Newes from the Dead/Dum sacer Eurydicen
DUm sucer Eurydicen Orpheus dèducit ab orco,
Flectit ad infernum lumina retrò Lacum:
Sic Correpta statim, nigras revocatur in umbras:
Rupta nec est Fidibus restituenda Fides.
Tutius effugium sua fata dedêre puellæ:
Quin & Apollineâ fit rediviva manu.
Sic valet ulteriùs Medicus quam Musicus; Ille
Imperat Infernis, Supplicat iste Diis.
Strange Metamorphosis Ovid never wott!
A maid chang'd from, yet to her selfe is brought.
He Pythagoricall migrations chants,
How humane soules inoculate with plants.
When Hers loath to divorce her antient Mate
(Scepticke in Love) resumes her former state.
And as halfe choak't in double prison walls
One of her Body, th'-other of the Gaole.
Shee takes a gentle flight in freer Air,
And straight returneth home more debonnaire.
New birth's noe Probleme now: for we have seen
A senselesse Corps quickned with Life has beene.
And that not by a Miracle, but Art
With broken winded Nature, playing part.
The great inchanting Orpheus who could bring
From Hell Eurydice by a fidle string;
Yet Let her slip againe: And breaking's Truft
His Magicke-musicke Nerve, in sunder burst. O
Apollo scornes to make such Emp'ricke Cures:
Here's one now dead alive, alive endures.
Her fatall thread was Cut: Yet Plutoes bands.
Could her not ravish from his sacred hands.
Yea though a knife had Cut the Sisters Twine,
His Plantan Leafe would that together joyne,
See Orpheus, See, thy wonder-working Lyre,
Holds noe Comparison with thy Heavenly Sire.
W. Hatley, of Saint Johns Coll.