StoryTitle("caps", "Ode ") ?>
To the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady,
Mrs. Anne Killigrew, Excellent in the Two Sister Arts of Poesy and Painting
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Made in the last promotion of the blest; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In spreading branches more sublimely rise, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Rich with immortal green above the rest:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou roll'st above us, in thy wandering race, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Or, in procession fixt and regular, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Mov'd with the heaven's majestic pace; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Or, call'd to more superior bliss,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Whatever happy region is thy place, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Cease thy celestial song a little space; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Since Heaven's eternal year is thine.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Hear, then, a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L5", "", "In no ignoble verse; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But such as thy own voice did practise here, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "When thy first-fruits of Poesy were given, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To make thyself a welcome inmate there;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "While yet a young probationer, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L5", "", "And candidate of heaven. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "If by traduction came thy mind, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Our wonder is the less, to find ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A soul so charming from a stock so good; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thy father was transfus'd into thy blood: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "So wert thou born into the tuneful strain, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "An early, rich, and inexhausted vein. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "But if thy pre-existing soul ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Was form'd at first with myriads more,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It did through all the mighty poets roll ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Who Greek or Latin laurels wore, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And was that Sappho last, which once it was before. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Than was the beauteous frame she left behind: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Return, to fill or mend the quire of thy celestial kind. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "May we presume to say, that, at thy birth, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "New joy was sprung in heaven as well as here on earth?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "For sure the milder planets did combine ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "On thy auspicious horoscope to shine, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And even the most malicious were in trine. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Thy brother-angels at thy birth ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "That all the people of the sky ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Might know a poetess was born on earth; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "And then, if ever, mortal ears ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Had heard the music of the spheres. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "And if no clust'ring swarm of bees", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "On thy sweet mouth distill'd their golden dew, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4SQ", "", "'Twas that such vulgar miraclés ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Heaven had not leisure to renew: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "For all the blest fraternity of love ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Solemniz'd there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "O gracious God! how far have we ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Profaned thy heavenly gift of Poesy! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Debased to each obscene and impious use, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Whose harmony was first ordain'd above,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For tongues of angels and for hymns of love! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "O wretched we! why were we hurried down ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "This lubrique and adulterate age ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "(Nay, added fat pollutions of our own), ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "To increase the streaming ordures of the stage?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "What can we say to excuse our second fall? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Let this thy Vestal, Heaven, atone for all! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Her Arethusian stream remains unsoil'd, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Unmixt with foreign filth, and undefil'd; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.", "") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Art she had none, yet wanted none, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "For Nature did that want supply: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "So rich in treasures of her own, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L6", "", "She might our boasted stores defy: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Such noble vigour did her verse adorn,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "That it seem'd borrow'd, where 'twas only born. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Her morals, too, were in her bosom bred, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "By great examples daily fed, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "What in the best of books, her father's life, she read. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And to be read herself she need not fear;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Each test, and every light, her Muse will bear, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Though Epictetus with his lamp were there. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Even love (for love sometimes her Muse exprest) ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Was but a lambent flame which play'd about her breast, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Light as the vapours of a morning dream;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4SQ", "", "'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream. . . . ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Now all those charms, that blooming grace, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The well-proportion'd shape, and beauteous face, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In earth the much-lamented virgin lies. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Not wit, nor piety could fate prevent; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Nor was the cruel destiny content ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To finish all the murder at a blow, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To sweep at once her life and beauty too;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But, like a harden'd felon, took a pride ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "To work more mischievously slow, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And plunder'd first, and then destroy'd. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "O double sacrilege on things divine, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "To rob the relic, and deface the shrine! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L7", "", "But thus Orinda died: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "His waving streamers to the winds displays, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "The winds too soon will waft thee here! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "Slack all thy sails, and fear to come, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Alas, thou know'st not, thou art wreck'd at home!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Thou hast already had her last embrace. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "But look aloft, and if thou kenn'st from far, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Among the Pleiads a new kindled star, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "If any sparkles than the rest more bright, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2SQ", "", "'Tis she that shines in that propitious light. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "To raise the nations under ground; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "When, in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "The judging God shall close the book of Fate, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "And there the last assizes keep ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "For those who wake and those who sleep; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "When rattling bones together fly ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "From the four corners of the sky; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Those cloth'd with flesh, and life inspires the dead; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "The sacred poets first shall hear the sound, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L4", "", "And foremost from the tomb shall bound, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "For they are cover'd with the lightest ground; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And straight, with inborn vigour, on the wing, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "There thou, sweet Saint, before the quire shalt go, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "As harbinger of Heaven, the way to show, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "The way which thou so well hast learn'd below.", "") ?>
Poet("John Dryden", "1631–1700") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>