 | Poems, Songs and Love-Verses |  |
42
On Clelia's Sore Eyes.
What makes the Frontiers of the sable nightDisplay their Mists, and thus expel the light?
Dire Queen of Shades, what power, as yet unknown,
Hast thou assum'd, that's stronger than thy own?
These sable Mists are worse than those that fell
On impious Pharaoh for an Israel:
For but a time those dismal Clouds did stay,
Which gave a greater welcom to the day.
But now the Gods, the angry Gods, I find,
All human kind has at one stroke struck blind,
And rob'd the World of Glory in its height,
Having eclipst its main and greatest light:
And now, alas! muffl'd in Clouds, it lies
Groping in darkness, robb'd of both its Eyes:
Nor can we hope our Fate for to reverse,
But are like mourners drooping o're a Hearse,
Till in your Eyes, your Eyes, we may behold
Beauty enthron'd, more bright than burnisht Gold,
Which now is hid, and doth obscurely lye,
As pearls i'th' Oceans vast profundity.
But sure the mighty Pow'rs had some design,
And our neglect of you they thought a Crime;
And took from us, what we as slightly prize
As Indians Gold, and precious Treasuries;
And now think fit, left by those Stars we fall,
And so receive a gen'ral Funeral,
43
Which else would make mankind a sacrifice;
As Men not quite recover'd of their sight,
Do lose the same by the excess of light.
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