Besides repentance, what canst find
That it hath left behind?

Our life is carried with too strong a tide;
A doubtful cloud our substance bears,
And is the horse of all our years.

Each day doth on a winged whirlwind ride.
We and our glass run out, and must
Both render up our dust.

But his past life who without grief can see;
Who never thinks his end too near,

But says

to Fame, "Thou art mine heir;"
That man extends life's natural brevity-
This is, this is the only way
To out-live Nestor in a day.

AN ANSWER

ΤΟ ΑΝ

INVITATION TO CAMBRIDGE.

NICHOLS, my better self! forbear;

For, if thou tell'st what Cambridge pleasures are, The schoolboy's sin will light on me,

mind

I shall, in mind at least, a truant be.
Tell me not how you feed your
With dainties of philosophy;
In Ovid's nut I shall not find
The taste once pleased me.

O tell me not of logic's diverse cheer!
I shall begin to loathe our crambo here.
Tell me not how the waves appear
Of Cam, or how it cuts the learned shire;
I shall contemn the troubled Thames
On her chief holiday; even when her streams

Are with rich folly gilded; when
The quondam dung-boat is made gay,
Just like the bravery of the men,

And graces with fresh paint that day;

When the' city shines with flags and pageants there,
And satin doublets, seen not twice a year.
Why do I stay then? I would meet
Thee there, but plummets hang upon my feet;
"Tis my chief wish to live with thee,
But not till I deserve thy company:
Till then, we'll scorn to let that toy,
Some forty miles, divide our hearts:
Write to me, and I shall enjoy
Friendship and wit, thy better parts.
Though envious Fortune larger hindrance brings,
We'll easily see each other; Love hath wings.

VOL. I.

Miscellanies.

THE MOTTO.

"Tentanda via est, &c."

WHAT shall I do to be for ever known,
And make the age to come my own?
I shall, like beasts or common people, die,
Unless you write my elegy;

Whilst others great, by being born, are grown ;
Their mothers' labour, not their own.

In this scale gold, in the' other fame does lie,
The weight of that mounts this so high.
These men are Fortune's jewels, moulded bright;
Brought forth with their own fire and light:
If I, her vulgar stone, for either look,

Out of myself it must be strook.

Yet I must on; What sound is't strikes mine ear?
Sure I Fame's trumpet hear:

It sounds like the last trumpet; for it can
Raise up the buried man.

Unpast Alps stop me; but I'll cut them all,
And march, the Muses' Hannibal.
Hence, all the flattering vanities that lay
Nets of roses in the way!

Hence, the desire of honours or estate,

And all that is not above Fate !

Hence, Love himself, that tyrant of my days!
Which intercepts my coming praise.

Come, my best friends, my books! and lead me on; "Tis time that I were gone.

Welcome, great Stagyrite! and teach me now
All I was born to know:

Thy scholar's victories thou dost far outdo ;
He conquer'd the' earth, the whole world, you.
Welcome,learn'd Cicero ! whose bless'd tongue and
Preserves Rome's greatness yet:

Thou art the first of Orators; only he

[wit

Who best can praise thee, next must be. Welcome the Mantuan swan, Virgil the wise! Whose verse walks highest, but not flies; Who brought green Poesy to her perfect age, And made that Art which was a Rage. Tell me, ye mighty Three! what shall I do! To be like one of you?

But you

have climb'd the mountain's top, there sit On the calm flourishing head of it,

And, whilst with wearied steps we upward go, See us, and clouds, below.

ODE.

OF WIT.

TELL me, O tell, what kind of thing is Wit,
Thou who master art of it?

For the first matter loves variety less ;
Less women love't, either in love or dress.
A thousand different shapes it bears,
Comely in thousand shapes appears.
Yonder we saw it plain; and here 't is now,
Like spirits, in a place we know not how.

London, that vents of false ware so much store,

In no ware deceives us more;

For men, led by the colour and the shape,
Like Zeuxis' birds, fly to the painted grape.

Some things do through our judgment pass
As through a multiplying-glass;

And sometimes, if the object be too far,
We take a falling meteor for a star.

Hence 'tis a Wit, that greatest word of fame,
Grows such a common name;
And Wits by our creation they become,
Just so as titular bishops made at Rome.
'Tis not a tale, 'tis not a jest
Admired with laughter at a feast,
Nor florid talk, which can that title gain;
The proofs of Wit for ever must remain.

'Tis not to force some lifeless verses meet
some

With their five gouty feet.

All, every where, like man's, must be the soul,
And Reason the inferior powers control.

Such were the numbers which could call
The stones into the Theban wall.

Such miracles are ceased; and now we see
No towns or houses raised by poetry.

Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part;

That shows more cost than art.

Jewels at nose and lips but ill

appear;

Rather than all things Wit, let none be there.
Several lights will not be seen,

If there be nothing else between.

Men doubt, because they stand so thick i'the' sky, If those be stars which paint the Galaxy.