MR Prior's Poems were published, in a handsome folio, in the year 1718, during his own life. After his death, which event happened in Sept. 1721, his Manuscripts, as quell of a public as a private nature, were left, by our Author's will, to Lord Harley and Mr. Adrian Drift, his executors, with orders to destroy such as might not be proper for future inspection. In 1733-4. Mr. Samuel Humphreys of Hampstead published the Posthumous Poems of our Author, (probably at the request of his executors) at the same time obliging the world with the life of that excellent man and poet. From 1734 to these times various editions of Prior's Poems have poured from the press, but without any order or method observed in arranging the different pieces, epistles, tales, ballads, odes, epigrams, &c. being indiscriminately jumbled together, circumstances at the same time inconvenient and offensive to the reader of taste and judgment. To obviate a defect so apparent, we have ventered, in this edition of Prior's Works, to depart from the order observed by his former editors, the different pieces being here [classed and arranged according to their several kinds, so that the whole of the same species of writing falls under the reader's eye in one and the same department of the book only, in place of many departments, as formerly; an alteration of some conveniences to the reader, and such as can reflect no disgrace to the figure of our Author's poems, which here present themselves under a Bore uniform arrangement than usual. AN ODE ON EXODUS iii. 14. "I AM THAT I AM' AN! foolish man! Mscarce know it thou how thyself began, Scarce haft thou thought enough to prove thou art, Vain are thy thoughts while thou thyself art duft. II. Let wit her fails, her oars let Wisdom lend, Yet ceafe to hope thy fhort-liv'd bark shall ride Still 'tis farther from its end, And, in the bosom of that boundless fea, Still finds its error lengthen with its way. III. With daring pride and infolent delight, 5 ΤΟ 15 19 Your doubts refolv'd you boast, your labours crown'd, And, EYPHKA your God, forfooth, is found Incomprehenfible and infinite. But is he therefore found? vain fearcher! no: Let your imperfect definition show That nothing you, the weak definer, know. IV. Say, why fhould the collected main Itfelf within itself contain ! Why to its caverns fhould it fometimes creep, And with delighted filence fleep On the lov'd bofom of its parent deep, 25 3. Written 1688. as an exercife at St. John's college Cambridge. Why should its numerous waters stay In comely difcipline, and fair array, Till winds and tides exert their high comman ds! Why do the rifing furges fpread Their opening ranks o'er earth's fubmiffive head, Marching through different paths to different lands? Why does the conftant fun V. With meafur'd steps his radiant journies run ? Love the juft limits of its proper fp de 35 40 45 With prudent harmony combine VI. These unfathom'd wonders try: In turns to move, and subsequent appear, 50 Man does with dangerous curiofity With fancied rules and arbitrary laws Matter and motion he reftrains; 55 And ftudied lines and fictious circles draws: Then with imagin'd fovereignty Lord of his new hypothefis he reigns. He reigns! How long? till fome ufurper rife! That all his predeceffor's rules Were empty cant, all jargon of the schools: That he on t'other's ruin rears his throne, 60 65 And fhows his friend's mistake, and thence confirms his own. VII. On earth, in air, amidst the feas and skies, Yet ftill inquiring, ftill mistaking man, Each hour repuls'd, each hour dares onward prefs, (That feeble engine of his reasoning war, 70 75 Which guides his doubts and combats his despair) That pregnant Word fent forth again Might to a world extend each atom there, 79 [and live. For ev'ry drop call forth a fea, a heav'n for ev'ry star. VIII. Let cunning earth her fruitful wonders hide, And only lift thy ftaggering reafon up To trembling Calvary's aftonifh'd top, Then mock thy knowledge and confound thy pride. Then down with all thy boasted volumes, down; Only referve the facred one: Low, reverently low, Make thy stubborn knowledge bow; Weep out thy reafon's and thy body's eyes; Deject thyself that thou may'it rife: To look to heav'n, be blind to all below. IX. Then Faith for Reafon's glimm'ring light fhall give Her immortal perspective, And Grace's prefence Nature's lofs retrieve; Then thy enliven'd foul shall fee 85 90* 95 101 That all the volumes of philosophy, With all their comments, never could invent To reach the heav'n of heav'ns, the high abode As was the ladder which old Jacob rear'd, AN ODE. WHILE blooming youth and gay delight Sit on thy rofy cheeks confeft, Thou haft, my dear, undoubted right But would you meanly thus rely On power you know I must obey? And do an ill because you may? Still must I thee, as Atheifts Heaven, adore; III. Take heed, my dear: youth flies apace; As well as Cupid, Time is blind : The fate of vulgar beauty find: The thoufand Loves, that arm thy potent eye, IV. Then wilt thou figh, when in each frown |