Of the glad Earth they tread on, while with thee
Those beams that ampliate mortality,
And teach it to expatiate, and swell
To majesty and fulness deign to dwell;
Thou by thy self may'st sit, (blest isle) and see
How thy great mother, Nature, doats on thee:
Thee therefore from the rest apart she hurl'd,
And seem'd to make an isle, but made a world.
Great Charles! thou sweet dawn of a glorious
Centre of those thy grandsires, shall I say,
Henry and James, or Mars and Phoebus rather?
If this were Wisdom's god, that War's stern father,
'Tis but the same is said, Henry and James
Are Mars and Phoebus under divers names.
O thou full mixture of those mighty souls,
Whose vast intelligences tun'd the poles
Of peace and war; thou for whose manly brow
Both laurels twine into one wreath, and woo
To be thy garland; see, (sweet prince) O see
Thou, and the lovely hopes that smile in thee,
Are ta'en out, and transcrib'd by thy great mother.
See, see thy real shadow, see thy brother,
Thy little self in less, read in these eyne
The beams that dance in those full stars of thine.
From the same snowy alabaster rock
These hands and thine were hewn, these cherries
The coral of thy lips. Thou art of all
This well-wrought copy the fair principal.
Justly, great Nature, may'st thou brag and tell How ev'n th' hast drawn this faithful parallel, And match'd thy master-peece! O then, go on! Make such another sweet comparison. See'st thou that Mary there? O teach her mother To show her to her self in such another: Fellow this wonder too, nor let her shine Alone, light such another star, and twine Their rosy beams, so that the morn for one Venus may have a constellation.
So have I seen (to dress their mistress May)
Two silken sister flowers consult, and lay
Their bashful cheeks together, newly they
Peep'd from their buds, show'd like the garden's eyes
Scarce wak'd like was the crimson of their joys,
Like were the pearls they wept, so like, that one
Seem'd but the other's kind reflection. [the day?
But stay, what glimpse was that? Why blush'd
Why ran the started air trembling away?
Who's this that comes circled in rays that scorn
Acquaintance with the Sun? What second morn
At mid-day opes a presence which Heaven's eye
Stands off and points at? Is 't some deity,
Stept from her throne of stars, deigns to be seen?
Is it some deity? or is't our queen?
'Tis she, 'tis she! her awful beauties chase
The day's abashed glories, and in face
Of noon wear their own sunshine! O thou bright
Mistress of wonders! Cynthia's is the night,
But thou at noon dost shine, and art all day
(Nor does the Sun deny 't) our Cynthia.
Illustrious sweetness! in thy faithful womb,
That nest of heroes, all our hopes find room;
Thou art the mother phoenix, and thy breast
Chaste as that virgin honour of the East,
But much more fruitful is; nor does, as she,
Deny to mighty love a deity;
Then let the eastern world brag and be proud
Of one coy phenix, while we have a brood,
A brood of phoenixes, and still the mother:
And may we long; long may'st thou live, t'increase
The house and family of phoenixes.
Nor may the light, that gives their eye-lids light,
E'er prove the dismal morning of thy night:
Ne'er, may a birth of thine be bought so dear,
To make his costly cradle of thy bier.
O may'st thou thus make all the year thine own,
And see such names of joy sit white upon
The brow of every month; and when that's done,
Mayest in a son of his find every son
Repeated, and that son still in another,
And so in each child often prove a mother.
Long may'st thou, laden with such clusters, lean
Upon thy royal elm, (fair vine!) and when
The Heavens will stay no longer, may thy glory
And name dwell sweet in some eternal story.
Pardon (bright excellence!) an untun'd string,
That in thy ears thus keeps a murmuring ;
O! speak a lowly Muse's pardon; speak
Her pardon or her sentence; only break
Thy silence; speak; and she shall take from thence
Numbers, and sweetness, and an influence,
Confessing thee; or (if too long I stay)
O speak thou, and my pipe hath nought to say:
For see Apollo all this while stands mute,
Expecting by thy voice to tune his lute.
But gods are gracious: and their altars make
Precious their offerings that their altars take;
Give them this rural wreath, fire from thine eyes.
This rural wreath dares be thy sacrifice.
VPON FORD'S TWO TRAGEDIES.
LOVE'S SACRIFICE AND THE BROKEN HEART. THOU cheat'st us, Ford, mak'st one seem two by art. What is Love's sacrifice, but the Broken Heart?
ON A FOUL MORNING,
BEING THEN TO TAKE A JOURNEY.
WHERE art thou, Sol, while thus the blindfold day
Staggers out of the East, loses her way,
Stumbling on night? Rouse thee, illustrious youth,
And let no dull mists choke the light's fair growth.
Point here thy beams, O glance on yonder flocks,
And make their fleeces golden as thy locks!
