"The Rachel, for which twice seven years and 46 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, who had store. "Of fairer and of richer wives before, "And not a Leah left, thy recompence to be! "Go on: twice seven years more thy fortune try; "Twice seven years more God in his bounty may "Give thee, to fling away "Into the court's deceitful lottery: "But think how likely 't is that thou, “With the dull work of thy unwieldy plough, "Shouldst in a hard and barren season thrive, "Should 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 seem'd 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 ravish'd 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, "When my new mind had no infusion known, "Thou gav'st so deep a tincture of thine own, "That ever since I vainly try } "Long work perhaps may spoil thy colours quite, "But never will reduce the native white: "To all the ports of honour and of gain Thy gale comes cross, and drives me back again. "Thou slacken'st all my nerves of industry, 66 'By making them so oft to be "The tinkling strings of thy loose minstrelsy. "This was my error, this my gross mistake, "Thus, with Sapphira and her husband's fate "(A fault which I, like them, am taught too late), "For all that I gave 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 "Mak'st 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 misfortunes' fatal end; "How cheerfully, and how exempt from fear, "On the Great Sovereign's will he did depend; "I ought to be accurst, 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." ON COLONEL TUKE'S TRAGI-COMEDY, THE ADVENTURES OF FIVE HOURS. AS when our kings (lords of the spacious main) On which the conqueror's image now does shine, But, though we praise this voyage of your mind, ON THE DEATH OF MRS. KATHARINE PHILIPS. CRUEL Disease! ah, could not it suffice (Thy malice or thy lust) does on the fairest fall? Was 't not enough, like a wild zealot, there, On th' inward holiest holy of her wit? Cruel Disease! there thou mistook'st thy power; No mine of death can that devour; On her embalmed name it will abide An everlasting pyramid, As high as heaven the top, as earth the basis wide. All ages past record, all countries now |