Poems, with a Maske

Poems, with a maske by Thomas Carew ... ; the songs were set in musick by Mr. Henry Lawes ...
Carew, Thomas, 1595?-1639?
1651
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Poems, with a maske by Thomas Carew ... ; the songs were set in musick by Mr. Henry Lawes ...
Carew, Thomas, 1595?-1639?
Lawes, Henry, 1596-1662. Coelum britannicum. Libretto.
Carew, Thomas, 1595?-1639? Coelum britannicum.
The third edition revised and enlarged.
[3], 221, [1] p. : port.
Printed for H.M., and are to be sold by J. Martin ...,
London :
1651.
"The three supplementary poems at the end of the volume constitute the only new matter in this edition, which is not as correctly printed as the previous ones." Cf. Grolier. Wither to Prior.
Without the music.
Added t.p. on p. [171]: Coelum britannicum : a masque in Whitehall at the Banqueting House ... / Tho. Carew and Inigo Jones. London : Printed for Hum. Moseley, 1651.
Reproduction of original in Huntington Library.
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Thomas Carew, Gentleman of the Bed chamber to King Charles the First. From a Medal by Varin.
POEMS, With a MASKE, BY THOMAS CAREW
Esq
One of the Gent. of the Privy-Chamber, and Sewer in Ordinary to his late Majestie.
The Songs were set in Musick by Mr. HENRY LAWES Gent. of the Kings Chappell, and one of his late Majesties Private-Musick.
The third Edition revised and enlarged.
LONDON Printed for H. M. and are to be sold by J: Martin, at the signe of the Bell in St. Pauls-Church-Yard. 1651.
POEMS
The Spring.
NOw that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an ycie cream
Vpon the Silver Lake, or Chrystal stream:
But the warm Sun thawes the benummed Earth,
And makes it tender, gives a sacred birth
To the dead Swallow, wakes in hollow tree
The drowsie Cuckow, and the Humble-Bee.
Now doe a quire of chirping Minstrels bring
In triumph to the world, the youthfull Spring.
The vallies, hills, and woods, in rich aray,
Welcome the comming of the long'd for May.
Now all things smile; only my Love doth lowre:
Nor hath the scalding Noon-day-Sun the power,
To melt that marble yce, which still doth hold
Her heart congeald, and makes her pitty cold.
The Oxe which lately did for shelter fly
Into the stall, doth now securely ly
In open fields; and love no more is made
By the fire side; but in the cooler shade
Amyntas now doth with his Cloris sleep
Vnder a Sycamore, and all things keep
Time with the season, only she doth carry
Iune in her eyes, in her heart Ianuary.
To A. L. Perswasions to love.
THinke not, 'cause men flatt'ring say
Y'are fresh as Aprill, Sweet as May,
Bright as is the Morning starr,
That you are so; or though you are,
Be not therefore proud, and doem
All men unworthy your esteem:
For being so, you lose the pleasure
Of being fair, since that rich treasure
Of rare beauty, and sweet feature,
Was bestow'd on you by Nature
To be enjoy'd, and 'twere a sinne
There to be scarce, where shee hath been
So prodigall of her best graces;
Thus common beauties, and meane faces
Shall have more pastime, and enjoy
The sport you lose by being coy,
Did the thing for which I sue
Onely concern my self, not you;
Were men so fram'd as they alone
Reap'd all the pleasure, women none,
Then had you reason to be scant;
But 'twere a madnesse not to grant
That which affords (if you consent)
To you the giver, more content,
Than me the begger; Oh then be
Kind to your self, if not to mee;
Starve not your selfe, because you may
Thereby make me pine away;
Nor let brittle beauty make
You your wiser thoughts forsake:
For that lovely face wil fail;
Beautie's sweet, but beautie's frail;
Tis sooner past, tis sooner done
Than Summers rain, or Winters Sun;
Most fleeting when it is most deare;
Tis gone while wee but say tis here.
These curious locks so aptly twin'd,
Whose every hair a soul doth bind,
Will change their abroun hue, and grow
White, and cold as winters snow.
That eye which now is Cupid's nest
Will prove his grave, and all the rest
Will follow; in the cheek; chin, nose,
Nor Lilly shall be found, nor Rose;
And what will then become of all
Those, whom now you servants call?
Like Swallowes when your summers done,
They'l fly, and seek some warmer Sun.
Then wisely chuse one to your friend,
Whose love may (when your beauties end)
Remain still firm: be provident
And think before the summer's spent
Of following winter; like the Ant
In plenty hoord for time of scant.
Cull out amongst the multitude
Of Lovers, that seek to intrude
Into your favour, one that may
Love for an age, not for a day;
One that will quench your youthfull fires,
And feed in age your hot desires.
For when the storms of time have mov'd
Waves on that check which was belov'd,
When a fair Ladies face is pin'd,
And yellow spred where red once shin'd,
When beauty, youth, and all sweets leave her,
Love may return, but Lover never:
And old folkes say there are no paines
Like itch of love in aged veines.
Oh love me then, and now begin it,
Let us not lose this present minute:
For time and age will work that wrack
Which time or age shall ne'r call back.
The snake each year fresh skin resumes,
And Eagles change their aged plumes;
The faded Rose each spring receives
A fresh red tincture on her leaves:
But if your beauties once decay,
You never know a second May.
Oh, then be wise, and whilst your season
Affords you dayes for sport, doe reason;
Spend not in vain your lives short hour,
But crop in time your beauties flower:
Which will away, and doth together
Both bud and fade, both blow and wither.
Lips and Eyes.
IN Celia's face a question did arise
Which were more beautifull, her Lips or Eyes:
Wee (said the Eyes) send forth those poynted darts
Which pierce the hardest adamantine hearts.
From us (reply'd the Lips) proceed those blisses,
Which Lovers reap by kind words, and sweet kisses.
Then wept the Eyes, and from their springs did powr
Of liquid orientall pearl a showr.
Whereat the Lips mov'd with delight and pleasure,
Through a sweet smile unlock'd their pearlie treasure;
And bade Love judge, whether did adde more grace,
Weeping, or smiling, pearles in Celia's face.
A Divine Mistris.
IN Natures peeces still I see
Some errour, that might mended be;
Something my wish could still remove,
Alter or adde; but my fair Love
Was fram'd by hands farr more divine;
For shee hath every beauteous line:
Yet I had been farr happier
Had Nature that made me, made her;
Then likenesse might (that love creates)
Have made her love what now she hates:
Yet I confesse I cannot spare,
From her just shape the smallest hair;
Nor need I beg from all the store
Of heaven, for her one beauty more:
Shee hath too much divinity for me,
You gods teach her some more humanity.
SONG. A Beautifull Mistris.
IF when the sun at noone displayes
His brighter rayes,
Thou but appear,
He then all pale with shame and fear,
Quencheth his light.
Hides his dark brow, flyes from thy sight,
And growes more dim
Compar'd to thee, than stars to him.
If thou but shew thy face again,
When darkenesse doth at midnight raign,
The darkenesse flyes, and light is hurl'd,
Round about the silent world:
So as alike thou driv'st away,
Both light and darkenesse, night and day.
A Cruell Mistris.
WEE read of Kings, and Gods, that kindly took
A pitcher fild with water from the Brook:
But I have daily tendred without thanks
Rivers of teares that over-flow their banks.
A slaughter'd Bull will appease angry love.
A Horse the Sun, a Lamb the God of love:
But she disdaines the spotless sacrifice
Of a pure heart, that at her altar lyes.
Vesta is not displeas'd if her chast urn
Doe with repayred fuell ever burn;
But my Saint frowns, though to her honour'd name
I consecrate a never-dying flame.
Th' Assyrian King did none i'th' furnace throw,
But those that to his Image did not bow;
With bended knees I daily worship her,
Yet she consumes her own Idolater.
Of such a Goddess no times leave record,
That burnt the Temple, where she was ador'd.
SONG. Murdring Beauty.
I'L gaze no more on her bewitching face,
Since ruine harbours there in every place:
For my enchanted soul alike she drowns
With calmes and tempests of her smiles and frowns
I'l love no more those cruell eyes of hers,
Which pleas'd, or anger'd, still are Murderers:
For if she dart (like lightning) through the ayr
Her beames of wrath, she kils me with despair;
If she behold nice with a pleasing eye,
I surfet with excesse of joy, and dye.
My Mistris commanding me to return her letters.
SO grives th'adventrous Merchant, when he throws
All the long-toyld-for treasure his ship stows,
Into the angry main, to save from wrack
Himself and men; as I grieve to give back
These letters: yet so powerfull is your sway,
As if you bid me die, I must obey.
Goe then blest papers, you shall kiss those-hands
That gave you freedome, but hold me in bands;
Which with a touch did give you life, but I,
Because I may not touch those hands, must die.
Me thinks, as if they knew they should be sent
Home to their native soil from banishment,
I see them smile, like dying Saints, that know
They are to leave the earth, and tow'rd heaven goe.
When you return, pray tell your Soveraign,
And mine, I gave you courteous entertain;
Each line receiv'd a tear, and then a kiss,
First bath'd in that, it scap'd unscorch'd from this:
I kist it, because your hand had been there,
But' cause it was not now, I shed a tear.
Tel her no length of time, nor change of ayr,
No cruelty, disdain, absence, dispair,
No nor her stedfast constancie can deterr
My vassall heart from ever hon'ring her.
Though these be powerfull arguments to prove
I love in vaine; yet I must ever love.
Say if she frown when you that word rehearse,
Service in prose, is oft call'd love in verse:
Then pray her, since I send back on my part
Her papers, she will send me back my heart.
If she refuse, warn her to come before
The God of Love, whom thus I will implore.
Trav'ling thy Countries road (great God) I spi'd
By chance this Lady, and walk'd by her side
From place to place, fearing no violence,
For I was well arm'd, and had made defence
In former fights, 'gainst fiercer foes, than shee
Did at our first incounter seeme to be:
But going farther, every step reveal'd
Some hidden weapon, till that time conceal'd.
Seeing those outward armes, I did begin
To fear, some greater strength was lodg'd within.
Looking unto her mind, I might survay
An hoast of beauties that in ambush lay;
And won the day before they fought the field:
For I unable to resist, did yeeld.
But the insulting tyrant so destroyes
My conquer'd mind, my ease, my peace, my joyes;
Breaks my sweet sleeps, invades my harmlesse rest,
Robs mee of all the treasure of my brest;
Spares not my heart, nor yet a greater wrong;
For having stoln my heart, she binds my tongue.
But at the last her melting eyes unseal'd
My lips, enlarg'd my tongue, then I reveal'd
To her own ears the story of my harms
Wrought by her vertues, and her beauties charms.
Now heare (Iust Iudge) an act of savagenesse,
When I complain in hope to find redresse,
She bends her angry brow, and from her eye
Shoots thousand darts, I then well hop'd to die;
But in such soveraign balm, Love dips his shot,
That though they wound a heart, they kill it not;
Shee saw the blood gush forth from many a wound,
Yet fled, and left mee bleeding on the ground,
Nor sought my cure, nor saw me since; 'tis true,
Absence, and time, (two cunning Leeches) drew
The flesh together, yet sure though the skin
Be clos'd without, the wound festers within.
Thus hath this cruell Lady us'd a true
Servant, and subject to her self, and you.
Nor know I (great Love) if my life be lent
To shew thy mercy, or my punishment;
If this enditement fright her, so as shee
Seem willing to return my heart to mee,
But cannot find it, (for perhaps it may,
'Mongst other trifling hearts, be out o'th' way)
If shee repent, and would make me amends,
Bid her but send me hers, and wee are friends.
Secresie protested.
FEar not (dear Love) that I'l reveal
Those houres of pleasure we two steal;
No eye shall see, nor yet the Sun
Descry, what thou and I have done;
No ear shall hear our love, but wee
Silent as the night will be;
The God of love himself (whose dart
Did first wound mine, and then thy heart)
Shall never know, that we can tell,
What sweets in stoln embraces dwell:
This only meanes may find it out,
If when I dy, Physicians doubt
What caus'd my death, and there to view
Of all their judgements which was true'
Rip up my heart, O then I fear
The world will see thy picture there.
A prayer to the Wind.
GOe thou gentle whispering Wind,
Bear this sigh; and if thou find
Where my cruell fair doth rest
Cast it in her snowie brest,
So, enflam'd by my desire,
It may set her heart a-fire:
Those sweet kisses thou shalt gain,
Will reward thee for thy pain.
Boldly light upon her lip,
There suck odours, and thence skip
To her bosome, lastly fall
Down, and wander over all;
Range about those Ivorie hills
From whose every part distils
Amber dew; there spices grow,
There pure streames of Nectar flow;
There perfume thy self, and bring
All those sweets upon thy wing:
As thou return'st, change by thy power
Every weed into a flower,
Turn each Thistle to a Vine,
Make the Bramble Eglantine.
For so rich a bootie made,
Doe but this, and I am paid.
Thou canst with thy powerfull blast,
Heat apace, and coole as fast:
Thou canst kindle hidden flame,
And agen destroy the same:
Then for pity, either stir
Vp the fire of love in her,
That alike both flames may shine,
Or else quite extinguish mine.
Mediocrity in love rejected.
SONG.
GIve me more Love, or more Disdain,
The Torrid, or the Frozen Zone
Bring equall ease unto my paine;
The Temperate affords me none:
Either extreme, of Love, or Hate,
Is sweeter than a calme estate.
Give me a storme; is it be Love,
Like Danae in that golden showr
I swim in pleasure; if it prove
Disdain, that Torrent will devour
My Vulture-hopes; and he's possest
Of Heaven, that's but from Hell releast:
Then crown my joyes, or cure my pain;
Give me more Love, or more—Disdaine.
SONG. Good counsell to a young Maid:
GAze not on thy beauties pride,
Tender Maid; in the false side
That from Lovers eyes doth slide.
Let thy faithfull Chrystall show,
How thy colours come, and goe,
Beautie takes a foyle from woe.
Love, that in those smooth streames lyes;
Vnder pities faire disguise,
Will thy melting heart suprize.
Nets, of passions sinest thred,
Snaring Poems, will be spred,
All, to catch thy maiden-head.
Then beware, for those that cure
Loves disease, themselves endure
For reward a Calenture.
Rather let the Lover pine,
Than his pale cheek should assigne
A perpetuall blush to thine.
TO my Mistris sitting by a Rivers side.
AN EDDY.
MArk how yond Eddy steals away,
From the rude stream into the Bay,
There lock'd up safe, she doth divorce
Her waters from the chanels course,
And scorns the Torrent, that did bring
Her head long from her native spring.
Now doth she with her new love play,
Whilst hee runs murmuring away.
Mark how shee courts the banks, whilst they
As amorously their arms display,
T'embrace, and clip her silver waves:
See how shee strokes their sides, and craves
An entrance there, which they deny;
Whereat shee frowns, threatning to fly
Home to her stream, and 'gins to swim
Backward, but from the chanels brim,
Smiling, returns into the creek,
With thousand dimples on her cheek.
Be thou this Eddy, and I'l make
My breast thy shore, where thou shalt take
Secure repose, and never dream
Of the quite forsaken stream:
Let him to the wide Ocean haste,
There lose his colour, name, and tast;
Thou shalt save all, and safe from him,
Within these arms for ever swim.
SONG. Conquest by flight.
LAdies, fly from Love's smooth tale,
Oaths steep'd in tears do oft prevail;
Grief is infectious, and the ayr
Enflam'd with sighes, will blast the fayr:
Then stop your cares, when Lovers cry,
Lest your self weep, when no soft eye
Shall with a sorrowing tear repay
That pitty which you cast away.
Young men fly, when beauty darts
Amorous glances at your hearts:
The fixt mark gives the shooter aym;
And Ladies lookes have power to maym.
Now'twixt their lips, now in their eyes,
Wrapt in a smile, or kisse, Love lyes;
Then fly betimes, for only they
Conquer love that run away.
SONG. To my inconstant Mistris.
WHen thou, poore excommunicate
From all the joyes of love, shalt soe
The full reward, and glorious fate,
Which my strong faith shall purchase me,
Then curse thine owne inconstancy.
A fayrer band than thine, shall cure
That heart, which thy false oathes did wound;
And to my soul, a soul more pure
Than thine, shall by Loves hand be bound,
And both with equall glory crown'd.
Then shalt thou weepe, entreat, complain
To Love, as I did once to thee;
When all thy teares shall be as vain
As mine were then, for thou shalt bee
Damn'd for thy false Apostasie,
SONG Perswasions to enjoy.
IF the quick spirits in your eye
Now languish, and anon must dye;
If every sweet, and every grace,
Must fly from that forsaken face:
Then (Celia) let us reap our joyes,
E'r time such goodly fruit destroyes.
Or, if that golden fleece must grow
For ever, free from aged snow;
If those bright Suns must know no shade,
Nor your fresh beauties ever fade;
Then feare not (Celia) to bestow,
What still being gather'd still must grow.
Thus, either Time his Sickle brings
In vain, or else in vain his wings.
A deposition from love.
I Was foretold, your rebell sex,
Nor love, nor pitty knew;
And with what scorn you use to vex
Poor hearts that humbly sue;
Yet I believ'd, to crown our pain,
Could we the fortress win,
The happy Lover sure should gain
A Paradise within:
I thought Loves plagues, like Dragons sate,
Only to fright us at the gate.
But I did enter, and enjoy
What happy Lovers prove;
For I could kiss, and sport, and toy,
And taste those sweets of love;
Which had they but a lasting state,
Or if in Celia's brest
The force of love might not abate,
love were too mean a guest.
But now her breach of faith, farre more
Afflicts, than did her scorn before.
Hard fate! to have been once possest,
As victor, of aheart
Atchiev'd with labour, and unrest,
And then forc'd to depart.
If the stout Foe will not resigne
When I besiege a Town,
I lose, but what was never mine;
But he that is cast down
From enjoy'd beauty, feels a woe,
Only deposed Kings can know.
Ingratefull beauty threatned,
KNow Celia, (since thou art so proud,)
'Twas I that gave thee thy renown:
Thou hadst, in the forgotten crowd
Of common beauties, liv'd unknown,
Had not my verse exhal'd thy name,
And with it ympt the wings of fame.
That killing power is none of thine,
I gave it to thy voyce, and eyes:
Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine;
Thou art my star, shin'st in my skies;
Then dart not from thy borrowed sphere
Lightning on him that fixt thee there.
Tempt me with such affrights no more,
Left what I made, I uncreate:
Let fools thy mystique forms adore,
Ile know thee in thy mortall state;
Wise Poets that wrap'd Truth in tales,
Knew her themselves through all her vailes.
Disdain returned.
HEe that loves a Rosie cheek,
Or a Corall lip admires,
Or from Star-like eyes doth seek
Fuell to maintain his fires;
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.
But a smooth and stedfast mind
Gentle thoughts, and calm desires,
Hearts with equall love combind,
Kindle never dying fires.
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks, or lips, or eyes.
No teares, Celia, now shall win,
My resolv'd heart, to return;
I have search'd thy soul within,
And find nought, but pride, and-scorn;
I have learn'd thy arts, and now
Can disdain as much as thou.
Some power, in my revenge convey
That love to her, I cast away.
A Looking-glass.
THat flattring Glass, whose smooth face weares
Your shadow, which a Sun appeares,
Was once a river of my teares.
About your cold heart they did make
A circle, where the brinie lake
Congeal'd into a crystall cake.
Gaze no more on that killing eye,
For fear the native cruelty
Doom you, as it doth all, to dye.
For fear lest the fair object move
Your froward heart to fall in love,
Then you your self my rivall prove.
Look rather on my pale cheeks pin'd,
There view your beauties, there you'l find
A fair face, but a cruell mind.
Be not for ever frozen, coy,
One beam of love will soon destroy,
And melt that yce, to flouds of joy.
An Elegie on the La: PEN: sent to my Mistress out of France.
LEt him, who from his tyrant Mistress did
This day receive his cruell doom, forbid
His eyes to weep that loss, and let him here
Open those floud-gates, to bedeaw this beer;
So shall those drops, which else would be but brine,
Be turn'd to Manna, falling on her shrine.
Let him, who banisht far from her dear sight
Whom his soul loves, doth in that absence write,
Or lines of passion, or some powerfull charms,
To vent his own grief, or unlock her arms,
Take off his pen, and in sad verse bemone
This generall sorrow, and forget his own;
So many those Verses live, which else mustdye:
For though the Muses give eternity,
When they embalm with verse, yet she could give
Life unto that Muse, by which others live.
Oh pardon me (fair soul) that boldly have
Dropt though but one tear, on thy silent grave;
And writ on that earth, which such honour had,
To cloath that flesh wherein thy self was clad.
And pardon me (sweet Saint) whom I adore,
That I this tribute pay out of the store
Of lines, and tears, thats only due to thee;
Oh, doe not think it new Idolatry;
Though you are only soveraign of this Land,
Yet universall losses may command
A subsidie from every private eye,
And press each pen to write, so to supply,
And feed the common grief; if this excuse
Prevail not, take these tears to your own use,
As shed for you; for when I saw her dye,
I then did think on your mortality;
For since nor vertue, witt, nor beauty, could
Preserve from Death's hand, this their heavenly mould,
Where they were framed all, and where they dwelt,
I then knew you must dye too, and did melt
Into these tears: but thinking on that day,
And when the gods resolv'd to take away
A Saint from us, I that did know what dearth
There was of such good souls upon the earth,
Began to fear lest Death, their Officer,
Might have mistook, and taken thee for her;
So had'st thou rob'd us of that happiness
Which she in heaven, and I in thee possess.
But what can heaven to her glory adde?
The prayses she hath dead, living she had.
To say she's now an Angell, is no more
Praise than she had, for shee was one before;
Which of the Saints can shew more votaries
Than shee had here? even those that did despise
The Angels, and may her now she is one,
Did, whilst she liv'd, with pure devotion
Adore, and worship her; her vertues had
All honour here, for this world was too bad
To hate, or envy her; these cannot rise
So high, as to repine at Deities:
But now she's 'mongst her fellow Saints, they may
Be good enough to envy her, this way
There's loss i'th' change 'twixt heav'n and earth, if she
Should leave her servants here below, to be
Hated of her competitors above;
But sure her matchlesse goodness needs must move
Those blest soules to admire her excellence;
By this meanes only can her journey hence
To heaven prove gain, if as she was but here,
Worship'd by men, she be by Angels there.
But I must weep no more over this urn
My teares to their own chanell must return;
And having ended these sad obsequies,
My Muse must back to her old exercise,
To tell the story of my martyrdome.
But oh thou Idoll of my soul, become
Once pitiful, that she may change her stile,
Dry up her blubbred eyes, and learn to smile.
Rest then blest soul; for as ghosts fly away,
When the shrill Cock proclames the infant-day;
So must I hence, for loe I see from farre,
The minions of the Muses coming are,
Each of them bringing to thy sacred Herse,
In either eye a tear, each hand a Verse.
To my Mistris in absence.
THough I must live here, and by force
Of your command suffer divorce;
Though I am parted, yet my mind,
(That's more my self) still stayes behind;
I breath in you, you keep my heart;
'Twas but a carkasse that did part.
Then though our bodies are dis-joynd,
As things that are to place confin'd;
Yet let our boundless spirits meet,
And in loves sphere each other greet;
There let us work a mystique wreath,
Vnknown unto the world beneath;
There let our claspt loves sweetly twine;
There let our secret thoughts unseen,
Like nets be weav'd, and inter-twin'd,
Wherewith wee catch each others mind:
There whilst our souls doe sit and kiss,
Tasting a sweet, and subtle bliss,
(Such as gross lovers cannot know,
Whose hands, and lips, meet here below;)
Let us look down, and mark what pain
Our absent bodies here sustain,
And smile to see how far away
The one doth from the other stray;
Yet burn, and languish with desire
To joyn, and quench their mutuall fire
There let us joy to see from farre,
Our emulous flames at loving warre,
Whilst both with equall luster shine,
Mine bright as yours, yours bright as mine.
There seated in those heavenly bowers,
Wee'l cheat the lag, and lingring houres,
Making our bitter absence sweet,
Till souls, and bodies both, may meet,
To her in absence. A SHIP.
TOst in a troubled sea of griefs, I float
Far from the shore, in a storm-beaten boat,
Where my sad thoughts doe (like the compass) show
The severall points from which cross winds do blow.
My heart doth like the needle toucht with love,
Still fixt on you, point which way I would move.
You are the bright Pole-star, which in the dark
Of this long absence, guides my wandring bark.
Love is the Pilot, but o'r-come with fear
Of your displeasure, dares not home-wards stear;
My fearfull hope hangs on my trembling sayl;
Nothing is wanting but a gentle gale,
Which pleasant breath must blow from your sweet lip.
Bid it but move, and quick as thought, this Ship
Into your armes, which are my port, will flye,
Where it for ever shall at Anchor lye.
SONG. Eternity of Love protested.
HOw ill doth be deserve a Lovers name,
Whose pale weak flame
Cannot retain
His heat in spight of absence or disdain;
But doth at once, like paper set on fire,
Burn and expire;
True love can never change his seat,
Nor did he ever love, that could retreat.
