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With fancied rules and arbitrary laws
Matter and motion he restrains;

And studied lines and fictious circles draws:
Then with imagined sovereignty

Lord of his new hypothesis he reigns.

He reigns: how long! till some usurper rise,
And he too, mighty thoughtful, mighty wise,
Studies new lines, and other circles feigns.

From this last toil again what knowledge flows?
Just as much, perhaps, as shows,
That all his predecessor's rules

Were empty cant, all jargon of the Schools;
That he on the other's ruin rears his throne;
And shows his friend's mistake, and thence con-
firms his own.

press;

6 On earth, in air, amidst the seas and skies,
Mountainous heaps of wonders rise;
Whose towering strength will ne'er submit
To Reason's batteries, or the mines of Wit:
Yet still inquiring, still mistaking man,
Each hour repulsed, each hour dare onward
And levelling at God his wandering guess,
(That feeble engine of his reasoning war,
Which guides his doubts, and combats his despair)
Laws to his Maker the learn'd wretch can give:
Can bound that nature, and prescribe that will,
Whose pregnant word did either ocean fill:

Can tell us whence all beings are, and how they
move and live.

Through either ocean, foolish man!

That pregnant word sent forth again,

Might to a world extend each atom there;

For every drop call forth a sea, a heaven for every star.

anti-dist

7

Let cunning Earth her fruitful wonders hide;
And only lift thy staggering reason up
To trembling Calvary's astonished top;
Then mock thy knowledge, and confound thy pride,
Explaining how Perfection suffered pain,
Almighty languished, and eternal died:

How by her patient victor Death was slain;
And earth profaned, yet blessed with deicide.
Then down with all thy boasted volumes, down;
Only reserve the sacred one:

Low, reverently low,

Make thy stubborn knowledge bow;
Weep out thy reason's, and thy body's eyes;
Deject thyself, that thou may'st rise;
To look to Heaven, be blind to all below.

8 Then Faith, for Reason's glimmering light, shall give Her immortal perspective;

And Grace's presence Nature's loss retrieve:
Then thy enlivened soul shall see,

That all the volumes of philosophy,

With all their comments, never could invent

So politic an instrument,

To reach the Heaven of Heavens, the high abode,
Where Moses places his mysterious God,

As was that ladder which old Jacob reared,
When light divine had human darkness cleared;
And his enlarged ideas found the road,
Which Faith had dictated, and Angels trod.

TO THE COUNTESS OF EXETER,*

PLAYING ON THE LUTE.

WHAT charms you have, from what high race you

sprung,

Have been the pleasing subjects of my song:
Unskilled and young, yet something still I writ,
Of Ca'ndish beauty joined to Cecil's wit.

But when you please to show the labouring Muse
What greater theme your music can produce,
My babbling praises I repeat no more,

But hear, rejoice, stand silent, and adore.

The Persians thus, first gazing on the sun,

Admired how high 'twas placed, how bright it shone; 10 But, as his power was known, their thoughts were raised;

And soon they worshipped, what at first they praised.
Eliza's glory lives in Spenser's song;

And Cowley's verse keeps fair Orinda young.
That as in birth, in beauty you excel,
The Muse might dictate, and the Poet tell:
Your art no other art can speak; and you,
To show how well you play, must play anew:
Your music's power your music must disclose;
For what light is, 'tis only light that shows.

20

Strange force of harmony, that thus controls Our thoughts, and turns and sanctifies our souls; While with its utmost art your sex could move Our wonder only, or at best our love: You far above both these your God did place, That your high power might worldly thoughts destroy;

1 Anne, daughter of William Earl of Devonshire, and sister to the first Duke of Devonshire, widow also to Charles Lord Rich, was married to John Cecil Lord Burleigh, afterwards Earl of Exeter.

That with your numbers you our zeal might raise, 27 And, like himself, communicate your joy.

When to your native Heaven you shall repair, And with your presence crown the blessings there, Your lute may wind its strings but little higher, To tune their notes to that immortal choir. Your art is perfect here; your numbers do, More than our books, make the rude atheist know, That there's a Heaven, by what he hears below.

As in some piece, while Luke his skill expressed, A cunning angel came, and drew the rest:

So, when you play, some godhead does impart
Harmonious aid, divinity helps art;

Some cherub finishes what you begun,
And to a miracle improves a tune.

40

To burning Rome when frantic Nero played, Viewing that face, no more he had surveyed The raging flames; but, struck with strange surprise, Confessed them less than those of Anna's eyes: But, had he heard thy lute, he soon had found His rage eluded, and his crime atoned:

Thine, like Amphion's hand, had waked the stone, And from destruction called the rising town: Malice to Music had been forced to yield;

Nor could he burn so fast, as thou could'st build.

50

PICTURE OF SENECA DYING IN A BATH. BY JORDAIN. AT THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF EXETER'S AT BURLEIGH HOUSE.

WHILE cruel Nero only drains

The moral Spaniard's ebbing veins,
By study worn, and slack with age,
How dull, how thoughtless is his rage!

Heightened revenge he should have took;
He should have burnt his tutor's book;
And long have reigned supreme in vice:
One nobler wretch can only rise;
'Tis he whose fury shall deface
The stoic's image in this piece.
For while unhurt, divine Jordain,
Thy work and Seneca's remain,
He still has body, still has soul,

And lives and speaks, restored and whole.

5

AN ODE.

1 WHILE blooming youth, and gay delight Sit on thy rosy cheeks confessed, Thou hast, my dear, undoubted right

To triumph o'er this destined breast. My reason bends to what thy eyes ordain; For I was born to love, and thou to reign.

2 But would you meanly thus rely

On power, you know I must obey? Exert a legal tyranny;

And do an ill, because you may?

Still must I thee, as atheists Heaven adore;
Not see thy mercy, and yet dread thy power?

3 Take heed, my dear, youth flies apace;
As well as Cupid, Time is blind;
Soon must those glories of thy face
The fate of vulgar beauty find;

The thousand loves, that arm thy potent eye,
Must drop their quivers, flag their wings, and die.

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