Detur Pulchriori: OR, A POEM in the Praise of the Vniversity OF OXFORD.
Et pueri nasum Rhinocerotis hàbent.
Mart. Ep.
Ʋivitur ingenio, caetera mortis erunt.
Ovid.
Anno Dom. 1658.
Patri mihi Charissimo I. V. Haec parerga mea D. D. C. Q.
NOn
meus agnoscit
Parnassi somnia
Phaebus,
Neve Caballina Musa
Lavatur aquâ;
Maenadis inspirat sitientes
Mente Poetas,
Ebria, nam nunquam
Sobria Musa furit.
Sis Genitor
mihi Phoebus,
erit pro fonte Caballi
Isis,
sim Vates Sobrius
inde tuus,
Et Filius &c. Philomus
[...]
To my most Honoured Schoolmaster.
Sir
IF like a
Pythonist I from my Witts
May chance to start, vent
Oracles by fitts,
And so be Poet
dub'd, know I am one
Not
born but made by
inspiration,
For from
Your influence my
Muse begun,
My lines
the Paralelies
of Your Sun.
And since from the
Pindarique Mountain You
Descend, to lend
Your hand to us below:
Loe our
Inferiour Orbs begin to move,
And act by the
Intelligence of
Your Love,
And though you can't expect from
Pigmey braines
Witt's Garagantuas, Gigantique strains,
How 'ere my
Muse (though stretch'd upon the
Last
Of an
Hyperbole,'s but a
Neurospast
Mou'd by Your Candours
Mysterious wire)
Inspired, though not with a
Delphique fire,
But a pure
Vestall flame, contends to raise
Her
note, unto the Elah of
Your praise,
If you accept
these tender spriggs, know
she.
Will give
You better at
Maturity.
Yours &c. Philomusus.
An Apology.
HAve you not seen when
Titans glorious ray
Doth peep through th'
Azure Welkin, and display
It's
Splendent lustre, not alone to those,
Whose
faces are more Painted then their
cloaths,
Nor yet to those, who with
Grandezza bear
Their stately lookes above the
Vulgar Sphear;
Noe, no, the
humble Sun descends to all,
Glancing with smiles upon the lowest
vale;
Even so our Sun, our true Apollo
leaves
None in
Cimmerian mists, to all he gives
To be his
Starres, and have from him their light;
Lest some should set in a perpetuall night.
Well then, Ile shew my selfe to be
his Son,
His genuine Son, a boon companion
Of the
Aonian sisters, though I see
The Sun of Censure Levelling at me:
Look how he forms his thoughts into a
Cone,
And smites me with the sharpest end? anon
He carps, he bites; this quick-ey'd
Basilisque
What ere he sees, wounds with an
Asterisque:
Hee'l
fine, if i'll not
cleanse what I have writt
Which shews hee's but the
Scavinger of
Witt.
To his ingenious Friend F. V.
SInce in so
little room Thou hast set forth
Thy Mothers
praise, and Her deserved
worth,
Which requir'd
Volumes, Thee in rank wee'll put
With him who wrote the
Iliades in a
Nut.
W. C.
G
[...]
A Poem in the Praise of the University of OXFORD.
Hum! hum! what is't, that doth impede my
note
Causing a
swelling Squincy in my throat?
Methinks my
Wide-boar'd Muse might with her noise
Drown
Pistoll-Shott, yea a
Granadas vojce,
But since so many
Pamphlet bullets fly
About mine ears, 'twill be best Chivalry
To fight it out, and with a valiant pen
Win
Oxfords credit from Malignant men.
Dear Mother, though unhallowed lips would stain
with
Satyrs flowing from a
Wormwood brain
Thy
comely feature, with a
Viperous strife
Gnawing those
bowels that did give them life;
Although they sully Thee, 'twill be their shame,
Thy Honour, and immortalize thy fame,
Though
full-mouth'd Cynnicks be in
Sent so hott.
Each
Black patch Calumny's thy Beauty spott.
The first
mouth that
Malign's thee is the
Clown's,
Whose tongues more thumb'd & sullied, then the Town's,
Or Parish-book, he ne'r doth cease to
Yawn
And swallow
Solecismes, as
smooth as Brawn,
He'd rather be a
Page unto his
Car,
Or his
Swines Guardian, then goe so far
As to a
Versity, for none but
Vools,
Che swears wil send their Children unto
Schools.
More could I name whose
Counterpoising tounges
Spit
words far more
corrupted then their
lungs,
But since 'tis not my scope to answer those,
Whose names
Donquixoted doe live in prose,
[Page 2] And never knew that Poets only claim
Maugre the teeth of time, aeternall fame,
Then rouse my
Muse and with
immortall lays
Caroll unto the world fam'd
Oxford's praise.
