Poems written by A. Cowley.

To Dr. Scarborough.

HOw long, alas, hath our mad Nation been Of Epidemick War the Tragick Scene, Whilst Slaughter all the while Seem'd like its Sea, to embrace round the Isle, With Tempests, and red waves, Noise, and Affright? Albion no more, nor to be nam'ed from white! What Province, or what City did it spare? It, like a Plague, infected all the Aire. Sure the unpeopled Land Would now untill'd, desert, and naked stand, Had Gods All-mighty hand At the same time let loose Diseases rage Their Civil Wars in Man to wage. But Thou by heaven wert sent This Desolation to prevent, A Medicine and a Counter-poyson to the Age, Scarce could the Sword dispatch more to the Grave Then Thou didst save; By wondrous Art, and by successful care The Ruines of a Civil War thou dost alone repair.

2.

1 The Inundations of all Liquid pain, And Deluge Dropsie thou do'est drain. Feavers so hot that one would say Thou mightst as soon Hell-fires allay (The Damn'd scarce more incurable then They) 2 Thou dost so temper, that we find Like Gold the Body but refin'd; No unhealthful dross behind. The subtle Ague, that for sureness sake Takes his own times th' assault to make, And at each battery the whole Fort does shake, When thy strong Guards, and works it spies, Trembles for it self, and flies. The cruel Stone that restless pain That's sometimes roll'd away in vain, 3 But still, like Sisyphus his stone, returns again, Thou break'st and meltest by learn'd Iuyces force, (A greater work, though short the way appear, 4 Then Hannibals by Vinegar) Oppressed Natures necessary course It stops in vain, like Moses, Thou S'trik'st but the Rock, and straight the Waters freely flow.

3.

The Indian Son of Lust, that foul Disease Which did on this his new-found World, but lately sease; Yet since a Tyrannie has planted here, As wide and Cruel as the Spaniard there, Is so quite rooted out by Thee, That thy Patients seem to bee Restor'ed not to Health onely, but Virginitie, The Plague himself, that proud Imperial Ill Which destroys Towns, and does whole Armies kill, If thou but succour the besieged Heart, Calls all his poysons forth, and does depart, As if he fear'd no less thy Art, Then Aarons Incense, or then Phineas dart. What need there here repeated be by me The vast and barbarous Lexicon Of Mans Infirmitie? At thy strong charms it must be gon Though a Disease, as well as Devil, were called Legion.

4.

From creeping Moss to soaring Cedar thou, Dost all the powers and several Portions know, Which Father-Sun, and Mother-Earth below On their green Infants here bestow. Can'st all those Magick Virtues from them draw, That keep Disease, and Death in aw. Who whilst thy wondrous skill in Plants they see, Fear lest the Tree of Life should be found out by Thee. And Thy well-travell'd knowledge too does give No less account of th' Empire Sensitive, Chiefly of Man, whose Body is That active Souls Metropolis. 1 As the great Artist▪ in his Sphere of Glass Saw the whole Scene of Heav'enly Motions pass, So thou know'st all so well that's done within, As if some living Chrystal Man thou'dst seen.

5.

Nor does this Science make thy Crown alone, 1 But whole Apollo is thine owne. His gentler Arts, belov'ed in vain by Mee, Are wedded and enjoy'd by Thee. Thou'rt by this noble Mixture free From the Physitians frequent Maladie, Fantastick Incivilitie, There are who all their Patients chagrin have, As if they took each morn worse potions then they gave.

And this great race of Learning thou hast runne, Ere that of Life be half yet done. Thou see'st thy self still fresh and strong, And like t'enjoy thy Conquests long. 2 The first fam'ed Aphorism thy great Master spoke, Did he live now he would revoke, And better things of Man report; For thou do'est make Life long, and Art but short.

6.

Ah, learned friend, it grieves me, when I think▪ That Thou with all thy Art must dy As certainly as I. 1 And all thy noble Reparations sink Into the sure-wrought Mine of treacherous Mortality, Like Archimedes, honorably in vain, 2 Thou holdst out Towns that must at last be ta'ne And Thou thy self their great Defendor slain. Let's ev'en compound, and for the Present Live, 'Tis all the Ready Money Fate can give, Unbend sometimes thy restless care; And let Thy Friends so happy bee T'enjoy at once their Health and Thee. Some hours at least to thine own pleasures spare. Since the whole stock may soon exhausted be, Bestow't not all in Charitie. Let Nature, and let Art do what they please, When all's done, Life is an Incurable Disease.

NOTES.

2.

1. GOwts, and such kind of Diseases proceeding from moysture, and affecting one or some parts of the Body, whereas the Dropsie swells the whole. Inundation signifies a less overflowing then Deluge.

2. Find, Refind: These kind of Rhymes the French delight in, and call Rich Rhymes; but I do not allow of them in English, nor would use them at all in any other but this free kinde of Poetry, and here too very sparingly, hardly at all without a third Rhyme to answer to both; as in the ninth slaffe of the Nemeaan Ode, Delight, Light, Affright. In the third staffe to Mr. Hobs, Ly, Fertility, Poetry. They are very frequent in Chaucer, and our old Poets, but that is not good authority for us now. There can be no Musick with onely one Note.

3. The Fable of Sisiphus is so known, that it deserves not to be repeated. He was in his life a most famous Cozener and Robber. Ovid. Metam. 13.

Quid sanguine cretusSisiphio, furtis ac fraude simillimus illi?

For which he was slain by Theseus, and condemned in Hell to thrust eternally, a great rolling stone up and hill, which still fell down again upon him, alluding perhaps to the ill success of all his subtilties and wicked enterprizes, in which he laboured incessantly to no purpose.

4. Hannibal not being able to march with his Army over some Rocks in his passage on the Alpes, made fires upon them, and when the stone was very hot, poured a great quan∣tity of Vinegar upon it, by which it being softned and putrified, the Souldiers by that means were enabled to cut a way through it. See Livy the I. Book of the 3. Decade. Iuven.

Et montem rupit aceto.

4.

1. Archimedes: of which Sphere see Claudines Epigram: The like Sphere of Glass one of the Kings of Persia is said to have had, and sitting in the middle of it, as upon the Earth, to have seen round about him all the Revolutions and Motions of the heavenly Bodies.

5.

1. For Apollo is not onely the God of Physick, but of Poetry, and all kinde of Florid Letters.

2. The first Aphorism in Hippocrates, Ars Longa, vita brevis. Known to all men.

6.

1. For whilst we are repairing the outward seeming Breaches, Nature is undermining the very foundations of life, and draining the Radical M••isture, which is the Well that the Town lives by.

2. The great City of Syracuse (which Tully calls in his fourth against Verres, Vrbem omnium pulcherrimam at{que} ornatissimam) sustained a Siege of three years against Marcellus and the Roman Forces, almost onely by the art and industry of the wonderful Mathema∣tician Archimedes; but at last, by the treason of some Commanders, it was entred and taken by the Romans, and in the confusion of the Sack, Archimedes, the honorable Defendor of it so long, being found in his study drawing Mathematical Lines for the making of some new Engines to preserve the Town, was slain by a common Souldier, who knew him not; for there had been particular order given by the Roman General to save him. See this at large in Plut. the life of Marcellus and Livy 5 B. of the 3. Dec.