Direct and most immediate, still will stand Betwixt me and the rapines of the Earth; And give my poor pains but such gracious birth

As may sustain me in my desert age With some power to my will, I still will wage

War with that false peace that exileth you; And in my pray'd-for freedom ever vow, Tears in these shades for your tears, till mine eyes

Pour out my soul in better sacrifice.

Peace. Nor doubt, good friend, but God, to whom I see

Your friendless life converted, still will be A rich supply for friends; and still be you Sure convertite to him. This, this way

row

All to their country. Think how he hath show'd

You ways and byways; what to be pursued

And what avoided. Still in his hands be,
If you desire to live or safe or free.
No longer days take; Nature doth exact
This resolution of thee and this fact,
The Foe hails on thy head, and in thy face,
Insults and trenches; leaves thee no world's
grace;

The walls in which thou art besieged, shake.

Have done; resist no more; but if you take

Firm notice of our speech, and what you see, And will add pains to write all, let it be Divulged too. Perhaps, of all, some one May find some good. But might it touch upon

Your gracious Prince's liking, he might do Good to himself and all his kingdoms too; So virtuous a great example is :

And that hath thank'd as small a thing as this,

Here being stuff and form for all true peace And so of all men's perfect happiness,

To which if he shall lend his princely ear, And give commandment, from yourself to hear

My state; tell him you know me, and that I,

That am the crown of principality (Though thus cast off by princes) ever vow Attendance at his foot, till I may grow Up to his bosom; which, being dew'd in time

With these my tears, may to my comforts climb;

And sunlike pomp in his own clouds shall

mourn,

Will be acceptive. Mean-space I will pray That he may turn some toward thought this way,

While the round whirlwinds of the Earth's delights

Dust betwixt him and me, and blind the sights

Of all men ravish'd with them; whose increase

You well may tell him, fashions not true peace.

The peace that they inform learns but to squat,

While the sly legal foe that levels at War through those false lights, suddenly runs by

Betwixt you and your strength; and while you lie,

Couching your ears, and flatting every limb,

So close to earth that you would seem to

him

The earth itself; yet he knows who you

are,

And in that vantage pours on ready war.

CONCLUSIO.

THUS by the way to human loves interring
These marginal and secret tears referring
To my disposure, having all this hour
Of our unworldly conference given power
To her late fainting issue to arise,
She raised herself and them, the progenies
Of that so civil desert rising all;
Who fell with her; and to the funeral-
She bearing still the coffin-all went on.
And now gives Time her state's description.
Before her flew Affliction, girt in storms,
Gash'd all with gushing wounds, and all
the forms

Of bane and misery frowning in her face;
Whom Tyranny and Injustice had in chase;
Grim Persecution, Poverty, and Shame;
Detraction, Envy, fout Mishap and lame;
Scruple of Conscience; Fear, Deceit.
Despair;

Slander and Clamour, that rent all the air; Hate, War, and Massacre;, uncrowned Toil;

And Sickness, t' all the rest the base and foil,

Crept after; and his deadly weight, trod down

Wealth, Beauty, and the glory of a Crown.

These usher'd her far off; as figures given To show these Crosses borne, make peace with heaven.

But now, made free from them, next her before;

Peaceful and young, Herculean silence bore

His craggy club; which up aloft, he hild; With which, and his fore-finger's charm he stad

All sounds in air; and left so free mine ears,

That I might hear the music of the spheres, And all the angels singing out of heaven; Whose tunes were solemn, as to passion given;

For now, that Justice was the happiness

A heap of panting harts supported him,
On which he sat gnawing a reeking limb
Of some man newly murther d. As he ate,
His grave-digg'd brows, like stormy eaves
did sweat;

Which, like incensed fens, with mists did smoke;

His hide was rugged as an aged oak
With heathy leprosies; that still he fed
With hot, raw limbs, of men late murthered.
His face was like a meteor, flashing blood;
His head a'! bristled, like a thorny wood;
His neck cast wrinkles, like a sea enraged;
And in his vast arms was the world en-
gaged

Bathing his hands in every cruel deed : Whose palms were hell-deep lakes of boiling lead;

His thighs were mines of poison, torment, grief;

In which digg'd fraud, and treachery for relief;

Religion's botcher, policy; and pride, Oppression, slavery, flattery glorified, Atheism, and tyranny, and gain unjust, Frantic ambition, envy, shag-hair'd lust, Both sorts of ignorance, and knowledge swell'd;

And over these, the old wolf avarice held A golden scourge that dropt with blood and vapour,

With which he whipp'd them to their endless labour.

