Annae-dicata, OR, A miscelaine of some different canzonets, dedicated to the memory of my deceased, very dear Wife, ANNA took of Beer.   


The Willough-wearer.  

ALas! how often by some Rillets side,  
With heavy bosom have I trod the Meads,  
And since they were with grass and Crystal beads  
So trimly clustered, thus began to chide:  
Ye want nor dew to fledg your verdant quills,  
Nor Western-wind to fan the Summer's heat:  
Shoots not the Soil from you superior hills,  
To make your clovers fragrant, and complete?  
With store of sovereign blooms are ye not dressed,  
And studded thick? or does not many a Swan,  
And the Sweet Naiads, that ravish can  
With precious modulations, speak you blest?  
But than what makes such store of Willough here?  
Why foster ye this badge of discontent?  
Me thinks you should some nobler Pendant wear,  
The Palm, fat Olive, or the Laurel Gent:  
I say, since happy, and so highly blest,  
Me thinks ye should converse with plants of grace;  
And like a Lady tricking up her face,  
With Pearls and Rubies be, not pebbles dressed.  
Fie, fie, dismiss this Livery forlorn,  
Confine it to some craggy mountain top,  
Or barren Desert, where it may be worn  
With more propriety; or since my hope  
In Seas of sad despair is tossed and torn,  
And daily drenched with many a rigid billow,  
Pass it to me; give me your woeful Willough.    

The Redundant Lover.  

DEar, since we parted, never did I see  
A beauteous Summer fly, or fancy pied,  
Or garden-bed, or Plume, or Picture, died  
With daintier colours, but I thought on thee.  
I never heard a more melodious note,  
Attained a delicater touch, or aught  
Of better worth; but 'twas a present quote  
Of thy perfection, thou wert in my thought.  
Nay since familiar to remember things  
By contraries, by black, white; Saints, by Devils:  
To this end have I even made use of evils;  
And to my mind each loathsome object brings  
Thy purity; dearest my loves intention,  
Makes every thing that is, to make thy mention.    

The Commune bonum.  

THE Law, like Aesop, in exterior show  
Is harsh and homely; but each man inclined  
Laboriously to sift it, till he know  
With what delight, the inner side is lined;  
Will vouch it pleasing, as was Esop's mind;  
'Tis sweet, but does in rugged phrases dwell,  
'Tis like a Pearl, hid in an Oystershell.    

The Pious Turtles.  

DId Heaven but gently to my wish reply,  
Lo thus would we converse my lovely dear;  
I say thus would we live while being here;  
And when to part from hence, thus would we die.  
Upon some shady, sandy, higher ground,  
Where the sweet birds should warbling music give  
And at whose foot some pittering Rillet wound,  
Like Baucis and Philemon would we live.  
Our clothing should be warm, and new and neat,  
Not costly nor too curious; and our diet,  
Though plentiful and good; yet free from riot,  
Not adding thirst to drink, nor lust to meat.  
No viperous envy, nor ambitious dreams,  
No care to pay some griping Landlord Rent,  
No clamorous wealth, of many ploughs and teams,  
Should interrupt the calm of our content.  
Our handy labour should be sole addressed  
To the well husbanding of Hops, and Bees:  
Or to some Orchard, where the fruitful trees  
Strove which should yield the most, and which the best.  
Nay born by faith upon her lofty wings,  
We would beyond this under earth endeavour,  
Conversing with divine invisible things;  
So living, loving so, we might live ever;  
And when death came at length, to play his prize,  
Depart in peace, closing each others eyes.    

Love in good sadness.  

THou youthful art, and fair; well clad, and fed  
And flattered too no doubt: yet dear be sure,  
That these inducements make thee not secure;  
For with thy birth, thy death was also bred.  
Thy birth infers thy burial; all the space  
A mortal does above the ground converse,  
He does but climb his execution place;  
'Tis but a lingering passage to his hearse.  
Observe a skull, out at whose rotten ports  
The worms hang down, and in an hundred year,  
Such as that is, shalt thou and I appear;  
Cold, darkness, silence, must our sole consorts,  
And the raw worms our richest earrings be,  
Which I entreat remember well, and me.    

The holy Climax.  

MY lovely dearest, when I but survey  
The curious building of thy house of clay,  
The music of it, and contend the while,  
Who 'tis that dwells in such a precious pile;  
I find a soul so nobly there discoursing;  
Distributing so virtually her powers,  
That strait it leads me to that Lord of ours;  
Such strange invisible mysteries enforcing:  
And I conclude, if on the centre base,  
Such goodness such perfection he discloses,  
How is the circle then adorned, the place  
Where he upon his heavenly throne reposes?  
Or how is he himself both good, and great,  
That when they were not, gave all these a making?  
That being, gives them order; nor forsaking  
His Creatures, keeps both it and them complete.  
And then in contemplation of so vast  
A world of wonders here again I rouse  
My spirit near confounded, and in haste,  
Falling full lowly prostrate, pay my vows.    

