from Representative Poetry On-line, Blackmask , and Poetry Archive
Andrew Marvell
1621-1678
A Dialogue between the Soul and Body.
A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda.
A Dialogue, Between The Resolved Soul, and Created Pleasure.
A Garden, Written After The Civil Wars
A Letter To Doctor Ingelo, Then With My Lord Whitlock, Amba
A Poem upon the Death of O. C.
Ametas and Thestylis making Hay-Ropes.
An Horatian Ode upon Cromwel's Return from Ireland.
Dignissimo Suo Amico Doctori Wittie. De Translatione Vulgi
Epigramma In Duos Montes Amosclivum Et Bilboreum
First. [Th' Astrologers own Eyes are set]
Fleckno, an English Priest at Rome.
In Legationem Domini Oliveri St. John Ad Provincias Foederatas
In The French Translation Of Lucan, By Monsieur De Brebeuf Are These Verses
Last Instructions To A Painter
On Mr. Milton's Paradise lost.
Second Song. [Phillis, Tomalin, away]
Senec. Traged. ex Thyeste Chor. 2.
The First Anniversary of the Government under O. C.
The Nymph complaining for the death of her Faun.
The Picture of little T. C. in a Prospect of Flowers.
To His Noble Friend, Mr Richard Lovelace, Upon His Poems
To his worthy Friend Doctor Witty upon his Translation of the Popular Errors.
Two Songs at the Marriage of the Lord Fauconberg and the Ludy Mary Cromwell.
Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax.
Upon the Hill and Grove at Bill-borow. To the Lord Fairfax.
Notes on Life and Works
All the poems of Marvell were published (three years after his death) in Miscellaneous Poems, 1681. Most of them cannot be accurately dated.
Soul.
O who shall,
from this Dungeon, raise
A Soul
inslav'd so many wayes?
With bolts
of Bones, that fetter'd stands
In Feet; and
manacled in Hands.
Here blinded
with an Eye; and there
Deaf with
the drumming of an Ear.
A Soul hung
up, as 'twere, in Chains
Of Nerves,
and Arteries, and Veins.
Tortur'd,
besides each other part,
In a vain Head, and
double Heart.
Body.
O who shall me deliver
whole,
From bonds of this
Tyrannic Soul?
Which, stretcht upright,
impales me so,
That mine own Precipice
I go;
And warms and moves this
needless Frame:
(A Fever could but do
the same.)
And, wanting where its
spight to try,
Has made me live to let
me dye.
A Body that could never
rest,
Since this ill Spirit it
possest.
Soul.
What Magick could me
thus confine
Within anothers Grief to
pine?
Where whatsoever it
complain,
I feel, that cannot
feel, the pain.
And all my Care its self
employes,
That to preserve, which
me destroys:
Constrain'd not only to
indure
Diseases, but, whats
worse, the Cure:
And ready oft the Port
to gain,
Am Shipwrackt into
Health again.
Body.
But Physick yet could
never reach
The Maladies Thou me
dost teach;
Whom first the Cramp of
Hope does Tear:
And then the Palsie
Shakes of Fear.
The Pestilence of Love
does heat:
Or Hatred's hidden Ulcer
eat.
Joy's chearful Madness
does perplex:
Or Sorrow's other
Madness vex.
Which Knowledge forces
me to know;
And Memory will not
foregoe.
What but a Soul could
have the wit
To build me up for Sin
so fit?
So Architects do square
and hew,
Green Trees that in the
Forest grew.
Dorinda.
When Death,
shall snatch us from these Kids,
And shut up
our divided Lids,
Tell me Thrisis,
prethee do,
Whither thou
and I must go. Thyrsis.
To the
Elizium: [Dorinda] oh where i'st?
Thyrsis.
A Chast
Soul, can never mis't.
Dorinda.
I know no
way, but one, our home
Is our
Elizium?
Thyrsis.
Cast thine
Eye to yonder Skie,
There the milky way doth
lye;
'Tis a sure but rugged
way,
That leads to
Everlasting day.
Dorinda.
There Birds may nest,
but how can I,
That have no wings and
cannot fly.
Thyrsis.
Do not sigh (fair Nimph)
for fire
Hath no wings, yet doth
aspire
Till it hit, against the
pole,
Heaven's the Center of
the Soul.
Dorinda.
But in Elizium how do
they
Pass Eternity away.
Thyrsis.
Ho, ther's, neither hope
nor fear
Ther's no Wolf, no Fox,
no Bear.
No need of Dog to fetch
our stray,
Our Lightfoot we may
give away;
And there most sweetly
thine Ear
May feast with Musick of
the Sphear.
[Dorinda.]
How I my future state
By silent thinking,
Antidate:
I preethe let us spend,
our time come,
In talking of Elizium.
Thyrsis.
Then I'le go on: There,
sheep are full
Of softest grass, and
softest wooll;
There, birds sing
Consorts, garlands grow,
Cold winds do whisper,
springs do flow.
There, alwayes is, a
rising Sun,
And day is ever, but
begun.
Shepheards there, bear
equal sway,
And every Nimph's a
Queen of May.
Dorinda.
Ah me, ah me. Thyrsis.
Dorinda, why
do'st Cry?
Dorinda.
I'm sick, I'm sick, and
fain would dye:
Convinc't me now, that
this is true;
By bidding, with mee,
all adieu
I cannot live, without
thee, I
Will for thee, much more
with thee dye.
Dorinda.
Then let us give Corellia
charge o'th Sheep,
And thou and I'le pick
poppies and them steep
In wine, and drink on't
even till we weep,
So shall we smoothly
pass away in sleep.
Courage my Soul, now learn to wield
The weight
of thine immortal Shield.
Close on thy
Head thy Helmet bright.
Ballance thy
Sword against the Fight.
See where an
Army, strong as fair,
With silken
Banners spreads the air.
Now, if thou
bee'st that thing Divine,
In this
day's Combat let it shine:
And shew
that Nature wants an Art
To conquer one resolved
Heart.
Pleasure.
Welcome the Creations
Guest,
Lord of Earth, and
Heavens Heir.
Lay aside that Warlike
Crest,
And of Nature's banquet
share:
Where the Souls of
fruits and flow'rs
Stand prepar'd to
heighten yours.
Soul.
I sup above, and cannot
stay
To bait so long upon the
way.
Pleasure.
On these downy Pillows
lye,
Whose soft Plumes will
thither fly:
On these Roses strow'd
so plain
Lest one Leaf thy Side
should strain.
Soul.
My gentler Rest is on a
Thought,
Conscious of doing what
I ought.
Pleasure.
If thou bee'st with
Perfumes pleas'd,
Such as oft the Gods
appeas'd,
Thou in fragrant Clouds
shalt show
Like another God below.
Soul.
A Soul that knowes not
to presume
Is Heaven's and its own
perfume.
Pleasure.
Every thing does seem to
vie
Which should first
attract thine Eye:
But since none deserves
that grace,
In this Crystal view thy
face.
Soul.
When the Creator's skill
is priz'd,
The rest is all but
Earth disguis'd.
Pleasure.
Heark how Musick then
prepares
For thy Stay these
charming Aires;
Which the posting Winds
recall,
And suspend the Rivers
Fall.
Soul.
Had I but any time to
lose,
On this I would it all
dispose.
Cease Tempter. None can
chain a mind
Whom this sweet Chordage
cannot bind.
Chorus.
Earth cannot shew so
brave a Sight
As when a single Soul
does fence
The Batteries of
alluring Sense,
And Heaven views it with
delight.
Then
persevere: for still new Charges sound:
And if
thou overcom'st thou shalt be crown'd.
Pleasure.
All this fair, and cost,
and sweet,
Which
scatteringly doth shine,
Shall within one Beauty
meet,
And
she be only thine.
Soul.
If things of Sight such
Heavens be,
What Heavens are those
we cannot see?
Pleasure.
Where so e're thy Foot
shall go
The
minted Gold shall lie;
Till thou purchase all
below,
And
want new Worlds to buy.
Soul.
Wer't not a price who'ld
value Gold?
And that's worth nought
that can be sold.
Pleasure.
Wilt thou all the Glory
have
That
War or Peace commend?
Half the World shall be
thy Slave
The
other half thy Friend.
Soul.
What Friends, if to my
self untrue?
What Slaves, unless I
captive you?
Pleasure.
Thou shalt know each
hidden Cause;
And
see the future Time:
Try what depth the
Centre draws;
And
then to Heaven climb.
Soul.
None thither mounts by
the degree
Of Knowledge, but
Humility.
Chorus.
Triumph, triumph,
victorious Soul;
The World has not one
Pleasure more:
The rest does lie beyond
the Pole,
And is thine everlasting
Store.
SEE how the flowers, as at parade,
Under their colours stand display'd:
Each regiment in order grows,
That of the tulip, pink, and rose.
But when the vigilant patrol
Of stars walks round about the pole,
Their leaves, that to the stalks are curl'd,
Seem to their staves the ensigns furl'd.
Then in some flower's beloved hut
Each bee, as sentinel, is shut,
And sleeps so too; but if once stirr'd,
She runs you through, nor asks the word.
O thou, that dear and happy Isle,
The garden of the world erewhile,
Thou Paradise of the four seas
Which Heaven planted us to please,
But, to exclude the world, did guard
With wat'ry if not flaming sword;
What luckless apple did we taste
To make us mortal and thee waste!
Unhappy! shall we never more
That sweet militia restore,
When gardens only had their towers,
And all the garrisons were flowers;
When roses only arms might bear,
And men did rosy garlands wear?
Quid facis Arctoi
charissime transfuga coeli,
Ingele, proh sero cognite, rapte cito?
Num satis Hybernum defendis pellibus Astrum,
Qui modo tam mollis nec bene firmus eras?
Quae Gentes Hominum, quae sit Natura Locorum,
Sint Homines, potius dic ibi sintre Loca?
Num gravis horrisono Polus obruit omnia lapsu,
Jungitur & praeceps Mundas utraque nive?
An melius canis horrescit Campus Aristis,
Amuius Agricolis & redit Orbe labor?
Incolit, ut fertur, saevam Gens mitior Oram,
Pace vigil, Bello strenua, justa Foro.
Quin ibi sunt Urbes, atque alta Palatia Regum,
Musarumque domus, & sua Templa Deo.
Nam regit Imperio populum Christina ferocem,
Et dare jura potest regia Virgo viris.
Utque trahit rigidum Magnes Aquilone Metallum,
Gandet eam Soboles ferrea sponte sequii.
Dic quantum liceat fallaci credere Famae,
Invida num taceat plura, sonet ve loquax.
At, si vera fides, Mundi melioris ab ortu,
Saecula Christinae nulla tulere parem.
Ipsa licet redeat (nostri decus orbis) Eliza,
Qualis nostra tamen quantaque Eliza fuit.
Vidimus Effigiem, mistasque Coloribus Umbras:
Sic quoque Sceptripotens, sic quoque visa Dea.
Augustam decorant (raro concordia) frontem
Majestas & Amor, Forma Pudorque simul.
Ingens Virgineo spirat Gustavus in ore:
Agnoscas animos, fulmineumque Patrem.
Nulla suo nituit tam lucida Stella sub Axe;
Non Ea quae meruit Crimine Nympha Polum.
Ah quoties pavidum demisit conscia
Lumen,
Utque suae timuit Parrhasis Ora Deae!
Et, simulet falsa ni Pictor imagine Vultus,
Delia tam similis nec fuit ipsa sibi.
Ni quod inornati Triviae sint forte Capilli,
Sollicita sed buic distribuantur Acu.
Scilicet ut nemo est illa reverentior aequi;
Haud ipsas igitur fert sine Lege Comas.
Gloria sylvarum pariter communis utrique
Est, & perpetuae Virginitatis Honos.
Sic quoque Nympharum supereminet Agmina collo,
Fertque Choros Cynthi per Juga, per Nives.
Haud aliter pariles Ciliorum contrahit Arcus
Acribus ast Oculis tela subesse putes.
Luminibus dubites an straverit illa Sagittis
Quae foret exuviis ardua colla Feram.
Alcides humeros coopertus pelle Nemaea
Haud ita labentis sustulit Orbis Onus.
Heu quae Cervices subnectunt Pectora tales.
Frigidiora Gelu, candidiora Nive.
Caetera non licuit, sed vix ea tota, videre;
Nam chau fi rigido stant Adamante Sinus.
Seu chlamys Artifici nimium succurrerit auso,
Sicque imperfectum fugerit impar Opus:
Sive tribus spernat Victrix certare Deabus,
Et pretium formae nec spoliata ferat.
Junonis properans & clara Trophaea Minervae;
Mollia nam Veneris praemia nosse piget.
Hinc neque consuluit fugitivae prodiga Formae,
Nectimuit seris invigilasse Libris.
Insommem quoties Nymphae monuere sequaces
Decedet roseis heu color ille Genis.
Jamque vigil leni cessit Philomela sopori,
Omnibus & Sylvis conticuere Ferae.
Acrior illa tamen pergit, Curasque fatigat:
Tanti est doctorum volvere scripta Virum.
Et liciti quae sint moderamina discere Regni,
Quid fuerit, quid sit, noscere quicquid erit.
Sic quod in ingenuas Gothus peccaverit Artes
Vindicat, & studiis expiat Una suis.
Exemplum dociles imitantur nobile Gentes,
Et geminis Infans imbuit Ora sonis.
Transpositos Suecis credas migrasse Latinos,
Carmine Romuleo sic strepit omne Nemus.
Upsala nec priscis impar memoratur Athenis,
Aegidaque & Currus hic sua Pallas habet.
Illinc O quales liceat sperasse Liquores,
Quum Dea praesideat fontibus ipsa sacris!
Illic Lacte ruant illic & flumina Melle,
Fulvaque inauratam tingat Arena Salam.
Upsalides Musae nunc & majora conemus,
Quaeque mihi Famae non levis Aura tulit.
Creditur haud ulli Christus signasse suorum
Occultam gemina de meliore Notam.
Quemque tenet charo descriptum Nomine semper,
Non minus exculptum Pectore fida refert.
Sola haec virgineas depascit Flamma Medullas,
Et licito pergit solvere corda foco.
Tu quoque Sanctorum fastos Christina sacrabis,
Unica nec Virgo Volsiniensis erit.
Discite nunc Reges (Majestas proxima coelo)
Discite proh magnos hinc coluisse Deos.
Ah pudeat Tanitos puerilia fingere coepta,
Nugas nescio quas, & male quaerere Opes.
Acer Equo cunctos dum praeterit illa
Britanno,
Et pecoris spolium nescit inerme sequi.
Ast Aquilam poscit Germano pellere Nido,
Deque Palatino Monte fugare Lupam.
Vos etiam latos in praedam jungite Campos,
Impiaque arctatis cingite Lustra Plagis.
Victor Oliverus nudum Caput exerit Armis,
Ducere sive sequi nobile laetus Iter.
Qualis jam Senior Solymae Godfredus ad Arces,
Spina cui canis floruit alba comis.
Et lappos Christina potest & solvere Finnos,
Ultima quos Boreae carcere Claustra premunt.
Aeoliis quales Venti fremuere sub antris,
Et tentant Montis corripuisse moras.
Hanc Dea si summa demiserit Arce procellam
Quam gravis Austriacis Hesperiisque cadat!
Omnia sed rediens olim narraveris Ipse;
Nec reditus spero tempora longa petit.
Non ibi lenta pigro stringuntur frigore Verba,
Solibus, & tandem Vere liquanda novo.
Sed radiis hyemem Regina potentior urit;
Haecque magis solvit, quam ligat illa Polum.
Dicitur & nostros moerens andisse Labores,
Fortis & ingenuam Gentis amasse Fidem.
Oblatae Batavam nec paci commodat Aurem;
Nec versat Danos insidiosa dolos.
Sed pia festinat mutatis Foedera rebus,
Et Libertatem quae dominatur amat.
Digna cui Salomon meritos retulisset honores,
Et Saba concretum Thure cremasset Iter.
Hanc tua, sed melius, celebraverit, Ingele, Musa;
Et labor est vestrae debitus ille Lyrae.
Nos sine te frustra Thamisis saliceta subimus,
Sparsaque per steriles Turba vagamur Agros.
Et male tentanti querulum respondet Avena:
Quin & Rogerio dissiluere fides.
Haec tamen absenti memores dictamus Amico,
Grataque speramus qualiacumque fore.
That Providence which had so long the care
Of Cromwell's
head, and numbred ev'ry hair,
Now in its
self (the Glass where all appears)
Had seen the
period of his golden Years:
And thenceforth
onely did attend to trace,
What death
might least so fair a Life deface.
The People,
which what most they fear esteem,
Death when
more horrid so more noble deem;
And blame
the last Act, like Spectators vain,
Unless the Prince
whom they applaud be slain.
Nor Fate indeed can well
refuse that right
To those that liv'd in
War, to dye in Fight.
But long his Valour none had left that could
Indanger him, or Clemency
that would.
And he whom Nature all
for Peace had made,
But angry Heaven unto
War had sway'd,
And so less useful where
he most desir'd,
For what he least
affected was admir'd,
Deserved yet an End
whose ev'ry part
Should speak the
wondrous softness of his Heart.
To Love and Grief
the fatal Writ was sign'd;
(Those nobler weaknesses
of humane Mind,
From which those Powers
that issu'd the Decree,
Although immortal, found
they were not free.)
That they, to whom his
Breast still open lyes,
In gentle Passions
should his Death disguise:
And leave succeeding
Ages cause to mourn,
As long as Grief shall
weep, or Love shall burn.
Streight does a slow and
languishing Disease
Eliza, Natures
and his darling, seize.
Her when an infant,
taken with her Charms,
He oft would flourish in
his mighty Arms;
And, lest their force
the tender burthen wrong,
Slacken the vigour of
his Muscles strong;
Then to the Mothers
brest her softly move,
Which while she drain'd
of Milk she fill'd with Love:
But as with riper Years
her Virtue grew,
And ev'ry minute adds a
Lustre new;
When with meridian
height her Beauty shin'd,
And thorough that
sparkled her fairer Mind;
When She with Smiles
serene and Words discreet
His hidden Soul at ev'ry
turn could meet;
Then might y' ha' daily
his Affection spy'd,
Doubling that knot which
Destiny had ty'd:
While they by sence, not
knowing, comprehend
How on each other both
their Fates depend.
With her each day the
pleasing Hours he shares,
And at her Aspect calms
her growing Cares;
Or with a Grandsire's
joy her Children sees
Hanging about her neck
or at his knees.
Hold fast dear Infants,
hold them both or none;
This will not stay when
once the other's gone. A
silent fire now wasts those Limbs of Wax,
And him within his
tortur'd Image racks.
So the Flowr with'ring
which the Garden crown'd,
The sad Root pines in
secret under ground.
Each Groan he doubled
and each Sigh he sigh'd,
Repeated over to the
restless Night.
No trembling String
compos'd to numbers new,
Answers the touch in
Notes more sad more true.
She lest He grieve hides
what She can her pains,
And He to lessen hers
his Sorrow feigns:
Yet both perceiv'd, yet
both conceal'd their Skills,
And so diminishing
increast their ills:
That whether by each
others grief they fell,
Or on their own
redoubled, none can tell.
And now Eliza's
purple Locks were shorn,
Where She so long her Fathers
fate had worn:
And frequent lightning
to her Soul that flyes,
Devides the Air, and
opens all the Skyes:
And now his Life,
suspended by her breath,
Ran out impetuously to
hasting Death.
Like polish'd Mirrours,
so his steely Brest
Had ev'ry figure of her
woes exprest;
And with the damp of her
last Gasps obscur'd,
Had drawn such staines
as were not to be cur'd.
Fate could not either
reach with single stroke,
But the dear Image fled
the Mirrour broke. Who
now shall tell us more of mournful Swans,
Of Halcyons kind, or
bleeding Pelicans?
No downy breast did ere
so gently beat,
Or fan with airy plumes
so soft an heat.
For he no duty by his
height excus'd,
Nor though a Prince
to be a Man refus'd:
But rather then in his Eliza's
pain
Not love, not grieve,
would neither live nor reign.
And in himself so oft
immortal try'd,
Yet in compassion of
another dy'd. So have I
seen a Vine, whose lasting Age
Of many a Winter hath
surviv'd the rage.
Under whose shady tent
Men ev'ry year
At its rich bloods
expence their Sorrows chear,
If some dear branch
where it extends its life
Chance to be prun'd by
an untimely knife,
The Parent-Tree unto the
Grief succeeds,
And through the Wound
its vital humour bleeds;
Trickling in watry
drops, whose flowing shape
Weeps that it falls ere
fix'd into a Grape.
So the dry Stock, no
more that spreading Vine,
Frustrates the Autumn and the hopes
of Wine. A secret Cause does sure
those Signs ordain
Fore boding Princes falls, and
seldom vain.
Whether some Kinder Pow'rs, that
wish us well,
What they above cannot prevent,
foretell;
Or the great World do by consent
presage,
As hollow Seas with future Tempests
rage:
Or rather Heav'n, which us so long
foresees,
Their fun'rals celebrate while it
decrees.
But never yet was any humane Fate
By nature solemniz'd with so much
state.
He unconcern'd the dreadful passage
crost;
But oh what pangs that Death did
Nature cost!
First the great Thunder was
shot off, and sent
The Signal from the starry
Battlement.
The Winds receive it, and its
force out-do,
As practising how they could thunder
too:
Out of the Binders Hand the Sheaves
they tore,
And thrash'd the Harvest in the airy
floore;
Or of huge Trees, whose growth with
his did rise,
The deep foundations open'd to the
Skyes.
Then heavy Showres the winged
Tempests dead,
And pour the Deluge ore the Chaos
head.
The Race of warlike Horses at
his Tomb
Offer themselves in many an Hecatomb;
With pensive head towards the ground
they fall,
And helpless languish at the tainted
Stall.
Numbers of Men decrease with
pains unknown,
And hasten not to see his Death
their own.
Such Tortures all the Elements
unfix'd,
Troubled to part where so exactly
mix'd.
And as through Air his wasting
Spirits flow'd,
The Universe labour'd beneath their
load. Nature it seem'd with him
would Nature vye;
He with Eliza, It with him
would dye. He without noise still
travell'd to his End,
As silent Suns to meet the Night
descend.
The Stars that for him fought
had only pow'r
Left to determine now his fatal
Hour,
Which, since they might not hinder,
yet they cast
To chuse it worthy of his Glories
past. No part of time but bore his
mark away
Of honour; all the Year was Cromwell's
day
But this, of all the most auspicious
found,
Twice had in open field him Victor
crown'd
When up the armed Mountains of Dunbar
He march'd, and through deep Severn
ending war.
What day should him eternize
but the same
That had before immortaliz'd
his Name?
That so who ere would at his Death
have joy'd,
In their own Griefs might find
themselves imploy'd;
But those that sadly his departure
griev'd,
Yet joy'd remembring what he once
atchiev'd.
And the last minute his victorious Ghost
Gave chase to Ligny on the Belgick
Coast.
Here ended all his mortal toyles: He
lay'd
And slept in Peace under the Lawrel
shade. O Cromwell, Heavens
Favorite! To none
Have such high honours from above
been shown:
For whom the Elements we Mourners
see,
And Heav'n it self would the
great Herald be;
Which with more Care set forth his
Obsequies
Then those of Moses hid from
humane Eyes;
As jealous only here lest all be
less,
That we could to his Memory express.
Then let us to our course of
Mourning keep:
Where Heaven leads, 'tis Piety
to weep.
Stand back ye Seas, and shrunk
beneath the vail
Of your Abysse, with cover'd Head
bewail
Your Monarch: We demand not
your supplies
To compass in our Isle; our
Tears suffice;
Since him away the dismal Tempest
rent,
Who once more joyn'd us to the
Continent;
Who planted England on the Flandrick
shoar,
And stretch'd our frontire to
the Indian Ore;
Whose greater Truths obscure
the Fables old,
Whether of Brittish Saints or
Worthy's told;
And in a valour less'ning Arthur's
deeds,
For Holyness the Confessor
exceeds. He first put Armes into Religions
hand,
And tim'rous Conscience unto Courage
man'd:
The Souldier taught that inward Mail
to wear,
And fearing God how they
should nothing fear.
Those Strokes he said will pierce
through all below
Where those that strike from Heaven
fetch their Blow.
Astonish'd armyes did their flight
prepare:
And Cityes strong were stormed by
his prayer.
Of that for ever Prestons field
shall tell
The story, and impregnable Chonmell.
And where she sandy mountain Fenwick
scald
The sea between yet hence his pray'r
prevail'd.
What man was ever so in Heav'n
obey'd
Since the commanded Sun ore Gibeon
stayd.
In all his warrs needs must he
triumph, when
He conquer'd God still ere he fought
with men. Hence though in battle
none so brave or fierce
Yet him the adverse steel could
never pierce:
Pitty it seem'd to hurt him more
that felt
Each wound himself which he to
others delt,
Danger it self refusing to offend
So loose an enemy so fast a freind.
Friendship that sacred vertue long
dos claime
The first foundation of his house
and name
But within one its narrow limitts
fall
His tendernesse extended unto all:
And that deep soule through every
chanell flows
Where kindly nature loves it self to
lose.
More strong affections never reason
serv'd
Yet still affected most what best
deserv'd.
If he Eliza lov'd so that degree
(Though who more worthy to be lov'd
then she)
If so indulgent to his own, how
deare
To him the Children of the Highest
were?
For her he once did natures tribute
pay:
For these his life adventur'd every
day.
And 't would be found could we his
thoughts have cast
Their griefs struck deepest if
Eliza's last. What prudence more
then humane did he need
To keep so deare, so diff'ring
mindes agreed?
The worser sort as conscious of
their ill,
Lye weak and easy to the rulers
will:
But to the good (too many or too
few).
All law is uselesse all reward is
due.
Oh ill advis'd if not for Love for
shame
Spare yet your own if you neglect
his fame.
Least others dare to think your
zeale a maske
And you to govern only Heavens
taske. Valour, Religion, Friendship,
Prudence dy'd
At once with him and all that's good
beside:
And we deaths reffuse Natures dregs
confin'd
To loathsome life Alas are left
behinde:
Where we (so once we us'd) shall now
no more
To fetch day presse about his
chamber door;
From which he issu'd with that
awfull state
It seem'd Mars broke through Ianus
double gate:
Yet alwayes temper'd with an Aire so
mild
No Aprill suns that ere so gently
smil'd:
No more shall heare that powerfull
language charm
Whose force oft spar'd the labour of
his arm:
No more shall follow where he spent
the dayes
In warre, in counsell, or in pray'r,
and praise,
Whose meanest acts he would himself
advance
As ungirt David to the Arke did
dance.
All All is gone of ours or his
delight
In horses fierce, wild deer or
armour bright.
Francisca faire can nothing now but
weep
Nor with soft notes shall sing his
cares asleep. I saw him dead, a
leaden slumber lyes
And mortall sleep over those
wakefull eys:
Those gentle Rayes under the lidds
were fled
Which through his lookes that
piercing sweetnesse she
That port which so Majestique was
and strong
Loose and depriv'd of vigour
stretch'd along:
All wither'd, ill discolour'd pale
and wan,
How much another thing, no more that
man?
Oh humane glory vaine, Oh death, Oh
wings,
Oh worthlesse world, Oh transitory
things. Yet dwelt that greatnesse in
his shape decay'd
That still though dead greater then
death he layd.
And in his alter'd face you
something faigne
That threatens death he yet will
live againe. Not much unlike the
sacred Oake which shoots
To heav'n its branches and through
earth its roots:
Whose spacious boughs are hung with
Trophees round,
And honour'd wreaths have oft the
Victour crown'd
When angry Jove darts lightning
through the Aire
At mortalls sins, nor his own plant
will spare
(It groanes and bruses all below
that stood
So many yeares the shelter of the
wood)
The tree erewhile foreshorten'd to
our view
When foln shews taller yet then as
it grew. So shall his praise to
after times increase
When truth shall be allow'd and
faction cease
And his own shadows with him fall.
The Eye
Detracts from objects then it self more
high:
But when death takes them from that
envy'd seate
Seing how little we confesse how
greate. Thee many ages hence in
martiall verse
Shall th'English souldier ere he
charge rehearse:
Singing of thee inflame themselvs to
fight
And with the name of Cromwell armyes
fright.
As long as rivers to the seas shall
runne
As long as Cynthia shall relieve the
sunne,
While staggs shall fly unto the
forests thick,
While sheep delight the grassy downs
to pick,
As long as future time succeeds the
past,
Always thy honour, praise and name
shall last. Thou in a pitch how
farre, beyond the sphere
Of humane glory towr'st, and
raigning there
Despoyld of mortall robes, in seas
of blisse
Plunging dost bathe, and tread the
bright Abysse:
There thy greate soule yet once a
world dos see
Spacious enough, and pure enough for
thee.
How soon thou Moses hast and Iosua
found
And David for the Sword, and harpe
renown'd?
How streight canst to each happy
Mansion goe?
(Farr better known above then here
below)
And in those joyes dost spend the
endlesse day
Which in expressing we our selves
betray. For we since thou art gone
with heavy doome
Wander like ghosts about thy loved
tombe:
And lost in tears have neither sight
nor minde
To guide us upward through this
Region blinde
Since thou art gone who best that
way could'st teach
Onely our sighs perhaps may thither
reach. And Richard yet where his
great Parent led
Beats on the rugged track: He vertue
dead
Revives, and by his milder beams
assures;
And yet how much of them his griefe
obscures? He as his Father long was
kept from sight
In private to be view'd by better
light:
But open'd once, what splendour dos
he throw
A Cromwell in an houre a Prince will
grow.
How he becomes that seat, how
strongly streins,
How gently winds at once the ruling
Reins?
Heav'n to this choise prepar'd a
Diadem
Richer then any Eastern silk or
gemme:
A pearly rainbow; where the Sun
inchas'd
His brows like an Imperiall Iewell
grac'd. We find already what those
Omens mean,
Earth nere more glad, nor heaven
more serene:
Cease now our griefs, Calme peace
succeeds a war
Rainbows to storms, Richard to
Oliver.
Tempt not his clemency to try his
pow'r
He threats no Deluge, yet foretells
a showre.
Ametas.
Think'st
Thou that this Love can stand,
Whilst Thou
still dost say me nay?
Love unpaid
does soon disband:
Love binds
Love as Hay binds Hay.
Thestylis.
Think'st
Thou that this Rope would twine
If we both
should turn one way?
Where both
parties so combine,
Neither Love
will twist nor Hay.
Ametas.
Thus you
vain Excuses find,
Which your selve and us
delay:
And Love tyes a Womans
Mind
Looser then with Ropes
of Hay.
Thestylis.
What you cannot constant
hope
Must be taken as you
may.
Ametas.
Then let's both lay by
our Rope,
And go kiss within the
Hay.
Enough: and
leave the rest to Fame.
'Tis to
commend her but to name.
Courtship,
which living she declin'd,
When dead to
offer were unkind.
