It grieves me when I see what fate
Does on the best of mankind wait.
Poets or lovers let them be,
"T is neither love nor poesy

Can arm, against death's smallest dart,
The poet's head or lover's heart;

But when their life, in its decline,
Touches th' inevitable line,

All the world's mortal to them then,

And wine is aconite to men;

Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves As strong as thunder is in Jove's.

VOL. I.

VERSES

WRITTEN

ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS.

CHRIST'S PASSION,

TAKEN OUT OF A GREEK ODE, WRITTEN BY MR. MASTERS, OF NEW-COLLEGE, IN OXFORD.

ENOUGH, my Muse! of earthly things,
And inspirations but of wind;

Take up thy lute, and to it bind

Loud and everlasting strings ;

And on them play, and to them sing,

The happy mournful stories,

The lamentable glories,

Of the great crucified King.

Mountainous heap of wonders! which dost rise
Till earth thou joinest with the skies!
Too large at bottom, and at top too high,
To be half seen by mortal eye!

How shall I grasp this boundless thing?
What shall I play? what shall I sing?
I'll sing the mighty riddle of mysterious love,
Which neither wretched men below, nor blessed
spirits above,

With all their comments can explain;

How all the whole world's life to die did not disdain!

I'll sing the searchless depths of the compassion Divine,
The depths unfathom'd yet

By reason's plummet, and the line of wit;
Too light the plummet, and too short the line!