The Works of Abraham Cowley/Volume 2/The Resurrection

by Abraham Cowley

For works with similar titles, see Resurrection.

THE RESURRECTION.

 

Not winds to voyagers at sea,
Nor showers to earth more necessary be
(Heaven's vital seed cast on the womb of earth
To give the fruitful year a birth)
Than Verse to Virtue; which can do
The midwife's office and the nurse's too;
It feeds it strongly, and it clothes it gay,
And, when it dies, with comely pride
Embalms it, and erects a pyramid
That never will decay
Till heaven itself shall melt away,
And nought behind it stay.

Begin the song, and strike the living lyre;
Lo! how the years to come, a numerous and well-fitted quire,
All hand in hand do decently advance,
And to my song with smooth and equal measures dance!
Whilst the dance lasts, how long soe'er it be,
My musick's voice shall bear it company;
Till all gentle notes be drown'd
In the last trumpet's dreadful sound:
That to the spheres themselves shall silence bring,
Untune the universal string:
Then all the wide-extended sky,
And all th' harmonious worlds on high,
And Virgil's sacred work, shall die;
And he himself shall see in one fire shine
Rich Nature's ancient Troy, though built by hands divine.

Whom thunder's dismal noise,
And all that prophets and apostles louder spake,
And all the creatures' plain conspiring voice,
Could not, whilst they liv'd, awake,
This mightier sound shall make
When dead t' arise;
And open tombs, and open eyes,
To the long sluggards of five thousand years!
This mightier sound shall make its hearers ears.
Then shall the scatter'd atoms crowding come
Back to their ancient home;
Some from birds, from fishes some;
Some from earth, and some from seas;
Some from beasts, and some from trees;
Some descend from clouds on high,
Some from metals upwards fly,
And, where th' attending soul naked and shivering stands,
Meet, salute, and join their hands;

Stop stop, my Muse! allay thy vigorous heart,
Kindled at a hint so great;
Hold thy Pindaride Pegasus closely in,
Which does to rage begin, &c.

As dispers'd soldiers, at the trumpet's call,
Haste to their colours all.
Unhappy most, like tortur'd men,
Their joints new set, to be new-rack'd again,
To mountains they for shelter pray,
The mountains shake, and run about no less confus'd than they.

Stop, stop, my Muse! allay thy vigorous heat,
Kindled at a hint so great;
Hold thy Pindarick Pegasus closely in,
Which does to rage begin,
And this steep hill would gallop up with violent course;
’Tis an unruly and a hard-mouth'd horse,
Fierce and unbroken yet,
Impatient of the spur or bit;
Now prances stately, and anon flies o'er the place;
Disdains the servile law of any settled pace,
Conscious and proud of his own natural force.
'T will no unskilful touch endure,
But flings writer and reader too, that sits not sure.