William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.
Hymn: To LightAbraham Cowley (16181667)
F
From the old Negro’s darksome womb!
Which when it saw the lovely child,
The melancholy mass put on kind looks and smil’d.
But ever ebb, and ever flow;
Thou golden shower of a true Jove,
Who does in thee descend, and Heav’n to earth make Love!
Her joy, her ornament, and wealth!
Hail to thy husband heat, and thee!
Thou the world’s beauteous bride, the lusty bridegroom he!
Do all thy wingèd arrows fly?
Swiftness and power by birth are thine:
From thy great sire they came, thy sire the word divine.
That so much cost in colours thou,
And skill in painting dost bestow,
Upon thy ancient arms, the gaudy heavenly bow.
Thy race is finished, when begun,
Let a post-angel start with thee,
And thou the goal of earth shalt reach as soon as he:
Dost thy bright wood of stars survey;
And all the year dost with thee bring
Of thousand flow’ry lights thine own nocturnal spring.
The sun’s gilt tent for ever move,
And still as thou in pomp dost go
The shining pageants of the world attend thy show.
The humble glow-worms to adorn,
And with those living spangles gild,
(O greatness without pride!) the bushes of the field.
And sleep, the lazy owl of night;
Asham’d and fearful to appear
They screen their horrid shapes with the black hemisphere.
Of painted dreams, a busy swarm,
At the first opening of thine eye,
The various clusters break, the antic atoms fly.
Creep conscious to their secret rests:
Nature to thee does reverence pay,
Ill omens, and ill sights removes out of thy way.
To shake his wings, and rouse his head.
And cloudy care has often took
A gentle beamy smile reflected from thy look.
Thy sunshine melts away his cold.
Encourag’d at the sight of thee,
To the cheek colour comes, and firmness to the knee.
Blushes if thou beest in the place,
To darkness’ curtains he retires,
In sympathising night he rolls his smoky fires.
Out of the morning’s purple bed,
Thy choir of birds about thee play,
And all the joyful world salutes the rising day.
A body’s priv’lege to assume,
Vanish again invisibly,
And bodies gain agen their visibility.
Is but thy sev’ral liveries,
Thou the rich dye on them bestow’st,
Thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as thou go’st.
A crown of studded gold thou bear’st,
The virgin lilies in their white,
Are clad but with the lawn of almost naked light.
Girt in thy purple swadling-bands:
On the fair tulip them dost dote;
Thou cloth’st it in a gay and party-colour’d coat.
And solid colours in it mix:
Flora herself envies to see
Flowers fairer than her own, and durable as she.
And be less liberal to gold;
Didst thou less value to it give,
Of how much care, alas, might’st thou poor man relieve!
And all fair days much fairer are.
But few, ah wondrous few there be,
Who do not gold prefer, O Goddess, ev’n to thee.
Which open all their pores to thee;
Like a clear river thou dost glide,
And with thy living stream through the close channels slide.
Gently thy source the land o’erflows;
Takes there possession, and does make,
Of colours mingled, light, a thick and standing lake.
In th’ empyrean heaven does stay.
Thy rivers, lakes, and springs below
From thence took first their rise, thither at last must flow.