Hail bright _Urania_! _Erato_ hail! _Melpomene_, _Polymnia_, _Euterpe_, hail! And all ye blessed powers that inspire The Heaven-born Soul with intellectual fire; Pardon my humble and unhallow’d Muse, If she too great a veneration use, And prostrate at your best lov’d Darling’s feet Your holy Fane with sacred honour greet: Her more than _Pythian_ Oracles are so divine, You sure not onely virtually are Within the glorious Shrine, But you your very selves must needs be there. The _Delian_ Prophet did at first ordain, That even the mighty Nine should reign, In distant Empires of different Clime; And if in her triumphant Throne, She rules those learned Regions alone, The fam’d _Pyerides_ are out-done by her omnipotent Rhime. In proper Cells her large capacious Brain The images of all things does contain, As bright almost as were th’.deas laid, In the last model e’er the World was made. And though her vast conceptions are so strong, The powerfull eloquence of her charming tongue Does, clear as the resistless beams of day, To our enlightned Souls the noble thoughts convey Well chosen, well appointed, every word Does its full force and natural grace afford; And though in her rich treasury, Confus’d like Elements great Numbers lie, When they their mixture and proportion take, What beauteous forms of every kind they make! Such was the Language God himself infus’d, And such the style our great Forefather us’d, From one large stock the various sounds he fram’d, And every Species of the vast Creation nam’d. While most of our dull Sex have trod In beaten paths of one continued Road, Her skilfull and well manag’d Muse Does all the art and strength of different paces use: For though sometimes with slackned force, She wisely stops her fleetest course, That slow but strong Majestick pace Shews her the swiftest steed of all the chosen Race. V.