Parnassus Biceps. OR several Choice Pieces OF POETRY, Composed by the best WITS that were in both the Universities BEFORE THEIR DISSOLUTION.  
With an Epistle in the behalf of those now doubly secluded and sequestredMembers, by One who himself is gone.  
LONDON: Printed for George Eversden at the sign of the Maidenhead in St. Paul's churchyard. 1656.   

To the Ingenuous READER.  
SIR.  
THese leaves present you with some sow drops of that Ocean of Wit, which flowed from those two breasts of this Nation, the two Universities; and doth now (the sluices being pulled up) overflow the whole Lands: or rather like those Springs of paradise, doth water and enrich the whole worlds whilst the Fountains themselves are dried up, and that Twin-Paradise become desert. For then were these Verses Composed, when Oxford and Camebridge were universities, and a college more learned than a Town-Hall; when the Buttery and kitchen could speak Latin, though not Preach; and the very irrational Turnspits had so much knowing modesty, as not to dare to come into a chapel, or to mountany Pulpits but their own. Then were these Poems writ, when peace and plenty were the best Patriots and Maecenasses to great Wits; when we could sit and make Verses under our own Figtrees, and be inspired from the juice of our own Vines: then, when it was held no sin for the same man to be both a Poet, and a Prophet; and to draw predictions no less from his Verse, than his Text. Thus you shall meet here St. Paul's Rapture in a Poem, and the fancy as high and as clear as the third Heaven, into which that Apostle was caught up: and this not only in the ravishing expressions and ecstasies of amorous Composures and Love Songs; but in the more grave Doric strains of solid Divinity: Anthems that might have become David's harp, and Asaphs choir, to be sung, as they were made, with the Spirit of that chief musician. Again, In this small glass you may behold your own face, fit your own humours, however wound up and tuned; whether to the sad note, and melancholy look of a disconsolate Elegy, or those more sprightly jovial airs of an Epithalamium, or epinicion. Further, would you see a Mistress of any age, or face, in her created, or uncreated complexion: this mirror presents you with more shapes than a conjurer's glass, or a limnors' Pencil. It will also teach you how to court that Mistress, when her very washings and pargettings cannot flatter her; how to raise a beauty out of wrinkles fourscore years old, and to fall in love even with deformity and ugliness. From your Mistress it brings you to your God; and (as it were some new Master of the Ceremonies) instructs you how to woe, and court him likewise; but with approaches and distances, with gestures and expressions suitable to a deity; addresses clothed with such a sacred filial horror and reverence, as may invite and embolden the most despairing condition of the saddest gloomy Sinner; and withal dash out of countenance the greatest confidence of the most glorious Saint: and not with that blasphemous familiarity of our new-enlightned and inspired men, who are as bold with the Majesty and glory of that Light that is unaprochable, as with their own ignes fatui; and account of the third Person in the blessed Trinity for no more than their Fellow-Ghost; thinking him as much bound to them for their vertiginous blasts and while-winds, as they to him for his own most holy Spirit. Your Authors then of these few sheets are Priests, as well as Poets; who canteach you to pray inverse, and (if there were not already too much phantasticknes in that Trade) to Preach likewise: while they turn Scripture-chapters into Odes, and both the Testaments into one book of psalms: making Parnassns as sacred as Mount Olivet, and the nine Muses no less religious than a cloister of Nuns. But yet for all this I would not have thee, Courteous Reader, pass thy censure upon those two Fountains of Religion and Learning, the universities, from these few small drops of wit, as hardly as some have done upon the late Assemblies three-half-penny catechism: as if all their public and private Libraries, all their morning and evening watchings, all those pangs and throws of their Studies, were now at length delivered but of a Verse, and brought to bed only of five feet, and a Conceit. For although the judicious modesty of these Men dares not look the world in the face with any of Theorau John's Revelations, or those glaring New-lights that have muffled the Times and Nation with a greater confusion and darkness, than ever benighted the world since the first Chaos: yet would they please but to instruct this ignorant Age with those exact elaborate Pieces, which might reform Philosophy without a Civil War, and new model even Divinity its self without the ruin of either church, or State; probably that most prudent and learned Order of the Church of Rome, the Jesuit, should not boast more solid, though more numerous volumes in this kind. And of this truth that Order was very sensible, when it felt the rational Divinity of one single Chillingworth to be an unanswerable twelve-years-task for all their English colleges in Chrisendome. And therefore that Society did like its self, whe●… it sent us over a War instead of an Answer, and proved us heretics by the sword: which in the first place was to Rout the Universities, and to teach our two Fountains of Learning better manners, then for ever hereafter to bubble and swell against the Apostolic Sea. And yet I know not whether the depth of their politics might not have advised to have kept those Fountains within their own banks, and there to have dammd them and choked them up with the mud of the Times, rather than to have let those Protestant Streams run; which perchance may effect that now by the spreading Riverets, which they could never have done through the enclosed Spring: as it had been a deeper State-piece and Reach in that Sanedrim, the great council of the Jewish Nation, to have confined the Apostles to Jerusalem, and there to have muzzled them with Oaths, and Orders; rather then by a fruitful Persecution to scatter a few Gospel Seeds, that would spring up the Religion of the whole world: which had it been Coopd within the walls of that City, might (for all they knew) in few years have expired and given up the ghost upon the same Golgotha with its Master. And as then every Pair of Fishermen made a Church and caught the sixt part of the world in their Nets; so now every Pair of Celledge-fellows make as many several universities; which are truly so called, in that they are Catholic, and spread over the face of the whole earth; which stands amazed, to see not only Religion, but Learning also to come from beyond the alps; and that a poor despised Canton and nook of the world should contain as much of each as all the other Parts besides. But then, as when our single Jesus was made an universal Saviour, and his particular Gospel the Catholic Religion; though that Jesus and this Gospel did both take their rise from the holy City; yet now no City is more unholy and infidel than that; insomuch that there is at this day scarce any thing to be heard of a Christ at Jerusalem, more than that such a one was sometimes there, nor any thing to be seen of his Gospel, more than a sepulchre: just so it is here with us; where though both Religion and Learning do owe their growth, as well as birth, to those nurseries of both, the universities; yet, since the scions of those nurseries have been transplanted, there's little remains in them now (if they are not belied) either of the old Religion and Divinity, more than its empty Chair & Pulpit, or of the ancient Learning & Arts, except bare Schools, and their gilded Superscriptions: so far have we beggared ourselves to enrich the whole world. And thus, Ingenuous Sir, have I given you the State and Condition of this poetic Miscellany, as also of the Authors; it being no more than some few Slips of the best Florists made up into a slender Garland, to crown them in their Pilgrimage, and refresh thee in thine: if yet their very Pilgrimage be not its self a Crown equal to that of Confessors, and their academical Dissolution a Resurrection to the greatest temporal glory: when they shall be approved of by men and Angels for a chosen Generation, a Royal Priesthood, a peculiar People. In the interim let this comfort be held out to you, our secluded University-members, by him that is none; (and therefore what hath been here spoken must not be interpreted as out of passion to myself, but nicer zeal to my Mother) that according to the generally received Principles and Axioms of Policy, and the soundest judgement of the most prudential statesmen upon those Principles, the day of your sad ostracism is expiring, and at an end; but yet such an end, as some of you will not embrace when it shall be offered; but will choose rather to continue peripatetics through the whole world, then to return, and be so in your own colleges. For as that great council of Trent had a Form and Conclusion altogether contrary to the expectation and desires of them that procured it; so our great counsels of England (our late Parliaments) will have such a result, and Catastrophe, as shall no ways answer the Fasts and Prayers, the Humiliations, and Thanks givings of their Plotters and Contrivers: such a result I say, that will strike a palsy through Mr. Pim's ashes, make his cold Marble sweat; and put all those several parties, and Actors, that have as yet appeared upon our tragical bloody Stage, to an amazed stand and gaze: when they shall confess themselves (but too late) to be those improvident axes and hammers in the hand of a subtle Workman; whereby he was enabled to beat down, and square out our Church and State into a Conformity with his own. And then it will appear that the great work, and the holy Cause, and the naked arm, so much talked of for these fifteen years, were but the work, and the cause, and the arm of that Hand, which hath all this while reached us over the alps; dividing, and composing, winding us up, and letting us down, until our very discords have set and tuned us to such notes, both in our Ecclesiastical, and civil Government; as may soonest conduce to that most necessary Catholic unison and Harmony, which is an essential part of Christ's Church here upon Earth, and the very Church its self in Heaven. And thus far, Ingenuous Reader, suffer him to be a Poet in his Prediction, though not in his Verse; who desires to be known so far to thee, as that he is a friend to persecuted Truth, and Peace; and thy most affectionate Christian Servant,  
Ab: Wright.   

Vniversity-Poems.  

