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Poems

By W. H. [i.e. William Hammond]
 

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37

To the same,

On my Library,

A SATYRE.

A hundred here together buried ly,
Still jangling with eternall enmity,
Contesting after death; The stagirite
Advanceth there with his trust band, to fight
Against Ideas: Th'Epicurean Band
In Armes which pleasure guilt, here ready stand
To charge the rusty Sword of the severe
Stoick Phlebotomizing Galen there
Triumphs in bloud, and not the bad alone
Exterminates his corporation,
But makes joynt Ostracismes for the good;
Till later wits resenting Natures food
In greatest need Promiscuously had been
Disgarisond, invent new discipline,
Strengthening the vitalls with some cordiall dose,
Which Nature might which unbroke files oppose.
But upon fresh supplies let her cashire,
If not reducible, each mutineer.
On yonder shelfe we may the heritage
Find of this heathen sword fal'n to our age:
A doubtfull blade whose fore-edge guards the sense
Of Stoicks Fate; The sharp back is the fence

38

Of Lernean Predestination,
The bane of Crownes and true devotion.
The wills ability Pelagius calls
What Peripateticks stile Pure Naturalls.
The point by which Philosophy did use
To prove Ideas, you'l confesse obtuse
To that by which Religion now maintaines
Uncouth Chimæras of exorbitant braines.
As the worlds noble Soule, the generous Sun
By an equivocall conjunction
Begets the basest creeping progeny,
So when the princely Sire Phylosophy
Adulterates faith, the monsters that arise
Degenerate to bastard Heresies.
Thus have I made a short narration
Here of a posthumus contention:
They to thy Judgement all submit their hate,
Hoping thy presence soon will moderate
Their vast dissent, as elementall strife
Is kinder far when actuated by life.