POEMS, WC BY WC ELDRED REVETT.
Horat. Ep. lib. 2.
Ad August.
—Quia nil rectum, nisi quod placuit, sibi ducunt:
Vel quia turpe putant parere minoribus, & quae
Imberbes didicere, Senes perdenda fateri.
LONDON, Printed by E. T. for the Authour. Anno Dom. 1657.
TO The best Worthy of Honour, his Noble Kinseman, ROBERT HENLY, Esquire.
SIR,
HOw much Poesie is declined from that esteem it had sometimes arrived to, the bold in [Page]vectives of a cheap multitude, are the but too easie instances; and nothing is so now the business of these Epistles, as the defence of Writing: we live in the dayes of Tumult, and in the noise of Batteries.
Hic ego Rerum
Fluctibus in mediis, & tempestatibus Urbis,
Verba Lyrae motura sonum connectere dignor!
When no Amphion can be [Page]heard, however able to re-order the stones, and reconcile them to their breaches, the Nine had now found a no so ingenious Quarter, as the Macedonian gave to their farthest Relations, who (at the razing of an obstinate City) forgot not (in the wildnesse of discontent and Warre) to exempt (from an otherwise generall ruine) the whole stocke of Pindar. I have not then presumed on this Dedication, that these sheetes deserve, but that they need, the [Page]best Patronage. They are borne in an Age enough resolved, that the Muses make a Body Politique, but Monstrous, by bringing to it unnecessary and superfluous Members; and in an adventitious weakeness they will come new Argument to the tyrannie of Prejudice: They will therefore owe their whole safetie to the Honour of your Name, and indeed Protection is but Complement to an assured sufficiencie. If you [...]nde in some of them a too [Page]early growth, let them finde an Excuse in their Non-age, and not passe an Examination after that of the Ferula. The rest have beene the Diversion of some my more indulgent Houres, and to my best Discourse, they weare no interests, but their owne: I had rather be thought to want the Advantages, than derive the Acknowledgement:
Alium qui recitet, & quaerit famam,
Non emere Librum, sed Silentium debet.
Where I have dealt in a Divine matter, I have not loved to loose my selfe in Mysteries, or betray my Youth to an Oracle: I have therefore onely glanced on Subjects, the fittest for Phancie, and (that alone) that, of two Mites, I might return one, a Tribute [...]o Heaven.
Though I have in nothing else a satisfaction; I shall enough receive it if you pardon the address.
Sir,
Of Your, in all Obedience, Servant and Kinsman, Eldred Revett.
October 19. 1647.
To my dear Friend Mr. ELDRED REVETT, On his Poems Moral, and Divine.
CLeft (as the top of the inspired hill;)
Struggles the soul of my divided quill:
While this foot doth the watry mount aspire
That Sinais living and en liv'ning fire.
Behold! my power's storm'd by a twisted light
O'th Sun, and his first kindled his sight.
And my left thoughts invoke the Prince of Day,
My right to'th spring of it, and him do pray.
Say happy youth crown'd with a heav'nly ray
Of the first flame, and inter-wreathed bay,
Inform my soul in labour to begin,
Io's, or Anthems, Poeans, or a Hymne,
Shall I a Hecatombe on thy tripod slay,
Or my devotions at thine Altar pay:
While which t'adore, the maz'd world cannot tell
The sublime Urim, or [...] [...]racle.
Hark how the [...] hords temper our brain!
As when Apollo serenades the main,
Old Ocean smooths his sullen, furrow'd front,
And Nereides do glide soft measures on't;
[...]hil'st th'Aire puts on it's sleekest smoothest face,
[...]nd each doth turn the others Looking-glass.
So by thy sinewie Lyre now strook (we see)
to soft calms all storms of Poesie:
And former thund'ring and lightning lines
And Verse now in its Native Lustre shines.
How were't thou hid within thy self? how shut
Thy pretious Illiads lockt up in a nut?
(Not hearing from thee) thou dost break out strong
Invading (fourty thousand-men) in song
And we (secure in our thin, empty, heat)
Now find our selves at once surpriz'd and bear;
While the most valiant of our wits now sue,
Fling down their Armes, ask quarter too of you.
So cabbin'd up in its disguis'd course, rust,
And scurf'd all ore wi [...]h its unseemly crust.
The [...]iamond (from midst the humbler stones)
(Sparkling) shoots forth the price of Nation's.
Ye sage unridlers of the Stars, pray tell
By what name shall I stamp my Miracle?
Thou strange inverted Aeson, that leapst ore,
From thy first infancie into fourscore;
That to thine own self ha'st the Mid-wife plaid!
And from thy brain spring'st [...]th the heav'nly Maid!
Thou staff of him; bore him, that bore our sins,
That (but set down) to bloom and bear begins!
Thou Rod of Aaron that with one motion hurl'd
Bud'st a perfume of Flowers through the world?
Thou strange calcined seeds within a glass,
Each species Idea spring'st as 'twas!
Bright vestal flame, that kindled but now
For ever dost the sacred fiers throw!
Thus the re-iter'd acts of Nestors age
(That now had three times ore outliv'd the stage,
And all those beams contracted into one)
Alcides in his cradle hath out-done.
But all these flourishing hues with which I die
Thy Virgin paper now are vain as I,
For 'bove the Poets heaven th'art taught to shine,
And move as in thy proper Chrystalline:
Whence that mole-hil Parnassus, thou dost [...]iew,
And us small Ants there dabling in its dew,
Whence thy Seraphick soul such hymnes doth play
As those to which first danced the first day;
Where with a thorn from the worlds ransoming wreath
Thou (stung) dost Antiphons, and Anthems breath,
Where with an Angels quill, dipt i'th lambs blood,
Thou sin'gst our Pellicans all-saving Flood,
And bath'st thy thoughts in ever-living streams.
Rinc't from Earth's tainted, fat and heavie steams.
There move translated youth! enrol'd ith'quire
That onely doth with holy layes inspire,
To whom his burning Coach Elias sent,
And the Royal Prophet-Priest his Harp hath lent,
Which thou dost tune in concent unto those
Clap wings for ever at each hallowed close:
While we now weak and fainting in our praise,
(Sicke) Eccho ore thy Halleluiahs.
Richard Lovelace.
To his Worthy Friend on his Poems.
VVE claim no share, to you the Bays are due,
Who have made Poems, and Us Poets too,
While, by a brave, inimicable flight
You both dishearten, and engage to write,
Shamed at once, If not at all we try,
And yet despairing ever to come nigh;
We usher nothing to your following state,
Whether in number valu'd, or in weight.
You, like Your Phoenix, are your self a kind,
Not cause our flow'rs are to your Posies joyn'd,
By which no Lustre is on your side won,
We are the Starres in That, and you the Sun.
Rivers may urge, They swell, the Byllowie Main,
But ask! hem whence they their owne waters drain.
Glasses may boast Their Office, yet they owe,
Unto our very Faces, what they show.
So little (though it seem) is any thing
That of Access unto thy Worth we bring,
Sole purchaser of thine immortall Fame,
Although the Deeds are passed in our Name.
On others here I may be thought too free,
Yet, with fair leave, I give but Right [...]o Thee,
Having confess'd the Trust, we adde no more,
But to thy Book, we turn the Reader o're.
B. H.
To his best Brother Mr. ELDRED REVETT, On his Poems, Humane and Divine.
THy pen hath now flow'd o're, and [...]ill'd the age,
With streams of wit from each luxuriant page,
Thou scorn'st t' ingross thy vein like wretched pelf,
For every good's diffusive of it self;
Thy first fruits do appear to all mens joyes,
Twins at the first production, hopefull boyes:
And though in sense and voyce they don't agree,
Esau hath Jacobs hands, and smooth as he.
Thy Humane are so pure, so cleanly drest,
Chaste as the cold thoughts of a Vestall brest;
Look't the strict abbess on, a blushing Nunne,
Might drop such beades at her devotion.
When I thy [...]nthems read, each lines a Rise
By which my rapt soule climbes a Paradise;
And sings with Angells Odes it lear'nt from you,
Closing them with blest Hallelujahs too.
Th' are more than thine! sure some Intelligence
Did both direct thy hand and guide thy sense.
To thought above thy reach, but that we know,
Good wits (like Hagles) seldome flagge below.
Let Satyres whet their teeth, and fork their tongue,
Thou hast advantages above their wrong,
Such snakes but hiss, thy babes (like Hercules)
Even in the Cradle strangle such as these.
WILL. REVETT.
POEMS.
The Centaure.
MAn or Beast, e'n choose you whether,
Nature made you both, and neither;
Doubt (in you) might fear to erre
Inoculated Character:
My double seeing eyes deny,
They through their Glasses mul [...]iply;
Such break the Object into more,
But the same shape's, but Eccho'd o're,
Thou not to be divided art,
shuffled within thy either part.
No mar'l that you in dealing stick.
When I must Play you too by Trick.
Me thinks thou seemst by swords divorce,
A Trooper graffed on his Horse!
Turks that by Middle disunite
Are your Instructors to alight,
Who usher to no Woman kind,
But Ride before, your own behind.
And when you over-ridden sweat,
Walk (your own Hostler) down the Hear;
While children like that Fancie stride,
You go on Foot although you Ride.
You were when it the Gods Refin'd,
A piece of Cha [...]s left behind;
The Soule that Body doth enlive,
Is Rationably sensitive;
And 'twas thy Tribe did those beget,
Are understanding Horses yet:
Thy Voyce broke from thy Ivory Grate,
A Neighing, yet Articulate;
And we distinguish the Discourse,
Banks Dialoguing with his Horse.
I muse the Miscelanie Race
Should you a Siren Wench imbrace;
Or Woman should you Court with Arts
Of kindred to your upper Parts.
Thy Love beyond Platonick prest
Were meerly sensuall, in the rest;
More naturally or inclin'd,
Should you but doat on your own kind;
Th' are parting kisses whet you to't,
And you, as 'twere, take leave to doo't;
Where what before you sued to winne
The half perswasive waves as sinne.
Who can Reconcile the Quarrell
Of those limbs too, to apparrell?
Where a Doublet's all the suit
Or a saddle Breeches to't;
Which uncondemned, you may slack
Incensed from your Genets Back;
And with it too your own indorse,
As good a way to vexe your Horse:
Me thinks those Hoofs should not be one;
but cleft into Division,
That might as they distinctly lay,
The double rather shape betray.
The ornaments of Tayle and Head
Have small allyance in the Thread;
But that the lesse is disapprov'd,
They Kindred are so farre remov'd:
The [...]able needs that must supply't
To double with thy App [...]e,
Where Members so Reb [...]ous are;
Still with the Belly vext at Warre:
You drunk at, Stomach Glasses scant,
When yet that Paunch is flag'd in want;
Your throat the Pipe, but after playes
That to the Cistern Drinks conveighs:
What Flesh the Hands to Mouth preferre,
Got down, is Thracian Provender;
Till reconciling Sallades sent
By intercession both content.
Thou 'twixt a Butler plac't and Groom,
A stable and a Dining room;
And as thy Hoofs the Pavement beat
This pleads it Legge, that Active Hear;
For Thee thy Cogging Host doth spread
Clean Litter and a Feather bed,
And thou art laid when sleep intreats,
Half in the Matt, half in the Sheets.
Thou dream, wherein all shapes do croud;
Phantastick off-spring of a Cloud.
ODE Hastening his Friend into the Countrey.
(1.)
COme let us down,
Bloat with this smoakie Town,
And Broyl'd in Heat,
Of a Tumultuous sweat.
Why linger we in in course Flames, never think,
We can burn Martyrs here, but out and stink.
(2.)
Nothing but Noyse
The sow're breath'd Muskets Voyce.
And with long blast
The Trumpet Hoarse at last.
Such still ascending Volleys thither flye,
They lay up a new thunder in the skye.
(3.)
'Tis Gross as Day
Seen Complement to stay
Black-patches mend,
The Faces we attend.
That are but sleekt with sise and whited o're,
The Haire and rough-cast, that was layd before.
(4.)
That Cup and then
Wee sleep, part agen.
A Fire their reignes,
[...] scorched black, our veins;
And our Canary Faces dasht with Wines
Shot through the Windowes, blaze the Tavern Signes.
(5.)
Let us Repaire
To the soft winged Ayre,
Which spread a space,
Will gently fan the Face;
And wipe with the down penons sweat away,
Leaving them onely guilded by the Day.
(6.)
Then in some Bower
Belyes the Days brighr Hour;
Where Sun hath made
Squeez'd in a Curd of shade.
Under a Vocall Roof of Birds weel lye
That sing's asleep, and are our Canopy,
(7.)
Or underneath
Wee'l Restie Fancie breathe;
That else willye
Tipled in Extasie:
And tune some Rhapsodie to their wild notes,
That in the Leavie Belfry Chime their Throates.
(8)
Or Harmless sack,
Drink from the Harvest Jack,
Will never Flush
Our Cheeks with guilty Blush.
And view the country Girles turn drie the Hay,
While their jet Eyes, Frowse it as fast as They.
(9.)
Glaunces they throw
To Dick at the next Mowe.
At night in Flocks
Dream fine things in course smocks.
And though the Sun looks on their Face too full,
Have skins as white as Milk, and soft as Wooll.
To his Honoured Friend, Col, R. L. upon his second failing.
ONe Fault to you is Death agen
A super-errogating sin,
And I thus fall'n from all Repaire,
Set Raving down by wild despaire;
And as the damn'd already do,
Repent my sins by adding to.
To a Lady becommingly reserved.
ADmired Pattern of a Modest youth,
You must not blush to look on naked Truth!
A Body so [...]aelestial cannot vexe
Your Virgin-eye, like Angells without Sexe;
Nor we her Gender (Madam) could divine,
Made her not Virtue (like you) Feminine:
A Filme nere so Diaphanous (her Fence)
She forfeits Eve like in't her innocence:
The Bay should be her Crown, oft wanton growes
And (Ivie-like) it self her Garment throwes;
But here the subtile loome unwinds to shew
How I have lov'd, how I have honour'd you.
Think now my Pen (full with the Delphian) swells;
The sacred Tunnell conveighs Oracles;
You more than Woman then must know, Iv'e seen
Those of the Sexe that have but women been;
And handsome too, had Hayre that flowd upon't,
And Tipt with Gold, the silver of their Front;
Had Browes well-archt, whose Crescent's, though above
Borrowed their Light from Sun's that under move;
Had Rosie Cheeks, Noses well polisht too
That smelt not them because they alwayes do,
Had Lips of Cherries, when the Wantons bit
You'd think the Fruit had truly suffer'd it,
Had Chinnes that flow'd Into a double wave,
And Necks hid not one Beauty in a grave.
As yours, their Breasts and Hands had snow as much,
And like yours too dissolved with a Touch:
Thus o're them's throwne a Tap'strie rich enough,
Lin'd with Hipocrisie of Darnix stuffe;
And had these glorious things but turned been,
Their out-sides had made betrer soules, than In:
How have I known these in a Mimick Pride,
Their Lovers into Sectaries divide;
Of Servants, Gallants, Friends, and thus they do
Make Loves Religion Independent too:
These I have lik't and envied, those did gain,
Lisping Commands they might have spoken plain;
When in new Lines their Faces they drew o're
Me thought they made them better than before:
As they from Posture into posture grew,
Their bodies in all Aretines they threw,
And what they made me long for, (hasty Elves)
In my default Commit they with Themselves:
But (Madam) now to you that these enhance
VVhose weightiest things about them are their Fans;
VVhen I first saw you, how me thought I saw
VVhat prompted me to break all, give me Law;
And as you scorned to bow untainted Men,
You look'd me Wilde onely to Tame agen:
Lions ('tis said) undaunted looks of Man
Humble to fear, if not, a Womans can;
Or what is yet more salvage, you might trust
Arm'd with that Majestie, a Satyrs lust;
Had Juno from her Browe thrown such a Raye
Paris had dropt the Ball he gave away:
VVhen I apppoacht your Lips with checkt desire,
I kist a Dialogue of Ice and Fire,
And mine withdrew thence, as if passed through
The watry and the fiery Ordeal too,
Or as I'd hung on Portias coales, and then
Cool'd my salute on her pale mouth agen:
The Phoenix curld her flames sure in your Breath,
Her ashes yet flew there, too after Death:
Into a seat (when now retyr'd) your eye
Had totterd me with its Artillery;
There I receiv'd its beams, whiles as they play'd
I in a sheet of Lightning sat aray'd;
Direr aparrel (had I rav'd) had bin
Than that flead Hercules, had searcht within;
But that my yielding body not denide
To give it way too easie for its pride.
Your pitie now call'd in your glorious light
That stroke my weak eyes with a ray too bright:
Your voice not humane then, my ear did brush:
Musick in thunder lightned by a blush.
New dis-intranc'd. I in as bad estate
To catch the sound, mak't in articulate;
And lost your charm of words, incourag'd now
By smiles among checks, scaterd on your brow,
I lockt your hand in mine that strove to scape
As I had grasp'd it there onely to rape:
Then had your front known wrinckles that might tell't
I in a frown had your displeasure spell't;
Nor can those eyes (have fire enough) it rowl
VVhiter than inside Vellam in a scrowl:
Sooner the feet of Gods, the milk that Paves
The path-way to Joves court may throw in waves;
Sooner the fingers, you too roughly lay
Curle Pelops shoulder into ruffles may:
This makes me still retaint, my am'rous heat
Had now resolv'd it self in a cold sweat
And made a luk-warm bath, love wanton'd in
Pav'd with the Pliant Marble of your skin;
VVhich fain would cheat the uncteous flood and grieve
It to a shower of Tears as that tooke leave:
At last my joynts fear (though unwilling) spred
which died the Prisoner in a bashful red.
For what it late had sufferd, when you line
VVith it your glove a less unruly shrine
New wonder-strook my reattentive eare
Tries if your words would shun embraces there:
But they fell linkt in such a subtle chain
My sense was fetterd without sense of pain;
(Restraint to violence) the sounds I heare
Uninjurr'd pass the dark Cells of the ear:
Though fit to rape your words Zon'd Virgins too
Drop not displaid as other womens do:
In wanton Bed-scenes they had laid before,
And prologu'd waking that sleep acted o're:
Thy breath meandring in a beauteous skie
Scorns the wing'd Archer in those clouds should flie;
His shafts and quiver in their bosoms dipt
VVith liquid Gold were too divinely tipt,
In that pure Heaven, for creatures pure as fit
Thy vocal thoughts dance innocent as it,
And raise dispute, how thou canst humane be
Blended with such rayes of Divinitie:
I cannot think thee Angel though as well
My trembling Fingers Tryall'd palpable;
Nor dare I woeman, thou dost so perplexe
My thoughts with Things were never in the Sexe:
Thou glorious Chaos then, wherein do lye,
Things mortal mixt with immortalitie;
Yet not that neither, what can I espie,
Untun'd in such a perfect Harmonie?
Thus, thus thou Mount'st Transcendent, and art gone,
Strugling through Nets of Definition.
A Diall eaten with Antiquity.
VVAnts Time a subject that the envious Elfe
Imployes its Iron Teeth now on it selfe?
Each Man (Nyles Hierglyphick) here allow'th,
Times Serpent winds its Tayle into its Mouth.
On the old Tombe keeper that sheweth the Monuments in Westminster Abby.
YOu that gave pence a piece for't once,
And saw a wonder thriv'd by stones,
I'v paid the summe, dissol'vd the spell,
Have seen't, and seen no Miracle.
One (as that Bill of Fare had fed,
Suggested stones to be made Bread)
Makes either Charity but one,
Of Him gives bread, or gives a stone;
Whose Teeth can make their Table meat
Yet grinde un-blunted as they eat.
As ev'ry morsel melted one,
By Transubstantiation.
His Rodde (no Prophets) at descent
Yet broaches an old Monument,
As from that aged teares did burst
Time there had staled for his Thirst.
But why! me thinks this walking sp'rit
Should loose like others appetite
At least Imaginarie one,
Should fast by Imitation?
In place once Delug'd with the Seas
Of Grief, he viewes those Images,
As Waters, from the earth agen,
Ducaleon did his stony Men;
Or as he (a New Perseus) dead
Had statued them with Gorgons Head,
In Posture as they fought, and so
Had left them still a weapond Foe:
When in himself he layes up all
A Monumental Canibal,
And Conning o're the Inventorie,
He re-intombes them, and their story;
A living-Church-yard, that opprest
Gives up his dead too like the rest,
Spues Carcasses, as he fore-run
Graves at the Resurrection;
His belching Task performed once, then
He licks the Vomit up agen;
Thus more than Man's he doth inforce
Upon himself the Serpents curse.
Apple of Sodome, onely skin,
Without he is, and dust within.
What Hair he doth preserve from loss
Hangs on the Scull a little Mosse;
His Wrinkles into Letters run:
And are his own Inscription.
My Phanste shapes him now once more
Created Adam new flesht o're.
