Ex otio Negotium :: :: University of Virginia Library

Stand off my Masters: Tis your pence a piece,
Jason, Medea, and the golden Fleece;
What side the line good Sir? Tigris? or Po?
Lybia? Japan? Whisk? or Tradinktido?
St. Kits? St. Omer? or St. Margaret's Bay?
Presto begon? or come aloft? what way?
Doublets? or Knap? the Cog? low Dice? or high?
By all the hard names in the Letany,
Bell, book and candle, and the Pope's great toe
I conjure thy account: Devil say no.

Nay since I must untruss, gallants look to't
Keep your prodigious distance, forty foot,
This is that Beast of eyes in th'Revelations,
The Basilisk has twisted up three Nations.
Ponteus Hixius doxius, full of tricks,
The Lottery of the vulgar lunaticks.
The Knapsack of the State, the thing you wish,
Magog and Gog stewd in a Chaffendish.
A bag of spoons and whistles, wherein men
May whistle when they see their Plate agen.

130

Thus far his Infancy: His riper age
Requires a more misterious folio page.
Now that time speaks him perfect, and tis pitie
To dandle him longer in a close Committee,
The elf dares peep abroad, the pretty foole
Can wag without a truckling standing-stoole;
Revenge his Mother's infamy, and swear
Hee's the fair off-spring of one half-score year;
The Heir of the House and hopes, the cry
And wonder of the People's misery.
Tis true, while as a Puppie it could play
For Thimbles, any thing to passe the day.
But now the Cub can count, arithmatize,
Clinck Masenello with the Duke of Guise;
Signe for an Irish purchase, and traduce
The Synod from their Doctrine to their Use.
Give its Dam suck, and by a hidden way
Drink up arreares a tergo mantica.
An everlasting Bale, Hell in Trunk-hose,
Uncased, the Divel's Don Quixot in prose.
The Beast and the false Prophet twined together,
The squint-eyed emblem of all sorts of weather.
The refuse of that Chaos of the earth
Able to give the world a second birth.
Affrick avaunt: Thy trifling monsters glance
But Sheeps-eyed to this Penal Ignorance.

131

That all the prodigies brought forth before
Are but Dame Natures blush left on the score.
This strings the Bakers dozen, christens all
The cross-legd hours of time since Adam's fall.

The publipue faith? why tis a word of kin.
A Nephew that dares Cozen any sin.
A term of Art, great Behemoth's younger Brother,
Old Machiavel, and half a thousand other.
Which when subscribed writes Legion, names on Truss,
Abaddon, Belzebub, and Incubus.
All the Uice Royes of darkness, every spell
And Fiend wrap'd in a short Trissillable.

But I fore-stall the show. Enter and see,
Salute the Door, your Exit shall be free.
In brief tis calld Religions ease, or loss,
For no one's sufferd here to beare his cross.

A Lenten Letany.

Composed for a confiding Brother, for the benefit and edification of the faithful Ones.

[The first part.]

From villany dress'd in the doublet of zeal,
Fom three Kingdoms bak'd in one commonweale,
From a gleek of Lord Keepers of one poor Seal
libera nos, &c.

132

From a Chancery-writ, and a whip and a bell,
From a Justice of Peace that never could spell,
From Colonel P. and the Uicar of Hell
Libera nos, &c.

From Neat's feet without socks and three-penny Pyes,
From a new sprung light that will put out ones eyes,
From Goldsmiths Hall, the Devil and Excize
Libera nos, &c.

From two hours talk without one word of sense,
From liberty still in the future tense,
From a Parliament long-wasted conscience,
Libera nos, &c.

From a Coppid crown-Tenent prickd up by a Brother,
From damnable members and fits of the Mother,
From eares like Oysters that grin at each other,
Libera nos, &c.

From a Preacher in buff, and a quarter-staff steeple,
From th'unlimited soveraign power of the People,
From a Kingdom that crawls on its knees like a Creeple,
Libera nos, &c.

133

From a vinegar Priest on a Crab-tree stock,
From a foddering of prayer four hours by the Clock,
From a holy Sister with a pittiful Smock.
Libera nos, &c.

From a hunger-starv'd Sequestrators maw,
From Revelations and Visions that never man saw,
From Religion without either Gospel or Law,
Libera nos, &c.

From the Nick and Froth of a penny pothouse,
From the Fidle and Cross, and a great Scotch-Louse,
From Committees that chop up a man like a Mouse.
Libera nos, &c.

From broken shins and the bloud of a Martyr
From the titles of Lords and Knights of the Garter,
From the teeth of Mad-dogs and a Countrymans quarter.
Libera nos, &c.

From the Publique Faith and an egg & butter,
From the Irish purchases and all their clutter,
From Omega's nose when he fettles to sputter,
Libera nos, &c.

134

From the zeale of old Harry lock'd up with a Whore
From waiting with plaints at the Parliament dore,
From the death of a King without why or wherefore,
Libera nos, &c.

From the French disease and the Puritane fry,
From such as nere swear but devoutly can lye,
From cutting of capers full three story high,
Libera nos, &c.

From painted glass and Idolatrous cringes,
From a Presbyters Oath that turnes upon hinges,
From Westminster Jews with Levitical fringes,
Libera nos &c.

From all that is said, and a thousand times more,
From a Saint and his charity to the Poor,
From the plagues that are kept for a Rebel in store.
Libera nos, &c.

The second part.

That if it may please thee to assist
Our Agitators and heir list,
And Hemp them with a gentle twist.
Quæsumus te, &c.

135

That it may please thee to suppose
Our actions are as good as those
That gull the people through the nose,
Quæsumus te, &c.

That it my please thee here to enter
And fix the rumbling of our center,
For we live all at peradventure,
Quæsumus te, &c.

That it may please thee to unite
The flesh and bones unto the sprite,
Else faith and literature good night.
Quæsumus te, &c.

That it may please thee ô that wee
May each man know his Pedigree,
And save that plague of Heraldrie,
Quæsumus te, &c.

That it may please thee in each Shire,
Citties of refuge Lord to reare
That failing Brethren may know where,
Quæsumus te, &c.

That it may please thee to abhor us,
Or any such dear favour for us
That thus have wrought thy peoples sorrows,
Quæsumus te, &c.

That it may please thee to embrace
Our dayes of thanks and fasting face,
For robing of thy holy place.
Quæsumus te, &c.

136

That it may please thee to adjourn
The day of judgment, least we burn,
For lo it is not for our turn,
Quæsumus te, &c.

That it may please thee to admit
A close Commitee there to sit,
No devil to a humane wit,
Quæsumus te, &c.

That it may please thee to dispence
A litle for convenience,
Or let us play upon the sense,
Quæsumus te, &c.

That it may please thee to embalm
The Saints in Robin wisdom's Psalm,
And make them musical and calm.
Quæsumus te, &c.

That it may please thee since tis doubt
Satan cannot throw Satan out,
Unite us and the Highland rout.
quæsumus te, &c.

A Hue and Cry

after the Reformation.

When Temples lye like batter'd Quarrs,
Rich in their ruin'd Sepulchers,
When Saints forsake their painted glass
To meet their worship as they pass,

137

When Altars grow luxurious with the dye
Of humane bloud,
Is this the floud
Of Christianity?
When Kings are cup-boarded like cheese,
Sights to be seen for pence a piece,
When Dyadems like brokers tyre
Are custom'd reliques set to hire
When Soverainty and Scepters loose their names
Stream'd into words
Carv'd out by swords
Are these refining flames?
When subjects and Religion stir
Like Meteors in the Metaphor,
When zealous hinting and the yawn
Excize our Miniver and Lawn
When blue digressions fill the troubled ayre
And th'Pulpit's let
To every Set
That will usurp the chair?
Call yee me this the night's farewel
When our noon day's as darke as Hell?
How can we less than term such lights
Ecclesiastick Heteroclites?
Bold sons of Adam when in fire you crawle
Thus high to bee
Perch'd on the tree
Remember but the fall.
Was it the glory of a King
To make him great by suffering?

138

Was there no way to build God's House
But rendring of it infamous?
If this be then the merry ghostly trade?
To work in gall?
Pray take it all
Good brother of the blade.
Call it no more the Reformation
According to the new translation,
Why will you wrack the common brain
With words of an unwonted strain?
As plunder? or a phrase in senses cleft?
When things more nigh
May well supply
And call it down right theft.
Here all the School-men and Divines
Consent, and swear the naked lines
Want no expounding or contest,
Or Bellarmine to breake a jest.
Since then the Heroes of the pen with mee
Nere scrue the sense
With difference,
We all agree agree.

A Committee.

Cast Knaves my Masters, fortune guide the chance,
No packing I beseech you, no by-glance
To mingle pairs, but fairly shake the bag,
Cheats in their sphæres like subtle spirits wag.

139

Or if you please the Cards run as they will,
There is no choice in sin and doing ill.
Then happy man by's dole, luck makes the ods,
He acts most high that best out-dares the gods.
These are that Raw-bon'd Herd of Pharoahs Kine
Which eat up all your fatlings, yet look lean.
These are the after-claps of bloudy showres
Which like the Scots come for your gude and yours
The gleaners of the field, where, if a man
Escape the sword that milder frying-pan,
He leaps into the fire, cramping clawes
Of such can speak no English but the cause.
Under that foggy term, that Inquisition,
Y' are wrack'd at all adventures On suspition.
No matter what's the crime, a good estate's
Dilinquency enough to ground their hate.
Nor shall calm innocence so scape, as not
To be made guilty, or at least so thought.
And if the spirit once inform, beware,
The flesh and world but renegadoes are.
Thus once concluded, out the Teazers run
All in full cry and speed till Wat's undone.
So that a poor Dilinquent fleec'd and torn
Seems like a man that's creeping through a horn.
Findes a smooth entrance, wide and fit, but when
Hee's squeez'd and forc'd up through the smaler end,

140

Hee looks as gaunt and prin, as he that spent
A tedious twelve years in an eager Lent.
Or bodyes at the Resurection are
On wing, just rarifying into ayre.
The Emblem of a man, the pitied Case
And shape of some sad being once that was.
The Type of flesh and bloud, the skeleton
And superficies of a thing that's gone.
The winter quarter of a life, the tinder
And body of a corps squeez'd to a cinder
When no more tortures can be thought upon
Mercy shall flow into oblivion.

Mercyful Hell! thy Judges are but three,
Ours multiform, and in pluralitie.
Thy calmer censures flow without recal,
And in one doom soules see their final all.
We travel with expectance: Suffrings here
Are but the earnests of a second fear.
Thy pains and plagues are infinite, tis true
Ours are not only infinite but new.
So that the dread of what's to come exceeds
The anguish of that part already bleeds.
This only difference swells twixt us and you,
Hell has the kinder Devils of the two.

141

On the happy Memory of Alderman Hoyle that hang'd himself.

All haile fair fruit! may every crab-tree bear
Such blosoms, and so lovely every year!
Call yee me this the slip? marry 'tis well,
Zacheus slip'd to Heaven, the Thief to Hell,
But if the Saints thus give's the slip, tis need
To look about us to preserve the breed.
Th'are of the running game, and thus to post
In nooses blancks the reckning with their Host.
Here's more than Trussum cordum I suppose
That knit this knot, guilt seldom singly goes.
A wounded soule close coupled with the sense
Of sin payes home its proper recompence.

But hark you Sir, if hast can grant the time?
See you the danger yet what tis to climbe
In Kings prerogatives? things beyond just
When Law seems bribed to doom them must be truss'd.
But ô I smell your plot strong through your hose,
Twas but to cheat the Hang-man of your cloaths,
Else your more active hands had fairly stay'd
The leasure of a Psalm: Judas has pray'd.
But later crimes cannot admit the pause,
They run upon effects more than the cause.

142

Yet let me ask one question, why alone?
One member of a corporation?
Tis clear amongst Divines, bodys and souls
As jointly active, so their judgment rowles
Concordant in the sentence; why not so
In earthly suffrings? States attended goe.
But I perceive the knack: Old women say
And bee't approv'd, each dog should have his day.

Hence sweep the Almanack: Lilly make room,
And blanks enough for the new Saints to come,
All in Red letters: as their faults have bin
Scarlet, so limbe their Anniverse of sin.
And to their childrens credits and their wives
Be it still said they leap fair for their lives.

On Clarinda Praying.

As when the early Lark, wak'd by the tears
Of sweet Aurora blushing through the sphærs
Mounts on her silver wings, and towres the skies
To offer up her morning Sacrifice
To her great Diety the Sun: and sings
The Anthems of her joy to court the springs:

143

So here Clarinda rescued from the night
Of soul-contracting slumber, takes her flight
Into the azure heavens, and prevents
The vulgar sullying of the elements
By a most holy hast, and stoops to fly
To the great Master of requests on high.

No sooner was she bended on her knees
But lo a cloud of Angels simpathize,
And strive to catch her prayers and convey
Her sacred breathings ore the Milky-way.
Pardon me (Reader) if I here aver
That holy contestation bred by her
Amongst those Hierarchies Cælestial
Almost engaged them to a Second Fall.
But such was the sweet plenty, such the floud
Of her rich soul, each Angel had his load:
Some charged with a sigh, some with a tear,
Each one was busied though not burd'ned there.

Yet blessed Saint why why such streams of brine?
Sure 'twas for others, for no sin of thine?
Those christal beads perhaps dropt for my crimes,
Or else in pious charity for the Times?
Those sacred gales of grief sufficient bee
To waft whole worlds into eternitie.
No need of Sailes or Pilot there was here,
They knew the channel to the heavenly eare,
Only the officious Seraphims to woo
A greater glory would be medling too

144

O had but Sodom found in her sad state
So dear! so prevalent an advocate!
The brimstone of her Judgments had not burn'd,
But all her fire had into incense turn'd.
Or had these Noah's drunken world forerun,
The Ark had kept the woods, nor had the Sun
Bin shut up: But the floud-gates of the deep
Had lull'd themselves in a perpetual sleep.

Smell't you the Phœnix when she dying lyes
Raising her issue from her obsequies?
Embalm'd in her own ashes? so divine
So pretious was the perfume of each line
Sayl'd through the rubie Portal of her lips,
And now ore the cælestial Ocean trips.

Saw you a pearl clos'd in an amber womb?
Glowing and sparkling through its courser tombe?
So radiantly transparent shin'd her soul,
Which she in Holy blasphemy term'd foul,
And therefore challeng'd tears to wash that hue
And stain of owned guilt she never knew.
O Adam hadst thou liv'd thus long to bee
Made happy in thy late posteritie?
Thou mightst have seen that Innocence again
Which thy too slippery hands could not retain!

Thus thus she clasp'd her God with pious zeal,
With melting Rhetorick, till he vow'd to heal
The wounds in Sion: For in her there were
No objects for the balm of one poor tear.

145

But least the general works of Providence
Should ravish'd stop their courses in suspence:
In pitty to the whole Creation, shee
Grew silent, least their destiny should bee
Scored on her harmless piety. O so
Though yet with much regret she let him goe.

On Clarinda Singing.

As when the Swan, that warbling Prophetess
Of her approaching death, begins to ghess
The fatal minute near, summons up all
The raptures of her soul to guild her fall,
Wracking her throat into variety
Of different Diapazons sweet as hie,
Then sings her Epicedium to that night
Of darkness whence she never more takes flight.

So my Clarinda sporting with her rare
Harmonious Organs fill'd the ravish'd Ayre
With soul-transporting notes, as though she meant
To breathe the world into astonishment.
Had the bright Lady of the flouds bin by
She had bin silently content to dy,
Finding her self so rivall'd in each strain,
But that Clarinda lives to sing again.

If ever Artist wrought so high a key
To steal a man even from himself away,

146

And winde him up to heaven in a dream
Not knowing how, or when, or whence he came?
So slipp'd my soul: But thanks dear Soveraign
Thou pull'dst me safely down to thee again.

Had Thracian Orpheus with his feather'd Quire,
And Rendezvouz of brute bin present here
The wondring Bard had suffer'd with the rest,
Winged amazement, or at least turn'd beast.
So winningly did she dissolve the sense
In thousand labyrinths of joy, from whence
The captiv'd soul could no more hope to see
Releasment than time in eternitie.
But that that voyce exhaled it from its earth
Proved merciful, and gave it second birth.

With holy reverence let me dare to say
Angels thus cloathe their Halelujah.
Thus Mercury to reach Jove's mayden prize
Charm'd all the guards and rounds of Argus eyes.
Thus Philomel to drown the chirping wood,
Melts all her sugard forces to a floud.
Thus heaven's high consort bless'd the breaking day
When the sweet Baby in a manger lay.
The Wisemen, had they heard this sacred strain,
Had ventur'd to have offer'd once again,
Though neither spice nor myrrh: What then I pray:
Even moping gravely to have loss'd their way.