A Cordial of Vipers.  

AS Dice run most by pairs, and shun excess,  
So fewest friends love best when more love less.  
The stream of friendship coming once to leak  
At many Sluices shallow grows and weak.  
As Dice though white, their fowl spots cannot lack  
So friends in friends must bear with faults though black.  
Sparing to cut, to fear, but in extremes,  
Even lenitively making moats of beams,  
They must not hollow-harted fulloms be,  
Nor base Bar-cater-treyes; but quadratly  
Run in the game of friendship, be sincere  
Above the brunt of either hope or fear.  
As Sice ace thrown are friends still as before,  
So friends though rich, must still love friends though poor;  
This world to no such certainty advances,  
But their may come a cast may change their chances  
They must conclude their state here like the Dice,  
Where now the Sice is Ace, now Ace the Sice:  
And thus the deadliest Drug, and justly hated,  
May ye tturn cordial, if but calcinated.    

Honey of Hellebore.  

WE are at play, and Gamesters till our graves;  
Our Saints and Sabbaths, are like Queens & Kings,  
The rest with Martha, do but many things:  
Only our Wakes, and Markets, play the Knaves.  
Time is the Pack, our days are several Cards,  
And Custom a Groom-porter void of shame,  
Does with his carnal motheaten regards,  
Oft overrule and undivine our game.  
Custom (full oft I say) more grey than wise,  
Thus cheats us in our play, my lovely dear:  
But let us cautive be at length, and bear  
Room of this current, crossing common guise.  
Let us at length our Sabbath so dispend,  
That piercing farther than the formal skin  
Of shifting suits, and Linen; we contend  
They be Religious, glorious eke within.  
At length our mirth so manage, and employ,  
That as inferior flames with swift ascent,  
Move to their high superior Element:  
This also may relate to heavenly joy.  
Let not our balance, nor our bargains, know  
Or knave or false five finger; to divine  
Of wealth by these attained, it melts like snow:  
Leaving the place all dirt, where it has lain.  
Let us so cribage out so well defeat  
Cros-cards and idle doelittles, that neither  
Impeding it we win both game and set,  
A treasure heaped and thrust and shook together  
Let us each Card even every common day  
So graciously dispose, that all our weeks  
Embroidered be with murnivalls and gleeks.  
Nay such a treasure from our pious play  
Resulted be, that Ophir in compare,  
And proud Peru, but toys and trifles are.    

The Cross a culisse.  

THe Cross is both a Step dame and a Mother,  
Some men it kills, and some again, it cures;  
Like fire it some destroys, refines some other,  
Full often ill, and well full oft enurs;  
The righteous man that into trouble comes,  
Moulds it into his foil, gives fairer fire,  
Makes it his rise, his wing to help him higher;  
Like spice is beaten thus into perfumes.  
And then the ruffling height of weaker souls  
It tempers sweetly, cuts the comb of pride  
That else would soon be perking; only fools  
Will still be so though miserably brayed  
In many a mortar; and at length declined  
As sadly small, as dust before the wind.    

A Funeral Farewell.  