And now me thinks the carcasse springs,
Informed with the Ghosts oth' Kings.
Which bustle there, and thus he is
Lin'd with a Metempsuchosis;
Bravely prss [...]st, He takes up Roomes,
Like the Demmiacks in the Tombes
His imprisonment in the Spring.
UNlocked Ianiver had now let in
Youth and sair checks to beautify the spring.
VVhen am'rous Sol smiles fetters into teares,
That each chain'd River on her bosome weares.
Rowl'd into Curls in better d'esse they passe,
As I'e had been spread, but their Looking-glasse.
And leave their Banks as were Alpheus loose,
Again persuing his lov'd Arethuse.
VVith Eishes crown'd, that health to freedom quaffe,
VVhere late yor might have grav'd their Epotaph.
The sheets of snow washt in themselves awhile,
Poure from the Mountain fides to swell the Nile;
VVanton in liberty his surges slide.
O're Sun-burnt Egypt as he flowes, 'tis dy'd;
VVho bring wild wealth for Pyramids that rise,
Like temples sent up with their sacrifice.
Earth her contracted Hand too open layes,
To the love-Rhetorick of Apollo [...]s Rayes.
He melts it with his kisses, and the skin
VVinter had chopt, he Jellies smooth agen;
He bales her from her Gaole, where frost had once
Immur'd her in the VValls of her own stones:
New dis-intranc'd, she in her uncrampt Arms,
Fruit-getting Rain (that Aprill falls in) warmes.
To make the Goddesse fertile from his tower,
Jove here des [...]endeth in a fragrant showr.
And ev'ry Plant the longing Head thrusts on,
To free't from's Bed of Generation;
The Poppy's d' of their Velvet Maskes and dare
Now nodde to sleep, hush't by the whispering ayr.
VVak't from their Coffins, Becs with springs recruit.
By Chymick kisses the new flowers salute.
To welcome their approach. Our free bloods ride,
VVinter had conjur'd, and to Circles tyde:
Returning Birds their gratefull Paeans sing,
For their Repeale to the soft-breasted spring.
VVelcome to all but me,! VVho joyes the state
That onely sees a Triumph through a Crate?
On the Burning of some locks of a Gentlewomans Hair.
MAdam, loves God invisible did lye
Gyv'd in your Tresses, and his Bow layd by;
Vnless as are his hands, and now his fires,
To burn his silken fetters he inspires:
They proud of such a Pyre, Curle high and bright,
And kiss't them with a burning appetite.
Love freed takes wing, and hastes to Venus starre,
Mistakes, and flyes back to your flaming Haire;
Shot through the flames, he passes in a trice,
From Purgatory into Paradise;
And vowes hencesorth to make that Place his sphere,
From thence to whisper love into your eare.
The Daisie.
(1)
AS it blowes
The Hood it self unclasped throwes
In shape a starre;
But its Pride
Is to the flower, 't s not deni'd
To be a sphere.
(2.)
Beauty playes
From of it, eye-disabling Rayes;
In red and white
That are Parts
Constituent to captive Hearts;
Make Faces bright.
(3.)
Blushes shedde,
As showr's on Virgin snow had bledde.
Imbroiderie lyes
Upon leaves,
From which the Morn her dress receives,
To gilde the skyes.
(4.)
Nature lent
The Daisie an imperfect scent,
Yet left her Well;
We bequeath
Since to Beauties sov'raign Breath,
How e're they smell.
Adonis slain.
ALas! thou wert deceiv'd Rude swine,
That thought'st his Ivory hard as thine!
So pliant Venus joints of silk,
Oft have padled in't as Milk.
And her Rosie Palme did throw
Aside the waves that easie flow:
Thy Tusk the Calm too shook so sore
The Wallowing Flood did Circle ore;
Oh but thy Tooth to Corall Tippe
It self (alas) did rashly dippe;
And ope' the springs conveigh'd the twigs
There more than Flexible in sprigs.
That from the Channels bubling swell,
To brink the bloody paved Well.
Like Rubies the warm streams did spill,
Soft from the Chimists Crucible.
Shed to salute their new sad blisses,
Prankt in the scarlet dye of kisses,
They smooth and glutenously move,
Or they had surely mixt above:
But since they could not, Crawld about,
As they would vcin themselves without;
And spread in Branch a bleeding Vine,
Whose Sappe and Clusters too are Wine.
Fragrant Adonis slain that How'r,
Starts an Extemporary Flower.
Barne-Elmes.
HE sure (who phancyed an Elisyan shade)
VVas with the Garland crownd that he had made
That bound his browe, illustrious in its rayes
And kist the lightning blastles as the bayes;
Though baffled now his cypress, yiewe may fall
And naked here strowe their own Funeral;
Their umbrage mourn too in a sadder night,
And these Elmes roof the regions of delight:
No wreath of conquest round them need be thrown
Victoriously triumphant in their own.
To which we pass as Vertue for more state
Our essence kept intire, and did translate
VVe furrow up no styx but calmely ride,
The silver back of a delicious Tide.
VVhose watry fleece after each stroak doth flit
As if the tangled Oare were caught in it
When now rowl'd o're its dimpled smile, we tread
On native carpets to our landing spread,
And here we feed with a devouring sight;
As our return we hindred by the slight
Our cheated eyes the dissie pavement guess
Inebriated in its own excess;
VVhere the rich Gems of fields their lustre shew
And all the flowers are of an orient hew;
But that the close loom with opinion wars
You'd think the melted earth reflected stars,
Or that un-hinged Heaven inverted might
Make proud our foot-steps pav'd with Globes of light.
The giddy sense turns the gay Firmament
As if with it, it circulary went:
But richer beauty doth their sealing lie,
So merely theirs, 'tis a deputed skie:
And as Hyperions son o're curious streams
To prick them in, he needle-points his beams;
Arm weaves in arm, and rancks exactly sute
As they had danc'd thus to Amphions Lute:
Had Orpheus fingers trembled here upon
His Lyre, the trees had mov'd in measure on.
VVhere the deluded Sun can no where shed
He guilds the Covering and his rayes are spred
Till by the breath of Zephyrus undone,
A breese of soft-lung'd wind fans in the sun;
VVhich thus let fall a momentary flash,
The spangled plush doth but retreating dash:
Birds that pearch here their wilder freedome leese
And Volunteers are Caged in the Trees;
Tipling the places harmony, they run,
From their harsh Notes a rich division:
A spiced Air with downy bosome glide:
And o're the Foliage hardly sinking slides.
(VVith apples blusht the cime) for their offence
Sure our first Parents were exiled hence.
Vpon a Gentlewoman caught in a shower of Haile.
THe flatteries of an April day
My Chloe to a walk betray,
And since the sky no mask did hide,
Her silken clouds are thrown aside;
The Gilt the Sun throws to repair,
She sheds the Beams too of her hair.
His Courtship cares not to escape,
She knowes too young yet for a rape:
His infant rayes he rather tries
From the grown Lustre of her eyes:
Unable so too, he doth shrowd,
His tender-ey'd Beames in a Cloud.
VVhen at this Buriall of the Sun
The Heav'ns put their mourning on;
Yet to Reta [...]n his Murderer, throw
A Banquet down on her below
Of Candied sweets, least she away,
Should carry thence what's left of Day.
Or else 'twas Jove himselfe did hurle,
Thus scatter'd, in a show'r of Pearle.
To court my Nymph, and call'd in Day,
As when he with Alcmena lay:
Her burnisht Hayre, her Diadems
Powderd with these Orient Gemmes;
When sheding through the Curles for Dresses,
They sometimes fall her Neck-laces;
Her Vesture they Imbroyde [...] do,
And trickle down for Arm'lets too:
And some that would be over-blest
Rowle between her either Brest;
But she heaves up her Bosome there
And stops th' Audacious Ravisher,
To let the God know, though in's Trim,
That milky way's not free for Him:
The anger of her eye then feares,
Him into penitentiall teares
Now drops thrill'd through her ring'd-hayr laves,
Like springs that issue out of caves.
And from her Neck (my wonder though)
How Hayle should be dissolv'd in snow.
On the Death of a Canarie Bird, killed with the Fall of a Cage.
STaye Harmonious soule! O stay!
That fly'st but to escape away;
Thy upper garment is forgot,
So Light (alas!) thou knowest it not;
Thy subtler part unkind in Fate
Strip'd the substantial at the Grate:
Fearless of cold, unfledg'd it went
O'th' pretty featherd Tenement;
That just the Confines on of Death,
VVas but too Rich a Furre of Breath;
Did its part so kindly do
VVhile alive, 'twas tunefull too.
As thy Raptures rise and fall;
We heard them, saw this Musicall;
That full Deligt knew difference,
Not in the subject but the sense:
Our thirsty eares whenever Drye,
Quencht with thy Floods of Harmony;
Hung with such extasies upon,
Thy Ravishing Division.
The Tipled sense forgot to know,
Whether it were pleas'd or no:
What that had lost the eye hereaves
Still as the green plush bosome heaves;
While it pants might ev'ry sphere
More kindly Tremble, Tutor'd here.
Rowled thence the sugred noate,
Checkels in the Bubling Throate.
Then doth a Soule of sweetness flye,
But left thee still Plurality:
But what usurious Fate could Rappe
The heav'nly Legion at a Clappe?
And leave thy Carcass sadly throwne,
To Buriall in m [...]ss it's own?
Could thy injurious prison slide,
Burthend with Voyce and nought beside.
That did Heavens motions tell,
Their Eccho just but Visible?
On horrid Styx thou now dost float
Pirch'd on o [...] Charons Oare or Boat;
Tune but thy layes in length hee'l hurle
And in a Calme flagge his black Curle▪
Like Orpheus once at Hell, e're long
Strike thy Redemption in a song:
That then his Cittern farre more clear,
(Alas) will be thy stay I fear:
Then to the shades since thou must come:
Pirch, and make them Elysium.
To Dr. F. B. on his game at Chesse,
VVE read of Greeks could ten years war define
And draw it's whole design in drops of wine;
Could shew where Rhaesus, where Ʋlisses lay,
VVho stole the Horse, ne're toucht the Fatall Hay:
This was weak Demonstration, Sir; but you
Bring us the very siege and souldiers too.
Her Suspicion.
ANd am I Monster then? it crept upon,
Me undiscerned Transmutation;
My but Appparell, ere't my thoughts had been
It must like Nessus shirt have eaten in:
Thoughts that lay blushing there, and dasht the earth,
Mantled in their own scarlet at their Birth;
[...]owl'd o're my throat, they from themselves unspread,
Then'ts Native tapestry a deeper red.
VVhen cloathed with it (in Vocall state they ride)
My ev'ry fleece of breath is Purple dy'd
A blush betrayed no guilt, but modest fear,
The guilt might be suspected, was not there.)
And those Cameleon-like that after flye,
From what's before them take their Livery:
Thus I'm within one bashfull flame, without
That sins dark Lanthorne compas [...]es about.
As if repentance with my crimes opprest
[...]ust strugled out, had spilt them on my breast.
Should the diffufive blot all over-run
[...]t onely cassock't o're Religion.
The Gemm's dark cabinet, or emblem'd in,
The baptiz'd Aethiops unregenerate skinne;
So hid's it's face, when through the Mask of Night,
Heav'n Argus-ey'd shoot's out it's starry sight.
Such are your bright bauties, when you hurle,
O're them Eclipses with a sullen Curle.
My all was pure within, my breast the Grate's,
Ribbe-bound to Nunneries; my heart creates,
Of Virgin-thoughts, that could restraint obey,
But to converse with you, as chast as they;
My blood had frost upon't, that heat repells
And onely strung my veines with Isicles.
Proab'd through their ev'ry Channell, till I grew
As Dian's statue, cold, and as stiffe too;
My pulse a Minute-clock, beat no Alarms,
That my congealed blood to action warmes.
Why were those coy Retreats? I ne're had known,
The horror startled you, had been my own;
Had not your Christall self my Mirror been
Silver [...]d with Virgin, Innocence within.
Where my fixt eyes playd with such active heat
They weak to Teares, with luster seem'd to sweat
In their own labour, till the dire Affright,
Of mine own image, did invert my sight;
Turn'd up with pious Hate, if yet perchance,
My heart retain'd a devout ignorance;
Reason there rul'd alone, Lust banisht thence,
Sure circumfus'd me with the soule of sense:
Torment to my chast mind! as I had been
A Goat-hayr'd Satyre penanc'd in my skin;
Or what I saw as in a Magick Glass,
Not my own Figure, but some devils was;
His Pride had rais'd again to things divine,
And had possest you as his glorious shrine.
But I blaspheme! the substance on them playes,
Falls a dark shade perforce upon bright Rayes.
The boy had cross'd Fate here, no Colours been
Reflected, hence a repercussive Twin;
Thus foyle we beams your shade what's from us gone,
Makes in the shadowes a gradation;
Yet all are shadowes still, no fault in us
That ours are dark ones, and yours Glorious;
No more then was in him, that all things can,
Yet made you; and an Aethiopian.
But I perchance wrapt in a sweet surprise
Your Cheeks to Blushes warm'd with burning eyes;
And my luxurious Heart might proudly pant
As my heav'd Bosome then had grown too scant.
For Rebell thoughts, or a too unctuous touch,
The Flattery to lust might hang too much
Upon my glowing fingers, that might be
The fiery trials of your Chastity:
No, my hard graspe, but prov'd your sinking skin,
So more than soft, I thought your soul had been
About your body wrapt, it gave such way,
And where I something found, your Body laye:
When I your hand thus felt, 'twas new delight
To try your pure transparence with my sight.
Which made it pierce more pointed, that my eye
Prevaild so farre, it did your thoughts descrye;
Hid in your Bosome, and my Heart did beat
To ope' my breast (that suffered your Retreat)
Spread wide, that put together you might spell
Your Beauty, and all there to Miracle.
An old Woman weeping.
CAn those spent springs with Tears enrich
Their either now despairing Ditch?
Like those from Prison got, they slide.
A Vault trills from its weeping side;
The waters having fill'd their Wells,
[...]ye there her aged Spectacles;
Or as the Sourses had come on
[...]o farre to Resurrection.
[...]o see above at this Retrive,
Had seen so long through Perspective;
[...]ntill impulsive drops supplye,
[...]o swell them to too full an Eye;
VVhen falling from the new heav'd Pile
[...]eliverd th' are into a Nile,
More than a sev'n-Channeld, where
[...]hey trickle, on, as Currents are
[...]topt sometimes by an o're-thwart Creek,
[...]he Gell [...]'d drops in-lay her Cheek:
[...]o chill a Nonacris, no place
Could hold it but that hoof her Face.
The Hectors.
THese are the Hectors never known
Until their Troy was overthrown:
VVhen now the merry Greeks define
Their battels not transerib'd in wine.
An Epithalamium.
UP tardy youth! Thy fancy deems
Too solid antidating dreams;
And thou Ixion-like art proud
In the embraces of a clowd.
Stars the fair regiments of night,
Lay their commissions down of light,
The Rose-dasht Morn doth pompous ride
In the reflexes of the Bride:
See! now the lustie Gallant springs
And through a cloud of pillow flings;
Spruce as the day, a vig'rous He
That rowsing scatters braverie;
Traind with gay lads sprightly flies,
To sing the Brides solemnities;
VVho at the trumps miraculous greet
Starts from her Virgin-winding sheet:
And now the twitting wantons neat
VVith busie fingers lay each pleat:
VVhile every pin they tremble on
VVith rapt Gesticulation;
And all their bosomes panting look
As if the milky calm were shook:
Now they have built her in her trim
That doth with charming motion swim,
And were the East and West unknown,
Fraught with both Indies of her own:
See! how in Ring her tresses play
As they were curl'd in their own ray;
And shedding on her skin, the shine
Inriching warms the silver Mine:
She is advanc'd with pretty fear
To meet her Licenc'd Ravisher,
Who strikes with burning eyes her brest,
As he had fi [...]'d the spicy nest,
Then by degrees to settle seeks
By the establish'd beautie of her cheeks,
And makes her spark more high and quick
With pretious Gemm's of Rhetorick.
Now Hymens tapers curle, and on
Usher the bright procession;
And now they near the temple draw,
With one Religious common awe.
The Virgins tread, and Bride anone
A so transfigured troop the stone,
As if Tertullians Angel roof
Thus descended from aloof:
The Priest's now mystick words begun
Incorporate the payr in one;
He poasts by rote, or he might miss,
That but a Devout seer is,
Her sindging eyes so deeply win
He's almost Cassockt too within.
And now the holy charm is done,
And they to Ceremony one:
Now time is crutch'd, and pievish fears
To please too much in froward years,
The Sons faint steeds stand (panting) still
With labour of the Eastern hill.
His garish rayes doe (lazie) fall
Loath'd, as if pestilential:
The num'rous Issue of the hower
But linger, and Consumptive power
Sure Sol hath heard, and lashes West
(Red with his fiery taske) to rest:
And now his greater light is out,
Gives the stars leave to look about:
The tatling whisperers undescri'd
Have stoln away, to bed the Bride,
And all unpinn'd to better dress
Her in her Native gloriousness,
VVhose yet reluxency doth moan
As each knot were her Virgin Zone.
Undone, now tremblingly she greets
New rosing o're the fragrant sheets.
See! where the groom hath broken in
(VVith veins stretch'd they look black agen,
The heightned blood shoots their recluse
In a long flame through ev'ry sluce,)
He views with am'rous eyes that glow
As they would melt her heaps of snow;
Then drops his clothes about him shed
And breaks like lightning through to bed:
See, se! her heart doth strugling shove,
And Earth-quakes the fair hills above;
VVhen white and red by flashes dwell
As if the silk were changeable:
Go happy friend! and rifle joyes,
Of Virgin treasure never cloyes;
Still fresh delight will court to bed
As each night were a Mayden-head;
So quick thy soft embrace will sink,
That she would into Aire you'd think;
VVere Marble plyant, and could fall
VVith a No almost touch at all,
As smooth and white she then alo [...]e
Liv'd in her Monumental stone.
Rich summ's of Girles and Boyes go print
And ne're impoverish the Mint.
On the sight of a Lady, walkeing in an Evening, in white Sarsnet.
SO have I seen the Queen of night
Silv'ring the shades with streams of light;
From this fair brow no crescent shone
But from her self her rayes were thrown;
I gues'd her then one that had been
Injoyn'd to weare these robes for sin;
To whom a Taper was deni'd
As what would not reveal but hide,
Dim'd by her beauties rare excess
As greater lights extinguish less:
But oh! she seem'd so innocent,
'Twas sin to think she should repent:
She spi'd me, then a blush she shed
VVhich o're her snowie garments spred,
Did far excel that which each day
The morn casts through the milkie way:
But in revenge of what I did
Her lustres from mine eyes she hid;
She soon withdrew her glorious light,
And then she truely made it night.
To his ingenious Friend, Master Maes, drawing the flowres in their successive growth.
THy predecessor, Friend, that trave I'd Greece,
To croud whole Nature in one labour'd peece,
Read and tooke notes from each selecter face,
'Till he compos'd his beauteous common place:
You Limne your Flora thus, and from each tribe
The scatter'd Goddess (Uniform) transcribe,
What reconcil'd varitie you bring:
And but one Posie make of the whole spring?
All the tautology of flowrs you sum
Into a less unrul'd Compendium,
And the vast civil Law of Nature spread
From volume draw to more sententious head;
'Tis not a single Garden doth appear
But the gay wealth of the transplanted year;
'Tis no continued kindred that we see
But the spruce heire of ev'ry family:
Our eyes not on the same dull objects pass,
Distracted through the multiplying glass,
But still find new in giddy change that lie
Tippling in ebriated memorie:
No Characters here put together spell
The Summer into Nosegay syllable,
But an unshufled line of Letters run
In Alphabetical succession,
That to the Tyro-fl [...]rist tabled lie
Advantage to his Primmer infancie.
The gaudy Spring here throws her ward-robe by,
And you may trace her through her Livery,
And finding how each dayes apparell'd thence,
May cast up too her possible expence,
When I ran o're the whole embroidery, all's
A painted Kalender of Festivals,
An Arke, where flowers of ev'ry kind conspire
From the wild floods of winter to retire.
The short and sweet liv'd season thus we see
Convey'd by pencil to posteritie;
And Natures own transactions as they fell
Our nephews will read in thy Chronicle:
What a vast Blazon's reconcil'd by thee
Digested into rule of Heraldrie?
When the first parting bud gives it self vent
And opes for breath ev'n stifled in the scent.
You catch the clean unsulli'd beauty grown
By your rare art the Zanye of its own;
At least from Nature the just shadows pass,
As if you Limmb'd them in a Looking-glass:
That Artist that invited Birds to fast,
Deluded by his specious repast,
Mock'd by the rival shades of him of Greece,
Put forth his hand to draw aside the peece,
And lost that fame he might have done to you
By hence attempting at a Posie too:
Where the too forward Prim-Rose lank and weak,
Faintly declineth the Green-sickness cheek,
The Daisie here, blest country girle doth seem
With bosome all of straw-berries and cream,
There gold and Silver-Chalice Lillies dwell,
And the, as precious China-Blew bottle,
The Tulip nigh its tissue doth display
A useless flower, and prodigally gay,
There swounding Violets with humble head
And Roses blushing all underst and spread;
Here painted July-flowers new root do take
And the still drowsie Poppey last awake.