The Temper. UPON Dr. JUXON Bishop of LONDON.  
Great Sir,  
ANd now more great than when you were  
Oth' Cabinet to your King, and Treasurer.  
For than your acts were locked from common view  
Your life as counsel being all Closet too;  
But now that Cabinet's opened, you do pass  
To th' world for the chief Jewel of the case:  
Each virtue shines a several glorious spark,  
Which then were but one Diamond in the dark.  
The Exchequer speaks your faith, this you to be  
As true to the council-board as Treasury;  
Which care o'th' civil good when they shall view  
The houses will repeal their act for you;  
And in their graver policy debate  
The cloak less fit for the Church, than th' gown for th' State.  
Next, to your place your low mind did accord  
So well, you seemed a Bishop and no Lord.  
A Bishop such, as even the Scots to make  
You theirs would arm, and a new Covenant take;  
Disband the presbytery, and henceforth  
Install you their sole Patriarch of the North.  
Such power hath your soft rhetoric, such awe  
Your nod, and even your silence is a law;  
While others are not heard through their own noise  
And by their speaking much have lost their voice:  
Thus those o'th' starry Senate of the night  
Which slowest tread their Orbs shine till most bright,  
And dart the strongest influx; so conceal  
The flints cold veins a fire; such is the zeal  
Of recluse Votaries, piercing the air  
And yet not heard, and such the Anchorites prayer.  
Not like our modern zealots, whose bare name  
In Greek and Welsh joins language for a flame.  
Gunpowder souls, whose Pulpit thoughts create  
A calenture and fever in the State;  
Whose plots and discipline are all fire, and shine  
As hot, as if contrived under the line.  
Your tempers cool and Northern, calculate  
For the Miridian of this clime and State;  
And may be fitly styled the Courts polestar,  
Or honour's best moral Philosopher:  
So just your Sovereigne's, 'tis a hard thing  
To say, which was the Bishop, which the King.  
This Temper took our State, by whom we see  
The order questioned yet the Bishop free:  
So that of all their Acts this one's most rare,  
A churchman scape and a Lord Treasurer.   

A Poem, Indefence of the decent Ornaments of Christ-Church Oxon, occasioned by a Banbury brother, who called them Idolatries.  
YOu that profane our windows with a tongue  
Set like some clock on purpose to go wrong;  
Who when you were at Service sighed, because  
You heard the Organs music not the daws:  
Pitying our solemn state, shaking the head  
To see no ruins from the flore to the lead:  
To whose pure nose our Cedar gave offence,  
Crying it smelled of Papists frankincense:  
Who walking on our Marbles scoffing said  
Whose bodies are under these Tombstones laid:  
Counting our Tapers works of darkness; and  
Choosing to see Priests in blew-aprons stand  
Rather than in rich copes which show the art  
Of Sisera's prey embroidered in each part:  
Then when you saw the Altars basin said  
Why's not the Ewer on the Cubboards head,  
Thinking our very Bibles too profane,  
Cause you ne'er bought such Covers in Ducklane.  
Loathing all decency, as if you'd have  
Altars as foul and homely as a Grave.  
Had you one spark of reason, you would find  
Yourselves like idols to have eyes yet blind.  
'tis only some base niggard heresy  
To think Religion loves deformity.  
Glory did never yet make God the less,  
Neither can beauty defile holiness.  
What's more magnificent than Heaven? yet where  
Is there more love and piety then there.  
My heart doth wish (Were't possible) to see  
Paul's built with precious stones and porphyry:  
To have our Halls and Galleries outshine  
Altars in beauty, is to deck our swine  
With Orient Pearl, whilst the deserving choir  
Of God and Angels wallow in the mire:  
Our decent Copes only distinction keep  
That you may know the shepherd from the sheep,  
As gaudy letters in the rubric show  
How you may holidays from lay-dayes know:  
Remember Aaron's Robes and you will say  
Ladies at Masques are not so rich as they.  
Then are th'priest's words like thunderclaps when he  
Is lightning like rayed round with Majesty.  
May every Temple shine like those of Nile,  
And still be free from Rat or Crocodile.  
But you will urge both Priest and Church should be  
The solemn patterns of humility.  
Do not some boast of rags? Cynics deride  
The pomp of Kings but with a greater pride.  
Meekness consists not in the clothes but heart,  
Nature may be vainglorious well as art;  
We way as lowly before God appear  
Dressed with a glorious pearl as with a tear;  
In his high presence where the Stars and Sun  
Do but eclipse there's no ambition.  
You dare admit gay paint upon a wall,  
Why then in glass that held apocryphal?  
Our body's Temples are: look in the eye  
The window, and you needs must pictures spy;  
Moses and Aaron and the King's arms are  
Daubed in the Church when you the Warden were.  
Yet you ne'er find for Papist: shall we say  
Banbury is turned Rome, because we may  
See the holy Lamb and Christopher? nay more  
The Altar stone set at the Tavern door?  
Why can't the ox then in the nativity  
Be Imagd forth, but Papists Bulls are nigh?  
Our pictures to no other end are made  
Then is your Time and sith your death and spade;  
To us they're but mementoes, which present▪  
Christ best, except his Word and Sacrament.  
If 'twere a sin to set up imagery,  
To get a Child were flat idolatry.  
The models of our buildings would be thus  
Directions to our houses, ruins to us.  
Hath not each creature which hath daily birth  
Something which resembles Heaven or Earth?  
Suppose some ignorant Heathen once did bow  
To Images, may we not see them now?  
Should we love darkness and abhor the Sun  
Cause Persians gave it adoration?  
And plant no Orchards, because apples first  
Made Adam and his lineal race accursed?  
Though wine for Bacchus, bread for Ceres went,  
Yet both are now used in the Sacrament.  
What then if these were Popish relics? few  
Windows are elsewhere old but these are new,  
And so exceed the former, that the face  
Of those come short of the outside of our glass;  
Colours are here mixed so, that Rainbows be  
(Compared) but clouds without variety.  
Art here is nature's envy: this is he,  
Not Paracelsus, that by chemistry  
Can make a man from ashes, if not dust,  
Producing offsprings of his mind not lust.  
See how he makes his maker, and doth draw  
All that is meant i'th' Gospel, or i'th' Law:  
Looking upon the Resurrection  
Me thoughts I saw the blessed vision,  
Where not his face is merely drawn but mind,  
Which not with paint but oil of gladness shined:  
But when I viewed the next pane, where we have  
The God of life transported to his grave,  
Light then is dark, all things so dull and dead;  
As if that part of the window had been lead.  
Ionas his whale did so men's eyes befool  
That they'd have begged him for th' Anatomy School.  
That he saw Ships at Oxford one did swear,  
Though Isis yet will Barges hardly bear.  
Another soon as he the trees espied  
Thought them i'th' Garden on the other side.  
See in what state (though on an ass) Christ went,  
This shows more glorious than the Parliament.  
Then in what awe Moses his rod doth keep  
The Seas, as if a frost had glazed the deep;  
The raging waves are to themselves a bound;  
Some cry help help or horse and man are drowned.  
Shadows do everywhere for substance pass,  
You'd think the sands were in a hourglass.  
You that do live with Chirurgeons, have you seen  
A spring of blood forced from a swelling vein?  
So from a touch of Moses rod doth jump  
A Chataract, the rock is made a pump:  
At sight of whose oreflowings many get  
Themselves away for fear of being wet.  
Have you beheld a sprightful Lady stand  
To have her frame drawn by a painter's hand?  
Such lively look and presence, such a dress  
King Pharaoh's Daughters Image doth express;  
Look well upon her Gown and you will swear  
The needle not the pencil hath been there:  
At sight of her some gallants do dispute  
Whether i'th' Church 'tis lawful to salute.  
Next Jacob kneeling, where his Kids-skins such  
As it may well cozen old Isaac's touch:  
A shepherd seeing how thorns went round about  
Abraham's ram, would needs have helped it out.  
Behold the Dove descending to inspire  
The Apostles heads with cloven tongues of fire,  
And in a superficies there you'll see  
The gross dimensions of profundity:  
'tis hard to judge which is best built and higher  
The arch-roof in the window or the choir.  
All beasts as in the Ark are lively done,  
Nay you may see the shadow of the Sun.  
Upon a landscape if you look a while  
You'll think the prospect at least forty mile.  
There's none needs now go travel, we may see  
At home Jerusalem and Ninevy;  
And Sodom now in flames: one glance will dart  
Farther than Lynce with Galilaeus art.  
Seeing Eliah's Chariot, we fear  
There is some fiery prodigy in the air.  
When Christ to purge his Temple holds his whip  
How nimbly hucksters with their baskets skip.  
St. Peter's fishes are so lively wrought,  
Some cheapen them and ask when they were caught.  
Here's motion painted too: Chariots so fast  
Run, that they're never gone though always past.  
The Angels with their Lutes are done so true,  
We do not only look but harken too,  
As if their sounds were painted: thus the wit  
Of the pencil hath drawn more than there can sit.  
Thus as (in Archimedes sphere) you may  
In a small glass the universe survey:  
Such various shapes are too i'th' imagery  
As age and sex may their own features see.  
But if the window cannot show your face  
Look under feet the Marble is your glass,  
Which too for more than Ornament is there  
The stones may learn your eyes to shed a tear:  
Yet though their lively shadows delude sense  
They never work upon the conscience;  
They cannot make us kneel; we are not such  
As think there's balsam in their kiss or touch,  
That were gross superstition we know;  
There is no more power in them then the Pope's toe.  
The Saints themselves for us can do no good,  
Muchless their pictures drawn in glass and wood,  
They cannot seal, but since they signify  
They may be worthy of a cast o'th' eye,  
Although no worship: that is due alone  
Not to the Carpenters but God's own son:  
Obedience to blocks deserves the rod;  
The Lord may well be then a jealous God.  
Why should not Statues now be due to Paul,  
As to the Caesars of the capital.  
How many Images of great heirs, which  
Had nothing but the sin of being rich,  
Shine in our Temples? kneeling always there  
Where when they were alive they'd scarce appear.  
Yet shall Christ's sepulchre have ne'er a Tomb?  
Shall every Saint suffer John Baptists doom?  
No limb of Mary stand? must we forget  
Christ's cross as soon as past the Alphabet?  
Shall not their heads have room in the window who  
Founded our Church and our Religion too?  
We know that Gods a Spirit, we confess  
Thoughts cannot comprehend his name, muchless  
Can a small glass his nature: but since he  
Vouchsafed to suffer his humanity,  
Why may not we (Only to puts in mind  
Of his Godhead) have his manhood thus enshrind?  
Is our King's person less esteemed because  
We read him in our coins as well as Laws?  
Do what we can, whether we think or paint,  
All God's expressions are but weak and faint.  
Yet spots in Globes must not be blotted thence  
That cannot show the world's magnificence.  
Nor is it fit we should the skill control  
Because the Artist cannot draw the soul.  
Cease then your railings and your dull complaints;  
To pull down Galleries and set up Saints  
Is no impiety: now we may well  
Say that our Church is truly visible:  
Those that before our glass scaffolds prefer,  
Would turn our Temple to a theatre.  
Windows are Pulpits now; though unlearnd, one  
May read this bible's new Edition.  
Instead of here and there a verse adorned  
Round with a lace of paint, fit to be scorned  
Even by vulgar eyes, each pane presents  
Whole chapters with both comment and contents,  
The cloudy mysteries of the Gospel here  
Transparent as the crystal do appear.  
'tis not to see things darkly through a glass,  
Here you may see our Saviour face to face.  
And whereas Feasts come seldom, here's descried  
A constant Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide.  
Let the deaf hither come; no matter though  
Faith's sense be lost, we a new way can show:  
Here we can teach them to believe by the eye;  
These silenced Ministers do edify:  
The Scriptures rays contracted in a glass  
Like Emblems do with greater virtue pass.  
Look in the book of Martyrs and you'll see  
More by the Pictures than the History.  
That price for things in colours oft we give  
Which we'd not take to have them while they live.  
Such is the power of painting that it makes  
A loving sympathy twixt men and snakes.  
Hence then Paul's doctrine may seem more divine▪  
As Amber through a glass doth clearer shine.  
Words pass away, as soon as heard are gone;  
We read in books what here we dwell upon,  
Thus then there's no more fault in imagery  
Then there is in the practice of piety,  
Both edify: what is in letters there  
Is writ in plainer hieroglyphics here.  
'tis not a new Religion we have chose;  
'tis the same body but in better clothes.  
You'll say they make us gaze when we should pray  
And that our thoughts do on the figures stray:  
If so, you may conclude us beasts, what they  
Have for their object is to us the way.  
Did any ere use prospectives to see  
No farther than the glass: or can there be  
Such lazy travellers, so given to sin,  
As that they'll take their dwelling at the inn.  
A Christians sight rests in Divinity,  
Signs are but spectacles to help faiths ey●,  
God is the centre: dwelling one these words,  
My muse a Sabbath to my brain affords.  
If their nice wits more solemn proof exact,  
Know this was meant a Poem not a Tract.   

