AUTHOR Richard Lovelace

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  To the richest Treasury
That e'er fill'd ambitious eye;
To the faire bright Magazin
Hath impoverisht Love's Queen;
To th' Exchequer of all honour
(All take pensions but from her);
To the taper of the thore
Which the god himselfe but bore;
To the Sea of Chaste Delight;
Let me cast the Drop I write.
  And as at Loretto's shrine
Caesar shovels in his mine,
Th' Empres spreads her carkanets,
The lords submit their coronets,

RHYME a a *

Knights their chased armes hang by,
Maids diamond-ruby fancies tye;
Whilst from the pilgrim she wears
One poore false pearl, but ten true tears:
  So among the Orient prize,
(Saphyr-onyx eulogies)
Offer'd up unto your fame,
Take my GARNET-DUBLET name,
And vouchsafe 'midst those rich joyes
(With devotion) these TOYES.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

Now y' have oblieg'd the age, thy wel known worth
Is to our joy auspiciously brought forth.
Good morrow to thy son, thy first borne flame
Which, as thou gav'st it birth, stamps it a name,
That Fate and a discerning age shall set
The chiefest jewell in her coronet.

RHYME a a *

Why then needs all this paines, those season'd pens,
That standing lifeguard to a booke (kinde friends),
That with officious care thus guard thy gate,
As if thy Child were illigitimate?
Forgive their freedome, since unto their praise
They write to give, not to dispute thy bayes.

RHYME a a *

As when some glorious queen, whose pregnant wombe
Brings forth a kingdome with her first-borne Sonne,
Marke but the subjects joyfull hearts and eyes:
Some offer gold, and others sacrifice;
This slayes a lambe, that, not so rich as hee,
Brings but a dove, this but a bended knee;
And though their giftes be various, yet their sence
Speaks only this one thought, Long live the prince.

RHYME a a *

So, my best brother, if unto your name
I offer up a thin blew-burning flame,
Pardon my love, since none can make thee shine,
Vnlesse they kindle first their torch at thine.
Then as inspir'd, they boldly write, nay that,
Which their amazed lights but twinkl'd at,
And their illustrate thoughts doe voice this right,
Lucasta held their torch; thou gav'st it light.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

How humble is thy muse (Deare) that can daign
Such servants as my pen to entertaine!
When all the sonnes of wit glory to be
Clad in thy muses gallant livery.
I shall disgrace my master, prove a staine,
And no addition to his honour'd traine;
Though all that read me will presume to swear
I neer read thee: yet if it may appear,
I love the writer and admire the writ,
I my owne want betray, not wrong thy wit.
Did thy worke want a prayse, my barren brain
Could not afford it: my attempt were vaine.
It needs no foyle: All that ere writ before,
Are foyles to thy faire Poems, and no more.
Then to be lodg'd in the same sheets with thine,
May prove disgrace to yours, but grace to mine.

RHYME a a *

Deare Lovelace, I am now about to prove
I cannot write a verse, but can write love.
On such a subject as thy booke I coo'd
Write books much greater, but not half so good.
But as the humble tenant, that does bring
A chicke or egges for's offering,
Is tane into the buttry, and does fox
Equall with him that gave a stalled oxe:
So (since the heart of ev'ry cheerfull giver
Makes pounds no more accepted than a stiver),
Though som thy prayse in rich stiles sing, I may
In stiver-stile write love as well as they.
I write so well that I no criticks feare;
For who'le read mine, when as thy booke's so neer,
Vnlesse thy selfe? then you shall secure mine
From those, and Ile engage my selfe for thine.
They'l do't themselves; <thee> this allay you'l take,
I love thy book, and yet not for thy sake.

RHYME a a *

So from the pregnant braine of Jove did rise
Pallas, the queene of wit and beautious eyes,
As faire Lucasta from thy temples flowes,
Temples no lesse ingenious then Joves.
Alike in birth, so shall she be in fame,
And be immortall to preserve thy Name.

RHYME a a *

Now, when the wars augment our woes and fears,
And the shrill noise of drums oppresse our ears;
Now peace and safety from our shores are fled
To holes and cavernes to secure their head;
Now all the graces from the land are sent,
And the nine Muses suffer banishment;
Whence spring these raptures? whence this heavenly rime,
So calme and even in so harsh a time?
Well might that charmer his faire Caelia crowne,
And that more polish't Tyterus renowne
His Sacarissa, when in groves and bowres
They could repose their limbs on beds of flowrs:

RHYME a a *

When wit had prayse, and merit had reward,
And every noble spirit did accord
To love the Muses, and their priests to raise,
And interpale their browes with flourishing bayes;
But in a time distracted so to sing,
When peace is hurried hence on rages wing,
When the fresh bayes are from the Temple torne,
And every art and science made a scorne;
Then to raise up, by musicke of thy art,
Our drooping spirits and our grieved hearts;
Then to delight our souls, and to inspire
Our breast with pleasure from thy charming lyre;
Then to divert our sorrowes by thy straines,
Making us quite forget our seven yeers paines

RHYME a a *

In the past wars, unlesse that Orpheus be
A sharer in thy glory: for when he

RHYME a a *

He stroke his lute with like admired art,
And made the damned to forget their smart.

RHYME a a *

He that doth paint the beauties of your verse,
Must use your pensil, be polite, soft, terse;
Forgive that man whose best of art is love,
If he no equall master to you prove.
My heart is all my eloquence, and that
Speaks sharp affection, when my words fall flat;
I reade you like my mistresse, and discry
In every line the quicknesse of her eye:
Her smoothnesse in each syllable, her grace
To marshall ev'ry word in the right place.
It is the excellence and soule of wit,
When ev'ry thing is free as well as fit:

RHYME a a *

For metaphors packt up and crowded close
Swath <ye> minds sweetnes, and display the throws,
And, like those chickens hatcht in furnaces,
Produce or one limbe more, or one limbe lesse
Then nature bids.  Survey such when they write,
No clause but's justl'd with an epithite.
So powerfully you draw when you perswade,
Passions in you in us are vertues made;
Such is the magick of that lawfull shell
That where it doth but talke, it doth compell:
  For no Apelles 'till this time e're drew
  A Venus to the waste so well as you.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

The world shall now no longer mourne nor vex
For th' obliquity of a cross-grain'd sex;
Nor beauty swell above her bankes, (and made
For ornament) the universe invade
So fiercely, that 'tis question'd in our bookes,
Whether kils most the Amazon's sword or lookes.
Lucasta in loves game discreetly makes
Women and men joyntly to share the stakes,
And lets us know, when women scorne, it is
Mens hot love makes the antiparisthesis;
And a lay lover here such comfort finds
As Holy Writ gives to affected minds.

RHYME a a *

The wilder nymphs, lov's power could not comand,
Are by thy almighty numbers brought to hand,
And flying Daphnes, caught, amazed vow
They never heard Apollo court till now.
'Tis not by force of armes this feat is done,
For that would puzzle even the Knight o' th' Sun;
But 'tis by pow'r of art, and such a way
As Orpheus us'd, when he made fiends obay.

RHYME a a *

  Ovr times are much degenerate from those,
Which your sweet Muse, which your fair fortune chose;
And as complexions alter with the climes,
Our wits have drawne th' infection of our times.
That candid age no other way could tell
To be ingenious, but by speaking well.
Who best could prayse, had then the greatest prayse;
'Twas more esteemd to give then wear the bayes.
Modest ambition studi'd only then
To honour not her selfe, but worthy men.
These vertues now are banisht out of towne,
Our Civill Wars have lost the civicke crowne.
He highest builds, who with most art destroys,
And against others fame his owne employs.
I see the envious caterpillar sit
On the faire blossome of each growing wit.
  The ayre's already tainted with the swarms
Of insects, which against you rise in arms.
Word-peckers, paper-rats, book-scorpions,
Of wit corrupted the unfashion'd sons.
The barbed censurers begin to looke
Like the grim Consistory on thy booke;
And on each line cast a reforming eye
Severer then the yong presbytery.
Till, when in vaine they have thee all perus'd,
You shall for being faultlesse be accus'd.
Some reading your LUCASTA will alledge
You wrong'd in her the Houses priviledge;

RHYME a a *

Some that you under sequestration are,
Because you write when going to the Warre;
And one the book prohibits, because Kent
Their first Petition by the Authour sent.
  But when the beauteous ladies came to know,
That their deare Lovelace was endanger'd so:
Lovelace, that thaw'd the most congealed brest,
He who lov'd best, and them defended best,
Whose hand so rudely grasps the steely brand,
Whose hand so gently melts the ladies hand,
They all in mutiny, though yet undrest,
Sally'd, and would in his defence contest.
And one, the loveliest that was yet e're seen,
Thinking that I too of the rout had been,
Mine eyes invaded with a female spight
(She knew what pain 't would be to lose that sight).
O no, mistake not, I reply'd: for I
In your defence, or in his cause, would dy.
But he, secure of glory and of time,
Above their envy or mine aid doth clime.
Him valianst men and fairest nymphs approve,
His booke in them finds judgement, with you, love.

RHYME a a *

  If the desire of glory speak a mind
More nobly operative and more refin'd,
What vast soule moves thee, or what hero's spirit
(Kept in'ts traduction pure) dost thou inherit,
That, not contented with one single fame,
Dost to a double glory spread thy name,
And on thy happy temples safely set
Both th' Delphick wreath and civic coronet?
  Was't not enough for us to know how far
Thou couldst in season suffer, act and dare
But we must also witnesse, with what height
And what Ionick sweetnesse thou canst write,

RHYME a a *

And melt those eager passions, that are
Stubborn enough t' enrage the god of war
Into a noble love, which may expire
In an illustrious pyramid of fire;
Which, having gained his due station, may
Fix there, and everlasting flames display.
This is the braver path: time soone can smother
The dear-bought spoils and tropheis of the other.
How many fiery heroes have there been,
Whose triumphs were as soone forgot as seen?
Because they wanted some diviner one
To rescue <thee> from night, and make <thee> known.
  Such art thou to thy selfe.  While others dream
Strong flatt'ries on a fain'd or borrow'd theam,
Thou shalt remaine in thine owne lustre bright,
And adde unto 't LUCASTA'S chaster light.
  For none so fit to sing great things as he,
That can act o're all lights of poetry.
Thus had Achilles his owne gests design'd,
He had his genius Homer far outshin'd.

RHYME a a *

  Poets and painters have some near relation,
Compar'd with fancy and imagination;
The one paints shadowed persons (in pure kind),
The other paints the pictures of the mind
In purer verse.  And as rare Zeuxes fame
Shin'd, till Apelles art eclips'd the same
By a more exquisite and curious line
In Zeuxeses (with pensill far more fine),
So have our modern poets late done well,
Till thine appear'd (which scarce have paralel).
  They like to Zeuxes grapes beguile the sense,
But thine do ravish the intelligence,
Like the rare banquet of Apelles, drawn,
And covered over with most curious lawn.

RHYME a a *

  Thus if thy careles draughts are cal'd the best,
What would thy lines have beene, had'st thou profest
That faculty (infus'd) of poetry,
Which adds such honour unto thy chivalry?
Doubtles thy verse had all as far transcended
As Sydneyes Prose, who Poets once defended.
  For when I read thy much renowned pen,
My fancy there finds out another Ben
In thy brave language, judgement, wit, and art,
Of every piece of thine, in every part:
Where thy seraphique Sydneyan fire is raised high
In valour, vertue, love, and loyalty.
  Virgil was styl'd the loftiest of all,
Ovid the smoothest and most naturall;

RHYME a a *

Martiall concise and witty, quaint and pure,
Iuvenall grave and learned, though obscure.
  But all these rare ones which I heere reherse,
Do live againe in Thee, and in thy Verse:
Although not in the language of their time,
Yet in a speech as copious and sublime.
  The rare Apelles in thy picture wee
Perceive, and in thy soule Apollo see.
Wel may each Grace and Muse then crown thy praise
With Mars his banner and Minerva's bayes.

RHYME a a *

Chast as Creation meant us, and more bright
Then the first day in 's uneclipsed light,
Is thy LUCASTA; and thou offerest heere
Lines to her name as undefil'd and cleere;
Such as the first indeed more happy dayes
(When vertue, wit, and learning wore the bayes
Now vice assumes) would to her memory give:
A Vestall flame that should for ever live,
Plac't in a christal temple, rear'd to be
The Embleme of her thoughts integrity;
And on the porch thy name insculpt, my friend,
Whose love, like to the flame, can know no end.

RHYME a a *

The marble step that to the alter brings
The hallowed priests with their clean offerings,
Shall hold their names that humbly crave to be
Votaries to th' shrine, and grateful friends to thee.
So shal we live (although our offrings prove
Meane to the world) for ever by thy love.

RHYME a a *

Ile doe my nothing too, and try
To dabble to thy memory.
Not that I offer to thy name
Encomiums of thy lasting fame.
Those by the landed have been writ:
Mine's but a yonger-brother wit;
A wit that's hudled up in scarres,
Borne like my rough selfe in the warres;
And as a Squire in the fight
Serves only to attend the Knight,
So 'tis my glory in this field,
Where others act, to beare thy shield.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b 

     Enough, enough of orbs and spheres,
       Reach me a trumpet or a drum,
     To sound sharp synnets in your ears,
       And beat a deep encomium.

          
RHYME a b a b 

     I know not th' Eight Intelligence:
       Those that do understand it, pray
     Let them step hither, and from thence
       Speak what they all do sing or say:

          
RHYME a b a b 

     Nor what your diapasons are,
       Your sympathies and symphonies;
     To me they seem as distant farre
       As whence they take their infant rise.

          
RHYME a b a b 

     But I've a grateful heart can ring
       A peale of ordnance to your praise,
     And volleys of small plaudits bring
       To clowd a crown about your baies.

RHYME a b a b 

     Though laurel is thought thunder free,
       That storms and lightning disallows,
     Yet Caesar thorough fire and sea
       Snatches her to twist his conquering brows.

RHYME a b a b 

     And now me thinks like him you stand
       I' th' head of all the Poets' hoast,
     Whilest with your words you do command,
       They silent do their duty boast.
RHYME a b a b 


     Which done, the army ecchoes o're,
       Like Gamble Ios one and all,
     And in their various notes implore,
       Long live our noble Generall.

TITLE

RHYME a a *
                    
  If to be absent were to be
      Away from thee;
    Or that when I am gone,
    You or I were alone;
Then my LUCASTA might I crave
Pity from blustring winde or swallowing wave.


RHYME a a *

  But I'le not sigh one blast or gale
      To swell my saile,
    Or pay a teare to swage
    The foaming blew-gods rage;
For whether he will let me passe
Or no, I'm still as happy as I was.


RHYME a a *

  Though seas and land betwixt us both,
      Our faith and troth,
    Like separated soules,
    All time and space controules:
Above the highest sphere wee meet,
Unseene, unknowne, and greet as angels greet

RHYME a a *

  So then we doe anticipate
      Our after-fate,
    And are alive i'th' skies,
    If thus our lips and eyes
Can speake like spirits unconfin'd
In Heav'n, their earthy bodies left behind.

RHYME a b a b 
                    
Tell me not, (sweet,) I am unkinde,
  That from the nunnerie
Of thy chaste breast and quiet minde
  To warre and armes I flie.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b 

True: a new Mistresse now I chase,
  The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith imbrace
  A sword, a horse, a shield.

RHYME a b a b 

Yet this inconstancy is such,
  As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
  Lov'd I not Honour more.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b c c c 

Tis true the beauteous Starre
  To which I first did bow
Burnt quicker, brighter far,
  Than that which leads me now;
    Which shines with more delight,
    For gazing on that light
    So long, neere lost my sight.

RHYME a b a b c c c 

Through foul we follow faire,
  For had the world one face,
And earth been bright as ayre,
  We had knowne neither place.
    Indians smell not their neast;
    A Swisse or Finne tastes best
    The spices of the East.

RHYME a b a b c c c 

So from the glorious Sunne
  Who to his height hath got,
With what delight we runne
  To some black cave or grot!
    And, heav'nly Sydney you
    Twice read, had rather view
    Some odde romance so new.

RHYME a b a b c c c 

The god, that constant keepes
  Unto his deities,
Is poore in joyes, and sleepes
  Imprison'd in the skies.
    This knew the wisest, who
    From Juno stole, below
    To love a bear or cow.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

RHYME a a *

  Amarantha sweet and faire,
Ah brade no more that shining haire!
  As my curious hand or eye,
Hovering round thee, let it flye.

RHYME a a *

  Let it flye as unconfin'd
As it's calme ravisher, the winde,
  Who hath left his darling, th' East,
To wanton o're that spicie neast.

RHYME a a *

  Ev'ry tresse must be confest:
But neatly tangled at the best;
  Like a clue of golden thread,
Most excellently ravelled.

RHYME a a *

  Doe not then winde up that light
In ribands, and o'er-cloud in night,
  Like the sun in's early ray;
But shake your head, and scatter day.

RHYME a a *

  See, 'tis broke! within this grove,
The bower and the walkes of love,
  Weary lye we downe and rest,
And fanne each other's panting breast.

RHYME a a *

  Heere wee'll strippe and coole our fire,
In creame below, in milk-baths higher:
  And when all wells are drawne dry,
I'll drink a teare out of thine eye.

RHYME a a *

  Which our very joys shall leave,
That sorrowes thus we can deceive;
  Or our very sorrowes weepe,
That joyes so ripe so little keepe.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

Depose your finger of that ring,
  And crowne mine with't awhile;
Now I restor't.  Pray, dos it bring
  Back with it more of soile?
Or shines it not as innocent,
As honest, as before 'twas lent?

RHYME a a *

So then inrich me with that treasure,
  'Twill but increase your store,
And please me (faire one) with that pleasure
  Must please you still the more.
Not to save others is a curse
The blackest, when y'are ne're the worse.

TITLE

RHYME a a b b 

Sweet serene skye-like flower,
Haste to adorn her bower;
  From thy long clowdy bed
  Shoot forth thy damaske head.

RHYME a a b b 

New-startled blush of FLORA!
The griefe of pale AURORA,
  Who will contest no more,
  Haste, haste, to strowe her floore.

RHYME a a b b 

Vermilion ball, that's given
From lip to lip in Heaven;
  Loves couches cover-led,
  Haste, haste, to make her bed.

RHYME a a b b 

Dear offspring of pleas'd VENUS,
And jollie plumpe SILENUS;
  Haste, haste, to decke the haire,
  Of th' only sweetly faire.

RHYME a a b b 

See! rosie is her bower,
Her floore is all this flower;
  Her bed a rosie nest
  By a bed of roses prest.

RHYME a a b b 

But early as she dresses,
Why fly you her bright tresses?
  Ah! I have found, I feare;
  Because her cheekes are neere.

TITLE

RHYME a b a a b 

The childish god of love did sweare
  Thus: By my awfull bow and quiver,
Yon' weeping, kissing, smiling pair,
I'le scatter all their vowes i' th' ayr,
  And their knit imbraces shiver.

RHYME a b a a b 

Up then to th' head with his best art
  Full of spite and envy blowne,
At her constant marble heart,
He drawes his swiftest surest dart,
  Which bounded back, and hit his owne.

RHYME a b a a b 

Now the prince of fires burnes;
  Flames in the luster of her eyes;
Triumphant she, refuses, scornes;
He submits, adores and mournes,
  And is his votresse sacrifice.

RHYME a b a a b 

Foolish boy! resolve me now
  What 'tis to sigh and not be heard?
He weeping kneel'd, and made a vow:
The world shall love as yon' fast two;
  So on his sing'd wings up he steer'd.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b 

Ah me! the little tyrant theefe!
  As once my heart was playing,
He snatcht it up and flew away,
  Laughing at all my praying.

RHYME a b a b 

Proud of his purchase, he surveys
  And curiously sounds it,
And though he sees it full of wounds,
  Cruel one, still he wounds it.

RHYME a b a b 

And now this heart is all his sport,
  Which as a ball he boundeth
From hand to breast, from breast to lip,
  And all its rest confoundeth.

RHYME a b a b 

Then as a top he sets it up,
  And pitifully whips it;
Sometimes he cloathes it gay and fine,
  Then straight againe he strips it.

RHYME a b a b 

He cover'd it with false reliefe,
  Which gloriously show'd it;
And for a morning-cushionet
  On's mother he bestow'd it.

RHYME a b a b 

Each day, with her small brazen stings,
  A thousand times she rac'd it;
But then at night, bright with her gemmes,
  Once neere her breast she plac'd it.

RHYME a b a b 

There warme it gan to throb and bleed;
  She knew that smart, and grieved;
At length this poore condemned heart
  With these rich drugges repreeved.

RHYME a b a b 

She washt the wound with a fresh teare,
  Which my LUCASTA dropped,
And in the sleave-silke of her haire
  'Twas hard bound up and wrapped.

RHYME a b a b 

She proab'd it with her constancie,
  And found no rancor nigh it;
Only the anger of her eye
  Had wrought some proud flesh by it.

RHYME a b a b 

Then prest she narde in ev'ry veine,
  Which from her kisses trilled;
And with the balme heald all its paine,
  That from her hand distilled.

RHYME a b a b 

But yet this heart avoyds me still,
  Will not by me be owned;
But's fled to its physitian's breast;
  There proudly sits inthroned.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

Heark!  Oh heark! you guilty trees,
In whose gloomy galleries
Was the cruell'st murder done,
That e're yet eclipst the sunne.
Be then henceforth in your twigges
Blasted, e're you sprout to sprigges;
Feele no season of the yeere,
But what shaves off all your haire,
Nor carve any from your wombes
Ought but coffins and their tombes.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

When I by thy faire shape did sweare,
And mingled with each vowe a teare,
     I lov'd, I lov'd thee best,
     I swore as I profest.
For all the while you lasted warme and pure,
     My oathes too did endure.
But once turn'd faithlesse to thy selfe and old,
They then with thee incessantly grew cold.

RHYME a a *

I swore my selfe thy sacrifice
By th' ebon bowes that guard thine eyes,
     Which now are alter'd white,
     And by the glorious light
Of both those stars, which of their spheres bereft,
     Only the gellie's left.
Then changed thus, no more I'm bound to you,
Then swearing to a saint that proves untrue.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b 

Lucasta wept, and still the bright
   Inamour'd god of day,
With his soft handkercher of light,
   Kist the wet pearles away.

RHYME a b a b 

But when her teares his heate or'ecame,
   In cloudes he quensht his beames,
And griev'd, wept out his eye of flame,
   So drowned her sad streames.

RHYME a b a b 

At this she smiled, when straight the sun
   Cleer'd by her kinde desires;
And by her eyes reflexion
   Fast kindl'd there his fires.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

Long in thy shackels, liberty
I ask not from these walls, but thee;
Left for awhile anothers bride,
To fancy all the world beside.

RHYME a a *

Yet e're I doe begin to love,
See, how I all my objects prove;
Then my free soule to that confine,
'Twere possible I might call mine.

RHYME a a *

First I would be in love with PEACE,
And her rich swelling breasts increase;
But how, alas! how may that be,
Despising earth, she will love me?

RHYME a a *

Faine would I be in love with WAR,
As my deare just avenging star;
But War is lov'd so ev'rywhere,
Ev'n he disdaines a lodging here.

