List'ning to what unfhorn Apollo fings

To th'touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly fire:

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Then paffing through the spheres of watchful fire, 40
And mifly regions of wide air next under,
And hills of fnow and lofts of piled thunder,
May tell at length how green-ey'd Neptune raves,
In Heav'n's defiance mustering all his waves;
Then fing of fecret things that came to pass
When beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of kings and queens and heroes old,
Such as the wife Demodocus once told
In folemn fongs at king Alcinous feast,
While fad Ulyffes foul and all the rest
Are held with his melodious harmony
In willing chains and sweet captivity.
But fie, my wand'ring Muse, how thou doft ftray!
Expectance calls thee now another way,
Thou know'st it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy predicament:
Then quick about thy purpos'd business come,
That to the next I may refign my room.

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Then Ens is reprefented as father of the Predicaments his ten fons, whereof the eldest food for Substance with his canons, which Ens, thus speaking, explains.

Go

OOD luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy birth
The faery ladies danc'd upon the hearth;

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Thy

Thy droufy nurse hath sworn she did them spy
Come tripping to the room where thou didft lie,
And sweetly singing round about thy bed
Strow all their bleffings on thy fleeping head.

She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldft ftill From eyes of mortals walk invisible:

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Yet there is fomething that doth force my fear,
For once it was my difmal hap to hear
A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wifely could presage,
And in time's long and dark prospective glafs
Forefaw what future days should bring to pass;
Your fon, said she, (nor can you it prevent)
Shall fubject be to many an Accident.
O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king,
Yet every one shall make him underling,
And those that cannot live from him afunder
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under,
In worth and excellence he fhall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them; So
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his brothers fhall depend for clothing.
To find a foe it fhall not be his hap,
And peace shall lull him in her flow'ry lap;
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring war shall never cease to roar:
Yea it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.

$5

What pow'r, what force, what mighty spell, if not Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot? go The next Quantity and Quality Spake in profe, then Relation was call'd by his name.

R

IVERS arise; whether thou be the fon

Of utmoft Tweed, or Oofe, or gulphy Dun,
Or Trent, who like fome earth-born giant spreads
His thirty arms along th'indented meads,
Or fullen Mole that runneth underneath,
Or Severn swift, guilty of maidens' death,
Or rocky Avon, or of fedgy Lee,

Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name,
Or Medway smooth, or royal towred Thame.

(The reft was profe.)

III.

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On the Morning of CHRIST's NATIVITY.

Compos'd 1629.
I.

HIS is the month, and this the happy morn,

ᎢᎻ

Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,

Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For fo the holy fages once did fing,

That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,

5

And

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,

Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high council-table 10 To fit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid afide; and here with us to be,

Forlook the courts of everlafling day,

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
III.

Say heav'nly Mufe, fhall not thy facred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?

Haft thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,

Now while the Heav'n by the fun's team untrod,

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Hath took no print of the approaching light, 20 And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons IV.

(bright?

See how from far upon the castern road
The ftar-led wifards hafte with odors sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the honor firft, thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the Angel quire,
From out his fecret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

The HYMN.

I.

T was the winter wild,

I was the

While the Heav'n-born child

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;

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Nature

Nature in awe to him

Had dofft her gawdy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her

To wanton with the fun her lufty paramour.

Only with speeches fair

She woo's the gentle air

II.

To hide her guilty front with innocent fnow, And on her naked shame,

Pollute with finful blame,

The faintly veil of maiden white to throw, Confounded, that her Maker's eyes

Should look fo near upon her foul deformities.

But he her fears to cease,

III.

Sent down the meek-ey'd Peace;

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She crown'd with olive green, came foftly fliding

Down through the turning sphere

His ready harbinger,

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing, 50 And waving wide her myrtle wand,

She strikes an universal peace through sea and land.

No war, or battel's found

IV.

Was heard the world around:

The idle fpear and shield were high up hung;

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The