That noble Flame, which my brest keeps alive
Shall still survive,
When my soule's fled;
Nor shall my love dye, when my hodye's dead,
That shall wait on me to the lower shade,
And never fade
My very ashes in their urn,
Shall, like a hallowed Lamp, for ever burn.
Vpon some alterations in my Mistresse, after my departure into France.
OH gentle Love, doe not forsake the guide
Of my frail Bark, on which the swelling tide
Of ruthlesse pride
Doth beat, and threaten wrack from every side.
Gulfes of disdain doe gape to overwhelm
This boat, nigh sunk with grief, whilst at the helm
Dispair commands;
And round about, the shifting sands
Of faithless love, and false inconstancy,
With rocks of cruelty,
Stop up my passage to the neighbour Lands.
My sighs have rais'd those winds, whose fury bears
My sayls o'r-boord, and in their place spreads tears,
And from my tears
This sea is sprung, where nought but Death appears;
A mystie cloud of anger hides the light
Of my fair star, and every where black night
Vsurpes the place
Of those bright rayes, which once did grace
My forth bound Ship, but when it could no more
Behold the vanisht shore,
In the deep flood she drown'd her beamy face.
Good counsell to a young Maid.
WHen you the Sun-burnt Pilgrim see,
Fainting with thirst, haste to the springs;
Mark how at first with bended knee
He courts the crystall Nymphs, and fling,
His body to the earth, where He
Prostrate, adores the flowing Deitie.
But when this sweaty face is drencht
In her cool waves, when from her sweet
Bosome his burning thirst is quencht;
Then mark how with disdainfull feet
He kicks her banks, and from the place
That thus refresht him, moves with sullen pace.
So shalt thou be despis'd, fair Maid,
When by the sated lover tasted;
What first he did with tears invade,
Shall afterwards with scorn be wasted;
When all thy Virgin- springs grow dry,
When no streams shall be left, but in thine eye.
Celia bleeding, to the Surgeon
FOnd man, that canst beleeve her blood
Will from those purple chanels flow;
Or that the pure untainted flood,
Can any foul distemper know;
Or that thy weak steel can incize
The Crystall case, wherein it lyes.
Know; her quick blood, proud of his seat,
Runs dancing through her azure veins;
Whose harmony no cold, nor heat
Disturbs, whose hue no tincture stains;
And the hard rock wherein it dwels,
The keenest darts of Love repels.
But thou reply'st, behold she bleeds;
Fool, thou'rt deceiv'd, and dost not know
The mystique knot whence this proceeds,
How Lovers in each other grow;
Thou struckst her arme, but 'twas my heart
Shed all the blood, felt all the smart.
To T. H. a Lady resembling my Mistresse.
FAire copie of my Celia's face,
Twin of my soul, thy perfect grace
Clayms in my love an equall place.
Disdain not a divided heart,
Though all be hers, you shall have part;
Love is not ty'd to rules of art.
For as my soul first to her flew,
Yet stay'd with me; so now 'tis true
It dwels with her, though fled to you.
Then entertain this wandring guest,
And if not love, allow it rest;
It left not, but mistook the nest.
Nor think my love, or your fair eyes
Cheaper, 'cause from the sympathize
You hold with her, these flames arise.
To Lead, or Brass, or some such bad
Metall, a Princes stamp may adde
That valew, which it never had.
But to the pure refined Ore,
The stamp of Kings imparts no more
Worth, than the metall held before.
Only the Image gives the rate
To Subjects, in a forrain State
Tis priz'd as much for its owne weight.
So though all other hearts resigne
To your pure worth, yet you have mine
Only because you are her coyn.
To Saxham
THough frost, and snow, lock'd from mine eyes
That beauty which without dore lyes,
The gardens, orchards, walks, that so
I might not all thy pleasures know;
Yet (Saxham) thou within thy gate,
Art of thy self so delicate,
So full of native sweets, that bless
Thy roof with inward happiness;
As neither from, nor to thy store,
Winter takes ought, or Spring adds more.
The cold and frozen ayr had sterv'd
Much poore, if not by thee preferv'd;
Whose prayers have made thy Table blest
With plenty, far above the rest.
The season hardly did afford
Corse cates unto thy neighbours board,
Yet thou hadst dainties, as the sky
Had only been thy Vokirie;
Or else the birds, fearing the snow
Might to another deluge grow,
The Pheasant, Partridge, and the Lark,
Flew to thy house, as to the Ark.
The willing Oxe, of himself came
Home to the slaughter, with the Lamb,
And every beast did thither bring
Himself, to be an offering.
The scalie herd, more pleasure took
Bath'd in thy dish, than in the brook.
Water, Earth, Ayre, did all conspire,
To pay their tributes to thy fire,
Whose cherishing flames themselves divide
Through every room, where they deride
The night, and cold abroad; whilst they
Like Suns within, keep endlesse day.
Those chearfull beams send forth their light,
To all that wander in the night,
And seem to be cken from aloof,
The weary Pilgrim to thy roof;
Where it refresh't, he will away,
He's fairly welcome, or if stay
Far more, which he shall hearty find,
Both from the master, and the Hind.
The stranger's welcome, each man there
Stamp'd on his chearfull brow, doth wear;
Nor doth this welcome, or his cheer
Grow lesse, cause he stayes longer here
There's none observes (much less repines)
How often this man sups or dines.
Thou hast no Porter at the door
T'examin, or keep back the poor;
Nor locks, nor bolts; thy gates have been
Made only to let strangers in;
Untaught to shut, they doe not fear
To stand wide open all the year;
Careless who enters, for they know,
Thou never didst deserve a foe;
And as for theeves, thy bounti's such,
They cannot steal, thou giv'st so much.
Vpon a Ribband.
THis silken wreath, which circles in mine arm,
Is but an Emblem of that mistique charm,
Wherewith the magique of your beauties binds
My captive soul, and round about it winds
Fetters of lasting love; This hath intwin'd
My flesh alone, that hath empal'd my mind:
Time may wear out These soft weak bands; but Those
Strong cheins of brass, Fate shall not discompose.
This only relique may preserve my wrist,
But my whole frame doth by That power subsist:
To That my prayers and sacrifice, to This
I only pay a superstitious kiss:
This but the I doll, That's the Deitie;
Religion There is due, Here ceremonie.
That I receive by faith, This but in trust;
Here I may tender dutie, There I must:
This order as a Lay-man I may bear,
But I become Loves Priest when That I wear.
This moves like ayr,; That as the Center stands;
That knot your vertue tyde, This but your hands;
That Nature fram'd, but This was made by Art;
This makes my arm your prisoner, That my heart.
To the King at his entrance into Saxham, by Master Io: Crofts.
SIR
Ere you passe this threshold, stay,
And give your Creature leave to pay
Those pious rites, which unto you,
As to our houshold Gods, are due.
In stead of sacrifice, each brest
Is like a flaming Altar drest
With zealous fires, which from pure hearts
Love mixt with Loyalty imparts.
Incense, nor gold have we, yet bring
As rich, and sweet an offering;
And such as doth both these expresse,
Which is our humble thankfulness;
By which is paid the All we owe
To gods above, or men below.
The slaughter'd beast, whose flesh should feed
The hungry flames, we, for pure need,
Dress for your supper, and the gore
Which should be dasht on every dore,
We change into the lusty blood
Of youthfull Vines, of which a flood
Shall sprightly run through all your veines,
First to your health, then your fair traines.
We shall want nothing but good fare,
To shew your welcome, and our care;
Such rarities that come from farre,
From poore mens houses banisht are;
Yet wee'l express in homely chear,
How glad we are to see you here.
Wee'l have what e'r the season yeelds,
Out of the neighbouring woods, and fields;
For all the dainties of your board,
Will only be what those afford;
And having supt, we may perchance
Present you with a countrey dance.
Thus much your servants, that bear sway
Here in your absence, bade me say,
And beg besides, you'ld hither bring
Only the Mercy of a King,
And not the Greatnesse; since they have
A thousand faults must pardon crave;
But nothing that is fit to wait
Vpon the glory of your state.
Yet your gracious favour will,
They hope, as heretofore, shine still
'On their endeavours, for they swore
Should love defcend, they could no more.
Vpon the sickness of (E. S.)
MUst she then languish, and we sorrow thus
And no kind God help her, nor pitty us?
Is justice fled from heaven? can that permit
A foule deformed ravisher to sit
Upon her Virgin cheek, and pull from thence
The Rose-buds in their maiden excellence?
To spread cold paleness on her lips, and chase
The frighted Rubies from their native place?
To lick up with his searching flames, a flood
Of dissolv'd Corall, flowing in her blood;
And with the damps of his infectious breath,
Print on her-brow moist characters of death?
Must the clear light, gainst course of nature cease
In her fair eyes, and yet the flames encrease?
Must feavers shake this goodly tree, and all
That ripened fruit from the fair branches fall,
Which Prince's have desir'd to taste? must shee
Who hath preserv'd her spotlest chastity
From all solicitation, now at last
By Agues, and diseases be embrac'd?
Forbid it holy Dian; else who shall
Pay vowes, or let one grain of Incense fall
On thy neglected Altars, if thou bless
No better this thy zealous Votaress?
Haste then, O maiden Goddess, to her ayd,
Let on thy quiver her pale cheek be laid;
And rock her fainting body in thine arms;
Then let the God of Musick, with still charms
Her restlesse eyes in peacefull slumbers close,
And with soft strains sweeten her calm repose.
Cupid descend; and whilst Apollo sings,
Fanning the cool ayr with thy panting wings
Ever supply her with refreshing wind;
Let thy fair mother, with her tresses bind
Her labouring temples, with whose balmy sweat,
She shall prefume her hairie Coronet,
Whose precious drops, shall upon every fold
Hang, like rich Pearls about a wreath of gold;
Her looser locks, as they unbraded lye,
Shall spread themselves into a Canopie,
Under whose shadow let her rest secure
From chilling cold, or burning Calenture;
Vnlesse she freeze withyce of chaste desires,
Only holy Hymen kindle nuptiall fires.
And when at last Death comes to pierce her heart,
Convey into his hand thy golden dart.
A New-yeares sacrifice. To Lucinda.
THose that can give, open their hands this day,
Those that cannot, yet hold them up to pray;
That health may crown the seasons of this year,
And mirth dance round the circle, that no tear
(Vnless of Ioy) may with its briny dew,
Discolour on your cheek the rosie hue;
That no accesse of years presume to abate,
Your beauties ever-flourishing estate:
Such cheap and vulgar wishes, I could lay,
As triviall offrings at your feet this day;
But that it were Apostasie in me,
To send a prayer to any Deitie
But your divine self, who have power to give
Those blessings unto others, such as live
Like me, by the sole influence of your eyes,
Whose fair aspects govern our destinies.
Such Incense, vowes, and holy rites, as were
To the involved Serpent of the yeare,
Paid by Egyptian Priests, lay I before
Lucinda'S sacred shrine, whilst I adore
Her beauteous eyes, and her pure Altars dress;
With gums and spice of humble Thankfulness;
So may my Goddess from her heaven inspire
My frozen bosome with a Delphique fire,
And then the world shall by that glorious flame,
Behold the blaze of thy immortall name.
SONG.
To one, who when I prais'd my Mistris beauty, said I was blind.
VVOnder not though I am blind,
For you must be
Dark in your eyes, or in your mind,
If when you see
Her face, you prove not blind like me;
If the powerfull beams that fly
From her eye
And those amorous sweets that lye
Scatter'd in each neighbouring part,
Find a passage to your heart,
Then you'l confess your mortall sight
Too weak for such a glorious light:
For if her graces you discover,
You grow like me a dazel'd Lover;
But if those beauties you not spy,
Then are you blinder farre than I.
SONG. To my Mistris, I burning in love.
I Burn, and cruell you, in vain
Hope to quench me with disdain;
If from your eyes, those sparkles came,
That have kindled all this flame,
What boots it me, though now you shrowd
Those fierce Comets in a cloud?
Since all the flames that I have felt,
Could your snow yet never melt,
Nor, can your snow (though you should take
Alps into your bosome) slake
The heat of my enamour'd heart;
But with wonder learn Loves art
No seas of yce can cool desire,
Equall flames must quench Loves fire;
Then think not that my heat can dye
Till you burn as wel as I.
SONG. To her again, she burning in a Feaver.
NOw she burns as well as I,
Yet my heat can never dye;
She burns that never knew desire,
She that was yce, she that was fire.
She whose cold heart, chaste thoughts did arm
So, as Loves flames could never warm
The frozen bosome where it dwelt,
She burns, and all her beauties mild:
She burnes, and cryes, Loves fires are melt,
Feavers are Gods, He's a child.
Love; let her know the difference
Twixt the heat of soul and sense,
Touch her with thy flames divine,
So shalt thou quench her fire, and mine.
Vpon the Kings sicknesse.
SIcknesse, the minister of death, doth lay
So strong a siege against our brittle clay,
As whilst it doth our weak forts singly win,
It hopes at length to take all man-kind in.
First, it begins upon the womb to wait,
And doth the unborn child there uncreate;
Then rocks the cradle where the infant lyes,
Where ere it fully be alive, it dyes.
It never leaves fond youth, untill it have
Found, or an early, or a later grave.
By thousand subtle sleights from heedless man
It cuts the short allowance of a span;
And where both sober life, and art combine
To keep it out, Age makes them both resigne.
Thus by degrees it only gain'd of late,
The weak, the aged, or intemperate;
But now the Tyrant hath found out a way
By which the sober, strong, and young, decay,
Entring his royall limbs that is our head,
Through us his mystique limbs the pain is spread.
That man that doth not feel his part, hath none
In any part of his dominion,
If he hold land, that earth is forfeited,
And he unfit on any ground to tread.
This grief is felt at Court, where it doth move
Through every joynt, like the true soul of love.
All those fair stars that do attend on Him,
Whence they deriv'd their light, wax pale and dim.
That ruddy morning beam of Majestie,
Which should the Sun's ecclipsed light supply,
Is over-cast with mysts, and in the lieu
Of cheerfull rayes sends us down drops of dew.
That curious form made of an earth refin'd,
At whose blest birth, the gentle Planets shin'd
With fair aspects, and sent a glorious flame
To animate so beautifull a frame;
That Darling of the Gods and men, doth wear
A cloud on's brow, and in his eye a tear:
And all the rest (save when his dread command
Doth bid them move) like liveless statues stand.
So full a grief, so generally worn,
Shewes a good King is sick, and good men mourn.
SONG. To a Lady not yet enjoy'd by her Husband.
COme Celia, fix thine eyes on mine,
And through those Crystals our souls flitting,
Shall a pure wreath of eye-beams twine,
Our loving hearts together knitting.
Let Eaglets the bright Sun survey,
Though the blind Mole discern not day.
When cleer Aurora leaves her mate,
The light of her gray eyes despising,
Yet all the world doth celebrate,
with sacrifice, her fair up-rising.
Let Eaglets, &c.
A Dragon kept the golden fruit,
Yet he those dainties never tasted,
As others pin'd in the pursute
So he himself with plenty wasted.
Let Eaglets, &c.
SONG. The willing Prisoner to his Mistris.
LEt fools great Cupids yoak disdain,
Loving their own wild freedome better;
Whilst proud of my triumphant chain
I sit, and court my beauteous fetter.
Her murdring glances, snaring hairs,
And her bewitching smiles, so please me,
As he brings ruin, that repairs
The sweet afflictions that disease me.
Hide not those panting bals of snow
with envious veyls from my beholding;
Vnlock those lips, their pearly row
In a sweet smile of love unfolding.
And let those eyes, whose motion wheels
The restlesse Fate of every Lover,
Survey the pains my sick heart feels,
And wounds themselves have made, discover.
A Fly that flew into my Mistris her eye.
VVHen this Fly liv'd, she us'd to play
In the Sun-shine all the day;
Till comming neer my Celia's fight,
She found a new, and unknown light,
So full of glory, as it made
The noon-day Sun a gloomy shade;
Then this amorous Fly became
My rivall, and did court my flame.
She did from hand to bosome skip,
And from her breath, her cheek and lip,
Suck'd all the incense, and the spice,
And grew a bird of Paradise:
At last into her eye she flew,
There scorch'd in flames, and drown'd in dew,
Like Phaeton from the Sun's sphere
She fell, and with her dropt a tear,
Of which a pearl was straight compos'd,
Wherein her ashes lye enclos'd.
Thus she receiv'd from Celia's eye,
Funereall flame, tombe Obsequie.
SONG. Celia singing
HEark how my Celia, with the choyce
Musick of her hand and voyce
Stils the loud wind; and makes the wild
Insenced Bore, and Panther mild:
Mark how those statues like men move,
Whilst men with wonder statues prove!
This stiff rock bends to worship her,
That Idoll turns Idolater.
Now see how all the new inspir'd
Images, with love are fir'd;
Heark how the tender Marble grones,
And all the late-transformed stones,
Court the fayr Nymph with many a tear,
Which she (more stony than they were)
Beholds with unrelenting mind;
Whilst they amaz'd to see combin'd
Such matchlesse beauty with disdain,
Are all turn'd into stones again.
SONG.
Celia singing.
YOu that think Love can convey,
No other way,
But through the eyes, into the heart,
His fatall Dart,
Close up those casements, and but hear
This Syrensing,
And on the wing
Of her sweet voyce, it shall appear
That Love can enter at the eare:
Then unveil your eyes, behold
The curious mould
where that voyce dwels, and as we know,
when the Cocks crow,
Wee freely may
Gaze on the day:
So may you, when the Mufick's done,
Awake and see the rising sun.
SONG. To one that desired to know my Mistris.
SEck not to know my love, for she
Hath vow'd her constant faith to me;
Her mild aspects are mine, and thou
Shalt only find a stormy brow:
For if her beauty stirre desire
In me, her kisses quench the fire;
Or, I can to Love's fountain goe,
Or dwell upon her hils of snow;
But 'when thou burn'st, she shall not spare
One gentle breath to coole the ayr;
Thou shalt not climbe those Alps, nor spy
Where the sweet springs of Venus lye.
Search hidden nature, and there find
A treasure to inrich thy mind;
Discover Arts not yet revel'd,
But let my Mistris live conceal'd
Though men by knowledge wiser grow,
Yet here'tis wisedome not to know.
In the person of a Lady to her inconstant servant.
WHen on the Altar of my hand,
(Bedew'd with many a kiss, and tear,)
Thy now revolted heart did stand
An humble Martyr, thou didst swear
Thus, (and the God of love did hear,)
By those bright glances of thine eye,
Vnlesse thou pitty me, I dye.
When first those perjur'd lips of thine,
Bepal'd with blasting sighes, did seal
Their violated faith on mine,
From the soft bosome that did heal
Thee, thou my melting heart didst steal;
My soul enflam'd with thy false breath,
Poyson'd with kisses, suck'd in death.
Yet I nor hand, nor lip will move,
Revenge, or mercy, to procure
From the offended God of love;
My curse is fatall, and my pure
Love shall beyond thy scorn endure:
If I implore the Gods, they'l find
Thee too ingratefull, me too kind.
Truce in Love entreated.
NO more, blind God, for see my heart
Is made thy Quiver, where remains
No voyd place for another Dart;
And alas that conquest gains
Small prayse, that only brings away
A tame and unresisting prey.
Behold a nobler foe, all arm'd,
Defies thy weak Artillery,
That hath thy Bow and Quiver charm'd,
A rebell beauty, conquering Thee:
If thou dar'st equall combat try,
Wound her, for tis for her I dye.
To my Rivall.
HEnce vain Intruder, haste away,
Wash not with thy vnhallowed brine
The foor-steps of my Celia's shrine;
Nor on her purer Altars lay
Thy empty words, accents that may
Some looser Dame to love encline;
She must have offrings more divine;
Such pearly drops, as youthfull May
Scatters before the rising day;
Such smooth soft language, as each line
Might stroak an angry God, or stay
Iove's thunder, make the hearers pine
With envy; doe this, thou shalt be
Servant to her, Rivall with me.
Boldnesse in love.
MArk how the bashfull Morn in vain
Courts the amorous Marigold,
With sighing blasts, and weeping rain;
Yet she refuses to unfold:
But when the Planet of the day,
Approacheth with his powerfull ray,
Then she spreads, then she receives
His warmer beams into her virgin leaves.
So shalt thou thrive in love, fond Boy;
If thy tears and sighes discover
Thy griefe, thou never shalt enjoy
The just reward of a bold Lover:
But when with moving accents thou
Shalt constant faith, and service vow,
Thy Celia shall receive those charms
With open eares, and with unfolded arms.
A Pastorall Dialogue. Celia. Cleon.
AS Celia rested in the shade
With Cleon by her side,
The Swain thus courted the young Maid,
And thus the Nymph repli'd
CL.
Sweet! let thy Captive fetrers wear
Made of thine arms, and hands;
Till such as thraldom scorn, of fear,
Envie those happy bands.
CE.
Then thus my willing arms I wind
About thee, and am so
Thy pris'ner; for my self I bind,
Vntill I let thee go.
CL.
Happy that slave, whom the fair foe
Tyes in so soft a chain,
CE.
Farre happier I, but that I know
Thou wilt break loose again,
CL.
By thy immortall beauties never,
CE.
Frail as thy love's thine oath.
CL.
Though beauty fade, my faith lasts ever.
CE.
Time will destroy them both.
CL.
I dote not on thy snow-white skin.
CE.
What then?
CL.
Thy purer mind.
CE.
It lov'd too soon.
CL.
Thou hadst not been
So fair, if not so kind.
CE.
Oh strange vaine fancy!
CL.
But yet true.
CE.
Prove it,
CL.
Then make brade
Of those loose flames that circle you,
My sun, and yet your shade.
CE.
'Tis done.
CL.
Now give it me.
CE.
Thus thou
Shalt thine own errour find,
If these were beauties, I am now
Lesse fair, because more kind.
CL.
You shall confess you erre; that hair
Shal it not change the hue,
Or leave the golden mountain bare?
CE.
Ay me! it is too true
CL.
But this small wreath, shall ever stay
In its first native prime,
And smiling when the rest decay,
The triumphs sing of time.
CE
Then let me cut from thy fair grove,
One branch, and let that be
An emblem of eternall love;
For such is mine to thee.
CL
Thus are we both redeem'd from time,
I by thy grace.
CE.
And I
Shall live in thy immortall rime,
Vntill the Muses dye.
CL
By heaven!
CE.
Swear not; if I must weep,
Iove shall not smile at me.
This kiss, my heart, and thy faith keep.
CL.
This breathes my soul to thee.
Then forth the thicket Thirsis rush'd,
Where he saw all their play:
The swain stood still, and smil'd, and blush'd,
The Nymph fled fast away.
Griefe ingrost.
WHerfore doe thy sad numbers flow
So full of woe?
Why dost thou melt in such soft strains,
Whilst she disdains
If She must still deny,
Weep not, but dye,
And in thy Funerall fire,
Shall all her fame expire:
Thus both shall perish, and as thou on thy Heause
Shalt want her tears, so she shall want thy Verse.
Repine not then at thy blest state,
Thou art above thy fate;
But my fair Celia will not give
Love enough to make me live;
Nor yet dart from her eye
Scorn enough to make me dye.
Then let me weep alone, till her kind breath,
Or blow my tears away, or speak my death,
A Pastorall Dialogue. Shepherd, Nymph, Chorus.
SHep.
This mossie bank they prest.
Ny.
That aged oak
Did canopie the happy payr
All night from the damp ayre.
Cho.
Here let us sit and sing the words they spoke,
Till the day breaking their embraces broke.
Shep
See love, the blushes of the morn appear
And now she hangs her pearly store
(Rob'd from the Eastern shore)
I'th' Couslips bell, and Roses rare:
Sweet, I must stay no longer here.
Nymph.
Those streaks of doubtfull light usher not day,
But shew my sun must set; no Morn
Shall shine till thou return;
The yellow Planets, and the gray
Dawn, shall attend thee on thy way
Shep
If thine eyes gild my paths, they may for bear
Their useless shine.
Nymph.
My tears will quite
Extinguish their faint light.
She.
Those drops will make their beams more clear,
Love's flames will shine in every tear.
Cho
They kist, and wept, and from their lips, and eyes,
In a mixt dew of briny sweet,
Their joys, and sorrows meet;
But she cryes out.
Nymph.
Shepherd arise,
The Sun betrays us else to spies.
Shep.
The winged houres fly fast, whilst we embrace,
But when we want their help to meet,
They move with leaden feet.
Nym.
Then let us pinion Time, and chase
The day for ever from this place.
Shep
Harke:
Ny.
Aye me stay!
She.
For ever.
Ny.
No, arise,
We must be gone.
Shep.
My nest of spice.
Nym
my soul.
Shep
My Paradise.
cho.
Neither could say fare-well, but through their eyes
Griefe interrupted speech with tears supplies.
Red and white Roses
REad in these Roses, the sad story
Of my hard fate, and your own glory:
In the White you may discover
The paleness of a fainting Lover;
In the Red, the flames still feeding
On my heart with fresh wounds bleeding.
The White will tell you how I languish,
And the Red express my anguish.
