Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes, and Sonets :: :: University of Virginia Library

Since thou hast view'd some Gorgon, and art grown
A solid stone:
To bring again to softness thy hard heart
Is past my art.
Ice may relent to water in a thaw;
But stone made flesh Loves Chymistry ne're saw.

Therefore by thinking on thy hardness, I
Will petrify;
And so within our double Quarryes Wombe,
Dig our Loves Tombe.
Thus strangely will our difference agree;
And, with our selves, amaze the world, to see
How both Revenge and Sympathy consent
To make two Rocks each others Monument.

The Vow-Breaker.

VVhen first the Magick of thine ey,
Usurpt upon my liberty,
Triumphing in my hearts spoyl, thou
Didst lock up thine in such a vow;
When I prove false, may the bright day
Be govern'd by the Moons pale ray!
(As I too well remember) This
Thou said'st, and seald'st it with a kiss.

O Heavens! and could so soon that Ty
Relent in slack Apostacy?
Could all thy Oaths, and morgag'd trust,
Vanish? like letters form'd in dust
Which the next wind scatters. Take heed,
Take heed Revolter; know this deed
Hath wrong'd the world, which will fare worse
By thy Example then thy Curse.

Hide that false Brow in mists. Thy shame
Ne're see light more, but the dimme flame

Of funeral Lamps. Thus sit and moane,
And learn to keep thy guilt at home.
Give it no vent; for if agen
Thy Love or Vowes betray more men,
At length (I fear) thy perjur'd breath
Will blow out day, and waken Death.

Upon a Table-Book presented to a Lady.

VVhen your fair hand receives this little book
You must not there for prose or verses look.
Those empty regions which within you see,
May by your self planted and peopled be:
And though we scarce allow your sex to prove
Writers (unless the Argument be Love);
Yet without crime or envy you have roome
Here, both the Scribe and Author to become.

To the same Lady upon Mr. Burtons Melancholy.

If in this Glass of Humours you do find
The Passions or diseases of your mind,
Here without pain, you safely may endure,
Though not to suffer, yet to read your cure.
But if you nothing meet you can apply,
Then ere you need, you have a remedy.

And I do wish you never may have cause
To be adjudg'd by these fantastick Laws;
But that this books example may be known,
By others Melancholy, not your own.

The Farewell.

Splendidis longum valedico nugis.

Farewell fond Love, under whose childish whip,
I have serv'd out a weary Prentiship;
Thou that hast made me thy scorn'd property,
To dote on Rocks, but yielding Loves to fly:

Go bane of my dear quiet and content,
Now practise on some other Patient.

Farewell false Hope that fann'd my warm desire
Till it had rais'd a wild unruly fire,
Which nor sighs cool, nor tears extinguish can,
Although my eyes out-flow'd the Ocean:
Forth of my thoughts for ever, Thing of Air,
Begun in errour, finish't in despair.

Farewell vain World, upon whose restless stage
Twixt Love and Hope I have foold out my age;
Henceforth ere sue to thee for my redress,
Ile wooe the wind, or court the wilderness;
And buried from the dayes discovery,
Study a slow yet certain way to dy.

My woful Monument shall be a Cell,
The murmur of the purling brook my knell;
My lasting Epitaph the Rock shall grone:
Thus when sad Lovers ask the weeping stone,
What wretched thing does in that Center lie?
The hollow Eccho will reply, 'twas I.

A Black-moor Maid wooing a fair Boy: sent to the Author by Mr. Hen. Rainolds.

Stay lovely Boy, why fly'st thou mee
That languish in these flames for thee?
I'm black 'tis true: why so is Night,
And Love doth in dark Shades delight.
The whole World, do but close thine eye,
Will seem to thee as black as I;
Or op't, and see what a black shade
Is by thine own fair body made,
That follows thee where e're thou go;
(O who allow'd would not do so?)

Let me for ever dwell so nigh,
And thou shalt need no other shade than I.

Mr. Hen. Rainolds.

The Boyes answer to the Blackmoor.

Black Maid, complain not that I fly,
When Fate commands Antipathy:

Prodigious might that union prove,
Where Night and Day together move,
And the conjunction of our lips
Not kisses make, but an Eclipse;
In which the mixed black and white
Portends more terrour than delight.
Yet if my shadow thou wilt be,
Enjoy thy dearest wish: But see
Thou take my shadowes property,
That hastes away when I come nigh:

Else stay till death hath blinded mee,
And then I will bequeath my self to thee.

To a Friend upon Overbury's wife given to her.

I know no fitter subject for your view
Then this, a meditation ripe for you,
As you for it. Which when you read you'l see
What kind of wife your self will one day bee:
Which happy day be neer you, and may this
Remain with you as earnest of my wish;

When you so far love any, that you dare
Venture your whole affection on his care,
May he for whom you change your Virgin-life
Prove good to you, and perfect as this Wife.

Upon the same.

Madam, who understands you well would swear,
That you the Life, and this your Copie were.

To A. R. vpon the same.

Not that I would instruct or tutor you
What is a Wifes behest, or Husbands due,
Give I this Widdow-Wife. Your early date
Of knowledge makes such Precepts slow and late.
This book is but your glass, where you shall see
What your self are, what other Wives should bee.

An Epitaph on Niobe turned to Stone.

This Pile thou seest built out of Flesh, not Stone,
Contains no shroud within, nor mouldring bone:

This bloodless Trunk is destitute of Tombe
Which may the Soul-fled Mansion enwombe.

This seeming Sepulchre (to tell the troth)
Is neither Tomb nor Body, and yet both.

Upon a Braid of Hair in a Heart sent by Mrs. E. H.

In this small Character is sent
My Loves eternal Monument.
Whil'st we shall live, know, this chain'd Heart
Is our affections counter-part.
And if we never meet, think I
Bequeath'd it as my Legacy.

SONNET.

[Tell me no more how fair she is]

Tell me no more how fair she is,
I have no minde to hear
The story of that distant bliss
I never shall come near:
By sad experience I have found
That her perfection is my wound.

And tell me not how fond I am
To tempt a daring Fate,
From whence no triumph ever came,
But to repent too late:
There is some hope ere long I may
In silence dote my self away.

I ask no pity (Love) from thee,
Nor will thy justice blame,
So that thou wilt not envy mee
The glory of my flame:
Which crowns my heart when ere it dyes,
In that it falls her sacrifice.

SONNET.

[VVere thy heart soft as thou art faire]

VVere thy heart soft as thou art faire,
Thou wer't a wonder past compare:
But frozen Love and fierce disdain
By their extremes thy graces stain.
Cold coyness quenches the still fires
Which glow in Lovers warm desires;
And scorn, like the quick Lightnings blaze,
Darts death against affections gaze.
O Heavens, what prodigy is this
When Love in Beauty buried is!
Or that dead pity thus should be
Tomb'd in a living cruelty.

SONNET.

[Go thou that vainly do'st mine eyes invite]

Go thou that vainly do'st mine eyes invite
To taste the softer comforts of the night,
And bid'st me cool the feaver of my brain,
In those sweet balmy dewes which slumber pain;

Enjoy thine own peace in untroubled sleep,
Whil'st my sad thoughts eternal vigils keep.

O could'st thou for a time change breasts with me,
Thou in that broken Glass shouldst plainly see,
A heart which wastes in the slow smothring fire
Blown by despair, and fed by false desire,
Can onely reap such sleeps as Sea-men have,
When fierce winds rock them on the foaming wave.

SONNET.

To Patience.

Down stormy passions, down; no more
Let your rude waves invade the shore
Where blushing reason sits and hides
Her from the fury of your tides.
Fit onely 'tis where you bear sway
That Fools or Franticks do obey;
Since judgment, if it not resists,
Will lose it self in your blind mists.

Fall easie Patience, fall like rest
Whose soft spells charm a troubled breast:
And where those Rebels you espy,
O in your silken cordage tie
Their malice up! so shall I raise
Altars to thank your power, and praise
The soveraign vertue of your Balm,
Which cures a Tempest by a Calm.

Silence.

A SONNET.

Peace my hearts blab, be ever dumb,
Sorrowes speak loud without a tongue:
And my perplexed thoughts forbear
To breath your selves in any ear:
Tis scarce a true or manly grief
Which gaddes abroad to find relief.

Was ever stomack that lackt meat
Nourisht by what another eat?

Can I bestow it, or will woe
Forsake me when I bid it goe?
Then Ile believe a wounded breast
May heal by shrift, and purchase rest.

But if imparting it I do
Not ease my self, but trouble two,
'Tis better I alone possess
My treasure of unhappiness:
Engrossing that which is my own
No longer then it is unknown.

If silence be a kind of death,
He kindles grief who gives it breath;
But let it rak't in embers lye,
On thine own hearth 'twill quickly dye;
And spight of fate, that very wombe
Which carries it, shall prove its tombe.

Loves Harvest.

Fond Lunatick forbear, why do'st thou sue
For thy affections pay e're it is due?

Loves fruits are legal use; and therefore may
Be onely taken on the marriage day.
Who for this interest too early call,
By that exaction lose the Principall.

Then gather not those immature delights,
Untill their riper Autumn thee invites.
He that abortive Corn cuts off his ground,
No Husband but a Ravisher is found:
So those that reap their love before they wed,
Do in effect but Cuckold their own Bed.

The Forlorn Hope.

How long vain Hope do'st thou my joys suspend?
Say! must my expectation know no end!
Thou wast more kind unto the wandring Greek
Who did ten years his Wife and Country seek:
Ten lazy Winters in my glass are run,
Yet my thoughts travail seems but new begun.

Smooth Quick-sand which the easy World beguiles,
Thou shalt not bury me in thy false smiles.

They that in hunting shadowes pleasure take
May benefit of thy illusion make.
Since thou hast banisht me from my content
I here pronounce thy finall banishment.

Farewell thou dream of nothing! thou meer voice!
Get thee to fooles that can feed fat with noise:
Bid wretches markt for death look for reprieve,
Or men broke on the wheel perswade to live.
Henceforth my comfort and best Hope shall be,
By scorning Hope, nere to rely on thee.

The Retreat.

Pursue no more (my thoughts!) that false unkind,
You may assoon imprison the North-wind;
Or catch the Lightning as it leaps; or reach
The leading billow first ran down the breach;
Or undertake the flying clouds to track
In the same path they yesterday did rack.
Then, like a Torch turn'd downward, let the same
Desire which nourisht it, put out your flame.

Loe thus I doe divorce thee from my brest,
False to thy vow, and traitour to my rest!

Henceforth thy tears shall be (though thou repent)
Like pardons after execution sent.
Nor shalt thou ever my loves story read,
But as some Epitaph of what is dead.
So may my hope on future blessings dwell,
As 'tis my firm resolve and last farewell.

SONNET.

[Tell me you stars that our affections move]

Tell me you stars that our affections move,
Why made ye me that cruell one to love?
Why burnes my heart her scorned sacrifice,
Whose breast is hard as Chrystall, cold as Ice?

God of Desire! if all thy Votaries
Thou thus repay, succession will grow wise;
No sighs for incense at thy Shrine shall smoke,
Thy Rites will be despis'd, thy Altars broke.

O! or give her my flame to melt that snow
Which yet unthaw'd does on her bosome grow;
Or make me ice, and with her chrystall chaines
Binde up all love within my frozen veines:

SONNET.

[I prethee turn that face away]

I prethee turn that face away
Whose splendour but benights my day.
Sad eyes like mine, and wounded hearts
Shun the bright rayes which beauty darts.
Unwelcome is the Sun that pries
Into those shades where sorrow lies.

Go shine on happy things. To me
That blessing is a miserie:
Whom thy fierce Sun not warmes, but burnes,
Like that the sooty Indian turnes.
Ile serve the night, and there confin'd
Wish thee less fair, or else more kind.

SONNET.

[Dry those fair, those chrystal eyes]

Dry those fair, those chrystal eyes
Which like growing fountains rise
To drown their banks. Griefs sullen brooks
Would better flow in furrow'd looks.

Thy lovely face was never meant
To be the shoar of discontent.

Then clear those watrish starres again
Which else portend a lasting rain;
Lest the clouds which settle there
Prolong my Winter all the Year:
And the example others make
In love with sorrow for thy sake.

SONNET.

[VVhen I entreat, either thou wilt not hear]

VVhen I entreat, either thou wilt not hear,
Or else my suit arriving at thy ear
Cools and dies there. A strange extremitie
To freeze ith' Sun, and in the shade to frie.
Whil'st all my blasted hopes decline so soon,
Tis Evening with me, though at high Noon.

For pity to thy self, if not to me
Think time will ravish, what I lose, from thee.
If my scorcht heart wither through thy delay,
Thy beauty withers too. And swift decay

Arrests thy Youth. So thou whil'st I am slighted
Wilt be too soon with age or sorrow nighted.

To a Lady who sent me a copy of verses at my going to bed.

Lady your art or wit could nere devise
To shame me more then in this nights surprise.
Why I am quite unready, and my eye
Now winking like my candle, doth deny
To guide my hand, if it had ought to write;
Nor can I make my drowsie sense indite
Which by your verses musick (as a spell
Sent from the Sybellean Oracle)
Is charm'd and bound in wonder and delight,
Faster then all the leaden chains of night.

What pity is it then you should so ill
Employ the bounty of your flowing quill,
As to expend on him your bedward thought,
Who can acknowledge that large love in nought

But this lean wish; that fate soon send you those
Who may requite your rhimes with midnight prose?

Mean time, may all delights and pleasing Theams
Like Masquers revell in your Maiden dreams,
Whil'st dull to write, and to do more unmeet,
I, as the night invites me, fall asleep.

The Pink.
[_]

The attribution of this poem is questionable.

Fair one, you did on me bestow
Comparisons too sweet to ow;
And but I found them sent from you
I durst not think they could be true.

But 'tis your uncontrolled power
Goddess-like to produce a flower,
And by your breath, without more seed,
Make that a Pink which was a Weed.

Because I would be loth to miss
So sweet a Metamorphosis,
Upon what stalk soere I grow

Disdain not you sometimes to blow
And cherish by your Virgin eye
What in your frown would droop and die:

So shall my thankful leaf repay
Perfumed wishes every day:
And o're your fortune breathe a spell
Which may his obligation tell,
Who though he nought but air can give
Must ever your (Sweet) creature live.

To his Friends of Christ-Church upon the mislike of the Marriage of the Arts acted at Woodstock.

But is it true, the Court mislik't the Play,
That Christ-Church and the Arts have lost the day;
That Ignoramus should so far excell,
Their Hobby-horse from ours hath born the Bell?

