THE Passionate Poet.  
With a Description of the Thracian Ismarus.  
By T.P.  
Pallas habet plures spurios quam genuinos 〈◊〉.  
LONDON Printed by Valentine Simmes, dwelling on Adling hill at the sign of the white Swan. 1601.   

To the Right honourable and my most virtuous Lady, The Lady Francis Countess of Kildare. T. P. wisheth all perseverance, with soul's happiness.  
THrice did we read what passion wrought at once,  
It pleased, displeased us, and it pleased again.  
Front-fallowed Athens ministered in frowns,  
Which Ismarus to Comic aid reclaim.  
May she propugne those wrongs, and only those,  
But Thracian refuge do not we propose.  
They wear not Athens furrows that offended,  
And be she powerful in her reprehension,  
But want of worthiness to thee intended,  
To thee (great Lady) life of mine invention.  
'tis from thy favour, or severer sense,  
We s●yle or take acquaintance with offence.  
Vouchsafe (thou fairest of Elisaes' train)  
From beauties element one gracious dymple,  
Th'immensiveness whereof shall entertain  
And countenance the error of the simple.  
If thou be pleased, than all are satisfied,  
Or be thou pleased, so frown the world beside.  
Your Ladyships in all dutiful office Tho. powel.   

To the Reader.  
IT may be, some Rhetoric●● Praelector holds it enquirable for the Title, as professing too much of affectation thereunto. Nor do I blame him, when, conferring the importance thereof with our impotence, he deprehend not a reason in the very front, or first face of my Book. It shall suffice, for thy better satisfaction, I was most inward with mine own defects: which I studied to preserve from severer exposition, as thus: If any challenge me for dismembering a good history, which might better have been continuated from the beginning, it was not I, but Passion. If, that my Introduction be somewhat too prolix, in respect of the main sub●ect proposed. All this was of Passion, that once enlarged, is hardly called in and restrained. If that in many of these Plants, I observe no strict method or time; I answer still, it was of Passion: One that never speaks in numbers, never begins with a Quande●uidem, or Quemadmodum, one that respects not the preparative complement of hemming or spitting, the authentic stroking of the beard, or your demure winking. Briefly, one of the most licentious, irregular, and unformall Libertines of this Age, and notwithstanding as cur●ant for excusable, as the losers language, or some prevaricator in a learned assembly. From hence I was advised to assume his sh●pe, as a most spacious protection, which the rather I made personate in the Poet, as well for suggestion of his office, which ought to be most conversant in Passion out of the abuses of these times, as for conciliation of our true Divines, whom I only admire, and not of arrogance, as being sensible of any thing in m●e, which might maintain such professed importance. He that urgeth 〈◊〉 further herein, gives me cause, if unlearned, to suspect his judgement; if learned, his severity.  
Farewell.   

I. P. to the Author.  
ONe is the stream that flows in both our veins,  
Our name, our fortunes, blind of disproportion:  
And shall a kinsman's interest restrain?  
Thy due forbids suspect such dark extortion.  
I le strain myself to prai●e, and not exceed  
Th' abounded bounds of thy deserving meed.  
How well these Haemaroides of thy wit  
Decipher to our Artists Arts true vices!  
How well do●st thou thyself, thyself acquit,  
Assuming that contempt which thence ariseth!  
Laying thy stage in Thracian Ismarus,  
A model of this universe diffuse;  
In it conveyed a Theme of seriousness,  
Of wielding common and the states affairs▪  
Pretending fable, where lies nothing less,  
Only to call away severer ears.  
What need● he couch in moral, or else fear,  
Whose lines are modest to the most severe?  
And such are thine from meeker spirit flowing▪  
Cherish that spirit in her towardness:  
So shall thy labours with my praises growing  
Be registered, (suspicion in recess.)  
Believe 〈◊〉 I suspire no fresher air,  
Then are my hopes of thee, and they stand fair.   

Lectori de & Poesi & Poeta Ogdoasticon.  
VIlia qua mi●atur i●ers ●●dibriae vulg●t,  
Qui petis 〈◊〉, opera hac dictio meta tuae,  
L●tera 〈◊〉 habet: Nec, habet quod litera, po●dus  
Litera sola d●cet: lecti● sana dabit.  
Ergo ab Atlante nepes, cerebro iovis edita virgo,  
〈◊〉 & pende●s agmen ab ore, legant.  
Cateraturt a tua● muscas venare. Ministr●  
〈◊〉 hac valido propria prada. Val●.  
G. O.   