Unfold thy fair front, and there shall appere
Full glory, flaming in her own free sphere.
Gladness shall clothe the Earth, we will enstile
The face of things, an universal smile:
Say to the sullen Morn, thou com'st to court her;
And wilt demand proud Zephirus to sport her
With wanton gales; his balmy breath shall lick
The tender drops which tremble on her cheek;
Which rarified, and in a gentle rain
On those delicious banks distill'd again,
Shall rise in a sweet harvest, which discloses
To every blushing bed of new-born roses.
He'll fan ber bright locks, teaching them to flow,
And frisk in curl'd meanders: he will throw
A fragrant breath, suck'd from the spicy nest
'O' th' precious phoenix, warm upon her breast:
He, with a dainty and soft hand, will trim
And brush her azure mantle, which shall swim
In silken volumes; wheresoe'er she'll tread,
bright clouds like golden fleeces shall be spread.
Kise, then, (fair blew-ey'd maid) rise, and disThy silver brow, and meet thy golden lover. [cover
See how he runs! with what a hasty flight
Into thy bosom, bath'd with liquid light!
Fly, fly, prophane fogs! far hence fly away!
Taint not the pure streams of the springing day.
With your dull influence, it is for you
To sit and scoul upon Night's heavy brow;
Not on the fresh cheeks of the virgin Morn,
Where nought but smiles and ruddy joys are worn:
Fly, then, and do not think with her to stay;
Let it suffice, she'll wear no mask to day.
ETHIOPIAN SENT TO A GENTLEWOMAN. Lo! here the fair Chariclia! in whom strove So false a fortune, and so true a love. Now, after all her toils by sea and land,
O may she but arrive at your white hand! Her hopes are crown'd, only she fears that then She shall appear true Ethiopian,
And stroke his radiant cheeks! one timely kiss
Will kill his anger, and revive my bliss."
So to the treasure of thy pearly dew,
Thrice will I pay three tears, to show how true
My grief is; so my wakeful lay shall knock
At th' oriental gates, and duely mock
The early lark's shrill orizons, to be
An anthem at the Day's nativity.
And the same rosy-finger'd hand of thine,
That shuts Night's dying eyes, shall open mine.
But thou, faint god of sleep, forget that. Leve
Was ever known to be thy votary.
No more my pillow shall thine altar be,
Nor will I offer any more to thee
My self a melting sacrifice: I'm born-
Again a fresh child of the buxom Morn.
Heir of the Sun's first beams, why threat'st thou so?
Why dost thou shake thy leaden sceptre? Ga,....
Bestow thy poppy upon wakeful Woe,
Sickness and Sorrow, whose pale lids ne'er know
Thy downy finger; dwell upon their eyes,
Shut in their tears; shut out their miseries.
I WOULD be married, but I'd have no wife, I would be married to a single life.
WHAT SUCCOur can I hope the Muse will send
Whose drowsiness hath wrong'd the Muse's friend?
What hope, Aurora, to propitiate thee,
Unless the Muse sing my apology?
O in that morning of my shame! when I
Lay folded up in Sleep's captivity;
How at the sight didst thou draw back thine eyes
Into thy modest veil? How didst thou rise
Twice dy'd in thine own blushes, and did'st run
To draw the curtains, and awake the Sun?
Who, rousing his illustrious tresses, came,
And seeing the loath'd object, hid for shame
His head in thy fair bosom, and still hides
Me from bis patronage: 1 pray, he chides:
And pointing to dull Morpheus, bids me take
My own Apollo, try if I can make
His Lethe be my Helicon and see
If Morpheus have a Muse to wait on me.
Hence 'tis my humble fancy finds no wings,
No nimble rapture starts to Heaven, and brings
Enthusiastic flames, such as can give
Marrow to my plump genius, make it live
Drest in the glorious madness of a Muse,
Whose feet can walk the milky way, and choose
Her starry throne; whose holy heats can warm
The grave, and hold up an exalted arm
To lift me from my lazy urn, and climb
Upon the stopped shoulders of old Time;
And trace eternity-But all is dead,
All these delicious hopes are buried
In the deep wrinkles of his angry brow,
Where mercy cannot find them: but, O thou
Bright lady of the morn! pity doth lie
So warm in thy soft breast, it cannot die:
Have mercy, then, and when he next shall rise,
O meet the angry god, invade his eyes,
LOVE'S HOROSCOPE.
LOVE, brave Vertue's younger brother,
Erst hath made my heart a mother;
She consults the conscious spheres,
To calculate her young son's years.
She asks, if sad or saving pow'rs
Gave omen to his infant hours;
She asks each star that then stood by,
If poor Love shall live or die.
Ah! my heart, is that the way?
Are these the beams that rule thy day?