The White my innocence displaying,
The Red my marty'rdome betraying.
The frowns that on your brow resided,
Have those Roses thus divided.
Oh let your smiles but clear the weather,
And then they both shall grow together.
To my Cousin (C. R.) marrying my Lady (A.)
HAppy Youth, that shalt possess
Such a spring-tyde of delight,
As the sated Appetite
Shall enjoying such excess
With the flood of pleasure less.
When the Hymeneall Rite
Is perform'd, invoke the night,
That it may in shadowes dress
Thy too reall happiness;
Else (as Semele) the bright,
Deitie in her full hight
May thy feeble soul oppress.
Strong perfumes, and glaring light,
Oft destroy both smell, and sight.
A Lover upon an Accident necessitating his departure, Consults with reason.
LOVER.
WEep not, nor backward turn your beams
Fond eyes; sad sighes lock in your breath;
Lest on this wind, or in those streams,
My griev'd soul fly, or sayl to death.
Fortune destroyes me if I stay,
Love kils me if I goe away:
Since Love, and Fortune, both are blind,
Come Reason, and resolve my doubtfull mind.
REASON.
Fly, and blind Fortune be thy guide,
And 'gainst the blinder God rebell,
Thy love-sick heart shall not reside
Where scorn, and selfe-will'd error dwell;
Where entrance unto Truth is bar'rd;
Where Love and Faith find no reward;
For, my just hand may sometime move
The wheel of Fortune, not the sphere of Love.
Parting, Celia weeps.
WEep not (my dear) for I shall goe
Loaden enough with mine own woe;
Add not thy heaviness to mine:
Since Fate our pleasures must dis-joyn,
Why should our sorrowes meet? if I
Must goe, and lose thy company,
I wish not theirs; it shall relieve
My grief, to think thou dost not grieve.
Yet grieve, and weep, that I may bear
Every sigh, and every tear,
Away with me, so shall thy brest
And eyes discharg'd, enjoy their rest.
And it will glad my heart to see,
Thou wert thus loath to part with me.
A Rapture.
I Will enjoy thee nosy my Celia, come
And fly with me to Love's Elizium:
The Gyant, Honour, that keeps cowards out,
Is but a Masquer, and the servile rout
Of baser subjects only bend in vain
To the vast Idoll, whilst the nobler train
Of valiant Lovers daily sayl between
The huge Colosses legs, and pass unseen
Vnto the blissfull shore; be bold, and wise,
And we shall enter, the grim Swisse denies
Only to tame sools a passage, that not know
He is but form, and only frights in show
The duller eyes that lookt from far; draw neere,
And thou shalt scorn, what we were wont to fear;
We shall see how the stalking Pageant goes
With borrowed legs, a heavy load to those
That made, and bear him; not as we once thought
The seed of Gods, but a weak modell wrought
By greedy men, that seek t' enclose the common,
And within private arms empale free woman.
Come then, and mounted on the wings of love
Wee'l cut the flitting ayr, and sore above
The Monsters head, and in the noblest seats
Of those blest shades quench and renew our heats.
There, shall the Queen of Love, and Innocence,
Beauty and Nature, banish all offence
From our close Ivy Ewines; there I'l behold
Thy bared snow, and thy unbraded gold;
There, my enfranchis'd hand on every side,
Shall o'r thy naked polish'd Ivory slide.
No curtain there, though of transparent Iawn,
Shall be before thy virgin treasure drawn;
But the rich Mine, to the enquiring eye
Expos'd, shall ready still for mintage Iye,
And wee will coyn young Cupids. There, a bed
Of Roses, and fresh Myrtles, shall be spread
Vnder the cooler shade of Cypress groves;
Our pillowes, of the down of Venus Doves,
Whereon our panting limbs wee'l gently lay
In the faint respites of our active play;
That so our slumbers may in dreams have leisure
To tell the nimble fancie our past pleasure;
And so our souls that cannot be embrac'd,
Shall the embraces of our bodyes taste.
Mean while the bubling stream shall court the shore,
Th'enamour'd chirping Wood quire shall adore
In varied tunes the Deitie of Love;
The gentle blasts of Western winds shall move
The trembling leaves, and through their close bows
Still Mufick, whilst we rest our selves beneath (breath
Their dancing shade, till a soft murmur, sent
From souls entranc'd in amorous languishment,
Rowze us, and shoot into our veins fresh fire,
Till wee, in their sweet extasie expire.
Then, as the empty Bee, that lately bore,
Into the common treasure, all her store,
Flyes 'bout the painted field with nimble wing,
Deflowring the fresh virgins of the Spring;
So will I rifle all the sweets that dwell
In my delicious Paradise, and swell
My bagge with honey, drawn forth by the power
Of fervent kisses, from each spicie flower.
I'l seize the Rose-buds in their perfum'd bed,
The Violet knots, like curious Mazes spread
O'r all the Garden, taste the ripened Cherry,
The warm, firm Apple, tipt with corall berry;
Then will I visit, with a wandring kisse,
The vale of Lillies, and the Bower of blisse;
And where the beautious Region doth divide
Into two milky wayes, my lips shall slide
Down those smooth Allies, wearing as I goe
A tract for Lovers on the printed snow;
Thence climbing o'r the swelling Appenine,
Retire into thy grove of Eglantine;
Where I will all those ravisht sweets distill
Though Loves Alimbique, and with Chimique skil
From the mixtmass one soveraign Balm derive,
Then bring that great Elixar to thy hive.
Now in more subtile wreaths I will entwine,
My snowie thighes, my legs and armes with thine.
Thou like a sea of milk shalt lye display'd,
Whilst I the smooth, calm Ocean, invade
With such a tempest, as when Iove of old
Fell down on Danae in a storm of gold:
Yet my tall Pine, shall in the Cyprian straight
Ride safe at Anchor, and unlade her fraight;
My Rudder, with thy bold hand, like a try'd,
And skilfull Pilot, thou shalt steer and guide
My Bark into Loves chanell, where it shall
Dance, as the bounding waves doe rise or fall;
Then shall thy circling arms, embrace and clip
My willing body, and thy halmie lip
Bathe me in iuyce of kisses, whose perfume
Like a religious incense shall consume,
And send up holy vapours, to those powres
That blesse our loves, and crown our sportfull houres,
That with such Halcion caelmeness fix our soules
In steadfast peace, as no astright controules.
There, no rude sounds shake us with sudden starts,
No jealous eares, when we unrip our hearts,
Suck our discourse in; no observing spies
This blush, that glance traduce; no envious eyes
Watch our close meetings, nor are we betrayd
To Rivals, by the bribed chamber-maid.
No wedlock bonds unwreath our twisted loves;
Wee suck no midnight Arbour, no dark groves
To hide our kisses: there, the hated name
Of husband, wife, lust, modest, chaste, or shame,
Are vain and empty words, whose very sound
Was never heard in the Blizian ground.
All things are lawfull shore, that may delight
Nature, or unrestrained Appetite:
Like, and enjoy, to will, and act, is one,
Wee only sin when Loves rites are not done.
The Roman Lucrece there, reads the divine
Lectures of Loves great master, Aretine,
And knowes as well as Lais, how to move
Her plyant body in the act of love.
To quench the burning Ravisher, she hurles
Her limbs into a thousand winding curles;
And studies art-full postures, such as be
Carv'd on the Barke of every neighbouring tree
By learned hands, that so adorn'd the rinde
Of those faire Plants, which as they lay enwinde,
Have fann'd their glowing fires. The Grecian Dame,
That in her endless webb toyl'd for a name
As fruitless as her work, doth there display
Her self before the Youth of Ithaca,
And th'amorous sport of gamesome nights prefer,
Before dull dreams of the lost Traveller.
Daphne hath broke her bark, and that swist foot
Which th'angry Gods had fastned with a root
To the fixt earth, doth now unfetrer'd run,
To meet th'embraces of the youthfull Sun:
She hangs upon him, like his Delphique Lyre,
Her kisses blow the old, and breath new fire;
Full of her God, she sings inspired Layes,
Sweet Odes of love, such as deserve the Bayes,
Which she her selfe was. Next her, Laura lyes
In Petrarch's learned arms, drying those eyes
That did in such sweet smooth-pac'd numbers flow,
As made the world enamour'd of his woe.
These, and ten thousand Beauties more, that dy'd
Slave to the Tyrant, now enlarg'd, deride
His cancell'd lawes, and for their time mispent,
Pay into Loves Exchequer double rent.
Come then my Celia, wee'l no more forbear
To taste our joyes, struck with a Pannique fear,
But will depose from his imperious sway
This proud Vsurper, and walke free, as they
With necks unyoak'd; nor is it just that He
Should fetter your soft sex with Chastity,
Which Nature made unapt for abstinence;
When yet this false Impostor can dispence
With humane lustice, and with sacred right,
And maugre both their lawes command me fight
With Rivals, or with emulous Loves, that dare
Equall with thine, their Mistress eyes, or hair:
If thou complain of wrong, and call my sword
To carve out thy revenge, upon that word
He bids me fight and kill, or else he brands
With marks of infamy my coward hands,
And yet Religion bids from blood-shed fly,
And damns me for that act. Then tell me why
This Goblin Honour which the world adores,
Should make men Atheists, and not women Whores?
Epitaph on the Lady Mary Villers.
The Lady Mary Villers lyes
Vnder this stone; with weeping eyes
The Parents that first gave her breath,
And their sad friends, lay'd her in earth:
If any of them (Reader) were
Known unto thee, shed a tear:
Or if thy self possess a gem,
As dear to thee, as this to them,
Though a stranger to this place,
Bewayl in theirs, thine own hard case;
For thou perhaps at thy return
Mayest find thy Darling in a Vrn.
An other.
THe purest Soul that e'r was sent
Into a clayie tenement
Inform'd this dust, but the weak mold
Could the great guest no longer hold,
The substance was too pure, the flame
Too glorious that thither came;
Ten thousand Cupids brought along
A Grace on each wing that did throng
For place there, till they all opprest
The seat in which they sought to rest,
So the fair Modell broke for want
Of room to lodge th'Inhabitant.
An Other
THis little Vault, this narrow room,
Of Love and Beauty is the tombe;
The dawning beam that gan to clear
Our clouded sky, lyes darkened here,
For ever set to us, by death
Sent to enflame the world beneath.
'Twas but a bud, yet did contain
More sweetness than shall spring again,
A budding star that might have grown
Into a Sun, when it had blown.
This hopefull beauty did create
New life in Love's declining state;
But now his Empire ends, and we
From fire, and wounding darts are free;
His brand, his bow, let no man fear,
The flames, the arrowes all lye here.
Epitaph on the Lady S. Wife to Sir W.S.
THe harmonie of colours, features, grace,
Resulting Ayres (the magique of a face)
Of musicall sweet tunes, all which combin'd
To crown one Soveraign beauty, lies confin'd
To this dark Vault. She was a Cabinet
Where all the choysest stones of price were set;
Whose native colours, and purest lustre, lent
Her eye, cheek, lip, a dazling ornament;
Whose rare and hidden vertues did express
Her inward beauties, and minds fairer dress;
The constant Diamond, the wise Chrysolite,
The devout Saphyre, Emrauld apt to write
Records of memory, cheerfull Agat, grave
And serious Onyx, Topaz that doth save
The brains calm temper, witty Amathist;
This precious Quarrie, or what else the lift
On Aarons Ephod planted, had, she wore
One only Pearl was wanting to her store;
Which in her Saviours book she found exprest,
To purchase that, she sold Death all the rest.
Maria Went worth, Thomae Comitis Cleveland, filia praemortua prima virginiam animam exhaluit. An Dom. AEt.suae.
ANd here the precious dust is laid;
Whose purely-tempered Clay was made
So fine, that it the guest betray'd.
Else the soul grew so fast within,
It broke the outward shell of sin,
And so was hatch'd a Cherubin.
In height, it soar'd to God above;
In depth, it did to knowledge move,
And spread in breadth to general love.
Before, a pious duty shin'd
To Parents, courtesie behind,
On either side an equall mind.
Good to the Poor, to kindred dear,
To servants kind, to friendship clear,
To nothing but her self, severe.
••
though a Virgin, yet a Bride
•
o every Grace, the justifi'd
••
chaste Polygamie, and dy'd.
Learn from hence (Reader) what small trust
We ow this world, where vertue must
Frail as our flesh crumble to dust,
On the Duke of Buckingham
Beatissimis Manibus charissimi Viri Illma Conjunx sic Parent a vit.
WHen in the brazen leaves of Fame,
The life, the death, of Buckingham
Shall be recorded, if Truth's hand
••
cize the story of our Land,
Posterity shall see a fair
Structure, by the studious care
Of two Kings rays'd that no less
Their wisdome, than their power express;
By blinded zeale (whose doubtfull light
Made murders scarlet robe seem white,
Whose vain-deluding phantasmes charm'd
A clouded sullen soul, and arm'd
A desperate hand, thirsty of blood)
Torn from the fair earth where it stood;
So the majestique fabrique fell.
His Actions let our Annals tell:
Wee write no Chronicle, this Pile
Weares only sorrowes face and stile,
Which, even the envy that did wait
Vpon his flourishing estate,
Turn'd to soft pity of his death,
Now payes his Hearse; but that cheap breath
Shall not blow here, nor th'unpure brine
Puddle those streames that bathe this shrine.
These are the pious Obsequies
Drop'd from his chaste Wifes pregnant eyes
In frequent showres, and were alone
By her congealing sighes made stone,
On which the Carver did bestow
These formes and Characters of woe;
So he the fashion only lent,
Whilst she wept all this Monument.
Another
Siste Hospes, sive Indigena, sive Advena vicessitudinis rerum memor, pauca per lege.
REader, when these dumb stones have told
In borrowed Speech what Guest they hold;
Thou shalts confess, the vain pursure
Of humane Glory yeelds no fruit,
But an untimely Grave. If Fare
Could constant happiness create,
Her Ministers, Fortune and Worth,
Had here that miracle brought forth;
They fix'd this child of Honour, where
No room was left for Hope, or Fear,
Of more, of lesse: so high, so great
His growth was, yet so safe his seat.
Safe in the circle of his Friends;
Safe in his Loyall heart, and ends;
Safe in his native valiant spirit;
By favour safe, and safe by merit;
Safe by the stamp of Nature, which
Did strength, with shape and Grace enrich;
Safe in the cheerfull Courtesies
Of flowing gestures, speech, and eyes;
Safe in his Bounties, which were more
Proportion'd to his mind than store;
Yet, though for vertue he becomes
Involv'd Himself in borrowed summes,
Safe in his care, he leaves betray'd
No friend engag'd, not debt unpay'd.
But though the starres conspire to shower
Vpon one Head th'united power
Of all their Graces, if their dire
Aspects, must other breasts inspire
With vicious thoughts, a Murderers knife
May cut (as here) their Darlings life.
Who can be happy then, if Nature must
To make one Happy man, make all men just.
Foure Songs by way of Chorus to a Play, at an entertainment of the King and Queene, by my Lord Chamberlaine.
The first of Iealousie. Dialogue.
Question.
FRom whence was first this fury hurld,
This Jealousie into the world?
Came she from Hell?
Ans.
No there doth raign
Eternall Hatred with Disdain,
But she the Daughter is of Love,
Sister of Beauty.
Reply.
Then above
She must derive from the third Sphere
Her heavenly Off-spring.
Ans.
Neither there
From those immortall flames could she
Draw her cold frozen Pedigree.
Quest.
If nor from heaven nor hell, where then
Had she her birth?
An.
I'th' hearts of men,
Beauty, and Feare did her create,
Younger than Love, Elder than Hate.
Sister to both, by Beauties side
To Love, by Fear to Hate ally'd:
Despayr her issue is, whose race
Of fruitfull mischiefes drowns the space
Of the wide earth, in a swoln flood
Of wrath, revenge, spight, rage, and blood.
Quest.
Oh how can such a spurious line
Proceed from Parents so divine?
Ans.
As streams, which from their Chrystall spring
Doe sweet and clear their waters bring,
Yet mingling with the brackish Main,
Nor tast, nor colour they retain.
Qu.
Yet Rivers' twixt their own banks flaw
Still fresh, can jealouse doe so,
An.
Yes, whilst she keeps the stedfast ground
Of Hope, and Fear, her equall bound;
Hope sprung from favour, worth, or chance,
Tow'rds the fair object doth advance;
Whilst Fear, as watchfull Scentinell,
Doth the invading Foe repell;
And Iealousie thus mixt, doth prove
The season, and the salt of live:
But when Fear takes a larger scope,
Stifling the child of Reason, Hope
Then sitting on th'usurped throne,
Shee like a Tyrant rules alone,
As the wild Ocean unconfin'd,
And raging as the Northren-wind.
2. Feminine Honour.
IN what esteem did the Gods hold
Fair Innocence, and the chast bed,
When scandall'd vertue might be bold,
Bare foot, upon sharp Cultures spread
O'r burning coles to march, yet feel
Nor scorching fire, nor piercing steel?
Why, when the hard edg'd Iron did turn
Soft as a bed of Roses blown,
When cruell flames forgot to burn
Their chast pure limbs, should man alone
Gainst female Innocence conspire,
Harder than steel, fiercer than fire?
Oh haplesse sex! Vnequall sway
Of partiall Honour! who may know
Rebels from subjects that obey,
When malice can on Vestals throw
Disgrace, and Fame fix high repute
On the close shameless Prostitute?
Vain Honour! thou art but disguise,
A cheating voyce, a jugling art,
No judge of vertue, whose pure eyes
Court her own Image in the heart,
More pleas'd with her true figure there,
Than her false Eccho in the ear.
3. Separation of Lovers.
STop the chafed Bore, or play
With the Lyons paw, yet fear
From the Lovers side to tear
Th'Idoll of his soul away.
Though Love cries by the sight
To the heart, it doth not fly
From the mind, when from the eye
The fair objects take their flight.
But since want provokes desire,
When we lose what we before
Have enjoy'd, as we want more,
So is Love more set on fire.
Love doth with an hungry eye
Glut on Beauty, and you may
Safer snatch the Tygers pray
Than his vitall food deny.
Yet though absence for a space,
Sharpen the keen Appetite,
Long continuance doth quite
All Loves characters efface.
For the sense not fed, denies
Nourishment unto the mind,
Which with expectation pin'd
Love of a consumption dyers.
4 Incommunicability of Love.
QVest.
By what power was Love confin'd
To one object? who can bind,
Or fix a limit to the free-born mind?
An.
Nature; for as bodies may
Move at once but in one way,
So nor can minds to more than one love stray.
Reply.
Yet I feel double smart
Loves twinn'd flame, his forked dart,
An.
Then hath wild Lust, not Love-possest thy heart.
Qu.
Whence springs love'
An.
From beauty.
Qu.
why
Should th'effect not multiply
As fast i'th'heart, as doth the cause i'th' eye?
An.
When two Beauties equall are,
Sence preferring neither fayr,
Desire stands still, distracted 'twixt the pair.
So in equall distance lay
Two farr Lambs in the Wolfe's way,
The hungry beast will sterve ere chuse his prey.
But where one is chief, the rest
Cease, and that's alone possest
Without a Rivall Monarch of the breast.
Songs in the Play.
A Lover in the disguise of an Amazon, is dearly beloved of his Mistris.
Cease thou afflicted soul to mourn,
Whose love and faith are paid with scorn;
For I am starv'd that feet the blissrs
Of dear embraces, smiles, and kisses
From my soul's Idoll, yet complain
Of equall love more than disdain.
Cease, Beauties exile to lament
The frozen shades of hanishment,
For I in that fair bosome dwell
That is my Paradise, and Hell;
Banisht at home, at once at ease
In the safe Port, and lost on Seas.
Cease in cold jealous seares to pine
Sad wretch, whom Rivals undermine:
For though I hold lock'd in mine arms
My lifes sole joy, a Traytors Charms
Prevail, whilst I may only blame
My self, that mine owne Rivall am.
Another. A Lady rescued from death by a Knight, who in the instant leaves her, complaines thus.
OH whither is my says Sun fled,
Bearing his light, not beat away?
If thou repose in the moist bed
Of the Sea-Queen, bring back the day
To our dark clime, and thou shalt lye
Bath'd in the sea flowes from mine eye.
Vpon what whirlewind didst thou ride
Hence, yet remain fixt in my heart,
From me, and to me; fled, and ty'd?
Dark riddles of the amorous art;
Love lent thee wings to fly, so Hee
Vnfeather'd now must rest with me.
Helph, help, brave Youth, I burn, I bleed,
The cruell God with Bow and Brand
Pursues the life thy valour freed,
Disarm him with thy conquering hand;
And that thou mayest the wild boy tame,
Give me his dart, keep thou his flame.
TO BEN. IOHNSON. Vpon occasion of his Ode of defiance annex'd to his Play of the New Inne.
TIs true (dear Ben:) thy just chastizing hand
Hath fix'd upon the somed Age a brand
To their swoln pride, and empty scribling due,
It can nor judge, nor Write, and yet 'tis true
Thy comique Muse from the exalted line
Toucht by the Alchymist, doth since decline
From that her Zenith, and foretels a red
And blushing evening, when she goes to bed,
Yet such, as shall out-shine the glimmering light
With which all stars shall gild the following night.
Nor think it much (since all thy Eaglets may
Endure the Sunnie tryall) if we say
This hath the stronger wing, or that doth shine
Trick'd up in fairer plumes, since all are thine;
Who hath his flock of cackling Geese compar'd
With thy tun'd quire of Swans? or else who dar'd
To call thy births desorm'd? but if thou bind
By City custome, or by Gavell-kind,
In equall shares thy love on all thy race,
We may distinguish of their sex, and place;
Though one hand form them, & through one brain strike
Souls into all, they are not all alike.
Why should the follies then of this dull age
Draw from thy pen such an immodest rage
As seemes to blast thy (else-immortall) Bays,
When thine own tongue proclames thy itch of praise
Such thirst will argue drougth. No, let be hurld
Vpon thy works by the detracting world,
What malice can suggest; let the Rout say,
The running sands, that (ere thou make a play)
Count the slow minutes, might a Goodwin frame
To swallow when th'hast done thy ship- wrack'd name
Let them the dear expence of oyl upbraid
Suck'd by thy watchfull Lamp, that hath betray'd
To theft the blood of martyr'd Authors, spilt
Into thy ink, whilst thou grow'st pale with guilt;
Repine not at the Tapers thrifty waste,
That sleeks thy terser Poem; nor is haste
Prayse, but excuse; and if thou overcome
A knotty writer, bring the booty home;
Nor think it theft, if the rich spoyls so torn
From conquered Authors, be as Trophies worn.
Let others glut on the extorted praise
Of vulgar breath, trust thou to after dayes:
Thy labour'd works shall live, when Time devours
Th'abortive off spring of their hasty hours.
Thou art not of their rank, the quarrell lyes
Within thine owne Virge, then let this suffice,
The wiser world doth greater Thee confess
Than all men else, than Thy selfe only less.
An Hymeneall Dialogue. Bride and Groome
GRoom.
Tell me (my Love) since Hymen ty'd
The holy knot, hast thou not felt
A new infused spirit slide
Into thy brest, whilst thine did melt?
Bride.
First tell me (Sweet) whose words were those?
For though the voyce your ayr did break,
Yet did my soul the sense compose,
And through your lips my heart did speak.
Groo.
Then I preceive, when from the flame
Of love, my scorch'd soul did retire,
Your frozen heart in her place came,
And sweetly melted in that fire.
Bride.
'Tis true, for when that mutuall change
Of souls, was made with equall gain,
I straight might feel diffus'd a strange,
But gentle heat through every vein.
Chorus.
Oh blest dis-union, that doth so
Our bodies from our souls divide,
As two doe one, and one four grow,
Each by contraction multiply'd.
Bride.
Thy bosome then I'l make my nest,
Since there my willing soul doth pearch.
Groom.
And for my heart in thy chaste brest,
I'l make an everlasting search.
Chorus.
Oh blest dis-union, &c.
Obsequies to the Lady ANNE HAY
I Heard the Virgins sigh, I saw the sleek
And polish'd Courtier channell his fresh cheek
With reall teares; the new betrothed Maid
Smil'd not that day, the graver Senate laid
Their business by; of all the Courtly throng,
Grief seald the heart, and silence bound the tongue;
I that ne'r more of privat sorrow knew
Than from my Pen some froward Mistris drew,
And for the publick woe, had my dull sense
So fear'd with ever adverse influence,
As the invaders sword might have unfelt,
Pierc'd my dead bosome, yet began to melt:
Griefe's strong instinct, did to my blood suggest
In the unknown loss peculiar Interest.
But when I heard, the noble Carlit's Gem,
The fayrest branch of Denny's ancient stem,
Was from that Casket stoln, from this Trunk torn,
I found just cause, why they, why I should mourn.
But who shall guide my artless Pen, to draw
Those blooming beauties, which I never saw?
How shall posterity beleeve my story,
If I, her crowded graces, and the glory
Due to her riper vertues, shall relate
Without the knowledge of her mortall state?
Shall I, as once Apelles, here a feature,
There steal a Grace, and rifling so whole Nature
Of all the sweets a learned eye can see,
Figure one Venus, and say such was she?