Troth you are justly serv'd, that would present
Ought unto them, but shallow merriment;

Or to your Marriage-table did admit
Guests that are stronger far in smell then wit.

Had some quaint Bawdry larded ev'ry Scene,
Some fawning Sycophant, or courted queane;
Had there appear'd some sharp cross-garter'd man
Whom their loud laugh might nick-name Puritan,
Cas'd up in factious breeches and small ruffe,
That hates the surplis, and defies the cuffe:
Then sure they would have given applause to crown
That which their ignorance did now cry down.

Let me advise, when next you do bestow
Your pains on men that do but little know,
You do no Chorus nor a Comment lack,
Which may expound and construe ev'ry Act:
That it be short and slight; for if 't be good
Tis long, and neither lik't nor understood.

Know tis Court fashion still to discommend
All that which they want brain to comprehend.

The Surrender.

My once dear Love; hapless that I no more
Must call thee so: the rich affections store
That fed our hopes, lies now exhaust and spent,
Like summes of treasure unto Bankrupts lent.

We that did nothing study but the way
To love each other, with which thoughts the day
Rose with delight to us, and with them set,
Must learn the hateful Art how to forget.

We that did nothing wish that Heav'n could give
Beyond our selves, nor did desire to live
Beyond that wish, all these now cancell must
As if not writ in faith, but words and dust.

Yet witness those cleer vowes which Lovers make,
Witness the chast desires that never brake
Into unruly heats; witness that brest
Which in thy bosom anchor'd his whole rest,
Tis no default in us, I dare acquite
Thy Maiden faith, thy purpose fair and white

As thy pure self. Cross Planets did envie
Us to each other, and Heaven did untie
Faster then vowes could binde. O that the Starres,
When Lovers meet, should stand oppos'd in warres!

Since then some higher Destinies command,
Let us not strive nor labour to withstand
What is past help. The longest date of grief
Can never yield a hope of our relief;
And though we waste our selves in moist laments,
Tears may drown us but not our discontents.

Fold back our arms, take home our fruitless loves,
That must new fortunes trie, like Turtle Doves
Dislodged from their haunts. We must in tears
Unwind a love knit up in many years.
In this last kiss I here surrender thee
Back to thy self, so thou again art free.
Thou in another, sad as that, resend
The truest heart that Lover ere did lend.

Now turn from each. So fare our sever'd hearts
As the divorc't soul from her body parts.

The Legacy.

My dearest Love! when thou and I must part,
And th' icy hand of death shall seize that heart
Which is all thine; within some spacious will
Ile leave no blanks for Legacies to fill:
Tis my ambition to die one of those
Who but himself hath nothing to dispose.

And since that is already thine, what need
I to re-give it by some newer deed?
Yet take it once again. Free circumstance
Does oft the value of mean things advance:
Who thus repeats what he bequeath'd before,
Proclaims his bounty richer then his store.

But let me not upon my love bestow
What is not worth the giving. I do ow
Somwhat to dust: my bodies pamper'd care
Hungry corruption and the worm will share.
That mouldring relick which in earth must lie
Would prove a gift of horrour to thine eie.

With this cast ragge of my mortalitie
Let all my faults and errours buried be.
And as my sear-cloth rots, so may kind fate
Those worst acts of my life incinerate.
He shall in story fill a glorious room
Whose ashes and whose sins sleep in one Tomb.

If now to my cold hearse thou deign to bring
Some melting sighs as thy last offering,
My peacefull exequies are crown'd. Nor shall
I ask more honour at my Funerall.
Thou wilt more richly balm me with thy tears
Then all the Nard fragrant Arabia bears.

And as the Paphian Queen by her griefs show'r
Brought up her dead Loves Spirit in a flow'r:
So by those precious drops rain'd from thine eies,
Out of my dust, O may some vertue rise!
And like thy better Genius thee attend,
Till thou in my dark Period shalt end.

Lastly, my constant truth let me commend
To him thou choosest next to be thy friend.
For (witness all things good) I would not have

Thy Youth and Beauty married to my grave,
'Twould shew thou didst repent the style of wife
Should'st thou relapse into a single life.

They with preposterous grief the world delude
Who mourn for their lost Mates in solitude;
Since Widdowhood more strongly doth enforce
The much lamented lot of their divorce.
Themselves then of their losses guilty are
Who may, yet will not suffer a repaire.

Those were Barbarian wives that did invent
Weeping to death at th' Husbands Monument,
But in more civil Rites She doth approve
Her first, who ventures on a second Love;
For else it may be thought, if She refrain,
She sped so ill Shee durst not trie again.

Up then my Love, and choose some worthier one
Who may supply my room when I am gone;
So will the stock of our affection thrive
No less in death, then were I still alive.
And in my urne I shall rejoyce, that I
Am both Testatour thus and Legacie.

The short Wooing.

Like an Oblation set before a Shrine,
Fair One! I offer up this heart of mine.
Whether the Saint accept my Gift or no,
Ile neither fear nor doubt before I know.
For he whose faint distrust prevents reply,
Doth his own suits denial prophecy.

Your will the sentence is; Who free as Fate
Can bid my love proceed, or else retreat.
And from short views that verdict is decreed
Which seldom doth one audience exceed.
Love asks no dull probation, but like light
Conveyes his nimble influence at first sight.

I need not therefore importune or press;
This were t'extort unwilling happiness:
And much against affection might I sin:
To tire and weary what I seek to win.
Towns which by lingring siege enforced be
Oft make both sides repent the victorie.

Be Mistriss of your self: and let me thrive
Or suffer by your own prerogative.
Yet stay, since you are Judge, who in one breath
Bear uncontrolled power of Life and Death,
Remember (Sweet) pity doth best become
Those lips which must pronounce a Suitors doome.

If I find that, my spark of chast desire
Shall kindle into Hymens holy sire:
Else like sad flowers will these verses prove,
To stick the Coffin of rejected Love.

St. Valentines day.

Now that each feather'd Chorister doth sing
The glad approches of the welcome Spring:
Now Phœbus darts forth his more early beam,
And dips it later in the curled stream,
I should to custome prove a retrograde
Did I still dote upon my sullen shade.

Oft have the seasons finisht and begun;
Dayes into Months, those into years have run,

Since my cross Starres and inauspicious fate
Doom'd me to linger here without my Mate:
Whose loss ere since befrosting my desire,
Left me an Altar without Gift or Fire.

I therefore could have wisht for your own sake
That Fortune had design'd a nobler stake
For you to draw, then one whose fading day
Like to a dedicated Taper lay
Within a Tomb, and long burnt out in vain,
Since nothing there saw better by the flame.

Yet since you like your Chance, I must not try
To marre it through my incapacity.
I here make title to it, and proclaime
How much you honour me to wear my name;
Who can no form of gratitude devise,
But offer up my self your sacrifice.

Hail then my worthy Lot! and may each Morn
Successive springs of joy to you be born:
May your content ne're wane, untill my heart
Grown Bankrupt, wants good wishes to impart.

Henceforth I need not make the dust my Shrine,
Nor search the Grave for my lost Valentine.

To his unconstant Friend.

But say thou very woman, why to me
This fit of weakness and inconstancie?
What forfeit have I made of word or vow,
That I am rack't on thy displeasure now?
If I have done a fault I do not shame
To cite it from thy lips, give it a name:
I ask the banes, stand forth, and tell me why
We should not in our wonted loves comply?
Did thy cloy'd appetite urge thee to trie
If any other man could love as I?
I see friends are like clothes, lad up whil'st new,
But after wearing cast, though nere so true.
Or did thy fierce ambition long to make
Some Lover turn a martyr for thy sake?
Thinking thy beauty had deserv'd no name
Unless some one do perish in that flame:
Upon whose loving dust this sentence lies,
Here's one was murther'd by his Mistriss eyes.

Or was't because my love to thee was such,
I could not choose but blab it? swear how much
I was thy slave, and doting let thee know,
I better could my self then thee forgo.

Hearken ye men that ere shall love like me,
Ile give you counsel gratis: if you be
Possest of what you like, let your fair friend
Lodge in your bosom, but no secrets send
To seek their lodging in a female brest;
For so much is abated of your rest.
The Steed that comes to understand his strength
Growes wild, and casts his manager at length:
And that tame Lover who unlocks his heart
Unto his Mistriss, teaches her an art
To plague himself; shews her the secret way
How She may tyrannize another day.

And now my fair unkindness, thus to thee;
Mark how wise Passion and I agree:
Hear and be sorry for't. I will not die
To expiate thy crime of levitie:
I walk (not cross-arm'd neither) eat, and live,
Yea live to pity thy neglect, not grieve

That thou art from thy faith and promise gone,
Nor envy him who by my loss hath won.
Thou shalt perceive thy changing Moon-like fits
Have not infected me, or turn'd my wits
To Lunacie. I do not mean to weep
When I should eat, or sigh when I should sleep;
I will not fall upon my pointed quill,
Bleed ink and Poems, or invention spill
To contrive Ballads, or weave Elegies
For Nurses wearing when the infant cries.
Nor like th' enamour'd Tristrams of the time,
Despair in prose, and hang my self in rhime.
Nor thither run upon my verses feet,
Where I shall none but fools or mad-men meet,
Who mid'st the silent shades, and Myrtle walks,
Pule and do penance for their Mistress faults.
I'm none of those poetick male-contents
Born to make paper dear with my laments:
Or wild Orlando that will rail and vex,
And for thy sake fall out with all the sex.
No, I will love again, and seek a prize
That shall redeem me from thy poor despise.
Ile court my fortune now in such a shape
That will no faint die, nor starv'd colour take.

Thus launch I off with triumph from thy shore,
To which my last farewell; for never more
Will I touch there. I put to Sea again
Blown with the churlish wind of thy disdain.
Nor will I stop this course till I have found
A Coast that yields safe harbour, and firm ground.

Smile ye Love-Starres; wing'd with desire I fly,
To make my wishes full discovery:
Nor doubt I but for one that proves like you,
I shall find ten as fair, and yet more true.

Madam Gabrina,

Or the Ill-favourd Choice.

Con mala Muger el remedio
Mucha Tierra por el medio.

I have oft wondred why thou didst elect
Thy Mistress of a stuff none could affect,
That wore his eyes in the right place. A thing
Made up, when Natures powers lay slumbering.
One, where all pregnant imperfections met
To make her sexes scandal: Teeth of jet,
Hair dy'd in Orpment, from whose fretful hew
Canidia her highest Witch-crafts drew.

A lip most thin and pale, but such a mouth
Which like the Poles is stretched North and South.
A face so colour'd, and of such a form,
As might defiance bid unto a storm:
And the complexion of her sallow hide
Like a wrack't body washt up by the Tyde:
Eyes small: a nose so to her vizard glew'd
As if 'twould take a Planets altitude.
Last for her breath, 'tis somewhat like the smell
That does in Ember weeks on Fishstreet dwell;
Or as a man should fasting scent the Rose
Which in the savoury Bear-garden growes.
If a Fox cures the Paralyticall,
Had'st thou ten Palsies, she'd out-stink them all.

But I have found thy plot: sure thou did'st trie
To put thy self past hope of jealousie:
And whil'st unlearned fools the senses please,
Thou cur'st thy appetite by a disease;
As many use to kill an itch withall,
Quicksilver or some biting Minerall.

Dote upon handsome things each common man
With little study and less labour can;

But to make love to a Deformity,
Onely commends thy great ability,
Who from hard-favour'd objects draw'st content,
As Estriches from iron nutriment.

Well take her, and like mounted George, in bed
Boldly archieve thy Dragons Maiden-head:
Where (though scarce sleep) thou mayst rest confident
None dares beguile thee of thy punishment:
The sin were not more foul he should commit,
Then is that She with whom he acted it.

Yet take this comfort: when old age shall raze,
Or sickness ruine many a good face,
Thy choice cannot impair; no cunning curse
Can mend that night-peece, that is, make her worse.

The Defence.

Piensan los Enamorados
Que tienen los otros, los oios quebranta dos.

VVhy slightest thou what I approve?
Thou art no Peer to try my love,

Nor canst discern where her form lyes,
Unless thou saw'st her with my eyes.

Say she were foul and blacker than
The Night, or Sun-burnt African,
If lik't by me, tis I alone
Can make a beauty where was none;
For rated in my fancie, she
Is so as she appears to me.

But tis not feature, or a face,
That does my free election grace,
Nor is my liking onely led
By a well temperd white and red;
Could I enamour'd grow on those,
The Lilly and the blushing Rose
United in one stalk might be
As dear unto my thoughts as she,

But I look farther, and do find
A richer beauty in her mind;
Where something is so lasting fair,
As time or age cannot impair.
Had'st thou a perspective so cleere,
Thou could'st behold my object there;

When thou her vertues should'st espy,
Theyl'd force thee to confess that I
Had cause to like her, and learn thence
To love by judgment not by sence.

To One demanding why Wine sparkles.

So Diamonds sparkle, and thy Mistriss eyes;
When tis not Fire but light in either flyes.
Beauty not thaw'd by lustful flames will show
Like a fair mountain of unmelted snow:
Nor can the tasted vine more danger bring
Then water taken from the chrystall Spring,
Whose end is to refresh and cool that heat
Which unallayd becomes foul vices seat:
Unless thy boyling veins, mad with desire
Of drink, convert the liquor into fire.
For then thou quaff'st down feavers, thy full bowles
Carouse the burning draughts of Portia's coles.

If it do leap and sparkle in the cup,
Twill sink thy cares, and help invention up.
There never yet was Muse or Poet known
Not dipt or drenched in this Helicon.

But Tom! take heed thou use it with such care
As Witches deal with their Familiar.
For if thy vertues circle not confine
And guard thee from the Furies rais'd by wine,
'Tis ten to one this dancing spirit may
A Devil prove to bear thy wits away;
And make thy glowing nose a Map of Hell
Where Bacchus purple fumes like Meteors dwell.
Now think not these sage moralls thee invite
To prove Carthusian or strict Rechabite;
Let fooles be mad, wise people may be free,
Though not to license turn their libertie.
He that drinks wine for health, not for excess,
Nor drownes his temper in a drunkenness,
Shall feel no more the grapes unruly fate,
Then if he took some chilling Opiate.

By occasion of the Young Prince his happy birth.

At this glad Triumph, when most Poets use
Their quill, I did not bridle up my Muse
For sloth or less devotion. I am one
That can well keep my Holy-dayes at home;

That can the blessings of my King and State
Better in pray'r then poems gratulate;
And in their fortunes bear a loyal part,
Though I no bone-fires light but in my heart.

