Matthew Prior

What charms you have, from what high race you sprung,
Have been the pleasing subjects of my song:
Unskill'd and young, yet something still I writ
Of Ca'ndish' beauty, join'd to Cecil's wit.
But when you please to show the labouring muse
What greater theme your music can produce,
My babbling praises I repeat no more,
But hear, rejoice, stand silent, and adore.

The Persians thus, first gazing on the sun,
Admired how high 'twas placed, how bright it shone;
But as his power was known their thoughts were raised,
And soon they worshipp'd what at first they praised.

Eliza's glory lives in Spenser's song,
And Cowley's verse keeps fair Orinda young;
That as in birth and beauty you excel,
The muse might dictate and the poet tell:
Your art no other art can sp...

Howe'er, 'tis well that, while mankind
Through fate's perverse meander errs,
He can imagined pleasures find
To combat against real cares.

Fancies and notions he pursues,
Which ne'er had being but in thought;
Each, like the Grecian artist, wooes,
The image he himself has wrought.

Against experience he believes;
He argues against demonstration:
Pleased when his reason he deceives,
And sets his judgement by his passion.

The hoary fool, who many days
Has struggled with continued sorrow,
Renew's his hope, and blindly lays
The desperate bet upon to-morrow.

To-morrow comes: 'tis noon, 'tis night:
This day like all the former flies;
Yet on he runs to seek delight
To-morrow, till to-night he dies.

Our hopes like towerin...

Here reading how fond Adam was betray'd,
And how by sin Eve's blasted charms decay'd,
Our common loss unjustly you complain,
So small that part of it which you sustain.

You still, fair mother, in your offspring trace
The stock of beauty destined for the race;
Kind Nature forming them, the pattern took
From heaven's first work, and Eve's original look.

You, happy saint, the serpent's power control;
Scarce any actual guilt defiles your soul;
And hell does o'er that mind vain triumphs boast
Which gains does o'er that mind vain triumphs boast

With virtue strong as yours had Eve been arm'd,
In vain the fruit had blush'd, or serpent charm'd;
Nor had our bliss by penitence been bought,
Nor had frail Adam fall'n, nor Milton wrote.

When future ages shall with wonder view
These glorious lines which Harley's daughter drew,
They shall confess that Britain could not raise
A fairer column to the father's praise.

Wiessen and nature held a long contest
If she created or he painted best;
With pleasing thought the wondrous combat grew,
She still form'd fairer, he still liker drew.
In these seven brethren they contended last;
With art increased their utmost skill they tried,
And both well pleased they had themselves surpass'd,
The goddess triumph'd, and the painter died.
That both their skill to this vast height did raise,
Be ours the wonder, and be yours the praise:
For here, as in some glass, is well descried
Only yourself thus often multiply'd.
When heaven had you and gracious Anna made,
What more exalted beauty could it add?
Having no nobler images in store,
It but kept up to these, nor could do more
Than copy well what it had framed before.
If in dear Burghley's ...

Once on a time, in sunshine weather,
Falsehood and Truth walk'd out together,
The neighbouring woods and lawns to view,
As opposites will sometimes do:
Through many a blooming mead they pass'd,
And at a brook arrived at last:
The purling stream, the margin green,
With flowers bedeck'd, a vernal scene,
Invited each itinerant maid
To rest a while beneath the shade;
Under a spreading beech they sat,
And pass'd the time with female chat;
While each her thoughts, the other feign'd.
At length, quoth Falsehood, Sister Truth,
For so she call'd her from her youth,
What if, to shun yon sultry beam,
We bathe in this delightful stream,
The bottom smooth, the water clear,
And there's no prying shepherd near?
With all my heart, the nymph replied,
And thr...

Sphinx was a monster that would eat
Whatever stranger she could get,
Unless his ready wit disclosed
The subtile riddle she proposed.

OEdipus was resolved to go
And try what strength of parts would do;
Says Sphinx, on this depends your fate;
Tell me what animal is that
Which has four feet at morning bright,
Has two at noon, and three at night?
'Tis Man, said he, who, weak by nature,
At first creeps, like his fellow-creature,
Upon all four; as years accrue,
With sturdy steps he walks on two;
In age at length grows weak and sick,
For his third leg adopts the stick.

Now, in your turn, 'tis just, methinks,
You should resolve me, Madam Sphinx,
What greater stranger yet is he
Who has four legs, then two, then three;
Then loses one, the...

