England 's a perfect world, has Indies too; Correct your maps, Newcastle is Peru! Let th' haughty Spaniard triumph till 'tis told Our sooty min'rals purify his gold. This will sublime and hatch the abortive ore, When the sun tires and stars can do no more. No! mines are current, unrefined, and gross; Coals make the sterling, Nature but the dross. For metals, Bacchus-like, two births approve; Heaven's heat 's the Semele, and ours the Jove. 10 Thus Art doth polish Nature; 'tis her trade: So every madam has her chambermaid. Who'd dote on gold? A thing so strange and odd, 'Tis most contemptible when made a god! All sins and mischiefs thence have rise and swell; One Indies more would make another Hell. Our mines are innocent, nor will the North Tempt poor mortality with too much worth. Th' are not so precious; rich enough to fire A lover, yet make none idolater. 20 The moderate value of our guiltless ore Makes no man atheist, nor no woman whore. Yet why should hallowed Vesta's glowing shrine Deserve more honour than a flaming mine? These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be, Than a few embers, for a deity. Had he our pits, the Persian would admire No sun, but warm 's devotion at our fire. He'd leave the trotting Whipster, and prefer This profound Vulcan 'bove that Wagoner. 30 For wants he heat, or light? would he have store Of both? 'Tis here. And what can suns give more? Nay, what 's that sun but, in a different name, A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame? Then let this truth reciprocally run, The sun 's Heaven's coalery, and coals our sun; A sun that scorches not, locked up i' th' deep; The bandog 's chained, the lion is asleep. That tyrant fire, which uncontrolled doth rage, Here 's calm and hushed, like Bajazet i' th' cage. 40 For in each coal-pit there doth couchant dwell A muzzled Etna, or an innocent Hell. Kindle the cloud, you'll lightning then descry; Then will a day break from the gloomy sky; Then you'll unbutton though December blow, And sweat i' th' midst of icicles and snow; The dog-days then at Christmas. Thus is all The year made June and equinoctial. If heat offend, our pits afford us shade, Thus summer 's winter, winter 's summer made. 50 What need we baths, what need we bower or grove? A coal-pit's both a ventiduct and stove. Such pits and caves were palaces of old; Poor inns, God wot, yet in an age of gold; And what would now be thought a strange design, To build a house was then to undermine. People lived under ground, and happy dwellers Whose jovial habitations were all cellars! These primitive times were innocent, for then Man, who turned after fox, but made his den. 60 But see a fleet of rivals trim and fine, To court the rich infanta of our mine;