The Passionate Poet.  
WIth that Ioues issue did provoke the God,  
Whose visage is compact of salarode▪  
To leave his throne of waters and descend;  
To give their serious Controversy end,  
Urging being urged herself by hope of fame,  
The young jonsa might affect her name.  
Neptune his dangling bawdricke cast aside,  
Which to a well tuned Lyre his hand did guide.  
And then sustains his sceptre, which to bear  
Is Isthmian labour; Thus Trident●fer  
Gazing at honours worth▪ forsakes his Court,  
Where Mermaids do for choristers resort,  
Whose dividence incestuous and unchaste  
Ravished the Citizens of seas laid waste.  
Upon a fair find Dolphin did he ride,  
While blue Nereids lackey by his side,  
And with their measuring feet check coral beds,  
The richest meteor that the Ocean breeds:  
The Godhead that in shape of Bull did lie,  
Had not a carriage of such Majesty.  
By this the Seas great Arbiter attained  
The farthest bounds Oceanus had gained,  
And now the yielding sand did testify  
That earth shook underneath his surquedry.  
The azure God at Agas strand arrived,  
The sta●● from whence his Nerean steeds 〈◊〉  
Their thrifty ●odder, Agas well surveyed  
The fair ionic structure underlaid:  
This infant city placed in A●rica,  
Was proud of his access, there did he stay.  
There Pallas and ●al●mon do allow  
The moderation of their rendezvous.  
The disputants thus have they both decreed,  
That human censure shall prefer the deed  
Whereby their deities may best disclose,  
Who ought so fair a title to impose.  
His mother Vesta's son did invocate,  
And on her bosom laid his sceptres weight:  
Thus the desire of Flamen and of Fane,  
Caused him to wound her breast conjure her name:  
Out of whose entrails did prosiliate  
A horse from whom his kind is propagate.  
Hereby he wooed the suffrage of mankind,  
And made Hyppona Goddess of that shrine:  
She that unknown by Triton's side did sit,  
Contemned the God and counterpoised the gift,  
Stirculeus did inspire her with his Art,  
Dividing nature's influence apart.  
For Neptune called him Sire f●●cipotent,  
And when he stood proscript to banishment:  
Did he divide his heaven wracked soul from harms,  
And unto Latium bears him in his arms,  
Lamenting him and his attending fears,  
Made the worlds greater part a sea of tears:  
Whose tears the fair Hyperion from his checks  
Extracts, and swollen with moisture kindly weeps▪  
The God that changed his Sceptre for a scythe,  
Inspired the Dame that did with Neptune strive:  
He taught her exorcisines and practic skill  
To make the earth obsequious to her will.  
In honour of Minerva did it yield  
An Olive tree, the first that graced the field:  
For this the Consistory did assign  
To gratify him with jonicke shrine.  
There the Filamines with temples bound,  
Present large Urns that are with incense crowned,  
Whose flame with sovereign liquor they infuse  
Converts to smoke and makes the air obtuse.  
Hereat the envious Saturnist repined,  
His weak assumption retrograde inclined:  
Albeit they gave him temple and a flame,  
Yet fortune had not equall●sde their fame.  
His comic Alcoran was desolate,  
Whilst hers with Nardus fumes did suffocate:  
His Priests their empty chalices extend,  
Her Ministers ammonius scent commend;  
And through their nostthrils conduit entertain  
The gentle odor they expire again:  
From hence Ennosigaus did acquest  
The motive which his drooping soul depressed;  
And this the rather aggravates the same,  
That Athens should affect Athenaes' name.  
Ioue-loued Athena great in Athens love  
Aspired the sphere where jons star did move,  
And forced him from his separable orb,  
whose exhalation Neptune did absorbe:  
wherewith enraged the furious Orgist raves,  
And with his head suborned the purple waves.  
This exit introduct a second stage,  
where Athens did intend the umpirage  
Of her Athena, in whose breast appears  
Legends of acts, deceitful characters:  
There Athens in abrasive lines did write  
A borrowed name with brittle Chyrsolite:  
In Time's compendious book did she ymprage  
A name unguilty of succeeding age▪  
Why then, O name recorded to misprision,  
O time-bred shame: O book of de●●nition.  
Their mutual love suspired a lively heat,  
When misaffecting rites were incomplete:  
For many rites are intercedent there,  
Where love with arts and arts with love conspire:  
So Athens loud Athena for her name,  
And so for love was she turned Artisane.  
O happy change if never to return,  
Thyn●si●● mount with arts might ever burn.  
The seeing Goddess used a seemly might  
To make her Athens see with learning's light:  
But eyes that travail underneath her zone  
Sustain eclipse of reputation:  
And such as are to scholarship inclined,  
Learn best to see how they may best be blind.  
Her Athens was the Mu●es He●●con,  
For there she raised a second Hieron▪  
That Gy●●afie which platane shades enchase,  
Concealing it from each celestial face.  
O had it been immured with reputation,  
Or had it not such civil intimation,  
Then vile respect that child of ignorance.  
Had not conspired with learned arrogance.  
But woe is me for art lies prostitute  
While ignorance doth tread her under foot.  
The Photion is insatiate in his lust,  
Whose hot conjunction makes my muse combust:  
Thus is she most unhappy of the nine,  
Thus is her ill made worse by being thine.  
Like chaste Eurydice she flies from fate,  
Eurydice fair and infortunate.  
While he pursues with Aristaean will  
My muse from whom this passion doth distill.  
Yet were she free from any serpent's sting,  
If sanctuary were an holy thing:  
But faction abrogates her holy use,  
Art is opposed to art and Muse to muse:  
She harbours envy and not emulation,  
Sincerity is made self affectation.  
Believe me Athens, this imputes thy worth,  
That monster faction was by thee brought forth.  
The love of him hath made thee arrogant,  
He hath betrayed thee to the ignorant.  
By faction didst thou fall from thy estate.  
'Twas faction made thee first infortunate:  
That all in ill and ill in every part,  
Hath made thee factious Athens as thou art:  
'tis art indeed whom thou hast wronged in this;  
'tis I for love of both made Bigamis.  
I fly contempt of learning it is I  
That cannot meet with true sincerity:  
To me the vice of scholarship belongs,  
I have an inward feeling of her wrongs:  
'tis I whom learning tempts to imprecation,  
Being impatient of her estimation.  
I challenge faction for her vile estate.  
And cursing it, I still asseverate,  
Since art from Athens took her opprobry,  
And both their ills did transmigrate in me▪  
It was because I placed my love amiss,  
Where no respect nor good opinion is.  
For loving her am I opinions grate▪  
And out of love become thus passionate:  
If this be made the umpire of her liking,  
May faint defection practise mine acquitting.  
I'll change this art for some mechanic skill,  
And Athens for a modern Thracian hill:  
A Muse-forsaken Thrace, an Ismarus,  
Long lif'd by memory of Orpheus;  
Orpheus, who dignified with legacy  
Hebrus and heaven for head and choristrie.  
What imputation is familiar,  
If I 〈◊〉 this 〈…〉,  
If borrow wings to fly from Mercury;  
'tis but defection not Apostasy.  
When hea●'n was turbulent with Io●ia● pride,  
Li●'d not Apollo by Amphry●us side●  
For there he did avoid a troubled air,  
And here A●●●etus he was passing fair.  
At Thracian Ismarus will I repose  
Within the mount Hermaphrodite, that knows  
Two parts distinguished, and as different  
In quality for their distract intent.  
What's Ismarus, thou'●rt so rapt with seeing?  
'tis any thing but that which hath no being.  
Europe of her descent doth vainly boast,  
Much owes she unto Thrace, to England most.  
The Country loves this fair Hermaphrodite,  
The City knows her for the City's type,  
In Court a Courtier, and the Courtier, it  
Is nothing but a somewhat Ismari●,  
In living there I shall not live abstract,  
No● to one residence myself contract:  
Since Ismarus each Nation doth affine,  
Save Athens only all the world is mine.  
The world is mine in nature's sympathy▪  
For both sustain but contrariety:  
So Ismarus earth's party coloured kertle,  
Hath one side barren and the other fertile.  
Her barren part that's bare in all good parts,  
Whether from outward cause or else deserts,  
Or from a well beseemed distinguishment,  
Or all, I doubt how safely to assent.  
This only doth his sterile mould suggest,  
Each land of every plant is not possessed;  
For this blame Nature, and yet blame her not,  
she's better idle than Halsphl●●t.  
If Nature were alike industrious,  
Th'indifferent arbiter of 〈◊〉,  
Each part were reconciled, and 〈…〉▪  
Should level with the e●●th of 〈…〉.  
But she in wisdom thought it no offence,  
By rest to give to shrubs pre-eminence:  
So we uphold the state of government,  
As Nature's instance makes us provident.  
Admit that either side of Ismarus  
Were equal apt in his material dross  
To entertain each form that's vegitant  
Of herb or tree or whatsoever plant.  
Nature being prodigal of instance,  
Should yield her wisdom to suspicious sense.  
Give unto heaven alike in every part.  
Like gross densation, and Apollo● harp,  
Shall be as pale an object in the eye,  
(Though set with gold) as brass pa●'d Galaxy,  
And it, as much unable to reflect,  
As where the Cynthides make breach unchecked.  
Repine at this, so shalt thou call in question  
Nature's decree and by strong insurrection  
Be openly rebellious to that state,  
Whereby thou wert thyself predestinate:  
So shalt thou in thine own immodesty  
Look upon heaven with a Promethean eye,  
Endeavour to reduce the earth again  
Into her ancient indigested frame,  
Rob heaven of stars, stars their intelligence,  
The world of motion, light and influence.  
Of this repining sect, two sects there are,  
Whose fortunes (albeit unfamiliar)  
Conjure herein. The one is Atheist:  
The other thinks that God is only his.  
Atheism an Ismarite and Politician,  
Being rich in general for his condition●  
So gives all franchisement of liberty  
T'aspire through an ambitious industry,  
Disputes that Mightiness must be attained  
Through broken vows through faith and conscience stained.  
These dark endeavours are religion  
To Atheism, other faith he knoweth none:  
But making of devotion an extent,  
Exceeds a Democraticke government,  
As not sufficient spacious to admit  
A general weal of equalli●de conscript.  
So he repines the poorest rational  
Should dwell contented by his native thrall,  
Since in ambition lies his remedy,  
And by neglecting curious policy▪  
He leaves the means whereby he may invite  
Fortune that's flexible to all alike.  
Precisianism whose zeal's at interest,  
Who of himself doth self conceit it best,  
Exemplifies his instance in process,  
And wills an vn●●ersall barrenness  
Forbids the day producing chariot,  
To draw about the all surveying God:  
Because his servile hand doth well sustain  
The needy traces of a Lyd●● wai●e:  
Envies the government that's temporal.  
Repines at order hierarchical,  
And in his scruple doth extenuate  
Whatever office fortune or estate.  
Ye faithful unto orthodoxal terror,  
Religious authors of religious error,  
Using her proper organs and protect  
In self conspiracy which you affect,  
O wherefore is the name of Magistrate  
So harsh of cadence? wherefore do you hate  
The purple garment or the scarlet mantle?  
How ill beseems it those rude palms to handle  
The sceptre or the sword, how more than ill  
To slay the judge unroyallize the King?  
The price of this strong heresy contrived,  
Thy faith must be depraved, thyself deprived  
Of all commercement with sincere devotion,  
For thou art moved unto that violent motion  
Of Atheism blind of God, and both agree  
By different means to work equality:  
The one commends the Sun for his access,  
What he elates, the other doth depress,  
And what they both prefer, it is to all,  
Each season for an Equinoctial,  
improving the premist necessity  
Of Ismarus dispo'sd so diversly.  
This Thracian hill contends to imitate  
Man in his lively form and inward state:  
And how convenient is the presidence  
Of soul and mind and intellectual sense  
Before the body that affects but clay,  
Let the repiner in his manhood say:  
Then shall he seriously affirm with me,  
That speak out of mine own necessity  
I speak the necessary barrenness  
Of Ismarus and nature's inaccesse:  
Albeit I do prefer her fruitful side,  
Not led by discontent that child of pride,  
But by innated love of self well willing,  
We wish all fruitful parts within our dwelling.  
There dwell where Ismarus in jocund sense  
Of Nature's hand commends her excellence.  
Unto that fertile part her fairer field,  
Will I my poesy and my passion yield:  
Fair is that field which richly shall infuse  
Nature for art, spirit for Genius.  
Into her Orpheus did she breathe such spirit  
And nature such as none since did inherit.  
For since his time all study was disposed  
To the ob●cu●●ties which Arts disclose.  
Who cares for simples skill? or who is he,  
That unto trees will play his minstrelsy?  
Art bears a nimbler wing the luprical  
Is made the perch where Learning loves to fall.  
Then so are aloft and shadow with your wings  
A cashed Athenian, who in passion sings  
To Ismarus exceeding in the fertile  
Of Vine and Olive, and the conquerors Myrtle,  
The Rose, the Tamarix, and the jovian Oak,  
The Laurel unacquainted with the stroke  
Of thunder the Italian Cyprus tree,  
The Pine, the Poplar and the Mulberry:  
Lethiferous Ewe, whose nature ever craves  
Some Golgotha or seat of dead men's graves:  
I'll sing to Plants of others and of these,  
And call no auditory but of trees.  
The fruitful ●smarus did justly boast  
That she excelled in Vine and Olive most:  
Then let thy song measure her symphony  
In time as semblable: that thou thereby  
Mayst make their donative the former place  
To give unto thy verse a measures grace.  

