94
COWLEY POEMS.
ODE
ON ORINDA'S POEMS.
We allow'd you beauty, and we did submit
To all the tyrannies of it;
Ah! cruel sex, will you depose us too in wit?
Orinda[1] does in that too reign;
Does man behind her in proud triumph draw,
And cancel great Apollo's Salique law.
We our old title plead in vain,
Man may be head, but woman's now the brain.
Verse was love's fire-arms heretofore,
In Beauty's camp it was not known;
Too many arms besides that conqueror bore:
'T was the great cannon we brought down
T' assault a stubborn town;
Orinda first did a bold sally make,
Our strongest quarter take,
And so successful prov'd, that she
Turn'd upon Love himself his own artillery.
To all the tyrannies of it;
Ah! cruel sex, will you depose us too in wit?
Orinda[1] does in that too reign;
Does man behind her in proud triumph draw,
And cancel great Apollo's Salique law.
We our old title plead in vain,
Man may be head, but woman's now the brain.
Verse was love's fire-arms heretofore,
In Beauty's camp it was not known;
Too many arms besides that conqueror bore:
'T was the great cannon we brought down
T' assault a stubborn town;
Orinda first did a bold sally make,
Our strongest quarter take,
And so successful prov'd, that she
Turn'd upon Love himself his own artillery.
Woman, as if the body were their whole,
Did that, and not the soul,
Transmit to their posterity;
If in it sometime they conceiv'd,
Th' abortive issue never liv'd.
'T were shame and pity', Orinda, if in thee
Did that, and not the soul,
Transmit to their posterity;
If in it sometime they conceiv'd,
Th' abortive issue never liv'd.
'T were shame and pity', Orinda, if in thee
- ↑ Mrs. Catharine Philips.
