154
COWLEY'S POEMS.
Who to the life an exact piece would make,
Must not from others' work a copy take;
No, not from Rubens or Vandyke;
Much less content himself to make it like
Th' ideas and the images which lie
In his own fancy or his memory.
No, he before his sight must place
The natural and living face;
The real object must command
Each judgment of his eye and motion of his hand.
Must not from others' work a copy take;
No, not from Rubens or Vandyke;
Much less content himself to make it like
Th' ideas and the images which lie
In his own fancy or his memory.
No, he before his sight must place
The natural and living face;
The real object must command
Each judgment of his eye and motion of his hand.
From these and all long errors of the way,
In which our wandering predecessors went,
And, like th' old Hebrews, many years did stray,
In deserts but of small extent,
Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last:
The barren wilderness he past;
Did on the very border stand
Of the blest promis'd land;
And from the mountain's top of his exalted wit,
Saw it himself, and shew'd us it.
But life did never to one man allow
Time to discover worlds and conquer too;
Nor can so short a line sufficient be
To fathom the vast depths of Nature's sea.
The work he did we ought t'admire;
And were unjust if we should more require
From his few years, divided 'twixt th' excess
Of low affliction and high happiness:
For who on things remote can fix his sight,
That's always in a triumph or a fight?
In which our wandering predecessors went,
And, like th' old Hebrews, many years did stray,
In deserts but of small extent,
Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last:
The barren wilderness he past;
Did on the very border stand
Of the blest promis'd land;
And from the mountain's top of his exalted wit,
Saw it himself, and shew'd us it.
But life did never to one man allow
Time to discover worlds and conquer too;
Nor can so short a line sufficient be
To fathom the vast depths of Nature's sea.
The work he did we ought t'admire;
And were unjust if we should more require
From his few years, divided 'twixt th' excess
Of low affliction and high happiness:
For who on things remote can fix his sight,
That's always in a triumph or a fight?
