Part 58 (1/2)

Thou thoughtst, if once the public storm were past, All thy remaining life should suns.h.i.+ne be: Behold the public storm is spent at last, The sovereign is tossed at sea no more, And thou, with all the n.o.ble company, Art got at last to sh.o.r.e: But whilst thy fellow-voyagers I see, All marched up to possess the promised land, Thou still alone, alas! dost gaping stand, Upon the naked beach, upon the barren sand.

As a fair morning of the blessed spring, After a tedious, stormy night, Such was the glorious entry of our king; Enriching moisture dropped on every thing: Plenty he sowed below, and cast about him light.

But then, alas! to thee alone One of old Gideon's miracles was shown, For every tree, and every hand around, With pearly dew was crowned, And upon all the quickened ground The fruitful seed of heaven did brooding lie, And nothing but the Muse's fleece was dry.

It did all other threats surpa.s.s, When G.o.d to his own people said, The men whom through long wanderings he had led, That he would give them even a heaven of bra.s.s: They looked up to that heaven in vain, That bounteous heaven! which G.o.d did not restrain Upon the most unjust to s.h.i.+ne and rain.

'The Rachel, for which twice seven years and more, Thou didst with faith and labour serve, And didst (if faith and labour can) deserve, Though she contracted was to thee, Given to another, thou didst see, who had store Of fairer and of richer wives before, And not a Loah left, thy recompense to be.

Go on, twice seven years more, thy fortune try, Twice seven years more G.o.d in his bounty may Give thee to fling away Into the court's deceitful lottery: But think how likely 'tis that thou, With the dull work of thy unwieldy plough, Shouldst in a hard and barren season thrive, Shouldst even able be to live; Thou! to whose share so little bread did fall In the miraculous year, when manna rain'd on all.'

Thus spake the Muse, and spake it with a smile, That seemed at once to pity and revile: And to her thus, raising his thoughtful head, The melancholy Cowley said: 'Ah, wanton foe! dost thou upbraid The ills which thou thyself hast made?

When in the cradle innocent I lay, Thou, wicked spirit, stolest me away, And my abused soul didst bear Into thy new-found worlds, I know not where, Thy golden Indies in the air; And ever since I strive in vain My ravished freedom to regain; Still I rebel, still thou dost reign; Lo, still in verse, against thee I complain.

There is a sort of stubborn weeds, Which, if the earth but once it ever breeds, No wholesome herb can near them thrive, No useful plant can keep alive: The foolish sports I did on thee bestow Make all my art and labour fruitless now; Where once such fairies dance, no gra.s.s doth ever grow.

'When my new mind had no infusion known, Thou gavest so deep a tincture of thine own, That ever since I vainly try To wash away the inherent dye: Long work, perhaps, may spoil thy colours quite, But never will reduce the native white.

To all the ports of honour and of gain I often steer my course in vain; Thy gale comes cross, and drives me back again, Thou slacken'st all my nerves of industry, By making them so oft to be The tinkling strings of thy loose minstrelsy.

Whoever this world's happiness would see Must as entirely cast off thee, As they who only heaven desire Do from the world retire.

This was my error, this my gross mistake, Myself a demi-votary to make.

Thus with Sapphira and her husband's fate, (A fault which I, like them, am taught too late,) For all that I give up I nothing gain, And perish for the part which I retain.

Teach me not then, O thou fallacious Muse!

The court and better king t' accuse; The heaven under which I live is fair, The fertile soil will a full harvest bear: Thine, thine is all the barrenness, if thou Makest me sit still and sing when I should plough.

When I but think how many a tedious year Our patient sovereign did attend His long misfortune's fatal end; How cheerfully, and how exempt from fear, On the Great Sovereign's will he did depend, I ought to be accursed if I refuse To wait on his, O thou fallacious Muse!

Kings have long hands, they say, and though I be So distant, they may reach at length to me.

However, of all princes thou Shouldst not reproach rewards for being small or slow; Thou! who rewardest but with popular breath, And that, too, after death!'

THE DESPAIR.

1 Beneath this gloomy shade, By Nature only for my sorrows made, I'll spend this voice in cries, In tears I'll waste these eyes, By love so vainly fed; So l.u.s.t of old the deluge punished.

Ah, wretched youth, said I; Ah, wretched youth! twice did I sadly cry; Ah, wretched youth! the fields and floods reply.

2 When thoughts of love I entertain, I meet no words but Never, and In vain: Never! alas! that dreadful name Which fuels the infernal flame: Never! my time to come must waste; In vain! torments the present and the past: In vain, in vain! said I, In vain, in vain! twice did I sadly cry; In vain, in vain! the fields and floods reply.

3 No more shall fields or floods do so, For I to shades more dark and silent go: All this world's noise appears to me A dull, ill-acted comedy: No comfort to my wounded sight, In the sun's busy and impert'nent light.

Then down I laid my head, Down on cold earth, and for a while was dead, And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.

4 Ah, sottish soul! said I, When back to its cage again I saw it fly: Fool! to resume her broken chain, And row her galley here again!

Fool! to that body to return, Where it condemned and destined is to burn!

Once dead, how can it be Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee, That thou shouldst come to live it o'er again in me?

OF WIT.

1 Tell me, O tell! what kind of thing is Wit, Thou who master art of it; For the first matter loves variety less; Less women love it, either in love or dress: A thousand different shapes it bears, Comely in thousand shapes appears: Yonder we saw it plain, and here 'tis now, Like spirits, in a place, we know not how.

2 London, that vends of false ware so much store, In no ware deceives us more: For men, led by the colour and the shape, Like Zeuxis' birds, fly to the painted grape.

Some things do through our judgment pa.s.s, As through a multiplying-gla.s.s; And sometimes, if the object be too far, We take a falling meteor for a star.

3 Hence 'tis a wit, that greatest word of fame, Grows such a common name; And wits by our creation they become, Just so as t.i.t'lar bishops made at Rome.

'Tis not a tale, 'tis not a jest, Admired with laughter at a feast, Nor florid talk, which can that t.i.tle gain; The proofs of wit for ever must remain.