Where never
any could speak ill,
Who would
officious Praises spill?
Nor can the
truest Wit or Friend,
Without
Detracting, her commend.
To say she
liv'd a Virgin chast,
In this Age loose and
all unlac't;
Nor was, when Vice is so
allow'd,
Of Virtue or
asham'd, or proud;
That her Soul was on Heaven
so bent
No Minute but it came
and went;
That ready her last Debt
to pay
She summ'd her Life up
ev'ry day;
Modest as Morn; as
Mid-day bright;
Gentle as Ev'ning; cool
as Night;
'Tis true: but all so
weakly said;
'Twere more Significant,
She's Dead.
The forward
Youth that would appear
Must now
forsake his Muses dear,
Nor in the Shadows sing
His Numbers languishing.
'Tis time to
leave the Books in dust,
And oyl
th'unused Armours rust:
Removing from the Wall
The Corslet of the Hall.
So restless Cromwel
could not cease
In the inglorious Arts
of Peace,
But
through adventrous War
Urged
his active Star.
And, like the
three-fork'd Lightning, first
Breaking the Clouds
where it was nurst,
Did
through his own Side
His
fiery way divide.
For 'tis all one to
Courage high
The Emulous or Enemy;
And
with such to inclose
Is
more then to oppose.
Then burning through the
Air he went,
And Pallaces and Temples
rent:
And Cæsars
head at last
Did
through his Laurels blast.
'Tis Madness to resist
or blame
The force of angry
Heavens flame:
And,
if we would speak true,
Much
to the Man is due.
Who, from his private
Gardens, where
He liv'd reserved and
austere,
As if
his hightest plot
To
plant the Bergamot,
Could by industrious
Valour climbe
To ruine the great Work
of Time,
And
cast the Kingdome old
Into
another Mold.
Though Justice against
Fate complain,
And plead the antient
Rights in vain:
But
those do hold or break
As Men
are strong or weak.
Nature that hateth
emptiness,
Allows of penetration
less:
And
therefore must make room
Where
greater Spirits come.
What Field of all the
Civil Wars,
Where his were not the
deepest Scars?
And Hampton
shows what part
He had
of wiser Art.
Where, twining subtile
fears with hope,
He wove a Net of such a
scope,
That Charles
himself might chase
To Caresbrooks
narrow case.
That thence the Royal
Actor born
The Tragick Scaffold
might adorn
While
round the armed Bands
Did
clap their bloody hands.
He nothing common
did or mean
Upon that memorable
Scene:
But
with his keener Eye
The
Axes edge did try:
Nor call'd the Gods
with vulgar spight
To vindicate his
helpless Right,
But
bow'd his comely Head,
Down
as upon a Bed.
This was that memorable
Hour
Which first assur'd the
forced Pow'r.
So
when they did design
The Capitols
first Line,
A bleeding Head where
they begun,
Did fright the
Architects to run;
And
yet in that the State
Foresaw it's happy Fate.
And now the Irish
are asham'd
To see themselves in one
Year tam'd:
So
much one Man can do,
That
does both act and know.
They can affirm his
Praises best,
And have, though
overcome, confest
How
good he is, how just,
And
fit for highest Trust:
Nor yet grown stiffer
with Command,
But still in the Republick's
hand:
How
fit he is to sway
That
can so well obey.
He to the Common Feet
presents
A Kingdome, for
his first years rents:
And,
what he may, forbears
His
Fame to make it theirs:
And has his Sword and
Spoyls ungirt,
To lay them at the Publick's
skirt.
So
when the Falcon high
Falls
heavy from the Sky,
She, having kill'd, no
more does search,
But on the next green
Bow to pearch;
Where,
when he first does lure,
The
Falckner has her sure.
What may not then our Isle
presume
While Victory his Crest
does plume!
What
may not others fear
If thus he crown
each Year!
A Cæsar he ere long to Gaul,
To Italy an Hannibal,
And to all States
not free
Shall Clymacterick
be.
The Pict no shelter now shall
find
Within his party-colour'd Mind;
But from this
Valour sad
Shrink underneath
the Plad:
Happy if in the tufted brake
The English Hunter him
mistake;
Nor lay his Hounds
in near
The Caledonian
Deer.
But thou the Wars and Fortunes Son
March indefatigably on;
And for the last
effect
Still keep thy
Sword erect:
Besides the force it has to fright
The Spirits of the shady Night,
The same Arts
that did gain
A Pow'r
must it maintain.
Where the remote Bermudas ride
In th'Oceans
bosome unespy'd,
From a small
Boat, that row'd along,
The listning
Winds receiv'd this Song.
What should
we do but sing his Praise
That led us
through the watry Maze,
Unto an Isle
so long unknown,
And yet far
kinder than our own?
Where he the
huge Sea-Monsters wracks,
That lift the Deep upon
their Backs.
He lands us on a grassy
Stage;
Safe from the Storms,
and Prelat's rage.
He gave us this eternal
Spring,
Which here enamells
every thing;
And sends the Fowl's to
us in care,
On daily Visits through
the Air.
He hangs in shades the
Orange bright,
Like golden Lamps in a
green Night.
And does in the
Pomgranates close,
Jewels more rich than Ormus
show's.
He makes the Figs our
mouths to meet;
And throws the Melons at
our feet.
But Apples plants of
such a price,
No Tree could ever bear
them twice.
With Cedars, chosen by
his hand,
From Lebanon, he
stores the Land.
And makes the hollow
Seas, that roar,
Proclaime the Ambergris
on shoar.
He cast (of which we
rather boast)
The Gospels Pearl upon
our Coast.
And in these Rocks for
us did frame
A Temple, where to sound
his Name.
Oh let our Voice his
Praise exalt,
Till it arrive at
Heavens Vault:
Which thence (perhaps)
rebounding, may
Eccho beyond the Mexique
Bay.
Thus sung they, in the English
boat,
An holy and a chearful
Note,
And all the way, to
guide their Chime,
With falling Oars they
kept the time.
On The Victory Obtained By Blake Over The Spaniards
In The Bay Of Santa Cruz, In
The Island Of Tenerife, 1657
Now does Spain’s fleet her spacious wings unfold,
Leaves the New World and hastens for the old:
But though the wind was fair, they slowly swum
Freighted with acted guilt, and guilt to come:
For this rich load, of which so proud they are,
Was raised by tyranny, and raised for war;
Every capacious gallion’s womb was filled,
With what the womb of wealthy kingdoms yield,
The New World’s wounded entrails they had tore,
For wealth wherewith to wound the Old once more:
Wealth which all others’ avarice might cloy,
But yet in them caused as much fear as joy.
For now upon the main, themselves they saw—
That boundless empire, where you give the law—
Of winds’ and waters’ rage, they fearful be,
But much more fearful are your flags to see.
Day, that to those who sail upon the deep,
More wished for, and more welcome is than sleep,
They dreaded to behold, lest the sun’s light,
With English streamers, should salute their sight:
In thickest darkness they would choose to steer,
So that such darkness might suppress their fear;
At length theirs vanishes, and fortune smiles;
For they behold the sweet Canary Isles;
One of which doubtless is by Nature blessed
Above both Worlds, since ’tis above the rest.
For lest some gloominess might strain her sky,
Trees there the duty of the clouds supply;
O noble trust which heav’n on this isle pours,
Fertile to be, yet never need her show’rs.
A happy people, which at once do gain
The benefits without the ills of rain.
Both health and profit fate cannot deny;
Where still the earth is moist, the air still dry;
The jarring elements no discord know,
Fuel and rain together kindly grow;
And coolness there, with heat doth never fight,
This only rules by day, and that by night.
Your worth to all these isles, a just right brings,
The best of lands should have the best of kings.
And these want nothing heaven can afford,
Unless it be—the having you their Lord;
But this great want will not a long one prove,
Your conquering sword will soon that want remove.
For Spain had better—she’ll ere long confess—
Have broken all her swords, than this one peace,
Casting that legue off, which she held so long,
She cast off that which only made her strong.
Forces and art, she soon will feel, are vain,
Peace, against you, was the sole strength of Spain.
By that alone those islands she secures,
Peace made them hers, but war will make them yours.
There the indulgent soil that rich grape breeds,
Which of the gods the fancied drink exceeds;
They still do yield, such is their precious mould,
All that is good, and are not cursed with gold—
With fatal gold, for still where that does grow,
Neither the soil, not people, quiet know.
Which troubles men to raise it when ’tis ore,
And when ’tis raised, does trouble them much more.
Ah, why was thither brought that cause of war,
Kind Nature had from thence removed so far?
In vain doth she those islands free from ill,
If fortune can make guilty what she will.
But whilst I draw that scene, where you ere long,
Shall conquests act, your present are unsung.
For Santa Cruz the glad fleet makes her way,
And safely there casts anchor in the bay.
Never so many with one joyful cry,
That place saluted, where they all must die.
Deluded men! Fate with you did but sport,
You ’scaped the sea, to perish in your port.
’Twas more for England’s fame you
should die there,
Where you had most of strength, and least of fear.
The Peak’s proud height the Spaniards all admire,
Yet in their breasts carry a pride much high’r.
Only to this vast hill a power is given,
At once both to inhabit earth and heaven.
But this stupendous prospect did not near,
Make them admire, so much as they did fear.
For here they met with news, which did produce,
A grief, above the cure of grapes’ best juice.
They learned with terror that nor summer’s heat,
Nor winter’s storms, had made your fleet retreat.
To fight against such foes was vain, they knew,
Which did the rage of elements subdue,
Who on the ocean that does horror give,
To all besides, triumphantly do live.
With haste they therefore all their gallions moor,
And flank with cannon from the neighbouring shore.
Forts, lines, and scones all the bay along,
They build and act all that can make them strong.
Fond men who know not whilst such works they raise,
They only labour to exalt your praise.
Yet they by restless toil became at length,
So proud and confident of their made strength,
That they with joy their boasting general heard,
Wish then for that assault he lately feared.
His wish he has, for now undaunted Blake,
With wingèd speed, for Santa Cruz does make.
For your renown, his conquering fleet does ride,
O’er seas as vast as is the Spaniards’ pride.
Whose fleet and trenches viewed, he soon did say,
‘We to their strength are more
obliged than they.
Were’t not for that, they from their fate would run,
And a third world seek out, our arms to shun.
Those forts, which there so high and strong appear,
Do not so much suppress, as show their fear.
Of speedy victory let no man doubt,
Our worst work’s past, now we have found them out.
Behold their navy does at anchor lie,
And they are ours, for now they cannot fly.’
This said, the whole fleet gave it their applause,
And all assumes your courage, in your cause.
That bay they enter, which unto them owes,
The noblest of wreaths, that victory bestows.
Bold Stayner leads: this fleet’s designed by fate,
To give him laurel, as the last did plate.
The thundering cannon now begins the fight,
And though it be at noon creates a night.
The air was soon after the fight begun,
Far more enflamed by it than by the sun.
Never so burning was that climate known,
War turned the temperate to the torrid zone.
Fate these two fleets between both worlds had brought,
Who fight, as if for both those worlds they fought.
Thousands of ways thousands of men there die,
Some ships are sunk, some blown up in the sky.
Nature ne’er made cedars so high aspire,
As oaks did then urged by the active fire,
Which by quick powder’s force, so high was sent,
That it returned to its own element.
Torn limbs some leagues into the island fly,
Whilst others lower in the sea do lie,
Scarce souls from bodies severed are so far
By death, as bodies there were by the war.
The all-seeing sun, ne’er gazed on such a sight,
Two dreadful navies there at anchor fight.
And neither have or power or will to fly,
There one must conquer, or there both must die.
Far different motives yet engaged them thus,
Necessity did them, but Choice did us.
A choice which did the highest worth express,
And was attended by as high success.
For your resistless genius there did reign,
By which we laurels reaped e’en on the main.
So properous stars, though absent to the sense,
Bless those they shine for, by their influence.
Our cannon now tears every ship and sconce,
And o’er two elements triumphs at once.
Their gallions sunk, their wealth the sea doth fill—
The only place where it can cause no ill.
Ah, would those treasures which both Indies have,
Were buried in as large, and deep a grave,
Wars’ chief support with them would buried be,
And the land owe her peace unto the sea.
Ages to come your conquering arms will bless,
There they destroy what had destroyed their peace.
And in one war the present age may boast
The certain seeds of many wars are lost.
All the foe’s ships destroyed, by sea or fire,
Victorious Blake, does from the bay retire,
His siege of Spain he then again pursues,
And there first brings of his success the news:
The saddest news that e’er to Spain was brought,
Their rich fleet sunk, and ours with laurel fraught,
Whilst fame in every place her trumpet blows,
And tells the world how much to you it owes.
C.
Damon
come drive thy flocks this way.
D.
No: 'tis too
late they went astray.
C.
I have a
grassy Scutcheon spy'd,
Where Flora
blazons all her pride.
The Grass I
aim to feast thy Sheep:
The Flow'rs
I for thy Temples keep.
D.
Grass
withers; and the Flow'rs too fade.
C.
Seize the
short Joyes then, ere they vade.
Seest thou
that unfrequented Cave?
D.
That den?
C.
Loves
Shrine.
D.
But
Virtue's Grave.
C.
In whose cool bosome we
may lye
Safe from the Sun.
D.
not
Heaven's Eye.
C.
Near this, a Fountaines
liquid Bell
Tinkles within the
concave Shell.
D.
Might a Soul bath there
and be clean,
Or slake its Drought?
C.
What
is't you mean?
D.
These once had been
enticing things,
Clorinda,
Pastures, Caves, and Springs.
C.
And what late change?
D.
The
other day
Pan met me.
C.
What
did great Pan say?
D.
Words that transcend
poor Shepherds skill,
But He ere since my
Songs does fill:
And his Name swells my
slender Oate.
C.
Sweet must Pan
sound in Damons Note.
D.
Clorinda's voice
might make it sweet.
C.
Who would not in Pan's
Praises meet?
Chorus.
Of Pan the flowry
Pastures sing,
Caves eccho, and the
Fountains ring.
Sing then while he doth
us inspire;
For all the World is our
Pan's Quire.
Heark how the Mower Damon Sung,
With love of
Juliana stung!
While ev'ry
thing did seem to paint
The Scene
more fit for his complaint.
Like her
fair Eyes the day was fair;
But
scorching like his am'rous Care.
Sharp like
his Sythe his Sorrow was,
And wither'd
like his Hopes the Grass.
Oh what unusual Heats are here,
Which thus our
Sun-burn'd Meadows fear!
The Grass-hopper its
pipe gives ore;
And hamstring'd Frogs
can dance no more.
But in the brook the
green Frog wades;
And Grass-hoppers seek
out the shades.
Only the Snake, that
kept within,
Now glitters in its
second skin.
This heat
the Sun could never raise,
Nor Dog-star so
inflame's the dayes.
It from an higher Beauty
grow'th,
Which burns the Fields
and Mower both:
Which made the Dog, and
makes the Sun
Hotter then his own Phaeton.
Not July causeth
these Extremes,
But Juliana's
scorching beams.
Tell me
where I may pass the Fires
Of the hot day, or hot
desires.
To what cool Cave shall
I descend,
Or to what gelid
Fountain bend?
Alas! I look for Ease in
vain,
When Remedies themselves
complain.
No moisture but my Tears
do rest,
Nor Cold but in her Icy
Breast.
How long
wilt Thou, fair Shepheardess,
Esteem me, and my
Presents less?
To Thee the harmless
Snake I bring,
Disarmed of its teeth
and sting.
To Thee Chameleons
changing-hue,
And Oak leaves tipt with
hony due.
Yet Thou ungrateful hast
not sought
Nor what they are, nor
who them brought.
I am the
Mower Damon, known
Through all the Meadows
I have mown.
On me the Morn her dew
distills
Before her darling
Daffadils.
And, if at Noon my toil
me heat,
The Sun himself licks
off my Sweat.
While, going home, the
Ev'ning sweet
In cowslip-water bathes
my feet.
What,
though the piping Shepherd stock
The plains with an
unnum'red Flock,
This Sithe of mine
discovers wide
More ground then all his
Sheep do hide.
With this the golden
fleece I shear
Of all these Closes
ev'ry Year.
And though in Wooll more
poor then they,
Yet am I richer far in
Hay.
Nor am I so
deform'd to sight,
If in my Sithe I looked
right;
In which I see my
Picture done,
As in a crescent Moon
the Sun.
The deathless Fairyes
take me oft
To lead them in their
Danses soft:
And, when I tune my self
to sing,
About me they contract
their Ring.
How happy
might I still have mow'd,
Had not Love here his
Thistles sow'd!
But now I all the day
complain,
Joyning my Labour to my
Pain;
And with my Sythe cut
down the Grass,
Yet still my Grief is
where it was:
But, when the Iron
blunter grows,
Sighing I whet my Sythe
and Woes.
While thus
he threw his Elbow round,
Depopulating all the
Ground,
And, with his whistling
Sythe, does cut
Each stroke between the
Earth and Root,
The edged Stele by
careless chance
Did into his own Ankle
glance;
And there among the
Grass fell down,
By his own Sythe, the
Mower mown.
Alas! said
He, these hurts are slight
To those that dye by
Loves despight.
With Shepherds-purse,
and Clowns-all-heal,
The Blood I stanch, and
Wound I seal.
Only for him no Cure is
found,
Whom Julianas
Eyes do wound.
'Tis death alone that
this must do:
For Death thou art a
Mower too.
Daphnis must from Chloe part:
Now is come
the dismal Hour
That must
all his Hopes devour,
All his
Labour, all his Art.
Nature, her own Sexes foe,
Long had
taught her to be coy:
But she
neither knew t'enjoy,
Nor yet let
her Lover go.
But, with this sad News surpriz'd,
Soon she let that
Niceness fall;
And would gladly yield
to all,
So it had his stay
compriz'd.
Nature so
her self does use
To lay by her wonted
State,
Lest the World should
separate;
Sudden Parting closer
glews.
He, well
read in all the wayes
By which men their Siege
maintain,
Knew not that the Fort
to gain
Better 'twas the Siege
to raise.
But he came
so full possest
With the Grief of
Parting thence,
That he had not so much
Sence
As to see he might be
blest.
Till Love
in her Language breath'd
Words she never spake
before;
But then Legacies no
more
To a dying Man
bequeath'd.
For, Alas,
the time was spent,
Now the latest minut's
run
When poor Daphnis
is undone,
Between Joy and Sorrow
rent.
At that Why,
that Stay my Dear,
His disorder'd Locks he
tare;
And with rouling Eyes
did glare,
And his cruel Fate
forswear.
As the Soul
of one scarce dead,
With the shrieks of
Friends aghast,
Looks distracted back in
hast,
And then streight again
is fled.
So did
wretched Daphnis look,
Frighting her he loved
most.
At the last, this Lovers
Ghost
Thus his Leave resolved
took.
Are my Hell
and Heaven Joyn'd
More to torture him that
dies?
Could departure not
suffice,
But that you must then
grow kind?
Ah my Chloe how have I
Such a
wretched minute found,
When thy Favours should
me wound
More than all thy
Cruelty?
So to the
condemned Wight
The delicious Cup we
fill;
And allow him all he
will,
For his last and short
Delight.
But I will
not now begin
Such a Debt unto my Foe;
Nor to my Departure owe
What my Presence could
not win.
Absence is
too much alone:
Better 'tis to go in
peace,
Than my Losses to
increase
By a late Fruition.
Why should
I enrich my Fate?
'Tis a Vanity to wear,
For my Executioner,
Jewels of so high a
rate.
Rather I
away will pine
In a manly stubborness
Than be fatted up
express
For the Canibal
to dine.
Whilst this
grief does thee disarm,
All th'Enjoyment of our
Love
But the ravishment would
prove
Of a Body dead while
warm.
And I
parting should appear
Like the Gourmand Hebrew
dead,
While he Quailes and Manna
fed,
And does through the
Desert err.
Or the
Witch that midnight wakes
For the Fern, whose
magick Weed
In one minute casts the
Seed.
And invisible him makes.
Gentler
times for Love are ment:
Who for parting pleasure
strain
Gather Roses in the
rain,
Wet themselves and spoil
their Sent.
Farewel
therefore all the fruit
Which I could from Love
receive:
Joy will not with Sorrow
weave,
Nor will I this Grief
pollute.
Fate I
come, as dark, as sad,
As thy Malice could
desire;
Yet bring with me all
the Fire
That Love in his Torches
had.
At these
words away he broke;
As who long has praying
ly'n,
To his Heads-man makes
the Sign,
And receives the parting stroke.
But hence Virgins all
beware.
Last night he with Phlogis
slept;
This night for Dorinda kept;
And but rid to take the Air.
Yet he does himself
excuse;
Nor indeed without a Cause.
For, according to the Lawes,
Why did Chloe once refuse?
Nempe sic innumero succrescunt
agmine libri,
Saepia vix toto ut jam natet una mari.
Fortius assidui surgunt a vulnere praeli:
Quoque magis pressa est, auctior Hydra redit.
Heu quibus Anticyris, quibus est sanabilis herbis
Improba scribendi pestis, avarus amor!
India sola tenet tanti medicamina morbi,
Dicitur & nostris ingemuisse malis.
Utile Tabacci dedit illa miserta venenum,
Acci veratro quod meliora potest.
Jamque vides olidas libris fumare popinas:
Naribus O doctis quam pretiosus odor!
Hac ego praecipua credo herbam dote placere,
Hinc tuus has nebulas Doctor in astra vehit.
Ah mea quid tandem facies timidissima charta?
Exequias Siticen jam parat usque tuas.
Hunc subeas librum Sansti ceu limen asyli,
Quem neque delebit flamma, nec ira fovis.
Charissimo Filio
Edmundo Trotio
Posuimus Pater & Mater
Frustra superstites.
Legite Parentes, vanissimus hominum ordo,
Figuli Filiorum, Substructores Hominum,
Fartores Opum, Longi Speratores,
Et nostro, si fas, sapite infortunio.
Fruit Edmundus Trottuis.
E quatuor masculae stirpis residuus,
Statura justa, Forma virili, specie eximic,
Medio juventutis Robore simul & Flore,
Alpectu, In cessu, sermone juxta amabilis,
Et siquid ultra Cineri pretium addit.
Honesta Diciplina domi imbutus,
Peregre profectus
Generosis Artibus Animum
Et exercitiis Corpus firmaverat.
Circaeam Insulam, Scopulos Sirenum
Praeternavigavit,
Et in hoc naufragio morum & saeculi
Solus perdiderat nihil, auxit plurimum.
Hinc erga Deum pietate,
Erga nos Amore & Obsequio,
Comitate erga Omnes, & intra se Modestia
Insignis, & quantaevis fortunae capax:
Delitiae Aequalium, Senum Plausus,
Oculi Parentum, (nunc, ah, Lachrymae)
In eo tandem peccavit quod mortalis.
Et fatali Pustularum morbo aspersus,
Factus est
(Ut verae Laudis Invidiam
ficto Convitio levemus)
Proditor Amicorum, Parricida Parentum,
Familiae Spongia:
Et Naturae invertens ordinem
Nostri suique Contemptor,
Mundi Desertor, defecit ad Deum.
Undecimo Augusti; Aerae Christae 1667.
Talis quum fuerit Calo non invidemus.
Farfacio.
Cernis ut ingenti distinguant limite campum
Montis Amos clivi Bilboreique juga!
Ille stat indomitus turritis undisque saxis:
Cingit huic laetum Fraximus alta Caput.
Illi petra minax rigidis cervicibus horret:
Huic quatiunt viridis lenia colla jubas.
Fulcit Atlanteo Rupes ea vertice coelos:
Collis at hic humeros subjicit Herculeos.
Hic ceu carceribus visum sylvaque coercet:
Ille Oculos alter dum quasi meta trahit.
Ille Giganteum surgit ceu Pelion Ossa:
Hic agit ut Pindi culmine Nympha choros.
Erectus, praeceps, salebrosus, & arduus ille:
Aeclivis, placidus, mollis, amoenus hic est.
Dissimilis Domino coiit Natura sub uno;
Farfaciaque tremunt sub ditione pares.
Dumque triumphanti terras perlabitur Axe,
Praeteriens aequa stringit utrumque Rota.
Asper in adversos, facilis cedentibus idem;
Ut credas Montes extimulasse suos.
Hi sunt Alcidae Borealis nempe Columnae,
Quos medio scindit vallis opaca freto.
An potius longe sic prona cacumina nutant,
Parnassus cupiant esse Maria tuus.
How wisely Nature did decree,
With the
same Eyes to weep and see!
That, having
view'd the object vain,
They might
be ready to complain.
And, since the Self-deluding Sight,
In a false
Angle takes each hight;
These Tears
which better measure all,
Like wat'ry
Lines and Plummets fall.
Two Tears, which Sorrow long did weigh
Within the Scales of
either Eye,
And then paid out in
equal Poise,
Are the true price of
all my Joyes.
What
in the World most fair appears,
Yea even Laughter, turns
to Tears:
And all the Jewels which
we prize,
Melt in these Pendants
of the Eyes.
I
have through every Garden been,
Amongst the Red, the
White, the Green;
And yet, from all the
flow'rs I saw,
No Hony, but these Tears
could draw.
So
the all-seeing Sun each day
Distills the World with
Chymick Ray;
But finds the Essence
only Showers,
Which straight in pity
back he powers.
Yet happy
they whom Grief doth bless,
That weep the more, and
see the less:
And, to preserve their
Sight more true,
Bath still their Eyes in
their own Dew.
So Magdalen,
in Tears more wise
Dissolv'd those
captivating Eyes,
Whose liquid Chaines
could flowing meet
To fetter her Redeemers
feet.
Not full
sailes hasting loaden home,
Nor the chast Ladies
pregnant Womb,
Nor Cynthia
Teeming show's so fair,
As two Eyes swoln with
weeping are.
The
sparkling Glance that shoots Desire,
Drench'd in these Waves,
does lose it fire.
Yea oft the Thund'rer
pitty takes
And here the hissing
Lightning slakes.
The Incense
was to Heaven dear,
Not as a Perfume, but a
Tear.
And Stars shew lovely in
the Night,
But as they seem the
Tears of Light.
Ope then
mine Eyes your double Sluice,
And practise so your
noblest Use.
For others too can see,
or sleep;
But only humane Eyes can
weep.
Now like
two Clouds dissolving, drop,
And at each Tear in
distance stop:
Now like two Fountains
trickle down:
Now like two floods
o'return and drown.
Thus let
your Streams o'reflow your Springs,
Till Eyes and Tears be
the same things:
And each the other's
difference bears;
These weeping Eyes,
those seeing Tears.
Like the vain curlings of the
watery maze,
Which in smooth streams a sinking weight does raise,
So Man, declining always, disappears
In the weak circles of increasing years;
And his short tumults of themselves compose,
While flowing Time above his head does close.
Cromwell alone with greater vigour runs,
(Sun-like) the stages of
succeeding suns:
And still the day which he doth next restore,
Is the just wonder of the day before.
Cromwell alone doth with new lustre spring,
And shines the jewel of the yearly ring.
'Tis he the force of scattered time
contracts,
And in one year the work of ages acts:
While heavy monarchs make a wide return,
Longer, and more malignant than Saturn:
And though they all Platonic years should reign,
In the same posture would be found again.
Their earthy projects under ground they lay,
More slow and brittle than the China clay:
Well may they strive to leave them to their son,
For one thing never was by one king done.
Yet some more active for a frontier town,
Taken by proxy, beg a false renown;
Another triumphs at the public cost,
And will have won, if he no more have lost;
They fight by others, but in person wrong,
And only are against their subjects strong;
Their other wars seem but a feigned contst,
This common enemy is still oppressed;
If conquerors, on them they turn their might;
If conquered, on them they wreak their spite:
They neither build the temple in their days,
Nor matter for succeeding founders raise;
Nor sacred prophecies consult within,
Much less themself to pfect them begin;
No other care they bear of things above,
But with astrologers divine of Jove
To know how long their planet yet reprieves
From the deservd fate their guilty lives:
Thus (image-like) an useless time they tell,
And with vain sceptre strike the hourly bell,
Nor more contribute to the state of things,
Than wooden heads unto the viol's strings.
While indefatigable Cromwell hies,
And cuts his way still nearer to the skies,
Learning a music in the region clear,
To tune this lower to that higher sphere.
So when Amphion did the lute command,
Which the god gave him, with his gentle hand,
The rougher stones, unto his measures hewed,
Danced up in order from the quarries rude;
This took a lower, that an higher place,
As he the treble altered, or the bass:
No note he struck, but a new stone was laid,
And the great work ascended while he played.
The listening structures he with wonder eyed,
And still new stops to various time applied:
Now through the strings a martial rage he throws,
And joining straight the Theban tower arose;
Then as he strokes them with a touch more sweet,
The flocking marbles in a palace meet;
But for the most the graver notes did try,
Therefore the temples reared their columns high:
Thus, ere he ceased, his sacred lute creates
Th' harmonious city of the seven gates.
Such was that wondrous order and consent,
When Cromwell tuned the ruling Instrument,
While tedious statesmen many years did hack,
Framing a liberty that still went back,
Whose numerous gorge could swallow in an hour
That island, which the sea cannot devour:
Then our Amphion issued out and sings,
And once he struck, and twice, the powerful strings.
The Commonwealth then first together came,
And each one entered in the willing frame;
All other matter yields, and may be ruled;
But who the minds of stubborn men can build?
No quarry bears a stone so hardly wrought,
Nor with such labour from its centre brought;
None to be sunk in the foundation bends,
Each in the house the highest place contends,
And each the hand that lays him will direct,
And some fall back upon the architect;
Yet all composed by his attractive song,
Into the animated city throng.
The Commonwealth does through their centres all
Draw the circumference of the public wall;
The crossest spirits here do take their part,
Fastening the contignation which they thwart;
And they, whose nature leads them to divide,
Uphold this one, and that the other side;
But the most equal still sustain the height,
And they as pillars keep the work upright,
While the resistance of opposd minds,
The fabric (as with arches) stronger binds,
Which on the basis of a senate free,
Knit by the roof's protecting weight, agree.
When for his foot he thus a place had found,
He hurls e'er since the world about him round,
And in his several aspects, like a star,
Here shines in peace, and thither shoots in war,
While by his beams observing princes steer,
And wisely court the influence they fear.
O would they rather by his pattern won
Kiss the approaching, not yet angry Son;
And in their numbered footsteps humbly tread
The path where holy oracles do lead;
How might they under such a captain raise
The great designs kept for the latter days!
But mad with reason (so miscalled) of state
They know them not, and what they know not, hate.
Hence still they sing hosanna to the whore,
And her, whom they should massacre, adore:
But Indians, whom they would convert, subdue;
Nor teach, but traffic with, or burn the Jew.
Unhappy princes, ignorantly bred,
By malice some, by error more misled,
If gracious heaven to my life give length,
Leisure to time, and to my weaknes strength,
Then shall I once with graver accents shake
Your regal sloth, and your long slumbers wake:
Like the shrill huntsman that prevents the east,
Winding his horn to kings that chase the beast.
