If by traduction came thy mind, Our wonder is the less, to find A soul so charming from a stock so good; Thy father was transfus’d into thy blood: So wert thou born into the tuneful strain, An early, rich, and inexhausted vein. But if thy pre-existing soul Was form’d at first with myriads more, It did through all the mighty poets roll Who Greek or Latin laurels wore, And was that Sappho last, which once it was before. If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind! Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore: Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find, Than was the beauteous frame she left behind: Return, to fill or mend the quire of thy celestial kind. May we presume to say, that, at thy birth, New joy was sprung in heaven as well as here on earth? For sure the milder planets did combine On thy auspicious horoscope to shine, And even the most malicious were in trine. Thy brother-angels at thy birth Strung each his lyre, and tun’d it high, That all the people of the sky Might know a poetess was born on earth; And then, if ever, mortal ears Had heard the music of the spheres. And if no clust’ring swarm of bees On thy sweet mouth distill’d their golden dew, ’Twas that such vulgar miraclès Heaven had not leisure to renew: For all the blest fraternity of love Solemniz’d there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above. O gracious God! how far have we Profan’d thy heavenly gift of Poesy! Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, Debas’d to each obscene and impious use, Whose harmony was first ordain’d above, For tongues of angels and for hymns of love! O wretched we! why were we hurried down This lubrique and adulterate age (Nay, added fat pollutions of our own), To increase the streaming ordures of the stage? What can we say to excuse our second fall? Let this thy Vestal, Heaven, atone for all! Her Arethusian stream remains unsoil’d, Unmixt with foreign filth, and undefil’d; Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.