Thus friend we see the Nymph by your rare power
Eccho to her Narcissus, though a flower.
The Land-schap between two hills.
PLac'd on yon' fair, though beetle brow
That on the pleasures frowns below,
Let us with sprightly phancie thence
Teach the dumb Rhetorick, Eloquence;
And leave the Painters Art out-gone
Inliv'ning by transcription.
First then observe with levell'd sight
Arising to this opposite;
As if the wind in billow drave
Here, and had rowld the earth in wave:
The Aspen and the Bramble heaves
And a white foam froth's in the leaves:
That spot beneath, that lies so plain
Schorch'd here and there, hath lost the grain:
As Sol there dried the Beams he swet
And stain'd the gras-green coverlet;
That Goat the bushes nigh doth browse
Seems the un-ravell'd plush to frowse;
And now let fall the eye it sees
A pretty storm of clowdy trees,
To us seem black and full of rain,
As they would scatter on the plain:
From hence the hill declineth spent,
VVith imperceptible descent,
'Till un-awares abroad it flow
Lost in the deluge spreads below.
An Age-bow'd oak doth under-root
As it would prostrate at it's foot;
Whose thrown-out armes in length display
And a fair shady carpet lay,
On it a lad in russet coat,
His soul melts through the vocal oate;
And near that black eyed Nymph doth draw
As if her eyes hung on the straw:
The scrip and leathern Bottle nigh,
(With guardian too Melampo) lie:
The flocks are round about them spread
In num'rous fleece have clad the Meade;
And now our eyes but weakly see
Quite tippled with varietie:
Here the grass rowls, and hills between
Stud it with little tufts of green:
There in the midst a tree doth stray
Escap'd, as it had lost the way,
And a winding river steals
That with it self drunk curling reels,
A cheaper flood than Tagus goes
And with dissolved silver flowes.
Some way the field thence swells at ease
And lifts our sight up by degrees
To where the steep side dissie lies
supinely fast in precipices
Till with the bank oppos'd it lie,
In a proportion'd Harmonie,
As Nature here did sit and sing
About the cradle of the spring
A Frost.
IS Nature tranc'd? we cannot then
By water fetch her back agen,
Our babes are Iewes, or Pagan, Ice
Not Christian's, or doth circumcise;
The water-men their Dyal miss
That over-spred with Christal is,
And tydes that underneath it pass
But turn within the houre-glass:
Mahomets Polititian able
To make the dry land navigable
To render Rivers so might deal
Here, by no less a miracle;
We are (like Midas) curst, and think
To quench our thirst with goblet drinke,
But want his after-priviledge,
His Tagus now is solid wedge,
And Swans above their Dirges breath.
The wretched Hellespont doth fear
That it again must fetters wear,
And Islands with no bounds content
Are with the Sea a continent:
Then view the shore and understand
There's nothing lost, though writ in sand,
And the Records as deep remain,
As they would not be thaw'd again:
Those Grandam-bones, Deucalion pos'd
He had not compass now disclos'd,
And she that did the riddle tell
Had thought the task the Oracle:
The earth now close-comparted all,
but an entire Mineral
Immortal Bayes that knew no fall
Are silverd to their funeral;
And Poets wreath'd with such as these
Write their own Metamorphoses.
Narcissus.
SPent with the day to streams the boy retires;
But these (Alas,) too flow'd with liquid fires,
And who did (Coy) the Vacal Nymph escape,
Dies doting on the Eccho of his shape.
Lib. 3. Ode. 3. Horat.
A just man and resolved the will
Of Citizens commanding ill,
Nor looks of the big Tyrant from's firm minde
Shake, nor the winde:
That chafes rough Adria above,
Nor the loud hand of thundring Jove,
If the world shatter'd fall,
The ruines strike him fearless shall,
To my honoured Friend, Coll. Richard Lovelace, On his second Poems.
AS in the presence of some Prince, not one,
But rates his bliss, as he is next the throne,
To which he adds not but himself applies
To boast the Kings to him indulgencies:
Thus Sir, (as one you suffer) I appear
Not to give to your fame, but to be near.
How must I then approach? how my self shew,
So just, as that I can be, just to you!
Thou great dispenser of that all we be
Who giv'st us else enough, but to thanke thee
Thou hast our cheaper gratitude out-went
And mak'st us sin in being excellent.
How from thy first chaste flames thou did'st inspire
That earth we fashion'd with Promethean fire?
And thine rise no less bright for what they lent
From the Communicative Element:
But the insinuating Rayes derive
Something from us that was not primitive:
Though pure in their own essences they dwell
Not to be mixt with our corruptible;
And should we in our courser matter die
Would rise to their own immortalitie.
But at a kingdomes second birth though ne'r
So much devout to the already hire,
A Nation throngs, and doth (suspended) pay
Duty howe're unto the newer day,
Thus from ador'd Lucasta we come on
But to bring hither our devotion:
And though we crowd with a tumultuous pace,
We have like Janus a respective face:
Thou that immortal wer't enough before,
Dost now but ever live, and all this ore;
And art above the Eagle that assumes
(By casting the now aged off) new plumes,
Who dost thy first as vigorous not shed,
But when thou would'st renew thy pomp dost spread.
Vast Heroe that wilt not alone not die,
But lay'st steps to thine immortalitie,
Who dost in thy applausive, Giant-wars
From thine own blest ascent invade the Stars;
Thou hast throughout divided the cleft mount,
And to thine aid with its own spire dost crown't,
Though as thou grow'st near heav'n it hangs the while
As in a dear expectance of the pile,
That swells no sacrilegious hight to gain
But doth the weighty machine there sustain.
There then advance thy glory till our sight
Conceive thee some new disputable light;
That we cannot define from whence it streams
Although we find thee by thy warmth and beams
Ode.
(1.)
AH Chloris, see that Virgin bud
That yet did [...]'r display,
Untying of the Velvet hood
To let the sce [...]t away:
And the rich spirit of perfume,
Will with the Aire dispers'd consume.
(2.)
Haste Cloris ore't thy bosome throw
That as the breath would shed,
It there may intercepted blow
Through the fair Lilly bed:
And thence with thy new Odours so
Boldly incorporate may go.
A Lady foild.
YOu that can read a face and by't
(Natures Amanuenses) write,
Can all your subtle Art define
Upon an Heteroclite line;
Here then are some, though fairly wrot,
Which superstitious care did blot;
That who but reads to give may seem
Interpretation, and the dream:
If thus you cannot fate descrie,
Consult it's then Astronomie.
For here are stars, and thick, as (too)
A reasonable night can shew;
That fixed in that heaven, thence
Derive their light and influence,
Yet in themselves so black they are,
Each seems to be a Sun-burn'd star,
Though such a noon about them they
Are dark by customary day.
Or else as at the last some write,
Stars shall not drop, but loose their light.
So these may them relate about,
And are but typically out.
Or placed on a sphere more bright,
They loose their own subscribing light:
Behold where the four horses run,
And coach in mo [...]rning of the Sun,
And underneath his sister slips
From him in a deriv'd eclipse!
Sure Juno hath for Argus eyes
(In recompence) made blinde the skies,
Or you as fairly sighted see,
And with as many eyes as he,
You that do set your self up by,
Your glass, your own idolatry.
VVhy should your blinded zeal agen
Against the very idol sin?
VVhy should you flur (where she ne'r tript)
Quaint natures own clean manuscript?
Or are these periods to define
Your beauties each sententious line?
You loose the life thus, and are made,
Your own but picture, these the shade.
And some that paint, and keep this coyle,
Are downright counterfeits in oyle.
The spots (luxuriously thick)
You in a mystick order stick.
A meer but taffata in streake,
Cut on the damasque of your cheek?
Why this industrious plaistring tell
Of fores that are invisible?
He that in his phantastick warres,
Was all bemangled with no scarres,
Was surely to be practic'd on
With such an application:
Can you cure beauty or apply
To feature your Chyrurgery?
But the faire Velam of a front,
That this Religion hath upon't,
Creates in us devoted feares
To the mysterious characters,
This doth the deare Escutcheon lye,
Of all the female Heraldrie;
And the great womans honour'd in
Her own now proper Ermin-skin.
De Nymphâ.
HƲjus Nympha Loci, sacri custodia fontis
Dormio, dum blandae sentio murmur aquae.
Parce meum, quisquis tangis cava marmora, somnum
Rumpere; sive bibas, sive lavere, tace.
The Nymph.
NYmph of this place, guard of the sacred spring,
I sleep with murmure lull'd of the soft Rill:
My rest, you that the hollow marble ring,
Break not; you whether bathe, or drink, be still.
SIc Apollo deinde Liber, sic videtur Ignifer,
Ambo sunt flammis creati, prosatique ex ignibus,
Ambo de comis calorem, & ambo radios conserunt;
Noctis hic rumpit tenebras, hic tenebras pectoris,
THus Soll, then Bacchus thus the day doth bring,
Both born of flames, and both of fires did spring;
Both in their haire warmth, and both Lustre winde;
This breaks the fogs of night, that of the minde.
Astraea recall'd.
THou Daughter of the thunderer, who
First left, the sinfull earth leav'st too,
Smooth now (Ast [...]aea) thy fell brow
Now gentler, and ferener now;
Oh potent maid, all things reduce
Thee now, forthwith, in their just use:
Fit honour now, now parents too,
(Goddesse) your god-head fit, have you,
Now sacred fame thy birth allowes,
From Royal blood, and wealthy house,
In mighty stocks en-rouling thee,
And now that you may dutuous be,
We say, Astraea bids that which
Doth please a great man, or a rich.
The Lazar.
OBserve yond thing made up of shreds, that less
Keep in his warmth, then not cloath nakedness,
As from our Sire he had as well, as sin,
The suit had his originally been.
His skin too broke with ulcers, doth confess
A poverty as ragged, as his dress.
And as the body, is the chill soule too,
Opprest with weather, shot as keenly through.
PHANTOMACHIA, OR The Goblin.
YOu that, your dear selves to affright,
With loads of shackles, scare the spright;
And that he walks, dare both maintain,
At length, and loose too in his chain.
List hither chill, with hayr upright,
To superstition of a night.
That will your blood make backward Run
In a coy Circulation.
I mons [...]ers sing, more then do lye,
In a Heywood's goblin Hierarchy,
And Combats that do far out-do,
The bladders Apuleius blew.
A Souldier that more streightly (one)
Had felt his pinch't-up garr son,
In his unrest of search espide,
A house luxuriously wide.
Which yet in a deep silence Rude,
Betray'd stupendious solitude.
The gates secure, with plates a slant,
As plagues had been inhabitant;
And to let in the wholesome day,
Spread through neglect some casements lay:
He rapt howe're in dear intent
To enter the fair tenement.
Learn that through prodigies there dwell.
It is a very shut-up hell;
And that the gates to worse convay
Pain, than those open night and day.
The Heroe will (however) on,
And exercise possession;
Frightning the countrey at demand,
As if some Hercules would stand
At entry of the shades to fight
Against the priviledge of night:
But light and fire laid in, a bed
In a fair (too) provision spread,
And that the fatal time grew tow'rd,
The souldier drawes his spell, his sword;
And wipes it where-ere dew'd, or wet,
With moysture that the scabberd swet.
As hell he did intend to tame,
With Paradises guardian flame.
At the now Suns declining Ray,
(The dusky Premunire of day)
He comes attended by his one
Servant, to death companion.
And the spread portalls all deter,
That gape their either sepulcher.
The leaves (too) he that after drawes
Seems swallowed up within their jaws.
And all good night their valour bid,
As Curtius to his gulph had rid,
Though calm; they yet examine do,
The places spatious secrets through,
And from their narrow huts distress,
In a voluptuous Redress.
Like birds deliver'd to the ayr,
(Wild) frolique in their young repair.
Fill times to one slow-stealing hand,
From twelve did now divided stand.
And now had intermediate gon,
To either houres Religion:
When what I know not, horrors run
Through shuddered apprehension.
But through the wide Room that displayes
(High) the fires chearful flame, they raise;
And (round) the ample seat hang bright,
With the spruce taper's simpring light;
Then stand their doubtfull guard upon,
In fearfull expectation:
When a man's Arm appears a loof
Naked, deliver'd from the roof;
Immeasurably tott'ring ore
As it would dash upon the floor,
A leg (while they suspended doubt)
Freed from another place kicks out,
Straight all the squeesing members shed
And through the room (dispersed) spread,
So drench'd, and all be slubbered ore,
VVith the yet freshly bleeding gore;
As some just, cruel, slaughter spent
To rags, had a huge carcass rent;
VVhile in the midst a torn off-head,
(Rough) from the trunck dissevered
It self doth from the wainscot free,
Dispatching into liberty:
That with the neck, (above) close kn't,
Doth it to the bruis'd shoulders fit:
And then as I some snake have seen,
That peece-meale hath disjoynted been:
And all in parcel scatter'd thrown,
Agen howe're together grown:
The members so do wrigg'ling nigh
Their separated union tye,
And (strangely creeping up) agree
In a re-orde'rd harmony;
Till a huge statur'd man doth breed,
Arising as of Cadmus seed:
That like the rest doth armed stand,
Shaking a sword twin'd with the hand;
And (fell) the souldier thus bespoke,
Thou rashly into this seat broke.
Straight against me maintain by fight,
Thy fatally usurped right;
Unless perhaps you rather shall,
Resolve an unrevenged fall.
[...]he souldier wanted not advice,
[...]or courage in those prodigies,
[...]ut (with a mind not absent) drew
[...]nd forth (to him that challeng'd) flew
Not with a violence that might,
[...]etray him to disorder'd fight.
Nor with a fear that migh distract,
And chill him to unseemly Act;
But (undisturbed) at posture lay,
As with a foe in open day.
And now advances, now lets glide
A pass, and falls in with his side:
VVhen fortune seem'd to smile upon
The so industrious champion:
For (through his foes torn bowels slid)
His sword up to the hilts he hid,
And then expected that anon,
The fearful bulk to earth should run;
[...]ut in an unconcerned state,
He neither staggers in his gate;
Nor doth his blood retyring seek,
To (cowardly) desert his cheek.
Or from the Orifice though wide,
[...]n a luxrious torrent slide.
But lay, as at new wounds, in doubt,
VVhether they shall or no gush out:
VVhile this the souldier lookes upon,
VVith looser admiration,
His ready enemy him bor'd,
VVith his quick-at-advantage sword;
He yet not thrill'd howe're fell on,
VVith a no cold suggestion.
Nor did he through his bowels feel,
The chilly through benumming steel.
VVhen each had in a two houres fight,
Oft digg'd his foe, farre in the night,
As if at an agreed on word;
Each on the pummell rests of 's sword,
And in a necessary pause,
His streightly pent-up spirits drawes.
Both from their foreheads wipe the dew,
As if the truce by purpose grew.
Mean while the servant trims the light,
Resol'd in a successive fight.
His tyred (or) Master to supply,
Or his obedient Martyr dye:
And now the Combatants anew
Together (fierce) recruited flew;
The blows are thick redoubled ore
As all a trifle were before.
A slash't off knee the souldier thinks
Under his foe now doubled sinkes,
And now that he (his ribs beneath)
Doth his begored weapons sheath;
He piece-meal feels his own decay,
A legge, an arm now lopt away:
And now the head (as strangely slunk)
Beleev's dissever'd from the trunck.
That unremov'd remains upon 't,
As had a German heads-man don't;
Nor had an any wound beside,
The yet unin jur'd body try'd:
But the more-labour'd minds intent
The faint-by-degrees souldier spent:
His blows are with less weight laid on,
His steps low, languid motion;
[...] breath's fetch't thick, his face bespread
All o're with glowing fires red,
[...] there almost as it supply'd
The bodies, where moysture dry'd:
VVhen turn'd from's foe himself, with's last,
Almost left strength, hee heedless cast,
As if now given-over dead,
Upon the there prepared bed,
[...]nd to his servant, all on fire
VVith the encounters wild desire,
Bequeath'd a place wherin to prove,
His (to his deceas'd Master) love;
But here a shorter fight's sucess,
Both make the either hazard less:
Dor this same Crum collected he,
[...]o terrible his enemy.
Smites on the face, that he doth all,
Amazed on the pavement fall.
Then to the bed comes and whe [...]s on,
To fight the-there-layd champion;
Who with weak voyce commands him thence,
Since after such a times expence
[...]n duell; he cannot afford
A strength to raise his arm, or sword,
The other grants him rest upon
[...]he thus propos'd condition.
That hee hereafter will forswear.
That id'ly superstitious fear.
And whate're God some old-wives prate
Did from his youth insinuate
To be ador'd, that now his brest
VVith better counsell will detest.
VVhen now the Heroe, That he first
VVas ready to endure the worst.
Above his then strength, would have roar'd,
And rais'd now; look't back to his sword.
The Spectar's empty shape did clear,
And in the Ayre thin'd dispappear.
The souldier sunk down to repose,
Not ('till the day grew old) arose,
Yet rais'd his servant that did snore
Not yet recover'd from the floore;
But see the miracle that grew!
He not his own attendant knew.
But though by his malignant hue,
He had another taske to doe.
For where the wound receiv'd had been,
It an eclipse was not a skin;
But (Reconcil'd) the gates they tree,
And spread them to their liberty.
Then past to those that at the cell,
Do wait for their return from hell,
Their eyes upon the souldier [...]well,
A strangely beleev'd spectacle;
VVhen his companion in his face,
Confirmeth the infernal place,
And to the multitude appears,
In countenance their very feares.
Ex Barclaij.
Satyrici parte 1. pag. 36,
AN ELEGIE, Sacred to the Memory of my late honoured Friend, Collonel Richard Lovelace.
PArdon (blest shade) that I thus croud to be
Among those, sin unto thy memory;
And that I thine unvalu'd Rel [...]ques spread;
And am the first that pillages the dead:
Since who would be thy mourner as befits,
But an officious sacriledge commits.
How my teares strive to do thee fairer right!
And from the Characters divide my sight.
Untill it (dimmer) a new torrent swells,
And what obscur'd it falls my spectacles.
Let the luxurious flouds (impulsive) rise
As they would not be wept, but weep the eyes,
The while earth melts, and we above it lye,
But the weak bubbles of Mortality:
Untill our griefes are drawn up by the Sun,
And that (too) drop the exhalation.
How in thy dust we humble all our pride?
And bring thee a whole people mortifide!
For who expects not death, now thou art gone,
Shewes his low folly, not Religion.
Can the Poetique heaven still hold on
The golden dance when the first movers gon?
And the snatch'd fires (while circularly hurl'd)
[...]n their strong Rapture glimmer to the world?
And not stupendiously rather rise,
The tapers unto these Solemnities?
Can the Chords move in tune when thou dost dye
At once their universal Harmony?
But where Apollo's harp (with murmur) laid
Had to the stones a melody convay'd;
They by some pebble summon'd would reply
[...]n loud results to every battery;
Thus do we come unto thy marble roome,
To eccho from the musick of thy tombe.
May we dare speak thee dead, that wouldest be
[...]n thy Remove only not such as we?
No wonder the advance is from us hid,
Earth could not lift thee higher then it did!
And thou that did'st grow up so ever nigh,
Art but now gone, to immortality:
So near to where thou art thou here didst dwell,
The change to thee is less perceptible.
Thy but unably-comprehending clay,
To what could not be circumscrib'd gave way.
And the more spatious tennant to returne,
Crack't (in the two restraind estate) its urne
That is but left to a successive trust,
The soul's first buried in the bodies dust.
Thou more thy self now thou art lesse confin'd
Art not concern'd in what is left behind;
VVhile we sustain the losse that thou art gone
Un-essenc'd in the separation.
And he that weeps thy funerall, in one,
is pious to the widdow'd Nation.
And under what (now) Covert must I sing
Secure as if beneath a cherub's wing:
VVhen thou hast tane thy slight hence, and art nigh
In place to some related Hierarchie,
Where a bright wreath of glories doth but set
Upon thy head an equall Coronet;
And thou above our humble converse gon,
Canst but be reach'd by contemplation.
Our Lutes (as thine was touch'd) were yecall by,
And thence receiv'd the soules by sympathy;
That did above the threds inspiring creep,
AnI with soft whispers broke the am'rous sleep:
VVhich now no more (mov'd with the sweet surprise)
Awake into delicious Rapsodies.
But with their silent Mistress do comply,
And fast in undisturbed slumbers lye.
