POEMS.
Of the danger his Majestie (being Prince) escaped at the rode at St. Andere.
NOw had his Highnes bid farewell to Spaine
And reach't the sphere of his owne power, the Main;
With Brittish bounty in his ship hee feasts
Th' Hesperian Princes, his amazed ghuests.
To finde that watry wildernes exceed,
The entertainments of their great Madrid.
Healths to both Kings, attended with the rore
Of Canons, echo'd from th' affrighted shore.
With loud resemblance of his Thunder, prove
[...]acchus the seed of cloud compelling Jove;
While to his harp divine Arion sings
The loves and conquests of our Albion Kings:
"Of the fourth Edward was his noble song,
"Fierce, goodly, valiant, beautifull and young.
"He rent the Crowne from vanquisht Henry's head,
"Rais'd the white Rose, and trampled on the red:
"Till love triumphing ore the victors pride
"Brought Mars and Warwick to the conquer'd side.
"Neglected Warwick (whose bold hand like Fate
"Gives and resumes the scepter of our State)
"Woes for his Maister, and with double shame
"Himselfe deluded mocks the Princely Dame
"The Lady Bona, whom iust anger burnes
"And forein warre with civill rage returnes.
"Ah spare your swords, where beauty is to blame,
"Love gave th' affront, and must repaire the same,
"When Frāce shal boast of her whose cōquering eye [...]
"Have made the best of English hearts their prize,
"Have power to alter the decree of fate,
"And change againe the Counsells of our State.
What the Prophetick Muse intends; alone
To him that feeles the secret wound is knowne.
With the sweete sound of this harmonious lay
About the Keele delighted Dolphins play;
Too sure a signe of seas ensuing rage
Which must anon this Royall troup ingage.
To whom soft sleepe seemes more secure and sweete
Within the Towne commanded by our fleete.
These mighty Peeres plac'd in the guilded Barge,
Proud with the burden of so brave a charge,
With painted Oares the youth begin to sweep
Neptunes smooth face and cleave the yeilding deep,
Which soone becomes the seate of sudden warre
Betwixt the winde and tide, that fiercely jarre.
As when a sort of lusty shepheards try
[...]heir force at footeball, care of victory
Makes them salute so rudely brest to brest,
That their encounters seeme too rough for jest.
They ply their feete, and still the restles ball
Tost to and fro is urged by them all:
So fares the doubtfull Barge twixt tide and windes,
And like effect of their contention findes.
Yet the bold Britans still securely row'd,
Charles and his vertue was their sacred load.
Then which a greater pledge heaven could not give,
That the good boate this Tempests should out live.
But stormes increase, and now no hope of grace
Among them shines, save in the Princes face.
The rest resigne their courage, skill, and sight,
To danger, horror, and unwelcome night:
The gentle vessell wont with state and pride
On the smooth back of silver Thames to ride,
Wanders astonisht through the angry Main,
As Titans carre did, while the golden raine
Fil'd the young hand of his adventurous sonne,
When the whole world an equall hazard runne.
To this of ours, the light of whose desire
Waves threaten now as that was skard by fire.
Th' impatient Sea growes impotent and raves,
That (night assisting) his impetuous waves
Should finde resistance from so light a thing,
These surges ruine, those our safety bring.
Th' oppressed vessell doth the charge abide,
Only because assail'd on every side.
So men with rage and passion set on fire
Trembling for haste, impeach their mad desire.
The pale Iberians had expir'd with feare,
But that their wonder did divert their care,
To see the Prince with danger mov'd no more,
Then with the pleasures of their Court before;
God-like his courage seem'd, whom nor delight
Could soften, nor the face of death affright.
Next to the power of making tempests cease,
Was in that storme to have so calme a peace.
Great Maro could no greater tempest fain,
When the lowd winds usurping on the Main
For angry Juno labour'd to destroy
The hated reliques of confounded Troy:
His bold Aeneas on like billowes tost,
In a tall ship and all his countries lost,
Dissolves with fear, and both his hands upheld
Proclaimes them happy whom the Greekes had quell' [...]
In honorable fight: Our Hero set
In a small shallop, Fortune in his debt,
So neare a hope of crownes and scepters more
Then ever Priam, when he flourish'd, wore.
His loines yet full of ungot Princes, all
His glory in the bud, lets nothing fall
That argues fear: if any thought annoyes
The gallant youth 'tis loves untasted ioyes,
And deare remembrance of that fatall glance
For which hee lately pawn'd his heart in France,
Where he had seen a brighter Nymph then shee
That sprung out of his present foe, the Sea.
That noble ardour more then mortall fire
The Conquer'd Ocean could not make expire:
Nor angry Thetis raise her waves above
The Heroique Prince his courage or his love.
'Twas indignation and not feare hee felt
The shirine should perish where that Image dwelt.
Ah Love forbid the noblest of thy train,
Should not survive to let her know his pain,
Who nor his perill minding, nor his flame
Is entertain'd with some lesse serious game
Among the bright nymphs of the Gallick Court,
All highly borne, obsequious to her sport.
They roses seem, which in their early pride
But halfe reveale and halfe their beauties hide.
Shee the glad morning, which her beames doth throw.
Upon their smiling leaves, and gild them so
Like bright Aurora, whose refulgent ray
Foretells the fervour of ensuing day,
And warnes the shepherd with his flockes retreat
To leavy shadowes from the threatned heat.
From Cupids string of many shafts that fled,
Wing'd with those plumes which noble fame had shed,
As through the wondring world she flew and told
Of his adventures haughty, brave, and bold.
Some had already toucht the royall Maide,
But loves first summons seldome are obey'd.
Light was the wound, the Prince his care unknowne,
She might not, would not, yet reveale her owne.
His glorious name had so possest her eares,
That with delight those antique tales she heares
Of Iason, Theseus, and such worthies old,
As with his story best resemblance hold.
And now she views as on the wall it hung,
What old Museus so divinely sung,
Which art with life and love did so inspire,
That shee discernes and favours that desire.
Which there provokes th' adventerous youth to swim,
And in Leanders danger pitties him,
Whose not new love alone, but fortune seekes
For from the sterne of some good ship appeares
A freindly light, which moderates their feares.
New courage from reviving hope they take,
And climbing o're the waves that taper make,
On which the hope of all their lives depends,
As his on that faire Heros hand extends.
The ship at anchor like a fixed rock,
Breakes the proud billowes, which her large sides knock;
Whose rage restrained foming higher swells,
And from her port the weary barge repells.
Threatning to make her forced out againe
Repeate the dangers of the troubled Maine.
Twice was the cable hurld in vaine, the Fates
Would not bee moved for our sister States.
For England is the third succesfull throw,
And then the Genius of that land they know.
Whose Prince must bee (as their owne bookes device)
Lord of the Scene where now his danger lyes.
Well sung the Roman Bard, all humane things
Of dearest value hang on slender strings.
O see the then sole hope, and in designe
Of heaven our ioy supported by a line,
Which for that instant was heavens care above
The chaine that's fixed to the throne of Jove,
On which the fabrick of our world depends;
One linke dissolv'd the whole creation ends.
Of his Majesties receiving the newes of the Duke of Buckinghams death.
SO earnest with thy God! can no new care
Nor sense of danger, interrupt thy prayer?
The sacred wrestler, till a blessing given,
Quits not his hold, but halting conquers heaven.
Nor was the streame of thy devotion stop'd
When from the body such a limb was lop'd,
As to thy present state was no lesse maime,
Though thy wise choyce has since repair'd the same.
Bold Homor durst not so great vertue fain
In his best patterne for Patroclus slain.
With such amazement as weake mothers use
And frantick gesture hee receives the newes.
Yet fell his darling by th' impartiall chance
Of warre impos'd by royall Hectors lance.
Thine in full peace, and by a vulgar hand
Torne from thy bosome, left his high command.
The famous Painter could allow no place
For private sorrow in a Princes face.
Yet that his piece might not exceed beleife,
Hee cast a vaile upon supposed greife.
T' was want of such a president as this
Made the old heathen frame their Gods amisse.
Their Phaebus should not act a fonder part,
For the faire boy, then he did for his Hart:
Nor blame for Hyacinthus fate his owne,
That kept him frō wish'd death, hadst thou bin known.
Yet hee that weighs with thine good Davids deeds,
Shall finde his passion, not his love exceeds.
He curst the Mountaines where his brave friend dy'd,
But lets false Ziba with his heire divide:
Where thy immortall love to thy blest freinds
Like that of heaven upon the seede descends.
Such huge extremes inhabit thy great minde
God-like unmov'd, and yet like woman kinde.
Which of the ancient Poets had not brought
Our Charles his pedegree from heaven, and taught
How some bright dame comprest by mighty Jove,
Produc'd this mix'd Divinity and Love.
To the King on his Navy.
VVHere ere thy Navy spreads her canvas wings
Homage to thee, and peace to all she brings
The French and Spaniard, when thy flaggs appeare
Forget their hatred, and consent to feare.
So Jove from Ida did both hosts survey,
And when hee pleas'd to thunder, part the fray.
Ships heretofore in seas like fishes sped
The mightiest still upon the smallest fed.
Thou on the deepe imposest stricter lawes,
And by that iustice hast remov'd the cause
Of those rude tempests, which for rapine sent
Too oft (alas) involv'd the innocent.
Now shall the Ocean as thy Thames bee free
From both those fates of stormes and Piracy.
But wee most happy, who can feare no force
But winged troopes or Pegasean horse.
Tis not so hard for greedy foes to spoil
Another nation as to touch our soil.
Should natures selfe invade the world againe,
And ore the Center spread the liquid Maine,
Thy power were safe, and her distractive hand
Would but enlarge the bounds of thy command.
Thy dreadfull fleete would stile thee Lord of all,
And ride in triumph ore the drowned ball.
Those towers of oake ore fertile plaines might goe,
And visit mountaines where they once did grow.
The worlds restorer once could not endure
That finisht Babel should those men secure,
Whose pride design'd that fabrick to have stood
Above the reach of any second flood.
To thee his chosen more indulgent hee
Dares trust such power with so much piety.
Vpon his Majesties repairing of Pauls.
THat shipwrackt vessell which th' Apostle bore,
Scarce suffer'd more upon Melita's shore,
Then did his Temple in the sea of time.
(Our Nations glory, and our Nations crime)
When the first Monarch of this happy Isle,
Mov'd with the ruine of so brave a pile,
This worke of cost and piety begun,
To be accomplish'd by his glorious sonne,
Who all that came within the ample thought
Of his wise Sire, has to perfection brought.
He like Amphion makes those quarries leape
Into faire figures from a confus'd heape:
For in his art of regiment is found
A power like that of harmony in sound.
Those antique minstrills sure were Charles-like Kings,
Cities their Lutes, and Subjects hearts their strings,
On which, with so divine a hand they strooke,
Consent of motion from their breath they tooke:
So all our mindes with his, conspire, to grace
The gentiles great Apostle, and deface,
Those state obscuring sheds, that like a chaine,
Seem'd to confine, and fetter him againe:
Which the glad Saint shakes off at his command,
As once the viper from his sacred hand.
So ioyes the aged oak when wee divide
The creeping Ivy from his injur'd side.
Ambition rather would effect the fame
Of some new structure to have borne her name.
Two distant vertues in one act we finde,
The modesty and greatnesse of his minde.
Which not content to bee above the rage
And iniury of all impayring age;
In its owne worth secure, doth higher clime,
And things halfe swallow'd from the jawes of time,
Reduce an earnest of his grand designe,
To frame no new Church, but the old refine;
Which spouse-like may with comely grace command
More then by force of argument or hand:
For doubtfull reason few can apprehend,
And warr brings ruine where it should amend.
But beauty with a bloodless conquest findes
A welcome soveraignty in rudest mindes.
Not ought which Sheba's wondring Queene beheld
Among the workes of Solomon exceld
His Ships and building, Emblems of a heart
Large both in magnanimity and art.
While the propitious heavens this worke attend,
Long wanted showers, they forget to fend:
As if they meant to make it understood
Of more importance then our vitall food.
The Sun which riseth to salute the Quire
Already finish'd, setting shall admire
How private bounty could so far extend,
The KING built all but Charles the western end▪
So proud a Fabrick to devotion given,
At once it threatneth and obligeth Heaven.
Laomedon that had the Gods in pay,
Neptune with him that rules the sacred day,
Could no such structure raise, Troy wald so high,
Th' Atrides might as well have forc'd the sky.
Glad, though amazed, are our neighbour Kings,
To see such power imploy'd in peacefull things.
They list not urge it to the dreadfull field:
The taske is easier to destroy, then build.
To the Queene occasioned upon sight of her Majesties Picture.
VVEll fare the hand which to our humble sight
Presents that beauty, which the dazeling light
Of Royall splendor hides from weaker eyes,
And all accesse (save by this art) denyes.
