1. [ANSELM.]
Here holy Anselm lives in ev'ry page, And sits archbishop still, to vex the age. Had he foreseen--and who knows but he did?-- This fatal wrack, which deep in time lay hid, 'Tis but just to believe, that little hand Which clouded him, but now benights our land, Had never--like Elias--driv'n him hence, A sad retirer for a slight offence. For were he now, like the returning year, Restor'd, to view these desolations here, He would do penance for his old complaint, And--weeping--say, that Rufus was a saint.
From the Epistle-Dedicatory to Flores Solitudinis (1654).