May tell at length how green-ey'd Neptune raves,
In Heav'ns defiance muftering all his waves;
Then fing of fecret things that came to p
pafs
When Beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And laft of Kings and Queens and Hero's old;
Suck as the wife Demodocus once told
In folemn 1 Songs at t King Alcinous feaft,
While fad Vliffes foul and all the rest
Are held with his melodious harmony
In willing chains and sweet captivity.
But fie, my wand'ring Mufe, how thou doft stray !
Expectance calls thee now another way,
Thou know'ft it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compafs of thy Predicament:$
Then quick about thy purpos'd bufinefs come,
That to the next I may refign my Room.
Then Ens is reprefented as Father of the Pradicaments his ten Sons, whereof the Eldeft food for Subftance with his Canons, which Ens, thus Speaking, explains.
Ood luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy birth
The Faiety Ladies danc'd upon
Thy drowfie Nurfe hath fworn he did them fpie
Come tripping to the Room where thou didît lie;
And fweetly finging round about thy Bed
Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping Head.
She heard them give thee this, that thou should't fill
From eyes of mortals walk invisible,
Yet there is fomething that doth force my fear,
For once it was my difmal hap to hear
A Sybil old, bow-bent with crooked Age,
That far Events full wifely could prefage, w
And in Time's long and dark Profpective Glafs
Fore-faw what future days fhould bring to pass,
Your Son, faid he, (nor can you it prevent
Shall fubject 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 afùnder,
Ungratefully shall ftrive to keep him under:
In worth and excellence he fhall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them;
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his Brothers fhall depend for Cloathing
To find a Foe it shall not be his hap,
And peace hall lull him in her flow'ry lap;
Yet fall he live in ftrife, and at his door
Devouring War fhall never cease to roar:
Yea it shall be his natural property
To harbour thofe that are at enmity.
What pow'r, what force, what mighty spell, if not Your learned hands, can loofe his Gordian knot?
The next Quantity and Quality fpake in Profe, then Relation was call'd by his name.
Ivers arife; whether thou be the Son
Of utmost Tweed, or Dose, or gulphie Dum
Or Trent, who like fome earth-born Giant Spreads
His thirty Arms along the indented Meads,
Or fullen Mole that runneth underneath,
Or Severn fwift, guilty of Maidens death,
Or Rockie Avon, or of Sedgie Lee,
Or Coaly Tine, or ancient hallowed Des,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythians Name,
Or Medway smooth, or Royal Towred Thame.
The reft was Profe
Ee while of Mufick, and Ethereal mirth,
Wherewith the ftage of Ayr and Earth did ring,
And joyous news of heav'nly Infants birth,
My mufe with Angels did divide to fing;
But headlong joy is ever on the wing,
In Wintry folftice like the shortn'd light
Soon fwallow'd up in dark and long out-living night,
For now to forrow muft I tune my song,
And fet my Harp to notes of faddeft wo,
Which on our dearest Lord did fease ere long,
Dangers, and fnares, and wrongs, and worfe than fo,
Which he for us did freely undergo.
Moft perfect Heroe, try'd in heaviest plight Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wig!
He fov'ran Priest stooping his regal head
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshly Tabernacle entered,
His ftarry front low-rooft beneath the skies;
O what a mask was there, what a difguife!
Yet more; the ftroke of death he muft abide,
Then lies him meekly down faft by his Brethrens fide.
IV.
Thefe latter fcenes confine my roving verfe,
To this Horizon is my Phabus bound;
His Godlike acts, and his temptations fierce,
And former fufferings, other where are found;
Loud o're the reft Cremona's Trump doth found;
Me fofter airs befit, and fofter ftrings
Of Lute, or Viol ftill, more apt for mournful things.
Befriend me Night, beft Patronefs of grief, of La
Over the Pole thy thickest mantle throw,
And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,
That Heav'n and Earth are colour'd with my wo;
My forrows are too dark for day to know:
The leaves fhould all be black whereon I write, And letters where my tears have wafht a wannish white.
See fee the Chariot, and thofe rufhing wheels,
That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood,
My spirit fome tranfporting Cherub feels,
To bear me where the Towers of Salem Rood,
Once glorious Towers, now funk in guiltless blood;
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