147

For that great constellation of her light
Had sunck their lanthorn star in endless night.
But yet how sweetly had they stray'd? when shee
Makes it no less than heaven where ere she be?

O had you seen how the small birds did creep,
And dance from bough to bough! then stand and peep
Through the green lattice of the trees, to see
The instrument of that rich harmonie!
And how the active grass there carpeted
Contended which should first thrust up its head,
And wake th'enammel'd circle of the Bower
To hasten forth each pretty drooping flower,
That in a radiant Coronet they might meet
To weave gay buskins for Clarinda's feet!
T'would puzle a strong fancy here to prove
Which did exceed their envy or their love.
But I shall range no further in dispute,
The way to speak her worth is to be mute.
For when that voyce clos'd her angelick song,
To paraphrase would prove a double wrong.

Platonique Love.

Begon fantastick whimsey, hence begon.
I slight thy dreams, I'me no Camelion.

148

Nor can I feed on Ayry smoaky blisses,
Or bayt my strong desire with smiles and kisses,
Old Tantalus as well may surfet on
The flying streames by contemplation.

Give me a minute's heaven with my love,
Where I may roule in pleasures far above
The idle fancy of the soul's embrace,
Where my swift hand may ravish all the grace
Of beauties wardrop, where the longing Bride
May feast her fill, yet nere be satisfied.

Blaspheme not Love with any other name
Than an enjoyment kindled from the flame
Of panting brests, mix'd in a sweet desire
Of somthing more than barely to admire.
‘Though sighs and signes may make the pulses beate,
‘Action's the bellowes that preserve the heat.

If all content were placed in the eye,
And thoughts compriz'd the whole felicity?
Pictures might court each other, & exchange
Their white-lime looks, wo hard, and yet seem strange,
‘No, Love requires a quick and home embrace.
‘Nor can it dwell for ever on the face.

‘What ever glories Nature's tender care
‘Compiles to make a piece divinely rare,
‘Th'are but the sweet allurements of the eye
‘Fix'd on a stage to catch the standers by.

149

‘Or like rich Signes exposed to open sight
‘To tempt the Traveller to stay all night.

Yield then (my chast Clarinda) once to see
The sweet Mæander of Love's libertie.
And seale thy thoughts a grant to understand
The welcome pleasures of a wife well mann'd.
For all the sweets mistaken in a kiss
Are but the empty circumstance of this.

So shall a full content wipe out the score
Of all our sorrows that have pass'd before.
Not a sad sigh shall scape unsatisfied
Which in its master's passion wept and dyed.
But like a Sea made subject to our Oares
Wee'le hoise up Saile and touch the wished Shoares.

A Sigh.

Fly thou pretty active part
To the Mistris of my heart,
Shew her how the tedious night
Sadly wastes without delight,
How my waking soule devides
The silent day twixt ebbs and tides
Of hope and feare: How Love in mee
Knows no measure or degree.
Tell her all my feigned dreames
Of her enjoyment, which in gleames
Of wished bliss I seem'd to see
But waking prov'd a fallacie;

150

Contriv'd by death to kill a Swain
More than half already slain.

Tell her all my secret fears,
What a length's in seaven years,
And that my grief well understood
Is worse by far than widdow-hood.
How to see and not partake
Is but dying for her sake.

Tell her more than I dare say,
Yet can think as well as they
That feel the freedom of that heat
Which I in contemplation beat.
And let her know Love more delights
In action than in appetites.

Tell her burial and a wife
Untouched, are both things without life.
And that too many heats and cold
Will make the best complexion old.
And when poor beauty's past its prime
The rest is but asleeping time.

Tell her all those heights and graces
Which are built in female faces
Like the Orbes without their motions
Are but glorious pittyed notions.
And in short without deceit
Love cannot for ever wait.

Pray her, pray her quickly yield,
Uenus joy's to loose the field,

151

And in fetter'd twines to lie
Working through love's Misterie.
Where in thousand winding wayes
She can twist the lover's maze.

Where with pleasing losse and pain
Ladyes clip and to't again,
Mixing fresh with flames half gone,
Joyes first felt then thought upon.
Tell her if she this deny
Love only fed with ayre must dy.

Ask her whether groans and charms
Mid-night walks and folded armes
Be all she meant when first she slew
My silly heart at second view?
And if a life be spent in wooing
Where's the time reserv'd for doing?

Now little sigh if she at last
Chide and check thee with a cast
Of angry looks, like one that comes
To kindle love in sullen Tombes?
Return to me my pretty dear,
And I will hide thee in a tear.

Love's Farewell.

Fond Love adiew, I loath thy tyranny.
Strive now no more to kill me with an eye,
Or that we call
Thy pastime, but our thrall.

152

I see thy cruelty, and moan the dayes
My fetter'd heart lay doting on thy praise.

If an unconstant look be all the grace
Attends the pleasure of thy wanton chase?
I'me none of thine
Nor will adore thy shrine.
I prize the freedom of a single hour
More than the sugar'd tortures of thy power.

If floods of brinish tears be all thy drink?
And the whol man confined to gaze & think?
If groans and sighs
Be still thy sacrifice?
I'le rather quench the flames of my desire,
Then at thine Altar languish and expire.

No, I suppos'd thy guilded baytes to bee
As reall blisses as they seem'd to mee.
But now I finde
They captivate the minde,
And 'slave the soul to endlesse proofs of joy,
Which in the end are pills but to destroy.

Wound me no more: I'me tyred with daily dying,
Refrain thy dull delayes and bitter trying
Of my sad heart
Slain by thy dart
If this be all my crop of hopes and fears?
My love my God shall have, my sins my tears.

Free me this once, and when I come to bee
The pris'ner of a second miserie.

153

Bring all thy chains
And wracks of horrid pains,
I'le willingly embrace the dreadful chance,
And court my death as a deliverance.

Whisper no more there's faith in woman-kinde,
Or any fixed thought to strike me blinde.
When each new face
Their fickle vows unlace.
And each strange object that attempts their eye,
Bribes all their sense into variety.

Give me a heart of such a sollid frame
Breathes above changes, and is still the same.
I like no wits
That flow by antique fits.
Nor such a whiffling love whos wandring fire
Is guided by a weather-cock desire.

Give me a Mistris whose diviner minde
Speaks her descended of the heavenly kinde,
Whose gloryes are
No borrow'd tinsel ware,
Let her be yce to all the world, but such
As waxe to me that melts upon the touch.

Call not that chastity that's proud disdain,
Nor plead them honest that in shew refrain,
Lust has that trick,
And stews such Rhetorick,
Only to raise the standard of their price,
And steal a verteous paint by seeming nice.

154

No, I abhor those poor religious blindes,
Which aime to sequester our eyes & mindes,
Love has no mask,
Nor can it frown or ask,
But in a sweet consent moves every way
With its dear object like the Sun and day.

No, either love me still or not at all,
I like no passions that can rise and fall,
No humours please
In this conceal'd disease,
But if my Mistris strive to catch my will,
The Lawrel is attain'd by standing still.

Once more I tempt thy pitty (Dearest Love)
And if these tears can no compassion move,
I'le scorn thee more
Than I have lov'd before.
And stanck up the salt Conducts of mine eyes
To watch thy shame, & weep mine obsequies.

Christmas Day;

Or the Shutle of an inspired Weaver bolted against the Order of the Church for its Solemnity.

Christ-mass? give me my beads: The word implies
A plot, by its ingredients Beef and Pyes.
A feast Apocryphal, a popish rite
Kneaded in dough (beloved) in the night.
The night (beloved) that's as much to say
(By late translations) not in the day.

155

An annual dark-lanthorn Jubile,
Catesby and Uaulx baked in conspiracie,
The Hierarchie of Rome, the Triple Crown
Confess'd in Triangles, then swallow'd down,
With spanish Sack? The eighty eight Armado
Newly presented in an Ovenado.
O Calvin! now my Cause upon thee fixes,
Were ere such dregs mix'd with Geneva sixes?
The cloyster'd steaks with salt and pepper lye
Like Nunnes with patches in a Monastrie:
Prophaneness in a Conclave? nay much more
Idolatrie in crust! Babylon's Whore
Raked from the grave, and baked by hanches, then
Serv'd up in coffins to unholy men
Defiled with superstition, like the Gentiles
Of old, that worship'd Onions, Roots and Lentiles!
Did ever John of Leyden prophecy
Of such an Antichrist as pudding-pye?
Beloved tis a thing when it appears
Enough to set the Saints all by the ears
In solving of the text, a doubtfull sin
Reformed Churches nere consented in.

But hold (my Brethren) while I preach and pray
Me thinks the Manna melts and wasts away,
I am a man as all you are, have read
Of Peter's sheet, how he devoutly fed
Without exception, therefore to dispence
A little with the worm of conscience.

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And bend unto the creature, I profess,
Zeal and a Pye may joyn both in a mess.
The dearest sons may erre, then why a sinner
May I not eat? since HUGH eat three to dinner?

Good Fryday.

What sable Cypress maskes the glorious Sun?
Rivalls the world? and robs us of our Noon?
What Ague cramps the earth? whereas time fled?
Why groan the graves? is nature vanished?
Or musty shrivell'd heavens in one dread fire
Rowle up in flames? then languish and expire?
Some horrid change approaches, some sad guise,
Nature, or else the God of nature dyes?
Here's more than man in this, more than mankinde,
Death's in pursuance, or the world resign'd,
No common passion strikes mine eye, no fate
Less than the whole's extinction, or debate.
Angels stand trembling and amaz'd, the sphears
Cease their bless'd harmony, and turn all tears
Wrapp'd in a dreadful hush! so highly more
Is man's redemption than his birth before!

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To raise a world from nothing, and divide
Dull bodies from the thin and rarified
Speaks God in every close: But to renew
Those ruin'd attomes when confusion threw
The whole into a lumpish mass again,
This makes the lovely wonder soveraign.

To mould a man in clay, then quicken that
Dead body with a soule cooperate,
Argues a Reall Presence: But when sin
Has soyl'd that heavenly stamp, and chain'd it in
The fetters of damnation, to restore
That life in death transcends the love before.

O then behold and see if ever pain
Or anguish match'd that sorrow! when the slain
Of God bleeds on the Cross? when heaven descends
In bloud, to make man & the heavens friends?
Nay more, when man lay doom'd eternally,
To answer his own wrath, even God could dye!
And smile upon those Wounds, that Spear, that Grave,
Which our rebellions merited and gave!
This love exceeds all height: yet I confess
'Twas God that did it, how could it be less?

Easter Day.

How all the guard reliev'd? the Romans fled?
Those Basilisks that seeing conquered?

158

Heaven back my faith! what glorious Apparition
Shines in the vault? what angel like condition
Of Souldiers doe I see? surely my fear
Trebles the object, tis the Gardiner.
Flow out my tears: Th'have stollen the Lord away,
Come view the place whereas his body lay.
But yet behold the napkin, and the cloathes
Wrapp'd by themselves! in vain you take your Oaths
Hard hearted Jews. For ô hee's risen and gone
Why stand you gazing? what d'yee dote upon?
Peace be unto you. O now I hear his voyce,
Run Peter that thy spirit may rejoyce.
A greater Star than that out of the East
Which led the Wise-men rises in my brest.
See where he rides in tryumph! hell & death
Dragg'd at his chariot wheells, the powers beneath
Made groveling Captives, all their trophies bring
Slaves to the lawrels of the glorious King.
Nay sin and the dull grave make up the crowd
Though base, yet all pris'ners at war allowd.

Ride on brave Prince of Souls, enlarge thy bayes
Tis thy own work alone to kill & raise,
Dying to vanquish death and by thy fall
To be the Resurrection of us all.

Flow hither all believers, yee that sow
In tears, and in a veile but darkly know,

159

Stretch hither the distrustfull hand and feel
Th'impressions of the nails and barbed steel.
But yet forbear, his word must be attended
Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended.
However feast your eyes, behold the Star
Of Jacob, Israel's deliverer.
This boon to begging Moses hee'd not give,
But now frail man may See his God and live.

Here's extasie of joy enough, that when
Our sins conspired with ungodly men
To crucifie the Lord of life, and kill
His innocency by our doing ill,
He yet survives the gall of bitterness,
Nor was his soul forsaken in distress,
But having led Captivitie in chains
He burst the bonds of death, and lives, and reigns,
And this revives our souls there's yet agen
A Monarchy beyond the reach of men.

Holy Thursday.

As when the glorious Sun veil'd and disguis'd
(As by the shaddowes of the night surpris'd)
Disrobes his sable dress, and reasumes
The beauty of its splendor from the Tombes
And vaults of darkness, mounts the dapled skyes
And guilds the heavenly wardrop as he flyes:

160

So here the Majesty of God conceal'd
Under a mortal mantle, unreveal'd
Till the predestin'd day of its disclose,
Sublim'd its earth, and in full lustre rose,
Joy'd with the shouts of Angels, and the quire
Of Cherubims made happyer to admire.

Me thinks I hear the arched sphears resound
The Pæans of the Saints, and give them round
The tyres of heaven, like claps of thunder rowl'd
From pole to pole, and doubled as they fould.
Such a diffusive glory, that we see
Each Saint triumphant in his victorie.

But is he gone for ever from our eyes?
Will he no more return? shall we not rise?
Or must that cloud that closed him from our sight
Stand a partition wal between the light
Of his eternal day and our dull shades?
O that's a horror kills as it invades!

No. There's a hope yet left, a sure record
Of mercy undenyable, his Word.
Nay more his faithful Promise: I'le not leave
You comfortless. And can the Lord deceive?
See there his hand and seal: And if you please
T'admit the voyce of Angels to encrease
An Infant faith? As you have seen him goe
So he shall come again: Believe it so.
Rejoyce then (ô my soul) that as thou art
Rescued from death, and glorified in part,

161

So thy Redeemer lives, and that hee's gone
Hence to prepare thy heavenly mansion
And when the trembling hearts of them that slew
And peirct his pretious body quake to view
The terror of his glorious return,
When time shall be no more, the heavens burn,
Earth crumble into ashes, and the dead
Wak'd by th'Archangles voice dissepulcred,
And catchd up in the clouds, thy greater bliss
Shall meet thy sweet Redeemer with a kiss,
And with their eyes his glittering court survey
In all the garb of that tryumphant day.

Yet so demean thy self in this his dear
And pittied absence as if present here.
That at his second comming, Sans all grudg
He may return thy Saviour as thy judge.

Whitsunday.

What strange noise strikes mine eare? what suddain sound?
As though the rowling windes were all unbound
And met at once, by one joynt fury hurld
To overturn the hinges of the world?
This Scæne fore-runs some dreadfull Act to come,
Some greater wonder issuing from the womb
Of Providence than what has pass'd our eye?
Sure there's no second Son of God to dye?
Nor summons to the dead once more to rise
And scare the bloudy City's Sacrifice?

162

Nor does the chearfull Sun dance through the sphears
As though he meant to fetch his last carrears?
Time's not so near its Exit? nor the fall
And conflagration of this circled Ball?

But yet behold a fire! most contrary
To its own nature posting from on high!
Kindling a sad suspition, cleft in rayes
As though design'd to catch all sorts of waies!
Sure tis no wanton flame, such whifling Lights
Quench with the night-mark of tempestuous nights,
Not daring to attempt the daye's bright eye
To judge their non-existent frippery.
No, this descends more stayd, reach'd from above,

‘O 'tis the very God of peace and love!
But how so strange devided? can there bee
Twelve parts like Tribes couch'd in the dietie?
That it appears multipartite? in th'dress
Of Cloven Tongues? what tongue can this express?
Yet though it seems in Sections to appear
Most like the soul 'Tis wholly every where.
The Spirit's omnipresent, nor can bee
Confin'd to number, measure, or degree.
But why in fire? and such myrac'lous flame?
Fix'd on a stay, yet not consume the same?
Are men like Moses bush? can bodyes burn
Insensible? and not to ashes turn?

163

The wonder's great! but not so deep as high.
‘Nature must needs leave work, when God stands by.

Descend on me Great God! but in such fire
May not consume, but kindle my desire.
Descend on me in flames! but such as move
Winged by th'inspiration of the Dove.
Descend in Cloven Tongues! such as dispence
No double meanings in a single sense.

Hence all you wilde pretenders, you that blaze
Like Meteors lapp'd in zeal, and dance the maze
Of non-conformity in antique fits,
Yea even from your selves curss'd Hereticks;
Light not your frighted censors here: no Quaker,
Frisker, Baboon, or Antinomian shaker
Must fire his brand from hence, the Spirit claims
No holder-forth that dwells on second aimes;
But Comes t'reprove the worlds Judaick press
Of Sin, of Judgment, and of Righteousness.