Truth is, when I receiv'd the first report
Of a new Starre risen and seen at Court;
Though I felt joy enough to give a tongue
Unto a mute, yet duty strook me dumb:
And thus surpriz'd by rumour, at first sight
I held it some allegiance not to write.

For howere Children, unto those that look
Their pedigree in God's, not the Church book,
Fair pledges are of that eternitie
Which Christians possess not till they die;
Yet they appear view'd in that perspective
Through which we look on men long since alive,
Like succours in a Camp, sent to make good
Their place that last upon the watches stood.
So that in age, or fate, each following birth
Doth set the Parent so much neerer earth:
And by this Grammar we our heirs may call
The smiling Preface to our funerall.

This sadded my soft sense, to think that he
Who now makes Lawes, should by a bold decree
Be summon'd hence to make another room,
And change his Royal Palace for a tomb.
For none ere truly lov'd the present light,
But griev'd to see it rivall'd by the night:
And if't be sin to wish that light extinct,
Sorrow may make it treason but to think't.
I know each male-content or giddy man,
In his religion with the Persian,
Adores the rising Sun; and his false view
Best likes not what is best, but what is new.
O that we could these gangrenes so prevent
(For our own blessing and their punishment)
That all such might, who for wild changes thirst,
Rack't on a hopeless expectation, burst,
To see us fetter time, and by his stay
To a consistence fix the flying day;
And in a Solstice by our prayers made,
Rescue our Sun from death or envies shade.

But here we dally with fate, and in this
Stern Destiny mocks and controules our wish;
Informing us, if fathers should remain

For ever here, children were born in vain;
And we in vain were Christians, should we
In this world dream of perpetuitie.
Decay is natures Kalendar; nor can
It hurt the King to think he is a man;
Nor grieve, but comfort him, to hear us say
That his own children must his Scepter sway.
Why slack I then to contribute a vote
Large as the Kingdoms joy, free as my thought?
Long live the Prince, and in that title bear
The world long witness that the King is here:
May he grow up till all that good he reach
Which we can wish, or his Great Father teach:
Let him shine long a mark to Land and Mayn,
Like that bright Spark plac't neerest to Charles Wayn,
And like him lead successions golden Teame,
Which may possess the Brittish Diademe.

But in the mean space, let his Royal Sire,
Who warmes our hopes with true Promethean fire,
So long his course in time and glory run,
Till he estate his vertue on his son.
So in his Fathers dayes this happy One
Shall crowned be, yet not usurp the Throne;

And Charles reign still, since thus himself will be
Heir to himself through all Posteritie.

Upon the Kings happy return from Scotland.

So breaks the day when the returning Sun
Hath newly through his Winter Tropick run,
As You (Great Sir!) in this regress come forth
From the remoter Climate of the North.

To tell You now what cares, what fears we past,
What Clouds of sorrow did the land ore-cast,
Were lost, but unto such as have been there
Where the absented Sun benights the year:
Or have those Countreys traveld which nere feel
The warmth and vertue of his flaming wheel.

How happy yet were we! that when you went,
You left within your Kingdomes firmament
A Partner-Light, whose lustre may despise
The nightly glimm'ring Tapers of the skies,
Your peerless Queen; and at each hand a Starre
Whose hopeful beams from You enkindled are.

Though (to say truth) the light which they could bring
Serv'd but to lengthen out our evening.

Heavens greater lamps illumine it; each spark
Adds onely this, to make the sky less dark.
Nay She who is the glory of her sex
Did sadly droop for lack of Your reflex:
Oft did She her fair brow in loneness shrowd,
And dimly shone, like Venus in a cloud.

Now are those gloomy mists dry'd up by You,
As the Worlds eye scatters the Ev'ning dew:
And You bring home that blessing to the land
Which absence made us rightly understand.

Here may You henceforth stay! there need no charms
To hold You, but the circle of her arms,
Whose fruitful love yields You a rich increase,
Seales of Your joy, and of the kingdomes peace.
O may those precious pledges fixe You here,
And You grow old within that chrystall Sphere!

Pardon this bold detention. Else our love
Will meerly an officious trouble prove.

Each busie minute tells us as it flies,
That there are better objects for your eyes.
To them let us leave you, whil'st we go pray,
Raising this triumph to a Holy-day.

And may that soul the Churches blessing want;
May his content be short, his comforts scant,
Whose Bosom-Altar does no incense burn,
In thankful sacrifice for your return.

To the Queen at Oxford.

Great Lady! That thus quite against our use,
We speak your welcome by an English Muse,
And in a vulgar tongue our zeales contrive,
Is to confess your large prerogative,
Who have the pow'rful freedom to dispense
With our strict Rules, or Customes difference.

Tis fit when such a Star deigns to appeare
And shine within the Academick Spheare,
That ev'ry Colledge grac't by your resort,
Should onely speak the language of your Court;

As if Apollo's learned Quire, but You
No other Queen of the Ascendent knew.

Let those that list invoke the Delphian name,
To light their verse, and quench their doting flame;
In Helicon it were High Treason now,
Did any to a feign'd Minerva bow;
When You are present, whose chast vertues stain
The vaunted glories of her Maiden brain.

I would not flatter. May that dyet feed
Deform'd and vicious soules: they onely need
Such physick, who grown sick of their decayes,
Are onely cur'd with surfets of false praise;
Like those, who fall'n from Youth or Beauties grace,
Lay colours on which more bely the face.

Be You still what You are; a glorious Theme
For Truth to crown. So when that Diademe
Which circles Your fair brow drops off, and time
Shall lift You to that pitch our prayers climbe;
Posterity will plat a nobler wreath,
To crown Your fame and memory in death.
This is sad truth and plain, which I might fear
Would scarce prove welcome to a Princes ear;

And hardly may you think that Writer wise
Who preaches there where he should poetize;
Yet where so rich a bank of goodness is,
Triumphs and Feasts admit such thoughts as this;
Nor will your vertue from her Client turn,
Although he bring his tribute in an urn.

Enough of this: who knowes not when to end
Needs must by tedious diligence offend.
'Tis not a Poets office to advance
The precious value of allegiance.
And least of all the rest do I affect
To word my duty in this dialect.

My service lies a better way, whose tone
Is spirited by full devotion.
Thus whil'st I mention You, Your Royal Mate,
And Those which your blest line perpetuate,
I shall such votes of happiness reherse,
Whose softest accents will out-tongue my verse.

A salutation of his Majesties Ship the Soveraign.

Move on thou floating Trophee built to fame!
And bid her trump spread thy Majestick name;
That the blew Tritons, and those petty Gods
Which sport themselves upon the dancing floods,
May bow as to their Neptune, when they feel
The awful pressure of thy potent keel.

Great wonder of the time! whose form unites,
In one aspect two warring opposites,
Delight and horrour; and in them portends
Diff'ring events both to thy foes and friends:
To these thy radiant brow, Peaces bright Shrine,
Doth like that golden Constellation shine,
Which guides the Sea man with auspicious beams,
Safe and unshipwrackt through the troubled streams.
But, as a blazing Meteor, to those
It doth ostents of blood and death disclose.
For thy rich Decks lighten like Heavens fires,
To usher forth the thunder of thy Tires.

O never may cross wind, or swelling wave
Conspire to make the treach'rous sands thy grave:
Nor envious rocks in their white foamy laugh
Rejoyce to wear thy losses Epitaph.
But may the smoothest, most successful gales
Distend thy sheet, and wing thy flying sailes:
That all designes which must on thee embark,
May be securely plac't as in the Ark.
May'st thou, where ere thy streamers shall display,
Enforce the bold disputers to obey:
That they whose pens are sharper then their swords,
May yield in fact what they deny'd in words.
Thus when th' amazed world our Seas shall see
Shut from Usurpers, to their own Lord free,
Thou may'st returning from the conquer'd Main,
With thine own Triumphs be crown'd Soveraign.

AN EPITAPH

On his most honoured Friend Richard Earl of Dorset.

Let no profane ignoble foot tread neer
This hallow'd peece of earth, Dorset lies here.
A small sad relique of a noble spirit,
Free as the air, and ample as his merit;
Whose least perfection was large, and great
Enough to make a common man compleat.
A soul refin'd and cull'd from many men,
That reconcil'd the sword unto the pen,
Using both well. No proud forgetting Lord,
But mindful of mean names and of his word.
One that did love for honour, not for ends,
And had the noblest way of making friends
By loving first. One that did know the Court,
Yet understood it better by report
Then practice, for he nothing took from thence
But the kings favour for his recompence.

One for religion, or his countreys good
That valu'd not his Fortune nor his blood.

One high in fair opinion, rich in praise;
And full of all we could have wisht, but dayes.

He that is warn'd of this, and shall forbear
To vent a sigh for him, or lend a tear;
May he live long and scorn'd, unpiti'd fall,
And want a mourner at his funerall.

The Exequy.

Accept thou Shrine of my dead Saint,
Insteed of Dirges this complaint;
And for sweet flowres to crown thy hearse,
Receive a strew of weeping verse
From thy griev'd friend, whom thou might'st see
Quite melted into tears for thee.

Dear loss! since thy untimely fate
My task hath been to meditate
On thee, on thee: thou art the book,
The library whereon I look
Though almost blind. For thee (lov'd clay)
I languish out not live the day,

Using no other exercise
But what I practise with mine eyes:
By which wet glasses I find out
How lazily time creeps about
To one that mourns: this, onely this
My exercise and bus'ness is:
So I compute the weary houres
With sighs dissolved into showres.

Nor wonder if my time go thus
Backward and most preposterous;
Thou hast benighted me, thy set
This Eve of blackness did beget,
Who was't my day, (though overcast
Before thou had'st thy Noon-tide past)
And I remember must in tears,
Thou scarce had'st seen so many years
As Day tells houres. By thy cleer Sun
My love and fortune first did run;
But thou wilt never more appear
Folded within my Hemisphear,
Since both thy light and motion
Like a fled Star is fall'n and gon,

And twixt me and my soules dear wish
The earth now interposed is,
Which such a strange eclipse doth make
As ne're was read in Almanake.

I could allow thee for a time
To darken me and my sad Clime,
Were it a month, a year, or ten,
I would thy exile live till then;
And all that space my mirth adjourn,
So thou wouldst promise to return;
And putting off thy ashy shrowd
At length disperse this sorrows cloud.

But woe is me! the longest date
Too narrow is to calculate
These empty hopes: never shall I
Be so much blest as to descry
A glimpse of thee, till that day come
Which shall the earth to cinders doome,
And a fierce Feaver must calcine
The body of this world like thine,
(My Little World!) that fit of fire
Once off, our bodies shall aspire

To our soules bliss: then we shall rise,
And view our selves with cleerer eyes
In that calm Region, where no night
Can hide us from each others sight.

Mean time, thou hast her earth: much good
May my harm do thee. Since it stood
With Heavens will I might not call
Her longer mine, I give thee all
My short-liv'd right and interest
In her, whom living I lov'd best:
With a most free and bounteous grief,
I give thee what I could not keep.
Be kind to her, and prethee look
Thou write into thy Dooms-day book
Each parcell of this Rarity
Which in thy Casket shrin'd doth ly:
See that thou make thy reck'ning streight,
And yield her back again by weight;
For thou must audit on thy trust
Each graine and atome of this dust,
As thou wilt answer Him that lent,
Not gave thee my dear Monument.

So close the ground, and 'bout her shade
Black curtains draw, my Bride is laid.

Sleep on my Love in thy cold bed
Never to be disquieted!
My last good night! Thou wilt not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake:
Till age, or grief, or sickness must
Marry my body to that dust
It so much loves; and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in thy Tomb.
Stay for me there; I will not faile
To meet thee in that hallow Vale.
And think not much of my delay;
I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed:
Desire can make, or sorrows breed.
Each minute is a short degree,
And ev'ry houre a step towards thee.
At night when I betake to rest,
Next morn I rise neerer my West
Of life, almost by eight houres saile,
Then when sleep breath'd his drowsie gale.

Thus from the Sun my Bottom stears,
And my dayes Compass downward bears:
Nor labour I to stemme the tide
Through which to Thee I swiftly glide.

'Tis true, with shame and grief I yield,
Thou like the Vann first took'st the field,
And gotten hast the victory
In thus adventuring to dy
Before me, whose more years might crave
A just precedence in the grave.
But heark! My Pulse like a soft Drum
Beats my approch, tells Thee I come;
And slow howere my marches be,
I shall at last sit down by Thee.

The thought of this bids me go on,
And wait my dissolution
With hope and comfort. Dear (forgive
The crime) I am content to live
Divided, with but half a heart,
Till we shall meet and never part.

The Anniverse.

AN ELEGY.

So soon grown old! hast thou been six years dead?
Poor earth, once by my Love inhabited!
And must I live to calculate the time
To which thy blooming youth could never climbe,
But fell in the ascent! yet have not I
Studi'd enough thy losses history.

How happy were mankind if Death's strict lawes
Consum'd our lamentations like the cause!
Or that our grief turning to dust might end
With the dissolved body of a friend!

But sacred Heaven! O how just thou art
In stamping deaths impression on that heart
Which through thy favours would grow insolent,
Were it not physick't by sharp discontent.
If then it stand resolv'd in thy decree
That still I must doom'd to a Desart be
Sprung out of my lone thoughts, which know no path
But what my own misfortune beaten hath:

If thou wilt bind me living to a coarse,
And I must slowly waste; I then of force
Stoop to thy great appointment, and obey
That will which nought avail me to gainsay.

For whil'st in sorrowes Maze I wander on,
I do but follow lifes vocation.
Sure we were made to grieve: at our first birth
With cries we took possession of the earth;
And though the lucky man reputed be
Fortunes adopted son, yet onely he
Is Natures true born child, who summes his years
(Like me) with no Arithmetick but tears.

On two Children dying of one Disease, and buried in one Grave.

Brought forth in sorrow, and bred up in care,
Two tender Children here entombed are:
One Place, one Sire, one Womb their being gave,
They had one mortal sickness, and one grave.
And though they cannot number many years
In their Account, yet with their Parents tears
This comfort mingles; Though their dayes were few
They scarcely sinne, but never sorrow knew:
So that they well might boast, they carry'd hence
What riper ages lose, their innocence.

