No More Learning

You lived to be the great sir-names,
And titles, by which all made claims
Unto the virtue; nothing perfect done,
But as a Cary, or a Morison.


THE STAND


And such a force the fair example had,
As they that saw
The good, and durst not practise it, were glad
That such a law
Was left yet to mankind;
Where they might read and find
Friendship, indeed, was written not in words;
And with the heart, not pen,
Of two so early men,
Whose lines her rolls were, and records;
Who, ere the first down bloomed upon the chin,
Had sowed these fruits, and got the harvest in.


PRAELUDIUM.


AND must I sing? What subject shall I choose!
Or whose great name in poets' heaven use,
For the more countenance to my active muse?

Hercules? alas, his bones are yet sore
With his old earthly labours t' exact more
Of his dull godhead were sin. I'll implore

Phoebus. No, tend thy cart still. Envious day
Shall not give out that I have made thee stay,
And foundered thy hot team, to tune my lay.

Nor will I beg of thee, lord of the vine,
To raise my spirits with thy conjuring wine,
In the green circle of thy ivy twine.

Pallas, nor thee I call on, mankind maid,
That at thy birth mad'st the poor smith afraid.
Who with his axe thy father's midwife played.

Go, cramp dull Mars, light Venus, when he snorts,
Or with thy tribade trine invent new sports;
Thou, nor thy looseness with my making sorts.
Let the old boy, your son, ply his old task,
Turn the stale prologue to some painted mask;
His absence in my verse is all I ask.

Hermes, the cheater, shall not mix with us,
Though he would steal his sisters' Pegasus,
And rifle him; or pawn his petasus.

Nor all the ladies of the Thespian lake,
Though they were crushed into one form, could make
A beauty of that merit, that should take

My muse up by commission; no, I bring
My own true fire: now my thought takes wing,
And now an epode to deep ears I sing.



EPODE.


NOT to know vice at all, and keep true state,
Is virtue and not fate:
Next to that virtue, is to know vice well,
And her black spite expel.
Which to effect (since no breast is so sure,
Or safe, but she'll procure
Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard
Of thoughts to watch and ward
At th' eye and ear, the ports unto the mind,
That no strange, or unkind
Object arrive there, but the heart, our spy,
Give knowledge instantly
To wakeful reason, our affections' king:
Who, in th' examining,
Will quickly taste the treason, and commit
Close, the close cause of it.
'Tis the securest policy we have,
To make our sense our slave.
But this true course is not embraced by many:
By many! scarce by any.
For either our affections do rebel,
Or else the sentinel,
That should ring 'larum to the heart, doth sleep:
Or some great thought doth keep
Back the intelligence, and falsely swears
They're base and idle fears
Whereof the loyal conscience so complains.
Thus, by these subtle trains,
Do several passions invade the mind,
And strike our reason blind:
Of which usurping rank, some have thought love
The first: as prone to move
Most frequent tumults, horrors, and unrests,
In our inflamed breasts:
But this doth from the cloud of error grow,
Which thus we over-blow.
The thing they here call love is blind desire,
Armed with bow, shafts, and fire;
Inconstant, like the sea, of whence 'tis born,
Rough, swelling, like a storm;
With whom who sails, rides on the surge of fear,
And boils as if he were
In a continual tempest. Now, true love
No such effects doth prove;
That is an essence far more gentle, fine,
Pure, perfect, nay, divine;
It is a golden chain let down from heaven,
Whose links are bright and even;
That falls like sleep on lovers, and combines
The soft and sweetest minds
In equal knots: this bears no brands, nor darts,
To murder different hearts,
But, in a calm and god-like unity,
Preserves community.
O, who is he that, in this peace, enjoys
Th' elixir of all joys?
A form more fresh than are the Eden bowers,
And lasting as her flowers;
Richer than Time and, as Times's virtue, rare;
Sober as saddest care;
A fixed thought, an eye untaught to glance;
Who, blest with such high chance,
Would, at suggestion of a steep desire,
Cast himself from the spire
Of all his happiness? But soft: I hear
Some vicious fool draw near,
That cries, we dream, and swears there's no such thing,
As this chaste love we sing.