The foure ages of England, or, The iron age with other select poems / written by Mr. A. Cowley.

The Silver Age.

CHAP. I.

MAns nature not content with this, did range To further things, fancy is prone to change. Then domineering Will began to stir, And scorn'd that Reason should rule over her. Active ambition would not be content To keep its selfe within its Continent; But, being unsatiable, doth aspire, Like oyl; injoyment makes the flame blaze higher: And Appetite, the servant to each Sence, Would not obey, but have preheminence.

CHAP. II.

ARts were invented, studi'd, men began T'instruct the ground, to plough the Ocean. The year's quadrangled, People did begin T'erect them houses to inhabit in:

Coffin'd their limbs in cloaths, (cloaths first were meant But for necessity, not ornament: But pride, the child of plenty, made them grow From warmth to comely, thence t'a gawdy show:) Then such magnificence in them begun, That glittring vestures seem'd to stain the Sun; Houses to Babels swell'd, and were baptiz'd With their own Founders names; and men devis'd All waies to write their names, that they might be Read in the Rolls of vast Eternitie. Turrets on tiptoe stood, to kisse the Skies, And Marble Pillars to the Spheres did rise. Towers did periwig their heads in clouds, As if those were their bases, these their shrouds. Men deckt their walls, and drest their spacious rooms With costly excrements of Persian Looms; And guiltlesse Aras was condemn'd to be Hang'd, for no crime, but its imagerie.

CHAP. III.

SHips crost the angry Seas, with Billows hurl'd, And in their race begirt the spacious world, Rifling it of its treasur••s, to delight, With rarities, the craving Appetite. The ransack'd Indies brought in weekly rates, To feast their curious tast with delicates; The burden'd fields brought in centuple crops, Dischannelling themselves into their laps; Yet having stript the earth of what she wore, They not content with this, dive still for more. And the imbowell'd earth is brought to bed Of treasures, which within her nature hid.

Musick, the soul of pleasure, still prepares, To breath delicious Accents in their eares; Arabia contributed her gums, And wanton Zephire from all Gardens comes With odorifrous smells, which did so vary, The Phoenix soile did seem ubiquitary. And in all these the touch and sight did meet, For what was blisse to touch, 'twas blisse to see't.

CHAP. IV.

THen with what pomp they feasted, with what state Each severall course wallowd in antique Plate; Dish follow'd dish, and course succeeded course, Still chimneyes took Tobacco by the force Of a continu'd fire, which was heapt on For a new meale, ere t'other scarce was done. All outward blessings were in one conjoyn'd, That might delight or satisfie the mind. Each place was plenties Magazine, to fill Their hearts, yet they had a plus ultra still. Men bath'd in plenty, and in pleasure rowl'd, Then they found out that strife-begetting Gold. Now men stretch their estates wide, that they might Like their desires, be boundlesse, infinite, Wide as the Horizon; the careering Sun Scarce in a day their limits could out-run. Big-belli'd chests uncatechised lay, Waiting a generall accounting day; Un-Eunuch't purses precious stones did weare, Nor did they then the gelding Troopers feare: Yet having all these riches, they were poore, Cause, having much, they still desired more.

Dropsi'd desire did teach men to be vile, From hence did flow the seven-headed Nile Of deadly sin. This gave sinister birth To injury; but Justice on the earth Had yet some being, Lawes enacted were, Men must do right, though not for love, for feare. Just equity fetter'd the hands of might, With both hands arm'd, and yet both hands were right. Then vicious minds were bridled by the Law, And judgments kept disorder'd men in awe. Times trod on th' heels of times, but as they grew, The old were still out-stript in vice by new.