Here only we have courage to behold
This beame of glory, here we dare unfold
In numbers thus the wonders wee conceive,
The gracious Image seeming to give leave,
Propitious stands vouchsafing to bee seene
And by our Muse saluted▪ MIGHTY QUEEN.
In whom th'extreames of power and beauty move,
The Queen of Britaine and the Queen of Love.
As the Bright Sun (to which we owe no sight
Of equall glory to your beauties light.)
Is wisely plac't in so sublime a seat
T'extend his light and moderate his heat.
So happy t'is you move in such a spheare
As your high Majesty with awfull feare,
In humane brests might qualify that fire,
Which kindled by those eyes had flamed higher.
Then when the scortched world like hazard run
By the approach of the ill guided Sun.
No other nimphs have title to mens hearts
But as their meanes larger hope imparts.
Your beauty more the fondest lover moves
With admiration then his private loves.
With admiration, for a pitch so high
(Save sacred Charles his) never love durst fly.
Heaven that perfer'd a scepter to your hand
Favour'd our freedome, more then your command.
Beauty had Crown'd you, and you must have bin
The whole worlds Mistresse other then a Queen.
All had bin rivalls, and you might have spar'd
Or kild, and tyraniz'd, without a guard.
No power atcheiv'd either by arms or birth
Equalls loves Empire both in heaven and earth.
Such eyes as yours on Jove himselfe have throwne
As bright and feirce a lightning as his owne.
Witness our Jove prevented by their flame
In his swift passage to th' Hesperian dame.
When like a Lion finding in his way
To some intended spoile, a fairer pray;
The Royall youth pursuing the report
Of beauty found it in the Gallick Court.
There publique care with private passion fought
A doubtfull Combate in his noble thought.
Should hee confesse his greatnes, and his love,
And the free faith of your great Brother prove,
With his Achates breaking through the cloud
Of that disguise which did their graces shrow'd,
And mixing with those gallants at the Ball
Daunce with the Ladies, and outshine them all;
Or on his iourny ore the mountaines ride?
So when the faire Leucothoe he spide,
To check his steeds impatient Phoebus earn'd,
Though all the world was in his course concern'd.
What may hereafter her meridian doe,
Whose dawning beauty warm'd his bosome so?
Not so divine a flame, since deathlesse Gods
Forbore to visit the defil'd abodes
Of men, in any mortall brest did burn;
Nor shall, till Piety and they return.
The Apology of Sleep for not approching the Lady who can doe any thing but sleepe when she pleaseth.
MY charge it is those breaches to repaire,
Which nature takes from sorrow toil and care,
Rest to the limbs, and quiet I confer
On troubled minds, but nought can add to her,
Whom heaven & her transcēdent thoughts have plac't
Above those ills which wretched mortalls taste.
Bright as the deathles gods, and happy she
From all that may infringe, delight is free;
Love at her royall feet his quiver layes,
And not his mother with more haste obeyes
Such reall pleasures, such true ioyes suspence,
What dreame can I present to recompense.
Should I with lightning fill her awfull hands,
And make the Clouds seem, all at her commands;
Or place her in Olympus top a guest,
Among th' immortalls, who with Nectar feast;
That power would seem, that entertainement short
Of the true splendor of her present Court;
Where all the ioyes, and all the glories are
Of three great Kingdomes sever'd from the care.
I that of fumes and humid vapours made,
Ascending to the seat of sense invade,
No cloud in so serene a mansion finde,
To overcast her ever shining minde,
Which holds resemblance with those spotles skies,
Where flowing Nilus want of rain supplyes.
That Crystall heaven where Phoebus never shrowds
His golden beames, nor wrapps his face in clouds.
But what's so hard which numbers cannot force,
So stoops the Moone, and rivers change their course.
The bold Meonian made mee dare to steep
Joves dreadfull tempies in the dew of sleep.
And since the Muses doe invoke my power,
I shall no more decline that sacred bower;
Where Gloriana their great mistris lyes,
But gently taming those victorious eyes.
Charm all her senses, till the ioyfull Sun
Without a Rivall halfe his course has run:
Who while my hand that fairer light confines,
May boast himselfe the brightest thing that shines.
The Country to my Lady of Carlisle.
Madam,
OF all the sacred Muse inspir'd
Orpheus alone could with the woods comply,
Their rude inhabitants his song admir'd,
And natures selfe in those that could not lye.
Your beauty next our solitude invades
And warmes us, shining through the thickest shades.
Nor ought the tribute which the wondring Court
Payes your faire eyes, prevaile with you to scorne
The answer and consent to the report
Which Echo-like the Country doth returne.
Mirrors are taught to flatter, but our springs
Present th' impartiall images of things.
A rurall Judge dispos'd of beauties prize;
A simple shepherd was prefer'd to Jove:
Downe to the Mountaines from the partiall skyes
Came Juno, Pallas, and the Queen of Love,
To pleade for that which was so iustly given
To the bright Carlisle of the Court of heaven.
Carlisle, a name which all our woods are taught
Loud as his Amaryllis to resound:
Carlisle, a name which on the barke is wrought
Of every tree that's worthy of the wound.
From Phoebus rage our shadowes and our streames
May guard us better, then from Carlisles beames.
The Countesse of Carlisle in mourning.
WHen from black clouds no part of sky is clear,
But just so much as letts the Sun apear:
Heaven then would seeme thy image, and reflect
Those sable vestments, and that bright aspect:
A sparke of vertue by the deepest shade
Of sad adversity is fairer made.
Nor lesse advantage doth thy beauty get,
A Venus rising from a sea of jet.
Such was th' appearance of new formed light
While yet it strugled with eternall night.
Then mourn no more lest thou admit increase
Of glory by thy noble Lords decease.
We finde not that the laughter-loving dame
Mourn'd for Anchises, t'was enough she came,
To grace the mortall with her deathles bed,
And that his living eyes such beauty fed.
Had shee bin there, untimely joy through all
Mens hearts difus'd, had marr'd the funerall.
Those eyes were made to banish greife; as well
Bright Phoebus might affect in shades to dwell,
As they to put on sorrow: nothing stands
But power to greive, exempt from thy commands.
If thou lament, thou must do so alone,
Greife in thy presence can lay hold on none.
Yet still persist the memory to love
Of that great Mercury of our mighty Jove;
Who by the power of his enchaunting tongue
Swords from the hands of threatning Monarchs wrūg.
Warr he prevented, or soone made it cease,
Instructing Princes in the art of peace.
Such as made Sheb' as curious Queen resort
To the large-hearted Hebrews famous Court.
Had Homer sat among his wondring ghests,
Hee might have learn'd at those stupendious feasts,
With greater bounty and more sacred state
The banquets of the gods to celebrate.
But ô what elocution might hee use,
What potent charmes that could so soone infuse▪
His absent Masters love into the heart
Of Henrietta, forcing her to part
From her lov'd brother, Countrey, and the sun,
And like Camilla ore the waves to run
Into his armes, while the Parisian dames
Mourne for their ravisht glory at her flames,
No lesse amazed then the amazed stars
When the bold charmer of Thessalia wars
With heaven it selfe, and numbers does repeate
Which call descending Cynthia from her seate.
In Answer to a libell against her, &c.
VVHat fury has provok'd thy wit to dare
With Diomed to wound the queen of love?
Thy Mistris envy, or thy owne despaire,
Not the just Pallas in thy brest did move
So blind a rage with such a different fate:
He honour won, where thou hast purchast hate.
She gave assistance to his Trojan foe,
Thou that without a rivall thou maist love,
Dost to the beauty of this Lady owe
While after her the gazing world does move.
Canst thou not bee content to love alone?
Or is thy Mistris not content with one?
Hast thou not read of Tagry Arthurs sheild,
Which but diselos'd amaz'd the weaker eyes,
Of proudest foe, and won the doubtfull field:
So shall thy rebell with become her prize.
Should thy Iambicks swell into a book
All were confuted with one radiant look.
Heaven hee oblig'd, that plac't her in the skyes,
Rewarding Phoebus for inspiring so
His noble braine, likening to those eyes
His ioyfull beames. But Phoebus is thy so,
And neither aydes they fancy, nor thy sight:
So ill thou rhim'st against so faire a light.
On my Lady Dorothy Sidneys Picture.
SUch was Philocleas, such Dorus's flame,
The matchlesse Sidney that immortall frame
Of perfect beauty on two pillars plac't
Not his high fancy, could one patterne grac't
With such extreames of excellence compose
Wonders so distant in one face disclose.
Such chearefull modesty, such humble State
Moves certaine love, but with a doubtfull fate.
As when beyond our greedy reach we see
Inviting fruite on too sublime a tree.
All the rich flowers through his Arcadia found
Amaz'd we see in this one garland bound.
Had but this copy which the Artist took
From the faire picture of that noble book,
Stood at Calanders, the brave friends had jar'd
And rivals made th' insuing story mar'd:
Iust nature first instructed by his thought
In his owne house thus practis'd what hee taught.
This glorious piece transcends what he could think:
So much his blood is nobler then his Ink.
To Vandike.
RAre Artisan, whose pencill moves
Not our delight alone, but Loves;
From thy shop of beauty wee
Slaves returne, that enter'd free.
The heedless lover does not know
Whose eyes they are that wound him so:
But confounded with thy art
Inquires her name that has his heart.
Another who did long refrain,
Feeles his old wounds bleed fresh again
With deare remembrance of that face
Where now he reades new hopes of grace,
Nor scorne, nor cruelty does find,
But gladly suffers a false wind
To blow the ashes of despaire
From the reviving brand of care:
Foole that forgets her stubborne looke;
This softnes, from thy finger took.
Strange that thy hand should not inspire
The beauty only, but the fire;
Not the forme alone and grace,
But act and power of a face.
Maist thou yet thy selfe aswell
As all the world beside excell,
So youth' unfained truth rehearse
(That I may make it live in verse)
Why thou couldst not at one assay
That face to after times convey,
Which this admires: was it thy wit
To make her oft before thee sit?
Confesse, and wee'l forgive thee this;
For who would not repeate that blisse,
And frequent fight of such a Dame
Buy with the hazard of his fame.
Yet who can tax thy blamelesse skill,
Though thy good hand had failed still;
When Nature's selfe so often erers?
Shee for this many thousand yeares
Seemes to have practis'd with much care
To frame the race of women faire,
Yet never could a perfect birth
Produce before to grace the earth:
VVhich waxed old, ere it could see
Her that amaz'd thy art and thee.
But now 'tis done, ô let mee know
VVhere those immortall colours grow,
That could this deathlesse piece compose
In Lillies, or the fading rose.
No, for this theft thou hast clim'd higher
Then did Prometheus for his fire.
At Pens-hurst.
VVHile in this Parke I sing, the listning Deere
Attend my passion, and forget to feare.
VVhen to the Beeches I report my flame,
They bow their heads as if they selt the same.
To Gods appealing when I reach their bowes
VVith loud complaints, they answer mee in showes.
To thee a wild and cruell soule is given,
More deafe then trees, and prouder then the heaven▪
Loves foe profest, why dost thou fasly faine
Thy selfe a Sidney, from which noble straine
Hee sprung, that could so far exalt the name
Of Love, and warme our Nation with his flame,
That all we can of Love or high desire
Seemes but the smoake of amorous Sidneys fire?
Nor call her Mother, who so well does prove
One brest may hold both Chastity and Love.
Never can shee that so exceeds the spring
In ioy and bounty, be suppos'd to bring
One so destructive: to no humane stock
VVe owe this fierce unkindnes, but the rock:
That cloven rocke produc'd thee, by whose side
Nature to recompence the fatall pride
Of such sterne beauty, plac'd those healing springs,
VVhich not more helpe, then that destruction brings.
Thy heart no ruder then that ragged stone
I might like Orpheus with my num'rous moane
Melt to compassion, now my trait'rous song
VVith thee conspires to doe the singer wrong,
VVhile thus I suffer not my selfe to lose
The memory of what augments my woes;
But with my owne breath still foment the fire
VVhich flames as high as phansy can aspire.
This last complaint th' indulgent eares does pierce
Of just Apollo president of verse,
Highly concerned that the Muse should bring
Damage to one whom he had taught to sing.
Thus he advis'd me, On you aged tree
Hang up thy Lute, and hie thee to the Sea,
That there with wonders thy diverted minde
Some truce at least may with affection finde.
Ah cruell Nymph, from whom her humble swaine
Flyes for reliefe unto the raging maine!
And from the winds and tempests doth expect
A milder fate then from her cold neglect!
Yet there hee'l pray that the unkind may prove
Blest in her choyce, and vows this endlesse love
Springs from no hope of what shee can confer,
But from those gifts which heaven has heap'd on her.
At Pens-hurst.