The Vine.  

Sing unto her generous self,  
Sing her pleasance and of health:  
To th'innated Ipes sing,  
And the Orgists reveling.   
SOme call her Vine, as if she were invited,  
Born and yet taught, though willing, yet incited  
To industry, and some do well 〈◊〉  
She were no Vine, did she not apprehend  
What ever neighbouring tree within her tendrils,  
When neighbourhood is dead and trees are friendless.  
But I must bless her by no other name  
Then that of Vine, because she is the same.  
Because she's vital in mortality,  
By whose well tempered heat they live and be.  
They live and be where honour health and pleasure  
Admit no emulation, mean nor measure.  
Of Plants, the Vine is only generous,  
Powerful in medicine and Physics use,  
So is she pleasures bed, trees chiefest beauty,  
For at her feet they prostitute all duty.  
Delight, whose complacence is gracious,  
Proves her the Majesty of Ismarus;  
Honour of Plants, and sylvan Empery,  
A gracious Vine, a pleasing Majesty.  
Assist me, O thou spirit once traduc'te  
From nature of a more heroic Muse.  
Thou soul of music hovering in the air,  
Unto thy Ismarus at length repair,  
Return and stand my strong intelligence,  
That I may sing the Vines fair presidence:  
Excusse my fear, lest fearing I do faint  
In the cold blood which shall my heart attaint:  
Prevent it, O prevent it, and repute me  
Able to sing her greatness worth and beauty.  
That she is generous, the use makes good;  
It fills the veins of Kings with royal blood.  
No liquor but that of the purple grape,  
Makes blood so pure▪ so fresh, so roseate,  
'tis that extracted and essential spirit,  
Which from the four a second place doth merit:  
'tis ever such, as ever is the same,  
So lustre fresh, as moist within the vein.  
For why the Vine, as 〈◊〉 and age aspire,  
So no●●ll good doth excellence acquire.  
So is it pure as fresh, and who not knows,  
That pure and fresh do both affect the Rose?  
All celebrations do prefer the Vine:  
The festall and the sacrificing shrine.  
In it the deities are reconciled.  
It makes the countenance of Gods more mild,  
And well deserves of men, whose feasts do know,  
Th'administered wine adds royalty thereto,  
And grace, whereof those feasts may glory most,  
Which in the knowledge of their Vine do boast.  
O do not thou this grace and man dissever,  
But make the Gods propitious, O for ever.  
she's generous, that's most unto herself,  
But she's more sovereign within the health  
Of others, having both the power and will,  
To search and cleanse all crude infectious ill:  
And to confirm those necessary parts,  
Whose dissolution utterly subverts  
The body's state. My verse may be replete  
With fair distinguishment of forms concrete,  
To whose dissent the Vine doth moderate  
In kind observance of the better state,  
Contending to make active her intent  
In homogeneal and in excrement  
Divided: Neither could I not relate,  
How 'tis the vine that doth assimilate  
The better nutritives, how it is she,  
That purgeth the corrupting reliquie,  
Disjoines the good from bad, digesteth all,  
To prove it so, is no provincial.  
Thou sovereign Plant, O cleanse this body still,  
Be ever judge betwixt the good and ill.  
she's generous great: and in salubrity  
Unto that greatness she doth multiply  
More worth: O but the Vine's most worthy then,  
Her excellence preferred into the Scene.  
I do pretend that beauty whose delight  
In fair applause commends it to the sight.  
Pleasure the subject of true complacence,  
There hath she laid her primate residence.  
Sing ye of this, that in adversity  
Make her your refuge and your sanctuary:  
That underneath her capreols do debar  
The scorching heat of a Meridian star,  
And with her levy ●eguments elate  
The cold of air admoved and dislocate.  
Your testimony is required herein,  
That ever lived securely by the Vine.  
Ye Catadupae deaf unto the fall  
Of Nilus, or the spheres so musical  
Acknowledge thy securer Lethargy,  
As from the Vine and not a Poppy tree:  
Thy great dimension howsoever great,  
Is by the Vine concealed from cold and heat;  
To the secured, distressed, or whomsoever,  
'tis in the use of refuge or of pleasure.  
The body of this tree itself is small,  
But notwithstanding it hath arms withal,  
Whose fair extent so large, so spacious  
Shadows the Citizens of Ismarus,  
Not borrowing light or lustre from the great,  
But as the Sun which makes each star replete  
With light of his, so doth she lend to all,  
And hence it is some do her Cynthia call,  
But that's in heaven: They know her on the earth,  
The chaste Alph●a or Latona's birth;  
Under her shade Apollo well discloses  
Diana sleeping on a bed of Roses:  
Sleep on, and sleep securely, for thy bed  
Is all of Roses, mixed with white and red.  
O how shall I acquit me of this tree,  
Being so engaged to her amenity?  
If fly from inward pleasance, 'tis in vain,  
Her outward greatness meets thee there again▪  
If I reverse my sight as blind of these,  
Her sovereign hand is seen on other trees:  
That hand whose Generous beauty led me forth,  
And now confounds me in her Sovereign worth.  
As modern Painters in their arras story  
Show many arches underneath one body:  
So fares this Ode referred unto the Vine,  
Whose many heads one body must conjoin,  
Being all imperfect and impertinent,  
As mere position and no argument.  
The subtle matter is so implicit,  
I suffocate in condigesting it;  
And then I faint, and so did Cissus die,  
She fell before the vine, and so must I.  
She (by the earth's advice) embraced the tree,  
With ivy leaves and such like borderie,  
In token of her love in ages past,  
And with such ivy is our vine enchased.  
With love of Cissus Cissos' ever lives,  
And life and love in vines are relatives.  
From this relation many do pretend  
A zealous love, when life's proposed the end,  
The scope the exigent, and destiny,  
Of all their saffron guilded obsequy.  
And such the vermin of these subtle times,  
Such are th'innated Ipes of our vines,  
Bred of the body's thrift and fat increase,  
Begotten by the Sun that shines in peace:  
Like the Egyptian fry when Amphyt●ite  
Gives slimy Nilus to the Theorite:  
As Sun and slime engender those Nilites,  
So hot and moist begets our age's Ipes.  
Our husbandmen which travail much herein,  
Do find this worm obnoxious to the vine;  
Yea some suggest that are more Chemic wise,  
These are the Ipes that anatomize  
This goodly tree, that feed upon her leaves,  
And what's without the rind, this worm bereaves,  
And but that Hydra's waves are of such force,  
That no objection counterchecks her course,  
Time might produce a some-Herculean wit,  
Which by elaborate hand might limit it.  
Besides these Ipes, there are Orgists too,  
which to the world the shapes of men do show:  
But O how much inhuman are they then,  
whom wholesome wine makes monsters, and no men?  
Too much have th●y, that are immoderate,  
And change the vines true use appropriate,  
That surfeit in her bounty, and beguile  
Their senses with the too much sweet of wine,  
That being drunk dares wrong the innocent,  
And in his outrage be incontinent,  
Advance th' unworthy rich: what dares he not  
In frenzy to devise? contrive, complot,  
And yet the Vine is not in cause of it,  
The draft is all unguilty of the drift:  
Their fu●ie is the better arguest,  
To prove her powerful where she doth insist:  
So best elixirs make compendious breath,  
And fairest object soonest ravisheth.  
I dare sustain that no infectious air  
Can penetrate the Moons more solid spheres  
Nor profanation in a borrowed shape  
Be entertained within the temples gate.  
So are my thoughts secure. Great God secure them,  
That Vines conceal no serpents to enure them;  
But make this tree the fairest of our time,  
Like Sphere and Temple solid and divine;  
 