How from thy first ascent thou didst disperse
A blushing warmth throughout the universe,
VVhile neare the morns Lucasta's fires did glow,
And to the earth a purer dawn did throw,
VVe never saw thee in the Roule of fame
Advancing thy already deathless name;
And though it could but be above its fate,
Thou would'st however super-errogate.
Now as in Venice when the wanton state,
Before a spaniard spread their crowded plate;
He made it the sage business of his eye,
To find the Root of the wilde treasury.
So learn't from that Exchequer, but the more
To rate his Masters vegetable Ore:
Thus when the Greek and Latin Muse we read
As the but cold inscriptions of the dead;
We to advantage then admired thee
WHo did'st live on still with thy Poesie:
And in our proud enjoyments, never knew
The end of the unruly wealth that grew.
But now we have the last dear Ingors gain'd.
And the free vein (however rich) is drein'd;
Though what thou hast bequeathed us, no space
Of this worlds span of time shall ere embrace:
But as who sometimes knew not to conclude,
Upon the waters strange vicissitude;
Did to the Occan himself commit,
That it might comprehend what could not it:
So we in our endeavours must, out-don,
Be swallowed up within thy Helicon.
Thou now art layd up in thy precious Cave,
And from the hollow spaces of thy grave,
We still may mourn in tune, but must alone
Hereafter hope to quaver out a grone;
No more the chirping sonnets with shrill notes
Must henceforth Volley from our trebble throtes,
But each sad accent must be humour'd well,
To the deep solemn Organ of thy Cell.
Why should some rude hand carve thy sacred stone,
And there incise a cheap inscription.
When we can shed the tribute of our tears.
So long till the relenting marble weares:
Which shall such order in their cadence keep.
That they a native Epitaph shall weep;
Untill each Letter spelt distinctly lyes,
Cut by the mystick droppings of our eyes.
ODE To Chloris forsworne.
(1.)
OFt Cloris perjur'd you have bin,
And still are bright,
However dark within,
With out side light;
(2.)
You have forsworne the numbers ore,
Yet no less faire
Are (Chloris) then before,
in an one haire.
(3.)
No more, no more, to me protest
Your Oathes I know,
If gods take them in jest,
I will not so
The Net
VVHat silkwo [...]m hath (unravelled) shed
It self in snares thus subt'ly spred,
Where the deluded sight is taught
To find them but by being caught.
And hands in search that curious be,
Struggle in their captivity:
Obedient to what Lemnian sire,
Followed the finely-ductile wire;
Smaller then Gossamire, that playes,
Gay in the Sun's yet Eastern Rayes:
When the rash morn hangs loosely drest,
The ayre with silk sleav'd from her vest.
And ev'ry bush and tree doth tear
From her jag'd Roab the threds they weare:
She that in stubborn art durst strive,
For Giant-like prerogative,
(With heavens incens'd Virago) is
But foyl'd in Metamorphosis;
And in her tasqu's still so devout,
She frets her less-lov'd bowels out;
Now by these toyles o'recome, may tombe
Her self, (wound up) in her own loom.
Those thin Raw films that (early) lye,
On herbs a dewy tiffany.
[...]re of a courser woofe, and set
[...] a less quaintly-masqued Net.
[...]hough beames there tangled in rich draught,
[...]hat lick them up, are in them caught;
The hair of virgins big and rude,
[...]re boyst'rous in similitude,
[...]nd who invisibles would see,
Hence fetches his Hyperbole:
Could the flaw'd snares untwisted sling
To their first miracle of st [...]ing,
The tackle might that vessel thridde,
A Bee could with her wings have hidde;
How do those gross-linck't chains displease,
That (stubborn) can but Collar fleas.
When now a file with nearer art
Hath made a gyve for ev'ry part?
The roughly here-alighting flye,
Doth but the furer Captive lye;
Where a light mealy gnat may knit
The giving trammell, lock'd in it;
And pull for freedome, in the gin
You might make up a whisper in.
QƲod tua mille domus solidas habet Alta columnas,
Quod tua marmoreo janua poste nitet.
Aurea quod summo pendent laquearia tecto,
Imum crusta tegit quod pretiosa locum.
Atria quod circa dives regit omnia cultus,
Hoc animos tollit (nempe) Batave tuos.
Aedthus in totis gemmae licet omnta claudunt
Turpe est nil Domino, turpius esse suo.
To Batavus.
AThousand pillars cause your houses hight,
Lift, and your gate with marble posts is bright;
Because aloofe the Roofes shine gilded ore,
And that a pretious crust doth pave the flore:
Cause all the Courts round with rich stuffe are lin'd,
This therefore puffes (Batavus) up your wind.
Though through the house gems lock up all foul 'tis,
That nothing than the owner fouler is.
ODE.
(1.)
AH Lyce did my flames within
Thy bosome glow,
The hills above had long since been,
Without their snow.
(2.)
But unrelenting heaps there lye
That frost doth hold,
And more, then in their livery,
Veines blew, with cold.
(3.)
How (Lyce) how thought may it be,
That thy each part
With winter bound, so limber the
Leaves as thou art?
(4.)
Oft when I try if thou art stone
Thinking thee such,
The art of some Pygmalion,
Deceives my touch.
(5)
Then Lyce if thou art within
So only coy
Let me what kinde and foft hath been,
Without enjoy.
To his Noble Friend, J. R. The Prison.
HOw a no-prisoner, unconcern'd, and free?
Is the soule bay l'd by its Morality?
And he that's plac'd upon a square content,
Becomes his fetters into ornament;
That him though (all in irons) up you roule,
His body weares them, but as that his soul,
Heroick temper! but of uncouth use,
To one without probation, a Recluse,
When the uneasie prison sets unkind;
And pinches to distress the crouded mind,
That catching at advantage to be free
Is e'n squeez'd out of its mortality;
Thus the poor captive (strugling in his thought)
Pulls to the snare, and is in soul too caught,
And the dark night-piece of his sullen grot,
In adventitious shadow is one blot.
He hugges a hell about him, so more one,
As he contemplates lost fruition,
That a beam cranni'd in doth value want
A coyly superstitious visitant.
To one spells torment from Remissions sent
Revers'd by Hebrew of his discontent.
How doth he weigh his chaines then wildly thinks,
And wire-drawes into thread the massie links?
Now pining in their close embrace doth waste,
As he would vanish out of them at last.
And darting at his thrifty grates small light:
He only vexes his imprison'd sight;
Till the pent wretch abhorring life doth finde,
A body more immortall then his mind.
But Sir in you another fate I have,
That cuts me from the humble, and the brave,
For where you mediate, you convert the cause,
And we are undisturb'd, without applause,
Since dungeons, are no dungeons, that you see,
But more entire retreats to liberty:
And the sad roofs that glisten, danck with time,
Seem gilded ore with reconciled slime.
While on the pavement we uninjur'd lye,
And the moyst stones sweat in their agony:
Gyves that enrobe us by your magique lye,
But speciously-phantastick misery;
Nay by deluding, we invert their pow'rs,
And are no more their prisoners, but they ours.
As we from tumult but withdrew that thus,
A freedom more it self might visit us,
And the Restraints that we enjoy you by,
But shuts us up within a Library.
Where the blest friendship that you there detaine's,
Makes the rich volumes pris'ners to our chaines.
[...]
[...]
ODE.
(1.)
COme, come and set
Upon my head
That Rosy Coroner,
And let it shed,
Untill the beauty of the morn
Be round my temples worne.
(2.)
Then to the brink
That goblet fill,
I'l in the Ocean sink
So far, untill,
With beames of my emergent face
The weaker dawn I chace.
Pentadii.
NOn est, falleris, haec beata, non est,
Quod vos creditis esse, vita non est,
Fulgentes manibus videre gemmas,
Aut testudineo jacere lecto,
Aut plumâ latus abdidisse molli,
Aut auro bibere, aut cubare cocco,
Regales dapibus gravare mensas,
Et qui [...]quid lybico seca [...]ur arvo,
Non unâ positum tenere cellâ;
Sed nullos trepidum timere casus,
Nec vano populi favore tangi,
Et stricto nihil aestuare ferro,
Hoc quisquis poterit, licebit
Fortunam moveat loco superbus.
YOu are deceiv'd, the life of bliss,
That you beleive, this is not, this,
To see your hands with jewels spred,
Or rest upon a Tortoyse bed.
Or in soft down to sink your thigh,
To drink in gold, or scarlet lye,
Your board with Royall fare to load,
And what in Lybian fields is mow'd,
Not in one store-house to ingross:
But (not to trembling) fear a loss,
Nor change at noyse of the vain Rout,
Nor swet at all at a sword out;
VVhoever this but can (above)
May fortune from her seat remove.
To her taxing him for late writing to her.
THink where you see my Rhymes un-even meet
Through fear they crovvd on to out-run the sheet:
I bring you lasie numbers should have been
Thrown at your feet, when at less yeares and sin;
When my undrest Muse had no other fence:
Like Eve in Eden, but her Innocence:
Adam less bashfull in these first of Dayes,
Was in his Figge-leaves then, I now in Bayes.
The Tree's immortall, and had need be too;
I had not offer'd else one sprig to you;
Writ I on Bark, th' un-paper'd Ancient's Won't,
You'd think my languid lines were bier'd upon't:
Like wanton sinners I have hudled on;
Divinest things are latest thought upon.
But (Madam) all I [...]rote, suppose in way
To you the Copy Papers of Essay.
Let no shee think shee's under-rated too,
They must be stars e're they be foyles to you:
Like the young Eagles, their since bassled Sun,
Your eyes preparative, I arm'd upon;
Those twinn's of light, I doubted to confine,
Loves Terches to a Paper-lanth [...]rne shrine:
Nor had I ventur'd yet, but that they sindge,
Not their uninjur'd Lids but guild the fringe.
You must not (blest one) my attempt illude
In taking from you by similitude.
We represent a Deity, as we
Can haply do it, not as it should be;
Nor your compendious sweetness must you guess,
My but-enoding Glosses have made less:
Where matter is so full, and so perplex't,
The Comment's forced to out-swell the Text.
And should be printed small, had need so too
Hundred such owe Birth to a line of you.
Giganto-Machia.
THose sonn's that on their Mother scal'd the clowds,
As Heyres do Honours on their Parents shrowds,
Heapt Hill on Hill to force the proud ascent,
Untill Earth rose the highest Element.
The Tooth ache.
UN-passion'd Stoicks, you that slight the Rack,
When your each way distended sinews crack;
Whose still calm Faces, wrinckles ne're deform,
And no extreme can Ruffle into storme.
Here I'll untune all your still musick't sect,
And teach your stubborn soules a dialect
Of uncouth groanes, and sighes, that (rising) pine,
Close pent, and burst your streight-lac'd discipline,
And by an Ache that though you must disdain,
A tooth shall with the soul possess of pain.
Shedde through the whole, and yet it's subtill ire
Shall lye in ev'ry Cranny too entire;
As were the spirit legion in it thus
Lodg'd singularly multitudinous,
An ache that brings defluctions too of Rhume,
As it without its teares could not consume;
Strange Trochylus! off-spring of thine own Nile
Suckled at teeth sure of some Crocadile!
Thou uncouth favourite of famine fed
As insects are, that make the Mill their bread,
Thou Labyrinth'st a Tooth, and as thou scru'st,
With a continu'd thred of pain it clu'st;
Tipplest in Marrow, and in thy dire play
Of thousand wandrings find'st or mak'st, a way,
Thy swarm of torments for the honey flings,
Into the fretted Combe only the stings,
An Hydra-headed Cerberus with j [...]ws,
There surfeited with anguish (couchant) gnaws;
Had Pelops Ivory shoulder known the guest:
His limbs in the Repaire had been unblest.
Mart. Lib. 1. Epig. 48. To Flaccus.
WHat wench I would, what not? Flaccus you move;
I would not one too easie, nor too coy;
The mean and that between both I approve,
I will not what may vex, nor what may cloy.
The mute Dialogue.
I Saw two Lovers talk, my eye to heare
Depriv'd my Eare.
The man in manners this no silence breakes,
And blushes speakes;
The busie Nymph then (ne're so true before)
Was tongue all o're;
Her eye exhales the vocall blood to spheare,
The Rhetorick there:
Thence showres it out in beames that he may flye
To's speaking eye.
Love equall their relief sends to both hearts,
Missives on Darts,
Untill a parting sigh, that drew them thence,
Call'd home my sense.
In Amicitias.
VIve, & Amicitias omnes cole, verius hoc est
Quam Regum solas effuge amicitias.
Est mea mors testis, major me afflixit amicus,
Deseruitque minor: Turba cavenda simul,
Nam quicunque pares fuerant fugere fragorem,
Nec dum collapsam deseruere domum.
Nunc, & non tantum, Reges fuge (vivere doctus)
Ʋni vive tibi, nam morie [...]e tibi.
Against Friendships.
LIve and all friendships make, this is more true
Then the alone friendships of Kings eschue.
Witness my death, a greater friend me strook,
And (a to be shrin'd tribe,) a lesse forsook;
For my who e're peeres were from the crack shrunk,
And did my house desert e're yet it lunk.
And (taught to live) now Kings alone not flye,
Live to your one selfe, for you so must dye.
Ode.
(1)
SEe how those full-ag'd Grapes doe strain
In the deep, Crimson flood,
Would you not think to breath a vein
Would doe the clustres good?
Let's then the rich distemper free,
And frolique drink the plurisie.
(2.)
Until our cheeks as much in grain,
And stretch'd as sleek appear
As if the twice-born God again
Another birth had there:
And when the Vine is drawn off, we
Will our own second Vintage be.
(3.)
Ode.
To the Prisoner.
(1.)
THink but the fetters that you wear
A dress with your consent,
And what should wound, will then appear
A wanton Ornament;
He that contemns no wretch can be,
Belief creates our misery.
(2.)
Why should you therefore chide your sate
'Cause the coy Prince of day
Vouchsafes not to look through your grate,
Or cast a beam that way,
Rather applaud the Sun that he
Not pryes into calamitie.
(3.)
Then render not your bed of stone
The harder by unrest;
Rocks will not melt to hear you grone
Scorn softens them the best:
And he that can ly still in woe,
Is in a calm, though all winds blow.
A New Years-Gift.
MAy Fortune (Madam) Happy too
Be Prodigally just to you.
And crown the Brow that Nature gems
In her best Native Diadems!
Saw she! she would her-self undoe,
And then expect an Alms from you;
Nay, had she eyes, she would but see
Fondly to part with them, to thee:
A Good year bless you Madam! may,
That Chimist that extracted Day
From the rude Chaos, force too thence
A Momentanie Quintessence
To make up yours, 'till it appear,
Throughout but an Elixir'd year!
I kept a carefull Vigil (Fayre)
Upon the lagging Nights impayre,
To see the trembling shadowes break,
And with approaching day grow weak,
'Till scatter'd Attom's had undone
Them into Dissolution.
And the Rich Dawne did guilt appear
In Blushes of the Virgin-year:
I could discerne the Minute kiss,
Divided that is past, and this;
When two-fac'd Janu's lips could sute
To both of them at once, salute:
That by that Crisis I might find
The pulse of Time more free and kind:
Now know the years whole state can tell
What houres shall slip what sickly dwell;
Can sound their subtile Depth e're they
Long Roapes of sand that fathome day.
And (Madam) I pronounce this year,
To you, as that first Moment clear,
That shot a Ray, was early born
To thread the Rubies of the Morne;
A happy chain will thorough play,
Of fine Enamel'd Night and Day.
Yet when all's done that this can do,
May it give place to better new.
The faire Nymph scorning a black Boy courting her.
Nymph.
STand off, and let me take the Ayre,
Why should the smoke pursue the fayre.
Boy.
My face is smoke, thence may be guest
What flames within have scorch'd my brest.
Nymph.
The flames of love I cannot view,
For the dark Lanthorn of thy hew.
Boy.
And yet this Lanthorn keeps loves Taper,
Surer than yours that's of white paper,
Whatever mid-night hath been here
The Moon-shine of your light can clear.
Nymph.
My Moon of an Eclipse is 'frayde,
If you should interpose your shade.
Boy.
Our curl'd embraces shall delight,
To chequer Limbes with black and white
Nymph.
Thy ink, my paper, make me guess,
Our Nuptial bed would make a press;
And in our sports if any came,
They'd read a wanton Epigram.
Boy.
Yet one thing sweet-heart let me aske,
Buy me for a new-false-mask.
Nymph.
Yes, but my bargain must be this,
I'l throw my Mask off, when I kiss.
Boy.
Why should my hew thy love impair?
Let the dark shop commend the ware,
Or if thy Love from black forbears,
I'l strive to wash it off with tears.
Nymph.
Spare fruitless tears, since thou must needs
Still wear about thee mourning weeds,
Tears can no more affection win
Than wash thy Aethiopian skin,
The Inversion.
Nymph.
STand off fair Boy, thou wilt affright
My solitude with sudden light.
Boy.
My face is light, thence may be guest
The truth of thy transparent brest.
Nymph.
The truth of Love I cannot view,
For the full lustre of thy hew.
Boy.
The lustre's sooner pervious made
Then your impenitrable shade;
What-ever Noon, my day doth trim,
Your thick how-ever Mist may dim.
Nymph.
My Mist would fear to break away,
If you should intermix your ray.
Boy.
Our curled embraces shall delight
With Limbs to shuffle day and night:
Nymph.
Thy light my darkness make me fear
Our bed a Chaos would appear;
And in our sports did any pass,
They'd see the indigested Mass.
Boy.
Yet one thing sweet-heart let me crave,
Me for a new-false mirror have;
Nymph.
Yes, but my bargain must request,
I throw my glass by, when undrest:
Boy.
Why should my hue thee less delight,
Let the Star-soyles set of the night:
[Page 68]Or if thy love from light forbeares,
I'le strive to put it our with teares.
Nymph.
Spare fruitless teares, since thou must needs
Still have on thy Transfigur'd weeds,
Teares can no more affection win,
Then over-cast thy Angell Skin.
ODE.
(1.)
OUr flames that (Chloe) did conspire
In one faire Pyramid of fire,
So subt'ly had together grown
That both and neither were our own;
And 'tis my wonder how you rent,
The Element in the concent.
(2.)
But mine must widdowed now burn
While from them yours (re-clining) turn,
Drawn by a more attractive Ray
That carries the spread-beames away;
To new embraces where they may
Rise wanton in their lament play.
A Prologue to a Play presented by some Gentlemen to a select company of Ladies, on New yeares day last.
BLess me! A light we look'd not for supplyes,
A fine Familiar Star-light of bright eyes.
That dims the Tapers which would else turn blew!
But that you (fair ones!) are good Angels too:
You of our Sex and Friends, may thank the slight,
Had it but barely brought you to this sight:
A sight, that stroke like lightning yet I dare
Gather within the Fires though Circular;
When the spread beams shoot round me from such flames;
That their own Elementall pureness tames;
A cheerful light! not meant to Martyr here,
And into Scaffold turne our Theater.
Brisk Mirth to all we hope each Brow the while
(Ne're so severe) may polish into smile.
Expect not then we so a passe can hide,
That you might think it on the other side.
Or fright you into wounds mis-understood,
When the Tame spunge, not weapon, sheddes the blood:
This is sta [...]e Pedantry! nor think we can
(Trimme Players) quite put off the Gentleman;
When each so genuinely Acts his Part,
As that alone, he hath Himself by Heart.
To his Friend.
In troth I love the, and I fain would tell,
(But that I love thee more than so) How well.
The Syren.
Strange Thetis-waves [...] submisly slide
While thou dost thine own Dolphin ride,
And still expecting Peleu's rape,
Art half in thy delusive shape:
Thy upper part imperfect lies
Begot between platonique eyes,
That to whole Act could not be drawn,
But left the rest to sense and spawn,
Who views thee might believe thee well
A miserable spectacle,
Whom first the seas had overpowr'd,
and then some fish had half devour'd,
The shambles reconcil'd, and stall
Thee a mere dispensation call,
Plump Easter, we before thee find,
Drawing an Ember week behind;
Wert thou at once but serv'd up all
To the man eating Cannibal,
He would admire the uncouth fish,
In the varietie of's dish,
For thee may sheets and cloath, be spred,
Divided 'twixt the board and bed,
Thy carnal pleasures are confin'd,
And thou grow'st downward new inclin'd,
That who would ravish finds not what
It is he should devirginate.
In thy embrace were chaste delight,
But for thy hightend appetite,
That the not possible else Act,
Doth to the sense of thought contract,
And fornication drawn by fires
Of lust doth rise to thy desires.
Ly to thy bosome bedded o're,
And through neglect shew something more,
In hope of still such bless'd degrees,
I will believe thee all one piece,
Or let some happy sentence stick
Thee in the earth half-buried quick;
I will make love to what is left,
And think the rest as fair bereft.
What great Apelles did intend
To draw thus low, what none should end,
And art outdone in bitter hate
[...]ur'd, what it could not imitate,
When from thy stern I lift my sight
To thy nak'd margent of delight,
Thou seem'st (in thine own mail bespred)
A chastly lockt up Maiden-head
And as from front I thee pursue,
And to thy navel downward view,
Loosing the track that I was in:
[...]line eyes do run thee o're agen.
