Celia To Damon
What can I say? What Arguments can prove
My Truth? What Colors can describe my Love?
If it's Excess and Fury be not known,
In what Thy Celia has already done?
Thy Infant Flames, whilst yet they were conceal'd
In tim'rous Doubts, with Pity I beheld;
With easie Smiles dispell'd the silent Fear,
That durst not tell Me, what I dy'd to hear:
In vain I strove to check my growing Flame,
Or shelter Passion under Friendship's Name:
You saw my Heart, how it my Tongue bely'd;
And when You press'd, how faintly I deny'd-
E'er Guardian Thought could bring it's scatter'd Aid;
E'er Reason could support the doubting Maid;
My Soul surpriz'd, and from her self disjoin'd,
Left all Reserve, and all the Sex behind:
From your Command her Motions She receiv'd;
And not for Me, but You, She breath'd and liv'd.
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poem by Matthew Prior
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The First Hymn Of Callimachus. To Jupiter
While we to Jove select the holy victim
Whom apter shall we sing than Jove himself,
The god for ever great, for ever king,
Who slew the earthborn race, and measures right
To heaven's great 'habitants? Dictaean hear'st thou
More joyful, or Lycaean, long dispute
And various thought has traced. On Ida's mount,
Or Dictae, studious of his country's praise,
The Cretan boasts thy natal place; but oft
He meets reproof deserved; for he, presumptuous,
Has built a tomb for thee who never know'st
To die, but liv'st the same to-day and ever.
Arcadian therefore be thy birth: great Rhea,
Pregnant, to high Parrhasia's cliffs retired,
And wild Lycaeus, black with shading pines;
Holy retreat! sithence no female hither,
Conscious of social love and Nature's rites,
Must dare approach, from the inferior reptile
To woman, form divine. There the bless'd parent
Ungirt her spacious bosom, and discharged
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poem by Matthew Prior
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Jinny the Just
Releas'd from the noise of the butcher and baker
Who, my old friends be thanked, did seldom forsake her,
And from the soft duns of my landlord the Quaker,
From chiding the footmen and watching the lasses,
From Nell that burn'd milk, and Tom that broke glasses
(Sad mischiefs thro' which a good housekeeper passes!)
From some real care but more fancied vexation,
From a life parti-colour'd half reason half passion,
Here lies after all the best wench in the nation.
From the Rhine to the Po, from the Thames to the Rhone,
Joanna or Janneton, Jinny or Joan,
'Twas all one to her by what name she was known.
For the idiom of words very little she heeded,
Provided the matter she drove at succeeded,
She took and gave languages just as she needed.
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poem by Matthew Prior
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An Ode - Presented To The King, On His Majesty's Arrival In Holland, After The Queen's Death
At Mary's tomb (sad sacred place!)
The Virtues shall their vigils keep,
And every Muse and every Grace
In solemn state shall ever weep.
The future pious mournful fair,
Oft as the rolling years return,
With fragrant wreaths and flowering hair
Shall visit her distinguish'd urn.
For her the wise and great shall mourn,
When late records her deeds repeat;
Ages to come and men unborn
Shall bless her name and sigh her fate.
Fair Albion shall, with faithful trust,
Her holy Queen's sad relics guard,
Till Heaven awakes the precious dust,
And gives the saint her full reward.
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poem by Matthew Prior
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Paulo Purganti And His Wife: An Honest, But A Simple Pair
Beyond the fix'd and settl'd Rules
Of Vice and Virtue in the Schools,
Beyond the Letter of the Law,
Which keeps our Men and Maids in Awe,
The better Sort should set before 'em
A Grace, a Manner, a Decorum;
Something, that gives their Acts a Light;
Makes 'em not only just, but bright;
And sets 'em in that open Fame,
Which witty Malice cannot blame.
