POEMS By JOHN HALL.  NAZIANZ. 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman},  
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}—  
CAMBRIDGE, Printed by Roger Daniel Printer to the university, 1646. For J. Rothwell at the Sun in Paul's churchyard.   


olim Majora Aetatis Suae 19 1646  W. Martial sculpsit.   

To his truly noble, and worthily honoured friend THOMAS STANLEY Esquire.  
My dearest friend,  
SInce it is the hard fortune of these glow-worms to see day, I wish they might have passed your examination; for I know you to be a severe critic in Poetry, as well as in Philology, and the Sciences: But since others importunities, and mine own pressing occasions, have denied it, I must present them loaden with their own blemishes, that being fitter Objects of Pardon, they may draw in pardoning, more demonstrations of your candour, and add to my Engagements, could they receive Augmentation. I will not commit a Rape upon your modesty by any praises, though Truth herself might be your Panegyrist, and yet continue naked; give me only leave to tell you from mine own experience, that Love is more than a mere Sympathy: for admiration did first attract my thoughts to you, and after fix them; though it were only your innate sweetness that received them with an undeserved entertainment. Sir What I was first indebted to you at Durham I endeavour to acquit in part here at Cambridge: for the Totall, though it be rather above my ability, than desires, yet should I hate the thought of a general discharge, let me only beg of you that these Cherrystones may draw from you your own Pearls, which cannot but break themselves a day through that darkness to which you now confine them. Let us once see Fancy triumph in the spoils of the richest Learning, there will many (no doubt) press to follow the Chariot, yet shall none be more forward than  
Sir, Your most affectionately devoted servant J. HALL St. John's Jan. 6. 1646.   

The Preface.  
JUstice itself cannot deny me liberty of speech before sentence, if Injustice have not past it already, whether by declining the doom from me as the mere Vizard and Hand of another, or censuring (more severely) all my life spent in these Holy days, and my best flames on such wildfires.  
I could never screw my judgement up to that Rigour, as suppose those too familiar with Poetry, that only courted her by some chaste Salutes; 'twere injurous to that Nymph, which will only be wooed by high spirits, and to high spirits in stooping to so inferior an Object; thus much I have ever observed, that those that slighted other Matrons, and made her their wife, had never the Assistance of any Portion, and she seldom proved fruitful without cooperation of good seed, and strong influences.  
For mine own part since I am forced to shoot out these blooms, I might justly fear chill winds abroad; but that I hope they will hasten the destruction of such unripe fruit: neither am I solicitous how they savour, for I intend no more, and these I give over as already distasted, let me only say thus much to direct your Charity, that a mushroom though but an excrescency, well dressed is no poison, but a Salad; and dancing though censured as unbecoming, and perhaps unlawful, is no other but the most Regular kind of walking, and that teaches the body a most decent Carriage. But such sins as these are venial in youth; especially if expiated with timely abjurement; for follies continued till old age, do aggrandise and become horrid, whereas a seasonable intermission, puts them among those pittiable lapses that attend mortality.  
For the faults of the press, they may easily be passed over by your candour, some more notorious, which I casually observe in the perusal, be pleased to take notice of.  
J. H.   

Corrigenda  
Page 1 l. 8 for, Rhithmes r. reams p. 18 l. 12 for, tithes r. titles, p. 41 l. 9 for, this Ulysses, r. this young Ulysses, p. 45 l. 1 for, Antipathus r. Antipathy. p. 48 l. 12 for, active r. ectype, ibid. l. 6. for, just r. vast, ibid. l. 12. for, as could, as can.   

To the young author upon his incomparable vein in satire and Love-sonnets.  

YOung Monster! born with teeth! that thus canst bite  
So deep, canst wound all sorts at ten and eight.  
Fierce Scythian Brat! young Tamerlan! the God's  
Great scourge, that kicke'st all men like skulls and clods!  
Rough creature, born for terror! whose stern look  
Few strings and muscles moved is a whole book  
Of biting Satyrs! who did thee beget?  
Or with what pictures was the curtains set?  
John of the wilderness? the bayry child?  
The hispid This bite? or what satire wild  
That thou thus satyrizest? Storm of wit  
That fallest on all thou meetest, and all dost meet!  
Singest like lightning the Reverend fur  
Of ancient Sages. Mak'st a fearful stir  
With my young Master and his Paedagog,  
And pull'st by th' ears the Lads beloved Dog.  
Then hast thy finger in Potato pies  
That make the dull Grammarian to rise.  
Anon advancing thy satiric Flail  
Sweep'st down the wineglasses and cups of ale.  
Nor yet art spent, Thy manly rage affords  
New coil against young wenches and old words,  
'Gainst Jos. and Tycho that stings down the spheres,  
Like Will with th' wisp sit'st on moist Asses ears.  
And now stepped in, most quick and dexterous,  
Boldly by th' elbow jog'st Maurolycus,  
Causing him in his curious numberings lose  
Himself. Tak'st Galileo by the nose.  
Another stroke makes the dry bones, O sin!  
Of lean Geometry rattle in her skin.  
New rage transforms thee to a Pig, that roots  
In Jury-land or crumps Arabic roots.  
Or else made Corn cutter, Thou loutest low  
And tak'st old Madam Eva by the toe.  
Anon thy officious fancy at vandon sent  
Becomes a Chamberlain, waits on Wood of Kent.  
Sr much good do 't you, than the table throws  
Into his mouth his stomach's mouth to close.  
Another while the well drenched smoky Jew,  
That stands in his own spaul above the shoe,  
She twitcheth by the Cloak and thread bare plush,  
Nor beats his moist black beard into a blush.   

Mad soul! Tyrannic wit! that thus dost scourge  
All mortals and with their own follies urge.  
Thou be young; therefore as Infant, Innocent,  
Without regret of conscience all are rent  
By thy rough knotted whip. But if such blows  
Thy younger years can give; when Age bestows  
Much firmer strength, sure thy satiric rods  
May awe the Heavens and discipline the gods.   

And now, I ween, we wisely well have shown  
What Hatred, Wrath, and Indignation  
Can do in thy great parts. How melting Love  
That other youthful heat thou dost improve  
With fancies quaint and gay expressions pat,  
More florid than a lanspresadoes hat;  
That province to some fresher pens we leave  
Dear Lad! and kindly now we take our leave.  
Only one word. Sith we so highly raise  
Thy wrathful wit; take this compendious praise.   

Thy Love and Wrath seem equal good to me,  
For both thy Wrath and Love right Satyrs be.   

Thus may we twitch thee now, young Whelp! but when  
Thy paws be grown who'll dare to touch thee then?   
H. MORE Fell. of Chr. Coll.   

To his friend Mr. J. H. upon his Poems.  

MAy thine own verse (the envy, and the glory  
Of gowned Gentry) still enrich thy story;   

Flame out, bright spark, and let them clearly see  
What's not impossible for them to be;   

Go on, and make the bankrupt World to know  
How much to thy judicious pen they owe,   

By whose gigantic parts is clearly shown  
That nature's womb is not yet feeble grown.   

Thy lines pardon the press for all the rhythmes,  
That have committed been in senseless times;   

When Pegasus made hackney foundered grows,  
Wishing himself turned loose to graze in prose.   
Will. Dillingham Fell. N-ab.   

A Genethliacon to the Infant Muse of his dearest Friend.  
DAme Nature long projecting, how  
She might a New-years-gift bestow  
Of greatest worth; at length did choose  
To give the World an early Muse,  
She felt Perfection in her womb  
Struggling to get a larger room,  
And could not choose but give it breath  
Though by procuring her own death,  
She would not her full time out tarry,  
Left bringing forth she might miscarry;  
Therefore she rather rips her womb,  
Thence gives this rich Depositum.  
Nor need we this Abortive fold  
In a Lambskin, to keep't from cold:  
We need not cry; 'Las spare it yet;  
'Tis an untimely tender wit:  
Let envy spatter what it can,  
This Embryon will prove a man.  
Thus thy luxuriant Laurel-sprout  
As soon as 't hath its bead put out,  
O'er tops old standers! Thus thy bays  
Vie greenness with thy tender days.  
Will. Harington Fell. of G. & C. Coll.   

To the honoured author Mr. Hall on his Poems.  

Dost mean to spoil thyself? do knotty arts  
And pale faced study fit the silken parts  
Of gentlemen? or canst thou stretch thy ears  
To hear the holy accents of the spheres  
From their own volumes? wilt thou let thy hand  
Tempt their strange measures in religious sand?   

Summon thy lungs, and with an angry breath  
ravel the curious dust, and throw't beneath  
Thy braver feet, 'tis too too low, go hence  
And see the spheres with blessed intelligence  
Moving at tennis; Go and steep thy brain  
In fluent Nectar: or go vie a strain  
In goatish courtship; that (indeed) were good  
Currently noble. Nothing taints the blood  
Like this (base) study; Hence ye arts, be gone  
Ye brats, which serious superstition  
Brings to the threadbare parent—   

But thou, brave youth, with prudent skill hast taught  
Thy purged ear to hear, yet not be caught  
With these fond Sirens. Thy green thoughts may vie  
With hoary wisdom: thy clear soul can spy  
The mines of knowledge, can as quickly store  
itself, and dive to the retired Or,  
Thou like that Eater (whom thy happy song  
Shall cause to eat up time himself) with strong  
And sprightly heat, thou canst each art digest  
In the vast stomach of thy knowing breast.  
And when severer thoughts at length shall please  
T' unbend themselves, then with such strains as these  
Thou courtest each witty goddess, and dost tie  
Thy purer ease in their festivity.   
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Ja. Windet M. A. Reginal.   

Vati faelix Auspicium.  
SIcut multiplices varians Luscinia voces  
Fit tandem mortis Praefica laeta suae,  
Enthea sic tua sunt modulamina, Die Poeta,  
At, quò funus avi flebile, vita tibi.  
R. Martial S. I. C.   

To his honoured friend Mr. J. H.  
Fruits that arise in haste, do soon,  
Once nipped by piercing blasts, fall down;  
Thy youth such sudden blooms did give  
As may even Scythian frosts survive,  
And (manger Tempests) still be seen  
Like youthful ivy clad in Green.  
T. Smithsby St. J. C. Gent.   

To his admired friend Mr. Jo. Hall  
Welcome (bright sun) into our Hemisphere  
Now thou art risen we all disappear  
As smallest sparks. Mount higher yet and make  
All Arts and sciences thy zodiac:  
I should desire to be thy Mercury,  
Could I (though but unseen) keep pace with thee.  
Edw. Holland St. John's Coll. Gent.   