 
 
To 〈◊〉 th' innated Ipes of our Vine.  
May 〈◊〉 Monster 〈◊〉 of able power,  
Nor serpent-like in all her ●ights, devour  
This goodly tree, 〈…〉 prostrate  
  

The Olive.  

Here is olives 〈◊〉,  
And the 〈…〉  
 
〈…〉 complete.   
Whilst yet these outward senses all surcharged,  
With the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 Art enlarged  
Beyond the 〈…〉 Nature knows,  
And Art with Nature 〈…〉,  
The sens●●e 〈◊〉 and the mystery,  
As yet her workmanship we did apply.  
But when this 〈◊〉 air was so dispergd,  
We saw the Vine with 〈◊〉 i●vergd.  
Here written Bounty ma●●● with Providence,  
Under this offered duty did commence.  
Within a girdle was the Vine empa●ld,  
Much like that A●●●y●thian star entailed  
In her discoloured circle, 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉  
Which once 〈◊〉 sire bestowed upon  
The vaporous 〈◊〉. This fair Coronet  
Was of the choicest Olive trees complete  
That tree which most affects her, and from hence  
We view that part of Nature's providence.  
Of many Olives she composed the same,  
And here Th'assumption is required again,  
Unto her bounty multiplied thus,  
Upon this little hill of Ismarus.  
If Nature be so rich in donative,  
If see the thing that yet is blind of life,  
Then may I live to her that so adverts  
When I am dead to Athens and to Arts.  
And from a liberal hand with bounty crowned,  
The Olive and her lenity resound.  
To sing of fair accord and mutual use  
In Wine and Oil the Olives expressed juice.  
At Ismarus this is a worthy tree,  
For there's her Trine or best triplicity.  
Since to the Vine it holds a near access,  
'tis high, 'tis; O but do not thou impress  
Thy lowly self within descriptions weight,  
For honour is a slight suspending bait.  
And how unworthy might I there insist,  
That am the Vineyards youngest herborist.  
My skils my counterfeit within this act,  
And both as yet of genuine infract.  
But she's suggestive to self-flattery,  
Soothing her imperfections to sooth me.  
And when I say the Olive tree is tall,  
Of fair dimension, beautiful withal,  
Her oft divided root so deeply laid,  
And head like blossoms on the Palm displayed:  
If say her pith is rare, and so dispersed  
'tis seldom seen, though many times traversed:  
This flattering Giglot susurrates as much,  
And swears this accent is a Doric touch▪  
Though harsh of music, and of measuring,  
Yet stops and strikes unto the self same string.  
This delinition stimulates us on,  
And bids me set a nice division  
In gardaine Olives, and be discrepant  
Betwixt the melancholy styptic Plant  
And the fat Olive, from whose subtle parts  
We drain the oil of many cheerful hearts.  
This was the suffrage spousal which the Dame  
Proposed to Athens for her borrowed name,  
When strife was under wing, and since that time  
Her branches well beseemeth jonicke shrine.  
This tree, as of itself is so abounding  
In thrifty fat, that added moysturs drowning▪  
And suffocates the pure and subtle oil:  
wherefore the fattest's not the fittest soil  
where to insert this Olive: O but yet  
It withers, if the Sun be opposite.  
For wisely say our ancient her borists,  
It is affected to the rorall mists:  
And be't, with limitation that her seat  
Be not exempt from sense of heavenly heat▪  
which may be able to extenuate,  
And lay her foggy moisture separate,  
which in a modern heat an Aprils Sun  
Is powerful to attract, but not consume;  
Her berries yet on tree are immature,  
And (though by many years) they so endure.  
which that they may attain a savoury taste,  
Our skilful husbandmen do use to place  
A modest quantity of riper ones,  
In a congested pile whereon enthrones  
Such favourable and comforting shine,  
As some makes timely ripe, some fore their time.  
But in confirmed juice the oil is best,  
That's drained and separated easiest  
From purse or husk, and such like juice as this,  
Is not with earth or earthly parts commist;  
The most experienced husbandman sustains;  
Bad Olives ask no soil, the good no pains:  
Good needs nor scythe nor pruning instrument,  
For so unskilful husbandmen prevent  
Th'increase of after seasons, and such bleeding  
Adds detriment unto the years succeeding.  
This tree requires no hands applied to wound it.  
No trident rake, nor trenching spade to sound it;  
She needs not these, nor needs it us to wrong her,  
Disclose the root, but take we nothing from her.  
Perhaps we may the earth discumulate,  
Descry some gout or branch adulterate,  
Some tuberous prim, or superfluity  
About the root of her unwittingly;  
(As not a tree in fruitful Ismarus,  
But these attempt t'infect and choke her thus▪  
And fairest Plants conceals the foulest weed)  
If any such in Olive be descried,  
Incision must be used, yet warily:  
Cut off th'adulterate branch, but touch no tree.  
For why it well deserves, that well discerns  
preservative for good, and cure for harms.  
From hence the Romans had it still in use,  
When janus gates were open and when occluse.  
For with her taglets did they stephanize  
Their peace-affected heads in civil wise.  
And in a foreign expedition,  
When fire e●d war had leave to look upon  
Their neighbouring Provinces, as to prevent  
And obuiate defection imminent;  
Their s●ore in wine and oil did they propose,  
And where these wanted, there supplied their woes.  
And such was Oil. But this is serious,  
I rather do propose her homely use:  
To speak her as the cause of permanence  
In colour, light▪ or such familiar sense.  
For when the industrious hand would fain pretend  
Some 〈◊〉 work unto whose end  
No later age aspires, 'tis laid in Oil,  
Whose durance neither time nor age assoil.  
And when our Lamps are niggard of their light,  
Th'infused Oil makes smoke to burn more bright.  
This liquour's of an airy quality,  
And still aspires to principality:  
'tis liquids precedent, 'tis aversate  
With other moists to be incorporate,  
Albeit that moist and dry and every thing  
Retain the favour of her moistening.  
So doth it penetrate and find evasion  
Throughout the incompacted pores dilation:  
And therefore we appoint his proper place,  
The solid matter of this brittle glass:  
This brittle glass. And what's not glass and brittle?  
The flower that escapes the sith shall meet the sickle.  
From glass this precious unguent we extract,  
Though it be brittle, yet is it compact;  
So should it be transparent with the eyes  
Of worthy patients, not of Polities:  
Because the constant vessel of our oil,  
In whose behalf may all these senses toil,  
Much to herself, but more for sympathy  
With wine and the viniferous quality.  
For Vine and Olive knows one horoscope,  
Albeit the Vine first answered Natures hope  
Their sometimes mother under timely birth,  
And therefore justly held the heir of earth.  
Yet in their mutual use we find that mean,  
That's equal different from each extreme.  
The Vine is Physics powerful Empery,  
The Olive of a yielding lenity,  
'tis mild in practice as a sovereign thing  
Her too much use is too much nourishing  
In the rank feeding bodies of our state,  
Whose commessation is immoderate,  
Their senses languishing in excrement,  
The stomach opilate and finds no vent,  
If wine not intervent, and well decide it;  
And to such malady we must prescribe it.  
When oil makes rank, and rancour so possessed  
By powerful wine his station is depressed;  
The sword of Physic purging remedy,  
To indigested parts which excrefie,  
'tis like the wealth of many Seas enlarged,  
Whose all-conspiring waves together charged,  
Disfound the highest arches and defence,  
Preferring all before their violence:  
Such is th'abstracted wine, as in itself,  
That will not deign t'entreat the body's health,  
When it hath power to search the very rains,  
Th'interimies', and all that life sustains.  
'tis in the simple practise over strong,  
Unless some other mixture do prolong,  
Call back, and mitigate the violence  
Which her sequestered spirits shall commence.  
And what is so compatible concreat?  
What more restringing the intentive heat  
Of cleansing wine, when wine admits restraint,  
(As Votaries sometime direct their Saint)  
Then smooth and gentle Oil of mild aspect,  
That wine repressed by it, may it erect?  
'tis mild: so is the wine that's ministered  
At sound men's tables, not the sick man's bed:  
To well disposed bodies sovereign Wine,  
But in prescript of potion 'tis inclined  
To Empery, where the disease requires  
Extinguishment to oppilations fires.  
But oil alone infused relieves the same,  
Where Oil with Wine hath power to quench his flame.  
Or rather sovereign Wine as it doth tend  
To maintenance and a preserving end.  
For when it cleanseth, nothing is subjecteth,  
But some unnecessaries which infected  
The better parts: and when Purgations force  
Moves other loyal members with the source  
And strength thereof, th'enacted violence  
Savours of nothing more than providence,  
That lowly rectifies by inquisition,  
Lest they retain some tincture from Ambition  
So doth in search them and so rectify,  
That pure may savour nought but purity.  
So is it sovereign Wine, and so alone,  
As to the sound, and in abstraction:  
And notwithstanding of itself consisting  
T●is great in Medicine, yet in commixing  
With gentle Oil it is more general,  
For wine and oil are Physics all in all.  
It is her government of Optimates  
Who under presidence confirm a State.  
The vulgar Plants out of this Empery  
Reserving but a modest liberty,  
Be they applied unto the outward parts,  
When wine erects or inwardly subverts  
Out of occasion: when the Wine with oil  
Is more of power t'establish or assoil,  
More victual: wherefore sometimes guilded age  
Held their inseparable equipage,  
Prescribing Wine and Oil to every grief,  
The one to cleanse, the other for relief.  
For both may this griefe-labouring Ismarus  
Upon her arbitrating power infuse  
Myriads of mulsive Orisons whose sense  
May give to wine and oil long residence.  
That after seasons may present them yet  
To purge and rectify each Ismar●●.   

