CHRIST'S PASSION, TAKEN OUT OF A GREEK ODE, WRITTEN BY MR. MASTERS, OF NEW-COLLEGE, IN OXFORD. ENOUGH, my Muse! of earthly things, Take up thy lute, and to it bind Loud and everlasting strings; And on them play, and to them sing, The happy mournful stories, The lamentable glories, Of the great crucified King. Mountainous heap of wonders! which dost rise How shall I grasp this boundless thing? With all their comments can explain; How all the whole world's life to die did not disdain! I'll sing the searchless depths of the compassion Divine, The depths unfathom'd yet By reason's plummet, and the line of wit; Too light the plummet, and too short the line! How the eternal Father did bestow His own eternal Son as ransom for his foe, Methinks I hear of murdered men the voice, My greedy eyes fly up the hill, and see Look, how he bends his gentle head with blessings from the tree! His gracious hands, ne'er stretch'd but to do good, Are nail'd to the infamous wood; And sinful man does fondly bind The arms, which he extends t' embrace all humankind. Unhappy man! canst thou stand by and see All this as patient as he? Since he thy sins does bear, Make thou his sufferings thine own, And weep, and sigh, and groan, And beat thy breast, and tear Thy garments and thy hair, And let thy grief, and let thy love, Through all thy bleeding bowels move. Dost thou not see thy Prince in purple clad all o'er, Not purple brought from the Sidonian shore, But made at home with richer gore? Dost thou not see the roses which adorn The thorny garland by him worn? Dost thou not see the livid traces Of the sharp scourges' rude embraces ? Of thorns and scourges in thy heart; If that be yet not crucify'd; Look on his hands, look on his feet, look on his side! Open, oh! open wide the fountains of thine And let them call eyes, Their stock of moisture forth where'er it lies! For this will ask it all. 'T would all, alas! too little be, Though thy salt tears come from a sea. Canst thou deny him this, when he Has open'd all his vital springs for thee? That he will still require some waters to his blood.. ODE ON ORINDA'S POEMS. WE allow'd you beauty, and we did submit Ah! cruel sex, will you depose us too in wit? Does man behind her in proud triumph draw, Man may be head, but woman's now the brain. In Beauty's camp it was not known; Orinda first did a Bold sally make, Our strongest quarter take, And so successful prov'd, that she Turn'd upon Love himself his own artillery. Woman, as if the body were their whole, If in it sometime they conceiv'd, "T were shame and pity', Orinda, if in thee * Mrs. Catharine Philips. } A spirit so rich, so noble, and so high, Should unmanur'd or barren lie. But thou industriously hast sow'd and till'd And 't is a strange increase that it does yield. A secret joy unspeakable does move In their great mother Cybele's contented breast: And in their birth thou no one touch dost find Thou bring'st not forth with pain; And there is so much room In th' unexhausted and unfathom'd womb, That, like the Holland Countess, thou may'st bear A child for every day of all the fertile year. Thou dost my wonder, wouldst my envy, raise, If to be prais'd I lov'd more than to praise: Where'er I see an excellence, I must admire to see thy well-knit sense, Thy numbers gentle, and thy fancies high; Those as thy forehead smooth, these sparkling as thine eye. "T is solid, and 't is manly all, Or rather 't is angelical; |