For 'tis in Life, as 'tis in Painting:
Much may be Right, yet much be Wanting:
From Lines drawn true, our Eye may trace
A Foot, a Knee, a Hand, a Face:
May justly own the Picture wrought
Exact to Rule, exempt from Fault:
Yet if the Colouring be not there,
The Titian Stroke, the Guido Air;
To nicest Judgment show the Piece;
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poem by Matthew Prior
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The Ladle. A Tale
The Sceptics think 'twas long ago
Since gods came down
incognito
To see who were their friends or foes,
And how our actions fell or rose;
That since they gave things their beginning,
And set this whirligig a-spinning,
Supine they in their heaven remain,
Exempt from passion and from pain,
And frankly leave us human elves
To cut and shuffle for ourselves;
To stand or walk, to rise or tumble,
As matter and as motion jumble.
The poets now, and painters, hold
This thesis both absurd and bold,
And your good-natured gods, they say,
Descend some twice or thrice a-day,
Else all these things we toil so hard in
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poem by Matthew Prior
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An English Ballad, On The Taking Of Namur, By The King Of Great Britain
Dulce est desipere in loco.
Some Folks are drunk, yet do not know it:
So might not Bacchus give You Law?
Was it a Muse, O lofty Poet,
Or Virgin of St. Cyr, You saw?
Why all this Fury? What's the Matter,
That Oaks must come from Thrace to dance?
Must stupid Stocks be taught to flatter?
And is there no such Wood in France?
Why must the Winds all hold their Tongue?
If they a little Breath should raise;
Would that have spoil'd the Poet's Song;
Or puff'd away the Monarch's Praise?
II.
Pindar, that Eagle, mounts the Skies;
While Virtue leads the noble Way:
Too like a Vultur Boileau flies,
Where sordid Interest shows the Prey.
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poem by Matthew Prior
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The Second Hymn Of Callimachus. To Apollo
Hah! how the laurel, great Apollo's tree,
And all the cavern shakes! Far off, far off,
The man that is unhallow'd: for the god,
The god approaches. Hark! he knocks; the gates
Feel the glad impulse, and the sever'd bars
Submissive clink against their brazen portals.
Why do the Delian palms incline their boughs,
Self-moved, and hovering swans, their throats released
From native silence, carol sounds harmonious?
Begin young men the hymn: let all your harps
Break their inglorious silence, and the dance,
In mystic numbers trod, explain the music,
But first by ardent prayer and clear lustration
Purge the contagious spots of human weakness:
Impure no mortal can behold Apollo.
So may ye flourish favour'd by the god,
In youth with happy nuptials, and in age
With silver hairs, and fair descent of children;
So lay foundations for aspiring cities,
And bless your spreading colonies' increase.
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poem by Matthew Prior
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An Epistle To Fleetwood Shephard, Esq. Burleigh, May 14, 1689
Sir,
As once a twelvemonth to the priest,
Holy at Rome, here Antichrist,
The Spanish king presents a jennet
To show his love, -- that's all that's in it;
For if his Holiness would thump
His reverend bum 'gainst horse's rump,
He might be 'quipp'd from his own stable
With one more white and eke more able.
Or as with gondolas and men his
Good excellence the duke of Venice
(I wish, for rhyme, it had been the king)
Sails out, and gives the Gulf a ring,
Which trick of state he wisely maintains,
Keeps kindness up 'twixt old acquaintance,
For else, in honest truth, the sea
Has much less need of gold than he.
Or, not to rove and pump one's fancy
For popish similes beyond sea,
As folks from mudwall'd tenement
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poem by Matthew Prior
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The Viceroy. A Ballad.
Tune - 'Lady Isabella's Tragedy.' or 'The Stepmother's cruelty.'
Of Nero, tyrant, petty king,
Who heretofore did reign
In famed Hibernia, I will sing,
And in a ditty plain.
He hated was by rich and poor
For reasons you shall hear;
So ill he exercised his power
That he himself did fear.
Full proud and arrogant was he,
And covetous withal;
The guilty he would still set free,
But guiltless men enthral.
He with a haughty, impious nod
Would curse and dogmatize,
Nor fearing either man or God,
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song, lyrics by Matthew Prior
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