'Tis She, and here Lo! I unclothe and clear My Wishes' cloudy character. May She enjoy it Whose merit dare[s] apply it But Modesty dares still deny it! Such Worth as this is Shall fix my flying wishes, And determine them to kisses. Let her full glory, My fancies! fly before ye! Be you my fictions, but Her Story! Love's horoscope. Love, brave Virtue's younger Brother, Gave omen to his infant hours; Ah! my heart, is that the way? Are these the beams that rule thy day? Thou know'st a face, in whose each look, On whose fair revolutions wait The obsequious motions of Love's fate; Ah! my heart, her eyes and she Howe'er Love's native hours were set, If those sharp rays, putting on Points of death, bid Love be gone, Cast amorous glances on his birth, 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 Her eye a strong appeal can give, O if Love shall live, O, where But in her eye, or in her ear, Or if Love shall die, O, where, While Love shall thus entombed lie, Love shall live, although he die. :0: Upon the Death of a Gentleman. Faithless and fond Mortality! Who will ever credit thee? Fond and faithless thing! that thus, In our best hopes beguilest us. Of the hopes in him we laid? For life by volumes lengthenéd, A line or two to speak him dead. For the laurel in his verse The sullen cypress o'er his hearse. A dirty pillow in Death's bed. Sad requital, thus much dust! Now though the blow that snatch him hence Stopp'd the mouth of Eloquence, Though she be dumb e'er since his death, Not used to speak but in his breath, Yet if at least she not denies The sad language of our eyes, Eyes are vocal, tears have tongues, And there be words not made with lungs; Sententious showers, O, let them fall, Their cadence is rhetorical. Here's a theme will drink th' expense Of all thy watery eloquence; Weep then, only be exprest Thus much: He's dead; and weep the rest. Upon the Death of Mr. Herrys. A plant of noble stem, forward and fair, As ever whisper'd to the morning air, Thrived in these happy grounds, the Earth's just pride, Whose rising glories made such haste to hide His head in clouds, as if in him alone Impatient Nature had taught motion. To start from Time, and cheerfully to fly Before, and seize upon Maturity. Thus grew this gracious plant, in whose sweet shade The morning Muses perch like birds, and sing Arabia, there to build her virgin nest, To hatch herself in; 'mongst his leaves, the Day, The timorous maiden-blossoms on each bough A thousand ruddy hopes smiled in each bud, And flatter'd every greedy eye that stood |