Oh rise but from thy watry bed,
[...]re thou art half discovered
[...] will believe some Venus starts,
And still attend thy other parts,
Those liquid roabes from off thee throw,
[...]nd out of thine apparel grow,
[...]hen naked to the middle slid
[...]lead modesty for what is hid.
When no curld billows on it frown
[...]hou lay'st thy bosomes panting down
[...]ore white and soft than Laedas swan,
On the less yielding Ocean,
And as thou div'st, or leav'st the main;
Thine eyes set stars or rise again,
He that with wax secur'd his ear,
(Alas) but made up half his fear,
From thine harmonious surprise
That scal'd (too) not up his eyes;
When thou dost with thy tresses play,
And shak'st them drie in their own Ray;
On the bright scales, the golden showre,
Like Jove descends on Danae's Towre;
Or as they cling about thee (wet)
Thou art half caught, in thine own Net.
Fair Islander that when you Lave,
Do make a Delos of a wave;
Thou that betwixt the sea and land,
Dost equally divided stand.
While half upon some Rock doth sleep,
Half keeps possession in the deep.
Thou laden Carache that dost ride,
Halfe ore, and half beneath the tide.
Thou Riddle Phancie, what you please,
Dragon to thine Hesperides.
AMARANTHA.
NOw radiant Sol with flaring Hair
Had guilt the atomes of the air;
And all to earth that his eye sees
Appeared but one Golden Fleece;
The Snake un rowl'd in length did fling
Her curiously enameli'd Ring;
The Mary-Gold full view did take
Of her gay lover broad awake;
And pirched Birds from spray to spray
Fan with their wings the heat away:
When Amarantha too retires
Faint with the dayes and her own fires
To shades the leaves as she drew near,
Shudder with apprehensive fear
As if the Sun that could not win,
Without, upon them, brake within:
Nor would she here a change have known
Inviron'd still with beams her own;
But use made the habitual dress
An unoffensive gloriousness:
She now dispers'd the Clouds about,
And let her stifled shine break out;
Like water spilt the blood did seek
Luxuriously to stain her cheek;
But she corrects with wind o're-shed?
The Roses the warm Sun had spred:
When now reclining to her bed
A turf swels pillow to her head,
Where she reposes easie, as
Her cheek salutes the tufted grass:
The whispering Foliage conspires
To hush asleep her soft desires;
Her wing'd Musicians fear to brush
The trembling leaf with backs of plush,
And pow'r but out their melted notes
Long moulded in their Lubrick throats:
When sleep with looks aside were thrown
Did close her Eyes might blast his own;
And I with furtive steps advance
To steal the treasures of a glaunce
VVhere me her lightning flasht upon
Not arm'd for weak succession;
But recollected I insnare
My Eye-beam's twisted in her hair
And in the subt'ler net by draughts
Snare my imperceptible thoughts.
So fill'md, no momentanie wire
Knits so but touch'd nor Gossimire;
Drawn so smal one can't express,
(Superlatively numberless.)
One hand here richly manackeld
The Glories of the head upheld
While through the curls the fingers play
Pretiously ringed in the ray;
And those the bright support had mis'd.
Shed harmless Snakes about her wrist:
Mov'd with wind they (falling deep)
VVith breath enliven'd downward creep
To kiss the arm, but back they throw
As shrunk from the mistaken snow:
The rest were in a glorious brown
Shade about her temples throw'n
On ev'ry side as they it hem
They foyl not, that it guilded them.
Her Closed lights observe I did
Glow through the thinness of the lid,
And modest shine, that round them lies,
Blushing their newer fashion'd eyes:
The rayes that fring'd them they dispence,
As emissary beams from thence
Whence oriental stains upon't
Blazon with Pearl the noble front
That onely else by birth had been
Escutcheon'd with the Argent skin.
My smacking eyes I now dimiss
That with repeated longings kiss
VVhere a rich Aromatique breath
Through Lips of Coral issueth:
Her brests my sight next (tempting) win
Might suckle more without than in.
So soft my sense their bliss I barr'd
Least I might Pit them, looking hard;
Else ever here I could have drein'd:
VVhen now my Infant gases wean'd
Grew straight up to that hand did slide,
Stretch'd out and pale upon her side
A still smooth Sea, of Milkie way!
Whence her Fingers riv'lets play;
Melted Rubies there do flow
Through Saphyr pipes in floods of snow:
VWhen I was busie to re see
She awak'd and blinded me.
CHARLES the Fifth, Solemnizing his own Funerals.
THat precipitious Macedonian, who
VVhen he had done, wept he had not to do,
And the bold Caesar, that did come and eye
Some place his necessary victory,
Like snails crept to their conquests, and at death
Left their not tyred fortunes yet in breath,
But wildly pinnacled this Monarch drew
His, whence, her giddy eyes (distracted) view
Their far off safetie, nor durst she be won
To aid him in a yet translation,
That with a holy violence made wars,
Now having conquered men, to conquer stars;
And a I his earth and empires trampled on,
Advance him to this new invasion.
Blest humbler of that world thou fettred'st fast,
And then thy self took'st prisoner at the last:
Didst tryumph o're whole Nations first, that done
End'st in thine own proper ovation,
And laden now with spoils and trophys threw'st
Thy self and glorious burden safe reclu'st:
Like those (that featherd above fortunes mock)
Leave tamer use, and live upon the stock;
Or through thy stubborn tasque, now having gon,
Thou gather'st up to repetition
And the huge volume read will startle mere
In contemplation then in act before
The prodigies thou didst cast up by guess
Will make thy coward f [...]ith compute them less,
And yet thou hadst a reach beyond all don
And left'st them with a brave ambition,
Tyr'd with a no resistance thou didst flie
To an unbroke reserve of victory,
VVhere thy full valour witty in repast
Revels in choicest viands at the last;
And journeying from our tumult thou dostly
Inn'd half way towards immortalitie,
In thy last progress (too) thou heep'st more state
That send'st thy self, thine harbinger, to fate,
And the pale tyrant wonders how it fals
That thou art left behind thy funerals,
Who in thy passage unto heaven dost die
But thiter first on thine own Embassie;
Or not acquainted with the grave before
Those hidden Regions thou dost thus explore
That mean'st a conquest there, so thine own spie,
Thou rid'st but out first on discoverie.
Clear sighted Prince thy piercing eyes could see
The other side of dark mortalitie,
Thou mew'dst but aged pomp, Eagles of kin'
So cast their beak and plumes, and live agen:
That Oriental bird, that in her spice
Burns to the parent Sun a sacrifice,
She in whom all the glorious kindred wombs
That dies at once eternal Hecatombs
Hath yet that small cold interval upon
Her ashes, ushers Resurrection;
But thou liv'st on to see thy self renew,
And passing death thou keepest life in view,
As with it thou in equal state did'st vie
Thou walk'st but hand in hand with destinie;
Strange Eagle (through the whole body spread)
That liv'st on one side, and art one side dead.
Thou torment of Mezentius that dost lie
Proportion'd to thine own mortalitie,
Thou hast the grossly unslough'd snake surpass'd,
That liv'st in substance, thy but shadow cast
VVith what unheard of ransome didst thou bribe,
The hand of, fate thee barely to transcribe,
Course lawes of flesh and blood thou dost controul,
And art Divine in something more than soul;
So the fam'd-tripple-Night begotten Son
VVhom the god parent could not crowd in one,
VVound in that shirt would him inglorious tame,
Leapt to his pire, and roabd with milder flame
In his unequal mother onely di'd,
Unin jur'd on his siers immortal side.
Thus wouldst thou visit the third Heavens as well
In search, as who was wrapt by miracle,
VVho rein'st successive time that thou maist be
Allide to what thou seek'st, Aeternitie,
One place at once confinement is to thee,
And thou attemptest at Ubiquitie,
Thus life by thee is reconcil'd become
Contemporarie with privation,
At least thy herse could nor convey to urn
Thy weight blest Heroe under a return:
And what we thought thy death was but well done
Preludeous mortification.
Ode.
To Caelia Blushing.
(1.)
BLess me, it Caelia did abash,
me to espie,
that lightning slash
From so serene a skie.
(2.)
I cannot that it was the morn
blieve so soon:
cause it was born
At such a point of noon.
(3.)
Though Lillies in thy brest, as well
smelt too, that grow,
I could not tell
They would in Roses blow.
(4.)
Nor Caelia could I ever see
that snow did flush,
and (modest) free
From it a native blush;
(5.)
Thy bosome often too I might
a milkie say,
but found not by't,
it was a Rosie way,
(6.)
As the pure taint look't through thy skin.
me thought a lawn
had subtly bin
O're cloath of damasque drawn:
(7.)
Thou wealthy main to which we flie;
where pearls are spread
that scatter'd lie
Within their Orient bed.
(8.)
Thou dost appear a Roman guest.
while Roses thrown
(blushing) invest,
Thee round with showr's, thine own.
(9.)
Thy breast besprinkled with a stain,
that still shed more
did straight remain
Throughout bepurpled o're.
(10.)
The there concealed fire,
did higher grow,
and warm desire
Did through thy bosome glow.
(11.)
The sawcie beautie of the Swan,
black at the root
no blushes can
Through the fair feathers shoot;
(12.)
But thine a more unsullied down
doth over-run,
the bashful crown,
To beneath Carnation.
To Captain D. L. on his book of Fortification, and Geometrie.
AS yet war not arriv'd at after hight
Was all but merely victory, and flight,
And the tough souldier (garrison'd in limb)
Had no retreat of strength to shelter him;
But open lay to where you would assail,
Not to be reacht through trench, or single mail,
Until it grew an Art and Pallas wove,
Her reconciled garlands from one grove,
That novv the Heroe to new task assign'd
Not more in body labour'd, than in mind;
VVhile strength and judgement fights, and vvit replies
By counter-stratagem, to batteries,
And thus (friend) you commence, that well apply
To the tame practice, the deep theory,
Teaching us how to measure and how far,
VVe move proportionably Regula,
How the fields dravvn in mystick order lie
Spread vvith the lines of streight Geometrie:
As the neat Art vvould into trammel get,
And for the God of vvar make a nevv net.
Ode.
(1.)
PLump father Bacchus oh recline
with thy fair clusters spread!
While (Paricides) for love of wine,
we shave thy purple head.
(2.)
Stoop with thy precious locks about!
to expiate the sin
We with vvhat useless hung vvithout,
vvill vvarm thy head vvithin.
(3.)
If not the triaterique fate
vve vvill invert, and do,
What (drunk) did to the Hymnist hate
in sober rage to you.
(4.)
We vvill mad Thracians scatter thee,
and then at Heber's shore
Our selves the subtile Serpents be,
that shall lick off the goro.
To a Lady with black hair.
THese are the dear retreats of night,
Wherein the Lover doth delight,
And hither souls departed come
Unto their best Elysium,
Though sure if Dis these groves had got
Jove had not had the better lot:
Thou dost as it doth round thee slow
In thine ovvn cloud (invelopd') go,
At vvhich Alpheus stopt in rape,
Had let his Arethuse escape,
And it had though in Iuno's place
(Ixion) mended thine embrace,
I could believe it night as soon,
And thou (the Queen of it) the Moon,
And might the rather think it so,
Because of the tvvin stars belovv,
But Light doth there such noon display,
That night but seems to mantle day,
As properly I might thee name
Thine own fair picture in a frame,
As the loose hair disheveld streams,
Darkness it self doth shed in beams.
As it late in braids was wound,
And up in cheaper fillets bound,
A prety storm did seem to run
About the temples of the Sun
When it unribbond fell again,
Me thought it broke, did scatter rain,
While it is curl'd the circles lie
In superstitious Ebonie,
Which (fearing torment) none transgress,
And to be th'ence it is no less:
Though from all eyes once that way set
Beams run to the attractive Jet.
Ode.
To Lycoris, not to curle her hair.
(1.)
SEt not Lycoris, your each tress
The limit it may not trangress,
When you unty
The shady silk,
Love mantl'd at your breast doth ly,
To suck the out-side milk.
(2.)
Why must the then descending hair
Back in the banish'd curls repair,
That at a touch
Do gather higher,
And scarce vouchsafeing you so much
Coy from your neck retire.
(3.)
Let them Lycoris, scatter'd flow
N [...]ts through the milkie sea below,
Till they have caught
A wealthy frie,
My each inebriated thought,
That there doth ripling lie.
On Mr Gambles composing of Mr Stanleyes Odes.
SUre when this Lyre was touch'd, fit words
Did dance in order to the Chords,
And lines in harmony thus strung,
Rise sprightly capring on the tongue;
We that but read with hoarser throates,
Do yet disturb them into notes.
And who repeates (unwitting) sings,
As ecchoes break from j [...]ngl'd strings,
So Theban walls would shaken soon,
By Batt' [...]ies totter into tune.
And instruments that scrued stand
Sound, struck by an unwilling-hand;
So a but peradventure sall
Awakes the fleeping Harpsycall.
Which since the Artist fing'red last,
Lay lull'd in its own musick (fast)
Here's no disordring the falr mind,
Unruly matter up to bind;
Untill the too much forced Zones
(Snapt) knot in short Elisions.
No crouded words in huddle meet,
That shuffle on uneven feet,
And strugling labour in their paines,
As if the verse were pac'd in chaines.
Their very syllables as clear,
Pass'd (as their ayr's now) through the care▪
And he that made the essence whole,
Cannot distinguish which is soule.
Where each informes the other they,
So mix in their unbody'd play.
The Phoenix.
FAr-east a grove sea-girt is read,
Whence the young day doth blushing spread,
That first the early hoofs sustaines,
When the wet Carre (emergent) raines.
A happy shore, the blest retreat
Where health takes up her wholesome seat,
No cloud above its volume hurles,
And there the weighty sleece uncurles,
But an irriguous fountain laves,
It's vernal face with monethly waves;
That in the middle placed dwells,
And with aeternall bubling swells;
' [...]ill it o're-look the banck, and Rove,
In a wild freedom through the Grove.
Here keeps that bird (too blest'y free)
Immortall in mortality.
That lives a pedigree, and dies,
At once some whole posterities,
Who makes time past, and future, one
In reconcil'd complexion;
Who waites upon the parent Sun,
And doth a trend his motion.
When the new morn doth chace the night,
With Oriental-damasque light;
He thrice doth taste the spring, and Rath,
Thrice in the sacred fount doth bath.
Then mounts a trees removed space,
That (one) beholdeth the whole place;
And thence with an awaking lay,
Doth erenade the rising day;
When Sols now beams do looser flow,
And noon about his shoulders throw:
Thrice doth he clap his wings applause,
And thrice adoring's Ray doth pause.
A bird peer to the gods, that wears,
Time out with his Returning years,
Chief of the woods, dayes priest, alone
Privy to secrets of the Sun,
Natures best Chronicle, time spell'd,
Life and Death monasyllabled.
Not cloy'd with gross repast, but free
To more immortal luxurie;
Whom the Suns purely melting heat,
Doth sate with a delicious sweat;
VVho quaffes in- [...]riated too,
The liquid ayre's el [...]xir'd dew:
And feeds with divine Relish on,
Rarifi'd exhalation.
A feather'd diadem is spread
In golden Rayes about his head,
VVhose deeper flames, and beames from them,
Shine through his beaks pellucid gem:
That breaks the duskie cloudes of night,
And ope's them with serener light;
Plush that enrobes the back doth lye,
Distinguish'd with the Crocean dye:
That from above the train doth wreath,
Of purple, tipt with gold beneath.
High on the wings do Rubies glow,
On rows of Emeraulds below.
Bright Sky the mail doth (cloudy) deck
VVith the phantastique Pigeons Neck;
And the the thigh-down is stained o're,
VVith poyson of the lyrian gore:
His legs in golden scalcs are bound,
And feet with blushing Roses [...]rown'd.
A bird that doth no off spring need,
No heire, but doth it self succeed;
Beginning where he doth conclude.
In excellent vicissitude.
Lifes thorough-fare, whose soul when gon
Returns by transmigration.
VVho yields to fate, but to o're-come
In a reviving martyrdome;
Invading death to make him so,
Against his own black charter go,
For with a thousand years now pen't
Up in a closer Tenement.
And in a dear enlarging care,
About to leave it to Repaire.
He takes flight to this wo [...]ld of fate,
Leaving his Isle too fortunate:
And to that Syria doth fan,
From him that's call'd Phoenicean.
Vhere far remote he doth invade
A saered solitude of shade;
And on a Cedars utmost spire,
Builds his or either nest or Pire.:
Making his Aromatique bed,
Of all the spicery doth shed.
O're the Panchaian groves, and Rise
Glowing Sabaeas treasuries.
And addes to these in wealthy summes,
The Indian, and the Persick gummes;
Here twigges of frankincense, upon
The ruddy bark of Cinnamon:
There Balsamum, new Odour frees,
Mixt with hot wood of Aloes.
Chaf'd with dry'd Casia within,
And the warm scent of Benjamin:
VVith delicate tears of Amber wet,
And drops that precious Myrrah swet;
Crown'd with what all their breathing bears
The tops that the young Nard first weares;
While in the mid'st he plac'd doth shed,
The species round about him spred;
And moyst with gummes dispersed lyes,
To dye in his solemnities.
The Sun thus seeing him from far,
Making a stand, reines in his car;
And thus bespeaks his charge, O thou
VVhose only age deceaseth now,
To thine own funerall's the heire,
That di'st in haste to thy Repaire,
VVho beyond thy death (alive)
Do'st thy triumphed fate survive,
Off (thy but worne now body) throw,
And in diviner figure go,
This said, he (scatter'd) doth display
His bright locks, and shakes of a Ray,
That strikes with vital flame the urne,
And doth the willing Martyr burn:
VVho as the reeking heat consumes,
Doth give his soul up in perfumes;
VVhile yet it flames doth Nature lye,
Hush't in a pious agony;
And labours with religious care,
Of loosing its eternal heir;
And Aeolus with cavernes bindes,
The backs of the unruly windes:
In fear they should with lungs lesse pure,
Mix with the ayres clean temp'rature,
Or spread clouds that might take away,
The Suns regenerating ray:
Thus in his solemn fires he dyes,
And in his quiet ashes lyes.
VVhen few dividing houres got in
To put a difference between;
VVhose space doth intermediate lye
To either lifes-vicinity:
But a new warmth of vigor (shed)'
Doth (through the limbs dispersed) spred;
And a reviving blood doth flow,
And in the veines (new channel'd) go.
The undisturbed dust is stir'd,
And ashes fledg'd new plume the bird;
Untill the Phoenix in a trice
Starts from his faithful bed of spice;
And who but late departed Sire,
Doth rise the off-spring of his Pyre.
Then straight his bust in his new state
Devoutly doth conglomerate,
And (thick) with unguents doth enrobe,
The to be consecrated globe,
Bearing the sacred burthen o're▪
To the removed Pharian shore.
Birds that his husht attendants flye
(Innumerable) cloud the sky
Yet none of all dare: thrust before,
But far behind his flight adore:
Not one makes war, religious awe,
Creates one common peacefull Law.
In Aegypt a tall Fane doth rise,
Famous in the blest sacrifice;
There Altar'd still his parent Urn,
He to the Sun doth (gratefull) burn;
VVhence precious fogs obscure the flore
VVith their inconsed breathings o're,
Then mists that to the Nile are broke,
Do from his seven Channells smoke;
And strongly too exhaling come,
As far as to Pelusium:
Making the ayre more health assume,
From the incorporate perfume.
Thrice happy bird that liv'st to see
Behind thee thy mortality,
That art so not concern'd in fate
Thine age dyes from thee separate:
At least your funerall's so rife,
You but undress your self of life;
And put again your body on,
By cloathing Resurrection;
Thy glorious links of dayes are mixt,
with a Momento still betwixt:
Thou lifes whole story dost comprise
And all thy death's are period-wise.
Lycoris weeping.
WHen youthfull Aprill half his progresse gon,
Had help't the gaudy springs embroidries on,
On the soft fragrance of a flowrie bed,
I saw the faire length of Lycoris spred;
Stifling their own, but such new sweets she lent,
As she but lay there their deputed scent:
Or as if he aven thus humbled to the eares
Of the attentive earth would whisper tears;
For she was weeping-ripe, the drops she shed,
(So brightly soft) were Christall mellowed.
When as each fell, officious in its birth,
Some new flower starts, and latches it from earth;
Guerdon'd with the rich gem, which there doth lye,
Loves pretious globular Artillery:
'Till when the bowed stalk lets it roule on,
I fear'd it gras'd to execution:
But emissary beams so pointed run,
They strung them up by exhalation.
Till (where the Rayes concentre drawn) they pass,
Into one piece of liquid burning glass;
Before those eyes, illustrious then as are
The gilded gellies of a falling star;
So not to be conceal'd, darting out beams,
They Native fire-works burned in their streams.
