Page:Essays - Abraham Cowley (1886).djvu/111

This Avarice, the dog-star's thirst assuage;
Everywhere else their fatal power we see,
They make and rule man's wretched destiny;
They neither set nor disappear.
But tyrannise o'er all the year;
Whilst we ne'er feel their flame or influence here.
The birds that dance from bough to bough,
And sing above in every tree.
Are not from fears and cares more free,
Than we who lie, or sit, or walk below,
And should by right be singers too.
What prince's choir of music can excel
That which within this shade does dwell,
To which we nothing pay or give—
They, like all other poets, live
Without reward or thanks for their obliging pains.
'Tis well if they become not prey.
The whistling winds add their less artful strains,
And a grave base the murmuring fountains play.
Nature does all this harmony bestow;
But to our plants, art's music too,
The pipe, theorbo, and guitar we owe;