Part 25 (1/2)

Man's life and vigour keep within, Lodg'd in the centre, not the skin.

Those piercing charms and poisons, which His inward parts taint and bewitch, More fatal are, than such, which can Outwardly only spoil the man.

Those change his shape and make it foul, But these deform and kill his soul.

LIB. III. METRUM VI.

All sorts of men, that live on Earth, Have one beginning and one birth.

For all things there is one Father, Who lays out all, and all doth gather.

He the warm sun with rays adorns, And fills with brightness the moon's horns.

The azur'd heav'ns with stars He burnish'd, And the round world with creatures furnish'd.

But men--made to inherit all-- His own sons He was pleas'd to call, And that they might be so indeed, He gave them souls of divine seed.

A n.o.ble offspring surely then Without distinction are all men.

O, why so vainly do some boast Their birth and blood and a great host Of ancestors, whose coats and crests Are some rav'nous birds or beasts!

If extraction they look for, And G.o.d, the great Progenitor, No man, though of the meanest state, Is base, or can degenerate, Unless, to vice and lewdness bent, He leaves and taints his true descent.

THE OLD MAN OF VERONA OUT OF CLAUDIAN, [EPIGRAMMA II.]

_Felix, qui propriis avum transegit in arvis, Una domus puerum, &c._

Most happy man! who in his own sweet fields Spent all his time; to whom one cottage yields In age and youth a lodging; who, grown old, Walks with his staff on the same soil and mould Where he did creep an infant, and can tell Many fair years spent in one quiet cell!

No toils of fate made him from home far known, Nor foreign waters drank, driv'n from his own.

No loss by sea, no wild land's wasteful war Vex'd him, not the brib'd coil of gowns at bar.

Exempt from cares, in cities never seen, The fresh field-air he loves, and rural green.

The year's set turns by fruits, not consuls, knows; Autumn by apples, May by blossom'd boughs.

Within one hedge his sun doth set and rise, The world's wide day his short demesnes comprise; Where he observes some known, concrescent twig Now grown an oak, and old, like him, and big.

Verona he doth for the Indies take, And as the Red Sea counts Benacus' Lake.

Yet are his limbs and strength untir'd, and he, A l.u.s.ty grandsire, three descents doth see.

Travel and sail who will, search sea or sh.o.r.e; This man hath liv'd, and that hath wander'd more.

THE SPHERE OF ARCHIMEDES OUT OF CLAUDIAN, [EPIGRAMMA XVIII.]

_Jupiter in parvo c.u.m cerneret aethera vitro_ _Risit, et ad superos, &c._

When Jove a heav'n of small gla.s.s did behold, He smil'd, and to the G.o.ds these words he told.

”Comes then the power of man's art to this?

In a frail orb my work new acted is, The poles' decrees, the fate of things, G.o.d's laws, Down by his art old Archimedes draws.

Spirits inclos'd the sev'ral stars attend, And orderly the living work they bend.

A feigned Zodiac measures out the year, Ev'ry new month a false moon doth appear.

And now bold industry is proud, it can Wheel round its world, and rule the stars by man.

Why at Salmoneus' thunder do I stand?

Nature is rivall'd by a single hand.”

THE PH[OE]NIX OUT OF CLAUDIAN, [IDYLL I.]