To the no less knowing then ingenious, Mr. Hall on his ignorant Detractors.  
THou needest no noseless monuments display  
Or ear-cropped Images: leave that by-way  
To those who are contented to be known  
By their forefather's Virtues, not their own:  
Those who scarce other worth acknowledge will  
Then what each tailor puts into his hill,  
Such plumed ostriches, 'tis hard to say  
Whether the feathers or the Head outweigh:  
Thou scornest these cheats, thy works purchase thee more  
Than they can swap there Heritages for,  
A name (I mean) 'mongst those who do advance  
Learning as much as they hug Ignorance.  
Thou was a Nestor in thine Infancy,  
Should they live Nestor's years they'd Infants die.  
When e'er they learn, what thou couldst teach at ten,  
The world in Charity shall call them Men.  
Thy Dwarf and giant may fit emblems be  
Of what proportion is twixt them and thee.  
Couldst thou bedwarf thy soul, thou might'st descend  
Perhaps to please these Gallants, and so blend  
Words with them now and then, and make a noise  
'Bout some Gay-nothing, or themselves: such toys  
Couldst thou like, they would Thee; till then expect  
Poems from them as soon as not-neglect.  
If they commend one verse which thou hast writ,  
That Verse shall be 'mongst thy erratas set.  
Jo. Pawson Fell. of St. John's Coll.   

POEMS. The first Book.  

A satire.  
PRay let my alone, what do you think can I  
Be still, while Pamphlets thus like hailstons fly  
About mine ears? when every other day  
Such huge gigantic volumes doth display,  
As great Knockfergus self could hardly bear,  
Though he can on his knee th' ale standard rear,  
To see such Paper-tyrants reign, who press  
Whole harmless 〈◊〉 to death, which ne'er the less  
Are dogged by worser fates, Tobacco can  
Calcine them soon to dust, the dripping-pan  
●ack them to th' dung hill, if they Groc'ry meet  
They do the office of a winding sheet:  
How better were it for you to remain  
(Poor Quires) in ancient rags, than thus sustain  
Such antic forms of tortures, then to lie  
In sweating Tubs, and thus unpitied fry,  
Y' are Common-drudges of the world, if 't chance  
A Pedant mend his shoes, you must advance  
To Francforth Mart, and there demurely stand  
Clothed in old sustian rags, and shake the hand  
With every greasy Dutchman, who perhaps  
Puts ye' i'th' selfsame pocket with his scraps;  
Or if you into some blind Convent fly  
Y' are inquisitioned straight for heresy,  
Unless your daring frontispiece can tell  
News of a relic, or brave Miracle;  
Then are you entertained, and deskt up by  
Our Lady's Psalter and the Rosary;  
There to remain, till that their wisdoms please  
To let you lose among the Novices,  
But if you light at Court, unless you can  
Audaciously claw some young Nobleman,  
Admire the choicest Beauties of the Court,  
Abuse the country Parson, and make sport,  
Chalk out set forms of compliments, and tell  
Which Fashions on which bodies might do well,  
No surer paints my Lady, than you shall  
Into disgrace irrevocably fall,  
But if you melt in oily lines, and swell  
With amorous deep expressions, and can tell  
Quaint tales of Lust, and make Antiquity  
A patron of black Patches, and deny  
That perrucks are unlawful, and be saint  
Old Jesabel for showing how to paint,  
Than th' art my Golden book, then Mayst thou lie  
Adorned with plush or some embroidery  
Upon her Ladyships own Couch, where ne'er  
A book that tastes Religion dare appear:  
Thus must ye wretched shreds comply and bend  
To every humour, or your constant friend  
The Stationer will never give you room,  
Y' are younger brothers welcomest from home,  
Yet to speak truly 'tis your just deserts  
To run such various hazards and such thwarts,  
Suppose ye that the world is peopled now  
With cockneys or old women, that allow  
Canon to every fable; that can soon  
Persuade themselves the ass drunk up the Moon,  
That Fairies pinch the peccant maids, that pies  
Do ever love to pick at witch's eyes,  
That mounsieur Tom-thumb on a pins-point lay,  
That Pictrees feed the devil nine times a day,  
Yet such authentic stories do appear  
In no worse Garb than folio, and still bear  
No meaner badge than Aristotle's name,  
Or else descent from reverend Pliny claim;  
One in a humour gives great Homer th' lie,  
And pleases to annihilate poor Troy;  
Another scourges Virgil, cause 'tis said  
His fiction is not in due order laid:  
This will create a monster, this will raise  
A ne'er found mountain, this will pour out seas,  
This great Camillus to a reckoning calls  
For giving so much money to the Gauls,  
This counts how much the state of Egypt made  
Of frogs that in the flime of Nilus laid,  
We'll not digest these gudgeons, th' world is now  
At age, if 't do not towards dotage grow,  
That starched out beard that sits in th' porphyry chair  
And but for's crown's light headed, cannot err,  
Barthius has read all books, Jos. Scaliger  
Proportioned lately the Diameter  
Unto the circle Galileo's found,  
Though not drunk, thinking that the earth ran round;  
Tycho has tumbled down the orbs, and now  
Fine tenuous air doth in there places grow;  
Maurolycus at length has cast it even  
How many pulses journey 'tis to heaven,  
A world of such knacks know we, think ye then  
Sooner to peep out then be kikt from men;  
Whether ye gallop in light rhythms, or chose  
Gently to amble in a Yorkshire prose;  
Whether ye bring some indigested news  
From Spanish Surgeons, or Italian stews;  
Whether ye fiercely raise some false Alarm,  
And in a rage the janissaries arm;  
Whether ye reinforce old times, and con  
What kind of stuff Adam's first suit was on;  
Whether eve's toes had corns; or whether he  
Did cut his beard spadwise or like a T:  
Such brokage as is this will never do 't  
We must have matter and good words to boot,  
And yet how seldom meet they? most our rhythms  
Rally in tunes but speak no sense like chimes:  
Grave deep discourses full as ragged be  
As are their authors doublets, you'll not see  
A word creep in, that cannot quickly show  
A Genealogy to th' ark of Noah,  
Or at the least pleads not prescription  
From that great Cradle of Confusion:  
What Pamphlet is there, where some Arabic  
Scour's not the coast? from whence you may not pick  
Some Chinese Character or mystic spell,  
Whereon the critics for an age may dwell,  
Where there's some sentence to be understood  
As hard to find as where old Athens stood:  
Why do we live, why do our pulses beat?  
To spend our bravest flames our noblest heat  
On such poor trifles? to enlarge the day  
By gloomy lamps, yet for no other prey  
Then a moth-eaten Radix, or to know  
The fashion of Deucalion's mother's shoe,  
It will not quit the cost, that men should spend  
Themselves, time, money to no other end;  
That people should with such a deal of pains  
Buy knowing nothing, and wiseman's disdains:  
But to prevent this, the more politic sort  
Of parents will to handicrafts resort,  
If they observe their children do produce  
Some flashings of a mounting genius,  
Then must they with all diligence invade  
Some rising calling or some gainful trade,  
But if it chance they have one leaden soul  
Born for to number eggs he must to school,  
Especial' if some patron will engage  
Th' advowson of a neighbouring vicarage;  
Strange hed medley! who would make his swine  
Turn greyhounds, or hunt foxes with his kine?  
Who would employ his saddle-nag to come  
And hold a trencher in the dining-room?  
Who would engage Sir James that knows not what  
His Cassock's made of, in affairs of state?  
Or pluck a Richeleiu from the Helm to try  
Conclusions to still Children when they cry?  
Who would employ a country-schoolmaster  
To Construe to his boys some new found star?  
Poor leaden creatures yet shaped out to rule,  
Perpetual dictators in a School,  
Nor do you want your rods, though only fed  
With scraps of Tully and course barley bread;  
Great threadbare Princes, which like Chess-kings brave  
No longer than your Masters give you leave,  
Whose large dominions in some brewhouse lies,  
Asses commands o'er you, you over boys;  
Who still possess the Lodgings next the leads,  
And cheat your Ladies of their waiting maids,  
Who if some lowly carriage do befriend  
May grace the table at the lower end,  
Upon condition that ye fairly rise  
At the first entrance of th' Potato pies,  
And while his Lordship for discourse doth call  
You do not let one dram of Latin fall;  
But tell how bravely your young Master swears  
Which dogs best like his fancy, and what ears;  
How much he undervalues learning, and  
sTakes pleasure in a sparrow-hawk well manned;  
How oft he bears his footboy, and will dare  
To gallop when no serving man is near;  
How he black berries from the bushes caught  
When antidoted with a mornings-draught;  
How rather then he'll construe Greek he'll chose  
To english Ovid's art into prose:  
Such talk is for his lordship's palate, he  
Takes much delight in such like trumpery,  
But still remember ye forbear to press  
Unseasonably some moral sentences,  
Take head by all means how rough Seneca  
Sally into your talk, that man they say  
Rails against drinking healths, and merits hate  
As sure as Ornis mocked a Graduate;  
What a grand ornament our Gentry would  
Soon lose, if every rug-gown might be bold  
To rail at such heroic feats? pray who  
Could honour Mistress health, if this did grow  
Once out of fashion? 'las fine Idols they  
Ere since poor Cheapside cross in rubbish lay,  
Ere since the playhouses did want their press,  
And Players lay asleep like dormice,  
Have suffered too too much, be not so sour  
With tender beauties they had once some power,  
Take that away what do you leave them? what?  
To martial fancies in a youngsters hat.  
And well so too, since feathers were cashiered  
The ribbons have been to some office reared,  
'tis hard to meet a Lanspresado, where  
Some els of favours do not straight appear  
Plasterd and daubed o'er and garnished  
As feathers on a southern-hacneys' head,  
Which if but tied together might at least  
Trace Alexander's Conquests o'er the East,  
Or stitched into a web, supply anew  
With annuary cloaks the wandering Jew,  
So learnt an age we live in, all are now  
Turned poets, since their heads with fancies glow,  
'Las Poets! yes! O beat me witness all  
Short-winded ballads, or what ere may fall  
Within the verge of three half quarters, say  
Produce we not more poems in a day,  
(By this account) than waves on waves do break  
Or country Justices false English speak;  
Suppose dame Julia's Messet thinks it meet  
To droop or hold up one of it's hinder feet,  
What swarms of sonnets rise? how every wit  
Capers on such an accident, to fit  
Words to her faireships grief? but if by fate  
Some long presumptuous s●●● do boldly grate  
Don Hugo's doublet there's a stir as though  
Nile should his ancient limits overflow,  
Or some cursed Treason would blow up the state  
As sure as Gamesters use to lie too late:  
But if some fortune cog them into Love,  
In what a fifteenth sphere than do they move?  
Not the least tittle of a word is set  
That is not flanked with a stout Epithet,  
What rocks of Diamonds presently arise  
In the soft Quagmires of two squinting eyes?  
How teeth discoloured and half rotten bee  
Transformed into Pearl or Ivory?  
How every word's changed to a finest note?  
And Jndian gums are planted in her throat,  
Speak in good earnest, are they not worse than boys  
Of four year old, to dote on painted toys?  
Yet O how frequent! most our Sages shake  
Off there old furs, and needs will Laurels take,  
That it will be no wonder to rehearse  
The crabdest of Geometry in verse,  
Or from the dust of knotty Suarez see  
A strange production of some poetry:  
But stay too lavish muse, where run you, stay,  
Take head your tongue bite not your ears away:  
Besides y' have other business, and you might  
More fitly far with tears than gall endight.   

