146
COWLEY'S POEMS.
So did this noble empire waste,
Sunk by degrees from glories past,
And in the school-men's hands it perish'd quite at last:
Then nought but words it grew,
And those all barbarous too:
It perish'd, and it vanish'd there,
The life and soul, breath'd out, became but empty air!
Sunk by degrees from glories past,
And in the school-men's hands it perish'd quite at last:
Then nought but words it grew,
And those all barbarous too:
It perish'd, and it vanish'd there,
The life and soul, breath'd out, became but empty air!
The fields, which answer'd well the ancients' plough,
Spent and out-worn, return no harvest now;
In barren age wild and unglorious lie,
And boast of past fertility,
The poor relief of present poverty.
Food and fruit we now must want,
Unless new lands we plant.
We break-up tombs with sacrilegious hands;
Old rubbish we remove;
To walk in ruins, like vain ghosts, we love,
And with fond divining wands
We search among the dead
For treasures buried;
Whilst still the liberal earth does hold
So many virgin-mines of undiscover'd gold.
Spent and out-worn, return no harvest now;
In barren age wild and unglorious lie,
And boast of past fertility,
The poor relief of present poverty.
Food and fruit we now must want,
Unless new lands we plant.
We break-up tombs with sacrilegious hands;
Old rubbish we remove;
To walk in ruins, like vain ghosts, we love,
And with fond divining wands
We search among the dead
For treasures buried;
Whilst still the liberal earth does hold
So many virgin-mines of undiscover'd gold.
The Baltick, Euxine, and the Caspian,
And slender-limb'd Mediterranean,
Seem narrow creeks to thee, and only fit
For the poor wretched fisher-boats of wit:
And slender-limb'd Mediterranean,
Seem narrow creeks to thee, and only fit
For the poor wretched fisher-boats of wit:
