ON THE PRAYSE OF POETRY by ABRAHAM COWLEY

TIs not a Pyramide of marble stone,
Though high as our ambition;
'Tis not a tombe cut out in brasse; which can
Give life to th' ashes of a man:
But verses only; they shall fresh appeare
Whil'st there are men to read, or heare.
When tyme shall make the lasting brasse decay,
And eate the Pyramide away,
Turning that monument wherein men trust
Their names, to what it keepes, poore dust.
Then, shall the Epitaph remayne, and bee
New graven in Eternity.
Poets by death are conquered, but the wit
Of Poets triumph over it.
What cannot verse? when Thracian Orpheus tooke
His Lyre, and gently on it strooke;
The learned stones came dancing all along,
And kept time to the charming song.
With artificiall pace the Warlike Pine,
Th' Elme, and his wife the Ivy twine,
With all the better trees, -- which er'st had stood
Vnmou'd, -- forsooke their native wood.
The Lawrell to the Poet's hand did bow,
Craving the honour of his brow.
And every loving arme embrac'd, and made
With their officious leaves a shade.
The beasts too, strove his auditors to bee
Forgetting their old Tyranny.
The fearefull Hart next to the Lion came,
And Wolfe was Shepheard to the Lambe.
Nightingales, harmelesse Syrens of the ayre,
And Muses of the place, were there;
Who when their little windpipes they had found
Vnequall to so strange a sound,
O'recome by art and griefe they did expire,
And fell upon the conquering Lyre.
Happy, o happy they, whose tombe might bee,
Mausolus, envied by thee!

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