I Had my t'other half, and 'twas as white  
As Miniver, or Snow, before it light  
Upon the ground; so neat in every part,  
And then withal charessing so my heart,  
That now I neither envieed Crassus' gold  
Nor Cossus garlands; with so manifold  
Importancies enabling me, that now  
I had a pair of hearts, my hands but two,  
Were multiplied to four, likewise my feet,  
Such Alter-Idems turning of so knit  
Commist a fellow-feeling, no disease,  
Can either single toe, or finger seize,  
But all were sufferers. Then could I vaunt  
Of likewise doubly five concomitant,  
As brisk, and active senses; nay my soul  
So doubled was, and in a word, even all  
My trim at large, that now I could discourse,  
Urge pro and con, communicate, converse,  
All with my double self; nor knew the fell  
Extent of solitude. Even strange to tell,  
I now so clung an Individuum was,  
So fixed at home, and yet so bivious  
At the same time, and far abroad; that now,  
While ranging with my hounds, or with my plough  
In the circumference; yet was I still  
At home upon my centre; could be while  
At 
* The name of my Mansion house.  Popes, likewise at Paris. To proceed,  
So beneficial was my being tied  
In Hymen's rosy bands, that now my hope  
Was propagation, and the rearing up  
A Tree of such Descendants; so   
With commendable fruit, as should relate  
My Name beyond mine Urn. Lo this the trance,  
The whilom treasure did so much advance  
And damask my condition but alas  
So withers worldly growth like Summer's grass,  
That now again my diminution cries  
For even a thousand pair of weeping eyes,  
To paraphrase it; now my late recruits  
Conspicuous increments, and double suits  
Being deprived, alas! I dwindled am  
To poor again and single, to become  
Half under ground; where rest thyself in peace  
My dearest t'other part; o rest, and cease  
From all thy terrene labours, with a guard  
Of blessed Angels, keeping watch and ward,  
About thee constantly; and when my pulse  
(So wound up in the womb, by that excelse  
Celestial Architect,) the tale has run  
Of minutes here in charge; has fully spun  
Off Clotho's Distaff; be my relics laid  
So near to thine, that withered when, and dried,  
From moist and viscuous; even our crumbling dust,  
May blend promiscuously: till when the just  
Shine as the Firmament, and having turned  
Many to righteousness, are as adorned,  
As glorious as the stars; we rise anew,  
(By that omnipotence that can subdue  
All things unto itself) we newly rise  
Of old relations, former terrene ties,  
So void and inscient; that our all in all  
Be wholly swallowed, ravished full and whole,  
With the beatick vision; retributing  
Habitual praises, hallelujahs shouting,  
To that immensly gracious God of Heaven,  
Who maugre six Leviathans and seven,  
With even a world of thick, and stormy weather,  
Can freely, safely steer, and bring us thither.    

A Key to the Hedgehog Combatant; and my Motto Militia Mea Multiplex.  

WHen I survey (poor wretch) thy several foes,  
Me thinks it does pathetickly disclose  
Mine own Militia; for with opon Mart,  
As man pursues thee, as the 
* Though he be in his ●ound posture, and with all his Pikes cha●ged; yet (as Topsall relates it) The Fox finding some little access about his face, licks him there, till with the flattery he opens himself, and then he seizes him.  Fox with Art,  
Alleys thy martial fury, falsely licks  
Thy life a way; and Serpent also seeks  
It is as implacably: Lo thus conspire  
Both Ammon Amelek, and those of Tyre.  
The World, the Flesh, and (out alas) the great  
Red Dragon, with his tail that can defeat  
The very stars, so these I say concur,  
To slay my silly soul: were it a war,  
Though with some such as hungry Lions wage,  
And evening Wolves, of all those quivers rage,  
Like open Sepulchers; there might be yet  
Some hope, some little plank a shore to set  
Even after ship wrack, but when thus to grapple  
With that prodigious fiend whose mortal apple  
Defeated Eve herself. To daily cope  
With many a horrid squadron many a troop  
Of fierce and fiery darts, that charge me home,  
And often through; alas wretch that I am!  
Where shall I seek for secure? who can stave  
This roaring rabble off? o help, and save,  
Thou God of Battles; else am I but built  
Upon the silly sand, but water spilt.    

The Leveller.  

THe sordid fly that does so basely sing,  
And on the dunghill feed, with Pies, & Crows,  
Will yet soon after banquet with a King,  
Bib on his cup; play with the beard, the nose,  
Of Craessus, as of Codrus; levelling  
Princes with Pawns Mirabolanes with slowes,  
Alas alas the while, King by thy leave,  
All worldly pomp is flyblown, poor, and will deceive   

Alas the neatest foot that ever came  
In the most supercilious royal shoe,  
By the black ox is often trodden lame  
Nay trodden off; then Pompey bid adieu  
To longer playing in the dangerous flame  
Of terrene gaieties, but aiming now  
The glorious kingdom that will never fade,  
Tophet was else for Kings and towering Keysars made.    

The Borachioes.  

AS Willoughs noted so for tippling Trees,  
Are barren, and but badges of disgrace;  
As Fens and Marshes, yield but nipping flies,  
But venomous fogs, and reptil's bad, and base:   

Lo thus the boundless Independent shot,  
Beggars as sundry forms, and oft as vile;  
As Phoebus does, when with embraces hot,  
He beds the moist salacious mud of Nile.   

It changes some to Struthions, and as those:  
Forget their eggs, their actions so do these;  
Demanding when they wake, how came the blows,  
What have we done, they should our weapons seize.   

Some men it does to mimic antics fool;  
Change some to subtle Foxes that employ  
Their cups as Crucibles, wherein to boil,  
And sublimate a skill, to cousin by.   

