favour which all Arts receive from you; but more particularly by reafon of that Obligation and Zeal with which I am bound to dedicate my felf to your Service: For having been a long time the Object of your Care and Indulgence towards the advantage of my Studies and Fortune, having been moulded (as it were) by your own Hands, and formed under your Government, not to intitle you to any thing which my meanness produces, would not only be Injustice, but Sacrilege: So that if there be any thing here tolerably faid, whith deserves Pardon, it is yours Sir, as well as he, who is, Your most Devoted, and Obliged Servant, THO. SPRAT. To the happy Memory of the late Lord. Protector. By Mr. SPRAT of Oxon. Pindarick Ode. T I. IS true, great Name, thou art fecure Of Death, or Envy, or devouring Age; Thou canft the force and teeth of Time endure: Without what needlefs Art can do } Will live beyond thy Breath, beyond thy Hearfe, I That do remain alone Alive in an Inscription, Remembred only on the Brafs, or Marble-ftone, All our Rofes and Perfumes, Will but officious Folly fhow, And pious Nothings to fuch mighty Tombs All our Incenfe, Gums, and Balm, The Poets may their Spices spare, Their coftly Numbers, and their tuneful Feet: That need not be inbalm'd, which of it self is sweet, II. We know to praise thee is a dangerous proof And yet the other never is more bright. Their weaker Sparks with thy illuftrious Light, It's for our Pens too high, and full of Theme : The Muses are made great by thee, not thou by them, Thy Fame's eternal Lamp will live, And in thy facred Urn furvive, Without the food of Oyl, which we can give. Tho' thou want not our Praises, we And tho' the Gods don't want an earthly Sacrifice, III. Great Life of Wonders, whofe each Year Full of new Miracles did appear! Whofe every Month might be But thinly scatter'd here and there But thine the Milky-way, All one continued Light, of undistinguish'd Day; Thou may'ft in double Shapes be shown, Like Jove fometimes with warlike Thunder, and In what thy Head, or what thy Arm hath done, So full of fubftance, and fo ftrongly join'd, Would many Leaves and mighty Volumes hold. IV. Before thy Name was publish'd, and whilft yet Was not quite feen or understood, It then fure figns of future Greatnefs fhew'd: Did tell the World what it would be, When a full Spring fhould call it forth: As Bodies in the Dark and Night, Have the fame Colours, the fame red and white, As in the open Day and Light; The Sun doth only fhew That they are bright, not make them fo. So whilft but private Walls did know What we to fuch a mighty Mind should owe, Tho' in a less and more contracted Sphere, Tho' then thine was not fo enlarg❜d a Flood; 'Tis true thou waft not born unto a Crown, And private Thoughts took up thy private Years: On meaner things with equal Mein. From Family, and fingle Man, Was by the fmall relation first Of Husband and of Father nurs'd, And from thofe lefs beginnings paft, VI. But when thy Country (then almoft enthrall'd) And't had been Sin in thee not to be Great : When the great Storms and difmal Night 'Twas time for thee to bring forth all our Light, Thou left'ft thy more delightful Peace, Thy private Life, and better Eafe; Then down thy Steel and Armour took, When Death had got a large Commiffion out, VII. Thy Country wounded was, and fick before As if thy Country shou'd Be the Inheritance of Mars and Blood: That Peace might land again upon the Shore, The Husbandmen no Steel shall know, With a destructive Red; 'Twas but till thou our Sun didft in full Light appear VIII. When Ajax dy'd, the purple Blood, That from his gaping Wound had flow'd, Had on it wrote his Epitaph: So from that Crimson Flood, Which thou by Fate of times wert led, Unwillingly to shed, Letters, and Learning rofe, and renewed: Thou fought'ft not out of Envy, Hope, or Hate But to refine the Church and State; And like the Romans, whate'er thou Was, that a Holy Ifand hence might grow |