RHYME a a *

Thee and thy wounds I would bemoane,
Faire thorough-shot RELIGION;
But he lives only that kills thee,
And who so bindes thy hands, is free.

RHYME a a *

I would love a PARLIAMENT
As a maine prop from Heav'n sent;
But ah! who's he, that would be wedded
To th' fairest body that's beheaded?

RHYME a a *

Next would I court my LIBERTY,
And then my birth-right, PROPERTY;
But can that be, when it is knowne,
There's nothing you can call your owne?

RHYME a a *

A REFORMATION I would have,
As for our griefes a SOV'RAIGNE salve;
That is, a cleansing of each wheele
Of state, that yet some rust doth feele.

RHYME a a *

But not a reformation so,
As to reforme were to ore'throw,
Like watches by unskilfull men
Disjoynted, and set ill againe.

RHYME a a *

The PUBLICK FAITH I would adore,
But she is banke-rupt of her store:
Nor how to trust her can I see,
For she that couzens all, must me.

RHYME a a *

Since then none of these can be
Fit objects for my love and me;
What then remaines, but th' only spring
Of all our loves and joyes, the King?

RHYME a a *

He who, being the whole ball
Of day on earth, lends it to all;
When seeking to ecclipse his right,
Blinded we stand in our owne light.

RHYME a a *

And now an universall mist
Of error is spread or'e each breast,
With such a fury edg'd as is
Not found in th' inwards of th' abysse.

RHYME a a *

Oh, from thy glorious starry waine
Dispense on me one sacred beame,
To light me where I soone may see
How to serve you, and you trust me!

TITLE

RHYME a b a b 

Eastrich! thou featherd foole, and easie prey,
  That larger sailes to thy broad vessell needst;
Snakes through thy guttur-neck hisse all the day,
  Then on thy iron messe at supper feedst.

RHYME a b a b 

O what a glorious transmigration
  From this to so divine an edifice
Hast thou straight made! heere from a winged stone
  Transform'd into a bird of paradice!

RHYME a b a b 

Now doe thy plumes for hiew and luster vie
  With th' arch of heav'n that triumphs or'e past wet,
And in a rich enamel'd pinion lye
  With saphyres, amethists and opalls set.

RHYME a b a b 

Sometime they wing her side, <thee> strive to drown
  The day's eyes piercing beames, whose am'rous heat
Sollicites still, 'till with this shield of downe
  From her brave face his glowing fires are beat.

RHYME a b a b 

But whilst a plumy curtaine she doth draw,
  A chrystall mirror sparkles in thy breast,
In which her fresh aspect when as she saw,
  And then her foe retired to the west.

RHYME a b a b 

Deare engine, that oth' sun got'st me the day,
  'Spite of his hot assaults mad'st him retreat!
No wind (said she) dare with thee henceforth play
  But mine own breath to coole the tyrants heat.

RHYME a b a b 

My lively shade thou ever shalt retaine
  In thy inclosed feather-framed glasse,
And but unto our selves to all remaine
  Invisible, thou feature of this face!

RHYME a b a b 

So said, her sad swaine over-heard and cried:
  Yee Gods! for faith unstaind this a reward!
Feathers and glasse t'outweigh my vertue tryed!
  Ah! show their empty strength! the gods accord.

RHYME a b a b 

Now fall'n the brittle favourite lyes and burst!
  Amas'd LUCASTA weepes, repents and flies
To her ALEXIS, vowes her selfe acurst,
  If hence she dresse her selfe but in his eyes.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b 

Yee happy floods! that now must passe
  The sacred conduicts of her wombe,
Smooth and transparent as your face,
  When you are deafe, and windes are dumbe.

RHYME a b a b 

Be proud! and if your waters be
  Foul'd with a counterfeyted teare,
Or some false sigh hath stained yee,
  Haste, and be purified there.

RHYME a b a b 

And when her rosie gates y'have trac'd,
  Continue yet some Orient wet,
'Till, turn'd into a gemme, y'are plac'd
  Like diamonds with rubies set.

RHYME a b a b 

Yee drops, that dew th' Arabian bowers,
  Tell me, did you e're smell or view
On any leafe of all your flowers
  Soe sweet a sent, so rich a hiew?

RHYME a b a b 

But as through th' Organs of her breath
  You trickle wantonly, beware:
Ambitious Seas in their just death
  As well as Lovers, must have share.

RHYME a b a b 

And see! you boyle as well as I;
  You, that to coole her did aspire,
Now troubled and neglected lye,
  Nor can your selves quench your owne fire.

RHYME a b a b 

Yet still be happy in the thought,
  That in so small a time as this,
Through all the Heavens you were brought
  Of Vertue, Honour, Love and Blisse.

TITLE

RHYME a a a a 

Ah LUCASTA, why so bright?
Spread with early streaked light!
If still vailed from our sight,
What is't but eternall night?

RHYME a a a a a 

Ah LUCASTA, why so chaste?
With that vigour, ripenes grac't,
Not to be by Man imbrac't
Makes that Royall coyne imbace't,
And this golden Orchard waste!

RHYME a a a a a 

Ah LUCASTA, why so great,
That thy crammed coffers sweat?
Yet not owner of a seat
May shelter you from Natures heat,
And your earthly joyes compleat.

RHYME a a a a a 

Ah Lucasta, why so good?
Blest with an unstained flood
Flowing both through soule and blood;
If it be not understood,
'Tis a Diamond in mud.

RHYME a a a a a 

LUCASTA! stay! why dost thou flye?
Thou art not bright but to the eye,
Nor chaste but in the mariage-tye,
Nor great but in this treasurie,
Nor good but in that sanctitie.

RHYME a a a a 

Harder then the Orient stone,
Like an apparition,
Or as a pale shadow gone,
Dumbe and deafe she hence is flowne.

RHYME a a a a a 

Then receive this equall dombe:
Virgins, strow no teare or bloome,
No one dig the Parian wombe;
Raise her marble heart i'th' roome,
And 'tis both her coarse and tombe.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b 

See! what an undisturbed teare
  She weepes for her last sleepe;
But, viewing her, straight wak'd a Star,
  She weepes that she did weepe.

RHYME a b a b 

Griefe ne're before did tyranize
  On th' honour of that brow,
And at the wheeles of her brave eyes
  Was captive led til now.

RHYME a b a b 

Thus, for a saints apostacy
  The unimagin'd woes
And sorrowes of the Hierarchy
  None but an angel knowes.

RHYME a b a b 

Thus, for lost soules recovery
  The clapping of all wings
And triumphs of this victory
  None but an angel sings.

RHYME a b a b 

So none but she knows to bemone
  This equal virgins fate,
None but LUCASTA can her crowne
  Of glory celebrate.

RHYME a b a b 

Then dart on me (CHAST LIGHT) one ray,
  By which I may discry
Thy joy cleare through this cloudy day
  To dresse my sorrow by.

TITLE

RHYME a a b b c c 

Oh, stay that covetous hand; first turn all eye,
All depth and minde; then mystically spye
Her soul's faire picture, her faire soul's, in all
So truely copied from th' originall,
That you will sweare her body by this law
Is but its shadow, as this, its;--now draw.

TITLE

RHYME a a b c b c d d 

Cold as the breath of winds that blow
To silver shot descending snow,
  Lucasta sigh't; when she did close
    The world in frosty chaines!
  And then a frowne to rubies frose
    The blood boyl'd in our veines:
Yet cooled not the heat her sphere
Of beauties first had kindled there.

RHYME a a b c b c d d 

Then mov'd, and with a suddaine flame
Impatient to melt all againe,
  Straight from her eyes she lightning hurl'd,
    And earth in ashes mournes;
  The sun his blaze denies the world,
    And in her luster burnes:
Yet warmed not the hearts, her nice
Disdaine had first congeal'd to ice.

RHYME a a b c b c d d 

And now her teares nor griev'd desire
Can quench this raging, pleasing fire;
  Fate but one way allowes; behold
    Her smiles' divinity!
  They fann'd this heat, and thaw'd that cold,
    So fram'd up a new sky.
Thus earth, from flames and ice repreev'd,
E're since hath in her sun-shine liv'd.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b a c c 

That frantick errour I adore,
  And am confirm'd the earth turns round;
Now satisfied o're and o're,
  As rowling waves, so flowes the ground,
And as her neighbour reels the shore:
  Finde such a woman says she loves;
  She's that fixt heav'n, which never moves.

RHYME a b a b a c c 

In marble, steele, or porphyrie,
  Who carves or stampes his armes or face,
Lookes it by rust or storme must dye:
  This womans love no time can raze,
Hardned like ice in the sun's eye,
  Or your reflection in a glasse,
  Which keepes possession, though you passe.

RHYME a b a b a c c 

We not behold a watches hand
  To stir, nor plants or flowers to grow;
Must we infer that this doth stand,
  And therefore, that those do not blow?
This she acts calmer, like Heav'ns brand,
  The stedfast lightning, slow loves dart,
  She kils, but ere we feele the smart.

RHYME a b a b a c c 

Oh, she is constant as the winde,
  That revels in an ev'nings aire!
Certaine as wayes unto the blinde,
  More reall then her flatt'ries are;
Gentle as chaines that honour binde,
  More faithfull then an Hebrew Jew,
  But as the divel not halfe so true.

TITLE

RHYME a a a 

From the dire monument of thy black roome,
Wher now that vestal flame thou dost intombe,
As in the inmost cell of all earths wombe.

RHYME a a a 

Sacred Lucasta, like the pow'rfull ray
Of heavenly truth, passe this Cimmerian way,
Whilst all the standards of your beames display.

RHYME a a a 

Arise and climbe our whitest, highest hill;
There your sad thoughts with joy and wonder fill,
And see seas calme as earth, earth as your will.

RHYME a a a 

Behold! how lightning like a taper flyes,
And guilds your chari't, but ashamed dyes,
Seeing it selfe out-gloried by your eyes.

RHYME a a a 

Threatning and boystrous tempests gently bow,
And to your steps part in soft paths, when now
There no where hangs a cloud, but on your brow.

RHYME a a a 

No showrs but 'twixt your lids, nor gelid snow,
But what your whiter, chaster brest doth ow,
Whilst winds in chains colder for sorrow blow.

RHYME a a a 

Shrill trumpets doe only sound to eate,
Artillery hath loaden ev'ry dish with meate,
And drums at ev'ry health alarmes beate.

RHYME a a a 

All things Lucasta, but Lucasta, call,
Trees borrow tongues, waters in accents fall,
The aire doth sing, and fire is musicall.

RHYME a a a 

Awake from the dead vault in which you dwell,
All's loyall here, except your thoughts rebell
Which, so let loose, often their gen'rall quell.

RHYME a a a 

See! she obeys!  By all obeyed thus,
No storms, heats, colds, no soules contentious,
Nor civill war is found; I meane, to us.

RHYME a a a 

Lovers and angels, though in heav'n they show,
And see the woes and discords here below,
What they not feele, must not be said to know.

TITLE     

RHYME a a *

  Up with the jolly bird of light
Who sounds his third retreat to night;
Faire Amarantha from her bed
Ashamed starts, and rises red
As the carnation-mantled morne,
Who now the blushing robe doth spurne,
And puts on angry gray, whilst she,
The envy of a deity,
Arayes her limbes, too rich indeed
To be inshrin'd in such a weed;
Yet lovely 'twas and strait, but fit;
Not made for her, but she to it:
By nature it sate close and free,
As the just bark unto the tree:
Unlike Love's martyrs of the towne,
All day imprison'd in a gown,
Who, rackt in silke 'stead of a dresse,
Are cloathed in a frame or presse,
And with that liberty and room,
The dead expatiate in a tombe.
  No cabinets with curious washes,
Bladders and perfumed plashes;

RHYME a a *

No venome-temper'd water's here,
Mercury is banished this sphere:
Her payle's all this, in which wet glasse
She both doth cleanse and view her face.
  Far hence, all Iberian smells,
Hot amulets, Pomander spells,
Fragrant gales, cool ay'r, the fresh
And naturall odour of her flesh,
Proclaim her sweet from th' wombe as morne.
Those colour'd things were made, not borne.
Which, fixt within their narrow straits,
Do looke like their own counterfeyts.
So like the Provance rose she walkt,
Flowerd with blush, with verdure stalkt;
Th' officious wind her loose hayre curles,
The dewe her happy linnen purles,
But wets a tresse, which instantly
Sol with a crisping beame doth dry.

RHYME a a *

  Into the garden is she come,
Love and delight's Elisium;
If ever earth show'd all her store,
View her discolourd budding floore;
Here her glad eye she largely feedes,
And stands 'mongst them, as they 'mong weeds;
The flowers in their best aray
As to their queen their tribute pay,
And freely to her lap proscribe
A daughter out of ev'ry tribe.
Thus as she moves, they all bequeath
At once the incense of their breath.

RHYME a a *

  The noble Heliotropian
Now turnes to her, and knowes no sun.
  And as her glorious face doth vary,
So opens loyall golden Mary
Who, if but glanced from her sight,
Straight shuts again, as it were night.
The violet (else lost ith' heap)
Doth spread fresh purple for each step,
With whose humility possest,
Sh' inthrones the Poore Girle in her breast:
The July-flow'r that hereto thriv'd,
Knowing her self no longer-liv'd,
But for one look of her upheaves,
Then 'stead of teares straight sheds her leaves.

RHYME a a *

  Now the rich robed Tulip who,
Clad all in tissue close, doth woe
Her (sweet to th' eye but smelling sower),
She gathers to adorn her bower.
  But the proud Hony-suckle spreads
Like a pavilion her heads,
Contemnes the wanting commonalty,
That but to two ends usefull be,
And to her lips thus aptly plac't,
With smell and hue presents her tast.
  So all their due obedience pay,
Each thronging to be in her way:
Faire Amarantha with her eye
Thanks those that live, which else would dye:
The rest, in silken fetters bound,
By crowning her are crown and crown'd.
  And now the sun doth higher rise,
Our Flora to the meadow hies:

RHYME a a *

The poore distressed heifers low,
And as sh' approacheth gently bow,
Begging her charitable leasure
To strip them of their milkie treasure.
  Out of the yeomanry oth' heard,
With grave aspect, and feet prepar'd,
A rev'rend lady-cow drawes neare,
Bids Amarantha welcome here;
And from her privy purse lets fall
A pearle or two, which seeme[s] to call
This adorn'd adored fayry
To the banquet of her dayry.
  Soft Amarantha weeps to see
'Mongst men such inhumanitie,
That those, who do receive in hay,
And pay in silver twice a day,
Should by their cruell barb'rous theft
Be both of that and life bereft.
  But 'tis decreed, when ere this dies,
That she shall fall a sacrifice
Unto the gods, since those, that trace
Her stemme, show 'tis a god-like race,
Descending in an even line
From heifers and from steeres divine,
Making the honour'd extract full
In Io and Europa's bull.
She was the largest goodliest beast,
That ever mead or altar blest;
Round [w]as her udder, and more white
Then is the Milkie Way in night;
Her full broad eye did sparkle fire;
Her breath was sweet as kind desire,
And in her beauteous crescent shone,
Bright as the argent-horned moone.

RHYME a a *

  But see! this whiteness is obscure,
Cynthia spotted, she impure;
Her body writheld, and her eyes
Departing lights at obsequies:
Her lowing hot to the fresh gale,
Her breath perfumes the field withall;
To those two suns that ever shine,
To those plump parts she doth inshrine,
To th' hovering snow of either hand,
That love and cruelty command.
  After the breakfast on her teat,
She takes her leave oth' mournfull neat
Who, by her toucht, now prizeth her life,
Worthy alone the hollowed knife.
  Into the neighbring wood she's gone,
Whose roofe defies the tell-tale Sunne,
And locks out ev'ry prying beame;
Close by the lips of a cleare streame,
She sits and entertaines her eye
With the moist chrystall and the frye
With burnisht-silver mal'd, whose oares
Amazed still make to the shoares;
What need she other bait or charm,
What hook or angle, but her arm?
The happy captive, gladly ta'n,
Sues ever to be slave in vaine,
Who instantly (confirm'd in's feares)
Hasts to his element of teares.
  From hence her various windings roave
To a well-orderd stately grove;

RHYME a a *

This is the pallace of the wood
And court oth' Royall Oake, where stood
The whole nobility: the Pine,
Strait Ash, tall Firre, and wanton Vine;
The proper Cedar, and the rest.
Here she her deeper senses blest;
Admires great Nature in this pile,
Floor'd with greene-velvet Camomile,
Garnisht with gems of unset fruit,
Supply'd still with a self recruit;
Her bosom wrought with pretty eyes
Of never-planted Strawberries;
Where th' winged musick of the ayre
Do richly feast, and for their fare,
Each evening in a silent shade,
Bestow a gratefull serenade.
  Thus ev'n tyerd with delight,
Sated in soul and appetite;
Full of the purple Plumme and Peare,
The golden Apple, with the faire
Grape that mirth fain would have taught her,
And nuts, which squirrells cracking brought her;
She softly layes her weary limbs,
Whilst gentle slumber now beginnes
To draw the curtaines of her eye;
When straight awakend with a crie
And bitter groan, again reposes,
Again a deep sigh interposes.
And now she heares a trembling voyce:
Ah! can there ought on earth rejoyce!
Why weares she this gay livery,
Not black as her dark entrails be?

RHYME a a *

Can trees be green, and to the ay'r
Thus prostitute their flowing hayr?
Why do they sprout, not witherd dy?
Must each thing live, save wretched I?
Can dayes triumph in blew and red,
When both their light and life is fled?
Fly Joy on wings of Popinjayes
To courts of fools, where as your playes
Dye laught at and forgot; whilst all
That's good mourns at this funerall.
Weep, all ye Graces, and you sweet
Quire, that at the hill inspir'd meet:
Love, put thy tapers out, that we
And th' world may seem as blind as thee;
And be, since she is lost (ah wound!)
Not Heav'n it self by any found.
  Now as a prisoner new cast,
Who sleepes in chaines that night, his last,
Next morn is wak't with a repreeve,
And from his trance, not dream bid live,
Wonders (his sence not having scope)
Who speaks, his friend or his false hope.
  So Amarantha heard, but feare
Dares not yet trust her tempting care;
And as againe her arms oth' ground
Spread pillows for her head, a sound
More dismall makes a swift divorce,
And starts her thus:----Rage, rapine, force!
Ye blew-flam'd daughters oth' abysse,
Bring all your snakes, here let them hisse;

RHYME a a *

Let not a leaf its freshnesse keep;
Blast all their roots, and as you creepe,
And leave behind your deadly slime,
Poyson the budding branch in's prime:
Wast the proud bowers of this grove,
That fiends may dwell in it, and move
As in their proper hell, whilst she
Above laments this tragedy:
Yet pities not our fate; oh faire
Vow-breaker, now betroth'd to th' ay'r!
Why by those lawes did we not die,
As live but one, Lucasta! why----
As he Lucasta nam'd, a groan
Strangles the fainting passing tone;
But as she heard, Lucasta smiles,
Posses her round; she's slipt mean whiles
Behind the blind of a thick bush,
When, each word temp'ring with a blush,
She gently thus bespake; Sad swaine,
If mates in woe do ease our pain,
Here's one full of that antick grief,
Which stifled would for ever live,
But told, expires; pray then, reveale
(To show our wound is half to heale),
What mortall nymph or deity
Bewail you thus?  Who ere you be,
The shepheard sigh't, my woes I crave
Smotherd in me, me in my grave;
Yet be in show or truth a saint,
Or fiend, breath anthemes, heare my plaint,
For her and thy breath's symphony,
Which now makes full the harmony

TITLE

RHYME a a *

Above, and to whose voice the spheres
Listen, and call her musick theirs;
This was I blest on earth with, so
As Druids amorous did grow,
Jealous of both: for as one day
This star, as yet but set in clay,

RHYME a a *

They steept her in the hollowed brooke,
Which from her humane nature tooke,
And straight to heaven with winged feare,
Thus, ravisht with her, ravish her.
  The nymph reply'd: This holy rape
Became the gods, whose obscure shape
They cloth'd with light, whilst ill you grieve
Your better life should ever live,

RHYME a a *

And weep that she, to whom you wish
What heav'n could give, has all its blisse.
Calling her angell here, yet be
Sad at this true divinity:
She's for the altar, not the skies,
Whom first you crowne, then sacrifice.
  Fond man thus to a precipice
Aspires, till at the top his eyes
Have lost the safety of the plain,
Then begs of Fate the vales againe.
  The now confounded shepheard cries:
Ye all-confounding destines!
How did you make that voice so sweet
Without that glorious form to it?
Thou sacred spirit of my deare,
Where e're thou hoverst o're us, hear!
Imbark thee in the lawrell tree,
And a new Phebus follows thee,
Who, 'stead of all his burning rayes,
Will strive to catch thee with his layes;

RHYME a a *

Or, if within the Orient Vine,
Thou art both deity and wine;
But if thou takest the mirtle grove,
That Paphos is, thou, Queene of Love,
And I, thy swain who (else) must die,
By no beasts, but thy cruelty:
But you are rougher than the winde.
Are souls on earth then heav'n more kind?
Imprisoned in mortality
Lucasta would have answered me.
Lucasta, Amarantha said,
Is she that virgin-star? a maid,
Except her prouder livery,
In beauty poore, and cheap as I;
Whose glory like a meteor shone,
Or aery apparition,
Admir'd a while, but slighted known.
  Fierce, as the chafed lyon hies,
He rowses him, and to her flies,
Thinking to answer with his speare----
  Now, as in warre intestine where,
Ith' mist of a black battell, each
Layes at his next, then makes a breach
Through th' entrayles of another, whom
He sees nor knows whence he did come,
Guided alone by rage and th' drumme,
But stripping and impatient wild,
He finds too soon his onely child.
  So our expiring desp'rate lover
Far'd when, amaz'd, he did discover

RHYME a a *

Lucasta in this nymph; his sinne
Darts the accursed javelin
'Gainst his own breast, which she puts by
With a soft lip and gentle eye,
Then closes with him on the ground
And now her smiles have heal'd his wound.

RHYME a a *

But not untill those heavy crimes
She hath kis'd off a thousand times,
Who not contented with this pain,
Doth threaten to offend again.
  And now they gaze, and sigh, and weep,
Whilst each cheek doth the other's steep,
Whilst tongues, as exorcis'd, are calm;
Onely the rhet'rick of the palm
Prevailing pleads, untill at last
They[re] chain'd in one another fast.
Lucasta to him doth relate
Her various chance and diffring fate:
How chac'd by Hydraphil, and tract
The num'rous foe to Philanact,

RHYME a a *

Who whilst they for the same things fight,
As Bards decrees and Druids rite,
For safeguard of their proper joyes
And shepheards freedome, each destroyes
The glory of this Sicilie;
Since seeking thus the remedie,
They fancy (building on false ground)
The means must them and it confound,
Yet are resolved to stand or fall,
And win a little, or lose all.

RHYME a a *

  From this sad storm of fire and blood
She fled to this yet living wood;
Where she 'mongst savage beasts doth find
Her self more safe then humane kind.
  Then she relates, how Caelia--
The lady--here strippes her array,
And girdles her in home-spunne bayes
Then makes her conversant in layes
Of birds, and swaines more innocent,
That kenne not guile [n]or courtship ment.

