Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist Part 18

AD ECHUM.

O quae frondosae per am[oe]na cubilia silvae Nympha volas, lucoque loquax spatiaris in alto, Annosi numen nemoris, saltusque verendi Effatum, cui sola placent postrema relatus!

Te per Narcissi morientis verba, precesque Per pueri la.s.satam animam, et conamina vitae Ultima, palantisque precor suspiria linguae.

Da quo secretae haec incaedua devia silvae, Anfractusque loci dubios, et l.u.s.tra repandam.

Sic tibi perpetua--meritoque--haec regna juventa Luxurient, dabiturque tuis, sine fine, viretis Intactas lunae lachrymas, et lambere rorem Virgineum, c[oe]lique animas haurire tepentis.

Nec cedant aevo stellis, sed lucida semper Et satiata sacro aeterni medicamine veris Ostendant longe vegetos, ut sidera, vultus!

Sic spiret muscata comas, et cinnama pa.s.sim!

Diffundat levis umbra, in funere qualia spargit Ph[oe]nicis rogus aut Pancheae nubila flammae!

THALIA REDIVIVA.

1678.

TO THE MOST HONOURABLE AND TRULY n.o.bLE HENRY, LORD MARQUIS AND EARL OF WORCESTER, &c.

My Lord,

Though dedications are now become a kind of tyranny over the peace and repose of great men; yet I have confidence I shall so manage the present address as to entertain your lordship without much disturbance; and because my purposes are governed by deep respect and veneration, I hope to find your Lordship more facile and accessible. And I am already absolved from a great part of that fulsome and designing guilt, being sufficiently removed from the causes of it: for I consider, my Lord, that you are already so well known to the world in your several characters and advantages of honour--it was yours by traduction, and the adjunct of your nativity; you were swaddled and rocked in't, bred up and grew in't, to your now wonderful height and eminence--that for me under pretence of the inscription, to give you the heraldry of your family, or to carry your person through the famed topics of mind, body, or estate, were all one as to persuade the world that fire and light were very bright bodies, or that the luminaries themselves had glory. In point of protection I beg to fall in with the common wont, and to be satisfied by the reasonableness of the thing, and abundant worthy precedents; and although I should have secret prophecy and a.s.surance that the ensuing verse would live eternally, yet would I, as I now do, humbly crave it might be fortified with your patronage; for so the s.e.xtile aspects and influences are watched for, and applied to the actions of life, thereby to make the scheme and good auguries of the birth pa.s.s into Fate, and a success infallible.

My Lord, by a happy obliging intercession, and your own consequent indulgence, I have now recourse to your Lordship, hoping I shall not much displease by putting these twin poets into your hands. The minion and vertical planet of the Roman l.u.s.tre and bravery, was never better pleased than when he had a whole constellation about him: not his finishing five several wars to the promoting of his own interest, nor particularly the prodigious success at Actium where he held in chase the wealth, beauty and prowess of the East; not the triumphs and absolute dominions which followed: all this gave him not half that serene pride and satisfaction of spirit as when he retired himself to umpire the different excellencies of his insipid friends, and to distribute laurels among his poetic heroes. If now upon the authority of this and several such examples, I had the ability and opportunity of drawing the value and strange worth of a poet, and withal of applying some of the lineaments to the following pieces, I should then do myself a real service, and atone in a great measure for the present insolence. But best of all will it serve my defence and interest, to appeal to your Lordship's own conceptions and image of genuine verse; with which so just, so regular original, if these copies shall hold proportion and resemblance, then am I advanced very far in your Lordship's pardon: the rest will entirely be supplied me by your Lordship's goodness, and my own awful zeal of being, my Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient, most humbly devoted servant,

J. W.

TO THE READER.