The Myrtle.  

Myrsine occupies the stage,  
Freshly bleeding to our age.  
Th'incensed Goddess in remorse  
Here imposed Athens curse.   
AT Athens: who names Athens here in Thrace●  
Licentious Fame that holds her still in chase.  
And is there yet concealed some obscure deed  
From Ages past, which makes her now to bleed.  
Shall Athens (O shall she) with infa●●e  
Stand upright in this last Chronologie?  
And shall these days of ours speak Myrsines' death,  
The long since Myrsine, that disposed a wreath  
In those enacted lusts and Tournament,  
What time the Arbitrate indifferent  
Ex●ending Garlands to th'applauded head,  
Distinguished Conqueror and the conquered?  
At Athens there the fair Myrsina lived,  
Athens the same that Myrsines' life deprived.  
An envious Athens that proscribes her best;  
Expels her Bees that Drones may be possessed.  
Do greater lights obscure thy glimmering?  
Or makes it way unto thy Soveraigning.  
Amongst the blind that know not to descry  
Thy infinite abuse of Monarchy?  
Such is their government, and so austere,  
That they expose the man whom they but fear;  
Fear him that but observes; and if he see;  
That e●e of his perverts his destiny.  
And those fair hopes which Nature did inscoffe,  
Adapting fortunes equal to his Birth.  
And though thou laidest a most repining hand  
Upon thy child, (act worthy to be scanned  
By after hours from intermitted ages,  
Which shall declare to them these native strages)  
Yet see thy Goddess, whose Imagery,  
Thou more esteemest then others deity,  
Abhors this deed that cannot hate thy name,  
she'll challenge thee, thy infamy disclaim.  
See how she weeps upon Myrsinaes' breast.  
And swears that Athens thenceforth, dispossessed  
Of her beloved, should to the self same fate  
Commit all knowledge of the public state.  
What else from learning? By herself she swore,  
That Athens should be Athens and no more:  
Art should discern of nought but what was right,  
And Scholars merely seen in scholarship.  
Besides she swore, that Art when at the height,  
Even than her reputation to be light:  
Then least of estimate lest prized; and why?  
It errs in too much popularity.  
Yet she continued in this imprecation,  
And yet enjoined her to self affectation,  
To discontentment which shall carry her  
Through stranger Nations and ●e●oted far:  
Her better wits to be the most unstride,  
In giddy action venturous to wade  
Beyond themselves, yea and her gravest h●d  
Strong in eroticke sects opinioned:  
To many more of Arts the proper vices  
Disease● as manifold, which thence arises,  
As Melancholy, Rheum, a hollow ●ie,  
A downward looking, and the malady  
Of head and headache, lean and pale aspect,  
A back enured to bend and to deflect,  
A stomach nice, and apt to be offended,  
Diseases to th'extremer parts extended,  
With twice as many griefs, which Art best knows,  
All these th' incensed Goddess did impose  
At Myrsines' death, and Learning since her wrack,  
Mourns for the fair Myrsina all in black,  
To expiate the sin whose memory  
Is lif●d in Statue of a Myrtle tree.  
For so the weeping Goddess did allow  
No more a Myrsine but a Myrtle now.  
A tree, whose better kind is very rare:  
A tree, that can abide no uncouth air:  
A marish, but no muddy tegument  
About the root to hinder her ascent,  
A tree that's choked with too much manurie,  
Yet never thrives but by severity:  
That at the bitter root is somewhat flow,  
But in maturity it doth outgrow  
All other Plants, and of these trees we find  
Two divers sorts, and of a differing kind:  
Of which the greater is not held the best,  
Nor that of earthly parts the most possessed.  
For earth restrains the spirits industry,  
Assimulating to her quality,  
And but what's sensual from the sense bereaves,  
Nor is that best, which shows the blackest leaves.  
For is there any brain so foul with sud.  
But knows the fiend may use a friars hood?  
Nor is that best, which first puts forth her flower,  
Being all as apt to wither in an hour:  
Or that, whose branching arms are ever green,  
Yet never fruit on arms or branches seen.  
Some Myrtle shows her fruit unto the Sun,  
And shuts her flower but in such Horizon.  
Yea, some performs it by the silent night;  
And they are such, whose deeds do hate the light.  
Some in continual labour, some in rest,  
But yet no any of these kinds is best:  
And that in Myrtles holds the Primacy,  
That knows no daily toil nor Lethargy;  
That brooks the day by night, and night by day;  
That's timely ripe, true coloured, free from clay.  
And such a Myrtle's manifold in use,  
If so th●incensed powers can reduce▪  
Reverse, and nullify th'imposed cur●●.  
If they be reconciled, it is of force  
Within the body's cure: In other terms,  
'tis not of virtue to relieve her harms.  
In fields 'tis Myrtle, and in Athens yet  
Scholars discern of nought but Scholarship.  
Whereas enlarged the Myrtle's physical,  
And Learning manumist most meet installed  
In public office. Be not this offence.  
I wish to Learning some experience.   