An elegy, upon the death of Sir John Burrowes, slain at the Isle of Ree.  
OH wound us not with this sad tale, forbear  
To press our grief too much, we cannot hear  
This all at once, such heavy news as these  
Must be sunk gently into us by degrees:  
Say Burrowes is but hurt, let us digest  
This first, then try our patience for the rest.  
Practise us first in lighter griefs, that we  
May grow at last strong for this Tragedy.  
Do not speak yet he's slain, or if he be  
Speak't in a whisper or uncertainty,  
As some new unauthorised buzz without  
Reason or warrant to confirm our doubt.  
Come 'tis not so, 'tis but some flying talk  
News lately vented in the audacious walk,  
Some lie that's drapt in Paul's to stir our fears,  
And gathered by the busy credulous ears.  
Will you believe aught comes from thence? why there  
The Forts surrendered, and the Rochellere  
Sworn English, Tillyes slain, the hostile Kings  
Closed in our siege, with such prodigious things,  
Which your persuaded vulgar takes and sends  
Abroad as tokens to their country friends.  
Are all these wonders false? and only this  
True 'mongst so many impossibilities?  
Where truth is worse than any forgery  
There we may curse his mouth that doth not lie,  
When fame goes off with such a black report  
Worse than the murdering Canon from the fort,  
Worse than the shot that killed him, for but one  
Was killed with that, this kills a Nation.  
I'll not believe it yet, do we not know  
An envious murder famed him dead ere now;  
Received went into Ballads and almost  
Claped in carantoes upon every post:  
Why should he not now die in jest as then,  
And we as haply be mocked again?  
But 'tis too certain, here his Coarse we have  
Come o'er to prove his death and ask a Grave,  
A Grave for his good service: only thus  
Must we reward thee that wast slain for us,  
To mourn and bury thee? and would our fears  
As soon were closed too as thy dust and tears.  
I would thou mightst die wholly here, and be  
Forgotten, rather than our misery  
Should urge thy fresh remembrance, and recall  
Our sorrows often to lament thy fall,  
When we shall say hereafter, 'tis well seen  
Burrowes is dead else this had never been.  
Why did we thus expose thee, what's now all  
That Island to requite thy funeral;  
Though thousand troops of murdered French do lie  
It may revenge, it cannot satisfy:  
They are before hand still, and when we have done  
Our worst we are losers though the Fort be won:  
Our conquerors now will weep, when they shall see  
This price too dear to buy a victory:  
He whose brave fire gave heat to all the rest  
That dealt his spirits in each English breast;  
From whose divided virtues you might take  
So many captains out and fully make  
Them each accomplished with those parts the which  
Did jointly his rare furnished soul enrich:  
He whose command was o'er himself more high  
And strictly sour then o'er his company:  
Not rashly valiant nor yet fearful wise,  
His flame had counsel in't, his fury eyes,  
Not struck with courage at the drums proud beat  
Or made fierce only by the Trumpets heat:  
When even pale hearts above their pitch do fly  
And for a while do mad it furiously:  
His rage was tempered well, no fear could daunt  
His reason his cold blood was valiant.  
Alas those vulgar praises injure thee,  
Which now a Poet would as plenteously  
Give some boy soldier, one that ne'er knew more  
Than the fine Scabbard and the scarf he wore.  
And we can pitch no higher; thou hast outdone  
So much our fancy and invention,  
It cannot give thee aught. He that of thee  
Shall write but half seems to write Poetry:  
It is a strong line here to speak yet true,  
Hyperboles in others is thy due.  
Suffice it that thou wert our Armies all;  
Whose well tried name did more the French appall  
Then all their wants could do, whose inward dread  
Famished them more in courage then in bread:  
And we may make't a Question, whether most  
Besieged their Castle, Burrowes, or our Host.  
Now let me blame thy virtue, it was this  
Took thee from us and not our enemies.  
Whilst thy unwearied toil no respite takes  
And thinks rest sloth, and with parpetual wakes  
Continuest night with day and day with night;  
Thou wast more venturous when thou didst not fight.  
This did expose thee to their fraud and mark;  
They durst not seize upon thee but i'th' dark:  
The coward bullet that so oft before  
Waved thy bold face and did fear thee more  
Than thou fearedst it, now by its error is  
Aimed too too sure: There was no light to miss.  
Thus fell our captain, and the sound be's dead  
Has fallen as deep; and like that fatal lead  
Lies cold on us. Yet this thy honour be,  
Thy hurts our wound, thy death our misery.  
Not as the mourning of a private fate  
But as some ruin had befallen the State:  
The Fleet had been miscarried, Denmark ta'en  
Or the Palatinate been lost again.  
So we with downcast looks astonished quite  
Received this not as news but as a fright:  
So we relate thy death, whilst each man here  
Contributes to this public loss a tear:  
Whilst Fathers tell their children this was he;  
And they hereafter to posterity  
Range with those Forces that scourged France of old  
Burrowes and Talbot's name together told.  
whilst we add this to our quarrel, and now more  
Fight to revenge thee then our Land before.   

