Pocula Castalia :: :: University of Virginia Library

And is thy Sock on friend? ascend the Stage
And tell the Antimaskers of our Age
Thalia's harth shall Smoke yet; what though that
Pig-wiggin Satyrist makes the poor Presse sweat
With dull invectives 'gainst her Comick train?
Pox, tis 'cause he wants ears to hear her straine.

We find (such surfet th'Iron Age hath tane)
More moralls at a Theater than some Fane,
Our Brittish Turks exhort us there with heat
With Poleaxes into mens heads to beat
Their new Capricio's, this Enigma there,
To obey Kings by opposing, is call'd cleer.
These are the truest Playes, those we stile so
Teach us in jeast in earnest what to do.
They're Sermons in disguise, a good Play is
A Lecture of humanity. So is This.
Thy Muse, the goodliest of the Iove-born Quire,
(From whose Syrenious voyce and mellow Lyre
Orpheus might learn to tune the chiming Sphears)
Unto a Musick Banquet calls ours ears,
Where ('cause best melody in Discords dwell)
Countrey and Court our hearing Organs fill.
First Balaam's Asses bray, beasts set on end,
Soules drown'd in lumps of flesh that downwards tend.
Yet 'mong these walking clods thine Effre showes
Like one of Venus team trooping with Crowes.

113

She thus disguiz'd is no more blemished
Than a rich Diamon'd that's set in Lead.
Of their Rusticitie she partaked lesse
Than th'scaly Tribe do o'th' seas brackishnesse.
So Danube scornes with Sava's muddy tyde
To mix though both through the same channel glide.
Thus the coy River Arethusa ran
Piercing the bowells of the Ocean
Some hundred Leagues, and then forth issued
Free from salt Tincture as at her springs head.
Thou tell'st us how one Dart struck two together,
Plum'd with a Turtles, not a Sparrows feather.
But oh the frownes of chance that Lovers meet!
“'Lesse 't had sowre sawce Love were too sweet a meat.
Now a foule Dungeons eccho must reply
Their itterated vowes of constancy.
Yet nor this storm of Fate, nor cage them moves,
But here like Nightingales they chant their Loves.
“A great mind, maugre usurpt Power, or thrall,
“Is free in Carisbrook as in Whitehall.
At length their Innocence breakes forth like Day
And chase black Nights suspicious clouds away.
“Fortune's like Proteus the changling Kern,
“But kick and she'l to her true shape return.
Thy Lovers fortitude in hard assays
Got them the Nuptiall Garland, thee the Bayes,
In which ere verdant wreath no branch of Vine
I spie, its dew'd with Helicon, not Wine.
With strenuous sinewie words that CAT'LINE swells
I reckon't not among th'Men-miracles.
How could that Poem heat and vigour lack
When each line oft cost Ben a glasse of sack?
“When brisk Canary flowes with Castaly,
“Wits torrent swells, and the proud floud boiles high.

114

If you mixt ought with th'Aganippe floud,
'Twas but an Heritiques, not God Bacchus's bloud,
The Hop's the Heritique, yet thou art he
Bring'st Truth of Poesie out of Heresie.
If such things flow from th'fat, a Brewers horse
I'l yoak with Medusean Pegasus.
The Grape and Hop in the same scale I'l put.
Now, now, the Hoghead's equall with the Butt.

Go, forth, and live, great Master of thy Pen,
And share the Lawrell with thy namesake Ben,
Whose Genius thou hast as well as name,
And as your wits are equall, May your Fame.

It rests, but that I wish the Actors may
As well as thou hast written, make the Play.
“Playes written are not finished, made they are
“I'th' study first, next on the Theater.