No strange fanatick spark that gaping flyes
And leaves its Audience skared with extasies.
No Skipper in divinity, no Hinter,
No radled Cardinal, no dreaming minter
Of words and faces, no Quire of the Brisle,
No squib, no squeaker of the puny grisle
Approach this glory: For the beauteous Sun
Admits no maskers till the day be done.
No Chymical St. Martins pass the Test
Till the pure Oare's exild, or gone to rest.

164

Shine out bright God, dispel these smoaky foggs
Of schisme and heresie that smears and clogs
The chariot of thy Gospell, that truth may
Break forth in its own glosse and proper ray.
That the Blue-apron'd Crackers of the times.
Those wilde-fire Rockets, whose ambition climbes
To wound the world with broils, set all on fire,
And sink a glorious Church through base desire,
May dwindle to their bulks, and there indite
Long small-drink Anthems of the Saints good night.
While it contents the boyes to nod at last
November and my Ld. Mayors day are past.

A short Ejaculation Upon that truly worthy Patron of the Law Sr. John Bridgman Kt. and Lord Chief Justice of Chester and the Marshes of Wales deceased.

Shall all the Tribes of Israel thirty dayes
Mourn for the death of Moses? and so raise
Their doubled cryes to heaven, and bemoan
The Light of Jacob in a Tomb unknown.
And Bridgman set obscurely? can the Sun
Withdraw its radiant splendor at high noon,
And the whole world not stand amaz'd to see
Their glory swallow'd in eternitie?

165

Can the bright soul of Justice mount the skyes
And we not fear a Deluge from our eyes?

Such was thy sad departure, such thy flight
Into the spangled heavens, that the night
Of a more sad dispaire hath seiz'd our beams,
And left us nothing but our brackish streams
To offer at thy shrine: And in those showers
We state the day, and steep the slow-pac'd hours.

Hence let the Law be canoniz'd no better
Than a meer corps of words, a bare dead letter,
In thee the life departed: In thy dust
Lies raked the hand & sense of right and just.

What yet survives, or rather what presents
It's seeming face cloath'd in thine ornaments,
'Tis but Elias Mantle (though unknown)
Dropt to work wonder, but the Prophet's gon.

166

Obsequies On that right Reverend Father in God John Prideaux late Bishop of Worcester deceased.

If by the fall of Luminaries wee
May safely ghuess the world's Catastrophe?
The signes are all fulfill'd, the Tokens flown,
(That scarce a man has any of his own)
Only the Jewes conversion some doubt bred,
But that's confuted now the Doctor's dead.

Great Atlas of Religion! since thy fate
Proclaims our loss too soon, our tears too late,
Where shall the bleeding Church a Champion gain
To grasp with Heresie? Or to maintain
Her conflict with the Devil? For the ods
Runs bias'd six to four against the Gods.
Hell lists amain, nay and th'engagement flies
With wing'd Zeal through all the Sectaries,

167

That should she soundly into question fall,
We were within a Uote of none at all.
But can this hap upon a single death?
Yes: For thou wert the treasure of our breath.
That pious Arch whereon the building stood
Which broke, the whole's devolv'd into a floud
An inundation that ore-bears the banks
And bounds of all religion: If some stancks
Shew their emergent heads? Like Seth's famed stone
Th'are monuments of thy devotion gone!
No wonder then the rambling Spirits stray
In thee the body fell, and slipp'd away.

Hence 'tis the Pulpit swells with exhalations.
Intricate nonsense travel'd from all Nations,
Notions refined to doubts, & maxims squeez'd
With tedious hick-ups till the sense growes freez'd.
If ought shall chance to drop we may call good,
Tis thy distinction makes it understood.
Thy glorious Sun made ours a perfect day,
Our influence took its being from thy ray.
Thine was that Gedeon's fleece, when all stood dry,
Pearl'd with cælestial dew showr'd from on high.
But now thy night is come our shades are spread,
And living here we move among the dead.

168

Perhaps an Ignis fatuus now and then
Starts up in holes, stincks and goes out agen.
Such Kicksee winsee flames shew but how dear
Thy great Light's resurrection would be here.
A Brother with five loaves and two smal fishes,
A table-book of sighs, and looks, and wishes,
Startles religion more at one strong doubt,
Than what they mean when as the candle's out.

But I profane thy ashes (gratious soul)
Thy spirit flew too high to truss these foul
Gnostick opinions. Thou desired'st to meet,
Such tenents that dust stand upon their feet,
And beard the Truth with as intens'd a zeal
As Saints upon a fast night quilt a meal.

Rome never trembled till thy peircing eye
Darted her through, and crush'd the mysterie.
Thy Revelations made St. John's compleat,
Babylon fell indeed, but 'twas thy sweat
And oyle perform'd the work: to what we see
Foretold in misty types, broke forth in thee.

Some shallow lines were drawn, and sconces made
By smatterers in the Arts, to drive a trade
Of words between us, but that proved no more
Than threats in cowing feathers to give ore.
Thy fancy laid the Siedg that wrought her fall,
Thy batteries commanded round the wall:

169

Not a poor loop-hole error could sneak by,
No not the Abbess to the Friery,
Though her disguise as close and subtly good
As when she wore the Monk's hose for a hood.
And if perhaps their French or Spanish wine
Had fill'd them full of beads and Bellarmine,
That they durst salley, or attempt a guard,
O! how thy busy brain would beat & ward?
Rally? and reinforce? rout? and relieve?
Double reserves? And then an onset give
Like marshall'd thunder back'd with flames of fire?
Storms mixt with storms? Passion with globes of ire?
Yet so well disciplin'd that judgment still
Sway'd, and not rash Commissionated will.
No, words in thee knew order, time, & place,
The instant of a charge, or when to face;
When to pursue advantage, where to halt,
When to draw off, and where to re-assault.
Such sure commands stream'd from thee, that 'twas one
With thee to vanquish as to look upon.
So that thy ruin'd Foes groveling confesse
Thy conquests were their fate and happinesse.

Nor was it all thy business here to war
With forreign forces: But thy active star
Could course a home-bred mist, a native sin,
And shew its guilt's degrees how, & wherein;
Then sentence and expel it: Thus thy sun
An everlasting stage in labour run;

170

So that its motion to the eye of man
Waved still in a compleat Meridian.

But these are but fair comments of our loss,
The glory of a Chruch now on the Cross:
The transcript of that beauty once we had
Whiles with the lustre of thy presence clad.
But thou art gone (Brave Soul) & with thee all
The gallantry of Arts Polemical.
Nothing remains as Primitive but talk,
And that our Priests again in Leather walk.
A Flying ministerie of horse and foot,
Things that can start a text but nere come to't.
Teazers of doctrines, which in long-sleev'd prose
Run down a Sermon all upon the nose.
These like dull glow-worms twinckle in the night,
The frighted Land-skips of an absent light.

But thy rich flame's withdrawn, heaven caught thee hence,
Thy glories were grown ripe for recompence:
And therefore to prevent our weak essaies
Th'art crown'd an Angel with cælestial Bayes.
And there thy ravish'd Soul meets field and fire,
Beauties enough to fill its strong desire.
The contemplation of a present God,
Perfections in the womb, the very road
And Essensies of vertues as they bee
Streming and mixing in Eternitie.

Whiles we possess our souls but in a veyle,
Live earth confined, catch heaven by retaile,

171

Such a dark-lanthorn age, such jealous dayes,
Men tread on Snakes, sleep in Bataliaes,
Walk like Confessors, hear, but must not say
What y bold world dares act, and what it may.
Yet here all votes, Commons and Lords agree,
The Crosier fell in Laud, the Church in thee.

On the death of his Royall Majesty Charles late King of England &c.

What went you out to see? a dying King?
Nay more, I fear an Angel suffering.
But what went you to see? A Prophet slain?
Nay that and more, a martyrd Soveraign.
Peace to that sacred dust! Great Sir our fears
Have left us nothing but obedient tears
To court your hearse; & in those pious flouds
We live, the poor remainder of our goods.
Accept us in these later obsequies
The unplundred riches of our hearts and eyes,
For in these faithful streams and emanations
W' are subjects still beyond all Sequestrations.
Here we cry more than Conquerours: malice may
Murder estates, but hearts will still obey
These as your glory's yet above the reach
Of such whose purple lines confusion preach.

And now (Dear Sir) vouchsafe us to admire
With envey your arrival, and that Quire

172

Of Cherubims and Angels that supply'd
Our duties at your tryumphs: where you ride
With full cælestial Iôes, and Ovations
Rich as the conquest of three ruin'd Nations.

But 'twas the heavenly plot that snath'd you hence,
To crown your soul with that magnificence
And bounden rights of honor, that poor earth
Could only wish and strangle in the birth.
Such pitied emulation stop'd the blush
Of our ambitious shame, non-suited us.
For where souls act beyond mortallity
Heaven only can performe that Jubilee.

We wrastle then no more, but bless your day
And mourn the anguish of our sad delay:
That since we cannot add, we yet stay here
Fettred in clay: Yet longing to appear
Spectators of your bliss, that being shown
Once more, you may embrace us as your own.
Where never envy shall devide us more,
Nor Citty tumults, nor the worlds uproar.
But an eternal hush, a quiet peace
As without end, so still in the increase
Shall lull humanity a sleep, and bring
Us equal subjects to the heavenly King.
Till when I'le turn Recusant, and forswear
All Calvin, for there's Purgatory here.

173

An Epitaph.

Stay Passenger: Behold and see
The widdowed grave of Majestie.
Why tremblest thou? Here's that will make
All but our stupid souls to shake.

Here lies entomb'd the sacred dust
Of Peace and Piety, Right and Just.
The bloud (O starrest not thou to hear?)
Of a King, 'twixt hope and fear
Shedd, and hurried hence to bee
The miracle of miserie.

Add the ills that Rome can boast.
Shrift the world in every coast,
Mix the fire of earth and seas
With humane spleen and practises,
To puny the records of time,
By one grand Gygantick crime,
Then swell it bigger till it squeeze
The globe to crooked hams and knees,
Here's that shall make it seem to bee
But modest Christianitie.

The Lawgiver, amongst his own,
Sentenc'd by a Law unknown.
Voted Monarchy to death
By the course Plebeian breath.
The Soveraign of all command
Suff'ring by a Common hand.

174

A Prince to make the odium more
Offer'd at his very door.
The head cut off, ô death to see't!
In obedience to the feet.
And that by Justice you must know,
If you have faith to think it so.
Wee'le stir no further then this sacred Clay,
But let it slumber till the Judgment day.
Of all the Kings on earth, 'tis not denyed,
Here lies the first that for Religion died.

A Survey of the World.

The World's a guilded trifle, and the state
Of sublunary bliss adulterate.
Fame but an empty sound, a painted noise,
A wonder that nere looks beyond nine dayes.
Honour the tennis-ball of fortune: Though
Men wade to it in bloud and overthrow;
Which like a box of dice uneven dance
Somtimes 'tis one's, somtimes another's chance.
Wealth but the hugg'd consumption of that heart
That travailes Sea & Land for his own smart.
Pleasure a courtly madness, a conceipt
That smiles and tickles without worth or weight
Whose scatter'd reck'ning when 'tis to be paid
Is but repentance lavishly in-layd.
The world, fame, honour, wealth, & pleasure then
Are the fair wrack and Gemonies of men.

175

Ask but thy Carnall heart if thou shouldst bee
Sole Monarch of the worlds great familie,
If with the Macedonian Youth there would
Not be a corner still reserv'd that could
Another earth contain? If so? What is
That poor insatiate thing she may call bliss?

Question the loaden Gallantry asleep
What profit now their Lawrels in the deep
Of death's oblivion? What their Triumph was
More than the moment it did prance & pass?
If then applause move by the vulgar crye,
Fame's but a glorious uncertainty.

Awake Sejanus, Strafford, Buckingham,
Charge the fond favourites of greatest name,
What faith is in a Prince's smile, what joy
In th'high & Grand Concilio le Roy?
Nay Cæsar's self, that march'd his Honours through
The bowels of all Kingdoms, made them bow
Low to the stirrop of his will and vote,
What safety to their Master's life they brought?
When in the Senate in his highest pride
By two and thirty wounds he fell and dyed?
If Height be then most subjected to fate?

‘Honour's the day-spring of a greater hate.
Now ask the Grov'ling soul that makes his gold
His Idol, his Diana, what a cold
Account of happiness can here arise
From that ingluvious surfet of his eys?

176

How ye whole man's inslaved to a lean dearth
Of all enjoyment for a little earth?
How like Prometheus he doth still repair
His growing heart to feed the Vultur care.
Or like a Spider's envious designes
Drawing the threds of death from her own loines.
Tort'ring his entrails with thoughts of to morrow,
To keep that masse with grief he gain'd with sorrow.
If to the clincking pastime in his ears
He add the Orphanes cries and widdows tears
The musick's far from sweet, and if you sound him
Truly, they leave him sadder than they found him.

Now touch the Dallying Gallant, he that lyes
Angling for babies in his Mistris eyes,
Thinks there's no heaven like a bale of dyce
Six Horses and a Coach with a device.
A cast of Lacquyes, and a Lady-bird,
An Oath in fashion, and a guilded Sword,
Can smoak Tobacco with a face in frame,
And speak perhaps a line of sense to th'same,
Can sleep a Sabboath over in his bed,
Or if his play book's there will stoop to read,
Can kiss its hand, and congey a la mode,
And when ye night's approaching bolt abroad,
Unless his Honour's worship's rent's not come;
So he fals sick, and swears the Carrier home.
Else if his rare devotion swell so high
To waste an hour-glasse on divinity,

177

Tis but to make the church his stage, thereby
To blaze the Taylor in his ribaldry.
Ask but the Jay when his distress shall fall
Like an arm'd man upon him, where are all
The rose-buds of his youth? those atick toyes
Wherein hee sported out his pretious dayes?
What comfort he collects from Hawk or Hound?
Or if amongst his looser hours, he found
One of a thousand to redeem that time
Perish'd and lost for ever in his prime?
Or if he dream'd of an eternal bliss?
Hee'le swear God damne him he nere thought of this.
But like the Epicure ador'd the day
That shin'd, rose up to eat, and drink, and play.
Knows that his body was but dust, and dye
It once must, so have mercy, and God b'wy.

Thus having traverss'd the fond world in brief,
The lust of th'eyes, the flesh, and pride of life,
Unbiass'd and impartially, we see
Tis lighter in the scale than vanitie.
What then remains? But that we stil should strive
Not to be born to dye, but dye to live.

An old Man Courting a young Girle.

Come beauteous Nymph, canst thou embrace
An aged, wise, majestick grace

178

To mingle with thy youthfull flames?
And make thy glories stayd? The Dames
Of looser gesture blush to see
Thy Lillies cloth'd with gravitie?
Thy happier choice? thy gentle Uine
With a sober Elm entwine?
Seal fair Nymph that lovely tye
Shall speak thy honour loud and high.
Nym:
Cease Grandsire Lover, and forbear
To court me with thy Sepulcher,
Thy chill December and my May,
Thy Evening and my Break of Day
Can brook no mixture, no condition,
But stand in perfect opposition.
Nor can my active heart embrace
A shivering Ague in love's chase.
Only perhaps the luky tye
May make thy forked fortune high.

Man:
If fretted roofs, and beds of down,
And the wonder of the Town,
Bended knees, and costly fare,
Richest dainties without care,
May temptatious motives bee
Here they all attend on thee,
And to raise thy blisse the more,
Swell thy Truncks with pretious Ore,
The glittering entrailes of the East
To varnish and perfume thy Nest.

179

Nym.
I question not Sage Sir but shee
That weds your grave obliquitie,
Your Tizick, Rhewms, and Soldans face
Shall meet with Fretted Roofs apace,
I fancy not your bended knees
Least bowing you can sprightly rise,
Your gold too when you leave to woo
Will quickly become Pretious too.
And dainty Cates without delight,
May glut the day but starve the night.
For when thou boasts the Beds of bliss,
The man, the man still wanting is.

Man.
Nay gentle Nymph think not my fire
So quench'd, but that the strong desire
Of love can wake it, and create
New action to cooperate.
The sparks of youth are not so gone,
But I—ay marry that I can.
Come smack mee then me pretty dear,
Tast what a lively change is here.
Why fly'st thou me?—

Nym.

—yce yce begon,
Clasp me not with thy Frozen Zone.
That pale aspect would best become
The sad complexion of a Tombe.
Think not thy Church-yard look shall moove
My spring to be thy Winter's Stove
If at the Resurrection wee
Shall chance to marry, call on mee

180

By that time I perhaps may ghuess
How to bathe and how to dress
Thy weeping legs and simpathise
With perish'd lungs and wopper eyes;
And think thy touchy passion wit,
Love disdain and flatter it;
And 'midst this costive punishment
Raise a politick content.