Upon T. R. a very little man but excellently Learned.  
MAkes Nature maps? since that in thee  
Sh' has drawn an University,  
Or strives she in so small a piece  
To sum the Arts and Sciences?  
Once she writ only Texthand, when  
She scribbled Giants and no men:  
But now in her decrepit years  
She dashes Dwarfs in Characters,  
And makes one single farthing bear  
The Creed, Commandments and Lords-prayer:  
Would she turn Art and imitate  
Monte-regio's flying gnat?  
Would she the Golden Legend shut  
Within the cloister of a nut?  
Or else a musket bullet rear  
Into a vast and mighty sphere?  
Or pen an Eagle in the Caul  
Of a slender nightingale?  
Or show she pygmies can create  
Not too little but too great?  
How comes it that she thus Converts  
So small a totum and great parts?  
Strives she now to turn awry  
The quick scent of philosophy?  
How, so little matter can  
So monstrous big a form contain,  
What shall we call (it would be known)  
This giant and this Dwarf in one?  
His age is blabed by silver hairs,  
His limbs still cry out want of years,  
So small a body in a Cage  
May choose a spacious Hermitage,  
So great a Soul doth fret and fume  
At th' narrow world for want of room,  
Strange Conjunction! here is grown  
A Molehill and the alps in one,  
In th' self same action we may call  
Nature both thrift and prodigal.   

A Sea Dialogue.  

Palurus.  
MY Antinetta though thou be  
More white, than foam wherewith a wave  
Broke in his wrath besmears the sea;  
Yet art thou harder than this cave.   

Antinetta.  
Though thou be fairer than the light,  
Which doubting Pilots only mind  
That they may steer there course aright,  
Yet art thou lighter than the wind:   

Palurus.  
And shall I not be changed? when thou  
Hast fraught Medorus with thy heart,  
And as along the sands we go  
To gather shells, does take his part?   

Antinetta.  
What shall not I congeal to see  
Doris the Ballast of thine arms?  
(Which have so oft encompassed me)  
Now pinioned by her faithless charms;   

Palurus.  
What if I henceforth shall disdain  
The golden tressed Doris love?  
And Antinetta serve again,  
And in that service constant prove?   

Antinetta.  
Though mighty Neptune cannot stand  
Before Medorus, and thou be  
Restless as whirle-pools, false as sand;  
Yet will I live and die with thee,   

Palurus.  
Nay live, and lest one single death  
Should wrack thee, take this life of mine,   

Antinetta.  
Thou but exchanged with that breath,  
Thy Antinetta's soul for thine.   

Chorus.  
How powerful 's love! which like a flame  
That severed, reunites more close!  
Or like a broken limb in frame  
That ever after firmer grows.    

Upon the King's Great Porter.  
SIr, or great Grandsire, whose Vast bulk may be  
A burying place for all your pedigree:  
Thou moving coloss, for whose goodly face  
The Rhyne can hardly make a looking-glass;  
What piles of victuals had thou need to chew,  
Ten Woods or Marrets throats were not enew:  
Dwarf was he whose wife's bracelet fit his thumb,  
It would not on thy little finger came:  
If Jove in getting Hercules spent three  
Nights, he might spend fifteen in getting thee:  
What name or title suits thy greatness, Thou,  
Aldiboronifuscophonio?  
When giants warred with Jove hadst thou been one,  
Where others' oaks, thou wouldst have mountains thrown;  
Wer'st thou but sick what help could ere be wrought,  
Unless Physicians posted down thy throat;  
Were thou to die and Xerxes living, he  
Would not pare Athos for to cover thee;  
Were thou t' embalm the Surgeons needs must scale  
Thy body, as when Labourers dig a whale:  
Great Sir, a people kneaded up in one,  
we'll weigh thee by Ship-burdens not by th' stone;  
What tempests mightst thou raise, what whirlwinds, when  
Thou breathes, thou great Leviathan of men:  
Bend but thine eye, a countryman would swear  
A Regiment of Spaniards quartered there:  
Smooth but thy brow they' l say there were a plain  
T' act York and Lancaster once o'er again!  
That pocket pistol of the Queens might be  
Thy pocket pistol, sans Hyperbole;  
Abstain from Garrisons, since thou may eat  
The Turks or moguls tit●●● at a bit:  
Plant some new Land, which ne'er will empty be  
If she enjoy her Savages in thee:  
Get from amongst us since we only can  
Appear like skulls Marched o'er by Tamberlane.   

A burning-glass.  
STrange chemistry! can dust and sand produce  
So pure a body and Diaphanous;  
Strange kind of Courtship! that the amorous Sun  
T' embrace a mineral twists his rays in one,  
Talk of the heavens mocked by a sphere, alas  
The Sun itself 's here in a piece of glass:  
Let Magnets drag base iron, this alone  
Can to her icy bosom win the Sun;  
Witches may cheat us of his light a while,  
But this can him even of himself beguile:  
In Heaven he staggers to both Tropics, here  
He keeps fixed residence all times of th' year,  
Here 's a perpetual Solstice, here he lies  
Not on a bed of water but of ice;  
How well by this himself abridge, he might  
Redeem the Scythians from their lingering night?  
Well by this glassy proxey might he roll  
Beyond th' ecliptic, and warm either pole;  
Had but Prometheus been so wise, h' had ne'er  
Scaled heaven to light his torch, but lighted here;  
Had Archimedes once but known this use  
H' had burnt Marcellus from proud Syracuse;  
Had Vesta's maids of honour this but seen,  
Their Lady's fire had ne'er extinguished been;  
Hell's Engines might have finished their design  
Of powder (but that heaven did Countermine)  
Had they but thought of this; th' Egyptians may  
Well hatch their eggs without the midwife clay;  
Why do not puling Lovers this device  
For a fit Emblem of their Mistress eyes?  
They call them Diamonds, and say th' have been  
Reduced by them to ashes all within;  
But they'll assumed, and ever hence 'twill pass  
A Mistress eye is but love's burning-glass.   

The Call.  
Romira, stay,  
And run not thus like a young Roe away,  
No enemy  
Pursues thee (foolish girl) 'tis only I,  
I'll keep off harms,  
If thou'lt be pleased to garrison mine arms;  
What dost thou fear  
I'll turn a traitor? may these Roses here  
To paleness shred,  
And Lilies stand disguised in new Red,  
If that I lay  
A snare, wherein thou wouldst not gladly stay;  
See fee the sun  
Does slowly to his azure Lodging run,  
Come sit but here  
And presently he'll quit our Hempisphere,  
So still among  
Lovers, time is too short or else too long;  
Here will we spin  
Legends for them that have Love Martyrs been,  
Here on this plain  
we'll talk Narcissus to a flour again;  
Come here, and chose  
On which of these proud plaits thou would repose,  
Here Mayst thou shame  
The rusty Violets, with the Crimson flame  
Of either cheek,  
And Primroses white as thy fingers seek,  
Nay, thou Mayst prove  
That man's most Noble Passion is to Love.   

An Eunuch.  
THou Newter Gender! whom a gown  
Can make a woman, Breeches none:  
Created one thing, made another,  
Not a Sister, scarce a Brother:  
Jack of both sides, that may bear  
Or a distaff or a spear,  
If thy fortunes thither call,  
Be the Gran signior's general,  
Or if thou fancy not that trade,  
Turn th' Sultana's chambermaid;  
A medal where grim Mars turned right  
Proves a smiling Aphrodite;  
How doth Nature quibble either  
He, or she, Boy, girl, or neither;  
Thou may serve great Jove in stead  
Of Hebe both and Ganymed,  
A face both stern and mild, checks bare  
That still do only promise hair,  
Old Cybele the first in all  
This human predicamental Scale,  
Why would she choose her Priests to be  
Such Individuums as ye?  
Such Insecta's, added on  
To Creatures by substraction,  
In whom Nature claims no part,  
Ye only being words of Art.   

The Lure.  

1  
FArewell, nay prithee turn again,  
Rather than lose thee, I'll arraign  
Myself before thee, thou (most fair) shall be  
Thyself the Judge,  
I'll never grudge  
A law ordained by thee.   

2  
Pray do but see, how every Rose  
A sanguine visage doth disclose,  
O see what aromatic gusts they breath,  
Come here, we'll sit  
And learn to knit  
Them up into a wreath.   

3  
With that wreath Crowned shalt thou be,  
Not graced by it, but it by thee,  
Then shall the fawning Zephirs wait to hear  
What thou shalt say,  
And softly play,  
While news to me they bear.   

4  
See how they revelling appear  
Within the windings of thy hair,  
See how they steal the choicest odours from  
The balmy spring,  
That they may bring  
Them to thee, when they come.   

5  
Look how the Daffidills arise  
Cheered by the influence of thine eyes,  
And others emulating them deny  
They cannot strain  
To bloom again,  
Where such strong beams do fly.   

6  
Be not ungrateful, but lie down  
Since for thy sake so brisk they're grown,  
And such a Downy carpet have bespread,  
That pure delight  
Is freshly dight  
And tricked in white and red.   

7  
Be conquered by such charms there shall  
Not always such enticements fall,  
What know we whether that rich spring of light  
Will staunch his streams  
Of Golden beams,  
Ere the approach of Night.   

8  
How know we whether't shall not be  
The last to either thee or me,  
He can at will his ancient brightness gain,  
But thou and I  
When we shall die  
Shall still in dust remain,   

9  
Come prithee come we'll now essay  
To piece the scantness of the day,  
we'll pluck the wheels from th' Chariot of the sun  
That he may give  
Us time to live  
Till that our scene be done;   

10  
W' are in the blossom of our age,  
Let us dance o'er, not tread the stage,  
Though fear and sorrow strive to pull us back,  
And still present  
Doubts of content,  
They shall not make us slack:   

11  
we'll suffer viperous thoughts and cares  
To follow after silver hairs,  
Let's not anticipate them long before,  
When they begin  
To enter in  
Each Minute they'll grow more,   

12  
No, no, Romira see this brook  
How 't would its posting course revoke  
Ere it shall in the Ocean mingled lie,  
And what I pray  
May cause this stay?  
But to attest our joy;   

13  
Far be't from lust, such wildfire ne'er  
Shall dare to lurk or kindle here,  
Diviner flames shall in our fanties' ●oule,  
Which not depress  
To earthliness,  
But elevate the Soul.   