RHYME a a *

  Now walks she to her bow'r to dine
Under a shade of Eglantine,
Upon a dish of Natures cheere
Which both grew, drest and serv'd up there:
That done, she feasts her smell with po'ses
Pluckt from the damask cloath of Roses.
Which there continually doth stay,
And onely frost can take away;
Then wagers which hath most content
Her eye, eare, hand, her gust or sent.
  Intranc't Alexis sees and heares,
As walking above all the spheres:
Knows and adores this, and is wilde,
Untill with her he live thus milde.
So that, which to his thoughts he meant
For losse of her a punishment,
His armes hung up and his sword broke,
His ensignes folded, he betook
Himself unto the humble crook.
And for a full reward of all,
She now doth him her shepheard call,
And in a see of flow'rs install:
Then gives her faith immediately,
Which he returns religiously;

RHYME a a *

Both vowing in her peacefull cave
To make their bridall-bed and grave.
  But the true joy this pair conceiv'd,
Each from the other first bereav'd,
And then found, after such alarmes,
Fast-pinion'd in each other's armes,
Ye panting virgins, that do meet
Your loves within their winding sheet,
Breathing and constant still ev'n there;
Or souls their bodies in yon' sphere,
Or angels, men return'd from hell
And separated mindes--can tell.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

If in me anger, or disdaine
In you, or both, made me refraine
From th' noble intercourse of verse,
That only vertuous thoughts rehearse;
  Then, chaste Ellinda, might you feare
  The sacred vowes that I did sweare.

RHYME a a *

But if alone some pious thought
Me to an inward sadnesse brought,
Thinking to breath your soule too welle,
My tongue was charmed with that spell;
  And left it (since there was no roome
  To voyce your worth enough) strooke dumbe.

RHYME a a *

So then this silence doth reveal
No thought of negligence, but zeal:
For, as in adoration,
This is love's true devotion;
  Children and fools the words repeat,
  But anch'rites pray in tears and sweat.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b b 

Thou snowy farme with thy five tenements!
    Tell thy white mistris here was one,
    That call'd to pay his dayly rents;
But she a-gathering flowr's and hearts is gone,
And thou left voyd to rude possession.

RHYME a b a b b 

But grieve not, pretty Ermin cabinet,
    Thy alabaster lady will come home;
    If not, what tenant can there fit
The slender turnings of thy narrow roome,
But must ejected be by his owne dombe?

RHYME a b a b b 

Then give me leave to leave my rent with thee:
    Five kisses, one unto a place:
    For though the lute's too high for me,
Yet servants, knowing minikin nor base,
Are still allow'd to fiddle with the case.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  For cherries plenty, and for corans
Enough for fifty, were there more on's;
For elles of beere, flutes of canary,
That well did wash downe pasties-Mary;
For peason, chickens, sawces high,
Pig, and the widdow-venson-pye;
With certaine promise (to your brother)
Of the virginity of another,
Where it is thought I too may peepe in
With knuckles far as any deepe in;
For glasses, heads, hands, bellies full
Of wine, and loyne right-worshipfull;
Whether all of, or more behind--a
Thankes freest, freshest, faire Ellinda.

RHYME a a *

Thankes for my visit not disdaining,
Or at the least thankes for your feigning;
For if your mercy doore were lockt-well,
I should be justly soundly knockt-well;
Cause that in dogrell I did mutter
Not one rhime to you from dam-Rotter.

RHYME a a *

  Next beg I to present my duty
To pregnant sister in prime beauty,
Whom well I deeme (e're few months elder)
Will take out Hans from pretty Kelder,
And to the sweetly fayre Mabella,
A match that vies with Arabella;
In each respect but the misfortune,
Fortune, Fate, I thee importune.

RHYME a a *

  Nor must I passe the lovely Alice,
Whose health I'd quaffe in golden chalice;
But since that Fate hath made me neuter,
I only can in beaker pewter:
But who'd forget, or yet left un-sung
The doughty acts of George the yong-son?

RHYME a a *

Who yesterday to save his sister
Had slaine the snake, had he not mist her:
But I shall leave him, 'till a nag on
He gets to prosecute the dragon;
And then with helpe of sun and taper,
Fill with his deeds twelve reames of paper,
That Amadis, Sir Guy, and Topaz
With his fleet neigher shall keep no-pace.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b 

How I grieve that I am well!
  All my health was in my sicknes,
Go then, Destiny, and tell,
  Very death is in this quicknes.

RHYME a b a b 

Such a fate rules over me,
  That I glory when I languish,
And do blesse the remedy,
  That doth feed, not quench my anguish.

RHYME a b a b 

'Twas a gentle warmth that ceas'd
  In the vizard of a feavor;
But I feare now I am eas'd
  All the flames, since I must leave her.

RHYME a b a b 

Joyes, though witherd, circled me,
  When unto her voice inured
Like those who, by harmony,
  Only can be throughly cured.

RHYME a b a b 

Sweet, sure, was that malady,
  Whilst the pleasant angel hover'd,
Which ceasing they are all, as I,
  Angry that they are recover'd.

RHYME a b a b 

And as men in hospitals,
  That are maim'd, are lodg'd and dined;
But when once their danger fals,
  Ah th' are healed to be pined!

RHYME a b a b 

Fainting so, I might before
  Sometime have the leave to hand her,
But lusty, am beat out of dore,
  And for Love compell'd to wander.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  It was Amyntor's Grove, that Chloris
For ever ecchoes, and her glories;
Chloris, the gentlest sheapherdesse,
That ever lawnes and lambes did blesse;
Her breath, like to the whispering winde,
Was calme as thought, sweet as her minde;
Her lips like coral gates kept in
The perfume and the pearle within;
Her eyes a double-flaming torch
That alwayes shine, and never scorch;
Her selfe the Heav'n in which did meet
The all of bright, of faire and sweet.
  Here was I brought with that delight
That seperated soules take flight;
And when my reason call'd my sence
Back somewhat from this excellence,

RHYME a a *

That I could see, I did begin
T' observe the curious ordering
Of every roome, where 'ts hard to know,
Which most excels in sent or show.
Arabian gummes do breathe here forth,
And th' East's come over to the North;
The windes have brought their hyre of sweet
To see Amyntor Chloris greet;
Balme and nard, and each perfume,
To blesse this payre, chafe and consume;
And th' Phoenix, see! already fries!
Her neast a fire in Chloris eyes!
  Next the great and powerful hand
Beckens my thoughts unto a stand
Of Titian, Raphael, Georgone
Whose art even Nature hath out-done;
For if weake Nature only can
Intend, not perfect, what is man,
These certainely we must prefer,
Who mended what she wrought, and her;

RHYME a a *

And sure the shadowes of those rare
And kind incomparable fayre
Are livelier, nobler company,
Then if they could or speake, or see:
For these I aske without a tush,
Can kisse or touch without a blush,
And we are taught that substance is,
If uninjoy'd, but th' shade of blisse.
  Now every saint cleerly divine,
Is clos'd so in her severall shrine;
The gems so rarely, richly set,
For them wee love the cabinet;

RHYME a a *

So intricately plac't withall,
As if th' imbrordered the wall,
So that the pictures seem'd to be
But one continued tapistrie.
  After this travell of mine eyes
We sate, and pitied Dieties;
Wee bound our loose hayre with the vine,
The poppy, and the eglantine;
One swell'd an oriental bowle
Full, as a grateful, loyal soule
To Chloris!  Chloris!  Heare, oh, heare!
'Tis pledg'd above in ev'ry sphere.
  Now streight the Indians richest prize
Is kindled in glad sacrifice;
Cloudes are sent up on wings of thyme,
Amber, pomgranates, jessemine,
And through our earthen conduicts sore
Higher then altars fum'd before.
  So drencht we our oppressing cares,
And choakt the wide jawes of our feares.
Whilst ravisht thus we did devise,
If this were not a Paradice
In all, except these harmlesse sins:
Behold! flew in two cherubins,
Cleare as the skye from whence they came,
And brighter than the sacred flame;
The boy adorn'd with modesty,
Yet armed so with majesty,
That if the Thunderer againe
His eagle sends, she stoops in vaine.

RHYME a a *

Besides his innocence he tooke
A sword and casket, and did looke
Like Love in armes; he wrote but five,
Yet spake eighteene; each grace did strive,
And twenty Cupids thronged forth,
Who first should shew his prettier worth.
But oh, the Nymph!  Did you ere know
Carnation mingled with snow?
Or have you seene the lightning shrowd,
And straight breake through th' opposing cloud?
So ran her blood; such was its hue;
So through her vayle her bright haire flew,
And yet its glory did appeare
But thinne, because her eyes were neere.
  Blooming boy, and blossoming mayd,
May your faire sprigges be neere betray'd

RHYME a a *

To eating worme or fouler storme;
No serpent lurke to do them harme;
No sharpe frost cut, no North-winde teare,
The verdure of that fragrant hayre;
But may the sun and gentle weather,
When you are both growne ripe together,
Load you with fruit, such as your Father
From you with all the joyes doth gather:
And may you, when one branch is dead,
Graft such another in its stead,
Lasting thus ever in your prime,
'Till th' sithe is snatcht away from Time.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b b 

Why shouldst thou sweare I am forsworn,
  Since thine I vow'd to be?
Lady, it is already Morn,
  And 'twas last night I swore to thee
  That fond impossibility.

RHYME a b a b b 

Have I not lov'd thee much and long,
  A tedious twelve moneths space?
I should all other beauties wrong,
  And rob thee of a new imbrace;
  Should I still dote upon thy face.

RHYME a b a b b 

Not but all joy in thy browne haire
  In others may be found;
But I must search the black and faire,
  Like skilfulle minerallists that sound
  For treasure in un-plow'd-up ground.

RHYME a b a b b 

Then if, when I have lov'd my round,
  Thou prov'st the pleasant she;
With spoyles of meaner beauties crown'd,
  I laden will returne to thee,
  Ev'n sated with varietie.

TITLE

RHYME a a b b c c c d d e e f f 

  I saw a little Diety,
MINERVA in epitomy,
Whom VENUS, at first blush, surpris'd,
Tooke for her winged wagge disguis'd.
But viewing then, whereas she made
Not a distrest, but lively shade
Of ECCHO whom he had betrayd,
Now wanton, and ith' coole oth' Sunne
With her delight a hunting gone,
And thousands more, whom he had slaine;
To live and love, belov'd againe:
Ah! this is true divinity!
I will un-God that toye! cri'd she;

RHYME a a *

Then markt she SYRINX running fast
To Pan's imbraces, with the haste
Shee fled him once, whose reede-pipe rent
He finds now a new Instrument.
THESEUS return'd invokes the Ayre
And windes, then wafts his faire;
Whilst ARIADNE ravish't stood
Half in his armes, halfe in the flood.
  Proud ANAXERETE doth fall
At IPHIS feete, who smiles at all:
And he (whilst she his curles doth deck)
Hangs no where now, but on her neck.
Here PHOEBUS with a beame untombes
Long-hid LEUCOTHOE, and doomes
Her father there; DAPHNE the faire
Knowes now no bayes but round her haire;

RHYME a a *

And to APOLLO and his Sons,
Who pay him their due Orisons,
Bequeaths her lawrell-robe, that flame
Contemnes, Thunder and evill Fame.
  There kneel'd ADONIS fresh as spring,
Gay as his youth, now offering
Herself those joyes with voice and hand,
Which first he could not understand.
  Transfixed VENUS stood amas'd,
Full of the Boy and Love, she gaz'd,
And in imbraces seemed more
Senceless and colde then he before.
Uselesse Childe!  In vaine (said she)
You beare that fond artillerie;
See heere a pow'r above the slow
Weake execution of thy bow.
  So said, she riv'd the wood in two,
Unedged all his arrowes too,

RHYME a a *

And with the string their feathers bound
To that part, whence we have our wound.
  See, see! the darts by which we burn'd
Are bright Loysa's pencills turn'd,
With which she now enliveth more
Beauties, than they destroy'd before.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  Were it that you so shun me, 'cause you wish
(Cruels't) a fellow in your wretchednesse,
Or that you take some small ease in your owne
Torments, to heare another sadly groane,
I were most happy in my paines, to be
So truely blest, to be so curst by thee:
But oh! my cries to that doe rather adde,
Of which too much already thou hast had,
And thou art gladly sad to heare my moane;
Yet sadly hearst me with derision.

RHYME a a *

  Thou most unjust, that really dust know,
And feelst thyselfe the flames I burne in.  Oh!
How can you beg to be set loose from that
Consuming stake you binde another at?

RHYME a a *

  Uncharitablest both wayes, to denie
That pity me, for which yourself must dye,
To love not her loves you, yet know the pain
What 'tis to love, and not be lov'd againe.

RHYME a a *

  Flye on, flye on, swift Racer, untill she
Whom thou of all ador'st shall learne of thee
The pace t'outfly thee, and shall teach thee groan,
What terrour 'tis t'outgo and be outgon.

RHYME a a *

  Nor yet looke back, nor yet must we
Run then like spoakes in wheeles eternally,
And never overtake?  Be dragg'd on still
By the weake cordage of your untwin'd will
Round without hope of rest?  No, I will turne,
And with my goodnes boldly meete your scorne;

RHYME a a *

My goodnesse which Heav'n pardon, and that fate
MADE YOU HATE LOVE, AND FALL IN LOVE WITH HATE.

RHYME a a *

  But I am chang'd!  Bright reason, that did give
My soule a noble quicknes, made me live
One breath yet longer, and to will, and see
Hath reacht me pow'r to scorne as well as thee:
That thou, which proudly tramplest on my grave,
Thyselfe mightst fall, conquer'd my double slave:
That thou mightst, sinking in thy triumphs, moan,
And I triumph in my destruction.

RHYME a a *

  Hayle, holy cold! chaste temper, hayle! the fire
Rav'd o're my purer thoughts I feel t' expire,
And I am candied ice.  Yee pow'rs! if e're
I shall be forc't unto my sepulcher,
Or violently hurl'd into my urne,
Oh make me choose rather to freeze than burne.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b 

Oh thou, that swing'st upon the waving eare
  Of some well-filled oaten beard,
Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious teare
  Dropt thee from Heav'n, where now th'art reard.

RHYME a b a b 

The joyes of earth and ayre are thine intire,
  That with thy feet and wings dost hop and flye;
And when thy poppy workes, thou dost retire
  To thy carv'd acorn-bed to lye.

RHYME a b a b 

Up with the day, the Sun thou welcomst then,
  Sportst in the guilt plats of his beames,
And all these merry dayes mak'st merry men,
  Thy selfe, and melancholy streames.

RHYME a b a b 

But ah, the sickle! golden eares are cropt;
  CERES and BACCHUS bid good-night;
Sharpe frosty fingers all your flowrs have topt,
  And what sithes spar'd, winds shave off quite.

RHYME a b a b 

Poore verdant foole! and now green ice, thy joys
  Large and as lasting as thy peirch of grasse,
Bid us lay in 'gainst winter raine, and poize
  Their flouds with an o'erflowing glasse.

RHYME a b a b 

Thou best of men and friends? we will create
  A genuine summer in each others breast;
And spite of this cold Time and frosen Fate,
  Thaw us a warme seate to our rest.

RHYME a b a b 

Our sacred harthes shall burne eternally
  As vestal flames; the North-wind, he
Shall strike his frost-stretch'd winges, dissolve and flye
  This Aetna in epitome.

RHYME a b a b 

Dropping December shall come weeping in,
  Bewayle th' usurping of his raigne;
But when in show'rs of old Greeke we beginne,
  Shall crie, he hath his crowne againe!

RHYME a b a b 

Night as cleare Hesper shall our tapers whip
  From the light casements, where we play,
And the darke hagge from her black mantle strip,
  And sticke there everlasting day.

RHYME a b a b 

Thus richer then untempted kings are we,
  That asking nothing, nothing need:
Though lord of all what seas imbrace, yet he
  That wants himselfe, is poore indeed.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  Hither with hallowed steps as is the ground,
That must enshrine this saint with lookes profound,
And sad aspects as the dark vails you weare,
Virgins opprest, draw gently, gently neare;
Enter the dismall chancell of this rooome,
Where each pale guest stands fixt a living tombe;
With trembling hands helpe to remove this earth
To its last death and first victorious birth:
Let gums and incense fume, who are at strife
To enter th' hearse and breath in it new life;
Mingle your steppes with flowers as you goe,
Which, as they haste to fade, will speake your woe.

RHYME a a *

  And when y' have plac't your tapers on her urn,
How poor a tribute 'tis to weep and mourn!
That flood the channell of your eye-lids fils,
When you lose trifles, or what's lesse, your wills.

RHYME a a *

If you'l be worthy of these obsequies,
Be blind unto the world, and drop your eyes;
Waste and consume, burn downward as this fire
That's fed no more: so willingly expire;

RHYME a a *

Passe through the cold and obscure narrow way,
Then light your torches at the spring of day,

RHYME a a a 

There with her triumph in your victory.
Such joy alone and such solemnity
Becomes this funerall of virginity.

RHYME a a *

  Or, if you faint to be so blest, oh heare!
If not to dye, dare but to live like her:
Dare to live virgins, till the honour'd age
Of thrice fifteen cals matrons on the stage,
Whilst not a blemish or least staine is scene
On your white roabe 'twixt fifty and fifteene;
But as it in your swathing-bands was given,
Bring't in your winding sheet unsoyl'd to Heav'n.
Daere to do purely, without compact good,
Or herald, by no one understood
But him, who now in thanks bows either knee
For th' early benefit and secresie.

RHYME a a *

  Dare to affect a serious holy sorrow,
To which delights of pallaces are narrow,
And, lasting as their smiles, dig you a roome,
Where practise the probation of your tombe
With ever-bended knees and piercing pray'r,
Smooth the rough passe through craggy earth to ay'r;

RHYME a a *

May put in safely, and secure their feares,
Who, adding to your joyes, now owe you theirs.

RHYME a a *

  Virgins, if thus you dare but courage take
To follow her in life, else through this lake
Of Nature wade, and breake her earthly bars,
Y' are fixt with her upon a throne of stars,
Arched with a pure Heav'n chrystaline,
Where round you love and joy for ever shine.

RHYME a a *

  But you are dumbe, as what you do lament
More senseles then her very monument,
Which at your weaknes weeps.  Spare that vaine teare,
Enough to burst the rev'rend sepulcher.
Rise and walk home; there groaning prostrate fall,
And celebrate your owne sad funerall:
For howsoe're you move, may heare, or see,
YOU ARE MORE DEAD AND BURIED THEN SHEE.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  You that shall live awhile, before
Old time tyrs, and is no more:
When that this ambitious stone
Stoopes low as what it tramples on:
Know that in that age, when sinne
Gave the world law, and governd Queene,
A virgin liv'd, that still put on
White thoughts, though out of fashion:

RHYME a a *

That trac't the stars, 'spite of report,
And durst be good, though chidden for't:
Of such a soule that infant Heav'n
Repented what it thus had giv'n:
For finding equall happy man,
Th' impatient pow'rs snatch it agen.
Thus, chaste as th' ayre whither shee's fled,
She, making her celestiall bed
In her warme alablaster, lay
As cold is in this house of clay:
Nor were the rooms unfit to feast
Or circumscribe this angel-guest;

RHYME a a *

The radiant gemme was brightly set
In as divine a carkanet;
Of which the clearer was not knowne,
Her minde or her complexion.
Such an everlasting grace,
Such a beatifick face,
Incloysters here this narrow floore,
That possest all hearts before.

RHYME a a *

  Blest and bewayl'd in death and birth!
The smiles and teares of heav'n and earth!
Virgins at each step are afeard,
Filmer is shot by which they steer'd,
Their star extinct, their beauty dead,
That the yong world to honour led;
But see! the rapid spheres stand still,
And tune themselves unto her will.

RHYME a a *

  Thus, although this marble must,
As all things, crumble into dust,
And though you finde this faire-built tombe
Ashes, as what lyes in its wombe:
Yet her saint-like name shall shine
A living glory to this shrine,
And her eternall fame be read,
When all but VERY VERTUE'S DEAD.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  See! what a clouded majesty, and eyes
Whose glory through their mist doth brighter rise!
  See! what an humble bravery doth shine,
And griefe triumphant breaking through each line,
How it commands the face! so sweet a scorne
Never did HAPPY MISERY adorne!

RHYME a a *

So sacred a contempt, that others show
To this, (oth' height of all the wheele) below,
That mightiest monarchs by this shaded booke
May coppy out their proudest, richest looke.

RHYME a a *

  Whilst the true eaglet this quick luster spies,
And by his SUN'S enlightens his owne eyes;
He cures his cares, his burthen feeles, then streight
Joyes that so lightly he can beare such weight;
Whilst either eithers passion doth borrow,
And both doe grieve the same victorious sorrow.

RHYME a a *

  These, my best LILLY, with so bold a spirit
And soft a grace, as if thou didst inherit
For that time all their greatnesse, and didst draw
With those brave eyes your royal sitters saw.

RHYME a a *

  Not as of old, when a rough hand did speake
A strong aspect, and a faire face, a weake;
When only a black beard cried villaine, and
By hieroglyphicks we could understand;
When chrystall typified in a white spot,
And the bright ruby was but one red blot;
Thou dost the things Orientally the same
Not only paintst its colour, but its flame:

RHYME a a *

Thou sorrow canst designe without a teare,
And with the man his very hope or feare;
So that th' amazed world shall henceforth finde
None but my LILLY ever drew a MINDE.

RHYME a a *

  With that delight the Royal captiv's brought
Before the throne, to breath his farewell thought,
To tel his last tale, and so end with it,
Which gladly he esteemes a benefit;
When the brave victor, at his great soule dumbe,
Findes something there fate cannot overcome,
Cals the chain'd prince, and by his glory led,
First reaches him his crowne, and then his head;
Who ne're 'til now thinks himself slave and poor;
For though nought else, he had himselfe before.
He weepes at this faire chance, nor wil allow,
But that the diadem doth brand his brow,

RHYME a a *

And under-rates himselfe below mankinde,
Who first had lost his body, now his minde,

RHYME a a *

  With such a joy came I to heare my dombe,
And haste the preparation of my tombe,
When, like good angels who have heav'nly charge
To steere and guide mans sudden giddy barge,
She snatcht me from the rock I was upon,
And landed me at life's pavillion:
Where I, thus wound out of th' immense abysse,
Was straight set on a pinacle of blisse.

RHYME a a *

  Let me leape in againe! and by that fall
Bring me to my first woe, so cancel all:
Ah! 's this a quitting of the debt you owe,
To crush her and her goodnesse at one blowe?
  Defend me from so foule impiety,
Would make friends grieve, and furies weep to see.

RHYME a a *

  Now, ye sage spirits, which infuse in men
That are oblidg'd twice to oblige agen,
Informe my tongue in labour what to say,
And in what coyne or language to repay.
But you are silent as the ev'nings ayre,
When windes unto their hollow grots repaire.
  Oh, then accept the all that left me is,
Devout oblations of a sacred wish!

RHYME a a *

  When she walks forth, ye perfum'd wings oth' East,
Fan her, 'til with the Sun she hastes to th' West,
And when her heav'nly course calles up the day,
And breakes as bright, descend, some glistering ray,
To circle her, and her as glistering haire,
That all may say a living saint shines there.