You pretty losses, that revive the fate
Which in your mother death did antedate,
O let my high-swol'n grief distill on you
The saddest drops of a Parentall dew:
You ask no other dower then what my eyes
Lay out on your untimely exequies:
When once I have discharg'd that mournfull skore,
Heav'n hath decreed you ne're shall cost me more,

Since you release and quit my borrow'd trust,
By taking this inheritance of dust.

A Letter.

I ne'r was drest in Forms; nor can I bend
My pen to flatter any, nor commend,
Unless desert or honour do present
Unto my verse a worthy argument.

You are my friend, and in that word to me
Stand blazon'd in your noblest Heraldry;
That style presents you full, and does relate
The bounty of your love, and my own fate,
Both which conspir'd to make me yours. A choice
Which needs must in the giddy peoples voice,
That onely judge the outside, and like apes
Play with our names, and comment on our shapes,
Appear too light: but it lies you upon
To justifie the disproportion.

Truth be my record, I durst not presume
To seek to you, 'twas you that did assume
Me to your bosom. Wherein you subdu'd
One that can serve you, though ne're could intrude

Upon great titles; nor knows how t'invade
Acquaintance: Like such as are onely paid
With great mens smiles; if that the passant Lord
Let fall a forc't salute, or but afford
The Nod Regardant. It was test enough
For me, you ne're did find such servile stuff
Couch't in my temper; I can freely say,
I do not love you in that common way
For which Great Ones are lov'd in this false time:
I have no wish to gain, nor will to climbe;
I cannot pawn my freedom, nor out-live
My liberty for all that you can give.
And sure you may retain good cheap such friends,
Who not your fortune make, but you, their ends.
I speak not this to vaunt in my own story,
All these additions are unto your glory;
Who counter to the world, use to elect,
Not to take up on trust what you affect.
Indeed 'tis seldom seen that such as you
Adopt a friend, or for acquaintance sue;
Yet you did this vouchsafe, you did descend
Below your self to raise an humble friend,
And fix him in your love: where I will stand
The constant subject of your free command.

Had I no ayerie thoughts sure you would teach
Me higher then my own dull sphere to reach:
And by reflex instruct me to appear
Something (though course and plain) fit for your wear.

Know, best of friends, however wild report
May justly say I am unapt to sort
With your opinion or society,
(Which truth would shame me did I it deny)
There's something in me sayes, I dare make good,
When honour calls me, all I want in blood.

Put off your Giant titles, then I can
Stand in your judgements blank an equal man.
Though Hills advanced are above the Plain,
They are but higher earth, nor must disdain
Alliance with the Vale: we see a spade
Can level them, and make a Mount a Glade.
Howere we differ in the Heralds book,
He that mankindes extraction shall look
In Natures Rolles, must grant we all agree.
In our best parts, immortal pedigree:
You must by that perspective onely view
My service, else 'twill nere shew worthy you.

You see I court you bluntly like a friend
Not like a Mistress; my Muse is not penn'd
For smooth and oylie flights: And I indent
To use more honesty then complement.

But I have done; in lieu of all you give
Receive his thankful tribute who must live
Your vow'd observer, and devotes a heart
Which will in death seal the bold counterpart.

An Acknowledgment.

My best of friends! what needs a chain to tie
One by your merit bound a Votarie?
Think you I have some plot upon my peace,
I would this bondage change for a release?
Since 'twas my fate your prisoner to be,
Heav'n knows I nothing fear but libertie.

Yet you do well that study to prevent,
After so rich a stock of favour spent
On one so worthless, lest my memory
Should let so dear an obligation dy

Without Record. This made my precious Friend
Her Token, as an Antidote to send
Against forgetful poysons. That as they
Who Vespers late, and early Mattins say
Upon their Beads, so on this linked skore
In golden numbers I might reckon ore
Your vertues and my debt, which does surmount
The trivial laws of Popular account:
For that within this emblematick knot
Your beauteous mind, and my own fate is wrote.

The sparkling constellation which combines
The Lock, is your dear self, whose worth outshines
Most of your sex: so solid and so clear
You like a perfect Diamond appear;
Casting from your example fuller light
Then those dimme sparks which glaze the brow of night,
And gladding all your friends, as doth the ray
Of that East-starre which wakes the cheerful day.

But the black Map of death and discontent
Behind that Adamantine firmament,
That luckless figure which like Calvary
Stands strew'd and coppy'd out in skuls, is I;

Whose life your absence clouds, and makes my time
Move blindfold in the dark ecliptick line.

Then wonder not if my removed Sun
So low within the Western Tropick run;
My eyes no day in this Horizon see,
Since where You are not all is night to me.

Lastly, the anchor which enfastned lies
Upon a pair of deaths, sadly applies
That Monument of Rest which harbour must
Our Ship-wrackt fortunes in a road of dust.

So then how late soere my joyless life
Be tired out in this affections strife:
Though my tempestuous fancie like the skie
Travail with stormes, and through my watry eie
Sorrows high-going waves spring many a leak;
Though sighs blow loud til my hearts cordagebreak;
Though Faith, and all my wishes prove untrue,
Yet Death shall fix and anchor Me with You.
'Tis some poor comfort that this mortal scope
Will Period, though never Crown my Hope.

The Acquittance.

Not knowing who should my Acquittance take,
I know as little what discharge to make.
The favour is so great, that it out-goes
All forms of thankfulness I can propose,
Those grateful levies which my pen would raise,
Are stricken dumb, or bury'd in amaze.
Therefore, as once in Athens there was shown
An Altar built unto the God unknown,
My ignorant devotions must by guess
This blind return of gratitude address,
Till You vouchsafe to shew me where and how
I may to this revealed Goddess bow.

The Forfeiture.

My Dearest, To let you or the world know
What Debt of service I do truly ow
To your unpattern'd self, were to require
A language onely form'd in the desire
Of him that writes. It is the common fate,
Of greatest duties to evaporate
In silent meaning, as we often see
Fires by their too much fuel smother'd be:
Small Obligations may find vent and speak,
When greater the unable debtor break.
And such are mine to you, whose favours store,
Hath made me poorer then I was before;
For I want words and language to declare
How strict my Bond or large your bounties are.

Since nothing in my desp'rate fortune found,
Can payment make, nor yet the summe compound
You must lose all, or else of force accept
The body of a Bankrupt for your debt.
Then Love, your Bond to Execution sue,
And take my self, as forfeited to you.

The Departure.

AN ELEGY.

VVere I to leave no more then a good friend,
Or but to hear the summons to my end,
(Which I have long'd for) I could then with ease
Attire my grief in words, and so appease
That passion in my bosom, which outgrowes
The language of strict verse or largest prose.
But here I am quite lost; writing to you
All that I pen or think, is forc't and new.
My faculties run cross, and prove as weak
T'indite this melancholly task, as speak:
Indeed all words are vaine well might I spare
This rendring of my tortur'd thoughts in ayre,
Or sighing paper. My infectious grief
Strikes inward, and affords me no relief.
But still a deeper wound, to lose a sight
More lov'd then health, and dearer then the light.
But all of us were not at the same time
Brought forth, nor are we billited in one clime.

Nature hath pitch't mankind at several rates,
Making our places diverse as our fates.
Unto that universal law I bow,
Though with unwilling knee; and do allow
Her cruell justice, which dispos'd us so
That we must counter to our wishes go.
'Twas part of mans first curse, which order'd well
We should not alway with our likings dwell.
'Tis onely the Triumphant Church where we
Shall in unsever'd Neighbourhood agree.

Go then best soul, and where You must appear
Restore the Day to that dull Hemisphear.
Nere may the hapless Night You leave behind
Darken the comforts of Your purer mind.
May all the blessings Wishes can invent
Enrich your dayes, and crown them with content.
And though You travel down into the West,
May Your lifes Sun stand fixed in the East,
Far from the weeping set; nor may my ear
Take in that killing whisper, You once were.

Thus kiss I your fair hands, taking my leave
As Prisoners at the Bar their doom receive.

All joyes go with You: let sweet peace attend
You on the way, and wait Your journeys end.
But let Your discontents, and sowrer fate
Remain with me, born off in my Retrait.
Might all your crosses in that sheet of lead
Which folds my heavy heart lie buried:
'Tis the last service I would do You, and the best
My wishes ever meant, or tongue profest.
Once more I take my leave. And once for all,
Our parting shews so like a funerall,
It strikes my soul, which hath most right to be
Chief Mourner at this sad solemnitie.

And think not, Dearest, 'cause this parting knell
Is rung in verses, that at Your farewell
I onely mourn in Poetry and Ink:
No, my Pens melancholy Plommets sink
So low, they dive where th' hid affections sit,
Blotting that Paper where my mirth was writ.

Believ't that sorrow truest is which lies
Deep in the breast, not floating in the eies:
And he with saddest circumstance doth part,
Who seals his farewell with a bleeding heart.

PARADOX.

That it is best for a Young Maid to marry an Old Man.

Fair one, why cannot you an old man love?
He may as useful, and more constant prove.
Experience shews you that maturer years
Are a security against those fears
Youth will expose you to; whose wild desire
As it is hot, so 'tis as rash as fire.
Mark how the blaze extinct in ashes lies,
Leaving no brand nor embers when it dies
Which might the flame renew: thus soon consumes
Youths wandring heat, and vanishes in fumes.
When ages riper love unapt to stray
Through loose and giddy change of objects, may
In your warm bosom like a cynder lie,
Quickned and kindled by your sparkling eie.
Tis not deni'd, there are extremes in both
Which may the fancie move to like or loath:
Yet of the two you better shall endure
To marry with the Cramp then Calenture.

Who would in wisdom choose the Torrid Zone
Therein to settle a Plantation?
Merchants can tell you, those hot Climes were made
But at the longest for a three years trade:
And though the Indies cast the sweeter smell,
Yet health and plenty do more Northward dwell;
For where the raging Sun-beams burn the earth,
Her scorched mantle withers into dearth;
Yet when that drought becomes the Harvests curse,
Snow doth the tender Corn most kindly nurse:
Why now then wooe you not some snowy head
To take you in meer pitty to his bed?
I doubt the harder task were to perswade
Him to love you: for if what I have said
In Virgins as in Vegetals holds true,
Hee'l prove the better Nurse to cherish you.
Some men we know renown'd for wisdom grown
By old records and antique Medalls shown;
Why ought not women then be held most wise
Who can produce living antiquities?
Besides if care of that main happiness
Your sex triumphs in, doth your thoughts possess,
I mean your beauty from decay to keep;
No wash nor mask is like an old mans sleep.

Young wives need never to be Sun-burnt fear,
Who their old husbands for Umbrellaes wear:
How russet looks an Orchard on the hill
To one that's water'd by some neighb'ring Drill?
Are not the floated Medowes ever seen
To flourish soonest, and hold longest green?
You may be sure no moist'ning lacks that Bride,
Who lies with Winter thawing by her side.
She should be fruitful too as fields that joyne
Unto the melting waste of Appenine.
Whil'st the cold morning-drops bedew the Rose,
It doth nor leaf, nor smell, nor colour lose;
Then doubt not Sweet! Age hath supplies of wet
To keep You like that flowr in water set.
Dripping Catarrhs and Fontinells are things
Will make You think You grew betwixt two Springs.
And should You not think so, You scarce allow
The force or Merit of Your Marriage-Vow;
Where Maids a new Creed learn, & must from thence
Believe against their own or others sence.
Else Love will nothing differ from neglect,
Which turns not to a vertue each defect.
Ile say no more but this; you women make
Your Childrens reck'ning by the Almanake.

I like it well, so you contented are,
To choose their Fathers by that Kalendar.
Turn then old Erra Pater, and there see
According to lifes posture and degree,
What age or what complexion is most fit
To make an English Maid happy by it;
And You shall find, if You will choose a man,
Set justly for Your own Meridian,
Though You perhaps let One and Twenty woo,
Your elevation is for Fifty Two.

PARADOX.

That Fruition destroyes Love.

Love is our Reasons Paradox, which still
Against the judgment doth maintain the Will:
And governs by such arbitrary laws,
It onely makes the Act our Likings cause:
We have no brave revenge, but to forgo
Our full desires, and starve the Tyrant so.

They whom the rising blood tempts not to taste,
Preserve a stock of Love can never waste;

When easie people who their wish enjoy,
Like Prodigalls at once their wealth destroy.
Adam till now had stayd in Paradise
Had his desires been bounded by his eyes.
When he did more then look, that made th' offence,
And forfeited his state of innocence.
Fruition therefore is the bane t'undoe
Both our affection and the subject too.
'Tis Love into worse language to translate,
And make it into Lust degenerate:
'Tis to De-throne, and thrust it from the heart,
To seat it grossely in the sensual part.
Seek for the Starre that's shot upon the ground,
And nought but a dimme gelly there is found.
Thus foul and dark our female starres appear,
If fall'n or loosned once from Vertues Sphear.
Glow-worms shine onely look't on, and let ly,
But handled crawl into deformity:
So beauty is no longer fair and bright,
Then whil'st unstained by the appetite:
And then it withers like a blasted flowre
Some poys'nous worm or spider hath crept ore.
Pigmaleon's dotage on the carved stone,
Shews Amorists their strong illusion.

Whil'st he to gaze and court it was content,
He serv'd as Priest at beauties Monument:
But when by looser fires t'embraces led,
It prov'd a cold hard Statue in his bed.
Irregular affects, like mad mens dreams
Presented by false lights and broken beams,
So long content us, as no neer address
Shews the weak sense our painted happiness.
But when those pleasing shaddowes us forsake,
Or of the substance we a trial make,
Like him, deluded by the fancies mock,
We ship-wrack 'gainst an Alabaster rock.
What though thy Mistress far from Marble be?
Her softness will transform and harden thee.
Lust is a Snake, and Guilt the Gorgons head,
Which Conscience turns to Stone, & Joyes to Lead.

Turtles themselves will blush, if put to name
The Act, whereby they quench their am'rous flame.
Who then that's wise or vertuous, would not feare
To catch at pleasures which forbidden were,
When those which we count lawful, cannot be
Requir'd without some loss of modestie?

Ev'n in the Marriage-Bed, where soft delights
Are customary and authoriz'd Rites;
What are those tributes to the wanton fense,
But toleration of Incontinence?
For properly you cannot call that Love
Which does not from the Soul, but Humour move.
Thus they who worship't Pan or Isis Shrine,
By the fair Front judg'd all within Divine:
Though entring, found 'twas but a Goat or Cow
To which before their ignorance did bow.
Such Temples and such Goddesses are these
Which foolish Lovers and admirers please:
Who if they chance within the Shrine to prie,
Find that a beast they thought a Deity.
Nor makes it onely our opinion less
Of what we lik't before, and now possess;
But robbs the Fuel, and corrupts the Spice
Which sweetens and inflames Loves sacrifice.
After Fruition once, what is Desire
But ashes kept warm by a dying fire?
This is (if any) the Philosophers Stone,
Which still miscarries at Projection.
For when the Heat ad Octo intermits,
It poorly takes us like Third Ague fits;

Or must on Embers as dull Druggs infuse,
Which we for Med'cine not for Pleasure use.

