How the eternal Father did bestow

His own eternal Son as ransom for his foe,
I'll sing aloud, that all the world may hear
The triumph of the buried Conqueror.
How hell was by its prisoner captive led,
And the great slayer, Death, slain by the dead.

Methinks I hear of murdered men the voice,
Mixt with the murderers' confused noise,
Sound from the top of Calvary;
My greedy eyes fly up the hill, and see

Who 't is hangs there the midmost of the three;
Oh, how unlike the others He!

Look, how he bends his gentle head with blessings from the tree!

His gracious hands, ne'er stretch'd but to do good, Are nail'd to the infamous wood;

And sinful man does fondly bind

The arms, which he extends t' embrace all humankind.

Unhappy man! canst thou stand by and see
All this as patient as he?

Since he thy sins does bear,

Make thou his sufferings thine own,

And weep, and sigh, and groan,

And beat thy breast, and tear
Thy garments and thy hair,

And let thy grief, and let thy love,

Through all thy bleeding bowels move.

Dost thou not see thy Prince in purple clad all o'er,
Not purple brought from the Sidonian shore,

But made at home with richer gore ?
Dost thou not see the roses which adorn
The thorny garland by him worn?
Dost thou not see the livid traces
Of the sharp scourges' rude embraces ?
If yet thou feelest not the smart
Of thorns and scourges in thy heart;
If that be yet not crucify'd;

Look on his hands, look on his feet, look on his side!

Open, oh! open wide the fountains of thine eyes,
And let them call

Their stock of moisture forth where'er it lies!
For this will ask it all.

'T would all, alas! too little be,

Though thy salt tears come from a sea.

Canst thou deny him this, when he
Has open'd all his vital springs for thee?
Take heed; for by his side's mysterious flood
May well be understood,

That he will still require some waters to his blood..

ODE

ON ORINDA'S POEMS.

WE allow'd you beauty, and we did submit
To all the tyrannies of it;

Ah! cruel sex, will you depose us too in wit?
Orinda* does in that too reign;

Does man behind her in proud triumph draw,
And cancel great Apollo's Salique law.
We our old title plead in vain,

Man

may
be head, but woman's now the brain.
Verse was love's fire-arms heretofore,
In Beauty's camp it was not known;
Too many arms besides that conqueror bore:
'T was the great cannon we brought down
T'assault a stubborn town;

Orinda first did a bold sally make,
Our strongest quarter take,

And so successful prov'd, that she
Turn'd upon Love himself his own artillery.

Woman, as if the body were their whole,
Did that, and not the soul,
Transmit to their posterity;
If in it sometime they conceiv'd,

Th' abortive issue never liv'd.

'T were shame and pity', Orinda, if in thee

*Mrs. Catharine Philips.

}

A spirit so rich, so noble, and so high,

Should unmanur'd or barren lie.

But thou industriously hast sow'd and till'd
The fair and fruitful field;

And 't is a strange increase that it does yield.
As, when the happy Gods above

Meet altogether at a feast,

A secret joy unspeakable does move

In their great mother Cybele's contented breast:
With no less pleasure thou, methinks, should see
This thy no less immortal progeny ;

And in their birth thou no one touch dost find
Of th' ancient curse to woman-kind :
Thou bring'st not forth with pain;

It neither travail is nor labour of the brain :
So easily they from thee come,

And there is so much room

In th' unexhausted and unfathom'd womb, That, like the Holland Countess, thou may'st bear A child for every day of all the fertile year.

Thou dost my wonder, wouldst my envy, raise, If to be prais'd I lov'd more than to praise : Where'er I see an excellence,

I must admire to see thy well-knit sense,
Thy numbers gentle, and thy fancies high;

Those as thy forehead smooth, these sparkling as thine

eye.

"T is solid, and 't is manly all,

Or rather 't is angelical;

For, as in angels, we

Do in thy verses see

Both improv'd sexes eminently meet;

They are than man more strong, and more than woman

sweet.

They talk of Nine, I know not who,
Female chimeras, that o'er poets reign;
I ne'er could find that fancy true,
But have invok'd them oft, I'm sure, in vain :
They talk of Sappho; but, alas! the shame!
Ill-manners soil the lustre of her fame;
Orinda's inward virtue is so bright,

That, like a lantern's fair inclosed light,
It through the paper shines where she does write.
Honour and friendship, and the generous scorn
Of things for which we were not born
(Things that can only by a fond disease,
Like that of girls, our vicious stomachs please)
Are the instructive subjects of her

And, as the Roman victory

pen:

Taught our rude land arts and civility,

At once she overcomes, enslaves, and betters, men.

But Rome with all her arts could ne'er inspire
A female breast with such a fire:

The warlike Amazonian train,

Who in Elysium now do peaceful reign,
And Wit's mild empire before arms prefer,
Hope 't will be settled in their sex by her.