The Rose.  

White is here vermillioned,  
Mutual strife of white and red:  
Here an arbitrating field,  
Both the Roses reconciled.   
HOw much inconstancy, what Innovation?  
Hath wizard Time seen since the worlds creation.  
Many September Moons which have recanted,  
Transported Monarchies, and states supplanted.  
What change in others, and what personate,  
How much variety might Time dilate?  
There was a time, fore Gods did disaccord,  
Obscrued none else but the first moving Orb,  
Then errant stars, and then the firmament  
No Motion knew, but what was violent  
And from an outward cause: Yet was it thus,  
Till Sons of heaven became licentious.  
First was Monarchal rule, but Tyranny,  
Which now no longer had his sufferancie.  
Then they inquired into their optimates,  
And held it for a too ambiguous state:  
And then anon was f●re Democracie  
Turned popular licence and free Liberty:  
Then subjects spheres turned head against their Mover;  
Some erred, some in their doubtfulness discover  
A voluntary course and free incesse,  
To which they toil in moving tardiness.  
And semble laggie spiders most in this,  
That slow, do yet aspire the Pyramid  
Of some erected spoke within the wheel  
That's downward driven, or Mariners in keel,  
Where sails are spread before some boisterous gale;  
They backward walk, with face on wind and sail,  
And like rebellious Libertines insist  
To make the primate violence remiss:  
It forceth them, they him again recall,  
And still the while, Time must observe them all.  
Look down on Ismarus, and Time well knows,  
That in his memory it had a Rose,  
An only Rose, and that, as only white,  
Amongst the rest her fairest Ismarite.  
It saw one age in white, so had it more,  
Had not this Rose been steeped in royal gore:  
Until the greatest of Nobilities  
Did gaze on beauties worth with lustful eyes;  
Till Lust or'ecame, and Beauty ravished,  
Then was the white turned to vermilion red.  
Some say loves Queen pursuing her beloved,  
Despaired, because untimely death improved  
And checked her in the course of fairest hope,  
She gave her swelling heart a pulsive scope:  
And all enraged, all naked, all unmasked,  
Upon a roseate bed herself she cast;  
And the vermilion drops which issued,  
Tinguisht the palefaced Rose in deepest red.  
Others say it was Nectar from above,  
Which when the wanton boy in dalliance strove  
To free him from his mother's arms yfolding,  
Checked with his wings the fair Mounteagle holding  
An ample Coenophron with Nectar crowned,  
Which from his hand admoued, bedewed the ground,  
And spersed his moist upon a roseate bed,  
What time her white was all vermillioned.  
Hower'e it was, lust caused them both to fall,  
And Beauty's wrack was the Provincial:  
And now the Rose was red, and now the rather  
Men loved it for the shape then for the savour.  
For though it had the shape of seeming Rose,  
It savoured but of some Abrotonos.  
The scent was of a practic deep intention,  
When swelling blood exceeding veins dimension,  
By strong eruption sought to cool their heat,  
And turn the source out of his current quite.  
'Twas deadly imposition to the brain  
Of virtue to enrage, infect, inflame:  
Besides it had such strong intent of taste  
As families extinguished, and laid waste  
The fruitful Ismarus. This Age of red,  
Long kept the Rose, and long continued;  
Until the earth fearing her own estate,  
Lest such continuance might depopulate  
Herself: lest Time protracted might discover  
Her nakedness to those which live above her,  
Conjured the fair assisting hand of Nature,  
By laying forth, how but a subject Creature,  
Inspired by Art, had brought upon her head  
Strong imputation, changed her white to red.  
How red had stained her with discoloured gore:  
And any thing she spoke, which might implore  
Or call relief; and powerfully she spoke.  
For now the rose and red were separate.  
And now the earth prepared a subject matter,  
Able to entertain, not Art, but Nature:  
A special form which might distinguish it,  
From flowers of other kind, not of her sect;  
A rose in which there was no ministry  
For colour to detain the busied eye.  
But yet the while, Art out of sound invention,  
Contrived to abrogate her own suspension,  
Applying colour of the deepest grain,  
That ever did this Microcosm sustain.  
Much matter of her own she ministered▪  
With more supply of blood disentralled,  
Much more in vain of wealthy veins made poor,  
Which to this work did empty all their store,  
And all to little conquest or success:  
For now no tinguishment might here impress,  
And every present might have been the same;  
And had not white blushed at such homebred shame,  
Now did she blush, that could not yet forbear,  
To look upon this native massacre,  
This Summer's heat gave wings unto the red.  
Which war ycleept and erst discomfited,  
That war I count, that unto this dissent,  
Prescribed a rule and strong arbitrement:  
I count it war, the rather for his might,  
That powerfully called back the red to white.  
Thus mutually the roses d●micate:  
Now this aspired▪ or that held principate,  
Till white at length assumed a paler form,  
(O crooked age! where whites in white forlorn▪)  
And borrows terrible, aspect from death,  
Who whilom her of sovereignty bereft.  
This palefaced Rose was fearful to herself,  
Untimely borne a Rose, and borne by stealth.  
T▪ extirp the goodest plants that beutifide  
The Tharcian Ismarus on fruitful side.  
How like a Boar enlarged and free of head,  
Ranging through desert soil unpeapleld,  
Where not the wandering Pilgrim hath access.  
Applies his fangs with doubled meagerness  
On trees and mushroom shrubs, disshevering them,  
Even from the highest capreoles to the stem?  
So did he tyrannize: yet seems it me,  
To speak of sative Rose in modesty:  
Sufficeth that the Bor's incontinent,  
Proud of his prey, yea, and so insolent,  
That now insulting pride seemed to implore,  
Some venturous Knight t'encounter with the boar.  
This called the world's assoyler from a far,  
Who now to Erymanthus did repair,  
By juno's imposition, so to free,  
Th' Arcadian hill, from death and tyranny.  
This was the world's rich Rose, and fairest red,  
That ever palled Monster sequestered.  
And now the Boar espied his Hunteresse,  
Who● (fearing lest her promised success  
Might intercept his friends and call supply  
From other beasts of his conspiracy)  
Upon a champion strand he her accosted,  
With doubled strength, unworthy to be boasted,  
Unworthy any glory, had it been,  
Had he stood Epilogue unto this Scene,  
That under retinue seemed to contain  
The greatest ones that did possess the plain.  
How much the greater was that Victory,  
Where Red or'ecame in his minority;  
And wrought more wonders in his pupil age,  
Than ever was presented to this stage;  
That reconciled the simple to her red,  
Mixture that might not be distinguished;  
And this was neither red nor white I ween,  
But that of Province or the Damascene:  
That Rose, whose zulape in the fourth degree,  
Is much astringent for her quality;  
The Floramour of fields, that sists the course  
Of blood's incontinence and liberal source;  
That fans exulcerations fervency,  
Calls hot to temperate, cold and moist to dry:  
Such is our Rose. O Gods may never she  
Exceed her Province or the fourth degree.   

