Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 1 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/275

He broke that monstrous God which stood
In midst of th' orchard, and the whole did claim;
Which with a useless scythe of wood,
And something else not worth a name
(Both vast for show, yet neither fit
Or to defend, or to beget;
Ridiculous and senseless terrors!) made
Children and superstitious men afraid.
The orchard's open now, and free,
Bacon has broke the scare-crow deity:
Come, enter, all that will,
Behold the ripen'd fruit, come gather now your fill!
$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$Yet still, methinks, we fain would be
Catching at the forbidden tree—
We would be like the Deity—
When truth and falsehood, good and evil, we,
Without the senses' aid, within ourselves would see;
For 't is God only who can find
All Nature in his mind.

From words, which are but pictures of the thought
(Though we our thoughts from them perversely drew),
To things, the mind's right object, he it brought:
Like foolish birds, to painted grapes we flew;
He sought and gather'd for our use the true;
And, when on heaps the chosen bunches lay,
He press'd them wisely the mechanick way,
$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$Till all their juice did in one vessel join,
Ferment into a nourishment divine,
The thirsty soul's refreshing wine.