Shall I her legend fill, with what of old
Hath of the Worthies of her sex been told,
And what all pens, and times, to all dispence,
Restrain to her, by a prophetique sense?
Or shall I, to the Morall, and Divine
Exactest laws, shape by an even line,
A life so straight, as it should shame the square
Left in the rules of Katherine, or Clare,
And call it hers, say, so did she begin,
And had she liv'd, such had her progress been?
These are dull wayes by which base pens, for hire,
Dawb glorious vice, and from Apollo's quire
Steal holy Ditties, which prophanely they
Vpon the Herse of every strumpet lay.
Wee will not bathe thy corps with a forc'd tear,
Nor shall thy train borrow the blacks they were;
Such vulgar spice, and gums, embalm not thee,
Thou art the theme of Truth, not Poetry.
Thou shalt endure a tryall by thy Peers;
Virgins of equall birth, of equall years,
Whose vertues held with thine an emulous strife,
Shall draw thy picture, and record thy life;
One shall ensphere thine eyes, another shall
Impearl thy teeth; a third thy white and small
Hand shall besnow, a fourth, incarnadine
Thy rosie cheek, untill each beautious line,
Drawn by her hand, in whom that part excels,
Meet in one Center, where all beautie dwels.
Others, in task shall thy choyce vertues share,
Some shall their birth, some their ripe growth declare,
Though niggard Time left much unhatch'd by deeds,
They shall relate how thou hadst all the seeds
Of every vertue, which in the pursute
Of time, must have brought forth admired fruit.
Thus shalt thou, from the mouth of envy, raise
A glorious journall of thy thrifty days,
Like a bright star shot from his sphere, whose race,
In a continued line of flames, we trace;
This, if survay'd, shall to thy view impart
How little more than lore, thou wer't, thou art;
This shall gain credit with succeeding times,
When nor by bribed pens, nor partiall rimes
Of engag'd kindred, but the sacred truth
Is storied by the partners of thy youth;
Their breath shall Saint thee, and be this thy pride,
Thus even by Rivals to be Deifi'd
To the Countess of Anglesea upon the immoderatly by her lamented death of her Husband.
MAdam, men say you keep with dropping eyes
Your sorrowes fresh, wat'ring the Rose that lie
Fall'n from your cheeks upon your dear Lords Herse.
Alas! those odours now no more can pierce
His cold pale nostrill, nor the crimson dye
Present a gracefull blush to his dark eye.
Think you that flood of pearly moisture hath
The vertue fabled of old Esom's bath;
You may your beauties, and your youth consume
Over his Vin, and with your sighes perfume
The solitary Vaule, which as you groan
In hollow Ecchoes shall repeat your moan;
There you may wither, and an Autumn bring
Vpon your self, but not call back his spring.
Forbear your fruitless grief then, and let those
Whose love was doubted, gain belief with showes
To their suspected faith; you, whose whole life
In every act crown'd you a constant Wife,
May spare the practise of that vulgar trade,
Which superstitious custome only made;
Rather a Widow now of wisedome prove
The pattern, as a Wife you were of love:
Yet since you surfet on your grief, 'tis fit
I tell the world, upon what cates you fit
Glutting your sorrows, and at once include
His story, your excuse, my gratitude.
You, that behold how yon'd sad Lady blends
Those ashes with her tears, lest, as she spends
Her tributary sighes, the frequent gust
Might scarter up and down che noble dust,
Know when that heap of Atomes was with blood
Kneaded to solid flesh, and firmly stood
On starely Pillars, the rare form might move
The froward Inne's, or chaste Cynthia's love.
In motion, active grace, in rest, a calm,
Attractive sweetness, brought both wound and balm
To every heart, He was compos'd of all
The wishes of ripe Virgins, when they call
For Hymm's rites, and in their fancies wed
A shape of studied beauties to their bed.
Within this curious Palace dwelt a soul
Gave lustre to each part, and to the whole.
This drest his face in curteous smiles; and so
From comely gestures, sweeter manners flow.
This courage joyn'd to strength, so the hand, bent,
Was Valours, open'd, Bounties instrument,
Which did the scale, and sword of Iustice hold,
Knew how to brandish steel, and scatter gold.
This taught him, not t' engage his modest tongue
In sutes of private gain, though publike wrong;
Nor mis-employ (As is the great mans use)
His credit with his Master, to traduce,
Deprave, malign, and ruine Innocence
In proud revenge of some mis-judg'd offence:
But all his actions had the noble end
T'advance delert, or grace some worthy friend.
He chose not in the active stream to swim,
Nor hunted Honour, which, yet hunted him;
But like a quiet Eddy, that hath found
Some hollow creek, there turns his waters round,
And in continuall circles, dances free
From the impetuous Torrent; so did he
Give others leave to turn the wheel of State,
(Whose sterless motions spins the subjects fate)
Whilst he retir'd from the tumultuous noyse
Of Court, and sutors press, apart, enjoyes
Freedome, and mirth, himself, his time, and friends,
And with sweet rellish tastes each hour he spends.
I could remember how his noble heart
First kindled at your beauties, with what Art
He chas'd his game through all opposing fears,
When I his sighes to you, and back your tears
Convay'd to him, how loyall then, and how
Constant he prov'd since to his marriage vow,
So as his wandring eyes never drew in
One lustfull thought to tempt his soul to sin,
But that I fear such mention rather may
Kindle new grief, than blow the old away.
Then let him rest joyn'd to great Buckingham,
And with his brothers, mingle his bright flame,
Look up, and meet their beams, and you from thence
May chance derive a chearfull influence.
Seek him no more in dust, but call agen
Your scatterd beauties home, and so the Pen
Which now I take from this sad Elegie
Shall sing the Trophies of your conquering eye.
An Elegie upon the death of Doctor Donne, Deane of Pauls.
CAn we not force from widowed Poetry
Now thou art dead (Great Donne) one Elegie,
To crown thy Hearse? Why yet did we not trust,
Though with unkneaded dow-bak'd prose, thy dust,
Such as th'uncizard Lect'rer from the flower
Of fading Rhetorique, short liv'd as his houre,
Dry as the sand that measures it, might lay
Upon the ashes, on the Funerall day?
Have we not tune, nor voyce? didst thou dispence
Through all our language both the words and sense?
Tis a sad truth. The Pulpit may her plain,
And sober Christian precepts still retain;
Doctrines it may, and wholsome uses, frame,
Grave Homilies, and Lectures, but the flame
Of thy brave soul, that shot such heat, and light,
As burnt our Earth, and made our darkeness bright,
Committed holy rapes upon the will,
Did through the eye the melting hearts distill,
And the deep knowledge, of dark truths, so teach,
As sense might judge, what fancy could not reach,
Must be desir'd for ever. So the fire
That fils with spirit and heat the Delphique Quire,
Which kindled first by thy Promethean breath
Glow'd here a while, lyes quench'd now in thy death
The Muses garden with Pedantique weeds.
O'r-spread, was purg'd by thee, the lazie seeds
Of servile imitation thrown away,
And fresh invention planted; thou did'st pay
The debts of our penurious banquerout Age:
Licentious thefts, that make poetique rage.
A mimique fury, when our soules must be
Possest, or with Anacreon's extasie,
Or Pindar's, not their own, the subtle cheat
Of sly exchanges, and the jugling seat
Of two-edg'd swords, or whatsoever wrong
By ours was done the Greek or Latine tongue,
Thou hast redeem'd, and opened us a Mine
Of rich and pregnant fancie, drawn a line
Of Masculine expression, which had good
Old Orpheus seen, or all the ancient brood
Our superstitious fools admire, and hold
Their Lead more precious than thy burnish Gold?
Thou hadst been their Exchequer, and no more,
They each in others dung had search'd for Ore.
Thou shalt yeeld no precedence, but of Time,
And the blind fate of Langage, whose tun'd chime
More charms the outward sense; yet thou mayst claim
From so great disadvantage, greater fame,
Since to the awe of thy imperious wit
Our troublesome language bends, made only fit
With her tough thick-rib'd hoops, to gird about
Thy Gyant fancy, which had prov'd to stout
For their soft melting phrases. As in time
They had the start, so did they cull the prime
Buds of invention many a hundred year,
And left the rifled fields, besides the fear
To touch their harvest, yet from those bare lands
Of what was only thine, thy only hands
(And that their smallest work) have gleaned more
Than all those times, and Tongues, could reap before
But thou art gone, and thy strickt lawes will be
Too hard for Libertines in Poetry,
They will recall the goodly exil'd train
Of gods, and goddesses, which in thy just raign
Was banisht nobler Poems; now, with these,
The silenc'd tales i'th' Metamorphoses
Shall stuff their lines, and swell the windy page,
Till verse refin'd by thee, in this last Age
Turn Ballad-rime, or those old Idols be
Ador'd again with new Apostasie.
Oh! pardon me that break with untun'd Verse
The reverend silence, that attends thy Hearse;
Whose solemn, awfull Murmurs, were to thee
More than these rude lines, a loud Elegie,
That did proclame in a dumbe Eloquence
The'death of all the Arts, whose influence
Grown feeble, in these panting numbers lyes
Gasping short-winded accents, and so dyes.
So doth the swiftly-turning wheel, not stand
In th'instant we withdraw the moving hand,
But some short time retains a faint weak course,
By vertue of the first impulsive force;
And so, whilst I cast on thy funerall Pile
Thy crown of Bayes, oh let it crack a while,
And spit disdain, till the devouring flashes
Suck all the moysture up, then turn to ashes.
I will not draw the envy, to engross
All thy perfections, or weep all the loss,
Those are too numerous for one Elegie,
And 'tis too great to be exprest by me:
Let others carve the rest; it shall suffice,
I on thy Grave this Epitaph incize.
Here lyes a king, that rul'd as he thought fit
The Vniversall Monarchy of wit;
Here lyes two Flamens, and both those the best,
Apollo's first, at last the true God's Priest.
In answer to an Elegiacall Letter upon the death of the King of Sweden from Aurelan Townsend, inviting me to write on that subject.
WHy dost thou sound my dear Aurelian,
In so shrill accents, from thy Barbican,
A loud allarum to my drowsic eys,
Bidding them wake in tears and Elegies
For might Sweden's fall? Alas! how may
My Lyrique feet, that of the smooth soft way
Of love, and Beauty, only know the tread,
In dancing paces celebrate the dead
Victorious King, or his Majestick Hearse
Prophane with th'humble touch of their low verse?
Virgill, nor Lucan, no nor Tasso move
Than both, not Donne, worth all that went before,
With the united labour of their wit
Could a just Poem to this subject fit;
His actions were too mighty to be rais'd
Higher by Verse, let him in prose be prays'd,
In modest faithfull story, which his deeds
Shall turn to Poems: when the next Age reads
Of Frankfort, Leipsigh, Worsburgh, of the Rhyne,
The Leek, the Danube, Tilly, Wallestein,
Bavaria, Dapenbeim, Lutzenfield, where He
Gain'd after death a posthume Victory,
They'l think his Acts things rather feign'd than don
Like our Romances of the Knight o'th'Sun.
Leave we him then to the grave Chronicler,
Who though to Annals he can not refer
His too-briefe story, yet his Iournals may
Stand by the Caesars years, and every day
Cut into minutes, each shall more contain
Of great designement than an Emperours raign;
And (since 'twas but his Church-yard) let him have
For his owne ashes now no narrower Grave
Than the whol German Continents vast womb,
Whilst all her Cities doe but make his Tomb.
Let us to supreme providence commit
The fate of Monarchs, which first thought it fit
To rend the Empire from the Austrian grasp
And next from Swedens, even when he did clasp
Within his dying armes the Soveraignty
Of all those Provinces, that men might see
The Divine wisedome would not leave that Land
Subject to any one Kings sole command.
Then let the Germans fear, if Caesar shall,
Or the Vnited Princes, rise, and fall,
But let us that in myrtle bowers sit
Vnder secure shades use the benefit
Of peace and plenty, which the blessed hand
Of our good King gives this obdurate Land,
Let us of Revels sing, and let thy breath
(Which fill'd Fames trumpet with Gustavus death,
Blowing his name to heaven) gently inspire
Thy past'rall pipe, till all our swains admire
Thy song and subject, whilst they both comprise
The beauties of the SHEPHERDS PARADISE;
For who like thee (whose loose discourse is farre
Moreneat and polisht than our Poems are,
Whose very gate's more gracefull than our dance)
In sweetly flowing numbers may advance
The glorious night; When not to act foul rapes,
Like birds, or beasts, but in their Angel-shapes
A troop of Deities came down to guide
Our steerless barkes in passions swelling tide
By vetrues Card, and brought us from above
A pattern of their own celestiall love,
Nor lay it in dark sullen precepts drown'd,
But with rich fancy, and clear Action crown'd
Through a mysterious fable (that was drawn
Like a transparant veyl of purest Lawn
Before their dazelling beauties) the divine
Venus, did with her heavenly Cupid shine.
The stories curious web, the Masculine stile,
The subt le sense, did Time and sleep beguile,
Pinnion'd and charm'd they stood to gaze upon
Th' Angellike formes, gestures, and motion.
To hear those ravishing sounds that did dispence
Knowledge and pleasure, to the soul and sense,
It fill'd us with amazement to behold
Love made all spirit, his corporeall mold
Dissected into Atomes melt away
To empty ayr, and from the gross allay
Of mixtures, & and compounding Accidents
Refind to immateriall Elements.
But when the Queen of Beauty did inspire
The ayr with perfumes, and our hearts with fire,
Breathing from her celestiall Organ sweet
Harmonious notes, our souls fell at her feet,
And did with humble reverend duty, more
Her rare perfections, than high state adore.
These harmeless pastimes let my Townesend sing
To rurall times; not that thy Muse wants wing
To soare a loftier pitch, for she hath made
A noble flight, and plac'd th'Heroique shade
Above the reach of our faint flagging ryme;
But these are subjects proper to our clyme.
Torueyes, Masques, Theaters better become
Our Halcyon dayes; what though the German Drum
Bellow for freedome and revenge? the noyse
Concernes not us, nor should divert our joyes;
Nor ought the thunder of their Carabins
Drown the sweet Ayres of our tun'd Violins;
Beleeve me friend, if their prevailing powers
Gain them a calm security like ours,
They'l hang their Armes upon the Olive bough.
And dance, and revell then, as we doe now,
Vpon Master W. Mountague his return from travell.
LEad the black Bull to slaughter, with the Bore
And Lambe, then purple with their mingled gore
The Oceans curled brow, that so we may
The Sea-Gods for their carefull waftage pay:
Send gratefull lncense up in pious smoak
To those mild spirits, that cast a curbing yoak
Vpon the stubborn winds, that calmly blew
To the wisht shore, ou long'd-for Mountague,
Then whilst the Aromantique odours burn,
In honour of their Darling's safe return
The Muses Quire shall thus with voyce and hand,
Bless the fair Gale that drove his ship to land.
Sweetly breathing Vernall Ayr
That with kind warmth doest repayr
Winters ruines, from whose breast
All the gums and spice of th'East
Borrow their perfumes, whose eye
Gil'ds the morn, and clears the sky,
Whose dishevel'd tresses shed
Pearls upon the Violet bed,
On whose brow with calm smiles drest
The Halcion sits and builds her nest,
Beauty, Youth, and endless spring,
Dwell upon thy rosie wing.
Thou, if stormy Boreas throws
Down whole Forrests when he blows,
With a pregnant flowery birth
'Canst refresh the teeming Earth;
If he nip the early bud,
If the blast what's fayr on good;
If hee scatter our choyce flowers,
If she shake our hils or bowers,
If his vade breath threaten us,
Thou canst stroak great Eolus
And from him the grace obtain
To bind him in an Iron chain.
Thus, whilst you deal your body 'mongst your friends
And fill their circling armes, my glad soul sends
This her embrace: Thus we of Delphos greet,
As Lay-men clasp their hands, we joyn our feet.
To Master W. Mountague.
SIR, I arest you at your Countries sute,
Who as a debt to her, requires the fruit
Of that rich stock, which she by Natures hand
Gave you in trust, to th'use of this whole Land.
Next she endites you of a Felony,
For stealing, what was her Propriety:
Your self, from hence, so seeking to convey
The publike treasure of the State away.
More, y'are accus'd of Ostracisme, the Fate
Impos'd or old by the Athenian state
On eminent vertue, but the curse which they
Cast on their men, You on your Countrey lay:
For, thus divided from your noble parts
This Kingdome lives in exile, & all hearts
That rellish worth, or honour, being rent
From your perfections, suffer banishment
These are your publike injuries; but I
Have a just private quarrell to defie
And call you Coward, thus to run away
When you had pierc'd my heart, not daring stay
Till I redeem'd my honour; but I swear
By Celia's eyes, by the same force to tear
Your heart from you, or not to end this strife,
Till I or find revenge, or lose my life.
But as in single fights it oft hath been
In that unequall equall tryall seen,
That he who had receiv'd the wrong at first,
Came from the Combat oft too with the worst;
So if you foyl me when we meet, I'l then
Give you fair leave to wound me so agen.
On the Mariage of T. K. and C. C. the morning stormie.
SVch should this day be, so the Sun should hide
His bashfull face, & let the conquering Bride
Without a Rivall shine, whilst He forbeares
To mingle his unequall beames with hers;
Or if sometimes he glance his squinting eye
Between the parting clouds, 'tis but to spy,
Not emulate her glories, so comes drest
In veyles, but as a Masquer to the feast.
Thus heaven should lowr, such stormy gusts should blow,
Not to denounce ungentle Fates, but show
The cheerfull Bridegroom to the clouds and wind,
Hath all his teares, and all his sighes assign'd.
Let Tempests struggle in the Ayr, but rest
Eternall calmes within thy peacefull brest.
Thrice happy Youth; but ever sacrifice
To that fayr hand that dry'd thy blubbred eyes,
That crownd thy head with Roses, and turn'd all
The plagues of love into a cordiall,
When first it joyn'd her Virgin snow to thine,
Which when to day the Priest shall recombine,
From the mysterious holy touch such charmes
Will flow, as shall unlock her wreathed armes,
And open a free passage to that fruit
Which thou hast toyld for with a long pursute.
But ere thou feed, that thou mayst better taste
Thy present joyes, think on thy torments past.
Think on the mercy freed thee, think upon
Her vertues, graces, beauties, one by one,
So shalt thou relish all, enjoy the whole
Delights of her fair body, and pure soul;
Then boldly to the fight of Love proceed,
'Tis mercy not to pitty though she bleed,
Wee'l strew no nuts, but change that ancient form,
For till to morrow wee'l prorogue this storm.
Which shall confound with its loud whistling noyse
Her pleasing shreeks, and fan thy panting joyes.
For a Picture where a Queen Laments over the Tombe of a slain Knight.
BRave Youth; to whom Fate in one hour
Gave death, and Conquest, by whose power
Those chains about my heart are wound,
With which the Foe my Kingdome bound,
Freed, and captiv'd by thee, I bring
For either Act an offering;
For victory, this wreath of Bay;
•
nsign of thraldome, down I lay
Scepter and Crown: Take from my sight
Those Royall Robes; since fortunes spight
Forbids me live thy Vertues prize,
I'l dye thy Valours sacrifice.
To a Lady that desired I would love her.
I.
NOw you have freely given me leave to love,
What will you doe?
Shall I your mirth, or passion move,
When I begin to wooe;
Will you torment, or scorn, or love me too?
2.
Each petty beauty can disdain, and I
Spight of your hate
Without your leave can see, and dye;
Dispence a nobler Fate,
Tis easie to destroy, you may create.
3.
Then give me leave to love, & love me too
Not with designe
To rayse, as Loves curst Rebels doe,
When puling Poets whine,
Fame to their beauty, from their blubbi'd eyri.
4.
Grief is a puddle, and reflects not clear
Your beauties rayes;
Ioyes are pure streames, your eyes appear
Sullen in sadder layes,
In cheerfull numbers they shine bright with prayse.
5.
Which shall not mention to express you fayr
Wounds, flames, and darts,
Storms in your brow, nets in your hair,
Suborning all your parts,
Or to betray, or torture captive hearts,
6.
I'l make your eyes like morning Suns appear,
As mild, and fair;
Your brow as Crystall smooth, and clear,
And your dishevell'd hayr
Shall flow like a calm Region of the Ayr.
7.
Rich Nature's store, (which is the Poet's Treasure)
I'l spend, to dress
Your beauties, if your mine of Pleasure
In equall thankfulness
You but unlock, so we each other bless.
Vpon my Lord Chief Iustice his election of my Lady A. W. for his Mistress.
1.
HEar this, and tremble all
Vsurping Beauties, that create
A government Tyrannicall
In Love's free state,
Iustice, hath to the sword of your edg'd eyes
His equall ballance joyn'd, his sage head lyes
In love's soft lap, which must be just and wise.
2.
Heark how the stern Law breathes
Forth amorous sighs, and now prepares
No fetters, but of silken wreathes,
And braded hayrs;
His dreadfull Rods and Axes are exil'd
Whilst he sits crown'd with Roses, Love hath fild
His native roughness, Iustice is grown mild.
3.
The golden Age returns,
Loves bow, and quiver, useless lye,
His shaft, his brand, nor wounds, nor burns,
And cruelty
Is sunk to Hell, the fayr shall all be kind,
Who loves, shall be belov'd, the froward mind
To a deformed shape shall be confin'd.
4.
Astiaea hath postest
An earthly seat, and now remains
In Finch's heart, but wentworth's brest
That Guest contains;
With her she dwels, yet hath not left the skies,
Nor lost her Sphere, for new-enthron'd she cryes
I know no Heaven but fayr wentworth's eyes.
To A. D. unreasonable distrustfull of her own beauty.
FAyr Doris break thy Glass, it hath perplext,
With a dark Comment, beautie's clearest Text;
It hath not told thy faces story true,
But brought false Copies to thy jealous view.
No colour, feature, lovely ayr, or grace,
That ever yet adorn'd a beauteous face,
But thou maist read in thine, or justly doubt
Thy Glass hath been summon'd to leave it our.
But if it offer to thy nice survay
A spot, a stain, a blemish, or decay,
It not belongs to thee, the treacherous light
Or faithless stone, abuse thy credulous sight.
Perhaps the magique of thy face hath wrought
Vpon th'enchanted Crystall, and so brought
Fantastick shadowes to delude thine eyes
With ayrie re-pereussive sorce ries.
Or else th'enamoured Image pines away
For love of the fair Object, and so may
Wax pale and wan, and though the substance grow
Lively and fresh, that may consume with woe;
Give then no faith to the false specular stone,
But let thy beauties by th'effects be known.
Look (sweetest Doris) on my love-sick heart,
In that true mirrour see how fair thou art.
There, by Love's never-erring Pensill drawn
Shalt thou behold thy face, like th'early dawn
Shoot through the shady covert of thy hair,
Enameling, and perfuming the calm Ayr
With Pearles, and Roses, till thy Suns display
Their lids, and let out the imprison'd day.
Whilst Delphique Priests,(enlightned by their Theme)
In amorous numbers count thy golden beam,
And from Love's Altars clouds of sighes arise
In smoaking Incense to adore thine eyes.
If then Love flow from Beauty as th'effect,
How canst thou the resistless cause suspect?
Who would not brand that Fool, that should contend
There were no fire, where smoak and flames ascend?
Distrust is worse than scorn, not to beleeve
My harmes, is greater wrong than not to grieve;
What cure can for my festring sore be found,
Whilst thou beleev'st thy beauty cannot wound?
Such humble thoughts more cruell Tyrants prove
Than all the pride that e'r usurp'd in Love,
For Beauties Herald, here denounceth war,
There her false spies betray me to a snare.
If fire disguis'd in bals of snow were hurl'd
It unsuspected might consume the world;
Where our prevention ends, danger begins;
So Wolves in Sheepes, Lyons in Asses skins
Might farre more mischief work, because less fear'd,
Those, the whole stock, these might kill all the herd;
Appear then as thou art, break through this cloud,
Confess thy beauty, though thou thence grow proud,
Be fair, though scornfull, rather let me find
Thee cruell, than thus mild, and more unkind;
Thy cruelty doth only me defie,
But these dull thoughts thee to thy self deny;
Whether thou mean to barter, or bestow.
Thy self, 'tis fit thou thine own valew know.
I will not cheat thee of thy self, nor pay
Less for thee than th'art worth, thou shalt not say
That is but brittle glass, which I have found
By strict enquiry a firm Diamond.
I'l trad with no such Indian fool as sele
Gold, Pearles, and precious stones, for Beads and Bels;
Nor will I take a present from your hand,
Which you, or prize not, or not understand;
It not endeares your bounty that I doe
Esteem your gift, unless you doe so too;
You undervalew me, when you bestow
On me, what you nor care for, nor yet know.
No (Lovely Doris) change thy thoughts, and be
In love first with thy self, and then with me.
You are afflicted that you are not fayr,
And I as much tormented that you are;
What I admire, you seorn, what I love, hate;
Through different faiths, both share an equall Fate.
Fast to the truth, which you renounce, I stick,
I dye a Martyr, you an Heretique.