On a white blemish in his Mistress eye.  
IF there be hap●y any man that dares  
Think that the blemish in the Moon impairs  
Her modest beauty: He may be so far  
From right, as he that thinks a Swan may mar  
A crystal stream, or Ivory make a smutch  
Fairly enamelled in a piece of touch.  
He that thinks so may as well entertain  
A thought, that this fair snowy crystal stain,  
Which (Beauteous Mistress) late usurped your eye,  
Hath done your Heavenly face some injury  
He that thinks so ne'er let him have the bliss  
To steal from your sweet lips a Nectar kiss.  
Believe me (Fair) and so you may, my duty  
Is to observe lest on your spotless beauty  
The least wrong makes assault, it gives like grace  
Being white with the black moal on Venus' face;  
Yea Venus happily envied your sight  
Which wont to dazzle her inferior light,  
So put out th' one eye cause it proudly strove  
With her which most should kindle men in love,  
Yet tother to extinguish she forbore  
lest then like Cupid you had wounded more.  
If you will have me nature search, and tell you  
What was the cause that this fair blot befell you:  
It may be this, your dainty living torch  
Which wont the greedy amorous eye to scorch  
With a sweet murdering flame, when it could not wail  
For grief of so much slaughter it grew pale:  
It may be these two dainty stars in lieu  
Oth' grace which they from one another drew,  
(Kind twins) would needs like Castor and his brother  
Die in their turns so to enrich each other:  
Or whether 'twere that Cupid in his flight  
Being drawn by such a most imperious light:  
Refusing all beds else doth sleeping lie  
White naked boy in your white spotted eye.  
Or thus: Heaven seeing a sun in each your eye  
Put out the one to scape a prodigy;  
Yet double grace from hence your beauty won  
Now you have a pale Moon and glistering Sun.  
Nor think your beauty now disgraced because  
You have but one eye, believe me natures Laws  
(Being herself but one) admit no store  
In perfect things: there's one Sun and no more,  
unless't be your left eye; nor Moons more be,  
Unless that eye make a plurality:  
Which Moon-like spotted is: the worlds but one:  
The perfect gem is called an union:  
One Earth there is, one Ocean, and the Gods  
Joy not in equal numbers, but in odds.  
To perfect all this, you my muse assures  
There's still one beauty in the world, that's yours.   

To Mr. Hammon Parson of Beudly For pulling down the maypole.  
THe mighty zeal which thou hast late put on;  
Neither by Prophet nor by prophet's son  
As yet prevented, doth transport me so  
Beyond myself, that though I ne'er could go  
Far in a Verse, and have all rhymes defied  
Since Hopkins and good Thomas Sternhold died,  
Except it were the little pains I took  
To please good people in a Prayer-book  
That I set forth, or so: yet must I raise  
My spirits for thee, who shall in thy praise  
Gird up her loins and furiously run  
All kind of feet but Satan's cloven one.  
Such is thy zeal, so well thou dost express it▪  
That were't not like a charm I'd say God bless it.  
I needs must say it is a spiritual thing  
To rail against the Bishop and the King:  
But these are private quarrels, this doth fall  
Within the compass of the general.  
Whether it be a Pole painted or wrought,  
Far otherwise then from the wood 'twas brought:  
Whose head the Idol-makers hand doth crop;  
Where a profane bird towering on the top  
Looks like the calf in Horeb, at whose root  
The unyoakt youth doth exercise his foot:  
Or whether it preserves its boughs befriended  
By neighbouring bushes and by them attended,  
How canst thou choose but seeing it complain  
That Baal's worshipped in the Groves again:  
Tell me how cursed an egging with a sting  
Of lust do these unwily dances bring,  
The simple wretches say they mean no harm  
They don't indeed, but yet those actions warm  
Our purer blood the more: For Satan thus  
Tempts us the more that are more righteous.  
Oft hath a Brother most sincerely gone  
Stifled with zeal and contemplation,  
When lighting on the place where such repair  
He views the nymph and is clean out in his prayer:  
Oft hath a Sister grounded in a truth,  
Seeing the jolly carriage of the youth,  
Been tempted to the way that's broad and bad;  
And wert not for our private pleasures, had  
Renounced her little ruff and goggle eye  
And quit herself of the fraternity.  
What is the mirth? what is the melody  
That sets them in this Gentiles vanity?  
When in our Synagogues we rail at sin,  
And tell men of the faults that they are in,  
With hand and voice so following our themes  
That we put out the sides men in their dreams:  
Sounds not the Pulpit than which we belabour  
Better and holier than doth a Tabor;  
Yet such is unregenerate man's folly,  
He loves the wicked noise, and hates the holy.  
If the sins sweet enticing, and the blood  
Which now begins to boil, have thought it good  
To challenge liberty and recreation  
Let it be done in holy contemplation;  
Brother and Sister in the field may walk,  
Beginning of the holy word to talk,  
Of David and Uriah's lovely wife  
Of Thamar and her lustful brother's strife,  
Then underneath the hedge that is the next  
They may sit down and so act out the Text.  
Nor do we want, how e'er we live austere,  
In winter Sabbath nights some lusty cheer;  
And though the pastor's grace which oft doth hold  
Half an hour long make the provision cold,  
We can be merry thinking ne'er the worse  
To mend the matter at the second course;  
Chapters are read and Hymns are sweetly sung  
Jointly commanded by the nose and tongue:  
Then on the word we diversely dilate  
Wrangling indeed for heat of zeal, not hate,  
When at the length an unappeased doubt  
Fiercely comes in, and then the lights go out.  
Darkness thus makes our peace, and we contain  
Our fiery spi●its till we meet again:  
Till than no voice is heard, no tongue does go  
Unless a tender Sister shriek or so.  
Such should be our delights grave and demure,  
Not so abominable, and impure  
As those thou seek'st to hinder: but I fear  
Satan will be too strong, his kingdoms there.  
Few are the righteous, nor do I know  
How we this Idol here shall overthrow,  
Since our sincerest Patron is deceased  
The number of the righteous is decreased:  
But we do hope these times will on and breed  
A faction mighty for us. For indeed  
We labour all, and every Sister joins  
To have regenerate babes spring from our loins:  
Besides what many carefully have done  
To get the unrighteous man a righteous son.  
Then stoutly on, let not thy flocks range lewdly  
In their old vanities, thou lamp of Beudly.  
One thing I pray thee; do not so much thirst  
After Idolatries last fall, but first  
Follow thy suit more close, let it not go  
Till it be thine as thou wouldst have't: for so  
Thy successors upon the same entail  
Hereafter may take up the Whitsun-ale.   

On Mr. Sambourne, sometime sheriff of Oxford-shire.  
FIe, scholars, fie, have you such thirsty souls  
To swill, quaff, and carouse in Samborns bowls.  
Tell me, mad youngsters, what do you believe  
It cost good Sambourne nothing to be sheriff?  
To spend so many beeves, so many weathers,  
Maintain so many Caps, so many Feathers.  
Again is malt so cheap, this pinching year,  
That you should make such havoc of his bear:  
I hear you are so many, that you make  
Most of his men turn Tapsters for your sake.  
And that when he even at the Bench doth sit,  
You snatch the meat from off the hungry spit:  
You keep such hurly-burly, that it passes,  
Ingurgitating sometimes whole half glasses.  
And some of you, forsooth, are grown so fine,  
Or else so saucy, as to call for wine;  
As if the sheriff had put such men in trust,  
As durst draw out more wine than needs they must.  
In faith, in faith, it is not well my Masters,  
Nor fit that you should be the sheriffs' tasters.  
It were enough, you being such gormondizers,  
To make the sheriffs hence forth turn arrant misers  
Remove the Size, to Oxford's foul disgrace,  
To Henly on the Thames, or some such place.  
He never had complained had it been  
A petty Ferkin, or a Kilderkin:  
But when a Barrel daily is drunk out,  
My Masters, then 'tis time to look about.  
Is this a lie? trow ye, I tell you no,  
My Lord high-chancellor was informed so.  
And oh, what would not all the bread in Town  
Suffice to drive the sheriff's liquour down:  
But he in hampers must it from hence bring;  
Oh most prodigious, and most monstrous thing!  
Upon so many loaves of home-made bread,  
How long might he and his two men have fed?  
He would no doubt the poor they should be fed  
With the sweet morsels of his broken bread:  
But when that they poor souls for bread did call,  
Answer was made, the scholars eat up all:  
And when for broken bear, they crav●d a cup,  
Answer was made, the scholars drunk it up.  
And thus I know not how they change the name,  
Cut did the deed, and long-tale bore the blame.   

