favour which all Arts receive from you; but more particularly by reason of that Obligation and Zeal with which I am bound to dedicate my self 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 in title 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 deferves Pardon, it is yours Sir, as well as he, who is, Your moft Devoted, and Obliged Servant, THO. SPRAT. To the happy Memory of the late Lord Protector. By Mr. SPRAT of Oxon. Pindarick Ode. 'T IS true, great Name, thou art fecure Of Death, or Envy, or devouring Age; Thou canft the force and teeth of Time endure: Thy Fame, like Men, the Elder it doth grow, Will of its felf turn whiter too, Without what needlefs Art can do Will live beyond thy Breath, beyond thy Hearse, That do remain alone Alive in an Infcription, Remembred only on the Brass, or Marble-stone, 'Tis all in vain what we can do: All our Rofes and Perfumes, Will but officicus Folly fhow, And pious Nothings to fuck mighty Tombs, All our Incense, Gums, and Balm, Their coftly Numbers, and their tuneful Feet: 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. 'Tis true; but yet our Duty calls our Songs ; Duty commands our Tongues : Tho' thou want not our Praises, we Are not excus'd for what we owe to thee; For fo Men from Religion are not freed, But from the Altars Clouds must rife, Tho' Heaven it felf doth nothing need, 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 Others great Actions are 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 substance, and so strongly 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 it should fit occafion fee, 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 Tho' in a lefs and more contracted Sphere, Tho' then thine was not fo enlarg❜d a Flood; V. "Tis true thou waft not born unto a Crown, It took the deepest Princely Dye at last. And private Thoughts took up thy private Years: On meaner things with equal Mein. From Family, and single Man, Was by the fmall relation firft Of Husband and of Father nurs'd, And from those less beginnings paft, To fpread it felf o'er all the World at laft. VI. But when thy Country (then almost enthrall'd) Was a true vein of Earth, and run with Blood; "Twas time for thee to bring forth all our Light. Thou left'ft thy more delightful Peace, Thy private Life, and better Ease; Then down thy Steel and Armour took, When Death had got a large Commiffion out, VII. Thy Country wounded was, and fick before Thou didst not draw the Sword, and fo As if thy Country shou'd Be the Inheritance of Mars and Blood: 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, Letters, and Learning rose, 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 Island hence might grow, |