants there dabbling in its dew;
Whence thy
seraphic soul such hymns doth play,
As those to which
first danced the first day,
Where with a thorn from
the world-ransoming wreath
Thou stung, dost antiphons
and anthems breathe;
Where with an Angels quil dip'd
i' th' Lambs blood,
Thou sing'st our Pelicans
all-saving flood,
And bath'st thy thoughts in
ever-living streams,
Rench'd from earth's tainted,
fat and heavy steams.
There move translated youth
inroll'd i' th' quire,
That only doth with wholy lays
inspire;
To whom his burning coach Eliah sent,
And
th' royal prophet-priest his harp hath lent;
Which
thou dost tune in consort unto those
Clap wings for
ever at each hallow'd close:
Whilst we, now weak and
fainting in our praise,
Sick echo ore thy
Halleluiahs.
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