14  
Then shall aggrandiaed love confess  
That souls can mingle substances,  
That hearts can easily counter-changed be,  
Or at the least  
Can alter breasts,  
When breasts themselves agree.    

The morningstar.  
STill Herald of the morn, whose ray  
Being Page, and Usher to the day,  
Doth mourn behind the Sun, before him play;  
Who sets a golden signal, ere  
The bat retire, the lark appear,  
The early Cocks cry comfort, Scrich oules' fear.  
Who wink'st while Lovers plight their troth,  
Then falls asleep, while they are loath  
To part without a more engaging Oath:  
Steal in a Message to the eyes  
Of Julia, tell her that she lies  
Too long, thy Lord the Sun will quickly rise.  
Yet is it midnight still with me,  
Nay worse, unless that kinder she  
●mile Day, and in my Zenith seated be.  
But if she will Obliquely run,  
I needs a Calenture must shun,  
And like an Ethiopian hate my sun.   

Platonic love.  
COme (Dearest Julia) thou and I  
Will knit us in so strict a tie,  
As shall with greater power engage  
Then feeble charms of marriage;  
We will be friends, our thoughts shall go▪  
Without impeachment, too and fro,  
The same desires shall elevate  
Our mingled souls, the selfsame hate  
Shall cause Aversion, we will bear  
One Sympathising hope and fear,  
And for to move more close, we'll frame  
Our triumphs and our tears the same;  
Yet will we ne'er so grossly dare  
As our ignobler selves shall share,  
Let men desire, like those above  
Unmattered forms, we'll only love;  
And teach the ruder world to shame  
When heat increaseth to a flame:  
Love's like a landskap which doth stand  
Smooth at a distance, rough at hand;  
Or like a fire which from afar  
Doth gently warm, consumes when near.   

To the Deformed X. R.  
AS Scriveners sometime delight to see  
Their basest writing, Nature has in thee  
Essayed how much she can transgress at once  
Apelles' draughts, Durer's proportions;  
And for to make a jest and try a wit  
Has not (a woman) in thy forehead writ,  
But scribbled so, and gone so far about  
Indagine would never smell the out,  
But might exclaim, here only riddles be  
And Heteroclite in physiognomy;  
But as the mystic Hebrew backward lies,  
And Algebra's gest by absurdities,  
So must we spell thee, for who would suppose  
That globous piece of wainscot were a nose,  
That crockt & c's were wrinkles, and  
Five Napers bones glued to a wrest, an hand;  
Egyptian Antiquaries might survey  
Here hieroglyphics time hath worn away,  
And wonder at an English face more odd  
And antic, then was ere a Memphian God,  
erased with more strange letters than might scare  
A raw and unexperienced Conjurer,  
And tawny afric blush to see her fry  
Of Monsters in one skin so kenneled lie:  
Thou Mayst without a guard her deserts pass  
When savages but look upon thy face.  
Were but some Pict now living, he would soon  
Deem thee a fragment of his Nation;  
And wiser Ethiopians infer  
From thee, that sable's not the only fair;  
Thou Privative of Beauty, whose one eye  
Doth question metaphysic verity;  
Whose many cross aspects may prove anon  
Foulness, more than a mere negation,  
Blast one place still, and never dare t'escape  
Abroad out of thy mother darkness lap,  
lest that thou make the world afraid, and be  
Even hated by thy nurse deformity.   

Julia weeping.  

I  
FAirest, when thine eyes did pour  
A crystal shower,  
I was persuaded that some stone  
Had liquid grown;  
And thus amazed, sure thought I  
When stones are moist some rain is nigh.   

2  
Why weep'st thou? cause thou cannot be  
More hard to me?  
So Lionesses pity, so  
Do tigers too:  
So doth that Bird, which when she's fed  
On all the man, pines o'er the Head.   

3  
Yet I'll make better Omens till  
Event beguile,  
Those pearly drops in time shall be  
A precious sea;  
And thou shall like thy coral prove,  
Soft under water, hard above.    

To my honoured Noble friend THOMAS STANLEY Esquire, on his Poems.  

WHo would commend thee (friend!) & thinks 't may be  
Performed by a faint Hyperbole  
Might also call thee but a man, or dare  
To praise thy Mistress with the term of fair.  
But I, the choicest of whose knowledge is  
My knowing thee, cannot so grossly miss.  
Since thou art set so high, no words can give  
An equal character, but negative.  
Subtract the earth, and baseness of this age,  
Admit no wildfire in poetic rage,  
Cast out of learning whatsoever 's vain,  
Let Ignorance no more haunt Noblemen,  
Nor humour Travellers, Let wits be free  
From overweening, and the rest is Thee.   

Thee noble soul! whose early flights are far  
Sublimer than old eagle's soarings are,  
Who lightest Love's dying Torch with purer fire,  
And breathest new life into the Teian Lyre,  
That love's best Secretaries that are past,  
Lived they, might learn to love, and yet be chaste.  
Nay, vestals might as well such sonnets hear,  
As keep their Vows and thy Black ribbon wear;  
So chaste is all, that though in each line lie  
More Amorettoe's then in Doris eye;  
Yet so they're charmed, that looked upon they prove  
Harmless as Chariessa's nightly love:  
So powerful is that tongue, that hand, that can  
Make soft Jonickes turn grave Lydian;  
How oft this heavy leaden Saturnine  
And never elevated soul of mine,  
Hath been plucked up by thee? and forced away  
Enlarged from her still adhering clay!  
How every line still pleased, when that was o'er  
I cancelled it, and praised the other more!  
That if thou writ'st but on, my thoughts shall be  
Almost engulfed in an infinity.   

But dearest friend, what law's power ever gave  
To make one's own free first-born babe his slave,  
Nay Manumise it, for what else wilt be  
To strangle, but deny it liberty.  
Once lend the World a day of thine, and fright  
The trembling still-born children of the night.  
That at the last, we undeceived may see  
Theirs were but Fancies, thine is Poetrey.   

Sweet Swan of silver Thames! but only she  
Sings not till death, thou in thy Infancy.    

To Mr. S. S.  
AS he obtains such an enchanted skin  
That Bullets cast aright could ne'er get in,  
Even so thou Monsieur tempered hast thy name  
That to dispraise the most is yet no shame;  
To curse is to befriend, who like a Jew  
Art both a Vagabond and moneyed too;  
Who feedest on Hebrew roots, and like a tare  
Unbid, unwelcome thrivest everywhere;  
Who mak'st all letters be thy guttural,  
And brings the Conjugations to Kall;  
Who though thou live by Grammer-rules, we see  
Thou break'st all Canons of morality;  
And as far as that threadbare cloak of thine  
Is out of Fashion, dost from man decline;  
And com'st as near a wit, as doth a Rat  
Match in procerity Mount Ararat;  
And art as fit to be a brewer's punk,  
As Sumerburn is valiant when he's drunk.   

The crystal  

THis crystal here  
That shines so clear,  
And carries in its womb a little day;  
Once hammered will appear  
Impure as dust, as dark as clay.   

Even such will prove  
Thy face (my love!)  
When age shall soil the lustre of thine ey's,  
And all that Red remove  
That on thy spicy lip now lies;   

Nor can a hand  
Again command,  
By any art, these ruins into frame,  
But they will severed stand  
And ne'er compose the former same:   

Such is the case  
(Love!) of thy face,  
Both desperate, in this you disagree,  
Thy beauty needs must pass,  
It (of itself) will constant be.    

A Rapture.  

COme Julia, come! let's once disbody, what,  
Strait matter ties to this and not to that,  
we'll disengage, our bloodless form shall fly  
Beyond the reach of Earth, where ne'er an eye  
That peeps through Spectacles of flesh, shall know  
Where we intend, or what we mean to do;  
From all Contagion of the flesh removed  
we'll sit in Judgement, on those pairs that loved  
In old and latter times, then will we tear  
Their Chaplets that did act by slavish fear,  
Who cherished causeless griefs, and did deny  
Cupid's prerogative by doubt or sigh;  
But they that moved by confidence, and closed  
In one refining flame, and never loosed  
Their thoughts on Earth, but bravely did aspire  
Unto their proper Element of fire,  
To these we'll judge that happiness to be  
The witnesses of our felicity.  
Thus we'll like Angels move, nor will we bind  
In words the copious Language of our mind,  
Such as we know not to conceive, much less  
Without destroying in their birth, express:  
Thus will we live and ('t may be) cast an eye  
How far Elysium doth beneath us lie,  
What need we care though milky Currents run  
Among the silken meadows, though the Sun  
Doth still preserve by's ever waking ray  
A never discontinued spring or day.  
That Sun, though all his heat be to it brought  
Cannot exhale the vapour of a thought.   

No no my goddess, yet will thou and I  
Devested of all flesh so folded lie,  
That ne'er a bodied nothing shall perceive  
How we unite, how we together cleave;  
Nor think this while our feathered minutes may  
Fall under measure, time itself can stay  
T' attend on pleasures, for what else would be  
But tedious Durance in eternity.    

To Mr. Stanley after his return from France.  
BEwitched Senses do you lie  
And cast some shadow o'er mine eye,  
Or do I noble Stanley see,  
What! may I trust you, is it he?  
Confess and yet be gradual,  
Lest sudden joy so heavy fall  
Upon my soul, and sink unto  
A deeper Agony of woe:  
'tis he, 'tis he, we are no more  
A barbarous Nation, he brought o'er  
As much Humanity, as may  
Well Civilize America;  
More Learning than might Athens raise  
To Glory in her proudest days.  
With reason might the boiling main  
Be calm, and hoary Neptune chain  
Those winds that might disturbers be  
Whiles our Apollo was at sea;  
And made her for all knowledge stand  
In competition with the land:  
Had but the courteous Delphins heard  
One note of his, they would have dared  
To quit the waters, to enjoy  
In banishment such melody;  
And had the mimic Proteus known  
H' had left his ugly herd, and grown  
A curious Siren, to betray  
This Ulysses to some stay;  
But juster fates denied, nor would  
Another Land that Genius hold.  
As could, beyond all wonder hurled,  
Fathom the intellectual world:  
But whither run I, I intend  
To welcome only, not commend;  
But that thy virtues render it  
No private, but a public debt.   

An Epicurean Ode  

SInce that this thing we call the world  
By chance on atoms is begot,  
Which though in daily motions hurled,  
Yet weary not,  
How doth it prove  
Thou art so fair and I in Love?   

Since that the soul doth only lie  
Immersed in matter, chained in sense,  
How ran Romira thou and I  
With both dispense?  
And thus ascend  
In higher flights than wings can lend.   

Since man's but pasted up of Earth,  
And ne'er was cradled in the skies,  
What Terra Lemnia gave thee birth?  
What Diamond eyes?  
Or thou alone  
To tell what others were, came down?    