Upon the sheriff's beer.  
OUr Oxford sheriff of late is grown so wise,  
As to reprieve his beer till next Assize:  
A lass 'twas not so strong, 'twas not so heady,  
The Jury sat and found it dead already.   

A journey into France.  
I Went from England into France,  
Not for to learn to sing or dance,  
Nor yet to ride nor fence.  
Nor yet did go like one of those,  
That thence return with half the nose  
They carried from hence.  
But I to Paris rode along,  
Much like John Dory in the song,  
Upon a holy tide.  
I on an ambling nag did get,  
I trust he is not paid for yet.  
And spurred him on each side.  
And to St. Dennis first we came,  
To see the sights of Nostredam,  
The man that shows them snuffles.  
Where who is apt for to believe,  
May see our Ladies right arm sleeve,  
And eke her old pantafles.  
Her breast, her milk, her very gown,  
That she did wear in Bethlem Town,  
When in the inn she lay.  
No Carpenter could by his trade  
Gain so much coin as to have made  
A Gown of so rich stuff.  
Yet they poor fools think't worth their credit,  
They must believe old Joseph did it,  
'cause he deserved enough.  
There is one of the Crosses nails,  
Which who so sees his Bonnet veils,  
And if he will may kneel.  
Some say 'tis false 'twas never so;  
Yet feeling it thus much I know,  
It is as true as steel.  
There is the janthorn which the Jews,  
When Judas led them forth did use,  
It weighs my weight downright.  
But to believe it you must think,  
The Jews did put a candle in't,  
And then 'twas wondrous light.  
There's one Saint there hath lost his nose,  
Another his head, but not his toes,  
His elbow and a thumb.  
But when we had seen these holy rags,  
We went to the inn and took our Nags,  
And so away did come.  
We came to Paris on the Seine,  
'tis wondrous fair, but nothing clean,  
'tis Europe's greatest Town.  
How strong it is I need not tell it,  
For all the world may easily smell it,  
That walk it up and down.  
There many strange things are to see,  
The palace, the great Gallery  
The palace doth excel.  
The New-bridge, and Statues there:  
At Nostredam St. Christopher,  
The Steeple bears the bell.  
For learning the University;  
And for old clothes the Frippery,  
The house the Queen did build.  
St. Innocents whose earth devours  
Dead corpse in four and twenty hours,  
And there the King was killed.  
The Basteel, and St. Dennis street,  
The Shatteet just like London Fleet,  
The arsenal no toy.  
But if you'll see the prettiest thing,  
Go to the Court and see the King,  
Oh 'tis a hopeful boy.  
He is of all his Dukes and Peers,  
Reverencd for his wit and years:  
Nor must you think it much.  
For he with little switch can play,  
And can make fine dirt Pies of clay,  
Oh never King made such.  
A Bird that can but kill a fly,  
Or prate, doth please his majesty,  
'tis known to every one.  
The Duke of Guise gave him a Parrot,  
And he had twenty Cannons for it,  
For his great Gallioone.  
Oh that I e'er might have the hap  
To get that Bird which in the Map  
Is called the Indian Duck;  
I'd give it him, and hope to be  
As great as Guise or Liciny,  
Or else I had bad luck.  
Birds about his Chamber stand,  
And he them feeds with his own hand;  
'tis his humility:  
And if they do want any thing,  
They need but whistle for their King,  
And he comes presently.  
But now for these good parts he must  
Needs be instiled Lewis the just,  
Great Henry's lawful heir.  
When to his stile to add more words,  
They had better call him King of Birds,  
Then of the lost Navarre.  
He has besides a pretty firk,  
Taught him by nature how to work  
In Iron with much ease:  
Sometimes into the Forge he goes,  
And there he knocks, and there he blows,  
And makes both locks and keys.  
Which puts a doubt in every one,  
Where he be Mars or Vulcan's son;  
Some few believe his mother,  
Yet let them all say what they will,  
I am resolved and do think still,  
As much the one or tother.  
The people don't dislike the youth,  
Alleging reasons. For in truth  
Mothers should honoured be.  
Yet others say he loves her rather,  
As well as ere she loved his Father,  
And that's notoriously.  
His Queen a little pretty wench,  
Was born in Spain, speaks little French,  
Ne'er like to be a Mother:  
For her incestuous house could not  
Have children unless they were begot  
By Uncle or by Brother.  
Now why should Lewis being so just,  
Content himself to take his lust,  
With his Licina's mate:  
And suffer his little pretty Queen,  
From all her race that e'er has been  
So to degenerate.  
'twere charity for to be known  
To love strange children as his own;  
And why it is no shame:  
Unless he yet would greater be,  
Then was his Father Henry,  
Who some thought did the same   

BEN: JOHNSON To Burlace.  
WHy though I be of a prodigious wast,  
I am not so voluminous and vast  
But there are lines wherewith I may be embraced▪  
'tis true, as my womb swells, so my backstoops,  
And the whole lump grows round, deformed and droops;  
But yet the run of Heidleb: has hoops.  
You are not tied by any painter's Law,  
To square my circle, I confess, but draw  
My superficies, that was all you saw:  
Which if in compass of no art it came  
To be describ●d, but by a Monagram,  
With one great blot you have drawn me as I am.  
But whilst you curious were to have it be  
An Archetype for all the world to see,  
You have made it a brave piece, but not like me.  
Oh had I now the manner, mastery, might,  
Your power of handling shadow, air, and spirit,  
How I could draw, behold, and take delight;  
But you are he can paint, I can but write,  
A Poet hath no more than black and white,  
Nor has he flattering colours, or false light.  
Yet when of friendship I would draw the face,  
A letterd mind, and a large heart would place  
To all posterity, I would write Burlace.   

Upon the death of Prince HENRY.  
KEep station nature, and rest Heaven sure  
On thy supporters shoulders, lest past cure  
Thou dashed by ruin fall with a great weight;  
'twill make thy Basis shrink, and lay thy height  
Low as the Centre. Death and horror wed  
To vent their teeming mischief: Henry's dead.  
Compendious eloquence of death, two words  
Breath stronger terror than plague, fire, or swords  
Ere conquered. Why, 'tis Epitaph and Verse  
Enough to be prefixed on nature's hearse  
At earth's last dissolution. Whose fall  
Will be less grievous, though more general.  
For all the woe ruin ere buried,  
Lies in this narrow compass: Henry's dead.   

On the BIBLE.  
BEhold this little Volume here enrolled,  
'tis the almighty's Present to the world.  
harken Earth, Earth: Each senseless thing can hear  
His maker's thunder, though it want an ear.  
God's word is senior to his work; nay rather  
If rightly weighed, the world may call it Father.  
God spoke, 'twas done: this great foundation  
Was but the maker's exhalation,  
Breathed out in speaking. The least work of man  
Is better than his word; but if we scan  
God's word aright, his works far short do fall:  
The word is God, the works are creatures all.  
The sundry pieces of this general frame  
Are dimmer letters, all which spell the same  
Eternal word. But these cannot express  
His greatness with such easy readiness,  
And therefore yield. For heaven shall pass away,  
The Sun, the Moon, the Stars, shall all obey  
To light one general boon-fire; but his word  
His builder up, his all destroying sword  
Yet still survives, no jot of that can die,  
Each tittle measures immortality.  
Once more this mighty word his people greets,  
Thus lapp●d and thus swathed up in Paper sheets.  
Read here God's Image with a zealous eye,  
The legible and written Deity.   

Upon some pieces of work in York House.  
VIew this large Gallery faced with mats and say,  
Is it not purer than Jove's milky way?  
Which should he know, mortals might justly fear  
He would forsake his Heaven and sojourn here.  
Here on a River rides a silver swan,  
Vailing her swelling sails, and hath began  
Her merry will, and left Meander dry,  
Rather intending in this place to die.  
So curious is the work, the art so sweet,  
That men stand back lest they should wet their feet.  
Here's Joseph and his Brethren, he in state  
Enthroned in a chair, his dream his fate.  
His brethren they stand bare, and though the board  
Be dumb, each posture of them call him Lord.  
Joseph conceals his tears with hard restraint,  
Which would gush out should they not spoil the paint.  
Under a tree whose arms were wide displayed  
And broidered with blossoms, Venus laid  
Her naked body, which when men espy,  
Modesty begin to check the saucy eye,  
They steal a look; but why? lest she, they say;  
Seeing them look should rise and run away.  
Well doth the Sun refuse his face to show,  
Blushing to see so fair a face below:  
Which had Pygmalion seen so truly fair,  
He would have married straight and saved his prayer.  
For life, which was the others only bliss  
He begged of Venus, art hath given this.  
Divert your eye from this seducing sight,  
And see the Dear & Heardgrooms harmless fight,  
One gasping lies, where with consenting strife,  
The Painter and the poorman tug for life.  
Well may you say that see his hanging head,  
The Pictures lively, though the man be dead.  
Open the door and let my eyes come in,  
A place that would entice a Saint to sin;  
Almost too dear for man to tread upon,  
A floor all diaperd with Marble stone,  
Feet touch our feet. This mystery beguiles  
Philosophy of many thousand wiles.  
Nay to increase the miracle; with ease  
We here become our own Antipodes.  
What ruder age did think the best of all,  
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} hangs on every wall,  
Quite hung with it, where every eye may see  
Not more what we do seem than what we be.  
The glass so steals us from us that you'd swear  
That we the shadow that the substance were,  
Which doth not take impression but doth give.  
Here might Narcissus see himself and live;  
Nor for the pleasure of one fading hour,  
Eternally be damned into a flower.   