Some for obstreperous Geese it does design,  
Fills some with such Salt-Peter, that disputing  
Or but some hair, or Mathematic line,  
They take immediate fire, with blood confuting.   

Some to such honey-suckles sweet it turns,  
With often vows, that about every wight  
They twine themselves. And some with lust so burns  
They deem each dirty cloud a Juno bright.   

Nay, yet again, and further, some it fuddles,  
To senseless Conduits, only fit to piss,  
And to bepist against: To monsters, puddles  
And Statues many, quadrat but for this.   

Lo, Pythagore; lo here the transmigration,  
Thou mightst have dreamt of, for with brutish soul.  
It thus imbroyles us: Oaks of most elation,  
With many blows fall; Reason so with bowls.   

Up then ye base Borachioes, call excess,  
But an infidious Circe, but presaging  
A brutish transformation, even no less  
Then of the soul itself, and thus engaging  
Her everlasting bliss: up keep a dyot;  
Does ought kill soul and body both? yes riot.    

A Divine Meditation UPON The Decease of those Noble LORDS under-named.  

SO so, let Babel, Edom, shoot like those  
In Harvest at our loss; with mocks and Mows,  
Tell it in Gath; thus adding deep, to deep,  
Worm wood to bitterness; yet God will keep  
His darling from the Dog, can out of stones  
Raise Abraham children, he that interpones  
So for his Church, though Dorset, Hamilton,  
Southampton, Oxford, and Belfast, be gone  
The way of flesh and blood, will sooner yet  
His covenant with day and night forget,  
Then fail to Zion; not the squalidest  
Sea-monsters, but they gently draw the breast,  
Suckling their young; or if a mother can  
Forget her child, yet God is love in grain;  
Will vindicat his Turtle-Dove, nay cover  
Her wings with Silver, and her feathers over  
With yellow Gold. Nor Babel be so perk,  
At some thus of the temples carved work,  
For sin deducted us; we but with rods,  
Thou shalt be whipped with Scorpions; and in God's  
Right hand there is a cup, the dregs whereof  
Shall be thy portion; Ahabs Ivory roof,  
And lo the Tyrian Turrets, built so high,  
That Eagles at a lower random fly,  
Nay even the giants there in Sentinel,  
Are lessened into 
* Ezekiel 27. 11.  Gammadims; must feel  
His line of vengeance, who could so divide  
Out Succoth, meet out Schechem: and o ride  
On prosperiously, thou fairer far than men;  
Girding thy sword thus, for thy right hand then  
Shall teach thee terrible things; shall thresh the horns  
Of our fierce Bullocks, rabbid Unicorns,  
Like wheat of Madmanah, Ride on, ride on,  
Strengthening the feeble knees, and every bone,  
That thou hast broken; still they shake the head,  
Cry so so would we have it, eat like bread  
Thy people up; and then the late decease  
Of these heroic Lords, diruted has  
As many of our Bars, has made our breach  
More desperate; o be gracious then, and reach  
Thy sovereign flagons; let no clouds return  
After the rain; and for stakes-out worn  
Thus in the service of thy Tabernacle  
Distribute thousands; bless, o bless the tackle  
Of thy poor labouring Ark, and crown her toil  
With Ararat and her high places, while  
Our mighty hunters despicably melt  
Like fat of Lambs, or be like water spilt,  
Nor to be gathered up again; else will  
Thine enemies blaspheme, upbraiding still  
The promise of his coming; I and say  
To day shall Jove it as did yesterday,  
And in far greater measure: bow thy ear  
Thou good and glorious Cherub-rider, hear  
And answer us, How long? how long o Lord?  
O bare thine arm again, o draw thy sword.    

The fatal Progress.  

HOw blessed is the man that well bethinks  
Him of his progress here, can nominate it  
A weary chain of time, his steps the links  
And make his death the jewel hanging at it;  
No step but does him fatally diminish,  
And brings him a link nearer to his dust,  
Time will that chain of his, that progress finish,  
Deducting him by link and link at last  
To stench and ashes; if we chance to start  
Some old old Tritavus whose iron strength  
Tugs it with time, and toughly does support  
Him Nestor's age, his progress yet at length  
Has such a bottom link as rakes him up.  
We have our bounders, thus far we may reach,  
But go no further, here we faint and stop  
Like the Sea billows on the level beach.  
O then be wise be wise, since heaven I say  
Has magisterially prescribed and voted  
The tale of all our days and hours nay  
The beat of our pulses summed and toted;  
Prepare prepare be wise, refining so  
The links the paces of thy terrene race  
As may by chemical contaction know  
To deaurat each other, and so dress  
Up death itself, the Pendant that from Cruel,  
It may become thy dear and precious jewel    

A brief Epitaph Paid to the Merit of my learned kinsman Mr. JOHN GREAVES, deceased the 7h of October 1652.  

