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Show Honor and Friend flip, and the gen rous from Of things for which we were not born, (Things that can only, by a fond dijeaje, Lik{ th** °f G z r^> 0Hr vicious flomachspleafe) Are the inftrntiive fnbjeSls of her Pen. And as the R o m a n ViSlory Taught our rude Land^rts, and civility, At once fle overcomes, enflaves, and betters men. * But Rome with all her arts could nere infpire A Female Breafl with fnch afire. The warlike Amazonian Train, Which, in Elyfium, now do peaceful reign, And Wifs mild Empire before Arms prefer, Hope 'twill be fetled in their Sex by her. Merlin the Seer (andfure he would not lie In fuch a facred Company) Does Prophecies of learn d Orinda flow, Which he had darhfy fpoke fo long ago. Even Boadicia'x angry Ghofl Forgets her own misfortune and difgrace, And to her injur d Daughters now does boafl, That R o m e V oercome at lafl by a Woman of her race. Abraham Cowley. To T o the Excellent Orinda* L E t the male Poets their male Phcebus chufe, Thee I invoke, Orinda, for my Mufe } He could but force a Branch, Daphne her Tree Mofl freely offers to her Sex and thee, And fays to Verfe, fo nnconflraind as yours, |t| Her Laurel freely comes, your fame fecures : And men no longer fhall with ravifh'd Bays Crown their fore d Poems by as fore d a praife. Thou glory of our Sex, envy of men, Who are both pleas'd and vexd with thy bright Pen: Its luflre doth intice their eyes to ga%e, But mens fore eyes cannot endure its rayes', It da%les and furpri^es fo with light, To find a noon where they expected night: A Woman Tranflate Pompey ! which the fam'd Corneille with fuch art and labor fram'd I To whofe clofe verfion the Wits club their fence, And a new Lay-Poetick S M E C Jprings thence I Tes, that bold work a Woman dares Tranflate, Not to provoke, nor yet to fear mens hate. Nature cloth find that fhe hath err'd too long And now rejolves to recompenfe that wrong : Phoebus to Cynthia muji his beams refigney The rule of Day, and Wit*s now Feminine. That Sex, which heretofore was not allow*d To undetfland more than a beafl, or crowd j Of which Problems were made, whether or no Women had Souk \ but to be damn'd, if fo ', Whofe higheji Contemplation could not pafs, In mens ejieem, no higher that the Glafs \ And all the painful labours of their Brain, Was only how to Drefs and Entertain : Or, if they ventur'd to fpeak fenfe^ the wife Made that, and fpeahfng Oxe, likg Prodigies. From |