And now the earth, reeking with warmer showres,
Fresh odours rise up from the chafed flowres.
The happy dew a shorter progress seeks
Doth wet the damasque Rose leaves of her cheeks;
And some to wash the Lillies idely ran,
Plea to those lav'd the Aeth opian;
That in their either beds distinctly lye,
And are both warm'd and water'd by her eye:
Thence on het lips the happy currents flow.
VVhere the drown'd Currall trembles soft below.
Now to her snowy bosome they are gone,
And seem to trickle with addition:
VVhen I reth'd back to her eyes to see,
If this were wanton prodigality;
But in those fair lights by some smarting wounds,
Their griefs seem'd carv'd by their own Diamonds.
One Enamour'd on a Black-moor.
VVHat a strange love doth me invade,
VVhose fires must cool in that dark shade
Round her such solitudes are seen
As she were all Retir'd within,
And did in hush't up silence lye
(Though single) a Conspiracy.
How did my passion find her out,
That is with Curtains drawn about?
(And though her eyes do cem'nell keep)
She is all over else asleep;
And I expect when she my sight,
Should strike with universal light.
A scarce seen thing she glides, were gon
If touch'd, an Apparition,
To immortality that dip't
Hath newly from her Lethe slipt.
No feature here we can define
By this, or that illustrious line,
Such curiosity is not
Found in an un-distinguisht blot:
This beauty puts us from the part
VVe all have tamely got by hart,
Of Roses here there Lillies grow,
Of Saphyre, Corall, Hills of snow:
These Rivulets are all ingrost,
And all in one Black Ocean lost
The treasures lock't up we would get
VVithin the Ebon Cabinet;
And he that Ravishes must pick
Open the quaint Italian Trick.
She is her own clese mourning in,
(At Natures charge) a Cypress skin.
Our common Parent else to blot,
A moal on the white mold, a spot.
Dropt it with her own Statute Ink,
And the new temper'd Clay did sink:
So the fair figure doth remain,
Her ever since Record in grain.
Ix [...]on's sometime armfull might
Swell with, perhaps, a fleece more bright;
But she as soft might be allow'd,
The goddesse's deputed cl [...]ud;
Though sure from our distinct embrace,
Centaurs had been a dapple Race.
Thou pretious Night-piece that art made,
More valuablè in thy shade.
From which when the weak tribe depart,
The skilfull Master hugs his art.
Thou dost not to our dear surprise
Thine own white marble statue rise;
And yet no more a price dost lack,
Clean built up of the polish't black.
Thou like no Pelops hast supply
Of an one joynt by Ivory.
But art miraculously set,
Together totally with Jet.
Nor can I count that bosome cheap,
That lyes not a cold winter heap:
Where pillow yet I warmly can,
In down of the contrary swan;
Let who will wilde enjoyments dream,
And tipple from another stream;
Since he with equall pleasure dwells,
That lyes at these dark fontinells:
These fair, Round, sphears contemplate on
So just in the proportion.
And in the lines of either breast,
Find the rich countries of the East.
They not as in the milkie hue,
Are broke into Raw streaks of blew.
But have in the more-lived stains,
The very Violets of Veins,
They rise the Double-headed Hill,
VVhose tops shade one another still;
Between them lyes that spicy Nest,
That the last Phoenix scorch'd, and blest.
VVhat fall's from her is rather made
Her own (just) picture, than her shade:
And where she walks the Sun doth hold
Her pourtrai'd in a frame of gold.
A black Nymph scorning a fair Boy Courting her.
Nymph.
FOnd Boy, thy vain pursuit give o're,
Since I thy shadow go before.
Boy.
[...]h fly not Nymph! we may pursue,
[...]nd shadowes overtake like you.
Nymph.
[...]pass howe're in course away
[...]he night to thy succeeding day.
Boy.
[...] night thou art, oh! be not gone,
[...]ill thou have stood a triple one:
[...]hough Jove I fear, would then invade,
[...]ot his Alcmena, but the shade.
Nymph.
[...]o should the thunderer embrace,
[...] cloud in his own goddess place.
Boy.
[...]o let us but commixt a while,
[...]istinguish one anothers foyl;
[...]hat to advantage we may tell,
[...]ow either beauty doth excell.
Nymph.
[...]need not thy betraying light,
[...]o shew how far I am from white;
[...]nd to the piece that nature made,
[...]dare be no improving shade.
Boy.
[...]en my dark Angell, I can charm
[...]hee (circled) in mine either arm.
Nymph.
[...]ee! from thy slight embraces broke
[...]ecure I vanish in my smoke.
On Mr. J.H. His Translation of Hierocles's Comment on the golden verses of Pythagoras.
WHat strange Idolaters are these! that knew
So well to write the things we ought to do!
VVere they acquainted with the Lawes (too) Mysts
Though Sybills sometimes were Evangelists!
These are more then mans dictates! is it fit
To think they likewise had their ho [...]y writ?
So long they had not in a tongue unknown,
Layn hid, but in a Reverence to their own:
And the prophane half-letter'd durst not trace
VVith their unhalow'd feet, the holy place.
Straight I my loose perusall did correct,
And at each pious clause I (shudder'd) checkt:
Oft I drew back, as I had thrust upon,
Awfull (at unawares) Religion.
VVhat may our best devotions transfer
Title on thee? sacred interpreter!
YVho dost the Authours sense, so his, Relate
That souls did, as he taught us transmigrate;
And we that read do hear, but from the Greek
A smooth expounding English Eccho speak,
In known (though) words the lines (how e're) brough forth.
Do (big) yet labour in their proper worth.
And not at mercy of deluded eyes,
Are still laid up in their own Mysteries:
But thou (still blestly prodigal) dost please
To spread before us thy Hierocles.
VVhere we the secrets of each line espy,
Discovered in a fair Ana [...]omy.
Of what a treasure thou poslest didst dye
Who couldst bequeath this publick legacy;
In which we all are richer, thou dost give,
(In thy providing fate) us rules to live;
And that so slippery soul at last now has
Arrived hither of Pythagoras,
After our Saviours death that we may well,
Consult, there is yet left an Oracle.
A Blush.
MAdam your guilt is too well understood
Writ in, that solemn evidence, your blood;
And in this crimson flood under pretence
Of bashfulness you drown white innocence.
That blush if you originally seek,
Was our first parent's from the Apples cheek:
Then blush, that e're you blush't, I'l think't no stain,
So strait for anger you look pale again.
Tabularium.
HOc qualecunque (viator) legis inscriptum
Scias.
Sanctisissimae Thomae Whit [...]aei Memoriae
Esse consecratum.
Non tam è Civitate Londinensi, quam è Dei Civitate,
Civis optimi.
Heù quàm exiguum,
(Post & illius quamplurima
Nec exigua tamen charitatis officia)
Munusculum Charitatis!
HEre (Reader) lyes a pretious trust
Of good, and charitable dust.
This casquet heavens choyce hath bin,
To treasure it's dispencer in.
One who its blessings did conveigh
(Through his but Mediate hands) away:
His Alms were 'till want crav'd no more,
And all his stock (was) what was o're,
His board stood free to entertain
Guests, though they could not bid again,
His Neighbours knew him not by strife
And he did use not injure life;
And though he could distinguish well,
He was with care conformable:
So for some one amiss thing don,
Not quarrell'd with Religion.
Now (Reader) go, and taught to live,
Him back (in his example) give.
ODE.
The Rosary.
(1.)
THe early Morn (as yet undrest)
Drew the red Curtains of the East;
And did betray the blushing state,
In which she lay, she thought too late:
Then starts, and Round doth (scatter'd) hurl,
Soft, Orientall showres of Pearl.
(2.)
When my Lycoris to partake;
Delights that were the first awake;
Amid the walks of Roses went,
To catch the yet unravish't scent;
Or (when the sweet souls were bequeath'd)
That new ones might from her be breath'd,
(3.)
The big round dew the Plants that decks,
And loads their with-pride-humbled necks,
Did rather bend them now to greet
With their best Ornaments her feet;
And that whose duty was not near,
Howe're did fall into a tear.
(4.)
It was the moment when each Rose
(About the fair hair to disclose)
As yet alone in the young dress,
Had slack'd the green-silk Hayr-laces:
And in the new yet freedom lay
Close, unacquainted to display.
(5.)
Here climb'd the Obelisque entire
In a throughout proportion'd spire,
There of like figure one Below,
Above did to new beauty blow:
A third the Ayr's each hiss receives,
Now fully number'd with its leaves,
(6.)
The Rosary the East had spred,
Now Rosey with a double red,
Or equally the flowr's the Morn.
And that the Roses did adorn:
That you could not now (whether) know
[...]t dawn'd above, or dawn'd below.
(7.)
The Rose and Morning do comply
In one delicious harmony,
One is their dew, one is their dress,
And Venus their one Patroness;
One were perhaps their scent if prov'd,
But this breaths nigh, and that remov'd.
(8.)
Lycoris now had seen the bud,
First in the green, and nfant hood,
Then in the child-hood gay, then lye
A fair dishevel'd treasurie:
Whose beauty must with day conclude,
And fall her dear similitude.
ODE.
For Winter.
(1.)
COuld the dead season but partake
The lusty spirit of the Vine,
His Chains of Ice he off would shake,
And finde a liberty in wine:
And his cramp-bound-up sinews fit
For limber measures, would unknit.
(2.)
Wine with an active heat would warm,
and creep through ev'ry wither'd vein,
The youth-alone-retriving charm,
To make them plump and rise again.
And chaf'd with wine his head would glow,
And thaw his periwigs of snow.
(3.)
Boy let the Health then quick be tost,
That we may take the liquor up
E're the Anticipating frost,
Have Alchymis'd it in the cup:
And when we thus well lin'd have bin,
We need no furres but those within.
ODE.
(1.)
THe earth first drinks the scatter'd rain
Thence sent to every plant,
As fast they tipple it again,
And fill the veins that want.
(2.)
The Sea doth drink the condens'd ayr,
The Sun doth drink the main,
The Moon from him drinks to repair,
And fill her horns again.
(3.)
Then let us not alone stand out
But with our goblets crown'd,
(Since Nature puts the health about,
Let us maintain the round.
ODE.
(1.)
HOw Cloris now I pitty thee?
Whom I did late adore,
And I am less thine enemy,
Though I cannot allow
To love thee now,
At half the rate before.
(2.)
Thine eyes have lost their influence,
(not husbanding their Ray)
While like the Sun thou would'st dispence
An undistinguisht shine,
Without design
Lost as it did display.
(3.)
VVhen hadst thou shed the golden streames
Alone but upon me,
The double quiver of thy beams,
Had had in either eye
Artillery,
Now to have pleasur'd thee.
A Frost.
IS nature tranc'd: we cannot then
By water fetch her back agen,
Our babes are Jewes, or Pagan, Ice
Not Christen's or doth circumcise;
The water-men their Dyall miss
That over-spred with Christal is,
And tydes that underneath it pass
But turn within the hour-glass:
Mahomets Politian able
To make the dry land navigable.
To render Rivers so might deal
Here by no lesse a miracle;
We are (like Midas) curst, and think
To quench our thirst with goblet drink,
But want his after-prviledge,
His Tagus now is solid wedge,
And Swans above their Dirges breath,
That are cut of the half beneath.
The wretched Helespont doth fear
That it again must fetters wear,
And Islands with no bounds content
Are with the Sea a continent.
Then view the shore and understand
There's nothing lost, though writ in sand,
And the Records as deep remain,
As they would not be thaw'd again:
Those Grandam-bones, Deucalion pos'd,
He had not compass'd now (disclos'd;)
And she that did the riddle tell,
Had thought the task the Oracle:
The earth now close-compacted all,
Is but an entire Minerall.
Immortall Bayes that knew no fall,
Are silver'd to their funeral;
And Poets wreath'd with such as these,
Write their own Metamorphoses.
Anni Tempestates Ovidianae.
VErque novum stabat cinctum florente Coronâ
Stabat Nuda Aestas, & Spicea serta gerebat;
Stabat & Autumnas calcatis sordidus Ʋvis,
Et glacialis Hyems, canos Hirsuta capillos.
The year.
TIme that pursues it self so far,
It throwes it self quite Circular,
And then as it had wound in vain.
It springs in length to curle again.
A twelve-moneth-aged Phoenix dyes,
To hat [...]h young immortalities;
And covetous of such repair,
Departs its own apparent heire:
Invading fate on purpose for
To be its own executor,
Spring.
NOw breezes the soft wind doth bring
To hush asleep the infant Spring,
Which simpring in the Cradle lyes,
So tender that but nipt, it dyes.
While a dispencing warmth doth dresse,
With care the first yet nakedness:
The Sun puts on his beames by Ice,
And melts the mirror at his Rise;
Which doth unable under lye,
And waters weak'ned by his eye:
'Till with beblubber'd cheek it flowes,
And (with the forehead knit up) goes.
The mountains warmly clad and trees
Do careless shed the silver fleece,
And wak'ned earth above doth peep,
The sheet that hid her o're, asleep.
Where long repose and balmy heat,
Had laid her in a breathing sweat.
And now the soule strait-lac'd of growth
Sruggles; and for enlargement throw'th;
And in the early buds that sprout,
Shoots an impulsive tenant out.
Birds on the callow sprigs that stir,
(Close) shudder in the native fur;
And Rath fore-runners Chill appear,
In the bleak morning of the year:
The fragrant Rain the por'd earth swills,
Lukewarm from heavens Alymbeck spils.
Now the first blush begins to break,
And Roses kindly staine the cheek
Of the young Spring, that by the Sun,
Is vex'd into Vermilion:
VVho chafes her reeking in her spice,
Begetting his own sacrifice;
Till earth returning thanks in place,
(Supinely) breathes in heavens face:
A breath that through the concave meets,
And makes [...]t but one box of sweets;
As ayre were gone and voidnesse bar'd,
By the soft lungs of bruised Nard.
Thus passing on doth disappear,
The first gay Pageant of the year.
Summer.
NOw all the Damasque pride is shed,
To yellow chang'd, or swarthy red,
Such as doth setled swell to sleek,
The nigh sleep-strangled Poppies cheek,
A sportive wind with whistling note,
Doth early tune the standing Oate,
And all the fields are gilt about;
As the rich-bowel'd earth burst out,
Each gale doth o're them gliding sweep,
(Bearing along) spreads the bright heap,
And shews it burnish'd to the Sun,
Dazled in Repercussion.
Where Ceres thus trumphant rides,
New graine along the furrowes slides,
As her rich Carre did scatter streames,
And the dark earth dawn'd in the beames.
Untill a more illustrious day's,
Shot in innumerable Rayes;
That from obscurer Cavernes borne,
Irradiate a Noon of Corn:
Lustre alone doth not decline,
But starts in vegetable shine.
And equally the ayre doth glow
Warm'd from above, and from below.
A lazi [...] hear doth from them reek,
Distil [...]s the Roses of each cheek.
Untill the vexed blush is pin'd,
And weather'd paseness left behind;
Each Virgins bosome seems to flow,
In the then newly melted snow,
The votary no longer nice,
Thaws in her superstitious ice;
Such flames now from the dog are thrown,
His shaking sides pant in their own.
Afflicted Valleys cranny'd lye,
And let into deep hell the skye.
Our common mother Restless pines,
And (hid) shrinks from her molten mines:
The thund'rer seems to dart upon
Some new, but rasher Phaeton.
The rifled treasury Convey'd,
From off the field in bank is layd.
And the close Granaries are bright,
In sheaves that chace away their night:
Untill they all Refulgent may,
Resemble those that stable day.
Thus doth the jolly pomp begin,
Out-worne to hide it self within.
Autumne.
ANd fruit-oppressed Autume now,
Beneath his wealthy load doth bow,
VVhile from his labour-fainting sides
A precious sweat of Amber slides,
Apples that round his temples play,
(Like Tantalus his) dance away;
VVhen he his laden head doth move,
The stubborn branches lift above;
The course-clad Russeting, the green,
Harvie, and purple-robed Queen:
As all were beautifully set,
But gems within his Coronet,
That sparkle his large front upon
Like a shot constellation;
As Ariadne had let fall
Her stars to crown the god withall.
From fruits a Ruddiness doth flow,
And all the trees with scarlet glow;
So the bold Sun with frequent glance
Hath look'd them out of Countenance.
The parched earth doth cheaper show,
Lyes from her mantle strip't below;
As if attractive heat thus high,
Had drawn up her embroiderie,
And now the mellow fruits not want,
The price of an Hesperian plant:
That valu'd cannot these out-do,
VVhose very leaves are golden too.
The full ag'd grape deep colour'd o're,
As it now struggl'd in its gore,
Yet with a thirst insatiate dreines,
From its luxuriating veines:
'Till with it's own exhausted wines,
(Heavie) the feeble neck declines;
And now the blood-swolne Deitie
Grown black, in his rich plurisie,
Bleeds in the presse, until he fre's,
A luscious vintage of Disease.
Winter.
OLd VVinter now himself bestirres,
And gathers up within his furres.
The trees aside their garments throw,
To shift themselves in shirts of snow:
And the last beames the Sun doth fling,
Wash'd in his moyst robes (slaking) sing;
VVhich after him (beset) doth trayle,
With Diamond-Ice, and ropes of Hail,
Whose ground not of an humbler cost,
(A glittering cloth of silver frost)
The strutting plate and stones uphold
Stiff, and inestimably, cold,
That (bustling) out of lankness throws,
And but in-sinuous Volume flows,
Where he the stubborn traine doth stem
Earth (crusty) crumbles at the hem;
And as it sweeps o're looser flakes
It bears along dislodged cakes,
The tenant-birds with Summer gon,
Her pack't up ward-robe wait upon,
That paid a Rent to every tree
From their melodious treasurie,
And snow succeeds, that seems a Down
They left in satisfaction, flown,
And now appears our silent skie
An undiscover'd volary,
The softer birds not venture on
(Inhabitable Region,)
And Foule, but wing't of hoarser throats
(Natives) not civiliz'd to notes,
Unlike those, mounting the young skie,
That soul'd the vault with harmonie,
And swell'd with Rapsodies our ears
Like some subordinated sphears.
Coldness doth so the Globe possess
It fills in abstract emptiness,
And hath it self so far outwent,
It ceases to be accident.
Such frozen blood our veins doth fill
The branchesspred distinctly chill,
And Isickles proportion'dly
Proab'd, through their whole Anatomy,
The blew lines proper yet are laid,
On the now marble-bosom'd maid;
And we are candied o're by this
Half in our metamorphosis,
The bark let's in the weather through't,
And growth keeps warm it self at root.
Rivers that chide upon their shelves
Caught, are made fetters for themselves:
Where (deep) they purle a cream doth fling
In cold excess their covering;
Till Spring with beams that suppling rain,
Cha [...]'d Nature brings to life again.
The Corollarie.
WEak counterfeits thus Winter wears
The Spring resolves to their first tears,
And ferching short her breath of flowres
She sinks in the hot Summer howres,
Faint Summer dull'd with Autumne nigh
Indulges her own Lethargy,
And Autumne Winter cools upon
Struck in's Refrigeration.
Thus they in restless motion reel
Spoakes of the years perpetual wheel.
FINIS.
POEMS DIVINE. BY ELDRED REVET Gent.
Qui recto Coelum vultu petis, Exerisque Frontem,
In sublime fer as animum quoque.
Boëth. de con. Ph. li. 5.
LONDON, Anno Dom. 1657.
POEMS DIVINE. John, lying on the Bosome of our Saviour.
(1.)
SEE where the lov'd Disciple lies,
Pillow'd with softness of the skies:
From above the while there streams,
A glorious Canopy of Beams.
(2.)
When his eyes would up-ward peep,
Th' are with lustre laid asleep;
His Head inebriated gay's
On's Bolster feathered with Rayes.
(3.)
Such splendors from the pillow pow' [...]
The Hair is all a Golden shower;
As if the ravisht Thoughts, now not
To be conceal'd, themselves thus shot.
(4.)
See I how he passes not undone
Like Enoch in's Translation
To a Bosome that bedarks
That of the blessed Patriarchs.
Hesekiah his Recoverie.
THe Sunne goes backward, Judah's King hath ease,
His Life's the surer now by ten Degrees.
The Aethiopian Baptized.
WHat Stars are those of Orient light
Tremble on the Brow of Night?
And their daring Beams display
Rival Glories with the day?
That baffle Time, out-stare the Sun,
Scorn to wait Succession;
No, 'tis an Aethiop div'd these streams
Rich in spoils of Ransack't Gem's;
New-risen from the Chrystal Bed,
All in Pearls aparalled;
What of Night's about his skin,
Skreens, like that too, Day within.
Christ washing Judas his feet.
(1.)
WAter the Virtue of those hands
A Chrystal Heav'n yet sustains;
Beautie on Juda's feet disbands
Might wash an Aethiop as it rains.
(2.)
