And, with the princely sport of hawks you

use,

Behold the kingly flight of his high Muse,
And see how, like the phoenix, she renews
Her age and starry feathers in your sun,
Thousands of years attending, every one
Blowing the holy fire, and throwing in
Their seasons, kingdoms, nations, that
have been

Subverted in them; laws, religions, all
Offer'd to change and greedy funeral ;
Yet still your Homer lasting, living,
reigning,

And proves how firm truth builds in poets' feigning.

A prince's statue, or in marble carved, Or steel, or gold, and shrined, to be preserved,

Aloft on pillars or pyramides,

Time into lowest ruins may depress;

But drawn with all his virtues in learn'd

verse,

Fame shall resound them on oblivion's hearse,

Till graves gasp with her blasts, and dead men rise.

No gold can follow where true Poesy flies.
Then let not this Divinity in earth,
Dear Prince, be slighted as she were the
birth

Of idle fancy, since she works so high;
Nor let her poor disposer, Learning, lie
Still bed-rid. Both which being in men
defaced,

In men with them is God's bright image rased;

For as the Sun and Moon are figures given
Of his refulgent Deity in heaven,
So Learning, and, her lightener, Poesy,
In earth present his fiery Majesty.
Nor are kings like him, since their diadems
Thunder and lighten and project brave
beams,

But since they his clear virtues emulate,
In truth and justice imaging his state,
In bounty and humanity since they shine,
Than which is nothing like him more
divine:

Not fire, not light, the sun's admired

course,

The rise nor set of stars, nor all their force
In us and all this cope beneath the sky,
Nor great Existence, term'd his treasury;
Since not for being greatest he is blest,
But being just, and in all virtues blest.

What sets his justice and his truth best forth,

Best Prince, then use best, which is Poesy's worth.

VOL. II.

For, as great princes, well inform'd and deck'd

With gracious virtue, give more sure effect To her persuasions, pleasures, real worth, Than all th' inferior subjects she sets forth;

Since there she shines at full, hath birth, wealth, state,

Power, fortune, honour, fit to elevate
Her heavenly merits, and so fit they are,
Since she was made for them, and they for
her;

So Truth, with Poesy graced, is fairer far,

More proper, moving, chaste, and regular, Than when she runs away with untruss'd Prose;

Proportion, that doth orderly dispose Her virtuous treasure, and is queen of graces;

In Poesy decking her with choicest phrases, Figures and numbers; when loose Prose puts on

Plain letter-habits, makes her trot upon Dull earthly business, she being mere divine ;

Holds her to homely cates and harsh hedgewine,

That should drink Poesy's nectar; every way

One made for other, as the sun and day,
Princes and virtues. And, as in a spring,
The pliant water, moved with anything
Let fall into it, puts her motion out
In perfect circles, that move round about
The gentle fountain, one another raising;
So Truth and Poesy work; so Poesy,
blazing

All subjects fall'n in her exhaustless fount,
Works most exactly, makes a true account
Of all things to her high discharges given,
Till all be circular and round as heaven.

And lastly, great Prince, mark and par

don me :

As in a flourishing and ripe fruit-tree, Nature hath made the bark to save the bole,

The bole the sap, the sap to deck the whole

With leaves and branches, they to bear and shield

The useful fruit, the fruit itself to yield Guard to the kernel, and for that all those,

Since out of that again the whole tree grows;

So in our tree of man, whose nervy root Springs in his top, from thence even to his foot

K