An old Man Courting a young Girle.
Come beauteous Nymph, canst thou embrace
An aged, wise, majestick grace
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.
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
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.
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,
Yet perforce chuse, chuse you whether
You and I shall Lye together.