On M. W. the great eater.  
SIr much good do't ye; were your table but  
Piecrust or cheese, you might your stomach sh●  
After your slice of beef, what dare you try  
Your force on an Ell-square of pudding-pie?  
Perhaps 't may be a taste, three such as you  
Unbreakfasted might starve Seraglio:  
When Hannibal scaled th' alps, hadst thou been there  
Thy beef had drunk up all his vinegar:  
Well mightst thou be of guard to Henry th' eight,  
Since thou canst like a pigeon eat thy weight:  
Full wise was nature that would not bestow  
These Tusks of thine into a double row;  
What womb could ere contain thee, thou canst shut  
A pond or Aviary in a Gut.  
Had not thy mother born thee toothless, thou  
Hadst eaten viperlike a passage through;  
Had he that wished the Cranes long neck to eat,  
Put in thy stomach too 't had been complete.  
Thou Noah's Ark, dead sea, thou Golgotha,  
Monster, beyond all them of Africa!  
Beasts prey on beasts, fisher to fishes fall,  
Great birds feed on the lesser, thou on all:  
Hath there been no mistake, why may 't not be  
When Curtius leapt the Gulf, 'twas into thee.  
Now we'll believe that man of Chica could  
Make pills of arrows, and the Boy that would  
Chew only stones, nor can we think it vain  
That Boranetho eat up th' neighbouring plain.  
Poor Erisychthon, that could only feast  
On one poor girl in several dishes dressed,  
Thou hast devoured as many sheep, as may  
Clothe all the pasture in Arcadia.  
Yet O how temperate, that ne'er goes on  
So far as to approach repletion!  
Thou breathing Cauldron, whose digestive heat  
Might boil the whole provision of the Fleet!  
Say grace as long as meals, and if thou please,  
Break fast with lands and drink healths with seas.   

The Antipathy A pastoral  

Tetricezza  
SOoner the olive shall provoke  
To amorous clasps this sturdy oak,  
And doves in league with eagles be,  
Ere I will glance a smile on thee.   

Amelius  
Sooner, yond dustish mulberry  
In her old white shall clothed be,  
And lezards with fierce asps combine,  
Ere I will twist my soul with thine.   

Tetricezza  
Yet art thou in my judgement far  
Fairer than a rising star,  
And might deserve even Diana's love  
But shalt not Tetricezza move.   

Amelius  
And thou art sweeter than the down  
Of damast-roses yet unblown,  
And Phoebus might thy bridegroom be,  
Yet shalt thou never conquer me,   

Tetricezza  
Why meet we then, when either's mind  
Or comes compelled, or stay's behind?   

Amelius  
Just as two boughs together tied  
Let loose again do stand more wide.    

Song.  

Distil not poison in mine ears  
Aereal Sirens! nor untie  
These sable fetters, yonder spheres  
Dance to a silent Harmony.   

Could I but follow where you lead  
Disrobed of Earth and plumed by Air,  
Then I my Tenuous self might spread,  
As quick as fancy everywhere.   

But I'll make sallies now and then,  
Thus can my unconfined eye  
Take journey and return again.  
Yet on her crystal couch still lie.    

Home travel.  
What need I travel, since I may  
More choicer wonders here survey?  
What need I Tire for purple seek  
When I may find it in a cheek?  
Or sack the Eastern shores, there lies  
More precious Diamonds in her eyes?  
What need I dig Peru for Oare  
When every hair of her yields more?  
Or toil for gums in India  
Since she can breathe more rich than they?  
Or ranfack afric, there will be  
On either hand more Ivory?  
But look within, all virtues that  
Each nation would appropriate,  
And with the glory of them rest,  
Are in this map at large expressed;  
That who would travel here might know  
The little world in Folio.   

Upon Samuel Ward D. D. the Lady Margaret's professor in Cambridge.  
WEre't not piacular to weep for thee  
The world might put on mourning, and yet be  
Below just grief, stupendous Man who told  
By just endowments that she grew not old.  
But thine own hands have raised a monument  
Far greater than thyself, which shall be spent  
When error conquers truth, and time shall be  
No more, but swallowed by eternity;  
But when shall sullen darkness fly away,  
And thine own ●ct●●e Brownrigge give it day.  
Or when shall ravished Europe understand,  
How much she lost by thee, and by it gained;  
How well thou guardedst truth, how swift to close  
With whatsoever Champion durst oppose;  
Bear witness Dort, when Error could produce  
The strength of reason and Arminius.  
How did he lose their knots, how break their snares,  
How meet their minings, how pluck up their cares.  
How did his calmer voice speak thunder? how  
His soft affections holy fury grow?  
That had but Hell and Tyrants any room,  
There wanted nothing of a martyrdom;  
But Providence said no, and did consent  
That oil of time should not be spilled, but spent,  
Nay, as the greatest flame doth ever fly  
From failing Lamps, shouldst in most glory die;  
And as the phoenix when she doth prepare  
To be her own both murderer and heir,  
Makes richest spice her tomb and cradle be,  
To quit and reassume mortality,  
Even so thou (Seraph) spent thy minutes all,  
In preparation for thy funeral,  
And raised so great a pile, death could aspire  
No greater honour hen to put to fire:  
That thus the flame might lend us light below,  
But the sweet breathing smoke still upward go.   

To the precious Memory of Master William Fenner.  
HOw brittle's wretched man? no sooner death  
Scales up his eyes, and stops his panting breath,  
But th' hungry grave devours him, and he must  
Return again unto his mother dust;  
So frail a thing he is, so doth he pass,  
That nothing can remain but that he was.  
But thou (Triumphant soul) art elevate  
By thy vast merits 'bove the common fate;  
Those sacred pearls thyself digged from among  
Thy fiery thoughts, and polished with thy tongue,  
By thee a second life, that times to come  
May say that Rochford had a Chrysostom,  
Whose Life told out in Minutes, seemed to be  
Nothing but one continued homily,  
So even was thy Conscience, such a flame  
Raised thy affections, that thou soon became  
Too good for Earth; so waking was thy breast,  
That Night could never grant a truce to Rest,  
But now thou Rests for ever drunk with joys  
That never spend, yet ever new arise.  
Yet let thy Name still breath new odours, and  
'Mong those Angelik Spirits numbered stand,  
While we below stand gazing up and see  
Th''ve changed thy Room, but not thy Company.   

On a Gentleman and his Wife, who died both within a very few days.  
THrice happy pair, who had and have  
Living one Bed, now dead one Grave:  
Whose love being equal, neither could  
A life unequal wish to hold,  
But left a Question whether one  
Did follow 'cause her Mate was gone,  
Or th'other went before to stay  
Till that his fellow came away,  
So that one pious tear now must  
Besprinkle either parent's dust,  
And two great sorrows jointly run  
And close into a larger one,  
Or rather turn to joy, to see  
The burial but the Wedding be.   

Of Beauty.  

WHat do I here, what's Beauty? lass  
How doth it pass?  
As flowers as soon as smelled at  
Evaporate,  
Even so this shadow, ere our eyes  
Can view it, flies.   

2  
What's colour? 'lasse the sullen Night  
Can it affright;  
A Rose can more Vermilion speak,  
Than any cheek;  
A richer white on lilies stands,  
Than any hands.   

3  
Then what's that worth, when any Flower  
Is worth far more?  
How constant'st that which needs must die  
When day doth fly?  
Glow-worms can lend some petty light,  
To gloomy night.   

4  
And what's proportion? we descry  
That in a fly;  
And what's a lip? 'tis in the test,  
Red clay at best.  
And what's an Eye? an Eaglets are  
More strong by far.   

5  
Who can that specious nothing heed,  
Which flies exceed?  
Who would his frequent kisses lay  
On painted clay?  
Wh'ould not if eyes affection move  
Young Eaglets love?   

6  
Is Beauty thus? then who would lie  
Love-sick and die?  
And's wretched self annihilate  
For knows not what?  
And with such sweat and care invade  
A very shade?   

7  
Even he that knows not to possess  
True happiness,  
But has some strong desires to try  
What's misery,  
And longs for tears, oh He will prove  
One fit for Love.    

The Epitome.  

As in a cave  
Where darkness justies out the day,  
But yet doth give  
Some small admission to one feeble ray,  
Some of all species do distinctly play.   

2  
Just even thou  
Whom wonder hath not fully cleared,  
Thyself dost show,  
That in thy little Chaos all's enspheard,  
And though abridged, yet in full greatness reared.    

Armilla nigra.  

ATrati Proceres, quos ram divina coercet  
Copula, caeruleo nunc exaequata Georg I  
Garterio, atque olim longe anteferenda, nec ulla  
Interitura die, si quid praesagia vatum,  
Si quid mollis amor valet, o dignissima Coelo  
Pectora, sic vestris faelicia facta Ruinis,  
Et flammis majora, novo succrescite honori,  
Et durate diu, donec sese ultimus optet  
Censeri numero Scytha, & ambitiosior Indus  
Gestiat armilla vestra fulgere, relictis  
Torquibus, & tenerae vultu constante puellae  
Militiam subeant talem, cupiantque teneri  
His manicis, & virgineas dediscere flammas,  
Vestalique cadat Reverentia debita vittae.   

At tu, Sol juvenum, soli cessure Maroni  
Propter mille annos, vatum decus, ardue cunctae  
Inscitiae Domitor, quem felix Anglia jactat  
Et Galli stupuere, tuis en talia surgunt  
Auspiciis, Tu tam grandis praeludia facti  
Ordiris, tantasque jubes viviscere curas,  
Hinc summus tibi surgit honos, hinc gloria quae non  
Aut cadet, aut vult temporibus metirier ullis,  
At cum se fragilis mundi ruitura resolvet  
Machina, & armillis faelicia brachia deerunt,  
Ipsa polo sese infinuet, candentibus astris  
Accedens nova flamma, altae vicina Coronae.    

To Mr. Stanley.  
Stars in their rising little show,  
And send forth trembling flames; but thou  
At first appearance dost display  
A bright and unobscured day:  
Such as shall fear no night, nor shall  
Thy setting be heliacal,  
But grow up to a Sun and take  
A laurel for thy Zodiac;  
That all which henceforth shall arise,  
May only be thy Parely's.   

On Doctor. Bambrigg, Mr. of Christ's.  
WEre but this Marble vocal, there  
Such an Elogium would appear  
As might, though truth did dictate, move  
Distrust in either Faith or Love;  
As ample knowledge as could rest  
Enshrined in a mortals breast,  
Which nevertheless did open lie,  
Uncovered by humility,  
A heart which piety had chose,  
To be her Altar, whence arose  
Such smoking Sacrifices, that  
We here can only wonder at;  
A honey tongue that could dispense,  
Torrents of sacred eloquence,  
And yet how far inferior stand  
Unto a learned curious hand?  
That 'tis no wonder if this stone  
Because it cannot speak, doth groan;  
For could mortality assent,  
These ashes might prove eloquent.   

