To Mr. G. L. an Ode

DEar George, the better part
Of my united, now divided heart,
Accept of these rude Lines this Paper bears,
Conceiv'd in Sorrow, and brought forth in Tears;
Sad as th' Occasion, hasty as thy Flight:
Nor wonder, if with so much pains
They wrought their passage through my brains:
No wonder, if so hardly I the Dirge endite,
Which ev'n my Pen clog'd with grief, cannot write:
No wonder, if my Verses lag behind,
Since my Muse with Tears is blind,
I to this Prison here confin'd;
For sure no better is that place to me,
Whilst thou are absent, wheresoe're it be.

Seven days are past, since I beheld thy face,
In which Divinity it self is writ,
And Angel all in every line of it;
Picture of Beauty, and the Stamp of Grace.
Seven! to what immense number does that word amount!
Seven days! 7000 years in Love's account.
Every Minute is a Day,
Every Hour a tedious Year,
In which the Sun does once appear,
And in a moment vanishes away,
And leaves the miserable cloudy Hemisphere.
Seven days! before I could my silence break,
Thy Name in Accents interrupted speak.
For seven long days upon the Rack,
And overwhelmed with the dreadful storm,
Grief haunted me like th'evil Spirit of Saul;
Then in my wavering mind I thought,
What if I should my self to David's Harp apply?
And might not numbers be a Remedy?
I tried and found it nonsence all;
I tried again, and at the second draught,
Like old Deucalion's Stones, all came to better form.

To say, my Life is bound in thine,
In deed were a Tautologie;
For that as necessarily must be,
As that thou hast a Soul divine.
But to express the Grief and Consternation,
When Soul and Body part;
For such it is does seize my heart,
That, that only is above my passion.
Each day, my Sun, since you withdrew your light,
Has been an everlasting Night;
And yet still banish'd, Thyrsis, from thy sight!

I feel the Pangs and Tortures of a dying Soul;
Nay, I my self am dead, thô but in part,
Whilst you are my Vicegerent in my heart,
And must command the whole.
'Tis this alone that does support
My sinking Spirits from the Grave,
That thô the Scorpion stings, her bloud can save.
Greatness and Fortune do your absence court;
Thô Fate does her malicious Nature show,
To make such bitter streams from a sweet Fountain flow.

Methinks I Pylades and Orestes see,
And must admire their constancie;
But when again I do recount
To what vast sum my Debts amount,
How infinitely I am oblig'd to thee,
Their Friendship in the Balance laid,
And equally and fairly weigh'd
Against my spotless Love,
Lighter than Vanity does prove,
Tilts up, (like Vapours that the Air invade)
Whilst mine is solid and does downward to its centre move:
No more to be compar'd, than Atoms to the Sun,
Or little drops unto the boundless Ocean.

Pylades proffer'd his own Life, ('tis true)
And bare that punishment was justly due
To such a Friend; but hadst thou died
Instead of him, thou hadst been stil'd the Matricide,
His horrid Crime transferr'd to you:
That Murther soon have put an end
To that proverbial name of Friend.
But as thy matchless Innocence
Could only be a capital Offence,
Thy Vertues I would ransom by my death,
And bless the Author with my dying breath.

This I with less reluctancy could bear,
Than such damnation to despair,
Than absence from that glorious Sun,
Who lends all Creatures light, and yet himself wants none.
'Tis from his Rays I steal Promethean fire,
Kindle my fatal Spices, and expire:
Whose Worth and Vertues when I think upon,
Tost by two different motions of my mind,
But both to the same end inclin'd,
I cannot be with-held, I must be gone:
My Soul is on the wing;
But being stopt by cross Necessity,
She makes a Post of every Wind,
Sends word she fears you grow unkind;
Commits to every blast a sigh,
Then melts away into a piece of Poetry.
So when the Nightingale has gor'd her breast,
She tunes her Pipes, and quavers out her best:
And thô in the extremity of pain,
Has not forgot her usual strain,
But sets her self to sing.