VI

Where, dreaming Chymics! is your pain and cost?
How is your oil, how is your labour, lost ?
Our Charles, best alchymist, (tho' strange,
Believe it, future Times!) did change
The Iron Age of old,

Into an Age of Gold.

AN ANSWER TO

AN INVITATION TO CAMBRIDGE.

I.

NICHOLS! my better felf, forbear,

For if thou tell'ft what Cambridge pleasures are,
The school-boy's fin will light on me,

I fhall, in mind, at least, a truant be.
Tell me not how you feed your mind
With dainties of philofophy,

In Ovid's Nut I shall not find
The taste once pleafed me.

O tell me not of logic's diverse cheer,
I fhall begin to loath our crambe here.

II.

Tell me not how the waves appear

Of Cam, or how it cuts the learned fhire;

I fhall contemn the troubled Thames,

On her chief holyday, even when her streams
Are with rich folly gilded, when

The quondam dung-boat is made gay,

Just like the brav'ry of the men,

And graces with fresh paint that day,

When th' City fhines with flags and pageants there, And fattin doublets seen not twice a-year.

III.

Why do I stay, then? I would meet

Thee there, but plummets hang upon my feet:

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'Tis my chief wish to live with thee,

But not till I deserve thy company:

Till then we'll fcorn to let that toy

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Some forty miles divide our hearts:

Write to me, and I shall enjoy

Friendship and wit, thy better parts.

Tho' envious Fortune larger hind'rance brings,
We'll eas❜ly fee each other; Love hath wings.

AN ANSWER TO A COPY OF VERSES

SENT ME TO JERSEY.

As to a Northern people (whom the fun
Ufes just as the Romish Church has done
Her profane laity, and does affign

Bread only both to ferve for bread and wine)
A rich Canary fleet welcome arrives;
Such comfort to us here your letter gives,
Fraught with brisk Racy verses, in which we

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The foil from whence they came tafte, fmell, and fee:

ΤΟ

Such is your present t'us; for you must know,
Sir, that verfe does not in this ifland grow,
No more than fack: one lately did not fear
(Without the Muses' leave) to plant it here;
But it produc'd fuch base, rough, crabbed, hedge-
Rhymes, as ev'n set the hearers' cars on edge,
Written by: Efquire, the
Year of our Lord fix hundred thirty-three.
Brave Jersey Mufe! and he's for this high style
Call'd to this day the Homer of the Ifle.
Alas! to men here no words lefs hard be
To ryhme with than Mount Orgueil * is to me.
Mount Orgueil! which in fcorn o' th' Mufes' law
With no yoke-fellow word will deign to draw.
Stubborit Mount Orgueil! 'tis a work to make it
Come into rhyme, more hard than 'twere to take it.
Alas! to bring your tropes and figures here, 25
Strange as to bring camels and el'phants were;
And metaphor is fo unknown a thing,

'Twould need the preface of, God fave the King.
Yet this I'll fay for th' honour of the place,
That by God's extraordinary grace,

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(Which shows the people' have judgment, if not wit)
The land is undefil'd with clinches yet;
Which in my poor opinion, I confess,
Is a moft fing'lar bleffing, and no lefs

* The name of one of the castles in Jerfey.

Than Ireland's wanting spiders: and fo far
From th' actual Gn of bombaft too they are,
(That other crying fin o'th' English Muse)
That even Satan himself can accuse
None here, (no not, so much as the divines)
For th' motus primò primi to strong lines.

Well, fince the soil, then, does not nat❜rally bear
Verfe, who (a-devil) would import it here?
For that to me would feem as strange a thing
As who did first wild beasts into' islands bring:
Unless you think that it might taken be

As Green did Gondibert, in a prize at fea.
But that's a fortune falls not ev'ry day;

'Tis true Green was made by it; for they fay
The Parl'ament did a noble bounty do,

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40

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And gave him the whole prize, their tenths and fifteenths too.

PROMETHEUS ILL PAINTED.

How wretched does Prometheus' state appear,
Whilst he his second mis'ry fuffers here!
Draw him no more, left, as he tortur'd stands,

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He blame great Jove's less than the painter's hands. 4 It would the vulture's cruelty outgo,

If once again his liver thus thould grow.

Pity him, Jove! and his bold theft allow;

The flames he once ftole from thee grant him now.

Volume I.

P

WHEN chance or cruel bus'ness parts us two,
What do our fouls, I wonder, do?
Whilst sleep does our dull bodies tie,
Methinks at home they fhould not ftay,
Content with dreams, but boldly fly

Abroad, and meet each other half the way.

II.

Sure they do meet, enjoy each other there,
And mix I know not how, or where :
Their friendly lights together twine,
'Tho' we perceive 't not to be so,

Like loving stars which oft' combine,

Yet not themselves their own conjunctions know.

III.

'Twere an ill world, I'll fwear, for ev'ry friend, If diftance could their union end:

But love itfelf does far advance

Above the pow'r of time and space;
It fcorns fuch outward circumstance,

His time's for ever, ev'ry where his place.

IV.

I'm there with thee, yet here with me thou art,

Lodg'd in each other's heart.

Miracles ceafe not yet in Love,

When he his mighty pow'r will try,
Abfence itfelf does bounteous prove,

And strangely ev'n our prefence multiply.

10.

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