A Virgin spring so have I seen
Through Marble Channels too conveigh'd
After the Pride it wantons in,
To filth-corrupted sinkes betray'd
Low as his cursed feet, (Lord) as thou bend'st
Me thinks to Hell thou e're thy death descend'st.
A penitential Hymne.
IF I be white within
Lord! 'tis but wi [...]h the Leprosie of sin,
The Furre a deep staind'd soarlet blushes o're
The Roab that Pilate wore:
Nor did he me out-doe,
That Coucifie thee too.
Lord! Let thy R [...]sie torrent flow,
Whose richer tincture may
Pale into snow
The courser die and kindly beauty lay:
But first, Oh! squeeze mine eyes, till all appears
For thy pure blood a Channel spung'd with tears,
Oh let the drops distill
Till they have drown'd this little World of ill.
Marie her ointment.
ANointed God who was before,
Mary anoints her Saviour;
Her Alabaster-box doth shed
The liquid Narde on's sacred head;
Where when it trickles down upon't
It sweats upon his Marble Front;
Ore's hair it spreads the unctious flood,
To arm't 'gainst after-rain of blood;
As all those little channels pow'r
It sems dispersed in a show'r;
What fall's on his Necks whiter skin
Is Alabaster'd up again;
The od'rous breath, though with perfume
Not stifled there doth fill the room:
From this more glorious Phoenix flie
Such spices that prepares to die;
She then at's feet her-self doth throw
Descending yet to Heav'n, so;
When from her eyes she scatters streams
To pay the custome of those gems:
The sparkes a richer lustre meet
Set on his white enameld feet,
Which (trembling yet) the torrent bears
In one continu'd Flood of tears.
Her hair now from her bended head
A Towel falls disheveld;
That's o're those silver columns row'ld
Like a well-falling Curle of Gold:
Those Rayes upon his feet thus run
Dry them by Exhalation:
And drink a Richer dew from thence,
Then her well-powred forth expence.
Judgement
LOrd! at Convulsions Earth shall shake
Our little parcels quake;
When the Glory of thy Ray
Shall chase the Heavins away:
And put the Crowded Stars to rout
Which at that day shall drop Thrust out;
Then in a fiery Deluge pow'r
That earth must, and her filth devour,
And from their place
Shot Bilyard o're it's sinful face;
And the fair Vellam of the skies too rowle
Snatch'd into scrowle:
The Mountains then should o're us turn,
Will Aerna's burn,
And the splinted Rocks then flie
Counter-Thunder with the skie,
Now the long sleep shall Death forsake,
Graves yawning wake,
Then Mercy Lord! we sink beneath thine Ire,
Nor dare we stand this Trial of thy Fire.
Confession by ingenious Penitence,
And holds ope hels dark jaws, that we below
May see what Sea's of liquid Fire there flow,
That curle in Billow's still, and roar in night
Never extinguisht, ever without Light.
This we unshuderd hear
Though they are brought so near
The Flames Flash to our Ear,
Then let him throw
Us Rowll'd in Bedds of Snow,
And manacle us thrice:
In Chains of Ice,
The Blood ne're Thril's,
Nor one Hot-Lust-inflamed vein less fils.
We hear of Snakes, Aspes, and put o're their sting,
Eat Poyson too like Nightingales and sing:
But Lord! in Floods of Tears here wash my soul
Least there I rowle.
ZACHEUS called.
SEE! how the wittie dwarf hath cheated Them
Shot up in Stratagem;
That run tumultuously and Throng
Themselves from that for which they long
With what industrious strife
He now assayles
The Tree of Life?
And beats the rough bark with his Nayles?
His labour here finds a Repair,
His Prospect's faire.
But now thou must again descend, for thee.
Was there no way to Heav'n, but o're this Tree?
It was the most direct; Thou wert not out
Zacheus seeking thy blest home about.
CAESARS Tribute.
IF th' Image speak, the Owner here's the Odd's,
The Silvers Caesars Coyn, and Caesars Gods.
Christ and his Disciples in the Storm.
(1.)
HOw prowdly curl'd the Billows come
Powderd with Foam,
Sea-Courtiers, that like Sampson weare,
Strength in their hair:
Winds their Imperious dressers fling
Their fetterd Pride in every Ring.
(2.)
But whither rowle these Gyant son's
Of waves on their own Pelions?
A God invading Element,
By President
The Monsters in her Womb did move,
Are spawn'd above.
(3.)
Now, now they lash the Vessels sides,
Where Heav'n rides
To driv't on Rocks, secure in one
Salvation.
When now a bubbles archt ascent
Seems vaulted ore its Monument
(4.)
Great Neptune in't! what need pale fear,
The wat'ry Cav'es a shelter here,
And in officious fowlds would swim
Pillow to him;
Or as he sleeps, but over-ly
His Canopy.
(5.)
Each crisped fleece the Former rides
That from it slides
Ambitious then to get before
Throwes it self [...]'re,
When a tenth wave insulting ly'th,
And falls to Heav'ns High-Priest a Tythe:
(6.)
Him, now's Disciples wake, who blames
Their coward faith first, and then tames
The winds, that at his word retire,
And hush their ire:
The Billows their rude Essence too
Becalm'd, undo.
Death.
DEath, thou wert once a fearful thing,
And hadst a sting;
That now thou canst not use, or if thou do
Thou shed'st a Curing Honey too,
We sometimes pass'd thee black enough in sin
To places where we scorch'd agen:
Thy dark and narrow Entrie is
Now but the Thorough-fair of bliss.
And we upon thee look as we
VVould on thy fairly limm'd Anatomie.
Our Saviour cradled in the Manger.
SEE! where the King of Glory lies
Inn'd after passage from the Skies!
Having left his sparkling Throne
To sparckle in a viler one!
What linnen-Clouds his head, o're-run,
As they could Biggon up the Sun!
With rowles his limbs are swath'd about,
To keep the Rayes from breaking out;
But lustre un-controil'd so streams,
He's double-mantled in his beams;
His Eyes the humble Roof (too) line
Guilt with the riches of their shine;
As if Heaven did here retire,
With all its Regiments of fire.
To baffle in a glorious dress
The pride of Herods Pallaces;
This Western-stable that out-vies
Where the sun's Carre un-harnass'd lies.
Adam, hiding himself among the Trees of the Garden.
WHy dost thou Adam, hide thee ore and ore?
That wer't in Fig-leaves hidde too much before:
That Innocence thou with the Fruit didst lese?
Can'st thou recover in the Leaves and Trees?
That Dress doth round thee treacherously fall
Thy sin sticks close (poor Adam) that is all.
Jesus wept.
(1.)
WHat mean those weaker streams
Shed from such Eagle-eyes?
What bright Sun Duels beams
And their Glory thus out-vies?
Such lustres are about them thrown.
They surely water in their own.
(2.)
This vaster Ball
Who made and wrought
And grasps it all
Compos'd of nought.
The fulness of all Ioy now too
Creates new little Worlds of woe.
(3.)
Or He, the first of Dayes,
Doth now ante-date the last;
These are not tears, but Rayes,
Stars thus shot those Heavens cast:
No marvel they were shed upon
Thy Laz'rus resurrection.
The Water made Wine.
A Fire-got Bacchus, Ethnicks onely knew,
But here he is begot of Water too.
Our Saviour scourged, cloathed with Purple, Crowned with Thorns.
(1)
JEsu! Can those scourges eurle
Round thee their inamord knots?
And their sad Enamel hurle
Kisses like Iskariots?
(2.)
Once thou taught'st thou were the way
Then thou wert a Milkie one;
Now a Cream of blood they lay
Through a red-Sea we must on.
(3.)
Why this roab about thee thrown?
Canst more Princely (Lord!) be drest?
Richer Purples of thine own
Too too costly line this vest.
(4.)
That sharp Crown that by thee worn's
Sadly Emblemes there not do
Lillies onely among thorns,
Lillies grow and Rose, too.
(5.)
He the Spicknards waste could plead
Thought not (Lord!) of this expence;
Every moist hair on thy head
Drops the world a ransome thence.
(6.)
Precious coral-Beads! that run
Strung upon the silken thread
Till they wanting fast'ning on,
Scatterd'd fall by new ones shed.
Lasarus raised by our Saviour after foure dayes lying in the Grave.
DEath! alas where is thy sting?
Thy mortall once invenoming?
Thy weakness see
Puling Anatomy.
That o're this vanquisht corps didst rowl
And bredth'dst upon
It thy short fetcht corruption?
Till thy dull weight squeez'd out the vexed foul?
Now that turneth thee beneath,
VVith a new recruit of breath,
And purges out thy noysome Aires
By smells with which the soul from Heaven repairs;
Leaving the Original to see
The coppie it left with Mortalitie,
And with an ante-dated bliss comes on
To this Preludious resurrection.
Jesus eating, John fasting.
HOw strangely are these perverse Jewes diseas'd!
Nor full, nor fasting pleas'd.
To the Angel bringing newes of our Saviours Nativitie.
(1.)
EVer-blest Intelligence!
That while the quire about thee sings.
Fann'st the Ayr with Redolence
From the healing in thy wings;
How thy breath doth assume,
Sweet before, a new perfume
From the Odor that it brings!
(2.)
Thy beauteous wings, beauteous feet,
Heavens blest Ambassador!
In thy tydings joy yet meet
Beauty they had not before.
Night mantled in the Ray
Of unexepected day,
VVonders her dark reign is o're.
(3.)
In what state thy glories break
Thy Retinew to put on;
Lustres that do weakly speak,
Their Negotiation:
Thy livery displayes
A Rich deep fring of Rayes,
May not well be look'd upon.
(4.)
VVhen thy Rosie lips give birth,
To a golden cloud of Breath,
That proclaimeth Peace to Earth
And a victory in Death:
New's of a Princely Boy,
Making us Co-heirs in joy,
VVith him, that doth it bequeath.
Christ walking on the Sea.
THe troubled Sea with pants doth bear
Strugling beneath those blessed feet,
That tread with power Cocrceive on't
Fetters alone for Hellispont.
What Fleccie billows rowling come
Furr'd with the whiteness of their foam!
Such watry Quilts, are Carpets spread
Where ere the King of waves doth tr [...]ad
The surges their curl'd necks upon
Would heave him to Ascension;
Their clouds such weight unworthy know,
Though Heav'n is (with him) below;
The waters un-retentive are,
Or his each step had sixt a Star:
Whose Number then, the other's less,
Had put them out with light's excess.
Christ in his Baptisme.
HOw doth enamor'd Jordan throw,
His waters that do round him flow,
And his fair limbs pant upon,
As they had themselves out-run?
Each successive Heyre of bliss,
Weeps and takes a parting kisse;
Ev'ry drop Constellates here
Trembling on a brighter sphere;
Gemm's themselves are well content
to make him their Ornament.
Prank't in his lustie those would Vie,
Fall, into a Tear and Dye;
Or rather crawl; with appetire,
To new Regions of delight:
Branch'd into Vines, a Trace they leave,
And wil'd in F [...]orish inter-weave.
The watrie clusters weighty bend,
And quiver at the Mazes end:
Thus the Mysterious knots contrive
Him in a weak Imbrace to Give:
Whos' shine from each part as it plays,
Un-essenceth the Loomb with Rayes.
Dives his Drop.
THy sing'd tongue suing ears are Deaf,
May sheivel up a witherd Leafe;
A wat'ry Drop! an Orient Gemme,
Is rated now to its esteem?
Hadst thou afforded one cold cup,
What Riches hadst thou Treasur'd up?
The Crown of thorns on our Saviours Head.
(1.)
NOw the Gyants Heav'ns Brow
Scal'd have with ambitious Wars,
Where their spears too Riot now,
Wounding it with other starres.
(2.)
Those before did shed the Ray,
Into showers of Golden streams;
But these water-eyes, as they
Bleed their bitter pointed Beams.
(3.)
As that in the Bush of yore,
This Fire, indestructive burns;
Though the lustre be all o're.
Ʋn-consum'd remaine the Thorns.
The Miracle of the loaves.
THe Widdowes rising Oyle and Flow'r
That sweli'd stil, as she did devour,
But weakly Typ'd this glorious Feast,
By diminution increas'd.
The Teare. Psal. 6. v. 8. The Lord hath heard the Voyce of my weeping.
LOrd! we know the sinners sigh,
Can wing't on High!
An! his groan
Is heard loud Musick to thy Throne:
But can a poor dejected Tear
Borne to the dust it soon doth weare;
Be heard above where [...]ngels sing,
And drowne weak sounds with Antheming?
It can't (I feare:)
The lids are vocall that ope wide
To utter a Spring Tyde;
And waters which with bubling Fall
Are Musicall:
Yet not alone the Cataracts of eyes
Do break the skyes;
We know the Tear,
That we give over here
Doth hang a Jewell in thine Ear:
Then if mine eyes cannot be fluent Lord;
O let them speak one word!
Paul called.
SEe! how the zealous persecutors Breath,
Sindges the Ayr, belching our Fire and Death!
Him with diviner love Christ doth acquaint,
And Prostrate Paul doth rise created Saint.
Pilate washing his hands.
(1.)
Why all this Coyle
To wash a Tile
Spread
Thorough Redde!
(2.)
Blushes away!
Will new betray
Th [...]ck
As the Brick.
(3.)
These though you wash,
All into Plash
Still,
Glow they will!
(4.)
Thy hands too Clay
When lav'd away
Stain
Will remain.
Lazarus and Dives.
VVHy Dives loath'st that wretches skin?
His Ʋlcers break, thine spread within:
Death will strip his Hayler soule,
And thy fair sear-cloth too un-rowle:
The naked Truth that uncloath's defect,
And Lazarus will then neglect.
Peter walking on the waters at our Saviours call.
SEe! where bold Peter at his Masters Beck,
Treads on each waves submissive neck!
And when them he frisled sees,
Wrapp his feet in the soft Fleece;
And Poy'd by Faith goes to lay hold upon▪
The Rock of his Salvation:
Passing with looks already o're,
Bent on the object that's before.
But now the Wind in wanton luxe that blowes
Builds, and as soon again o'rethrowes,
The sinuous billows rise in Caves,
And (curved) arch the under waves.
Peter and them who (Angell-like) o're ran,
Puts on again weak sinfull Man.
Broke with Fear, the waters fall,
And open to his burial.
When he that onely can, now call'd upon
Lifts him to Resurrection.
Teaching his Faithless feet again
To Kick the late deceitfull Main.
To the sluggard.
Forth! dull ones forth! No Lyon stands to flay
The early Cock-crow frights such Beasts away.
Mortification.
Man.
DEath! me thinks my nimble Clay
Might cheat thy Duller, and away:
I'll hide me from thee in Earths womb.
Death.
And so antedate thy Tombe.
Man.
Then strongly I can hold the chase,
And flye thee o're the Earths wide Face.
Death
Yet tumble in at last thou must,
And thy each steps, but dust to dust.
Man.
But Craven I above can go,
And you may on your Dung-hill crow.
Death.
Know though the staires Conveigh you o're
Heap'd Coffins to a boarded Flore.
Man.
Then I can dress my self in Bayes,
Secure from thee, and all thy Wayes;
Immortall Bayes! that never fall.
Death.
Will deck thee for thy funerall.
Ascension Day.
POor Earth! it must be so, but greet
The fare-well kisses of his Feet,
And he is gone!
From thy rude pavement, that had none,
But what he trodde,
To that abode.
Doth sparkle o'r with precious stone;
Where all the beauty of the skyes,
Wait for new lustre from his eyes.
And glorious Cherubs glitt'ring bright,
Spread their wings Fannes, before their sight!
Though more then Eagle plum'd, they dare not eye,
Such killing Majesty.
But Lord! thou art not gone
Quite from poor flesh, thou once essaiedst on;
But wilt again return
With Tongues of Fire, that from the twelve shall burn
To light the Nations feet, and teach how we
May get up after thee.
Affliction.
(1.)
TIme her blithe children with their Mirth grown Red
A peevish Grand-dame calls to Bed.
Now the dark Lanthorn Night,
Doth ope and shud her Light;
The Morn doth flush,
Gone at a Blush:
Darkness again is Fed,
Soon with her daily Bread.
The brisk Hows's lead the way.
To those that dance asleep the tyred Day:
(2.)
But with a poor cross-arm'd and fortun'd wretch,
The lazie Hour's do yawning stretch.
Night thinks him Dead and His,
As tedious Mourner is:
The Rosie Morn
Grow's Pale out-worne:
On Woe, the bold-fac'd Day,
Doth stare and Gaping staye
The Sun doth fixe his Eye,
'Till He doth Water those of Misery.
(1.)
And with such flaring Thread Apollo Rayes,
And Lo [...]mes the Shuttle of my Dayes
I lye with no Delight
In the black arms of Night
The Morning blowes,
I smell no Rose
Sheds into broader Day,
Still Night with me doth stay
Doubled with the approach,
When darkness lashes up her Mistie Coach.
(4.)
[...]ut Lord! on Tenters if I must be thrown
I'll Rowle and think them yielding down,
If thou prescrib'st it me,
Healthfull Phlebotomie
My veines were once
Swolne for the nonce.
When I am broke and torne,
Harrow'd enough and worne,
That thou wilt not Despise;
[...]hen let my Heart (Lord) be thy Sacrifice.
Our Saviour circumcised.
(1.)
BOrne (Lord) to woe
The story of thy Age
Has too
As sad a Title-Page
Thy day but now discloses,
[...]nd must it needs too break in Roses!
(2.)
Thou art the Vine,
VVilt shed enough thy Wine
O're-spread
Thy Cross and Cluster'd Red
The pruning-knife is letting
Thee Blood (alas!) yet at thy setting.
Ten Lepers cleansed, one returning Thanks.
OF ten were cleansed but one his thanks did pay,
And we would take too (Lord) that tythe away.
Conscience.
COnscience doth Ape our changes, still so drest
Cameleon of the Breast;
VVhen we put off our Working-day Array,
Shee's in her Holy-day:
Be all then nearly swept from sinne,
And hung with Light:
She keeps her Revells too within,
As Spruce and Bright.
(2.)
Sloven we up our selves in lust she bragges
No dress, but Menstruous Raggs,
And the corruption In our Bosome dwells,
Breathes out in Noysome smells.
Shee fearfully too Tenters all within
VVith Pricks of sin.
In Regulus his engine as shee'd Rowle
And scratch the soule.
Give me a quiet Conscience Lord; but none
That is a sleepy one.
Pauls Conversion.
TIhine eyes did search abroad amiss for sin,
That now confin'd are by reflex turn'd in:
To view (blest Paul) ills there, that call upon
Thee to bring home thy persecution.
PRAYER.
(1.)
A Fleece of Angell-downe that flyes
In a golden cloud of Breath;
Still upward to the kindred skyes
And above them hovereth
A Soule,
In Parcell ushering the whole.
(2.)
A most illustrious break of Day,
From the Night of Death and sin,
A Bright and Emissary Ray
Of a cheerfull light within;
A Spice!
Smoaks from the Heart in sacrifice.
(3.)
A Spirit hath got leave to play
From its Chains of Flesh and Blood.
A soul escap'd to learn the way
To its longed for abroad;
A thought,
Then up in the third Heavens caught.
(4.)
A talking with the Holy One,
A Familiar conference:
A wrestling for a sparkling throne
Got by holy violence
A Plate.
And Clapper to Saint Peters Gate,
The Hinderance.
(1.)
MY God! an evill Custome's not
When we would have it, just forgot
Tyred with Live-long sin,
I oft would rest
Gathered within
My Breast:
(2.)
But an officious thought before,
Crept in at some private dore,
That lust would speak with me;
VVhispers aside
VVhen I would be
Deny'd.
(3.)
THe surfets we first took to please
Hang after on us our disease.
The quarters warning not
Once wages pay,
Can them alot
Their stay,
(4.)
My God I knew the Time
My thoughts could climbe
Above the Morning Lark on wing,
And singe.
(5.)
The Regions of the ayre
Did not impaire
But pervious as a Vacuum
Become.
(6.)
Each crowded starre retires
And call'd in's Fires
Till far above their Orbs they greet
Thy feet.
(7.)
Now flutter out their age,
Pent up in Cage;
And as Debauched Pris'ners do,
They too.
Christmas-Day.
(1.)
AWake! awake! the Morne
Is long since sprightly borne;
And with it is
The Prince of Bliss;
A Ray
Of Angels broak the Day.
(2.)
Aurora half asleep
Doth dew-bedabled creep,
VVill blushing rise
At the surprise,
To be
But her own Deputy.
(3.)
The Bethlemites at sight
Of inexpected Light
Amazed fell
VVith Miracle:
To keep
A Golden-Fleeced sheep.
(4.)
And they thus prostrate do
Confesse Obedience too
To Him must keep
The Shepherds sheep,
To stock
[...]is strange inverted Flock.
(5.)
Yet this great Shepherd now
To whom the Pastors bowe
At last supplies
In Sacrifice,
A meek
Lamb for the Paschall week.
