Wake, and put on the wings of Pindar's Muse,

To tower with my intention

High as his mind, that doth advance Her upright head above the reach of chance,

Or the time's envị.

Cynthius, I apply My bolder numbers to thy golden lyre;

O then inspire Thy priest in this strange rapture! heat my brain

With Delphic fire, That I may sing my thoughts in some unvulgar

strain.

Rich beam of honor, shed your light

On these dark rhymes, that my affection May shine, through every chink, to every sight

Graced by your reflection! Then shall my verses, like strong charms, Break the knit circle of her stony arms,

That hold your spirit,

And keep your merit Locked in her cold embraces, from the view

Of eyes more true, Who would with judgment search, searching conclude,

As proved in you, True noblesse. Palm grows straight, though

handled ne'er so rude.

Nor think yourself unfortunate,

If subject to the jealous errors Of politic pretext, that wries a state;

Sink not beneath these terrors:

But whisper, O glad innocence, Where only a man's birth is his offence;

Or the disfavor

Of such as savor
Nothing, but practise upon honor's thrall.

O virtue's fall !
When her dead essence, like the anatomy

In Surgeon's-hall,
Is but a statist's theme to read phlebotomy.

Let Brontes, and black Steropes,

Sweat at the forge, their hammers beating; Pyracmon's hour will come to give them ease,

Though but while metal's heating:

And, after all the Ætnean ire,
Gold, that is perfect, will outlive the fire.

For fury wasteth,

As patience lasteth.
No armor to the mind! he is shot-free

From injury,
That is not hurt; not he, that is not hit;

So fools, we see,
Oft 'scape an imputation, more through luck

than wit.

But to yourself, most loyal lord,
Whose heart in that bright sphere flames

clearest,
Though many gems be in your bosom stored,

Unknown which is the dearest;

If I auspiciously divine, As my hope tells, that our fair Phæbe's shine

Shall light those places,

With lustrous graces, Where darkness with her gloomy sceptred hand,

Doth now command; O then, my best-best loved, let me importune,

That you will stand, , As far from all revolt, as you are now from

fortune. 33

83

88 It is clear from this stanza that the poem was written before 1600, when the attainder was removed, and that it is, therefore, one of Jonson's earliest productions. Whalley, mistaking the meaning of the last stanza, altered Phæbe to Phoebus. But Phæbe, as pointed out by Gifford, is meant for Queen Elizabeth, who took great delight in this kind of poetical flattery. – B.

AN ODE.

High-spirited friend, I send nor balms, nor cor'sives to your wound;

Your fate hath found A gentler, and more agile hand, to tend The cure of that which is but corporal; And doubtful days, which were named critical,

Have made their fairest flight,

And now are out of sight; Yet doth some wholesome physic for the mind

Wrapped in this paper lie, Which in the taking if you misapply,

You are unkind.

Your covetous hand,
Happy in that fair honor it hath gained,

Must now be reined.
True valor doth her own renown command
In one full action; nor have you now more
To do, than be a husband of that store.

Think but how dear you bought
This same which

you

have caught, Such thoughts will make you more in love with

truth:

'Tis wisdom, and that high, For men to use their fortune reverently,

Even in youth.

AN ODE.

Helen, did Homer never see
Thy beauties, yet could write of thee?

Did Sappho, on her seven-tongued lute,
So speak, as yet it is not mute,
Of Phaon's form ? or doth the boy,
In whom Anacreon once did joy,
Lie drawn to life in his soft verse,
As he whom Maro did rehearse ?
Was Lesbia sung by learn'a Catullus,
Or Delia's graces by Tibullus ?
Doth Cynthia, in Propertius' song,
Shine more than she the stars among?
Is Horace his each love so high
Rapt from the earth, as not to die?
With bright Lycoris, Gallus' choice,
Whose fame hath an eternal voice?
Or hath Corinna, by the name
Her Ovid gave her, dimmed the fame
Of Cæsar's daughter, and the line
Which all the world then styled divine ?
Hath Petrarch since his Laura raised
Equal with her? or Ronsard praised
His new Cassandra, ’bove the old
Which all the fate of Troy foretold ?
Hath our great Sidney, Stella set
Where never star shown brighter yet?
Or Constable's ambrosiac muse
Made Dian not his notes refuse ? 34

34 Henry Constable, a poet who, towards the close of the sixteenth century, acquired some celebrity as a writer of sonnets. The work alluded to in the above passage was called Diana, or the excellent conceitful sonnets of II. C. augmented