Oxford!
the Arsenall of Arts,
the Muses
Sole
staple, where
Apollo onely uses
To
Barter, where our
half-starv'd Poets buy
Their soaring
Pegasus, and mounted fly
Up the
Aönian cliffs, the towring mount
Doth make them
giddy, 'till th'
Castalian fount
Begins to reinspire their
spur-gall'd brains,
And add new
spirits to their
empty veins.
In thee the
Grave Logician doth commence
To rant mysterious termes,
and fustian sence,
While his Lines cragg'd, and hard to understand
Doe far more
baffle then the
Devill's hand.
Daring more with his
three fork'd mace of late,
Then th'
three neck'd Porter of th' Infernall gate
while his
amazed Auditours suppose
Some
Demogorgon always in the close.
From thee the
Politician hath his books,
The Hieroglyphiks of majesti
(que) looks.
Of thee Apollo
his melodious strains,
His dulced Anthems, sugred Hymnes obtains,
Tyeing with
Musi
(que) sweeter then the
Sphear's
Men madd with aspiration by the ears,
And least
injurious tongues fly-blow thy praise,
He will Thee crown with never dying
Bayes.
Thou
Oyles the
Rustique's tounge, and on him showrs
In his
Youth's April, and produceth flowrs
Of
party-coloured Retorique, he talks
On
Stilts, his slippery tongue confus'dly walks,
So he (whose tounge hide-bound before) in sense
Can prate, Imbellished with
eloquence.
[Page 3] Again thou teachest
Devious Youth to tread
In
Vertue's path, and giv'st them
hands and
head.
Thou giv'st them
Heads, from whence
Conceptions flow,
High soaring thoughts
and not Pestanti
(que) low
Thou giv'st them
hands to hold
Minerva's shield,
From conquered Ignorance to gain the
Field.
Wer't not for the, the
Milk-sopp-youth would nere
Be
moralliz'd nor would he ever bear
His
Father's Royall stamp, nor would his age
Admitt of
Councell, from the grave and sage
Although the
Rustique scornes, it is from
thee
He got the rules of right Oeconomy.
Of Thee the
Learned Galenist obtains
His knowledge in the
Mystery of the
veins
And
nervs; of late his
skill he so inhances
By finding out the blood's Maeandring dances,
That he
old nature with Industrious pain
Renews, makes
aged Aeson young again.
The
Art of numbring doth confess that
shee
Endow'd was with the
Golden rule by
thee.
The skill'd
Geometrician who surveighs
With Curious eys the
Continent and
Seas
Squares
by thy rule;
He who at every rise
Waits on
Night's fairest Queen with courting eyes,
And who
Inamorato-like doth Honour
And Homage pay to those that wait upon her,
To every pinck-ey'd Starre;
who swears that he
Will have noe
Mistress but a
Cassiope,
Doth vow to sacrifice to
Thee each
year
The
stalled Bull, snatch'd from his Hemisphear,
A Quarter of the
Hevenly Tupp, what's more,
Hee'l add the
Golden fleice, to quit the
score,
That still is
chalked in his mind, He ows
[Page 4] To
Thee, what rarities so er'e he knows,
In lieu of payment therefore will he set
On thy Head
Ariadnes coronet,
Hee'l make the
Zodiack be thy golden chain,
Aquarius vernall showrs upon Thee rain,
To make thy
May more Pregnant, and thy stemm,
Outgoe the Pearles in
Flora's Diademm.
The
grave Divine, who doth the People aw
Bonarges-like
with the Mosaique Law,
Again a
Barnabas, who doth dispense
Sweet nunico, of Christ intelligence,
Inspiring with pure Zeale th' amazed
Soul,
Making her lave her self then sin more foul,
Says 'tis his
Debvoir, 'fore the
greyzeyd day
Puts on her
Mornings dress, for
Thee to pray;
"Great God, Immortall King! cast down an eye,
"On
Britains Fountaines, let them never dry;
"Let more especially my
Mothers Fountain,
"
Be baptiz'd Helicon
in Sions Mountain,
"Let it her Honour be t'extoll Thy fame,
"Let all her praise be still to praise thy name.
Loe now my
Muse is Jaded, and my quill
Tired, beggs a
Vacation, she will
No longer travell in Thy
Praises Ocean,
How 'ere shee'l say
Amen to the
Devotion,
Floreat aeternis Academia Nostra Camaenis.
To the Author.
WIll none none commend
Thee? well had I but been
Born at the brink of sacred
Hippocrene,
Or were the
Muses darling, or might be
An equall sharer in the
Daphnean Tree;
I would commend
Thee, so that I would raise
An
Altar, and would offer to
Thy praise
An
Hecatomb of verses, and my
Pen
If thou wert
dead, should make
Thee live agen,
T. S. Oxon.
FINIS.