Honour, I say, or honest Fame,
I mean the substance, not the name;
(Not that light heap of tawdry wares,
Ermin, Coronets, and Stars,
Which often is by merit sought,
By gold and flatt'ry oft'ner bought.
The shade, for which Ambition looks,
In Selden's or in Ashmole's books):
But the true glory which proceeds,
Reflected bright from honest deeds,
Which we in our Own breast perceive,
And Kings can neither take nor give.

I know that Fortune long has wanted sight,
And therefore pardon'd when she did not right;
But yet till then it never did appear
That, as she wanted eyes, she could not hear.
I begg'd that she would give me leave to lose,
A thing she does not commonly refuse.
Two matadores are out against my game,
Yet still I play, and still my luck's the same:
Unconquer'd in three suits it does remain,
Whereas I only ask in one to gain;
Yet she still contradicting gifts imparts,
And gives success in every suit, but Hearts.

Les allemans ne ce soucient pas quel vin its boivent
pouveu que ce soit vin, ni quel Latin ils parletn
vue que ce soit Latin.

When you with High-Dutch Heeren dine,
Expect false Latin and stum'd wine:
They never taste who always drink;
They always talk who never think.

When Cloe's Picture was to Venus shown;
Surpriz'd, the Goddess took it for Her own.
And what, said She, does this bold Painter mean?
When was I Bathing thus, and Naked seen?

Pleas'd Cupid heard, and check'd His Mother's Pride:
And who's blind now, Mamma? the Urchin cry'd.
'Tis Cloe's Eye, and Cheek, and Lip, and Breast:
Friend Howard's Genius fancy'd all the rest.

Thus to the Muses spoke the Cyprian Dame,
Adorn my altars, and revere my name.
My son shall else assume his potent darts;
Twang goes the bow; my girls have at your hearts.
The Muses answer'd Venus, We deride
The Vagrant's malice and his mother's pride:
Send him to nymphs who sleep on Ida's shade,
To the loose dance and wanton masquerade:
Our thoughts are settled, and intent our look
On the instructive verse and moral book.
On female idleness his power relies,
But when he finds us studying hard he flies.

Madam, Since Anna visited the muse's seat,
(Around her tomb let weeping angels wait)
Hail, thou, the brightest of thy sex, and best,
Most gracious neighbour and most welcome guest:
Not Harley's self, to Cam and Isis dear,
In virtues and in arts great Oxford's heir,
Not he such present honour shall receive
As to his consort we aspire to give.

Writings of men our thought to-day neglects,
To pay due homage to the softer sex:
Plato and Tully we forbear to read,
And their great followers whom this house has bred,
To study lessons from thy morals given,
And shining characters impress'd by Heaven.
Science in books no longer we pursue,
Minerva's self in Harriet's face we view;
For when with Beauty we can Virtue join,
We paint the semblance of a form divine....

O Death how thou spoil'st the best project of life,
Said Gabriel, who still as he bury'd one wife,
For the sake of her family married her cousin;
And thus in an honest collateral line
He still married on till his number was nine,
Full sorry to die till he made up his dozen.

Ovid is the surest guide
You can name to show the way
To any woman, maid, or bride,
Who resolves to go astray.

Dictate, O mighty judge, what thou hast seen
Of cities and of courts, of books and men,
And deign to let thy servant hold the pen.

Through ages, thus, I may presume to live,
And from the transcript of thy prose receive
What my own short-lived verse can never give.

Thus shall fair Britain, with a gracious smile,
Accept the work, and the instructed isle
For more than treaties made shall bless my toil.

Nor longer hence the Gallic style preferr'd,
Wisdom in English idiom shall be heard,
While Talbot tells the world where Montaigne err'd.

Whate'er thy countrymen have done
By law and wit, by sword and gun,
In thee is faithfully recited,
And all the living world that view
Thy work, give thee the praises due
At once instructed and delighted.

Yet for the fame of all these deeds
What beggar in the invalids,
With lameness broke, with blindness smitten,
Wish'd ever decently to die,
To have been either Mezeray,
Or any Monarch he has written?

It's strange, dear Author, yet it true is,
That down from Pharamond to Louis
All covet life, yet call it pain,
And feel the ill, yet shun the cure:
Can sense this paradox endure?
Resolve me, Cambray, or Fontaine.

The man in graver tragic known
(Though his best part long since was done)
Still on the stage desires to tarry,
...

Bless'd be the princes who have fought
For pompous names or wide dominion,
Since by their error we are taught
That happiness is but opinion.