English Elegies
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: To The Pious Memory Of the Accomplished Young Lady, Mrs. ANNE KILLIGREW, Excellent in The Two Sister Arts of Poesy and Painting. An Ode. [First printed in "Poems by Mrs Anne fCilligrew, 1686."] Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, Made in the last promotion of the blest; Whose palms, new plucked from paradise, In spreading branches more sublimely rise, Rich with immortal green above the rest; Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star, Thou roll'st above us in thy wandering race, Or, in procession fixed and regular, Mov'st with the heaven's majestic pace; Or, called to more superior bliss, Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss: Whatever happy region is thy place, Cease thy celestial song a little space; Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine, Since Heaven's eternal year is thine. Hear, th
...en, a mortal muse thy praise rehearse, In no ignoble verse; But such as thy own voice did practise here, When thy first fruits of poesy were given, To make thyself a welcome inmate there; While yet a young probationer, And candidate of heaven. If by traduction came thy mind, Our wonder is the less to find A soul so charming from a stock so good; Thy father was transfused into thy blood: So wert thou born into a tuneful strain, An early, rich, and inexhausted vein. But if thy pre-existing soul Was formed, at first, with myriads more, It did through ail the mighty poets roll, Who Greek or Latin laurels wore, And was that Sappho last, which once it was before. If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind 1 Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore : Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find, Than was the beauteous frame she left behind: Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind. May we pr...
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