Till then my muse shall hollo far behind
Angelic Cromwell who outwings the wind,
And in dark nights, and in cold days alone
Pursues the monster through every throne:
Which shrinking to her Roman den impure,
Gnashes her gory teeth; nor there secure.
Hence oft I think if in some happy hour
High grace should meet in one with highest power,
And then a seasonable people still
Should bend to his, as he to heaven's will,
What we might hope, what wonderful effect
From such a wished conjuncture might reflect.
Sure, the mysterious work, where none withstand,
Would forthwith finish under such a hand:
Foreshortened time its useless course would stay,
And soon precipitate the latest day.
But a thick cloud about that morning lies,
And intercepts the beams of mortal eyes,
That 'tis the most which we determine can,
If these the times, then this must be the man.
And well he therefore does, and well has guessed,
Who in his age has always forward pressed:
And knowing not where heaven's choice may light,
Girds yet his sword, and ready stand to fight;
But men, alas, as if they nothing cared,
Look on, all unconcerned, or unprepared;
And stars still fall, and still the dragon's tail
Swinges the volumes of its horrid flail.
For the great justice that did first suspend
The world by sin, does by the same extend.
Hence that blest day still counterposd wastes,
The ill delaying what the elected hastes;
Hence landing nature to new seas is tossed,
And good designs still with their authors lost.
And thou, great Cromwell, for whose happy birth
A mould was chosen out of better earth;
Whose saint-like mother we did lately see
Live out an age, long as a pedigree;
That she might seem (could we the Fall dispute),
T' have smelled the blossom, and not eat the fruit;
Though none does of more lasting parents grow,
Yet never any did them honour so,
Though thou thine heart from evil still unstained,
And always hast thy tongue from fraud refrained;
Thou, who so oft through storms of thundering lead
Hast born securely thine undaunted head,
Thy breast through poniarding conspiracies,
Drawn from the sheath of lying prophecies;
Thee proof behond all other force or skill,
Our sins endanger, and shall one day kill.
How near they failed, and in thy sudden fall
At once assayed to overturn us all.
Our brutish fury struggling to be free,
Hurried thy horses while they hurried thee,
When thou hadst almost quit thy mortal cares,
And soiled in dust thy crown of silver hairs.
Let this one sorrow interweave among
The other glories of our yearly song.
Like skilful looms, which through the costly thread
Of purling ore, a shining wave do shed:
So shall the tears we on past grief employ,
Still as they trickle, glitter in our joy.
So with more modesty we may be true,
And speak, as of the dead, the praises due:
While impious men deceived with pleasure short,
On their own hopes shall find the fall retort.
But the poor beasts, wanting their noble guide,
(What could they more?) shrunk
guiltily aside.
First wingd fear transports them far away,
And leaden sorrow then their flight did stay.
See how they each his towering crest abate,
And the green grass, and their known mangers hate,
Nor through wide nostrils snuff the wanton air,
Nor their round hoofs, or curld manes compare;
With wandering eyes, and restless ears they stood,
And with shrill neighings asked him of the wood.
Thou, Cromwell, falling, not a stupid tree,
Or rock so savage, but it mourned for thee:
And all about was heard a panic groan,
As if that Nature's self were overthrown.
It seemed the earth did from the centre tear;
It seemed the sun was fall'n out of the sphere:
Justice obstructed lay, and reason fooled;
Courage disheartened, and religion cooled.
A dismal silence through the palace went,
And then loud shrieks the vaulted marbles rent,
Such as the dying chorus sings by turns,
And to deaf seas, and ruthless tempests mourns,
When now they sink, and now the plundering streams
Break up each deck, and rip the oaken seams.
But thee triumphant hence the fiery car,
And fiery steeds had borne out of the war,
From the low world, and thankless men above,
Unto the kingdom blest of peace and love:
We only mourned ourselves, in thine ascent,
Whom thou hadst left beneath with mantle rent.
For all delight of life thou then didst lose,
When to command, thou didst thyself dispose;
Resigning up thy privacy so dear,
To turn the headstrong people's charioteer;
For to be Cromwell was a greater thing,
Then ought below, or yet above a king:
Therefore thou rather didst thyself depress,
Yielding to rule, because it made thee less.
For neither didst thou from the first apply
Thy sober spirit unto things too high,
But in thine own fields exercised'st long,
An healthful mind within a body strong;
Till at the seventh time thou in the skies,
As a small cloud, like a man's hand, didst rise;
Then did thick mists and winds the air deform,
And down at last thou poured'st the fertile storm,
Which to the thirsty land did plenty bring,
But, though forewarned, o'ertook and wet the King.
What since he did, an higher force him pushed
Still from behind, and yet before him rushed,
Though undiscerned among the tumult blind,
Who think those high decrees by man designed.
'Twas heaven would not that his
power should cease,
But walk still middle betwixt war and peace:
Choosing each stone, and poising every weight,
Trying the measures of the breadth and height;
Here pulling down, and there erecting new,
Founding a firm state by proportions true.
When Gideon so did from the war retreat,
Yet by the conquest of two kings grown great,
He on the peace extends a warlike power,
And Israel silent saw him raze the tower;
And how he Succorth's Elders durst suppress,
With thorns and briars of the wilderness.
No king might ever such a force have done;
Yet would not he be Lord, nor yet his son.
Thou with the same strength, and an heart as plain,
Didst (like thine olive) still refuse to reign,
Though why should others all thy labour spoil,
And brambles be anointed with thine oil,
Whose climbing flame, without a timely stop,
Had quickly levelled every cedar's top?
Therefore first growing to thyself a law,
Th' ambitious shrubs thou in just time didst awe.
So have I seen at sea, when whirling winds,
Hurry the bark, but more the seamen's minds,
Who with mistaken course salute the sand,
And threatening rocks misapprehend for land,
While baleful Tritons to the shipwreck guide,
And corposants along the tackling slide,
The passengers all wearied out before,
Giddy, and wishing for the fatal shore,
Some lusty mate, who with more careful eye
Counted the hours, and every star did spy,
The help does from the artless steersman strain,
And doubles back unto the safer main.
What though a while they grumble discontent,
Saving himself, he does their loss prevent.
'Tis not a freedom, that where all
command;
Nor tyranny, where one does them withstand:
But who of both the bounder knows to lay
Him as their father must the state obey.
Thou, and thine house (like Noah's eight) did rest,
Left by the wars' flood on the mountains' crest:
And the large vale lay subject to thy will
Which thou but as an husbandman wouldst till:
And only didst for others plant the vine
Of liberty, not drunken with its wine.
That sober liberty which men may have,
That they enjoy, but more they vainly crave:
And such as to their parents' tents do press,
May show their own, not see his nakedness.
Yet such a Chammish issue still does rage,
The shame and plague both of the land and age,
Who watched thy halting, and thy fall deride,
Rejoicing when thy foot had slipped aside,
That their new king might the fifth sceptre shake,
And make the world, by his example, quake:
Whose frantic army should they want for men
Might muster heresies, so one were ten.
What thy misfortune, they the spirit call,
And their religion only is to fall.
Oh Mahomet! now couldst thou rise again,
Thy falling-sickness should have made thee reign,
While Feake and Simpson would in many a tome,
Have writ the comments of thy sacred foam:
For soon thou mightst have passed among their rant
Were't but for thine unmovd tulipant;
As thou must needs have owned them of thy band
For prophecies fit to be Alcoraned.
Accursd locusts, whom your king does spit
Out of the centre of the unbottomed pit;
Wanderers, adulterers, liars, Munster's rest,
Sorcerers, athiests, jesuits possessed;
You who the scriptures and the laws deface
With the same liberty as points and lace;
Oh race most hypocritically strict!
Bent to reduce us to the ancient Pict;
Well may you act the Adam and the Eve;
Ay, and the serpent too that did deceive.
But the great captain, now the danger's o'er,
Makes you for his sake tremble one fit more;
And, to your spite, returning yet alive
Does with himself all that is good revive.
So when first man did through the morning new
See the bright sun his shining race pursue,
All day he followed with unwearied sight,
Pleased with that other world of moving light;
But thought him when he missed his setting beams,
Sunk in the hills, or plunged below the streams.
While dismal blacks hung round the universe,
And stars (like tapers) burned upon his hearse:
And owls and ravens with their screeching noise
Did make the funerals sadder by their joys.
His weeping eyes the doleful vigils keep,
Not knowing yet the night was made for sleep;
Still to the west, where he him lost, he turned,
And with such accents as despairing mourned:
`Why did mine eyes once see so
bright a ray;
Or why day last no longer than a day?'
When straight the sun behind him he descried,
Smiling serenely from the further side.
So while our star that gives us light and heat,
Seemed now a long and gloomy night to threat,
Up from the other world his flame he darts,
And princes (shining through their windows) starts,
Who their suspected counsellors refuse,
And credulous ambassadors accuse.
`Is this', saith one, `the nation
that we read
Spent with both wars, under a captain dead,
Yet rig a navy while we dress us late,
And ere we dine, raze and rebuild their state?
What oaken forests, and what golden mines!
What mints of men, what union of designs!
(Unless their ships, do, as their
fowl proceed
Of shedding leaves, that with their ocean breed).
Theirs are not ships, but rather arks of war
And beakd promontories sailed from far;
Of floating islands a new hatchd nest;
A fleet of worlds, of other worlds in quest;
An hideous shoal of wood-leviathans,
Armed with three tier of brazen hurricanes,
That through the centre shoot their thundering side
And sink the earth that does at anchor ride.
What refuge to escape them can be found,
Whose watery leaguers all the world surround?
Needs must we all their tributaries be,
Whose navies hold the sluices of the sea.
The ocean is the fountain of command,
But that once took, we captives are on land.
And those that have the waters for their share,
Can quickly leave us neither earth nor air.
Yet if through these our fears could find a pass,
Through double oak, and lined with treble brass,
That one man still, although but named, alarms
More than all men, all navies, and all arms.
Him, in the day, him, in late night I dread,
And still his sword seems hanging o'er my head.
The nation had been ours, but his one soul
Moves the great bulk, and animates the whole.
He secrecy with number hath enchased,
Courage with age, maturity with haste:
The valiant's terror, riddle of the wise,
And still his falchion all our knots unties.
Where did he learn those arts that cost us dear?
Where below earth, or where above the sphere?
He seems a king by long succession born,
And yet the same to be a king does scorn.
Abroad a king he seems, and something more,
At home a subject on the equal floor.
O could I once him with our title see,
So should I hope that he might die as we.
But let them write is praise that love him best,
It grieves me sore to have thus much confessed.'
Pardon, great Prince, if thus their fear of spite
More than our love and duty do thee right.
I yield, nor further will the prize contend,
So that we both alike may miss our end:
While thou thy venerable head dost raise
As far above their malice as my praise,
And as the Angel of our commonweal,
Troubling the waters, yearly mak'st them heal.
Chorus. Endymion. Luna.
Chorus.
Th' Astrologers
own Eyes are set,
And even
Wolves the Sheep forget;
Only this
Shepheard, late and soon,
Upon this
Hill outwakes the Moon.
Heark how he
sings, with sad delight,
Thorough the
clear and silent Night.
Endymion.
Cynthia,
O Cynthia, turn thine Ear,
Nor scorn Endymions
plaints to hear.
As we our
Flocks, so you command
The fleecy Clouds with
silver wand.
Cynthia.
If thou a Mortal,
rather sleep;
Or if a Shepheard,
watch thy Sheep.
Endymion.
The Shepheard,
since he saw thine Eyes,
And Sheep are
both thy Sacrifice.
Nor merits he a Mortal's
name,
That burns with an immortal
Flame.
Cynthia.
I have enough for me to
do,
Ruling the Waves that
Ebb and flow.
Endymion.
Since thou disdain'st
not then to share
On Sublunary things thy
care;
Rather restrain these
double Seas,
Mine Eyes uncessant
deluges.
Cynthia.
My wakeful Lamp all
night must move,
Securing their Repose
above.
Endymion.
If therefore thy
resplendent Ray
Can make a Night more
bright then Day;
Shine thorough this
obscurer Brest,
With shades of deep
Despair opprest.
Chorus.
Courage, Endymion,
boldly Woo,
Anchises was a Shepheard
too:
Yet is her younger
Sister laid
Sporting with him in Ida's
shade:
And Cynthia,
though the strongest,
Seeks but the honour to
have held out longest.
Endymion.
Here unto Latmos Top
I climbe:
How far below thine Orbe
sublime?
O why, as well as Eyes
to see,
Have I not Armes that
reach to thee?
Cynthia.
'Tis needless then that
I refuse,
Would you but your own
Reason use.
Endymion.
Though I so high may not
pretend,
It is the same so you
descend.
Cynthia.
These Stars would
say I do them wrong,
Rivals each one for thee
too strong.
Endymion.
The Stars are
fix'd unto their Sphere,
And cannot, though they
would, come near.
Less Loves set of each
others praise,
While Stars
Eclypse by mixing Rayes. Cynthia.
That Cave is dark.
Endymion
Then
none can spy:
Or shine Thou there and
'tis the Sky.
Chorus.
Joy to Endymion,
For he
has Cynthia's favour won.
And Jove himself approves
With his serenest
influence their Loves.
For he
did never love to pair
His
Progeny above the Air;
But to
be honest, valiant, wise,
Makes Mortals
matches fit for Deityes.
Oblig'd by frequent visits of this man,
Whom as
Priest, Poet, and Musician,
I for some
branch of Melchizedeck took,
(Though he
derives himself from my Lord Brooke)
I sought his
Lodging; which is at the Sign
Of the sad Pelican;
Subject divine
For Poetry:
There three Stair-Cases high,
Which
signifies his triple property,
I found at
last a Chamber, as 'twas said,
But seem'd a Coffin set
on the Stairs head.
Not higher then Seav'n,
nor larger then three feet;
Only there was nor
Seeling, nor a Sheet,
Save that th'ingenious
Door did as you come
Turn in, and shew to
Wainscot half the Room.
Yet of his State no man
could have complain'd;
There being no Bed where
he entertain'd:
And though within one
Cell so narrow pent,
He'd Stanza's for
a whole Appartement.
Straight without further information,
In hideous verse, he,
and a dismal tone,
Begins to exercise; as
if I were
Possest; and sure the Devil
brought me there.
But I, who now imagin'd
my self brought
To my last Tryal, in a
serious thought
Calm'd the disorders of
my youthful Breast,
And to my Martyrdom
prepared Rest.
Only this frail Ambition
did remain,
The last distemper of
the sober Brain,
That there had been some
present to assure
The future Ages how I
did indure:
And how I, silent,
turn'd my burning Ear
Towards the Verse; and
when that could ne'er
Held him the other; and
unchanged yet,
Ask'd still for more,
and pray'd him to repeat:
Till the Tyrant, weary
to persecute,
Left off, and try'd
t'allure me with his Lute.
Now as two Instruments,
to the same key
Being tun'd by Art, if
the one touched be
The other opposite as
soon replies,
Mov'd by the Air and
hidden Sympathies;
So while he with his
gouty Fingers craules
Over the Lute, his
murmuring Belly calls,
Whose hungry Guts to the
same streightness twin'd
In Echo to the trembling
Strings repin'd. I, that
perceiv'd now what his Musick ment,
Ask'd civilly if he had
eat this Lent.
He answered yes; with
such, and such an one.
For he has this of
gen'rous, that alone
He never feeds; save
only when he tryes
With gristly Tongue to
dart the passing Flyes.
I ask'd if he eat flesh.
And he, that was
So hungry that though
ready to say Mass
Would break his fast
before, said he was Sick,
And th'Ordinance
was only Politick.
Nor was I longer to
invite him: Scant
Happy at once to make
him Protestant,
And Silent. Nothing now
Dinner stay'd
But till he had himself
a Body made.
I mean till he were
drest: for else so thin
He stands, as if he only
fed had been
With consecrated Wafers:
and the Host
Hath sure more flesh and
blood then he can boast.
This Basso Relievo
of a Man,
Who as a Camel tall, yet
easly can
The Needles Eye thread
without any stich,
(His only impossible is
to be rich)
Lest his too suttle
Body, growing rare,
Should leave his Soul to
wander in the Air,
He therefore
circumscribes himself in rimes;
And swaddled in's own
papers seaven times,
Wears a close Jacket of
poetick Buff,
With which he doth his
third Dimension Stuff.
Thus armed underneath,
he over all
Does make a primitive Sotana
fall;
And above that yet casts
an antick Cloak,
Worn at the first
Counsel of Antioch;
Which by the Jews
long hid, and Disesteem'd,
He heard of by
Tradition, and redeem'd.
But were he not in this
black habit deck't,
This half transparent
Man would soon reflect
Each colour that he past
by; and be seen,
As the Chamelion,
yellow, blew, or green.
He drest, and ready to disfurnish now
His Chamber, whose
compactness did allow
No empty place for
complementing doubt,
But who came last is
forc'd first to go out;
I meet one on the Stairs
who made me stand,
Stopping the passage,
and did him demand:
I answer'd he is here Sir;
but you see
You cannot pass to him
but thorow me.
He thought himself
affronted; and reply'd,
I whom the Pallace never
has deny'd
Will make the way here;
I said Sir you'l do
Me a great favour, for I
seek to go.
He gathring fury still
made sign to draw;
But himself there clos'd
in a Scabbard saw
As narrow as his
Sword's; and I, that was
Delightful, said there
can no Body pass
Except by penetration
hither, where
Two make a crowd, nor can three
Persons here
Consist but in one substance. Then,
to fit
Our peace, the Priest said I too had
some wit:
To prov't, I said, the place doth us
invite
But its own narrowness, Sir, to
unite.
He ask'd me pardon; and to make me
way
Went down, as I him follow'd to
obey.
But the propitiatory Priest had
straight
Oblig'd us, when below, to celebrate
Together our attonement: so
increas'd
Betwixt us two the Dinner to a
Feast. Let it suffice that we could
eat in peace;
And that both Poems did and Quarrels
cease
During the Table; though my new made
Friend
Did, as he threatned, ere 'twere
long intend
To be both witty and valiant: I
loth,
Said 'twas too late, he was already
both. But now, Alas, my first
Tormentor came,
Who satisfy'd with eating, but not
tame
Turns to recite; though Judges most
severe
After th'Assizes dinner mild appear,
And on full stomach do condemn but
few:
Yet he more strict my sentence doth
renew;
And draws out of the black box of
his Breast
Ten quire of paper in which he was
drest.
Yet that which was a greater cruelty
Then Nero's Poem he calls
charity:
And so the Pelican at his
door hung
Picks out the tender bosome to its
young. Of all his Poems there he
stands ungirt
Save only two foul copies for his
shirt:
Yet these he promises as soon as
clean.
But how I loath'd to see my
Neighbour glean
Those papers, which he pilled from
within
Like white fleaks rising from a
Leaper's skin!
More odious then those raggs which
the French youth
At ordinaries after dinner show'th,
When they compare their Chancres
and Poulains .
Yet he first kist them, and after
takes pains
To read; and then, because he
understood
Not one Word, thought and swore that
they were good.
But all his praises could not now
appease
The provok't Author, whom it did
displease
To hear his Verses, by so just a
curse,
That were ill made condemn'd to be
read worse:
And how (impossible) he made yet
more
Absurdityes in them then were
before.
For he his untun'd voice did fall or
raise
As a deaf Man upon a Viol playes,
Making the half points and the
periods run
Confus'der then the atomes in the
Sun.
Thereat the Poet swell'd, with anger
full,
And roar'd out, like Perillus
in's own Bull;
Sir you read false. That any
one but you
Should know the contrary. Whereat,
I, now
Made Mediator, in my room, said,
Why?
To say that you read false Sir
is no Lye.
Thereat the waxen Youth relented
straight;
But saw with sad dispair that was
too late.
For the disdainful Poet was retir'd
Home, his most furious Satyr to have
fir'd
Against the Rebel; who, at this
struck dead
Wept bitterly as disinherited.
Who should commend his Mistress now?
Or who
Praise him? both difficult indeed to
do
With truth. I counsell'd him to go
in time,
Ere the fierce Poets anger turn'd to
rime. He hasted; and I, finding my
self free,
As one scap't strangely from
Captivity,
Have made the Chance be painted; and
go now
To hang it in Saint Peter's
for a Vow.
Quisnam adeo, mortale genus,
praecordia versat:
Heu Palmae, Laurique furor, vel simplicis Herbae!
Arbor ut indomitos ornet vix una labores;
Tempora nec foliis praecingat tota maglignis.
Dum simud implexi, tranquillae ad
ferta Quiaetis,
Omnigeni coeunt Flores, integraque Sylva.
Alma Quies, teneo te! & te Germana Quietis
Simplicitas! Vos ergo diu per Templa, per urbes,
Quaesivi, Regum perque alta Palatia frustra.
Sed vos Hotrorum per opaca siluentia longe
Celarant Plantae virides, & concolor Umbra.
O! mibi si vestros liceat violasse recessus.
Erranti, lasso, & vitae melioris anhelo,
Municipem servate novum, votoque potitum,
Frondosae Cives optate in florea Regna.
Me quoque, vos Musae, &, te conscie testor Apollo,
Non Armenta juvant hominum, Circique boatus,
Mugitusve Fori; sed me Penetralia veris,
Horroresque trahunt muti, & Consortia sola.
Virgineae quem non suspendit Gratia formae?
Quam candore Nives vincentum, Ostrumque rubore,
Vestra tamen viridis superet (me judice) Virtus.
Nec foliis certare Comae, nec Brachia ramis,
Nec possint tremulos voces aequare susurros.
Ah quoties saevos vidi (quis credat?) Amantes
Sculpentes Dominae potiori in cortice nomen?
Nec puduit truncis inscribere vulnera sacris.
Ast Ego, si vestras unquam temeravero stirpes,
Nulla Neaera, Chloe, Faustina, Corynna, legetur:
In proprio sed quaeque libro signabitur Arbos.
O charae Platanus, Cyparissus, Populus, Ulnus!
Hic Amor, exutis crepidatus inambulat alis,
Enerves arcus & stridula tela reponens,
Invertitque faces, nec se cupit usque timeri;
Aut experrectus jacet, indormitque pharetrae;
Non auditurus quanquam Cytherea vocarit;
Nequitias referuut nec somnia vana priores.
Laetantur Superi, defervescente Tyranno,
Et licet experti toties Nymphasque Deasque,
Arbore nunc melius potiuntur quisque cupita.
Jupiter annosam, neglecta conjuge, Quercum
Deperit; baud alia doluit sic pellice. Juno.
Lemniacum temerant vestigia nulla Cubile,
Nic Veneris Mavors meminit si Fraxinus adsit.
Formosae pressit Daphnes vestigia Phaebus
Ut fieret Laurus; sed nil quaesiverat ultra.
Capripes & peteret quod Pan Syringa fugacem,
Hoc erat ut Calamum posset reperire Sonorum.
Note: Desunt multa. Nec tu, Opisex horti, grato sine carmine abibis:
Qui brevibus plantis, & laeto flore, notasti
Crescentes horas, atque intervalla diei.
Sol ibi candidior fragrantia Signa pererrat;
Proque truci Tauro, stricto pro forcipe Cancri,
Securis violaeque rosaeque allabitur umbris.
Sedula quin & Apis, mellito intenta labori,
Horologo sua pensa thymo Signare videtur.
Temporis O suaves lapsus! O Otia sana!
O Herbis dignae numerari & Floribus Horae!
Haec est quae toties Inimicos
Umbra fugavit,
At sub qua Cives Otia lenta terunt.
In eandem Reginae Sueciae transmissam
Bellipotens Virgo, septem Regina Trionum.
Christina, Arctoi lucida stella Poli;
Cernis quas merui dura sub Casside Rugas;
Sicque Senex Armis impiger Ora fero;
Invia Fatorum dum per Vestigia nitor,
Exequor & Populi fortia Jussa Manu.
At tibi submittit frontem reverentior Umbra,
Nec sunt hi Vultus Regibus usque truces.
Ingeniosa Viris contingunt
Nomina magnis,
Ut dubites Casu vel Ratione data.
Nam Sors, caeca licet, tamen est praesaga futuri;
Et sub fatidico Nomine vera premit.
Et Tu, cui soli voluit Respublica credi,
Foedera seu Belgis seu nova Bella feras;
Haud frustra cecidit tibi Compellatio fallax,
Ast scriptum ancipiti Nomine Munus erat;
Scilicet hoc Martis, sed Pacis Nuntius illo:
Clavibus his Jani ferrea Claustra regis.
Non opus Arcanos Chartis committere Sensus,
Et varia licitos condere Fraude Dolos.
Tu quoque si taceas tamen est Legatio Nomen.
Et velut in Scytale publica verba refert.
Vultis Oliverum, Batavi, Sanctumve Johannem?
Antiochus gyro non breviore stetit.
C'est de luy que nous
vient cet Art ingenieux
De peindre la Parole, et deparler aua Yeux;
Et, parles traits divers de figures tracees,
Donner de la couleur et du corps aux pensees.
Consurgit Luparae Dum non
imitabile culmen,
Escuriale ingens uritur in vidia.
Charissimo Filio &c.
Pater & Mater &c.
funebrem tabulam curavimus.
Age Marmor, & pro solita tua hxmanitate,
(Ne inter Parentum Dolorem &
Modestiam
Supprimantur praeclari Juvenis meritae laudes)
Effare Johannis Trottii breve Elogium.
Erat ille totus Candidus, Politus, Solidus,
Ultra vel Parii Marmoris metaphoram,
Et Gemma Sculpi dignus, non Lapide:
E Schola Wintoniensi ad Academiam Oxonii,
Inde ad Interioris Templi Hospitium gradum fecerat:
Summae Spei, Summae Indolis, ubique vestigia reliquit;
Supra Sexum Venustus,
Supra Aetatem Doctus,
Ingeniosus supra Fidem.
Et jam vicesimum tertium annum inierat,
Pulcherrimo undequaque vitae prospectu,
Quem Mors immatura obstruxit.
Ferales Pustulae Corpus tam affabre factum
Ludibrio habuere, & vivo incrustarunt sepulchro.
Anima evasit Libera, Aeterna, Faelix,
Et morti insultans
Mortalem Sortem cum Foenore accipiet.
Nos interim, meri vespillones,
Parentes Filia extra ordinem Parentantes,
Subtus in gentilitio crypta reliquias composuimus,
Ipsi eandem ad Dei nutum subituri.
Natus est &c. Mortuus &c. reviviscet
Primo Resurrectionis.
After two sittings, now our Lady
State
To end her picture does the third time wait.
But ere thou fall’st to work, first, Painter, see
If’t ben’t too slight grown or too hard for thee.
Canst thou paint without colors? Then ’tis right:
For so we too without a fleet can fight.
Or canst thou daub a signpost, and that ill?
’Twill suit our great debauch and
little skill.
Or hast thou marked how antic masters limn
The aly-roof with snuff of candle dim,
Sketching in shady smoke prodigious tools?
’Twill serve this race of
drunkards, pimps and fools.
But if to match our crimes thy skill presumes,
As th’ Indians, draw our luxury in plumes.
Or if to score out our compendious fame,
With Hooke, then, through the microscope take aim,
Where, like the new Comptroller, all men laugh
To see a tall louse brandish the white staff.
Else shalt thou oft thy guiltless pencil curse,
Stamp on thy palette, not perhaps the worse.
The painter so, long having vexed his cloth—
Of his hound’s mouth to feign the raging froth—
His desperate pencil at the work did dart:
His anger reached that rage which passed his art;
Chance finished that which art could but begin,
And he sat smiling how his dog did grin.
So mayst thou pérfect by a lucky blow
What all thy softest touches cannot do.
Paint then St Albans full of soup and gold,
The new court’s pattern, stallion of the old.
Him neither wit nor courage did exalt,
But Fortune chose him for her pleasure salt.
Paint him with drayman’s shoulders, butcher’s mien,
Membered like mules, with elephantine chine.
Well he the title of St Albans bore,
For Bacon never studied nature more.
But age, allayed now that youthful heat,
Fits him in France to play at cards and treat.
Draw no commission lest the court should lie,
That, disavowing treaty, asks supply.
He needs no seal but to St James’s lease,
Whose breeches wear the instrument of peace;
Who, if the French dispute his power, from thence
Can straight produce them a plenipotence..
Nor fears he the Most Christian should trepan
Two saints at once, St Germain, St Alban,
But thought the Golden Age was now restored,
When men and women took each other’s word.
Paint then again Her Highness to the life,
Philosopher beyond Newcastle’s wife.
She, nak’d, can Archimedes self put down,
For an experiment upon the crown,
She pérfected that engine, oft assayed,
How after childbirth to renew a maid,
And found how royal heirs might be matured
In fewer months than mothers once endured.
Hence Crowther made the rare inventress free
Of’s Higness’s Royal Society—
Happiest of women, if she were but able
To make her glassen Dukes once malleáble!
Paint her with oyster lip and breath of fame,
Wide mouth that ’sparagus may well proclaim;
With Chancellor’s belly and so large a rump,
There—not behind the coach—her pages jump.
Express her study now if China clay
Can, without breaking, venomed juice convey,
Or how a mortal poison she may draw
Out of the cordial meal of the cacao.
Witness, ye stars of night, and thou the pale
Moon, that o’ercame with the sick steam didst fail;
Ye neighboring elms, that your green leaves did shed,
And fawns that from the womb abortive fled;
Not unprovoked, she tries forbidden arts,
But in her soft breast love’s hid cancer smarts,
While she resoloves, at once, Sidney’s disgrace
And her self scorned for emulous Denham’s face,
And nightly hears the hated guards, away
Galloping with the Duke to other prey.
Paint Castlemaine in colours that will hold
(Her, not her picture, for she now
grows old):
She through her lackey’s drawers, as he ran,
Discerned love’s cause and a new flame began.
Her wonted joys thenceforth and court she shuns,
And still within her mind the footman runs:
His brazen calves, his brawny thighs—the face
She slights—his feet shaped for a smoother race.
Poring within her glass she readjusts
Her looks, and oft-tried beauty now distrusts,
Fears lest he scorn a woman once assayed,
And now first wished she e’er had been a maid.
Great Love, how dost thou triumph and how reign,
That to a groom couldst humble her disdain!
Stripped to her skin, see how she stooping stands,
Nor scorns to rub him down with those fair hands,
And washing (lest the scent her crime disclose)
His sweaty hooves, tickles him ‘twixt the toes.
But envious Fame, too soon, began to note
More gold in’s Fob, more lace upon his coat;
And he, unwary, and of tongue too fleet,
No longer could conceal his fortune sweet.
Justly the rogue was shipped in porter’s den,
And Jermyn straight has leave to come again.
Ah, Painter, now could Alexander live,
And this Campaspe thee, Apelles, give!
Draw next a pair of tables opening, then
The House of Commons clattering like the men.
Describe the Court and Country, both set right
On opp’site points, the black against the white.
Those having lost the nation at tric-trac,
These now adventuring how to win it back.
