Classic Poem

To Dorick hymnes, Lute, let us raise
Our Teian songs, our Lesbian Layes;
No tender virgins smiling cheek,
No youths allective beauty seek,
But him, from sacred wisedome sprung,
Who thee from heavenly Anthemes strung.
He bids us our free soules remove
From the sweet paines of Earthly love:
Wealth, honours, beauty, strength are dim
Compared with any glimps of him.
Let some to manage horses try,
And outhers boast their archery;
In heapes of Gold place these their care,
Those in their loosely flowing haire;
Some for the grace in which they shine,
By men or maids be stild divine;
Whilst I in quiet live alone,
To god and to him onley knowne:
Wisedome, wealthes Queen, be at my side,
My young and aged steps to guide,
A poverty that knows no toile,
And at the worlds vaine cares doth smile;
Yet something I desire, no more
Then keeps me from my Neighbours dore,
Lest any black or Crooked thought
I might by indigence be taught.
Like some young grassehopper that sings
Sipping the morning dew, my strings
Speak uncompelld, some powers inspire
With heaven-borne songs me and my Lyre.
God, self beginning, of each thing
The unbegooten Sire and King,
Who made the heavens his glorious seat
With majesty and joy repleat;
Blest unitie of unities,
First unite whence all unites rise,
Supreme simplicity brought forth
Conjoynd in supnaturall birth,
Forth sprung the forme first borne Divine,
The single power spread to a trine,
Thus did th'eternall fountaine see
And Glorie in his progenie,
Who, from the Center first produc'd,
About the Center is diffusd.
Stay, stay, bold lute, these mystereys
Should be conceald from vulger eyes,
Thy skill in thinges inferiour prove,
Let silence cover those above;
But oh I must; my soule intent
On the intellectuall world is bent:
The spring whence every humane mind
Inseparably is disjoynd.
The mind eternall, ever young,
From parents never-dying sprung,
Though by misfortune downe she slipt
And be into darke matter dipt,
Of God the Image and the son,
In all and every part is one,
The hollow globe of heaven she rowles,
Distributed in severall soules;
She guards this universall frame,
Part guidence of the stars doth clame,
Part dwells with the Seraphik quire,
Part more at distance from their sire;
By heavy earth attracted downe,
Drinks in obscure oblivion
With darke cares blended and displays
On humaine objects heavenly rayes;
Yet are these eyes not darkned quite,
The eyes though shut retain some light;
Those soules, which downe from heaven did glide,
Back unto heaven some glances guide;
When allmost drownd in the rude strife
And trobled billowes of this life,
They to their fathers court inforce
And steer with joy their sacred course.
Blest who the gulph of matter flies,
Leaps out of earth and seeks the skies;
Blest he who having felt the paines
Of earth, the toile, the bitter gaines
Sufers his mind to teach his sight
The entrance to eternall light,
Whose height to reach is far above
Our power, though winged with heavenly love.
But thou to this sublimer end
Thy intellectuall forces bend,
Then will thy father, though he stand
Unseene, extend his powerfull hand,
And, shooting some diviner ray
To guide thee in this sacred way,
The intellectuall field disclose,
The spring from wence all beuty flowes.
Come then, my soule, drink of this flood,
The living fountane of all good;
Thy fervent prayers to God transmitt,
Mount up, and sordid matter quitt,
That with the father thou mayst joine,
In his divinity divine.