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Lift'ning to what unshorn Apollo fings

To th' touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings Immortal nectar to her kingly fire:

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Then paffing through the spheres of watchful fire,
And misty regions of wide air next under,
And hills of fnow and lofts of piled thunder,
May tell at length how green-ey'd Neptune raves,
In Heav'n's defiance mustering all his waves;
Then fing of fecret things that came to pass
When beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of kings and queens and heroes old,
Such as the wife Demodocus once told
In folemn fongs at king Alcinous feast,
While fad Ulyffes foul and all the rest
Are held with his melodious harmony
In willing chains and fweet captivity.
But fie, my wand'ring Muse, how thou doft stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way,

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Thou know'ft it must be now thy only bent 55 To keep in compafs of thy predicament: Then quick about thy purpos'd business come, That to the next I may refign my room. Then Ens is represented as father of the Predicaments his ten fons, whereof the eldest stood for Substance with his canons, which Ens, thus fpeaking, explains:

OOD luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy birth

Go

The faery ladies danc'd upon the hearth; 60

Thy

Thy droufy nurse hath fworn she did them spy
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,
And sweetly singing round about thy bed
Strow all their bleffings on thy fleeping head.

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She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst
From eyes of mortals walk invisible:
(still
Yet there is fomething that doth force my fear, 67
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wifely could presage,
And in time's long and dark prospective glass
Forefaw what future days should bring to pass;
Your fon, faid fhe, (nor can you it prevent)
Shall fubject be to many an Accident.
O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king,
Yet
every one shall make him underling,
And those that cannot live from him asunder
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under,
In worth and excellence he fhall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them; 80
From others he shall fland in need of nothing,
Yet on his brothers fhall depend for clothing.
To find a foe it fhall not be his hap,

And peace shall lull him in her flow'ry lap; ;` ~
Yet fhall he live in ftrife, and at his door 3
Devouring war fhall never ceafe to roar:
Yea it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.

Y 2

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What

What pow'r, what force, what mighty spell, if not Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot? The next Quantity and Quality fpake in profe, then Relation was call'd by his name.

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IVERS arife; whether thou be the fon

Of utmost Tweed, or Oofe, or gulphy Dun, Or Trent, who like some earth-born giant spreads His thirty arms along th' indented meads, Or fullen Mole that runneth underneath, Or Severn swift, guilty of maidens' death, Or rocky Avon, or of fedgy Lee,

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Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name,
Or Medway fmooth, or royal towred Thame. 100
(The reft was profe.)

III.

On the Morning of CHRIST's NATIVITY.

Compos'd 1629.

I.

'HIS is the month, and this the happy morn,

TH

Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King, Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring; For fo the holy fages once did fing,

That he our deadly forfeit should release, And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,

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And

III

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,

.

Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high council-table

To fit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid afide; and here with us to be,

Forfook the courts of everlasting day,

II

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. III.

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Say heav'nly Muse, shall not thy facred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Haft thou no verse, no hymn, or folemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the Heav'n by the fun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light, 20
And all the spangled hoft keep watch in squadrons

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See how from far upon the eastern road
The ftar-led wifards hafte with odors fweet :
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his bleffed feet;
Have thou the honor first, thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the Angel quire,
From out his fecret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

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The

HYMN.

I.

T was the winter wild,

While the Heav'n-born child

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Nature

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;

Nature in awe to him

Had dofft her gaudy trim,

With her great Mafter so to sympathize: It was no feason then for her

To wanton with the fun her lufty paramour.

Only with speeches fair

She woo's the gentle air

II.

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow, And on her naked shame,

Pollute with finful blame,

The faintly veil of maiden white to throw, Confounded, that her Maker's eyes

Should look fo near upon her foul deformities.

III.

But he her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek-ey'd Peace;

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She crown'd with olive green, came foftly sliding Down through the turning sphere

His ready harbinger,

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing, 50 And waving wide her myrtle wand,

She strikes an univerfal peace through sea and land.

IV.

No war, or battle's found

Was heard the world around:

The idle spear and shield were high up hung; 55

The

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