POEMS : Viz. I. MISCELLANIES . II. The Mistress , or , Love Verses . III. PINDARIQVE ODES . And IV. Davideis , OR , A SACRED POEM OF THE TROUBLES OF DAVID .

Written by A. COWLEY .

LONDON , Printed for Humphrey Moseley , at the Prince's Arms in St Pauls Church-yard , M.DC.LVI .

AT my return lately into England , I met by great accident ( for such I account it to be , that any Copy of it should be extant any where so long , unless at his house who printed it ) a Book entituled , The Iron Age , and published under my name , during the time of my absence . I wondred very much how one who could be so foolish to write so ill Verses , should yet be so Wise to set them forth as another Mans rather then his own ; though perhaps he might have made a better choice , and not fathered the Bastard upon such a person , whose stock of Reputation is , I fear , little enough for maintenance of his own numerous Legitimate Off-spring of that kinde . It would have been much less injurious , if it had pleased the Author to put forth some of my Writings under his own name , rather then his own under mine : He had been in that a more pardonable Plagiary , and had done less wrong by Robbery , then he does by such a Bounty ; for no body can be justified by the Imputation even of anothers Merit ; and our own course Cloathes are like to become us better , then those of another mans , though never so rich ▪ but these , to say the truth , were so beggarly , that I my self was ashamed to wear them . It was in vain for me , that I avoided censure by the concealment of my own writings , if my reputation could be thus Executed in Effigie ; and impossible it is for any good Name to be in safety , if the malice of Witches have the power to consume and destroy it in an Image of their own making . This indeed was so ill made , and so unlike , that I hope the Charm took no effect . So that I esteem my self less prejudiced by it , then by that which has been done to me , since almost in the same kinde , which is , the publication of some things of mine without my consent or knowledge , and those so mangled and imperfect , that I could neither with honor acknowledge , nor with honesty quite disavow them . Of which sort , was a Comedy called The Guardian , printed in the year , 1650. but made and acted before the Prince , in his passage through Cambridge towards York , at the beginning of the late unhappy War ; or rather neither made not acted , but rough-drawn onely , and repeated ; for the hasie was so great , that it could neither be ravised or perfected by the Author , nor learnt without-Book by the Actors , nor set forth in any measure tolerably by the Officers of the College . After the Representation ( which , I confess , was somewhat of the latest ) I began to look it over , and changed it very much , striking out some whole parts , as that of the Poet and the Souldier ; but I have lost the Copy , and dare not think it deserves the pains to write it again , which makes me omit it in this publication , though there be some things in it which I am not ashamed of , taking in the excuse of my age and small experience in humane conversation when I made it . But as it is , it is onely the hasty first-sitting of a Picture , and therefore like to resemble me accordingly . From this which had hapned to my self , I began to reflect upon the fortune of almost all Writers , and especially Poets , whose Works ( commonly printed after their deaths ) we finde stuffed out , either with counterfeit pieces , like false Money put in to fill up the Bag , though it adde nothing to the sum ; or with such , which though of their own Coyn , they would have called in themselves , for the baseness of the Allay : whether this proceed from the indiscretion of their Friends , who think a vast heap of Stones or Rubbish a better Monument , then a little Tomb of Marble , or by the unworthy avarice of some Stationers , who are content to diminish the value of the Author , so they may encrease the price of the Book ; and like Vintners with sophisticate mixtures , spoil the whole vessel of wine , to make it yield more profit . This has been the case with Shakespear , Fletcher , Iohnson , and many others ; part of whose Poems I should take the boldness to prune and lop away , if the care of replanting them in print did belong to me ; neither would I make any scruple to cut off from some the unnecessary yong Suckars , and from others the old withered Branches ; for a great Wit is no more tyed to live in a Vast Volume , then in a Gigantie Body ; on the contrary , it is commonly more vigorous , the less space it animates . And as Statius says of little Tydaeus , — Totos infusa per artus Stat. 1. ● . Theb. Major in exiguo regnabat corpore virtus . I am not ignorant , that by saying this of others , I expose my self to some Raillery , for not using the same severe discretion in my own case , where it concerns me nearer : But though I publish here , more then in strict wisdom I ought to have done , yet I have supprest and cast away more then I publish ; and for the ease of my self and others , have lost , I believe too , more then both . And upon these considerations I have been perswaded to overcome all the just repugnances of my own modesty , and to produce these Poems to the light and view of the World ; not as a thing that I approved of in it self , but as a lesser evil , which I chose rather then to stay till it were done for me by some body else , either surreptitiously before , or avowedly after my death ; and this will be the more excusable , when the Reader shall know in what respects he may look upon me as a Dead , or at least a Dying Person , and upon my Muse in this action , as appearing , like the Emperor Charls the Fifth , and assisting at her own Funeral .

