Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham

To Mr George Sandys, on His Translation of Some Parts of the Bible

1 How bold a work attempts that pen,
    Which would enrich our vulgar tongue
  With the high raptures of those men
    Who, here, with the same spirit sung
  Wherewith they now assist the choir
  Of angels, who their songs admire!

2 Whatever those inspirèd souls
    Were urgèd to express, did shake
  The aged deep and both the poles;
    Their num’rous thunder could awake
  Dull earth, which does with Heaven consent
  To all they wrote, and all they meant.

3 Say, sacred bard! what could bestow
    Courage on thee to soar so high?
  Tell me, brave friend! what help’d thee so
    To shake off all mortality?
  To light this torch, thou hast climb’d higher
  Than he who stole celestial fire.[2]

[1] ‘Sandys,’ besides his ‘Ovid,’ which Pope read and relished in his boyhood, versified some of the poetical parts of the Bible. [2] ‘Celestial fire’: Prometheus.