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Title: In Zodiacum Marcelli Palingenii
Author: Henry Vaughan [
More Titles by Vaughan]
It is perform'd! and thy great name doth run
Through ev'ry sign, an everlasting sun,
Not planet-like, but fixed; and we can see
Thy genius stand still in his apogee.
For how canst thou an aux eternal miss,
Where ev'ry house thy exaltation is?
Here's no ecliptic threatens thee with night,
Although the wiser few take in thy light.
They are not at that glorious pitch, to be
In a conjunction with divinity.
Could we partake some oblique ray of thine,
Salute thee in a sextile, or a trine,
It were enough; but thou art flown so high,
The telescope is turn'd a common eye.
Had the grave Chaldee liv'd thy book to see,
He had known no astrology but thee;
Nay, more--for I believe't--thou shouldst have been
Tutor to all his planets, and to him.
Thus, whosoever reads thee, his charm'd sense
Proves captive to thy zodiac's influence.
Were it not foul to err so, I should look
Here for the Rabbins' universal book:
And say, their fancies did but dream of thee,
When first they doted on that mystery.
Each line's a via lactea, where we may
See thy fair steps, and tread that happy way
Thy genius led thee in. Still I will be
Lodg'd in some sign, some face, and some degree
Of thy bright zodiac; thus I'll teach my sense
To move by that, and thee th' intelligence.
[The end]
Henry Vaughan's poem: In Zodiacum Marcelli Palingenii
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