Upon Mr. Robert Wiseman, Son to Sir Richard Wiseman, Essex.  
BUt that we weigh our happiness by thine  
We could not (precious soul) from tears decline,  
Although the muse's Silver stream would be  
Too poor by far to drop an elegy;  
But that's below thee, since thy virtues are  
The spices that embalm thee, thou art far  
More Richly laid, and shalt more long remain  
Still mummified within the hearts of men,  
Then if to list thee in the Rolls of Fame  
Each marble spoke thy shape, all brass thy name.  
Sleep sacred ashes that did once contain  
This jewel, and shalt once, and e'er, again  
Sleep undisturbed; envy can only raise  
Herself at living, hate grasp lower preys;  
We'll not defioure you, let us only pry  
What Treasures in ye did involved lie,  
So young, so learned and so wise, O here's  
Example, Wisdom's not the child of years.  
So rich and yet so pious! O 'tis well  
Devotion is not coffined in a Cell,  
Nor choked by wealth; wealth hated harmless proves,  
And only knows to mischief him that loves.  
So fair and yet so chaste! Lust is not ever  
Youths constant Sorcresse, but doth sometime sever  
To look on moral virtues; there'le appear  
The Courtier twisted with th' Philosopher:  
Nor were they on spruce apothegms spent  
Begot twixt idleness and Discontent,  
But acted to the life and unconstrained,  
The Sisters sweetly walking hand in hand,  
And so entirely twisted that alone  
None could be viewed, all were together one;  
As twinkling Spangles that together lie,  
Join forces and make up one galaxy;  
As various Gums dissolving in one fire  
Together in one fragrant fume expire.  
Sleep then triumphant soul, thy funerals  
For admiration and not mourning calls.   

Johanni Arrowsmythio, Coll. Sti. Joh. Praefecto.  
DIvina Siren, c●gne caelestis, tuba  
Evangelizans, Nectaris flumen meri,  
Jubar salutis, praeco faederis novi,  
Jam sic redîsti! teque in amplexus pios  
Iterum dedisti! murmure ut vario fremit  
Togata pubes, gaudia exprimens nova,  
Quod patre tanto jam beatur, quod nutric  
Sol tam refulgens, & coquit messes suas.  
Sic saepe redeas, te licet retrahant tuae  
Lac gestientes uberis mamillae oves,  
Et te Senatus flagitet, cujus cluit  
Pars magna; nostros sed fovere palmites  
Desist nunquam, vinitor dignissime,  
Donec racemis pullulent usquam novis;  
Duc hos tenellos in scientiae abdita,  
Et esto morum dulcium felix faber.   

To his Tutor, Master Pawson. An Ode.  

1  
Come come away,  
And snatch me from these shades to purer day,  
Though Nature lie  
Reserved, she cannot scape thy piercing eye.  
I'll in her bosom stand,  
Led by thy cunning hand,  
And plainly see  
Her treasury;  
Though all my light be but a glimpse of thine,  
Yet with that light, I will o'relooke  
Her hardly opened book,  
Which to a read is easy, to understand divine.   

2  
Come let us run  
And give the world a girdle with the Sun,  
For so we shall  
Take a full view of this enamelled ball,  
Both where it may be seen  
Clad in a constant green,  
And where it lies  
Crusted with Ice,  
where't swells with mountains, and shrinks down to Vales,  
Where it permits the usurping Sea  
To rove with liberty,  
And where it pants with drought, and of all liquour fails.   

3  
And as we go,  
we'll mind these atoms that crawl too and fro,  
There may we see  
One both be soldier and Artillery,  
Another whose defence  
Is only innocence,  
One swift as wind  
Or flying hind,  
Another slow as is a mounting stone;  
Some that love Earth, some scorn to dwell  
upon't, but seem to tell  
Those that deny there is a Heaven they know of one.   

4  
Nor all this while  
Shall there escape us ere a braving pile,  
Nor ruin that  
Wastes what it has to tell its former state.  
Yet shall we ne'er descry  
Where bounds of kingdom's lie,  
But see them gone  
As flights new flown,  
And lose themselves in their own breadth, just as  
Circlings upon the water, one  
Grows great to be undone,  
Or as lines in the sand which as they're drawn do pass.   

5  
But objects here  
Cloy in the very taste. O let us tear  
A passage through  
That fleeting vault above; there may we know  
Some rosy Brethren stray  
To a set Battalia,  
And others scout  
Still round about,  
Fixed in their courses, and uncertain too;  
But clammy matter doth deny  
A clear discovery,  
Which those that are inhabitants may solely know.   

6  
Then let's away  
And journey thither, what should cause our stay?  
we'll not be hur'ld  
Asleep by drowfie potions of the world.  
Let not wealth tutor out  
Our spirits with her gout,  
Nor anger pull  
With cramps the soul;  
But fairly disengaged we'll upward fly,  
Till that occurring joy affright  
Even with its very weight,  
And point the haven where we may securely lie.    

To an Old Wife talking to him.  
PEace beldame ugly, thou'lt not find  
My ears bottles for enchanted wind,  
That breath of thine can only raise  
New storms and discompose the Seas,  
It may (assisted by thy clatter)  
A Pigmaean army scatter,  
Or move without the smallest stream,  
Loretto's chapel once again,  
And blow St. Goodrick while he prays  
And knows not what it is he says,  
And helps false Latin with a hem  
From Finckly to Jerusalem,  
Or in th' pacific Sea supply  
The wind that Nature doth deny.  
What dost thou think I can retain  
All this and sprout it out again?  
As a surcharged Whale doth spew  
Old Rivers to receive in new,  
Thou art deceived, even Aeolus' Cave  
That can all other blasts receive,  
Would be too small to let in thine:  
How then the narrow ears of mine?  
Defect of Organs may me cause  
By chance to pillorize an ass:  
Yet should I shake his ears, they'd be  
Though long, too straight to harken thee.  
Yet if thou hast a mind to hear  
How high thy voices merits are,  
Attend the Cham, and when h'as dined  
Skreek Princes leave that have a mind,  
Or serve the States, thou'lt useful come  
And have the pay of every drum,  
Or trudge to Vtreckt, there outrun  
Dame Skurmans score of tongues, with one.  
But pray be still, O now I fear  
There may be Torments for the ear,  
O let me when I chance to die  
In Vulcan's anvil buried lie,  
Rather than hear thy tongue once knell,  
That Tom a Lincoln and Bow-bell.   

The Recantation.  
NOw sound I a retreat, now I'll no more  
Run all those devious paths I ran before,  
I will no more range sullen groves, to lie  
Entombed in a shade, nor basely fly  
The dear society of light, to give  
My Thoughts their birth in darkness, I'll not live  
Such deaths again, such dampy mists no more  
Shall dare to draw an ugly screen before  
My clearer fancy: I'll not deify  
A failing beauty, idolise an eye.  
Farewell, farewell poor joys, let not my hearse  
Bear witness I was ever mad in verse,  
Or played the fool in wit; no, I'll not have  
Such themes increase the mourning at my graven.  
Such thoughts I loath, and cannot now resent,  
Who ever gloried in his excrement?  
Now I will raze those Characters I wrote  
So fairly from myself, now will I not  
Suffer that Pyramid love raised within  
My soul, to stand the witness of her sin.  
Nor will I ravish nature to dispose  
A violated and profaned Rose,  
Upon a varnished cheek, nor lilies fear  
Into a jandise, to be set where ne'er  
White was discovered; no,— stay I'll no more  
Add new guilt to the old repented for,  
To name a sinn's to sin; nor dare to break  
Jests of my vices on another's back,  
But with some searching humours festered lie  
A Renegado to all Poetry.  
And must we now shake hands dear madness, now  
After so long acquaintance? did I vow  
To sacrifice unto thee what was brought,  
As surplusage of a severer thought,  
And break my word? yes, from this very day  
My fancy only shall on Marchpan play;  
Now I'll turn politician, and see  
How useful Onions are in Drapery,  
Feast dunces that miscall the Arts, and dance  
With all the World a Galliard Ignorance.  
FINIS.    


THE SECOND book OF Divine Poems. BY J. H.  Saepe quidem in galea nidos fecere Columbae. 
LONDON. Printed by E.G. for J. Rothwell. 1647.   

A Dirthyramb.  

STill creeping, still degenerous soul  
On Earth so wallowing still in mire?  
Still to the centre dost thou roll,  
When up to Heaven thou shouldst aspire?  
Did not thy jailor flesh deny  
The freedom for to feed thine own insatiate eye;   

How might thou let it surfeit here  
On choicest glories, how it might  
Thick flowing globes of splendour bear,  
And triumph in its native light,  
How 'twould hereafter sleep disdain!  
The glorious Sun of righteousness uprise again,   

O who so stupid that would not  
Resolve to Atoms, for to play  
'Mong th' golden streamers he shall shut,  
While he prolongs one endless day?  
How small three evenings darkness be,  
Compared once with measureless Eternity?   

See how the joyous Clouds make way,  
And put a ruddy brightness on,  
How they their silken fleeces lay,  
For him to mount to Heaven upon,  
Where he may in full glory shine,  
Whose presence made before a Heaven of Palestine.   

That lovely brow that was before  
Drowned in a flood of Crimson sweat,  
Is now with brightness guilded o'er,  
And all with burnished flames beset;  
Him, whom his drowsy sons did leave  
Sleepless, aerial Legions triumph to receive;   

This innocent Columbine, he,  
That was the mark of rage before,  
O cannot now admired be,  
But still admired, still needs more;  
Who would not stand amazed to see,  
Frail flesh become the garment of Divinity?   

Appear no more proud Olivet  
In tawny olives, from this time  
Be all with purple vines beset;  
The sprig of Jesse from thee did climb  
Up to the Skies, and spread those boughs,  
Whereon life's grapes, those Paradisean clusters grows.   

Why stare you curious gazers so,  
No Eye can reach his Journeys end,  
he'll pierce the rolling Concave through,  
And that expanded fabric rend,  
Then he's at home, he was before  
A pilgrim, while he footed this round nothing o'er.   

If then his nimble feet could make,  
A pavement of the quivering stream,  
And cause those powerful Spirits quake,  
That fear not any thing but him:  
Now can and will he turn to joys  
Your fears, and or disarm or turn your enemies.   

He is not lost though wafted hence,  
He's with you (darlings of his love)  
he's the supreme Intelligence  
That all the little Orbs will move,  
He is the head, it cannot be  
Members can perish, where there's such a head as he.   

A head composed of Majesty,  
Were't not by mercy all possessed,  
From which such charming glances fly,  
As striking vengeance can arrest,  
From which such powerful frowns arise,  
As can strike palsies in the Earth, and headache in the Skies.   

