Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 1 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/95

Rh 'Twixt his right ribs deep pierc'd the furious blade, And open'd wide those secret vessels where Life's light goes out, when first they let in air.

But he has allusions vulgar as well as learned. In a visionary succession of kings:

Joas at first does bright and glorious show, In life's fresh morn his fame does early crow.

Describing an undisciplined army, after having said with elegance,

His forces seem'd no army, but a crowd Heartless, unarm'd, disorderly, and loud,

he gives them a fit of the ague.

The allusions, however, are not always to vulgar things: he offends by exaggeration as much as by diminution:

The king was plac'd alone, and o'er his head A well-wrought heaven of silk and gold was spread.

Whatever he writes is always polluted with some conceit:

Where the sun's fruitful beams give metals birth, Where he the growth of fatal gold does see, Gold, which alone more influence has than be.