While ev'ry Day like this may sacred prove
To Friendship, Gratitude, and strictest Love.
To Mr. Henry Vaughan, Silurist, on his Poems.
HAD I ador'd the Multitude, and thence
Got an Antipathy to Wit and Sense,
And hugg'd that Fate in hope the World would grant
'Twas good Affection to be ignorant;
Yet the least Ray of thy bright Fancy seen,
I had Converted, or Excuseless been;
For each Birth of thy Muse to after times
Shall expiate for all this Age's Crimes.
First shines thy Amoret, 'twice Crown'd by thee,
Once by thy Love, next by thy Poetry:
Where thou the best of Unions dost dispence,
Truth cloath'd in Wit, and Love in Innocence.
So that the muddiest Lovers may learn here,
No Fountains can be sweet that are not clear.
There Juvenal, reviv'd by thee, declares
How flat Man's Joys are, and how mean his Cares;
And gen'rously upbraids the World, that they
Should such a value for their Ruin pay.
But when thy sacred Muse diverts her Quill,
The Landskip to design of Leon's Hill;
As nothing else was worthy her or thee,
So we admire almost t'Idolatry.
