The Works of Abraham Cowley/Volume 2/The Muse
THE MUSE.
Go, the rich chariot instantly prepare;The Queen, my Muse, will take the air:Unruly Fancy with strong Judgment trace;Put in nimble-footed Wit,Smooth-pac'd Eloquence join with it;Sound Memory with young Invention place;Harness all the winged race.Let the postillion Nature mount, and letThe coachman Art be set;And let the airy footmen, running all beside,Make a long row of goodly pride,Figures, Conceits, Raptures, and Sentences,In a well-worded dress;And innocent Loves, and pleasant Truths, and useful Lyes,In all their gaudy liveries.Mount, glorious Queen! thy travelling throne,And bid it to put on;For long, though cheerful, is the way,And life, alas! allows but one ill winter's day.
Where never foot of man, or hoof of beast,The passage press'd;Where never fish did fly,And with short silver wings cut the low liquid sky;Where bird with painted oars did ne'erRow through the trackless ocean of the air; Where never yet did pryThe busy morning's curious eye;The wheels of thy bold coach pass quick and free,And all 's an open road to thee!Whatever God did Say,Is all thy plain and smooth uninterrupted way!Nay, ev'n beyond his works thy oyages are known,Thou 'hast thousand worlds too of thine own.Thou speak'st, great Queen! in the same style as He;And a new world leaps forth when thou say'st, "Let it be."
Thou fathom'st the deep gulf of ages past,And canst pluck up with easeThe years which thou dost please;Like shipwreck'd treasures, by rude tempests castLong since into the sea.Brought up again to light and publick use by thee.Nor dost thou only dive so low,But flyWith an unwearied wing the other way on high,Where Fates among the stars do grow jThere into the close nests of Time dost peep,And there, with piercing eye,Through the firm shell and the thick white, dost spyYears to come a-forming lie.Close in their sacred secundine asleep,Till, batch'd by the sun's vital heat, Which o'er them yet does brooding set,They life and motion get,And, ripe at last, with vigorous mightBreak through the shell, and take their everlasting flight!
And sure we mayThe same too of the present say,If past and future times do thee obey.Thou stopp'st this current, and dost makeThis running river settle like a lake;Thy certain hand holds fast this slippery snake!The fruit which does so quickly waste,Men scarce can see it, much less taste,Thou comfitest in sweets to make it last.This shining piece of ice,Which melts so soon awayWith the sun's ray,Thy verse does solidate and crystallize,Till it a lasting mirror be!Nay, thy immortal rhymeMakes this one short point of time.To fill up half the orb of round eternity.