The Nation of Poets above all Writers has ever challenged perpetuity of name, or as they please by their charter of liberty to call it, Immortality. Nor has the World much disputed their claim, either easily resigning a patrimony in itself not very substantial; or, it may be, out of despair to control the authority of inspiration and oracle. Howsoever the price as now quarrelled for among the poets themselves is no such rich bargain: it is only a vanishing interest in the lees and dregs of Time, in the rear of those Fathers and Worthies in the art, who if they know anything of the heats and fury of their successors, must extremely pity them.

I am to a.s.sure, that the Author has no portion of that airy happiness to lose, by any injury or unkindness which may be done to his Verse: his reputation is better built in the sentiment of several judicious persons, who know him very well able to give himself a lasting monument, by undertaking any argument of note in the whole circle of learning.

But even these his Diversions have been valuable with the matchless Orinda; and since they deserved her esteem and commendations, who so thinks them not worth the publishing, will put himself in the opposite scale, where his own arrogance will blow him up.

I. W.

TO MR. HENRY VAUGHAN THE SILURIST: UPON THESE AND HIS FORMER POEMS.[58]

Had I ador'd the mult.i.tude, and thence Got an antipathy to wit and sense, And hugg'd that fate, in hope the world would grant 'Twas good affection to be ignorant;[59]

Yet the least ray of thy bright fancy seen, I had converted, or excuseless been.

For each birth of thy Muse to after-times Shall expiate for all this Age's crimes.

First shines thy Amoret, twice crown'd by thee, Once by thy love, next by thy poetry; Where thou the best of unions dost dispense, Truth cloth'd in wit, and Love in innocence; So that the muddy lover may learn here, No fountains can be sweet that are not clear.

There Juvenal, by thee reviv'd, declares How flat man's joys are, and how mean his cares; And wisely doth upbraid[60] the world, that they Should such a value for their ruin pay.

But when thy sacred Muse diverts her quil The landscape to design of Sion's hill,[61]

As nothing else was worthy her, or thee, So we admire almost t' idolatry.

What savage breast would not be rapt to find Such jewels in such cabinets enshrin'd?

Thou fill'd with joys--too great to see or count-- Descend'st from thence, like Moses from the Mount, And with a candid, yet unquestion'd awe Restor'st the Golden Age, when Verse was Law.

Instructing us, thou so secur'st[62] thy fame, That nothing can disturb it but my name: Nay, I have hopes that standing so near thine 'Twill lose its dross, and by degrees refine.

Live! till the disabused world consent All truths of use, of strength or ornament, Are with such harmony by thee display'd As the whole world was first by number made, And from the charming rigour thy Muse brings Learn, there's no pleasure but in serious things!

Orinda.

FOOTNOTES:

[58] 1664-1667 have To _Mr. Henry Vaughan, Silurist, on his Poems_.

[59] So 1664-1667. _Thalia Rediviva_ has _the ignorant_.

[60] 1664 has _generally upbraids_; 1667, _generously upbraids_

[61] 1664-1667 have _Leon's hill_.

[62] 1664 has _thou who securest_.

UPON THE INGENIOUS POEMS OF HIS LEARNED FRIEND, MR. HENRY VAUGHAN, THE SILURIST.

Fairly design'd! to charm our civil rage With verse, and plant bays in an iron age!

But hath steel'd Mars so ductible a soul, That love and poesy may it control?

Yes! brave Tyrtaeus, as we read of old, The Grecian armies as he pleas'd could mould; They march'd to his high numbers, and did fight With that instinct and rage, which he did write.

When he fell lower, they would straight retreat, Grow soft and calm, and temper their bold heat.

Such magic is in Virtue! See here a young Tyrtaeus too, whose sweet persuasive song Can lead our spirits any way, and move To all adventures, either war or love.

Then veil the bright Etesia, that choice she, Lest Mars--Timander's friend--his rival be.

So fair a nymph, dress'd by a Muse so neat, Might warm the North, and thaw the frozen Gete.

Tho. Powell, D.D.

TO THE INGENIOUS AUTHOR OF THALIA REDIVIVA.