Thou know'st a face, in whose each look
Beauty lays ope Love's fortune-book,
On whose fair revolutions wait
The obsequious motions of Love's fate.
Ah! my heart, her eyes and she
Have taught thee new astrology.
How e'er Love's native hours were set,
What ever starry synod met,
'Tis in the mercy of her eye,
If poor Love shall live or die.
If those sharp rays putting on
Points of death bid Love begone,
(Though the Heavens in council sate,
To crown an uncontroled fate,
Though their best aspects twin'd upon
The kindest constellation,
Cast amorous glances on his birth,
And whisper'd the confederate Earth
To pave his paths with all the good
That warms the bed of youth and blood)
Love has no plea against her eye,
Beauty frowns, and Love must dye.
But if her milder influence more,
And gild the hopes of humble Love:
Though Heaven's inauspicious eye
Lay black on Love's nativity;
Though every diamond in Jove's crown
Fixt his forehead to a frown)
Her eye a strong appeal can give,
Beauty smiles, and Love shall live.
O! if Love shall live, O! where,
But in her eye, or in her ear,
In her breast, or in her breath,
Shall I hide poor Love from death?
For in the life aught else can give,
Love shall die, although he live.
Or if Love shall die, O! where,
But in her eye, or in her ear,
In her breath, or in her breast,
Shall I build his funeral nest?
While Love shall thus entombed lie,
Love shall live, although he die.
IN THE PRAISE OF THE SPRING.
ALL trees, all leafy groves, confess the Spring
Their gentlest friend: then, then the lands begin
To swell with forward pride, and seed desire
To generation: Heaven's almighty sire
Melts on the bosom of his love, and pours
Himself into her lap in fruitful showers,
And by a soft insinuation, mixt
With Earth's large mass, doth cherish and assist
Her weak conceptions: no lone shade, but rings
With chatting birds' delicious murmurings.
Then Venus' mild instinct (at set times) yields
The herds to kindly meetings, then the fields
(Quick with warm Zephyr's lively breath) lay forth
Their pregnant bosoms in a fragrant birth.
Each body's plump and juicy, all things full
Of supple moisture: no coy twig but will
Trust his beloved bosom to the Sun,
(Grown lusty now): no vine so weak and young
That fears the foul-mouth'd Auster, or those storms
That the south-west wind hurries in his arms,
But hastes her forward blossoms, and lays out,
Freely lays out her leaves; nor do I doubt
But when the world first out of Chaos sprang,
So smil'd the days, and so the tenour ran
Of their felicity. A spring was there,
An everlasting spring the jolly year
Led round in his great circle: no wind's breath
As then did smell of winter, or of death; [when
When life's sweet light first shone on beasts, and
From their hard mother Earth sprang hardy men ;
When beasts took up their lodging in the wood,
Stars in their higher chambers: never cou'd
The tender growth of things endure the sense
Of such a change, but that the Heav'ns' indulgence
Kindly supplies sick Nature, and doth mold
A sweetly-temper'd mean, nor hot nor cold.
WITH A PICTURE SENT TO A FRIEND.
I PAINT SO ill, my piece had need to be
Painted again by some good poesy,
I write so ill, my slender line is scarce
So much as th' picture of a well-limn'd verse: Yet may the love I send be true, though I Send not true picture nor true poesy: Both which away, I should not need to fear,
My love, or feign'd, or painted, should appear.
HIS RULE OF HEALTH.
Go, now, with some daring drug,
Bait the disease, and while they tug,
Thou, to maintain their cruel strife,
Spend the dear treasure of thy life:
Go, take physic, doat upon
Some big-nam'd composition,
The oraculous doctor's mystic bills,
Certain hard words made into pills;
And what at length shalt get by these?
Only a costlier disease.
Go, poor man, think what shall be
Remedy against thy remedy.
That which makes us have no need
Of physic, that's physic indeed.
Hark hither, reader, would'st thou see
Nature her own physician be;
Would'st see a man, all his own wealth,
His own physic, his own health?
A man whose sober soul can tell
How to wear her garments well?
Her garments that upon her sit,
As garments should do, close and fit?
A well-cloth'd soul that's not opprest,
Nor chok'd with what she should be drest
A soul sheath'd in a chrystal shrine,
Through which all her bright features shine!
As when a piece of wanton lawn,
A thin aereal veil is drawn
O'er Beauty's face, seeming to hide,
More sweetly shows the blushing bride.
A soul, whose intellectual beams
No mists do mask, no lazy steams?
A happy soul, that all the way
To Heaven hath a summer's day?
Would'st thou see a man, whose well-warm'd blood
Bathes him in a genuine flood?
A man, whose tuned humours be
A set of rarest harmony?
Would'st see blithe looks, fresh cheeks, beguile
Age, would'st see December smile?
Would'st see a nest of roses grow
In a bed of reverend snow?