HAd Dorothea liv'd when Mortals made
Choice of their Deities, this sacred shade
Had held an altar to the power that gave
The peace and glory which these Allyes have;
Embrodered so with flowers where she stood,
That it became a garden of a wood.
Their presence has such more then humane grace
That it can civilize the rudest place:
And beauty too and order can impart,
Where nature ne're intended it, nor art.
The plants acknowledge this, and her admire
No lesse then those of old did Orpheus Lyre.
If shee sit downe, with tops all towards her bow'd
They round about her into Arbours crow'd.
Or if shee walk, in even rankes they stand
Like some well marshall'd and obsequious band.
Amphion so made stones and timber leape
Into faire figures from a confus'd heape.
And in the symmetry of her parts is found
A power like that of harmony in sound.
Yee lofty Beeches tell this matchless dame
That if together ye fed all one flame,
It could not equalize the hundreth part
Of what her eyes have kindled in my heart.
Goe boy and carve this passion on the barke
Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred marke
Of noble Sidneys birth, when such benigne,
Such more then mortall-making stars did shine,
That there they cannot but for ever prove
The monument and pledge of humble love:
His humble love, whose hope shall ne're rise higher,
Then for a pardon that hee dares admire.
To my Lord of Leicester.
NOt that thy trees at Penhurst groane
Oppressed with their timely load,
And seem to make their silent moane,
That their great Lord is now abroad,
That to delight his tast or eye
Would spend themselves in fruite and dye.
Not that thy harmless Deer repine,
And thinke themselves unjustly slaine
By any other hand then thine,
Whose arrows they would gladly staine.
No nor thy friends which hold too deare
That peace with France which keeps thee there.
All these are lesse then that great cause,
Which now exacts your presence here,
Wherein there meete the diverse lawes
Of publique and domestique care:
For one bright Nymph our youth contends,
And on your prudent choyce depends.
Not the bright shield of Thetis son,
For which such sterne debate did rise,
That the great Aiax Talamon
Refus'd to live without the prize;
Those Achive Peeres did more ingage,
Then shee the Gallants of our age,
That beame of beauty which begun
To warme us so, when thou wert here,
Now scorches like the raging Sun
When Sirius does first appeare.
O fix this flame, and let despaire
Redeeme the rest from endless care.
To my young Lady Lucy Sidney.
VVHy came I so untimely forth
Into a world which wanting thee
Could entertaine us with no worth
Or shadow of felicity?
That times should mee so far remove
From that which I was borne to love?
Yet fairest blossome do not slight
That age which you must know so soone,
The rosy morne resignes her light
And milder glory to the Noon;
And then what wonders shall you doe
Whose dawning beauty warmes us so?
Hope waits upon the flowry prime;
And summer though it be lesse gay,
Yet is not look'd on as a time
Of declination or decay:
For with a full hand that doth bring
All that was promis'd by the spring.
Of the Lady who can sleep when she pleases.
NO wonder sleep from carefull Lovers flyes
To bath himselfe in Sacharissa's eyes;
As faire Astraea once from earth to heaven
By strife and loud impiety was driven;
So with our plaints offended, and our teares,
Wise Somnus to that Paradise repaires,
Waits on her will, and wretches does forsake
To court the Nymph for whom those wretches wake
More proud then Phoebus of his throne of gold
Is the soft God, those softer limbs to hold,
Nor would exchange with Jove to hide the skyes
In darkning clouds the power to close her eyes:
Eyes, which so farre all other lights controul:
They warme our mortall parts, but these our soul.
Let her free spirit, whose unconquer'd brest
Holds such deep quiet, and untroubled rest,
Know, that though Venus and her Son should spare
Her rebell heart, and never teach her care;
Yet Hymen may inforce her Vigils keepe,
And for anothers joy suspend her sleepe.
Of the misreport of her being painted.
AS when a sort of Wolves infest the night
With their wilde howlings at fair Cynthia's light,
The noise may chase sweet slumber from our eyes,
But never reach the Mistris of the skyes:
So with the news of Sacharissa's wrongs,
Her vexed servants blame those envious tongues,
Call love to witness that no painted fire
Can scorch men so, or kindle such desire;
While unconcerned she seems mov'd no more
With this new malice, then our loves before:
But from the height of her great minde looks down
On both our passions without smile or frown;
So little care of what is done below
Hath the bright Dame, whom heav'n affecteth so,
Paints her 'tis true, with the same hand which spreads
Like glorious colours through the flowry meads,
When lavish Nature with her best attire
Cloaths the gay Spring, the season of desire.
Paints her 'tis true, and does her cheek adorn
With the same art wherewith she paints the morn,
With the same art, wherewith she guildeth so
Those painted clouds which forme Thaumantia's bow.
Of her passing through a crowd of people.
AS in old Chaos, heav'n with earth confus'd,
And stars with rocks together crush'd & bruis'd,
The Sun his light no farther could extend
Then the next hill which on his shoulders lean'd;
So in this throng bright Sacharissa far'd,
Oppress'd by those who strove to be her guard.
As ships, though never so obsequious, fall
Foul in a tempest on their Admirall;
A greater favour this disorder brought
Unto her servants, then their awfull thought
Durst entertain, when thus compell'd they prest
The yeelding Marble of her snowy brest,
While Love insults disguised in the cloud,
And welcome force of the unruly croud:
So th'amorous tree, while yet the ayre is calm,
Just distance keeps from his desired Palm;
But when the wind her ravisht branches throws
Into his armes, and mingles all their boughs,
Though loth he seems her tender leaves to presse,
More loth he is the friendly storme should cease,
From whose rude bounty he the double use
At once receives, of pleasure and excuse.
Song.
SAy lovely dream, where couldst thou finde
Shales to counterfeit that face;
Colours of this glorious kinde
Come not from any mortall place.
In heaven it self thou sure wert drest
With that Angel-like disguise:
Thus deluded am I blest,
And see my joy with closed eyes.
But ah! this image is too kinde
To be other then a dreame,
Cruell Sacharissa's mindo
Never put on that sweet extreame.
Faire dream, if thou intendst me grace,
Change this heavenly forme of thine,
Paint despis'd love in thy face,
And make it to appeare like mine,
Pale, wan, and meager, let it looke
With a pity-moving shape,
Such as wander by the brooke
Of Lethe, or from graves escape.
Then to that matchlesse Nymph appeare,
In whose shape thou shinest so;
Softly in her sleeping eare,
With humble words expresse my woe.
Perhaps from greatnesse, state and pride,
Thus surprised she may fall;
Sleep does disproportion hide,
And death resembling equals all.
Song.
BEhold the brand of beauty tost,
See how the motion does dilate the flame,
Delighted Love his spoiles does boast,
And triumph in this game:
Fire to no place confin'd,
Is both our wonder, and our feare,
Moving the minde
Like lightning hurled through the ayre.
High heaven the glory does increase
Of all her shining Lamps this artfull way;
The Sun in figures such as these
Joyes with the Moon to play;
To these sweet strains they advance,
Which do result from their own sphears,
As this Nymphs dance
Moves with the numbers which she hears.
TO AMORET.
FAire, that you may truly know
What you unto Thirsis ow,
I will tell you how I doe
Sacharissa love and you.
Joy salutes me when I set
My blest eyes on Amoret,
But with wonder I am strook,
When I on the other look.
If sweet Amoret complains,
I have sense of all her pains;
But for Sacharissa, I
Doe not only grieve, but die.
All that of my selfe is mine,
Lovely Amoret, is thine;
Sacharissa's captive fain
Would untie his iron chain,
And those scorching beams to shun,
To thy gentle shadow run;
If the soul had free election
To dispose of her affection,
I should not thus long have born
Haughty Sacharissa's scorn,
But 'tis sure some power above,
Which controuls our will in love,
If not Love, a strong desire
To create, and spread that fire
In my breast solicits mee,
Beauteous Amoret, for thee.
'Tis amazement more then love,
Which her radiant eyes doe move;
If less splendour wait on thine,
Yet they so benignly shine,
I would turn my dazled sight,
To behold their milder light;
But as hard 'tis to destroy
That high flame as to enjoy,
Which how easily I may doe,
Heaven (as easily scal'd) does know.
Amoret as sweet and good,
As the most delicious food;
Which but tasted does impart
Life and gladness to the heart;
Sacharissa's beautie's wine,
Which to madness doth incline;
Such a liquor as no braine,
That is mortall, can sustaine.
Scarse can I to heaven excuse
That devotion which I use
Unto that adored Dame,
For 'tis not unlike the same,
Which I thither ought to send,
So that if it could take end,
'Twould to heaven it selfe be due,
To succeed her, and not you,
Who already have of mee
All that's not Idolatry;
Which though not so fierce a flame,
Is longer like to be the same:
Then smile on me, and I will prove,
Wonder is shorter liv'd then Love.
The story of Phoebus and Daphne applyed, &c.
THirsis a youth of the inspired train,
Faire Sacharissa lov'd, but lov'd in vain;
Like Phoebus sung, the no less amorous boy;
Like Daphne, she as lovely and as coy;
With numbers, he the flying Nymph pursues,
With numbers, such as Phoebus selfe might use;
Such is the chase, when love and fancy leads
Ore craggy mountains, and through flowry meads,
Invok'd to testifie the lovers care,
Or forme some image of his cruell Faire:
Vrg'd with his fury like a wounded Deer
O're these hee fled, and now approching neer,
Had reach'd the Nymph with his harmonious lay,
Whom all his charmes could not incline to stay.
Yet what hee sung in his immortall straine,
Though unsuccesfull, was not sung in vaine,
All but the Nymph that should redress his wrong,
Attend his passion, and approve his song.
Like Phoebus thus acquiring unsought praise,
Hee catch'd at love, and fill'd his arme with bayse.
Of Mris. Arden.
BEhold and listen, while the faire
Breakes in sweete sounds the willing aire,
And with her owne breath fans the fire,
Which her bright eyes doe fixst inspire.
What reason can that love controule
Which more then one way courts the soule?
So when a flash of lightning falls
On our aboads, the danger calls
For humane ayd, which hopes the flame
To conquer, though from heaven it came.
But if the winde with that conspire,
Men strive not, but deplore the fire.
On the discovery of a Ladies Painting.
PYgmalions fate reverst is mine:
His marble love tooke flesh and blood;
All that I worshipt is divine,
That beauty now 'tis understood
Appeares to have no more of life,
Then that whereof hee fram'd his wife.
As women yet, who apprehend
Some suddaine cause of causeless feare,
Although that seeming cause take end,
And they behold no danger neare,
A shaking through their limbs they finde,
Like leaves saluted by the wind:
[...]o though the beauty doe appeare
No beauty which amaz'd mee so,
Yet from my breast I cannot teare
The passion which from hence did grow;
Nor yet out of my phansy rase
The print of that supposed face.
A reall beauty (though too neare)
The fond Narcissus did admire:
I dote on that which is no where,
The signe of beauty feedes my fire.
No mortall flame was ere so cruell
As this which thus survives the fuell.
To a Lady from whom he receiv'd a silver pen.
Madam,
INtending to have try'd
The silver favour which you gave,
In inke the shining point I dy'd,
And drencht it in the sable wave:
When griev'd to be so foully stain'd
On you it thus to mee complain'd:
Suppose you had deserv'd to take
From her faire hand so faire a boon;
Yet how deserved I to take
So ill a change, who ever won
Immortall praise for what I wrought
Instructed by her noble thought?
I that expressed her commands
To mighty Lords and Princely Dames,
Alwaies most welcome to their hands,
Proud that I would record their names,
Must now be taught an humble stile
Some meaner beauty to beguile.
So I the wronged Pen to please,
Make it my humble thanks express
Vnto your Ladiship in these,
And now 'tis forced to confess,
That your great selfe did nere indite,
Nor that to one more noble write,
On a brede of divers colours woven by foure Ladies.
TWice twenty slender virgin fingers twine
This curious web, where all their fancies shine:
As nature them, so they this shade have wrought,
Soft as their hands, and various as their thought:
Not Juno's bird, when his faire traine dispred
Hee woes the female to his painted bed;
No not the Bow which so adornes the skyes,
So glorious is, or boasts so many dyes.
On the head of a Stag.
SO wee some antique Hero's strength
Learn by his Launces weight and length,
As these vast beams express the beast,
Whose shady brows alive they drest.
Such game, while yet the world was new,
The mighty Nimrod did pursue.
What huntsman of our feeble race,
Or dogs dare such a monster chase,
Resembling with each blow hee strikes,
The charge of a whole troope of Pikes?
O fertile head, which every yeare
Could such a crop of wonder beare!
The teeming Earth did never bring
[...]o soone, so hard, so huge a thing.
Which might it never have been cast,
Each years growth added to the last,
Those lofty branches had suppli'd
The Earths bold sons prodigious pride;
Heaven with these engines had bin scal'd,
When Mountains heap'd on Mountains fail'd.
