Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 2 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/172

Th' heroick exaltations of Good
Are so far from understood,
We count them Vice: alas! our sight's so ill,
That things which swiftest move seem to stand still:
We look not upon Virtue in her height,
On her supreme idea, brave and bright,
In the original light;
But as her beams reflected pass
Through our own Nature or Ill-custom's glass:
As ’tis no wonder, so,
If with dejected eye
In standing pools we seek the sky,
That stars, so high above, should seem to us below.

Can we stand by and see
Our mother robb'd, and bound, and ravish'd be,
Yet not to her assistance stir,
Pleas'd with the strength and beauty of the ravisher?
Or shall we fear to kill him, if before
The cancel'd name of friend he bore?
Ingrateful Brutus do they call?
Ingrateful Cæsar, who could Rome enthrall!
An act more barbarous and unnatural
(In th' exact balance of true virtue try'd)
Than his successor Nero's parricide!
There's none but Brutus could deserve
That all men else should wish to serve,
And Cæsar's usurp'd place to him should proffer;
None can deserve 't but he who would refuse the offer.