Since Lovers joyes then leave so sick a taste,
And soon as relish'd by the Sense are past;
They are but Riddles sure, lost if possest,
And therefore onely in Reversion best.
For bate them Expectation and Delay,
You take the most delightful Scenes away.
These two such rule within the fancie keep,
As banquets apprehended in our sleep;
After which pleasing trance next morn we wake
Empty and angry at the nights mistake.
Give me long Dreams and Visions of content,
Rather then pleasures in a minute spent.
And since I know before, the shedding Rose
In that same instant doth her sweetness lose,
Upon the Virgin-stock still let her dwell
For me, to feast my longings with her smell.
Those are but counterfeits of joy at best,
Which languish soon as brought unto the test.
Nor can I hold it worth his pains who tries
To Inne that Harvest which by reaping dies.

Resolve me now what spirit hath delight,
If by full feed you kill the appetite?
That stomack healthy'st is, that nere was cloy'd,
Why not that Love the best then, nere enjoy'd?
Since nat'rally the blood, when tam'd or sated,
Will cool so fast it leaves the object hated.
Pleasures like wonders quickly lose their price
When Reason or Experience makes us wise.

To close my argument then. I dare say
(And without Paradox) as well we may
Enjoy our Love and yet preserve Desire,
As warm our hands by putting out the fire.

The Change

Il sabio mude conseio: Il loco persevera.

We lov'd as friends now twenty years and more:
Is't time or reason think you to give o're?
When though two prentiships set Jacob free,
I have not held my Rachel dear at three.

Yet will I not your levitie accuse;
Continuance sometimes is the worse abuse.
In judgment I might rather hold it strange,
If like the fleeting world, you did not change:
Be it your wisdom therefore to retract,
When perseverance oft is follies act.

In pity I can think, that what you do
Hath Justice in't, and some Religion too;
For of all vertues Morall or Divine,
We know but Love none must in Heaven shine:
Well did you the presumption then foresee
Of counterfeiting immortalitie:

Since had you kept our loves too long alive,
We might invade Heavens prerogative;
Or in our progress, like the Jews, comprise
The Legend of an earthly Paradise.

Live happy and more prosperous in the next,
You have discharg'd your old friend by the Text.
Farewel fair Shadow of a female faith,
And let this be our friendships Epitaph:

Affection shares the frailty of our fate,
When (like our selves) 'tis old and out of date:
'Tis just all humane Loves their period have,
When friends are frail and dropping to the grave:

To my Sister Anne King, who chid me in verse for being angry.

Dear Nan, I would not have thy counsel lost,
Though I last night had twice so much been crost;
Well is a Passion to the Market brought,
When such a treasure of advice is bought
With so much dross. And could'st thou me assure,
Each vice of mine should meet with such a cure,
I would sin oft, and on my guilty brow
Wear every misperfection that I ow,
Open and visible; I should not hide
But bring my faults abroad: to hear thee chide
In such a Note, and with a Quill so sage,
It Passion tunes, and calmes a Tempests rage.

Well I am charm'd, and promise to redress
What, without shrift, my follies doe confess
Against my self: wherefore let me intreat,
When I fly out in that distemper'd heat
Which frets me into fasts, thou wilt reprove
That froward spleen in Poetry and Love:
So though I lose my reason in such fits,
Thoul't rime me back again into my wits.

AN ELEGY

Upon the immature loss of the most vertuous Lady Anne Rich.

I envy not thy mortal triumphs, Death,
(Thou enemy to Vertue as to Breath)
Nor do I wonder much, nor yet complain
The weekly numbers by thy arrow slain.
The whole world is thy Factory, and we
Like traffick driven and retail'd by Thee:
And where the springs of life fill up so fast,
Some of the waters needs must run to waste.

It is confest, yet must our griefs dispute
That which thine own conclusion doth refute
Ere we begin. Hearken! for if thy ear
Be to thy throat proportion'd, thou canst hear.
Is there no order in the work of Fate?
Nor rule, but blindly to anticipate
Our growing seasons? or think'st thou 'tis just,
To sprinkle our fresh blossomes with thy dust,
Till by abortive funerals, thou bring
That to an Autumn Nature meant a Spring?

Is't not enough for thee that wither'd age
Lies the unpiti'd subject of thy rage;
But like an ugly Amorist, thy crest
Must be with spoyles of Youth and Beauty drest?
In other Camps, those which sate down to day
March first to morrow, and they longest stay
Who last came to the service: But in thine,
Onely confusion stands for discipline.
We fall in such promiscuous heaps, none can
Put any diff'rence 'twixt thy Rear or Van;
Since oft the youngest lead thy Files. For this
The grieved world here thy accuser is,
And I a Plaintiff, 'mongst those many ones
Who wet this Ladies Urn with zealous moanes;
As if her ashes quick'ning into years
Might be again embody'd by our tears
But all in vain; the moisture we bestow
Shall make assoon her curled Marble grow,
As render heat, or motion to that blood,
Which through her veins branch't like an azure flood;
Whose now still Current in the grave is lost,
Lock't up, and fetter'd by eternal frost.

Desist from hence, doting Astrology!
To search for hidden wonders in the sky;
Or from the concourse of malignant starres
Foretel diseases gen'ral as our warres:
What barren droughts, forerunners of lean dearth:
Threaten to starve the plenty of the earth:
What horrid forms of darkness must affright
The sickly world, hast'ning to that long night
Where it must end. If there no Portents are,
No black eclipses for the Kalendar,
Our times sad Annals will remembred be
Ith' loss of bright Northumberland and Thee:
Two Starres of Court, who in one fatal year
By most untimely set dropt from their Sphear.
Shee in the winter took her flight, and soon
As her perfections reach't the point of Noon,
Wrapt in a cloud, contracted her wisht stay
Unto the measure of a short-liv'd day.
But Thou in Summer, like an early Rose
By Deaths cold hand nipp'd as Thou didst disclose,
Took'st a long day to run that narrow stage,
Which in two gasping minutes summ'd thy age.
And, as the fading Rose, when the leaves shed
Lies in its native sweetness buried,

Thou in thy vertues bedded and inherst
Sleep'st with those odours thy pure fame disperst.
Where till that Rising Morn thou must remain,
In which thy wither'd flowres shall spring again.
And greater beauties thy wak't body vest
Then were at thy departure here possest.

So with full eyes we close thy vault. Content
(With what thy loss bequeaths us) to lament,
And make that use of thy griev'd funerall,
As of a Chrystall broken in the fall;
Whose pitti'd fractures gather'd up, and set,
May smaller Mirrours for Thy Sex beget;
There let them view themselves, untill they see
The end of all their glories shew'n in Thee.

Whil'st in the truth of this sad tribute, I
Thus strive to Canonize thy Memory.

AN ELEGY

Upon Mrs. Kirk unfortunately drowned in Thames.

For all the Ship-wracks, and the liquid graves
Lost men have gain'd within the furrow'd waves,
The Sea hath fin'd and for our wrongs paid use,
When its wrought foam a Venus did produce.

But what repair wilt thou unhappy Thames
Afford our losse? thy dull unactive streames
Can no new beauty raise, nor yet restore
Her who by thee was ravisht from our shore:
Whose death hath stain'd the glory of thy flood,
And mixt the guilty Channel with her blood.

O Neptune! was thy favour onely writ
In that loose Element where thou dost sit?
That after all this time thou should'st repent
Thy fairest blessing to the Continent?
Say, what could urge this Fate? is Thetis dead,
Or Amphitrite from thy wet armes fled?

Was't thou so poor in Nymphs, that thy moist love
Must be maintain'd with pensions from above?
If none of these, but that whil'st thou did'st sleep
Upon thy sandy pillow in the deep,
This mischief stole upon us: may our grief
Waken thy just revenge on that slie thief,
Who in thy fluid Empire without leave,
And unsuspected, durst her life bereave.
Henceforth invert thy order, and provide
In gentlest floods a Pilot for our guide.
Let rugged Seas be lov'd, but the Brooks smile
Shunn'd like the courtship of a Crocodile;
And where the Current doth most smoothly pass,
Think for her sake that stream deaths Looking-glass,
To shew us our destruction is most neer,
When pleasure hath begot least sense of fear.

Else break thy forked Scepter 'gainst some Rock,
If thou endure a flatt'ring calm to mock
Thy far-fam'd pow'r, and violate that law
Which keeps the angry Ocean in aw.
Thy Trident will grow useless, which doth still
Wild tempests, if thou let tame rivers kill.

Mean time we ow thee nothing. Our first debt
Lies cancell'd in thy watry Cabinet.
We have for Her thou sent'st us from the Main,
Return'd a Venus back to thee again.

AN ELEGY

Upon the death of Mr. Edward Holt.

VVhether thy Fathers, or diseases rage,
More mortal prov'd to thy unhappy age,
Our sorrow needs not question; since the first
Is known for length and sharpness much the worst.
Thy Feaver yet was kind; which the ninth day
For thy misfortunes made an easie way.
When th' other barbarous and Hectick fit,
In nineteen winters did not intermit.

I therefore vainly now not ask thee why
Thou didst so soon in thy Youths mid-way dy:
But in my sence the greater wonder make
Thy long oppressed heart no sooner brake.
Of force must the neglected blossom fall
When the tough root becomes unnaturall,

And to his branches doth that sap deny,
Which them with life and verdure should supply.
For Parents shame, let it forgotten be,
And may the sad example die with thee.

It is not now thy grieved friends intent
To render thee dull Pities argument.
Thou hast a bolder title unto fame,
And at Edge-Hill thou didst make good the claime;
When in thy Royal Masters Cause and Warre
Thy ventur'd life brought off a noble skarre.
Nor did thy faithful services desist
Till death untimely strook thee from the List.

Though in that prouder vault then, which doth tomb
Thy ancestors, thy body find not room,
Thine own deserts have purchas'd thee a place,
Which more renowned is then all thy race;
For in this earth thou dost ennobled ly
With marks of Valour and of Loyalty.

To my dead friend Ben: Johnson.

I see that wreath which doth the wearer arm
'Gainst the quick strokes of thunder, is no charm
To keep off deaths pale dart. For, Johnson then
Thou hadst been number'd still with living men.
Times sithe had fear'd thy Lawrel to invade,
Nor thee this subject of our sorrow made.

Amongst those many votaries who come
To offer up their Garlands at thy Tombe;
Whil'st some more lofty pens in their bright verse
(Like glorious Tapers flaming on thy herse)
Shall light the dull and thankless world to see,
How great a maim it suffers wanting thee;
Let not thy learned shadow scorn, that I
Pay meaner Rites unto thy memory;
And since I nought can adde, but in desire
Restore some sparks which leapt from thine own fire.

What ends soever others quills invite,
I can protest, it was no itch to write,

Nor any vain ambition to be read,
But meerly Love and Justice to the dead
Which rais'd my fameless Muse; and caus'd her bring
These drops, as tribute thrown into that spring,
To whose most rich and fruitful head we ow
The purest streams of language which can flow.

For 'tis but truth, thou taught'st the ruder age
To speake by Grammar, and reform'dst the Stage:
Thy Comick Sock induc'd such purged sence,
A Lucrece might have heard without offence.
Amongst those soaring wits that did dilate
Our English, and advance it to the rate
And value it now holds, thy self was one
Helpt lift it up to such proportion.
That thus refin'd and roab'd, it shall not spare
With the full Greek or Latine to compare.
For what tongue ever durst, but ours, translate
Great Tully's Eloquence, or Homers State?
Both which in their unblemisht lustre shine,
From Chapmans pen, and from thy Catiline.
All I would ask for thee, in recompence
Of thy successful toyl and times expence,

Is onely this poor Boon: that those who can
Perhaps read French, or talk Italian,
Or do the lofty Spaniard affect;
To shew their skill in Forrein Dialect,
Prove not themselves so unnaturally wise,
They therefore should their Mother-tongue despise.
(As if her Poets both for style and wit
Not equall'd, or not pass'd their best that writ)
Untill by studying Johnson they have known
The height and strength and plenty of their own.

Thus in what low earth or neglected room
Soere thou sleep'st, thy book shall be thy tomb.
Thou wilt go down a happy Coarse, bestrew'd
With thine own Flowres; and feel thy self renew'd,
Whil'st thy immortal never-with'ring Bayes
Shall yearly flourish in thy Readers praise.
And when more spreading Titles are forgot,
Or spight of all their Lead and Sear-cloth rot,
Thou wrapt and Shrin'd in thine own sheets, wilt ly
A Relick fam'd by all Posterity.

AN ELEGY

Upon Prince Henry's death.

Keep station Nature, and rest Heaven sure
On thy supporters shoulders, left past cure,
Thou dasht in ruine fall by a griefs weight
Will make thy basis shrink, and lay thy height
Low as the Center. Heark! and feel it read
Through the astonisht Kingdom, Henry's dead.
It is enough; who seeks to aggravate
One strain beyond this, prove more sharp his fate
Then sad our doom. The world dares not survive
To parallel this woes superlative.
O killing Rhetorick of Death! two words
Breathe stronger terrours then Plague, Fire, or Swords
Ere conquer'd. This were Epitaph and Verse
Worthy to be prefixt in Natures herse,
Or Earths sad dissolution; whose fall
Will be less grievous though more generall:
For all the woe ruine ere buried,
Sounds in these fatal accents, Henry's dead.

Cease then unable Poetry, thy phrase
Is weak and dull to strike us with amaze
Worthy thy vaster subject. Let none dare
To coppy this sad hap, but with despair
Hanging at his quills point. For not a stream
Of Ink can write much less improve this Theam.
Invention highest wrought by grief or wit
Must sink with him, and on his Tomb-stone split.
Who, like the dying Sun, tells us the light
And glory of our Day set in his Night.

AN ELEGY

Upon S. W. R.

I will not weep, for 'twere as great a sin
To shed a tear for thee, as to have bin
An Actor in thy death. Thy life and age
Was but a various Scene on fortunes Stage,
With whom thou tugg'st & strov'st ev'n out of breath
In thy long toil: nere master'd till thy death;
And then despight of trains and cruell wit,
Thou did'st at once subdue malice and it.