To a Lady in retirement.
SEes not, my Love, how time resumes
The glory which he lent these slowres?
Though none should tast these sweet perfumes,
Yet must they live but some few houres;
Time, what we forbeare, devours.
Had Helen, or th'Aegyptian Queen,
Been nere so thrifty of their graces,
Those beauties must at length have been
The spoil of age, which findes out faces
In the most retired places.
Should some malignant Planet bring
A barren drought, or ceasless showre
Upon the Autumne, or the Spring,
And spare us neither fruit nor flowre,
Winter would not stay an houre.
Could the resolve of loves neglect
Preserve thee from the violation
Of comming years, then more respect
Were due to so divine a fashion,
Nor would I indulge my passion.
The Misers speech in a Mask.
BAlls of this metall slack'd Atlanta's pace,
And on the amorous youth bestow'd the race:
Venus the Nymphs mind measuring by her own,
Whom the rich spoils of Cities overthrown
Had prostrated to Mars, could well advise
Th' adventurous Lover how to gain the prize.
Nor less may Jupiter to gold ascribe;
For when hee turn'd himself into a bribe,
Who can blame Danac, or the brasen towre,
That they withstood not the almighty showre?
Never till then did love make Jove put on
A forme more bright and noble then his owne;
Nor were it just, would hee resume that shape,
That slack devotion should his thunder scape:
'Twas not revenge for griev'd Apollo's wrong,
Those Asses eares on Mida's temples hung;
But fond repentance of his happy wish,
Because his meate grew metall like his dish;
Would Bacchus blesse me so, I'd constant hold
Vnto my wish, and dye creating gold.
To my Lord of Northumberland upon the death of his Lady.
TO this great losse a sea of teares is due,
But the whole debt not to bee paid by you;
Charge not your selfe with all, nor render vain
Those showres the eyes of us your servants rain.
Shall griefe contract the largeness of that heart,
In which nor seare nor anger has a part?
Vertue would blush, if Time should boast (which dry's,
Her sole child dead, the tender Mothers eys)
Your minds reliefe, where reason triumphs so
Over all passions, that they nere could grow
Beyond their limits in your noble brest,
To harme another, or impeach your rest.
This wee observ'd delighting to obey
One who did never from his great selfe stray,
Whose milde example seemed to ingage
Th' obsequious seas, and teach them not to rage.
The brave Emylius his charge laid down,
(The force of Rome, and fate of Macedon)
In his lost sons did feele the cruell stroke
Of changing fortune; and thus highly spoke:
Before Romes people wee did of implore,
That if the heavens had any ill in store
For your Emylius, they would powre that ill
On his owne house, and let you flourish still:
You on the barren Seas my Lord have spent
Whole springs, and summers to the publique lent,
Suspended all the pleasures of your life,
And shortned the short ioy of such a wife:
For which your country's more obliged, then
For many lives of old less happy men.
You that have sacrific'd so great a part
Of youth and private bliss, ought to impart
Your sorrow too, and give your friends a right
As well in your affliction, as delight.
Then with Emylian courage beare this cross,
Since publique persons only publique loss
Ought to affect. And though her form and youth,
Her application to your will and truth,
That noble sweetnes and that humble state,
All snatcht away by such a hasty fate,
Might give excuse to any common brest
With the huge weight of so iust griefe opprest;
Yet let no portion of your life be stain'd
With passion, but your character maintain'd
To the last act; it is enough her stone
May honour'd bee with superscription
Of the sole Lady who had power to move
The great Northumberland to grieve and love.
To my Lord Admirall, of his late sicknes and recovery.
VVIth joy like ours the Thracian youth invades
Orpheus returning from th' Elysian shades,
Embrace the Hero, and his stay implore,
Make it their publique suite hee would no more
Desert them so, and for his spouses sake
His vanisht Love tempt the Lethean lake:
The Ladies too, the brightest of that time,
Ambitious all his lofty bed to clime,
Their doubtfull hopes with expectation feed,
Who shall the faire Eurydice succeed:
Eurydice, for whom his num'rous moan
Makes listning trees, and salvage mountains groan,
Through all the ayre his sounding strings dilate
Sorrow like that, which toucht our hearts of late,
Your pining sicknesse, and your restless pain
At once the Land affecting, and the Main;
When the glad news that you were Admirall
Scarce through the Nation spread, 'twas fear'd by all
That our great Charles, whose wisdome shines in you,
Would bee perplexed how to choose a new:
So more then private was the joy and grief,
That at the worst it gave our souls relief,
That in our age such sense of vertue liv'd,
They joy'd so justly, and so justly griev'd.
Nature, her fairest lights eclipsed, seemes
Her selfe to suffer in those sharpe extremes,
While not from thine alone thy blood retires,
But from those cheeks which all the world admires:
The stem thus threatned and the sap in thee
Droop all the branches of that noble tree;
Their beauty they, and wee our loves suspend,
Nought can our wishes save thy health intend.
As Lillies overcharg'd with rain, they bend
Their beauteous heads, and with high heav'n contend,
Fold thee within their snowy armes, and cry,
Hee is too faultless, and too young to dye;
So like Immortalls round about thee they
Sit, that they fright approching death away:
Who would not languish by so faire a train,
To bee lamented, and restor'd again?
Or thus with-held, what hasty soul would go,
Though to the blest? O're young Adonis so
Fair Venus mourn'd, and with the pretious showre
Of her warme teares cherish'd the springing flowre.
The next support faire hope of your great name,
And second pillar of that noble frame,
By loss of thee would no advantage have,
But step by step pursues thee to the grave.
And now relentless Fate about to end
The line, which backward does so farre extend
That Antique stock, which still the world supplyes
With bravest spirits, and with brightest eyes;
Kind Phoebus interposing bid mee say,
Such stormes no more shall shake that house, but they
Like Neptune and his Sea-borne Neece shall bee
The shining glories of the land and Sea,
With courage guard, and beauty warm our Age,
And lovers fill with like Poetique rage.
On the friendship betwixt Sacharissa and Amoret.
TEll me, lovely loving Paire,
Why so kind, and so severe?
Why so careless of our care,
Only to your selves so deare?
By this cunning change of hearts,
You the power of Love controul,
While the Boyes deluded darts
Can arrive at neithers soul.
For in vain to either brest
Still beguiled Love does come,
Where he finds a forain guest,
Neither of your hearts at home;
Debters thus with like designe,
When they never mean to pay,
That they may the law decline,
To some friend make all away.
Not the silver Doves that fly,
Yoakt in Cytharea's Carre;
Not the wings that lift so high,
And convey her son so farre,
Are so lovely sweet and fair,
Or doe more ennoble Love,
Are so choicely matcht a pair,
Or with more consent doe move.
A la Malade.
AH lovely Amoret, the Care
Of all that know what's good or fair,
Is Heaven become our Rivall too?
Had the rich Gifts confer'd on you
So amply thence, the common end
Of giving Lovers, to pretend?
Hence to this pining Sickness (meant
To weary thee to a consent
Of leaving us) no power is given
Thy Beauties to impaire, for Heaven
Solicites thee with such a care:
As Roses from their stalkes we tare,
When wee would still preserve them new
And fresh, as on the bush they grew.
With such a grace you entertain,
And look with such contempt on pain,
That languishing you conquer more,
And wound us deeper then before.
The lightnings which in stormes appear.
Scorch more then when the skies are clear.
And as pale sickness does invade
Your frailer part, the breaches made
In that faire Lodging still more clear
Make the bright Guest your Soule appear:
So Nymphs o'r pathless Mountains born,
Their light robes by the Brambles torn
From their faire limbs, exposing new
And unknown Beauties to the view
Of following Gods, increase their flame,
And hast to catch the flying Game.
Of her Chamber.
THey tast of Death that doe at Heaven arrive,
But we this Paradise approch alive:
In stead of Death, the dart of Love does strike,
And renders all within these walls alike:
The high in titles, and the Shepheard here,
Forgets his greatness, and forgets his fear:
All stand amaz'd, and gazing on the Faire
Loose thought of what themselves or others are,
Ambition loose, and have no other scope
Save Carlisles favour to imploy their hope.
The Thracian could (though all those tales were true
The bold Greeks tell) no greater wonders doe;
Before his feet so Sheep and Lyons lay
Fearless and wrathless, while they heard him play;
The Gay, the Wise, the Gallant, and the Grave,
Subdu'd alike all but one passion have.
No worthy mind but finds in hers there is
Something proportioned to the rule of his;
While she with cheerfull, but impartiall grace,
(Borne for no one, but to delight the race
Of men) like Phoebus so divides her light,
And warmes us that she stoops not from her height.
Of loving at first sight.
NOt caring to observe the wind,
Or the new Sea explore,
Snatcht from my self, how farre behind
Already I behold the shore?
May not a thousand dangers sleep
In the smooth Bosome of this deep?
No, 'tis so rockless, and so clear,
That the rich Bottome does appear
Pav'd all with pretious things, not torn
From shipwrackt Vessells, but there born.
Sweetnes, truth, and every grace
Which Time and Use are wont to teach,
The eye may in a moment reach,
And read distinctly in her face.
Some other Nymph with colours saint
And pencill slow may Cupid paint,
And a weake heart in time destroy;
She has a stamp and prints the Boy,
Can with a single looke inflame
The coldest brest, the rudest tame.
The selfe banish'd.
IT is not that I love you less,
Then when before your feet I lay,
But to prevent the sad increase
Of hopeless love, I keep away.
In vaine (alas!) for every thing
Which I have knowne belong to you,
Your forme does to my fancy bring,
And make my old wounds bleed anew.
Who in the Spring from the new Sun
Already has a Fever got,
Too late begins those shafts to shun
Which Phoebus through his veines has shot.
Too late hee would the paine asswage,
And to thick shadowes does retire;
About with him hee beares the rage,
And in his tainted blood the fire.
But vow'd I have, and never must
Your banish'd servant trouble you;
For if I breake, you may mistrust
The vow I made to love you too.
Of, and to the Queen.
THe Larke that shun's on lofty boughs to build
Her humble nest, lyes silent in the field;
But if the promise of a cloudless day
(Aurora smiling) bids her rise and play,
Then straight shee showes 'twas not for want of voyce
Or power to climbe shee made so low a choyce;
Singing shee mounts, her ayerie wings are stretcht
Towards heav'n, as if from heav'n her note shee fetcht.
So wee retiring from the busie throng,
Vse to restraine [...]th' ambition of our song;
But since the light which now informs our Age
Breaks from the Court indulgent to her rage,
Thither my Muse, like bold Prometheus, flyes
To light her torch at Gloriana's eyes,
Those soveraign beams, which heal the wounded soule,
And all our cares, but once beheld, controule:
There the poore lover that has long indur'd
Some proud Nymphs scorne, of his fond passion cur'd,
Fares like the man who first upon the ground
A gloworme spide, supposing hee had found
A moving diamond, a breathing stone,
(For life it had, and like those Jewels shone)
Hee held it deare, till by the springing day
Inform'd, hee threw the worthless worme away.
She saves the Lover, as wee Gangrenes stay,
By cutting hope, like a lopt limbe, away▪
This makes her bleeding Patients to accuse
High heav'n, and these expostulations use:
Could nature then no private woman grace
(Whom wee might dare to love) with such a face,
Such a complexion, and so radiant eys,
Such lovely motion, and such sharp reply's?
Beyond our reach, and yet within our sight,
What envious power has plac'd this glorious light?
Thus in a starry night fond Children cry
For the rich spangles that adorne the sky;
Which though they shine for ever fixed there,
With light and influence relieve us here.
All her affections are to one inclin'd,
Her bounty and compassion to mankind;
To whom while shee so far extends her Grace,
Shee makes but good the promise of her face:
For Mercy has (could Mercy's selfe be seen)
No sweeter looke, then this propitious Queen;
Such guard and comfort the distressed find
From her large power, and from her larger mind,
That whom ill Fate would ruine, it prefers,
For all the miserable are made hers.
So the faire Tree whereon the Eagle builds,
Poore sheepe from tempest and their shepherd shields,
The Royall bird possesses all the boughs,
But shade and shelter to the flock allows.
Joy of our Age, and safety of the next,
For which so oft thy fertile wombe is vext,
Nobly contented for the publique good
To wast thy spirits, and diffuse thy blood,
What vast hopes may these Ilands entertaine
Where Monarchs thus descended are to raigne?
Led by Commanders of so faire a line
Our seas no longer shall our pow'r confine.
A brave Romance who would exactly frame,
First brings his Knight from some immortall Dame,
And then a weapon and a flaming shield
Bright as his mothers eyes hee makes him wield:
None might the mother of Achilles bee
But the faire Pearle and Glory of the Sea:
The man to whom great Maro gives such fame,
From the high bed of heavenly Venus came;
And our next Charles (whom all the stars designe
Like wonders to accomplish) springs from thine.
