The Minor Poems of Joseph Beaumont :: :: University of Virginia Library

As when a beauteous Morn brings forth
An answerably-splendid birth,
And Titan with a smileing face
Gets up & gins his golden race;
Sereen & cheerly Houres attend
His wheels which up Noons mount ascend,
Suffring no envious Clowd
To crowd
Into the glorious throne of Day
Which now through all heavn doth her realm display.

2

Yet when faint & decrepit grown
Into the West she stumbles down;
Some treacherous Windes have taken arms
And musterd up rebellious Storms
To damp her peace's gorgeous grace
And tear her monarchies bright face;
Whilst the defeated Sun
Doth run
From his fair colours, & is wett
Before he can into th' Atlantik gett.

393

3

How true that Day paints out to me
This Years sweet-soure repugnancie!
A Year in which my Joyes grew up
Into the blade of cheerly Hope:
But blasted then, did onely yeild
A Crop of Greif from Comforts Feild:
A Year which taught me how
To grow
Into a sad beleif that heer
Delight's bright Perl's but a mistaken Tear.

4

Fair dawnd this Year, when I & I,
(All Turtles know this mystery,)
Incouraged by pleasant health,
Vie'd loves, & multiply'd the Wealth
Of that most pretious Union, which
Denies that gold or gemms are rich:
Nor did his progress fail
To seal
Upon our hopes fresh Joyes, when we
Saw in that Spring nuptial Fertilitie.

5

How large a promise did he give
That I should more than double live,
Whilst in my pregnant Deerest I
Seem'd rooted to posterity.
How honestly at length he made
Shew of performing what he had
So fairly promis'd me,
When he
Payd me the pretious Daughter from
The lovely Mother-perl's ingaged wombe!

394

6

How blooming now did I appear,
Grown young & fresh again in Her!
Especaly when happy She
Corrected her nativitie,
And by a second birth became
God's childe as well as mine: Her Name
Was allso now no less
Express
An echo of her Mother, than
Were those sweet lines which through her feature ran.

7

Thus this Eliza deerer was
By being that Eliza's Glass.
In this epitomie I read
(Yet not at all diminished)
The Mothers Sweets; in that full book
Th' expansion of the Daughters Look.
Thus did I feast my Joy,
And lay
My heart to take her deer repose
Now on the Bud, now on the full blown Rose.

8

But ah! the flattering treacherous Year
Which rose & shin'd till now so cleer;
With sudden frowns plough'd up his brow,
And violently study'd how
To mock my Joy's precocitie
By levelling his storm at me.
For by an envious stroke
He broke
My dainty Bud, which in that gust
Was quite blown down & buried in the dust.

395

9

Yet why do I accuse the Year,
Which taught me (though by a seveer
And nature-tearing lesson) not
To build my hopes & joys on what
The easy gaine & prize can be
Of tottering Mortalitie.
This Lesson & hard Art
By heart
O may I get, & run to thee
Sweet JESU for true Rest's Stabilitie.