Sir Henry Wotton on Q: ELIZABETH.  

YE glorious trifles of the East,  
Whose estimation fancies raise,  
Pearls, Rubies, saphires, and the rest  
Of precious Gems, what is your praise  
When as the Diamond shows his raise?   

Ye Violets that first appear,  
By your blue Purple Matles known,  
Like the proud virgins of the year,  
As if the spring were all your own,  
What are you when the Rose is blown?   

Ye lesser beauties of the night,  
That weakly satisfies our eyes  
More by your number then your light,  
Like common people of the skies,  
What are ye when the Moon doth rise?   

Ye warbling chanters of the wood,  
That still our ears with nature's lays,  
Thinking your passions understood  
By accents weak. What is your praise  
When Philomela her notes doth raise?   

So when my Princess shall be seen  
In sweetness of her looks and mind,  
By virtue first than choice a Queen;  
Tell whether she were not assinged  
To eclipse the glory of her kind.   

The Rose, the Violet, and the whole spring  
May to her breath for sweetness run,  
The Diamonds darkened in the ring;  
When she appears the Moons undone,  
As at the brightness of the Sun.    

On the Prince's birth.  

WEll fare the Muses which in well chimbed verse  
Our Prince's noble birth do sing,  
I have a heart as full of joy as theirs,  
As full of duty to my King:  
And thus I tell  
How every bell  
Did sound forth England's merry glee;  
The bonfires too  
With much ado,  
It were great pity to belie her,  
Made London seem as all one fire;  
A joyful sight to see.   

The wisest Citizens were drunk that day,  
With Bear and wine most soundly paid:  
The Constables in duty reeled away,  
And charged others them to aid.  
To see how soon  
Both Sun and Moon  
And seven Stars forgotten be:  
But all the night  
Their heads were light  
With much exalting of their horn,  
Because the Prince of Wales was borne;  
A joyful sight to see.   

The Dutchmen they were drunk six days before  
And prayed us to excuse their joy.  
The Frenchmen vowed ne'er to be sober more,  
But drink healths to the royal boy  
In their own wine  
Both brisk and fine.  
The valiant Irish cram a cree,  
It pledged hath  
In whisky:  
And being in a jovial vain  
They made a bog even of their brain:  
A joyful sight to see.   

The Scots in bonny Ale their joy did sing,  
And wished this royal babe a man,  
That they might beg him for to be their King,  
And let him rule them when he can▪  
The Spaniards made  
A shrug and said,  
After my pipe come follow me;  
Canary Sack  
Did go to rack,  
Our Gentlemen with them took part,  
The Papists drunk it with an heart:  
A joyful sight to see.   

A Welsh for joy her cozen Prince was born,  
Do mean to change St. David's day,  
Swearing no leeks hereafter shall be worn  
But on the twenty ninth of May.  
None so merry  
Drinking Perry  
And Metheglin on her knee,  
Every man  
His crock and can:  
Thus armed the devil they defied,  
And durst tell Belzebub she lied:  
A joyful sight to see.   

But whilst the bells about us made a din,  
And bonfires for our Prince we make;  
The Puritans do only burn within  
Spiritual faggots for his sake,  
Should they maintain  
A fire profane  
They'd rather martyrs wish to be,  
But this remit  
Till Judges sit,  
Next Sessions some or other may  
Find wholesome Tyburn in their way:  
A joyful sight to see.    

A Letter to his Mistress.  

GO happy Paper, by command  
Take liberty to kiss an hand  
More white than any part of thee,  
Although with spots thou graced be.  
The glory of the chiefest day,  
The morning air perfumed in May:  
The firstborn Rose of all the spring,  
The down beneath the Turtles wing;  
A Lute just reaching to the ear,  
What e'er is soft is sweet is fair,  
Are but her shreds, who fills the place  
And sum of every single grace.   

As in a child the nurse descries,  
The mother's lips, the father's eyes,  
The uncle's nose, and doth apply  
Honours to every part; so I  
In her could analyse the store  
Of all the choice ere nature wore;  
Each private piece to mind may call  
Some Earth, but none can match it all;  
Poor Emblems they can but express  
One Element of comeliness;  
None are so rich to show in one  
All simples of perfection:  
Nor can the Pencil represent  
More than the outward lineament;  
Then who can limb the Portraiture  
Of beauties live behaviour:  
Or what can figure every kind  
Of jewels that adorn the mind?  
Thought cannot draw her Picture full,  
Each thought to her is gross, is dull.    

On the Earl of Pembroke's Death.  

DId not my sorrows sighed into a verse  
Deck the sad pomp and mourning of thy hearse;  
I'd swear thy death the birth of hasty fame,  
Begot to try our sorrows with thy name.  
I'll not believe it yet; it cannot sort  
With earnest thou shouldst die of mere report:  
News cannot kill, nor is the common breath,  
Fate, or infection. Shall I think that death  
Struck with so rude a hand, so without art  
To kill, and use no Preface to his dart.  
Come Pembroke lives. Oh do not fright our ears  
With such destroying truth, first raise our fears  
And say he is not well; that will suffice  
To force a river from the public eyes.  
Or if he must be dead, Oh let the news  
Speak't in a astonished whisper, let it use  
Some phrase without a voice, 'twould too much cloud  
Our apprehension should it speak aloud.  
Let's hear it in a Riddle, or so told  
As if the labouring sense grieved to unfold  
Its doubtful woe. Hadst thou endured the gout,  
Or lingering of thy Doctor (which no doubt  
Had been the worse disease) the public zeal  
Had conquered fate and saved thee; but to steal  
A close departure from us, and to die  
Of no disease, but of a prophecy,  
Is mystery not fate: nor wert thou killed  
Like other men, but like a type fulfilld.  
So suddenly to die is to deceive;  
Nor was it death, but a not taking leave:  
'tis true the shortness doth forbid to weep,  
For so our Fathers dying fell asleep:  
So Enoch whilst his God he did adore,  
Instead of suffering death was seen no more.  
But oh this is too much, and we should wrong  
Thy ashes, thought we not this speed to long.  
Methinks a dream had served, or silent breath,  
Or a still pulse, or something like to death.  
Now 'twere detraction to suppose a tear,  
Or the sad weeds which the glad mourners wear  
Could value such a loss. He that mourns thee  
Must bring an eye can weep an Elegy:  
A look that would save blacks, whose heavy grace  
Chides mirth, and wears a funeral in the face:  
Whose sighs are with such feeling sorrow blown  
That all the air he draws returns a groan.  
That grief doth nearest fit that is begun  
When the year ends and when the blacks are done.   

Thou needst no guilded Tomb, superfluous cost  
Is best bestowed on them whose names are lost.  
Hadst thou no Statue, thy great memory  
Were Marble to itself, the bravery  
Of Jet or rich enamel were misspent  
Where the brave Course is its own ornament.  
In thee shine all high parts, which falsely wit  
Or flattering raptures for their Lord beget,  
When they would feign an Epitaph, and write  
As if their grief made legs when they indite;  
Such dutiful untruths, that ere he grieve,  
The Readers first toil is how to believe.  
Thy greatness was no idol, state in thee  
Received its lustre from humility.  
He that will blaze thy Coat, and only looks  
How thou were't Noble by the herald's books,  
Mistakes thy lineage; and admiring blood,  
Forgets thy best descent, virtue and good.  
These are too great for Scutcheons, and made thee  
Without forefathers thine own Pedigree.    

Upon his chaste Mistress.  

LOve, give me leave to serve thee, and be wise;  
To keep thy torch in, and restore blind eyes:  
I'll such a flame into my bosom take,  
As Martyrs court when they embrace the stake;  
No dull and smoky fire, but heat divine,  
That burns not to consume but to refine.   