Song.
Goe lovely Rose,
Tell her that wasts her time and mee,
That now shee knowes,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fayr shee seems to bee.
Tell her that's young,
And shun's to have her grâces spide,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended dy'd.
Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retir'd:
Bid her come forth,
Suffer her selfe to bee desir'd,
And not blush so to be admir'd.
Then dye, that shee
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee,
How small a part of time they share,
That are so wondrous sweet and faire.
Thirsis. Galatea.
AS lately I on silver Thames did ride,
Sad Galatea on the bank I spide;
Such was her look, as sorrow taught to shine,
And thus she grac'd me with a voice divine:
Gal.
You that can tune your sounding strings so well
Of Ladies beauties, and of Love to tell,
Once change your note, and let your Lute report
The justest grief that ever touch'd the Court.
Th.
Faire Nymph, I have in your delights no share,
Nor ought to be concerned in your care;
Yet would I sing, if I your sorrows knew,
And to my ayd invoke no Muse but you.
Gal.
Heare then, and let your song augment our grief,
Which is so great as not to wish relief;
Shee that had all which Nature gives or Chance,
Whom Fortune joyn'd with Vertue to advance
To all the joyes this Island could afford,
The greatest Mistris, and the kindest Lord;
Who with the royall mixt her noble blood,
And in high grace with Gloriana stood,
Her bounty, sweetness, beauty, goodness such,
That none ere thought her happiness too much,
So well inclin'd her favours to conser,
And kind to all as heaven had been to her.
[Page 92]The virgins part, the mother and the wife
So well she acted in this span of life,
That though few years (too few, alas!) she told
Shee seem'd in all things, but in beauty, old.
As unripe fruit, whose verdant stalk does cleave
Close to the tree, which grieves no lesse to leave
The smiling pendant which adorns her so,
And untill Autumne on the bough should grow:
So seem'd her youthfull Soul not eas'ly forc'd,
Or from so fair, so sweet a seat divorc'd;
Her Fate at once did hasty seem and slow,
At once too cruell and unwilling too.
Th.
Under how hard a law are Mortalls born!
Whom now we envie, we anon must mourn:
What heaven sets highest, and seems most to prize,
Is soon removed from our wondring eyes.
[Page 93]But since the Sisters did so soon untwine
So faire a thread, I'll strive to peece the line:
Vouchsafe (sad Nymph) to let me know the Dame,
And to the Muses I'll commend her name:
Make the wide Countrey echo to your moan,
The list'ning trees and salvage mountains groan;
What rocks not moved, when the death is sung
Of one so good, so lovely, and so young?
Gal.
'Twas Hamilton, whom I had nam'd before,
But naming her, griefe lets me say no more.
Fabula Phoebi & Daphnes.
ARcadiae juvenis Thirsis, Phoebi (que) sacerdos,
Ingenti frustra Galateae ardebat amore:
Haud deus ipse olim Daphne majora canebat,
Nec fuit asperior Daphne, nec pulchrior illa.
Carminibus Phoebo dignis premit ille fugacem
Per rupes, per saxa volans, per florida vates
Pascua, formosam nunc his componere Nympham,
Nunc illis erudelem insana mente solebat:
Audiit illa procul miserum, citharam (que) sonantem
Audiit, at nullis respexit mota querelis.
Ne tamen omnino caneret desertus, ad alta
Sidera perculsi referunt nova carmina montes:
Sic non quaesitis cumulatus laudibus olim
Elapsa, reperit Daphne sua laurea Phoebus.
The Battell of the Summer Islands.
CANTO I. What fruit they have, and how heaven smiles Upon those late discovered Isles.
AYde me, Bellona, while the dreadfull fight
Betwixt a Nation and two Whales I write;
Seas stain'd with goare I sing, advent'rous toile,
And how these Monsters did disarme an Isle.
Bermudas wall'd with rocks who does not know,
That happy Island where huge Lemmons grow,
And Orange trees, which golden fruit doe beare?
Th' Hesperian garden boasts of none so faire.
There shining Pearl, Corall, and many a pound
On the rich shore of Amber-greece is found:
The lofty Cedar, which to heaven aspires,
The Prince of trees, is fuell for their fires:
The smoak by which their loaded spits doe turn,
For incense might on sacred Altars burn;
Their private roofs on odorous timber born,
Such as might Palaces for Kings adorn:
The sweet Palmetta's a new Bacchus yield
With leaves as ample as the broadest shield;
Under the shadow of whose friendly boughs
They sit carousing where their liquor grows:
Figs there unplanted through the fields doe grow,
Such as fierce Cato did the Romans show,
With the rare fruit inviting them to spoil
Carthage, the Mistris of so rich a spoil:
The naked rocks are not unfruitfull there,
But at some constant seasons every yeare
Their barren tops with luscious food abound,
And with the eggs of various fowles are crown'd:
Tobacco is their worst of things which they
To English landlords as their tribute pay:
Such is the mould, that the blest tenant feeds
On pretious fruits, and payes his rent in weeds:
With candid Plantines, and the ivy Pine,
On choisest Melons and sweete grapes they dine,
And with Potatoes fat their wanton swine.
Nature these Cates with such a lavish hand
Powres out among them, that our courser land
Tasts of that bounty, and does cloth returne,
Which not for warmth, but ornament is worne:
For the kind spring, which but salutes us here,
Inhabits there, and courts them all the yeare:
Ripe fruits and blossomes on the same trees live,
At once they promise what at once they give.
So sweete the ayre, so moderate the clime.
None sickly lives or dyes before his time.
Heaven, sure, has kept this spot of earth uncurst,
To shew how all things were created first.
The tardy plants in our could orchards plac't
Reserve their fruits for the next ages tast;
There a small grain in some few months will bee
A firme, a lofty, and a spacious tree.
The Palma-Christi and the faire Papah,
Now but a seed, (preventing natures law)
In halfe the circle of the hasty year
Project a shade, and lovely fruit doe wear.
And as their trees in our dull region set
But faintly grow, and no perfection get;
So in this Northern tract our hoarser throates
Utter unripe and ill constrained notes,
Where the supporter of the Poets stile,
Phoebus, on them eternally does smile.
O how I long my careless limbs to lay
Vnder a Plantanes shade, and all the day
With amorous ayres my fancy entertaine,
Invoke the Muses, and improve my vaine!
No passion there in my free brest should move,
None, but the sweete and best of passions, Love:
There while I sing, if gentle love bee by,
That tunes my Lute, and winds the strings so high
With the sweete sound of Sacharissa's name,
I'le make the listning salvages grow tame.
But while I doe these pleasing dreames indite,
I am diverted from the promis'd fight.
CANTO II. Of their affright, and how their foes Discovered were, this Canto showes.
THough rocks so high about this Island rise,
That well they may the num'rous Turke despise;
Yet is no humane fate exempt from fear,
Which shakes their hearts, while through the Isle they hear
A lasting noyse, as horrid, and as lowd
As thunder makes before it breaks the clowd:
Three dayes they dread this murmure, ere they know
From what blind cause th' unw̄oted sound may grow;
At length two Monsters of unequall size,
Hard by the shore, a fisherman espies,
Two mighty Whales, which swelling seas had tost,
And left them pris'ners on the rocky coast:
One as a mountaine vast, and with her came
A Cub, not much inferiour to his Dam;
Here in a poole among the rocks ingag'd
They roar'd like Lions caught in toyles, and rag'd.
The man knew what they were, who heretofore
Had seen the like lye murther'd on the shore,
By the wild fury of some tempest cast,
The fate of ships, and ship-wrackt men to tast.
As careless Dames, whom wine and sleepe betray
To frantick dreames, their infants overlay;
So there sometimes the raging Ocean failes,
And her owne brood exposes, when the Whales
Against sharpe rocks, like reeling vessells quasht,
Though huge as mountaines, are in peeces dasht:
Along the shore their dreadfull limbs lye scatter'd,
Like hills with earthquakes shaken, torne & shatter'd.
Hearts sure of brass they had, who tempted first
Rude Seas, that spare not what themselves have nurst.
The welcome newes through all the nation spread,
To suddaine ioy and hope converts their dread.
What lately was their publique terrour, they
Behold with glad eyes as a certain prey,
Dispose already of th' untaken spoyl;
And as the purchase of their future toyl,
These share the bones, and they divide the oyl.
So was the huntsman by the Beare opprest,
Whose hide hee fold before hee caught the beast.
They man their boates, and all their young men arm
With whatsoever may the monsters harm,
Pikes, Holdberts, Spits, and Darts that wound so far,
The tooles of peace and instruments of war:
Now was the time for vigorous lads to show
What love or honour could invite them to:
A goodly theater, where rocks are round;
With reverent age, and lovely lasses crown'd,
Such was the lake, which held this dreadfull pare,
Within the bounds of noble Warwicks share;
Warwicks bold Earle, then which no title beares
A greater sound among our British Peeres;
And worthy hee the memory to renew,
The fate and honour to that title due,
Whose brave adventures have transfer'd his name,
And through the New-world spred his growing fame.
But how they fought, and what their valour gain'd,
Shall in another Canto be contain'd.
CANTO III. The bloody fight, successlesse toile, And how the fishes sack'd the Jsle.
THe boate which on the first assault did goe,
Stroke with a harping-iron the younger foe;
Who when hee felt his side so rudely goar'd,
Loud as the Sea that nourish'd him, hee roar'd.
As a broad Breame, to please some curious tast,
While yet alive, in boyling water cast,
Vext with unwonted heate, bounds, flings about
The scorching brass, and hurles the liquour out:
So with the barbed javeling stung, hee raves
And scourges with his tayle the suff'ring waves:
Like Fairy Talus with his iron flaile,
Hee threatens ruine with his pond'rous taile,
Dissolving at one stroke the batter'd boate,
And downe the men fall drenched in the moate:
With every fierce encounter they are forc't
To quit their boates, and fare like men unhoist:
The bigger Whale like some huge carrack lay
Which wanteth Sea-roome with her foes to play,
Slowly shee swims, and when provok'd shee wou'd
Advance her tayle, her head salutes the mud;
The shallow water doth her force infringe,
And renders vain her tayles impetuous swinge;
The shining steel her tender sides receave,
And there like bees they all their weapons leave.
This sees the Cub, and does himselfe oppose
Betwixt his cumbred mother and her foes,
With desp'rate courage hee receives her wounds,
And men and boates his active tayle confounds;
Their furies ioyn'd the Seas with billowes fill,
And make a tempest, though the winds bee still.
Now would the men with half their hoped pray
Bee well content, and wish'd this Cub away;
Their wish they have, Hee to direct his Dam
Unto the gap, through which they thither came,
Before her swims, and quits the hostile Lake;
A pris'ner there but for his Mothers sake;
Shee by the rocks compell'd to stay behind,
Is by the vastness of her bulk confin'd:
They shout for joy, and now on her alone
Their fury falls, and all their Darts are thrown:
Their Launces spent, One bolder then the rest
With his broad sword provokes the sluggish beast;
Her oylie side devoures both blade and heft,
And there his steele the bold Bermudian left.
Courage the rest from his example take,
And now they change the colour of the Lake,
Blood flowes in rivers from her wounded side,
As if they would prevent the tardie tide,
And raise the flood to that propitious height,
As might convey her from this fatall streight;
Shee swims in blood, and blood does spouting throw
To heaven, that heaven mens cruelties might know;
Their fixed Javelins in her side shee wears,
And on her back a grove of Pikes appears:
You would have thought, had you the Monster seen
Thus drest, shee had another Island been.
Roaring she tears the ayr with such a noise
(As well resembled the conspiring voice
Of routed armies, when the field is won)
To reach the ears of her escaped Son:
Hee (though a league removed from the so)
Hasts to her ayd: the pious Trojan so,
Neglecting for Creusa's life his own,
Repeats the danger of the burning town.
The men amazed blush to see the seed
Of Monsters, humane pietie exceed.
Well proves this kindness what the Grecians sung,
That Loves bright Mother from the Ocean sprung.
Their courage droops, and hopeless now they wish
For composition with th'unconquer'd Fish;
So shee their weapons would restore again,
Through rocks they'd hew her passage to the Main:
But how instructed in each others mind,
Or what commerce can men with Monsters find?
Not daring to approach their wounded so,
Whom her couragious Son protected so,
They charge their Muskets, and with hot desire
Of fell revenge, renew the fight with fire;
Standing aloofe with Lead the bruise the scales,
And teare the flesh of the incensed Whales;
But no success their fierce endeavours found,
Nor this way could they give one fatall wound.
Now to their Forts they are about to send
For the loud Engines which their Isle defend;
But what those peeces fram'd to batter Walls,
Would have effected on those mighty Whales,
Great Neptune will not have us know, who sends
A tide so high that it relieves his friends:
And thus they parted with exchange of harms;
Much blood the Monsters lost, and they their arms.