RHYME a a *

Slow Time, with woollen feet make thy soft pace,
And leave no tracks ith' snow of her pure face;
But when this vertue must needs fall, to rise
The brightest constellation in the skies;
When we in characters of fire shall reade,
How cleere she was alive, how spotless, dead.
All you that are a kinne to piety:
For onely you can her close mourners be,
Draw neer, and make of hallowed teares a dearth:
Goodnes and justice both are fled the earth.

RHYME a a *

  If this be to be thankful, I'v a heart
Broaken with vowes, eaten with grateful smart,
And beside this, the vild world nothing hath
Worth anything but her provoked wrath;
So then, who thinkes to satisfie in time,
Must give a satisfaction for that crime:
Since she alone knowes the gifts value, she
Can onely to her selfe requitall be,

RHYME a a *

And worthyly to th' life paynt her owne story
In its true colours and full native glory;
Which when perhaps she shal be heard to tell,
Buffoones and theeves, ceasing to do ill,
Shal blush into a virgin-innocence,
And then woo others from the same offence;
The robber and the murderer, in 'spite
Of his red spots, shal startle into white:
All good (rewards layd by) shal stil increase
For love of her, and villany decease;
Naught be ignote, not so much out of feare
Of being punisht, as offending her.

RHYME a a *

  So that, when as my future daring bayes
Shall bow it selfe in lawrels to her praise,
To crown her conqu'ring goodnes, and proclaime
The due renowne and glories of her name:
My wit shal be so wretched and so poore
That, 'stead of praysing, I shal scandal her,
And leave, when with my purest art I'v done,
Scarce the designe of what she is begunne:
Yet men shal send me home, admir'd, exact;
Proud, that I could from her so wel detract.

RHYME a a *

  Where, then, thou bold instinct, shal I begin
My endlesse taske?  To thanke her were a sin
Great as not speake, and not to speake, a blame
Beyond what's worst, such as doth want a name;
So thou my all, poore gratitude, ev'n thou
In this wilt an unthankful office do:

RHYME a a *

Or wilt I fling all at her feet I have:
My life, my love, my very soule, a slave?
Tye my free spirit onely unto her,
And yeeld up my affection prisoner?
Fond thought, in this thou teachest me to give
What first was hers, since by her breath I live;
And hast but show'd me, how I may resigne
Possession of those thing are none of mine.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b 

This Queen of Prey (now prey to you),
  Fast to that pirch of ivory
In silver chaines and silken clue,
  Hath now made full thy victory:

RHYME a b a b 

The swelling admirall of the dread
  Cold deepe, burnt in thy flames, oh faire!
Wast not enough, but thou must lead
  Bound, too, the Princesse of the aire?

RHYME a b a b 

Unarm'd of wings and scaly oare,
  Unhappy crawler on the land,
To what heav'n fly'st? div'st to what shoare,
  That her brave eyes do not command?

RHYME a b a b 

Ascend the chariot of the Sun
  From her bright pow'r to shelter thee:
Her captive (foole) outgases him;
  Ah, what lost wretches then are we!

RHYME a b a b 

Now, proud usurpers on the right
  Of sacred beauty, heare your dombe;
Recant your sex, your mastry, might;
  Lower you cannot be or'ecome:

RHYME a b a b 

Repent, ye er'e nam'd he or head,
  For y' are in falcon's monarchy,
And in that just dominion bred,
  In which the nobler is the shee.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  A gentleman, to give us somewhat new,
Hath brought up OXFORD with him to show you;
Pray be not frighted--Tho the scaene and gown's
The Universities, the wit's the town's;
The lines each honest Englishman may speake:
Yet not mistake his mother-tongue for Greeke,
For stil 'twas part of his vow'd liturgie:--
From learned comedies deliver me!
Wishing all those that lov'd 'em here asleepe,
Promising SCHOLARS, but no SCHOLARSHIP.

RHYME a a *

  You'd smile to see, how he do's vex and shake,
Speakes naught; but, if the PROLOGUE do's but take,
Or the first act were past the pikes once, then--
Then hopes and joys, then frowns and fears agen,
Then blushes like a virgin, now to be
Rob'd of his comicall virginity
In presence of you all.  In short, you'd say
More hopes of mirth are in his looks then play.

RHYME a a *

  These feares are for the noble and the wise;
But if 'mongst you there are such fowle dead eyes,
As can damne unaraign'd, cal law their pow'rs,
Judging it sin enough that it is ours,
And with the house shift their decreed desires,
FAIRE still to th' BLACKE, BLACKE still to the WHITE-FRYERS;

RHYME a a *

So far from quarr'lling with himselfe and wit,
That he wil thank them for the benefit,
Since finding nothing worthy of their hate,
They reach him that themselves must envy at:

RHYME a a *

  The stubborne author of the trifle crime,
That just now cheated you of two hours' time,
Presumptuous it lik't him, began to grow
Carelesse, whether it pleased you or no.

RHYME a a *

  But we who ground th' excellence of a play
On what the women at the dores wil say,
Who judge it by the benches, and afford
To take your money, ere his oath or word
His SCHOLLARS school'd, sayd if he had been wise
He should have wove in one two COMEDIES;

RHYME a a *

The first for th' gallery, in which the throne
To their amazement should descend alone,
The rosin-lightning flash, and monster spire
Squibs, and words hotter then his fire.

RHYME a a *

  Th' other for the gentlemen oth' pit,
Like to themselves, all spirit, fancy, wit,
In which plots should be subtile as a flame,
Disguises would make PROTEUS stil the same:
Humours so rarely humour'd and exprest,
That ev'n they should thinke 'em so, not drest;
Vices acted and applauded too, times
Tickled, and th' actors acted, not their crimes,
So he might equally applause have gain'd
Of th' hardned, sooty, and the snowy hand.

RHYME a a *

  Where now one SO SO spatters, t'other: no!
Tis his first play; twere solecisme 'tshould goe;
The next 't show'd pritily, but searcht within
It appeares bare and bald, as is his chin;
The towne-wit sentences: A SCHOLARS PLAY!
Pish!  I know not why, but th'ave not the way.

RHYME a a *

  We, whose gaine is all our pleasure, ev'n these
Are bound by justice and religion to please;
Which he, whose pleasure's all his gaine, goes by
As slightly, as they doe his comaedy.

RHYME a a *

  Culls out the few, the worthy, at whose feet
He sacrifices both himselfe and it,
His fancies first fruits: profit he knowes none,
Unles that of your approbation,
Which if your thoughts at going out will pay,
Hee'l not looke farther for a second day.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  Vnhappy youth, betrayd by Fate
To such a love hath sainted hate,
And damned those celestiall bands
Are onely knit with equal hands;
The love of great ones is a love,
Gods are incapable to prove:
For where there is a joy uneven,
There never, never can be Heav'n:

RHYME a a *

'Tis such a love as is not sent
To fiends as yet for punishment;
IXION willingly doth feele
The gyre of his eternal wheele,
Nor would he now exchange his paine
For cloudes and goddesses againe.

RHYME a a *

  Wouldst thou with tempests lye?  Then bow
To th' rougher furrows of her brow,
Or make a thunder-bolt thy choyce?
Then catch at her more fatal voyce;
Or 'gender with the lightning? trye
The subtler flashes of her eye:
Poore SEMELE wel knew the same,
Who both imbrac't her God and flame;
And not alone in soule did burne,
But in this love did ashes turne.

RHYME a a *

  How il doth majesty injoy
The bow and gaity oth' boy,
As if the purple-roabe should sit,
And sentence give ith' chayr of wit.

RHYME a a *

  Say, ever-dying wretch, to whom
Each answer is a certaine doom,
What is it that you would possesse,
The Countes, or the naked Besse?
Would you her gowne or title do?
Her box or gem, the thing or show?
If you meane HER, the very HER,
Abstracted from her caracter,
Unhappy boy! you may as soone
With fawning wanton with the Moone,
Or with an amorous complaint
Get prostitute your very saint;

RHYME a a *

Not that we are not mortal, or
Fly VENUS altars, and abhor
The selfesame knack, for which you pine;
But we (defend us!) are divine,
[Not] female, but madam born, and come
From a right-honourable wombe.
Shal we then mingle with the base,
And bring a silver-tinsell race?
Whilst th' issue noble wil not passe
The gold alloyd (almost halfe brasse),
And th' blood in each veine doth appeare,
Part thick Booreinn, part Lady Cleare;

RHYME a a *

Like to the sordid insects sprung
From Father Sun and Mother Dung:
Yet lose we not the hold we have,
But faster graspe the trembling slave;

RHYME a a *

Play at baloon with's heart, and winde
The strings like scaines, steale into his minde
Ten thousand false and feigned joyes
Far worse then they; whilst, like whipt boys,

  This heard, Sir, play stil in her eyes,
And be a dying, live like flyes
Caught by their angle-legs, and whom
The torch laughs peece-meale to consume.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b c d c d 

When love with unconfined wings
  Hovers within my gates;
And my divine ALTHEA brings
  To whisper at the grates;
When I lye tangled in her haire,
  And fetterd to her eye,
The birds, that wanton in the aire,
  Know no such liberty.

RHYME a b a b c d c d 

When flowing cups run swiftly round
  With no allaying THAMES,
Our carelesse heads with roses bound,
  Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty griefe in wine we steepe,
  When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the deepe,
  Know no such libertie.

RHYME a b a b c d c d 

When (like committed linnets) I
  With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetnes, mercy, majesty,
  And glories of my King.
When I shall voyce aloud, how good
  He is, how great should be,
Inlarged winds, that curle the flood,
  Know no such liberty.

RHYME a b a b c d c d 

Stone walls doe not a prison make,
  Nor iron bars a cage;
Mindes innocent and quiet take
  That for an hermitage;
If I have freedome in my love,
  And in my soule am free,
Angels alone that sore above
  Enjoy such liberty.

TITLE

RHYME a a a b b b 

  Now the peace is made at the foes rate,
Whilst men of armes to kettles their old helmes translate,
  And drinke in caskes of honourable plate.
    In ev'ry hand [let] a cup be found,
    That from all hearts a health may sound
    To GORING! to GORING! see 't goe round.

RHYME a a a b b b 

  He whose glories shine so brave and high,
That captive they in triumph leade each care and eye,
  Claiming uncombated the victorie,
    And from the earth to heav'n rebound,
    Fixt there eternall as this round:
    To GORING! to GORING! see him crown'd.

RHYME a a a b b b 

  To his lovely bride, in love with scars,
Whose eyes wound deepe in peace, as doth his sword in wars;
  They shortly must depose the Queen of Stars:
    Her cheekes the morning blushes give,
    And the benighted world repreeve;
    To LETTICE! to LETTICE! let her live.

RHYME a a a b b b 

  Give me scorching heat, thy heat, dry Sun,
That to this payre I may drinke off an ocean:
  Yet leave my grateful thirst unquensht, undone;
    Or a full bowle of heav'nly wine,
    In which dissolved stars should shine,
    To the couple! to the couple! th' are divine.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

Heark, faire one, how what e're here is
  Doth laugh and sing at thy distresse;
Not out of hate to thy reliefe,
  But joy t' enjoy thee, though in griefe.

RHYME a a *

See! that which chaynes you, you chaine here;
  The prison is thy prisoner;
How much thy jaylor's keeper art!
  He bindes your hands, but you his heart.

RHYME a a *

The gyves to rase so smooth a skin,
  Are so unto themselves within;
But, blest to kisse so fayre an arme,
  Haste to be happy with that harme;

RHYME a a *

And play about thy wanton wrist,
  As if in them thou so wert drest;
But if too rough, too hard they presse,
  Oh, they but closely, closely kisse.

RHYME a a *

And as thy bare feet blesse the way,
  The people doe not mock, but pray,
And call thee, as amas'd they run
  Instead of prostitute, a nun.

RHYME a a *

The merry torch burnes with desire
  To kindle the eternall fire,
And lightly daunces in thine eyes
  To tunes of epithalamies.

RHYME a a *

The sheet's ty'd ever to thy wast,
  How thankfull to be so imbrac't!
And see! thy very very bonds
  Are bound to thee, to binde such hands.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

If teares could wash the ill away,
A pearle for each wet bead I'd pay;
But as dew'd corne the fuller growes,
So water'd eyes but swell our woes.

RHYME a a *

One drop another cals, which still
(Griefe adding fuell) doth distill;
Too fruitfull of her selfe is anguish,
We need no cherishing to languish.

RHYME a a *

Coward fate degen'rate man
Like little children uses, when
He whips us first, untill we weepe,
Then, 'cause we still a weeping keepe.

RHYME a a *

Then from thy firme selfe never swerve;
Teares fat the griefe that they should sterve;
Iron decrees of destinie
Are ner'e wipe't out with a wet eye.

RHYME a a *

But this way you may gaine the field,
Oppose but sorrow, and 'twill yield;
One gallant thorough-made resolve
Doth starry influence dissolve.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  This is the prittiest motion:
Madam, th' alarums of a drumme
That cals your lord, set to your cries,
To mine are sacred symphonies.

RHYME a a *

  What, though 'tis said I have a voice;
I know 'tis but that hollow noise
Which (as it through my pipe doth speed)
Bitterns do carol through a reed;
In the same key with monkeys jiggs,
Or dirges of proscribed piggs,
Or the soft Serenades above
In calme of night, when cats make love.

RHYME a a *

  Was ever such a consort seen!
Fourscore and fourteen with forteen?
Yet sooner they'l agree, one paire,
Then we in our spring-winter aire;
They may imbrace, sigh, kiss, the rest:
Our breath knows nought but east and west.
Thus have I heard to childrens cries
The faire nurse still such lullabies,
That, well all sayd (for what there lay),
The pleasure did the sorrow pay.

RHYME a a *

  Sure ther's another way to save
Your phansie,madam; that's to have
('Tis but a petitioning kinde fate)
The organs sent to Bilingsgate,
Where they to that soft murm'ring quire
Shall teach you all you can admire!
Or do but heare, how love-bang Kate
In pantry darke for freage of mate,
With edge of steele the square wood shapes,
And DIDO to it chaunts or scrapes.
The merry Phaeton oth' carre
You'l vow makes a melodious jarre;

RHYME a a *

Sweeter and sweeter whisleth He
To un-anointed axel-tree;
Such swift notes he and 's wheels do run;
For me, I yeeld him Phaebus son.
  Say, faire Comandres, can it be
You should ordaine a mutinie?
For where I howle, all accents fall,
As kings harangues, to one and all.

RHYME a a *

  Ulisses art is now withstood:
You ravish both with sweet and good;
Saint Syren, sing, for I dare heare,
But when I ope', oh, stop your eare.

RHYME a a *

  Far lesse be't aemulation
To passe me, or in trill or tone,
Like the thin throat of Philomel,
And the smart lute who should excell,
As if her soft cords should begin,
And strive for sweetnes with the pin.

RHYME a a *

  Yet can I musick too; but such
As is beyond all voice or touch;
My minde can in faire order chime,
Whilst my true heart still beats the time;
My soule['s] so full of harmonie,
That it with all parts can agree;

RHYME a a *

If you winde up to the highest fret,
It shall descend an eight from it,
And when you shall vouchsafe to fall,
Sixteene above you it shall call,
And yet, so dis-assenting one,
They both shall meet in unison.

RHYME a a *

  Come then, bright cherubin, begin!
My loudest musick is within.
Take all notes with your skillfull eyes;
Hearke, if mine do not sympathise!
Sound all my thoughts, and see exprest
The tablature of my large brest;
Then you'l admit, that I too can
Musick above dead sounds of man;
Such as alone doth blesse the spheres,
Not to be reacht with humane eares.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

    "Come, pretty birds, present your lays,
     And learn to chaunt a goddess praise;
     Ye wood-nymphs, let your voices be
     Employ'd to serve her deity:
     And warble forth, ye virgins nine,
     Some music to my Valentine.

RHYME a a *

    "Her bosom is love's paradise,
     There is no heav'n but in her eyes;
     She's chaster than the turtle-dove,
     And fairer than the queen of love:
     Yet all perfections do combine
     To beautifie my Valentine.

RHYME a a *

    "She's Nature's choicest cabinet,
     Where honour, beauty, worth and wit
     Are all united in her breast.
     The graces claim an interest:
     All virtues that are most divine
     Shine clearest in my Valentine."

TITLE

RHYME a a a 

Tell me, ye subtill judges in loves treasury,
Inform me, which hath most inricht mine eye,
This diamonds greatnes, or its clarity?

RHYME a a a 

Ye cloudy spark lights, whose vast multitude
Of fires are harder to be found then view'd,
Waite on this star in her first magnitude.

RHYME a a a 

Calmely or roughly!  Ah, she shines too much;
That now I lye (her influence is such),
Chrusht with too strong a hand, or soft a touch.

RHYME a a a 

Lovers, beware! a certaine, double harme
Waits your proud hopes, her looks al-killing charm
Guarded by her as true victorious arme.

RHYME a a a 

Thus with her eyes brave Tamyris spake dread,
Which when the kings dull breast not entered,
Finding she could not looke, she strook him dead.

RHYME a a a 

I cannot tell, who loves the skeleton
Of a poor marmoset; nought but boan, boan;
Give me a nakednesse, with her cloath's on.

RHYME a a a 

Such, whose white-sattin upper coat of skin,
Cut upon velvet rich incarnadin,
Has yet a body (and of flesh) within.

RHYME a a a 

Sure, it is meant good husbandry in men,
Who do incorporate with aery leane,
T' repair their sides, and get their ribb agen.

RHYME a a a 

Hard hap unto that huntsman, that decrees
Fat joys for all his swet, when as he sees,
After his 'say, nought but his keepers fees.

RHYME a a a 

Then, Love, I beg, when next thou tak'st thy bow,
Thy angry shafts, and dost heart-chasing go,
Passe RASCALL DEARE, strike me the largest doe.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b c c 

Comanding asker, if it be
  Pity that you faine would have,
Then I turne begger unto thee,
  And aske the thing that thou dost crave.
I will suffice thy hungry need,
So thou wilt but my fancy feed.

RHYME a b a b c c 

In all ill yeares, was ever knowne
  On so much beauty such a dearth?
Which, in that thrice-bequeathed gowne,
  Lookes like the Sun eclipst with Earth,
Like gold in canvas, or with dirt
Unsoyled Ermins close begirt.

RHYME a b a b c c 

Yet happy he, that can but tast
  This whiter skin, who thirsty is!
Fooles dote on sattin motions lac'd:
  The gods go naked in their blisse.
At th' barrell's head there shines the vine,
There only relishes the wine.

RHYME a b a b c c 

There quench my heat, and thou shalt sup
  Worthy the lips that it must touch,
Nectar from out the starry cup:
  I beg thy breath not halfe so much.
So both our wants supplied shall be,
You'l give for love, I, charity.

RHYME a b a b c c 

Cheape then are pearle-imbroderies,
  That not adorne, but cloud thy wast;
Thou shalt be cloath'd above all prise,
  If thou wilt promise me imbrac't.
Wee'l ransack neither chest nor shelfe:
Ill cover thee with mine owne selfe.

RHYME a b a b c c 

But, cruel, if thou dost deny
  This necessary almes to me,
What soft-soul'd man but with his eye
  And hand will hence be shut to thee?
Since all must judge you more unkinde:
I starve your body, you, my minde.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  You, that can haply mixe your joyes with cries,
And weave white Ios with black Elegies,
Can caroll out a dirge, and in one breath
Sing to the tune either of life, or death;
You, that can weepe the gladnesse of the spheres,
And pen a hymne, in stead of inke, with teares;
Here, here your unproportion'd wit let fall,
To celebrate this new-borne funerall,
And greete that little greatnesse, which from th' wombe
Dropt both a load to th' cradle and the tombe.

RHYME a a *

  Bright soule! teach us, to warble with what feet
Thy swathing linnen and thy winding sheet,
Weepe, or shout forth that fonts solemnitie,
Which at once christn'd and buried thee,
And change our shriller passions with that sound,
First told thee into th' ayre, then to the ground.

RHYME a a *

  Ah, wert thou borne for this? only to call
The King and Queen guests to your buriall!
To bid good night, your day not yet begun,
And shew a setting, ere a rising sun!

RHYME a a *

  Or wouldst thou have thy life a martyrdom?
Dye in the act of thy religion,
Fit, excellently, innocently good,
First sealing it with water, then thy blood?

RHYME a a *

As when on blazing wings a blest man sores,
And having past to God through fiery dores,
Straight 's roab'd with flames, when the same element,
Which was his shame, proves now his ornament;
Oh, how he hast'ned death, burn't to be fryed,
Kill'd twice with each delay, till deified.

RHYME a a *

So swift hath been thy race, so full of flight,
Like him condemn'd, ev'n aged with a night,
Cutting all lets with clouds, as if th' hadst been
Like angels plum'd, and borne a Cherubin.

RHYME a a *

  Or, in your journey towards heav'n, say,
Tooke you the world a little in your way?
Saw'st and dislik'st its vaine pompe, then didst flye
Up for eternall glories to the skye?
Like a religious ambitious one,
Aspiredst for the everlasting crowne?

RHYME a a *

  Ah! holy traytour to your brother prince,
Rob'd of his birth-right and preheminence!
Could you ascend yon' chaire of state e're him,
And snatch from th' heire the starry diadem?
Making your honours now as much uneven,
As gods on earth are lesse then saints in heav'n.

RHYME a a *

  Triumph! sing triumphs, then!  Oh, put on all
Your richest lookes, drest for this festivall!
Thoughts full of ravisht reverence, with eyes
So fixt, as when a saint we canonize;
Clap wings with Seraphins before the throne
At this eternall coronation,
And teach your soules new mirth, such as may be
Worthy this birth-day to divinity.

RHYME a a *

  But ah! these blast your feasts, the jubilies
We send you up are sad, as were our cries,
And of true joy we can expresse no more
Thus crown'd, then when we buried thee before.

RHYME a a *

  Princesse in heav'n, forgivenes! whilst we
Resigne our office to the HIERARCHY.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  Pray, ladies, breath, awhile lay by
Caelestial Sydney's ARCADY;
Heere's a story that doth claime
A little respite from his flame:
Then with a quick dissolving looke
Unfold the smoothnes of this book,
To which no art (except your sight)
Can reach a worthy epithite;
'Tis an abstract of all volumes,
A pillaster of all columnes
Fancy e're rear'd to wit, to be
The smallest gods epitome,
And so compactedly expresse
All lovers pleasing wretchednes.

RHYME a a *

  Gallant Pamela's majesty
And her sweet sisters modesty
Are fixt in each of you; you are,
Distinct, what these together were;
Divinest, that are really
What Cariclea's feign'd to be;

RHYME a a *

That are ev'ry one the Nine,
And brighter here Astreas shine;
View our Lucippe, and remaine
In her, these beauties o're againe.

RHYME a a *

  Amazement!  Noble Clitophon
Ev'n now lookt somewhat colder on
His cooler mistresse, and she too
Smil'd not as she us'd to do.
See! the individuall payre
Are at sad oddes, and parted are;
They quarrell, aemulate, and stand
At strife, who first shal kisse your hand.

