'Twas taught by wise Pythagoras
One soul might thro' more bodies pass:
Seeing such transmigration there,
She thought it not a fable here,
Such a resemblance of all parts,
Life, death, age, fortune, nature, arts,
Then lights her torch at theirs, to tell
And shew the world this parallel :
Fix'd and contemplative their looks,
Still turning over Nature's books;
Their works chaste, moral, and divine,
Where profit and delight combine;
They, gilding dirt, in noble verşe
Rustic philosophy rehearse.
When heroes, gods, or godlike kings,
They praise, on their exalted wings
To the celestial orbs they climb,
Nor did their actions fall behind
And with th' hormonious spheres keep time.
Their words, but with like candour shin'd;
Each drew fair characters, yet none
Of these they feign'd excels their own.
Both by two gen'rou's princes lov'd,
Who knew, and judg'd what they approv'd: 90
Yet having each the same desire,
Both from the busy throng retire.
Their bodies, to their minds resign'd,
Car'd not to propagate their kind :
Yet tho' both fell before their hour,
Time on their offspring hath no pow'r :
Nor fire nor Fate their bays shall blast,
Nor death's dark veil their day o'ercast.
MR. JOHN FLETCHER'S WORKS.
So shall we joy, when all whom beasts and worms
Have turn'd to their own substances and forms;
Whom earth to earth, or fire hath chang'd to fire,
We shall behold more than at first entire ;
As now we do to see all thine thy own
In this my Muse's resurrection,
Whose scatter'd parts from thyown race morewounds
Hath suffer'd than Acteon from his hounds;
Which first their brains and then their belly fed,
And from their excrements new poets bred.
But now thy Muse enraged, from her urn,
Like ghosts of murder'd bodies, does return
T' accuse the murderers, to right the stage,
And undeceive the long-abused age
Which casts thy praise on them to whom thy wit 15
Gives not more gold than they give dross to it :
Who, not content, like felons, to purloin,
Add treason to it, and debase the coin.
But whither am I stray'd? I need not raise
Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise;
Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built,
Nor need thy juster title the foul guilt
Of eastern kings, who, to secure their reign,
Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain.
Then was Wit's empire at the fatal height,
When labouring and sinking with its weight,
From thence a thousand lesser poets sprung,
Like petty princes from the fall of Rome;
When Johnson, Shakespeare, and thyself, did sit,
And sway'd in the triumvirate of wit-
Yet what from Johnson's oil and sweat did flow,
Or what more easy Nature did bestow
On Shakespeare's gentler Muse, in thee, full grown,
Their graces both appear, yet so that none
Can say here Nature ends and Art begins,
But mix'd like th' elements, and born like twins,
So interwove, so like, so much the same,
None this mere Nature that mere Art can name.
'Twas this the Ancients meant: nature and skill
Are the two tops of their Parnassus hill...
WHAT gives us that fantastic fit
That all our judgment and our wit
To vulgar custom we submit ?
Treason, theft, murder, and all the rest
Of that foul legion we so detest,
Are in their proper names exprest.
Why is it then thought sin or shame
Those necessary parts to name
From whence we went, and whence we cane?
Nature, whate'er she wants, requires;
With love inflaming our desires,
Finds engines fit to quench those fires :
Death she abhors; yet when men die
We're present; but no stander-by
Looks on when we that loss supply.
Forbidden wares sell twice as dear;
Ev'n sack prohibited last year
A most abominable rate did bear.
'Tis plain our eyes and ears are nice,
Only to raise, by that device,
Of those cominodities the price.
Thus reason's shadows us betray,
By tropes and figures led astray,
From Nature, both her guide and way.
FRIENDSHIP AND SINGLE LIFE
LOVE! in what poison is thy dart
Dipp'd when it makes a bleeding heart ?
None know but they who feel the smart.
It is not thou but we are blind,
And our corporeal eyes (we find)
Dazzle the optics of our mind.
What subtle witchcraft man constrains
To change his pleasure into pains,
And all his freedom into chains ?
May not a prison, or a grave,
Like wedlock, honour's title have ?
That word makes free-born man a slave.
How happy he that loves not lives!
Him neither hope nor fear deceives
To Fortune who no hostage gives.
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