Vpon the death of my Lady Rich.
MAy those already curs'd Essexian plains,
Where hasty Death, and pining sickness raigns▪
Prove all a Desert, and none there make stay
But salvage beasts, or men as wilde as they:
There the faire light, which all our Island grac'd;
Like Hero's Taper in the windows plac'd,
Such fate from the malignant ayr did find,
As that exposed to the boystrous wind.
Ah cruell heaven to snatch so soon away
Her, for whose life had we had time to pray,
With thousand vows and tears we should have sought
That sad decree's suspension to have wrought!
But we (alas!) no whisper of her pain
Heard, till 'twas sin to wish her here again.
That horrid word at once like lightning spread,
Strook all our ears: The Lady Rich is dead.
Heart-rending news, and dreadfull to those few
VVho her resemble, and her steps pursue,
That Death should licence have to rage among
The faire, the wise, the vertuous, and the young.
The Paphian Queen from that fierce battell born
VVith goared hand, and Vail so rudely torn,
Like terrour did among th'Immortals breed,
Taught by her wound that God desses might bleed.
All stand amazed, but beyond the rest
Th'Heroique Dame, whose happy womb she blest,
Mov'd with just grief expostulates with heaven,
Urging that promise to th'obsequious given
Of longer life; for ne'r was pious soul
More apt t'obey, more worthy to controul:
A skilfull eye at once might read the race
Of Caledonian Monarchs in her face,
And sweet humilitie, her look and mind
At once were lofty, and at once were kind.
There dwelt the scorn of vice, and pity too,
For those that did what shee disdain'd to doe;
So gentle and severe, that what was bad
At once her hatred and her pardon had;
Gracious to all, but where her love was due
So fast, so faithfull, loyall, and so true,
That a bold hand as soon might hope to force
The rowling lights of heaven, as change her course.
Some happy Angell that beholds her there,
Instruct us to record what she was here;
And when this cloud of sorrow's over-blown,
Through the wide world we'l make her graces known:
So fresh the wound is, and the grief so vast,
That all our art and power of speech is wast;
Here passion swayes, but there the Muse shall raise
Eternall monuments of louder praise.
There, our delight complying with her fame
Shall have occasion to recite thy name,
Faire Sacharissa, and now only fair,
To sacred friendship wee'll an Altar rear,
Such as the Romans did erect of old,
Where on a Marble pillar shall be told
The lovely passion each to other bare,
With the resemblance of that matchless pare.
Narcissus to the thing for which hee pin'd,
Was not more like, then yours to her fair mind;
Save that you grac'd the severall parts of life,
A spotless Virgin, and a faultless wife;
Such was the sweet converse 'twixt her and you,
As that she holds with her associates now.
How false is Hope, and how regardless Fate,
That such a love should have so short a date!
Lately I saw her sighing part from thee:
(Alas that that the last farewell should be!)
So lookt Astraea, her remove design'd,
On those distressed friends shee left behind.
Consent in vertue knit your hearts so fast,
That still the knot in spight of Death does last.
For as your tears and sorrow-wounded soule
Prove well that on your part this bond is whole:
So all we know of what they doe above
Is that they happy are, and that they love:
Let darke oblivion, and the hollow grave
Content themselves our frailer thoughts to have;
Well chosen love is never taught to die,
But with our nobler part invades the skie;
Then grieve no more that One so heavenly shap'd
The crooked hand of trembling Age escap'd:
Rather since wee beheld her not decay,
But that shee vanish'd so entire away,
Her wond'rous beauty and her goodnes merit
Wee should suppose that some propitious spirit
In that celestiall forme frequented here,
And is not dead, but ceases to appeare.
To the Queen Mother upon her landing.
GReat Queen of Europe, where thy off-spring wears
All the chief Crowns, whose Princes are thy heirs;
As welcome thou to Sea-girt Britains shore,
As erst Latona (who faire Cynthia bore)
To Delos was; here shines a Nymph as bright,
By thee disclos'd with like increase of light.
Why was her ioy in Belgia so confin'd?
Or why did you so much regard the wind?
Scarce could the Ocean (though inrag'd) have tost
Thy Soveraign Bark, but where th' obsequious Coast
Payes tribute to thy bed: Romes conquering hand
More vanquish'd Nations under her command
Never reduc'd. Glad Berecynthia so
Among her deathless progeny did go:
A wreath of Towres adorn'd her reverend head,
Mother of all that on Ambrosia fed.
Thy God-like race must sway the age to come,
Asshee Olympus peopled with her wombe.
Would these Commanders of mankind obay
Their honour'd Parent, all pretences lay
Downe at your Royall feete, compose their jars,
And on the growing Turk discharge these wars,
The Christian Knights that sacred tombe should wrest
From Pagan hands, and triumph o'r the East:
There Englands Prince, and Gallia's Daulphin might
Like young Rinaldo and Tancredo sight,
In single combate, by their swords again
The proud Argantes and fierce Soldan slaine;
Again might wee their glorious deeds recite,
And with your Thuscan Muse exalt the fight.
Song.
Peace babling Muse.
I dare not sing what you indite;
Her eyes refuse
To read the passion which they write:
She strikes my Lute, but if it sound,
Threatens to hurle it on the ground;
And I no less her anger dread,
Then the poore wretch that faines him dead,
While some fierce Lion does imbrace
His breathless corps, and licks his face;
Wrapt up in silent feare hee lyes,
Torne all in pieces, if hee cryes.
Of Love.
ANger in hasty words or blowes
It selfe discharges on our foes;
And sorrow too finds some relief
In teares which wait upon our grief;
So every passion but fond Love
Vnto its owne redress does move,
But that alone the wretch inclines
To what prevents his owne designes,
Makes him lament, and sigh, and weep,
Disord'red tremble, fawn and creep;
Postures which render him despis'd,
Where hee endeavours to bee priz'd.
For women borne to bee controul'd
Stoope to the forward and the bold,
Affect the haughty and the proud,
The gay, the frolick, and the loud,
Who first the generous steed opprest,
Not kneeling did salute the beast,
But with high courage, life and force
Approching, tam'd the unruly horse.
Vnwisely wee the wiser East
Pity, supposing them opprest
With tyrants force, whose law is will,
By which they governe, spoile and kill;
Each Nymph but moderately faire
Commands with no lesse rigour here.
Should some brave Turk, that walks among
His twenty Lasses bright and young,
And beckens to the willing Dame
Prefer'd to quench his present flame,
Behold as many gallants here
With modest guise and silent feare
All to one femall Idoll bend,
Whilst her high pride does scarce descend
To marke their follies, hee would sweare
That these her guard of Eun̂uchs were,
And that a more Majestique Queen,
Or humbler slaves, hee had not seen.
All this with indignation spoke
In vaine I strugled with the yoke
Of mighty Love; that conqu'ring look.
When next beheld, like lightning strook
My blasted soule, and made mee bow
Lower then those I pityed now.
So the tall Stag upon the brink
Of some smooth streame about to drink,
Surveying there his armed head,
With shame remembers that hee fled
The scorned dogs, resolves to try
The combate next; but if their cry
Invades againe his trembling ear,
Hee straight resumes his wonted fear,
Leaves the untasted Spring behinde,
And wing'd with fear outflyes the winde.
To the mutable Faire.
HEre, Coelia, for thy sake I part
With all that grew so neare my heart,
The passion that I had for thee,
The faith, the love, the constancy;
And that I may successfull prove,
Transform my self to what you love.
Foole that I was, so much to prize
Those simple vertues you despise!
Foole, that with such dull arrowes strove,
Or hop'd to reach a flying Dove!
For you that are in motion still,
Decline our force, and mock our skill,
Who like Don Quixote doe advance
Against a windmill our vaine lance.
Now will I wander through the ayre,
Mount, make a stoope at every Fayre,
And with a fancy unconfin'd
(As lawless as the the Sea or wind)
Pursue you wheresoere you fly,
And with your various thoughts comply.
The formall stars doe travell so,
As wee their names and courses know;
And hee that on their changes looks,
Would think them govern'd by our books;
But never were the clouds reduc'd
To any art, the motion us'd
By those free vapours are so light,
So frequent, that the conquer'd sight
Despaires to find the rules that guide
Those guilded shadows as they slide;
And therefore of the spacious ayre
Joves royall Consort had the care,
And by that power did once escape
Declining bold Ixion's rape;
Shee with her own resemblance grac'd
A shining cloud, which hee imbrac'd.
Such was that Image, so it smil'd
With seeming kindness, which beguil'd
Your Thirsis lately, when hee thought
Hee had his fleeting Coelia caught;
'Twas shap'd like her, but for the Fayr
Hee fill'd his arms with yeelding ayr.
A fate, for which he grieves the less,
Because the Gods had like success:
For in their story, One (we see)
Pursues a Nymph and takes a tree;
A second with a Lovers hast
Soon overtakes whom he had chas'd,
But she that did a Virgin seem,
Possest, appears a wandring stream;
For his supposed Love a third
Laies greedy hold upon a bird,
And stands amaz'd to find his deare
A wild Inhabitant of th'ayre.
To these old tales such Nymphs as you
Give credit, and still make them new;
The Amorous now like wonders find
In the swift changes of your mind.
But Coelia, if you apprehend
The Muse of your incensed friend,
Nor would that hee record your blame,
And make it live; repeat the same,
Again deceive him and again,
And then he swears hee'l not complain:
For still to be deluded so,
Is all the pleasure Lovers know,
Who, like good Faulkners, take delight
Not in the quarrey, but the flight.
Of the taking of Sally.
OF Jason, Theseus, and such Worthies old
Light seem the tales Antiquity has told,
Such Beasts and Monsters as their force opprest,
Some places only, and some times infest;
Sally, that scorn'd all power and lawes of Men,
Goods with their owners hurrying to their Den.
And future ages threatning with a crude
And salvage race successively renew'd,
Their Kings despising with rebellious pride,
And foes profess'd to all the world beside,
This pest of mankind gives our Hero fame,
And through th'obliged world dilates his name.
The Prophet once to cruell Agag said,
As thy fierce sword has Mothers childless made,
So shall the sword make thine; and with that word
Hee hew'd the man in pieces with his sword:
Just Charles like measure has return'd to these
Whose Pagan hands had stain'd the troubled Seas;
With ships they made the spoiled Merchants mourn,
With ships their City and themselves are torn;
One squadron of our winged Castles sent
O'rthrew their Fort, and all their Navy rent.
For not content the dangers to increase,
And act the part of tempests in the Seas,
Like hungry Wolves these Pirats from our shore
Whole flocks of sheep and ravish'd cattell bore.
Safely they did on other Nations prey:
Fooles, to provoke the Soveraign of the Sea!
Mad Cacus so, whom like ill Fate perswades,
The Herd of fair Alcmena's seed invades,
Who for revenge, and mortalls glad reliefe
Sack'd the dark Cave, and crush'd that horrid thiefe.
Morocco's Monarch wond'ring at this fact,
Save that his presence his affaires exact,
Had come in person to have seen and known
The injur'd worlds revenger and his own;
Hither he sends the chiefe among his Peeres,
Who in his Barke well-chosen presents bears
To the renown'd for piety and force,
Poore Captives manumis'd, and matchless horse.
To Mistris Braughton.
FAire fellow-servant, May your gentle eare
Prove more propitious to my slighted care,
Then the bright Dame's we serve, for her reliefe
(Vext with the long expressions of my griefe)
Receive these plaints, nor will her high disdain
Forbid my humble Muse to court her train.
So in those Nations which the Sun adore
Some modest Persian, or some weak-ey'd Moore,
No higher dares advance his dazled sight;
Then to some guilded cloud, which neere the light
Of their ascending God adorns the East,
And graced with his beams outshines the rest.
Thy skilfull hand contributes to our wo,
And whets those Arrows which confound us so;
A thousand Cupids in those curles doe sit,
Those curious Nets your slender fingers knit:
The Graces put not more exactly on
Th'attire of Venus, when the Ball she won,
Then Sacharissa by thy care is drest,
When all our youth prefers her to the rest.
You the soft seasons know, when best her mind
May be to pity or to love inclin'd,
In some well chosen houre supply his fear,
Whose hopeless love durst never tempt the ear
Of that stern Goddess; You (her priest) declare
What offrings may propitiate the Faire,
Rich orient Pearl, bright stones that ne'r decay,
Or polish'd lines which longer last then they:
For if I thought shee took delight in those,
To where the chearfull Morn does first disclose,
(The shady night removing with her beams)
Wing'd with bold Love, I'd fly to fetch such gems.
But since her eyes, her teeth, her lip excels
All that is found in Mines or fishes shels,
Her nobler part as far exceeding these,
None but immortall gifts her mind can please.
