mage of his lord he bends
And to the flames his burden straight commends.
Unto the altars thus he destinates
His own remains; the light doth gild the gates;
Perfumes divine the censers up do send:
While th' Indian odour doth itself extend
To the Pelusian fens, and filleth all
The men it meets with the sweet storm. A gale,
To which compar'd nectar itself is vile,
Fills the sev'n channels of the misty Nile.
O happy bird! sole heir to thy own dust!
Death, to whose force all other creatures must
Submit, saves thee. Thy ashes make thee rise;
'Tis not thy nature, but thy age that dies.
Thou hast seen all! and to the times that run
Thou art as great a witness as the sun.
Thou saw'st the deluge, when the sea outvied
The land, and drown'd the mountains with the tide.
What year the straggling Phaeton did fire
The world, thou know'st. And no plagues can conspire
Against thy life; alone thou dost arise
Above mortality; the destinies
Spin not thy days out with their fatal clue;
They have no law, to which thy life is due.

PIOUS THOUGHTS AND EJACULATIONS.

TO HIS BOOKS.

Bright books! the perspectives to our weak sights,
The clear projections of discerning lights,
Burning and shining thoughts, man's posthume day,
The track of fled souls, and their Milky Way,
The dead alive and busy, the still voice
Of enlarg'd spirits, kind Heav'n's white decoys!
Who lives with you, lives like those knowing flow'rs,
Which in commerce with light spend all their hours:
Which shut to clouds, and shadows nicely shun,
But with glad haste unveil to kiss the sun.
Beneath you, all is dark, and a dead night,
Which whoso lives in, wants both health and sight.
By sucking you, the wise--like bees--do grow
Healing and rich, though this they do most slow,
Because most choicely; for as great a store
Have we of books, as bees of herbs, or more:
And the great task, to try, then know, the good.
To discern weeds, and judge of wholesome food,
Is a rare, scant performance: for man dies
Oft ere 'tis done, while the bee feeds and flies.
But you were all choice flow'rs, all set and drest
By old sage florists, who well knew the best:
And I amidst you all am turned a weed!
Not wanting knowledge, but for want of heed.
Then thank thyself, wild