Will kill his anger, and revive my bliss. So to the treasure of thy pearly dew
Thrice will I pay three tears, to show how true My grief is; so my wakeful lay shall knock
At th' oriental gates, and duly mock
The early lark's shrill orisons to be
An anthem at the day's nativity.
And the same rosy-finger'd hand of thine, That shuts night's dying eyes, shall open mine.
But thou, faint god of sleep, forget that I Was ever known to be thy votary.
No more my pillow shall thine altar be, Nor will I offer any more to thee Myself a melting sacrifice; I'm born
Again a fresh child of the buxom morn.
Heir of the sun's first beams, why threat'st thou so? Why dost thou shake thy leaden sceptre? Go, Bestow thy poppy upon wakeful woe,
Sickness and sorrow, whose pale lids ne'er know Thy downy finger dwell upon their eyes; Shut in their tears, shut out their miseries.
OVE, brave virtue's younger brother, Erst hath made my heart a mother. She consults the conscious spheres, To calculate her young son's years; She asks if sad or saving pow'rs Gave omen to his infant hours;
She asks each star that then stood by If poor Love shall live or die.
Ah, my heart, is that the way!
Are these the beams that rule thy day? Thou know'st a face in whose each look Beauty lays ope Love's fortune-book, On whose fair revolutions wait The obsequious motions of Love's fate. Ah, my heart! her eyes and she Have taught thee new astrology. Howe'er Love's native hours were set, Whatever starry synod met, "Tis in the mercy of her eye, If poor Love shall live or die.
If those sharp rays, putting on Points of death, bid Love begone; Though the heavens in council sat To crown an uncontrollèd fate; Though their best aspects twined upon The kindest constellation,
Cast amorous glances on his birth, And whisper'd the confederate earth
pave his paths with all the good That warms the bed of youth and blood :— Love has no plea against her eye; Beauty frowns, and Love must die.
But if her milder influence move, And gild the hopes of humble Love ;-
Though heaven's inauspicious eye Lay black on Love's nativity;
Though every diamond in Jove's crown Fix'd his forehead to a frown ;— Her eye a strong appeal can give, Beauty smiles, and Love shall live.
O, if Love shall live, O, where But in her eye, or in her ear, In her breast, or in her breath, Shall I hide poor Love from death? For in the life aught else can give, Love shall die, although he live.
Or, if Love shall die, O, where, But in her eye, or in her ear, In her breath, or in her breast, Shall I build his funeral nest? While Love shall thus entombed lie, Love shall live, although he die!
OUT OF VIRGIL, IN THE PRAISE OF THE SPRING.
LL trees, all leafy groves confess the spring Their gentlest friend; then, then the lands
To swell with forward pride, and seed desire
To generation; heaven's almighty sire
Melts on the bosom of his love, and pours Himself into her lap in fruitful showers; And by a soft insinuation, mix'd
With earth's large mass, doth cherish and assist Her weak conceptions; no lone shade, but rings With chattering birds' delicious murmurings. Then Venus' mild instinct, at set times, yields The herds to kindly meetings, then the fields, Quick with warm Zephyr's lively breath, lay forth Their pregnant bosoms in a fragrant birth; Each body's plump and juicy, all things full Of supple moisture: no coy twig but will Trust his beloved bosom to the sun,
Grown lusty now; no vine so weak and young
That fears the foul-mouth'd Auster, or those storms That the south-west wind hurries in his arms, But hastes her forward blossoms, and lays out, Freely lays out her leaves; nor do I doubt, But when the world first out of Chaos sprang, So smiled the days, and so the tenour ran Of their felicity: a spring was there,
An everlasting spring; the jolly year
Led round in his great circle; no wind's breath,
As then, did smell of winter, or of death.
When light's sweet light first shone on beasts, and when
From their hard mother earth sprang hardy men ; When beasts took up their lodging in the wood, Stars in their higher chambers; never could The tender growth of things endure the sense Of such a change, but that the heav'n's indulgence Kindly supplies sick nature, and doth mould A sweetly-temper'd mean, nor hot nor cold.
WITH A PICTURE SENT TO A FRIEND.
PAINT so ill, my piece had need to be Painted again by some good poesy;
I write so ill, my slender line is scarce
So much as th' picture of a well-limn'd verse: Yet may the love I send be true, though I Send not true picture nor true poesy :
Both which away, I should not need to fear My love or feign'd or painted should appear.
IN PRAISE OF LESSIUS'S RULE OF HEALTH.*
O now, and with some daring drug, Bait the disease, and, while they tug, Thou to maintain their precious strife Spend the dear treasure of thy life:
Go, take physic, doat upon
Some big-named composition,
The oraculous doctors' mystic bills, Certain hard words made into pills; And what at last shalt get by these? Only a costlier disease.
Repeated, with some additional lines, at the end of the edition of 1670; and printed from Hark hither," among the commendatory verses in praise of the translation of "The Temperate Man, &c. the right Way of preserving Life and Health," &c. of Lessius and others, London, 1678, 12mo.
« PreviousContinue » |