3 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.

4 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 outlive Nestor in a day.

ON THE PRAISE OF POETRY.

'Tis not a pyramid of marble stone, Though high as our ambition;

'Tis not a tomb cut out in brass, which can

Give life to the ashes of a man,

But verses only; they shall fresh appear,

Whilst there are men to read or hear,

When time shall make the lasting brass decay,

And eat the pyramid away,

Turning that monument wherein men trust

Their names, to what it keeps, poor dust;

Then shall the epitaph remain, and be

New graven in eternity.

Poets by death are conquered, but the wit

Of poets triumph over it.

What cannot verse? When Thracian Orpheus

took

His lyre, and gently on it strook,

The learned stones came dancing all along,

And kept time to the charming song.
With artificial pace the warlike pine,
The elm and his wife, the ivy-twine,

With all the better trees which erst had stood
Unmoved, forsook their native wood.

The laurel to the poet's hand did bow,
Craving the honour of his brow;

And every loving arm embraced, and made
With their officious leaves a shade.

The beasts, too, strove his auditors to be,
Forgetting their old tyranny.

The fearful hart next to the lion came,
And wolf was shepherd to the lamb.
Nightingales, harmless Syrens of the air,
And Muses of the place, were there;

Who, when their little windpipes they had found
Unequal to so strange a sound,

O'ercome by art and grief, they did expire,
And fell upon the conquering lyre.

Happy, oh happy they! whose tomb might be,
Mausolus! envied by thee!

THE MOTTO.

TENTANDA VIA EST, ETC.

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 mother's 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.

Unpass'd Alps stop me, but I'll cut through all,

And march, the Muse's 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 conquered th' earth, the whole world you,
Welcome, learn'd Cicero whose bless'd tongue

and wit

Preserves Rome's greatness yet;

Thou art the first of orators; only he
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.

DAVIDEIS.

BOOK II.

THE CONTENTS.

The friendship betwixt Jonathan and David; and, upon that occasion, a digression concerning the nature of love. A discourse between Jonathan and David, upon which the latter absents himself from court, and the former goes thither to inform himself of Saul's resolution. The feast of the Newmoon; the manner of the celebration of it; and therein a digression of the history of Abraham. Saul's speech upon David's absence from the feast, and his anger against Jonathan. David's resolution to fly away. He parts with Jonathan, and falls asleep under a tree. A description of Fancy. An angel makes up a vision in David's head. The vision itself; which is a prophecy of all the succession of his race, till Christ's time, with their most remarkable

actions. At his awaking, Gabriel assumes a human shape, and confirms to him the truth of his vision.

But now the early birds began to call

The morning forth; up rose the sun and Saul:

Both, as men thought, rose fresh from sweet repose;
But both, alas! from restless labours rose:

For in Saul's breast Envy, the toilsome sin,
Had all that night active and tyrannous been:
She expelled all forms of kindness, virtue, grace,
Of the past day no footstep left, or trace;
The new-blown sparks of his old rage appear,
Nor could his love dwell longer with his fear.
So near a storm wise David would not stay,
Nor trust the glittering of a faithless day:
He saw the sun call in his beams apace,
And angry clouds march up into their place:
The sea itself smooths his rough brow awhile,
Flatt'ring the greedy merchant with a smile;
But he whose shipwrecked bark it drank before,
Sees the deceit, and knows it would have more.
Such is the sea, and such was Saul;

But Jonathan his son, and only good,
Was gentle as fair Jordan's useful flood;
Whose innocent stream, as it in silence goes,
Fresh honours and a sudden spring bestows
On both his banks, to every flower and tree;
The manner how lies hid, the effect we see:
But more than all, more than himself, he loved
The man whose worth his father's hatred moved;
For when the noble youth at Dammin stood,
Adorned with sweat, and painted gay with blood,
Jonathan pierced him through with greedy eye,
And understood the future majesty

Then destined in the glories of his look:

He saw, and straight was with amazement strook,
To see the strength, the feature, and the grace
Of his young limbs; he saw his comely face,
Where love and reverence so well-mingled were,
And head, already crowned with golden hair:
He saw what mildness his bold sp'rit did tame,
Gentler than light, yet powerful as a flame:
He saw his valour by their safety proved;
He saw all this, and as he saw, he loved.

What art thou, Love! thou great mysterious thing?
From what hid stock does thy strange nature spring?
"Tis thou that movst the world through every part,
And holdst the vast frame close, that nothing start
From the due place and office first ordained;
By thee were all things made, and are sustained.
Sometimes we see thee fully, and can say

From hence thou tookst thy rise, and wentst that way;
But oftener the short beams of Reason's eye
See only there thou art, not how, nor why.
How is the loadstone, Nature's subtle pride,
By the rude iron woo'd, and made a bride?