TO MR. HENRY VAUGHAN THE SILURIST: UPON THESE AND HIS FORMER POEMS.[58]
Had I ador'd the multitude, and thence Got an antipathy to wit and sense, And hugg'd that fate, in hope the world would grant 'Twas good affection to be ignorant;[59] Yet the least ray of thy bright fancy seen, I had converted, or excuseless been. For each birth of thy Muse to after-times Shall expiate for all this Age's crimes. First shines thy Amoret, twice crown'd by thee, Once by thy love, next by thy poetry; Where thou the best of unions dost dispense, Truth cloth'd in wit, and Love in innocence; So that the muddy lover may learn here, No fountains can be sweet that are not clear. There Juvenal, by thee reviv'd, declares How flat man's joys are, and how mean his cares; And wisely doth upbraid[60] the world, that they Should such a value for their ruin pay. But when thy sacred Muse diverts her quil The landscape to design of Sion's hill,[61] As nothing else was worthy her, or thee, So we admire almost t' idolatry. What savage breast would not be rapt to find Such jewels in such cabinets enshrin'd? Thou fill'd with joys--too great to see or count-- Descend'st from thence, like Moses from the Mount, And with a candid, yet unquestion'd awe Restor'st the Golden Age, when Verse was Law. Instructing us, thou so secur'st[62] thy fame, That nothing can disturb it but my name: Nay, I have hopes that standing so near thine 'Twill lose its dross, and by degrees refine. Live! till the disabused world consent All truths of use, of strength or ornament, Are with such harmony by thee display'd As the whole world was first by number made, And from the charming rigour thy Muse brings Learn, there's no pleasure but in serious things!
Orinda.
[58] 1664-1667 have To Mr. Henry Vaughan, Silurist, on his Poems.
[59] So 1664-1667. Thalia Rediviva has the ignorant.
[60] 1664 has generally upbraids; 1667, generously upbraids
[61] 1664-1667 have Leon's hill.
[62] 1664 has thou who securest.