RHYME a a *

  A new dispute there lately rose
Betwixt the Greekes and Latines, whose
Temples should be bound with glory,
In best languaging this story;

RHYME a a *

Yee heyres of love, that with one SMILE
A ten-yeeres war can reconcile;
Peacefull Hellens!  Vertuous!  See:
The jarring languages agree!
And here, all armes layd by, they doe
In English meet to wayt on you.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

       "Fair ones, breathe: a while lay by
     Blessed Sidney's ARCADY:
     Here's a story that will make
     You not repent HIM to forsake;
     And with your dissolving looke
     Vntie the contents of this booke;
     To which nought (except your sight)
     Can give a worthie epithite.
     'Tis an abstract of all volumes,
     A pillaster of all columnes
     Fancie e're rear'd to wit, to be
     Little LOVE'S epitome,
     And compactedly expresse
     All lovers happy wretchednesse.

RHYME a a *

       "Brave PAMELA'S majestie
     And her sweet sister's modestie
     Are fixt in each of you, you are
     Alone, what these together were
     Divinest, that are really
     What Cariclea's feign'd to be;
     That are every one, the Nine;
     And on earth Astraeas shine;
     Be our LEUCIPPE, and remaine
     In HER, all these o're againe.

RHYME a a *

       "Wonder!  Noble CLITOPHON
     Me thinkes lookes somewhat colder on
     His beauteous mistresse, and she too
     Smiles not as she us'd to doe.
     See! the individuall payre
     Are at oddes and parted are;
     Quarrel, emulate, and stand
     At strife, who first shall kisse your hand.

RHYME a a *

       "A new warre e're while arose
     'Twixt the GREEKES and LATINES, whose
     Temples should be bound with glory
     In best languaging this story:
     You, that with one lovely smile
     A ten-yeares warre can reconcile;
     Peacefull Hellens awfull see
     The jarring languages agree,
     And here all armes laid by, they doe
     Meet in English to court you."

RHYME a a *

     "The happy OBJECT of her eye
     Was SIDNEY'S living ARCADY:
     Whose amorous tale had so betrai'd
     Desire in this all-lovely maid;
     That, whilst her check a blush did warm,
     I read LOVES story in her form."

TITLE

RHYME a b a b 

Hearke, reader! wilt be learn'd ith' warres?
  A gen'rall in a gowne?
Strike a league with arts and scarres,
  And snatch from each a crowne?

RHYME a b a b 

Wouldst be a wonder?  Such a one,
  As should win with a looke?
A bishop in a garison,
  And conquer by the booke?

RHYME a b a b 

Take then this mathematick shield,
  And henceforth by its rules
Be able to dispute ith' field,
  And combate in the schooles.

RHYME a b a b 

Whilst peaceful learning once againe
  And the souldier so concord,
As that he fights now with her penne,
  And she writes with his sword.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b 

     Harke, reader, would'st be learn'd ith' warres,
       A CAPTAINE in a gowne?
     Strike a league with bookes and starres,
       And weave of both the crowne?

RHYME a b a b 

     Would'st be a wonder?  Such a one
       As would winne with a looke?
     A schollar in a garrison?
       And conquer by the booke?

RHYME a b a b 

     Take then this mathematick shield,
       And henceforth by its rules,
     Be able to dispute ith' field,
       And combate in the schooles.

RHYME a b a b 

     Whil'st peacefull learning once agen
       And th' souldier do concorde,
     As that he fights now with her penne,
       And she writes with his sword.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  How have I bin religious? what strange good
Has scap't me, that I never understood?
Have I hel-guarded Haeresie o'rthrowne?
Heald wounded states? made kings and kingdoms one?
That FATE should be so merciful to me,
To let me live t' have said I have read thee.

RHYME a a *

  Faire star, ascend! the joy! the life! the light
Of this tempestuous age, this darke worlds sight!
Oh, from thy crowne of glory dart one flame
May strike a sacred reverence, whilest thy name
(Like holy flamens to their god of day)
We bowing, sing; and whilst we praise, we pray.

RHYME a a *

  Bright spirit! whose aeternal motion
Of wit, like Time, stil in it selfe did run,
Binding all others in it, and did give
Commission, how far this or that shal live;
Like DESTINY of poems who, as she
Signes death to all, her selfe cam never dye.

RHYME a a *

  And now thy purple-robed Traegedy,
In her imbroider'd buskins, cals mine eye,
Where the brave Aetius we see betray'd,
T' obey his death, whom thousand lives obey'd;
Whilst that the mighty foole his scepter breakes,
And through his gen'rals wounds his own doome speakes,
Weaving thus richly VALENTINIAN,
The costliest monarch with the cheapest man.

RHYME a a *

  Souldiers may here to their old glories adde,
The LOVER love, and be with reason MAD:
Not, as of old, Alcides furious,
Who wilder then his bull did teare the house
(Hurling his language with the canvas stone):
Twas thought the monster ror'd the sob'rer tone.

RHYME a a *

  But ah! when thou thy sorrow didst inspire
With passions, blacke as is her darke attire,
Virgins as sufferers have wept to see
So white a soule, so red a crueltie;
That thou hast griev'd, and with unthought redresse
Dri'd their wet eyes who now thy mercy blesse;
Yet, loth to lose thy watry jewell, when
Joy wip't it off, laughter straight sprung't agen.

RHYME a a *

  Now ruddy checked Mirth with rosie wings
Fans ev'ry brow with gladnesse, whilst she sings
Delight to all, and the whole theatre
A festivall in heaven doth appeare:
Nothing but pleasure, love; and (like the morne)
Each face a gen'ral smiling doth adorne.

RHYME a a *

  Heare ye, foul speakers, that pronounce the aire
Of stewes and shores, I will informe you where
And how to cloath aright your wanton wit,
Without her nasty bawd attending it:
View here a loose thought sayd with such a grace,
Minerva might have spoke in Venus face;
So well disguis'd, that 'twas conceiv'd by none
But Cupid had Diana's linnen on;
And all his naked parts so vail'd, th' expresse
The shape with clowding the uncomlinesse;
That if this Reformation, which we
Receiv'd, had not been buried with thee,

RHYME a a *

The stage (as this worke) might have liv'd and lov'd
Her lines, the austere Skarlet had approv'd;
And th' actors wisely been from that offence
As cleare, as they are now from audience.

RHYME a a *

  Thus with thy Genius did the scaene expire,
Wanting thy active and correcting fire,
That now (to spread a darknesse over all)
Nothing remaines but Poesie to fall:
And though from these thy Embers we receive
Some warmth, so much as may be said, we live;

RHYME a a *

That we dare praise thee blushlesse, in the head
Of the best piece Hermes to Love e're read;
That we rejoyce and glory in thy wit,
And feast each other with remembring it;
That we dare speak thy thought, thy acts recite:
Yet all men henceforth be afraid to write.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

LUCASTA (fair, but hapless maid!)
Once flourisht underneath the shade
Of your illustrious Mother; now,
An orphan grown, she bows to you!
To you, her vertues' noble heir;
Oh may she find protection there!

RHYME a a *

Nor let her welcome be the less,
'Cause a rough hand makes her address:
One (to whom foes the Muses are)
Born and bred up in rugged war:
For, conscious how unfit I am,
I only have pronounc'd her name
To waken pity in your brest,
And leave her tears to plead the rest.

RHYME a b a b c d c d 

LUCASTA, frown, and let me die,
  But smile, and see, I live;
The sad indifference of your eye
  Both kills and doth reprieve.
You hide our fate within its screen;
  We feel our judgment, ere we hear.
So in one picture I have seen
  An angel here, the devil there.

RHYME a b a b c c d d 

Introth, I do my self perswade,
  That the wilde boy is grown a man,
And all his childishnesse off laid,
  E're since LUCASTA did his fires fan;
    H' has left his apish jigs,
    And whipping hearts like gigs:
  For t' other day I heard him swear,
That beauty should be crown'd in honours chair.

RHYME a b a b c c d d 

With what a true and heavenly state
  He doth his glorious darts dispence,
Now cleans'd from falsehood, blood and hate,
  And newly tipt with innocence!
    Love Justice is become,
    And doth the cruel doome;
  Reversed is the old decree;
Behold! he sits inthron'd with majestie.

RHYME a b a b c c d d 

Inthroned in LUCASTA'S eye,
  He doth our faith and hearts survey;
Then measures them by sympathy,
  And each to th' others breast convey;
    Whilst to his altars now
    The frozen vestals bow,
  And strickt Diana too doth go
A-hunting with his fear'd, exchanged bow.

RHYME a b a b c c d d 

Th' imbracing seas and ambient air
  Now in his holy fires burn;
Fish couple, birds and beasts in pair
  Do their own sacrifices turn.
    This is a miracle,
    That might religion swell;
  But she, that these and their god awes,
Her crowned self submits to her own laws.

RHYME a a b b b 

Twas not for some calm blessing to deceive,
Thou didst thy polish'd hands in shagg'd furs weave;
  It were no blessing thus obtain'd;
  Thou rather would'st a curse have gain'd,
Then let thy warm driven snow be ever stain'd.

RHYME a a b b b 

Not that you feared the discolo'ring cold
Might alchymize their silver into gold;
  Nor could your ten white nuns so sin,
  That you should thus pennance them in,
Each in her coarse hair smock of discipline.

RHYME a a b b b 

Nor, Hero-like who, on their crest still wore
A lyon, panther, leopard, or a bore,
  To looke their enemies in their herse,
  Thou would'st thy hand should deeper pierce,
And, in its softness rough, appear more fierce.

RHYME a a b b b 

No, no, LUCASTA, destiny decreed,
That beasts to thee a sacrifice should bleed,
  And strip themselves to make you gay:
  For ne'r yet herald did display
A coat, where SABLES upon ERMIN lay.

RHYME a a b b b 

This for lay-lovers, that must stand at dore,
Salute the threshold, and admire no more;
  But I, in my invention tough,
  Rate not this outward bliss enough,
But still contemplate must the hidden muffe.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

     LADIES turn conjurers, and can impart
     The hidden mystery of the black art,
     Black artificial patches do betray;
     They more affect the works of night than day.
     The creature strives the Creator to disgrace,
     By patching that which is a perfect face:

RHYME a a *

     A little stain upon the purest dye
     Is both offensive to the heart and eye.
     Defile not then with spots that face of snow,
     Where the wise God His workmanship doth show,
     The light of nature and the light of grace
     Is the complexion for a lady's face.

TITLE

RHYME a a a 

As I beheld a winter's evening air,
Curl'd in her court-false-locks of living hair,
Butter'd with jessamine the sun left there.

RHYME a a a 

Galliard and clinquant she appear'd to give,
A serenade or ball to us that grieve,
And teach us A LA MODE more gently live.

RHYME a a a 

But as a Moor, who to her cheeks prefers
White spots, t' allure her black idolaters,
Me thought she look'd all ore-bepatch'd with stars.

RHYME a a a 

Like the dark front of some Ethiopian queen,
Vailed all ore with gems of red, blew, green,
Whose ugly night seem'd masked with days skreen.

RHYME a a a 

Whilst the fond people offer'd sacrifice
To saphyrs, 'stead of veins and arteries,
And bow'd unto the diamonds, not her eyes.

RHYME a a a 

Behold LUCASTA'S face, how't glows like noon!
A sun intire is her complexion,
And form'd of one whole constellation.

RHYME a a a 

So gently shining, so serene, so cleer,
Her look doth universal Nature cheer;
Only a cloud or two hangs here and there.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  I laugh and sing, but cannot tell
  Whether the folly on't sounds well;
               But then I groan,
               Methinks, in tune;
Whilst grief, despair and fear dance to the air
          Of my despised prayer.

RHYME a a *

  A pretty antick love does this,
  Then strikes a galliard with a kiss;
               As in the end
               The chords they rend;
So you but with a touch from your fair hand
          Turn all to saraband.

TITLE

RHYME a a b b b 

Like to the sent'nel stars, I watch all night;
     For still the grand round of your light
               And glorious breast
          Awake in me an east:
Nor will my rolling eyes ere know a west.

RHYME a a b b b 

Now on my down I'm toss'd as on a wave,
     And my repose is made my grave;
               Fluttering I lye,
          Do beat my self and dye,
But for a resurrection from your eye.

RHYME a a b b b 

Ah, my fair murdresse! dost thou cruelly heal
     With various pains to make me well?
               Then let me be
          Thy cut anatomie,
And in each mangled part my heart you'l see.

TITLE

RHYME a a b b 

I' th' autumn of a summer's day,
When all the winds got leave to play,
LUCASTA, that fair ship, is lanch'd,
And from its crust this almond blanch'd.

RHYME a a b b 

Blow then, unruly northwind, blow,
'Till in their holds your eyes you stow;
And swell your cheeks, bequeath chill death;
See! she hath smil'd thee out of breath.

RHYME a a b b 

Court, gentle zephyr, court and fan
Her softer breast's carnation wan;
Your charming rhethorick of down
Flyes scatter'd from before her frown.

RHYME a a b b 

Say, my white water-lilly, say,
How is't those warm streams break away,
Cut by thy chast cold breast, which dwells
Amidst them arm'd in isicles?

RHYME a a b b 

And the hot floods, more raging grown,
In flames of thee then in their own,
In their distempers wildly glow,
And kisse thy pillar of fix'd snow.

RHYME a a b b 

No sulphur, through whose each blew vein
The thick and lazy currents strein,
Can cure the smarting nor the fell
Blisters of love, wherewith they swell.

RHYME a a b b 

These great physicians of the blind,
The lame, and fatal blains of Inde
In every drop themselves now see
Speckled with a new leprosie.

RHYME a a b b 

As sick drinks are with old wine dash'd,
Foul waters too with spirits wash'd,
Thou greiv'd, perchance, one tear let'st fall,
Which straight did purifie them all.

RHYME a a b b 

And now is cleans'd enough the flood,
Which since runs cleare as doth thy blood;
Of the wet pearls uncrown thy hair,
And mantle thee with ermin air.

RHYME a a b b 

Lucasta, hail! fair conqueresse
Of fire, air, earth and seas!
Thou whom all kneel to, yet even thou
Wilt unto love, thy captive, bow.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b c c 

Forbear, thou great good husband, little ant;
  A little respite from thy flood of sweat!
Thou, thine own horse and cart under this plant,
  Thy spacious tent, fan thy prodigious heat;
Down with thy double load of that one grain!
It is a granarie for all thy train.

RHYME a b a b c c 

Cease, large example of wise thrift, awhile
  (For thy example is become our law),
And teach thy frowns a seasonable smile:
  So Cato sometimes the nak'd Florals saw.
And thou, almighty foe, lay by thy sting,
Whilst thy unpay'd musicians, crickets, sing.

RHYME a b a b c c 

LUCASTA, she that holy makes the day,
  And 'stills new life in fields of fueillemort,
Hath back restor'd their verdure with one ray,
  And with her eye bid all to play and sport,
Ant, to work still! age will thee truant call;
And to save now, th'art worse than prodigal.

RHYME a b a b c c 

Austere and cynick! not one hour t' allow,
  To lose with pleasure, what thou gotst with pain;
But drive on sacred festivals thy plow,
  Tearing high-ways with thy ore-charged wain.
Not all thy life-time one poor minute live,
And thy ore-labour'd bulk with mirth relieve?

RHYME a b a b c c 

Look up then, miserable ant, and spie
  Thy fatal foes, for breaking of their law,
Hov'ring above thee: Madam MARGARET PIE:
  And her fierce servant, meagre Sir JOHN DAW:
Thy self and storehouse now they do store up,
And thy whole harvest too within their crop.

RHYME a b a b c c 

Thus we unt[h]rifty thrive within earth's tomb
  For some more rav'nous and ambitious jaw:
The grain in th' ant's, the ant in the pie's womb,
  The pie in th' hawk's, the hawk ith' eagle's maw.
So scattering to hord 'gainst a long day,
Thinking to save all, we cast all away.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  Strive not, vain lover, to be fine;
  Thy silk's the silk-worm's, and not thine:
You lessen to a fly your mistriss' thought,
To think it may be in a cobweb caught.
  What, though her thin transparent lawn
  Thy heart in a strong net hath drawn:
Not all the arms the god of fire ere made
Can the soft bulwarks of nak'd love invade.

RHYME a a *

  Be truly fine, then, and yourself dress
  In her fair soul's immac'late glass.
Then by reflection you may have the bliss
Perhaps to see what a true fineness is;
  When all your gawderies will fit
  Those only that are poor in wit.
She that a clinquant outside doth adore,
Dotes on a gilded statue and no more.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b c c d d 

Nay, prethee, dear, draw nigher,
  Yet closer, nigher yet;
Here is a double fire,
  A dry one and a wet.
True lasting heavenly fuel
Puts out the vestal jewel,
When once we twining marry
Mad love with wild canary.

RHYME a b a b c c d d 

Off with that crowned Venice,
  'Till all the house doth flame,
Wee'l quench it straight in Rhenish,
  Or what we must not name.
Milk lightning still asswageth;
So when our fury rageth,
As th' only means to cross it,
Wee'l drown it in love's posset.

RHYME a b a b c c d d 

Love never was well-willer
  Unto my nag or mee,
Ne'r watter'd us ith' cellar,
  But the cheap buttery.
At th' head of his own barrells,
Where broach'd are all his quarrels,
Should a true noble master
Still make his guest his taster.

RHYME a b a b c c d d 

See, all the world how't staggers,
  More ugly drunk then we,
As if far gone in daggers
  And blood it seem'd to be.
We drink our glass of roses,
Which nought but sweets discloses:
Then in our loyal chamber
Refresh us with love's amber.

RHYME a b a b c c d d 

Now tell me, thou fair cripple,
  That dumb canst scarcely see
Th' almightinesse of tipple,
  And th' ods 'twixt thee and thee,
What of Elizium's missing,
Still drinking and still kissing;
Adoring plump October;
Lord! what is man, and sober?

RHYME a b a b c c d d 

Now, is there such a trifle
  As honour, the fools gyant,
What is there left to rifle,
  When wine makes all parts plyant?
Let others glory follow,
In their false riches wallow,
And with their grief be merry:
Leave me but love and sherry.

TITLE

RHYME a a b c c b 

In the nativity of time,
Chloris! it was not thought a crime
  In direct Hebrew for to woe.
Now wee make love, as all on fire,
Ring retrograde our lowd desire,
  And court in English backward too.

RHYME a a b c c b 

Thrice happy was that golden age,
When complement was constru'd rage,
  And fine words in the center hid;
When cursed NO stain'd no maid's blisse,
And all discourse was summ'd in YES,
  And nought forbad, but to forbid.

RHYME a a b c c b 

Love then unstinted love did sip,
And cherries pluck'd fresh from the lip,
  On cheeks and roses free he fed;
Lasses, like Autumne plums, did drop,
And lads indifferently did drop
  A flower and a maiden-head.

RHYME a a b c c b 

Then unconfined each did tipple
Wine from the bunch, milk from the nipple;
  Paps tractable as udders were.
Then equally the wholsome jellies
Were squeez'd from olive-trees and bellies:
  Nor suits of trespasse did they fear.

RHYME a a b c c b 

A fragrant bank of strawberries,
Diaper'd with violets' eyes,
  Was table, table-cloth and fare;
No palace to the clouds did swell,
Each humble princesse then did dwell
  In the Piazza of her hair.

RHYME a a b c c b 

Both broken faith and th' cause of it,
All-damning gold, was damn'd to th' pit;
  Their troth seal'd with a clasp and kisse,
Lasted until that extreem day,
In which they smil'd their souls away,
  And in each other breath'd new blisse.

RHYME a a b c c b 

Because no fault, there was no tear;
No grone did grate the granting ear,
  No false foul breath, their del'cat smell.
No serpent kiss poyson'd the tast,
Each touch was naturally chast,
  And their mere Sense a Miracle.

RHYME a a b c c b 

Naked as their own innocence,
And unembroyder'd from offence,
  They went, above poor riches, gay;
On softer than the cignet's down,
In beds they tumbled off their own:
  For each within the other lay.

RHYME a a b c c b 

Thus did they live: thus did they love,
Repeating only joyes above,
  And angels were but with cloaths on,
Which they would put off cheerfully,
To bathe them in the Galaxie,
  Then gird them with the heavenly zone.

RHYME a a b c c b 

Now, Chloris! miserably crave
The offer'd blisse you would not have,
  Which evermore I must deny:
Whilst ravish'd with these noble dreams,
And crowned with mine own soft beams,
  Injoying of my self I lye.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  And why an honour'd ragged shirt, that shows,
Like tatter'd ensigns, all its bodie's blows?
Should it be swathed in a vest so dire,
It were enough to set the child on fire;
Dishevell'd queen[s] should strip them of their hair,
And in it mantle the new rising heir:
Nor do I know ought worth to wrap it in,
Except my parchment upper-coat of skin;
And then expect no end of its chast tears,
That first was rowl'd in down, now furs of bears.

RHYME a a *

  But since to ladies 't hath a custome been
Linnen to send, that travail and lye in;
To the nine sempstresses, my former friends,
I su'd; but they had nought but shreds and ends.
At last, the jolli'st of the three times three
Rent th' apron from her smock, and gave it me;
'Twas soft and gentle, subt'ly spun, no doubt;
Pardon my boldnese, madam; HERE'S THE CLOUT.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

I did believe I was in heav'n,
When first the heav'n her self was giv'n,
That in my heart her beams did passe
As some the sun keep in a glasse,
So that her beauties thorow me
Did hurt my rival-enemy.
But fate, alas! decreed it so,
That I was engine to my woe:
For, as a corner'd christal spot,
My heart diaphanous was not;
But solid stuffe, where her eye flings
Quick fire upon the catching strings:
Yet, as at triumphs in the night,
You see the Prince's Arms in light,
So, when I once was set on flame,
I burnt all ore the letters of her name.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

You are deceiv'd; I sooner may, dull fair,
Seat a dark Moor in Cassiopea's chair,
    Or on the glow-worm's uselesse light
    Bestow the watching flames of night,
        Or give the rose's breath
        To executed death,
            Ere the bright hiew
            Of verse to you;
It is just Heaven on beauty stamps a fame,
And we, alas! its triumphs but proclaim.

RHYME a a *

What chains but are too light for me, should I
Say that Lucasta in strange arms could lie?
    Or that Castara were impure;
    Or Saccarisa's faith unsure?
        That Chloris' love, as hair,
        Embrac'd each en'mies air;
            That all their good
            Ran in their blood?
'Tis the same wrong th' unworthy to inthrone,
As from her proper sphere t' have vertue thrown.

RHYME a a *

That strange force on the ignoble hath renown;
As AURUM FULMINANS, it blows vice down.
    'Twere better (heavy one) to crawl
    Forgot, then raised, trod on [to] fall.
        All your defections now
        Are not writ on your brow;
            Odes to faults give
            A shame must live.
When a fat mist we view, we coughing run;
But, that once meteor drawn, all cry: undone.

RHYME a a *

How bright the fair Paulina did appear,
When hid in jewels she did seem a star!
    But who could soberly behold
    A wicked owl in cloath of gold,
        Or the ridiculous Ape
        In sacred Vesta's shape?
            So doth agree
            Just praise with thee:
For since thy birth gave thee no beauty, know,
No poets pencil must or can do so.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b c c 

Love drunk, the other day, knockt at my brest,
    But I, alas! was not within.
My man, my ear, told me he came t' attest,
    That without cause h'd boxed him,
And battered the windows of mine eyes,
And took my heart for one of's nunneries.