I dare not then so blast thy memory
As say I do lament or pity thee.
Were I to choose a subject to bestow
My pity on, he should be one as low
In spirit as desert. That durst not dy
But rather were content by slavery
To purchase life: or I would pity those
Thy most industrious and friendly foes:
Who when they thought to make thee scandals story
Lent thee a swifter flight to Heav'n and glory.

That thought by cutting off some wither'd dayes,
(Which thou could'st spare them) to eclipse thy praise;
Yet gave it brighter foil, made thy ag'd fame
Appear more white and fair, then foul their shame:
And did promote an Execution
Which (but for them) Nature and Age had done.

Such worthless things as these were onely born
To live on Pities almes (too mean for scorn.)
Thou dy'dst an envious wonder, whose high fate
The world must still admire, scarce imitate.

AN ELEGY

Upon the L. Bishop of London John King.

Sad Relick of a blessed Soul! whose trust
We sealed up in this religious dust.
O do not thy low Exequies suspect
As the cheap arguments of our neglect.
'Twas a commanded duty that thy grave
As little pride as thou thy self should have.

Therefore thy covering is an humble stone,
And but a word

Resurgam.

for thy inscription.
When those that in the same earth neighbour thee,
Have each his Chronicle and Pedigree:
They have their waving pennons and their flagges,
(Of Matches and Alliance formal bragges.)
VVhen thou (although from Ancestors thou came
Old as the Heptarchy, great as thy Name)
Sleep'st there inshrin'd in thy admired parts,
And hast no Heraldry but thy deserts.

100

Yet let not Them their prouder Marbles boast,
For They rest with less honour, though more cost.

Go, search the world, and with your Mattocks wound
The groaning bosom of the patient ground:
Digge from the hidden veins of her dark womb
All that is rare and precious for a tomb:
Yet when much treasure, and more time is spent
You must grant His the nobler Monument.

Whose Faith stands ore Him for a Hearse, and hath
The Resurrection for His Epitaph.

101

Upon the death of my ever desired friend Doctor Donne Dean of Pauls.

To have liv'd eminent in a degreee
Beyond our lofty'st flights, that is like thee;
Or t'have had too much merit is not safe;
For such excesses find no Epitaph.
At common graves we have Poetick eyes
Can melt themselves in easie Elegies;
Each quill can drop his tributary verse,
And pin it with the Hatchments, to the Herse:
But at thine, Poem or inscription
(Rich Soul of wit and language:) we have none;
Indeed a silence does that Tomb befit
Where is no Herald left to blazon it.
Widdow'd invention justly doth forbear
To come abroad knowing thou art not here,
Late her great Patron; whose prerogative
Maintain'd and cloth'd her so, as none alive
Must now presume to keep her at thy rate,
Though he the Indies for her dowre estate:
Or else that awful fire, which once did burn
In thy clear brain, now fall'n into thy Urn.

102

Lives there to fright rude Empericks from thence,
Which might profane thee by their ignorance:
Who ever writes of thee, and in a style
Unworthy such a Theme, does but revile
Thy precious dust, and wake a learned spirit
Which may revenge his rapes upon thy merit.
For all a low-pitcht fancie can devise,
Will prove at best but hallow'd injuries.

Thou, like the dying Swan, didst lately sing
Thy mournful Dirge in audience of the King;
When pale looks, and faint accents of thy breath,
Presented so to life that piece of death,
That it was fear'd and prophesi'd by all
Thou thither cam'st to preach thy Funerall.
O! hadst thou in an Elegiack knell
Rung out unto the world thine own farewell;
And in thy high victorious numbers beat
The solemn measure of thy griev'd retreat:
Thou might'st the Poets service now have mist,
As well as then thou didst prevent the Priest:
And never to the world beholden be,
So much as for an Epitaph for thee.

103

I do not like the office. Nor is't fit
Thou, who didst lend our age such summes of wit,
Should'st now reborrow from her Bankrupt Mine
That Ore to bury thee, which once was thine.
Rather still leave us in thy debt; and know
(Exalted Soul!) More glory 'tis to ow
Unto thy Herse what we can never pay,
Then with embased coin those Rites defray.

Commit we then Thee to Thy Self: nor blame
Our drooping loves, which thus to thine own fame
Leave Thee Executour: since but thy own
No pen could do Thee Justice, nor Bayes crown
Thy vast desert; save that we nothing can
Depute to be thy ashes Guardian.

So Jewellers no Art or Metal trust
To form the Diamond, but the Diamonds dust.

104

AN ELEGY

Upon the most victorious King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus.

Like a cold fatal sweat which ushers death
My thoughts hang on me, & my lab'ring breath
Stopt up with sighs, my fancie big with woes,
Feels two twinn'd mountains struggle in her throws,
Of boundless sorrow one, t'other of sin;
For less let no one rate it to begin
Where honour ends. In Great Gustavus flame
That style burnt out, and wasted to a name,
Does barely live with us. As when the stuff
That fed it failes, the Taper turns to snuff.
With this poor snuff, this ayerie shadow, we
Of Fame and Honour must contented be;
Since from the vain grasp of our wishes fled
Their glorious substance is, now He is dead.

Speak it again, and louder, louder yet;
Else whil'st we hear the sound we shall forget

105

What it delivers. Let hoarse rumor cry
Till she so many ecchoes multiply,
Those may like num'rous witnesses confute
Our unbelieving soules, that would dispute
And doubt this truth for ever. This one way
Is left our incredulity to sway;
To waken our deaf sense, and make our ears
As open and dilated as our fears;
That we may feel the blow, and feeling grieve,
At what we would not feign, but must believe.
And in that horrid faith behold the world
From her proud height of expectation hurl'd,
Stooping with him, as if she strove to have
No lower Center now then Swedens grave.

O could not all thy purchas'd victories
Like to thy Fame thy Flesh immortalize?
Were not thy vertue nor thy valour charmes
To guard thy body from those outward harmes
Which could not reach thy soul? could not thy spirit
Lend somewhat which thy frailty might inherit
From thy diviner part, that Death nor Hate
Nor envy's bullets ere could penetrate?

106

Could not thy early Trophies in stern fight
Torn from the Dane, the Pole, the Moscovite?
Which were thy triumphs seeds, as pledges sown,
That when thy honours harvest was ripe grown,
With full-summ'd wing thou Falcon-like wouldst fly
And cuff the Eagle in the German sky:
Forcing his iron beak and feathers feel
They were not proof 'gainst thy victorious steel.
Could not all these protect thee? or prevaile
To fright that Coward Death, who oft grew pale
To look thee and thy battails in the face?
Alas they could not: Destiny gives place
To none; nor is it seen that Princes lives
Can saved be by their prerogatives.
No more was thine; who clos'd in thy cold lead,
Dost from thy self a mournful lecture read
Of Mans short-dated glory: learn you Kings,
You are like him but penetrable things;
Though you from Demi-Gods derive your birth,
You are at best but honourable earth:
And howere sifted from that courser bran
Which does compound and knead the common man,
Nothing's immortal or from earth refin'd
About you, but your Office and your Mind.

107

Here then break your false Glasses, which present
You greater then your Maker ever meant:
Make truth your Mirrour now, since you find all
That flatter you confuted by his fall.

Yet since it was decreed thy lifes bright Sun
Must be eclips'd ere thy full course was run,
Be proud thou didst in thy black Obsequies
With greater glory set then others rise.
For in thy death, as life, thou heldest one
Most just and regular proportion.
Look how the Circles drawn by Compass meet
Indivisibly joyned head to feet,
And by continued points which them unite
Grow at once Circular and Infinite:
So did thy Fate and honour now contend
To match thy brave beginning with thy end.
Therefore thou hadst instead of Passing bells
The Drums and Cannons thunder for thy knells;
And in the Field thou did'st triumphing dy,
Closing thy eye-lids with a victory:
That so by thousands who there lost their breath
King-like thou might'st be waited on in death.

108

Liv'd Plutarch now, and would of Cæsar tell,
He could make none but Thee his parallel;
Whose tide of glory swelling to the brim
Needs borrow no addition from Him.
When did great Julius in any Clime
Atchieve so much and in so small a time?
Or if he did, yet shalt Thou in that land
Single for him and unexampled stand.
When ore the Germans first his Eagle towr'd
What saw the Legions which on them he pour'd?
But massie bodies, made their swords to try
Subjects not for his fight

Magis triumphati quam victi. Tacit. de nor. Ger.

, but slavery.
In that so vast expanded peece of ground
(Now Swedens Theater and Tomb) he found
Nothing worth Cæsars valour, or his fear,
No conqu'ring Army, nor a Tilley there,
Whose strength nor wiles, nor practice in the warre
Might the fierce Torrent of thy triumphs barre,
But that thy winged sword twice made him yield,
Both from his trenches beat, and from the field.

Besides the Romane thought he had done much
Did he the bank of Rhenus onely touch.

109

But though his march was bounded by the Rhine
Not Oder nor the Danube Thee confine;
And but thy frailty did thy fame prevent,
Thou hadst thy conquests strecht to such extent,
Thou might'st Vienna reach, and after span
From Mulda to the Baltick Ocean.

But death hath spann'd thee: nor must we divine
What heir thou leav'st to finish thy design,
Or who shall thee succeed as Champion
For liberty and for religion.

Thy task is done; as in a Watch the spring
Wound to the height, relaxes with the string:
So thy steel nerves of conquest, from their steep
Ascent declin'd, lie slackt in thy last sleep.

Rest then triumphant soul! for ever rest!
And, like the Phœnix in her spicy nest,
Embalm'd with thine own merit, upward fly,
Born in a cloud of perfume to the sky.
Whil'st, as in deathless Urnes, each noble mind
Treasures thy ashes which are left behind.

110

And if perhaps no Cassiopeian spark
(Which in the North did thy first rising mark)
Shine ore thy Herse: the breath of our just praise
Shall to the Firmament thy vertues raise;
Then fix, and kindle them into a Starre,
Whose influence may crown thy glorious warre.

------ O Famâ ingens ingentior armis
Rex Gustave, quibus Cœlo te laudibus æquem?

Virgil. Æneid. lib. 2.

111

To my Noble and Judicious Friend Sir Henry Blount upon his Voyage.

Sir, I must ever own my self to be
Possest with humane curiositie
Of seeing all that might the sense invite
By those two baits of profit and delight:
And since I had the wit to understand
The terms of Native or of forreign land;
I have had strong and oft desires to tread
Some of those voyages which I have read.
Yet still so fruitless have my wishes prov'd,
That from my Countreys smoke I never mov'd:
Nor ever had the fortune (though design'd)
To satisfie the wandrings of my mind.
Therefore at last I did with some content,
Beguile my self in time, which others spent;
Whose art to Provinces small lines allots,
And represents large Kingdomes but in spots.
Thus by Ortelius and Mercators aid
Through most of the discover'd world I strai'd.

112

I could with ease double the Southern Cape,
And in my passage Affricks wonders take:
Then with a speed proportion'd to the Scale
Northward again, as high as Zemla sayl.
Oft hath the travel of my eye outrun
(Though I sat still) the journey of the Sun:
Yet made an end, ere his declining beams
Did nightly quench themselves in Thetis streams.
Oft have I gone through Ægypt in a day,
Not hinder'd by the droughts of Lybia;
In which, for lack of water tides of sand
By a dry deluge overflow the land.
There I the Pyramids and Cairo see,
Still famous for the warres of Tomombee,
And its own greatness; whose immured fence
Takes fourty miles in the circumference.
Then without guide, or stronger Caravan
Which might secure the wild Arabian,
Back through the scorched Desarts pass, to seek
Once the worlds Lord, now the beslaved Greek,
Made by a Turkish yoak and fortunes hate
In language as in mind, degenerate.

113

And here all wrapt in pity and amaze
I stand, whil'st I upon the Sultan gaze;
To think how he with pride and rapine fir'd
So vast a Territory hath acquir'd;
And by what daring steps he did become
The Asian fear, and scourge of Christendome:
How he atchiev'd, and kept, and by what arts
He did concenter those divided parts;
And how he holds that monstrous bulk in aw,
By setled rules of tyrannie, not Law:
So Rivers large and rapid streams began,
Swelling from drops into an Ocean.

Sure who ere shall the just extraction bring
Of this Gigantick power from the spring;
Must there confess a higher Ordinance
Did it for terrour to the earth advance.
For mark how 'mongst a lawless straggling crew
Made up of Arab, Saracen, and Jew,
The worlds disturber, faithless Mahomet
Did by Impostures an opinion get:
O're whom he first usurps as Prince, and than
As Prophet does obtrude his Alcoran.

114

Next, how fierce Ottoman his claim made good
From that unblest Religion, by blood;
Whil'st he the Eastern Kingdomes did deface,
To make their ruine his proud Empires base.
Then like a Comet blazing in the skies,
How Death-portending Amurath did rise,
When he his horned Crescents did display
Upon the fatal Plains of Servia;
And farther still his sanguin tresses spread,
Till Croya Life and Conquests limited.
Lastly, how Mahomet thence styl'd the Great,
Made Constantines his own Imperial Seat;
After that he in one victorious bond
Two Empires graspt, of Greece and Trabezond.

This, and much more then this, I gladly read,
Where my relators it had storyed;
Besides that Peoples Manners and their Rites,
Their warlike discipline and order'd fights;
Their desp'rate valour, hardned by the sence
Of unavoided Fate and Providence:
Their habit, and their houses, who confer
Less cost on them then on their Sepulchre:

115

Their frequent washings, and the several Bath
Each Meschit to it self annexed hath:
What honour they unto the Musty give,
What to the Soveraign under whom they live:
What quarter Christians have; how just and free
To inoffensive Travellers they be:
Though I confess, like stomacks fed with news,
I took them in for wonder, not for use,
Till your experienc'd and authentick pen
Taught me to know the places and the men;
And made all those suspected truths become
Undoubted now, and cleer as Axiom.

