Alarm TO POETS.  
IN DOMINO CONFIDO   printer's or publisher's device 
LONDON. Printed in the year, 1648.   

Aeolus Trumpet to his four Winds.  
Go Triton, calm all storms of turbulence,  
From turning up side down both sea, & shore,  
Triton, proclaim silent obedience,  
That they henceforth shall dare to break no more;  
For dread Astreaes' sign, amid the Line,  
Erected hath her seals for true, and just;  
Whereto all virtuous projects shall confine,  
So that her calm, no more shall be combust:  
But that her Poets now may sing of peace,  
And all cromatick descant harsh surcease.   

Poetry's Complaint.  
THough I poesy grow out of request,  
As a sad mendicant unwelcome mate,  
Yet this me joys, the Muses me invest,  
Amid their gracious classis laureate;  
With whom, (Self-faring) I alone descry  
All my malignant's end in obloquy.  
Where all their cranks I trace with little thanks,  
And go invisible, yet see their pranks,  
That parable so open, and shut the same,  
As Truth, Art, Wit, praised for their friendly blame:  
Else over-openly foul faults to tell,  
Would kindle hot blood (as gravity knows well)  
But for th'ideal Anagoge, whereby,  
The mark shot at, is hit ingeniously,  
Scurrility abhorred, and flattery,  
Hiss off the stage by fair morality.   