RHYME a b a b c c 

I wondred at the outrage safe return'd,
    And stormed at the base affront;
And by a friend of mine, bold faith, that burn'd,
    I called him to a strict accompt.
He said that, by the law, the challeng'd might
Take the advantage both of arms and fight.

RHYME a b a b c c 

Two darts of equal length and points he sent,
    And nobly gave the choyce to me,
Which I not weigh'd, young and indifferent,
    Now full of nought but victorie.
So we both met in one of's mother's groves,
The time, at the first murm'ring of her doves.

RHYME a b a b c c 

I stript myself naked all o're, as he:
    For so I was best arm'd, when bare.
His first pass did my liver rase: yet I
    Made home a falsify too neer:
For when my arm to its true distance came,
I nothing touch'd but a fantastick flame.

RHYME a b a b c c 

This, this is love we daily quarrel so,
    An idle Don-Quichoterie:
We whip our selves with our own twisted wo,
    And wound the ayre for a fly.
The only way t' undo this enemy
Is to laugh at the boy, and he will cry.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

What, so beyond all madnesse is the elf,
  Now he hath got out of himself!
  His fatal enemy the Bee,
  Nor his deceiv'd artillerie,
  His shackles, nor the roses bough
Ne'r half so netled him, as he is now.

RHYME a a *

See! at's own mother he is offering;
  His finger now fits any ring;
  Old Cybele he would enjoy,
  And now the girl, and now the boy.
  He proffers Jove a back caresse,
And all his love in the antipodes.

RHYME a a *

Jealous of his chast Psyche, raging he
  Quarrels with student Mercurie,
  And with a proud submissive breath
  Offers to change his darts with Death.
  He strikes at the bright eye of day,
And Juno tumbles in her milky way.

RHYME a a *

The dear sweet secrets of the gods he tells,
  And with loath'd hate lov'd heaven he swells;
  Now, like a fury, he belies
  Myriads of pure virginities,
  And swears, with this false frenzy hurl'd,
There's not a vertuous she in all the world.

RHYME a a *

Olympus he renownces, then descends,
  And makes a friendship with the fiends;
  Bids Charon be no more a slave,
  He Argos rigg'd with stars shall have,
  And triple Cerberus from below
Must leash'd t' himself with him a hunting go.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

Small type of great ones, that do hum
Within this whole world's narrow room,
That with a busie hollow noise
Catch at the people's vainer voice,
And with spread sails play with their breath,
Whose very hails new christen death.
Poor Fly, caught in an airy net,
Thy wings have fetter'd now thy feet;
Where, like a Lyon in a toyl,
Howere thou keep'st a noble coyl,

RHYME a a *

And beat'st thy gen'rous breast, that o're
The plains thy fatal buzzes rore,
Till thy all-bellyd foe (round elf)
Hath quarter'd thee within himself.

RHYME a a *

  Was it not better once to play
I' th' light of a majestick ray,
Where, though too neer and bold, the fire
Might sindge thy upper down attire,
And thou i' th' storm to loose an eye.
A wing, or a self-trapping thigh:
Yet hadst thou fal'n like him, whose coil
Made fishes in the sea to broyl,
When now th'ast scap'd the noble flame;
Trapp'd basely in a slimy frame,
And free of air, thou art become
Slave to the spawn of mud and lome?

RHYME a a *

  Nor is't enough thy self do's dresse
To thy swoln lord a num'rous messe,
And by degrees thy thin veins bleed,
And piecemeal dost his poyson feed;
But now devour'd, art like to be
A net spun for thy familie,

RHYME a a *

And, straight expanded in the air,
Hang'st for thy issue too a snare.
Strange witty death and cruel ill
That, killing thee, thou thine dost kill!
Like pies, in whose entombed ark
All fowl crowd downward to a lark,
Thou art thine en'mies' sepulcher,
And in thee buriest, too, thine heir.

RHYME a a *

  Yet Fates a glory have reserv'd
For one so highly hath deserv'd.
As the rhinoceros doth dy
Under his castle-enemy,
As through the cranes trunk throat doth speed,
The aspe doth on his feeder feed;
Fall yet triumphant in thy woe,
Bound with the entrails of thy foe.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

Forbear this liquid fire, Fly,
It is more fatal then the dry,
That singly, but embracing, wounds;
And this at once both burns and drowns.

RHYME a a *

The salamander, that in heat
And flames doth cool his monstrous sweat,
Whose fan a glowing cake is said,
Of this red furnace is afraid.

RHYME a a *

Viewing the ruby-christal shine,
Thou tak'st it for heaven-christalline;
Anon thou wilt be taught to groan:
'Tis an ascended Acheron.

RHYME a a *

A snow-ball heart in it let fall,
And take it out a fire-ball;
Ali icy breast in it betray'd
Breaks a destructive wild granade.

RHYME a a *

'Tis this makes Venus altars shine,
This kindles frosty Hymen's pine;
When the boy grows old in his desires,
This flambeau doth new light his fires.

RHYME a a *

Though the cold hermit over wail,
Whose sighs do freeze, and tears drop hail,
Once having pass'd this, will ne'r
Another flaming purging fear.

RHYME a a *

The vestal drinking this doth burn
Now more than in her fun'ral urn;
Her fires, that with the sun kept race,
Are now extinguish'd by her face.

RHYME a a *

The chymist, that himself doth still,
Let him but tast this limbecks bill,
And prove this sublimated bowl,
He'll swear it will calcine a soul.

RHYME a a *

Noble, and brave! now thou dost know
The false prepared decks below,
Dost thou the fatal liquor sup,
One drop, alas! thy barque blowes up.

RHYME a a *

What airy country hast to save,
Whose plagues thou'lt bury in thy grave?
For even now thou seem'st to us
On this gulphs brink a Curtius.

RHYME a a *

And now th' art faln (magnanimous Fly)
In, where thine Ocean doth fry,
Like the Sun's son, who blush'd the flood
To a complexion of blood.

RHYME a a *

Yet, see! my glad auricular
Redeems thee (though dissolv'd) a star,
Flaggy thy wings, and scorch'd thy thighs,
Thou ly'st a double sacrifice.

RHYME a a *

And now my warming, cooling breath
Shall a new life afford in death;
See! in the hospital of my hand
Already cur'd, thou fierce do'st stand.

RHYME a a *

Burnt insect! dost thou reaspire
The moist-hot-glasse and liquid fire?
I see 'tis such a pleasing pain,
Thou would'st be scorch'd and drown'd again.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

Mongst the worlds wonders, there doth yet remain
One greater than the rest, that's all those o're again,
And her own self beside: A Lady, whose soft breast
Is with vast honours soul and virtues life possest.
Fair as original light first from the chaos shot,
When day in virgin-beams triumph'd, and night was not,
And as that breath infus'd in the new-breather good,
When ill unknown was dumb, and bad not understood;

RHYME a a *

Chearful, as that aspect at this world's finishing,
When cherubims clapp'd wings, and th' sons of Heaven did sing;
Chast as th' Arabian bird, who all the ayr denyes,
And ev'n in flames expires, when with her selfe she lyes.
Oh! she's as kind as drops of new faln April showers,
That on each gentle breast spring fresh perfuming flowers;
She's constant, gen'rous, fixt; she's calm, she is the all
We can of vertue, honour, faith, or glory call,
And she is (whom I thus transmit to endless fame)
Mistresse oth' world and me, and LAURA is her name.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  Upon a day, when the Dog-star
Unto the world proclaim'd a war,
And poyson bark'd from black throat,
And from his jaws infection shot,

RHYME a a *

Under a deadly hen-bane shade
With slime infernal mists are made,
Met the two dreaded enemies,
Having their weapons in their eyes.

RHYME a a *

  First from his den rolls forth that load
Of spite and hate, the speckl'd toad,
And from his chaps a foam doth spawn,
Such as the loathed three heads yawn;
Defies his foe with a fell spit,
To wade through death to meet with it;
Then in his self the lymbeck turns,
And his elixir'd poyson urns.
Arachne, once the fear oth' maid
Coelestial, thus unto her pray'd:
Heaven's blew-ey'd daughter, thine own mother!
The Python-killing Sun's thy brother.

RHYME a a *

Oh! thou, from gods that didst descend,
With a poor virgin to contend,
Shall seed of earth and hell ere be
A rival in thy victorie?
Pallas assents: for now long time
And pity had clean rins'd her crime;
When straight she doth with active fire
Her many legged foe inspire.
Have you not seen a charact lie
A great cathedral in the sea,
Under whose Babylonian walls
A small thin frigot almshouse stalls?
So in his slime the toad doth float
And th' spyder by, but seems his boat.
And now the naumachie begins;
Close to the surface her self spins:
Arachne, when her foe lets flye
A broad-side of his breath too high,

RHYME a a *

That's over-shot, the wisely-stout,
Advised maid doth tack about;
And now her pitchy barque doth sweat,
Chaf'd in her own black fury wet;
Lasie and cold before, she brings
New fires to her contracted stings,
And with discolour'd spumes doth blast
The herbs that to their center hast.
Now to the neighb'ring henbane top
Arachne hath her self wound up,
And thence, from its dilated leaves,
By her own cordage downwards weaves,

RHYME a a *

And doth her town of foe attack,
And storms the rampiers of his back;
Which taken in her colours spread,
March to th' citadel of's head.
Now as in witty torturing Spain,
The brain is vext to vex the brain,
Where hereticks bare heads are arm'd
In a close helm, and in it charm'd
An overgrown and meagre rat,
That peece-meal nibbles himself fat;
So on the toads blew-checquer'd scull
The spider gluttons her self full.
And vomiting her Stygian seeds,
Her poyson on his poyson feeds.
Thus the invenom'd toad, now grown
Big with more poyson than his own,
Doth gather all his pow'rs, and shakes
His stormer in's disgorged lakes;

RHYME a a *

And wounded now, apace crawls on
To his next plantane surgeon,
With whose rich balm no sooner drest,
But purged is his sick swoln breast;
And as a glorious combatant,
That only rests awhile to pant,
Then with repeated strength and scars,
That smarting fire him new to wars,
Deals blows that thick themselves prevent,
As they would gain the time he spent.

RHYME a a *

  So the disdaining angry toad,
That calls but a thin useless load,
His fatal feared self comes back
With unknown venome fill'd to crack.
Th' amased spider, now untwin'd,
Hath crept up, and her self new lin'd
With fresh salt foams and mists, that blast
The ambient air as they past.
And now me thinks a Sphynx's wing
I pluck, and do not write, but sting;
With their black blood my pale inks blent,
Gall's but a faint ingredient.

RHYME a a *

The pol'tick toad doth now withdraw,
Warn'd, higher in CAMPANIA.
There wisely doth, intrenched deep,
His body in a body keep,
And leaves a wide and open pass
T' invite the foe up to his jaws,
Which there within a foggy blind
With fourscore fire-arms were lin'd.
The gen'rous active spider doubts
More ambuscadoes than redoubts;
So within shot she doth pickear,
Now gall's the flank, and now the rear;
As that the toad in's own dispite
Must change the manner of his fight,
Who, like a glorious general,
With one home-charge lets fly at all.
Chaf'd with a fourfold ven'mous foam
Of scorn, revenge, his foes and 's own,
He seats him in his loathed chair,
New-made him by each mornings air,

RHYME a a *

With glowing eyes he doth survey
Th' undaunted hoast he calls his prey;
Then his dark spume he gred'ly laps,
And shows the foe his grave, his chaps.

RHYME a a *

  Whilst the quick wary Amazon
Of 'vantage takes occasion,
And with her troop of leggs carreers
In a full speed with all her speers.
Down (as some mountain on a mouse)
On her small cot he flings his house;
Without the poyson of the elf,
The toad had like t' have burst himself:
For sage Arachne with good heed
Had stopt herself upon full speed,
And, 's body now disorder'd, on
She falls to execution.
The passive toad now only can
Contemn and suffer.  Here began
The wronged maids ingenious rage,
Which his heart venome must asswage.
One eye she hath spet out, strange smother,
When one flame doth put out another,

RHYME a a *

And one eye wittily spar'd, that he
Might but behold his miserie.
She on each spot a wound doth print,
And each speck hath a sting within't;
Till he but one new blister is,
And swells his own periphrasis.
Then fainting, sick, and yellow-pale,
She baths him with her sulph'rous stale;
Thus slacked is her Stygian fire,
And she vouchsafes now to retire.
Anon the toad begins to pant,
Bethinks him of th' almighty plant,
And lest he peece-meal should be sped,
Wisely doth finish himself dead.
Whilst the gay girl, as was her fate,
Doth wanton and luxuriate,
And crowns her conqu'ring head all or
With fatal leaves of hellebore.

RHYME a a *

Not guessing at the pretious aid
Was lent her by the heavenly maid.
The neer expiring toad now rowls
Himself in lazy bloody scrowls,
To th' sov'raign salve of all his ills,
That only life and health distills.
But loe! a terror above all,
That ever yet did him befall!

RHYME a a *

  Pallas, still mindful of her foe,
(Whilst they did with each fires glow)
Had to the place the spiders lar
Dispath'd before the ev'nings star.
He learned was in Natures laws,
Of all her foliage knew the cause,
And 'mongst the rest in his choice want
Unplanted had this plantane plant.

RHYME a a *

  The all-confounded toad doth see
His life fled with his remedie,
And in a glorious despair
First burst himself, and next the air;
Then with a dismal horred yell
Beats down his loathsome breath to hell.

RHYME a a *

  But what inestimable bliss
This to the sated virgin is,
Who, as before of her fiend foe,
Now full is of her goddess too!
She from her fertile womb hath spun
Her stateliest pavillion,
Whilst all her silken flags display,
And her triumphant banners play;

RHYME a a *

Where Pallas she ith' midst doth praise,
And counterfeits her brothers rayes,
Nor will she her dear lar forget,
Victorious by his benefit,
Whose roof inchanted she doth free
From haunting gnat and goblin bee,
Who, trapp'd in her prepared toyle,
To their destruction keep a coyle.

RHYME a a *

  Then she unlocks the toad's dire head,
Within whose cell is treasured
That pretious stone, which she doth call
A noble recompence for all,
And to her lar doth it present,
Of his fair aid a monument.

RHYME a a *

  Wise emblem of our politick world,
Sage Snayl, within thine own self curl'd,
Instruct me softly to make hast,
Whilst these my feet go slowly fast.

RHYME a a *

  Compendious Snayl! thou seem'st to me
Large Euclid's strict epitome;
And in each diagram dost fling
Thee from the point unto the ring.
A figure now trianglare,
An oval now, and now a square,
And then a serpentine, dost crawl,
Now a straight line, now crook'd, now all.

RHYME a a *

  Preventing rival of the day,
Th' art up and openest thy ray;
And ere the morn cradles the moon,
Th' art broke into a beauteous noon.
Then, when the Sun sups in the deep,
Thy silver horns e're Cinthia's peep;
And thou, from thine own liquid bed,
New Phoebus, heav'st thy pleasant head.

RHYME a a *

  Who shall a name for thee create,
Deep riddle of mysterious state?
Bold Nature, that gives common birth
To all products of seas and earth,
Of thee, as earth-quakes, is afraid,
Nor will thy dire deliv'ry aid.

RHYME a a *

  Thou, thine own daughter, then, and sire,
That son and mother art intire,
That big still with thy self dost go,
And liv'st an aged embrio;
That like the cubbs of India,
Thou from thy self a while dost play;
But frighted with a dog or gun,
In thine own belly thou dost run,
And as thy house was thine own womb,
So thine own womb concludes thy tomb.

RHYME a a *

  But now I must (analys'd king)
Thy oeconomick virtues sing;
Thou great stay'd husband still within,
Thou thee that's thine dost discipline;
And when thou art to progress bent,
Thou mov'st thy self and tenement,
As warlike Scythians travayl'd, you
Remove your men and city too;

RHYME a a *

Then, after a sad dearth and rain,
Thou scatterest thy silver train;
And when the trees grow nak'd and old,
Thou cloathest them with cloth of gold,
Which from thy bowels thou dost spin,
And draw from the rich mines within.

RHYME a a *

  Now hast thou chang'd thee, saint, and made
Thy self a fane that's cupula'd;
And in thy wreathed cloister thou
Walkest thine own gray fryer too;
Strickt and lock'd up, th'art hood all ore,
And ne'r eliminat'st thy dore.
On sallads thou dost feed severe,
And 'stead of beads thou drop'st a tear,
And when to rest each calls the bell,
Thou sleep'st within thy marble cell,
Where, in dark contemplation plac'd,
The sweets of Nature thou dost tast,

RHYME a a *

Who now with time thy days resolve,
And in a jelly thee dissolve,
Like a shot star, which doth repair
Upward, and rarifie the air.

RHYME a a *

The Centaur, Syren, I foregoe;
Those have been sung, and lowdly too:
Nor of the mixed Sphynx Ile write,
Nor the renown'd Hermaphrodite.
Behold! this huddle doth appear
Of horses, coach and charioteer,
That moveth him by traverse law,
And doth himself both drive and draw;
Then, when the Sunn the south doth winne,
He baits him hot in his own inne.
I heard a grave and austere clark
Resolv'd him pilot both and barque;

RHYME a a *

That, like the fam'd ship of TREVERE,
Did on the shore himself lavere:
Yet the authentick do beleeve,
Who keep their judgement in their sleeve,
That he is his own double man,
And sick still carries his sedan:
Or that like dames i'th land of Luyck,
He wears his everlasting huyck.
But banisht, I admire his fate,
Since neither ostracisme of state,
Nor a perpetual exile,
Can force this virtue, change his soyl:
For, wheresoever he doth go,
He wanders with his country too.

RHYME a a *

  Sir, your sad absence I complain, as earth
Her long-hid spring, that gave her verdures birth,
Who now her cheerful aromatick head
Shrinks in her cold and dismal widow'd bed;
Whilst the false sun her lover doth him move
Below, and to th' antipodes make love.

RHYME a a *

  What fate was mine, when in mine obscure cave
(Shut up almost close prisoner in a grave)
Your beams could reach me through this vault of night,
And canton the dark dungeon with light!
Whence me (as gen'rous Spahys) you unbound,
Whilst I now know my self both free and crown'd.

RHYME a a *

  But as at Meccha's tombe, the devout blind
Pilgrim (great husband of his sight and mind)
Pays to no other object this chast prise,
Then with hot earth anoynts out both his eyes:
So having seen your dazling glories store,
It is enough, and sin for to see more.

RHYME a a *

  Or, do you thus those pretious rayes withdraw
To whet my dull beams, keep my bold in aw?
Or, are you gentle and compassionate,
You will not reach me Regulus his fate?
Brave prince! who, eagle-ey'd of eagle kind,
Wert blindly damn'd to look thine own self blind!

RHYME a a *

  But oh, return those fires, too cruel-nice!
For whilst you fear me cindars, see, I'm ice!
A nummed speaking clod and mine own show,
My self congeal'd, a man cut out in snow:

RHYME a a *

Return those living fires.  Thou, who that vast
Double advantage from one-ey'd Heav'n hast,
Look with one sun, though 't but obliquely be,
And if not shine, vouchsafe to wink on me.

RHYME a a *

  Perceive you not a gentle, gliding heat,
And quick'ning warmth, that makes the statua sweat;
As rev'rend Ducaleon's black-flung stone,
Whose rough outside softens to skin, anon
Each crusty vein with wet red is suppli'd,
Whilst nought of stone but in its heart doth 'bide.

RHYME a a *

  So from the rugged north, where your soft stay
Hath stampt them a meridian and kind day;
Where now each A LA MODE inhabitant
Himself and 's manners both do pay you rent,
And 'bout your house (your pallace) doth resort,
And 'spite of fate and war creates a court.

RHYME a a *

  So from the taught north, when you shall return,
To glad those looks that ever since did mourn,
When men uncloathed of themselves you'l see,
Then start new made, fit, what they ought to be;
Hast! hast! you, that your eyes on rare sights feed:
For thus the golden triumph is decreed.

RHYME a a *

  The twice-born god, still gay and ever young,
With ivie crown'd, first leads the glorious throng:
He Ariadne's starry coronet
Designs for th' brighter beams of Amoret;
Then doth he broach his throne, and singing quaff
Unto her health his pipe of god-head off.

RHYME a a *

  Him follow the recanting, vexing Nine
Who, wise, now sing thy lasting fame in wine;
Whilst Phoebus, not from th' east, your feast t' adorn,
But from th' inspir'd Canaries, rose this morn.

RHYME a a *

  Now you are come, winds in their caverns sit,
And nothing breaths, but new-inlarged wit.
Hark!  One proclaims it piacle to be sad,
And th' people call 't religion to be mad.

RHYME a a *

  But now, as at a coronation,
When noyse, the guard, and trumpets are oreblown,
The silent commons mark their princes way,
And with still reverence both look and pray;
So they amaz'd expecting do adore,
And count the rest but pageantry before.

RHYME a a *

  Behold! an hoast of virgins, pure as th' air
In her first face, ere mists durst vayl her hair:
Their snowy vests, white as their whiter skin,
Or their far chaster whiter thoughts within:
Roses they breath'd and strew'd, as if the fine
Heaven did to earth his wreath of swets resign;
They sang aloud: "THRICE, OH THRICE HAPPY, THEY
THAT CAN, LIKE THESE, IN LOVE BOTH YIELD AND SWAY."

RHYME a a *

  Next herald Fame (a purple clowd her bears),
In an imbroider'd coat of eyes and ears,
Proclaims the triumph, and these lovers glory,
Then in a book of steel records the story.

RHYME a a *

  And now a youth of more than god-like form
Did th' inward minds of the dumb throng alarm;
All nak'd, each part betray'd unto the eye,
Chastly: for neither sex ow'd he or she.
And this was heav'nly love.  By his bright hand,
A boy of worse than earthly stuff did stand;
His bow broke, his fires out, and his wings clipt,
And the black slave from all his false flames stript;

RHYME a a *

Whose eyes were new-restor'd but to confesse
This day's bright blisse, and his own wretchednesse;
Who, swell'd with envy, bursting with disdain,
Did cry to cry, and weep them out again.

RHYME a a *

  And now what heav'n must I invade, what sphere
Rifle of all her stars, t' inthrone her there?
No!  Phoebus, by thy boys fate we beware
Th' unruly flames o'th' firebrand, thy carr;
Although, she there once plac'd, thou, Sun, shouldst see
Thy day both nobler governed and thee.
Drive on, Bootes, thy cold heavy wayn,
Then grease thy wheels with amber in the main,
And Neptune, thou to thy false Thetis gallop,
Appollo's set within thy bed of scallop:

RHYME a a *

Whilst Amoret, on the reconciled winds
Mounted, and drawn by six caelestial minds,
She armed was with innocence and fire,
That did not burn; for it was chast desire;
Whilst a new light doth gild the standers by.
Behold! it was a day shot from her eye;
Chafing perfumes oth' East did throng and sweat,
But by her breath they melting back were beat.