(6.)
Thou dost the offering do
(Lord!) whom 'tis effer'd to
Us Lambs-dost feed
One for us bleed
Alone
Propitiation.
Confession.
MY God my inside might no day
E're peeps into with half a Ray.
The darkness there ne'r knew the Sun,
That puts the Negro mourning on,
But fires of lust there dwell that can
Scorch me an Aethiopian;
Related flames to those that dwell
(Black in the ugly mouth of Hell,
That Roabed in as course a smoke,
And stifled in themselves (too) choke.
My God these mists (thick Rhined) Chace
And break them with a dawne of grace,
Let my o'reflowing eyes turn in.
Till they wash off the blacks of sin,
And the clear face of Conscience twin
VVith the bright glasse it dresses in.
Such spruceness thy blest Dove may wooe,
To house within my bosome too
That there with beauteous wings display'd
Will scatter shine instead of shade;
And my loose thoughts keep home to one
Bright heaven of meditation.
My shudder'd senses will retire,
And leave abroad no wild desire.
My bosome (Lord) one stroake dispatch,
Is tynder apt enough to catch;
I have a heart too hard as Flint
Who knowes but fire is vein'd within't
Oh but thou hast essay'd and dark,
I have not answer'd in a spark.
Yet thou smit'st oft, and alwayes on,
With steels of try'd [...]ffliction,
But (roughly stroke) my hart was bright,
Once with some faire spread seeds of light:
Then (Lord) the fault hath surely bin
In these O're-burned Rags of sin.
Oh Teach me but out on them to le [...]
My tears, such tynder takes when we [...]
The Rose.
(1.)
I saw the Rose that blew
This very morn,
Beslubber'd [...]'re with dew,
As soon as born.
(2.)
The childhood I confess
Was passing sleek,
And winde did kissing press
The damasque cheek.
(3.)
VVhen the ripe Virgin spread
The Suns fixt eye
Made her recline the head,
All modesty.
(4.)
E're courage shee receives
A storm doth Rush,
And scatter's all the leaves,
VVhile yet they blush.
(9.)
Man so is born, and cries,
His cheeks as gay
His youth so charmeth eyes,
So snatch'd away.
On some leaves of the Holy Bible bound on either side of a Book of Humanity.
HEre, here's a mass ill blended, where the light
And darkness shuffled in one Chaos fight;
Or on each side (unmixt) the light hath state.
And shewes the Chaos newly separate.
The Aethicks know not the Position here
Where vertue is not in the proper sphear:
But joynt extreams into the middle slide,
And vertue slic'd attends on either side.
Innocents Day.
HOw grief enamell'd here appears!
In showres of Milk, of blood, of tears,
As the various Iris now
Had wept her bow.
Mothers eyes tears not only do,
Their brests shed to their infants too:
Till blushing steel lets out the floud,
Curdled with blood.
VVhat needed Canaan flow'd before
VVith milke and honey, milk and gore!
Sad faire mixture to bequeath
Beauty to death.
Nature.
MY God if thou not pull'st us thence,
Flesh wallowes in the mud of sence,
Thy paths are clean, but ragged oft,
And sloughs, however foule, are soft.
The Jewes attempting to stone our SAVIOUR.
(1.)
ARe these the griefes thou dost express,
These are Sions cruell ones;
Peevesh rending of thy dress,
And a ruthless showre of stones.
(2.)
Keep the Lawes but strict intent,
Though that thunder here be none,
Each hath its Commandment,
In a table (too) of stone.
(3.)
Struck with grief unless thou melt,
As the Rook did sometime do:
When him you'd kill, Compassion felt,
Those will gush out waters too.
(4.)
Why should you antedate his day,
That shall be layd in stone erewhile,
And shall thence (too) break away,
As he doth now through your pile.
The good Thief.
HOw thy inverted sentence is undon,
Into salvation;
That didst but mount thy Crosse, and by that kisse
Step'st into Paradise.
Our Saviour naked and wounded on the Crosse.
THy wounds a tyde,
Unto thy snowie skin dispence,
That down thy Virgin limbs doth slide;
And throwes a blush o're innocence.
(5.)
Who Heaven's is,
Hath found an unjust judge of man,
His Robes in death though ( [...]ot amiss)
Are Scarlet furr'd with downe of Swan.
The Widowes Mites.
VVOnder close writers that by magick ty't,
To see her Creed here conjur'd in a mite.
The Prodigal.
STay wanton youth, that wild in Luxe,
Tyr'st witty Ryot, and (once in)
Paddlest in voluptuous mudde,
Shall thy spring tyde have no refluxe,
Still to the Chin
Must thou be borne up in the unctuous floud:
Sure thou'lt be weary when thou com'st to di [...],
(Too) with the swine.
The Sepulchre.
(3.)
SToop (viler Rocks) to wanes that rush,
Or teares more kindly-native gush,
Or red with your own Corrall blush;
That this (late) stone
As cheap an one,
Entrusted lyes.
The great Exchequer both of earth, and skyes.
(2.)
Man sure had harder, or had none,
This Rock had bowels but of stone,
And yet it felt Compassion;
And made him Room
In her cold Wombe;
'Till the third day,
He rose and double gilt it with his Ray.
Pride.
MAn knew no pride, when brave in each respect,
Pride first began, when first began defect.
The Gadarens desiring Christ to leave their Confines.
WHy from your borders Gadaren? he slew
Alas not half the swine he left with you.
Affliction.
(1.)
HOw did the jolly current run?
Where I did tippling play,
And no thought take,
But guest the Christall still would on;
And not my joyes betray;
To this black Lake.
(2.)
The wanton curles aside, I threw
From my entangled armes,
And ravish't swam:
'Till me still on the waters drew,
With the soft murmur'd charmes
To where I am,
(3.)
I know the Angler throwes his bait
To catch the easie frie,
But did not dream,
That their own water lay in wait,
And therefore (careless) I
Went with the stream.
(4.)
Thy stubborne Prophet (Lord) did cry
From the unfathom'd deep,
And reach'd thine eares,
Oh! from this gulph but raise me, I
To drown my sin will weep
A sea of teares.
The Soule compared to a Flower.
AS the flower doth tender spread,
The bright (in earth's fair bosome) head,
If it the dew and rain doth nourish,
My so tender mind doth flourish;
VVhile with pleasant dew 'tis fed;
That is, from thy fair spirit shed,
If this it want it straight doth lye
(Heavie) as in a soyle that's dry.
The flower that doth arise, unless
Both dew and rain it nourishes.
Ex Flamin. Metris.
Patience.
(1.)
Thou pious Angell that dost dwell
Not under Roofes that shine;
But rather stand'st to prop the cell,
That doth with age decline.
(2.)
VVhen the world shatter'd would fall on
Our Cottages of clay:
Under the headlong Ruines gon
Thou dost the Rubbish stay.
(3.)
And while the lash is falling seen
(that yet it may be broke)
Thou with thy guardian side between
dost carry off the stroke.
4.
Thou turn'st on the tormentor back
the anguish of his shame:
VVhile we tell truth upon the rack
and (Martyrs) sing in Flame.
Meditation.
1.
THou fair Asylum of the mind,
where we retire,
And from our selves a safety find;
and wild desire.
2.
A naked lodging you procure
within a heart,
And leave it a rich furniture
when you depart.
3.
Thou callest in the thoughts at large
by thine arrest;
And redeliver'st them to charge,
of their own brest▪
(4.)
In thy withdrawings souls debate,
(in deere discourse)
Upon their own eternal state,
and long divorce.
(5.)
Thou leav'st the body clean alone,
while all doth rise
Within by contemplation
above the skies.
Tears.
THe seeds of penitence, that sown
Are (instant) high as heaven grown
A rainy Sun-shine that appears
Less glorious, when you think it clears;
VVhy superstitious beads when eyes,
Have of their own such Rosaries?
When the pent soul doth want its light,
This water washes clean the sight,
These are the sparks we may admire
Above the Diamond entire.
And each to Heav'n doth (dearer) lye,
Than unto us the pretious eye.
These gems do best adorn the soul
VVhen the shed ropes do scatter'd roul:
That (inexhaustibly a store)
Through prodigality are more;
And fall but from the Casker eyes,
On purpose to be treasuri [...].
A spring, that wash off onely can
The sinful Aethiopian,
Where Angels dabling with the wing
Do their eternal Anthems sing,
From which though dayly purg'd we flie,
Hemerobaptist Heresie.
Jacobs Vision at Bethel.
(1.)
ANd nights now silent wheels that glide
with sun-discover'd pace,
Hid with the mists they threw asid [...]
earths solitary face.
(2.)
VVhen the good traveller opprest,
doth undisturb'd, begin
To take up to his urgent rest,
his inter-cepted Inne:
(3.)
And builds up an industrious heap
(of the there scatter'd stone)
An Altar dedicate to sleep,
that he reposes on:
(4.)
VVhere richly melting in his thought,
and soft persume of Prayer,
His lids as sweet a slumber caught
as he had slept on Aire,
(5.)
Now with a ravishing too theame
that doth his sense unwind,
The joyes of a delicious dream
Run through his beauteous mind.
(6)
A golden scale doth from him rise,
the prospect of his soul,
That lifts his intellectual eyes
to where the Clouds unroul,
(7.)
And the fair Gate of Heav'n lies
with bright expanded leaves,
VVhence he the sacred treasuries
with extasie receives,
(8.)
Angels that flutter to and fro
as sweet a calm do bring
As they should ore the pillow throw
the downe beneath their wing:
(9.)
Lord, could we on the quarries sleep
of hard affliction so,
VVe from the ragged elifts as steep,
might up with Angels go.
The Taper.
(1.)
HOw that unthrifty Taper is declinde?
the substance spent,
And dear abundance in the which it shinde
and lustre lent,
And of its own betraying Flash in dread,
VVithin the socket hides the bankrupt-head.
(2.)
How doth it wave the fires from side to side,
and bows opprest,
Until it languid all recruits have tride
in an unrest,
Then sinks into the bed that it hath wet,
And with a feaver, licks up what it swet.
(3.)
See how it heavy now the best part out
doth hopeless ley,
And now again in a reviving doubt
lifts up the eye:
Still the departing fires their furewell give,
And still by lucid intervals they live.
(4.)
See now the nozzle all with Flame is lin'd,
and the vext elfe,
Doth a consuming hell of torment find;
within it self:
Or as it there is Sepulchred doth burn
The proper Ceremony of it's urn.
(5.)
The Tapers of our lives contract or spread
thus (Lord) the fires,
And a fair sheet of lightning from them shed,
as soon retires:
Howere when the whole matter shal consume
Let them my God go out with a perfume.
Our Saviour crucified between two Thieves.
(1.)
LOrd from this stock mixt with a Graft unfit
what fruit escapes?
VVhen we may equally gather from it
Thistles and Grapes.
(2.)
That people thee did a deceiver call,
thee so esteems,
No ever Vertue had among them all,
like these extreams.
(3.)
Thou the great Judge of Heaven and Earth dost one
sad cross divide,
VVith malefactors ill disposed on
thy either side.
(4.)
Yet here thou dost thy fearfull day begin
and parted stand
The Goat and Sheep with the same space between,
thy either hand.
Prayers, First for the Morning.
(1.)
THe Morn her Rubie-studded Reins
now shakes on her Rathe horses mains
And with a dawne of Rosey light
doth blush away the shades of night.
(2.)
Lord! let the influxe of thy grace
so through my dark breasts display,
And (by insinuation) chace
the sin-contracted night away.
(2.) For Noon
(1.)
THe Sun now to his hight aspires,
and throweth East and West his fires:
Th' awakn'd spice perceives his shine,
and the warm bowels of the Mine.
(2.)
Lord, now inflame us with thy Love,
and let it with a vigour rise:
Until it glow and spread above
the convex of what-ever skies.
(3.) For Evening.
(1.)
NOw poasts the Consciencious day,
all Red with Modesty away
And hastes to hide her bashful light
in the foul bosome of the night.
(2.)
Lord! though the Tapers of the day
thus by succession finde their Urn,
Let ours no such weak Lawes obey,
but still (unintermitted) burn.
The good Thief.
(1.)
SO more than in the edge of Evening, who
e're had the dayes whole hire but you?
Th [...] unto Rapine did'st (accustom'd) watch,
and thy salvation snatch:
or the third Heavens caught
Thee up (from thy example) taught:
(2.)
What a compendium thou dost make of bliss?
yet dost compleat repentance too;
And not a cold and barren Faith thine is,
but it doth likewise do,
thou plead'st the Lord's defence
Strange Oratour of innocence!
The Viper on the hand of Saint Paul.
THat Viper once accurst leapt with intent,
(From his hot bed) but to die innocent,
And having kiss'd Pauls hand quite overcome,
Dropt to his Flames, and suffer'd Martyrdome,
FINIS.
Errata.
Page 2. line 8. reade is. p. 5. l. 2. r. to p. 5. l. 3. r. there. p. 9. l. 9. r. retain't. p 12. l. 21. r. brings. p. 13. l. 17. r. useless p. 18. l. 3. r. eye-beams. p. 8. l. 14. r. Diadems p. 18. l. 16. r. dress. p. 21. l. 22. r. own p. 24. l. 21 [...]. twitt'ring. p. 25 l. penult. dele by. p. 26. l. 13. r. reluctancy. p. 26. l. 27. r. where. p. 27. l. [...] r. sight. p. 28. l. 7. r varietie. p. 30. l. 8. r. a rising. p. 31. l. 24. r. precipice p. 34. l. 24. r. heire. p. 37. l. 27. r. stur. p. 40. l. 10. dele a. p. 40. l. 25. r. learns. p. 44. l. 7. r. resolv'd. l 31. r. his. p. 44. l. before the antepenult whate're. p 45 l 9. r. terribly. p. 46. l. 1. r. thought. p 48. l. 29. r. it dimmer. v. ult. r. ever. p. 58. l. 2. r. wont. p. 66. l. ult. r. my. p. 69. l. 5. r. burn. p. 42. l. 7. r. seal'd. p. 77. l. 33. r. lambent. p. 76. l. 6. r. believe. 119 l. before antepenult. r. mount's.
THE FIRST TABLE.
- THe Centaure. Pag. 1.
- Ode. Hastening his friend into the country. Pag. 4.
- To His honoured Friend Collonel R L. on his second failing. Pag. 6.
- To a Lady becommingly Reserved. Pag. 6.
- A Diall eaten with antiquity. Pag. 10.
- On the old Tombe keeper, that shewes the Monuments in Westminster Abbey. Pag. 11.
- His imprisonment in the spring. Pag. 12.
- On the burning some locks of a Gentlewonans haire. Pag. 13.
- The Daisie. Pag. 14.
- Adonis slain. Pag. 15.
- Barn-Elms. Pag. 16.
- Ʋpon a Gentlewoman caught in a showre of Hayle. Pag. 17.
- On the death of a Canary-bird killed with the fall of a Cage. Pag. 19.
- To Doctor T.F. on his game at Chesse. Pag. 20.
- [Page]Her suspicion. ibid.
- An old woman weeping. Pag. 23.
- The Hectors. Pag. 24.
- An Epithalamium. ibid.
- On the sight of a Lady' walking in an evening in white Sarcenet. Pag. 27.
- To his ingenious friend Mr. Maes; drawing the flowers in their successive growth. Pag. 28.
- The Land-skip between two Hills. Pag. 30.
- Narcissus. Pag. 33.
- Lib. 3. Ode 3. Horat. ibid.
- To my Honoured friend Coll. Richard Lovelace. Pag. 34.
- Ode. Pag. 36.
- A Lady foyl'd. ibid.
- The Nymph. Pag. 38.
- Epigram. ibid.
- Astrea recall'd Pag. 39.
- Lazar. ibid.
- Phantomachia or the Goblin. Pag. 40.
- An Elogie sacred to the memory of my late honour'd friend, Coll. Richard Lovelace, Pag. 46.
- Ode to Chloris forsworn. Pag. 50.
- The Net. Pag. 51.
- To Batavus. Pag. 52.
- Ode. Pag. 53.
- To his Noble Friend J. R. The Prison. Pag. 54.
- Ode. Pag. 56.
- Pentadii Epigramma. ibid.
- To her taxing him for late writing to her. Pag. 57.
- Giganto machia. Pag. 58.
- The Tooth-ache. Pag. 59.
- Mart. lib. Epigram. 48. Pag. 60.
- The Mute Dialogue. ibid.
- In Amicitias. Pag. 61.
- Ode. Pag. 62.
- Ode to the Prisoner. ibid.
- A new years gift. Pag. 63.
- [Page]The fair Nymph scorning a black boy courting her. Pag. 65.
- The Inversion. ibid.
- Ode. Pag. 68.
- A Prologue to a Play presented by some Gentlemen to a select company of Ladies. Pag. 69.
- To his friend. Pag. 70.
- The Syren. ibid.
- Amarantha. Pag. 73.
- Charles the Fift soleminizing his own Funerals. Pag. 76.
- Ode to Coelia blushing. Pag. 79.
- To Captain D. L. on his book of Fortification and Geometry. Pag. 81.
- Ode. Pag. 88.
- To a Lady with black haire. Pag. 83.
- Ode to Lycoris not to curle her hair. Pag. 84.
- On Mr. Gamble's composing Mr. Stanly's Odes. Pag. 85.
- The Phoenix. Pag. 86.
- Lycoris sleeping. Pag. 91.
- One enamour'd on a Black-moor. Pag. 92e
- A black Nymph scorning a fair boy Courting her. Pag. 94.
- On Mr. J. H. His translation of Hierocles Comment on the verses of Pythagoras. Pag. 96.
- A blush. Pag. 97.
- Tabularium. ibid.
- Ode. The Rosary. Pag. 98.
- Ode for Winter. Pag. 100.
- Ode. Pag. 101.
- Ode. Pag. 102.
- A Frost. Pag. 103.
- The year Pag. 104.
- Spring. ibid.
- Summer. Pag. 106.
- Autumn. Pag. 107.
- Winter Pag. 108.
The Second TABLE.
- JOHN lying on the bosome of our Saviour. Page 113
- Hezechias recovery, Page 114.
- The Aethiopian Baptized. Page 114.
- Christ washing Juda's feet. Page 115.
- A penitential Hymne. Page 116
- Mari's Oyntment. Page 116
- Judgement. Page 118.
- All these have I kept from my youth upward. Page 119.
- On the death of a child in the moneth. ibid.
- Mortal Man. Page 120.
- Mans Insensibilitie. ibid.
- Zaccheus called. ibid.
- Caesars Tribute. Page 121.
- Christ and the Disciples in a storm. ibid.
- Death. Page 123.
- Our Saviour cradled in the manger. ibid.
- Adam hiding himselfe among the Trees of the Garden. Page 124.
- Jesus wept. Page 125.
- The water made wine. ibid.
- O [...] Saviour scourged, cloath'd with Purple Cround with Thorus. Page 126.
- [Page]Lazarus, raysed by our Saviour, after foure dayes lying in the Grave. Page 127.
- Jesus cating, John fasting. Page 128.
- To the Angell, bringing newes of our Saviours Nativitie. ibid.
- Christ walking on the Sea. Page 130.
- Christ in his-Baptism. Page 131.
- Dives's drop. Page 132.
- The Crown of Thorns on our Saviours head. ibid.
- The Tear. Page 133.
- Paul call'd. Page 134.
- Pilate washing his hands. ibid.
- Peter walking on the water at our Saviours call. Page 135.
- Lazarus and Dives. ibid.
- To the sluggard. Page 136.
- Mortification. ibid.
- Ascension day. Page 137.
- Affliction. Page 138.
- Our Saviour circumcis'd. Page 139.
- Ten Lepers clens'd, one returning thanks. Page 140.
- Conscience. ibid.
- Pauls Conversion. Page 141.
- Prayer. ibid.
- The hinderannce. Page 142.
- Christmas day. Page 144.
- Confession. Page 145.
- The Rose. Page 147.
- On some leaves of the Holy Bible bound in on either side of a Booke of Humanitie. Page 148.
- Innocents day. ibid.
- Nature. Page 149.
- The Iewes attempting to stone Christ. ibid.
- The good thief. Page 150.
- Christ naked and wounded on the Cross. ibid.
- The Mites. Page 151.
- The Prodigal. ibid.
- [Page]The Sepulchre. Page 151.
- Pride. Page 152.
- The Gadarens desiring Christ to leave their borders. Page 152.
- Affliction. ibid.
- The Soul a flower. Page 154.
- Patience. ibid.
- Meditation. Page 155.
- Tears. Page 156.
- Jacobs Vision at Bethel. Page 157.
- The Taper. Page 159.
- Christ crucified between two thieves. Page 160.
- Prayers for Morning. Page 161.
- For Noon. Page 162.
- For Evening. Page 163.
- The good Theif, Page 164.
- The Viper on the hand of Saint Paul. Page 165.
FINIS.