To my friend G. N. from Wrest.
I Breath (sweet Ghibs:) the temperate ayr of wrest
Where I no more with raging storms opprest
Wear the cold nights out by the banks of Tweed,
On the bleak Mountains, where fierce rempests breed,
And everlasting Winter dwels; where milde
Favonius, and the Vernall winds exil'd,
Did never spread their wings: but the wild North
Brings sterill Fearn, Thistles, and Brambles forth.
Here steep'd in balmy dew, the pregnant Earth,
Sends from her teeming womb a flowrie birth,
And cherish'd with the warm Sun's quickning heat,
Her porous bosome doth rich odour sweat;
Whose perfumes through the Ambient ayr diffuse
Such native Aromatiques, as we use
No forraign Gums, nor essence, fetcht from farre,
No Volatile spirits, nor compounds that are
Adulterate, but at Natures cheap expence
With farre more genuine sweets refresh the sense.
Such pure and uncompounded beauties, bless
This Mansion with an usefull comeliness'
Devoid of Art, for here the Architect
Did not with curious skill a Pile erect
Of carved Marble, Touch, or Porphery'
But built a house for hospitality;
No sumptuous Chimney-peece of shining stone
Invites the strangers eye to gaze upon,
And coldly entertaines his sight, but clear
And cheerfull flames, cherish and warm him here:
No Dorique, nor Corinthian Pillars grace
With Imagery this structures naked face,
The Lord and Lady of this place delight
Rather to be in act, than seem in sight;
In stead of Statues to adorn their wall,
They throng with living men, their merry Hall,
Where at large Tables fill'd with wholsome meats
The servant, Tenant, and kind neighbour eates.,
Some of that rank, spun of a finer thred,
Are with the Women, Steward, and Chaplain fed
With dainties cares; Others of better note
Whom wealth, parts, office, or the Heralds coat
Have sever'd from the common, freely fit
At the Lords Table, whose spread sides admit
A large access of friends to fill those fears
Of his capacious sickle, fill'd with meats
Of choycest rellish, till his Oaken back
Vnder the load of pil'd-up dishes crack,
Nor think, because our Pyramids, and high
Exalted Turrets threaten nor the sky,
That therefore wrest of narrowness complaines
Or streightned Walls, for she more numerous trains
Of Noble guests daily receives, and those
Can with farre more conveniencie dipose
Than prouder Piles, where the vain builder spent
More cost in outward gay Embellishment
Than reall use: which was the sole designe
Of our contriver, who made things not fine,
But fit for service. Amalthea's Horn
Of plenty is not in Effigie worn
Without the gate, but she within the dore
Empties her free and unexhausted store.
Nor, crown'd with wheaten wreathes, doth Ceres stand
In stone, with a crook'd sickle in her hand:
Nor, on a Marble Tun, his face besmear'd
With grapes, is curl'd uncizard Bacchus rear'd.
We offer not in Emblemes to the eyes,
But to the taste those usefull Deities.
Wee press the juycie God, and quaff his blood,
And grind the Yellow Goddess into food.
Yet we decline not all the work of Art,
But where more bounteous Nature bears a part
And guides her Hand-maid, is she but dispence
Fit matter, she with care and diligence
Employes her skill, for where the neighbour sourse
Powres forth her waters, she directs her course,
And entertaines the flowing streames in deep
And spacious channels, where they slowly creep
In snaky windings, as the shelving ground
Leads them in circles, till they twice surround
This Island Mansion, which i'th' center plac'd,
Is with a double Crystall heaven embrac'd,
In which our watery constellations floate.
Our Fishes, Swans, our Water-man and Boat,
Envy'd by those above, which with to slake
Their starre-burnt limbs in our refreshing lake,
But they stick fast nayl'd to the barren Spherl'
Whilst our encrease in fertile waters here,
Disport, and wander freely where they please
Within the circuit of our narrow Seas.
With various Trees we fringe the waters brink,
Whose thirsty roots the soaking moysture drink.
And whose extended boughes in equall rankes
Yeeld fruit, and shade, and beauty to the banks.
On this side young Vertumnus sits, and courts
His ruddy-cheek'd Pomono, Zephyre sports
On th'other, with lov'd Flora, yeelding there
Sweets for the smell, sweets for the palate here.
But did you taste the high and mighty drink
Which from that Fountain flowes, you'ld think
The God of Wine did his plump clusters bring,
And crush the Falern grape into our spring;
Or else disguis'd in watery Robes did swim
To Ceres bed, and make her big of Him,
Begetting so himself on Her: for know
Our Vintage here in March doth nothing owe
To theirs in Autumn, but our fire boyles here
As lusly liquor as the Sun makes there.
Thus I enjoy my self, and taste the fruit
Of this blest Peace, whilst toyl'd in the pursute
Of Bucks, and Stags, th'emblem of warre you strive
To keep the memory of our Armes alive.
A New-yeares gift. To the King.
LOok back old Ianus, and survey
From Time's birth, till this new-born day,
All the successefull season bound
With Lawrell wreaths, and Trophies crown'd;
Turn o'r the Annals past, and where
Happy auspicious dayes appear,
Mark'd with the whiter stone, that cast
On the dark brow of th' Ages past
•
dazeling luster, let them shine
•
n this succeeding circles twine,
Till it be round with glories spread,
Then with it crown our CHARLES his head,
That we th'ensuing year may call
One great continu'd festivall.
Fresh joyes in varied formes apply,
To each distinct captivity.
Season his cares by day with nights
Crown'd with all conjugall delights,
May the choyce beauties that enflame
His Royall breast be still the same,
And he still think them such, since more
Thou canst not give from Natures store
Then as a Father let him be
With numerous issue blest, and see
The fair and God-like off-spring grown
From budding stars to Suns full blown.
Circle wish peacefull Olive boughs,
And conquering Bayes, his Regall browes.
Let his strong vertues over-come,
And bring him bloodless Trophies home:
Strew all the pavements, where he treads,
With loyall hearts, or Rebels heads:
But Byfront, open thou no more,
In his blest raign the Temple dore.
To the Queen.
THou great Commandress, that doest move
Thy Scepter o'r the Crown of Love,
And through his Empire with the Awe
Of Thy chaste beames, doest give the Law,
From his prophaner Altars, we
Turn to adore Thy Deitie:
He only can wild lust provoke,
Thou, those impurer flames canst choke;
And where he scatters looser fires,
Thou turn'st them into chast desires:
His Kingdome knowes no rule but this,
What ever pleaseth lawfull is;
Thy sacred Lore shewes us the path
Of Modesty and constant faith,
Which makes the rude Male satisfied
With one fair Female by his side;
Doth either sex to each unite,
And sorme love's pure Hermophradite.
To this Thy faith, behold the wild
Satyr already reconcil'd,
Who from the influence of Thine eye
Hath suckt the deep Divinity;
O free them then, that they may teach,
The Centaur and the Horsman preach
To Beasts and Birds, sweetly to rest
Each in his proper Lare and nest:
They shall convey it to the floud,
Till there Thy law be understood,
So shalt thou with thy pregnant fire,
The water, earth, and ayr, inspire.
To the New yeare, for the Countess of Carlile.
GIve Lucinda Pearl, nor Stone,
Lend them light who else have none,
Let Her beauty shine alone.
Gums nor spice bring from the East,
For the Phoenix in Her breast
Builds his funerall Pile, and nest.
No tyre thou canst invent,
Shall to grace her forme be sent,
She adornes all ornament,
Give Her nothing, but restore
Those sweet smiles which heretofore,
In Her chearfull eyes she wore.
Drive those envious clouds away,
Veiles that have o'r-cast my day,
And ecclips'd Her brighter ray.
Let the royall Goth mow down
This yeares harvest with his own
Sword, and spare Lucinda's frown,
Ianus, if when next I trace
Those sweet lines, I in her face
Read the Charter of my grace,
Then from bright Apollo's tree,
Such a Garland wreath'd shall be,
As shall Crown both Her and Thee.
To my Honoured friend, Master Thomas May, upon his Comedie, The Heire.
THe Heir being born, was in his tender age
Rock'd in the Cradle of a private Stage,
There lifted up by many a willing hand,
The child did from the first day fairly stand.
Since having gather'd strength, he dares preferre
His steps into the publike Theater
The world: where he dispaires not but to find
A doom from men more able, not lesse kind.
I but his Vsher am, yet if my word
May pass, I dare be bound he will afford
Things must deserve a welcome, if well known,
Such as best writers would have wish'd their own.
You shall observe his words in order meet,
And softly stealing on with equall feet
Slide into even numbers, with such grace
As each word had been moulded for that place.
You shall perceive an amorous passion, spun
Into so smooth a web, as had the Sun
When he pursu'd the swiftly flying Maid,
Courted her in such language, she had staid.
A love so well exprest, must be the same
The Author felt himself from his fair flame:
The whole plot doth alike it self disclose
Through the five Acts, as doth the Lock that goes
With letters, for till every one be known,
The Lock's as fast, as if you had found none;
And where his sportive Muse doth draw a thread
Of mirth, chast Matrons may not blush to read.
Thus have I thought it fitter to reveal!
My want of art (dear friend) than to conceal
My love. It did appear I did not mean
So to commend thy well-wrought Comick-scene,
As men might judge my ayme rather to be,
To gain prayse to my self, than give it thee;
Though I can give thee none, but what thou hast
Deserv'd and what must my faint breath out-last.
Yet was this garment (though I skilless be,
To take thy measure) only made for thee,
And if it prove too scant, 'tis cause the stuff
Nature allow'd me was not large enough.
To my worthy friend Master Geo. Sands, on his translation of the Psalmes.
I Press not to the Quire, nor dare I greet
The holy place with my unhallowed feet;
My unwasht Muse pollutes not things Divine,
Nor mingles her prophaner notes with thine;
Here, humbly at the porch she stayes,
And with glad eares sucks in thy sacred layes.
So, devout Penitents of Old were wont,
Some without doore, and some beneath the Font,
To stand and hear the Churche's Liturgies,
Yet not assist the solemn exercise:
Sufficeth her, that she a lay-place gain,
To trim thy Vestments, or but bear thy train;
Though nor in tune, nor wing, she reach thy Lark,
Her Lyrick feet may dance before the Arke.
Who knows, but that her wandring eys that run,
Now hunting Glow-worms, may adore the Sun,
A pure flame may, shot by Almighty powre
Into her brest, the earthy flame devoure.
My eys, in penitentiall dew may steep
That brine, which they for sensuall love did weep.
So (though 'gainst Natures course) fire may be quencht
With fire, and water be with water drencht;
Perhaps my restless soul, tyr'd with pursuit
Of mortall beauty, seeking without fruit
Contentment there, which hath not, when enjoy'd,
Quencht all her thirst, nor satisfied, though cloy'd;
Weary of her vain search below, Above
In the first fair may find th' immortall Love.
Prompted by thy example then, no more
In moulds of clay will I my God adore;
But tear those Idols from my heart, and write
What his blest Spirit, not fond Love, shall indite;
Then I no more shall court the verdant Bay,
But the dry leaveless Trunk on Golgotha;
And rather strive to gain from thence one Thorn,
Than all the flourishing wreaths by Laureats worn.
To my much honoured friend, HENRY Lord CARY of Lepington, upon his translation of MALVEZZI.
My Lord,
IN every triviall work 'tis known
Translators must be masters of their own,
And of their Author's language, but your task
A greater latitude of skill did ask.
For your Malvezzi first requir'd a man
To teach him speak vulgar Italian:
His matter's so sublime, so now his phrase,
So farre above the stile of Bemboe's dayes,
Old Varchie's rules, or what the Trusca yet
For currant Truscan mintage will admit,
As I beleeve your Marquess, by a good
Part of his Natives hardly understood.
You must expect no happier fate, 'tis true
He is of noble birth, of nobler you:
So nor your thoughts, nor words fit common eares,
He writes, and you translate both to your Peeres,
To my worthy Friend, Master D'AVENANT, Vpon his excellent Play, The Iust Italian.
I'L not mispend in praise, the narrow room
I borrow in this leaf; the Garlands bloom
From thine own seeds, that crown each glorious page
Of thy triumphant work; the sullen Age
Requires a Satyre. What starre guides the soul
Of these our froward times, that date controul,
Yet dare not learn to judge? When didst thou fly
From hence, clear, candid Ingenuity?
I have beheld, when pearch'd on the smooth brow
Of a fair modest troop; thou didst allow
Applause to slighter workes; but then the weak
Spectator, gave the knowing leave to spake.
Now noyse prevailes, and he is tax'd for drowth
Of wit, that with the cry, spends not his mouth
Yet ask him; reason why he did not like;
Him, why he did; their ignorance will strike
Thy soul with scorn, and pitty: mark the places
Provoke their smiles, frowns, or distorted faces,
When they admire, nod, shake the head, they'l be
A scene of myrth, a double Comedy.
But thy strong fancies (raptures of the brain,
Drest in Poeticke flames) they entertain
As a bold, impious reach; for they'l still slight
All that exceeds Red Bull, and Cockpit flight,
These are the men in crowded heaps that throng
To that adulterate stage, where not a tongue
Of th'untun'd Kennell, can a line repeat
Of serious sense, but like lips, meet like meat;
Whilst the true brood of Actors, that alone
Keep naturall unstrain'd Action in her throne,
Behold their Benches bare, though they rehearse
The terser Beaumont's or great Iohnson's verse.
Repine not Thou then, since this churlish fate
Rules not the stage alone; perhaps the State
Hath felt this rancour, where men great and good,
Have by the Rabble been mis-understood.
So was thy Play; whose clear, yet lofry strain,
Wisemen, that govern Fate, shall entertain.
To the Reader of Master William Davenant's Play.
IT hath beene said of old, that Playes are Feasts,
Poets the Cookes, and the Spectators Guests,
The Actors Waitors: From this Similie,
Some have deriv'd an unsafe liberty
To use their judgements as their Tastes, which chuse
Without controule, this Dish, and that refuse:
But Wit allowes not this large Priviledge,
Either you must confesse, or feel it's edge;
Nor shall you make a currant inference
If you transfer your reason to your sense:
Things are distinct, and must the same appear meet:
To every piercing Eye, or well-tun'd Eare.
Though sweets with yours, sharpes best with my taste
Both must agree, this meat's, or sharp or sweet:
But if I sent a stench, or a perfume,
Whilst you smell nought at all, I may presume
You have that sense imperfect: So you may
Affect a sad, merry, or humerous Play,
If, though the kind distaste or please, the Good
And Bad, be by your Iudgement understood:
But if, as in this Play, where with delight
I feast my Epicurean appetite
With rellishes so curious, as dispence
The utmost pleasure to the ravisht sense,
You should profess that you can nothing meet
That hits your taste, either with sharp or sweet,
But cry out, 'tis insipid; your bold Tongue
May doe it's Master, not the Author wrong;
For Men of better Pallat will by it
Take the just elevation of your Wit.
TO MY FRIEND WILL: D' AVENANT.
I Crowded 'mongst the first, to see the Stage
(Inspir'd by thee) strike wonder in our age,
By thy bright fancie dazled; Where each Scene
Wrought like a charm, and forc't the audience lean
To'th' passion of thy Pen; thence Ladies went
(Whose absence Lovers sigh'd for) to repent
Their unkind scorn; And Courtiers, who by art
Made love before, with a converted heart,
To wed those Virgins, whom they woo'd t'abuse;
Both rendred Hymen's pros'lits by thy Muse.
But others who were proof 'gainst Love, did sit
To learn the subtle Dictats of thy Wit;
And as each profited, took his degree,
Master, or Batchelor, in Comedy.
Wee, of th'adult'rate mixture not complain,
But thence more Characters of Vertue gain;
More pregnant Patterns of transcendent Worth,
Than barren and insipid Frute brings forth:
So, oft the Bastard nobler fortune meets,
Than the dull Issue of the lawfull sheere.
The Comparison.
DEarest, thy tresses are not threads of gold,
Thy eyes of Diamonds, nor doe I hold
Thy lips for Rubies: Thy fair cheeks to be
Fresh Roses, or thy teeth of Ivory.
Thy skin that doth thy dainty body sheath,
Not Alablaster is, nor dost thou breath
Arabian odours, those the earth brings forth,
Compar'd with which, would but impaire thy worth.
Such may be others Mistresses, but mine
Holds nothing earthly, but is all divine.
Thy tresses are those rayes that doe arise
Not from one Sunne, but two; Such are thy eyes;
Thy lips congealed Nectar are, and such,
As but a Deitie, there's none dare touch;
The perfect crimson that thy cheek doth cloath
(But only that it farre exceeds them both)
Aurora's blush resembles, or that red
That Iris struts in when her mantle's spred;
Thy teeth in white doe Leda's Swan exceed,
Thy skin's a heavenly and immortall weed;
And when thou breath'st, the winds are ready strait
To filch it from thee, and doe therefore wait
Close at thy lips, and snatching it from thence
Bear it to Heaven, where 'tis Ioves frankincense.
Fair Goddess, since thy feature makes the one,
Yet be not such for these respects alone;
But as you are divine in outward view,
So be within as fair, as good, as true.
The Enquiry.
AMongst the myrtles as I walk't,
Love and my sighes thus intertalk't,
Tell me (said I in deep distress)
Where may I find my shepherdess?
Thou fool (said love) knowst thou not this
In every thing that's good she is;
In yonder Tulip goe and seek,
There thou maist find her lip, her cheek.
In you ennammel'd Pansie by,
There thou shalt have her curious eye;
In bloom of Peach, in Rosie bud,
There wave the streamers of her blood.
In brightest Lillies that there stands,
The emblems of her whiter hands.
In yonder rising hill there smels
Such sweets as in her bosome dwels.
'Tis true (said I) and thereupon
I went to pluck them one by one
To make of parts a union;
But on a suddain all was gone.
With that I stopt, said love these be
(Fond man) resemblances of thee,
And as these flowres, thy joyes shall die,
Even in the twinkling of an eye:
And all thy hopes of her shall wither,
Like these short sweets, thus knit together.
The Spark.
MY first love whom all beauties did adorn,
Firing my heart supprest it with her scorn,
Sun-like, to tinder in my breast it lies,
By every sparkle made a sacrifice.
Each wanton eye now kindles my desire,
And that is free to all that was entire:
Desiring more, by thee (desire) I lost,
As those that in consumptions hunger most,
And now my wandring thoughts are not confind
Vnto one woman, but to woman-kind;
This for her shape of love, that for her face,
This for her gesture, or some other grace,
And where I none of these doe use to find,
I choose there by the kernell not the rind:
And so I hope since my first hopes are gone,
To find in many what I lost in one;
And like to Merchants after some great loss,
Trade by retayle, that cannot now in gross.
The fault is hers that made me goe astray,
He needs must wander that hath lost his way.
Guiltless I am, she did this change provoke,
And made that charcoal which to her was oak,
And as a Looking-glass from the aspect,
Whilst it is whole, doth but one face reflect,
But being crack't, or broken, there are shown
Many half faces, which at first were one;
So love unto my heart did first prefer
Her Image, and there planted none but her,
But since 'twas broke and martyr'd by her scorn,
Many less faces in her face are born;
Thus like to tynder am I prone to catch
Each falling sparkle, fit for any match.
The Complement.
O My dearest I shall grieve thee
When I swear, yet sweet beleeve me,
By thine eyes the tempting book
On which even crabbed old men look,
I swear to thee, (though none abhorre them)
Yet I doe not love thee for them.
I doe not love thee for that fair,
Rich fan of thy most curious hair;
Though the wires thereof be drawn
Finer than the threads of lawn,
And are softer than the leaves
On which the subtle spinner weaves.
I doe not love thee for those flowers,
Growing on thy cheeks (loves bowers)
Though such cunning them hath spread
None can paint their white and red:
Loves golden arrowes thence are shot,
Yet for them I love thee nor.
I doe not love thee for those soft
Red corrall lips I've kist so oft;
Nor teeth of pearl, the double guard
To speech, whence musick still is heard:
Though from those lips a kiss being taken,
Might tyrants melt and death awakens.
I doe not love thee (O my fairest)
For that richest, for that rarest)
Silver pillar which stands under
Thy found head, that globe of wonder;
Though that neck be whiter far,
Than towers of pollisht Ivory are.
I doe not love thee for those mountains
Hill'd with snow, whence milky fountains,
(Suger'd sweets, as sirropt berries)
Must one day run through pipes of cherries;
O how much those breasts do move me!
Yet for them I doe not love thee.
I doe not love thee for that belly,
Sleek as satten, soft as jelly,
Though within that Christall round
Heaps of treasure might be found,
So rich that for the best of them,
A King might leave his Diadem.
I doe not love thee for those thighes,
Whose Alablaster rocks doe rise
So high and even that they stand
Like Sea-markes to some happy land;
Happy are those eys have seen them,
More happy they that sayl between them.
I love thee not for thy moyst palm.
Though the dew thereof be balm:
Nor for thy pretty legge and foot;
Although it be the precious root,
On which this goodly Cedar grows,
(Sweet) I love thee not for those.
Nor for thy wit though pure and quick,
Whose substance no Arithmetick
Can number down: nor for those charms
Mask'd in thy embracing arms.
Though in them one night to lye,
Dearest, I would gladly die.
I love not for those eyes, nor hair,
Nor cheeks, nor lips, nor teeth so rare;
Nor for thy speech, thy neck, nor breast,
Nor for thy belly, nor the rest:
Nor for thy hand, nor foot so small,
But wouldst thou know (dear sweet) for all.
On sight of a Gentlewomans face in the water.
STand still you floods, doe not deface
That Image which you bear:
So Votaries from every place,
To you shall Altars roare.
No winds but Lovers sighs blow here
To trouble these glad streames,
On which no starre from any Sphere
Did ever dart such beames.
To Christall then in haste congeal,
Left you should lose your bliss:
And to my cruell fair reveal,
How cold, how hard she is.
But if the envious Nymphs shall fear
Their beauties will be scorn'd,
And hire the ruder winds to tear
That face which you adorn'd,
Then rage and foam amain, that we
Their malice may despise:
And from your froath we soon shall see,
A second Venus rise.
A Song.
ASk me no more where Iove bestowes,
When Iune is past, the fading rose:
For in your beauties orient deep,
These Flowers as in their causes sleep.
Ask me no more whither doe stray
The golden Atomes of the day:
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to inrich your hair.
Ask me no more whither doth hast
The Nightingale, when May is past:
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her nose.
Ask me no more where those starres light,
That downwards fall in dead of night:
For in your eyes they sit, and there,
Fixed, become as in their sphere.
Ask me no more if East or west,
The Phenix builds her spicy nest:
For unto you at last she flyes,
And in your fragrant bosome dies.
Song.
WOuld you know what's soft? I dare,
Not bring you to the down, or ayr:
Nor to starres to shew what's bright,
Nor to snow to teach you white.
Nor if you would Musick hear,
Call the orbs to take your eare:
Nor to please your sense bring forth
Bruised Nard, or what's more worth.
Or on food were your thoughts plac't,
Bring you Nector, for a taste:
Would you have all these in one,
Name my Mistris, and 'tis done.
The Second Rapture.
NO worlding, no, tis not thy gold,
Which thou dost use but to behold,
Nor fortune, honour, nor long life,
Children, or friends, nor a good wife,
That makes thee happy; these things be
But shaddows of felicity.
Give me a wench about thirteen,
Already voted to the Queen
Of lust and lovers, whose soft hair,
Fann'd with the breath of gentle ayr,
O'rspreads her shoulders like a tent,
And is her vail and ornament;
Whose tender touch will make the blood
Wild in the aged, and the good;
Whose kisses, fastned to the mouth
Of threescore years and longer flouth,
Renew the age; and whose bright ey
Obscures those lesser lights of sky;
Whose snowy breasts (if we may call
That snow, that never melts at all)
Makes Iove invent a new disguise,
In spite of June's jealousies;
Whose every part doth re-invite
The old decayed appetite;
And in whose sweet embraces I
May melt my self to lust, and die.
This is true bliss, and I confess,
There is no other happiness.
The Hue and Cry.
IN love's name you are charg'd hereby,
To make a speedy Hue and Cry
After a face whicht' other day,
Stole my wandring heart away.
To direct you these (in brief)
Are ready marks to know the thief.
Her hair a net of beams would prove,
Strong enough to captive Iove
In his Eagle shap: Her brow,
Is a comely field of snow;
Her eye so rich, so pure a gray,
Every beam creates a day;
And if shee but sleep (not when
The Sun sets) 'tis night agen;
In her cheeks are to be seen,
Of flowers both the King and Queen,
Thither by the graces led,
And freshly laid in nuptiall bed,
On whom lips like Nymphes doe wait,
Who deplore their virgin star,
Oft they blush, and blush for this,
That they one another kiss:
But observe besides the rest,
You shall know this Fellon best,
By her tongue, for if your eare
Once a heavenly musick hear,
Such as neither Gods nor Men,
But from that voice, shall hear agen,
That, that is she. O strait surprise,
And bring her unto loves Assize:
If you let her goe she may,
Antedate the latter day,
Fate and Philosophy control,
And leave the world without a soul.
