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Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,
I know my tongue but little Grace can do thee :
Thou needst not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither packt the worst:
And, if it happen as I did forecast,
The dainteft dishes shall be serv'd

up

last. I pray thee then deny me not thy aide For this same small neglect that I have made : But haste thee strait to do me once a Pleasure, And from thy wardrope bring thy chiefest treasure; Not those new fangled toys, and triming Night Which takes our late fantasticks with delight, But cull those richest Robes, and gay'st attire Which deepest Spirits, and choicest Wits desire : I have some naked thoughts that rove about And loudly knock to have their passage out; And wearie of their place do only stay Till thou hast deck’t them in thy best aray; That so they may without suspect or fears Fly swiftly to this fair Assembly's ears ; Yet I had rather if I were to chuse, Thy service in some graver subject use, Such as may make thee search thy coffers round, Before thou cloath my fancy in fit sound: Such where the deep transported mind may soare Above the wheeling poles, and at Heav'ns dore Look in, and see each blissful Deitie How he before the thunderous throne doth lie, Listening to what unshorn Apollo sings To th’touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings Immortal Nectar to her Kingly Sire : Then passing through the Spherse of watchful fire,

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And mistie Regions of wide air next under,
And hills of Snow and lofts of piled Thunder,
May tell at length how green-ey'd Neptune raves,
In Heav'ns defiance mustering all his waves;
Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When Beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of Kings and Queens and Hero's old,
Such as the wife Demodocus once told
In solemn Songs at King Alcinous feast,
While sad Ulises soul and all the rest

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Are held with his melodious harmonie
In willing chains and sweet captivitie.
But fie my wandring Muse how thou dost stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way,
Thou know'st it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy Predicament:
Then quick about thy purpos’d business come,
That to the next I may resign my Roome.

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Then Ens is represented as Father of the Prædica

ments his ten Sons, whereof the Eldest stood for Substance with his Canons, which Ens thus Speak

ing, explains. Good luck befriend thee Son; for at thy birth The Faiery Ladies daunc't upon the hearth ; Thy drowsie Nurse hath sworn she did them spie Come tripping to the Room where thou didst lie; And sweetly singing round about thy Bed Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping Head. She heard them give thee this, that thou should'st From eyes of mortals walk invisible, [still Yet there is something that doth force my fear,

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For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A Sybil old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wisely could presage,
And in times long and dark Prospective Glass
Fore-law what future dayes should bring to pass,
Your Son, said she, (nor can you it prevent)
Shall subject be to many an Accident.
O're 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 shall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them ; 80
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his Brothers shall depend for Cloathing.
To find a Foe it shall not be his hap,
And
peace

Thall lull him in her flowry lap;
Yet Thall he live in strife, and at his dore
Devouring war shall never cease to roare:
Yea it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.
What
power,

what force, what mighty spell, if not Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot? The next Quantity and Quality, Spake in Profe,

then Relation was call’d by his Name. Rivers arise; whether thou be the Son, Of utmost Tweed, or Oofe, or gulphie Dun, Or Trent, who like some earth-born Giant spreads His thirty Armes along the indented Meads, Or sullen Mole that runneth underneath, Or Severn swift, guilty of Maidens death,

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Or Rockie Avon, or of Sedgie Lee,
Or Coaly Tine, or antient hollowed Dee,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythians Name,
Or Medway smooth, or Royal Towred Thame. 100

The rest was Profe.

On the Morning of Christ's

Nativity

I.

HIS is the Month, and this the happy

morn

Wherein the Son of Heav'nseternal King, Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born, Our great Redemption from above did bring; For so the holy Sages once did sing,

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

2.

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That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heav'ns high Councel-
To fit the midst of Trinal Unity, [Table,
He laid aside ; and here with us to be,

Forsook the Courts of everlasting Day,
And chose with us a darksom House of mortal Clay.

3 Say Heav'nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein Afford a Present to the Infant God?

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Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strein,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the Heav'n by the Suns team untrod,

Hath took no print of the approaching light, And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

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See how from far upon the Eastern rode
The Star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet,
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the honour first, thy Lord to greet,

And joyn thy voice unto the Angel Quire, From out his secret Altar toucht with hallow'd fire.

THE HYMN.

I.

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It was the Winter wilde,
While the Heav'n-born childe,

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to him
Had doff't her gawdy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize :
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour.

2.

Only with speeches fair
She woo's the gentle Air

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

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