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To L. for a wreath of Bayes sent.
SOul of my Muse! what active unknown fire
Already doth thy Delphick wreath inspire?
O'th sudden, how my faculties swell high,
And I am all a powerful Prophesie!
Sleep ye dull Caesars, Rome will boast in vain
Your glorious Tryumphs, One is in my brain,
Great as all yours, and circled with thy Bayes,
My thoughts take Empire o're all land and seas:
Proof against all the Planets, and the stroke
Of Thunder, I rise up Augustus Oake
Within my guard of Laurel, and made free
From age, look fresh still as my Daphnean Tree.
My Fancie's narrow yet, till I create
For thee another world, and in a state
As free as Innocence, shame all Poets wit,
To climb no higher then Elizium yet,
Where the pale lovers meet, and teach the groves
To sigh, and sing vain legends of their loves;
We will have other flights, and raste such things
Are onely fit for Sainted Queens and Kings.
Musaeus, Homer, and ye sacred rest,
Long since beleev'd in your own ashes blest,
Awake, and live again, and having wrote
Our story, wish your other songs forgot,