But whiles the Solstice of my years
Glories in its highest sphears,
Deem not, I will daign to be
The Vassal of infirmitie.
The skreen of flegmatick old age,
Decay'd Methusalem his page.
No, give me lively pleasures, such
Melt the fancy in the touch;
Raise the appetite, and more,
Satisfie it ore and ore.
Then from the ashes of those fires
Kindle fresh and new desires.
So Cyprus be the Scæne: Above
Venus and the God of love,
Knitting true-love-knots in one
Merry happy Union.
Whiles their feath'red team appears
Doves and Sparrows in their gears
Flutt'ring ore the jovial-frie
Sporting in love's Comœdie.

181

Man.
Hold hasty soul, beauty's a flower
That may perish in an hour,
No disease but can disgrace
The trifling blossoms of a face,
And nip the heights of those fond toyes
That now are doted on with praise.
The noon-glory of the Sun
To the shades of night must come.
May, for all her guilded prime
Has its weak and withering time.
Not a bud that owes its birth
From the teeming-mother earth
But excells the fading dress
Of a womans loveliness.
For when flowers vanish here
They may spring another year.
But frail beauty when 'tis gone
Findes no resurrection.
Scorn me then coy Nymph no more,
Fly no higher, doe not soare,
Those pretty rubies of thy lips
Once must know a pale Eclipse.
And that plump alluring skin
Will be furrow'd deeply in.
And those curled locks so bright
Time will all besnow with white.
Not a glory, not a glance,
But must suffer change and chance.
Then, though now you'l not contact
With me in the marriage Act,

182

Yet perforce chuse, chuse you whether
You and I shall Lye together.

An Epitaph on his deceased Friend.

Here lies the ruin'd Cabinet
Of a rich soul more highly set.
The drosse and refuse of a minde
Too glorious to be here confin'd.
Earth for a while bespake his stay
Only to bait and so away:
So that what here he doted on
Was meerly accommodation.
Not that his active soul could bee
At home, but in eternitie.
Yet while he blest us with the rayes
Of his short continued daies,
Each minute had its weight of worth,
Each pregnant hour some Star brought forth.
So whiles he travell'd here beneath
He liv'd, when others only breathe.
For not a sand of time slip'd by
Without its action sweet as high.
So good, so peacable, so blest,
Angels alone can speak the rest.

183

Mount Ida, or, Beauties Contest.

Three regent Goddesses they fell at odds,
As they sat close in councel with ye gods,
Whose beauty did excel? And thence they crave
A moderator of the strife to have,
But least the partiall heavens could not decide
The grudg, they stoop to Mortals to be try'd.

Mantled in clouds then gently down they fall
Upon Mount Ida to appease the brall,
Where Priam's lovely Boy sporting did keep
His Fathers lambes and snowy flocks of sheep,
His lilly hand was soon ordain'd to bee
The harmless Umpire of the fond decree.

To him, to him they gave the Golden Ball,
O happy goddess upon whom it fall!
But more unhappy Shepeard, was't not pitty
Thou didst not send it at a close Committee?
There, there thou hadst surpass'd what did befall,
Thou might'st have crowned One, yet pleased All.

First then Imperious Juno did display
Her coronet of glories to the Boy,
And rang'd her stars up in an arched ring
Of height and majesty most flourishing,
Then wealth and honour at his foot did lay
To be esteem'd the Lady of the day.

Next Pallas that brave Heroina came,
The thund'ring Queen of action, war & fame,

184

Dress'd in her glittering armes, wherewith she layes
Worlds wast, & new ones from their dust can raise,
These, these she tenders him, advanc'd to bee,
With all the wreaths of wit and gallantrie.

Last Venus breaks forth of her golden raies,
With thousand Cupids crown'd, ten thousand Boyes,
Sparkling through every quadrant of her eyes,
Which made her beauty in full glory rise:
Then smiling vow'd so to sublime his parts
To make him the great Conquerour of hearts.

Thus poor distracted Paris all on fire
Stood trembling deep in doubt what to desire,
The sweet temptations pleaded hard for all,
Each theatre of beauty seem'd to call
For the bright prize: but he amazed hee
Could not determine which, which, which was shee

At last the Cyprian Girle so strook him blinde
In all the faculties of soul and minde,
That he poor captiv'd wretch without delay
Could not forbear his frailty to betray,
But maugre honour, wisdom, all above,
He ran & kiss'd & crown'd the Queen of Love.

Pallas and Juno then in high disdain
Took snuff and posted up to heaven again,
As to a high Court of appeal, to bee
Reveng'd on men for this indignitie.

185

‘Hence then it happens that the Ball was lost
‘'Tis two to one but love is alwaies crost.

Upon a Flye that flew into a Lady's eye, and there lay buried in a tear.

Poor envious Soul! what couldst thou see
In that bright Orb of puritie?
That active globe? That twinkling sphear
Of beauty to be medling there?
Or didst thou foolishly mistake
The glowing morn in that day-break?
Or was't thy pride to mount so high
Only to kisse the Sun and dye?
Or didst thou think to rival all
Don Phaethon and his great fall?
And in a richer Sea of brine
Drown Icarus again in thine?
Twas bravely aim'd, and which is more
Th'hast sunck the fable ore and ore.
For in this single death of thee
Th'hast banqurrupt all Antiquitie.

O had the fair Ægiptian Queen
Thy glorious monument out seen,
How had she spared what time forbids
The needlesse tott'ring Pyramids!
And in an emulative chafe
Have begg'd thy shrine her Epitaph?
Where, when her aged marble must
Resigne her honour to the dust,

186

Thou mightst have canonized her
Deceased Time's Executor?

To ripp up all the western bed
Of spices where Sol layes his head,
To squeeze the Phœnix and her Nest
In one perfume that may write Best,
Then blend the gall'rie of the skyes
With her Seraglio of eyes,
T'embalm a name, and raise a Tombe
The miracle of all to come,
Then, then compare it: Here's a Gemm
A Pearl must shame and pitty them.
An amber drop, distlled by
The sparkling Limbeck of an eye,
Shall dazle all the short essaies
Of rubbish worth, and shallow praise.

We strive not then to prize that tear
Since we have nought to poise it here.
The world's too light. Hence, hence we cry
The world, the world's not worth a Fly.

Obsequies

To the memory of the truly Noble, right Valiant and right Honourable Spencer Earle of Northampton Slain at Hopton Field in Saffordshire in the beginning of this Civill War.

VVhat? The whole world in silence? Not a tear
In tune through all the speechless Hemisphære?

187

Has grief so seiz'd and sear'd man-kinde in all
The convoyes of Intellegence? No fall
But those of Waters heard? No Elegies
But such as whine through th'organs of our eyes?
Can Pompey fall again? And no Pen say
Here lies the Romane Liberty in clay?
Or can his bloud Boe-die th'Egiptian Sand,
And the black crime doe less than tann the land?
And make the Region instead of a verse
And tombe his sable Epitaph and Hearse?

So here Northampton that brave Heroe fell
Tryumphant Roman thy pure paralell,
The blush and glory of his Age: Who dyed
In all points happy, but the Weaker side.
Only to forreign parts he did not roam,
The kinde Egiptians met him nearer home.
Both, and such, Causes, that the world confess
There's nought to plead against them but Success.
Malignant Loyalty! a glorious fame
And sin, for which God never found a name.
Which had it scaped the Rubrick of these times
Had still continued among Holy Crimes.
A Text on which we finde no gloss at all
But in the Alcorn of Gold-smiths Hall!

Now (Great Adolphus) give me leave to stir
The ashes of thy Urne, and Sepulcher;
And branch the flowers of the Sweadish glory
As rivall'd to the life in our sad story:
Yet not impaire thy plumes, by adding more
To suit that splendor from a neighbour shore;

188

Nor deem thy honor less thus match'd to bee,
If Compton dyed to grasping Victorie.
An active soul in gallant fury hurl'd
To club with all the worthies of the world.
Blinde, envious, piping Fortune! what could bee
The tottering ground of this thy trecherie?
To stop the ballance of that brave Carrear
Was both at once thy miracle and fear?
Was't not a pannick dread surpriz'd thy soul
Of being made servile to his high controul?
Blush and confess poor Caitiff-godess! so
Wee'le quit his in thy reall over-throw.

And Death, thou worm! thou pale Assassinate!
Thou sneaking hireling of revenge and hate,
Didst not thou feel an Earth-quake in thy bones?
Such as rends Rocks and their foundations?
No Tirtian shivering, but an Ague fit
Which with a burning Feaver shall commit
The world to ashes? when thou stolest creptst under
That Helmet which durst dare Jove and his thunder

But since the bays he reacht at grew not here,
Like a wise souldier, and a Cavalier,
He left his coveteous enemie at bay,
Rifling the carriage of his flesh and clay:
While his rich soul pursued the greater game
Of Honour to the skies, there fix'd his name.

189

I shall not therefore vex the Orbs to trace
Thy sacred foot-steps in that hallow'd place.
Nor start a feigned Star, and swear it thine,
Then stretch the Constellation to thy line.
Like a Welch Gentleman that tacks his kin
To all Coats in the countrey he lives in.
Nor yet, to raise thy Flaming Crest, shall I
Knock for the wandring Planets in the sky:
Perhaps some broken beauty of stale doubt,
To comment on her face has hir'd them out.

Let fame, & thy brave race thy Statue live,
The world can never such another give.
Whiles each soul sighes at the sad thought of thee
There fell a Province of Nobilitie.
A fall, had Zeal but husbanded its throat,
That sunck the House of Lords, and saved the Vote.
They only state mute Titles in their gears,
He singly represented all the Peeres.
One, had the enemy imployd their Smeck,
Those Ring-worms of the Church, to beg a neck
With Claudius, to metropolize all worth,
Rome, & what ere the Suburbe world brought forth,
In him the sword did glut its ravening eye,
The rest that kick'd up were the smaler Frye.
Sparks only of that fire in him deceas'd,
Nyfles that crack'd and vanish'd north & west.

He lead the Royal war in such a dye,
In that dire entrance of the Tragedy,

190

The sense (Great Charles) no longer to prorogue,
None but thy self could speak the Epilogue.

The London Lady.

Gently my Muse! 'tis but a tender piece,
A paradox of Fumes and Ambergreece.
A cobweb-tinder at a touch takes fire,
The tumbling wherligig of blinde desire.
Vulcan's Pandora in a christal shrine,
Or th'old Inn faced with a new painted signe.
The spotted voyder of the Term: In short
Chymical nature phisick'd into Art.

But hold rude Satyr, here's a Hector comes,
A Cod-peice Captain that with her shares sums,
One claims a Joynture in her sins, the foile
That puts her off, like the old man ere while
That with a dagger Cloak, and ho-boy gapes
And squeeks for company for the Jack an Apes.
This is the feirce St. George, fore runs the waggon,
And, if occasion be, shall kill the Dragon.
Don Mars the great assendant on the road
When Thomass's teem begins to jog abroad.
The hinter at each turn of Coven Garden,
The Club pickearer, the robust Church warden
Of Lincolne's Inn back corner, where he angles
For Cloaks and Hats, and the smale gam eentangles

This is the Citty Usher straid to enter
The small drink countrey squires of the first venter,

191

And dubs them bach'lor-Knight of the black Jugg,
Mans them into an oath, and the French shrugg,
Makes them fine graduates in smock impudence,
And gelds them of their puny mothers sense.
So that when two terms more, and forty pound
Reads them acquainted all Gomorrha round,
Down to their wondring friends at last they range,
With breeding just enough to speak them strange,
And drown a younger brother in a look
Kick a poor Lacquey, and berogue the Cook,
Top a small cry of Tennants that dare stir
In no phrase now, but save your Worship Sir.

But to return: By this my Lady's up,
Has swom the Ocean of the Cawdle Cup,
Convers'd with every washing, every ground,
And Fucus in the Cabinet's to be found,
Has laid the fix'd complexion for the day,
Her breech rings high Change and she must away.

Now down the Channel towards the Strand she glides,
Flinging her nimble glances on both sides,
Like the death-darting Cockatrice that slye
Close Enginere that murders through the eye.

192

The first that's tickled with her rumbling wheels
Is the old Statesman, that in slippers reels,
He wire-drawes up his jawes, and snufs and grins,
And sighing smacks, but for my aged shins,
My Conclave of diseases, I would boord
Your lofty Galley: Thus I serv'd my Lord—.
But mum for that, his strength will scarce supply
His back to the Belcone, so god b'wy.

By this she has survey'd the golden Globe,
And finding no temptation to disrobe,
To Durham New Old Stable on she packs,
Where having winc'd and breath'd the what d'yee lacks,
Rusled and bounced a turn or two in ire,
She mounts the Coach like Phaethon all on fire,
Fit for th'impressions of all sorts of evill,
And whirles up tow'rds the Lawyers and the Devill.
There Ployden in his laced Ruff starch'd on edg
Peeps like an Adder through a quickset hedg,
And brings his stale demur to stop the course
Of her proceedings with her yoak of horse;
Then fals to handling of the case, and so
Shews her the posture of her over-throw,
But yet for all his Law and double Fees
Shee'le bring him to joyn issue on his knees:
And make him pay for expedition too,
Thus the gray fox acts his green sins anew.

193

And well he scapes if all his Norman sense
Can save the burning of his Evidence.
But out at last shee's hudled in the dark,
Man'd like a Lady Client by the Clerk.
And so the nimble youngster at the parting
Extorts a smack perhaps before the Carting.

Down Fleet-street next she rowls with powderd crest,
To spring clip'd-half-crowns in the Cuckow's nest
For now the Heroes of the yard have shut
Their shops, and loll upon their bulks to put
The Ladyes to the squeek, if so perhaps
Their mistris can spare them from their laps.
Not far she waves and sailes before she clings
With the young tribe for pendents, lace and rings,
But there poor totterd Madam, though to late,
She meets the topsi-turvey of her state,
For the calm'd Boyes, having nought left to pay,
Are forced to pawn her, & so run away.
On this the dreadful Drawer soon appears,
Like her ill Genius about her ears,
With a long bill of Items that affright
Worse than a skull of Halberds in the night.
For now the Jay's compell'd to untruss all
The tackling upon tick from every stall,
Each sharing Broker of her borrow'd dress
Seems to doe pennance in her nakedness.
For not a Lady of the noble game
But is composed at least of all Long-lane:

194

An Animal together blow'd and made,
And up'd of all the shreds of every Trade.

Thus purely now her self, homewards she packs,
Exciz'd in all the Dialects of her knacks:
Squeez'd to the utmost thred, and latest grain,
Like Meteors toss'd to their first grit again.

A lane, a lane, she comes, summ'd down to nought,
But shame and a thin under petticoat.
But least I should pursue her to the quick,
I pass: The chase lies now too near the nick
In pitty Satyr then thy lash let fall:
He knowes her best that scans her not at all.
And though thou seemst discourteous not to save her,
No matter, when thou leav'st there's one will have her.

The Times.

To speak in wet-shod eyes, and drowned looks,
Sad broken accents, and a vein that brooks
No spirit, life, or vigour, were to own
The crush and tryumph of affliction;
And creeping with Themistocles to bee
The pale-faced pensioners of our enemie.
No, 'tis the glory of the soul to rise
By fals, and at re-bound to peirce the skies.

Like a brave Courser standing on the sand
Of some high-working Fretum, views a land

195

Smiling with sweets upon the distant side,
Garnish'd in all her gay imbroidred pride, woods,
Larded with springs, and fring'd with curled
Impatient, bounces, in the capring flouds,
Big with a nobler fury than that stream
Of shallow violence he meets in them;
Thence arm'd with scorn & courage ploughs a way
Through the impostum'd billows of the Sea;
And makes the grumbling surges slaves to oar
And wast him safely to the further shoar:
Where landed, in a soveraign disdain
He turns back, and surveys the foaming main,
Whiles the subjected waters flowing reel
Ambitious yet to wash the victor's heel.

In such a noble equipage should wee
Embrace th'encounter of our miserie.
Not like a field of corn, that hangs the head
For every tempest, every petty dread.
Crosses were the best Christians armes: and wee
That hope a wished Canaan once to see
Must not expect a carpet way alone
Without a red-sea of affliction.

Then cast the dice: Let's foord old Rubicon,
Cæsar 'tis thine, man is but once undone.
Tread softly though, least Scylla's ghost awake,
And us in the roll of his Proscriptions take.
Rome is revived, and the Triumvirate
In the black Island are once more a state;
The Citty trembles: Theres no third to shield
If once Augustus to Antonius yield

196

Law shall not shelter Cicero, the robe
The Senate: Proud success admits no probe
Of Justice to correct or quare the fate
That bears down all as illegitimate;
For whatsoere it lists to over-throw,
It either findes it, or else makes it so.

