A Collection of Miscellanies Consisting of Poems, Essays, Discourses & Letters, Occasionally Written. By John Norris ... The Second Edition Corrected |
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To Dr. More.
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 | A Collection of Miscellanies |  |
To Dr. More.
ODE.
I.
Go Muse, go hasten to the Cell of Fame(Thou know'st her reverend aweful seat,
It stands hard by your blest retreat)
Go with a brisk Alarm assault her ear,
Bid her her loudest Trump prepare
To sound a more than Human name,
A name more excellent and great
Than she could ever publish yet;
Tell her she need not stay till Fate shall give
A License to his Works, and bid them live,
His Worth now shines through Envy's base Alloy,
'Twill fill her widest Trump, and all her Breath employ.
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II.
Learning which long like an inchanted LandDid Humun force and Art defy,
And stood the Vertuoso's best Artillery,
Which nothing mortal could subdue,
Has yielded to this Hero's Fatal hand,
By him is conquer'd, held, and peopled too.
Like Seas that boder on the Shore
The Muses Suburbs some possession knew,
But like the deep Abyss their inner store
Lay unpossess'd, till seiz'd and own'd by you.
Truth's outer Courts were trod before,
Sacred was her recess, that Fate reserv'd for More.
III.
Others in Learning's Chorus bear their partAnd the great Work distinctly share;
Thou our great Catholick Professor art,
All Science is annex'd to thy unerring Chair.
Some lesser Synods of the Wise
The Muses kept in Universities;
But never yet till in thy Soul
Had they a Councel Oecumenical.
An Abstract they'd a mind to see
Of all their scatter'd gifts, and summ'd them up in thee.
Thou hast the Arts whole Zodiack run
And fathom'st all that here is known.
Strange restless Curiosity;
Adam himself came short of thee,
He tasted of the Fruit, thou bear'st away the Tree.
IV.
Whilst to be great the most aspireOr with low Souls to raise their Fortunes higher.
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Knowledge the Wise man's best Request
Was made thy choice, for this thou hast declin'd
A life of noise, impertinence and State
And what e're else the Muses hate
And mad'st it thy one business to inrich thy mind.
How calm thy life, how easie, how secure
Thou Intellectual Epicure.
Thou as another Solomon hast try'd
All Nature through, and nothing to thy Soul deny'd.
Who can two such Examples shew?
He all things try'd t' enjoy, and you all things to know.
V.
By Babel's Curse, and our Contracted spanHeaven thought to check the swift career of man.
And so it prov'd till now, our age
Is much too short to run so long a Stage.
And to learn words is such a vast delay
That we're benighted e're we come half way.
Thou with unusual haste driv'st on
And dost even Time it self out-run.
No hindrance can retard thy Course
Thou rid'st the Muses winged Horse,
Thy Stage of Learning ends e're that of life be done.
There's now no work left for thy accomplish'd mind
But to Survey thy Conquests, and inform mankind.
| A Collection of Miscellanies | |