I have a Mistress for perfections rare  
In every eye, but in my thoughts most fair.  
Like tapers on the Altar shine her eyes,  
Her breath is the perfume of sacrifice:  
And wheresoever my fancy would begin,  
Still her perfection lets Religion in.  
I touch her as my beads without devout care,  
And come unto my courtship as my prayer.  
We sit and talk and kiss away the hours  
As chastely, as the morning's dew kiss flowers.  
We were no flesh, but one another greet  
As blessed souls in separation meet.  
I might have lustful thoughts to her of all  
Earth's heavenly choir the most angelical;  
But looking in my breast her form I find  
That like my Guardian angel keeps my mind  
From rude attempts, and when affections stir  
I calm all passions with one thought of her.  
Thus they whose reason loves, and not their sense,  
The spirit love. Thus on intelligence  
Reflects upon his like, and by chaste loves  
In the same sphere this and that Angel moves:  
Nor is this barren love: each noble thought  
Begets another, and that still is brought  
To bed of more, virtues and grace increase;  
And such a numerous issue ne'er can cease:  
Where children (though great blessings) only be  
Pleasures reprieved to some postery.  
Beasts love like men, if men in lust delight,  
And call that love which is but appetite.  
When Essence meets with Essence, and souls join  
In mutual knots, that's the true nuptial twine.   

Such Lady is my love, and such is true;  
All other love is to your sex, not you.    

On a Painters handsome Daughter.  
SUch are your father's Pictures, that we do  
Believe they are not counterfeit but true:  
So lively and so fresh that we may swear  
Instead of draughts he hath placed creatures there,  
People not shadows; which in time will be  
Not a dead number but a colony.  
Nay more; yet some think they have skill and arts,  
That they are well bred, pictures of good parts;  
And you yourself fair Julia do disclose  
Such beauties that you may seem one of those,  
That having motion gained at least and sense,  
Began to know itself and stole from thence;  
Whilst thus his emulous art with nature strives,  
Some think h'hath none, others he hath two wives.  
If you love none (Fair maid) but look on all,  
You then among his set of Pictures fall;  
If that you look on all and love all men,  
The Pictures too will be your Sisters then.  
Your choice must show you are of another fleece,  
And tell you are his daughter not his piece.  
All other proofs are vain, go not about;  
We two will embrace, and love, and clear the doubt.  
When you have brought forth your like the world will know  
You are his Child; what Picture can do so?   

To Dr. Price writing Anniversaries on Prince HENRY.  
Even so dead Hector thrice was triumphed on  
The walls of Troy, thrice slain when fate had done:  
So did the barbarous Greeks before their host  
Turmoil his ashes and profane his Ghost:  
As Henry's vault, his pure and sacred hearse  
Is torn and battered by thy Anniverse.  
Wast not enough nature and strength were foes,  
Unless thou yearly murder him in prose.  
Or didst rhou hope thy ravening verse could make  
A louder echo than the almanac.  
Trust me November doth more ghastly look  
In Dades and Hopsons' pennyworth than thy book;  
And sadder record their sixt figure bears,  
Than thy false Printed and ambitious tears.  
And were't not for Christmas which is nigh,  
When fruits, when eaten and digested pie  
Call for more paper, no man could make shift  
How to employ thy writing to his thrift.  
Wherefore forbear for pity or for shame,  
And let some richer pen redeem his name  
From rottenness; then leave him captive, since  
So vile a price ne'er ransomed such a Prince.   

A Reply upon an Answer to the former Copy.  
NOr is it grieved, grave you the memory  
Of such a story, such a book as he,  
That such a Copy might through the world be read:  
Yet Henry lives though he be buried.  
It could be wished that every day would bear  
Him one good witness that he still were here.  
That sorrow ruled the year, and by this Sun  
Each man could tell thee how the day had run▪  
O 'twere an honest cause for him could say,  
I have been busy and wept out the day  
Remembering him. His name would ever last,  
Were such a trophy, such a banner placed  
Upon his grave as this; Here a man lies  
Was killed by Henry's dart not destinies.  
But for a cobbler to throw up his cap  
And cry the Prince the Prince; O dire mishap!  
Or a Geneva bridegroom after Grace  
To throw his spouse i'th' fire, or scratch her face  
To the tune of the lamentation, and delay  
His friday capon to the Sabbath day;  
Or an old Popish Lady half vowed dead  
To fast away the day in gingerbread;  
For him to write such Annals: all these things  
Do open laughter and shut up griefs springs.  
Wherefore Vertumnus if you'll Print the next,  
Bring better notes, or choose a fitter text.   

On a Lady that died of the small pox.  
O Thou deformed unwomanlike disease!  
That plowest up flesh and blood and sowest there pease;  
And leavest such prints on beauty if thou come,  
As clouted shoes do in a floor of loam:  
Thou that of faces honicombs dost make,  
And of two breasts two cullinders; forsake  
Thy deadly trade, thou now art rich, give o'er  
And let our curses call thee forth no more,  
Or if thou needs wilt magnify thy power  
Go where thou art invoked every hour  
Amongst the gamesters, where they name thee thick  
At the last man or the last pocky nick.  
Thou who hast such superfluous store of gain,  
Why strik'st thou one whose ruin is thy shame?  
O thou hast murdered where thou shouldst have kissed,  
And where thy shaft was needful, there thou missed.  
Thou shouldst have chosen out some homely face  
Where thy ill-favoured kindness might add grace,  
That men might say, how beauteous once was she,  
And what a curious piece was marred by thee:  
Thou shouldst have wrought on some such Lady-mould  
That never loved her Lord nor ever could  
Until she were deformed; thy tyranny  
Were then within the rules of charity.  
But upon one whose beauty was above  
All sorts of art, whose love was more than love.  
On her to fix thy ugly counterfeit,  
Was to erect a pyramid of jet,  
And put out fire; to dig a turf from Hell,  
And place it where a gentle soul should dwell▪  
A soul which in the body would not stay,  
When 'twas no more a body, nor pure clay,  
But a huge ulcer; o thou heavenly race,  
Thou soul that shun'st the infection of thy case,  
Thy house, thy prison, pure soul, spotless fair,  
Rest where no heat, no cold, no compounds are▪  
Rest in that country, and enjoy that ease,  
Which thy frail flesh denied, and thy disease.   

Upon the Kings return to the City of London when he came last thither from Scotland and was entertained there by the Lord Mayor.  

SIng and be merry King Charles is come back,  
Let's drink round his health with Claret & Sack:  
The Scots are all quiet, each man with his pack  
May cry now securely, come see what you lack.  
Sing and be merry boys, sing and be merry,  
London's a fine Town so is London-Derry.   

Great preparation in London is made  
To bid the King welcome each man gives his aid,  
With thanksgiving clothes themselves they arrayed  
(I should have said holiday) but I was afraid.  
Sing &c.   

They stood in a row for a congratulation  
Like a company of wild-geese in the old fashion:  
Rails in the Church are abomination,  
But rails in the street are no innovation.  
Sing &c.   

My Lord Mayor himself on cockhorse did ride  
Not like a young Gallant with a sword by his side  
'twas carried before him, but there was espied  
The cross-bar in the hilt by a Puritan eyed.  
Sing &c.   

Two dozen of Aldermen ride two by two,  
Their Gowns were all scarlet, but their noses were blue▪  
The Recorder made a speech, if report it be true,  
He promised more for them then ere they will do.  
Sing &c.   

They should be good subjects to the King and the State,  
The Church they would love, no Prelates would hate;  
But methinks it was an ominous fate  
They brought not the King thorough Bishopsgate.  
Sing &c.   

The citizen's rod in their Golden chains  
Fetched from St. martyn's, no region of Spain's:  
It seems they were troubled with Gundamors pains,  
Some held by their pummels and some by their manes.  
Sing &c.   

In Jackets of Velvet, without Gown or Cloak,  
Their faces were wainscot, their hearts were of oak:  
No Trainbands were seen, no drums beat a stroke,  
Because City Captains of late have been broke.  
Sing &c.   

The King Queen and Prince, the Palsgrave of Rhine  
With two branches more of the royal vine  
Rod to the Guild-Hall where they were to dine,  
There could be no lack where the Conduits run wine.  
Sing &c.   

Nine hundred dishes in the bill of fare  
For the King and Nobles prepared there were;  
There could be no less a man might well swear  
By the widgeons and woodcocks and geese that were there.  
Sing &c.   

Though the dinner were long yet the grace was but short,  
It was said in the fashion of the English Court.  
But one passage more I have to report,  
Small thanks for my pains I look to have for't.  
Sing &c.   

Down went my Lord Mayor as low as his knee,  
Then up went the white of an alderman's eye:  
We thought the Bishops grace enlarged should be  
(Not the archbishops) no such meanign had he.  
Sing &c.   

When's Lordship kneeled down we looked he should pray,  
(So he did heartily but in his own way)  
The cup was his book, the collect for the day  
Was a health to King Charles, all out he did say.  
Sing &c.   

The form of prayer my Lord did begin  
The rest of the Aldermen quickly were in:  
One Warner they had of the greatness of the sin  
Without dispensation from Burton or Prin.  
Sing &c.   