Those shining Jewels Greece and Troy bestow'd,
The snowy wrists, and lovely neck did lode
Of Sparta's Queen, but when the Town was burn'd,
Those fading glories were to ashes turn'd;
Her beauty too had perish'd, and her fame,
Had not the Muse redeem'd them from the Flame.
Puerperium.
YOu Gods that have the power
To trouble and compose
All that's beneath your bower,
Calme silence on the Seas, on earth impose.
Faire Venus, in thy soft armes
The God of rage confine;
For thy whispers are the charmes
Which only can divert his fierce designe.
What though hee frowne, and to tumult doe incline?
Thou the flame
Kindled in his breast canst tame
With that snow which unmelted lyes on thine.
Great Goddess, give this thy sacred Island rest,
Make heaven smile,
That no storme disturbe us while
Thy chiefe care our Halcyon builds her nest.
Great Gloriana, faire Gloriana,
Bright as high heaven is and fertile as earth,
Whose beauty relieves us
Whose royall bed gives us
Both glory and peace,
Our present joy, our hopes increase.
To Phillis.
PHillis, why should we delay
Pleasures shorter then the day?
Could we (which we never can)
Stretch our lifes beyond their span,
Beauty like a shadow flies,
And our youth before us dies:
Or would youth and beauty stay,
Love has wings, and will away,
Love has swifter wings then time.
Change in love to heaven does climbe;
Gods that never change their state,
Varied oft their love and hate:
Phillis, to this truth we owe
All the love betwixt us two;
Let not you and I enquire,
What has bin our past desire;
On what shepheards you have smil'd,
Or what nymphs I have beguil'd;
Leave it to the planets too,
What we shall hereafter doe;
For the joyes we now may prove,
Take advice of present Love.
To Phillis.
PHillis' twas love that injur'd you,
And on that rock your Thirsis threw,
Who for proud Coelia could have dy'd,
Whilst you no less accus'd his pride.
Fond Love his darts at random throws,
And nothing springs from what he sows▪
From foes discharg'd as often meet
The shining points of arrowes fleet
In the wide ayre creating fire,
As soules that joyne in one desire.
Love made the lovely Venus burne
In vaine, and for the cold Youth mourne,
Who the pursuite of churlish beasts
Prefer'd to sleeping on her breasts.
Love makes so many hearts the prize
Of the bright Carlisles conqu'ring eyes,
Which shee regards no more then they
The teares of lesser beauties weigh:
So have I seene the lost clouds powre
Into the Sea an useless showre;
And the vext saylers curse the rain,
For which poor shepheards pray'd in vain.
Then (Phillis) since our passions are
Govern'd by chance, and not the care
But sport of heaven, which takes delight
To looke upon this Parthian fight
Of Love, still flying or in chase,
Never incountring face to face;
No more to Love wee'l sacrifice,
But to the best of Deities;
And let our hearts which Love disjoyn'd,
By his kind Mother bee combin'd.
Song.
VVHile I listen to thy voyce,
Chloris, I feele my life decay;
That powerfull noyse
Calls my fleeting soule away.
Oh, suppress that magick sound,
Which destroyes without a wound.
Peace Chloris, peace, or singing dye,
That together you and I
To heav'n may goe:
For all wee know
Of what the blessed doe above,
It that they sing, and that they love.
Song.
Stay Phoebus, stay,
The world to which you fly so fast
Conveying day
From us to them, can pay your hast
With no such object, nor salute your Rise
With no such wonders as de Mornay's eyes.
Well does this prove
The errour of those antique bookes,
Which made you move
About the world; her charming lookes
Would fix your beames, and make it ever day,
Did not the rowling earth snatch her away.
To Amoret.
A Moret, the milky way,
Fram'd of many nameless stars;
The smooth stream, where none can say
Hee this drop to that prefers:
Amoret, my lovely so,
Tell me where thy strength doth ly,
Where the power that charms us so;
In thy soul, or in thy ey?
By that snowy neck alone,
Or thy grace in motion seen,
No such wonders could be done;
Yet thy wast is streight and clean,
As Cupids shaft, or Hermes rod,
And powerfull too as either God.
To my Lord of Falkland.
BRave Holland leads, and with him Falkland goes;
Who hears this told, and does not straight suppose
We send the Graces and the Muses forth
To civilize, and to instruct the North?
Not that these ornaments make swords less sharp;
Apollo wears as well his Bow as Harp;
And though he be the Patron of that Spring
Where in calm Peace the sacred Virgins sing,
He courage had to guard th'invaded throne
Of Jove, and cast th'ambitious Giants down.
Ah! (noble Friend) with what impatience all
That know thy worth, and know how prodigall
Of thy great Soul thou art, longing to twist
Bayes with that Ivy which so early kist
Thy youthfull Temples, with what horrour wee
Think on the blind events of war, and thee
To Fate exposing that all-knowing brest
Among the throng as cheaply as the rest,
Where Oaks and brambles (if the Copse be burn'd)
Confounded lie to the same ashes turn'd!
Some happy wind over the Ocean blow
This tempest yet, which frights our Island so,
Guarded with ships, and all the Sea our own,
From heaven this mischief on our heads is thrown.
In a late Dream the Genius of this Land
Amaz'd I saw like the fair Hebrew stand,
When first she felt the twins begin to jar,
And found her womb the seat of civill war;
Inclin'd to whose relief, and with presage
Of better fortune for the present Age,
Heaven sends, quoth I, this discord for our good,
To warm perhaps, but not to waste our blood;
To raise our drooping spirits, grown the scorn
Of our proud Neighbours, who ere long shall mourn
(Though now they joy in our expected harms)
Wee had occasion to resume our Arms,
A Lion so with self-provoking smart,
His rebell tail scourging his nobler part,
Calls up his courage, then begins to roare,
And charge his foes, who thought him mad before.
Of a Lady who writ in praise of Mira.
VVHile she pretends to make the graces known
Of matchless Mira, she reveals her own;
And when she would anothers praise indite,
Is by her glass instructed how to write.
To one married to an old man.
SInce thou wouldst needs, bewitch'd with some ill charms,
Be buried in those monumentall arms,
All wee can wish, is, May that earth lie light
Upon thy tender limbs, and so Good night.
For the Drinking of Healths.
LEt Brutes and Vegetals that cannot thinke,
So far as drought and Nature urges, drinke;
A more indulgent Mistris guides our sprights,
Reason, that dares beyond our appetites,
Shee would our care as well as thirst redress,
And with Divinity rewards excess.
Deserted Ariadne thus supplide,
Did perjur'd Theseus cruelty deride,
Bacchus imbrac'd from her exalted thought
Banish'd the man, her passion, and his fault.
Bacchus and Phoebus are by Jove alli'd,
And each by others timely heat suppli'd:
All that the Grapes owe to his ripening fires,
Is paid in numbers which their joyce inspires.
Wine fills the veines, and Healths are understood
To give our friends a title to our blood:
Who naming me doth warm his courage so,
Shews for my sake what his bold hand would do.
To Flavia.
Song.
'TIs not your Beauty can ingage
My wary Heart;
The Sun in all his Pride and Rage
Has not that Art;
And yet he shines as bright as you,
If brightness could our Soules subdue.
'Tis not the pretty things you say,
Or those you write,
Which can make Thirsis heart your Prey,
For that delight,
The graces of a well taught minde
In some of our own Sex we finde.
No Flavia, 'tis your Love I fear,
Loves surest Darts
Those which so seldome fail him are
Headed with Hearts,
Their very shadow makes us yield,
Dissemble well, and win the Field.
Of my Lady Isabella playing on the Lute.
SUch moving sounds from such a careless touch,
So unconcern'd her selfe, and we so much!
What Art is this; that with so little pains
Transports us thus, and o'r the spirit raigns?
The trembling strings about her fingers croud,
And tell their joy for every kiss aloud;
Small force there needs to make them tremble so;
Touch'd by that hand, who would not tremble too?
Here Love takes stand, and while she charms the eare,
Empties his Quiver on the listning Deere:
Musick so softens and disarms the mind,
That not an Arrow does resistance find;
Thus the faire Tyrant celebrates the prize,
And acts her self the triumph of her eyes.
So Nero once, with Harp in hand, survey'd
His flaming Rome, and as it burn'd, he play'd.
The fall.
SEe how the willing earth gave way
To take th'impression where shee lay!
See how the mould, as loath to leave
So sweete a burden, still does cleave
Close to th'Nymphs stain'd garment! here
The comming Spring would first appeare,
And all this place with roses strow,
If busie feet would let them grow:
Here Venus smil'd to see blind Chance
It selfe before her Son advance,
And a faire Image to present
Of what the Boy so long had meant.
'Twas such a chance as this made all
The world into this order fall;
Thus the first Lovers, on the clay
Of which they were composed, lay;
So in their prime with equall grace
Met the first Patterns of our Race;
Then blush not (Faire) or on him frown,
Or wonder how you both came down;
But touch him, and hee'l tremble straight,
How could he then support your waight?
How could the Youth (alas!) but bend,
When his whole heaven upon him lean'd?
If ought by him amiss were done,
'T was that he let you rise so soone.
Of Silvia.
OUr sighes are heard, just Heaven declares
The sense it has of Lovers cares;
She that so far the rest out-shin'd,
Silvia the faire, while she was kind,
As if her frowns impair'd her brow,
Seems onely not unhandsome now:
So when the skie makes us endure
A storme, it selfe becomes obscure.
Hence 'tis that I conceale my flame,
Hiding from Flavia's selfe her name,
Lest she provoking Heaven should prove
How it rewards neglected Love:
Betrer a thousand such as I,
Their griefe untold, should pine and die,
Then her bright Morning overcast
With sullen clouds should be defac'd.
The Bud.
LAtely on yonder swelling Bush,
Big with many a coming Rose,
This early Bud began to blush,
And did but halfe it selfe disclose:
I pluck'd it, though no better grown,
Yet now you see how full 'tis blown.
Still as I did the leaves inspire,
With such a purple light they shone.
As if they had been made of fire,
And spreading so would flame anon.
All that was meant by Aire or Sun
To the young Flower, my breath has done.
If our loose breath so much can doe,
What may the same in formes of Love,
Of purest Love and Musick too,
When Flavia it aspires to move;
When that which lifeless Buds persuades
To wax more soft, her youth invades?
To a Lady singing a Song of his composing.
CHloris, your selfe you so excell,
When you vouchsafe to breath my thought,
That like a Spirit with this spell
Of my own teaching I am caught.
That Eagles fate and mine are one,
Which on the shaft that made him die,
Espi'd a feather of his own,
Wherewith hee wont to soare so high.
Had Echo with so sweet a grace
Narcissus loud complaints return'd,
Not for reflection of his face,
But of his voyce the Boy had mourn'd.
At the Marriage of the Dwarfes.
THe Signe or Chance makes others wive,
But Nature did this Match contrive;
Eve might as well have Adam fled,
As she deni'd her little Bed
To him, for whom Heav'n seem'd to frame,
And measure out this onely Dame.
Thrice happy is that humble Paire
Beneath the levell of all Care,
Over whose heads those Arrows fly
Of sad Distrust and Jealousie,
Secured in as high extream,
As if the World held none but them.
To him the fairest Nymphs doe show
Like moving Mountains topt with Snow;
And every man a Polypheme
Does to his Galatea seeme:
None may presume her faith to prove;
He profers Death, that profers Love.
Ah (Chloris) that kind Nature thus
From all the World had sever'd us,
Creating for our selves us two,
As Love has me for onely you!
Vpon Ben: Iohnson.
MIrrour of Poets, Mirrour of our Age,
Which her whole face beholding on thy Stage,
Pleas'd and displeas'd with her own faults, indures
A remedy like those whom Musick cures:
Thou hast alone those various inclinations
Which Nature gives to Ages, Sexes, Nations;
Hast tracked with thy all-resembling Pen
What ever Custome has impos'd on Men,
Or ill-got Habits (which distorts them so,
That scarce one Brother can the brother know)
Is representing to the wondring eyes
Of all that see or read thy Comedies;
Who ever in those Glasses look, may find
The spots return'd, or graces of the mind;
And by the helpe of so divine an Art,
At leisure view and dress his nobler Part.
Narcissus cous'ned by that flattering Well,
And nothing could but of his beauty tell;
Had here discovering the deform'd estate
Of his fond mind preserv'd himselfe with hate.
But Vertue too, aswell as Vice, is clad
In flesh and blood so well, that Plato had
Beheld what his high fancie once embrac'd,
Vertue with colours, speech, and motion grac'd.
The sundry Postures of thy copious Muse
Who would express, a thousand Tongues must use;
Whose Fate's no less peculiar then thy Art;
For as thou couldst all Characters impart,
So none can render thine, who still escapes
Like Proteus in variety of shapes,
Who was, nor this, nor that, but all we find,
And all we can imagine in mankind.