To his Mistris confined. Song
O Think not Phaebe, 'cause a cloud,
Doth now thy silver brightness shrowd
My wandring eye
Can stoope to common beauties of the Sky.
Rather be kind, and this Ecclips,
Shall neither hinder eye nor lips,
For wee shall meet,
Within our hearts, and kiss, and non shall see't.
Nor canst thou in thy prison be,
Without some living signe of me;
When thou dost spy
A Sun beam peep into the room, 'tis I,
For I am hid within a flame,
And thus into thy chamber came,
To let thee see
In what a martyrdome I burn for thee.
When thou dost touch thy Lute, thou mayest
Think on my heart, on which thou playest:
when each sad tone,
Vpon the things doth shew my deeper groan.
when thou dost please, they shall rebound
with nimble ayres, struck to the sound
Of thy own voye;
O think how much I tremble and rejoyce.
There's no sad picture that doth dwell
Vpon thy Arras wall, but well
Resembles me;
No matter though our age do not agree,
Love can make old, as well as time,
And be that doth but twenty clime,
If he dare prove
As true as I, shews fourescore years in love.
The Primrose.
ASk me why I send you here,
This firstling of the infant year;
Ask me why I send to you,
This Primrose all bepearl'd with dew,
I strait will whisper in your ears,
The sweets of love are wash'd with tears
Ask me why this flower doth shew,
So yellow, green, and sickly too;
Ask me why the stalk is weak,
And bending, yet it doth not break;
I must tell you these discover
What doubts and fears are in a Lover.
The tinder.
OF what mould did nature frame me?
Or was it her intent to shame me,
That no woman can come neer me
Fair, but her I court to hear me?
Sure that mistris to whose beauty
First I paid a Lovers duty,
Burnt in rage my heart to tinder;
That nor prayers, nor tears can hinder.
But where ever I doe turn me,
Every spark let fall doth burn me,
Women since you thus inflamme,
Flint and steel I'l ever name yee.
A Song.
IN her fayr cheeks two pits doe lye,
To bury those slain by her eye,
So spight of death this comforts me,
That fairely buried I shall be.
My grave with rose and lilly spread.
Otis a life to be so dead!
Come then and kill me with thy eye
For if thou let me live, I dye.
When I behold those lips again,
Reviving what those eyes have slaine,
With kisses sweet, whose balsome pure,
Loves wounds as soon as made, can cure.
Me thinks 'tis sickness to be sound,
And there's no health to such a wound.
Come then, &c.
When in her chaste breast I behold,
Those downy mounts of snow ne'r cold,
And those blest hearts her beauty kils,
••
viv'd by climing those fayr hils.
He thinkes there's life in such a death,
And so t'expire, inspires new breath.
Come then, &c.
Nymph since no death is deadly, where
Such choyce of Antidotes are neere,
And your keen eyes but kill in vain,
Those that are sound, as soon as slain,
That I no longer dead survive,
Your way's to bury me alive
In Cupids cave, wher happy I,
May dying live, and living dye.
Come then and kill me with thy eye.
For if thou let me live, I die.
The Carver. To his Mistris.
A Carver having lov'd to long in vain,
Hew'd out the portraiture of Venus Sunn
In marble rocke, upon the which did rain
Small drisling drops that from a fount did runn.
Imagining the drops would either wear
His fury out, or quench his living flame:
But when he saw it bootless did appear,
He swore the water did augment the same.
So I that seek in verse to carve thee out,
Hoping thy beauty will my flame allay,
Viewing my lines impolish't all throughout,
Find my will rather to my love obey:
That with the Carver I my work do blame,
Finding it still th'augmenter of my flame.
To the Painter.
FOnd man that hop'st to catch that face,
With those false colours, whose short grace
Serves but to shew the Lookers on
The faults of thy presumption;
Or at the least to let us see,
That is divine, but yet not shee.
Say you could imitate the rayes
Of those eyes that out-shine the dayes,
Or counterfeit in red and white
That most uncounterfeited light
Of her complexion, yet canst thou,
(Great Master though thou be) tell how
To print a vertue? Then desist,
This fair, your Artifice hath mist:
You should have markthow she begins
To grow in vertue, not insins;
In stead of that same rosie die,
You should have drawn out modesty,
Whose beauty sits enthroned there,
And learns to look and blush at her.
Or can you colour just the same,
When vertue blushes, or when shame,
VVhen sickness, and when innocence,
Shews pale or white unto the sense?
Can such corse varnish e'r be sed,
To imitate her white and red?
This may do well els-where in Spain,
Among those faces died in grain,
So you may thrive, and what you do,
Prove the best picture of the two.
Besides (if all I hear be true)
'Tis taken ill by some, that you
Should be so insolently vain,
As to contrive all that rich gain
Into one tablet, which alone
May teach us superstition;
Instructing our amazed eies,
T'admire and worship Imag'ries.
Such as quickly might out-shine
Some new Saint, wer't allow'd a shrine,
And turn each wandring looker on,
Into a new Pigmaleon:
Yet your Art cannot equalize
This Picture in her Lovers eyes.
His eies the pencils are which limbe,
Her truly, as hers coppy him,
His heart the Tablet, which alone
Is for that portraicture the tru'st stone,
If you would a truer see,
Mark it in their posterity,
And you shall read it truly there,
When the glad world shal see their Heir.
Loves Courtship.
KIss lovely Celia and be kind,
Let my desires freedom find,
Sit there down
And we will make the Gods confess
Mortals enjoy some happiness.
Mars would disain his Mistris charms,
If he beheld thee in my arms,
And descend.
Thee his mortall Queen to make,
Or live as mortal for thy sake.
Venus must lose her title now,
And leave to brag of Cupid's bow;
Silly Queen,
Sweet hath but one, but I can spy,
Ten thousand Cupids in thy ey.
Nor may the Sun behold our bliss,
For sure thy eies do dazle his.
If thou fear.
That hell betray thee with his light,
Let me ecclipse thee from his sight.
And while I shade thee from his ey,
Oh let me hear thee gently cry,
Celia yeelds.
Maids often lose their Maiden-head,
Ere they set foot in Nuptial bed.
On a Damask rose sticking upon a Ladies breast.
LEt pride grow big my Rose, and let the clear
And damask colour of thy leaves appear.
Let scent and looks be sweet, and bless that hand
That did transplant thee to that sacred land.
O happy thou that in that garden rests,
That Paradise between that Ladies breasts.
There's an eternall spring, there shalt thou lie,
Betwixt two Lilly mounts, and never die.
There shalt thou spring among the fertile vallies,
By bads like thee that grow in midst of Allyes.
There none dare pluck thee, for that place is such,
That but a good divine, there's none dare touch.
If any but approach, strait doth arise
A blushing lightning flash, and blasts his eies.
There'stead of rain shall living fountains flow,
For wind her fragrant breath for ever blow.
Nor now, as earst, one Sun shall on thee shine,
But those two glorious suns, her eyes divine.
O then what Monarch would not think't a grace,
To leave his Regall throne to have thy place.
My self to gain thy blessed seat do vow
VVould be transform'd into a rose as thou.
The Protestation, a Sonnet.
NO more shall Meads be deckt with Flowers,
Nor sweetness dwelt in rosie bowers;
Nor greenest buds on branches spring,
Nor warbling birds delight to sing,
Nor April violets paint the grove,
If I forsake my Celia's love.
The fish shall in the Ocean burn,
And fountains sweet shall bitter
••
rn,
The humble Oak no flood shall know
When floods shall highest hits ore-flow;
Black Laethe shall oblivion leave,
If e'r my Celia I deceive.
Love shall his bow and shaft lay by,
And Venus Doves want wings to fly,
The Sun refuse to shew his light,
And day shall then be turn'd tonight,
And in that night no star appear,
If once I leave my Celia dear.
Love shall no more inhabit earth,
Nor Lovers more shall love for worth,
Nor joy above in heaven dwell,
Nor pain torment poor souls in hell;
Grim Death no more shall horrid prove,
If e'r I leave bright Celia's Love.
The tooth-ach cured by a kiss.
FAte's now grown mercifull to men,
Turning disease to bliss:
For had not kind Rheum vext me then,
I might not Celia kiss.
Phisicians you are now my corn:
For I have found a way
To cure diseases (when forlorn
By your dull Art) which may
Patch up a body for a time,
But can restore to health,
No more than Chimists can sublime
True Gold, the Indies wealth.
The Angel sure that us'd to move
The pool, men so admir'd,
Hath to her lip the seat of love,
As to his heaven retir'd.
To the jealous Mistris.
ADmit (thou darling of mine eies)
I have some Idol lately fram'd:
That under such a false disguise,
Our true loves might the less be fam'd,
Canst thou that knowest my heart suppose,
Ile fall from thee, and worship those.
Remember (dear) how loath and slow
I was to cast a look or smile,
Or one love-line to mis-bestow,
Till thou hadst chang'd both face and stile,
And art thou grown afraid to see,
That mask put on thou mad'st for me?
I dare not call those childish fears,
Comming from love, much less from thee,
But wash away with frequent tears
This counterfeit Idolatry.
And henceforth kneel at ne'r a shrine,
To blind the world, but only thine.
The Dart.
OFt when I look, I may descry
A little face peep through that eye;
Sure that's the boy, which wisely chose
His throne among such beams as those,
VVhich if his quiver chance to fall,
May serve for darts to kill withall.
The Mistake.
WHen on fair Celia I did spy
A wounded heart of stone,
The wound had almost made me cry,
Sure this heart was my own.
But when I saw it was enthron'd
In her celestiall breast:
O then! I it no longer own'd,
For mine was ne'r so blest.
Yet if in highest heavens do shine
Each constant Martyrs heart:
Then she may well give rest to mine,
That for her sake doth smart.
VVhere seated in so high a bliss,
Though wounded, it shall live:
Death enters not in Paradise,
The place free life doth give.
Or if the place less sacred were,
Did but her saving eie
Bath my sick heart in one kind teare,
Then should I never die.
Slight balms may heal a slighter sore,
No medicin less divine
Can ever hope for to restore
A wounded heart like mine.
To my Lord Admirall, on his late sickness, and recovery.
VVIth joy like ours, the Thracian youth invade
Orpheus, returning from th'Elysian shade,
Embrace the Heroe, and his stay implore,
Make it their publike sute he would no more
Desert them so, and for his Spouses sake,
His vanisht love, tempt the Lethaen Lake;
The Ladies too, the brightest of that time,
Ambitious all his lofty bed to climbe,
Their doubtfull hopes with expectation feed,
Which shall the fair Euridice succeed;
Euridice, for whom his numerous moan
Makes listning Trees, and savage Mountaines groan,
Through all the Ayr his sounding strings dilate
Sorrow like that, which touch'd our hearts of late,
Your pining sickness, and your restless pain,
At once the Land affecting, and the Mayn,
When the glad newes that you were Admirall,
Scarce through the Nation spread, 'twas fear'd by all
That our great CHARLES, whose wisdom shines in you,
Should be perplexed how to chuse a new:
So more than private was the joy and grief,
That at the worst it gave our soules relief,
That in our Age such sense of vertue liv'd,
They joy'd so justly, and so justly griev'd.
Nature, her fairest light ecclipsed, seemes
Her self to suffer in these sad extremes,
While not from thine alone thy blood retires,
But from those checks which all the world admires.
The stem thus threatned, and the sap, in thee
Droop all the branches of that noble Tree,
Their beauties they, and we our love suspend,
Nought can our wishes, save thy health intend;
As Lillies over-charg'd with rain they bend
Their beauteous heads, and with high heaven contend,
Fold thee within their snowy anres, and cry,
He is too faultless, and too young to die:
So like Immortals, round about thee They
Sit, that they fight approaching death away.
Who would not languish, by so fair a train
To be lamented, and rester'd again?
Or thus with-held, what hasty soul would go.
Though to the Blest? O'r young Adonis so
Faire Venus mourn'd, and with the precious showr
Of her warm teares cherisht the springing flower.
The next support, fair hope, of your great name,
And second Pillar of that noble frame,
By loss of thee would no aduantage have,
But step by step pursues thee to thy grave.
And now relentless Fate about to end
The line, which backward doth so farr extend,
That Antique stock, which still the world supplies
With bravest spirits, and with brightest eyes,
Kind Phaebus interposing bade me stay,
Such stormes no more shall shake that house, but say,
Like Neptune, and his Sea-born Neece shall be
The shining glories of the Land and Sea,
With courage guard, and beauty warm our Age,
And Lovers fill with like Poetique rage.
On Mistris N. to the green sickness.
STay coward blood, and doe not yield
To thy pale sister, beauties field,
Who there displaying round her white
Ensignes, hath usurp'd thy night;
Invading thy peculiar throne,
The lip, where thou shouldst rule alone;
And on the cheek, where natures care,
Allotted each an equall share,
Her spreading Lilly only growes,
Whose milky deluge drowns thy Rose.
Quit not the field faint blood, nor rush
In the short salley of a blush
Vpon thy sister foe, but strive
To keep an endless warre alive;
Though peace doe petty States maintain,
Here warre alone makes beauty raign.
Vpon a Mole in Celia's bosome.
THat lovely spot which thou dost see
In Celia's bosome was a Bee,
Who built her amorous spicy nest
I'th' Hyblas of her either breast,
But from close Ivory Hyves, she flew
To suck the Aromatick dew
Which from the neighbour vale distils,
Which parts those two twin-sister hils,
There feasting on Ambrosiall meat,
A rowling file of Balmy sweat,
(As in soft murmurs before death.
Swan-like she sung) chokt up her breath.
So she in water did expire,
More precious than the Phaenix fire;
Yet still her shaddow there remains
Confind to those Elizian plains;
With this strict Law, that who shall lay
His bold lips on that milky way,
The sweet, and smart, from thence shall bring
Of the Bees Honey, and her sting.
An Hymeneall Song on the Nuptials of
the Lady Ann Wentworth, and
the Lord Lovelace.
BReak not the slumbers of the Bride,
But let the Sun in Triumph ride,
Scattering his beamy light,
When she awakes, he shall resigne
His rayes: And she alone shall shine
in glory all the night,
For she till day return must keep
An Amorous Vigill, and not steep
Her fayr eyes in the dew of sleep.
Yet gently whisper as she lies,
And say her Lord waits her uprise;
The Priests at the Altar s
••
y,
With Flowry wreathes the Virgin crew
Attend while some with roses strew,
And Mirtles trim the way.
Now to the Temple, and the Priest,
See her convaid, thence to the Feast;
Then back to bed, though not to rest.
For now to crown his faith and truth,
Wee must admit the noble youth
To revell in Loves sphere.
To rule as chiefe Intelligence
That Orb, and happy time dispence
To wretched Lovers here.
For there exalted farre abov,
All hope, fear, change, or they to move
The wheel that spins the fates of Love.
They know no night, nor glaring noon
Measure no houres of Sunn or Moon,
Nor mark time's restless Glass.
Their kisses measure as they flaw,
Minutes, and there embraces show
The hower's as they pass.
Their Motions, the yeares circle make,
And we from their conjunctions take,
Rules to make Love an Almanack.
A married Woman
WHen I shall marry, if I doe not find
A wife thus moulded, I'l create this mind:
Nor from her noble birth, nor ample dower,
Beauty, or wit, shall she derive a power
To prejudice my Right, but if she be
A subject born, she shall be so to me:
As to the soul the flesh, as Appetite
To reason is, which shall our wils unite
In habits so confirm'd, as no rough sway
Shall once appear, if she but learn t'obey.
For in habituall vertues, sense is wrought
To that calm temper, as the bodie's thought
To have nor blood, nor gall, if wild and rude
Passions of Lust, and Anger, are subdu'd;
When 'tis the fair obedience to the soul,
Doth in the birth those swelling Acts controul.
If I in murder steep my furious rage,
Or with Adult'ry my hot lust asswage,
Will it suffice to say my sense, the Beast
Provokt me to't? could I my soul devest,
My plea were good. Lyons, and Buls commit
Both freely, but man must in judgement sit,
And tame this Beast, for Adam was not free,
When in excuse he said, Eve gave it me:
Had he not eaten, she perhaps had been
Vnpunisht, his consent made hers a sinne.
A divine Love.
1.
WHy should dul Art, which is wise Natures Ape,
If she produce a shape
So farre beyond all patternes, that of old
Fell from her mold
As thine (admir'd Lucinda) not bring forth
An equall wonder, to express that worth
In some new way, that hath
Like her great work, no print of vulgar path?
2.
Is it because the rapes of Poetry,
Rifeling the spacious sky
Of all his fires, light, beauty, influence,
Did those dispence
On ayrie creations that surpast
The reall workes of Nature, she at laft
To prove their rapeures vain,
Shew'd such a light as Poets could not feign?
3.
Or is it 'cause the factious wits did vie
With vain Idolatry,
Whose Goddess was supreme, and so had hurld
Schism through the world,
Whose Priest sung sweetest layes; thou didst appear
A glorious mysterie, so dark, so clear,
As Nature did intend
All should confess, but none might comprehend?
4.
Perhaps all other beauties share a light
Proportion'd to the fight
Of weak mortality, scatt'ring such loose fires,
As stir desires,
And from the brain distill salt amorous rhumes,
Whilst thy immortall flame such dross consumes,
And from the earthy mold
With purging fires severs the purer gold.
5.
If so, then why in Fames immortall scrowl,
Doe we their names inroul,
Whose easie hearts, and wanton eyes did sweat
With sensuall heat?
If Petrark's unarm'd bosome catch a wound
From a light glance, must Laura be renown'd?
Or both a glory gain,
He from ill-govern'd Love, she from Disdain?
6.
Shall he more fam'd in his great Art become,
For wilfull martyrdome?
Shall she more title gain to chast and fair
Through his dispair?
Is Troy more noble 'cause to ashes turn'd?
Than Virgin Cities that yet never burn'd?
Is fire when it consumes
Temples, more fire, than when it melts persumes?
7.
Cause Venus from the Ocean took her form
Must Love needs be a storm?
Cause she her wanton shrines in Islands reares,
Through seas of tears,
O'r Rocks, and Gulphs, with our own sighs for gales,
Must we to Cyprus, or to Paphos sayl?
Can there no way be given,
But a true Hell that leads to her false Heaven.
Loves Force.
IN the first ruder Age, when Love was wild
Not yet by Lawes reclam'd, not reconcil'd
To order, nor by Reason mann'd, but flew
Full-summ'd by Nature, on the instant view
Vpon the wings of Appetite, at all
The eye could fair, or sense delightfull call:
Election was not yet, but as their cheap
Food from the Oak, or the next Acorn heap,
As water from the nearest spring or brook,
So men their undistinguisht females took
By chance, not choyce; but soon the heavenly spark
That in mans bosome lurkt, broke through this dark
Confusion, then the noblest breast first felt
Itself, for its own proper object melt.
A Fancy.
MArk how this polisht Eastern sheet
Doth with our Northern tincture meet,
For though the paper seem to sink,
Yet it receives, and bears the Ink;
And on her smooth soft brow these spots
Seem rather ornaments than blots;
Like those you Ladies use to place
Mysteriously about your face;
Not only to set off and break
Shaddowes and Eye beams, but to speak
To the skild Lover, and relate
Vnheard, his sad or happy Fate:
Nor doe their Characters delight,
As careless workes of black and white
But 'cause you underneath may find
A sense that can informe the mind;
Divine, or moral rules impart
Or Raptures of Poetick Art:
So what at first was only fit
To fold up silkes, may wrap up wit.
Coelum Britannicum.
A MASKE AT WHITE-HALL IN the Banqueting House, on Shrove-Tuesday-night, the 18. of February, 1633.
The Inventors.
Tho. Carew. Inigo Iones.
Non habet ingenium; Caesar sed jussit: habebo. Cur me posse negem, posse quod ille putat.
LONDON, Printed for HUM. MOSELEY and are to be sold at his Shop at the signe of the Princes Armes in St. Pauls-Church-yard. 1651.
THE DESCRIPTION OF THE SCAENE.
THe first thing that presented it selfe to the sight, was a rich Ornament that enclosed the Scaene; in the upper part of which were great branches of Foiage growing out of leaves and huskes, with a Coronice at the top; and in the midst was placed a large Compartiment composed of Grotesk work, wherein were Harpies with Wings and Lyons clawes, and their hinder parts converted into leaves and branches; over all was a broken Frontispice, wrought with krowles and masque heads of Children, and within this a Table adorn'd with a lesser Compartiment, with this Inscription, COELVM BRITANNICVM. The two sides of this Ornament were thus ordered: First, from the ground arose a square Basement, and on the Plinth stood a great vaze of gold, richly enchased, and beautified with Sculptures of great Releine, with frutages hanging from the upper-part; At the foot of this sate two youths naked, in their naturall colours, each of these with one arme supported the Vaze, on the cover of which stood two young women in Draperies, arme in arme, the one figuring the
glory of Princes, and the other Mansuetude: their other armes bore up an Ovall, in which, to the Kings Majesty was this Imprese, A Lyon with an Imperiall Crown on his head; the word, Animum subpectore forti: On the other side was the like Composition, but the designe of the Figures varied; and in the Ovall on the top, being borne up by Nobility and Fecundity, was this Imprese to the Queenes Majesty, A Lilly growing with branches and leaves, and three lesser Lillies springing out of the Stem; the word, Semper inclita Virtus: Al this Ornament was heightned with Gold, and for the Invention, and various composition was the newest and most gracious that hath beene done in this place.
The Curtaine was watcher, and a pale yellow in panes, which flying up on the sudden, discovered the Scaene, representing old Arches, old Palaces, decayed wals, parts of Temples, Theaters, Basilica's and Thermes with confused heaps of broken Columnes, Bases, Coronices and Statues, lying as under-ground, and altogether resembling the ruines of some great Citie of the ancient Romans or civiliz'd Britains. This strange prospect detain'd the eyes of the Spectators sometime, when to a loud Musick Mercury descends; on the upper part of his Chariot stands a Cock in action of crowing: his habit was a Coat of flame colour girt to him, and a white Mantle trimm'd with gold and silver; upon his head a wreath with small fals of white Feathers, a Caduseus in his hand, and
wings at his heels: being come to the ground he dismounts, and goés up to the State.
Mercury
FRom the high Senate of the gods, to You
Bright glorious Twins of Love and Majesty,
Before whose Throne three warlike Nations bend
Their willing knees, on whose Imperiall browes
The Regall Circle prints no awfull frownes
To fright your Subjects, but whose calmer eyes
Shed joy and safety on their melting hearts
That flow with cheerfull loyall reverence,
Come I cyllenius, Jove's Ambassadour,
Not as of old, to whisper amorcus tales
Of wanton love, into the glowing eare
Of some choyce beauty in this numerous train;
Those dayes are fled, the rebell flame is quench'd
In heavenly breasts, the gods have sworn by Styx,
Never to tempt yeelding mortality
To loose embraces. Your exémplar life
Hath not alone transfus'd a zealous heat
Of imitation through your vertuous Court,
By whose bright blaze your Palace is become
The envy'd pattern of this under world,
But the aspiring flame hath kindled heaven;
Th'immortall bosoms burn with emulous fires,
Jove rivals your great vertues, Royall Sir,
And Iuno, Madam, your attractive graces;
He his wild lusts, her raging jealousies
She layes aside, and through th'Olympique hall,
As yours doth here, their great Example spreads,
And though of old, when youthfull blood conspir'd
With his new Empire, prone to heats of lust,
He acted incests, rapes, adulteries
On earthly beauties, which his raging Queen,
Swoln with revengefull fury turn'd to beast,
And in despight he transform'd to Stars,
Till hee had stil'd the crowded Firmament
With his loose Strumpets, and their spurious race,
Where the eternall records of his shame
Shine to the world in flaming Characters;
When in the Chrystall myr our of your raign
He view'd himself, he found his loathsome staines;
And now to expiate the infections guilt
Of those detested luxuries hee'll chace
Th'infámous lights from their usurped Sphere,
And drown in the Laethean flood, their curs'd
Both names and memories. In whose vacant roomes,
First you succeed, and of the wheeling Orbe
In the most eminent and conspicuo is point,
With dazel ng beames, and spreading magnitude,
Shine the bright Pole starre of thi Hemispheare,
Next, by your side, in a triumphant Chaire,
And crown'd with Ariadnes Diadem,
Sits the faire Consort of your heart, and Throne;
Diffus'd about you, with that share of light
As they of vertue have deriv'd from you,
Hee'll fix this Noble train, of either sexe;
So to the British stars this lower Globe
Shall owe its light, and they alone dispence
To'th' world a pure refined influence.
Enter Momus attired in a long darkish Robe, all wrought over with ponyards, Serpents tongues, eyes and eares, his beard and hair party-coloured and upon his head a wreath stucke with Feathers, and a Porcupine in the forepart.
Momus.
