Die, die, foul misbegotten monsters! die :
Make haste away, or e'er the World's bright eye
Blush to a cloud of blood. O far from men
Fly hence, and in your Hyperborean den
Hide you for evermore, and murmur there
Where none but Hell may hear, nor our soft air
Shrink at the hateful sound. Meanwhile we bear,
High as the brow of Heaven, the noble noise
And name of these our just and righteous joys,
Where Envy shall not reach them, nor those Ears
Whose tune keeps time to aught below the spheres.
But thou, sweet supernumerary star, F
Shine forth; nor fear the threats of boisterous War.
The face of things has therefore frowned a while
On purpose that to thee and thy pure smile
The World might owe an universal calm ;
While thou, fair halcyon, on a sea of balm
Shalt float; where, while thou lay'st thy lovely head,
The angry billows shall but make thy bed:
Storms, when they look on thee, shall straight relent;
And tempests, when they taste thy breath, repent
To whispers, soft as thine own slumbers be,
Or souls of virgins which shall sigh for thee.
Shine then, sweet supernumerary star,
Nor fear the boisterous names of blood and war:
Thy birthday is their death's nativity;
They've here no other business but to die.
To the Queen.
But stay; what glimpse was that? why blusht the Day?
Why ran the startled air trembling away?
Who's this that comes circled in rays that scorn
Acquaintance with the Sun? what second morn
At midday opes a presence which Heaven's eye
Stands off and points at ? Is't some deity
Stept from her throne of stars, deigns to be seen?]
Is it some deity? or is't our queen ?
Tis she, 'tis she: her awful beauties chase
The Day's abashèd glories, and in face
Of noon wear their own sunshine. O thou bright
Mistress of wonders! Cynthia's is the Night;
But thou at noon dost shine, and art all day
(Nor does thy sun deny 't) our Cynthia.
Illustrious sweetness! in thy faithful womb,
That nest of heroes, all our hopes find room.
Thou art the mother-phoenix, and thy breast
ja
Chaste as that virgin honour of the East, assor, Parine But much more fruitful is; nor does, as she,
=
Deny to mighty Love, a deity.
Then let the Eastern world brag and be proud
Of one coy phoenix, while we have a brood,
A brood of phoenixes: while we have brother
And sister-phoenixes, and still the mother.
And may we long! Long may'st thou live t' increase The house and family of phoenixes.
Nor may the life that gives their eye-lids light
E'er prove the dismal morning of thy night:
Ne'er may a birth of thine be bought so dear
To make his costly cradle of thy bier.
O may'st thou thus make all the year thine own,
And see such names of joy sit white upon
The brow of every month! and when th' hast done,
May'st in a son of his find every son
Repeated, and that son still in another,
And so in each child, often prove a mother.
Long may'st thou, laden with such clusters, lean
Upon thy royal elm (fair vine !) and when
The heavens will stay no longer, may thy glory
And name dwell sweet in some eternal story!
Pardon, bright Excellence, an untuned string,
That in thy ears thus keeps a murmuring.
O speak a lowly Muse's pardon, speak
Her pardon, or her sentence; only break
Thy silence. Speak, and she shall take from thence
Numbers and sweetness, and an influence)
Confessing thee. Or (if too long I stay)
O speak thou, and my pipe hath nought to say:
For see Apollo all this while stands mute,
Expecting by thy voice to tune his lute.
But gods are gracious; and their altars make
Precious the offerings that their altars take.
Give them this rural wreath fire from thine eyes;
This rural wreath dares be thy sacrifice.
Upon Two Green Apricots sent to Cowley by Sir Crashaw.
Puv
Take these, Time's tardy truants, sent by me
To be chastised (sweet friend) and chid by thee.
Pale sons of our Pomona ! whose wan cheeks
Have spent the patience of expecting weeks,
Yet are scarce ripe enough at best to show
The red, but of the blush to thee they owe.
By thy comparison they shall put on
More summer in their shame's reflection,
Than e'er the fruitful Phoebus' flaming kisses
Kindled on their cold lips. O had my wishes,
And the dear merits of your Muse, their due,
The year had found some fruit early as you ;
Ripe as those rich composures Time computes
Blossoms, but our blest taste confesses fruits.
Dun
How does thy April-Autumn mock these cold Progressions 'twixt whose (terms) poor Time grows old! With thee alone he wears no beard, thy brain
Dun
Gives him the morning world's fresh gold again. 'Twas only Paradise, 'tis only thou,
Whose fruit and blossoms both bless the same bough,
Proud in the pattern of thy precious youth,
Nature (methinks) might easily mend her growth.
Could she in all her births but copy thee,
Into the public years' proficiency,
No fruit should have the face to smile on thee
(Young master of the World's maturity)
But such whose sun-born beauties what they borrow
Of beams to-day, pay back again to-morrow,
Nor need be double-gilt. How then must these
Poor fruits look pale at thy Hesperides !
Fain would I chide their slowness, but in their
Defects I draw mine own dull character.
Take them, and me in them acknowledging
How much my Summer waits upon thy Spring.
This (reverend) shadow cast that setting sun,
Whose glorious course through our horizon run,
Left the dim face of this dull hemisphere
All one great eye, all drown'd in one great tear;
Whose fair illustrious soul led his free thought
Through Learning's universe, and (vainly) sought
Room for her spacious self, until at length
She found the way home with an holy strength,
Snatch'd herself hence to Heaven; fill'd a bright place
'Mongst those immortal fires, and on the face
Of her great Maker fixed her flaming eye,
There still to read true, pure divinity.
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