Lift'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 snow 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 pafs
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 reft
Are held with his melodious harmony
In willing chains and sweet captivity.
But fie, my wand'ring Muse, how thou dost stray!
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 resign my room.

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Then Ens is reprefented as father of the Predicaments his ten fons, whereof the eldest flood for Subftance 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 didst lie,
And sweetly finging round about thy bed
Strow all their bleffings on thy fleeping head.

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

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Yet there is something that doth force my fear,
For once it was my dismal 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 glass
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 fhall reign as king,
Yet every one shall make him underling,
And those that cannot live from him asunder
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under,
In worth and excellence he shall 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 shall not be his hap,
And peace shall lull him in her flow'ry lap;
Yet fhall he live in ftrife, and at his door
Devouring war fhall never cease to roar:
Yea it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.

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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 son

Of utmost 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 NAT IV ITY.

T

Compos'd 1629.
I.

HIS is the month, and this the happy morn,

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 unfufferable,

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,

Forfook the courts of everlasting day,

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

Say heav'nly Muse, shall 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 sun's team untrod,

15

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

I

The HYMN.

I.

T was the winter wild,

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 feason 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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40

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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.

IV.

No war, or battel's found

Was heard the world around:

The idle spear and shield were high up hung;

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The