What did you think he could remain  
Disguised in such an inch of land?  
That convex cannot him contain,  
Though spun out by his own right hand.  
What did you think that though he lay,  
Interred a while, the Earth might swallow such a prey?   

That very dying did restore  
Banished life to rotting men,  
And fetched back breath that fled before,  
Into their nostrils once again,  
That very death gave life to all,  
And t' all mankind recovery of their father's fall.   

Suppose ye that the fatal tree,  
That happiest worst of punshiments,  
Did punish such a sinless he,  
Or shame him that was excellence?  
No no, the crime doth ever state  
The punishment, and he sin could not act, but hate.   

Thought ye that stream did flow in vain  
That issued from his opened side?  
Your souls were foul, yet every stain  
By these pure drops were purified.  
He was he freely prodigal  
To spend all's blood for some, when some might have saved all.   

Hark, hark, what melody, what choice  
Of sweetest airs, of charming sounds!  
Heaven seems all turned into a voice;  
Hear what loud shrieking joy rebounds,  
The very winds now whistle joy  
And make Hosannas of the former crucify.    

The Ermine.  
THe Ermine rather chose to die  
A Martyr of its purity,  
Then that one uncouth soil should stain  
It's hitherto preserved skin,  
And thus resolved she thinks it good  
To write her whiteness in her blood.  
But I had rather die, than e'er  
Continue from my foulness clear;  
Nay I suppose by that I live  
That only doth destruction give;  
Madman I am, I turn mine Eye  
On every side, but what doth lie  
Within I can no better find,  
Then if I ever had been blind.  
Is this the reason thou dost claim  
Thy sole prerogative, to frame  
Engines again thyself? O fly  
Thyself as greatest enemy,  
And think thou sometimes life wilt get  
By a secure contemning it.   
Jude. 14.15. 
The Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgement upon all.  
I hear and tremble! Lord, what shall I do  
T' avoid thy anger, whether shall I go?  
What, shall I scale the mountains? 'las they be  
Far less than Atoms if compared with thee.  
What, shall I strive to get myself a tomb,  
Within the greedy ocean's swelling womb?  
Shall I dive into rocks? where shall I fly  
The sure discovery of thy piercing Eye?  
Alas I know not; though with many a tear  
In Hell they moan thy absence, thou art there;  
Thou art on Earth and well observest all  
The actions acted on this massy Ball;  
And when thou look'st on mine, what can I say?  
I dare not stand, nor can I run away.  
Thine eyes are pure and cannot look upon  
(And what else Lord am I?) Corruption.  
Thou hatest sins, and if thou once begin  
To cast me in the Scales, I all am sin;  
Thou still continuest one, O Lord; I range  
In various forms of crimes and love my change.  
Lord thou that mad'st me, bid'st I should present  
My Heart unto thee; O see how 'tis rent,  
By various Monsters; see how fastly held,  
How stubornely they do deny to yield.  
How shall I stand, when that thou shalt be hurled  
On clouds, in robes of fire to Judge the world,  
Ushered with golden Legions, in thine Eye  
Carrying an all-enraged Majesty;  
That shall the Earth into a palsy stroke,  
And make the Clouds sigh out themselves in smoke,  
How can I stand? yes Lord I may although  
Thou be'st the Judge, thou art a party too;  
Thou sufferest for these faults, for which thou shall  
Arraign me Lord, thou sufferest for them all,  
They are not mine at all, these wounds of thine  
That on thy glorious side so brightly shine,  
Sealed me a pardon, in those wounds theyare hid  
And in that side of thine theyare buried.  
Lord smile again upon us; which what grace  
Doth mercy sit enthronised on thy face!  
How did that scarlet sweat become thee when  
That sweat did wash away the filth of men?  
How did those peevish thorns adorn thy brow?  
Each thorn more richly than a Gem did glow?  
Yet by those thorns (Lord how thy love abounds!)  
Are we poor worms made capable of crowns.  
Come so to Judgement Lord; th' Apostles shall  
No more into their drowsy slumber fall,  
But stand and harken how the Judge shall say  
Come come my lambs to joy, come come away.   
Gen. 24. ver. 63. 
Quò egressus Isaac ad meditandum in agro, &c.  
Juvenis beate, magne tot Regum parens,  
Faecunde tot patrum pater,  
Tot Nationum origo, tot vatum fides,  
Tot Antesignane Heroum,  
Sicne is in agros jam renidentes novis  
Et aureis florum stolis?  
Sic, sic recessum quaeris? & turbam fugis?  
Sic totus in teipsum redis?  
Ut nullus oculus sancta spectet otia,  
Nulla auris insidias locet.  
Dum tu (suäve!) pectus effundis tuum  
In caelici patris sinum,  
Dum cor sacratis aestuans amoribus  
Ebullit impletum Deo,  
Dum Lachrymarum gemmeae scatebrae ruunt,  
Per molle vernantes genas,  
Dum misceatur dulce Planctuum melos  
Ardentibus suspiriis,  
Dum dum (invidenda solitudo!) mens suis  
Jam libere è gyariis meat,  
Linquensque terras, templa perrumpit poli,  
Se luce perfundens nouâ;  
Sic ipse vivam, sic mihi occulti dies  
O effiuant, solus siem,  
Sic me praehendat luce palpitans nouâ  
Praeco diei Phosphorus,  
Sic me praehendat luce candens ultimâ  
Et noctis index Hesperus:  
Non ipse curem vana vulgi murmura,  
Non irritos rumusculos,  
Sim mi' beatus! Nymphacae caelestis meum  
Non abnuat Consortium.  
Divinus illo flammat in vultu pudor,  
Divina stat modestia;  
Hinc hinc, pudica pallidas umbras amat  
Et antra Musca vivida,  
Ubi me loquelis melleis, suadâ merâ,  
Formosa mulceat dea,  
Ubi in me inundans nectaris torrens fluat,  
Ex ore prosiliens sacra,  
Quantum haec voluptas! quanta! quanta gaudia!  
Quis non? quis invideat mihi?  
Dum sic edaces exulant curae, nigra  
Fugiunt doloris agmina,  
Dum mî voluptas, ipsa per se amabilis  
Nullisque ficta officiis,  
Mi mille Veneres mille mostret Gratias,  
Mî mille dat Cupidines.  
Sic mî juventae blanda marcescat rosa,  
O sic senecta palleat.  
Sic sic nivales vestiant cani caput,  
Sic hora fugiat ultima;  
Non ipse vanas horream mortis minas,  
Sed tela sustineam libens;  
Securus illuc evolare, quò mea  
Semper perennem gaudia,  
Redintegrare Paeanas possim novos  
Inter triumphantium greges;  
O mî appropinquet sic dies novissimus  
Natalis adveniet mihi 〈◊〉   

On an hourglass.  
MY Life is measured by this glass, this glass  
By all those little Sands that through pass.  
See how they press, see how they strive, which shall  
With greatest speed and greatest quickness fall.  
See how they raise a little Mount, and then  
With their own weight do level it again.  
But when th' have all got through, they give o'er  
Their nimble sliding down, and move no more.  
Just such is man whose hours still forward run,  
Being almost finished ere they are begun;  
So perfect nothings, such light blasts are we,  
That ere w'are aught at all, we cease to be.  
Do what we will, our hasty minutes fly,  
And while we sleep, what do we else but die?  
How transient are our joys, how short their day!  
They creep on towards us, but fly away.  
How stinging are our sorrows! where they gain  
But the least footing, there they will remain.  
How groundless are our hopes, how they deceive  
Our childish thoughts, and only sorrow leave!  
How real are our fears! they blast us still,  
Still rend us, still with gnawing passions fill;  
How senseless are our wishes, yet how great!  
With what toil we pursue them, with what sweat!  
Yet most times for our hurts, so small we see,  
Like Children crying for some Mercury.  
This gapes for Marriage, yet his fickle head  
Knows not what cares wait on a Marriage bed.  
This vows Virginity, yet knows not what  
Loneness, grief, discontent, attends that state.  
Desires of wealth another's wishes hold,  
And yet how many have been choked with Gold?  
This only hunts for honour, yet who shall  
Ascend the higher, shall more wretched fall.  
This thirsts for knowledge, yet how is it bought  
With many a sleepless night and racking thought?  
This needs will travel, yet how dangers lay  
Most secret Ambuscado's in the way?  
These triumph in their Beauty, though it shall  
Like a plucked Rose or fading lily fall.  
Another boasts strong arms, 'las Giants have  
By silly dwarfs been dragged d unto their grave.  
These ruffle in rich filke, though ne'er so gay,  
A well plumed Peacock is more gay than they.  
Poor man, what art! a Tennis ball of error,  
A Ship of glass tossed in a Sea of terror,  
Issuing in blood and sorrow from the womb,  
Crawling in tears and mourning to the tomb,  
How slippery are thy paths, how sure thy fall,  
How art thou Nothing when thou'rt most of all!   

An Ode.  

1  
DEscend O Lord  
Into this gloomy heart of mine,  
And once afford  
A glimpse of that great Light of thine,  
The sun doth never here  
To shine on basest dunghills once forbear.   

2  
What though I be  
Nothing but high corruption?  
Let me have thee  
And at thy presence 'twill be gone,  
darkness dare never stand  
In competition while the Suns at hand.   

3  
And though my sins  
Be an unnumbered number, yet  
When thou begins  
To look on Christ, do then forget  
I helped to cause his grief.  
If so, Lord from it grant me some relief.   

4  
All thou demands  
Is that small piece of me, my heart;  
Lo here it stands  
Thine wholly, I'll reserve no part;  
Let the three corners be  
(Since nought else can) filled with one triple thee.   

5  
Set up a Throne,  
Admit no rival of thy power,  
Be thou alone  
(I'll only fear thee) Emperor,  
And though thy limits may  
Seem small, Heaven only is as large as they.   

6  
And if by chance  
The old-oft-conquered Enemy  
New stirs advance,  
Look but upon him and he'll fly,  
The smallest check of thine  
Will do't, so cannot all the power that's mine.   

7  
Thy kingdom is  
More than ten thousand worlds, each heart  
A Province is;  
Keep residence in mine, 'tis part  
Of those huge realms; I'll be  
Thy slave, and by this means gain liberty,   

8  
Such as all Earth  
Ne'er could so much as fancy yet,  
Nor can give birth  
To thoughts enough to fathom it,  
No no, nor can blessed I  
When I enjoy it, know what I enjoy.   

9  
Then give me this  
I ask for, though I know not what  
(O Lord) it is:  
But what's of greatest price give that,  
Or plainly bold to be  
In begging, Lord, I pray thee give me thee.    

