Upon the saying that my verses were made by another*
Next Heaven my vows to thee (O sacred Muse!)
I offered up, nor didst thou them refuse.
O Queen of Verse, said I, if thou’lt inspire,
And warm my soul with thy poetic fire,
No love of gold shall share with thee my heart,
Or yet ambition in my breast have part,
More rich, more noble I will ever hold
The Muses’ laurel, than a crown of gold.
An undivided sacrifice I’ll lay
Upon thine altar, soul and body pay; [10]
Thou shalt my pleasure, my employment be,
And all I’ll make a holocaust to thee.
The deity that ever does attend
Prayers so sincere, to mine did condescend.
I writ, and the judicious praised my pen:
Could any doubt ensuing glory then?
What pleasing raptures filled my ravished sense?
How strong, how sweet, Fame, was thy influence?
And thine, False Hope, that to my flattered sight
Didst glories represent so near, and bright? [20]
By thee deceived, methought each verdant tree
Apollo’s transformed Daphne seemed to be;
And ev’ry fresher branch, and ev’ry bough
Appeared as garlands to empale my brow.
The learn’d in love say, Thus the winged boy
Does first approach, dressed up in welcome joy;
At first he to the cheated lover’s sight
Naught represents, but rapture and delight,
Alluring hopes, soft fears, which stronger bind
Their hearts, than when they more assurance find. [30]
Emboldened thus, to Fame I did commit
(By some few hands) my most unlucky wit.
But, ah, the sad effects that from it came!
What ought t’have brought me honour, brought me shame!
Like Aesop’s painted jay I seemed to all,
Adorned in plumes I not my own could call:
Rifled like her, each one my feathers tore,
And, as they thought, unto the owner bore.
My laurels thus an other’s brow adorned,
My numbers they admired, but me they scorned: [40]
An other’s brow, that had so rich a store
Of sacred wreaths, that circled it before;
Where mine quite lost, (like a small stream that ran
Into a vast and boundless ocean)
Was swallowed up, with what it joined and drowned,
And that abyss yet no accession found.
Orinda, (Albion’s and her sex’s grace)
Owed not her glory to a beauteous face,
It was her radiant soul that shone within.
Which struck a lustre through her outward skin; [50]
That did her lips and cheeks with roses dye,
Advanced her height, and sparkled in her eye.
Nor did her sex at all obstruct her fame,
But higher ’mong the stars it fixed her name;
What she did write, not only all allowed,
But ev’ry laurel to her laurel bowed!
Th’envious age, only to me alone
Will not allow, what I write, my own,
But let ’em rage, and ’gainst a maid conspire,
So deathless numbers from my tuneful lyre [60]
Do ever flow; so Phoebus I by thee
Divinely inspired and possessed may be;
I willingly accept Cassandra’s fate,
To speak the truth, although believed too late.