For to make my self absolutely dead in a Poetical capacity , my resolution at present , is never to exercise any more that faculty . It is , I confess , but seldom seen that the Poet dyes before the Man ; for when we once fall in love with that bewitching Art , we do not use to court it as a Mistress , but marry it as a Wife , and take it for better or worse , as an Inseparable Companion of our whole life . But as the Mariages of Infants do but rarely prosper , so no man ought to wonder at the diminution or decay of my affection to Poesie ; to which I had contracted my self so much under Age , and so much to my own prejudice in regard of those more profitable matches which I might have made among the richer Sciences . As for the Portion which this brings of Fame , it is an Estate ( if it be any , for men are not oftner deceived in their hopes of Widows , then in their opinion of , Exegi monumentum are perennius ) that hardly ever comes in whilst we are Living to enjoy it , but is a fantastical kind of Reversion to our own selves : neither ought any man to envy Poets this posthumous and imaginary happiness , since they finde commonly so little in present , that it may be truly applyed to them , which S. Paul speaks of the first Christians , If their reward be in this life , they are of all men the most miserable .

And if in quiet and flourishing times they meet with so small encouragement , what are they to expect in rough and troubled ones ? if wi● be such a Plant , that it scarce receives heat enough to preserve it alive even in the Summer of our cold Clymate , how can it choose but wither in a long and a sharp winter ? a warlike , various , and a tragical age is best to write of , but worst to write in . And I may , though in a very unequal proportion , assume that to my self , which was spoken by Tully to a much better person , upon occasion of the Civil Wars and Revolutions in his time , Cic. de Clar. Orator . Sed in te intuens , Brute , doleo , cujus in adolescentiam per medias laudes quasi●quadrigis vehentem transversa incurrit misera fortuna Reipublicae .

Neither is the present constitution of my Mind more proper then that of the Times for this exercise , or rather divertisement . There is nothing that requires so much serenity and chearfulness of Spirit ▪ it must not be either overwhelmed with the cares of Life , or overcast with the Clouds of Melancholy and Sorrow , or shaken and disturbed with the storms of injurious Fortune ; it must like the Halcyon , have fair weather to breed in . The Soul must be filled with bright and delightful Idaea's , when it undertakes to communicate delight to others ; which is the main end of Poesie . One may see through the stile of Ovid de Trist. the humbled and dejected condition of Spirit with which he wrote it ; there scarce remains any footsteps of that Genius , Quem nec Iovis ira , nec ignes , &c. The cold of the Countrey had strucken through all his faculties , and benummed the very feet of his Verses . He is himself , methinks , like one of the Stories of his own Metamorphosis ; and though there remain some weak resemblances of Ovid at Rome , It is but as he says of Niobe , In vultu color oft sine sanguine , Ovid. Metam . l. 6. lumina maestis Stant immota genis ; nihil est in Imagine vivum , Flet tamen — The truth is , for a man to write well , it is necessary to be in good humor ; neither is Wit less eclypsed with the unquietness of Mind , then Beauty with the Indisposition of Body . So that 'tis almost as hard a thing to be a Poet in despight of Fortune , as it is in despight of Nature . For my own part , neither my obligations to the Muses , nor expectations from them are so great , as that I should suffer my self upon no considerations to be divorced ; or that I should say like Horace , Quisquis erit vitae , Hor. Sat 1. l 2. Ser. Seribam , color . I shall rather use his words in another place , Vixi Camaenis nuper idoneus , L. 3. Car. Ode 26. Vixi puellis ▪ &c. Et militari non sine gloriâ , Nunc arma defunctúmque bello Barbiton hic paries habebit . And this resolution of mine does the more befit me , because my desire has been for some years past ( though the execution has been accidentally diverted ) and does stil vehemently continue , to retire my self to some of our American Plantations , not to seek for Gold , or inrich my self with the traffique of those parts ( which is the end of most men that travel thither ; so that of these Indies it is truer then it was of the former , Improbus extremos currit Mercator ad Indos Pauperiem fugiens — ) But to forsake this world for ever , with all the vanities and Vexations of it , and to bury my self in some obscure retreat there ( but not without the consolation of Letters and Philosophy ) Oblitúsque meorum , obliviscendus & illis . As my former Author speaks too , who has inticed me here , I know not how , into the Pedantry of this heap of Latine Sentences . And I think Doctor Donnes Sun Dyal in a grave is not more useless and ridiculous then Poetry would be in that retirement . As this therefore is in a true sense a kind of Death to the Muses , and a real literal quitting of this World : So , methinks , I may make a just claim to the undoubted priviledge of Deceased Poets , which is to be read with more favor , then the Living ; Tanti est ut placeam tibi , Mart. Perire .

