Classic Poem

Oh! say what happy Muse informs thy Lyre,
Or do the sacred Nine, thy Breast inspire;
That thus we see in each judicious Line,
Nature and Art in beauteous Order shine,
The Numbers easy and the Thoughts Divine.
No more let haughty Man with fierce disdain,
Despise the Product of a Female brain,
But read thy Works, there view thy spacious Mind,

Thy Reason clear, thy Fancy unconfin'd;
And then be just to thy immortal Fame,
And with due Honours celebrate thy Name.
In thy harmonious Strains at once admire,
Orinda 's Judgment, and Astrea 's Fire.
Many are in Poetick Annals found,
Whose Brows with never fading Laurels bound,
For some one Grace were by Apollo Crown'd:
Of generous Friendship, this compos'd her Song,
And that with Love still Charm'd the list'ning Throng.

Another in Philosophy excells,
And pleasing Wonders tunefully Reveals;
But thou alone on every Theme can'st write,
That task was left for thy superior Wit.

Other faces
are like lamps unlit:
yours is a net
in which a thousand stars are caught;
the sky around
is darker for their deft withdrawal.

Other voices
are a dead monotony:
yours is the rapt cry
of the Sistine singers building an echo
high in vaults
where the Sibyl reads from an open scroll.

Other lives
drift to the Sirens' rock:
your music
issues in the wind's wake
muted and immortal
as the murmur from the Triton's coil'd shell.