The dice betwixt them must the fate divide
(As chance doth still in
multitudes decide).
But here the Court does its advantage know,
For the cheat Turner for them both must throw.
As some from boxes, he so from the chair
Can strike the die and still with them goes share.
Here, Painter, rest a little, and survey
With what small arts the public game they play.
For so too Rubens, with affairs of state,
His labouring pencil oft would recreate.
The close Cabal marked how the Navy eats,
And thought all lost that goes not to the cheats,
So therefore secretly for peace decrees,
Yet as for war the Parliament should squeeze,
And fix to the revénue such a sum
Should Goodrick silence and strike Paston dumb,
Should pay land armies, should dissolve the vain
Commons, and ever such a court maintain;
Hyde’s avarice, Bennet’s luxury should suffice,
And what can these defray but the Excise?
Excise a monster worse than e’er before
Frighted the midwife and the mother tore.
A thousand hands she has and thousand eyes,
Breaks into shops and into cellars pries,
And on all trade like cassowar she feeds:
Chops off the piece wheres’e'er she close the jaw,
Else swallows all down her indented maw.
She stalks all day in streets concealed from sight
And flies, like bats with leathern wings, by night;
She wastes the country and on cities preys.
Her, of a female harpy, in dog days,
Black Birch, of all the earth-born race most hot
And most rapacious, like himself, begot,
And, of his brat enamoured, as’t increased,
Buggered in incest with the mongrel beast.
Say, Muse, for nothing can escape thy sight
(And, Painter, wanting other, draw
this fight),
Who, in an English senate, fierce debate
Could raise so long for this new whore of state.
Of early wittols first the troop marched in—
For diligence renowned and discipline—
In loyal haste they left young wives in bed,
And Denham these by one consent did head.
Of the old courtiers, next a squadron came,
That sold their master, led by Ashburnham.
To them succeeds a desipicable rout,
But know the word and well could face about;
Expectants pale, with hopes of spoil allured,
Though yet but pioneers, and led by Stew’rd.
Then damning cowards ranged the vocal plain,
Wood these command, the Knight of the Horn and Cane.
Still his hook-shoulder seems the blow to dread,
And under’s armpit he defends his head.
The posture strange men laughed at of his poll,
Hid with his elbow like the spice he stole.
Headless St Denys so his head does bear,
And both of them alike French martyrs were.
Court officers, as used, the next place took,
And followed, Fox, but with disdainful look.
His birth, his youth, his brokage all dispraise
In vain, for always he commands that pays.
Then the procurers under Progers filed—
Gentlest of men— and his lieutenant mild,
Brounker—Love’s squire—through all the field arrayed,
No troop was better clad, nor so well paid.
Then marched the troop of Clarendon, all full
Haters of fowl, to teal preferring bull:
Gross bodies, grosser minds, and grossest cheats,
And bloated Wren conducts them to their seats.
Charlton advances next, whose coif does awe
The Mitre troop, and with his looks gives law.
He marched with beaver cocked of bishop’s brim,
And hid much fraud under an aspect grim.
Next the lawyers’ merecenary band appear:
Finch in the front, and Thurland in the rear.
The troop of privilege, a rabble bare
Of debtors deep, fell to Trelawney’s care.
Their fortune’s error they supplied in rage,
Nor any further would than these engage.
Then marched the troop, whose valiant acts before
(Their public acts) obliged them
still to more.
For chimney’s sake they all Sir Pool obeyed,
Or in his absence him that first it laid.
Then comes the thrifty troop of privateers,
Whose horses each with other interfered.
Before them Higgons rides with brow compact,
Mourning his Countess, anxious for his Act.
Sir Frederick and Sir Solomon draw lots
For the command of politics or sots,
Thence fell to words, but quarrel to adjourn;
Their friends agreed they should command by turn.
Carteret the rich did the accountants guide
And in ill English all the world defied.
The Papists—but of these the House had none
Else Talbot offered to have led them on.
Bold Duncombe next, of the projectors chief,
And old Fitz-harding of the Eaters Beef.
Late and disordered out the drinkers drew,
Scarce them their leaders, they their leaders knew.
Before them entered, equal in command,
Apsley and Brod’rick, marching hand in hand.
Last then but one, Powell that could not ride,
Led the French standard, weltering in his stride.
He, to excuse his slowness, truth confessed
That ’twas so long before he could be dressed.
The Lord’s sons, last, all these did reinforce:
Cornb’ry before them managed hobby-horse.
Never before nor since, an host so steeled
Trooped on to muster in the Tothill Field:
Not the first cock-horse that with cork were shod
To rescue Albemarle from the sea-cod,
Nor the late feather-men, whom Tomkins fierce
Shall with one breath, like thistledown disperse.
All the two Coventrys their generals chose
For one had much, the other nought to lose;
Nor better choice all accidents could hit,
While Hector Harry steers by Will the Wit.
They both accept the charge with merry glee,
To fight a battle, from all gunshot free.
Pleased with their numbers, yet in valour wise,
They feign a parley, better to surprise;
They that ere long shall the rude Dutch upbraid,
Who in the time of treaty durst invade.
Thick was the morning, and the House was thin,
The Speaker early, when they all fell in.
Propitious heavens, had not you them crossed,
Excise had got the day, and all been lost.
For the other side all in loose quarters lay,
Without intelligence, command, or pay:
A scattered body, which the foe ne’er tried,
But oftener did among themselves divide.
And some ran o’er each night, while others sleep,
And undescried returned ere morning peep.
But Strangeways, that all night still walked the round
(For vigilance and courage both
renowned)
First spied he enemy and gave the ‘larm,
Fighting it single till the rest might arm.
Such Romand Cocles strid before the foe,
The falling bridge behind, the stream below.
Each ran, as chance him guides to several post,
And all to pattern his example boast.
Their former trophies they recall to mind
And to new edge their angry courage grind.
First entered forward Temple, conqueror
Of Irish cattle and Solicitor;
Then daring Seymour, that with spear and shield
Had stretched the Monster Patent on the field;
Keen Whorwood next, in aid of damsel frail,
That pierced the giant Mordaunt through his mail;
And surly Williams, the accountants’ bane;
And Lovelace young, of chimney-men the cane.
Old Waller, trumpet-general, swore he’d write
This combat truer than the naval fight.
How’rd on’s birth, wit, strength, courage much presumes
And in his breast wears many Montezumes.
These and some more with single valour stay
The adverse troops, and hold them all at bay.
Each thinks his person represents the whole,
And with that thought does multiply his soul,
Believes himself an army, theirs, one man
As easily conquered, and believing can,
With heart of bees so full, and head of mites,
That each, though duelling, a battle fights.
Such once Orlando, famous in romance,
Broached whole brigades like larks upon his lance.
But strength at last still under number bows,
And the faint sweat trickled down Temple’s brows.
E’en iron Strangeways, chafing, yet gave back,
Spent with fatigue, to breathe a while toback.
When marching in, a seasonable recruit
Of citizens and merchants held dispute;
And, charging all their pikes, a sullen band
Of Presyterian Switzers made a stand.
Nor could all these the field have long maintained
But for th’ unknown reserve that still remained:
A gross of English gentry, nobly born,
Of clear estates, and to no faction sworn,
Dear lovers of their king, and death to meet
For country’s cause, that glorious think and sweet;
To speak not forward, but in action brave,
In giving generous, but in counsel grave;
Candidly credulous for once, nay twice,
But sure the Devil cannot cheat them thrice.
The van and battle, though retiring, falls
Without dosorder in their intervals.
Then, closing all in equal front, fall on,
Led by great Garway and great Littleton.
Lee, ready to obey or to command,
Adjutant-general, was still at hand.
The martial standard, Sandys displaying, shows
St Dunstan in it, tweaking Satan’s nose.
See sudden chance of war! To paint or write
Is longer work and harder than to fight.
At the first charge the enemy give out,
And the Excise receives a total rout.
Broken in courage, yet the men the same
Resolve henceforth upon their other game:
Where force had failed, with stratagem to play,
And what haste lost, recover by delay.
St Albans straight is sent to, to forbear,
Lest the sure peace, forsooth, too soon appear.
The seamen’s clamour to three ends they use:
To cheat their pay, feign want, the House accuse.
Each day they bring the tale, and that too true,
How strong the Dutch their equipage renew.
Meantime through all the yards their orders run
To lay the ships up, cease the keels begun.
The timber rots, and useless axe doth rust,
Th’ unpracticed saw lies buried in its dust,
The busy hammer sleeps, the ropes untwine,
The stores and wages all are mine and thine.
Along the coast and harbours they make care
That money lack, nor forts be in repair.
Long thus they could against the House conspire,
Load them with envy, and with sitting tire.
And the loved King, and never yet denied,
Is brought to beg in public and to chide;
But when this failed, and months enow were spent,
They with the first day’s proffer seem content,
And to Land-Tax from the Excise turn round,
Bought off with eighteen-hundred-thousand pound.
Thus like fair theives, the Commons’ purse they share,
But all the members’ lives, consulting, spare.
Blither than hare that hath escaped the hounds,
The House prorogued, the Chancellor rebounds.
Not so decrepit Aeson, hashed and stewed,
With bitter herbs, rose from the pot renewed,
And with fresh age felt his glad limbs unite;
His gout (yet still he cursed) had left him quite.
What frosts to fruit, what arsenic to the rat,
What to fair Denham, mortal chocolate,
What an account to Carteret, that, and more,
A Parliament is to the Chancellor.
So the Sad-tree shrinks from the morning’s eye,
But blooms all night and shoots its branches high.
So, at the sun’s recess, again returns
The comet dread, and earth and heaven burns.
Now Mordaunt may, within his castle tower,
Imprison parents, and the child deflower.
The Irish herd is now let loose and comes
By millions over, not by hecatombs;
And now, now the Canary Patent may
Be broached again for the great holiday.
See how he reigns in his new palace culminant,
And sits in state divine like Jove the fulminant!
First Buckingham, that durst to him rebel,
Blasted with lightning, struck wtih thunder, fell.
Next the twelve Commons are condemned to groan
And roll in vain at Sisyphus’s stone.
But still he cared, while in revenge he braved
That peace secured and money might be saved:
Gain and revenge, revenge and gain are sweet
United most, else when by turns they meet.
France had St Albans promised (so they sing),
St Albans promised him, and he the King:
The Count forthwith is ordered all to close,
To play for Flanders and the stake to lose,
While, chained together, two ambassadors
Like slaves shall beg for peace at Holland’s doors.
This done, among his Cyclops he retires
To forge new thunder and inspect their fires.
The court as once of war, now fond of peace,
All to new sports their wanton fears release.
From Greenwich (where intelligence they hold)
Comes news of pastime martial and old,
A punishment invented first to awe
Masculine wives transgressing Nature’s law,
Where, when the brawny female disobeys,
And beats the husband till for peace he prays,
No concerned jury for him damage finds,
Nor partial justice her behavior binds,
But the just street does the next house invade,
Mounting the neighbour couple on lean jade,
The distaff knocks, the grains from kettle fly,
And boys and girls in troops run hooting by:
Prudent antiquity, that knew by shame,
Better than law, domestic crimes to tame,
And taught youth by spectácle innocent!
So thou and I, dear Painter, represent
In quick effigy, others’ faults, and feign
By making them ridiculous, to restrain.
With homely sight they chose thus to relax
The joys of state, for the new Peace and Tax.
So Holland with us had the mastery tried,
And our next neighbours, France and Flanders, ride.
But a fresh news the great designment nips,
Of, at the Isle of Candy, Dutch and ships!
Bab May and Arlington did wisely scoff
And thought all safe, if they were so far off.
Modern geographers, ’twas there, they thought,
Where Venice twenty years the Turk had fought,
While the first year our navy is but shown,
The next divided, and the third we’ve none.
They, by the name, mistook it for that isle
Where Pilgrim Palmer travelled in exile
With the bull’s horn to measure his own head
And on Pasiphaë’s tomb to drop a bead.
But Morice learn’d demónstrates, by the post,
This Isle of Candy was on Essex’ coast.
Fresh messengers still the sad news assure;
More timorous now we are than first secure.
False terrors our believing fears devise,
And the French army one from Calais spies.
Bennet and May and those of shorter reach
Change all for guineas, and a crown for each,
But wiser men and well foreseen in chance
In Holland theirs had lodged before, and France.
Whitehall’s unsafe; the court all meditates
To fly to Windsor and mure up the gates.
Each does the other blame, and all distrust;
(That Mordaunt, new obliged, would
sure be just.)
Not such a fatal stupefaction reigned
At London’s flame, nor so the court complained.
The Bloodworth_Chancellor gives, then does recall
Orders; amazed, at last gives none at all.
St Alban’s writ to, that he may bewail
To Master Louis, and tell coward tale
How yet the Hollanders do make a noise,
Threaten to beat us, and are naughty boys.
Now Dolman’s dosobedient, and they still
Uncivil; his unkindness would us kill.
Tell him our ships unrigged, our forts unmanned,
Our money spent; else ’twere at his command.
Summon him therefore of his word and prove
To move him out of pity, if not love;
Pray him to make De Witt and Ruyter cease,
And whip the Dutch unless they’ll hold their peace.
But Louis was of memory but dull
And to St Albans too undutiful,
Nor word nor near relation did revere,
But asked him bluntly for his character.
The gravelled Count did with the answer faint—
His character was that which thou didst paint—
Trusses his baggage and the camp does fly.
Yet Louis writes and, lest our heart should break,
Consoles us morally out of Seneque.
Two letters next unto Breda are sent:
In cipher one to Harry Excellent;
The first instructs our (verse the name abhors)
Plenipotentiary ambassadors
To prove by Scripture treaty does imply
Cessation, as the look adultery,
And that, by law of arms, in martial strife,
Who yields his sword has title to his life.
Presbyter Holles the first point should clear,
The second Coventry the Cavalier;
But, whould they not be argued back from sea,
Then to return home straight, infecta re.
But Harry’s ordered, if they won’t recall
Their fleet, to threaten—we will grant them all.
The Dutch are then in proclamation shent
For sin against th’ eleventh commandment.
Hyde’s flippant style there pleasantly curvets,
Still his sharp wit on states and princes whets
(So Spain could not escape his
laughter’s spleen:
None but himsef must choose the King a Queen),
But when he came the odious clause to pen
That summons up the Parliament again,
His writing master many a time he banned
And wished himself the gout to seize his hand.
Never old lecher more repugnance felt,
Consenting, for his rupture, to be gelt;
But still then hope him solaced, ere they come,
To work the peace and so to send them home,
Or in their hasty call to find a flaw,
Their acts to vitiate, and them overawe;
But most relied upon this Dutch pretence
To raise a two-endged army for’s defence.
First then he marched our whole militia’s force
(As if indeed we ships or Dutch
had horse);
Then from the usual commonplace, he blames
These, and in standing army’s praise declaims;
And the wise court that always loved it dear,
Now thinks all but too little for their fear.
Hyde stamps, and straight upon the ground the swarms
Of current Myrmidons appear in arms,
And for their pay he writes, as from the King—
With that cursed quill plucked from a vulture’s wing—
Of the whole nation now to ask a loan
(The eighteen-hundred-thousand
pound was gone).
This done, he pens a proclamation stout,
In rescue of the banquiers banquerout,
His minion imps that, in his secret part,
Lie nuzzling at the sacremental wart,
Horse-leeches circling at the hem’rrhoid vein:
He sucks the King, they him, he them again.
The kingdom’s farm he lets to them bid least
(Greater the bribe, and that’s at
interest).
Here men, induced by safety, gain, and ease,
Their money lodge; confiscate when he please.
These can at need, at instant, with a scrip
(This liked him best) his cash
beyond sea whip.
When Dutch invade, when Parliament prepare,
How can he engines so convenient spare?
Let no man touch them or demand his own,
Pain of displeasure of great Clarendon.
The state affairs thus marshalled, for the rest
Monck in his shirt against the Dutch is pressed.
Often, dear Painter, have I sat and mused
Why he should still be ‘n all adventures used,
If they for nothing ill, like ashen wood,
Or think him, like Herb John for nothing good;
Whether his valour they so much admire,
Or that for cowardice they all retire,
As heaven in storms, they call in gusts of state
On Monck and Parliament, yet both do hate.
All causes sure concur, but most they think
Under Hercúlean labours he may sink.
Soon then the independent troops would close,
And Hyde’s last project would his place dispose.
Ruyter the while, that had our ocean curbed,
Sailed now among our rivers undistrubed,
Surveyed their crystal streams and banks so green
And beauties ere this never naked seen.
Through the vain sedge, the bashful nymphs he eyed:
Bosoms, and all which from themselves they hide.
The sun much brighter, and the skies more clear,
He finds the air and all things sweeter here.
The sudden change, and such a tempting sight
Swells his old veins with fresh blood, fresh delight.
Like am’rous victors he begins to shave,
And his new face looks in the English wave.
His sporting navy all about him swim
And witness their complacence in their trim.
Their streaming silks play through the weather fair
And with inveigling colours court the air,
While the red flags breathe on their topmasts high
Terror and war, but want an enemy.
Among the shrouds the seamen sit and sing,
And wanton boys on every rope do cling.
Old Neptune springs the tides and water lent
(The gods themselves do help the
provident),
And where the deep keel on the shallow cleaves,
With trident’s lever, and great shoulder heaves.
Æolus their sails inspires with eastern wind,
Puffs them along, and breathes upon them kind.
With pearly shell the Tritons all the while
Sound the sea-march and guide to Sheppey Isle.
So I have seen in April’s bud arise
A fleet of clouds, sailing along the skies;
The liquid region with their squadrons filled,
Their airy sterns the sun behind does gild;
And gentle gales them steer, and heaven drives,
When, all on sudden, their calm bosom rives
With thunder and lightning from each armèd cloud;
Shepherds themselves in vain in bushes shroud.
Such up the stream the Belgic navy glides
And at Sheerness unloads its stormy sides.
Spragge there, though practised in the sea command,
With panting heart lay like a fish on land
And quickly judged the fort was not tenáble—
Which, if a house, yet were not tenantáble—
No man can sit there safe: the cannon pours
Thorough the walls untight and bullet showers,
The neighbourhood ill, and an unwholesome seat,
So at the first salute resolves retreat,
And swore that he would never more dwell there
Until the city put it in repair.
So he in front, his garrison in rear,
March straight to Chatham to increase the fear.
There our sick ships unrigged in summer lay
Like moulting fowl, a weak and easy prey,
For whose strong bulk earth scarce could timber find,
The ocean water, or the heavens wind—
Those oaken giants of the ancient race,
That ruled all seas and did our Channel grace.
The conscious stag so, once the forest’s dread,
Flies to the wood and hides his armless head.
Ruyter forthwith a squadron does untack;
They sail securely through the river’s track.
An English pilot too (O shame, O sin!)
Cheated of pay, was he that showed them in.
Our wretched ships within their fate attend,
And all our hopes now on frail chain depend:
(Engine so slight to guard us from
the sea,
It fitter seemed to captivate a flea).
A skipper rude shocks it without respect,
Filling his sails more force to re-collect.
Th’ English from shore the iron deaf invoke
For its last aid: ‘Hold chain, or we are broke.’
But with her sailing weight, the Holland keel,
Snapping the brittle links, does thorough reel,
And to the rest the opened passage show;
Monck from the bank the dismal sight does view.
Our feathered gallants, which came down that day
To be spectators safe of the new play,
Leave him alone when first they hear the gun
(Cornb’ry the fleetest) and to
London run.
Our seamen, whom no danger’s shape could fright,
Unpaid, refuse to mount our ships for spite,
Or to their fellows swim on board the Dutch,
Which show the tempting metal in their clutch.
Oft had he sent of Duncombe and of Legge
Cannon and powder, but in vain, to beg;
And Upnor Castle’s ill-deserted wall,
Now needful, does for ammunition call.
He finds, wheres’e'er he succor might expect,
Confusion, folly, treach’ry, fear, neglect.
But when the Royal Charles (what rage, what grief)
He saw seized, and could give her no relief!
That sacred keel which had, as he, restored
His exiled sovereign on its happy board,
And thence the British Admiral became,
Crowned, for that merit, with their master’s name;
That pleasure-boat of war, in whose dear side
Secure so oft he had this foe defied,
Now a cheap spoil, and the mean victor’s slave,
Taught the Dutch colours from its top to wave;
Of former glories the reproachful thought
With present shame compared, his mind destraught.
Such from Euphrates’ bank, a tigress fell
After the robber for her whelps doth yell;
But sees enraged the river flow between,
Frustrate revenge and love, by loss more keen,
At her own breast her useless claws does arm:
She tears herself, since him she cannot harm.
The guards, placed for the chain’s and fleet’s defence,
Long since were fled on many a feigned pretence.
Daniel had there adventured, man of might,
Sweet Painter, draw his picture while I write.
Paint him of person tall, and big of bone,
Large limbs like ox, not to be killed but shown.
Scarce can burnt ivory feign an hair so black,
Or face so red, thine ocher and thy lac.
Mix a vain terror in his martial look,
And all those lines by which men are mistook;
But when, by shame constrained to go on board,
He heard how the wild cannon nearer roared,
And saw himself confined like sheep in pen,
Daniel then thought he was in lion’s den.
And when the frightful fireships he saw,
Pregnant with sulphur, to him nearer draw,
Captain, lieutenant, ensign, all make haste
Ere in the fiery furnace they be cast—
Three children tall, unsinged, away they row,
Like Shadrack, Meschack, and Abednego.
Not so brave Douglas, on whose lovely chin
The early down but newly did begin,
And modest beauty yet his sex did veil,
While envious virgins hope he is a male.
His yellow locks curl back themselves to seek,
Nor other courtship knew but to his cheek.
Oft, as he in chill Esk or Seine by night
Hardened and cooled his limbs, so soft, so white,
Among the reeds, to be espied by him,
The nymphs would rustle; he would forward swim.
They sighed and said, ‘Fond boy, why so untame
That fliest love’s fires, reserved for other flame?’
Fixed on his ship, he faced that horrid day
And wondered much at those that ran away.
Nor other fear himself could comprehend
Then, lest heaven fall ere thither he ascend,
But entertains the while his time too short
With birding at the Dutch, as if in sport,
Or waves his sword, and could he them conjúre
Within its circle, knows himself secure.
The fatal bark him boards with grappling fire,
And safely through its port the Dutch retire.
That precious life he yet disdains to save
Or with known art to try the gentle wave.
Much him the honours of his ancient race
Inspire, nor would he his own deeds deface,
And secret joy in his calm soul does rise
That Monck looks on to see how Douglas dies.
Like a glad lover, the fierce flames he meets,
And tries his first embraces in their sheets.
His shape exact, which the bright flames enfold,
Like the sun’s statue stands of burnished gold.
Round the transparent fire about him flows,
As the clear amber on the bee does close,
And, as on angels’ heads their glories shine,
His burning locks adorn his face divine.
But when in this immortal mind he felt
His altering form and soldered limbs to melt,
Down on the deck he laid himself and died,
With his dear sword reposing by his side,
And on the flaming plank, so rests his head
As one that’s warmed himself and gone to bed.
His ship burns down, and with his relics sinks,
And the sad stream beneath his ashes drinks.
Fortunate boy, if either pencil’s fame,
Or if my verse can propagate thy name,
When Oeta and Alcides are forgot,
Our English youth shall sing the valiant Scot.
Each doleful day still with fresh loss returns:
The Loyal London now the third time burns,
And the true Royal Oak and Royal James,
Allied in fate, increase, with theirs, her flames.
Of all our navy none should now survive,
But that the ships themselves were taught to dive,
And the kind river in its creek them hides,
Fraughting their piercèd keels with oozy tides.
Up to the bridge contagious terror struck:
The Tower itself with the near danger shook,
And were not Ruyter’s maw with ravage cloyed,
E’en London’s ashes had been then destroyed.
Officious fear, however, to prevent
Our loss does so much more our loss augment:
The Dutch had robbed those jewels of the crown;
Our merchantmen, lest they be burned, we drown.
So when the fire did not enough devour,
The houses were demolished near the Tower.
Those ships that yearly from their teeming hole
Unloaded here the birth of either Pole—
Furs from the north and silver from the west,
Wines from the south, and spices from the east;
From Gambo gold, and from the Ganges gems—
Take a short voyage underneath the Thames,
Once a deep river, now with timber floored,
And shrunk, least navigable, to a ford.
Now (nothing more at Chatham left to burn),
The Holland squadron leisurely return,
And spite of Ruperts and of Albemarles,
To Ruyter’s triumph lead the captive Charles.
The pleasing sight he often does prolong:
Her masts erect, tough cordage, timbers strong,
Her moving shapes, all these he does survey,
And all admires, but most his easy prey.
The seamen search her all within, without:
Viewing her strength, they yet their conquest doubt;
Then with rude shouts, secure, the air they vex,
With gamesome joy insulting on her decks.
Such the feared Hebrew, captive, blinded, shorn,
Was led about in sport, the public scorn.
Black day accursed! On thee let no man hale
Out of the port, or dare to hoist a sail,
Nor row a boat in thy unlucky hour.
Thee, the year’s monster, let thy dam devour,
And constant time, to keep his course yet right,
Fill up thy space with a redoubled night.
When agèd Thames was bound with fetters base,
And Medway chaste ravished before his face,
And their dear offspring murdered in their sight,
Thou and thy fellows held’st the odious light.
Sad change since first that happy pair was wed,
When all the rivers graced their nuptial bed,
And Father Neptune promised to resign
His empire old to their immortal line!
Now with vain grief their vainer hopes they rue,
Themselves dishonoured, and the gods untrue,
And to each other, helpless couple, moan,
As the sad tortoise for the sea does groan.
But most they for their darling Charles complain,
And were it burnt, yet less would be their pain.
To see that fatal pledge of sea command
Now in the ravisher De Ruyter’s hand,
The Thames roared, swooning Medway turned her tide,
And were they mortal, both for grief had died.
The court in farthing yet itself does please,
(And female Stuart there rules the
four seas),
But fate does still accumulate our woes,
And Richmond her commands, as Ruyter those.
After this loss, to relish discontent,
Someone must be accused by punishment.
All our miscarriages on Pett must fall:
His name alone seems fit to answer all.
Whose counsel first did this mad war beget?
Who all commands sold through the navy? Pett.
Who would not follow when the Dutch were beat?
Who treated out the time at Bergen? Pett.
Who the Dutch fleet with storms disabled met,
And rifling prizes, them neglected? Pett.
Who with false news prevented the Gazette,
The fleet divided, writ for Rupert? Pett.
Who all our seamen cheated of their debt,
And all our prizes who did swallow? Pett.
Who did advise no navy out to set,
And who the forts left unrepairèd? Pett.
Who to supply with powder did forget
Languard, Sheerness, Gravesend and Upnor? Pett.
Who should it be but the Fanatic Pett?
Pett, the sea-architect, in making ships
Was the first cause of all these naval slips:
Had he not built, none of these faults had been;
If no creation, there had been no sin.
But his great crime, one boat away he sent,
That lost our fleet and did our flight prevent.
Then (that reward might in its turn take place,
And march with punishment in equal pace),
Southhampton dead, much of the Treasure’s care
And place in council fell to Dunscombe’s share.
All men admired he to that pitch could fly:
Powder ne’er blew man up so soon so high,
But sure his late good husbandry in petre
Showed him to manage the Exchequer meeter;
And who the forts would not vouchsafe a corn,
To lavish the King’s money more would scorn.
Who hath no chimneys, to give all is best,
And ablest Speaker, who of law has least;
Who less estate, for Treasurer most fit,
And for a couns’llor, he that has least wit.
But the true cause was that, in’s brother May,
The Exchequer might the Privy Purse obey.
But now draws near the Parliament’s return;
Hyde and the court again begin to mourn:
Frequent in council, earnest in debate,
All arts they try how to prolong its date.
Grave Primate Sheldon (much in preaching there)
Blames the last session and this more does fear:
With Boynton or with Middleton ’twere sweet,
But with a Parliament abohors to meet,
And thinks ’twill ne’er be well within this nation,
Till it be governed by Convocation.
But in the Thames’ mouth still De Ruyter laid;
The peace not sure, new army must be paid.
Hyde saith he hourly waits for a dispatch;
Harry came post just as he showed his watch,
All to agree the articles were clear—
The Holland fleet and Parliament so near—
Yet Harry must job back, and all mature,
Binding, ere the Houses meet, the treaty sure,
And ‘twixt necessity and spite, till then,
Let them come up so to go down again.
Up ambles country justice on his pad,
And vest bespeaks to be more seemly clad.
Plain gentlemen in stagecoach are o’erthrown
And deputy-lieutenants in their own.
The portly burgess through the weather hot
Does for his corporation sweat and trot;
And all with sun and choler come adust
And threaten Hyde to raise a greater dust.
But fresh as from the Mint, the courtiers fine
Salute them, smiling at their vain design,
And Turner gay up to his perch does march
With face new bleached, smoothened and stiff with starch;
Tells them he at Whitehall had took a turn
And for three days thence moves them to adjourn.
‘Not so!’ quoth Tomkins, and
straight drew his tongue,
Trusty as steel that always ready hung,
And so, proceeding in his motion warm,
The army soon raised, he doth as soon disarm.
True Trojan! While this town can girls afford,
And long as cider lasts in Herford,
The girls shall always kiss thee, though grown old,
And in eternal healths thy name be trolled.
Meanwhile the certain news of peace arrives
At court, and so reprieves their guilty lives.
Hyde orders Turner that he should come late,
Lest some new Tomkins spring a fresh debate.
The King that day raised early from his rest,
Expects (as at a play) till Turner’s dressed.
At last together Ayton come and he:
No dial more could with the sun agree.
The Speaker, summoned, to the Lords repairs,
Nor gave the Commons leave to say their prayers,
But like his prisoners to the bar them led,
Where mute they stand to hear their sentence read.
Trembling with joy and fear, Hyde them prorogues,
And had almost mistook and called them rogues.
Dear Painter, draw this Speaker to the foot;
Where pencil cannot, there my pen shall do’t:
That may his body, this his mind explain.
Paint him in golden gown, with mace’s brain,
Bright hair, fair face, obscure and dull of head,
Like knife with ivory haft and edge of lead.
At prayers his eyes turn up the pious white,
But all the while his private bill’s in sight.
In chair, he smoking sits like master cook,
And a poll bill does like his apron look.
Well was he skilled to season any question
And made a sauce, fit for Whitehall’s digestion,
Whence every day, the palate more to tickle,
Court-mushrumps ready are, sent in in pickle.
When grievance urged, he swells like squatted toad,
Frisks like a frog, to croak a tax’s load;
His patient piss he could hold longer than
An urinal, and sit like any hen;
At table jolly as a country host
And soaks his sack with Norfolk, like a toast;
At night, than Chanticleer more brisk and hot,
And Sergeant’s wife serves him for Pertelotte.
Paint last the King, and a dead shade of night
Only dispersed by a weak taper’s light,
And those bright gleams that dart along and glare
From his clear eyes, yet these too dark with care.