RHYME a a *

A crown of yet-nere-lighted stars she wore,
In her soft hand a bleeding heart she bore,

RHYME a a *

Then a wing'd crier thrice aloud did call:
LET FAME PROCLAIM THIS ONE GREAT PRISE FOR ALL.

RHYME a a *

  By her a lady that might be call'd fair,
And justly, but that Amoret was there,
Was pris'ner led; th' unvalewed robe she wore
Made infinite lay lovers to adore,
Who vainly tempt her rescue (madly bold)
Chained in sixteen thousand links of gold;
Chrysetta thus (loaden with treasures) slave
Did strow the pass with pearls, and her way pave.

RHYME a a *

  But loe! the glorious cause of all this high
True heav'nly state, brave Philamore, draws nigh,
Who, not himself, more seems himself to be,
And with a sacred extasie doth see!
Fix'd and unmov'd on 's pillars he doth stay,
And joy transforms him his own statua;
Nor hath he pow'r to breath [n]or strength to greet
The gentle offers of his Amoret,
Who now amaz'd at 's noble breast doth knock,
And with a kiss his gen'rous heart unlock;
Whilst she and the whole pomp doth enter there,
Whence her nor Time nor Fate shall ever tear.
But whether am I hurl'd? ho! back! awake
From thy glad trance: to thine old sorrow take!

RHYME a a *

Thus, after view of all the Indies store,
The slave returns unto his chain and oar;
Thus poets, who all night in blest heav'ns dwell,
Are call'd next morn to their true living hell;
So I unthrifty, to myself untrue,
Rise cloath'd with real wants, 'cause wanting you,
And what substantial riches I possesse,
I must to these unvalued dreams confesse.

RHYME a a *

  But all our clowds shall be oreblown, when thee
In our horizon bright once more we see;
When thy dear presence shall our souls new-dress,
And spring an universal cheerfulnesse;
When we shall be orewhelm'd in joy, like they
That change their night for a vast half-year's day.

RHYME a a *

  Then shall the wretched few, that do repine,
See and recant their blasphemies in wine;
Then shall they grieve, that thought I've sung too free,
High and aloud of thy true worth and thee,
And their fowl heresies and lips submit
To th' all-forgiving breath of Amoret;

RHYME a a *

And me alone their angers object call,
That from my height so miserably did fall;
And crie out my invention thin and poor,
Who have said nought, since I could say no more.

RHYME a a *

  Frank, wil't live unhandsomely? trust not too far
Thy self to waving seas: for what thy star,
Calculated by sure event, must be,
Look in the glassy-epithete, and see.

RHYME a a *

  Yet settle here your rest, and take your state,
And in calm halcyon's nest ev'n build your fate;
Prethee lye down securely, Frank, and keep
With as much no noyse the inconstant deep
As its inhabitants; nay, stedfast stand,
As if discover'd were a New-found-land,
Fit for plantation here.  Dream, dream still,
Lull'd in Dione's cradle; dream, untill
Horrour awake your sense, and you now find
Your self a bubbled pastime for the wind;
And in loose Thetis blankets torn and tost.
Frank, to undo thy self why art at cost?

RHYME a a *

  Nor be too confident, fix'd on the shore:
For even that too borrows from the store
Of her rich neighbour, since now wisest know
(And this to Galileo's judgement ow),
The palsie earth it self is every jot
As frail, inconstant, waveing, as that blot

RHYME a a *

We lay upon the deep, that sometimes lies
Chang'd, you would think, with 's botoms properties;
But this eternal, strange Ixion's wheel
Of giddy earth ne'er whirling leaves to reel,
Till all things are inverted, till they are
Turn'd to that antick confus'd state they were.

RHYME a a *

  Who loves the golden mean, doth safely want
A cobwebb'd cot and wrongs entail'd upon't;
He richly needs a pallace for to breed
Vipers and moths, that on their feeder feed;
The toy that we (too true) a mistress call,
Whose looking-glass and feather weighs up all;
And cloaths which larks would play with in the sun,
That mock him in the night, when 's course is run.

RHYME a a *

  To rear an edifice by art so high,
That envy should not reach it with her eye,
Nay, with a thought come neer it.  Wouldst thou know,
How such a structure should be raisd, build low.
The blust'ring winds invisible rough stroak
More often shakes the stubborn'st, prop'rest oak;
And in proud turrets we behold withal,
'Tis the imperial top declines to fall:
Nor does Heav'n's lightning strike the humble vales,
But high-aspiring mounts batters and scales.

RHYME a a *

  A breast of proof defies all shocks of Fate,
Fears in the best, hopes in worser state;
Heaven forbid that, as of old, time ever
Flourish'd in spring so contrary, now never.
That mighty breath, which blew foul Winter hither,
Can eas'ly puffe it to a fairer weather.
Why dost despair then, Frank?  Aeolus has
A Zephyrus as well as Boreas.

RHYME a a *

  'Tis a false sequel, soloecisme 'gainst those
Precepts by fortune giv'n us, to suppose
That, 'cause it is now ill, 't will ere be so;
Apollo doth not always bend his bow;
But oft, uncrowned of his beams divine,
With his soft harp awakes the sleeping Nine.

RHYME a a *

  In strictest things magnanimous appear,
Greater in hope, howere thy fate, then fear:
Draw all your sails in quickly, though no storm
Threaten your ruine with a sad alarm;
For tell me how they differ, tell me, pray,
A cloudy tempest and a too fair day?

TITLE

RHYME a a *

Behold! three sister-wonders, in whom met,
Distinct and chast, the splendrous counterfeit
Of Juno, Venus and the warlike Maid,
Each in their three divinities array'd;
The majesty and state of Heav'ns great Queen,
And when she treats the gods, her noble meen;
The sweet victorious beauties and desires
O' th' sea-born princess, empresse too of fires;
The sacred arts and glorious lawrels torn
From the fair brow o' th' goddesse father-born;
All these were quarter'd in each snowy coat,
With canton'd honours of their own, to boot.
Paris, by fate new-wak'd from his dead cell,
Is charg'd to give his doom impossible.
He views in each the brav'ry of all Ide;
Whilst one, as once three, doth his soul divide.
Then sighs so equally they're glorious all:
WHAT PITY THE WHOLE WORLD IS BUT ONE BALL!

RHYME a a *

  If Pliny, Lord High Treasurer of all
Natures exchequer shuffled in this our ball,
Peinture her richer rival did admire,
And cry'd she wrought with more almighty fire,
That judg'd the unnumber'd issue of her scrowl,
Infinite and various as her mother soul,
That contemplation into matter brought,
Body'd Ideas, and could form a thought.
Why do I pause to couch the cataract,
And the grosse pearls from our dull eyes abstract,
That, pow'rful Lilly, now awaken'd we
This new creation may behold by thee?

RHYME a a *

  To thy victorious pencil all, that eyes
And minds call reach, do bow.  The deities
Bold Poets first but feign'd, you do and make,
And from your awe they our devotion take.
Your beauteous pallet first defin'd Love's Queen,
And made her in her heav'nly colours seen;
You strung the bow of the Bandite her son,
And tipp'd his arrowes with religion.
Neptune as unknown as his fish might dwell,
But that you seat him in his throne of shell.

RHYME a a *

The thunderers artillery and brand,
You fancied Rome in his fantastick hand;
And the pale frights, the pains, and fears of hell
First from your sullen melancholy fell.
Who cleft th' infernal dog's loath'd head in three,
And spun out Hydra's fifty necks? by thee
As prepossess'd w' enjoy th' Elizian plain,
Which but before was flatter'd in our brain.
Who ere yet view'd airs child invisible,
A hollow voice, but in thy subtile skill?
Faint stamm'ring Eccho you so draw, that we
The very repercussion do see.
  Cheat-HOCUS-POCUS-Nature an assay
O' th' spring affords us: praesto, and away!
You all the year do chain her and her fruits,
Roots to their beds, and flowers to their roots.
Have not mine eyes feasted i' th' frozen Zone
Upon a fresh new-grown collation
Of apples, unknown sweets, that seem'd to me
Hanging to tempt as on the fatal tree,
So delicately limn'd I vow'd to try
My appetite impos'd upon my eye?
  You, sir, alone, fame, and all-conqu'ring rime,
File the set teeth of all-devouring time.

RHYME a a *

When beauty once thy vertuous paint hath on,
Age needs not call her to vermilion;
Her beams nere shed or change like th' hair of day,
She scatters fresh her everlasting ray.
Nay, from her ashes her fair virgin fire
Ascends, that doth new massacres conspire,
Whilst we wipe off the num'rous score of years,
And do behold our grandsire[s] as our peers;
With the first father of our house compare
We do the features of our new-born heir:
For though each coppied a son, they all
Meet in thy first and true original.
  Sacred! luxurious! what princesse not
But comes to you to have her self begot?
As, when first man was kneaded, from his side
Is born to's hand a ready-made-up bride.
He husband to his issue then doth play,
And for more wives remove the obstructed way:
So by your art you spring up in two noons
What could not else be form'd by fifteen suns;
Thy skill doth an'mate the prolifick flood,
And thy red oyl assimilates to blood.
  Where then, when all the world pays its respect,
Lies our transalpine barbarous neglect?
When the chast hands of pow'rful Titian
Had drawn the scourges of our God and man,
And now the top of th' altar did ascend
To crown the heav'nly piece with a bright end;
Whilst he, who in seven languages gave law,
And always, like the Sun, his subjects saw,
Did, in his robes imperial and gold,
The basis of the doubtful ladder hold.
O Charls! a nobler monument than that,
Which thou thine own executor wert at!
When to our huffling Henry there complain'd
A grieved earl, that thought his honor stain'd:

RHYME a a *

Away (frown'd he), for your own safeties, hast!
In one cheap hour ten coronets I'l cast;
But Holbeen's noble and prodigious worth
Onely the pangs of an whole age brings forth.
Henry! a word so princely saving said,
It might new raise the ruines thou hast made.
  O sacred Peincture! that dost fairly draw,
What but in mists deep inward Poets saw;
'Twixt thee and an Intelligence no odds,
That art of privy council to the gods!
By thee unto our eyes they do prefer
A stamp of their abstracted character;
Thou, that in frames eternity dost bind,
And art a written and a body'd mind;
To thee is ope the Juncto o' th' abysse,
And its conspiracy detected is;
Whilest their cabal thou to our sense dost show,
And in thy square paint'st what they threat below.
  Now, my best Lilly, let's walk hand in hand,
And smile at this un-understanding land;
Let them their own dull counterfeits adore,
Their rainbow-cloaths admire, and no more.
Within one shade of thine more substance is,
Than all their varnish'd idol-mistresses:
Whilst great Vasari and Vermander shall
Interpret the deep mystery of all,

RHYME a a *

And I unto our modern Picts shall show,
What due renown to thy fair art they owe
In the delineated lives of those,
By whom this everlasting lawrel grows.
Then, if they will not gently apprehend,
Let one great blot give to their fame an end;
Whilst no poetick flower their herse doth dresse,
But perish they and their effigies.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

    The day is curl'd about agen
    To view the splendor she was in;
        When first with hallow'd hands
The holy man knit the mysterious bands

RHYME a a *

When you two your contracted souls did move
        Like cherubims above,

RHYME a a *

As your un-understanding issue now,
In a glad sigh, a smile, a tear, a vow.

RHYME a a b b c c c d d 

    Tell me, O self-reviving Sun,
    In thy perigrination
        Hast thou beheld a pair
Twist their soft beams like these in their chast air?
As from bright numberlesse imbracing rayes
        Are sprung th' industrious dayes,
            So when they gaze,
And change their fertile eyes with the new morn,
A beauteous offspring is shot forth, not born.

RHYME a a b b c c c d d

    Be witness then, all-seeing Sun,
    Old spy, thou that thy race hast run
        In full five thousand rings;
To thee were ever purer offerings
Sent on the wings of Faith? and thou, O Night,
        Curtain of their delight,
            By these made bright,
Have you not mark'd their coelestial play,
And no more peek'd the gayeties of day?

RHYME a a b b c c c d d

    Come then, pale virgins, roses strow,
    Mingled with Ios as you go.
        The snowy ox is kill'd,
The fane with pros'lyte lads and lasses fill'd,
You too may hope the same seraphic joy,
        Old time cannot destroy,
            Nor fulnesse cloy;
When, like these, you shall stamp by sympathies
Thousands of new-born-loves with your chaste eyes.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  Twas a blith prince exchang'd five hundred crowns
For a fair turnip.  Dig, dig on, O clowns
But how this comes about, Fates, can you tell,
This more then Maid of Meurs, this miracle?
Let me not live, if I think not St. Mark
Has all the oar, as well as beasts, in's ark!
No wonder 'tis he marries the rich sea,
But to betroth him to nak'd Poesie,
And with a bankrupt muse to merchandise;
His treasures beams, sure, have put out his eyes.
His conquest at Lepanto I'l let pass,
When the sick sea with turbants night-cap'd was;
And now at Candie his full courage shown,
That wan'd to a wan line the half-half moon.
This is a wreath, this is a victorie,
Caesar himself would have look'd pale to see,
And in the height of all his triumphs feel
Himself but chain'd to such a mighty wheel.

RHYME a a *

  And now me thinks we ape Augustus state,
So ugly we his high worth imitate,
Monkey his godlike glories; so that we
Keep light and form with such deformitie,
As I have seen an arrogant baboon
With a small piece of glasse zany the sun.
  Rome to her bard, who did her battails sing,
Indifferent gave to poet and to king;
With the same lawrells were his temples fraught,
Who best had written, and who best had fought;
The self same fame they equally did feel,
One's style ador'd as much as t' other's steel.
A chain or fasces she could then afford
The sons of Phoebus, we, an axe or cord;
Sometimes a coronet was her renown,
And ours, the dear prerogative of a crown.
In marble statu'd walks great Lucan lay,
And now we walk, our own pale statua.
They the whole year with roses crownd would dine,
And we in all December know no wine;
Disciplin'd, dieted, sure there hath bin
Ods 'twixt a poet and a Capuchin.

RHYME a a *

  Of princes, women, wine, to sing I see
Is no apocrypha: for to rise high
Commend this olio of this lord 'tis fit:
Nay, ten to one, but you have part of it;
There is that justice left, since you maintain
His table, he should counter-feed your brain.
Then write how well he in his sack hath droll'd,
Straight there's a bottle to your chamber roll'd,
Or with embroider'd words praise his French suit,
Month hence 'tis yours with his mans, to boot;
Or but applaud his boss'd legs: two to none,
But he most nobly doth give you one.
Or spin an elegie on his false hair:
'Tis well, he cries, but living hair is dear.
Yet say that out of order ther's one curl,
And all the hopes of your reward you furl.
  Write a deep epick poem, and you may
As soon delight them as the opera,
Where they Diogenes thought in his tub,
Never so sowre did look so sweet a club.
  You that do suck for thirst your black quil's blood,
And chaw your labour'd papers for your food,
I will inform you how and what to praise,
Then skin y' in satin as young Lovelace plaies.
Beware, as you would your fierce guests, your lice,
To strip the cloath of gold from cherish'd vice;

RHYME a a *

Rather stand off with awe and reverend fear,
Hang a poetick pendant in her ear,
Court her as her adorers do their glasse,
Though that as much of a true substance has,
Whilst all the gall from your wild ink you drain,
The beauteous sweets of vertues cheeks to stain;
And in your livery let her be known,
As poor and tatter'd as in her own.
Nor write, nor speak you more of sacred writ,
But what shall force up your arrested wit.
Be chast; religion and her priests your scorn,
Whilst the vain fanes of idiots you adorn.
It is a mortal errour, you must know,
Of any to speak good, if he be so.
Rayl, till your edged breath flea your raw throat,
And burn remarks on all of gen'rous note;
Each verse be an indictment, be not free
Sanctity 't self from thy scurrility.
Libel your father, and your dam buffoon,
The noblest matrons of the isle lampoon,
Whilst Aretine and 's bodies you dispute,
And in your sheets your sister prostitute.
  Yet there belongs a sweetnesse, softnesse too,
Which you must pay, but first, pray, know to who.
There is a creature, (if I may so call
That unto which they do all prostrate fall)
Term'd mistress, when they'r angry; but, pleas'd high,
It is a princesse, saint, divinity.
To this they sacrifice the whole days light,
Then lye with their devotion all night;
For this you are to dive to the abysse,
And rob for pearl the closet of some fish.

RHYME a a *

Arabia and Sabaea you must strip
Of all their sweets, for to supply her lip;
And steal new fire from heav'n, for to repair
Her unfledg'd scalp with Berenice's hair;

RHYME a a *

As now you're in your coach: save you, bright sir,
(O, spare your thanks) is not this finer far
Then walk un-hided, when that every stone
Has knock'd acquaintance with your ankle-bone?

RHYME a a *

When your wing'd papers, like the last dove, nere
Return'd to quit you of your hope or fear,
But left you to the mercy of your host
And your days fare, a fortified toast.
  How many battels, sung in epick strain,
Would have procur'd your head thatch from the rain
Not all the arms of Thebes and Troy would get
One knife but to anatomize your meat,
A funeral elegie, with a sad boon,
Might make you (hei!) sip wine like maccaroon;

RHYME a a *

But if perchance there did a riband come,
Not the train-band so fierce with all its drum:
Yet with your torch you homeward would retire,
And heart'ly wish your bed your fun'ral pyre.
  With what a fury have I known you feed
Upon a contract and the hopes 't might speed!
Not the fair bride, impatient of delay,
Doth wish like you the beauties of that day;
Hotter than all the roasted cooks you sat
To dresse the fricace of your alphabet,
Which sometimes would be drawn dough anagrame,
Sometimes acrostick parched in the flame;
Then posies stew'd with sippets, mottos by:
Of minced verse a miserable pye.
How many knots slip'd, ere you twist their name
With th' old device, as both their heart's the same!
Whilst like to drills the feast in your false jaw
You would transmit at leisure to your maw;
Then after all your fooling, fat, and wine,
Glutton'd at last, return at home to pine.
  Tell me, O Sun, since first your beams did play
To night, and did awake the sleeping day;
Since first your steeds of light their race did start,
Did you ere blush as now?  Oh thou, that art
The common father to the base pissmire,
As well as great Alcides, did the fire
From thine owne altar which the gods adore,
Kindle the souls of gnats and wasps before?
  Who would delight in his chast eyes to see
Dormise to strike at lights of poesie?
Faction and envy now are downright rage.
Once a five-knotted whip there was, the stage:

RHYME a a *

The beadle and the executioner,
To whip small errors, and the great ones tear;
Now, as er'e Nimrod the first king, he writes:
That's strongest, th' ablest deepest bites.
The muses weeping fly their hill, to see
Their noblest sons of peace in mutinie.
Could there nought else this civil war compleat,
But poets raging with poetic heat,
Tearing themselves and th' endlesse wreath, as though
Immortal they, their wrath should be so, too?
And doubly fir'd Apollo burns to see
In silent Helicon a naumachie.
Parnassus hears these at his first alarms;
Never till now Minerva was in arms.
  O more then conqu'ror of the world, great Rome!
Thy heros did with gentleness or'e come
Thy foes themselves, but one another first,
Whilst envy stript alone was left, and burst.
The learn'd Decemviri, 'tis true, did strive,
But to add flames to keep their fame alive;
Whilst the eternal lawrel hung ith' air:
Nor of these ten sons was there found one heir.
Like to the golden tripod, it did pass
From this to this, till 't came to him, whose 'twas.
Caesar to Gallus trundled it, and he
To Maro: Maro, Naso, unto thee?
Naso to his Tibullus flung the wreath,
He to Catullus thus did bequeath.
This glorious circle, to another round,
At last the temples of their god it bound.
  I might believe at least, that each might have
A quiet fame contented in his grave,

RHYME a a *

Envy the living, not the dead, doth bite:
For after death all men receave their right.
If it be sacriledge for to profane
Their holy ashes, what is't then their flame?
He does that wrong unweeting or in ire,
As if one should put out the vestal fire.
  Let earths four quarters speak, and thou, Sun, bear
Now witnesse for thy fellow-traveller.
I was ally'd, dear Uncle, unto thee
In blood, but thou, alas, not unto me;
Your vertues, pow'rs, and mine differ'd at best,
As they whose springs you saw, the east and west.
Let me awhile be twisted in thy shine,
And pay my due devotions at thy shrine.
  Might learned Waynman rise, who went with thee
In thy heav'ns work beside divinity,
I should sit still; or mighty Falkland stand
To justifie with breath his pow'rful hand;
The glory, that doth circle your pale urn,
Might hallow'd still and undefiled burn:
But I forbear. Flames, that are wildly thrown
At sacred heads, curle back upon their own;
Sleep, heavenly Sands, whilst what they do or write,
Is to give God himself and you your right.
  There is not in my mind one sullen fate
Of old, but is concentred in our state:
Vandall ore-runners, Goths in literature:
Ploughmen that would Parnassus new-manure;
Ringers of verse that all-in-chime,
And toll the changes upon every rime.
A mercer now by th' yard does measure ore
An ode, which was but by the foot before;
Deals you an ell of epigram, and swears
It is the strongest and the finest wears.

RHYME a a *

No wonder, if a drawer verses rack,
If 'tis not his, 't may be the spir't of sack;
Whilst the fair bar-maid stroaks the muses teat,
For milk to make the posset up compleat.
  Arise, thou rev'rend shade, great Johnson, rise!
Break through thy marble natural disguise!
Behold a mist of insects, whose meer breath
Will melt thy hallow'd leaden house of death.
What was Crispinus, that you should defie
The age for him?  He durst not look so high
As your immortal rod, he still did stand
Honour'd, and held his forehead to thy brand.
These scorpions, with which we have to do,
Are fiends, not only small but deadly too.
Well mightst thou rive thy quill up to the back,
And scrue thy lyre's grave chords, untill they crack.
For though once hell resented musick, these
Divels will not, but are in worse disease.
How would thy masc'line spirit, father Ben,
Sweat to behold basely deposed men,
Justled from the prerog'tive of their bed,
Whilst wives are per'wig'd with their husbands head?
Each snatches the male quill from his faint hand,
And must both nobler write and understand,
He to her fury the soft plume doth bow:
O pen, nere truely justly slit till now!
Now as her self a poem she doth dresse.
And curls a line, as she would do a tresse;
Powders a sonnet as she does her hair,
Then prostitutes them both to publick aire.
Nor is 't enough, that they their faces blind
With a false dye; but they must paint their mind,

RHYME a a *

In meeter scold, and in scann'd order brawl,
Yet there's one Sapho left may save them all.
  But now let me recal my passion.
Oh! (from a noble father, nobler son)
You, that alone are the Clarissimi,
And the whole gen'rous state of Venice be,
It shall not be recorded Sanazar
Shall boast inthron'd alone this new made star;
You, whose correcting sweetnesse hath forbad
Shame to the good, and glory to the bad;
Whose honour hath ev'n into vertue tam'd
These swarms, that now so angerly I nam'd.
Forgive what thus distemper'd I indite:
For it is hard a SATYRE not to write.
Yet, as a virgin that heats all her blood
At the first motion of bad understood,
Then, at meer thought of fair chastity,
Straight cools again the tempests of her sea:
  So when to you I my devotions raise,
  All wrath and storms do end in calm and praise.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  Cleft as the top of the inspired hill,
Struggles the soul of my divided quill,
Whilst this foot doth the watry mount aspire,
That Sinai's living and enlivening fire,
Behold my powers storm'd by a twisted light
O' th' Sun and his, first kindled his sight,
And my lost thoughts invoke the prince of day,
My right to th' spring of it and him do pray.