The Tamarix.  

Mutual parts and Symphony  
Of the Vine and Tamarix tree.   
I Sing of Tamarix that Thracian Plant,  
A tree which all uncivil Nations want:  
For why? in peaceful soil 'tis only found,  
And cannot prosper in dissentious ground.  
It grows at Thrace, yet not abundantly,  
For husbandmen do much mistake this tree:  
Because there are so many sembling kinds,  
Whose searie trunks no Myricke sap designs.  
There is one noble Tamarix, for her site,  
No upland Thracian but an I marite.  
There thrives it best, and in her better thriving,  
Requires to ripeness much times detriving;  
And when maturity presents itself  
In flowers, which are her only Myricke wealth,  
Some envious blast dissevers all her leaves,  
And on his wings transfers them to the Seas.  
Through many tedious seasons she presents them,  
And still the Wind or reaves or else prevents them.  
Some say our Tamarix doth insert the Rose.  
As doth the Sea that by observance flows  
Or ebbs unto the Moon, that that affects  
No tree so much, as this of Tamarix,  
Yea, and they be so mutually affi●'d,  
That either seems on other to depend;  
Nor can the Rose unto herself so wither,  
As that our Tamarix perish not together;  
Nor Myricke so improp●●ate in his fall,  
But Rose must needs be inward therewithal.  
Well may the Curclew yield herself relief,  
But these implore as they impart their grief.  
The one unable to erect his head,  
If not suffulced, suborned and furthered,  
By his correllative; such sympathy  
Confirms them both, when in their signiory.  
And now it seems to me young Herborist.  
That Rose and Tamarix should be at the highest,  
As I confer this season with times past,  
Not that my hopes expected have their last.   

The Oak.  

Th' I●●i●● title plac's amiss,  
H●● ragged rind, her Cantharis.   
SCarce is the breath dissolved to subtle air,  
wherewith I called it Ionian: O how far  
D●● I mistake, when not a living tree  
More subject to loves thunder than is he.  
Shall I respire and call it back again?  
No, first prevaricate, and mayst thou feign:  
Say any thing, but do not temporize,  
Though all the world be bend to poetize.  
As says the world, love to the Oak assigned▪  
His name in smother bark, not ragged rind▪  
I say the bark is smooth and even set,  
Where the severer nail can find no fret.  
The world but now allowed distinguishment,  
And now attributes all to his ascent.  
Is't but a ascent? and is it not access,  
If it reserve but a respectivenes?  
Why jove allows a competence to state,  
But the access he can not tolerate.  
How continent is he, would he were many▪  
Supplies, but not exceeds of duties any?  
The cause may be from form, or height, or station,  
If these dumb shows have aught of invocation.  
For Thunders either free, and such is tending  
Only t'assoyle the air without offending:  
Or called from Heaven by some significance  
Of Characters, such as the Romans once  
By power of Kingly office might produce,  
Or by attractive virtue that's infuse  
Into some herb or tree, which may invoke;  
The like instinct is powerful in the Oak;  
Whose greatness doth invite like Hostils charms,  
That answered nothing but his proper harms  
By strong attraction: Or the Prophetess  
That promised others what was her success.  
It now succeeds. This Plant extends as far  
In earth, as it's incorporate to air.  
Here other some do challenge her of pride,  
That one ambitious tree should so bestride  
This little I●mar●●: how far remote,  
Is this ambition from the Ionian Oak,  
That grows on sandy soil, as heath, or plain?  
What presidence can such ambition gain,  
That others can suborn▪ herself subdue,  
To whom the least of envy doth accrue,  
That only hates the Persic plant: and why?  
It doth partake his birthrights signiory,  
His greatest style; (vice that's familiar,  
Being extraduced from parents and from state.)  
Greatness will envy greatness to the end,  
And Ionian with the Ionian will contend.  
Her leaves have deep incision, and the barked,  
When aged once, 'tis crazed and roughly cracked.  
It shows her fruit when Sun exceeds the twins,  
And sleeps till the solstitian heat begins:  
When it puts forth her gall, or akernell▪  
Which yet sustained these earthly bodies well,  
In use of bread being ignorant of grain,  
From whence some say the Oak assumed her name:  
And not because the Gentile Gods replied,  
From the concealing Oak so deified,  
When wizard Seers inquired: nor is't approved,  
For lovers sought the names of their beloved  
Ycarued in Oak it had her name from hence,  
Being more of accent in the former sense.  
The vulgar sort that never speculate  
Beyond observance, do prognosticate  
By the innated brood of Oaken gall,  
Of after accidents which shall befall  
Unto the land: If Fly, or Ant, or Spider;  
Or war, or famine shall, or plague betide her.  
I look not on the fruit that hangs aloft,  
Nor every thing within the senses brought.  
Much less of divination; only this,  
Within the Oak I view a Canthari●;  
A feeding fly: And this I dare divine,  
That fly shall make her wither ere her time.   

The Bay.  

Laurels sinews withered.  
Sleeping Fame with worthies dead.   
WAs this that Ismarus, or this that tree,  
To whom the Lyric tuned his minstrelsy▪  
Was this the price of virtue and the breath,  
Which it suspired amidst a sea of death,  
The Poet's grace, Apollo's sometimes minion?  
To see the error of this fool opinion!  
And shall the vilest spirit choose his seat,  
Where to repose for moisture and for heat;  
The whilst our general soul shall animate  
A sapless trunk, and be incorporate  
To abstract earth? Such is erotick Love,  
Whose dotage still opinion must approve.  
Thou Soul, which animat'st empiricie,  
And makes her out side seem sincerity;  
That with thy ignorance and strong conceit  
Maintein'st his life, and daily dost beget  
More bastard Laureates than the world implores,  
Might all the world consist of theaters:  
Out on thee fool, blind of thy impotence,  
Thou dost admire but in a popular sense;  
Esteeming more a Pasquil's harsher lines,  
Then Iliads worth which Chapman's hand refines.  
What might persuade opinion, but for thee,  
The Lyric sung to such an out side tree;  
Or Poets glory in their Lawracie,  
When laurels have their veins shrunk up and dry▪  
And yet herhaps the seasons are inverted,  
Ours differs from the Laurels first inserted.  
The 〈◊〉 God admiring Daphne's worth,  
Out of hi● 〈◊〉 drayn● the spirit forth.  
This season yields more Bays than did the first,  
But all things near the end grow near the worst:  
Witness the withered Bay that wants her juice;  
Be more of witness they that are obtuse  
To penetrate, and call from monument  
The sleeping worth of such whose souls were spent.  
In honourable terms to terminate  
And yield their memory with life to fate;  
Y d●●●e robbed, and bodies yet vnpurged:  
O how accommodate might this be urg d!  
Once was there such a Sidney. It sufficeth,  
That from the grave his only name reviveth.  
So had this age a Burrowes. O but he  
Sleeps with his fame in lasting lethargy.  
Norri●, and Morgan sleep, and still the while,  
Our better Laureates study to compile  
Some thing prospective, and observe the time:  
Heroes yet neglected in their shrine.  
And since it was denied me to assoil  
The times; I therefore studied to report  
Of what was past, unable aught to wage  
With the invention of this nimble age.  
May others make the ears evaporate,  
When they unmask the times and world's estate:  
I will admire, yet never will in●ect,  
I am not prone but only to reflect.  
I'll write unto the dead amongst the living,  
Take 〈◊〉 peculiar theme without cornuing.  
Enab●● 〈◊〉 Gods as I pretend,  
Wh●n ye acquit and give this passion end.   