From under heaps cast from his fruitful thighs

As ground, to all their damn'd impieties— The mournful goddess drew dead Human Love;

Nor could they let her entry, though they

And prove her forms firm, that are here impress'd,

How her admired strains wrought on every breast ;

And made the woods cast their immanity
Up to the air; that did to cities fly
In fuel for them; and, in clouds of smoke,
Ever hang over them; cannot be spoke ;
Nor how to Human Love, to Earth now
given,

A lightning stoop'd and ravish'd him to heaven,

And with him Peace with all her heavenly seed :

Whose outward Rapture made me inward bleed;

Nor can I therefore my intention keep, Since Tears want words and words want tears to weep.

them still

bought,

Nor follows in great trains, nor is possess'd With any outward state, but makes him blest

That governs inward, and beholdeth there All his affections stand about him bare, That by his power can send to Tower and death

All traitorous passions, marshalling beneath

His justice his mere will, and in his mind Holds such a sceptre as can keep contined His whole life's actions in the royal bounds Of virtue and religion, and their grounds Takes in to sow his honours, his delights, And complete empire; you should learn these rights,

Great prince of men, by princely precedents,

Which here, in all kinds, my true zeal pre

sents

To furnish your youth's groundwork and first state,

And let you see one godlike man create
All sorts of worthiest men, to be contrived
In your worth only, giving him revived,
For whose life Alexander would have
given

One of his kingdoms; who (as sent from heaven,

And thinking well that so divine a creature Would never more enrich the race of nature)

And would affirm that Homer's poesy
Did more advance his Asian victory,
Than all his armies. O! 'tis wondrous
much,

Though nothing prized, that the right vir

tuous touch

Of Princes' light thoughts, that their gravest laws

May find stuff to be fashion'd by his lines. Through all the pomp of kingdoms still he shines,

And graceth all his gracers. Then let lie Your lutes and viols, and more loftily Make the heroics of your Homer sung;

first Twelve Books of the Iliad.

tongue,

And, with the princely sport of hawks you

use,

Behold the kingly flight of his high Muse,
And see how, like the phoenix, she renews
Her age and starry feathers in your sun,
Thousands of years attending, every one
Blowing the holy fire, and throwing in
Their seasons, kingdoms, nations, that
have been

Subverted in them; laws, religions, all
Offer'd to change and greedy funeral ;
Yet still your Homer lasting, living,
reigning,

And proves how firm truth builds in poets' feigning.

A prince's statue, or in marble carved, Or steel, or gold, and shrined, to be preserved,

Aloft on pillars or pyramides,

Time into lowest ruins may depress

But drawn with all his virtues in learn'd

verse,

Fame shall resound them on oblivion's hearse,

Till graves gasp with her blasts, and dead men rise.

No gold can follow where true Poesy flies.
Then let not this Divinity in earth,
Dear Prince, be slighted as she were the

birth

Of idle fancy, since she works so high; Nor let her poor disposer, Learning, lie Still bed-rid. Both which being in men

defaced,

In men with them is God's bright image rased;

For as the Sun and Moon are figures given
Of his refulgent Deity in heaven,
So Learning, and, her lightener, Poesy,
In earth present his fiery Majesty.
Nor are kings like him, since their diadems
Thunder and lighten and project brave
beams,

But since they his clear virtues emulate,
In truth and justice imaging his state,
In bounty and humanity since they shine,
Than which is nothing like him more
divine:

Not fire, not light, the sun's admired

course,

The rise nor set of stars, nor all their force In us and all this cope beneath the sky, Nor great Existence, term'd his treasury; Since not for being greatest he is blest, But being just, and in all virtues blest.

What sets his justice and his truth best forth,

Best Prince, then use best, which is Poesy's worth.

VOL. II.

Power, fortune, honour, fit to elevate
Her heavenly merits, and so fit they are,
Since she was made for them, and they for
her;

So Truth, with Poesy graced, is fairer far,

More proper, moving, chaste, and regular, Than when she runs away with untruss'd Prose;

Proportion, that doth orderly dispose Her virtuous treasure, and is queen of graces;

In Poesy decking her with choicest phrases, Figures and numbers; when loose Prose puts on

Plain letter-habits, makes her trot upon Dull earthly business, she being mere divine;

Holds her to homely cates and harsh hedgewine,

That should drink Poesy's nectar; every

way

One made for other, as the sun and day,
Princes and virtues. And, as in a spring,
The pliant water, moved with anything
Let fall into it, puts her motion out
In perfect circles, that move round about
The gentle fountain, one another raising;
So Truth and Poesy work; so Poesy,
blazing

All subjects fall'n in her exhaustless fount,
Works most exactly, makes a true account
Of all things to her high discharges given,
Till all be circular and round as heaven.

And lastly, great Prince, mark and pardon me :

As in a flourishing and ripe fruit-tree, Nature hath made the bark to save the bole,

The bole the sap, the sap to deck the whole

With leaves and branches, they to bear and shield

The useful fruit, the fruit itself to yield Guard to the kernel, and for that all

those,

Since out of that again the whole tree grows;

So in our tree of man, whose nervy root Springs in his top, from thence even to his foot

K