Having been forced for my own necessary justification to trouble the Reader with this long Discourse of the Reasons why I trouble him also with all the rest of the Book , I shall onely add somewhat concerning the several parts of it , and some other pieces , which I have thought fit to reject in this publication : As first , all those which I wrote at School from the age of ten years , till after fifteen ; for even so far backward there remain yet some traces of me in the little footsteps of a childe ; which though they were then looked upon as commendable extravances in a Boy ( men setting a value upon any kind of fruit before the usual season of it ) yet I would be loth to be bound now to read them all over my self ; and therefore should do ill to expect that patience from others . Besides , they have already past through several Editions , which is a longer Life then uses to be enjoyed by Infants that are born before the ordinary terms . They had the good fortune then to find the world so indulgent ( for considering the time of their production , who could be so hard-hearted to be severe ? ) that I scarce yet apprehend so much to be censured for them , as for not having made advances afterwards proportionable to the speed of my setting out , and am obliged too in a maner by Discretion to conceal and suppress them , as Promises and Instruments under my own hand , whereby I stood engaged for more then I have been able to perform ; in which truly , if I have failed , I have the real excuse of the honestest sort of Bankrupts , which is , to have been made Vnsolvable , not so much by their own negligence and ill-husbandry , as by some notorious accidents , and publike disasters . In the next place , I have cast away all such pieces as I wrote during the time of the late troubles , with any relation to the differences that caused them ; as among others , three Books of the Civil War it self , reaching as far as the first Battel of Newbury , where the succeeding misfortunes of the party stopt the work ; for it is so uncustomary , as to become almost ridiculous , to make Lawrels for the Conquered Now though in all Civil Dissentions , when they break into open hostilities , the War of the Pen is allowed to accompany that of the Sword , and every one is in a maner obliged with his Tongue , as well as Hand , to serve and assist the side which he engages in ; yet when the event of battel , and the unaccountable Will of God has determined the controversie , and that we have submitted to the conditions of the Conqueror , we must lay down our Pens as well as Arms , we must march out of our Cause it self , and dismantle that , as well as our Towns and Castles , of all the Works and Fortifications of Wit and Reason by which we defended it . We ought not sure , to begin our selves to revive the remembrance of those times and actions for which we have received a General Amnestie , as a Favor from the Victor . The truth is , neither We , nor They , ought by the Representation of Places and Images ▪ to make a kind of Artificial Memory of those things wherein we are all bound to desire like Themistocles , the Art of Oblivion . The enmities of Fellow-Citizens should be , like that of Lovers , the Redintegration of their Amity . The Names of Party , and Titles of Division , which are sometimes in effect the whole quarrel , should be extinguished and forbidden in peace under the notion of Acts of Hostility . And I would have it accounted no less unlawful to rip up old wounds , then to give new ones ; which has made me not onely abstain from printing any things of this kinde , but to burn the very copies , and inflict a severer punishment on them my self , then perhaps the most rigid Officer of State would have thought that they deserved .

As for the ensuing Book , it consists of four parts : The first is a Miscellanie of several Subjects , and some of them made when I was very young , which it is perhaps superfluous to tell the Reader ; I know not by what chance I have kept Copies of them ; for they are but a very few in comparison of those which I have lost , and I think they have no extraordinary virtue in them , to deserve more care in preservation , then was bestowed upon their Brethren ; for which I am so little concerned , that I am ashamed of the arrogancy of the word , when I said , I had lost them .

