Tell me, young man, or did the Muses bring Thee less to taste than to drink up their spring, That none hereafter should be thought, or be A poet, or a poet-like but thee? What was thy birth, thy star that makes thee known, At twice ten years, a prime and public one? Tell us thy nation, kindred, or the whence Thou had'st and hast thy mighty influence, That makes thee lov'd, and of the men desir'd, And no less prais'd than of the maids admired. Put on thy laurel then; and in that trim Be thou Apollo or the type of him: Or let the unshorn god lend thee his lyre, And next to him be master of the choir. 957. TO JULIA. Offer thy gift; but first the law commands Thee, Julia, first, to sanctify thy hands: Do that, my Julia, which the rites require, Then boldly give thine incense to the fire. 958. TO THE MOST COMELY AND PROPER M. ELIZABETH FINCH. Handsome you are, and proper you will be Despite of all your infortunity: Live long and lovely, but yet grow no less In that your own prefixed comeliness: Spend on that stock: and when your life must fall, Leave others beauty to set up withal. _Proper_, well-made. 960. TO HIS BOOK. If hap it must, that I must see thee lie Absyrtus-like, all torn confusedly: With solemn tears, and with much grief of heart, I'll recollect thee, weeping, part by part; And having wash'd thee, close thee in a chest With spice; that done, I'll leave thee to thy rest. _Absyrtus-like_, the brother of Medea, cut in pieces by her that his father might be delayed by gathering his limbs. 961. TO THE KING, UPON HIS WELCOME TO HAMPTON COURT. SET AND SUNG. Welcome, great Cæsar, welcome now you are As dearest peace after destructive war: Welcome as slumbers, or as beds of ease After our long and peevish sicknesses. O pomp of glory! Welcome now, and come To repossess once more your long'd-for home. A thousand altars smoke: a thousand thighs Of beeves here ready stand for sacrifice. Enter and prosper; while our eyes do wait For an ascendent throughly auspicate: Under which sign we may the former stone Lay of our safety's new foundation: That done, O Cæsar! live and be to us Our fate, our fortune, and our genius; To whose free knees we may our temples tie As to a still protecting deity: That should you stir, we and our altars too May, great Augustus, go along with you. _Chor._ Long live the King! and to accomplish this, We'll from our own add far more years to his. _Ascendent_, the most influential position of a planet in astrology. _Auspicate_, propitious. 962. ULTIMUS HEROUM: OR, TO THE MOST LEARNED, AND TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, HENRY, MARQUIS OF DORCHESTER.