There, as in the calm horror all alone
He wakes, and muses of th’ uneasy throne;
Raise up a sudden shape with virgin’s face,
(Though ill agree her posture,
hour, or place),
Naked as born, and her round arms behind
With her own tresses, interwove and twined;
Her mouth locked up, a blind before her eyes,
Yet from beneath the veil her blushes rise,
And silent tears her secret anguish speak
Her heart throbs and with very shame would break.
The object strange in him no terror moved:
He wondered first, then pitied, then he loved,
And with kind hand does the coy vision press
(Whose beauty greater seemed by
her distress),
But soon shrunk back, chilled with her touch so cold,
And th’ airy picture vanished from his hold.
In his deep thoughts the wonder did increase,
And he divined ’twas England or the Peace.
Express him startling next with listening ear,
As one that some unusual noise does hear.
With cannon, trumpets, drums, his door surround—
But let some other painter draw the sound.
Thrice did he rise, thrice the vain tumult fled,
But again thunders, when he lies in bed.
His mind secure does the known stroke repeat
And finds the drums Louis’s march did beat.
Shake then the room, and all his curtains tear
And with blue streaks infect the taper clear,
While the pale ghosts his eye does fixed admire
Of grandsire Harry and of Charles his sire.
Harry sits down, and in his open side
The grisly wound reveals of which he died,
And ghastly Charles, turning his collar low,
The purple thread about his neck does show,
Then whispering to his son in words unheard,
Through the locked door both of them disappeared.
The wondrous night the pensive King revolves,
And rising straight on Hyde’s disgrace resolves.
At his first step, he Castlemaine does find,
Bennet, and Coventry, as ‘t were designed;
And they, not knowing, the same thing propose
Which his hid mind did in its depths enclose.
Through their feigned speech their secret hearts he knew:
To her own husband, Castlemaine untrue;
False to his master Bristol, Arlington;
And Coventry, falser than anyone,
Who to the brother, brother would betray,
Nor therefore trusts himself to such as they.
His Father’s ghost, too, whispered him one note,
That who does cut his purse will cut his throat,
But in wise anger he their crimes forbears,
As thieves reprived for executioners;
While Hyde provoked, his foaming tusk does whet,
To prove them traitors and himself the Pett.
Painter, adieu! How well our arts agree,
Poetic picture, painted poetry;
But this great work is for our Monarch fit,
And henceforth Charles only to Charles shall sit.
His master-hand the ancients shall outdo,
Himself the painter and the poet too.
To the King
So his bold tube, man to the sun applied
And spots unknown to the bright star descried,
Showed they obscure him, while too near they please
And seem his courtiers, are but his disease.
Through optic trunk the planet seemed to hear,
And hurls them off e’er since in his career.
And you, Great Sir, that with him empire share,
Sun of our world, as he the Charles is there,
Blame not the Muse that brought those spots to sight,
Which in you splendour hid, corrode your light:
(Kings in the country oft have
gone astray
Nor of a peasant scorned to learn the way.)
Would she the unattended throne reduce,
Banishing love, trust, ornament, and use,
Better it were to live in cloister’s lock,
Or in fair fields to rule the easy flock.
She blames them only who the court restrain
And where all England serves, themselves would reign.
Bold and accursed are they that all this while
Have strove to isle our Monarch from his isle,
And to improve themselves, on false pretence,
About the Common-Prince have raised a fence;
The kingdom from the crown distinct would see
And peel the bark to burn at last the tree.
(But Ceres corn, and Flora is the
spring,
Bacchus is wine, the country is the King.)
Not so does rust insinuating wear,
Nor powder so the vaulted bastion tear,
Nor earthquake so an hollow isle o’er whelm
As scratching courtiers undermine a realm,
And through the palace’s foundations bore,
Burrowing themselves to hoard their guilty store.
The smallest vermin make the greatest waste,
And a poor warren once a city rased.
But they, whom born to virtue and to wealth,
Nor guilt to flattery binds, nor want to wealth,
Whose generous conscience and whose courage high
Does with clear counsels their large souls supply;
That serve the King with their estates and care,
And, as in love, on Parliaments can stare,
(Where few the number, choice is
there less hard):
Give us this court, and rule without a guard.
You, that decipher out the Fate
Of humane
Off-springs from the Skies,
What mean
these Infants which of late
Spring from
the Starrs of Chlora's Eyes?
Her Eyes confus'd, and doubled ore,
With Tears
suspended ere they flow;
Seem bending
upwards, to restore
To Heaven,
whence it came, their Woe.
When, molding of the watry Sphears,
Slow drops unty
themselves away;
As if she, with those
precious Tears,
Would strow the ground
where Strephon lay.
Yet some
affirm, pretending Art,
Her Eyes have so her
Bosome drown'd,
Only to soften near her
Heart
A place to fix another
Wound.
And, while
vain Pomp does her restrain
Within her solitary
Bowr,
She courts her self in
am'rous Rain;
Her self both Danae
and the Showr.
Nay others,
bolder, hence esteem
Joy now so much her
Master grown,
That whatsoever does but
seem
Like Grief, is from her
Windows thrown.
Nor that
she payes, while she survives,
To her dead Love this
Tribute due;
But casts abroad these
Donatives,
At the installing of a
new.
How wide
they dream! The Indian Slaves
That sink for Pearl
through Seas profound,
Would find her Tears yet
deeper Waves
And not of one the
bottom sound.
I yet my
silent Judgment keep,
Disputing not what they
believe:
But sure as oft as Women
weep,
It is to be suppos'd
they grieve.
First was the World as one great Cymbal made,
Where
Jarring Windes to infant Nature plaid.
All Musick
was a solitary sound,
To hollow
Rocks and murm'ring Fountains bound.
Jubal first made the wilder Notes agree;
And Jubal
tun'd Musicks Jubilee:
He call'd
the Ecchoes from their sullen Cell,
And built
the Organs City where they dwell.
Each sought a consort in that lovely place;
And Virgin Trebles wed
the manly Base.
From whence the Progeny
of numbers new
Into harmonious Colonies
withdrew.
Some to the
Lute, some to the Viol went,
And others chose the
Cornet eloquent.
These practising the
Wind, and those the Wire,
To sing Mens Triumphs,
or in Heavens quire.
Then
Musick, the Mosaique of the Air,
Did of all these a
solemn noise prepare:
With which She gain'd
the Empire of the Ear,
Including all between
the Earth and Sphear.
Victorious
sounds: yet here your Homage do
Unto a gentler Conqueror
then you;
Who though He flies the
Musick of his praise,
Would with you Heavens
Hallelujahs raise.
See how the Orient Dew,
Shed from the Bosom of the Morn
Into the blowing Roses,
Yet careless
of its Mansion new;
For the
clear Region where 'twas born
Round in its self incloses:
And in its little Globes Extent,
Frames as it
can its native Element.
How it the purple flow'r does slight,
Scarce touching where it lyes,
But
gazing back upon the Skies,
Shines with a mournful Light;
Like its own Tear,
Because so long divided
from the Sphear.
Restless it roules and unsecure,
Trembling lest it grow impure:
Till
the warm Sun pitty it's Pain,
And to the Skies exhale
it back again.
So the Soul, that Drop, that Ray
Of the clear Fountain of
Eternal Day,
Could it within the
humane flow'r be seen,
Remembring still its former height,
Shuns the sweat leaves and blossoms green;
And, recollecting its own Light,
Does, in its pure and
circling thoughts, express
The greater Heaven in an
Heaven less.
In how coy a Figure wound,
Every way it turns away:
So the World excluding round,
Yet
receiving in the Day.
Dark beneath, but bright above:
Here disdaining, there in Love.
How
loose and easie hence to go:
How
girt and ready to ascend.
Moving
but on a point below,
It all
about does upwards bend.
Such did the Manna's
sacred Dew destil;
White, and intire,
though congeal'd and chill.
Congeal'd on Earth: but
does, dissolving, run
Into the Glories of
th'Almighty Sun.
When I beheld the Poet blind, yet bold,
In slender
Book his vast Design unfold,
Messiah
Crown'd, Gods Reconcil'd Decree,
Rebelling Angels,
the Forbidden Tree,
Heav'n,
Hell, Earth, Chaos, All; the Argument
Held me a
while misdoubting his Intent,
That he
would ruine (for I saw him strong)
The sacred
Truths to Fable and old Song,
(So Sampson
groap'd the Temples Posts in spight)
The World o'rewhelming
to revenge his Sight.
Yet as I read, soon growing less severe,
I lik'd his Project, the
success did fear;
Through that wide Field
how he his way should find
O're which lame Faith
leads Understanding blind;
Lest he perplext the
things he would explain,
And what was easie he
should render vain. Or
if a Work so infinite he spann'd,
Jealous I was that some
less skilful hand
(Such as disquiet
alwayes what is well,
And by ill imitating
would excell)
Might hence presume the
whole Creations day
To change in Scenes, and
show it in a Play.
Pardon me, mighty Poet, nor despise
My causeless, yet not
impious, surmise.
But I am now convinc'd,
and none will dare
Within thy Labours to
pretend a Share.
Thou hast not miss'd one
thought that could be fit,
And all that was
improper dost omit:
So that no room is here
for Writers left,
But to detect their
Ignorance or Theft. That
Majesty which through thy Work doth Reign
Draws the Devout,
deterring the Profane.
And things divine thou
treats of in such state
As them preserves, and
Thee inviolate.
At once delight and
horrour on us seize,
Thou singst with so much
gravity and ease;
And above humane flight
dost soar aloft,
With Plume so strong, so
equal, and so soft.
The Bird nam'd
from that Paradise you sing
So never Flags, but
alwaies keeps on Wing.
Where couldst thou Words of such a compass find?
Whence furnish such a
vast expense of Mind?
Just Heav'n Thee, like Tiresias,
to requite,
Rewards with Prophesie
thy loss of Sight. Well
might thou scorn thy Readers to allure
With tinkling Rhime, of
thy own Sense secure;
While the Town-Bays
writes all the while and spells,
And like a Pack-Horse
tires without his Bells.
Their Fancies like our
bushy Points appear,
The Poets tag them; we
for fashion wear.
I too transported by the
Mode offend,
And while I meant to Praise
thee, must Commend.
Thy verse created like
thy Theme sublime,
In Number, Weight, and
Measure, needs not Rhime.
Now does Spains Fleet her spatious wings unfold,
Leaves the
new World and hastens for the old:
But though
the wind was fair, they slowly swoome
Frayted with
acted Guilt, and Guilt to come:
For this
rich load, of which so proud they are,
Was rais'd
by Tyranny, and rais'd for War;
Every
capatious Gallions womb was fill'd,
With what
the Womb of wealthy Kingdomes yield,
The new Worlds
wounded Intails they had tore,
For wealth wherewith to
wound the old once more.
Wealth which all others
Avarice might cloy,
But yet in them caus'd
as much fear, as Joy.
For now upon the Main,
themselves they saw,
That boundless Empire,
where you give the Law,
Of winds and waters
rage, they fearful be,
But much more fearful
are your Flags to see
Day, that to those who
sail upon the deep,
More wish't for, and
more welcome is then sleep,
They dreaded to behold,
Least the Sun's light,
With English
Streamers, should salute their sight:
In thickest darkness
they would choose to steer,
So that such darkness
might suppress their fear;
At length theirs
vanishes, and fortune smiles;
For they behold the
sweet Canary Isles;
One of which doubtless
is by Nature blest
Above both Worlds, since
'tis above the rest.
For least some
Gloominess might stain her sky,
Trees there the duty of
the Clouds supply;
O noble Trust which
Heaven on this Isle poures,
Fertile to be, yet never
need her showres.
A happy People, which at
once do gain
The benefits without the
ills of rain.
Both health and profit,
Fate cannot deny;
Where still the Earth is
moist, the Air still dry;
The jarring Elements no
discord know,
Fewel and Rain together
kindly grow;
And coolness there, with
heat doth never fight;
This only rules by day,
and that by Night.
Your worth to all these
Isles, a just right brings,
The best of Lands should
have the best of Kings.
And these want nothing
Heaven can afford,
Unless it be, the having
you their Lord;
But this great want,
will not along one prove,
Your Conquering Sword
will soon that want remove.
For Spain had
better, Shee'l ere long confess,
Have broken all her
Swords, then this one Peace,
Casting that League off,
which she held so long,
She cast off that which
only made her strong.
Forces and art, she soon
will feel, are vain,
Peace, against you, was
the sole strength of Spain .
By that alone those
Islands she secures,
Peace made them hers,
but War will make them yours;
There the indulgent Soil
that rich Grape breeds,
Which of the Gods the
fancied drink exceeds;
They still do yield,
such is their pretious mould,
All that is good, and
are not curst with Gold.
With fatal Gold, for
still where that does grow,
Neither the Soyl, nor
People quiet know.
Which troubles men to
raise it when 'tis Oar,
And when 'tis raised,
does trouble them much more.
Ah, why was thither
brought that cause of War,
Kind Nature had from
thence remov'd so far.
In vain doth she those
Islands free from Ill,
If fortune can make
guilty what she will.
But whilst I draw that
Scene, where you ere long,
Shall conquests act,
your present are unsung,
For Sanctacruze the glad Fleet takes her way,
And safely there casts
Anchor in the Bay.
Never so many with one
joyful cry,
That place saluted,
where they all must dye.
Deluded men! Fate with
you did but sport,
You scap't the Sea, to
perish in your Port.
'Twas more for Englands
fame you should dye there,
Where you had most of
strength, and least of fear.
The Peek's proud height,
the Spaniards all admire,
Yet in their brests,
carry a pride much higher.
Onely to this vast hill
a power is given,
At once both to Inhabit
Earth and Heaven.
But this stupendious
Prospect did not neer,
Make them admire, so
much as as they did fear.
For here they met with
news, which did produce,
A grief, above the cure
of Grapes best juice.
They learn'd with
Terrour, that nor Summers heat,
Nor Winters storms, had
made your Fleet retreat.
To fight against such
Foes, was vain they knew,
Which did the rage of
Elements subdue.
Who on the Ocean that
does horror give,
To all besides,
triumphantly do live.
With hast they therefore all their Gallions moar,
And flank with Cannon
from the Neighbouring shore.
Forts, Lines, and
Sconces all the Bay along,
They build and act all
that can make them strong.
Fond men who know not
whilst such works they raise,
They only Labour to
exalt your praise.
Yet they by restless
toyl, became at Length,
So proud and confident
of their made strength.
That they with joy their
boasting General heard,
Wish then for that
assault he lately fear'd.
His wish he has, for now
undaunted Blake,
With winged speed, for Sanctacruze
does make.
For your renown, his conquering
Fleet does ride,
Ore Seas as vast as is the Spaniards
pride.
Whose Fleet and Trenches view'd, he
soon did say,
We to their Strength are more
obilg'd then they.
Wer't not for that, they from their
Fate would run,
And a third World seek out our Armes
to shun.
Those Forts, which there, so high
and strong appear,
Do not so much suppress, as shew
their fear.
Of Speedy Victory let no man doubt,
Our worst works past, now we have
found them out.
Behold their Navy does at Anchor
lye,
And they are ours, for now they
cannot fly. This said, the whole Fleet
gave it their applause,
And all assumes your courage, in
your cause.
That Bay they enter, which unto them
owes,
The noblest wreaths, that Victory
bestows.
Bold Stainer Leads, this
Fleets design'd by fate,
To give him Lawrel, as the Last did
Plate. The Thund'ring Cannon now
begins the Fight,
And though it be at Noon, creates a
Night.
The Air was soon after the fight
begun,
Far more enflam'd by it, then by the
Sun.
Never so burning was that Climate
known,
War turn'd the temperate, to the
Torrid Zone. Fate these two Fleets,
between both Worlds had brought.
Who fight, as if for both those
Worlds they fought.
Thousands of wayes, Thousands of men
there dye,
Some Ships are sunk, some blown up
in the skie.
Nature never made Cedars so high a
Spire,
As Oakes did then, Urg'd by the
active fire.
Which by quick powders force, so
high was sent,
That it return'd to its own Element.
Torn Limbs some leagues into the
Island fly,
Whilst others lower, in the Sea do
lye.
Scarce souls from bodies sever'd are
so far,
By death, as bodies there were by
the War.
Th'all-seeing Sun, neer gaz'd on
such a sight,
Two dreadful Navies there at Anchor
Fight.
And neitheir have, or power, or will
to fly,
There one must Conquer, or there
both must dye.
Far different Motives yet, engag'd
them thus,
Necessity did them, but Choice did
us. A choice which did the highest
worth express,
And was attended by as high success.
For your resistless genious there
did Raign,
By which we Laurels reapt ev'n on
the Mayn.
So prosperous Stars, though absent
to the sence,
Bless those they shine for, by their
Influence. Our Cannon now tears
every Ship and Sconce,
And o're two Elements Triumphs at
once.
Their Gallions sunk, their wealth
the Sea does fill,
The only place where it can cause no
Ill, Ah would those Treasures which
both Indies have,
Were buryed in as large, and deep a
grave,
Wars chief support with them would
buried be,
And the Land owe her peace unto the
Sea.
Ages to come, your conquering Arms
will bless,
There they destroy, what had
destroy'd their Peace.
And in one War the present age may
boast,
The certain seeds of many Wars are
lost, All the Foes Ships destroy'd,
by Sea or fire,
Victorious Blake, does from
the Bay retire,
His Seige of Spain he then
again pursues,
And there first brings of his
success the news;
The saddest news that ere to Spain
was brought,
Their rich Fleet sunk, and ours with
Lawrel fraught.
Whilst fame in every place, her
Trumpet blowes,
And tells the World, how much to you
it owes.
Cernis ut Eio descendat
Gemmula Roris,
Inque Rosas roseo transfluat orta sinu.
Sollicita Flores stant ambitione supini,
Et certant foliis pellicuisse suis.
Illa tamen patriae lustrans fastigia Sphaerae,
Negligit hospitii limina picta novi.
Inque sui nitido conclusa voluminis orbe,
Exprimit aetherei qua licet Orbis aquas.
En ut odoratum spernat generosior Ostrum,
Vixque premat casto mollia strata pede.
Suspicit at longis distantem obtutibus
Axem,
Inde & languenti lumine pendet amans,
Tristis, & in liquidum mutata dolore dolorem,
Marcet, uti roseis Lachryma fusa Genis.
Ut pavet, & motum tremit irrequieta Cubile,
Et quoties Zephyro fluctuat Aura, fugit .
Qualis inexpertam subeat formido Puellam,
Sicubi nocte redit incomitata domum.
Sic & in horridulas agitatur Gutta procellas,
Dum prae virgineo cuncta pudore timet.
Donec oberrantem Radio clemente vaporet,
Inq; jubar reducem Sol genitale trahat.
Talis, in humano si possit flore videri,
Exul ubi longas Mens agit usq; moras;
Haec quoque natalis meditans convivia Coeli,
Evertit Calices, purpureosque Thoros.
Fontis stilla sacri, Lucis scintilla perennis,
Non capitur Tyria veste, vapore Sabae.
Tota sed in proprii secedens luminis Arcem,
Colligit in Gyros se sinuosa breves.
Magnorumque sequens animo convexa Deorum,
Sydereum parvo fingit in Orbe Globum.
Quam bene in aversae modulum contracta figurae
Oppositum Mundo claudit ubiq; latus.
Sed bibit in speculum radios ornata rotundum;
Et circumfuso splendet aperta Die.
Qua Superos spectat rutilans, obscurior infra;
Caetera dedignans, ardet amore Poli.
Subsilit, hinc agili Poscens discedere
motu,
Undique coelesti cincta soluta Viae.
Totaque in aereos extenditur orbita cursus;
Hinc punctim carpens, mobile stringit iter.
Haud aliter Mensis exundans Manna beatis
Deserto jacuit Stilla gelata Solo:
Stilla gelata Solo, sed Solibus hausta benignis,
Ad sua qua cecidit purior Aftra redit.
Hobbinol. Phillis. Tomalin.
Hobbinol.
Phillis,
Tomalin, away:
Never such a
merry day.
For the
Northern Shepheards Son
Has Menalca's
daughter won.
Phillis.
Stay till I
some flow'rs ha' ty'd
In a Garland
for the Bride.
Tomalin.
If thou
would'st a Garland bring,
Phillis
you may wait the Spring:
They ha'
chosen such an hour
When She is the
only flow'r.
Phillis.
Let's not then at least
be seen
Without each a Sprig of
Green.
Hobbinol.
Fear not; at Menalca's
Hall
There is Bayes enough
for all.
He when Young as we did
graze,
But when Old he planted
Bayes.
Tomalin.
Here She comes;
but with a Look
Far more catching then
my Hook.
'Twas those Eyes, I now
dare swear;
Led our Lambs we knew
not where.
Hobbinol.
Not our Lambs own
Fleeces are
Curl'd so lovely as her
Hair:
Nor our Sheep new Wash'd
can be
Half so white or sweet
as She.
Phillis.
He so looks as
fit to keep
Somewhat else then silly
Sheep.
Hobbinol.
Come, lets in some Carol
new
Pay to Love and Them
their due.
All.
Joy to
that happy Pair,
Whose Hopes united
banish our Despair.
What Shepheard
could for Love pretend,
Whil'st all the Nymphs
on Damon's choice attend?
What Shepherdess
could hope to wed
Before
Marina's turn were sped?
Now
lesser Beauties may take place,
And
meaner Virtues come in play;
While
they,
Looking from high,
Shall grace
Our Flocks and us with a
propitious Eye.
But
what is most, the gentle Swain
No
more shall need of Love complain;
But
Virtue shall be Beauties hire,
And those be equal that
have equal Fire.
Marina
yields. Who dares be coy?
Or who despair, now Damon
does enjoy?
Joy to that happy Pair,
Whose Hopes united banish
our Despair.
Stet quicunque
volet potens
Aulæ culmine lubrico &c.
Climb
at Court for me that will
Tottering
favors Pinacle;
All I seek
is to lye still.
Settled in
some secret Nest
In calm
Leisure let me rest;
And far of
the publick Stage
Pass away my
silent Age.
Thus when
without noise, unknown,
I have liv'd
out all my span,
I shall dye, without a
groan,
An old honest Country
man.
Who expos'd to others
Ey's,
Into his own Heart ne'r
pry's,
Death to him's a Strange
surprise
Holland, that scarce deserves the name of Land ,
As but
th'Off-scouring of the British Sand;
And so much
Earth as was contributed
By English
Pilots when they heav'd the Lead;
Or what by
th'Oceans slow alluvion fell,
Of shipwrackt
Cockle and the Muscle-shell;
This
indigested vomit of the Sea
Fell to the Dutch
by just Propriety.
Glad then,
as Miners that have found the Oar,
They with mad labour
fish'd the Land to Shoar ;
And div'd as desperately
for each piece
Of Earth, as if't had
been of Ambergreece;
Collecting anxiously
small Loads of Clay,
Less then what building
Swallows bear away;
Or then those Pills
which sordid Beetles roul,
Tranfusing into them
their Dunghil Soul. How
did they rivet, with Gigantick Piles,
Thorough the Center
their new-catched Miles;
And to the stake a
strugling Country bound,
Where barking Waves
still bait the forced Ground;
Building their watry
Babel far more high
To reach the Sea,
then those to scale the Sky .
Yet still his claim the
Injur'd Ocean laid,
And oft at Leap-frog ore
their Steeples plaid:
As if on purpose it on
Land had come
To shew them what's
their Mare Liberum.
A daily deluge over them
does boyl;
The Earth and Water play
at Level-coyl;
The Fish oft-times the
Burger dispossest,
And sat not as a Meat
but as a Guest;
And oft the Tritons
and the Sea-Nymphs saw
Whole sholes of Dutch
serv'd up for Cabillau ;
Or as they over the new
Level rang'd
For pickled Herring,
pickled Heeren chang'd.
Nature, it seem'd,
asham'd of her mistake,
Would throw their Land
away at Duck and Drake .
Therefore Necessity,
that first made Kings,
Something like Government
among them brings.
For as with Pygmees
who best kills the Crane ,
Among the hungry
he that treasures Grain,
Among the blind
the one-ey'd blinkard reigns,
So rules among the drowned
he that draines.
Not who first see the rising
Sun commands,
But who could first
discern the rising Lands.
Who best could know to
pump an Earth so leak
Him they their Lord
and Country's Father speak.
To make a Bank
was a great Plot of State;
Invent a Shov'l
and be a Magistrate.
Hence some small Dyke-grave
unperceiv'd invades
The Pow'r, and
grows as 'twere a King of Spades .
But for less envy some joynt
States endures,
Who look like a Commission
of the Sewers.
For these Half-anders,
half wet, and half dry,
Nor bear strict
service, nor pure Liberty.
'Tis probable Religion
after this
Came next in order;
which they could not miss.
How could the Dutch
but be converted, when
Th'Apostles were
so many Fishermen?
Besides the Waters of
themselves did rise,
And, as their Land, so
them did re-baptize.
Though Herring
for their God few voices mist,
And Poor-John to
have been th'Evangelist.
Faith, that could
never. Twins conceive before,
Never so fertile,
spawn'd upon this shore:
More pregnant then their
Marg'ret, that laid down
For Hans-in-Kelder
of a whole Hans-Town.
Sure when Religion
did it self imbark,
And from the East
would Westward steer its Ark,
It struck, and splitting
on this unknown ground,
Each one thence pillag'd
the first piece he found:
Hence Amsterdam,
Turk-Christian-Pagan-Jew,
Staple of Sects and Mint
of Schisme grew;
That Bank of
Conscience, where not one so strange
Opinion but finds
Credit, and Exchange.
In vain for Catholicks
our selves we bear;
The universal Church
is onely there.
Nor can Civility there
want for Tillage,
Where wisely for their Court
they chose a Village.
How fit a Title clothes
their Governours,
Themselves the Hogs
as all their Subjects Bores
Let it suffice to give
their Country Fame
That it had one Civilis
call'd by Name,
Some Fifteen hundred and
more years ago,
But surely never any
that was so. See but
their Mairmaids with their Tails of Fish,
Reeking at Church
over the Chafing-Dish.
A vestal Turf enshrin'd
in Earthen Ware
Fumes through the
loop-holes of wooden Square.
Each to the Temple
with these Altars tend,
But still does place it
at her Western End:
While the fat steam of Female
Sacrifice
Fills the Priests
Nostrils and puts out his Eyes.
Or what a Spectacle the Skipper
gross,
A Water-Hercules
Butter-Coloss,
Tunn'd up with
all their sev'ral Towns of Beer ;
When Stagg'ring upon
some Land, Snick and Sneer,
They try, like
Statuaries, if they can,
Cut out each others Athos
to a Man:
And carve in their large
Bodies, where they please,
The Armes of the United Provinces.
But when such Amity at home is
show'd;
What then are their confederacies
abroad?
Let this one court'sie witness all
the rest;
When their whole Navy they together
prest,
Not Christian Captives to redeem from
Bands:
Or intercept the Western golden
Sands:
No, but all ancient Rights and
Leagues must vail,
Rather then to the English
strike their fail;
To whom their weather-beaten Province
ows
It self, when as some greater Vessel
tows
A Cock-boat tost with the same wind
and fate;
We buoy'd so often up their sinking
State. Was this Jus Belli
& Pacis; could this be
Cause why their Burgomaster of
the Sea
Ram'd with Gun-powder, flaming with
Brand wine,
Should raging hold his Linstock to
the Mine?
While, with feign'd Treaties,
they invade by stealth
Our sore new circumcised Common
wealth. Yet of his vain Attempt
no more he sees
Then of Case-Butter shot and Bullet-Cheese.
And the torn Navy stagger'd with him
home,
While the Sea laught it self into a
foam,
'Tis true since that (as fortune
kindly sports,)
A wholesome Danger drove us to our
Ports.
While half their banish'd keels the
Tempest tost,
Half bound at home in Prison to the
frost:
That ours mean time at leizure might
careen,
In a calm Winter, under Skies
Serene.
As the obsequious Air and Waters
rest,
Till the dear Halcyon hatch
out all its nest.
The Common wealth doth by its
losses grow;
And, like its own Seas, only Ebbs to
flow.
Besides that very Agitation laves,
And purges out the corruptible
waves. And now again our armed Bucentore
Doth yearly their Sea-Nuptials
restore.
And how the Hydra of seaven
Provinces
Is strangled by our Infant
Hercules.
Their Tortoise wants its vainly
stretched neck;
Their Navy all our Conquest or our
Wreck:
Or, what is left, their Carthage
overcome
Would render fain unto our better Rome.
Unless our Senate, left their
Youth disuse,
The War, (but who would) Peace if
begg'd refuse. For now of nothing
may our State despair,
Darling of Heaven, and of Men the
Care;
Provided that they be what they have
been,
Watchful abroad, and honest still
within.
For while our Neptune doth a Trident
shake,
Steel'd with those piercing Heads, Dean,
Monck and Blake.
And while Jove governs in the
highest Sphere,
Vainly in Hell let Pluto
domineer.
When for the
Thorns with which I long, too long,
With many a piercing wound,
My Saviours head have crown'd,
I seek with
Garlands to redress that Wrong:
Through every Garden, every Mead,
I gather
flow'rs (my fruits are only flow'rs)
Dismantling all the fragrant Towers
That once
adorn'd my Shepherdesses head.
And now when
I have summ'd up all my store,
Thinking (so I my self deceive)
So
rich a Chaplet thence to weave
As never yet the king of
Glory wore:
Alas I
find the Serpent old
That,
twining in his speckled breast,
About
the flow'rs disguis'd does fold,
With
wreaths of Fame and Interest.
Ah, foolish Man, that
would'st debase with them,
And mortal Glory,
Heavens Diadem!
But thou who only
could'st the Serpent tame,
Either his slipp'ry
knots at once untie,
And disintangle all his
winding Snare:
Or shatter too with him
my curious frame:
And let these wither, so
that he may die,
Though set with Skill
and chosen out with Care.
That they, while Thou on
both their Spoils dost tread,
May crown thy Feet, that
could not crown thy Head.
My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for
object strange and high:
It was
begotten by despair
Upon
Impossibility.
Magnanimous Despair alone.
Could show me
so divine a thing,
Where feeble
Hope could ne'r have flown
But vainly
flapt its Tinsel Wing.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended Soul
is fixt,
But Fate does Iron
wedges drive,
And alwaies crouds it
self betwixt.
For Fate
with jealous Eye does see
Two perfect Loves; nor
lets them close:
Their union would her
ruine be,
And her Tyrannick pow'r
depose.
And
therefore her Decrees of Steel
Us as the distant Poles
have plac'd,
(Though Loves whole
World on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be
embrac'd.
Unless the
giddy Heaven fall,
And Earth some new
Convulsion tear;
And, us to joyn, the
World should all
Be cramp'd into a Planisphere.
As Lines so
Loves oblique may well
Themselves in every
Angle greet:
But ours so truly Paralel,
Though infinite can
never meet.