BY your leave, Mortals. Good Cozen Hermes, your pardon good my Lord Ambassadour:
I found the tables of your Armes and Titles, in every Inne betwixt this and Olympus, where your present expedition is registred your nine thousandth nine hundred ninety ninth Legation. I cannot reach the policy why your Master breeds so few States men, it suits not with his dignity, that in the whole Empyiaeum there should not be a god fit to send on these honourable errands but your selfe, who are not yet so carefull of his honour or your owne, as might become your quality, when you are itinerant: the Hosts upon the high-way cry out with open mouth upon you for supporting plafery in your traine; which, though as you are the god of petty Larciny, you might protect, yet you know it is directly against the new orders, and opposes the Reformation in Diameter.
Merc.
Peace Rayler, bridle your licentious tongue.
And let this Presence teach you modesty.
Mom.
Let it if it can; in the meane time I will acquaint it with my condition. Know, (gay people) that though your poets who enjoy by patent a particular privilege to draw down any of the Deities from Twelf-night till Shrove-tuesday, at what time there is annually a most familiar enter-course between the two Courts, have as yet never invited mee to these Solemnities, yet it shall appear by my intrusion this night. that I am a very confiderable person upon these occasions, and may most properly assist at such
entertainments. My name is Momus ap-Somnus-ap-Erebus-ap-Chaos-ap-Demorgorgon-ap-Eternity, My Offices and Titles are, The Supreme Theomastix, Hupercritique of manners, protonotary of abuses, Arch-Informer, Dilator Generall, Vniversall Calumniator, Eternall plaintiffe, and perpetuall Foreman of the Grand Inquest. My privileges are an ubiquitary, circumambulatory, speculatory, interrogatory, redargutory, immunity over all the privy lodgings, behind hangings, doores, curtaines, through key-holes, chinks, windowes, about all Venerial Lobbies, Skonces, or Redoubts, though it bee to the surprize of a perdu Page or Chambermald, in, and at all Courts of civill and criminall judicature, all Counsels, Consultations, and parliamentary Assemblies, where though I am but a Wool-sack god, and have no vote in the sanction of new lawes, I have yet a praerogative of wresting the old to any whatsoever interpretation, whether it be to the behoose, or prejudice, of Iupiter, his Crowne and Dignity, for, or against the Rights of either house of patrician or plebeian gods. My naturall qualities are to make Iove frowne, Iuno powt, Mars chafe, Venus blush, Vulcan glow, Saturne quake, Cyuthia pale, Phaebus hide his face, and Mercury here take his heeles. My recreations are witty mischiefes, as when Saturne guelt his Father; The Smith caught his wife and her Bravo in a net of Cobweb-Iron; and Hebe, through the
lubricity of the pavement stumbling over the Halfpace, presented the Embleme of the forked tree, and discover'd to the tann'd Ethiops the snowie cliffs, of Calabria with the Grotta of Puteolum. But that you may arrive at the perfect knowledge of me, by the familiar illustration of a Bird of mine own feather, old Peter Aretine, who reduc'd all the Scepters and Myters of that Age tributary to his wit, was my parallell, and Franke Rablais suck'd much of my milke too; but your moderne French Hospitall of Oratory, is a meer counterfeit, an arrant Mountebank, for though fearing no other fortunes than his Sciatica, hee discourse of Kings and Queens with as little Reverence as of Grooms and Chambermaids, yet he wants their fangteeth, and Scorpions tayl; I meane that fellow, who to adde to his stature thinks it a greater grace to dance on his tiptoes like a Dog in a doublet, than to walke like other men on the soles of his feet.
Merc.
No more impertinent Trifeler, you disturb
The great Affair with your rude scurrilous chat.
What doth the knowledge of your abject state
Concerue Ioves solemn Message?
Mom.
Sir, by your favour, though you have a more especiall Commission of employment from Iupiter, and a larger entertainment from his Exchequer, yet as a freedom God I have the liberty to travell at mine own charges, without your passe or countenance Legacine; and that it
may appear a sedulous acute observer, may know as much as a dull flegmatique Ambassador, and weares a treble key to unlock the mysterious Cyphers of your darke secrecies. I will discourse the politique state of Heaven to this trim Audience— At this Scaene changeth, and in the heaven is discovered a Sphere, with Stars placed in their severall Images; born up by a huge naked Figure (onely a peece of Drapery hanging over his thigh) kneeling and bowing forwards; as if the great weight lying on his shoulders opprest him, upon his head a Crowne, by all which he might easily be known to be Atlas.
—You shall understand that Iupiter upon the inspection of I know not what vertuous. Presidents extant (as they say) here in this Court, but as I more probably ghesse out of the consideration of the decay of his naturall abilities, hath before a frequent convocation of the Superlunary Peers in a solemn oration recanted, disclaymed, and utterly renounced all the lascivious extravagancies & riotous enormities of his forepast licentious life, and taken his oath on Iunos Breviary, religiously kissing the two-leave'd Book, never to stretch his limbs mor betwixt adutrerous sheets and hath with pathetical remonstrances exhorted and under strict penalties enjoyned, a respective conformity in the severall subordinate Deities; and because the Libertines of Antiquity, the Ribald Poets, to perpetuate the
memory and example of their triumphs over chastity, to all future imitation, have in their immortall songs celebrated the martyrdom of those Strumpets under the persecution of the wives, and devolved to posterity the pedigrees of their whores, bawds, and bastards, it is therefore by the authority aforesaid enacted, that this whole Army of Constellations be immediatly dis-banded and casheered so to remove all imputation of impiety from the Caelestiall Spirits, and all lust-full influences upon terrestriall bodies, and consequently that there be an Inquisition erected to expunge in the Ancient, and suppresse in the modern and succeeding Poems and pamphlets, all past present and future mention of those abjur'd heresies, and to take particular notice of all ensuing Incontinences, and punish them in their high Commission Court. Am not I in election to be a tall States-man think you, that can repeat a passage at a Counsell-table thus punctually?
Merc.
I shun in vaine the importunity, With which this Snarler vexeth all the gods, Iove cannot scape him: wel what els from heaven?
Mom
Heaven! Heaven is no more the place it was; a Cloyster of Carthusians, a Monastery of converted gods, Iove is grown old and fearfull, apprehends a subversion of his Empire, and doubts lest Fate should introduce a legal succession in the legitimate heir by repossessing the Titanian line, and hence springs all this innovation. Wee have had new orders read in the presence Chamber, by
the Vi-President of Parnassus, too strict to be observed long, Monopolies are called in, sophistication of wares punished, and rates imposed on commodities. Injunctions are gone out to the Nectar Brewers, for the purging of the heavenly Beverage of a narcotique weed which hath rendred the Idaeaes confus'd in the Divine intellects, and reducing it to the composition used in Saturnes Reign. Edicts are made for the restoring of decayed house-keeping, prohibiting the repayr of Families to the Metropolis, but this did endanger an Amazonian mutiny, till the females put on a more masculine resolution of solliciting business in their own persons, and leaving their husbands at home for stallions of hospitality. Bacchus hath commanded all Taverus to be shut, and no liquor drawn after ten at night. Cupid must goe no more so scandalously naked, but but is enjoyed to make him breeches, though of his mothers petticoats. Gauimede is forbidden the Bedchamber, and must onely Minister in publike. The Gods must keepe no Pages, nor Groomes of their Chamber, under the age of 25. and those provided of a competent stocke of beard. Pan may not pipe, nor Proteus juggle, but by especial permission. Vulcan was brought to an Oretenus and fined, for driving in a plate of Iron into one of the Suns Chariot-wheels, and frost-nailing his horses upon the fifth of November last, for breach of a penal Statute, prohibiting work upon Holi-dayes, that being the annuall celebration of
the Gygantomacy. In brief, the whole state of the Hierarchy suffers a totall reformation, especially in the point of reciprocation of conjugall affection. Venus hath confest all her adulteries, and is receiv'd to grace by her husband, who conscious of the great disparity betwixt her perfections and his deformities, allowes those levities as an equall counterpoize; but it is the prettiest spectacle to see her stroaking with her Ivory hand his collied cheeks, and with her snowie fingers combing his sooty beard. Jupiter too begins to learn to lead his owne wife, I left him practising in the milky way; and there is no doubt of an universall obedience, where the Lawgiver himself in his own person observes his decrees so punctually, who besides, to eternize the memory of that great example of Matrimoniall union which he derives from hence, hath on his Bed-chamber doore and seeling, fretted with starres in capitall Letters, engraven the Inscription of CARLO-MARIA. This is as much I am sure as either your knowledge or Instructions can direct you to, which I having in a blunt round tale, without State, formality, politique inferences, or suspected Rhetoricall elegancies, already delivered, you may now dexterously proceed to the second Part of your charge, which is the raking of your heavenly sparks up in the Embers, or reducing the Etheriall lights to their primitive opacity, and grosse dark subsistence; they are all unrivited from the Sphere, and hang loose in their
sockets, where they but attend the waving of your Caduce, and immediatly they re-invest their pristine shapes, and appear before you in their own naturall deformities.
Merc.
Momus thou shalt prevail, for since thy bold
Intrusion hath inverted my resolves,
I must obey necessity, and thus turn
My face, to breath the Thunders just decree
Gainst this adult rate sphere, which first I purge
Of loathsome Monsters, and mis-shapen formes;
Down from her azure concave, thus I charm
The Lyrnean Hydra, the rough unlick'd Bear?
The watchfull Dragon, the storm-boading Whale,
The Centaur, the horn'd Goatfish Capricorn,
The Snake-head Gorgon, and fierce Sagittar:
Divested of your gorgeous stany robes,
Fall from the circling Orb, and e'r you suck
Fresh venome in, measure this happy earth,
Then to the Fens, Caves, Forrests, Desarts, Seas,
Fly, and resume your native qualities.
Thy dance in those monstrous shapes, the first
Antimask of naturall deformity.
Mom.
Are not these fine companions trim Play-fellowes for the Deities? yet these and their fellows have made up all our conversation for some thousands of years. Doe not you fair Ladies acknowledge your selves deeply engaged now to those Poets your servants that in the height of commendation have rais'd your beauties to a parallel with such exact proportions or at least rank'd you in their spruce society? Hath not the consideration of these Inhabitants rather frighted your thoughts utterly from the contemplation
of the place? but now that these heavenly Mansions are to be void, you that shall hereafter be found unlodged will become inexusable; especially since vertue alone shall be sufficient title, fine and rent: yet if there be a Lady not competently stock'd that way shee shall not on the instant utterly despair, if she carry a sufficient pawn of handsomenesse for however the letter of the Law runs, Iupeter notwithstanding his Age and present ansterity, will never refuse to stamp beauty, and make it current with his own Impression; but to such as are destitute of both, I can afford but small encouragement. Proceed Cozen Mercury, what followes?
Merc.
Look up, and mark where the bright Zodiack
Hangs like a Belt about the breast or heaven;
On the right shoulder, like a flaming Iewell,
His shell with nine much Topazes adorn'd,
Lord of this Tropique fits the skalding Crab,
He, when the Sun gallops in full career
His annuall race, his gastly clawes uprear'd,
Frights at the confines of the torrid Zone
The fiery team, and proudly stops their course,
Making a solstice, till the fierce Steeds learn
His backward paces, and so retrogade,
Poste downe hill to th'opposed Capricorn.
Thus I depose him from his lofty Throne;
Drop from the sky, into the briny flood,
There teach thy motion to the ebbing Sea,
But let those fires that beautifi'd thy shell
Take humane shapes, and the disorder shew
Of thy regressive spaces here below,
The second Antimasque is danc'd in retrograde paces, expressing obliquity in motion
Mom.
This Crab, I confesse, did ill become the heavens; but there is another that more infests the Earth, and makes such a solstice in the politer Arts and Sciences, as they have not been observed for many Ages to have made any sensible advance: could you but lead the learned squadrons with a masculine resolution past this point of retrogradation, it were a benefit to mankind, worthy the power of a god and to bee payed with Altars; but that not being the worke of this night, you may pursue your purposes: what now succeeds?
Merc.
Vice, that unbodied, in the Appetite
Erects his Throne, hath yet, in bestiall shapes,
Branded, by Nature, with the Character
And distinct stamp of some peculiar Ill,
Mounted the Sky, and fix'd his Trophies there:
As fawning flattery in the little Dog;
I'th' bigger, churlish Murmur; Cowardize
I'th' timorous Hare; Ambition in the Eagle;
Rapine and Avarice in th'adventurous Ship
That sayl'd to Colchos for the golden fleece;
Drunken distemper in the Goblet stowes;
I'th' Dart and Scorpion, biting Calumny;
In Hercules and the Lyon, furious rage;
Vaine Ostentation in Cassiope:
All these I to eternall exile doome,
But to this place their Emblem'd Vices summon,
Clad in those proper Figures, by which best
Their incorporeall nature is exprest.
The third Antimasque is danc'd of these severall vices, expressing their deviation from Vertue.
Mom.
From henceforth it shall be no more
•
id in the Proverb, when you would expresse
••
riotous Assembly, That hell but Heaven is broke
••
ose: this was an arrant Goale-delivery, all the
••
risons of your great Cities could not have vo
••
ed more corrupt matter: but Cozen Cylleni
••
, in my judgement it is not safe that these infe
••
ous persons should wander here to the hazard this Iland, they threatned lesse danger when they were nayl'd to the Firmament: I should conceive it a very discreet course, since they are provided of a tall vessell of their own ready rigg'd, membarque them all together in that goodship called the Argo, and send them to the plantation in New-England, which hath purg'd more virulent humours from the politique body, than Guai
••
m and all the West-Indian drugs have from the naturall bodies of this Kingdome. Can you devise how to dispose them better?
Merc.
They cannot breath this pure and temperate Ayr
Where Vertue lives, but will with hasty flight,
ongst fogs and vapours, seek unsound abodes.
Fly after them, from your usurped fears,
You foul remainders of that viporous brood:
Let not a Starte of aluxurious race
With his loose blaze stain the skies chrystall face.
All the Stars are quench'd, and the Spheare darkened.
Before the entry of every Antimasque, the stars in those figures in the Spheare which they were to represent were extinct; so as by the end of the Antimasques in the Spheare no more Starres were scene.
Mom.
Here is a totall Ecclipse of the eight Sphere, which neither Booker, Allestre, nor any of your Prognosticators, no nor their great Master Tico were aware of; but yet in my opinion there were some innocent and some generous Constellations, that might have been reserved for Noble uses: as the Skales and Swordto adorne the statue of Iustice, since she resides here on earth only in Picture and Esfigie. The Eagle had beene a fit present for the Germans in regard their Bird hath mew'd most of her feathers lately. The Dolphin too had beene most welcome to the French, and then had you but clapt Perseus on his Pegasus brandishing his sword the Dragon yawning on his back under the horses feet, with Phthon's dart through his throat there had beene a Divine St. George for his Nation: but since you have improvidently shuffled them altogether, it now refts only that we provide and immidiate succession and to that purpose I will instantly proclaim a free Election.
Oyes, Oyes, Oyes,
By the Father of the gods,
and the King of men,
Whereas we having observed a very commendable practice taken into frequent use by the Princes of these latter Ages, of perpetuating the memory of their famous enterprizes, sieges, battles, victories, in Pictures, Sculpture, Tapistry, Embroyderies and other manifactures, wherewith they have embellished their publike palaces, and taken into Our more distinct and serious consideration,
••
e particular Christmas hanging of the Guard Chamber of this Court, wherein the Navall Victory of 88. is to the eternall glory of this Nation exactly delineated; and whereas We likewise out of a propheticall imitation of this so laudable custome, did for many thousand years before, adorne and beautifie the eighth room of Our caelestiall Mansion, commonly called the Star-chamber, with the military adventures, stratagems atchievements, feats, and defeats, performed in Our Own person, whilst yet Our Standard was crected, and we a Combatant in the Amorous warfare, It hath notwthstanding, after mature deliberation, and long debate, held first in our own inscrutable bosome, and afterwards communicated with Our Privie Counsell, seemed meet to Our Omnipotency, for causes to Our self best known, to unfurnish and dis-array Our fore-said Starre-Chamber of all those Ancient Coustellations which have for so many Ages been sufficiently notorious, and to admit into their vacant places, such Persons only as shall be qualified with exemplar Vertue and eminent Desert, there
to shine in indelible Characters of glory to all posterity. It is therefore Our divine will and pleasure, voluntarily, and out of our own free and proper motion, meere grace, and speciall favour, by these presents to specifie and declare to all our loving people, that it shall be lawfull for any Person whatsoever, that conceiveth him or herselfe to be really endued with any Heroicall Vertue, or transcendent Merit, worthy so high a calling and dignity, to bring their severall pleas and pretences before Our Right trusty and Wel-beloved Cozen and Connsellor, Don Mercury, and god Momus, &c. Our peculiar Delegates for that affair, upon whom we have transferr'd an absolute power to conclude and determine without Appeale or Revocation, accordingly as to their wisedomes it shall in such cases appeare behovefull and expedient. Given at Our palace in Olympus the first day of the first moneth, in the first yeare of the Reformation,
Plutus enters, an old man full of wrinkles, a bald head, a thin white beard, spectacles on his nose, with a buncht back, and attir'd in a Robe of Cloath of gold.
Plutus appeares.
Merc.
Who's this appeares?
Mom.
This is a subterranean Friend, Plutus, in this Dialect term'd Riches, or the god of Gold; a poyson hid by Providence in the botome of the Seas, and Navill of the Earth, from mans discovery, where if the seeds begun to sprout
above-ground, the excrescence was carefully guarded by Dragons; yet at last by humane curiosity brought to light, to their owne destruction; this being the true Pandora's box, whence issued all those mischiefes that now fill the Vniverse.
Plut.
That I prevent the message of the gods
Thus with my haste, and not attend their summons,
Which ought in lustice call me to the place
I now require of Right, is not alone
To shew the just precedence that I hold
Before all earthly, next th'immortall Powers;
But to exclude the hope of partiall Grace
In all Pretenders, who, since I descend
To equall tryall, must by my example,
Waving your favour, claym by sole Desert.
If Vertue must inherit, shee's my slave;
I lead her captive in a golden chayn,
About the world: She takes her Form and Being
From my creation; and those barren seeds
That drop from heaven, if I not cherish them
With my distilling dewes, and fotive heat,
They know no vegetation; but expos'd
To blasting winds of freezing Poverty,
Or not shoot forth at all, or budding, wither.
Should I proclaim the daily sacrifice
Brought to my Temples by the toyling rout,
Not of the fat and gore of abject Beasts,
But humane sweat, and blood powr'd on my Altars,
I might provoke the envy of the gods.
Turn but your eyes and mark the busie world,
Climbing steep Mountains for the sparkling stones,
Piercing the Center for the shining Ore,
And th'Oceans bosome to rake pearly sands,
Crossing the torrid and the frozen zones
Midst Rocks and swallowing Gulfes for gainfull trade,
And through opposing swords, fire, murdering Canon,
Skaling the walled Towns for precious spoyls.
Plant in the passage to your heavenly seats,
These horrid dangers, and then see who dares
Advance his desperate foot: yet am I sought,
And oft in vain, through these and greater hazards
I could discover how your Deities
Are for my sake sleighted, despis'd, abus'd,
Your Temples, Shrines, Altars, and Images,
Vncover'd, rifled, robb'd, and dis-array'd
By sacrilegious hands: yet is this treasure
To th'golden Mountain, where I sit ador'd,
With superstitious solemn rights convay'd,
And becomes sacred there, the sordid wreteh
Not daring touch the consecrated Ore,
Or with prophane hands lessen the bright heap:
But this might draw your anger down on mortals
For rendring me the homage due to you:
Yet what is said may well express my power
Too great for Earth, and only fit for Heaven.
Now, for your pastime, view the naked root,
Which in the dirty earth, and base mould drown'd,
Sends forth this precious Plant, and golden fruit.
You lusty Swaines, that to your grazing flocks
Pipe amorous Roundelayes; you toyling Hinds,
That barb the fields, and to your merry Teames
Whistle your passions; and you mining Moles,
That in the bowels of your mother-Earth
Dwell the eternall burthen of her wombe,
Cease from your labours, when Wealth bids you play,
Sing, dance, and keep a cheerfull holy-day.
They dance the fourth Antimasque, consisting of Country people, musicke and measures.
Merc.
Plutus, the gods know and confess your power
Which feeble Vertue seldome can resist;
Stronger than Towers of brasse, or Chastity
Iove knew you when he courted Danae,
And Cupid weares you on that Arrowes head
That still prevailes. But the gods keep their Throne,
To enstall Vertue, not her Enemies;
They dread thy force, which even themselves have felt,
Witnesse Mount-Ida, where the Martiall Maid,
And frowning Iuno, did to mortall eyes
Naked, for gold, their sacred bodies show;
Therefore for ever be from heaven banish'd.
But since with toyl from undiscover'd Worlds
Thou art brought hither, where thou first didst breath
The thirst of Empire, into Regall breasts,
And frightedst quiet Peace from her meek Throne,
Filling the world with tumult, blood, and warre,
Follow the Camps of the contentious earth,
And be the Conqu'rers slave, but he that can
Or conquer thee, or give thee Vertuous stamp,
Shall shine in heaven a pure immortall Lamp.
Mom.
Nay stay, and take my benediction along with you. I could, being here a Co-Iudge, like others in my place, now that you are condemn'd, either rayl at you, or break jests upon you, but I rather chuse to lose a word of good counsel, and entreat you be more carefull in your choyse of company: for you are alwayes found either with Misers, that not use you at all; or with fooles, that know not how to use you well. Be not hereafter so reserv'd and coy to men of worth and parts, and so you shall gaine such credit, as at the next Sessions you may be heard with better successe. But till you are thus reform'd, I pronounce this positive sentence, That wheresoever you shall chuse to abide, your
society shall adde no credit or reputation to the party, nor your discontinuance, or totall absence, be matter of disparagement to any man; and whosoever shall hold a contrary estimation of you, shall be condemn'd to weare perpetuall Motley, unlesse he recant his opinion, Now you may voyd the Cout.
Paenia enters, a woman of a pale colour, large brims of a hat upon her head, through which her haire started up like a fury, her Robe was of a dark colourful of patches, about one of her hands was tied a chaine of Iron, to which was fastned a weighty (tone, which she bore up under her arm.
Merc.
What Creature's this?
Mom.
The Antipodes to the other, they move like Two Buckets, or as two nayles drive out one another; Of Riches depart, Poverty will enter.
Pov.
I nothing doubt (Great and Immortal Powers)
But that the place your wisedome hath deny'd
My foe, your Iustice will conferre on me;
Since that which renders him incapable,
Proves a strong plea for me. I could pretend,
Even in these rags, a larger Soveraignty
Then gaudy Wealth in all his pompe can boast;
For mark how few they are that share the World:
The numerous Armies, and the swarming Ants
That fight and royle for them, are all my Subjects,
Thay take my wages, weare my Livery:
Invention too and Wit, are both my creatures,
And the whole race of Vertue is my Off-spring;
As many mischiefes issue from my wombe,
And those as mighty, as procced from gold.
Oft o'r his Throne I wave my awfull Scepter,
And in the bowels of his state command,
When 'midst his heaps of coyn, and hils of gold,
I pine, and starve the avaritious Fool.
But I decline those titles, and lay claim
To heaven, by right of Divine contemplation;
She is my Darling, I, in my soft lap,
Free from disturbing cares, bargains, accounts,
Leases, Rents, Stewards, and the fear of theeves,
That vex the rich, nurse her in calm repose,
And with her, all the Vertues speculative,
Which, but with me, find no secure retreat.
For entertainment of this hour, Ile call
A race of people to this place, that live
At Natures charge, and not importune heaven
To chayn the winds up, or keep back the storms,
To stay the thunder, or forbid the hayl
To thresh the unreap'd ear; but to all weathers,
The chilling frost, and scalding Sun, expose
Their equall face. Come forth, my swarthy train,
In this faire circle dance, and as you move,
Mark, and foretell happy events of Love.
They dance the fifth Antimasque of Gypsies.
Mom.
I cannot but wonder that your perpetual conversation with Poets and Philosophers hath furnished you with no more Logick, or that you should think to impose upon us so grosse an inference as because Plutus and you are contrary therefore whatsoever is denyed of the one must be true of the other; as if it should follow of necessity, because hee is not Iupiter, you are. No, I give you to know, I am better vers'd in
cavils with the gods, than to swallow such a fallacy, for though you two cannot be together in one place, yet there are many places that may be without you both, and such is heaven, where neither of you are likely to arrive: therefore let me advise you to marry your selfe to Content, and beget sage Apothegmes, aud goodly morall Sentences in dispraise of Riches, and contempt of the world.
Merc.
Thou dost presume too much, poor needy wretch,
To claim a station in the Firmament,
Because thy humble Cottage, or thy Tub
Nurses some lazie or Pedantique vertue
In the cheap Sun-shine, or by shady springs
With roots and pot-herbs, where thy right hand,
Tearing those humane passions from the mind,
Vpon whose stocks fair blooming vertues flourish,
Degradeth Nature, and benummeth sense,
And Gorgon-like, turnes active men to stone.