Thus Tyranny's a stately Palace, where
Ambition sweats to climbe and nustle there;
But when 'tis enterd, what hopes then remain?
There is no salliport to come out again.
For mischief must rowl on, and gliding grow
Like little rivulets that gently flow
From their first bubling springs, but still increase
And swell their channel as they mend their pace;
Till in a glorious tide of villany
They over-run the bancks, and posting fly
Like th'bellowing waves in tumults, till they can
Display themselves in a full Ocean.
And if blinde rage shall chance to miss its way
Brings stock enough alone to make a Sea.

Thus treble treasons are secur'd & drownd
By lowder crimes of deeper mouth and sound.
And high attempts swallow a puny plot
As Canons over-whelme the smaler shot.
Whiles the deaf senseless world inur'd a while
(Like the Catadupi at the fall of Nile)
To the feirce tumbling wonder, think it none
Thus custom hallows irreligion.
And stroaks the patient beast till he admit
The now-grown-light and necessary Bitt.

197

But whether doe I ramble? Gauled times
Cannot endure a smart hand ore their crimes.
Distracted age? What dialect or fashion
Shall I assume? To passe the approbation
Of thy censorious Synod; which now sit
High Areopagites to destroy all wit?

I cannot say I say that I am one
Of th'Church of Ely-house, or Abington,
Nor of those pretious spirits that can deal
The pomgranets of grace at every meal.
No zealous Hemp-dresser yet dipp'd me in
The Laver of adoption from my sin.
But yet if inspiration, or a tale
Of a long-wasted six hours length prevail,
A smooth certificate from the sister-hood,
Or to be termed holy before good,
Religious malice, or a faith 'thout works
Other then may proclaim us Jews or Turks.
If these, these hint at any thing? Then, then
Whoop my dispairing Hope come back agen.
For since the inundation of grace,
All honesty's under water, or in chase.
But 'tis the old worlds dot age, thereupon
We feed on dreams, imagination,
Humours, and cross-graind passions which now reign
In the decaying elements of the brain.
Tis hard to coin new fancies, when there bee
So few that launch out in discoverie.
Nay Arts are so far from being cherished,
There's scarce a Colledg but has lost its Head,

198

And almost all its Members: O sad wound!
Where never an Arterie could be judged sound!
To what a hight is Vice now towred? When we
Dare not miscall it an Obliquitie?
So confident, and carrying such an awe,
That is subscribes it self no less than Law?
If this be reformation then? The great
Account pursued with so much bloud & sweat?

In what black lines shall our sad story bee
Deliver'd over to posteritie?
With what a dash and scar shall we be read?
How has Dame Nature in us suffered?
Who of all Centuries the first age are
That sunck the World for want of due repair?

When first we issued out in cries and tears,
(Those salt presages of our future years)
Head-long we dropt into a quiet calme,
Times crownd with rosie garlands, spice and balme;
Where first a glorious Church & mother came,
Embrac'd us in her armes, gave us a name
By which we live, and an indulgent brest
Flowing with stream to an eternal rest.
Thus ravish'd the poor Soul could not ghuesse even
Which was more kinde to her yet, earth, or heaven.
Or rather wrapp'd in a pious doubt
Of heaven, whether she were in or out.

Next the Great Father of our Countrey brings
His blessing too, (even the Best of Kings)

199

Safe and well grownded Lawes to guard our peace,
And nurse our vertues in their just increase;
Like a pure spring from whom all graces come,
Whose bounty made it double Christendom.
Such and so sweet were those Halcyon Dayes
That rose upon us in our Infant rayes;
Such a composed State we breathed under,
We only heard of Jove, nere felt his thunder.
Terrours were then as strange, as love now grown,
Wrong and revenge lived quietly at home.
The sole contention that we understood
Was a rare strife and war in doing good.

Now let's reflect upon our gratfulness,
How we have added, or (ô) made it less,
What are th'improvements? what our progresse, where
Those handsom acts that say that some men were?
He that to antient wreaths can bring no more
From his own worth, dyes banq'rupt, on the score.
For Father's Crests are crowned in the Son,
And glory spreads by propagation.
Now vertue shield me! where shall I begin?
To what a labyrinth am I now slipp'd in?
What shall we answer them? or what deny?
What prove? Or rather whether shall we fly?
When the poor widdow'd Church shall ask us where
Are all her honours? & that filial care

200

We owed so sweet a Parent as the Spouse
Of Christ, which here vouchsafed to own a house?
Where are her Boanerges? & those rare
Brave sons of consolation? Which did bear
The Ark before our Israel, and dispence
The heavenly Manna with such diligence?
In them the prim'tive Motto's come to passe,
Aut mortui sunt, aut docent literas.
Bless'd Virgin we can only say we have
Thy Prophets Tombes among us, and their grave.
And here and there a man in colours paint
That by thy ruines grew a mighty Saint.

Next Cæsar some accounts are due to thee,
But those in bloud already written bee.
So lowd & lasting, in such monstruous shapes,
So wide the never to be clos'd wound gapes;
All ages yet to come with shivering shall
Recite the fearful pres'dent of thy fall.

Hence we confute thy tenent Solomon,
Under the Sun a new thing hath been done,
A thing before all pattern, all pretence
Of rule or coppy: Such a strange offence,
Of such original extract, that it bears
Date only from the Eden of our years.

Laconian Agis! we have read thy fate,
The violence of the Spartan love and hate.
How Pagans trembled at the thought of thee,
And fled the horror of thy tragedie.
Thyestes cruel feast, and how the Sun
Shrunk in his golden beams that sight to shun.

201

The bosoms of all Kingdoms open lye,
Plain and emergent to th'inquiring eye.
But when we glance upon our native home,
As the black Center to whom all points come,
We rest amazed, and silently admire
How far beyond all spleen ours did aspire.
All that we dare assert is but a cry
Of an exchanged peace for Liberty.
A secret term by inspiration known,
A mist that brooks no demonstration,
Unless we dive into our purses, where
We quickly finde Our Freedom purely dear.

But why exclaim you thus? may some men say,
Against the times? when equal night and day
Keep their just course? the seasons still ye same?
As sweet as when from the first hand they came?
The influence of the Stars benigne and free,
As at first Peep up in their infancie?
Tis not those standing motions that devide
The space of years, nor the swift hours yt glide
Those little particles of age, that come
In thronging Items that make up the Summ,
That's here intended: But our crying crimes,
Our monsters that abominate the times.
Tis we that make the Metonymie good
By being bad. Which like a troubled floud
Nothing produce but slimy mire and dirt,
And impudence that makes shame malepert.

202

To travel further in these wounds that lye
Rankling, though seeming closed, were to deny
Rest to an ore-watch'd world, and force fresh tears
From stench'd eyes, new alarum'd by old fears.
Which if they thus shall heal & stop, they bee
The first that ere were cur'd by Lethargie.
This only Axiom from ill Times increase
I gather, There's a time to hold ones peace.

The Model of the new Religion.

Whoop! Mr. Uickar in your flying frock!
What news at Babel now? how stands ye Cock?
When wags the floud? no Ephimerides?
Nought but confounding of the languages?
No more of th'Saints arrival? or the chance
Of three pipes two pence and an ordinance?
How many Queere-religiōs? clear your throat,

May a man have a peny-worth? four a groat?
Or doe the Iuncto leap at truss a fayle?
Three Tenents clap while five hang on the tayle?
No Querpo model? never a knack or wile?
To preach for spoons & whistles? cross or pile?
No hints of truth on foot? no sparks of grace?
No late sprung light? to dance the wild-goose chase?
No Spiritual Dragoons that take their flames
From th'inspiration of the citty Dames?
No crums of comfort to relieve our cry?
No new dealt mince-meat of divinity?

Come let's project: By the great late Eclipse
We justly fear a famine of the lips.

203

For sprats are rose an Omer for a sowse,
Which gripes the cōclave of the lower House.
Let's therefore vote a close humiliation
For opening the seal'd eyes of this blinde Nation,
That they may see confessingly and swear
They have not seen at all this fourteen year.
And for the splints and spavins too, tis said
All the joints have the Riffcage, since the head
Swelld so prodigious and exciz'd the parts
From all allegiance, but in tears and hearts.

But zealous Sr. what say to a touch at praier?
How Quops the spirit? In what garb or ayre?
With Souse erect, or pendent, winks, or haws?
Sniveling? or the extention of the jaws?
Devotion has its mode: Dear Sir hold forth,
Learning's a venture of the second worth.
For since the people's rise and its sad fall
We are inspir'd from much to none at all.

Brother adiue! I see y'are closely girt,
A costive Dover gives the Saints the squirt.
Hence (Reader) all our flying news contracts
Like the State's Fleet from the Seas into acts.
But where's the model all this while you'le say?
'Tis like the Reformation run away.

On Brittanicus his leap three story high, and his escape from London.

Paul from Damascus in a basket slides
Craned by the faithfull Brethren down the sides

204

Of their embattel'd walls: Britanicus
As loath to trust the Brethrens God with us.
Slides too, but yet more desp'rate, and yet thrives
In his descent, needs must the Devil drives.
Their cause was both the same, & herein meet,
Only their fall was not with equal feet,
Which makes the case Iambick: Thus we see
How much news falls short of Divinitie.
Truth was their crying crime: One takes the night,
Th'other th'advantage of ye New sprung Light
Mo mantle his escape: How different be
The Pristin and the Modern Policie?
Have Ages their Antipodes? Yet still
Close in the Propagation of ill?
Hence flowes this use and doctrine from the thump
I last sustain'd (belov'd) Good wits may Jump.

Content.

Fair stranger! winged maid, where dost thou rest
Thy snowy locks at noon? Or on what brest
Of spices slumber ore the sullen night?
Or waking whether dost thou take thy flight?
Shall I goe seek some melanchollick grove?
The silent theatre of dispair and love?
There court the Bitterne and the Pelican
Those Aiery Antipodes to the tents of man?

205

Or sitting by some pretty pratling spring
Hear hoarse Nyctimene her dirges sing?
Whiles the rough Satyres dance Corantoes too
The chattring Sembriefs of her Woo hoo, hoo?
Or shall I trace some ice-bound wildernesse
Among the caverns of abstruse recess?
Where never prying Sun, nor blushing Day
Could steal a glimps, or intersqueeze a ray?

If not within this solitary Cell,
O whether must I post? Where dost thou dwel?

Shall I let loose the reins of blinde desire?
And surfet every ravening sense? Give fire
To any train? And tyre voluptuousnesse
In all her soft varieties of excess?
And make each day a history of sin?
Drink the A la mort Sun down and up agen?
Improve my crimes to such a roaring score,
That when I dye, where others goe before
In whining venial streams, and quarto pages,
My flouds may rise in folio, sinck all ages?
Or shall I bathe my selfe in widdows tears?
And build my name in th'curse of them and theirs?
Ship-wrack whole nature to craw out a purse
With th'molten cinders of the universe?
Belch nought but ruine? and the horrid cryes
Of fire and sword? & swim in drowned eyes?
Make lanes to crowns & scepters through th'heart's veins
Of Justice, Law, Right, Church and Soveraigns?

206

No, no, I trace thee not in this dark way
Of death, this scarlet streak'd Aceldama.

Shall I then to the house of mourning goe?
Where the Salt-peeter Vuates over-flow
With fresh supplies of grief? Fresh tides of brine?
Or traverse the wide world in every line?
Walk through the bowels of each realm and state
Simpling for rules of policy to create
Strang forms of government of new molds & wasts
Like a french Kickshaw of a thousand tasts?
Or shall I dive into the secrecy
Of Nature? Where the most retir'd doth lye?
Or shall I waste the taper of my soul
In scrutinies, where neither Northern-pole
Nor Southern-constellation darts a light
To constitute a latitude or height?
Or shall I float into the watry pale
Wan kingdom of the Moon? and there set sail
For all the Orbs? and keep high holiday
With th'Nectar-tipling-Gods in th'milky-way?
Swell Bacchus tripes with a tun of lusty Sack?
And lay the Plump Squire flat upon his back?
O no, these revels are too short, too soure,
Too sad, hugg'd and repented in an hour.

Shall I then plough the seas to forreign soils?
And rake the pregnant Indies for hid spoyls?
Or with the Anchorite abhor the eye
Of heaven, and banish all society.

207

Live in, and out the world? and pass my dayes
In treading out some strang misterious maze?
Tast every humane sweet? lilly and rose?
With all the sharp guard yt about them grows?
Climb wher dispair would tremble to set foot?
Spring new impossibles and force way to't?
Make the whole globe a shop of Chymistry
To melt down all her attomes, and descry
That small Iota, that last pittied grain
Which the gull'd sons of men pursue in vain?
Or shal I grasp those meteors, fame, & praise?
Which breath by th'charity of ye vulgar voice?
Pile honour upon honour till it crack
The Atlas of my pride, and break its back?
Hold fancy, hold! for whether wilt thou bear
My sun-burnt hope to loss? 'Tis, 'tis not here.

Soar then (My Soul) above the arched round
Of these poor spangled blisses: Here's no ground
To fix the sacred foot of pure Content,
Her mansion's in a higher element.

Hast thou perceiv'd the sweetness of a groan?
Or tried the wings of contemplation?
Or hast thou found the balm of tears that press
Like amber in the dregs of bitterness?
Or hast thou felt that secret joy that flowes
Against the tide of common over-throws?
Or hast thou known the dawnings of a God
Upon thee, when his love is shed abroad?
Or hast thou heard the sacred harmonie
Of a calm Conscience ecchoing in thee

208

A Requiem from above? A sealed peace
Beyond the power of hell, sin, or decease?
Or hast thou tasted that communion
Between a reconciled God and Man?
That holy intercourse? Those pretious smiles
Dissolv'd in holy whisprings between whiles?
Here, here's the steps lead to her bless'd abode;
Her chair of state is in the throne of God.

May Day.

Come Gallants, why so dull? What muddy cloud
Dwells on the eye-brows of the day? Why shroud
Ye up your selves in the furl'd sayles of night,
And tossing lye at Hull? Hark how delight
Knocks with her silver wings at every sense?
And great Apollo Laureal doth Commence?

Up 'tis the golden Jubilee of the year,
The Stars are all withdrawn from each glad Sphear
Within the tyring-rooms of heaven, unlesse
Some few that peep to spy our happinesse
Whiles Phœbus tugging up Olympus craw
Smoaks his bright Teem along on the Gram Paw

Heark how the songsters of the shady plain
Close up their Anthems in a melting strain!
See where the glittring Nimphs whirl it away
In Checkling Caravans as blyth as May;

209

And th'Christal sweating flowers droop their heads
In blushing shame to call you slug-a beds.

Waste but a glance upon Hide-park, and swear
All Argus eyes are falln, and fixed there.
The dapled lawns with Ladies shine & glow,
Whiles bubling mounts with springs of Nectar flow;
And each kinde Turtle sits and bills his Dove
Dike Venus and Adonis lapp'd in love.

Heark how Amyntas in melodious loud
Shrill raptures tunes his horn-pipe! whiles a crowd
Of snow-white milk-maids crownd with garlands gay
Trip it to the soft measure of his Lay.
And fields with curds and cream like green-cheese lye,
This now or never is the Gallaxie.

If the facetious Gods ere taken were
With mortal beauties and disguis'd, 'tis here.
See how they mix societies, and tosse
The tumbling ball into a willing losse,
That th'twining Ladyes on their necks might take
The doubled kisses which they first did stake.

Those pretty earnests of a maiden-head
Those sugred seals of love, types of the bed,
Which to confirm the sweet conveiance more
They throng in thousand times ten thousand score

210

Such heavenly surfets, as they sporting lye,
Thus catch they from each others lipp & eye.

The game at best, the girls May rould must bee,
Where Croyden and Mopsa, he and shee
Each happy pair make one Hermophrodite,
And tumbling bounce together, black & white,
Where had you seen the chance, you had not known
Whose shew had lovelier bin Madam's or Joan.

Then crown the bowle let every conduit run
Canary, till we lodg the reeling Sun.
Tap every joy, let not a pearl be spilt,
Till we have set the ringing world a tilt.
And sacrifice Arabia Fælix in
One bone fire, one incense offering.

Tis Sack, tis Sack that drowns ye thorny cares
Which hedg the pillow, and abridg our years,
The quickning Anima Mundi that creates
Life in dejection, and out dares the Fates,
Makes man look big on danger, and out swell
The fury of that thrall that threatens Hell.

Chirp round my Boyes: let each soul take its sipp,
Who knows what fals between the cup and lip?
What can a voluntary pale look bring
Or a deep sigh to lessen suffering?
Has mischief any piety or regard?
The foyl of misery is a brest prepar'd.

211

Hence then with folded armes, ecclipsed eyes,
And low imprison'd groans, meek cowardise.
Urge not with oars death yt in full saile comes,
Nor walk in forestal'd blacks to yt dark tombs.
But rather then th'eternal jaws shall gape,
Gallop with Curtius down the gallant hap.