Therefore
the Love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously
debarrs,
Is the Conjunction of
the Mind,
And Opposition of the
Stars.
A Poem upon the Death of His
Late Highness the Lord Protector
That Providence which had so long the care
Of Cromwell’s head, and numbered every hair,
Now in itself (the glass where all appears)
Had seen the period of his golden years:
And thenceforh only did attend to trace
What death might least so fair a life deface.
The people, which what most they fear esteem,
Death when more horrid, so more noble deem,
And blame the last act, like spectators vain,
Unless the prince whom they applaud be slain.
Nor fate indeed can well refuse that right
To those that lived in war, to die in fight.
But long his valour none had left that could
Endanger him, or clemency that would.
And he whom Nature all for peace had made,
But angry heaven unto war had swayed,
And so less useful where he most desired,
For what he least affected was admired,
Deservèd yet an end whose every part,
Should speak the wondrous softness of his heart.
To Love and Grief the fatal writ was ’signed;
(Those nobler weaknesses of human
kind,
From which those powers that issued the decree,
Although immortal, found they were not free),
That they, to whom his breast still open lies,
In gentle passions should his death disguise:
And leave succeeding ages cause to mourn,
As long as Grief shall weep, or Love shall burn.
Straight does a slow and languishing disease
Eliza, Nature’s and his darling, seize.
Her when an infant, taken with her charms,
He oft would flourish in his mighty arms,
And, lest their force the tender burden wrong,
Slacken the vigour of his muscles strong;
Then to the Mother’s breast her softly move,
Which while she drained of milk, she filled with love.
But as with riper years her virtue grew,
And every minute adds a lustre new,
When with meridian height her beauty shined,
And thorough that sparkled her fairer mind,
When she with smiles serene in words discreet
His hidden soul at ever turn could meet;
Then might y’ha’ daily his affection spied,
Doubling that knot which destiny had tied,
While they by sense, not knowing, comprehend
How on each other both their fates depend.
With her each day the pleasing hours he shares,
And at her aspect calms his growing cares;
Or with a grandsire’s joy her children sees
Hanging about her neck or at his knees.
Hold fast, dear infants, hold them both or none;
This will not stay when once the other’s gone.
A silent fire now wastes those limbs of wax,
And him within his tortured image racks.
So the flower withering which the garden crowned,
The sad root pines in secret under ground.
Each groan he doubled and each sigh he sighed,
Repeated over to the restless night.
No trembling string composed to numbers new,
Answers the touch in notes more sad, more true.
She, lest he grieve, hides what she can her pains,
And he to lessen hers his sorrow feigns:
Yet both perceived, yet both concealed their skills,
And so diminishing increased their ills:
That whether by each other’s grief they fell,
Or on their own redoubled, none can tell.
And now Eliza’s purple locks were shorn,
Where she so long her Father’s fate had worn:
And frequent lightning to her soul that flies,
Divides the air, and opens all the skies:
And now his life, suspended by her breath,
Ran out impetuously to hasting death.
Like polished mirrors, so his steely breast
Had every figure of her woes expressed,
And with the damp of her last gasp obscured,
Had drawn such stains as were not to be cured.
Fate could not either reach with single stroke,
But the dear image fled, the mirror broke.
Who now shall tell us more of mournful swans,
Of halcyons kind, or bleeding pelicans?
No downy breast did e’er so gently beat,
Or fan with airy plumes so soft an heat.
For he no duty by his height excused,
Nor, though a prince, to be a man refused:
But rather than in his Eliza’s pain
Not love, not grieve, would neither live nor reign:
And in himself so oft immortal tried,
Yet in compassion of another died.
So have I seen a vine, whose lasting age
Of many a winter hath survived the rage,
Under whose shady tent men every year
At its rich blood’s expense their sorrow cheer,
If some dear branch where it extends its life
Chance to be pruned by an untimely knife,
The parent-tree unto the grief succeeds,
And through the wound its vital humour bleeds,
Trickling in watery drops, whose flowing shape
Weeps that it falls ere fixed into a grape.
So the dry stock, no more that spreading vine,
Frustrates the autumn and the hopes of wine.
A secret cause does sure those signs ordain
Foreboding princes’ falls, and seldom vain.
Whether some kinder powers that wish us well,
What they above cannot prevent foretell;
Or the great world do by consent presage,
As hollow seas with future tempests rage;
Or rather heaven, which us so long foresees,
Their funerals celebrates while it decrees.
But never yet was any human fate
By Nature solemnized with so much state.
He unconcerned the dreadful passage crossed;
But, oh, what pangs that death did Nature cost!
First the great thunder was shot off, and sent
The signal from the starry battlement.
The winds receive it, and its force outdo,
As practising how they could thunder too;
Out of the binder’s hand the sheaves they tore,
And thrashed the harvest in the airy floor;
Or of huge trees, whose growth with his did rise,
The deep foundations opened to the skies.
Then heavy show’rs the wingèd tempests lead,
And pour the deluge o’er the chaos’ head.
The race of warlike horses at his tomb
Offer themselves in many a hecatomb;
With pensive head towards the ground they fall,
And helpless languish at the tainted stall.
Numbers of men decrease with pains unknown,
And hasten, not to see his death, their own.
Such tortures all the elements unfixed,
Troubled to part where so exactly mixed.
And as through air his wasting spirits flowed,
The universe laboured beneath their load.
Nature, it seemed with him would Nature vie;
He with Eliza. It with him would die,
He without noise still travelled to his end,
As silent suns to meet the night descend.
The stars that for him fought had only power
Left to determine now his final hour,
Which, since they might not hinder, yet they cast
To choose it worthy of his glories past.
No part of time but bare his mark away
Of honour; all the year was Cromwell’s day:
But this, of all the most ausicious found,
Twice had in open field him victor crowned:
When up the armèd mountains of Dunbar
He marched, and through deep Severn ending war.
What day should him eternize but the same
That had before immortalized his name?
That so who ere would at his death have joyed,
In their own griefs might find themselves employed;
But those that sadly his departure grieved,
Yet joyed, remebering what he once achieved.
And the last minute his victorious ghost
Gave chase to Ligny on the Belgic coast.
Here ended all his mortal toils: he laid
And slept in place under the laurel shade.
O Cromwell, Heaven’s Favourite! To none
Have such high honours from above been shown:
For whom the elements we mourners see,
And heaven itself would the great herald be,
Which with more care set forth his obsequies
Than those of Moses hid from human eyes,
As jealous only here lest all be less,
That we could to his memory express.
Then let us to our course of mourning keep:
Where heaven leads, ’tis piety to weep.
Stand back, ye seas, and shrunk beneath the veil
Of your abyss, with covered head bewail
Your Monarch: we demand not your supplies
To compass in our isle; our tears suffice:
Since him away the dismal tempest rent,
Who once more joined us to the continent;
Who planted England on the Flandric shore,
And stretched our frontier to the Indian ore;
Whose greater truths obscure the fables old,
Whether of British saints or Worthies told;
And in a valour lessening Arthur’s deeds,
For holiness the Confessor exceeds.
He first put arms into Religion’s hand,
And timorous Conscience unto Courage manned:
The soldier taught that inward mail to wear,
And fearing God how they should nothing fear.
‘Those strokes,’ he said, ‘will
pierce through all below
Where those that strike from heaven fetch their blow.’
Astonished armies did their flight prepare,
And cities strong were stormèd by his prayer;
Of that, forever Preston’s field shall tell
The story, and impregnable Clonmel.
And where the sandy mountain Fenwick scaled,
The sea between, yet hence his prayer prevailed.
What man was ever so in heaven obeyed
Since the commanded sun o’er Gideon stayed?
In all his wars needs must he triumph when
He conquered God still ere he fought with men:
Hence, though in battle none so brave or fierce,
Yet him the adverse steel could never pierce.
Pity it seemed to hurt him more that felt
Each wound himself which he to others dealt;
Danger itself refusing to offend
So loose an enemy, so fast a friend.
Friendship, that sacred virtue, long does claim
The first foundation of his house and name:
But within one its narrow limits fall,
His tenderness extended unto all.
And that deep soul through every channel flows,
Where kindly nature loves itself to lose.
More strong affections never reason served,
Yet still affected most what best deserved.
If he Eliza loved to that degree,
(Though who more worthy to be
loved than she?)
If so indulgent to his own, how dear
To him the children of the highest were?
For her he once did nature’s tribute pay:
For these his life adventured every day:
And ’twould be found, could we his thoughts have cast,
Their griefs struck deepest, if Eliza’s last.
What prudence more than human did he need
To keep so dear, so differing minds agreed?
The worser sort, as conscious of their ill,
Lie weak and easy to the ruler’s will;
But to the good (too many or too few)
All law is useless, all reward is due.
Oh ill-advised, if not for love, for shame,
Spare yet your own, if you neglect his fame;
Lest others dare to think your zeal a mask,
And you to govern, only heaven’s task.
Valour, religion, friendship, prudence died
At once with him, and all that’s good beside;
And we death’s refuse, nature’s dregs, confined
To loathsome life, alas! are left behind.
Where we (so once we used) shall now no more
To fetch the day, press about his chamber door—
From which he issued with that awful state,
It seemd Mars broke through Janus’ double gate,
Yet always tempered with an air so mild,
No April suns that e’er so gently smiled—
No more shall hear that powerful language charm,
Whose force oft spared the labour of his arm:
No more shall follow where he spent the days
In war, in counsel, or in prayer and praise,
Whose meanest acts he would himself advance,
As ungirt David to the ark did dance.
All, all is gone of our or his delight
In horses fierce, wild deer, or armour bright;
Francisca fair can nothing now but weep,
Nor with soft notes shall sing his cares asleep.
I saw him dead. A leaden slumber lies
And mortal sleep over those wakeful eyes:
Those gentle rays under the lids were fled,
Which through his looks that piercing sweetness shed;
That port which so majestic was and strong,
Loose and deprived of vigour, stretched along:
All withered, all discoloured, pale and wan—
How much another thing, nor more that man?
Oh human glory vain, oh death, oh wings,
Oh worthless world, oh transitory things!
Yet dwelt that greatnesss in his shape decayed,
That still through dead, greater than death he laid:
And in his altered face you something feign
That threatens death he yet will live again.
Not much unlike the sacred oak which shoots
To heaven its branches and through earth its roots,
Whose spacious bought are hung with trophies round,
And honoured wreaths have oft the victor crowned.
When angry Jove darts lightning through the air,
At mortals’ sins, nor his own plant will spare,
(It groans, and bruises all below,
that stood
So many years the shelter of the wood.)
The tree erewhile foreshortened to our view,
When fall’n shows taller yet than as it grew:
So shall his praise to after times increase,
When truth shall be allowed, and faction cease,
And his own shadows with him fall. The eye
Detracts from object than itself more high:
But when death takes them from that envied seat,
Seeing how little, we confess how great.
Thee, many ages hence in martial verse
Shall the English soldier, ere he charge, rehearse,
Singing of thee, inflame themselves to fight,
And with the name of Cromwell, armies fright.
As long as rivers to the seas shall run,
As long as Cynthia shall relieve the sun,
While stags shall fly unto the firests thick,
While sheep delight the grassy downs to pick,
As long as future times succeeds the past,
Always they honour, praise, and name shall last.
Thou in a pitch how far beyond the sphere
Of human glory tower’st, and reigning there
Despoiled of mortal robes, in seas of bliss,
Plunging dost bathe, and tread the bright abyss:
There thy great soul yet once a world does see,
Spacious enough, and pure enough for thee.
How soon thou Moses hast, and Joshua found,
And David for the sword and harp renowned?
How straight canst to each happy mansion go?
(Far better known above than here
below)
And in those joys dost spend the endless day,
Which in expressing we ourselves betray.
For we, since thou art gone, with heavy doom,
Wander like ghosts about thy lovèd tomb;
And lost in tears, have neither sight nor mind
To guide us upward through this region blind.
Since thou art gone, who best that way couldst teach,
Only our sighs, perhaps, may thither reach.
And Richard yet, where his great parent led,
Beats on the rugged track: he, virtue dead,
Revives, and by his milder beams assures;
And yet how much of them his grief obscures?
He, as his father, long was kept from sight
In private, to be viewed by better light;
But opened once, what splendour does he throw?
A Cromwell in an hour a prince will grow.
How he becomes that seat, how strongly strains,
How gently winds at once the ruling reins?
Heaven to this choice prepared a diadem,
Richer than any Easter silk or gem;
A pearly rainbow, where the sun enchased
His brows, like an imperial jewel graced.
We find already what those omens mean,
Earth ne’er more glad, nor heaven more serene.
Cease now our griefs, calm peace succeeds a war,
Rainbows to storms, Richard to Oliver.
Tempt not his clemency to try his power,
He threats no deluge, yet foretells a shower.
To make a final conquest of all me,
Love did
compose so sweet an Enemy,
In whom both
Beauties to my death agree,
Joyning
themselves in fatal Harmony;
That while
she with her Eyes my Heart does bind,
She with her
Voice might captivate my Mind.
I could have fled from One but singly fair:
My
dis-intangled Soul it self might save,
Breaking the
curled trammels of her hair.
But how should I avoid
to be her Slave,
Whose subtile Art
invisibly can wreath
My Fetters of the very
Air I breath?
It had been
easie fighting in some plain,
Where Victory might hang
in equal choice.
But all resistance
against her is vain,
Who has th'advantage
both of Eyes and Voice.
And all my Forces needs
must be undone,
She having gained both
the Wind and Sun.
Like the vain Curlings of the Watry maze,
Which in
smooth streams a sinking Weight does raise;
So Man,
declining alwayes, disappears
In the weak
Circles of increasing Years;
And his
short Tumults of themselves Compose,
While
flowing Time above his Head does close.
Cromwell
alone with greater Vigour runs,
(Sun-like)
the Stages of succeeding Suns:
And still
the Day which he doth next restore,
Is the just Wonder of
the Day before.
Cromwell alone
doth with new Lustre spring,
And shines the Jewel of
the yearly Ring. 'Tis he
the force of scatter'd Time contracts,
And in one Year the work
of Ages acts:
While heavy Monarchs
make a wide Return,
Longer, and more
Malignant then Saturn:
And though they all Platonique
years should raign,
In the same Posture
would be found again.
Their earthy Projects
under ground they lay,
More slow and brittle
then the China clay:
Well may they strive to
leave them to their Son,
For one Thing never was
by one King don.
Yet some more active for
a Frontier Town
Took in by Proxie, beggs
a false Renown;
Another triumphs at the
publick Cost,
And will have Wonn, if
he no more have Lost;
They fight by Others,
but in Person wrong,
And only are against
their Subjects strong;
Their other Wars seem
but a feign'd contest,
This Common Enemy is
still opprest;
If Conquerors, on them
they turn their might;
If Conquered, on them
they wreak their Spight:
They neither build the
Temple in their dayes,
Nor Matter for
succeeding Founders raise;
Nor sacred Prophecies
consult within,
Much less themselves to
perfect them begin,
No other care they bear
of things above,
But with Astrologers
divine, and Jove,
To know how long their
Planet yet Reprives
From the deserved Fate
their guilty lives:
Thus (Image-like) and
useless time they tell,
And with vain Scepter
strike the hourly Bell;
Nor more contribute to
the state of Things,
Then wooden Heads unto
the Viols strings. While
indefatigable Cromwell hyes,
And cuts his way still
nearer to the Skyes,
Learning a Musique in
the Region clear,
To tune this lower to
that higher Sphere. So
when Amphion did the Lute command,
Which the God gave him,
with his gentle hand,
The rougher Stones, unto
his Measures hew'd,
Dans'd up in order from
the Quarreys rude;
This took a Lower, that
an Higher place,
As he the Treble
alter'd, or the Base:
No Note he struck, but a
new Story lay'd,
And the great Work
ascended while he play'd.
The listning Structures
he with Wonder ey'd,
And still new Stopps to
various Time apply'd:
Now through the Strings
a Martial rage he throws,
And joyng streight the Theban
Tow'r arose;
Then as he strokes them
with a Touch more sweet,
The flocking Marbles in
a Palace meet;
But, for he most the
graver Notes did try,
Therefore the Temples
rear'd their Columns high:
Thus, ere he ceas'd, his
sacred Lute creates
Th'harmonious City of
the seven Gates. Such
was that wondrous Order and Consent,
When Cromwell
tun'd the ruling Instrument;
While tedious Statesmen
many years did hack,
Framing a Liberty that
still went back;
Whose num'rous Gorge
could swallow in an hour
That Island, which the
Sea cannot devour:
Then our Amphion
issues out and sings,
And once he struck, and
twice, the pow'rful Strings.
The Commonwealth then
first together came,
And each one enter'd in
the willing Frame;
All other Matter yields,
and may be rul'd;
But who the Minds of stubborn
Men can build?
No Quarry bears a Stone
so hardly wrought,
Nor with such labour
from its Center brought;
None to be sunk in the
Foundation bends,
Each in the House the
highest Place contends,
And each the Hand that
lays him will direct,
And some fall back upon
the Architect;
Yet all compos'd by his
attractive Song,
Into the Animated City
throng. The
Common-wealth does through their Centers all
Draw the Circumf'rence
of the publique Wall;
The crossest Spirits
here do take their part,
Fast'ning the
Contignation which they thwart;
And they, whose Nature
leads them to divide,
Uphold, this one, and
that the other Side;
But the most Equal still
sustein the Height,
And they as Pillars keep
the Work upright;
While the resistance of
opposed Minds,
The Fabrick as with
Arches stronger binds,
Which on the Basis of a
Senate free,
Knit by the Roofs
Protecting weight agree.
When for his Foot he thus a place had found,
He hurles e'r since the World about
him round;
And in his sev'ral Aspects, like a
Star,
Here shines in Peace, and thither
shoots a War.
While by his Beams observing Princes
steer,
And wisely court the Influence they
fear;
O would they rather by his Pattern
won.
Kiss the approaching, nor yet angry
Son;
And in their numbred Footsteps
humbly tread
The path where holy Oracles do lead;
How might they under such a Captain
raise
The great Designes kept for the
latter Dayes!
But mad with Reason, so miscall'd,
of State
They know them not, and what they
know not, hate,
Hence still they sing Hosanna to the
Whore,
And her whom they should Massacre
adore:
But Indians whom they should
convert, subdue;
Nor teach, but traffique with, or
burn the Jew. Unhappy Princes,
ignorantly bred,
By Malice some, by Errour more
misled;
If gracious Heaven to my Life give
length,
Leisure to Time, and to my Weakness
Strength,
Then shall I once with graver
Accents shake
Your Regal sloth, and your long
Slumbers wake:
Like the shrill Huntsman that
prevents the East,
Winding his Horn to Kings that chase
the Beast. Till then my Muse shall
hollow far behind
Angelique Cromwell who outwings
the wind;
And in dark Nights, and in cold
Dayes alone
Pursues the Monster thorough every
Throne:
Which shrinking to her Roman
Den impure,
Gnashes her Goary teeth; nor there
secure. Hence oft I think, if in some
happy Hour
High Grace should meet in one with
highest Pow'r,
And then a seasonable People still
Should bend to his, as he to Heavens
will,
What we might hope, what wonderful
Effect
From such a wish'd Conjuncture might
reflect.
Sure, the mysterious Work, where
none withstand,
Would forthwith finish under such a
Hand:
Fore-shortned Time its useless
Course would stay,
And soon precipitate the latest Day.
But a thick Cloud about that Morning
lyes,
And intercepts the Beams of Mortal
eyes,
That 'tis the most which we
determine can,
If these the Times, then this must
be the Man.
And well he therefore does, and well
has guest,
Who in his Age has always forward
prest:
And knowing not where Heavens choice
may light,
Girds yet his Sword, and ready
stands to fight;
But Men alas, as if they nothing
car'd,
Look on, all unconcern'd, or
unprepar'd;
And Stars still fall, and still the
Dragons Tail
Swinges the Volumes of its horrid
Flail.
For the great Justice that did first
suspend
The World by Sin, does by the same
extend.
Hence that blest Day still
counterpoysed wastes,
The Ill delaying, what th'Elected
hastes;
Hence landing Nature to new Seas is
tost,
And good Designes still with their
Authors lost. And thou, great Cromwell,
for whose happy birth
A Mold was chosen out of better
Earth;
Whose Saint-like Mother we did
lately see
Live out an Age, long as a Pedigree;
That she might seem, could we the
Fall dispute,
T'have smelt the Blossome, and not
eat the Fruit;
Though none does of more lasting
Parents grow,
But never any did them Honor so;
Though thou thine Heart from Evil
still unstain'd,
And always hast thy Tongue from
fraud refrain'd;
Thou, who so oft through Storms of
thundring Lead
Hast born securely thine undaunted
Head,
Thy Brest through ponyarding
Conspiracies,
Drawn from the Sheath of lying
Prophecies;
Thee proof beyond all other Force or
Skill,
Our Sins endanger, and shall one day
kill. How near they fail'd, and in
thy sudden Fall
At once assay'd to overturn us all.
Our brutish fury strugling to be
Free,
Hurry'd thy Horses while they
hurry'd thee.
When thou hadst almost quit thy
Mortal cares,
And soyl'd in Dust thy Crown of
silver Hairs.
Let this one Sorrow interweave among
The other Glories of our yearly
Song.
Like skilful Looms which through the
costly threed
Of purling Ore, a shining wave do
shed:
So shall the Tears we on past Grief
employ,
Still as they trickle, glitter in
our Joy.
So with more Modesty we may be True,
And speak as of the Dead the Praises
due:
While impious Men deceiv'd with
pleasure short,
On their own Hopes shall find the
Fall retort.
But the poor Beasts wanting their
noble Guide,
What could they more? shrunk
guiltily aside.
First winged Fear transports them
far away,
And leaden Sorrow then their flight
did stay.
See how they each his towring Crest
abate,
And the green Grass, and their known
Mangers hate,
Nor through wide Nostrils snuffe the
wanton air,
Nor their round Hoofs, or curled
Mane's compare;
With wandring Eyes, and restless
Ears they stood,
And with shrill Neighings ask'd him
of the Wood.
Thou Cromwell falling, not a
stupid Tree,
Or Rock so savage, but it mourn'd
for thee:
And all about was heard a Panique
groan,
As if that Natures self were
overthrown.
It seem'd the Earth did from the
Center tear;
It seem'd the Sun was faln out of
the Sphere:
Justice obstructed lay, and Reason
fool'd;
Courage disheartned, and Religion
cool'd.
A dismal Silence through the Palace
went,
And then loud Shreeks the vaulted
Marbles rent.
Such as the dying Chorus sings by
turns,
And to deaf Seas, and ruthless
Tempests mourns,
When now they sink, and now the
plundring Streams
Break up each Deck, and rip the
Oaken seams. But thee triumphant
hence the firy Carr,
And firy Steeds had born out of the
Warr,
From the low World, and thankless
Men above,
Unto the Kingdom blest of Peace and
Love:
We only mourn'd our selves, in thine
Ascent,
Whom thou hadst left beneath with
Mantle rent. For all delight of Life
thou then didst lose,
When to Command, thou didst thy self
Depose;
Resigning up thy Privacy so dear,
To turn the headstrong Peoples
Charioteer;
For to be Cromwell was a
greater thing,
Then ought below, or yet above a
King:
Therefore thou rather didst thy Self
depress,
Yielding to Rule, because it made
thee Less. For, neither didst thou
from the first apply
Thy sober Spirit unto things too
High,
But in thine own Fields exercisedst
long,
An healthful Mind within a Body
strong;
Till at the Seventh time thou in the
Skyes,
As a small Cloud, like a Mans hand
didst rise;
Then did thick Mists and Winds the
air deform,
And down at last thou pow'rdst the
fertile Storm;
Which to the thirsty Land did plenty
bring,
But though forewarn'd, o'r-took and
wet the King. What since he did, an
higher Force him push'd
Still from behind, and it before him
rush'd,
Though undiscern'd among the tumult
blind,
Who think those high Decrees by Man
design'd.
'Twas Heav'n would not that his
Pow'r should cease,
But walk still middle betwixt War
and Peace;
Choosing each Stone, and poysing
every weight,
Trying the Measures of the Bredth
and Height;
Here pulling down, and there
erecting New,
Founding a firm State by Proportions
true. When Gideon so did from
the War retreat,
Yet by the Conquest of two Kings
grown great,
He on the Peace extends a Warlike
power,
And Is'rel silent saw him
rase the Tow'r;
And how he Succoths Elders
durst suppress,
With Thorns and Briars of the
Wilderness.
No King might ever such a Force have
done;
Yet would not he be Lord, nor yet
his Son. Thou with the same
strength, and an Heart as plain,
Didst (like thine Olive) still
refuse to Reign;
Though why should others all thy
Labor spoil,
And Brambles be anointed with thine
Oyl,
Whose climbing Flame, without a
timely stop,
Had quickly Levell'd every Cedar's
top.
Therefore first growing to thy self
a Law,
Th'ambitious Shrubs thou in just
time didst aw. So have I seen at
Sea, when whirling Winds,
Hurry the Bark, but more the Seamens
minds,
Who with mistaken Course salute the
Sand,
And threat'ning Rocks misapprehend
for Land;
While baleful Tritons to the
shipwrack guide.
And Corposants along the Tacklings
slide.
The Passengers all wearyed out
before,
Giddy, and wishing for the fatal
Shore;
Some lusty Mate, who with more
careful Eye
Counted the Hours, and ev'ry Star
did spy,
The Helm does from the artless
Steersman strain,
And doubles back unto the safer
Main.
What though a while they grumble
discontent,
Saving himself he does their loss
prevent. 'Tis not a Freedome, that
where All command;
Nor Tyranny, where One does them
withstand:
But who of both the Bounders knows
to lay
Him as their Father must the State
obey. Thou, and thine House, like Noah's
Eight did rest,
Left by the Wars Flood on the
Mountains crest:
And the large Vale lay subject to
thy Will,
Which thou but as an Husbandman
would Till:
And only didst for others plant the
Vine
Of Liberty, not drunken with its
Wine. That sober Liberty which men
may have,
That they enjoy, but more they
vainly crave:
And such as to their Parents Tents
do press,
May shew their own, not see his
Nakedness. Yet such a Chammish
issue still does rage,
The Shame and Plague both of the
Land and Age,
Who watch'd thy halting, and thy
Fall deride,
Rejoycing when thy Foot had slipt
aside;
That their new King might the fifth
Scepter shake,
And make the World, by his Example,
Quake:
Whose frantique Army should they
want for Men
Might muster Heresies, so one were
ten.
What thy Misfortune, they the Spirit
call,
And their Religion only is to Fall.
Oh Mahomet! now couldst thou
rise again,
Thy Falling-sickness should have
made thee Reign,
While Feake and Simpson
would in many a Tome,
Have writ the Comments of thy sacred
Foame:
For soon thou mightst have past
among their Rant
Wer't but for thine unmoved
Tulipant;
As thou must needs have own'd them
of thy band
For prophecies fit to be Alcorand.
Accursed Locusts, whom your King
does spit
Out of the Center of th'unbottom'd
Pit;
Wand'rers, Adult'rers, Lyers, Munser's
rest,
Sorcerers, Atheists, Jesuites,
Possest;
You who the Scriptures and the Laws
deface
With the same liberty as Points and
Lace;
Oh Race most hypocritically strict!
Bent to reduce us to the ancient
Pict;
Well may you act the Adam and
the Eve;
Ay, and the Serpent too that did deceive.
But the great Captain, now the
danger's ore,
Makes you for his sake Tremble one
fit more;
And, to your spight, returning yet
alive
Does with himself all that is good
revive. So when first Man did
through the Morning new
See the bright Sun his shining Race
pursue,
All day he follow'd with unwearied
sight,
Pleas'd with that other World of
moving Light;
But thought him when he miss'd his
setting beams,
Sunk in the Hills, or plung'd below
the Streams.
While dismal blacks hung round the
Universe,
And Stars (like Tapers) burn'd upon
his Herse:
And Owls and Ravens with their
screeching noyse
Did make the Fun'rals sadder by
their Joyes.
His weeping Eyes the doleful Vigils
keep,
Not knowing yet the Night was made
for sleep:
Still to the West, where he him
lost, he turn'd,
And with such accents, as
Despairing, mourn'd:
Why did mine Eyes once see so bright
a Ray;
Or why Day last no longer then a
Day?
When streight the Sun behind him he
descry'd,
Smiling serenely from the further
side. So while our Star that gives
us Light and Heat,
Seem'd now a long and gloomy Night
to threat,
Up from the other World his Flame he
darts,
And Princes shining through their
windows starts;
Who their suspected Counsellors
refuse,
And credulous Ambassadors accuse.
'Is this, saith one, the Nation that
we read
'Spent with both Wars, under a
Captain dead?
'Yet rig a Navy while we dress us
late;
'And ere we Dine, rase and rebuild
our State.
'What Oaken Forrests, and what
golden Mines!
'What Mints of Men, what Union of
Designes!
'Unless their Ships, do, as their
Fowle proceed
'Of shedding Leaves, that with their
Ocean breed.
'Theirs are not Ships, but rather
Arks of War,
'And beaked Promontories sail'd from
far;
'Of floting Islands a new Hatched
Nest;
'A Fleet of Worlds, of other Worlds
in quest;
'An hideous shole of
wood-Leviathans,
'Arm'd with three Tire of brazen
Hurricans;
'That through the Center shoot their
thundring side
'And sink the Earth that does at
Anchor ride.
'What refuge to escape them can be
found,
'Whose watry Leaguers all the world
surround?
'Needs must we all their Tributaries
be,
'Whose Navies hold the Sluces of the
Sea.
'The Ocean is the Fountain of
Command,
'But that once took, we Captives are
on Land.
'And those that have the Waters for
their share,
'Can quickly leave us neither Earth
nor Air.
'Yet if through these our Fears
could find a pass;
'Through double Oak, & lin'd
with treble Brass;
'That one Man still, although but
nam'd, alarms
'More then all Men, all Navies, and
all Arms.
'Him, all the Day, Him, in late
Nights I dread,
'And still his Sword seems hanging
o're my head:
'The Nation had been ours, but his
one Soul
'Moves the great Bulk, and animates
the whole.
'He Secrecy with Number hath
inchas'd,
'Courage with Age, Maturity with
Hast:
'The Valiants Terror, Riddle of the
Wise;
'And still his Fauchion all our
Knots unties.
'Where did he learn those Arts that
cost us dear?
'Where below Earth, or where above
the Sphere?
'He seems a King by long Succession
born,
'And yet the same to be a King does
scorn.
'Abroad a King he seems, and
something more,
'At Home a Subject on the equal
Floor.
'O could I once him with our Title
see,
'So should I hope yet he might Dye
as wee.
'But let them write his Praise that
love him best,
'It grieves me sore to have thus
much confest. Pardon, great Prince,
if thus their Fear or Spight
More then our Love and Duty do thee
Right.
I yield, nor further will the Prize
contend;
So that we both alike may miss our
End:
While thou thy venerable Head dost
raise
As far above their Malice as my
Praise.