Sir, for this work more then my thanks is due;
I am at once inform'd and cur'd by you.
So that, were I assur'd I should live o're
My periods of time run out before;
Nere needed my erratick wish transport
Me from my Native lists to that resort,
Where many at outlandish Marts unlade
Ingenuous manners, and do onely trade
For vices and the language. By your eyes
I here have made my full discoveries;

116

And all your Countreys so exactly seen,
As in the voyage I had sharer been.
By this you make me so; and the whole land
Your debtour: which can onely understand
How much she owes you, when her sons shall try
The solid depths of your rare history,
Which looks above our gadders trivial reach,
The Common Place of travellers, who teach
But Table-talk; and seldomly aspire
Beyond the Countres Dyet or Attire;
Whereas your piercing judgement does relate
The Policy and Manage of each State.
And since she must here without envy grant
That you have further journey'd the Levant
Then any noble spirit by her bred
Hath in your way as yet adventured;
I cannot less in justice from her look,
Then that she henceforth Canonize your book
A Rule to all her travellers, and you
The brave example; from whose equal view
Each knowing Reader may himself direct,
How he may go abroad to some effect,
And not for form: what distance and what trust
In those remoter parts observe he must:

117

How he with jealous people may converse,
Yet take no hurt himself by that commerce.
So when he shall imbark'd in dangers be,
Which wit and wary caution not foresee;
If he partake your valour and your brain,
He may perhaps come safely off again,
As you have done; though not so richly fraught
As this return hath to our Staple brought.

I know your modesty shuns vulgar praise,
And I have none to bring: but onely raise
This monument of Honour and of Love,
Which your long known deserts so far improve,
They leave me doubtfull in what style to end,
Whether more your admirer or your friend.

118

To my honoured Friend Mr. George Sandys.

It is, Sir, a confest intrusion here
That I before your labours do appear,
Which no loud Herald need, that may proclaim
Or seek acceptance, but the Authors fame.
Much less that should this happy work commend,
Whose subject is its licence, and doth send
It to the world to be receiv'd and read,
Far as the glorious beams of truth are spread.

Nor let it be imagin'd that I look
Onely with Customes eye upon your book;
Or in this service that 'twas my intent
T'exclude your person from your argument:
I shall profess much of the love I ow,
Doth from the root of our extraction grow;
To which though I can little contribute,
Yet with a naturall joy I must impute
To our Tribes honour, what by you is done
Worthy the title of a Prelates son.

119

And scarcely have two brothers farther borne
A Fathers name, or with more value worne
Their own, then two of you; whose pens and feet
Have made the distant Points of Heav'n to meet;
He by exact discoveries of the

Sr. Edwin Sandys survay of religion in the West.

West,
Your self by painful travels in the East.

Some more like you might pow'rfully confute
Th' opposers of Priests marriage by the fruit.
And (since tis known for all their streight vow'd life,
They like the sex in any style but wife)
Cause them to change their Cloyster for that State
Which keeps men chaste by vowes legitimate:
Nor shame to father their relations,
Or under Nephews names disguise their sons.
This Child of yours born without spurious blot,
And fairly Midwiv'd as it was begot,
Doth so much of the Parents goodness wear,
You may be proud to own it for your Heir.
Whose choice acquits you from the common sin
Of such, who finish worse then they begin:
You mend upon your self, and your last strain
Does of your first the start in judgment gain;

120

Since what in curious travel was begun,
You here conclude in a devotion.

Where in delightful raptures we descry
As in a Map, Sions Chorography
Laid out in so direct and smooth a line,
Men need not go about through Palestine:
Who seek Christ here will the streight Rode prefer,
As neerer much then by the Sepulchre.
For not a limb growes here, but is a path;
Which in Gods City the blest Center hath:
And doth so sweetly on each passion strike,
The most fantastick taste will somewhat like.

Job.

To the unquiet soul Job still from hence
Pleads in th' example of his patience.

Ecclesiastes

The mortify'd may hear the wise King preach,
When his repentance made him fit to teach.
Nor shall the singing Sisters be content
To chant at home the Act of Parliament,

The Act of Parliament for publick Thanksgiving on the fifth of Novemb. set to the tune by A. Dod a tradesman of London, at the end of his Psalmes, which stole from the Press Anno Domini 1620.

Turn'd out of reason into rhime by one
Free of his trade, though not of Helicon,
Who did in his Poetick zeal contend
Others edition by a worse to mend.

121

Here are choice Hymnes and Carolls for the glad,

Hymns Lament at. Psalmes.

With melancholy Dirges for the sad:
And David (as he could his skill transfer)
Speaks like himself by an interpreter.
Your Muse rekindled hath the Prophets fire,
And tun'd the strings of his neglected Lyre;
Making the Note and Ditty so agree,
They now become a perfect harmonie.

I must confess, I have long wisht to see
The Psalmes reduc'd to this conformity:
Grieving the songs of Sion should be sung
In phrase not diff'ring from a barbarous tongue.
As if, by custome warranted, we may
Sing that to God we would be loth to say.
Far be it from my purpose to upbraid
Their honest meaning, who first offer made
That book in Meeter to compile, which you
Have mended in the form, and built anew:
And it was well, considering the time,
Which hardly could distinguish verse and rhime.
But now the language, like the Church, hath won
More lustre since the Reformation;

122

None can condemn the wish or labour spent
Good matter in good words to represent.

Yet in this jealous age some such there be,
So without cause afraid of novelty,
They would not (were it in their pow'r to choose)
An old ill practise for a better lose.
Men who a rustick plainnesse so affect,
They think God served best by their neglect.
Holding the cause would be profan'd by it,
Were they at charge of learning or of wit.
And therefore bluntly (what comes next) they bring
Course and unstudy'd stuffs for offering;
Which like th' old Tabernacles cov'ring are,
Made up of Badgers skins, and of Goats haire.
But these are Paradoxes they must use
Their sloth and bolder ignorance t'excuse.
Who would not laugh at one will naked go,
'Cause in old hangings truth is pictur'd so?
Though plainness be reputed honours note,
They mantles use to beautify the coat;
So that a curious (unaffected) dress
Addes much unto the bodies comeliness:

123

And wheresoere the subjects best, the sence
Is better'd by the speakers eloquence.

But, Sir, to you I shall no trophee raise
From other mens detraction or dispraise:
That Jewel never had inherent worth,
Which askt such foils as these to set it forth.
If any quarrel your attempt or style,
Forgive them; their own folly they revile.
Since, 'gainst themselves, their factious envy shall
Allow this work of yours Canonicall.
Nor may you fear the Poets common lot,
Read, and commended, and then quite forgot:
The brazen Mines and Marble Rocks shall wast,
When your foundation will unshaken last.
'Tis fames best pay, that you your labours see
By their immortal subject crowned be.
For nere was writer in oblivion hid
Who firm'd his name on such a Pyramid.

124

The Woes of Esay.

VVoe to the worldly men whose covetous
Ambition labours to joyn house to house,
Lay field to field, till their inclosures edge
The Plain, girdling a countrey with one hedge:
That leave no place unbought, no piece of earth
Which they will not ingross, making a dearth
Of all inhabitants, untill they stand
Unneighbour'd as unblest within their land.

This sin cryes in Gods ear, who hath decreed
The ground they sow shall not return the seed.
They that unpeopled countreys to create
Themselves sole Lords, made many desolate
To build up their own house, shall find at last
Ruine and fearful desolation cast
Upon themselves. Their Mansion shall become
A Desart, and their Palace prove a tombe.
Their vines shall barren be, their land yield tares;
Their house shall have no dwellers, they no heires.

125

Woe unto those that with the morning Sun
Rise to drink wine, and sit till he have run
His weary course; not ceasing untill night
Have quencht their understanding with the light:
Whose raging thirst, like fire, will not be tam'd,
The more they poure the more they are inflam'd.
Woe unto them that onely mighty are
To wage with wine; in which unhappy war
They who the glory of the day have won,
Must yield them foil'd and vanquisht by the tun.
Men that live thus, as if they liv'd in jest,
Fooling their time with Musick and a feast;
That did exile all sounds from their soft ear
But of the harp, must this sad discord hear
Compos'd in threats. The feet which measures tread
Shall in captivity be fettered:
Famine shall scourge them for their vast excess;
And Hell revenge their monstrous drunkenness;
Which hath enlarg'd it self to swallow such,
Whose throats nere knew enough, though still too much

Woe unto those that countenance a sin,
Siding with vice that it may credit win.

126

By their unhallow'd vote: that do benight
The truth with errour, putting dark for light,
And light for dark; that call an evil good,
And would by vice have vertue understood:
That with their frown can sowre an honest cause,
Or sweeten any bad by their applause.
That justify the wicked for reward;
And void of morall goodness or regard,
Plot with detraction to traduce the fame
Of him whose merit hath enroll'd his name
Among the just. Therefore Gods vengeful ire
Glows on his people, and becomes a fire
Whose greedy and exalted flame shall burn,
Till they like straw or chaffe to nothing turn.
Because they have rebell'd against the right,
To God and Law perversly opposite,
As Plants which Sun nor showres did ever bless,
So shall their root convert to rottenness;
And their successions bud, in which they trust,
Shall (like Gomorrahs fruit) moulder to dust.

Woe unto those that drunk with self-conceit,
Value their own designs at such a rate

127

Which humane wisdome cannot reach; that sit
Enthron'd, as sole Monopolists of wit:
That out-look reason, and suppose the eye
Of Nature blind to their discovery,
Whil'st they a title make to understand
What ever secret's bosom'd in the land.
But God shall imp their pride, and let them see
They are but fools in a sublime degree:
He shall bring down and humble those proud eyes,
In which false glasses onely they lookt wise:
That all the world may laugh, and learn by it,
There is no folly to pretended wit.

Woe unto those that draw iniquity
With cords, and by a vain security
Lengthen the sinful trace, till their own chain
Of many links form'd by laborious pain,
Do pull them into Hell; that as with lines
And Cart-ropes drag on their unwilling crimes:
Who, rather then they will commit no sin,
Tempt all occasions to let it in.
As if there were no God, who must exact
The strict account for e'ry vicious fact;

128

Nor judgement after death. If any be,
Let him make speed (say they) that we may see.
Why is his work retarded by delay?
Why doth himself thus linger on the way?
If there be any judge, or future doome,
Let It and Him with speed together come.

Unhappy men, that challenge and defie
The coming of that dreadful Majestie!
Better by much for you, he did reverse
His purpos'd sentence on the Universe;
Or that the creeping minutes might adjourn
Those flames in which you with the earth must burn;
That times revolting hand could lag the year,
And so put back his day which is too near.

Behold his sign's advanc'd like colours fly,
To tell the world that his approch is nigh;
And in a furious march, he's coming on
Swift as the raging inundation,
To scowre the sinful world; 'gainst which is bent
Artillery that never can be spent:
Bowes strung with vengeance, and flame-feather'd darts
Headed with death, to wound transgressing hearts

129

His Chariot wheeles wrapt in the whirlewinds gyre,
His horses hoov'd with flint, and shod with fire:
In which amaze where ere they fix their eye,
Or on the melting earth, or up on high
To seek Heavens shrunk lights, nothing shall appear
But night and horrour in their Hemisphere:
Nor shall th' affrighted sence more objects know
Then darkned skies above, and Hell below.

130

An Essay on Death and a Prison.

A prison is in all things like a grave,
Where we no better priviledges have
Then dead men, nor so good. The soul once fled
Lives freer now, then when she was cloystered
In walls of flesh; and though she organs want
To act her swift designs, yet all will grant
Her faculties more clear, now separate,
Then if the same conjunction, which of late
Did marry her to earth, had stood in force,
Uncapable of death, or of divorce:
But an imprison'd mind, though living, dies,
And at one time feels two captivities;
A narrow dungeon which her body holds,
But narrower body which her self enfolds.
Whil'st I in prison ly, nothing is free,
Nothing enlarg'd but thought and miserie;
Though e'ry chink be stopt, the doors close barr'd,
Despight of walls and locks, through e'ry ward
These have their issues forth; may take the aire,
Though not for health, but onely to compare

131

How wretched those men are who freedom want,
By such as never suffer'd a restraint.
In which unquiet travel could I find
Ought that might settle my distemper'd mind,
Or of some comfort make discovery
It were a voyage well imploy'd: but I,
Like our raw travellers that cross the seas
To fetch home fashions or some worse disease,
Instead of quiet a new torture bring
Home t'afflict me, malice and murmuring.
What is't I envy not? no dog nor fly
But my desires prefer, and wish were I;
For they are free, or if they were like me,
They had no sense to know calamitie.
But in the grave no sparks of envy live,
No hot comparisons that causes give
Of quarrel, or that our affections move
Any condition, save their own, to love.
There are no objects there but shades and night,
And yet that darkness better then the light.
There lives a silent harmony, no jar
Or discord can that sweet soft consort mar.
The graves deaf ear is clos'd against all noise
Save that which rocks must hear, the angels voice:

132

Whose trump shall wake the world, and raise up men
Who in earths bosom slept, bed-rid till then.
What man then would, who on deaths pillow slumbers,
Be re-inspir'd with life, though golden numbers
Of bliss were pour'd into his breast; though he
Were sure in change to gain a Monarchie?
A Monarchs glorious state compar'd with his,
Less safe, less free, less firm, less quiet is.
For nere was any Prince advanc't so high
That he was out of reach of misery:
Never did story yet a law report
To banish fate or sorrow from his Court;
Where ere he moves by land, or through the Main,
These go along sworn members of his train.
But he whom the kind earth hath entertain'd,
Hath in her womb a sanctuary gain'd,
Whose charter and protection arm him so,
That he is priviledg'd from future woe.
The Coffin's a safe harbour, where he rides
Land-bound, below cross windes, or churlish tides.
For grief, sprung up with life, was mans half-brother
Fed by the taste, brought forth by sin, the mother.
And since the first seduction of the wife,
God did decree to grief a lease for life;

133

Which Patent in full force continue must,
Till man that disobey'd revert to dust.
So that lifes sorrows ratifi'd by God
Cannot expire, or find their period,
Until the soul and body disunite,
And by two diff'rent wayes from each take flight.
But they dissolved once our woes disband,
Th' assurance cancell'd by one fatall hand;
Soon as the passing bell proclaims me dead,
My sorrows sink with me, lye buried
In the same heap of dust, the self-same Urn
Doth them and me alike to nothing turn.
If then of these I might election make
Whether I would refuse, and whether take,
Rather then like a sullen Anchorite
I would live cas'd in stone, and learn to write
A Prisoners story, which might steal some tears
From the sad eyes of him that reads or hears;
Give me a peaceful death, and let me meet
My freedom seal'd up in my winding sheet.
Death is the pledge of rest, and with one bayl
Two Prisons quits, the Body and the Jayl.

134

The Labyrinth.

Life is a crooked Labyrinth, and we
Are daily lost in that Obliquity.
'Tis a perplexed circle, in whose round
Nothing but sorrows and new sins abound.
How is the faint impression of each good
Drown'd in the vicious Channel of our blood?
Whose Ebbes and tides by their vicissitude
Both our great Maker and our selves delude.