Mean time here's that shall make our shackles light,
And charm the dismal terrors walk by night,
Tis this that chears the drooping soul, revives
The benum'd captive crāp'd in his cold gyves.
Kingdoms and Cottages, the Mill and Throne
Sack the Grand Leveller commands alone.

Tis Sack that rocks the boyling brain to rest,
Confirms the aged hams, and warms the brest
Of gallantry to action, runs half share
And mettal with the buff-fac'd Sons of war.
Tis wit, 'is art, 'tis strength, 'tis all and more;
Then looss the floud gates Georg, wee'le pay or score.

An Epig. to Doulus.

Doulus advanced upon a goodly Steed,
Came mounting ore the plain in very deed,
Wherat the people cring'd & bow'd the knee,
In honour of my Lord's rich Liverie.
Hence swell not Doulus, nor erect thy crest,
Twas for the Goddess sake we capp'd the beast.

212

An Epig. on the people of England.

Sweating and chafing hot Ardelio cryes
A Boat a Boat, else farwel all the prize.
But having once set foot upon the deep
Hotspur Ardelio fell fast a sleep.
So we, on fire with zealous discontent,
Call'd out a Parliament, a Parliament.
Which being obtain'd at last, what did they doe?
Even squeez the wool-packs, & lye snorting too.

Another.

Brittain a lovely Orchard seem'd to be
Furnish'd with nature's choise varietie,
Temptatious golden fruit of every sort,
Th'Hesperian Garden fann'd from fein'd report,
Great boyes and smal together in we brake,
No matter what disdain'd Priapus spake,
Up, up we lift the great Boyes in the trees,
Hoping a common share to sympathize:
But they no sooner there neglected streight
The shoulders that so rais'd them to this height;
And fell to stuffing of their own bags first,
And as their treasure grew, so did their thirst.
Whiles we in lean expectance gaping stand
For one shake from their charitable hand.

213

But all in vain the dropsie of desire
So scortch'd them, three Realms could not quench the fire.
Be wise then in ynur Ale bold youths: for fear
The Gardner catch us as Moss caught his Mare.

An Elegie Upon my dear little friend M. I: F. Who dyed the same morning he was born. Decem. 10. 1654.

Come all yee widdowed Muses, & put on
Your veils, and mourn in a full Helicon.
Press every doleful string to bear a part
In the sad harmonie of a broken heart.
Bring all your sacred springs as sweet supplies
To feed the swelling ocean of mine eyes.

Be dumb yee Sons of mirth, let not a joy
Pry through the smalest crannie of the day:
But let an awful silence seize the soul
Of universal motion, whiles wee towl
Love's passing Bell, and ring a loud to all
Little Adonis and his mighty fall.

Malignant Heaven! can there be envy there
Where never gall nor sequestration were?
Is't possible that in so pure a shrine
So consecrate, so holy, so divine
As thy bless'd mansions, there can dwel a grain
Or attome of black malice or disdain?
That for to boast thy riches to poor men
Could'st drop a pearl and snatch it up agen?

214

First scrue us to an Extasie of blisse
Then dash us by an Antipe'ristasis?
Punnish a moment's ravishing happiness
With such a furious glut of sharp distress?

Could light & darkness be so twin'd together
In such close webs of bitter chang of weather,
Just parted by a single subtile thred
No sooner to be judg'd a live but dead?
Could wit and fate no less a torment finde?
Would th'hadst not bin so cruel, or so kinde!

Bless'd Babe! why could not thy friends many tears
Invite thine innocent stay for a few years?
Or at the least why didst thou them bereave
Of the short comfort of a longer leave?
How can that drown the anguish of thy birth
For joy a man was born upon the earth?
When th'Midwife only could arrive to this
To reach thee to thy first and latest kiss?
How loaded with ingratitude didst thou part
From thy twice travelling Mother in one smart?
First pain'd for thy remiss and slow delay,
Now thrown for thy abortive hast away?

But yet I wrangle not with heavens decree,
Th'hast only posted ore that miserie,
Through which we beat the hoof sad Seventy Years
To the last Act of life, in hopes and fears,
Midst a perverse world, and a shipwrack'd-age
Of Truth and Worth, & draw late off the Stage.

215

To lay more weight or pressure upon thee
Twere envy to thy suddain victorie.
Thou only wak'dst into the world, and then
Shut'st up in holy discontent agen.
Thy chast unspoted soul just lighted on
The floor and perch of our low Horison,
But quickly finding the mistake, that here
Was not her Center, nor her Hemisphære,
She made a point, and darted back most nice
Like lightening to her element in a trice.

The Thracian Dranst which with joy interr
Their Dead, and sport about their Sepulchre,
But mourn still at their birth, to think upon
Those choaking cares of earth are coming on,
May here preach rules of piety to my grief,
In bad times doubting what's best death or life
Crown'd Saint indeed thou might'st have staid.
A mournfull Student in our historie,
Have read a world of sad looks in each page to bee
And passage of a sore distracted age,
And then discussd the causes how and why,
Which to repeat renews th'extremity;
So have entail'd thy guiltless tears to ours
Now swel'd to flouds by long continued showers.

But thou hast wrought that haven in a breath,
For which we sweat & tug our selves to death.
Thou met'st no tempest of assault to stay
Thy fleeting bark in full sail all the way.

216

Wee're clogd with thousand Remoraes, men of war
That cross the rode, through which with many a scar
And foil we militant Christians doe cōmence,
And at the last take heaven by violence.

Such was thy suddain how-dee & farewell,
Such thy return the Angels scarce could tell
Thy miss, But that thy feast was drawing on
Of th'Son of God's high Genethliacon,
Where all the holy Hosts appear to sing
Solemn Te Deum's to the glorious King.
Hence flowes thy sweet excuse of hast: Then since
Our loss was thy enjoyment of thy Prince,
The Annual attendance on his Day
To fill the heavens with Haleluiah.
Yet grant us so much of the court, to bee
Envious a while at thy felicitie,
That thou so young a favourite shouldst pertake
Those smiles for which we so much cringing make.
And reach that height of honour in a glance,
For which we toil through Law & Ordinance.

I chide thee then no longer Happy Soul,
Farewel, farewel! since man cannot controule
The hand of Providence. May thine ashes lye
Soft, till I meet thee in eternity!
Where we shal part no more, nor death devide
My griefs and their sweet object, but a tide
Of endlesse joy shall satisfaction make
For this poor stream of brine shed for thy sake.

217

A short reflection on the creation of the World.

When as this circling Globe of Seas and Earth
Snugg'd in her night-clothes, and had neither birth
Nor motion, but a lumpish Caos stood,
An immaterial mass of slimy mud,
A confus'd pre-existent nothing, where
Tis blasphemy to say as yet things were.
The great Eternal Being thought it good
His Spirit here should move upon the floud.
Hence bloom'd the early and the infant light
From out the swathe-bands of eternal night,
Which now furl'd up in sooty curls gives back
And place to Time to date its Almanack.
Whiles Midwife-Nature fits the Vacuum
For the conceal'd impressions yet to come.
This glimmering splendor in its course begun
Christ'ned three dayes before there was a Sun.
Thus things with things in mix'd confusion hurl'd
Lift up their eye-lids, & Thus wak'd the World.

Nor was it yet broad day to any sight,
For time walk'd as it were by candle-light.
The East had not yet guilded bin by those
Bright sparks by which she now most Orient growes.
When as the mutt'ring Elements took their place
And Centers as their several nature was.

218

The active fire first clipp'd the azure Round,
To which the grosser ayre became a bound,
Each in his proper Orbe was stay'd and pent
Environ'd by a solid Firmament.
This was the time when th'rendevouzing floud
Disbodying from the earth upon heaps stood,
And Neptune ore that raging bulk of brine
Advanc'd his Mace and Scepter tridentine.
Whiles the dry land peepp'd up out of the froth
Like a short Commons in a sea of broth;
Spangled with fruits & flowers, herbs & grass,
And this the teeming world's First up-rise was.

Not long this beauty had in twilight lay
But God made lights to sunder night and day;
And deck the checkred palace of the skyes
With thousand Coronets of twinkling eyes
Which by their rule & aspects in their spears,
Should be for signes and seasons, months and years.
And now if ever there was harmony
Amongst those blessed motions up on high,
Twas in this instant, when in joynt consent
They danc'd this mask about the Firmament,
And plac'd that heavenly round which ore & ore
Must be renew'd till time shall be no more.
Next, those rich bodyes of the Sun and Moon,
Like the High Constables of the watch, for noon
And night, drew forth in glory, whēce created
Tis much more safe admired than debated.

219

Thus the Surveyors of the world took birth,
And this was The good morrow of the Earth.

There wanted nothing now, trees, herbs, nor plants,
Nor sweets, but a few wilde inhabitants,
Fish and the reptile creature; winged Quires
Of downy Organists for to tune their Lyres,
And fill the breaking ayre with Rapsodies
Of chirping emulation to the skies.
Thus the self generative streams brought forth
Th'Amphibious brood of water and of earth.
The shady woods now range with ecchoing straines
Of shrill melodious notes; whose pretty chains
Tye up the ears of things in silent love
As 'twere a glimpse of heaven dropt from above.
Next came the silver harnass'd scaley fry
Capring upon the deep, to give supply
To every pretty winding brook, which now
With tatling springs and living plenty flow.
Thus Nature peep'd out in her morning dresse
Though not arrived to a full readinesse.

And now the sixth day of God's labour dawnes,
Whenas the blowing meads and tufted lawns
Are stock'd with lowing beasts of every kinde,
The bleating snowy sheep, & fruitful hinde,
All creatures of all sorts for game and food,
Which by the vote of heaven were very good.
The little world and complement of all
Was only absent, for whose sake they call

220

The Grand Consilio of the gods to make
Man, which of earth and heaven should pertake
God's Image and the globe's Epitome
Must in one structure both united bee.
Hence then the low and lofty Steward came
To head the Collonies, and gave things a name
Even Adam that prime moving dust, yt small
And great Vicegerent of the God of all.
Thus the world walk'd abroad rich as the sun,
And God's work ended where Man's work begun.

Now that we have survey'd this tumbling Ball
How & whence made, take a short touch on al.
And first of that great mercy, yt prime cause
From which all causes spring and take their Laws
Twas meerly The eternal will & Love
Of God reveal'd in time that did him move
To raise an universe of beauty, where
Was neither forme nor mediate matter there.
And thence he fram'd not man first as ye summ
And supream piece of all that was to come,
But brought him to a Furnish'd World, compleat
In all proportions, bad him take and eate,
Subdue and have dominion, raign, command,
And supervize the wonders of his hand.
The only homage he sought on his part
Was but the service of an upright heart,
A pure obedience and a station in
That innocency which yet had known no sin.

221

But why in just six dayes God and no more
Compleated up this building and this store
May some men ask? Was it a type of the
Fix'd Crisis of the world's Catastrophe?
Which the old Rabbins of the Jews suppose
After six thousand years shall have its close?
When all flesh shall an endless Sabbath keep
While sin and time & death are lull'd a sleep?
I dare not fathom these deep misteries
Conceal'd even from the very Angells eyes.
As the beginning of all things hid lay
In the Almighty bosom, where no ray
Could pry into its purpose: So we now
May ghuess the end as undiscover'd, how
Or when, lies lapp'd up in th'obscure decree
And secret cabinet of the dietie.
This only we dare say we know, as light
Began, so fire shall be the world's good night.
Thus having through this glorious week's work prest
Where God left labour I presume to rest.

John chap. 18. ver. 36. My Kingdom is not of this World.

True blessed Saviour, true! thy Kingdom's not
Of this world. For we cannot finde a spot
Of thy Crown Land, where Geometrie may stay
Her reeling compass to move any way

222

In demonstration of that circling Round
That may define th'inclosure Holy ground:
But since thy Church grew Stately & fell down,
The lands are all confiscate from the Crown.
Countrey freez Elders have thy Flesh hooks bin
To shrive the Levites Pot and all within.
And never conscious of thy pious rule
Leave poor Elias to th'charity of the foul.
Or like the Indian Astomi, to smell
His way to life, or live by miracle.
Thus Sion's wasted, and thy Prophets slain:
And Godlinesse hath proov'd the only Gain.

Math. chap. 11 ver. 28. Come unto me all yee that labour and are heavy laden &c.

Most great and glorious God! how sweet, how free
Is thy kinde invitation! but ay mee
The clogs of sin
So rein me in
And black shame mix'd with guilt restrains my will
From all designes but doing ill,
So that I tremble to approach thy throne,
And tread the Courts of the most Holy One.

But yet thy Call's so powerfully good,
So pressing, that 'tis death if once withstood.
Nor is it less
To tempt thy Holiness.

223

In this extream this streight what shall I doe?
I'de come, but bee accepted too:
But ô my loud-tongu'd sins so fill the ayre
They'le bar up heaven against my cry & prayer.

Yet wherfore should I doubt? 'Tis not the call
Of Cherubims, or ought Angelical;
Tis he, tis hee
That in that extasie
Of fear to sincking Peter reach'd his hand
And snatch'd him from yr grave to land;
Jehovah, he that tryes the reines, and sees
Our wounds and moanes, our deep infirmities.

Shall I then with poor Adam strive to hide
My nakedness with leavs? Or slip a fide?
O no, he spyes my way
By night as by noon day:
Darkness cannot exclude him, nor the shade
Of Hell from what his hands have made;
He knows our thoughts evē long before they were,
And when those lips bid come, can there be fear?

But ô 'tis said hee's a Consuming fire!
But ô 'tis sure he now layes by his ire:
He thunders out
With trumpets shout
No Judgment from mount Sinai: But a still
Soft voice of love and free good will.
He that appear'd then in a warlike dress,
Seeks now the stray sheep in the Wilderness.

224

Put off thy terrors then Great God, and I
Shall humbly prostrate at thy foot-stool lye;
And there bemoan
With many a groan
And bitter tear my sinful sins to thee,
To thee alone canst pardon mee.
O shut not up thy mercy in disdain,
Nor yet remember my old sins again!

Impute not my youth's guilt unto my charge?
But thou that offer'st Rest, set me at large
Even from this death,
And hell beneath
That gapes with open jaws to swallow all
That on thee doe neglect to call;
And hardned in their sins thy spirit grieve
By a contempt and wilful hate to live.

But ere thou cōm'st bless'd God to pass me by
First hide me from thy sin-abhorring eye,
That I may stand
Like Moses cover'd with thy hand
Close in the cilft of Christ's wounds, in ye dress
And garment of his Righteousnesse,
And on me through his satisfaction look,
That on his score my sad transgressions took.

Receive me then, but with that kinde regret
The good old man his prodigal childe met,
Who as't appears
Devided betwixt joy and tears
Ran and embrac'd, & kiss'd his drooping Son,
In all points now undone,

225

But that rich treasure of a Father's love
Which nere could be exhausted, nor remove.

Such bowels of compassion Lord put on!
Such pregnant yernings of affection!
Then hear my cry,
And heal my malady.
Though I have sinn'd yet Christ hath satisfied.
O Judg not, for 'tis he that dyed.
But hear the voice of his still streaming gore
Which calls to thee for mercy more & more.

Prevent not then thy Angels joy in mee
To see a sinner reconcil'd to thee!
Nor let thy love
So barren prove,
Or loose its end for which thou sent'st it here,
Even my salvation now so neer.
What pleasure in my bloud Lord cā there be?
Or will the chambers of death honour thee?

Thy call is not a summons to the Bar
Of Justice, but a throne where mercies are
Like flowing balm
To mitigate and calm
The tumult of a rageing conscience;
Whose pricking bitter ecchoing sense
Holds out a flag of death, whose motto runs
No hope, no peace, no such rebellious Sons.

But Lord thy sweeter promise is the ground
We lean & build upon; canst thou be found
Lesse than thy self?
A ship-destroying shelf?

226

No, though an Angel from thine Altar swear
My sins unpardonable are,
My crimes so great cannot forgiven bee,
Yet Lord I come, yet Lord I trust in thee.

O then accept my Heavy laden Soul
Crush'd with the burden of her sins, so soul
She dares not brook
Once up to look;
But drown'd in tears presumes to come on board,
And for this once to take thy word;
If I at last prove ship-wrack'd for my pain
I'le never venture soul more so again.

A Sing-song on Clarinda's Wedding

Now that Love's Holiday is come,
And Madg the Maid hath swept ye room
And trimm'd her spit and pot,

A wake my merry Muse, and sing
The Revells, and that other thing
That must not be forgot.

As the gray morning dawn'd, tis sed
Clarinda broke out of her bed
Like Cynthia in her pride:

Where all the Maiden Lights that were
Compriz'd within our Hemisphære
Attended at her side.

227

But wot you then with much a doe
They dress'd the Bride from top to toe
And brought her from her chamber,

Deck'd in her robes and garments gay
More sumptuous than the live-long-day
Or Stars enshrin'd in Amber.

