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In recompense, I would show future times

What you were, and teach them t' urge towards such; Verse embalms virtue, and tombs or thrones of rhymes Preserve frail transitory fame, as much

As spice doth bodies, from corrupt air's touch.
Mine are short-lived; the tincture of your name
Creates in them, but dissipates as fast,

New spirit; for strong agents, with the same
Force that doth warm and cherish, us do waste:
Kept hot with strong extracts, no bodies last.

So, my verse built of your just praise, might want
Reason and likelihood, the firmest base;

And, made of miracle, now faith is scant,

Will vanish soon, and so possess no place:
And you, and it, too much grace might disgrace.
When all (as truth commands assent) confess
All truth of you, yet they will doubt how I,
One corn of one low ant-hill's dust, and less,
Should name, know, or express a thing so high,
And (not an inch) measure infinity.

I cannot tell them, nor myself, nor you,

But leave, lest truth be 'ndangered by my praise;
And turn to God, who knows I think this true,
And useth oft, when such a heart mis-says,
To make it good; for such a praiser prays.

He will best teach you, how you should lay out
His stock of beauty, learning, favour, blood:

He will perplex security with doubt,

And clear those doubts; hide from you, and show you good;
And so increase your appetite and food.

He will teach you, that good and bad have not
One latitude in cloisters, and in court;
Indifferent there the greatest space hath got,

Some pity's not good there: some vain disport
On this side sin, with that place may comport.
Yet he, as he bounds seas, will fix your hours,

Which pleasure, and delight may not ingress; And though what none else lost, be truliest yours, He will make you, what you did not possess, By using others', not vice, but weakness.

He will make you speak truths, and credibly,
And make you doubt, that others do not so:
He will provide you keys and locks,, to spy

And scape spies, to good ends; and he will show
What you may not acknowledge, what not know.

For your own conscience, he gives innocence,
But for your fame, a discreet wariness;
And though to scape, than to revenge, offence,
Be better, he shows both and to repress
Joy, when your state swells, sadness when 'tis less.

From need of tears he will defend your soul,
Or make a rebaptizing of one tear ;

He cannot (that's, he will not) disenroll

Your name; and when with active joy we hear
This private Gospel, then 'tis our new year.

Madam,

XII.

To the Countess of Huntingdon.

MAN to God's image, Eve to man's was made,
Nor find we that God breathed a soul in her;
Canons will not, church functions you invade,
Nor laws to civil office you prefer.

Who vagrant transitory comets sees,

Wonders, because they're rare; but a new star
Whose motion with the firmament agrees,
Is miracle for there no new things are.

In woman so perchance mild innocence
A seldom comet is, but active good
A miracle, which reason scapes, and sense;
For art and nature this in them withstood.

As such a star, which Magï led to view

The manger-cradled infant, God below;
By virtue's beams, by fame, derived from you,
May apt souls, and the worst may virtue know.

If the world's age and death be argued well

By the sun's fall, which now towards earth doth bend, Then we might fear that virtue, since she fell

So low as woman, should be near her end.

But she's not stooped, but raised; exiled by men
She fled to heaven, that's heavenly things, that's you,
She was in all men, thinly scattered then,
But now amassed, contracted in a few.

She gilded us; but you are gold, and she,
Us she informed, but transubstantiates you;
Soft dispositions which ductile be,

Elixir-like, she makes not clean, but new.

Though you a wife's and mother's name retain,
'Tis not as woman, for all are not so;
But virtue having made you virtue, 's fain

T'adhere in these names, her and you to show.

Else, being alike pure, we should neither see;
As water being into air rarified,
Neither appear, till in one cloud they be,

So for our sakes you do low names abide.

Taught by great constellations, which being framed
Of the most stars, take low names, Crab and Bull,
When single planets by the gods are named,
You covet no great names, of great things full.

So you, as woman, one doth comprehend,
And in the veil* of kindred others see;
To some ye are revealed, as in a friend,
And as a virtuous prince far off, to me.

To whom, because from you all virtues flow,
And 'tis not none, to dare contemplate you,
I, which to you as your true subject owe

Some tribute for that, so these lines are due.

If you can think these flatteries, they are,
For then your judgment is below my praise;
If they were so, oft flatteries work as far
As counsels, and as far th' endeavour raise.

"Vale." Anderson's Poets,

So my ill reaching you might there grow good,
But I remain a poisoned fountain still;
But not your beauty, virtue, knowledge, blood
Are more above all flattery, than my will.

And if I flatter any, 'tis not you

But my own judgment, who did long ago Pronounce, that all these praises should be true, And virtue should your beauty and birth outgrow.

Now that my prophecies are all fulfilled,

Rather than God should not be honoured too, And all these gifts confessed, which he instilled, Yourself were bound to say that which I do. So I but your recorder am in this,

Or mouth, or speaker of the universe,

A ministerial notary, for 'tis

Not I, but you and fame, that make this verse;

I was your prophet in your younger days,
And now your chaplain, God in you to praise.

XIII.

To Mr. I. W.

ALL hail, sweet poet! more full of more strong fire
Than hath or shall enkindle any spirit *,

I loved what nature gave thee, but this merit
Of wit and art I love not, but admire ;
Who have before, or shall write after thee,
Their works, though toughly laboured, will be
Like infancy or age to man's firm stay,
Or early and late twilights to mid-day.
Men say, and truly, that they better be

Which be envied than pitied: therefore I,
Because I wish thee best, do thee envy ;
O would'st thou, by like reason, pity me,
But care not for me, I, that ever was
In nature's and in fortune's gifts, (alas,
Before by thy grace got in th' muses' school)
A monster and a beggar, am a fool.

*In Anderson's Poets,

"And full of more strong fire Than hath or shall enkindle my dull spirit."

O how I grieve, that late-born modesty
Hath got such root in easy waxen hearts,

That men may not themselves their own good parts Extol, without suspect of surquedry;

For, but thyself, no subject can be found
Worthy thy quill, nor any quill resound

Thy work, but thine how good it were to see
A poem in thy praise, and writ by thee.

Now if this song be too harsh for rhyme, yet, as
The painter's bad god made a good devil,
'Twill be good prose, although the verse be evil.
If thou forget the rhyme as thou do'st pass,
Then write, then I may follow, and so be
Thy debtor, thy echo, thy foil, thy zany.

I shall be thought, if mine like thine I shape,
All the world's lion, though I be thy ape.

XIV.

To Mr. T. W.

HASTE thee, harsh verse, as fast as thy lame measure
Will give thee leave, to him: my pain and pleasure
I have given thee, and yet thou art too weak,
Feet, and a reasoning soul, and tongue to speak.
Tell him, all questions which men have defended
Both of the place and pains of hell, are ended;
And 'tis decreed our hell is but privation
Of him, at least in this earth's habitation.
And 'tis where I am, where in every street
Infections follow, overtake, and meet:
Live I or die, by you my love is sent,

And you're my pawns,
or else

my testament.

XV.

To Mr. T. W.

PREGNANT again with th' old twins, hope and fear,
Oft have I asked for thee, both how and where
Thou wert, and what my hopes of letters were.

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