Hymnus.  
UT se perpetuo rotat  
Aether, quàm fluidis ruit  
Semper pendulis orbibus,  
Quàm dulces variat vices!  
Nunc serae tenebrae ruunt,  
Nunc lucis jubar aureum,  
Nunc flores Zephyri erigunt  
Languentes Aquilonibus;  
Jam jam vellera nubium  
Quiddam caeruleum rubent,  
Jam quid caeruleum albicant;  
Jam flammam croceam evomit  
Phoebus, sed modo debilem:  
Jam molles abigit nives,  
Flores parturiens novos,  
Jam se proripit, & gelu  
Sistit non rapidas aquas.  
Tu cuncta haec peragis Deus,  
Te clamant Deus, omnia  
Fecisti ex nihilo, & modo  
Servas ne in nihilum ruant.  
Si●tu contineas manum,  
Labescant simul omnia;  
Tellus, non animalibus  
Praebens hospitium suis,  
Sordebit nimiis aquis;  
Ipsum nec mare noverit  
Fluctus sistere fervidos,  
Turbabuntur & omnia  
Ni tu cuncta manu poti,  
Ta cuncta officio tenes.   

Self.  

1  
TRaitor self, why do I try  
Thee, my bitter'st Enemy?  
What can I bear  
Alas more dear  
Than is this centre of myself my heart?  
Yet all those trains that blow me up lie there  
Hid in so small a part.   

2  
How many back-bones nourished have  
Crawling Serpents in the grave?  
I am alive,  
Yet life do give  
To Myriads of Adders in my breast,  
Which do not there consume, but grow and thrive,  
And undisturbed rest.   

3  
Still gnawing where they first were bred,  
Consuming where they're nourished,  
Endeavouring still  
Even him to kill  
That gives them life, and loses of his bliss  
To entertain them: that tyrannic Ill  
So radicated is.   

4  
Most fatal men what can we have  
To trust? our bosoms will deceive;  
The clearest thought  
To witness brought,  
Will speak against us and condemn us too,  
Yea and they all are known. O how we ought  
To sift them through!   

5  
Yet what's our diligence even all  
Those sands to number that do fall  
Chased by the wind?  
Nay we may find  
A mighty difference; who would suppose  
This little thing so fruitful were and blind  
As its own ruin shows?    

Anteros.  

Frown on me shades, and let not day  
Swell in a needle-pointed ray  
To make discoveries; wrap me here  
In folds of night, and do not fear  
The sun's approach, so shall I find  
A greater light possess my mind;  
O do not (Children of the Spring)  
Hither your charming Odours bring,  
Nor with your painted smiles devise  
To captivate my wandering eyes,  
Th' have strayed too much, but now begin  
Wholly t' employ themselves within.  
What do I now on Earth? O why  
Do not these Members upward fly,  
And force a room among the stars,  
And there my greatned self disperse  
As wide as thought? what do I here  
Spread on soft down of Roses? there  
That spangled curtain which so wide  
Dilates its lustre, shall me hide.  
Mount up low thoughts and see what sweet  
Reposance Heaven can beget;  
Could ye the least compliance frame  
How should I all become one flame,  
And melt in purest fires? O how  
My warmed Heart would sweetly glow,  
And waste those dregs of Earth that stay  
Glued to it, than it might away,  
And still ascend, till that it stood  
Within the centre of all good;  
There pressed, not overwhelmed with joys,  
Under its burden fresh arise;  
There might it lose itself and then  
With losing find itself again;  
There might it triumph and yet be  
Still in a blessed captivity.  
There might it— O why do I speak  
Whose humble thoughts are far too weak,  
To apprehend small notions? nay  
Angels are nonplus, though the day  
Breaks clearer on them, and they run  
In Apogees more near the sun.  
But oh! what pulls me? how I shall  
In the least moment headlong fall;  
Now I'm on Earth again not dight,  
As formerly in springing light,  
The self same objects please, that I  
Did even now, as base deny:  
Now what a powerful influence  
Has Beauty on my slavish sense,  
How rob I Nature that I may  
Her wealth upon my cheek display,  
How doth the Giant Honour seem  
Well statured in my fond esteem;  
And Gold that bane of men, I call  
Not poisonous now but cordial:  
Since that the world's great Eye the sun  
Has not disdained to make't his own;  
Now every passion sways, and I  
Tamely admit their Tyranny;  
Only with numerous sighings say,  
The basest thing is breathing clay.   

But sure these vapours will not ere  
Draw curtains o'er my Hemisphere.  
Let it clear up, and welcome day  
its lustre once again display.  
Thou (O my sun) a while Mayst lie  
As intercepted from mine eye,  
But Love shall fright those clouds, and thou  
Into my purged eyes shalt flow,  
Which (melted by my inward fires,  
Which shall be blown by strong desires)  
Consuming into tears, shall feel  
Each tear into a pearl congeal,  
And every pearl shall be a stem  
In my celestial Diadem.    

A hymn.  

THou mighty Subject of my humble Song,  
Whom every thing speaks, though it cannot speak;  
Whom all things echo, though without a tongue;  
And int' expressions of thy glory break.   

Who out of nothing this vast fabric brought;  
And still preserv'st it least it fall again,  
And be reduced into it's ancient nought,  
But may its vigour primitive retain.   

Who out of Atoms shaped thine Image, Man,  
And all to crown him with Supremacy  
Over his Fellow-creatures, nay and than  
Didst in him raise a flame that cannot die.   

Whose purer fire should animate that dross  
That renders him but equal to the beast,  
And make him, though materiate and gross,  
Not less than those that in no bodies rest,   

Nay Lord above them, they did first of all  
Turn Renegadoes to thy Majesty,  
And in their mine did involve his fall,  
That caused him under thy displeasure lie.   

There did he lose his snowy Innocence,  
His undepraved will, than did he fall  
Down from the Tower of knowledge, nay from thence  
Dated the loss of his, Heaven, thee, and all.   

So wert thou pleased to let thy anger lay  
Clouds of displeasure twixt poor man ●●d thee,  
That Mercy might send forth a milky my,  
To tell, that nevertheless thou wouldst agree.   

Though man in sinning still new guilt should add,  
It never could expugn thy patience;  
Thine, who not ever any passion had,  
But can forgive, as well as see offence.   

Yet though our hearts petrificated were,  
And all our blood curdled to ruddy Ice,  
Yet causedest thou thy Law be graven there,  
And set a Guardian or't, that never dies.   

But we erased that Sculpture, than thou wrote  
In Tables, what thou hadst in stone before;  
Yet were we not unto obedience brought,  
But rather slackened our performance more:   

Dead to all goodness and engulfed in sin,  
Benumbed by our own corruptions,  
That we were only drowned, not rendered clean,  
By th' streams that covered all the Earth at once.   

wandering without the least ability  
To tread, or Eyes to see our safest way,  
While fiery vengeance at our heels did fly,  
Ready to strike when thou the word shouldst say.   

Yet didst thou disappoint her, thy son's blood  
Supplied our want of Oceans of tears.   
 
The author thought fit this should not perish, though other occasions suffer him only to present it in the habit of a Fragment.   
Ecclesiastes. 1.3. 
What profiteth a Man of all his labour which he taketh under the Sun?  

1  
EVen as the wandering Traveller doth stray,  
Led from his way  
By a false fire, whose Flame to cheated sight  
Doth lead aright,  
All paths are footed over, but that one  
Which should be gone;  
Even so my foolish wishes are in chase  
Of every thing, but what they should embrace.   

2  
We laugh at children, that can when they please  
A bubble raise,  
And, when their fond ambition sated is,  
Again dismiss  
The fleeting toy into its former air.  
What do we here  
But act such Tricks? yet thus we differ, they  
Destroy, so do not we, we sweat, they play.   

3  
Ambitions towerings do some gallants keep  
From calmer sleep,  
Yet when their thoughts the most possessed are,  
They grope but air,  
And when they're highest, in an instant fade  
Into a shade,  
Or like a stone, that more forced upwards, shall  
With greater violence to'ts centre fall.   

4  
Another whose conceptions only dream  
Monsters of fame,  
The vain applause of other madmen buys  
With his own sighs,  
Yet his enlarged name shall never crawl  
Over this Ball,  
But soon consume; thus doth a Trumpets sound  
Rush bravely on a little, then's not found;   

5  
But we as soon may tell how often shapes  
Are changed by Apes,  
As know how oft man's childish thoughts do vary  
And still miscarry,  
So a weak Eye in twilight thinks it sees  
New species,  
While it sees nought; so men in dreams conceive,  
Of Sceptets, till that waking undeceive.    

An Epitaph.  

WHen that my days are spent, (nor do  
I know  
Whether the Sun will ere immise  
Light to mine eyes)  
Me thinks a pious tear needs must  
Offer some violence to my dust.   

Dust, raveled in the air will fly  
Up high,  
Mingled with water 'twill retire  
Into the mire.  
Why should my ashes not be free  
When nature gave them liberty?   

But when I go, I must them leave  
In grave.  
No floods can make my marble so  
As moist to grow.  
Then spare your labour, since your dew  
Cannot from ashes, Flowers renew.    

A Pastoroll hymn.  

HAppy Choristers of air,  
who by your nimble flight draw near  
His throne, whose wondrous story  
And unconfined glory  
Your notes still carol, whom your sound  
And whom your plumy pipes rebound.   

Yet do the lazy snails no less  
The greatness of our Lord confess,  
And those whom weight hath chained  
And to the Earth restrained,  
Their ruder voices do as well,  
Yea and the speechless Fishes tell.   

Great Lord, from whom each Tree receaves,  
Then pays again as rent, his leaves;  
Thou dost in purple set,  
The Rose and Violet,  
And givest the sickly lily white,  
Yet in them all, thy name dost write.    

An Ode.  

1  
LOrd send thine hand  
Unto my rescue, or I shall  
Into mine own ambushments fall,  
Which ready stand  
To d' execution, all  
Laid by self-love, O what  
Love of ourselves is that  
That breeds such uproars in our better state!   

2  
I think I pass  
A Meadow guilt with crimson showrs,  
Of the most rich and beauteous Flowers,  
Yet thou alas!  
Espiest what under lours;  
Taste them, they're poison, lay  
Thyself to rest, there stray  
Whole knots of Snakes that solely wait for prey.   

3  
To dream of flight  
Is more than madness; there will be  
Either some strong necessity,  
Or else delight  
To chain us, would we flee.  
Thus do I wandering go,  
And cannot Poisons know  
From wholesome Simples that beside them grow.   

4  
Blind that I am,  
That do not see before mine eyes  
These gazing dangers that arise  
Ever the same,  
Or in Varieties  
Far worse, how shall I scape?  
Or whether shall I leap?  
Or with what comfort solace my hard hap?   

5  
Thou who alone  
Canst give assistance, send me aid,  
Else shall I in those depths be laid  
And quickly thrown,  
Whereof I am afraid;  
Thou who canst stop the Sea  
In her mid-rage, stop me;  
Lest from myself my own self-ruin be.   
FINIS.