100
COWLEY'S POEMS.
Lest, in removing cold, it should beget
Too violent a heat;
And into madness turn the lethargy.
Ah! gracious God! that I might see
A time when it were dangerous for me
To be o'er-heat with praise!
But I within me bear, alas! too great allays.
Too violent a heat;
And into madness turn the lethargy.
Ah! gracious God! that I might see
A time when it were dangerous for me
To be o'er-heat with praise!
But I within me bear, alas! too great allays.
'T is said, Apelles, when he Venus drew,
Did naked women for his pattern view,
And with his powerful fancy did refine
Their human shapes into a form divine;
None who had sat could her own picture see,
Or say, one part was drawn for me:
So, though this nobler painter, when he writ,
Was pleas'd to think it fit
That my book should before him sit,
Not as a cause, but an occasion, to his wit;
Yet what have I to boast, or to apply
To my advantage out of it; since I,
Instead of my own likeness, only find
The bright idea there of the great writer's mind?
Did naked women for his pattern view,
And with his powerful fancy did refine
Their human shapes into a form divine;
None who had sat could her own picture see,
Or say, one part was drawn for me:
So, though this nobler painter, when he writ,
Was pleas'd to think it fit
That my book should before him sit,
Not as a cause, but an occasion, to his wit;
Yet what have I to boast, or to apply
To my advantage out of it; since I,
Instead of my own likeness, only find
The bright idea there of the great writer's mind?