The Second , is called , The Mistress , or Love-Verses ; for so it is , that Poets are scarce thought Free-men of their Company , without paying some duties , and obliging themselves to be true to Love. Sooner or later they must all pass through that Tryal , like some Mahumetan Monks , that are bound by their Order , once at least , in their life , to make a Pilgrimage to Meca , In furias ignémque ruunt ; Amor omnibus idem . But we must not always make a judgement of their manners from their writings of this kind ; as the Romanists uncharitably do of Beza , for a few lascivious Sonnets composed by him in his youth . It is not in this sense that Poesie is said to be a kind of Painting ; it is not the Picture of the Poet , but of things and persons imagined by him . He may be in his own practice and disposition a Philosopher , nay a Stoick , and yet speak sometimes with the softness of an amorous Sappho . Feret & rubus asper Amomum . He professes too much the use of Fables ( though without the malice of deceiving ) to have his testimony taken even against himself . Neither would I here be misunderstood , as if I affected so much gravity , as to be ashamed to be thought really in Love. On the contrary , I cannot have a good opinion of any man who is not at least capable of being so . But I speak it to excuse some expressions ( if such there be ) which may happen to offend the severity of supercilious Readers ; for much Excess is to be allowed in Love , and even more in Poetry ; so we avoid the two unpardonable vices in both , which are Obscenity and Prophaneness , of which I am sure , if my words be ever guilty , they have illrepresented my thoughts and intentions . And if , notwithstanding all this , the lightness of the matter here displease any body ; he may finde wherewithal to content his more serious inclinations in the weight and height of the ensuing Arguments .

For as for the Pindarick Odes ( which is the third part ) I am in great doubt whether they wil be understood by most Readers ; nay , even by very many who are well enough acquainted with the common Roads , and ordinary Tracks of Poesie . They either are , or at least were meant to be , of that kinde of Stile which Dion . Halicarnasseus calls , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , and which he attributes to Alcaeus : The digressions are many , and sudden , and sometimes long , according to the fashion of all Lyriques , and of Pindar above all men living . The Figures are unusual and bold , even to Temeritie , and such as I durst not have to do withal in any other kinde of Poetry : The Numbers are various and irregular , and sometimes ( especially some of the long ones ) seem harsh and uncouth , if the just measures and cadencies be not observed in the Pronunciation . So that almost all their Sweetness and Numerosity ( which is to be found , if I mistake not , in the roughest , if rightly repeated ) lies in a maner wholly at the Mercy of the Reader . I have briefly described the nature of these Verses , in the Ode entituled , The Resurrection : And though the Liberty of them may incline a man to believe them easie to be composed , yet the undertaker will finde it otherwise .

