Præludium

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 soreWith his old earthly labours t’ exact moreOf his dull godhead were sin. I’ll implore

Phœbus. No, tend thy cart still. Envious dayShall 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 makeA beauty of that merit, that should take

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

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 procureSome way of entrance) we must plant a guardOf thoughts to watch and wardAt th’ eye and ear, the ports unto the mind,That no strange, or unkindObject arrive there, but the heart, our spy,Give knowledge instantlyTo wakeful reason, our affections’ king:Who, in th’ examining,Will quickly taste the treason, and commitClose, 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 keepBack the intelligence, and falsely swearsThey’re base and idle fearsWhereof 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 loveThe first: as prone to moveMost frequent tumults, horrors, and unrests,In our inflamèd 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 wereIn a continual tempest. Now, true loveNo 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 combinesThe soft and sweetest mindsIn 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, enjoysTh’ 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 fixèd thought, an eye untaught to glance;Who, blest with such high chance,Would, at suggestion of a steep desire,Cast himself from the spireOf all his happiness? But soft: I hearSome vicious fool draw near,That cries, we dream, and swears there’s no such thing,As this chaste love we sing.Peace, Luxury! thou art like one of thoseWho, being at sea, suppose,Because they move, the continent doth so:No, Vice, we let thee knowThough thy wild thoughts with sparrows’ wings do fly,Turtles can chastely die;And yet (in this t’ express ourselves more clear)We do not number hereSuch spirits as are only continent,Because lust’s means are spent;Or those who doubt the common mouth of fame,And for their place and name,Cannot so safely sin: their chastityIs mere necessity;Nor mean we those whom vows and conscienceHave filled with abstinence:Though we acknowledge who can so abstain,Makes a most blessèd gain;He that for love of goodness hateth ill,Is more crown-worthy stillThan he, which for sin’s penalty forbears:His heart sins, though he fears.But we propose a person like our Dove,Graced with a Phœnix’ love;A beauty of that clear and sparkling light,Would make a day of night,And turn the blackest sorrows to bright joys:Whose odorous breath destroysAll taste of bitterness, and makes the airAs sweet as she is fair.A body so harmoniously composed,As if natùre disclosedAll her best symmetry in that one feature!O, so divine a creatureWho could be false to? chiefly, when he knowsHow only she bestowsThe wealthy treasure of her love on him;Making his fortunes swimIn the full flood of her admired perfection?What savage, brute affection,Would not be fearful to offend a dameOf this excelling frame?Much more a noble, and right generous mind,To virtuous moods inclined,That knows the weight of guilt: he will refrainFrom thoughts of such a strain,And to his sense object this sentence ever,“Man may securely sin, but safely never.”