Warm thoughts, free spirits, flattering
Winter's self into a spring?
In sum, would'st see a man that can
Live to be old, and still a man?
THE BEGINNING OF HELIODORUS. THE smiling morn had newly wak'd the day, And tipt the mountains in a tender ray: When on a hill (whose high imperious brow Looks down, and sees the humble Nile below Lick his proud feet, and haste into the seas Thro' the great mouth that's nam❜d from Hercules) A band of men, rough as the arms they wore, Look'd round, first to the sea, then to the shore. The shore, that show'd them what the sea deny'd, Hope of a prey. There, to the main land ty'd, A ship they saw, no men she had: yet prest Appear'd with other lading, for her breast Deep in the groaning waters wallowed
Up to the third ring; o'er the shore was spread
Death's purple triumph; on the blushing ground
Life's late forsaken houses all lay drown'd
In their own blood's dear deluge, some new dead,
Some panting in their yet warm ruins bled:
While their affrighted souls, now wing'd for flight,
Lent them the last flash of her glimmering light,
Those yet fresh streams, which crawled every
where,
[there:
Show'd, that stern War had newly bath'd him
Nor did the face of this disaster show
Marks of a fight alone, but feasting too,
A miserable and a monstrous feast,
Where hungry War had made himself a guest ;
And, coming late, had eat up guests and all,
Who prov'd the feast to their own funeral, &c.
LOVE is lost, nor can his mother
Her little fugitive discover:
She seeks, she sighs, but no where spies him;
Love is lost; and thus she cries him :
"O yes! if any happy eye
This roving wanton shall descry:
Let the finder surely know
Mine is the wag; 'tis I that owe
The winged wand'rer, and that none
May think his labour vainly gone,
The glad descrier shall not miss
To taste the nectar of a kiss
From Venus' lips; but as for him
That brings him to me, he shall swim
In riper joys; more shall be his
(Venus assures him) than a kiss:
But lest your eye discerning slide,
These marks may be your judgment's guide :
His skin as with a fiery blushing
High-colour'd is; his eyes still flushing
With nimble flames; and though his mind
Be ne'er so curst, his tongue is kind:
For never were his words in aught
Found the pure issue of his thought.
The working becs' soft melting gold,
That which their waxen mines enfold,
Flow not so sweet as do the tones
Of his tun'd accents; but if once
His anger kindle, presently
It boils out into cruelty,
And fraud: he makes poor mortals' hurts
The objects of his cruel sports;
With dainty curls his froward face
Is crown'd about; but O! what place,
What farthest nook of lowest Hell,
Feels not the strength, the reaching spell,
Of his small hand? Yet not so small
As 'tis powerful therewithal.
Though bare his skin, his mind he covers,
And like a saucy bird he hovers
With wanton wing, now here, now there,
'Bout men and women; nor will spare,
Till at length be perching rest,
In the closet of their breast.
His weapon is a little bow,
Yet such a one as (Jove knows how)
Ne'er suffer'd yet his little arrow
Of Heav'n's high'st arches to fall narrow.
OUT OF THE ITALIAN.
LOVE now no fire hath left him,
We two betwixt us have divided it.
Your eyes the light hath reft him;
The heat commanding in my heart doth sit.
O! that poor Love be not for ever spoiled,
Let my heat to your light be reconciled.
So shall these flames, whose worth
Now all obscured lies,
(Drest in those beams) start forth
And dance before your eyes.
Or else partake my flames,
(I care not whether)
And so in mutual names,
O Love! burn both together.
OUT OF THE ITALIAN.
WOULD any one the true cause fiud
How Love came nak'd, a boy, and blind?
'Tis this: listning one day too long
To th' syrens in my mistress' song,
The ecstasy of a delight
So much o'er-mastring all his might,
To that one sense, made all else thrall,
And so he lost his clothes, eyes, heart and all.
FRONTISPIECE OF ISAACSON'S CHRONO-
LOGY EXPLAINED.
IF with distinctive eye and mind you look
Upon the front, you see more than one book.
Creation is God's book, wherein he writ
Each creature, as a letter filling it.
History is Creation's book, which shows
To what effects the series of it goes.
Chronology's the book of History, and bears
The just account of days, of months, and years.
But Resurrection in a later press,
And New Edition is the sum of these:
The language of these books had all been one,
Had not th' aspiring tow'r of Babylon
Confus'd the tongues, and in a distance hurl'd
As far the speech, as men, o' th' new fill'd world.
Set then your eyes in method, and behold
Time's emblem, Saturn; who, when store of gold
Coin'd the first age, devour'd that birth he fear'd;
Till History, Time's eldest child, appear'd;
And, phoenix-like, in spite of Saturn's rage,
Forc'd from her ashes, heirs in every age.
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