To Master George Sands on his Translation of some part of the Bible.
HOw bold a work attempts that Pen,
Which would enrich our vulgar tongue
With the high raptures of those men,
Who here with the same Spirit sung,
Wherewith they now assist the Quire
Of Angels, who their Songs admire?
What ever those inspired Soules
Were urged to express, did shake
The aged Deepe, and both the Poles,
Their num'rous thunder could awake
Dull Earth, which does with Heaven consent?
To all they wrote, and all they meant.
Say (sacred Bard) what could bestow
Courage on thee to soare so high?
Tell me (brave Friend) what help'd thee so
To shake off all Mortalitie?
To light this Torch, thou hast climb'd higher
Then he who stole Coelestiall fier.
Chloris and Hilas.
Chl.
HIlas, ô Hilas! why sit we mute,
Now that each Bird saluteth the Spring?
Winde up the slack'ned strings of thy Lute,
Never canst thou want matter to sing:
For Love thy breast does fill with such a site,
That whatsoe'r is faire moves thy desire.
Hil.
Sweetest, you know the sweetest of things
Of various flowers the Bees doe compose,
Yet no particular tast it brings
Of Violet, Woodbine, Pink, or Rose:
So Love the resultance is of all our Graces,
Which flow from a thousand severall faces.
Chl. Hilas,
the Birds which chaunt it in this Grove,
Could we but know the language they use,
They would instruct us better in Love,
And reprehend thy inconstant Muse;
For Love their brests does fill with such a fire,
That what they once do choose bounds their desire.
Hil. Chloris,
this change the Birds doe approve,
Which the warm Season hither does bring;
Time from your selfe does further remove
You, then the Winter from the gay Spring:
[Page 159]Shee that like Lightning shin'd while her face lasted,
The Oak now resembles which Lightning has blasted.
Vnder a Ladies Picture.
SUch Helen was, and who can blame the Boy
That in so bright a flame consum'd his Troy?
But had like Vertue shin'd in that faire Greek,
The amorous Shepheard had not dar'd to seek,
Or hope for pity, but with silent moane
And better fate had perished alone.
In answer of Sir John Sucklins Verses.
Con.
STay here fond Youth, and ask no more, be wise,
Knowing too much long since lost Paradise.
Pro.
And by your knowledge we should be bereft
Of all that Paradise which yet is lost.
Con.
The vertuous joyes thou hast, thou wouldst, should stil
Last in their pride, and wouldst not take it ill,
If rudely from sweet Dreams, and for a toy
Thou wert awak'd▪ he wakes himselfe that does enjoy.
Pro.
How can the joy or hope which you allow,
Be stiled vertuous, and the end not so?
Talke in your sleep, and shadows still admire;
'Tis true, he wakes that feeles this reall fire,
But to sleep better; for who ere drinks deep
Of this Nepenthe, rocks himselfe asleep.
Con.
Fruition adds no new wealth, but destroyes,
And while it pleaseth much, yet still it cloyes;
Who thinkes he shall be happier made for that,
As reasonably might hope, he might grow fat
By eating to a Surfeit, this once past
[...]hat relishes? even kisses lose their tast.
Pro.
Blessings may be repeated while they cloy;
But shall we starve, 'cause Surfeitings destroy?
And if fruition did the taste impaire
Of kisses, why should yonder happy Paire,
Where joyes just Hymen warrants all the night,
Consume the day too in this less delight?
Con.
Urge not 'tis necessary, alas! we know
The homeliest thing that Man-kind does is so▪
The World is of a large extent we see,
And must be peopled, Children there must bee,
So must Bread too: but since there are enough
Borne to that drudgery, what need we plough?
Pro.
I need not plough, since what the stooping Hine
Gets of my pregnant Land, must all be mine;
But in this nobler Tillage 'tis not so,
For when Anchises did faire Venus know,
What intrest had poore Vulcan in the Boy,
Great-soul'd Aeneas, or the present joy?
Con.
Women enjoy'd, what ere tofore they have been,
Are like Romances read, or Scenes once seen:
Fruition dulls or spoyles the Play much more,
Then if one read, or knew the Plot before.
Pro.
Playes and Romances read and seen doe fall,
[...] Opinions, yet not seen at all
[Page 164]Whom would they please? to an Heroick tale
Would you not listen, lest it should grow stale?
Con.
'Tis Expectation makes a Blessing deare:
Heaven were not Heaven, if we knew what it were.
Pro.
If't were not Heaven, if we knew what it were.
'T would not be Heaven to them that now are there.
Con.
As in prospects we are there pleased most,
Where something keeps the eie from being lost,
And leaves roome to guess: so here restraint
Holds up delight, that with excess would faint.
Pro.
Restraint preserves the pleasure we have got,
But he ne'r has it that enjoyes it not.
In goodly prospects, who contracts the space,
Or takes not all the bounty of the place?
We wish remov'd what standeth in our light,
And Nature blame for limiting our sight,
Where you stand wisely winking, that the view
Of the faire prospect may be alwaies new,
Con.
They who know all the wealth they have are poore,
Hee's onely Rich that cannot tell his store.
Pro.
Not he that knows the wealth he has is poore,
But he that dares not touch, nor use his store.
To A. H. of the different success of their Loves.
THrice-happy Paire, of whom we cannot know
Which first began to love, or loves most now:
Faire course of Passion, where two Lovers start
And run together, heart still yoakt in heart!
Succesfull Youth, whom Love has taught the way
To be victorious in thy first Essay!
Sure Love's an Art best practised at first,
And where th'experienc'd still prosper worst
I with different Fate pursu'd in vain
The haughty Coelia, till my just disdain
Of her neglect above that Passion born,
Did pride to pride oppose, and scorn to scorn.
Now shee rolents, but all too late to move
A Heart diverted to a nobler Love:
The Scales are turn'd, her Kingdome weighs no more
Now, then my vowes and service did before.
So in some well-wrought Hangings you may see
How Hector leads, and how the Grecians flee;
Here the fierce Mars his courage so inspires,
That with bold hands the Argive Flee the fires;
But there from Heav'n the blew ey'd Virgin falls,
And frighted Troy retires within her walls:
They that are foremost in that bloody place
Turn head anon, and gives the Conquerours chace.
So like the Chances are of Love and Warre,
That they alone in this distinguish'd are;
In Love the Victors from the vanquish'd slie,
They slie that wound, and they pursue that die.
An Apologie for having loved before.
THey that never had the use
Of the Grapes surprizing joyce,
To the first delicious cup
All their reason render up;
Neither doe, nor care to know
Whether it be the best or no.
So they that are to Love enclin'd,
Sway'd by Chance, not choyce or art,
To the first that's faire or kind,
Make a present of their heart;
'Tis not she that first we love,
But whom dying we approve,
To Man, that was i'th' Evening made,
Stars gave the first delight,
Admiring in the gloomy shade
Those little drops of light.
Then at Aurora, whose faire hand
Remov'd him from the skies,
Heegazing towards the East did stand,
Shee entertain'd his eies.
But when the bright Sun did appeare,
All those he'gan despise:
His wonder was determin'd there,
Hee could no higher rise.
Hee neither might, or wish'd to know
A more refulgent light
For that, as mine your Beauties now
Imploy his utmost sight.
Palamede to Zelinde Ariana. lib. 6.
FAirest piece of well form'd earth,
Vrge not thus your haughty Birth,
The power which you have ore us lyes
Not in your Race, but in your eyes.
None but a Prince! alas, that voyce,
Confines you to a narrow choyce;
Should you no honey vow to tast,
But what the Master Bees have plac't
[...]n compass of their Cells, how smal
A portion to your share would fall?
Nor all appeare among those few,
Worthy the stock from whence they grew.
The sap which at the root is bred
In Trees, through all the boughs is spred.
But Vertues which in Parents shine,
Make not like Progress through the Line.
'Tis not from whom, but where wee live,
The place does oft those Graces give.
Great Iulius on the Mountaines bred,
A flock perhaps or herd had led:
Hee that the world subdu'd had been
But the best Wrestler on the Green:
'Tis art and Knowledge which draw forth
The hidden seeds of native worth,
They blow those sparks, and make them rise
Into such flames as touch the Skies.
To the old Hero's hence was given
A Pedegree which reach'd to Heaven;
Of mortall Seed they were not held,
Which other Mortalls so excell'd:
And Beauty too in such excess
As yours, Zelinde, claymes no less;
Smile but on me, and you shall scorn
Henceforth to be of Princes born.
I can describe the shady Grove,
Where your lov'd Mother slept with Jove,
And yet excuse the faultless Dame
Caught with her Spouses shape and name;
Thy matchless forme will credit bring
To all the wonders I shall sing.
Loves Farewell.
I Reading the path to Nobler ends,
A long farewell to Love I gave:
[...]esolv'd my Country and my Friends
[...]ll that remain'd of me should have;
[...]nd this Resolve no mortall Dame,
None but those eyes could have o'rthrowne.
The Nymph, I dare, nor need not name,
[...]o high, so like her selfe alone:
Thus the Oak, which now aspires
Above the feares of private fires,
Grown, and design'd for nobler use,
Not to make warm, but build the house;
Though from our meaner flames secure,
Must that which falls from heaven indure.
To Chloris.
CHloris, what eminent wee know,
Must for some cause be valued so;
Things without use, though they be good,
Are not by us so understood.
The early Rose made to display
Her bushes to the youthfull May,
Doth yeeld her sweets since he is faire.
And courts her with a gentle ayre.
Our stars too shew their excellence,
Not by their light, but influence;
When brighter Comets since still known.
Fatall to all, are lik't by none:
So your admired beauty still
Is by effects made good or ill.
Madam,
AS in some climes the warmer Sun,
Makes it full Summer ere the spring's begun,
And with ripe fruit the bending boughts can load,
Before the violets dare looke abroad:
So measure not by any common use,
The early love your brighter eyes produce.
When lately your fair hand, in womans weed,
Wrapt my glad head, I wish't me so indeed,
That hasty time might never make me grow,
Out of those favours you afford me now;
That I might ever such indulgence find,
And you not blush or thinke your self too kind,
Who now I feare while I these joyes express,
Begin to thinke how you may make them less:
The sound of love makes your soft heart affraide,
And guard it self, though but a child invade,
And innocently at your white breast throw
A dart as white, a Ball of new faln snow.
An Epigram On a painted Lady with ill teeth.
VVEre men so dull they could not see
That Lyce painted, should they flee
Like simple Birds into a Net,
So grosly woven and ill set;
Her own teeth would undoe the knot,
And let all goe that she had got.
Those teeth faire Lyce must not show,
If she would bite: her Lovers, though
Like Birds they stoop at seeming grapes,
Are disabus'd when first she gapes;
The rotten bones discovered there,
Show 'tis a painted Sepulcher.
On a Girdle.
THat which her slender waste confin'd,
Shall now my joyfull temples bind;
No Monarch but would give his Crowne
His Armes might doe what this has done,
It is my Heavens extreamest Spheare,
The pale which held the lovely Deare,
My joy, my griefe, my hope, my Love,
Doe all within this Circle move.
A narrow compas, and yet there
Dwells all that's good, and all that's faire:
Give me but what this Ribban ty'd,
Take all the sun goes round beside.
On Mr. Iohn Fletchers playes.
FLetcher, to thee we doe not only owe.
All these good playes but those others too,
Thy wit repeated does support the Stage,
Credits the last, and entertaines this Age,
No worthies form'd by any Muse but thine
Could purchase robes, to make themselves so fine,
What brave Commander is not proud to see
Thy brave Melantius in his Gallantrie,
Our greatest Ladys love to see their scorne
Out done by thine, in what themselves have worne.
The Impatient widdow ere the yeare be done,
Sees thy Aspasia weeping in her gowne.
I never yet the Tragicke straine assayed,
Deter'd by that inimitable Maide.
And when I venture at the Comicke stile,
Thy scornfull Lady, seemes to mocke my toile.
Thus has thy Muse at once improv'd and marr'd,
Our sport in playes by rendring it too hard.
So when a sort of lusty shepheards throwe,
The barre by turnes, and none the rest out goe
So farre but that the best are measuring casts,
There emulation, and there pastimes lasts;
But it some braunie Yeoman of the guard
Stepp in and tosse the axeltrie a yard,
Or more beyond the furthest marke, the rest,
Dispairing stand, Their sport is at the best.
To Chloris uppon a favour receaved.
CHloris, since first our calme of peace
Was frighted hence, this good we finde.
Your favours with your feares increase,
And growing mischiefs make you kinde.
So the fayre tree which still preserves
Her fruit and state whilst no wind blows,
In stormes from that uprightnesse swerves.
And the glad earth about her strowes
With treasure from her yeilding boughs.