THe man though truly quadrat yet with all  
(Strange to relate) complealty spherical:  
By such a noble heat engaged  
For skill and parts, as pilgrimaged  
Him even to 
a Constantinople is thus named in the Eastern Countries.  Stambols mighty Port,  
Thence bringing us the Turkish Court;  
And then to great and glorious Cayer,  
Exhibiting the Mummies there,  
And other wonders; This is he  
Here under sleeping: Should there be  
Some Marble richly wrought and gilded  
In consequence upon him built?  
Tush! keep it rather for some wight  
Of meaner principles, of light  
Inferior Actings, and that under bids:  
His Monument is made of 
b Of these he has left us a very punctual description.  PYRAMIDS.    

The Widows warning  

BE wise, and take no churlish Clown;  
Nor blend with flocks thy Thistle-down  
Choose not for outside, eat each lover  
But golden Ludgate like in cover.  
The Ruffian that can swear and swell,  
And covenant with death and hell,  
Prefer not: nor the Fox that preys  
In covert and in broken ways.  
Choose not for wealth, where other things  
But passant are; yet this has wings.  
Nor any piece of Bombast choose,  
That with his Place and Title sues;  
Taking herein the greater care,  
Because they now are chapmans' ware.  
Take not an husband by report;  
Examine first his head, his heart,  
His Conscience pierce him to the Lees;  
Mark how each joint of his agrees,  
And jumps with thine; for if they vary,  
The Priest that does your bodies marry,  
But glewes a Potsheard. In a word,  
If thou canst marrow with a Bird  
Of thine own feather, one whose wars  
Spiritual be, whose aim is stars;  
Whose neatly timbered limbs are lined,  
With as polite, as rich a mind:  
This is the Wight, and hast thee Jane  
To render him his rib again.    

The Tearless Epitaph of Mrs. Prudence Meredith, a good soul in adefective body.  

IN an uneasy room her soul was penned,  
And had while here, a hard imprisonment  
Within the body, nor could Prudence, but  
Rejoice to leave her little crumpled knot  
Of flesh and blood, that narrow Goal of hers,  
For such a relaxation, as infers  
Eternal blessedness as hopes a new  
Resurgent corpse, proportionably true  
In every lineament, and of privation,  
Of sorrow, sickness, death and mutulation  
Impassable: I say she could not choose  
In faith and reason, but avouch her woes  
Thus at an end, but cheerly leave her breath;  
And thus had Meredith, a merry death.    

OF PRAYER.  

THE most pathetic richest language, chosen  
To hang in ears of Emperors and Kings,  
Is but a tinkling Cymbal, does but cousin.  
The fancy for a while, and then has wings:  
Prayer heaped up, and over does, reply,  
When other words, but drop, and droop, and die:   

All other words retail but Saffron ware,  
Are of an impotent, a clamorus sound;  
But Doelittles, but petty Chapmen are,  
And Pettifoggers: Whereas Prayer is found;  
The Staple Merchant, prosecuting even  
A Trade in gross, by wholesale, and for heaven.   

'Tis of such efficac'e, and with such store  
Of sacred pertinacy wrestles so,  
Like zealous Jacob, that it gives not o'er:  
But being blest, without it lets not go.  
Prayer faith, faith Christ, Christ heaven to us demises  
And thus the Climax of our joy arises.   

Who then will happy live, and blessed expire,  
Both soul and body Temple-like employs  
His Altar is his Heart, his Zeal the Fire;  
His soul the Priest, and Prayer the Sacrifice:  
Nor is it Bullocks having horns and hoofs;  
But of the Lips, the heart, that God approves.   

Up therefore Reader, let thy spirit feast  
Itself with often Prayer; submissly fall,  
And like a Daniel, thrice a day at least,  
Thus feed thy soul; or rather like a Paul,  
Be praying always; 'tis celestial meat:  
Up therefore Reader, therefore up and eat.    

A Second of the Same.  

LOok as a Beggar by the highways side,  
Some little child does in her bosom take,  
Hoping though she herself may be denied,  
Yet to get something for the Infant's sake;  
And as Themistocles, when having done  
Admetus much displeasure, many harms;  
Sought not for grace, but having first his Son,  
His only Son enfolded in his arms:  
So when thou prayest, bring but thy Jesus by thee  
This Babe, this Son; and God will ne'er deny thee.    
FINIS.