And as the Angel of our
Commonweal,
Troubling the Waters, yearly mak'st
them Heal.
Clora come view my Soul, and tell
Whether I
have contriv'd it well.
Now all its
several lodgings lye
Compos'd
into one Gallery;
And the
great Arras-hangings, made
Of various
Faces, by are laid;
That, for
all furniture, you'l find
Only your
Picture in my Mind.
Here Thou art painted in the Dress
Of an Inhumane
Murtheress;
Examining upon our
Hearts
Thy fertile Shop of
cruel Arts:
Engines more keen than
ever yet
Adorned Tyrants Cabinet;
Of which the most
tormenting are
Black Eyes, red Lips,
and curled Hair.
But, on the
other side, th'art drawn
Like to Aurora in
the Dawn;
When in the East she
slumb'ring lyes,
And stretches out her
milky Thighs;
While all the morning
Quire does sing,
And Manna falls,
and Roses spring;
And, at thy Feet, the
wooing Doves
Sit perfecting their
harmless Loves.
Like an
Enchantress here thou show'st,
Vexing thy restless
Lover's Ghost;
And, by a Light obscure,
dost rave
Over his Entrails, in
the Cave;
Divining thence, with
horrid Care,
How long thou shalt
continue fair;
And (when inform'd) them
throw'st away,
To be the greedy
Vultur's prey.
But, against
that, thou sit'st a float
Like Venus in her
pearly Boat.
The Halcyons,
calming all that's nigh,
Betwixt the Air and
Water fly.
Or, if some rowling Wave
appears,
A Mass of Ambergris it
bears.
Nor blows more Wind than
what may well
Convoy the Perfume to
the Smell.
These
Pictures and a thousand more,
Of Thee, my Gallery dost
store;
In all the Forms thou
can'st invent
Either to please me, or
torment:
For thou alone to people
me,
Art grown a num'rous
Colony;
And a Collection choicer
far
Then or White-hall's,
or Mantua's were.
But, of
these Pictures and the rest,
That at the Entrance
likes me best:
Where the same Posture,
and the Look
Remains, with which I
first was took.
A tender Shepherdess,
whose Hair
Hangs loosely playing in
the Air,
Transplanting Flow'rs
from the green Hill,
To crown her Head, and
Bosome fill.
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the
Palm, the Oke, or Bayes;
And their
uncessant Labours see
Crown'd from
some single Herb or Tree,
Whose short
and narrow verged Shade
Does
prudently their Toyles upbraid;
While all
Flow'rs and all Trees do close
To weave the
Garlands of repose.
Fair quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence thy Sister
dear!
Mistaken long, I sought
you then
In busie Companies of
Men.
Your sacred Plants, if
here below,
Only among the Plants
will grow.
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious
Solitude.
No white
nor red was ever seen
So am'rous as this
lovely green.
Fond Lovers, cruel as
their Flame,
Cut in these Trees their
Mistress name.
Little, Alas, they know,
or heed,
How far these Beauties
Hers exceed!
Fair Trees! where s'eer
you barkes I wound,
No Name shall but your
own be found.
When we
have run our Passions heat,
Love hither makes his
best retreat.
The Gods, that
mortal Beauty chase,
Still in a Tree did end
their race.
Apollo hunted Daphne
so,
Only that She might
Laurel grow.
And Pan did after
Syrinx speed,
Not as a Nymph, but for
a Reed.
What
wond'rous Life in this I lead!
Ripe Apples drop about
my head;
The Luscious Clusters of
the Vine
Upon my Mouth do crush
their Wine;
The Nectaren, and
curious Peach,
Into my hands themselves
do reach;
Stumbling on Melons, as
I pass,
Insnar'd with Flow'rs, I
fall on Grass.
Mean while
the Mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its
happiness:
The Mind, that Ocean
where each kind
Does streight its own
resemblance find;
Yet it creates,
transcending these,
Far other Worlds, and
other Seas;
Annihilating all that's
made
To a green Thought in a
green Shade.
Here at the
Fountains sliding foot,
Or at some Fruit-trees
mossy root,
Casting the Bodies Vest
aside,
My Soul into the boughs
does glide:
There like a Bird it
sits, and sings,
Then whets, and combs
its silver Wings;
And, till prepar'd for
longer flight,
Waves in its Plumes the
various Light.
Such was
that happy Garden-state,
While Man there walk'd
without a Mate:
After a Place so pure,
and sweet,
What other Help could
yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a
Mortal's share
To wander solitary
there:
Two Paradises 'twere in
one
To live in Paradise
alone.
How well
the skilful Gardner drew
Of flow'rs and herbes
this Dial new;
Where from above the
milder Sun
Does through a fragrant
Zodiack run;
And, as it works,
th'industrious Bee
Computes its time as
well as we.
How could such sweet and
wholsome Hours
Be reckon'd but with
herbs and flow'rs!
Nature had long a Treasure made
Of all her choisest store;
Fearing,
when She should be decay'd,
To beg in vain for more.
Her Orientest Colours there,
And Essences most pure,
With
sweetest Perfumes hoarded were,
All as she thought secure.
She seldom them unlock'd, or us'd,
But
with the nicest care;
For, with one grain of
them diffus'd,
She
could the World repair.
But
likeness soon together drew
What
she did separate lay;
Of which one perfect
Beauty grew,
And
that was Celia.
Love wisely
had of long fore-seen
That
he must once grow old;
And therefore stor'd a
Magazine,
To
save him from the cold.
He kept the
several Cells repleat
With
Nitre thrice refin'd;
The Naphta's and the
Sulphurs heat,
And
all that burns the Mind.
He
fortifi'd the double Gate,
And
rarely thither came;
For, with one Spark of
these, he streight
All
Nature could inflame.
Till, by
vicinity so long,
A
nearer Way they sought;
And, grown magnetically
strong,
Into
each other wrought.
Thus all
his fewel did unite
To
make one fire high:
None ever burn'd so hot,
so bright:
And Celia
that am I.
So we alone
the happy rest,
Whilst
all the World is poor,
And have within our
Selves possest
All
Love's and Nature's store.
Luxurious
Man, to bring his Vice in use,
Did after him the World seduce:
And from the
fields the Flow'rs and Plants allure,
Where Nature was most plain and pure.
He first
enclos'd within the Gardens square
A dead and standing pool of Air:
And a more
luscious Earth for them did knead,
Which stupifi'd them while it fed.
The Pink
grew then as double as his Mind;
The
nutriment did change the kind.
With strange perfumes he
did the Roses taint.
And
Flow'rs themselves were taught to paint.
The Tulip, white, did
for complexion seek;
And
learn'd to interline its cheek:
Its Onion root they then
so high did hold,
That
one was for a Meadow sold.
Another World was
search'd, through Oceans new,
To
find the Marvel of Peru.
And yet these Rarities
might be allow'd,
To
Man, that sov'raign thing and proud;
Had he not dealt between
the Bark and Tree,
Forbidden mixtures there to see.
No Plant now knew the
Stock from which it came;
He
grafts upon the Wild the Tame:
That the uncertain and
adult'rate fruit
Might
put the Palate in dispute.
His green Seraglio
has its Eunuchs too;
Left
any Tyrant him out-doe.
And in the Cherry he
does Nature vex,
To
procreate without a Sex.
'Tis all enforc'd; the
Fountain and the Grot;
While
the sweet Fields do lye forgot:
Where willing Nature
does to all dispence
A wild
and fragrant Innocence:
And Fauns and Faryes
do the Meadows till,
More
by their presence then their skill.
Their Statues polish'd
by some ancient hand,
May to
adorn the Gardens stand:
But howso'ere the
Figures do excel,
The Gods
themselves with us do dwell.
Ye living Lamps, by whose dear light
The
Nightingale does sit so late,
And studying
all the Summer-night,
Her
matchless Songs does meditate;
Ye Country Comets, that portend
No War, nor
Princes funeral,
Shining unto
no higher end
Then to
presage the Grasses fall;
Ye Glo-worms, whose officious Flame
To wandring Mowers shows
the way,
That in the Night have
lost their aim,
And after foolish Fires
do stray;
Your
courteous Lights in vain you wast,
Since Juliana
here is come,
For She my Mind hath so
displac'd
That I shall never find
my home.
My Mind was once the true survey
Of all these Medows fresh and gay;
And in the greenness of the Grass
Did see its Hopes as in a Glass;
When Juliana came, and She
What I do to
the Grass, does to my Thoughts and Me.
But these, while I with Sorrow pine,
Grew more luxuriant still and fine;
That not one Blade of Grass you spy'd,
But
had a Flower on either side;
When Juliana
came, and She
What I do to the Grass,
does to my Thoughts and Me.
Unthankful Medows, could you so
A
fellowship so true forego,
And in
your gawdy May-games meet,
While
I lay trodden under feet?
When Juliana
came, and She
What I do to the Grass,
does to my Thoughts and Me.
But what you in Compassion ought,
Shall
now by my Revenge be wrought:
And
Flow'rs, and Grass, and I and all,
Will
in one common Ruine fall.
For Juliana
comes, and She
What I do to the Grass, does
to my Thoughts and Me.
And thus, ye Meadows, which have been
Companions of my thoughts more green,
Shall
now the Heraldry become
With
which I shall adorn my Tomb;
For Juliana
comes, and She
What I do to the Grass,
does to my Thoughts and Me.
The wanton Troopers riding by
Have shot my
Faun and it will dye.
Ungentle
men! They cannot thrive
To kill
thee. Thou neer didst alive
Them any
harm: alas nor cou'd
Thy death
yet do them any good.
I'me sure I
never wisht them ill;
Nor do I for
all this; nor will:
But, if my
simple Pray'rs may yet
Prevail with Heaven to
forget
Thy murder, I will Joyn
my Tears
Rather then fail. But, O
my fears!
It cannot dye so.
Heavens King
Keeps register of every
thing:
And nothing may we use
in vain.
Ev'n Beasts must be with
justice slain;
Else Men are made their Deodands.
Though they should wash
their guilty hands
In this warm life blood,
which doth part
From thine, and wound me
to the Heart,
Yet could they not be
clean: their Stain
Is dy'd in such a Purple
Grain.
There is not such
another in
The World, to offer for
their Sin. Unconstant Sylvio,
when yet
I had not found him
counterfeit,
One morning (I remember
well)
Ty'd in this silver
Chain and Bell,
Gave it to me: nay and I
know
What he said then; I'me
sure I do.
Said He, look how your
Huntsman here
Hath taught a Faun to
hunt his Dear.
But Sylvio soon
had me beguil'd.
This waxed tame; while
he grew wild,
And quite regardless of
my Smart,
Left me his Faun, but
took his Heart.
Thenceforth I set my self to play
My solitary time away,
With this: and very well
content,
Could so mine idle Life
have spent.
For it was full of
sport; and light
Of foot, and heart; and
did invite,
Me to its game: it
seem'd to bless
Its self in me. How
could I less
Than love it? O I cannot
be
Unkind, t'a Beast that
loveth me. Had it liv'd
long, I do not know
Whether it too might
have done so
As Sylvio did:
his Gifts might be
Perhaps as false or more
than he.
But I am sure, for ought
that I
Could in so short a time
espie,
Thy Love was far more
better then
The love of false and
cruel men. With sweetest
milk, and sugar, first
I it at mine own fingers
nurst.
And as it grew, so every
day
It wax'd more white and
sweet than they.
It had so sweet a
Breath! And oft
I blusht to see its foot
more soft,
And white, (shall I say
then my hand?)
NAY any Ladies of the
Land. It is a wond'rous
thing, how fleet
'Twas on those little
silver feet.
With what a pretty
skipping grace,
It oft would challenge
me the Race:
And when 'thad left me
far away,
'Twould stay, and run
again, and stay.
For it was nimbler much
than Hindes;
And trod, as on the four
Winds. I have a Garden
of my own,
But so with Roses over
grown,
And Lillies, that you
would it guess
To be a little
Wilderness.
And all the Spring time
of the year
It onely loved to be
there.
Among the beds of
Lillyes, I
Have sought it oft,
where it should lye;
Yet could not, till it
self would rise,
Find it, although before
mine Eyes.
For, in the flaxen
Lillies shade,
It like a bank of
Lillies laid.
Upon the Roses it would
feed,
Until its Lips ev'n
seem'd to bleed:
And then to me 'twould
boldly trip,
And print those Roses on
my Lip.
But all its chief
delight was still
On Roses thus its self
to fill:
And its pure virgin
Limbs to fold
In whitest sheets of
Lillies cold.
Had it liv'd long, it
would have been
Lillies without, Roses
within. O help! O help!
I see it faint:
And dye as calmely as a
Saint.
See how it weeps. The
Tears do come
Sad, slowly dropping
like a Gumme.
So weeps the wounded
Balsome: so
The holy Frankincense
doth flow.
The brotherless Heliades
Melt in such Amber Tears as these.
I in a golden Vial will
Keep these two crystal Tears; and
fill
It till it do o'reflow with mine;
Then place it in Diana's
Shrine. Now my sweet Faun is
vanish'd to
Whether the Swans and Turtles go
In fair Elizium to endure,
With milk-white Lambs, and Ermins
pure.
O do not run too fast: for I
Will but bespeak thy Grave, and dye.
First my unhappy Statue shall
Be cut in Marble; and withal,
Let it be weeping too: but there
Th'Engraver sure his Art may spare;
For I so truly thee bemoane,
That I shall weep though I be Stone:
Until my Tears, still dropping, wear
My breast, themselves engraving
there.
There at my feet shalt thou be laid,
Of purest Alabaster made:
For I would have thine Image be
White as I can, though not as Thee.
See with what simplicity
This Nimph
begins her golden daies!
In the green
Grass she loves to lie,
And there
with her fair Aspect tames
The Wilder
flow'rs, and gives them names:
But only
with the Roses playes;
And them does tell
What Colour
best becomes them, and what Smell.
Who can foretel for what high cause
This Darling of the Gods
was born!
Yet this is She whose
chaster Laws
The wanton Love shall
one day fear,
And, under her command
severe,
See his Bow broke and
Ensigns torn.
Happy,
who can
Appease this virtuous
Enemy of Man!
O then let
me in time compound,
And parly with those
conquering Eyes;
Ere they have try'd
their force to wound,
Ere, with their glancing
wheels, they drive
In Triumph over Hearts
that strive,
And them that yield but
more despise.
Let me
be laid,
Where I may see thy
Glories from some Shade.
Mean time,
whilst every verdant thing
It self does at thy
Beauty charm,
Reform the errours of
the Spring;
Make that the Tulips may
have share
Of sweetness, seeing
they are fair;
And Roses of their
thorns disarm:
But
most procure
That Violets may a
longer Age endure.
But O young
beauty of the Woods,
Whom Nature courts with
fruits and flow'rs,
Gather the Flow'rs, but
spare the Buds;
Lest Flora angry
at thy crime,
To kill her Infants in
their prime,
Do quickly make
th'Example Yours;
And,
ere we see,
Nip in the blossome all
our hopes and Thee.
Alas, how pleasant are their dayes
With whom
the Infant Love yet playes!
Sorted by
pairs, they still are seen
By Fountains
cool, and Shadows green.
But soon
these Flames do lose their light,
Like Meteors
of a Summers night:
Nor can they
to that Region climb,
To make
impression upon Time.
'Twas in a Shipwrack, when the Seas
Rul'd, and the Winds did
what they please,
That my poor Lover
floting lay,
And, e're brought forth,
was cast away:
Till at the last the
master-Wave
Upon the Rock his Mother
drave;
And there she split
against the Stone,
In a Cesarian Section.
The Sea him
lent these bitter Tears
Which at his Eyes he
alwaies bears.
And from the Winds the
Sighs he bore,
Which through his
surging Breast do roar.
No Day he saw but that
which breaks,
Through frighted Clouds
in forked streaks.
While round the ratling
Thunder hurl'd,
As at the Fun'ral of the
World.
While
Nature to his Birth presents
This masque of
quarrelling Elements;
A num'rous fleet of
Corm'rants black,
That sail'd insulting
o're the Wrack,
Receiv'd into their
cruel Care,
Th'unfortunate and
abject Heir:
Guardians most fit to
entertain
The Orphan of the Hurricane.
They fed
him up with Hopes and Air,
Which soon digested to
Despair.
And as one Corm'rant fed
him, still
Another on his Heart did
bill.
Thus while they famish
him, and feast,
He both consumed, and
increast:
And languished with
doubtful Breath,
Th'Amphibium of
Life and Death.
And now,
when angry Heaven wou'd
Behold a spectacle of
Blood,
Fortune and He are
call'd to play
At sharp before it all
the day:
And Tyrant Love his
brest does ply
With all his wing'd
Artillery.
Whilst he, betwixt the
Flames and Waves,
Like Ajax, the
mad Tempest braves.
See how he
nak'd and fierce does stand,
Cuffing the Thunder with
one hand;
While with the other he
does lock,
And grapple, with the
stubborn Rock:
From which he with each
Wave rebounds,
Torn into Flames, and
ragg'd with Wounds.
And all he saies, a
Lover drest
In his own Blood does
relish best.
This is the
only Banneret
That ever Love created
yet:
Who though, by the
Malignant Starrs,
Forced to live in Storms
and Warrs;
Yet dying leaves a
Perfume here,
And Musick within every
Ear:
And he in Story only
rules,
In a Field Sable
a Lover Gules.
HOW vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their uncessant labours see
Crown'd from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow-verged shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all the flowers and trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose!
Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence thy sister dear?
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men:
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow:
Society is all but rude
To this delicious solitude.
No white nor red was ever seen
So amorous as this lovely green.
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress' name:
Little, alas! they know or heed
How far these beauties hers exceed!
Fair trees! wheres'e'er your barks I wound,
No name shall but your own be found.
When we have run our passions' heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat:
The gods, that mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race;
Apollo hunted Daphne so
Only that she might laurel grow;
And Pan did after Syrinx speed
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.
What wondrous life in this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less
Withdraws into its happiness;
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that 's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and combs its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.
Such was that happy Garden-state
While man there walk'd without a mate:
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there:
Two paradises 'twere in one,
To live in Paradise alone.
How well the skilful gard'ner drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new!
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run:
And, as it works, th' industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckon'd, but with herbs and flowers!
Quis posthac chartae
committat sensa loquaci,
Si sua crediderit Fata subesse stylo?
Conscia si prodat Seribentis Litera sortem,
Quicquid & in vita plus latuisse velit?
Flexibus in calami tamen omnia sponte leguntur:
Quod non significant Verba, Figura notat.
Bellerophonteas signat sibi quisque Tabellas;
Ignaramque Manum Spiritus intus agit.
Nil praeter solitum sapiebat Epistola nostra,
Exemplumque meae Simplicitatis erat.
Fabula jucundos qualis delectat Amicos;
Urbe, lepore, novis, carmine tota scatens.
Hic tamen interpres quo non securior alter,
(Non res, non voces, non
ego notus ei)
Rimatur fibras notularum cautus Aruspex,
Scriptur aeque inhians consulit exta meae.
Inde statim vitae casus, animique recessus
Explicat; (haud Genio plura liquere putem.)
Distribuit totum nostris eventibus orbem,
Et quo me rapiat cardine Sphaera docet.
Quae Sol oppositus, quae Mars adversa minetur,
Jupiter aut ubi me, Luna, Venusque juvent.
Ut trucis intentet mihi vulnera Cauda Draconis;
Vipereo levet ut vulnera more Caput.
Hinc mihi praeteriti rationes atque futuri
Elicit; Astrologus certior Astronomo.
Ut conjecturas nequeam discernere vero,
Historiae superet sed Genitura fidem.
Usque adeo caeli respondet pagina nostrae,
Astrorum & nexus syllaba scripta refert.
Scilicet & toti subsunt Oracula mundo,
Dummodo tot foliis una Sibylla foret.
Partum, Fortunae mater Natura, propinquum
Milie modis monstrat mille per indicia:
Ingentemque Uterum qui mole Puerpera solvat
Vivit at in praesens maxima pars hominum.
Ast Tu sorte tua gaude Celeberrime Vatum;
Scribe, sed haud superest qui tua fata legat.
Nostra tamen si fas praesagia jungere vestris,
Quo magis inspexti sydera spernis humum.
Et, nisi stellarum fueris divina propago,
Naupliada credam te Palamede satum.
Qui dedit ex aviun scriptoria signa volatu,
Sydereaque idem nobilis arte fuit.
Hinc utriusque tibi cognata scientia crevit,
Nec minus augurium Litera quam dat Avis.
(Verses to accompany a
portrait of Cromwell)
Bright Martial Maid, Queen of the frozen zone,
The northern pole supports thy
shining throne.
Behold what furrows age and steel can plough;
The helmet’s weight oppressed
this wrinkled brow.
Through fate’s untrodden paths I move; my hands
Still act my free-born people’s
bold commands;
Yet this stern shade, to you submits his frowns,
Nor are these looks always severe to crowns.
Had we but World enough, and Time,
This coyness
Lady were no crime.
We would sit
down, and think which way
To walk, and
pass our long Loves Day.
Thou by the Indian
Ganges side
Should'st
Rubies find: I by the Tide
Of Humber
would complain. I would
Love you ten
years before the Flood:
And you
should if you please refuse
Till the Conversion of
the Jews.
My vegetable Love should
grow
Vaster then Empires, and
more slow.
An hundred years should
go to praise
Thine Eyes, and on thy
Forehead Gaze.
Two hundred to adore
each Breast.
But thirty thousand to
the rest.
An Age at least to every
part,
And the last Age should
show your Heart.
For Lady you deserve
this State;
Nor would I love at
lower rate. But at my
back I alwaies hear
Times winged Charriot
hurrying near:
And yonder all before us
lye
Desarts of vast
Eternity.
Thy Beauty shall no more
be found;
Nor, in thy marble
Vault, shall sound
My ecchoing Song: then
Worms shall try
That long preserv'd
Virginity:
And your quaint Honour
turn to durst;
And into ashes all my
Lust.
The Grave's a fine and
private place,
But none I think do
there embrace. Now
therefore, while the youthful hew
Sits on thy skin like
morning glew,
And while thy willing
Soul transpires
At every pore with
instant Fires,
Now let us sport us
while we may;
And now, like am'rous
birds of prey,
Rather at once our Time
devour,
Than languish in his
slow-chapt pow'r.
Let us roll all our
Strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into
one Ball.
And tear our Pleasures
with rough strife,
Thorough the Iron gates
of Life.
Thus, though we cannot
make our Sun
Stand still, yet we will
make him run.
Sir,
Our times are much degenerate from those
Which your sweet muse with your fair fortune chose,
And as complexions alter with the climes,
Our wits have drawn the infection of our times.
That candid age no other way could tell
To be ingenious, but by speaking well.
Who best could praise had then the greatest praise,
’Twas more esteemed to give than
bear the bays:
Modest ambition studied only then
To honour not herself but worthy men.
These virtues now are banished out of town,
Our Civil Wars have lost the civic crown.
He highest builds, who with most art destroys,
And against others’ fame his own employs.
I see the envious caterpillar sit
On the fair blossom of each growing wit.
The air’s already tainted with the swarms
Of insects which against you rise in arms:
Word-peckers, paper-rats, book-scorpions,
Of wit corrupted, the unfashioned sons.
The barbèd censurers begin to look
Like the grim consistory on thy book;
And on each line cast a reforming eye,
Severer than the young presbytery.
Till when in vain they have thee all perused,
You shall, for being faultless, be accused.
Some reading your Lucasta will allege
You wronged in her the House’s privelege.
Some that you under sequestration are,
And one the book prohibits, because Kent
Their first petition by the author sent.
But when the beauteous ladies came to know
That their dear Lovelace was endangered so:
Lovelace that thawed the most congealèd breast —
He who loved best and them defended best,
Whose hand so rudely grasps the steely brand,
Whose hand most gently melts the lady’s hand —
They all in mutiny though yet undressed
Sallied, and would in his defence contest.
And one, the loveliest that was yet e’er seen,
Thinking that I too of the rout had been,
Mine eyes invaded with a female spite,
(She knew what pain ’twould cause to lose that sight.)
‘O no, mistake not,’ I replied,
‘for I
In your defence, or in his cause, would die.’
But he, secure of glory and of time,
Above their envy, or mine aid, doth climb.
Him valiant’st men and fairest nymphs approve;
His book in them finds judgement, with you love.
Sit further, and make room for thine own fame,
Where just
desert enrolles thy honour'd Name
The good
Interpreter. Some in this task
Take of the
Cypress vail, but leave a mask,
Changing the
Latine, but do more obscure
That sence
in English which was bright and pure.
So of
Translators they are Authors grown,
For ill
Translators make the Book their own.
Others do
strive with words and forced phrase
To add such lustre, and so
many rayes,
That but to make the
Vessel shining, they
Much of the precious
Metal rub away.
He is Translations thief
that addeth more,
As much as he that
taketh from the Store
Of the first Author. Here
he maketh blots
That mends; and added
beauties are but spots. Cælia
whose English doth more richly flow
Then Tagus, purer
then dissolved snow,
And sweet as are her
lips that speak it, she
Now learns the tongues
of France and Italy;
But she is Cælia
still: no other grace
But her own smiles
commend that lovely face;
Her native beauty's not
Italianated,
Nor her chast mind into
the French translated:
Her thoughts are English,
though her sparkling wit
With other Language doth
them fitly fit.
Translators learn of her: but stay I slide
Down into Error with the
Vulgar tide;
Women must not teach
here: the Doctor doth
Stint them to Cawdles
Almond-milk, and Broth.
Now I reform, and surely
so will all
Whose happy Eyes on thy
Translation fall,
I see the people
hastning to thy Book,
Liking themselves the
worse the more they look,
And so disliking, that
they nothing see
Now worth the liking,
but thy Book and thee.
And (if I Judgment have)
I censure right;
For something guides my
hand that I must write.
You have Translations
statutes best fulfil'd.
That handling neither
sully nor would guild
As one put drunk into the Packet-boat,
Tom May
was hurry'd hence and did not know't.
But was
amaz'd on the Elysian side,
And with an
Eye uncertain, gazing wide,
Could not
determine in what place he was,
For whence
in Stevens ally Trees or Grass.
Nor where
the Popes head, nor the Mitre lay,
Signs by which
still he found and lost his way.
At last
while doubtfully he all compares,
He saw near hand, as he
imagin'd Ares.
Such did he seem for
corpulence and port,
But 'twas a man much of
another sort;
'Twas Ben that in
the dusky Laurel shade
Amongst the Chorus of
old Poets laid,
Sounding of ancient
Heroes, such as were
The Subjects Safety, and
the Rebel's Fear.
But how a double headed
Vulture Eats,
Brutus and Cassius
the Peoples cheats.
But seeing May he
varied streight his Song,
Gently to signifie that
he was wrong.
Cups more then civil of Emilthian
wine,
I sing (said he) and the
Pharsalian Sign,
Where the Historian of
the Common-wealth
In his own Bowels
sheath'd the conquering health.
By this May to
himself and them was come,
He found he was
translated, and by whom.
Yet then with foot as
stumbling as his tongue
Prest for his place
among the Learned throng.
But Ben, who knew
not neither foe nor friend,
Sworn Enemy to all that
do pretend,
Rose more then ever he
was seen severe,
Shook his gray locks, and
his own Bayes did tear
At this intrusion. Then
with Laurel wand,
The awful Sign of his
supream command.
At whose dread Whisk Virgil
himself does quake,
And Horace
patiently its stroke does take,
As he crowds in he whipt
him ore the pate
Like Pembroke at
the Masque, and then did rate.
Far from these blessed
shades tread back agen
Most servil' wit, and
Mercenary Pen.
Polydore, Lucan,
Allan, Vandale, Goth,
Malignant Poet and
Historian both.
Go seek the novice
Statesmen, and obtrude
On them some Romane cast
similitude,
Tell them of Liberty,
the Stories fine,
Until you all grow
Consuls in your wine.
Or thou Dictator
of the glass bestow
On him the Cato,
this the Cicero.
Transferring old Rome
hither in your talk,
As Bethlem's
House did to Loretto walk.
Foul Architect that
hadst not Eye to see
How ill the measures of
these States agree.
And who by Romes
example England lay,
Those but to Lucan
do continue May.
But the nor Ignorance
nor seeming good
Misled, but malice fixt
and understood.
Because some one than
thee more worthy weares
The sacred Laurel, hence
are all these teares?
Must therefore all the
World be set on flame,
Because a Gazet writer
mist his aim?
And for a
Tankard-bearing Muse must we
As for the Basket Guelphs
and Gibellines be?
When the Sword glitters
ore the Judges head,
And fear has Coward
Churchmen silenced,
Then is the Poets time,
'tis then he drawes,
And single fights
forsaken Vertues cause.
He, when the wheel of
Empire, whirleth back,
And though the World
disjointed Axel crack,
Sings still of ancient
Rights and better Times,
Seeks wretched good,
arraigns successful Crimes.
But thou base man first
prostituted hast
Our spotless knowledge
and the studies chast.
Apostatizing from our
Arts and us,
To turn the Chronicler
to Spartacus.
Yet wast thou taken
hence with equal fate,
Before thou couldst
great Charles his death relate.
But what will deeper
wound thy little mind,
Hast left surviving Davenant
still behind
Who laughs to see in
this thy death renew'd,
Right Romane poverty and
gratitude.
Poor Poet thou, and
grateful Senate they,
Who thy last Reckoning
did so largely pay.
And with the publick
gravity would come,
When thou hadst drunk
thy last to lead thee home.
If that can be thy home
where Spencer lyes
And reverend Chaucer,
but their dust does rise
Against thee, and expels
thee from their side,
As th'Eagles Plumes from
other birds divide.
Nor here thy shade must
dwell, Return, Return,
Where Sulphrey Phlegeton
does ever burn.
The Cerberus with
all his Jawes shall gnash,
Megæra thee with
all her Serpents lash.
Thou rivited unto Ixion's
wheel
Shalt break, and the
perpetual Vulture feel.
'Tis just what Torments
Poets ere did feign,
Thou first Historically
shouldst sustain.
Thus
by irrevocable Sentence cast,
May
only Master of these Revels past.
And
streight he vanisht in a Cloud of pitch,
Such as unto the
Sabboth bears the Witch.
Within this sober Frame expect
Work of no Forrain
Architect;
That unto
Caves the Quarries drew,
And Forrests
did to Pastures hew;
Who of his
great Design in pain
Did for a
Model vault his Brain,
Whose
Columnes should so high be rais'd
To arch the
Brows that on them gaz'd.
Why should of all things Man unrul'd
Such unproportion'd
dwellings build?
The Beasts are by their
Denns exprest:
And Birds contrive an
equal Nest;
The low roof'd Tortoises
do dwell
In cases fit of
Tortoise-shell:
No Creature loves an
empty space;
Their Bodies measure out
their Place.
But He,
superfluously spread,
Demands more room alive
then dead.
And in his hollow Palace
goes
Where Winds as he
themselves may lose.
