Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PINDARIC ODE: TO DR. SCARBOROUGH, by ABRAHAM COWLEY


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PINDARIC ODE: TO DR. SCARBOROUGH, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: How long, alas! Has our mad nation been
Last Line: When all's done, life is an incurable disease.
Subject(s): Disease; Physicians; Doctors


1.

HOW long, alas! has our mad Nation been
Of Epidemick War the Tragick Scene,
When Slaughter all the while
Seem'd like its Sea, embracing round the Isle,
With Tempests, and red Waves, Noise, and Affright?
Albion no more, nor to be nam'd from White!
What Province, or what City did it spare?
It, like a Plague, infected all the Air.
Sure the unpeopled Land
Would now untill'd, desart, and naked stand,
Had God's Almighty Hand
At the same time let loose Diseases' rage,
Their Civil Wars in Man to wage.
But thou by Heaven wert sent
This Desolation to prevent,
A Med'cine and a Counter-poison to the Age;
Scarce could the Sword dispatch more to the Grave,
Than thou didst save;
By wondrous Art, and by successful Care,
The Ruins of a Civil War thou dost alone repair.

2.

The Inundations of all liquid Pain,
And Deluge Dropsie thou dost drain.
Feavers so hot, that one would say,
Thou might'st as soon Hell fires allay,
(The Damn'd scarce more incurable than they)
Thou dost so temper, that we find
Like Gold the Body but refin'd;
No unhealthful Dross behind.
The subtle Ague, that for Sureness' sake
Takes its own times th' Assault to make,
And at each Battery the whole Fort does shake,
When thy strong Guards, and Works it spies,
Trembles for it self, and flies.
The cruel Stone, that restless Pain
That's sometimes roll'd away in vain,
But still, like Sisyphus his Stone, returns again,
Thou Break'st and meltest by learn'd Juices' force,
(A greater Work, though short the Way appear,
Than Hannibal's by Vinegar)
Oppressed Nature's necessary Course
It stops in vain; like Moses, thou
Strik'st but the Rock, and strait the Waters flow.

3.

The Indian Son of Lust, (that foul Disease,
Which did on this, his new-found World, but lately seize:
Yet since a Tyranny has planted here,
As wide and cruel as the Spaniard there)
Is so quite rooted out by Thee,
That thy Patients seem to be
Restor'd not to Health only, but Virginity.
The Plague it self, that proud Imperial Ill,
Which destroys Towns, and does whole Armies kill,
If thou but Succour the Besieged Heart,
Calls all its Poisons forth, and does depart,
As if it fear'd no less thy Art,
Than Aaron's Incense, or than Phineas' Dart.
What need there here repeated be by me
The vast and barbarous Lexicon
Of Man's Infirmity?
At thy strong Charms it must be gone,
Though a Disease, as well as Devil, were called Legion.

4.

From creeping Moss to soaring Cedar thou
Dost all the Powers and several Portions know,
Which Father-Sun, and Mother-Earth below
On their Green Infants here bestow;
Can'st all those Magick Virtues from them draw,
That keep Disease, and Death in awe;
Who whilst thy wondrous Skill in Plants they see,
Fear lest the Tree of Life should be found out by thee.
And thy well-travell'd Knowledge too does give
No less Account of th' Empire Sensitive,
Chiefly of Man, whose Body is
That active Soul's Metropolis.
As the great Artist, in his Sphere of Glass,
Saw the whole Scene of Heav'nly Motions pass;
So thou know'st all so well that's done within,
As if some living Chrystal Man thou'dst seen.

5.

Nor does this Science make thy Crown alone,
But whole Apollo is thine own.
His gentler Arts, belov'd in vain by me,
Are wedded and enjoy'd by thee.
Thou'rt by this Noble Mixture free
From the Physician's frequent Malady,
Fantastick Incivility;
There are who all their Patients' chagrin have,
As if they took each Morn worse Potions than they gave.
And this great Race of Learning thou hast run,
E'er that of Life be half yet done.
Thou see'st thy self still fresh and strong,
And like t' enjoy thy Conquests long.
The first fam'd Aphorism thy great Master spoke,
Did he live now he would revoke,
And better things of Man report:
For thou do'st make Life long, and Art but short.

6.

Ah, learned Friend, it grieves me, when I think
That thou with all thy Art must die
As certainly as I.
And all thy noble Reparations sink
Into the sure-wrought Mine of treacherous Mortality;
Like Archimedes, hon'ourably in vain,
Thou holdst out Towns that must at last be ta'en,
And thou thy self, their great Defender, slain.
Let's e'en compound, and for the Present Live,
'Tis all the Ready Mony Fate can give:
Unbend sometimes thy restless Care,
And let thy Friends so happy be
T' enjoy at once their Health and thee.
Some Hours at least to thine own Pleasures spare;
Since the whole Stock may soon exhausted be,
Bestow't not all in Charity.
Let Nature, and let Art do what they please,
When all's done, Life is an Incurable Disease.





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