The sparkling bullose of her eyes
Like two ecclipsed Suns did rise
Beneath her christal brow,

To shew like those strange accidents
Some suddain changable events
Were like to hap below.

Her cheeks bestreak'd with white and red
Like pretty tell-tales of the bed
Presag'd the blustring night

With his encricling armes and shade
Resolv'd to swallow and invade
And skreen her virgin light.

Her lips those threds of scarlet dye,
Wherein Love's charmes and quiver lye,
Legions of sweets did crown;

Which smilingly did seem to say
O crop me, crop me whiles you may,
A non th'are not mine own.

228

Her Breasts those melting Alps of snow
On whose fair hills in open shew
The God of Love lay napping;

Like swelling Buts of lively Wine
Upon their ivory stells did shine
To wait the lucky tapping.

Her waste that slender type of man
Was but a small and single span,
Yet I dare safely swear

He that whole thousands has in fee
Would forfeit all, so he might bee
Lord of the Mannor there.

But now before I passe the line
Pray Reader give me leave to dine,
And pause here in the midle;

The Bridegroom and the Parson knock,
With all the Hymeneall flock,
The Plum-cake and the Fidle.

When as the Priest Clarinda sees,
He stared as't had bin half his fees
To gaze upon her face:

And if the spirit did not move
His continence was far above
Each sinner in the place.

229

With mickle stir he joyn'd their hands,
And hamp'red them in marriage bands
As fast as fast might bee,

Where still me thinks, me thinks I hear
That secret sigh in every eare,
Once love remember mee!

Which done the Cook he knock'd amain
And up the dishes in a train
Come smoaking two and two,

With that they wip'd their mouths and sate,
Some fell to quaffing, some to prate,
Ay marry and welcome too

In pay'rs they thus impal'd the meat
Roger and Marget, and Thomas and Kate,
Rafe and Bess, Andrew and Maudlin,

And Valentine eke with Sybell so sweet,
Whose cheeks on each side of her snuffers did meet
As round and as plump as a codling.

When at the last they had fetched their freez,
And mired their stomacks quite up to ye knees
In claret for and good chear,

Then, then began the merry din,
For as it was thought they were all on the pin,
O what kissing and clipping was there!

230

But as luck would have it ye Parson said grace,
And to frisking & dancing they shuffled apace,
Each Lad took his Lass by the fist,

And when he had squeez'd her, and gaum'd, her untill
The fat of her face ran down like a mill
He toll'd for the rest of the grist.

In sweat and in dust having wasted the day,
They enter'd upon the last act of the play,
The Bride to her bed was convey'd,

Where knee deep each hand fell downe to the ground
And in seeking the Garter much pleasure was found,
'Twould have made a man's arm have stray'd

This clutter ore Clarinda lay
Half bedded, like the peeping day
Behind Olimpus cap;

Whiles at her head each twittring Girle
The fatal stocking quick did whirle
To know the lucky hap.

The Bridegroom in at last did rustle,
All dissap-pointed in the bustle
The Maidens had shav'd his breeches;

But let him not complain, tis well
In such a storm, I can you tell
He save'd his other stitches.

231

And now he bounc'd into the bed,
Even just as if a man had said
Fair Lady have at all;

Where twisted, at the hug they lay,
Like Venus and the sprightly Boy,
O who would fear the fall?

Thus both with love's sweet tapers fired,
And thousand balmy kisses tyred,
They could nor wait the rest,

But out the folk and candles fled,
And to't they went; but what they did
There lyes the cream of the jest.

On the much to be lamented Death of that gallant Antiquary and great Master both of Law and Learning, John Selden Esquire.

Epicedium Elegiacum.

Thus sets th'Olimpian Regent of the day
Laden with honour; after a full survey
Of the deep works of nature, to return
With greater lustre from his watery urne.
Thus leans the aged Cedar to the rage
Of tempests, which the grove for many an age
Hath grac'd, yet yields to be trāspālted thence
T'adorn the nobler Palace of his Prince.
Thus droops the world, after a smiling May
And June of pride into a withering day,

232

And hoary winter season, to appear
More lovely in the buds of a fresh year.
Then boast not Time in the eclipsed light
Of Selden's lower orbes, whiles the high flight
Of his enthroned Soul looks down on thee
With scorn, as an ungrateful enemie.
For in his death thou sport'st with thy own dust,
Whiles with his ashes thy poor glories rust.
Mention no more thy Acts of old, nor those
Grand ruines rich in thy proud overthrowes;
In him th'hast lost thy Titles and thy name,
Who dyed the Register of time and fame.
He was that brave Recorder of the world,
When age & mischief had conspir'd & hurl'd
Vast kingdōs into shatter'd heaps; who could
Redeem them from their vaults of dust and mould.
Then raise a monument of honour to
That restor'd life, wch death could nere undoe.
Such was the fal of this Tenth worthy then,
This Magazine of earth and heaven, and men,
He, whereas others to their ashes creep,
(Those common elements of all that sleep;)
Dissolv'd like some huge Vatican from on high
Whose every limbe became a Library.
As therefore in the works of Nature they
Which are most ripe are neerest to decay:
So here this neighbouring Pyramid on th'sky
Drew neerest heaven when furthest from the eye.
And now thy Mare Clausum's true indeed,
The rode's block'd up to th'many reined steed,

233

Which to each point of the world's compasse reels,
And tacks her glad discoveries to her keels.
Let then the travelling Mariner in the deep
Of the Reserves of reason goe to sleep;
Since the grave Pole-star of the groaping sky
Has suffer'd ship-wrack in mortallity.

He yt would praise thee well through all thy parts
Must ransack all the languages and arts,
Drain nature to th'last scruple to discry
How far thou went'st in her Anatomy.
Then climbe from orbe to orbe, & gather there
The pure Elixar of each star and sphear,
Which in thy life did club their influence
With thy rich flames as one Intelligence;
Then raise a blazing comet to thy name,
As a devoted Taper to thy Fame,
To live the pitied shadow of that day
And glorious Noon which with thee drew away.

When Common People dye, 'tis but a sight
Whose grief and dole's digested in a night.
But when such brawny sinews of a state
As thee break loose; 'tis like a clock whose weight
Being slipp'd a side all motion's at a stand:
Such sorrows doe not wet but Drown a land.

Could we with that brave Macedonian Spark
Offer whole towns and kingdoms to the Ark
Of a lost friend now floating in our eyes,
And make more worlds in this grief sympathize,

234

T'were but due thanks for that high soveraignty
Ore many nations we enjoy'd in thee
To languish any longer at thy shrine,
Melting the sacred sisters into brine
In a salt Hecatomb of tears, 'twould bee
But a weak, faint and pale discoverie
Of those few artires of life they have
Since the last mortal stab giv'n in thy Grave.

Such was the publick universal wound
That the whole bod' of Law & learning found
In thy preposterous and most sad decease,
There's none can probe ye grief, or state ye case.
In short, we lost so many Tongues in thee
There's scarce one left to mourn thine obsequie.
Those shallow issues which now from us rise
Steal through the speechless conduits of our eyes,
Which turning Water Poets tumble forth
Insilent eloquence to bemoan thy worth.
Such deep impressions has thy farewel left
In every bosom, every secret cleft
Of each particular soul, instead of verse
We live thy doleful Epitaph and Hearse.
And what the mournful Prophet sigh'd of old
Seems now broke forth, as of these times foretold.
Each face shall gather blackness, for in thee
Thus gone, w' are shut up in obscuritie.
Such borrowed dependance had our light
Upon thy sun, thy evening was our night.

But since there's no perfection here, thy glass
To become gold indeed translated was.

235

Thy furnish'd soul being fill'd with all yt could
Be here extracted from the grosser mould
Of earth's Idea, in a brave disdain
Drew to its proper Center, that vast Main
Of truth and knowledg, great Jehovah, hee
That's all in all to all eternitie.
Where now I leave thee 'midst a glorious throng
Of Saints; but hope to see thee ere't be long.

Upon the death of John Selden Esquire.

Now thou art dead, Unequall'd Sir, thy fall
Confounds no less than England's funerall;
For when ye soul departs that gave her breath,
We are but loathed carkases in thy death.
Thus Pompey's Trunck found on the Egyptian sand
Rome streight pronounc'd her time was at a stand.
So whē a fair ag'd Oak doth downward move
We count not one Tree's loss, but the whole Grove.
As ayre and water when once useless grown
One by too much drouth, one b'infection,
The Citty and Kingdom both deplore ye loss:
And we entitle't one man's private cross.
O that Pythagoras doctrine might obtain,
(Old souls to inform new bodyes hast again)
Then would ye world less sense of sorrow have,
Nought but to life a back-door were thy Grave!

236

And like the Phœnix dy'dst in balmy spice,
That thēce thou might'st into new glories rise.

But this we hope not for, & 'tis thy praise
Alone & Salomon's, (None such in your dayes.)
Learned Maimonides hence improv'd his fame,
That none since Moses, such a Moses came.
Joseph's perfections had out-shin'd far more,
If Julius Scaliger had not writ before.
Thou like Melchizedeck knewst no peer nor mate,
Rich only with thy own true estimate.
Witness those matchless volumes that can tell
The world how vast a soul did in thee dwell.
So fraught with such a Mine of knowledg, we
Might think thee well a living Librarie.

Not like our Time-enthusiasts, who disclose
In scurrile Pens, that they can rave in prose,
And in such narrow hoops ye conscience pent,
As man nere durst, nor God for laws ere meant.
Nay souls of men with such high reins keep in,
That to be reasonable is counted sin.
No, in such season'd Judgment flowd thy Pen,
We thence might learn what temper became men.
Thou nor to Sects, nor to parties writt'st (& tis
But just to point thee singular in this.)
But wiht unwearied pain dispenc'd thy store,
What all past ages thought and said before.

237

Arabians, Persians, Hebrews, Greeks and all
The Sun in'ts circuit dines or sups withall
Thee in their several Idioms court, and bring
Their common-wealths of learning to their King
As tribute. Selden hadst thou flourished than
When Jew and Greek, Creet and Arabian
What each in varied Dialects said, could tell,
Thy acquir'd pains had lam'd the miracle.

Thy fruitful Tongues might far as day have run,
To language Countreis to the posting Sun:
The western Climes might have bin told by thee
All that the Indian voic'd, Antiquitie.
Nor is that all, for numerous speech affords,
Without good conduct, but a Mart of words.
A bunch of keyes men prize not wealth, but letts,
Where skill comes short t'unlock the cabinets.
A magazine of sounds in most we see
Serve but to stuff and perfect Pedantrie.
Thy copiousness of Tongues findes matter hence,
It lets in matter that conveyes new sense.
And rat'st thy painted words embroideries,
But as they usher strange discoveries.
That East Idolatry yet had lurk'd 'tis ods
But for thy subject of the Syrian gods.
The world had still in ignorance bin held
How great she was, had Selden not reveal'd

238

Those pompous Attributes, Titles of renown
Which King, Prince, Emperor challeng'd as their own.
Earles & Marquesses, Dukes & all degrees
Hence found them boundes fix'd for precedencies.
A structure so elaborate it would ask
Europe's joynt labour to out-goe the task.
The Law of Nations 'mongst the Hebrews taught,
And Nature's dictates where could we have sought
But from that labour'd Piece is publish'd forth
To leave the world a Legacy of thy worth.
I name not others thy choice rarities,
The Hebrew Priests, defence of British Seas,
A rundles marbles, and the Hebrew wife,
Thy Sanhedrims Tripartite, Edmer's life,
With other choice which I not reckon here,
Least so the hidden embers I should stir
Of rancor gone in some, who measure test
Not by their judgment, but their interst.
Such as wit-bound themselves can faintly spare
To stab with censures, other choicest care.
Such suburb-wits their shackied judgments binde
To reach the bark, and dwell upon the rinde.
When 'twas thy excellence to pursue ye chase,
Till there was left to scruple no more place.
So long Alcides thought his work unsped,
As he to Hydra left or tayle or head.

239

Thy Plummet sinks into the depest sound,
Still plunging onward till it finde ye ground.
What worn inscriptions didst from dust relieve?
And from time's shipwrack didst restore to live?
Custom, or Manners, Ensigne, Form, or Rite,
What is't thy teeming brain not brought to light?
Now thou hast travell'd through the world's wide coast,
And left no creek, nor path, nor Seas uncrost,
And nature's utmost boundaries hast known,
Twas time thou tookst ye period of thine own.
That so thy wakeful soul dismantled hence
Might meet fresh objects for Intelligence
The Grecian Heroe thus when he went through
As far as bounds, wish'd he had more to doe.
So through feirce seas the angry keel is hurl'd
To look out passage to another world.

J.U. M.A. J.C. Oxon.

Upon the incomparable Learned John Selden.

Twere wrong to thy great name on thee to write,
Who like the Sun shines best with thy own light.
Clocks that are made to imitate the Sun
Seldom run right and true in motion
With heaven's great torch; whose course is regular
And tells us our best acts erroneous are.

240

Our praise, when best improv'd, is at this stay
As our faint twilight's to the bright mid-day.
All we can speak comes so far short of thee
As doth of nature our Philosophie.
In thine own sphear thrice glorious star then shine;
Since all our light is but a beam from thine.

The spotless ray originally springs
From the great mass of light, more splendor brings
Than when through ayre's dark Medium it reflects,
Where not so pure a beam the sun projects.
So the first shade some glasses doe present
More vigor hath than to the next is lent.
Thus Pictures from their excellence doe fal
The further off from their Originall.

Upon the death of John Selden.

Praise that is worthy thee who would rehearse
Must dare beyond the skill of art, or verse.
'Twere sawciness here least flattery for to use,
Where to the nine the ayd of a tenth Muse
Is all too little to proclaime thy worth,
Who art no comet blazing seldom forth,
But a new Star, us mortals for to tell
Thou wert from heaven sent a miracle.
Since then none may presume to reach thy fire,
We may be thought no trespassers to admire.

241

Thus when we view stars that are far above
Tis no crime such (if not to catch) to love.
Let others speak thy richness by whole sale
Twill us suffice to mention by retayle.
Twas but the least among thy lasting pains
To purge our Laws from errors, & the stains
That long had dwelt on them to wash away,
By Duried Fleta's resurrection day.
Time's ruind monuments, records out of date
And rolls which ages past expos'd to fate,
Thou with such wondrous artifice didst revive;
Twas not recovery, but new life didst give.
As if those caracters year'd to dust and death
Hadst re-instated with new soul and breath.
And though on living men tis seldom seen
That men contemporarie pass a due esteem;
But when the carkass is dissolv'd to dust
Envy gives then what to the dead is just.
Yet was it said of Selden, none beside,
That he was stamp'd authentick ere he dy'd.
For tis Truth's voice, at Bar when thou stoodst by
Thy self was cited for Authority.

I want both pen and utterance to declare
How great a Master shin'st, how singular
In the deep insight of the Common Laws,
There's none make scruple to give thee the Bayes.
And when 'midst throng of business did a rise
Some sturdy doubts, unfathom'd misteries.

242

Unto the Hive Statists would soon repair,
Who best of Statists didst deserve the chair.
Laws ye were forreign were so much thy own,
They were not more unto their natives known.
Civil and Canon knew'st all Kingdoms ore,
Yea all that ages past did know before.
As if the Sun and thou tri'd Masterie,
Whether more Countries did, or Kingdoms see;
Joynt tenants of the world, for both have gone
Thy daily circle, both annual have run,
Phœbus aim'd not more secrecies to know
Than our great Selden made his Title to.
More I could say the grandiure of your praise
Swels like a torrent on, nor can I raise
A Mound against it. Let this Eulogie
Serve for inscription then, that were each eye
Turn'd to a Sun the round world to survey
We should despair to finde, Selden like thee;
Like Cæsar's Amphitheatre never was
Is an Hyperbole that Poets pass.
But we shall keep on modest bounds of fame,
To say like thee nere sprung there such a frame.

Degenerate Love and Choyce.

Mad Heretick forbear to say or swear
That there is such a Meteor as love here.

243

Tis true; when Adam in that perfect state
Of life, first went on wooing for a Mate,
Twas pure affection that his soul did catch
And love conjoin'd with God made the best match.
Vertue, not portion was the aim he sought,
For Eve had scarce a smock t'her back tis thought.
But when once Love and Adam were exil'd
Eden, Love soard to heaven, and man grew wilde.
And as his knowledg and that nobler light
He first received, were mufled up in night,
Then Avarice and ambition seiz'd the heart
And faculties depraved in every part.
Hence 'twas he tugg'd and travell'd to restore
That bless'd eternity he lost before.
As though when he fell mortal, God had hid
The Tree of life in earth, which he forbid.
Hence, hence he grip'd at lands, and moths, & rust,
And a large name deep written in ye dust.