What need of all this
Marble Crust
T'impark the wanton Mose
of Dust,
That thinks by Breadth
the World t'unite
Though the first
Builders fail'd in Height?
But all
things are composed here
Like Nature, orderly and
near:
In which we the
Dimensions find
Of that more sober Age
and Mind,
When larger sized Men
did stoop
To enter at a narrow
loop;
As practising, in doors
so strait,
To strain themselves
through Heavens Gate.
And surely
when the after Age
Shall hither come in Pilgrimage,
These sacred Places to
adore,
By Vere and Fairfax
trod before,
Men will dispute how
their Extent
Within such dwarfish
Confines went:
And some will smile at
this, as well
As Romulus his
Bee-like Cell.
Humility
alone designs
Those short but
admirable Lines,
By which, ungirt and
unconstrain'd,
Things greater are in
less contain'd.
Let others vainly strive
t'immure
The Circle in the
Quadrature!
These holy
Mathematicks can
In ev'ry Figure equal
Man.
Yet thus
the laden House does sweat,
And scarce indures the Master
great:
But where he comes the
swelling Hall
Stirs, and the Square
grows Spherical;
More by his Magnitude
distrest,
Then he is by its
straitness prest:
And too officiously it
slights
That in it self which
him delights.
So Honour
better Lowness bears,
Then That unwonted
Greatness wears
Height with a certain
Grace does bend,
But low Things
clownishly ascend.
And yet what needs there
here Excuse,
Where ev'ry Thing does
answer Use?
Where neatness nothing
can condemn,
Nor Pride invent what to
contemn?
A Stately Frontispice
of Poor
Adorns without the open
Door:
Nor less the Rooms
within commends,
Daily new Furniture
of Friends.
The House was built upon
the Place
Only as for a Mark of
Grace;
And for an Inn to
entertain
Its Lord a while,
but not remain.
Him Bishops-Hill,
or Denton may,
Or Bilbrough,
better hold then they:
But Nature here hath
been so free
As if she said leave
this to me.
Art would more neatly
have defac'd
What she had laid so
sweetly wast;
In fragrant Gardens,
shaddy Woods,
Deep Meadows, and
transparent Floods.
While with
slow Eyes we these survey,
And on each pleasant
footstep stay,
We opportunly may relate
The Progress of this
Houses Fate.
A Nunnery first
gave it birth.
For Virgin Buildings
oft brought forth.
And all that
Neighbour-Ruine shows
The Quarries whence this
dwelling rose.
Near to
this gloomy Cloysters Gates
There dwelt the blooming
Virgin Thwates;
Fair beyond Measure, and
an Heir
Which might Deformity
make fair.
And oft She spent the
Summer Suns
Discoursing with the Suttle
Nunns.
Whence in these Words
one to her weav'd,
(As 'twere by Chance)
Thoughts long conceiv'd.
'Within
this holy leisure we
'Live innocently as you
see.
'These Walls restrain
the World without,
'But hedge our Liberty about.
'These Bars inclose that wider Den
'Of those wild Creatures, called
Men.
'The Cloyster outward shuts its
Gates,
'And, from us, locks on them the
Grates.
'Here we, in shining
Armour white,
'Like Virgin Amazons do
fight.
'And our chast Lamps we
hourly trim,
'Lest the great Bridegroom
find them dim.
'Our Orient Breaths perfumed
are
'With insense of incessant Pray'r.
'And Holy-water of our Tears
'Most strangly our Complexion
clears.
'Not Tears of Grief;
but such as those
'With which calm Pleasure overflows;
'Or Pity, when we look on you
'That live without this happy Vow.
'How should we grieve that must be
seen
'Each one a Spouse, and each
a Queen;
'And can in Heaven hence
behold
'Our brighter Robes and Crowns of
Gold?
'When we have prayed
all our Beads,
'Some One the holy Legend
reads;
'While all the rest with Needles
paint
'The Face and Graces of the Saint.
'But what the Linnen can't receive
'They in their Lives do interweave.
'This Work the Saints best
represents;
'That serves for Altar's
Ornaments.
'But much it to our
work would add
'If here your hand, your Face we
had:
'By it we would our Lady
touch;
'Yet thus She you resembles much.
'Some of your Features, as we sow'd,
'Through ev'ry Shrine should
be bestow'd.
'And in one Beauty we would take
'Enough a thousand Saints to
make.
'And (for I dare not
quench the Fire
'That me does for your good inspire)
''Twere Sacriledge a Mant t'admit
'To holy things, for Heaven
fit.
'I see the Angels in a Crown
'On you the Lillies show'ring down:
'And round about you Glory breaks,
'That something more then humane
speaks.
'All Beauty, when at
such a height,
'Is so already consecrate.
'Fairfax I know; and long ere
this
'Have mark'd the Youth, and what he
is.
'But can he such a Rival seem
'For whom you Heav'n should
disesteem?
'Ah, no! and 'twould more Honour
prove
'He your Devoto were, then Love.
'Here live beloved, and
obey'd:
'Each one your Sister, each your
Maid.
'And, if our Rule seem strictly
pend,
'The Rule it self to you shall bend.
'Our Abbess too, now far in
Age,
'Doth your succession near presage.
'How soft the yoke on us would lye,
'Might such fair Hands as yours it
tye!
'Your voice, the
sweetest of the Quire,
'Shall draw Heav'n nearer,
raise us higher.
'And your Example, if our Head,
'Will soon us to perfection lead.
'Those Virtues to us all so dear,
'Will straight grow Sanctity when
here:
'And that, once sprung, increase so
fast
'Till Miracles it work at last.
'Nor is our Order
yet so nice,
'Delight to banish as a Vice.
'Here Pleasure Piety doth meet;
'One perfecting the other Sweet.
'So through the mortal fruit we boyl
'The Sugars uncorrupting Oyl:
'And that which perisht while we
pull,
'Is thus preserved clear and full.
'For such indeed are
all our Arts;
'Still handling Natures finest
Parts.
'Flow'rs dress the Altars; for the
Clothes,
'The Sea-born Amber we compose;
'Balms for the griv'd we draw; and
Pasts
'We mold, as Baits for curious
tasts.
'What need is here of Man? unless
'These as sweet Sins we should
confess.
'Each Night among us to
your side
'Appoint a fresh and Virgin Bride;
'Whom if our Lord at midnight
find,
'Yet Neither should be left behind.
'Where you may lye as chast in Bed,
'As Pearls together billeted.
'All Night embracing Arm in Arm,
'Like Chrystal pure with Cotton
warm.
'But what is this to all
the store
'Of Joys you see, and may make more!
'Try but a while, if you be wise:
'The Tryal neither Costs, nor Tyes.
Now Fairfax seek her promis'd
faith:
Religion that dispensed hath;
Which She hence forward does begin;
The Nuns smooth Tongue has
suckt her in.
Oft, though he knew it
was in vain,
Yet would he valiantly complain.
'Is this that Sanctity so
great,
'An Art by which you finly'r cheat?
'Hypocrite Witches, hence avant,
'Who though in prison yet inchant!
'Death only can such Theeves make
fast,
'As rob though in the Dungeon cast.
'Were there but, when
this House was made,
'One Stone that a just Hand had
laid,
'It must have fall'n upon her Head
'Who first Thee from thy Faith
misled.
'And yet, how well soever ment,
'With them 'twould soon grow
fraudulent:
'For like themselves they alter all,
'And vice infects the very Wall.
'But sure those
Buildings last not long,
'Founded by Folly, kept by Wrong.
'I know what Fruit their Gardens
yield,
'When they it think by Night
conceal'd.
'Fly from their Vices. 'Tis thy
state,
'Not Thee, that they would
consecrate.
'Fly from their Ruine. How I fear
'Though guiltless lest thou perish
there.
What should he do? He
would respect
Religion, but not Right neglect:
For first Religion taught him Right,
And dazled not but clear'd his
sight.
Sometimes resolv'd his Sword he
draws,
But reverenceth then the Laws:
For Justice still that Courage led;
First from a Judge, then Souldier
bred.
Small Honour would be
in the Storm.
The Court him grants the
lawful Form;
Which licens'd either Peace or
Force,
To hinder the unjust Divorce.
Yet still the Nuns his Right
debar'd,
Standing upon their holy Guard.
Ill-counsell'd Women, do you know
Whom you resist, or what you do?
Is not this he whose
Offspring fierce
Shall fight through all the Universe;
And with successive Valour try
France, Poland, either Germany;
Till one, as long since prophecy'd,
His Horse through conquer'd Britain
ride?
Yet, against Fate, his Spouse they
kept;
And the great Race would intercept.
Some to the Breach
against their Foes
Their Wooden Saints in vain
oppose.
Another bolder stands at push
With their old Holy-Water Brush.
While the disjointed Abbess
threads
The gingling Chain-shot of her Beads.
But their lowd'st Cannon were their
Lungs;
And sharpest Weapons were their
Tongues.
But, waving these aside
like Flyes,
Young Fairfax through the
Wall does rise.
Then th'unfrequented Vault appear'd,
And superstitions vainly fear'd.
The Relicks false were set to
view;
Only the Jewels there were true.
But truly bright and holy Thwaites
That weeping at the Altar
waites.
But the glad Youth away
her bears,
And to the Nuns bequeaths her
Tears:
Who guiltily their Prize bemoan,
Like Gipsies that a Child hath
stoln.
Thenceforth (as when th'Inchantment
ends
The Castle vanishes or rends)
The wasting Cloister with the rest
Was in one instant dispossest.
At the demolishing,
this Seat
To Fairfax fell as by
Escheat.
And what both Nuns and Founders
will'd
'Tis likely better thus fulfill'd.
For if the Virgin prov'd not
theirs,
The Cloyster yet remained
hers.
Though many a Nun there made
her Vow,
'Twas no Religious-House till
now.
From that blest Bed the
Heroe came,
Whom France and Poland
yet does fame:
Who, when retired here to Peace,
His warlike Studies could not cease;
But laid these Gardens out in sport
In the just Figure of a Fort;
And with five Bastions it did fence,
As aiming one for ev'ry Sense.
When in the East
the Morning Ray
Hangs out the Colours of the Day,
The Bee through these known Allies
hums,
Beating the Dian with its Drumms.
Then Flow'rs their drowsie Eylids
raise,
Their Silken Ensigns each displayes,
And dries its Pan yet dank with Dew,
And fills its Flask with Odours new.
These, as their Governour
goes by,
In fragrant Vollyes they let fly;
And to salute their Governess
Again as great a charge they press:
None for the Virgin Nymph;
for She
Seems with the Flow'rs a Flow'r to
be.
And think so still! though not
compare
With Breath so sweet, or Cheek so
faire.
Well shot ye Firemen!
Oh how sweet,
And round your equal Fires do meet;
Whose shrill report no Ear can tell,
But Ecchoes to the Eye and smell.
See how the Flow'rs, as at Parade,
Under their Colours stand
displaid:
Each Regiment in order grows,
That of the Tulip Pinke and Rose.
Oh Thou, that dear and
happy Isle
The Garden of the World ere while,
Thou Puradise of four Seas,
Which Heaven planted us to
please,
But, to exclude the World, did guard
With watry if not flaming Sword;
What luckless Apple did we tast,
To make us Mortal, and The Wast.
Unhappy! shall we never
more
That sweet Militia restore,
When Gardens only had their Towrs,
And all the Garrisons were Flowrs,
When Roses only Arms might bear,
And Men did rosie Garlands wear?
Tulips, in several Colours barr'd,
Were then the Switzers of our
Guard.
The Gardiner had
the Souldiers place,
And his more gentle Forts did trace.
The Nursery of all things green
Was then the only Magazeen.
The Winter Quarters were the
Stoves,
Where he the tender Plants removes.
But War all this doth overgrow:
We Ord'nance Plant and Powder sow.
And yet their walks one
on the Sod
Who, had it pleased him and God,
Might once have made our Gardens
spring
Fresh as his own and flourishing.
But he preferr'd to the Cinque
Ports
These five imaginary Forts:
And, in those half-dry Trenches,
spann'd
Pow'r which the Ocean might command.
For he did, with his
utmost Skill,
Ambition weed, but Conscience
till.
Conscience, that
Heaven-nursed Plant,
Which most our Earthly Gardens want.
A prickling leaf it bears, and such
As that which shrinks at ev'ry
touch;
But Flowrs eternal, and divine,
That in the Crowns of Saints do
shine.
The sight does from
these Bastions ply,
Th'invisible Artilery;
And at proud Cawood Castle
seems
To point the Battery of its
Beams.
As if it quarrell'd in the Seat
Th'Ambition of its Prelate
great.
But ore the Meads below it plays,
Or innocently seems to gaze.
And now to the Abbyss I
pass
Of that unfathomable Grass,
Where Men like Grashoppers appear,
But Grashoppers are Gyants there:
They, in there squeking Laugh,
contemn
Us as we walk more low then them:
And, from the Precipices tall
Of the green spir's, to us do call.
To see Men through this
Meadow Dive,
We wonder how they rise alive.
As, under Water, none does know
Whether he fall through it or go.
But, as the Marriners that sound,
And show upon their Lead the Ground,
They bring up Flow'rs so to be seen,
And prove they've at the Bottom
been.
No Scene that turns
with Engines strange
Does oftner then these Meadows change,
For when the Sun the Grass hath
vext,
The tawny Mowers enter next;
Who seem like Israaliies to
be,
Walking on foot through a green Sea.
To them the Grassy Deeps divide,
And crowd a Lane to either Side.
But bloody Thestylis,
that waites
To bring the mowing Camp their
Cates,
Greedy as Kites has trust it up,
And forthwith means on it to sup:
When on another quick She lights,
And cryes, he call'd us Israelites;
But now, to make his saying true,
Rails rain for Quails, for Manna
Dew.
Unhappy Birds! what
does it boot
To build below the Grasses Root;
When Lowness is unsafe as Hight,
And Chance o'retakes what scapeth
spight?
And now your Orphan Parents Call
Sounds your untimely Funeral.
Death-Trumpets creak in such a Note,
And 'tis the Sourdine in
their Throat.
Or sooner hatch or
higher build:
The Mower now commands the Field;
In whose new Traverse seemeth
wrought
A Camp of Battail newly fought:
Where, as the Meads with Hay, the
Plain
Lyes quilted ore with Bodies slain:
The Women that with forks it fling,
Do represent the Pillaging.
And now the careless
Victors play,
Dancing the Triumphs of the Hay;
Where every Mowers wholesome Heat
Smells like an Alexanders sweat.
Their Females fragrant as the Mead
Which they in Fairy Circles
tread:
When at their Dances End they kiss,
Their new-made Hay not sweeter is.
When after this 'tis
pil'd in Cocks,
Like a calm Sea it shews the Rocks:
We wondring in the River near
How Boats among them safely steer.
Or, like the Desert Memphis Sand,
Short Pyramids of Hay do
stand.
And such the Roman Camps do
rise
In Hills for Soldiers Obsequies.
This Scene again
withdrawing brings
A new and empty Face of things;
A levell'd space, as smooth and
plain,
As Clothes for Lilly strecht
to stain.
The World when first created sure
Was such a Table rase and pure.
Or rather such is the Toril
Ere the Bulls enter at Madril.
For to this naked equal
Flat,
Which Levellers take Pattern
at,
The Villagers in common chase
Their Cattle, which it closer rase;
And what below the Sith increast
Is pincht yet nearer by the Breast.
Such, in the painted World, appear'd
Davenant with th'Universal
Heard.
They seem within the
polisht Grass
A Landskip drawen in Looking-Glass.
And shrunk in the huge Pasture show
As Spots, so shap'd, on Faces do.
Such Fleas, ere they approach the
Eye,
In Multiplyiug Glasses lye.
They feed so wide, so slowly move,
As Constellatious do above.
Then, to conclude these
pleasant Acts,
Denton sets ope its Cataracts;
And makes the Meadow truly be
(What it but seem'd before) a Sea.
For, jealous of its Lords
long stay,
It try's t'invite him thus away.
The River in it self is drown'd,
And Isl's th'astonish Cattle round.
Let others tell the Paradox,
How Eels now bellow in the Ox;
How Horses at their Tails do kick,
Turn'd as they hang to Leeches
quick;
How Boats can over Bridges sail;
And Fishes do the Stables scale.
How Salmons trespassing are
found;
And Pikes are taken in the Pound.
But I, retiring from
the Flood,
Take Sanctuary in the Wood;
And, while it lasts, my self imbark
In this yet green, yet growing Ark;
Where the first Carpenter might best
Fit Timber for his Keel have Prest.
And where all Creatures might have
shares,
Although in Armies, not in Paires.
The double Wood of
ancient Stocks
Link'd in so thick, an Union locks,
It like two Pedigrees
appears,
On one hand Fairfax, th'other
Veres:
Of whom though many fell in War,
Yet more to Heaven shooting are:
And, as they Natures Cradle deckt,
Will in green Age her Hearse expect.
When first the Eye this
Forrest sees
It seems indeed as Wood not Trees:
As if their Neighbourhood so old
To one great Trunk them all did
mold.
There the huge Bulk takes place, as
ment
To thrust up a Fifth Element;
And stretches still so closely
wedg'd
As if the Night within were hedg'd.
Dark all without it
knits; within
It opens passable and thin;
And in as loose an order grows,
As the Corinthean Porticoes.
The arching Boughs unite between
The Columnes of the Temple green;
And underneath the winged Quires
Echo about their tuned Fires.
The Nightingale
does here make choice
To sing the Tryals of her Voice.
Low Shrubs she sits in, and adorns
With Musick high the squatted
Thorns.
But highest Oakes stoop down to
hear,
And listning Elders prick the Ear.
The Thorn, lest it should hurt her,
draws
Within the Skin its shrunken claws.
But I have for my
Musick found
A Sadder, yet more pleasing Sound:
The Stock-doves, whose fair
necks are grac'd
With Nuptial Rings their Ensigns
chast;
Yet always, for some Cause unknown,
Sad pair unto the Elms they moan.
O why should such a Couple mourn,
That in so equal Flames do burn!
Then as I carless on
the Bed
Of gelid Straw-berryes do
tread,
And through the Hazles thick espy
The hatching Thrastles
shining Eye,
The Heron from the Ashes top,
The eldest of its young lets drop,
As if it Stork-like did pretend
That Tribute to its Lord
to send.
But most the Hewel's
wonders are,
Who here has the Holt-felsters
care.
He walks still upright from the
Root,
Meas'ring the Timber with his Foot;
And all the way, to keep it clean,
Doth from the Bark the Wood-moths
glean.
He, with his Beak, examines well
Which fit to stand and which to
fell.
The good he numbers up,
and hacks;
As if he mark'd them with the Ax.
But where he, tinkling with his
Beak,
Does find the hollow Oak to speak,
That for his building he designs,
And through the tainted Side he
mines.
Who could have thought the tallest
Oak
Should fall by such a feeble
Strok'!
Nor would it, had the
Tree not fed
A Traitor-worm, within it
bred.
(As first our Flesh corrupt
within
Tempts impotent and bashful Sin.
And yet that Worm triumphs
not long,
But serves to feed the Hewels
young.
While the Oake seems to fall
content,
Viewing the Treason's Punishment.
Thus I, easie
Philosopher,
Among the Birds and Trees
confer:
And little now to make me, wants
Or of the Fowles, or of the Plants.
Give me but Wings as they, and I
Streight floting on the
Air shall fly:
Or turn me but, and you shall see
I was but an inverted Tree.
Already I begin to call
In their most learned Original:
And where I Language want, my Signs
The Bird upon the Bough divines;
And more attentive there doth sit
Then if She were with Lime-twigs
knit.
No Leaf does tremble in the Wind
Which I returning cannot find.
Out of these scatter'd Sibyls
Leaves
Strange Prophecies my Phancy
weaves:
And in one History consumes,
Like Mexique Paintings, all
the Plumes.
What Rome, Greece, Palestine,
ere said
I in this light Mosaick read.
Thrice happy he who, not mistook,
Hath read in Natures mystick Book.
And see how Chance's
better Wit
Could with a Mask my studies hit!
The Oak-Leaves me embroyder all,
Between which Caterpillars crawl:
And Ivy, with familiar trails,
Me licks, and clasps, and curles,
and hales.
Under this antick Cope I move
Like some great Prelate of the
Grove,
Then, languishing with
ease, I toss
On Pallets swoln of Velvet Moss;
While the Wind, cooling through the
Boughs,
Flatters with Air my panting Brows.
Thanks for my Rest ye Mossy Banks,
And unto you cool Zephyr's
Thanks,
Who, as my Hair, my Thoughts too
shed,
And winnow from the Chaff my Head.
How safe, methinks, and
strong, behind
These Trees have I incamp'd my Mind;
Where Beauty, aiming at the Heart,
Bends in some Tree its useless Dart;
And where the World no certain Shot
Can make, or me it toucheth not.
But I on it securely play,
And gaul its Horsemen all the Day.
Bind me ye Woodbines
in your 'twines,
Curle me about ye gadding Vines,
And Oh so close your Circles lace,
That I may never leave this Place:
But, lest your Fetters prove too
weak,
Ere I your Silken Bondage break,
Do you, O Brambles, chain me
too,
And courteous Briars nail me
through.
Here in the Morning tye
my Chain,
Where the two Woods have made a
Lane;
While, like a Guard on either
side,
The Trees before their Lord
divide;
This, like a long and equal Thread,
Betwixt two Labyrinths does
lead.
But, where the Floods did lately
drown,
There at the Ev'ning stake me down.
For now the Waves are
fal'n and dry'd,
And now the Meadows fresher dy'd;
Whose Grass, with moister colour
dasht,
Seems as green Silks but newly
washt.
No Serpent new nor Crocodile
Remains behind our little Nile;
Unless it self you will mistake,
Among these Meads the only Snake.
See in what wanton
harmless folds
It ev'ry where the Meadow holds;
And its yet muddy back doth lick,
Till as a Chrystal Mirrour
slick;
Where all things gaze themselves,
and doubt
If they be in it or without.
And for his shade which therein
shines,
Narcissus like, the Sun
too pines.
Oh what a Pleasure 'tis
to hedge
My Temples here with heavy sedge;
Abandoning my lazy Side,
Stretcht as a Bank unto the Tide;
Or to suspend my sliding Foot
On the Osiers undermined Root,
And in its Branches tough to hang,
While at my Lines the Fishes twang!
But now away my Hooks,
my Quills,
And Angles, idle Utensils.
The young Maria walks to
night:
Hide trifling Youth thy Pleasures
slight.
'Twere shame that such judicious
Eyes
Should with such Toyes a Man
surprize;
She that already is the Law
Of all her Sex, her Ages
Aw.
See how loose Nature,
in respect
To her, it self doth recollect;
And every thing so whisht and fine,
Starts forth with to its Bonne
Mine.
The Sun himself, of Her
aware,
Seems to descend with greater Care;
And lest She see him go to
Bed,
In blushing Clouds conceales his
Head.
So when the Shadows
laid asleep
From underneath these Banks do
creep;
And on the River as it flows
With Eben Shuts begin to
close;
The modest Halcyon comes in
sight,
Flying betwixt the Day and Night;
And such an horror calm and dumb,
Admiring Nature does benum.
The viscous Air,
wheres' ere She fly,
Follows and sucks her Azure dy;
The gellying Stream compacts below,
If it might fix her shadow so;
The stupid Fishes hang, as plain
As Flies in Chrystal
overt'ane,
And Men the silent Scene
assist,
Charm'd with the Saphir-winged
Mist.
Maria such, and
so doth hush
The World, and through the Ev'ning
rush.
No new-born Comet such a
Train
Draws through the Skie, nor Star
new-slain.
For streight those giddy Rockets
fail,
Which from the putrid Earth exhale,
But by her Flames, in Heaven
try'd,
Nature is wholly vitrifi'd.
'Tis She that to
these Gardens gave
That wondrous Beauty which they
have;
She streightness on the Woods
bestows;
To Her the Meadow sweetness
owes;
Nothing could make the River be
So Chrystal-pure but only She;
She yet more Pure, Sweet,
Streight, and Fair,
Then Gardens, Woods, Meads, Rivers
are.
Therefore what first She
on them spent,
They gratefully again present.
The Meadow Carpets where to tread;
The Garden Flow'rs to Crown Her
Head;
And for a Glass the limpid Brook,
Where She may all her
Beautyes look;
But, since She would not have
them seen,
The Wood about her draws a
Skreen.
For She, to
higher Beauties rais'd,
Disdains to be for lesser prais'd.
She counts her Beauty to
converse
In all the Languages as hers;
Nor yet in those her self
imployes
But for the Wisdome, not the Noyse;
Nor yet that Wisdome would
affect,
But as 'tis Heavens Dialect.
Blest Nymph!
that couldst so soon prevent
Those Trains by Youth against
thee meant;
Tears (watry Shot that pierce the
Mind;)
And Sighs (Loves Cannon
charg'd with Wind;)
True Praise (That breaks
through all defence;)
And feign'd complying Innocence;
But knowing where this Ambush
lay,
She scap'd the safe, but roughest
Way.
This 'tis to have been
from the first
In a Domestick Heaven nurst,
Under the Discipline severe
Of Fairfax, and the starry Vere;
Where not one object can come nigh
But pure, and spotless as the Eye;
And Goodness doth it self
intail
On Females, if there want a Male.
Go now fond Sex that on
your Face
Do all your useless Study place,
Nor once at Vice your Brows dare
knit
Lest the smooth Forehead wrinkled
sit
Yet your own Face shall at you grin,
Thorough the Black-bag of your Skin;
When knowledge only could
have fill'd
And Virtue all those Furrows
till'd.
Hence She with
Graces more divine
Supplies beyond her Sex the Line;
And, like a sprig of Misleto,
On the Fairfacian Oak does
grow;
Whence, for some universal good,
The Priest shall cut the
sacred Bud;
While her glad Parents most
rejoice,
And make their Destiny their Choice.
Mean time ye Fields,
Springs, Bushes, Flow'rs,
Where yet She leads her studious
Hours,
(Till Fate her worthily translates,
And find a Fairfax for our Thwaites)
Employ the means you have by Her,
And in your kind your selves
preferr;
That, as all Virgins She
preceds,
So you all Woods, Streams,
Gardens, Meads.
For you Thessalian
Tempe's Seat
Shall now be scorn'd as obsolete;
Aranjeuz, as less, disdain'd;
The Bel-Retiro as
constrain'd;
But name not the Idalian Grove,
For 'twas the Seat of wanton Love;
Much less the Dead's Elysian
Fields,
Yet nor to them your Beauty yields.
'Tis not, what once it
was, the World;
But a rude heap together hurl'd;
All negligently overthrown,
Gulfes, Deserts, Precipices, Stone.
Your lesser World contains
the same.
But in more decent Order tame;
You Heaven's Center, Nature's
Lap.
And Paradice's only Map.
But now the Salmon-Fishers
moist
Their Leathern Boats begin to
hoist;
And, like Antipodes in Shoes,
Have shod their Heads in
their Canoos.
How Tortoise like, but not so
slow,
These rational Amphibii go?
Let's in: for the dark Hemisphere
Does now like one of them appear.
See how the arched Earth does here
Rise in a
perfect Hemisphere!
The stiffest
Compass could not strike
A Line more
circular and like;
Nor softest
Pensel draw a Brow
So equal as
this Hill does bow.
It seems as
for a Model laid,
And that the
World by it was made.
Here learn ye Mountains more unjust,
Which to abrupter
greatness thrust,
That do with your
hook-shoulder'd height
The Earth deform and
Heaven frght.
For whose excrescence
ill design'd,
Nature must a new Center
find,
Learn here those humble
steps to tread,
Which to securer Glory
lead.
See what a
soft access and wide
Lyes open to its grassy
side;
Nor with the rugged path
deterrs
The feet of breathless
Travellers.
See then how courteous
it ascends,
And all the way ir rises
bends;
Nor for it self the
height does gain,
But only strives to
raise the Plain.
Yet thus it
all the field commands,
And in unenvy'd
Greatness stands,
Discerning furthe then
the Cliff
Of Heaven-daring Teneriff.
How glad the weary
Seamen hast
When they salute it from
the Mast!
By Night the Northern
Star their way
Directs, and this no
less by Day.
Upon its
crest this Mountain grave
A Plum of aged Trees
does wave.
No hostile hand durst
ere invade
With impious Steel the
sacred Shade.
For something alwaies
did appear
Of the great Masters
terrour there:
And Men could hear his
Armour still
Ratling through all the
Grove and Hill.
Fear of the
Master, and respect
Of the great Nymph
did it protect;
Vera the Nymph
that him inspir'd,
To whom he often here
retir'd,
And on these Okes
ingrav'd her Name;
Such Wounds alone these
Woods became:
But ere he well the
Barks could part
'Twas writ already in
their Heart.
For they
('tis credible) have sense,
As We, of Love and
Reverence,
And underneath the Courser
Rind
The Genius of the
house do bind.
Hence they successes
seem to know,
And in their Lord's
advancement grow;
But in no Memory were
seen
As under this so
streight and green.
Yet now no
further strive to shoot,
Contented if they fix
their Root.
Nor to the winds
uncertain gust,
Their prudent Heads too
far intrust.
Onely sometimes a
flutt'ring Breez
Discourses with the
breathing Trees;
Which in their modest
Whispers name
Those Acts that swell'd
the Cheek of Fame.
Much other
Groves, say they, then these
And other Hills him once
did please.
Through Groves of Pikes
he thunder'd then,
And Mountains rais'd of
dying Men.
For all the Civick
Garlands due
To him our Branches are
but few.
Nor are our Trunks enow
to bear
The Trophees of
one fertile Year.
'Tis true,
the Trees nor ever spoke
More certain Oracles
in Oak.
But Peace (if you his
favour prize)
That Courage its own
Praises flies.
Therefore to your
obscurer Seats
From his own Brightness
he retreats:
Nor he the Hills without
the Groves,
Nor Height but with
Retirement loves.
Come little Infant, Love me now,
While thine unsuspected years
Clear thine
aged Fathers brow
From cold Jealousie and Fears.
Pretty surely 'twere to see
By young Love old Time beguil'd:
While our
Sportings are as free
As the Nurses with the Child.
Common Beauties stay fifteen;
Such
as yours should swifter move;
Whose fair Blossoms are
too green
Yet
for Lust, but not for Love.
Love as
much the snowy Lamb
Or the
wanton Kid does prize,
As the lusty Bull or
Ram,
For
his morning Sacrifice.
Now then
love me: time may take
Thee
before thy time away:
Of this Need wee'l
Virtue make,
And
learn Love before we may.
So we win
of doubtful Fate;
And,
if good she to us meant,
We that Good shall
antedate,
Or, if
ill, that Ill prevent.
Thus as
Kingdomes, frustrating
Other
Titles to their Crown,
In the craddle crown their
King,
So all
Forraign Claims to drown,
So, to make
all Rivals vain,
Now I
crown thee with my Love:
Crown me with thy Love
again,
And we
both shall Monarchs prove.