The Cyprus.  

Sca●e resound the policy,  
Of th'▪ Italian Cyprus' tree.   
IT was no Thracian tree before our time,  
●ut foreign Cyprus and a transmarine,  
Transferred from Italy to I●marus,  
Or from those parts ●f France which are adust  
With heat and bee●t I am no Florentine,  
I'll speak the policy that's ●upres●ne.  
This stranger tree, it is a Plant for kind,  
That from an others root doth ever climb  
Engrafted and it grows as secretly,  
Yea, makes no outward show of surquedry:  
Discerned from other trees and specified,  
For special subtlety that's vndescn●d:  
Of body naked, while 'tis yet upright,  
But when she shall aspire her greatest height,  
She apprehends the opportunest wether,  
And then puts forth her branch and fruit together:  
To hide that indirectnes she applies,  
Whilst in concealing ●eguments it lies.  
How like an Ad●er wreathing many ways,  
Compels her length when she expects her prays,  
Administering the more encouragement,  
To train him in the circuit of extent?  
So manifolded is the Cipru● tree  
Under those branches: such her obloquy▪  
That wealth composed fills up the continent▪  
Which none but the discerns or deprehend.  
'tis sweet in scent, O who can feed upon  
Perfumed words, but some Chameleon?  
It is no restoration, nor received  
Into the body when it is aggrieved:  
'tis briefly to herself most provident,  
But unto others always fraudulent;  
Professing what it is deemed to be,  
And still concealing her ability.  
The heathen Gentiles only used the same,  
When they consumed their dead in Cyprus flame,  
Or made them Idols out of Cyprus tree,  
As best beseeming such Imagery.  
Time was they used it, and 'twas only Gentile,  
And then Religion was but in the simple,  
And knew not how for disputations sake,  
T'impugn the Godhead or religious state:  
But now religious and the most profane  
Partake one Idol and one Cyprus flame.  
Such are these latter times, that would improve  
Moore constancy than all the Spheres they move.  
I blame the times, and wreak that ill on them,  
That appertains unto the sons of men,  
Time-studious men: O had I liberty  
To reprehend them, as I challenge thee.   

The Ewe.  

Taxus fatal and relieving  
Cyprus' tree by her exceeding.   
ANd why should Rome call Nero from his grave,  
And term him good, whom erst they did deprave?  
Or why should I but now impute that tree,  
Which now I must commend respectivelie?  
Nero was hateful Nero, and despised▪  
Till the succeeding Galba tyrannized:  
Cyprus engaged, till Taxus tree relieved it:  
And drowned his black in Eben that exceeds it.  
Cyprus is only practic in the senses,  
Makes sour seem sweet, and varnisheth offences;  
When eyes see double subjects, and not see  
The double dealings of the Cyprus tree.  
But Ewe is fatal in the very notion,  
The same Cicuta of Th'athe●ian potion,  
Extending to the life by taste or savour,  
To them that sleep in shade or else receive her  
Into the body; yet reserving force,  
When spirits are from heart and heat divorced.  
The Cyprus is as index to the page,  
Where Ewe capitulates his fatal rage.  
Both know one Ismaru●, one Italy;  
Both used in flame and in Imagery:  
Only the Ewe for greatness and intention,  
Exceeds the Cyprus and my reprehension.   

The Pine.  
TH'Egyptians did bedew their mountain Pine,  
Not with the moist of Nilus; but of wine.  
How can that Pine but prosper then and flourish,  
Whose tender root the purest wine doth nourish?  
Shall it not thrive manured with gracious hands?  
Shall it not make a Richmount where it stands?   

The Figtree and the Palm.  
THeir fruit is sensual, pleasing for the time,  
But softness doth the sense ●nd soul deline.  
The present pleasure hath an after vice;  
The Date her lepry, and the Fig breeds lice.   

The Poplar.  
HErcul●●nish, what Conquest is in that,  
When Hercules himself's essen i●●te?   

The Lotus.  
I Pass Celaster, for it is selfe-willd,  
That never thrives but in the fairest field:  
The more I write unto the Mulberry,  
The less opinion mine, if any be.  
I●e blame no Ash for Hypermnestraes' fate,  
I know the foolish girl was desperate.  
Let Cedar be ambitious in her height;  
Yet be not thou in passion infinite,  
And reprehend each, that is offered, vice,  
Lest others think thy verses moralize:  
Or rather for I fear a Symphony  
Of Ismarites wanting variety,  
And change of argument delights us best,  
Where Scenes affined induce but tediousness.  
And what in trees praiseworthy is derived,  
From beauty of the outward parts contrived;  
Or some inherent Virtue, so again  
In the unworthy Plants we always drain  
invective▪ either from th'ingrateful scent,  
From shape, or from the qualities intent,  
Or other such like vices: now the while  
Good do the bad, and both themselves beguile.  
Some one that's general good having his due,  
Prevents the praise belongs to them ensue:  
So is't in bad, and so it shall suffice,  
Only to speak of one in contraries.  
Virtue illustrates vice, describes defines it,  
What●s not of her, she unto vice assigns it,  
Hence is't, this spacious subject I sustained,  
Is now at length abridged and much restrained  
Of scope, which here I studied to compress,  
And it compel, ●earing to be distressed  
Of sentence, and of words equivocate.  
Unless I strain the sense, or iterate;  
When words and sentence▪ and the self same sense,  
Are oft required in the subsequents.  
Of many trees I have reserved one,  
Some call it Lotus, others Citragon▪  
Her fruit is envious to the memory,  
Conducing all things unto fantasy.  
Believe it, sometimes hath myself conversed  
With such as wot not what they were at first,  
Lot●pha●●, who ravished by taste,  
Forget themselves, friends, country, and what's past.  
This fruit received shall make me quite forget,  
I was in passion, or an I mar●●.  
And now me thinks she practiseth her force  
Upon these senses: now she doth discurse,  
Now separates what sorrow did atone,  
Making it but some Hemeridi●n.  
My day is done, now is my passion ended,  
And but her relics on mine eyes suspended.   

Baccharis Coronaria.  

THe toiled limbs and senses erst oppressed,  
Do now advise 〈◊〉 where to rest.  
Under Baccharis go shade thee,  
Where no Serpent shall invade thee,  
Where the Viper cannot live,  
Nothing envious may corrive.  
strow the Carpet all about,  
With her flowers to keep them out:  
Bind thy Temples with the wreaths,  
Pleated in Chiroticke leaves:  
Brows and eyelids fain of rest,  
With the juice may they be spersed.  
Here repose, for here assure thee,  
Thou sh●lt sleep, and sleep securely.  
Stand hope of mine confirmed▪ and let me rest  
In Castle guarded with a Lioness.   

— Cum tonat ocyus Ilex  
Sulphur discutitur sacro quam tuque domusque.    
FINIS.