Page:Essays - Abraham Cowley (1886).djvu/134

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
132
COWLEY'S ESSAYS.

atom in relation to those numberless worlds that are scattered up and down in the infinite space of the sky which we behold. The other many inconveniences of grandeur I have spoken of dispersedly in several chapters, and shall end this with an ode of Horace, not exactly copied but rudely imitated.

Horace.Lib. 3.Ode 1.
Odi profanum vulgus, etc.


I.

Hence, ye profane; I hate ye all;

Both the great vulgar, and the small.
To virgin minds, which yet their native whiteness hold,
Not yet discoloured with the love of gold
(That jaundice of the soul,
Which makes it look so gilded and so foul),
To you, ye very few, these truths I tell;
The muse inspires my song, hark, and observe it well.