Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 1 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/266

That ev'n judge Paris would not know
On whom the golden apple to bestow;
Though Goddesses t' his sentence did submit,
Women and lovers would appeal from it:
Nor durst he say, of all the female race,
This is the sovereign face.
$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$And some (though these be of a kind that's rare,
That's much, ah, much less frequent than the fair)
So equally renown'd for virtue are,
That it the mother of the Gods might pose,
When the best woman for her guide she chose.
But if Apollo should design
A woman Laureat to make,
Without dispute he would Orinda take,
Though Sappho and the famous Nine
Stood by, and did repine.
To be a princess, or a queen,
Is great; but 't is a greatness always seen:
The world did never but two women know,
Who, one by fraud, th' other by wit, did rise
To the two tops of spiritual dignities;
One female pope of old, one female poet now.

Of female poets, who had names of old,
Nothing is shown, but only told,
And all we hear of them perhaps may be
Male-flattery only, and male-poetry.
$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$Few minutes did their beauty's lightning waste,
The thunder of their voice did longer last,
But that too soon was past.