Thus the blinde sons of men, as real heirs
Of his corruptions, drew their father's cares
And guilt in with their first breath, which sublime
And are intens'd in the decayes of time.
Thus matches took the High Cross, and of old
That golden age became an age of gold.
Hagling relations did their issues joyn,
Not to make Good, but to exalt the Line;

244

And horse-course of their children at a rate
Ordain'd by them, not by the hands of fate.
And therefore Phillip's Asse laden with Oar
Shall sooner take Olynthe, than of yore
Those royal Macedonians, whose high parts
Lost their esteem against such sordid hearts.

If the fine thing with fancies ribboned,
And the gay tuft of feathers on his head,
(That perfect emblem of its empty brain)
Come rumbling with a Coach & dagled train
Of snaphāce-vouchers; can just smack its hād,
And call to read the catalogue of his land;
Run, hold & keep: For this, this, this is hee,
That storms, & takes & routs where ere he be.
To this Diana streight the Ephesians bow:
Or; squeez the wax; no matter where, nor how,
So the revenue & the joynture's great;
Tis never queston'd whether by Escheat,
Theft, or Disseisin, or the Orphan's tears
It were extorted and grew basely theirs.
But like the Israelites in the Devil's behalf.
Forsake God to adore the goodly Calf.

Then for that pretty trifle, that sweet fool,
Just wean'd from's bread & butter & ye school;
Cracknuts & Hobbihorse, & ye quaint Jackdaw,
To wear a thing with a plush Scabberd—law;
Whose Father's low-roof'd late-hatch'd Scutcheon can
Scarce speak him Saped into a gentlemam.

245

Though at his great expence his armes took date
Last circuit from ye Herauld's poor estate.
Like a feirce Countrey Ale-house that renues
His Licence every Sessions, and so brewes.

But this swayes not the ballance: He has it
That's Vertue, Gallantry, & Worth, and Wit,
All truss'd up in a bag, and more yet to't,
For he that buyes him has the Pigg to boot.

And though he cannot speak sense, let it goe,
He offers at it, or else means it so.
His worship's will was good. If he incline
To any vice, as Swearing, Whores, or Wine;
Tis Courage, Youth's fling, or a merry Cup,
Such imperfections soon are sodred up.
If otherwise a clown; tis modestie.
Or simply lavish, tis good nature. Wee
Have vizards of all sizes, small or large,
If's greatness please but to be at the charge.

Thus Riches which were made man's slave to bee,
Have robb'd him of his native soveraigntie.
And captive beauties, like fair Barks long lost,
Are put to sale by th'Candle, who gives most.
Whiles Love and Honour languish at the door,
Most glorious pittied fancies, prais'd and poor.

But here yee groveling Muck-worms, yee that build
Like Ants in Mole-hills; & tye field to field;

246

Which varying God's decree, by joyning hands,
Instead of marrying Children, wed your lands.
Tis true, you may pretend a busied care
In the advance and Tilting of an Heir:
And plausibly too; were the structure layd
Upon a noble bottom; humble, stayd,
Religious grace and worth met & combin'd
With th'active vigour of a gallant minde;
This were a pure cōnexion, sweet with good,
A heightning and refining of the bloud.
But the hog-trough wordlings from these measures flirt,
They love a great name though it's made of dirt;
To which the children are th'forc'd Seals and Signes
Of ship-wrack'd free-will in their Fathers loins.
The liberty of choice is quite flung by
With a Proviso of new property.
That primitive capacity of love
Which the all-seeing diety from above
Had plac'd in the sweet cabinet of the brest
Is now expuls'd by man, and dispossest.
Upon which breach Lust made an enterance there
Wch spreads its wide infection every where.

Come Worlding let me undeceive thee now.
If man's grand welfare hangs upon ye plough;
Or if there be eternity in pelf
And earth, that is as mortal as thy self;

247

Then thou hast grasp'd to purpose. But if not,
The end of wealth's mistaken in thy plot.
Where much is given, much required shal bee.
Not what was left to thy posterity;
Or the by-issues of thy younger years;
But how & when thou stop'dst the widdowes tears
With timely charity; and reliev'dst the poor
With ready morsels frost-bound at thy door.
These are ye works & friends shall follow thee,
The rest shall live thy shame or infamie.

Nor would I have thy off-spring cast away
Upon each roving wit, that shall essay
Thy hopeful lovely viands, with pretence
Of some blinde far-hence-travell'd eminence.
Nor that unrighteous Mammon swels thy chest
And thee, let looss on every stragling guest.
But there's a mean in judgment, a mid course,
A difference betwixt a Man and's Horse.
A fair distinction, were not we too nice,
To moderate disdain and Market price.
Forestal not then the world, but let all live;
Some come to sell by weight, & some to give,
Love never measur'd by the Acre stood,
If we toll fairly, then the bargain's good.

A Dialogue between two water Nymphs Thamesis and Sabrina.

Tha.
Ho! all yee sister-streams that govern'd be.
By great Diana's watry diety.

248

Yee silver Nymphs that gliding sport and play,
And kis your flowry bancks, and flowing stray
In lofty murmurs, ô come sit you here,
And lend my swelling grief a voice or tear.

Sab.
What poor afflicted Soul with mournful cries
And sobs awakes my long benighted eyes?
What hapless maid of her first love bereav'd
Bemoans her friend in death's black armes received?
Perhaps some pining Votress in ye dark
Bedews a Lover's tombe with tears; hark! hark!

Tha.
Ah me forlorn! ah me forsaken maid!
Where is my loveliness and honour strayd?
Those glories dwelt upon me? & those swans
That sung my name beyond proud Ganges sands,
And fill'd both Indies with the wide renown
Of my spread fame? Now tost now tumbled down?

Sab.
I thought my crimson streams had buried all
The bitter land-flouds of a Kingdoms thrall.
But lo! a louder eccho living is,
A floud of yet continued miseries.
A tide of wo at last has found a tongue
To bear a sad part in my doleful song:
Speak wretched Maid, whence art?—

Tha.
—tis I, tis I,
Poor Thamesis out of my ruines cry,

249

Gravell'd with sorrow and scortch'd up with heat
Of war, struck deaf with drums, who was the seat
Of peace and plenty, now the rouling map
Of violence and tyranous mishap.

Sab.
Alas fair Princess! were there left in mee
A Creek reserv'd from grief to pitty thee,
With what swift hast should I divert ye course
Of my salt waves to mixt their scatter'd force
With that vast body of thy tears? And close
My springs with thine to make a sea of woes?

Tha.
Can there be such a monster that dares own
It's small undoing when my mischief's shown?
O can there be proportion 'twixt the drops
Of private ills, and the full plenteous crops
And buckets of mine anguish? O forbear!
I drank those showers whereof thy storms skirts were.

Sab.

We grant (Great Lady of the Isles) that thy
Tumultuous tumours were that pluresie
That caus'd the opening of our veins. Thy head
Distemper'd, we grew soon imbodied
In the same gulf and ocean of thy pain,
Languishing rivulets of thee the maine.

But if the surges of thy bosom have
Digg'd for thy beauty an untimely grave:
If thy rash waters have so run thee in
The winding gyres and streights of suffering;

250

Thank thy Augean filthiness for these,
Thy Hydra which hath slain thy Hercules.

Tha.
Tis true Sabrina I have acted right
The fable of ye Horse; who needs would fight
The Hart: But finding streight himself to bee
Too weak for his Pallizadoed enemie;
He begs the man to ride him, and became
His slave, to gain an empty victor's name.

Sab.

No, rather I suppose th'hast verefi'd
The story of the Frogs, that to Jove cry'd
To have a King. He heard their praiers tis said
And flung them down a Beam to be their head.
But they dislik'd with peace, again did call,
On which he sent a Stork that eat them all.

So thou yt kick'st at quiet kings, hast gain'd
A conquest, wch now rides thee double rein'd.
Thou, thou that shrunk'st at puny Subsidies
Art eas'd at length with Taxes and Excize;
Hast only chang'd the names of things ye Hague
For Amsterdam, the Meazles for the Plague.

Tha.
Crush not Sabrina now my smarting sores,
But let the offring of my crumbled Towers,
And rubbish Palaces appease thy feirce
Censure: For lo I speak but in my hearse.
This issue of my breath's a parting groan:
Add not affliction to affliction.

Sab.

Nor has ye burden lighted all on thee
Alone sweet Nymph, but Humber, Trent & Dee,

251

Medway, and my poor channel had their share
In th'crimson streams of a most bloudy war.
If by the shore the Publick Father dy'd
Twas not long since the Son here slipp'd a side?

Sav'd by a miracle of Providence,
The finger of the Gods, that caught him hence
From out ye jaws of death, to make him more
Than that fight gain'd could seal him conquerour.
But least I lessen thy deserts, ô take
The glory of our ruine for thy sake.

Tha.

Twas I indeed was that main spring of all
That set the judgments moving, wch did fall,
And in each quarter of the land did roam,
But now again are justly travell'd home
Through my own bowels. O my pride and purse
Were both at once the Countrie's & my curse.

Fulness of bread, & wantoness, that brat
Of sweet abused peace, in me begat
A nicety of palate, a desire
Of novelties, and setting all on fire,
Which flame once kindled, I was forc'd to be
The Fuel of my own calamitie.

Sab.
And rightly, since thou wast ye wombe and well
From whence those Spirits rose, to be their Hell.
The high throne of that many headed Beast
Popular Soveraignty: A snaky nest
And Synagogue of Asps, which share the sweat
Of three tame Nations tyed up from their meat.

252

Tha.
What thē Sabrina rests yet to be done?
But that we shun with shame and fly the sun,
Suffring a willing winter to congeal
Our drops to christal, which wee'le mildly deal
In softer showers of pious tears again
Till we have purg'd a scarlet Kingdoms stain.

The Myrtle Grove.

Just as the reeling Sun came sliding down
Among the Moors and Tethys in a Gown
Of sea-green watchet settled to embrace
Her great Apollo from his circled race,
And ye streak'd heavens did themselves digest
Into a larger Iris, to invest
And canopie th'illustrious lovely pair
In a Diaphanous Robe of costly ayre:

Clarinda rose amidst the Myrtle Grove,
Like the Queen-mother of the stars above.
But that Clarinda's was no borrow'd Light,
Nor could it, where she was be deemd a night.
Such was the natural glories she put on
They ow'd no being to reflection.
Whiles the inspir'd Musicians of the wood,
Ravish'd at the new day, powr'd out a floud
Of quavering melody in honied strains
To court the glittering Diety of the plains.
Those pretty flow'ry beds of sweets that now
Had clos'd their heads up in an amber dew

253

Of tears, to mourn the drowsy Sun's good night,
Warm'd with a nobler ardor sprung up right,
And threw the mantles of dull sleep aside
In a displaid and meritorious pride,
To strew with rich perfumes her balmy way,
Which grew more fragrant by her active ray.

Thus sweetly woo'd Clarinda laid her down
On a curl'd quilt of roses, fondly grown
Proud of their own oppression, whiles they may
Kiss the dear burden wch upon them lay.
Then skreen'd with harmony, she stretch'd a long
Upon her Damask Couch, where a bright throng
Of Graces hover'd ore the firmament
Of her pure orbs drawn to a full extent.
Whiles a soft gale of wanton wind that blew
Did sport her willing glories into view.
But I poor dazled I, not daring here
T'attempt the splendor of each naked sphear,
Stood peeping through the Opticks of ye shade,
Which to my sight a kind reflection made.

Her eyes half shut up in their christal case
Stood twinckling Centinels upon her face;
Or else to take the prospect of those fields
Of beauty which that flowing Tempe yields.
Her coral lips ten thousand smiles enthron'd,
Like clustred grapes which for a vintage groan'd.

254

The Ivory palace of her stately neck
Cloth'd with majestick aw, did seem to check
The looser pastime of her gamesome hair,
Which in wilde rings ran trick about the ayre.
Her amorous brests swell'd to a lovely rise
Of dripping plenty a twinn'd Paradise
Of milk and honey, exhal'd my roving eye
Into a soul-ensnaring extasie.
And had I not recoil'd without delay
I there had wandred in the milky way.
Her belly like the Ace of Clubs, so white,
So black, the struting pillow of delight,
So fired the catching tinder of my sense,
That I no longer Student could commence,
But streight weigh'd anchor & tack'd up ye sail
To the main yard, waiting a stiffer gale
To pass me through those ticklish streights of Man
Into the full Mediterranean.
At last I plung'd into th'Elysian charms,
Fast claspp'd by th'arched Zodiack of her arms
Those closer clings of love, where I pertaked
Strong hopes of bliss; but so, ô so I waked!

To my honoured friend Mr. T. C. that ask'd mee how I liked his Mistris being an old widdow.

But prethee first how long hast bin
Lost in this sad estate of sin?
That the milde Gout, or Pox, or worse
Serves not to expiate thy curse?

255

Some Pestilence else may be thought upon,
And not such absolute damnation.
Are rocks and halters grown so dear
That there's no perishing but here?
Doe no Committee yet survive
Those cheaper Gregories of men alive?
If thou wilt needs to Sea, ô must it bee
In an old Galliasse of sixty three?
A snail-crawl'd botom? A gray Bark
That stood at Font for Noah's Ark?
Whose wrinkled Poop in figures furl'd
Describes her travels round the world?
A Nut, wch whē th'hast crack'd & fumbled ore
Thou'lt finde the Squiril has bin there before?
Then raise the Siedge from falling on
That old dismantled garrison.
Rash Lover speak what pleasure hath
Thy Spring in such an Aftermath?
Who, were she to the best advantage spread,
Is but the dull husk of a maiden head.
How canst thou then delight the sense
In beautie's preterperfectense?
And dote upon that free-stone face
Which wears but the records of grace?
Whose antick Monast'ry brags but a Chest
Of venerable Reliques at the best?
O can there such a famine bee
Of piping hot virginitie,
That thou art forc'd to slur and cheat
Thy stomack with the broken meat?

256

Why he that wooes a Widdow does no more
Then court that Quagmire where one sunk before.
Fie, prize not then those Arras Looks
Sullied and thumb'd like Town-hall Books!
I like thy fancy well to have
Its misery so near its Grave.
And tis a general shrift that most men use,
But yet tis tedious waiting dead mens shoes.
If 'twere thy plot I do confess
For to make Mummee of her grease,
Or swop her to the Paper Mill,
This were extracting good from ill.
But if thou wed'st on any worse condition,
Thou'lt prove Delinquent for thy Superstition.
But prethee hold, let me advise,
Perhaps shee's rich and seems a prize,
New chalk'd, new rigg'd, a stately Friggot,
But yet she's tapp'd at lower spiggot.
Yet if no med'cine for thy grief be found,
There's smal ods Tom 'twixt being hang'd or drown'd.

257

The Engagement Stated.

Begon Expositor: The Text is plain
No Church, no Lord, no Law, no Soveraign.
Away with mental reservations, and
Senses of Oaths in files out-vy the Strand.
Here's hell truss'd in a thimble, in a breath,
Dares face the hazard of the second death.
The Saints are grown Laconians, and can twist
Perjury up in pils like Leyden grist,

But hold precize Deponents: Though the heat
Of Zeal in Cataracts digests such meat,
My cold concoction shrinks, and my advance
Drives slowly to approach your Ordinance.
The signe's in Cancer, and the Zodiack turns
Leonick, rowl'd in curls while Terra burns.
What though your fancies are sublim'd to reach
Those fatal reins? Success and will can teach
But rash divinity. A sad renown
Where one man fell to see a million drown.
When neither Arts nor Arms can serve to fight
And rest a Title from its law and right,
Must malice piece the Trangum? & make clear
The scruple? Else we will resolve to swear?
Nay out swear all that we have sworn before
And make good lesser crimes by acting more,

258

And more sublime? This, this extends ye Line
And shames the puny soul of Cataline.
On this account all those whose fortune's crost,
And want estates, may turn Knights of the Post.
Vaulx we out vy'd thee, since thy plot fell lame,
We found a closer Cellar for the same,
Piling the fatall Powder in our mouths
Which in an Oath discharg'd blew up the House.
Maugre Mounteagle, asps not throughly slain
Their poison in an age may live again.
Good Demas cuff your Bear, then let us see

The mistery of your iniquitie.
May a man course a cur? And freely box
The Question? Or the formal paradox?
But as in Phisick so in this device
This querk of policy the point is nice.
For he that in this model means to thrive,
Must first subscribe to the preparative.
Like Witches compacts counter-march his faith,
And soak up all what ere the Spirit saith:
Then seal and sign. Scylla threw three bars short,
He had a sword indeed, but no Text for't.

259

Old Rome lament thy infancy in sin,
We perfect what thou trembled'st to begin
Blush then to see thy self out done. But all
The world may grieve tis epidemical.
Heaven frownes indeed. But what makes hell enraged?
Sweet Pluto be at peace, we have Engaged.

FINIS.