I come now to the last Part , which is , Davideis , or an Heroical Poem of the Troubles of David ; which I designed into Twelve Books ; not for the Tribes sake , but after the Patern of our Master Virgil ; and intended to close all with that most Poetical and excellent Elegie of Davids upon the death of Saul and Ionathan : For I had no mind to carry him quite on to his Anointing at Hebron , because it is the custom of Heroick Poets ( as we see by the examples of Homer and Virgil whom we should do ill to forsake to imitate others ) never to come to the full end of their Story ; but onely so near , that every one may see it ; as men commonly play not out the game , when it is evident that they can win it , but lay down their Cards , and take up what they have won . This , I say , was the whole Designe , in which there are many noble and fertile Arguments behinde ; as , The barbarous cruelty of Saul to the Priests at Nob , the several flights and escapes of David , with the maner of his living in the Wilderness , the Funeral of Samuel , the love of Abigal , the sacking of Ziglag , the loss and recovery of Davids wives from the Amalekites , the Witch of Endor , the war with the Philistims , and the Battel of Gilboa ; all which I meant to interweave upon several occasions , with most of the illustrious Stories of the Old Testament , and to embellish with the most remarkable Antiquities of the Iews , and of other Nations before or at that Age. But I have had neither Leisure hitherto , nor have Appetite at present to finish the work , or so much as to revise that part which is done with that care which I resolved to bestow upon it , and which the Dignity of the Matter well deserves . For what worthier subject could have been chosen among all the Treasuries of past times , then the Life of this young Prince ; who from so small beginnings , through such infinite troubles and oppositions , by such miraculous virtues and excellencies , and with such incomparable variety of wonderful actions and accidents , became the greatest Monarch that ever sat upon the most famous Throne of the whole Earth ? whom should a Poet more justly seek to honor , then the highest person who ever honored his Profession ? whom a Christian Poet , rather then the man after Gods own heart , and the man who had that sacred pre-eminence above all other Princes , to be the best and mightiest of that Royal Race from whence Christ himself , according to the flesh , disdained not to descend ? When I consider this , and how many other bright and magnificent subjects of the like nature , the Holy Scripture affords , and Proffers , as it were , to Poesie , in the wise managing and illustrating whereof , the Glory of God Almighty might be joyned with the singular utility and noblest delight of Mankinde : It is not without grief and indignation that I behold that Divine Science employing all her inexhaustable riches of Wit and Eloquence , either in the wicked and beggarly Flattery of great persons , or the unmanly Idolizing of Foolish Women , or the wretched affectation of scurril Laughter , or at best on the confused antiquated Dreams of senseless Fables and Metamorphoses . Amongst all holy and consecrated things which the Devil ever stole and alienated from the service of the Deity ; as Altars , Temples , Sacrifices , Prayers , and the like ; there is none that he so universally , and so long usurpt , as Poetry . It is time to recover it out of the Tyrants hands , and to restore it to the Kingdom of God , who is the Father of it . It is time to Baptize it in Iordan , for it will never become clean by bathing in the Waters of Damascus . There wants , methinks , but the Conversion of That , and the Iews , for the accomplishing of the Kingdom of Christ . And as men before their receiving of the Faith , do not without some carnal reluctancies , apprehend the bonds and fetters of it , but finde it afterwards to be the truest and greatest Liberty : It will fare no otherwise with this Art , after the Regeneration of it ; it will meet with wonderful variety of new , more beautiful , and more delightful Objects ; neither will it want Room , by being confined to Heaven . There is not so great a Lye to be found in any Poet , as the vulgar conceit of men , that Lying is Essential to good Poetry . Were there never so wholesome Nourishment to be had ( but , alas , it breeds nothing but Diseases ) out of these boasted Feasts of Love and Fables ; yet , methinks , the unalterable continuance of the Diet should make us Nauseate it : For it is almost impossible to serve up any new Dish of that kinde . They are all but the Cold-meats of the Antients , new-heated , and new set forth . I do not at all wonder that the old Poets made some rich crops out of these grounds ; the heart of the Soil was not then wrought out with continual Tillage : But what can we expect now , who come a Gleaning , not after the first Reapers . but after the very Beggars ? Besides , though those mad stories of the Gods and Heroes , seem in themselves so ridiculous ; yet they were then the whole Body ( or rather Chaos ) of the Theologie of those times . They were believed by all but a few Philosophers , and perhaps some Atheists , and served to good purpose among the vulgar , ( as pitiful things as they are ) in strengthening the authority of Law with the terrors of Conscience , and Expectation of certain rewards , and unavoidable punishments . There was no other Religion , and therefore that was better then none at all . But to us who have no need of them , to us who deride their folly , and are wearied with their impertinencies ▪ they ought to appear no better arguments for Verse , then those of their worthy Successors , the Knights Errant What can we imagine more proper for the ornaments of Wit or Learning in the story of Deucalion , then in that of Noah ? why will not the actions of Sampson afford as plentiful matter as the Labors of Hercules ? why is not Ieptha's Daughter as good a woman as Iphigenia ? and the friendship of David and Ionathan more worthy celebration , then that of Theseus and Perithous ? Does not the passage of Moses and the Israelites into the Holy Land , yield incomparably more Poetical variety , then the voyages of Vlysses or Aeneas ? Are the obsolete threadbare tales of Thebes and Troy , half so stored with great , heroical and supernatural actions ( since Verse will needs finde or make such ) as the wars of Ioshua , of the Iudges , of David , and divers others ? Can all the Transformations of the Gods , give such copious hints to flourish and expatiate on , as the true Miracles of Christ , or of his Prophets , and Apostles ? what do I instance in these few particulars ? All the Books of the Bible are either already most admirable , and exalted pieces of Poesie , or are the best Materials in the world for it . Yet , though they be in themselves so proper to be made use of for this purpose ; None but a good Artist will know how to do it : neither must we think to cut and polish Diamonds with so little pains and skill as we do Marble . For if any man design to compose a Sacred Poem , by onely turning a story of the Scripture , like Mr. Quarle●'s , or some other godly matter , like Mr. Heywood of Angels , into Rhyme ; He is so far from elevating of Poesie , that he onely abases Divinity . In brief , he who can write a prophane Poem well , may write a Divine one better ; but he who can do that but ill , will do this much worse . The same fertility of Invention , the same wisdom of Disposition ; the same Iudgement in observance of Decencies , the same lustre and vigor of Elocution ; the same modesty and majestie of Number ; briefly the same kinde of Habit , is required to both ; only this latter allows better stuff , and therefore would look more deformedly , if ill drest in it . I am farre from assuming to my self to have fulfilled the duty of this weighty undertaking : But sure I am , that there is nothing yet in our Language ( nor perhaps in any ) that is in any degree answerable to the Idea that I conceive of it . And I shall be ambitious of no other fruit from this weak and imperfect attempt of mine , but the opening of a way to the courage and industry of some other persons , who may be better able to perform it throughly and succesfully .