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
Chaste as that virgin honour of the East,
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.

own,

O may'st thou thus make all the year thine 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.

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.
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
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.

And now that grave aspect hath deign'd to shrink
Into this less appearance. If you think

Tis but a dead face Art doth here bequeath,

Look on the following leaves, and see him breathe.

-:0:

Upon the Frontispiece of Mr. Isaacson's
Chronology.

Let hoary Time's vast bowels be the grave
To what his bowels' birth and being gave;
Let Nature die, and (Phoenix-like) from death
Revived Nature take a second breath ;
If on Time's right hand sit fair History,
If, from the seed of empty Ruin, she
Can raise so fair an harvest, let her be
Ne'er so far distant, yet Chronology
(Sharp-sighted as the eagle's eye, that can
Out-stare the broad-beam'd Day's meridian)
Will have a perspicil to find her out,

And, through the night of error and dark doubt,
Discern the dawn of Truth's eternal ray,

As when the rosy Morn buds into day.

Now that Time's empire might be amply fill'd,

Babel's bold artists strive (below) to build
Ruin a temple, on whose fruitful fall

History rears her pyramids, more tall