Wee not require the dull society
Of your necessitated Temperance,
Or that unnaturall stupidity
That knowes nor joy nor sorrow; nor your forc'd
Falsly exalted passive Fortitude
Above the Active: This low abject brood,
That fix their seats in mediocrity,
Become your servile mind; but we advance
Such vertues only as admit excesse,
Brave bounteous Acts, Regall Magnificence,
All-seeing Prudence, Magnanimity
That knowes no bound, and that Heroick vertue
For which Antiquity hath left no name,
But patternes only, such as Hercules,
Achilles, Theseus. Back to thy loath'd cell,
And when thou feest the new enlightned Sphere,
Study to know but what those Worthies were.
Tyche enters, her head bald behind, and one great locke before, wings at her shoulders, and in her hand a wheel, her upper parts naked, and the skirt of her Garment wrought all over with Crownes, Scepters, Bookes, and such other things as expresse both her greatest and smallest gifts.
Mom.
See where Dame Fortune comes, you may know her by her wheele, and that vayl over her eyes, with which she hopes like a seel'd pigeon to mount above the Clouds, and pearch in the eighth Sphere: listeen, shee begins.
Fort.
I come not here (you gods) to plead the Right,
By which Antiquity assign'd my Deity,
Though no peculiar station mongst the Stars,
Yet generall power to rule their influence,
Or boast the Title of Omnipotent,
Ascrib'd me then, by which I rival'd Iove,
Since you have cancell'd all those old Records;
But confident in my good cause and merit,
Claim a succession in the vacant Orb;
From since Astraea fled to heaven, I sit
Her Deputy on Earth, I hold her skales
And weigh mens Fates out, who have made me blind
Because themselves want eyes to see my causes;
Call me inconstant, 'cause my workes surpasse
The shallow fathom of their humane reason;
Yet here, like blinded Iustice, I dispence
With my impartiall hands their constant lots,
And if desertlesse, impious men engrosse
My best rewards, the fault is yours, you gods,
That scant your graces to mortality,
And niggards of your good, scarce spare the world
One vertuous for a thousand wicked men;
It is no errour to conferre dignity,
But to bestow it on a vicious man;
I gave the dignity, but you made the vice.
Make you men good, and Ile make good men happy:
That Plutus is refus'd, dismayes me not,
Hee is my Drudge, and the externall pompe
In which hee decks the World, proceeds from me,
Not him; like Harmony, that not resides
In strings, or notes, but in the hand and voyce.
The revolutions of Empires, States,
Scepters, and Crowns, are but my game and sport,
Which as they hang on the events of Warre,
So those depend upon my turning wheel.
You warlike Squadrons, who in battles joyn'd,
Dispute the Right of Kings, which I decide,
Present the modell of that martiall frame,
By which, when Crowns are stak'd, I rule the game.
They dance the sixth Antimasque, being the representation of a Battell.
Mom.
Madam, I should censure you, pro falso clamore, for preferring a scandalous crosse-bill of recrimination against the Gods, but your blindnesse shall excuse you. Alas! what would it advantage you, if vertue were as universall as vice is? it would only follow, that as the world now exclaimes upon you for exalting the vicious, it would then rail as fast at you for depressing the vertuous; so they would still keep their tune, though you chang'd their Ditty.
Merc.
The mists, in which future events are wrap'd,
That oft succeed beside the purposes
Of him that workes, his dull eyes not descerning
The first great cause, offer'd thy clouded shape
To his enquiring search; so in the dark
The groping world first found thy Deity,
And gave thee rule over contingencies,
Which, to the piercing eye of Providence,
Being fix'd and certain, where past and to come
Are allwayes present, thou dost dis-appear,
Losest they being, and art not at all.
Be thou then only a deluding Phantome,
At best a blind guide, leading blinder fooles;
Who, would they but survey their mutuall wants,
And help each other, there were left no room
For thy vain ayd. Wisedome, whose strong-built plot;
Leave nought to hazard, mocks thy futile power,
Industrious labour drags thee by the locks,
Bound to his toyling Car, and not attending
Till thou dispence, reaches his own reward,
Only the lazie sluggard yawning lyes
Before thy threshold, gaping for thy dose,
And licks the easie hand that feeds his sloath;
The shallow, rash, and unadvised man
Makes thee his stale, disburdens all the follies
Of his mis guided actions, on thy shoulders,
Vanish from hence, and seek those Ideots out
That thy fantastick god-head hath allow'd,
And rule that giddy superstitious crowd.
Hedone, Pleasure, a young woman with a smiling face, in a light lascivious habit, adorn'd with Silver and gold, her Temples crown'd with a Garland of Roses, and over that a Rainbow circling her head down to her shoulders.
Hedone enters.
Merc.
What wanton's this?
Mom.
This is the sprightly Lady Hedone merry Gamester, this people call her Pleasure.
Plea.
The reasons (equall Iudges) here alleg'd
By the dismist Pretenders, all concurr
To strengthen my just title to the Sphere.
Honour, or Wealth, or the contempt of both,
Have in themselves no simple reall good,
But as they are the meanes to purchase pleasure.
The paths that lead to my delicious Palace;
They for my sake, I for mine own am priz'd.
Beyond me nothing is. I am the Goale,
The Iourneyes end, to which the swearing world,
And wearied Nature travels. For this, the best
And wisest sect of all Philosophers
Made me the seat of supreme happinesse.
And though some more austere, upon my ruines
Did to the prejudice of Nature, raise
Some petty low-built vertues, 'twas because
They wanted wings to reach my soaring pitch;
Had they beene Princes born, themselves had prov'd
Of all mankind the most luxurious:
For those delights, which to their low condition
Were obvious, they with greedy appetite
Suck'd and devour'd: from offices of State,
From cares of family, children, wife, hopes, feares,
Retir'd, the churlish Cynick in his Tub
Enjoy'd those pleasures which his tongue desam'd.
Nor am I rank'd 'mongst the superfluous goods;
My necessary offices preserve
Each single man, and propagate the kind.
Then am I universall as the light,
Or common Ayr we breath; and since I am
The generall desire of all mankind,
Civill Felicity must reside in me.
Tell me what rate my choycest pleasures bear,
When for the short delight of a poor draught
Of cheap cold water, great Lysmachus
Rendred himselfe slave to the Scythians.
Should I the curious structure of my seats,
The art and beauty of my severall objects,
Rehearse at large, your bounties would reserve
For every sense a proper constellation;
But I present the Persons to your eyes.
Come forth my subtle Organs of delight,
With changing figures please the curious eye,
And charm the eare with moving Harmony.
They dance the seventh Antimasque of the five senses.
Merc.
Bewitching Syren, guilded rottennesse,
Thou hast with cunning artifice display'd
Th' enamel'd out side, and the honied verge
Of the fair cup, where deadly poyson lurks.
Within, a thousand sorrowes dance the round:
And like a shell, Paine circles thee without,
Grief is the shaddow waiting on thy steps,
Which, as thy joyes 'ginn tow'rds their West decline,
Doth to a Gyants spreading form extend
Thy Dwarfish stature. Thou thy self art Pain,
Greedy intense Desire, and the keen edge
Of thy fierce Appetite oft strangles thee,
And cuts thy slender thread, but still the terrour
And apprehension of thy hasty end,
Mingles with Gall thy most refined sweets;
Yet thy Cyrcaean charmes transform the world.
Captaines, that have resisted warre and death,
Nations, that over Fortune have triumph'd,
Are by thy Magick made effeminate.
Empires, that knew no limits but the Poles,
Have in thy wanton lap melted away.
Thou wert the Author of the first excesse
That drew this reformation on the gods.
Canst thou then dream, those Powers, that from heaven have
Banish'd th' effect, will there enthrone the cause,
To thy voluptuous Denne, fly Witch from hence,
There dwell, for ever drown'd in brutish sense.
Mom.
I concurre, and am grown so weary of these tedious pleadings, as Ile packe up too and be gone: Besides, I see a crowd of other sutors pressing hither, I'le stop'em, take their petitions and preferre'em above; and as I came in bluntly without knocking, and no body bid me welcome; so Ile depart as abruptly without taking leave, and bid no body fare-well.
Merc.
These, with forc'd reasons, and strain'd arguments,
Vrge vain pretences, whilst your Actions plead,
And with a silent importunity
Awake the drousie Iustice of the gods
To crown your deeds with immortality.
The growing Titles of your Ancestors,
These Nations glorious Acts, joyn'd to the stock
Of your own Royall vertues, and the clear
Reflex they take from th'imitation
Of your fam'd Court, make Honours story full,
And have to that secure fix'd state advanc'd
Both you and them, to which the labouring world,
Wading through streames of blood sweats to aspire.
Those ancient Worthies of these famous Isles,
That long have slept, in fresh and lively shapes
Shall strait appear, where you shall see your self
Circled with modern Heroes, who shall be
In Act, what ever elder times can boast,
Noble, or Great; as they in Prophesie
Were all but what you are. Then shall you see
The sacred hand of bright Eternity
Mould you to Stars, and fixe you in the Sphere,
To you, your Royall half, to them shee' Iloyn
Such of this traine, as with industrious steps
In the fair prints your vertuous feet have made,
Though with unequall paces, follow you.
This is decreed by Jove, which my returne
Shall see perform'd; but first behold the rude
And old Abiders here, and in them view
The point from which your full perfections grew.
You naked, ancient, wild Inhabitants,
That breath'd this Ayre, and prest this flowry Earth,
Come from those shades where dwels eternall night,
And see what wonders Time hath brought to light.
Atlas, and the Sphere vanished, and a new Scaene appeares of mountaines, whose eminent height exceed the Clouds which past beneath them, the lower parts were wild and woody: out of this place comes forth a more grave Antimasque of Picts, the natuall Inhabitants of this Isle, ancient Scots and Irish, these dance a Perica, or Martiall dance.
When this Antimasque was past, there began to arise out of the earth the top of a hill, which by little and little grew to bee a huge mountain that covered all the Scaene; the under part of this was wild and craggy, and above somewhat more pleasant and flourishing: about the middle part of this Mountain were seated the three King. domes of England, Scotland, and Ireland; all richly attired in regall habits, appropriated to the severall Nations, with Crowns on their heads, &
Each of them bearing the ancient Armes of the kingdoms they there presented: At a distance above these sate a young man in a white embroydered robe, upon his fair hair an Olive Garland, with wings at his shoulders, and holding in his hand a Cornucopia fill'd with corn and fruits, representing the Genius of these kingdomes.
The first Song.
GENIVS.
RAise from these rockie cliffs your heads,
Brave Sonnes, and see where Glory spreads
Her glittering wings, where Majesty,
Crown'd with sweet smiles, shoots from her eye
Diffusive joy, where good and Fair
Vnited sit in Honours Chayr.
Call forth your aged Priests, and chrystall streams.
To warm their hearts, and waves in these bright beames.
KINGDOMES 1.
From your consecrated woods
Holy Druids.
2.
Silver floods,
From your channels fring'd with flowers,
3.
Hither move; forsake your bowers,
1.
Strew'd with hallowed Oaken leaves,
Deck'd with flags and sedgie sheaves,
And behold a wonder.
3.
Say,
What doe your duller eyes survay?
CHORVS of DRVIDS and RIVERS.
We see at once in dead of night
A Sun appear, and yet a bright
Noon-day, springing from Star-light.
GENIVS.
Look up, and see the darkened Sphere
Depriv'd of light, her eyes shine there.
CHORVS.
These are more sparkling than those were.
KINGDOMES. 1.
These shed a nobler influence,
2.
These by a pure Intelligence
Of more transcendent Vertue move,
3.
These first feel, then kindle Love,
1. 2.
From the bosomes they inspire,
These receive a mutuall fire;
1.2.3.
And where their flames impure return;
These can quench as well as burn.
GENIVS.
Here the fair victorious eyes
Make worth only Beauties prize,
Here the band of Vertue tyes
Bout the heart Love's amorous chain,
Captives tryumph, Vassals reign,
And none live here but the slaine.
CHORUS
These are th' Hesperian bowers, whose fair trees bear
Rich golden fruit, and yet no Dragon near.
GENIVS.
Then, from your impris'ning womb,
Which is the cradle and the tomb
Of Brittish worthies (fair sonnes) send
A troop of Heroes, that may lend
Their hands to case this loaden grove,
And gather the ripe fruits of Love.
KINGDOMS. 1.2.3.
Open thy stony Entrailes wide,
And break old Atlas, that the pride
Of three fam'd kingdomes may be spy'd.
CHORVS.
Pace forth thou mighty Brittish Hercules,
With thy choyce band, for only thou and these,
May revell here, in Loves Hesperides,
At this the under-part of the Rock opens, and out of a Cave are seene to come the Masquers richly attyred like ancient Heroes, the Colours yellow, embroydered with silver, their antique Helmes curiously wrought, and great plumes on the top; before them a troop of young Lords and Noble-mens sonnes, bearing Torches of Virgin-wax, these were apparelled after the old Brittish fashion in white Coats, embroydered with silver, girt, and full gathered, cut square coller'd, and round caps on their
heads, with a white feather wreathen about them; first these dance with their lights in their hands: After which, the Masquers descend into the room, and dance their entry.
The dance being past, there appeares in the further part of the heaven comming down a Pleasant Cloud, bright and transparent, which comming softly down-wards before the upper part of the mountaine, embraceth the Genius, but so as through it all his body is seen; and then rising again with a gentle motion beares up the Genius of the three kingdomes and being past the Airy Region, piereeth the heavens, and is no more seen: At that instant the Rock with the three kingdomes on it sinkes, and is hidden in the earth. This strange spectacle gave great cause of admiration, but especially how so huge a machine, and of that great height could come from under the Stage, which was but six foot high.
The Second Song.
KINGDOMS. 1.
HEre are shapes form'd fit for heaven,
2.
Those move gracefully and even,
3.
Here the Ayre and paces meet
So just, as if the skilfull feet
Had struk the Vials. 1.2.3. So the Ear
Might the tunefull footing bear.
CHORVS.
And had the Musick silent been,
The eye a moving time had seen.
GENIVS.
These must in the unpeopled skie
Succeed, and govern Destinie,
Iove is temp'ring purer fire,
And will with brighter flames attire
These gloriou
•
lights. I must ascend
And help the Work.
KINGDOMES. 1.
VVe cannot lend
Heaven so much treasure.
2.
Nor that pay,
But rendring what it takes away.
Why should they that here can move
So well, be ever-fix'd above?
CHORVS.
Or be to one eternall posture ty'd,
That can into such various figures slide?
GENIVS.
Iove shall not, to enrich the Skie,
Beggar the Earth; their Fame shall fly
From hence alone, and in the Sphere
Kindle new Starres, whilst they rest here.
KINGDOMES. 1.2.3.
How can the shaft stay in the quiver,
Yet his the mark?
GENIVS.
Did not the River
Eridanus, the grace acquire
In Heaven and Earth to flow,
Above in streames of golden fire,
In silver waves below?
KINGDOMES. 1.2.3.
But shall not we, now thou art gone
Who wert our Nature, wither?
Or break that triple Vnion
Which thy soul held together?
GENIVS.
In Concords pure immortall spring
I will my force renew,
And a more astive Vertue bring
At my return. Adieu.
KINGDOMES adieu. CHORVS adieu.
The Masquers dance their maine dance; which done, the Scaene againe is varied into a new and pleasant prospect, cleane differing from all the other, the nearest part shewing a delicious Garden with severall walkes and perterra's set round with low trees, and on the sides against these walkes, were fountaines and grots, and in the furthest part a Palace, from whence went high walkes upon Arches, and above them open Tarraces planted with Cypresse trees, and all this together
was composed of such Ornaments as might expresse a princely Villa.
From hence the Chorus descending into the room, goes up to the State.
The third Song.
By the Chorus, going up to the Queen.
WHilst thus the Darlings of the gods,
From Honours Temple, to the shrine
Of beauty, and these sweet abodes
Of Love, we guide, let thy Divine
Aspects (Bright Deily) with fair
And Halcyon beames, becalm the Ayr,
Wee bring Prince Arthur, or the brave
St. George himselfe (great Queen) to you,
You'll soone discern him; and we have
A Guy, a Beavis, or some true
Round Table Knight, as ever-sought
For Lady, to each Beauty brought.
Plant in their Martiall hands, War's seat,
Your peacefull pledges of warm snow,
And, if a speaking touch, repeat
In Loves known language, tales of woe;
Say, in soft whispers of the Palm,
As eyes shoot darts, so Lips shed Balm.
For though you seem like Captives, led
In triumph by the Foe away,
Yet on the Conqu'rors neck you tread,
And the fierce Victor proves your prey,
What heat is then secure from you,
That can, though vanquish'd, yet subdue?
The Song done they retire, and the Masquers dance the Revels with the Ladies, which continued a great part of the night.
The Revels being past, and the Kings Majestie seared under the State by the Queene; for conclusion to this Masque there appeares comming forth from one of the sides, as moving by a gentle wind, a great cloud, which arriving at the middle of the heaven, stayeth; this was of severall colours, and so great, that it covered the whole Scaene. Out of the further part of the heaven begins to breake forth two other clouds, differing in colour and shape; and being fully discovered there appeared sitting in one of them, Religion, Truth, and Wisedome. Religion was apparelled in white, and part of her face was covered with a light vaile, in one hand a Booke, and in the other a flame of fire. Truth in a Watchet Robe, a Sunne upon her fore-head, and bearing in her hand a Palme. Wisedome in a mantle wrought with eyes and hands, golden rayes about her head, and Apollo's Cithera in her hand. In the other cloud sate Concord, Government, and Reputation. The habit of Concord was Carnation, bearing in her hand a little faggot of sticks bound together, and on the top of it a Hart, and a Garland of corne on her head: Government was figured in a coat of Armour, bearing a shield and on it a Medusa's head; upon her head a plumed helme, and in her right hand a lance. Reputation, a young man in a
purple robe wrought with gold, and wearing a laurell wreath on his head. These being come downe in an equall distance to the middle part of the Ayr, the great Cloud began to break open, out of which broke beames of light; in the midst suspended in the Ayr, sate Eternity on a Globe, his Garment was long, of a light blue, wrought all over with starrs of gold, and bearing in his hand a Serpent bent into a circle, with his tayl in his mouth. In the firmament about him, was a troop of fifteen stars, expressing the stellifying of our Brittish Heroes; but one more great and eminent than the rest, which was over his head, figured his Majestie. And in the lower part was seen a farre off the prospect of Windsor Castle, the famous seat of the most honourable Order of the Garter.
The fourth Song.
Eternity, Eusebia, Alethia, Sophia, Homonoia, Dicaearche, Euphemia.
ETERNITIE.
BEe fix'd rapid Orbes, that bear
The changing seasons of the year
On your swift wings, and see the old
Decrepid spheres grown dark and cold;
Nor did Iove quench her fires, these bright
Flames haue ecclips'd her sullen light:
This Royall Payr, for whom Fate will
Make Motion cease, and Time stand still:
Since Good is here so perfect, as no Worth
Is left for After-Ages to bring forth.
EVSEBIA.
Mortality cannot with more
Religious zeale, the gods adore.
ALETHIA.
My Truths, from human
•
eyes conceal'd;
Are naked to their sight reveal'd.
SOPHIA.
Nor doe their actions, from the guide
Of my exactest precepts slide.
HOMONOIA.
And as their own pure Soules entwin'd,
So are their Subjects hearts combin'd.
DICAEARCHE.
So just, so gentle is their sway,
As it seemes Empire to obey.
EVPHEMIA.
And their fair Fame, like incense hur'ld
On Altars hath perfum'd the world.
SO.
wisedome.
AL.
Truth.
EVS.
Pure Adoration.
HO.
Concord.
DI.
Rule
EUP.
Cleare Reputation.
CHORVS.
Crowne this King, this Queen, this Nation.
CHORVS.
Wisedome, Truth, &c.
ETERNITIE.
Brave Spirits, whose adventrous seet
Have to the Mountaines top aspir'd,
Where fair Desert, and Honour meet,
Here, from the toyling Presse retyr'd,
Secure from all disturbing Euill
For euer in my Temple revelt.
With wreathes of stars circled about,
Gild all the spacious Firmament,
And smiling on the panting Rout
That labour in the steep ascent,
With your resistlesse influence guide
Of humane change th'incertain tide.
EVS. ALE. SOP.
But oh you Royall Turtles, shed,
When you from Earth remove,
On the ripe fruits of your chast bed,
Those sacred seeds of Love.
CHORVS.
Which no Power can but yours dispence,
Since you the pattern bean from hence.
HOM. DIC. EVP.
Then from your fruitfull race shall slow
Endlesse succession.
Scepters shall bud, and Laurels blow
'Bout their Immortal Throne.
CHORVS.
Propitious stars shalll crown each birth,
Whilst you rule them and they the Earth.
The song ended, the two clouds, with the persons sitting on them, ascend, the great cloud closeth againe, and so passeth away overthwart the Scaene; leaving behind it nothing but a Serene sky. After which the Masquers dance their hast dance, and the curtain was let fall.
The Names of the Masquers.
The Kings Majesty.
Duke of Lenox.
Lord Fielding.
Earle of Devonshire.
Lord Digby.
Earle of Holland.
Lord Dungarvin.
Earle of Newport.
Lord Dunluce.
Earle of Elgin.
Lord Wharton.
Viscount Grandeson.
Lord Paget.
Lord Rich.
Lord Saltine
The names of the young Lords and Noblemens Sonnes.
Lord Walden.
Mr. Thomas Howard
Lord Cranborne.
Mr. Thomas Egerton.
Lord Brackley.
Mr. Charles Cavendish
Lord Shandos.
Mr. Robert Howard.
Mr. William Herbert.
Mr. Henry Spencer.
To his mistris.
1.
GRieve not my Celia, but with hast
Obey the fury of thy fate,
'Tis some perfection to waste
Discreetly out our wretched state,
To be obedient in this sence,
Will prove thy vertue, though offence.
2.
Who knowes but destiny may relent,
For many miracles have bin,
Thou proving thus obedient
To all the griefs she plundgd thee in?
And then the certainty she meant
Reverted is by accident.
3.
But yet I must confesse tis much
When we remember what hath bin,
Thus parting never more to touch
To let eternall absence in,
Though never was our pleasure yet
So pure, but chance distracted it.
4.
What, shall we then submit to fate,
And dye to one anothers love?
No, Celia, no, my soul doth hate
Those Lovers that inconstant prove,
Fate may be cruell, but if you decline,
The cryme is yours, and all the glory mine.
Fate and the Planets sometymes bodies part,
But Cankerd nature onely alters th' heart
In praise of his Mistris
1.
You, that will a wonder know,
Goe with me,
Two suns in a heaven of snow
Both burning bee,
All they fire, that but eye them,
Yet the snow's unmelted by them.
2.
Leaves of Crimson Tulips met
Guide the way
Where two pearly rowes be set
As white as day
When they part themselves asunder
She breathes Oracles of wonder.
3.
Hills of Milk with Azure mixd
Swell beneath,
Waving sweetly, yet still fixd,
While she doth breath.
From those hils descends a valley
Where all fall, that dare to dally.
4.
As fair Pillars under-stand
Statues two,
Whither than the Silver swan
That swims in Poe;
If at any tyme they move her
Every step begets a Lover.
All this but the Casket is
Which conteynes
Such a Iewell, as the misse
Breeds endlesse paynes;
That's her mind, and they that know it
May admire, but cannot show it
To Celia, upon Love's Vbiquity.
As one that strives, being sick, and sick to death
By changing places, to preserve a breath,
A tedious restlesse breath, removes and tryes
A thousand roomes, a thousand policyes,
To cozen payne, when he thinks to find ease,
At last he finds all change, but his disease,
So (like a Ball with fire and powder fild)
I restles am, yet live, each minute kild,
And with that moving torture must retain
(With change of all things else) a constant payn.
Say I stay with you, prensence is to me
Nought but a light, to shew my miserie,
And parting are as Rackes, to plague love on,
The further stretchd, the more affliction.
Goe I to Holland, France, or furthest Iude,
I change but onely Countreys not my mind.
And though I passe through ayr and water free,
Despair and hopelesse fate still follow me,
Whilest in the bosome of the waves I reel
My heart I'le liken to the tottering keel,
The sea to my own troubled fate, the wind
To your disdayn, sent from a soul vnkind:
But when I lift my sad lookes to the skyes,
Then shall I think I see my Celia's eyes,
And when a Cloud or storm appeares between,
I shall remember what her frownes have been.
Thus, whatsoever course my fates allow,
All things but make me mind my busines, you.
The good things that I meet I think streames be
From you the fountain, but when bad I see,
How vile and cursed is that thing thinke I,
That to such goodnes is so contrary?
My whole life is bout you, the Center starre,
But a perpetuall Motion Circular.
I am the dyalls hand, still walking round,
You are the Compasse, and I never sound
Beyond your Circle, neyther can I shew
Ought, but what first expressed is in you.
That wheresoever my teares doe cause me move
My fate still keepes me bounded with your love;
Which ere it dye, or be extinct in me,
Time shall stand still, and moist waves flaming be.
Yet, being gon, think not on me, I am
A thing too wretched for thy thoughts to name,
But when I dye, and wish all comforts given,
Ile think on you, and by you think on heaven.
FINIS.
The Songs and Dialogues of this Booke were set with apt Tunes to them, by Mr. Henry Lawes, one of His Majesties Musicians.