Alarum to Poets.  
WHen Jove spread his convexed canopy  
Of constant azure, arched low and high,  
Did twinkling tapers infinitely set,  
Where cloud, nor freckle, could their lustre let,  
But that those seven great Lamps which ever turn,  
Might everywhere fling light as round they journ,  
Forced by that wheel which moveth all the rest,  
With, and against each other, to contest,  
In that long dance of number, tune, and time,  
Which by proportion doth join, and disjoin,  
Of friendly hatred, loving so, and hate,  
As wisdom knows to reconcile the bate  
Of these strange combatants, which rise, and fall,  
In their continual battle cubical,  
Which to the circular well reconciled  
Makes, that to unity they gladly yield.  
Which when he saw so good, and well agree,  
He bid th'whole choir sound out their harmony,  
Whereof the seven tones to that one of eight,  
Sent whole, and half tunes by measure and weight,  
Yea fifth, and thirds, and so a fourth did sound,  
A second, and a sixt, so well compound,  
As thereof rang the sweetest melody,  
That rule, and order breed, to amity.  
wherefore the Chorus' mid th'aethereal Hall,  
Diffusing all those concord's musical,  
Did so rejoice all kinds, each sex and age,  
(Invited guests unto that middle stage)  
As vouched on all sides, truth t'own self conforms,  
As virtue demonstrates by all her normes;  
Whence not to fall, stands where the first belonged,  
Still to that mystery to correspond.  
Wherein Jove stood rapt, sith this unison  
Merely derived but from one radick tone,  
Deigned for itself, itself to glorify,  
Into that multiplying euphony,  
That never ceasing, warbled in that frame  
That can none other do then still the same.  
O noblest consonance! O excellence!  
In which truth breeds love, justice, innocence.  
Now to concomitate this music's feast,  
Made to the middle, high, and lowest guest,  
Jove of those three called one out, at whose cry,  
Averdi came (his daughter) instantly;  
A Lady truly whiter than the snow,  
More humble, meek, and mild, than Doves below;  
More pure, subtle, acute, than clearest air,  
More swift than sight, of kind most debonair.  
Go candour (said he) make thine airy flight,  
Down through the fiery Region, and enlight  
With notion general some above the rest,  
But thereto make choice of the lowliest,  
Select of Nations, th'acies of whose mind,  
Shall to my limits stand by me confined;  
So as though they in part do know the right,  
Yet future ages shall receive more light;  
When me list some more special ones inspire  
With knowledge; whilst others shall delire,  
Till one particular much more shall know,  
For knowledge but successively shall grow.  
Averdi thus dispatched with science rare,  
Her purport of three Regions to declare,  
The winged Graces (Fly she low, or high)  
Her ways enlightened with their radij;  
So did the classic virtues lovingly  
Amid them all still bear her company.  
When lo, D●lfisa to prevent her, lay,  
If possibly by any wile she may;  
About whom, phantasms infinite did swarm,  
Dreams to intoxicate with windy barm,  
Vain apparitions, strong imaginations,  
Conceits, opinions, mad inaugurations,  
Forms, fancies, figures, fables improbable,  
Untopicall, unsalted, fond, unstable,  
Such as the Spirits of th'air (Loosed to elusion)  
Have to confound with (making their intrusion)  
Where, soothly false suborn in steed of true,  
To be imbibed by the fanatic crew;  
And now to bob Averdies negotiation,  
She featly coined an art of emulation,  
By stealing to herself Averdies shade,  
Which from the ground did off her light evade,  
In which she strove her to assimilate,  
Yet but as shades true bodies imitate;  
Still plotting her but so to counterfeit,  
As truth's name, form, gain hers be by excheat  
Of contradiction: which opposing ever,  
No mean hath to assign to own endeavour,  
But that malengin (woven into faction)  
Might profit wring out b'others raised detraction;  
For envy never ceaseth to deprave,  
Till others properties she seize and have.  
Yet when Aurora's calm serenity,  
Had burnished Titans rosy physiognomy,  
And so set up her glass, as might appear,  
All tamskipp prospectives, both far, and near;  
Down soared Averdi by her winding stair,  
On wings displayed, (Composed of fire, and air,)  
Which bear her on that mild amenity,  
That all inferiors viewed with singlest eye,  
All longilatitudes, altitudes eke,  
Degrees, and what else reason hath to seek;  
Each peopled Nation, climate, hot, cold, mean,  
Th'intemperate, and the temperate, foul and clean,  
Where, after her made universal slight,  
As well around the globe, mid, cross, and right,  
She did o'er Caldie, then o'er Egypt sore,  
Where, did on some her meek, elixir pour,  
Whereof, a gentle, meek, mild flame, did tine  
That furor, which their spirits up rapt divine,  
To contemplate in singlest ecstasy,  
Hid speculation from the proudest eye,  
As yet astronomy recordeth well,  
And geometry, who first did them revel,  
Yea sowed the first seeds of Philosophy,  
By some, with pain, and cost, sought far, and nigh,  
Their candle to illumin at that light.  
But this the more enraged Delsisaes' spite,  
Who, coasting near Averdi, as her shade,  
On wings of all mixed colours, fraud had made,  
Did there her malarts phiols drench out pour,  
On such as would become her Paramour;  
Whereof, arose most noisome pestilence,  
Which soon infected scient sapience;  
A worser pestilence was never known,  
Then science turned into opinion▪  
To croaking frogs, whose tongues shall never rest,  
While stood suborned Aver●●'s Anthagonist,  
And therefore barring them her quintassence,  
Left all those mutinous to own insolence.  
To find out Gaul, (far hotter of desire)  
The s●oner caught of one intestine sire,  
Inconstant libertines, ires rendezvous,  
At sodaines, esteemed most dangerous,  
Immoderate, rash, giddy, turbulent,  
Hath but to counterfeit the continent;  
Albeit insinuates humilianist,  
Most slily playeth proud opinionist.  
On this, perceiving Delsis had beset her,  
Averdi soon resolved from thence to get her;  
Impossible it finding, Gaul, Almain,  
Should her, on those conditions enetrtaine;  
And therefore pawned, her w●ndring wings to rest,  
While limbs more strength her, as they are released▪  
Till sweaty Phoebus, wending from her sight,  
Her, with a ruddy co●gey bode good-night:  
Which grace, as it prelaged next morning grey;  
So promised, to perfor●●● a golden day.  
But when Night, blacks had doffed, and put on blue,  
Blue, mixed with white, compounding a grey hew,  
Most fit for Phoebus when him chairs in State,  
All far off prospectives to speculate;  
Averdi, still as meek, as calmest day,  
Then soaring for discovery, every way,  
Intended her rath Muses to bestow,  
On some more meet, discreet, and grave below:  
Far kenning from an high point, fairy Land,  
Which sounds increase, and nourishing, if scanned,  
Did there reign her Elixir, which so wrought,  
As that folk, rapt in love, this Dame most sought,  
Whose very light, them strake with admiration,  
To trace her steps from Nation, into Nation,  
And Land, to Land, where so she chose to alight,  
Although it be in Fairy I and she pight.  
On top of whose sharp Promontore, her voice  
Them called, who did ascend with merry noise;  
The chiefest Spire whereof Oneida hight,  
For beauty famous, strength, and steeples right;  
Built on a rock, which had on it an hill,  
That stood for Land mark, after seaman's skill;  
The Holt whereof, on which Averdi keeps,  
Belsoma Castl'is watered round with deeps,  
Where, while Aloft, in prospective she sat,  
Whole chirmes of Poets thither congregate,  
To serve that sovereign Beauty, which had power,  
To ravish each observing Paramour:  
Whose lovely radij so the men disuought,  
As they were lost, and found in her they sought;  
So could not but thus her ofright desine,  
O Essence appetible, and O Divine  
Form! causing our beginning, being, end,  
Therefore, thine honour we shall still defend.  
Thus stood they rapt into her observation,  
Time, habit, place, resounding th'approbation,  
Them gave to meditate the deity,  
Expressed in th'exercise of piety;  
Then plainly finding, all herparts agree  
With her own self, when they converted be;  
She like power having, hers to unite so in one,  
As all their tones resound her unison:  
Like so, how ever any species grows,  
It's every property meets one in close,  
As simple virtue knoweth to desine,  
Which of all demonstrations is the prime  
Now all these laureates standing at her gate,  
Own offices did, and her love dilate,  
Averdies Love for Guerdon, is not small,  
Besides, a Poe●s laureate Coronal;  
Which earning, out will sing the victor's praise,  
And sound love's triumph to these latter days,  
With blessed peace, that welcomes in the bringer,  
And cheers up every sad rejoicing singer.  
But first, ought sing a song of twelve months long,  
Next, noblest Guy, (righted on others wrong)  
Than Chaucer's Squires lost tale, on his conditions,  
The second last part of poetic visions.  
For in this order aught the legend be,  
According to the Muses own decree.  
Now then rapt Poets, what have ye to say?  
To Dame Averdies key, (the muse's way?)  
If ye deign answer her Alarum, rise!  
And arm your verse, to win from prose the prize,  
Sing swans of Thames, that all the world may know,  
Ye win the golden wreath, from silver Poe;  
Whose learned Schools, though have not to give wit,  
Yet wondrous curiously, they polish it:  
But high Ichouh, down through his stars distils  
What his employed Philomela thrills,  
In April blithe, and May, but ends in June,  
That other monthly birds, in kind, may tune,  
But that another Turtle sing before ye,  
Assures to your inheritance, the glory.  
At that, Delsisa fell into a rage,  
Till every other hissed her off the stage,  
And kick her oft, after her own intent,  
Then merrily, as from a banquet, went.  
J. L.  
FINIS.