O wherefore is the most discerning eye
Unapt to make its own discovery?
Why is the clearest and best judging mind
In her own ills prevention dark and blind?
Dull to advise, to act precipitate,
We scarce think what to do but when too late.
Or if we think, that fluid thought, like seed
Rots there to propagate some fouler deed.
Still we repent and sin, sin and repent;
We thaw and freeze, we harden and relent.
Those fires which cool'd to day the morrows heat
Rekindles. Thus frail nature does repeat

135

What she unlearnt, and still by learning on
Perfects her lesson of confusion.

Sick soul! what cure shall I for thee devise,
Whose leprous state corrupts all remedies?
What medicine or what cordial can be got
For thee, who poyson'st thy best antidot?
Repentance is thy bane, since thou by it
Onely reviv'st the fault thou didst commit.
Nor griev'st thou for the past, but art in pain
For fear thou mayst not act it o're again.
So that thy tears, like water spilt on lime,
Serve not to quench, but to advance the crime.

My blessed Saviour! unto thee I flie
For help against this homebred tyrannie.
Thou canst true sorrows in my soul imprint,
And draw contrition from a breast of flint.
Thou canst reverse this labyrinth of sin
My wild affects and actions wander in.
O guide my faith! and by thy graces clew
Teach me to hunt that kingdom at the view
Where true joyes reign, which like their day shall last;
Those never clouded, nor that overcast.

136

Being waked out of my sleep by a snuff of Candle which offended me, I thus thought.

Perhaps 'twas but conceit. Erroneous sence!
Thou art thine own distemper and offence.
Imagine then, that sick unwholsom steam
Was thy corruption breath'd into a dream.
Nor is it strange, when we in charnells dwell,
That all our thoughts of earth and frailty smell.

Man is a Candle, whose unhappy light
Burns in the day, and smothers in the night.
And as you see the dying taper waste,
By such degrees does he to darkness haste.

Here is the diff'rence: When our bodies lamps
Blinded by age, or choakt with mortall damps,
Now faint and dim and sickly 'gin to wink,
And in their hollow sockets lowly sink;
When all our vital fires ceasing to burn,
Leave nought but snuff and ashes in our Urn:
God will restore those fallen lights again,
And kindle them to an Eternal flame.

139

Sic Vita.

Like to the falling of a Starre;
Or as the flights of Eagles are;
Or like the fresh springs gawdy hew;
Or silver drops of morning dew;
Or like a wind that chafes the flood;
Or bubbles which on water stood;
Even such is man, whose borrow'd light
Is streight call'd in, and paid to night.

The Wind blowes out; the Bubble dies;
The Spring entomb'd in Autumn lies;
The Dew dries up; the Starre is shot;
The Flight is past; and Man forgot.

138

My Midnight Meditation.

Ill busi'd man! why should'st thou take such care
To lengthen out thy lifes short Kalendar?
When e'ry spectacle thou lookst upon
Presents and acts thy execution.
Each drooping season and each flower doth cry,
Fool! as I fade and wither, thou must dy.

The beating of thy pulse (when thou art well)
Is just the tolling of thy Passing Bell:
Night is thy Hearse, whose sable Canopie
Covers alike deceased day and thee.
And all those weeping dewes which nightly fall,
Are but the tears shed for thy funerall.

139

A Penitential Hymne.

Hearken O God unto a Wretches cryes
Who low dejected at thy footstool lies.
Let not the clamour of my heinous sin
Drown my requests, which strive to enter in
At those bright gates, which alwaies open stand
To such as beg remission at thy hand.

Too well I know, if thou in rigour deal
I can nor pardon ask, nor yet appeal:
To my hoarse voice, heaven will no audience grant,
But deaf as brass, and hard as adamant
Beat back my words; therefore I bring to thee
A gracious Advocate to plead for me.

What though my leprous soul no Jordan can
Recure, nor flouds of the lav'd Ocean
Make clean? yet from my Saviours bleeding side
Two large and medicinable rivers glide.
Lord, wash me where those streams of life abound,
And new Bethesdaes flow from ev'ry wound.

140

If I this precious Lather may obtain,
I shall not then despair for any stain;
I need no Gileads balm, nor oyl, nor shall
I for the purifying Hyssop call:
My spots will vanish in His purple flood,
And Crimson there turn white, though washt with blood.

See Lord! with broken heart and bended knee,
How I address my humble suit to Thee;
O give that suit admittance to thy ears
Which floats to thee not in my words but tears:
And let my sinful soul this mercy crave
Before I fall into the silent grave.

141

AN ELEGY

Occasioned by sickness.

VVell did the Prophet ask, Lord what is man?
Implying by the question none can
But God resolve the doubt, much less define
What Elements this child of dust combine.

Man is a stranger to himself, and knowes
Nothing so naturally as his woes.
He loves to travel countreys, and confer
The sides of Heavens vast Diameter:
Delights to sit in Nile or Bœtis lap,
Before he hath sayl'd over his own Map;
By which means he returnes, his travel spent,
Less knowing of himself then when he went.
Who knowledge hunt kept under forrein locks,
May bring home wit to hold a Paradox,
Yet be fools still. Therefore might I advise,
I would inform the soul before the eyes:
Make man into his proper Opticks look,
And so become the student and the book

142

With his conception, his first leaf, begin;
What is he there but complicated sin?
When riper time, and the approaching birth
Ranks him among the creatures of the earth,
His wailing mother sends him forth to greet
The light, wrapt in a bloudy winding sheet;
As if he came into the world to crave
No place to dwell in, but bespeak a grave.

Thus like a red and tempest-boading morn
His dawning is: for being newly born
He hayles th' ensuing storm with shrieks and cryes,
And fines for his admission with wet eyes:

How should that Plant whose leaf is bath'd in tears
Bear but a bitter fruit in elder years?
Just such is this, and his maturer age
Teems with event more sad then the presage.
For view him higher, when his childhoods span
Is raised up to Youths Meridian;
When he goes proudly laden with the fruit
Which health, or strength, or beauty contribute;
Yet as the mounted Canon batters down
The Towres and goodly structures of a town:

143

So one short sickness will his force defeat,
And his frail Cittadell to rubbish beat.
How does a dropsie melt him to a floud,
Making each vein run water more then bloud?
A Chollick wracks him like a Northern gust,
And raging feavers crumble him to dust.
In which unhappy state he is made worse
By his diseases then his makers curse.
God said in toyl and sweat he should earn bread,
And without labour not be nourished:
Here, though like ropes of falling dew, his sweat
Hangs on his lab'ring brow, he cannot eat.

Thus are his sins scourg'd in opposed themes,
And luxuries reveng'd by their extremes.
He who in health could never be content
With Rarities fetcht from each Element,
Is now much more afflicted to delight
His tasteless Palate, and lost appetite.

Besides though God ordain'd, that with the light
Man should begin his work, yet he made night
For his repose, in which the weary sense
Repaires it self by rests soft recompence.

144

But now his watchful nights, and troubled dayes
Confused heaps of fear and fancy raise.
His chamber seems a loose and trembling mine;
His Pillow quilted with a Porcupine:
Pain makes his downy Couch sharp thornes appear,
And ev'ry feather prick him like a spear.
Thus when all forms of death about him keep,
He copies death in any form but sleep.

Poor walking-clay! hast thou a mind to know
To what unblest beginnings thou dost ow
Thy wretched self? fall sick a while, and than
Thou wilt conceive the pedigree of Man.
Learn shalt thou from thine own Anatomie,
That earth his mother, wormes his sisters be.
That he's a short-liv'd vapour upward wrought,
And by corruption unto nothing brought.
A stagg'ring Meteor by cross Planets beat,
Which often reeles and falles before his set:
A tree which withers faster then it growes;
A torch puff't out by ev'ry wind that blowes;
A web of fourty weekes spun forth in pain,
And in a moment ravell'd out again.

145

This is the Model of frail man: Then say
That his duration's onely for a day:
And in that day more fits of changes pass,
Then Atomes run in the turn'd Hower-glass.

So that th' incessant cares which life invade
Might for strong truth their heresie perswade,
Who did maintain that humane soules are sent
Into the body for their punishment:
At least with that Greek Sage still make us cry,

Non nasci, aut quàm citissimè mori.

Not to be born, or being born to dy.

But Faith steers up to a more glorious scope,
Which sweetens our sharp passage; and firm hope
Anchors our torne Barks on a blessed shore,
Beyond the Dead sea we here ferry o're.
To this, Death is our Pilot, and disease
The Agent which solicites our release.

Though crosses then poure on my restless head,
Or lingring sickness nail me to my bed:
Let this my Thoughts eternall comfort bee,
That my clos'd eyes a better light shall see.

146

And when by fortunes or by natures stroke
My bodies earthen Pitcher must be broke,
My Soul, like Gideons lamp, from her crackt urn
Shall Deaths black night to endlesse lustre turn:

147

The Dirge

VVhat is th' Existence of Mans life?
But open war, or slumber'd strife.
Where sickness to his sense presents
The combat of the Elements:
And never feels a perfect Peace
Till deaths cold hand signs his release.

It is a storm where the hot blood
Out-vies in rage the boyling flood;
And each loud Passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,
Which beats his Bark with many a Wave
Till he casts Anchor in the Grave.

It is a flower which buds and growes,
And withers as the leaves disclose;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep:
Then shrinks into that fatal mold
Where its first being was enroll'd.

148

It is a dream, whose seeming truth
Is moraliz'd in age and youth:
Where all the comforts he can share
As wandring as his fancies are;
Till in a mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanish quite away.

It is a Diall, which points out
The Sun-set as it moves about:
And shadowes out in lines of night
The subtile stages of times flight,
Till all obscuring earth hath laid
The body in perpetual shade.

It is a weary enterlude
Which doth short joyes, long woes include.
The World the Stage, the Prologue tears,
The Acts vain hope, and vary'd fears:
The Scene shuts up with loss of breath,
And leaves no Epilogue but Death.

149

AN ELEGY

Occasioned by the losse of the most incomparable Lady Stanhope, daughter to the Earl of Northumberland.

Lightned by that dimme Torch our sorrow bears
We sadly trace thy Coffin with our tears;
And though the Ceremonious Rites are past
Since thy fair body into earth was cast;
Though all thy Hatchments into ragges are torne,
Thy Funerall Robes and Ornaments outworn;
We still thy mourners without Shew or Art,
With solemn Blacks hung round about our heart,
Thus constantly the Obsequies renew
Which to thy precious memory are due.

Yet think not that we rudely would invade
The dark recess of thine untroubled shade,
Or give disturbance to that happy peace
Which thou enjoy'st at full since thy release;
Much less in sullen murmurs do complain
Of His decree who took thee back again,

150

And did e're Fame had spread thy vertues light,
Eclipse and fold thee up in endless night.
This like an act of envy not of grief
Might doubt thy bliss, and shake our own belief,
Whose studi'd wishes no proportion bear
With joyes which crown thee now in glories sphere.

Know then blest Soul! we for our selves not thee
Seal our woes dictate by this Elegie:
Wherein our tears united in one streame
Shall to succeeding times convey this theme,
Worth all mens pity who discern how rare
Such early growths of fame and goodness are.
Of these part must thy sexes loss bewail
Maim'd in her noblest Patterns through thy fail;
For 'twould require a double term of life
To match thee as a daughter or a wife:
Both which Northumberlands dear loss improve
And make his sorrow equal to his love.
The rest fall for our selves, who cast behind
Cannot yet reach the Peace which thou dost find;
But slowly follow thee in that dull stage
Which most untimely poasted hence thy age.

151

Thus like religious Pilgrims who designe
A short salute to their beloved Shrine,
Most sad and humble Votaries we come
To offer up our sighs upon thy Tomb,
And wet thy Marble with our dropping eyes
Which till the spring which feeds their current dries
Resolve each falling night and rising day
This mournfull homage at thy Grave to pay.

FINIS.

University of Virginia Library

POEMS.

SONNET.

The Double Rock.

The Vow-Breaker.

Upon a Table-Book presented to a Lady.

To the same Lady upon Mr. Burtons Melancholy.

The Farewell.

A Black-moor Maid wooing a fair Boy: sent to the Author by Mr. Hen. Rainolds.

The Boyes answer to the Blackmoor.

To a Friend upon Overbury's wife given to her.

Upon the same.

To A. R. vpon the same.

An Epitaph on Niobe turned to Stone.

Upon a Braid of Hair in a Heart sent by Mrs. E. H.

SONNET.

[Tell me no more how fair she is]

SONNET.

[VVere thy heart soft as thou art faire]

SONNET.

[Go thou that vainly do'st mine eyes invite]

SONNET.

To Patience.

Silence.

A SONNET.

Loves Harvest.

The Forlorn Hope.

The Retreat.

SONNET.

[Tell me you stars that our affections move]

SONNET.

[I prethee turn that face away]

SONNET.

[Dry those fair, those chrystal eyes]

SONNET.

[VVhen I entreat, either thou wilt not hear]

To a Lady who sent me a copy of verses at my going to bed.

The Pink.[_] The attribution of this poem is questionable.

To his Friends of Christ-Church upon the mislike of the Marriage of the Arts acted at Woodstock.

The Surrender.

The Legacy.

The short Wooing.

St. Valentines day.

To his unconstant Friend.

Madam Gabrina,

Or the Ill-favourd Choice.

The Defence.

To One demanding why Wine sparkles.

By occasion of the Young Prince his happy birth.

Upon the Kings happy return from Scotland.

To the Queen at Oxford.

A salutation of his Majesties Ship the Soveraign.

AN EPITAPH

On his most honoured Friend Richard Earl of Dorset.

The Exequy.

The Anniverse.

AN ELEGY.

On two Children dying of one Disease, and buried in one Grave.

A Letter.

An Acknowledgment.

The Acquittance.

The Forfeiture.

The Departure.

AN ELEGY.

PARADOX.

That it is best for a Young Maid to marry an Old Man.

PARADOX.

That Fruition destroyes Love.

The Change

To my Sister Anne King, who chid me in verse for being angry.

AN ELEGY

Upon the immature loss of the most vertuous Lady Anne Rich.

AN ELEGY

Upon Mrs. Kirk unfortunately drowned in Thames.

AN ELEGY

Upon the death of Mr. Edward Holt.

To my dead friend Ben: Johnson.

AN ELEGY

Upon Prince Henry's death.

AN ELEGY

The Pink.
[_]

The attribution of this poem is questionable.