laid waste,
  To mend dilapidations in the last?
And yet the world, whose eyes are on our mighty Prince,
    Thinks Heaven has cancell'd all our sins,
And that his subjects share his happy influence;
Follow the model close, for so I'm sure they should,
But wicked kings draw more examples than the good:
  And divine Sancroft, weary with the weight
Of a declining church, by faction, her worst foe, oppress'd,
    Finding the mitre almost grown
    A load as heavy as the crown,
  Wisely retreated to his heavenly rest.

X

  Ah! may no unkind earthquake of the state,
    Nor hurricano from the crown,
Disturb the present mitre, as that fearful storm of late,
  Which, in its dusky march along the plain,
    Swept up whole churches as it list,
    Wrapp'd in a whirlwind and a mist;
Like that prophetic tempest in the virgin reign,
  And swallow'd them at last, or flung them down.
  Such were the storms good Sancroft long has borne;
  The mitre, which his sacred head has worn,
Was, like his Master's Crown, inwreath'd with thorn.
Death's sting is swallow'd up in victory at last,
    The bitter cup is from him past:
    Fortune in both extremes
  Though blasts from contrariety of winds,
    Yet to firm heavenly minds,
Is but one thing under two different names;
And even the sharpest eye that has the prospect seen,
  Confesses ignorance to judge between;
And must to human reasoning opposite conclude,
To point out which is moderation, which is fortitude.

XI

Thus Sancroft, in the exaltation of retreat,
  Shows lustre that was shaded in his seat;
    Short glimm'rings of the prelate glorified;
Which the disguise of greatness only served to hide.
    Why should the Sun, alas! be proud
    To lodge behind a golden cloud?
Though fringed with evening gold the cloud appears so gay,
'Tis but a low-born vapour kindled by a ray:
    At length 'tis overblown and past,
    Puff'd by the people's spiteful blast,
The dazzling glory dims their prostituted sight,
  No deflower'd eye can face the naked light:
  Yet does this high perfection well proceed
    From strength of its own native seed,
This wilderness, the world, like that poetic wood of old,
    Bears one, and but one branch of gold,
  Where the bless'd spirit lodges like the dove,
And which (to heavenly soil transplanted) will improve,
To be, as 'twas below, the brightest plant above;
  For, whate'er theologic levellers dream,
    There are degrees above, I know,
    As well as here below,
  (The goddess Muse herself has told me so),
  Where high patrician souls, dress'd heavenly gay,
  Sit clad in lawn of purer woven day.
There some high-spirited throne to Sancroft shall be given,
    In the metropolis of Heaven;
Chief of the mitred saints, and from archprelate here,
    Translated to archangel there.

XII

Since, happy saint, since it has been of late
  Either our blindness or our fate,
  To lose the providence of thy cares
Pity a miserable church's tears,
  That begs the powerful blessing of thy prayers.
  Some angel, say, what were the nation's crimes,
  That sent these wild reformers to our times:
    Say what their senseless malice meant,
    To tear religion's lovely face:
  Strip her of every ornament and grace;
In striving to wash off th'imaginary paint?
  Religion now does on her death-bed lie,
Heart-sick of a high fever and consuming atrophy;
How the physicians swarm to show their mortal skill,
And by their college arts methodically kill:
Reformers and physicians differ but in name,
  One end in both, and the design the same;
Cordials are in their talk, while all they mean
  Is but the patient's death, and gain—
  Check in thy satire, angry Muse,
  Or a more worthy subject choose:
Let not the outcasts of an outcast age
Provoke the honour of my Muse's rage,
  Nor be thy mighty spirit rais'd,
  Since Heaven and Cato both are pleas'd—

[The rest of the poem is lost.]

[Footnote 1: Born Jan., 1616-17; died 1693. For his life, see "Dictionary of National Biography."—W. E. B.]

ODE TO THE HON. SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE

WRITTEN AT MOOR-PARK IN JUNE 1689

I

Virtue, the greatest of all monarchies!
      Till its first emperor, rebellious man,
    Deposed from off his seat,
  It fell, and broke with its own weight
Into small states and principalities,
    By many a petty lord possess'd,
But ne'er since seated in one single breast.
      'Tis you who must this land subdue,
      The mighty conquest's left for you,
      The conquest and discovery too:
      Search out this Utopian ground,
      Virtue's Terra Incognita,
      Where none ever led the way,
Nor ever since but in descriptions found;
    Like the philosopher's stone,
With rules to search it, yet obtain'd by none.

II

      We have too long been led astray;
Too long have our misguided souls been taught
      With rules from musty morals brought,
      'Tis you must put us in the way;
      Let us (for shame!) no more be fed
      With antique relics of the dead,
    The gleanings of philosophy;
    Philosophy, the lumber of the schools,
    The roguery of alchymy;
      And we, the bubbled fools,
Spend all our present life, in hopes of golden rules.

III

But what does our proud ignorance Learning call?
    We oddly Plato's paradox make good,
Our knowledge is but mere remembrance all;
Remembrance is our treasure and our food;
Nature's fair table-book, our tender souls,
We scrawl all o'er with old and empty rules,
    Stale memorandums of the schools:
    For learning's mighty treasures look
      Into that deep grave, a book;
  Think that she there does all her treasures hide,
And that her troubled ghost still haunts there since she died;
Confine her walks to colleges and schools;
    Her priests, her train, and followers, show
    As if they all were spectres too!
    They purchase knowledge at th'expense
    Of common breeding, common sense,
    And grow at once scholars and fools;
    Affect ill-manner'd pedantry,
Rudeness, ill-nature, incivility,
    And, sick with dregs and knowledge grown,
    Which greedily they swallow down,
Still cast it up, and nauseate company.

IV

    Curst be the wretch! nay, doubly curst!
      (If it may lawful be
    To curse our greatest enemy,)
  Who learn'd himself that heresy first,
    (Which since has seized on all the rest,)
That knowledge forfeits all humanity;
Taught us, like Spaniards, to be proud and poor,
  And fling our scraps before our door!
Thrice happy you