RHYME a a *

  Say, happy youth, crown'd with a heav'nly ray
Of the first flame, and interwreathed bay,
Inform my soul in labour to begin,
Ios or Anthems, Poeans or a Hymne.
Shall I a hecatombe on thy tripod slay,
Or my devotions at thy altar pay?
While which t' adore th' amaz'd world cannot tell,
The sublime Urim or deep oracle.

RHYME a a *

  Heark! how the moving chords temper our brain,
As when Apollo serenades the main,
Old Ocean smooths his sullen furrow'd front,
And Nereids do glide soft measures on't;
Whilst th' air puts on its sleekest, smoothest face,
And each doth turn the others looking-glasse;
So by the sinewy lyre now strook we see
Into soft calms all storm of poesie,
And former thundering and lightning lines,
And verse now in its native lustre shines.

RHYME a a *

  How wert thou hid within thyself! how shut!
Thy pretious Iliads lock'd up in a nut!
Not hearing of thee thou dost break out strong,
Invading forty thousand men in song;
And we, secure in our thin empty heat,
Now find ourselves at once surprised and beat,
Whilst the most valiant of our wits now sue,
Fling down their arms, ask quarter too of you.

RHYME a a *

  So cabin'd up in its disguis'd coarse rust,
And scurf'd all ore with its unseemly crust,
The diamond, from 'midst the humbler stones,
Sparkling shoots forth the price of nations.
  Ye safe unriddlers of the stars, pray tell,
By what name shall I stamp my miracle?
Thou strange inverted Aeson, that leap'st ore
From thy first infancy into fourscore,

RHYME a a *

That to thine own self hast the midwife play'd,
And from thy brain spring'st forth the heav'nly maid!
Thou staffe of him bore him, that bore our sins,
Which, but set down, to bloom and bear begins!
Thou rod of Aaron, with one motion hurl'd,
Bud'st a perfume of flowers through the world!
You strange calcined seeds within a glass,
Each species Idaea spring'st as 'twas!
Bright vestal flame that, kindled but ev'n now,
For ever dost thy sacred fires throw!

RHYME a a *

  Thus the repeated acts of Nestor's age,
That now had three times ore out-liv'd the stage,
And all those beams contracted into one,
Alcides in his cradle hath outdone.

RHYME a a *

  But all these flour'shing hiews, with which I die
Thy virgin paper, now are vain as I:
For 'bove the poets Heav'n th' art taught to shine
And move, as in thy proper crystalline;
Whence that mole-hill Parnassus thou dost view,
And us small ants there dabbling in its dew;
Whence thy seraphic soul such hymns doth play,
As those to which first danced the first day,

RHYME a a *

Where with a thorn from the world-ransoming wreath
Thou stung, dost antiphons and anthems breathe;
Where with an Angels quil dip'd i' th' Lambs blood,
Thou sing'st our Pelicans all-saving flood,
And bath'st thy thoughts in ever-living streams,
Rench'd from earth's tainted, fat and heavy steams.
There move translated youth inroll'd i' th' quire,
That only doth with wholy lays inspire;
To whom his burning coach Eliah sent,
And th' royal prophet-priest his harp hath lent;
Which thou dost tune in consort unto those
Clap wings for ever at each hallow'd close:
Whilst we, now weak and fainting in our praise,
Sick echo ore thy Halleluiahs.

RHYME a a *

  I'm un-ore-clowded, too! free from the mist!
The blind and late Heaven's-eyes great Occulist,
Obscured with the false fires of his sceme,
Not half those souls are lightned by this theme.

RHYME a a *

  Unhappy murmurers, that still repine
(After th' Eclipse our Sun doth brighter shine),
Recant your false grief, and your true joys know;
Your blisse is endlesse, as you fear'd your woe!
What fort'nate flood is this! what storm of wit!
Oh, who would live, and not ore-whelm'd in it?

RHYME a a *

No more a fatal Deluge shall be hurl'd:
This inundation hath sav'd the world.
Once more the mighty Fletcher doth arise,
Roab'd in a vest studded with stars and eyes
Of all his former glories; his last worth
Imbroiderd with what yet light ere brought forth.
See! in this glad farewel he doth appear
Stuck with the Constellations of his Sphere,

RHYME a a *

Fearing we numb'd fear'd no flagration,
Hath curl'd all his fires in this one ONE:
Which (as they guard his hallowed chast urn)
The dull aproaching hereticks do burn.

RHYME a a *

  Fletcher at his adieu carouses thus
To the luxurious ingenious,
As Cleopatra did of old out-vie,
Th' un-numb'red dishes of her Anthony,
When (he at th' empty board a wonderer)
Smiling she calls for pearl and vinegar,
First pledges him in's BREATH, then at one draught
Swallows THREE KINGDOMS of To HIS BEST THOUGHT.

RHYME a a *

  Hear, oh ye valiant writers, and subscribe;
(His force set by) y'are conquer'd by this bribe.
Though you hold out your selves, he doth commit
In this a sacred treason in your wit;
Although in poems desperately stout,
Give up: this overture must buy you out.

RHYME a a *

  Thus with some prodigal us'rer 't doth fare,
That keeps his gold still vayl'd, his steel-breast bare;
That doth exceed his coffers all but's eye,
And his eyes' idol the wing'd Deity:
That cannot lock his mines with half the art
As some rich beauty doth his wretched heart;
Wild at his real poverty, and so wise
To win her, turns himself into a prise.
First startles her with th' emerald Mad-Lover
The ruby Arcas, least she should recover
Her dazled thought, a Diamond he throws,
Splendid in all the bright Aspatia's woes;
Then to sum up the abstract of his store,
He flings a rope of Pearl of forty more.
Ah, see! the stagg'ring virtue faints! which he
Beholding, darts his Wealths Epitome;
And now, to consummate her wished fall,
Shows this one Carbuncle, that darkens all.

TITLE

RHYME a b a b c c 

What means this stately tablature,
  The ballance of thy streins,
Which seems, in stead of sifting pure,
  T' extend and rack thy veins?
Thy Odes first their own harmony did break:
For singing, troth, is but in tune to speak.

RHYME a b a b c c 

Nor trus thy golden feet and wings.
  It may be thought false melody
T' ascend to heav'n by silver strings;
  This is Urania's heraldry.
Thy royal poem now we may extol,
As truly Luna blazon'd upon Sol.

RHYME a b a b c c 

As when Amphion first did call
  Each listning stone from's den;
And with his lute did form the wall,
  But with his words the men;
So in your twisted numbers now you thus
Not only stocks perswade, but ravish us.

RHYME a b a b c c 

Thus do your ayrs eccho ore
  The notes and anthems of the sphaeres,
And their whole consort back restore,
  As if earth too would blesse Heav'ns ears;
But yet the spoaks, by which they scal'd so high,
Gamble hath wisely laid of UT RE MI.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

Sir, how unravell'd is the golden fleece:
Men, that could only fool at FOX AND GEESE,
Are new-made polititians by thy book,
And both can judge and conquer with a look.
The hidden fate of princes you unfold;
Court, clergy, commons, by your law control'd.
Strange, serious wantoning all that they
Bluster'd and clutter'd for, you PLAY.

RHYME a a *

  Tis not from cheap thanks thinly to repay
Th' immortal grove of thy fair-order'd bay
Thou planted'st round my humble fane, that I
Stick on thy hearse this sprig of Elegie:
Nor that your soul so fast was link'd in me,
That now I've both, since't has forsaken thee:
That thus I stand a Swisse before thy gate,
And dare, for such another, time and fate.
Alas! our faiths made different essays,
Our Minds and Merits brake two several ways;
Justice commands I wake thy learned dust,
And truth, in whom all causes center must.

RHYME a a *

  Behold! when but a youth, thou fierce didst whip
Upright the crooked age, and gilt vice strip;
A senator praetext, that knew'st to sway
The fasces, yet under the ferula;
Rank'd with the sage, ere blossome did thy chin,
Sleeked without, and hair all ore within,
Who in the school could'st argue as in schools:
Thy lessons were ev'n academie rules.
So that fair Cam saw thee matriculate,
At once a tyro and a graduate.

RHYME a a *

  At nineteen, what ESSAYES have we beheld!
That well might have the book of Dogmas swell'd;
Tough Paradoxes, such as Tully's, thou
Didst heat thee with, when snowy was thy brow,
When thy undown'd face mov'd the Nine to shake,
And of the Muses did a decad make.
What shall I say? by what allusion bold?
NONE BUT THE SUN WAS ERE SO YOUNG AND OLD.

RHYME a a *

  Young reverend shade, ascend awhile! whilst we
Now celebrate this posthume victorie,
This victory, that doth contract in death
Ev'n all the pow'rs and labours of thy breath.
Like the Judean Hero, in thy fall
Thou pull'st the house of learning on us all.
And as that soldier conquest doubted not,
Who but one splinter had of Castriot,

RHYME a a *

But would assault ev'n death so strongly charmd,
And naked oppose rocks, with his bone arm'd;
So we, secure in this fair relique, stand
The slings and darts shot by each profane hand.
These soveraign leaves thou left'st us are become
Sear clothes against all Times infection.

RHYME a a *

  Sacred Hierocles, whose heav'nly thought
First acted ore this comment, ere it wrote,
Thou hast so spirited, elixir'd, we
Conceive there is a noble alchymie,
That's turning of this gold to something more
Pretious than gold, we never knew before.
Who now shall doubt the metempsychosis
Of the great Author, that shall peruse this?
Let others dream thy shadow wandering strays
In th' Elizian mazes hid with bays;
Or that, snatcht up in th' upper region,
'Tis kindled there a constellation;
I have inform'd me, and declare with ease
THY SOUL IS FLED INTO HIEROCLES.

TITLE

RHYME a a *

  To pay my love to thee, and pay it so,
As honest men should what they justly owe,
Were to write better of thy life, then can
The assured'st pen of the most worthy man.
Such was thy composition, such thy mind,
Improv'd from vertue, and from vice refin'd;
Thy youth an abstract of the world's best parts,
Invr'd to arms and exercis'd to arts,
Which, with the vigour of a man, became
Thine and thy countries piramids of fame.
Two glorious lights to guide our hopeful youth
Into the paths of honour and of truth.
  These parts (so rarely met) made up in thee,
What man should in his full perfection be:

RHYME a a *

So sweet a temper into every sence
And each affection breath'd an influence,
As smooth'd them to a calme, which still withstood
The ruffling passions of untamed blood,
Without a wrinckle in thy face, to show
Thy stable breast could a disturbance know.
In fortune humble, constant in mischance;
Expert in both, and both serv'd to advance
Thy name by various trialls of thy spirit,
And give the testimony of thy merit.
Valiant to envy of the bravest men,
And learned to an undisputed pen;
Good as the best in both and great, but yet
No dangerous courage nor offensive wit.
These ever serv'd the one for to defend,
The other, nobly to advance thy friend,

RHYME a a *

Under which title I have found my name
Fix'd in the living chronicle of fame
To times succeeding: yet I hence must go,
Displeas'd I cannot celebrate thee so.
But what respect, acknowledgement and love,
What these together, when improv'd, improve:
Call it by any name (so it express
Ought like a tribute to thy worthyness,
And may my bounden gratitude become)
LOVELACE, I offer at thy honour'd tomb.
  And though thy vertues many friends have bred
To love thee liveing, and lament thee dead,
In characters far better couch'd then these,
Mine will not blott thy fame, nor theirs encrease.
'Twas by thine own great merits rais'd so high,
That, maugre time and fate, it shall not dye.

RHYME a a *

The rose and other fragrant flowers smell best,
When they are pluck'd and worn in hand or brest,
So this fair flow'r of vertue, this rare bud
Of wit, smells now as fresh as when he stood;
And in these Posthume-Poems lets us know,
He on the banks of Helicon did grow.
The beauty of his soul did correspond
With his sweet out-side: nay, it went beyond.

RHYME a a *

  Lovelace, the minion of the Thespian dames,
  Apollo's darling, born with Enthean flames,
  Which in his numbers wave and shine so clear,
  As sparks refracted from rich gemmes appear;
Such flames that may inspire, and atoms cast,
To make new poets not like him in hast.

RHYME a a *

  Pardon (blest shade), that I thus crowd to be
'Mong those that sin unto thy memory,
And that I think unvalu'd reliques spread,
And am the first that pillages the dead;
Since who would be thy mourner as befits,
But an officious sacriledge commits.
How my tears strive to do thee fairer right,
And from the characters divide my sight.
Untill it (dimmer) a new torrent swells,
And what obscur'd it, falls my spectacles

RHYME a a *

As they would not be wept, but weep the eyes,
But the weak bubbles of mortalitie;

RHYME a a *

Until our griefs are drawn up by the Sun,
And that (too) drop the exhalation.
How in thy dust we humble now our pride,
And bring thee a whole people mortifi'd!
For who expects not death, now thou art gone,
Shows his low folly, not religion.
  Can the poetick heaven still hold on
The golden dance, when the first mover's gon?

RHYME a a *

And the snatch'd fires (which circularly hurl'd)
In their strong rapture glimmer to the world,
And not stupendiously rather rise
The tapers unto these solemnities?
  Can the chords move in tune, when thou dost dye,
At once their universal harmony?
But where Apollo's harp (with murmur) laid,
Had to the stones a melody convey'd,

RHYME a a *

They by some pebble summon'd would reply
In loud results to every battery;
Thus do we come unto thy marble room,
To eccho from the musick of thy tombe.
  May we dare speak thee dead, that wouldest be
In thy remove only not such as we?
No wonder, the advance is from us hid;
Earth could not lift thee higher then it did!
And thou, that didst grow up so ever nigh,
Art but now gone to immortality!
So near to where thou art, thou here didst dwell,
The change to thee is less perceptible.

RHYME a a *

  Thy but unably-comprehending clay,
To what could not be circumscrib'd, gave way,
And the more spacious tennant to return,
Crack'd (in the two restrain'd estate) its urn.
That is but left to a successive trust;
The soul's first buried in his bodies dust.
  Thou more thy self, now thou art less confin'd,
Art not concern'd in what is left behind;
While we sustain the losse that thou art gone,
Un-essenc'd in the separation;
And he that weeps thy funerall, in one
Is pious to the widdow'd nation.
  And under what (now) covert must I sing,
Secure as if beneath a cherub's wing;
When thou hast tane thy flight hence, and art nigh
In place to some related hierarchie,
Where a bright wreath of glories doth but set
Upon thy head an equal coronet;
And thou, above our humble converse gon,
Canst but be reach'd by contemplation.
  Our lutes (as thine was touch'd) were vocall by,
And thence receiv'd the soul by sympathy,
That did above the threds inspiring creep,
And with soft whispers broke the am'rous sleep;
Which now no more (mov'd with the sweet surprise)
Awake into delicious rapsodies;

RHYME a a *

But with their silent mistress do comply,
And fast in undisturbed slumbers lye.
  How from thy first ascent thou didst disperse
A blushing warmth throughout the universe,
While near the morns Lucasta's fires did glow,
And to the earth a purer dawn did throw.
We ever saw thee in the roll of fame
Advancing thy already deathless name;
And though it could but be above its fate,
Thou would'st, however, super-errogate.
  Now as in Venice, when the wanton State
Before a Spaniard spread their crowded plate,
He made it the sage business of his eye
To find the root of the wild treasury;
So learn't from that exchequer but the more
To rate his masters vegetable ore.

RHYME a a *

Thus when the Greek and Latin muse we read,
As but the cold inscriptions of the dead,
We to advantage then admired thee,
Who did'st live on still with thy poesie;
And in our proud enjoyments never knew
The end of the unruly wealth that grew.
But now we have the last dear ingots gain'd,
And the free vein (however rich) is drein'd;
Though what thou hast bequeathed us, no space
Of this worlds span of time shall ere embrace.
But as who sometimes knew not to conclude
Upon the waters strange vicissitude,
Did to the ocean himself commit,
That it might comprehend what could not it,
So we in our endeavours must out-done
Be swallowed up within thy Helicon.
  Thou, who art layd up in thy precious cave,
And from the hollow spaces of thy grave,

RHYME a a *

We still may mourn in tune, but must alone
Hereafter hope to quaver out a grone;
No more the chirping sonnets with shrill notes
Must henceforth volley from our treble throtes;
But each sad accent must be humour'd well
To the deep solemn organ of thy cell.
  Why should some rude hand carve thy sacred stone,
And there incise a cheap inscription?
When we can shed the tribute of our tears
So long, till the relenting marble wears;
Which shall such order in their cadence keep,
That they a native epitaph shall weep;
Untill each letter spelt distinctly lyes,
Cut by the mystick droppings of our eyes.

RHYME a a *

Me thinks, when kings, prophets, and poets dye,
We should not bid men weep, nor ask them why,
But the great loss should by instinct impair
The nations, like a pestilential ayr,
And in a moment men should feel the cramp
Of grief, like persons poyson'd with a damp.
All things in nature should their death deplore,
And the sun look less lovely than before;
The fixed stars should change their constant spaces,
And comets cast abroad their flagrant faces.
Yet still we see princes and poets fall
Without their proper pomp of funerall;
Men look about, as if they nere had known
The poets lawrell or the princes crown;

RHYME a a *

Lovelace hath long been dead, and he can be
Oblig'd to no man for an elegie.
Are you all turn'd to silence, or did he
Retain the only sap of poesie,
That kept all branches living? must his fall
Set an eternal period upon all?
So when a spring-tide doth begin to fly
From the green shoar, each neighbouring creek grows dry.
But why do I so pettishly detract
An age that is so perfect, so exact?
In all things excellent, it is a fame
Or glory to deceased Lovelace name:
For he is weak in wit, who doth deprave
Anothers worth to make his own seem brave;

RHYME a a *

And this was not his aim: nor is it mine.
I now conceive the scope of their designe,
Which is with one consent to bring and burn
Contributary incence on his urn,
Where each mans love and fancy shall be try'd,
As when great Johnson or brave Shakespear dyed.
Wits must unite: for ignorance, we see,
Hath got a great train of artillerie:
Yet neither shall nor can it blast the fame
And honour of deceased Lovelace name,
Whose own LUCASTA can support his credit
Amongst all such who knowingly have read it;
But who that praise can by desert discusse
Due to those poems that are posthumous?

RHYME a a *

And if the last conceptions are the best,
Those by degrees do much transcend the rest;
So full, so fluent, that they richly sute
With Orpheus lire, or with Anacreons lute,
And he shall melt his wing, that shall aspire
To reach a fancy or one accent higher.
Holland and France have known his nobler parts,
And found him excellent in arms and arts.
To sum up all, few men of fame but know,
He was TAM MARTI, QUAM MERCURIO.

RHYME a a *

  Thy pious hand, planting fraternal bayes,
Deserving is of most egregious praise;
Since 'tis the organ doth to us convey
From a descended sun so bright a ray.
Clear spirit! how much we are bound to thee
For this so great a liberalitie,
The truer worth of which by much exceeds
The western wealth, which such contention breeds!
Like the Infusing-God, from the well-head
Of poesie you have besprinkled
Our brows with holy drops, the very last,
Which from your Brother's happy pen were cast:

RHYME a a *

Yet as the last, the best; such matchlesse skill
From his divine alembick did distill.
Your honour'd Brother in the Elyzian shade
Will joy to know himself a laureat made
By your religious care, and that his urn
Doth him on earth immortal life return.
Your self you have a good physician shown
To his much grieved friends and to your own,

RHYME a a *

In giving this elixir'd medecine,
For greatest grief a soveraign anodine.
  Sir, from your Brother y' have convey'd us bliss;
Now, since your genius so concurs with his,
Let your own quill our next enjoyments frame;
All must be rich, that's grac'd with Lovelace name.

RHYME a a *

Great son of Mars, and of Minerva too!
With what oblations must we come to woo
Thy sacred soul to look down from above,
And see how much thy memory we love,
Whose happy pen so pleased amorous ears,
And, lifting bright LUCASTA to the sphears,
Her in the star-bespangled orb did set
Above fair Ariadnes coronet,
Leaving a pattern to succeeding wits,
By which to sing forth their Pythonick fits.

RHYME a a *

Shall we bring tears and sighs? no, no! then we
Should but bemone our selves for loosing thee,
Or else thy happiness seem to deny,
Or to repine at thy felicity.
Then, whilst we chant out thine immortal praise,
Our offerings shall be onely sprigs of bays;
And if our tears will needs their brinks out-fly,
We'l weep them forth into an elegy,
To tell the world, how deep fates wounded wit,
When Atropos the lovely Lovelace hit!
How th' active fire, which cloath'd thy gen'rous mind,
Consum'd the water, and the earth calcin'd

RHYME a a *

Untill a stronger heat by death was given,
Which sublimated thy poor soul to heaven.
Thou knew'st right well to guide the warlike steed,
And yet could'st court the Muses with full speed
And such success, that the inspiring Nine
Have fill'd their Thespian fountain so with brine.
Henceforth we can expect no lyrick lay,
But biting satyres through the world must stray.
Bellona joyns with fair Erato too,
And with the Destinies do keep adoe,
Whom thus she queries: could not you awhile
Reprieve his life, until another file
Of poems such as these had been drawn up?
The fates reply'd that thou wert taken up,
A sacrifice unto the deities;
Since things most perfect please their holy eyes,
And that no other victim could be found
With so much learning and true virtue crown'd.
Since it is so, in peace for ever rest;
Tis very just that God should have the best.

RHYME a a *

Lovelace is dead! then let the world return
To its first chaos, mufled in its urn;
The stars and elements together lye,
Drench'd in perpetual obscurity,
And the whole machine in confusion be,
As immethodick as an anarchie.
May the great eye of day weep out his light,
Pale Cynthia leave the regiment of night,
The galaxia, all in sables dight,
Send forth no corruscations to our sight,
The Sister-Graces and the sacred Nine,
Statu'd with grief, attend upon his shrine,
Whose worth, whose loss, should we but truly rate,
'Twould puzzle our arithmetic to state
Th' accompt of vertu's so transcendent high,
Number and value reach infinity.

RHYME a a *

Did I pronounce him dead! no, no! he lives,
And from his aromatique cell he gives
Spice-breathed fumes, whose odoriferous scent
(In zephre-gales which never can be spent)
Doth spread it self abroad, and much out-vies
The eastern bird in her self-sacrifice;
Or Father Phoebus, who to th' world derives
Such various and such multiformed lives,
Took notice that brave Lovelace did inspire
The universe with his Promethean fire,
And snatcht him hence, before his thread was spun,
En'ving that here should be another Sun.   

RHYME a a *

Tread (reader) gently, gently ore
The happy dust beneath this floor:
For in this narrow vault is set
An alablaster cabinet,
Wherein both arts and arms were put,
Like Homers Iliads in a nut,
Till Death with slow and easie pace
Snatcht the bright jewell from the case;
And now, transform'd, he doth arise
A constellation in the skies,
Teaching the blinded world the way,
Through night, to startle into day:
And shipwrackt shades, with steady hand,
He steers unto th' Elizian land.