Before they had done it grew towards night,  
(I forget my Lord Mayor was made a Knight:  
The Recorder too with another wight,  
Whom I cannot relate, for the torches are light.  
Sing &c.   

Up and away by St. Paul's they pass;  
When a prickeared brayed like a Puritan ass  
Some thought he had been scared with the painted glass  
He swore not but cried high Popery by th' mass.  
Sing &c.   

The choir with music on a Scaffold they see  
In Surplices all their Tapers burnt by,  
An Anthem they sung most melodiously;  
If this were Popery I confess it was high.  
Sing &c.   

From thence to White Hall there was made no stay  
Where the King gave them thanks for their love that day,  
Nothing was wanting if I could but say  
The House of Commons had met him half way.  
Sing &c.    

Upon the Kings-Book bound up in a Cover coloured with His Blood.  
LEt abler pens commend these leaves; whose fame  
Spreads through all languages, through time whose name;  
Nor can those Tongues add glory to this book  
So great, as they from the translation took.  
Shine then rare piece in thine own Charles his ray;  
Yet suffer me thy covering to display,  
And tell the world that this plain sanguine veil  
A beauty far more glorious doth conceal  
Then masks of Ladies: and although thou be  
A Book, where every leafe's a Library  
filled with choice Gems of th' Arts, Law, Gospel;  
The chiefest Jewel is the Cabinet.  
A shrine much holier than the Saint; you may yet  
To this as harmless adoration pay,  
As those that kneel to Martyrs tombs, for know,  
This sacred blood doth Rome a relic show  
Richer than all her shrines, and then all those  
More hallowed far, far more miraculous.  
Thus clothed go forth, blessed Book, and yield to none  
But to the Gospel, and Christ's blood alone.  
Thy Garments now like his; so just the same,  
As he from Bozra, and the winepress came;  
Both purpled with like gore: where you may see  
This on the Scaffold, that upon the Tree  
Poured out to save whole Nations. O may't lie  
Speechless like that, and never never cry  
Vengeance, but pray father forgive these too,  
(Poor ignorant men!) they know not what they do.   

Upon the Nuptials of John Talbot Esquire, and Mistress Elizabeth Kite.  

COme grand Apollo tune my Lyre  
To harmonise in th' muse's choir,  
Give me a draught of Helicon,  
Let Pindus and Parnassus prove  
Propitious in the slights of love,  
Though distanced now at Eberton.   

A consecrated quill I know,  
Plucked from the silvered Swan of Po,  
Love-tales is only fit to write,  
But since 'tis voted by the Stoic,  
Not place nor pen doth make the Poet,  
I'll venture with a plume of th' Kite.   

Not for to blazen the great name  
Of th' Talbot's never dying fame  
Eternised in all Histories,  
I'll only say the Trojan wit,  
Which Helen stole, must now submit  
To Talbot in loves mysteries.   

For neither Egypt, Troy, nor Greece,  
Nor Colchis with her Golden-Fleece  
Hath ever aught produced so rare  
In virtue, beauty, every Grace  
That dignifies the mind or face,  
Which with this Couple may compare.   

The holy Priest hath firmly tied  
The Gordian knot, that 'twill abide  
The touch of what's canonical;  
And th' pigmy Justice hath fast chained  
The bugbear Act, though it be proclaimed  
As simple, as apocryphal▪   

Let's hasten therefore them to bring  
To th' pleasant fountain whence doth spring  
The joys of Cupid's Monarchy;  
There tumbling on their nuptial bed  
To batter for a maidenhead,  
Twinned like the zodiac geminy.   

Hence dull eyed Somnus think not now  
T'inthrone upon this Lady's brow,  
Far choicer joys do her invite:  
For she's now anchored in a Haven  
Where sacred Hymen her hath given  
An other sovereign of the night.   

Come draw the curtains, let's depart,  
And leave two bodies in one heart  
Devoted to a restless rest.  
And when their virgin Lamps expire,  
May there arise from the same fire  
An other Phoenix in the Nest.    

Upon Aglaura Printed in Folio.  
BY this large margin did the Poet mean  
To have a Comment wrote upon the Scene?  
Or else that Ladies, who do never look  
But in a Poem or in a playbook,  
May in each page have space to scribble down  
When such a Lord or fashion came to Town;  
As Swains in almanacs their counts do keep their sheep.  
When their cow calved and when they bought  
Ink is the life of Paper, 'tis meet then  
That this which scaped the press should feel the pen.  
A room with one side furnished, or a face  
Painted half way, is but a foul disgrace.  
This great voluminous Pamphlet may be said  
To be like one who hath more hair than head:  
More excrement than body, trees which sprout  
With broadest leaves have still the smallest fruit.  
When I saw so much white I did begin  
To think Aglaura either did lie in,  
Or else did penance: never did I see  
Unless in Bills dashed in the Chancery  
So little in so much, as if the feet  
Of Poetry were sold like Law by the sheet.  
Should this new fashion last but one half year,  
Poets as Clarks would make our Paper dear.  
Doth not that Artist err and blast his fame  
That sets out Pictures lesser than the frame:  
Was ever Chamberlain so mad to dare  
To lodge a Child in the great Bed of Ware.  
Aglaura would please better did she lie  
Ith' narrow bounds of an Epitome.  
Those pieces that are weave of th' finest twist,  
As Velvet, Plush, have still the smallest list.  
She that in Persian habits made such brags  
Degenerates in the excess of rags:  
Who by her Giant bulk this only gains  
Perchance in Libraries to hang in chains.  
'tis not in books as choth, we never say  
Make London measure when we buy a Play,  
But rather have them pared; those leaves are fair  
To the judicious which most spotted are.  
Give me the sociable pocket books,  
These empty folios only please the Cooks.   

Venus' lachrimen.  
WAke my Adonis do not die,  
One life enough for thee and I;  
Where are thy words, thy wiles,  
Thy love, thy frowns, thy smiles;  
Alas in vain I call,  
One death hath snatched them all:  
Yet death's not deadly in thy face,  
Death in those looks itself hath grace.  
'twas this, 'twas this I feared  
When thy pale ghost appeared:  
This I presaged when thundering Jove  
Tore the best myrtle in my Grove;  
When my sick rosebuds lost their smell,  
And from my Temples untouched fell;  
And 'twas for some such thing  
My Dove did hang her wing.  
Whether art thou my deity gone,  
Venus in Venus there is none:  
In vain a goddess now am I  
Only to grieve and not to die.  
But I will love my grief,  
Make tears my tears relief:  
And sorrows shall to me  
A new Adonis be;  
And this no fates can rob me of, whiles I  
A goddess am to weep but not to die.   

An Ode in the praise of Sack.  

1.  
HEar me as if thy ears had palate Jack,  
I sing the praise of Sack:  
Hence with Apollo and the muses nine,  
Give me a cup of wine.  
Sack will the soul of Poetry infuse,  
Be that my theme and muse.  
But Bacchus I adore no deity,  
Nor Bacchus neither unless Sack he be.   

2.  
Let us by reverend degrees draw ne'er,  
I feel the goddess here.  
Lo I, dread Sack, an humble Priest of thine  
First kiss this cup thy shrine,  
That with more hallowed lips and enlarged soul  
I may receive the whole:  
Till sibyl-like full with my God I lie,  
And every word I speak be Propehsie.   

3.  
Come to this Altar you that are oppressed,  
Or otherwise distressed,  
Here's that will further grievances prevent,  
Without a Parliament:  
With fire from hence if once your blood be warm feel  
Nothing can do you harm;  
When thou art armed with Sack, thou canst not  
Though thunder strike thee; that hath made thee steel.   

4.  
Art sick man? do not bid for thy escape  
A cock to Aesculape;  
If thou wouldst prosper, to this Altar bring  
Thy grateful offering,  
Touch but the shrine, that does the God enclose,  
And straight thy fever goes  
Whilst thou imagin'st this, he's given thee  
Not only heath but immortality.   

5.  
Though thou wert dumb as is the scaly fry  
In Neptune's royalty:  
Drink but as they do, and new ways shalt find  
To utter thy whole mind;  
When Sack more several language has infused  
Then Babel's builders used:  
And whensoever thou thy voice shalt raise,  
No man shall understand but all shall praise.   

6.  
Hath cruel nature so thy senses bound  
Thou canst not judge of sounds?  
Lo where yond narrow fountain scatters forth  
Streams of an unknown worth:  
The heavenly music of that murmur there  
Would make thee turn all ear;  
And keeping time with the harmonious flood,  
Twixt every bubble thou shalt cry good good.   

7.  
Has fortune made thee poor, dost thou desire  
To heap up glorious mire?  
Come to this stream where every drop's a Pearl  
Might buy an Earl:  
Drench thyself soundly here and thou shalt rise  
Richer than both the Indies.  
So mayest thou still enjoy with full content  
Midas his wish without his punishment.   

8.  
All this can Sack, and more than this Sack can,  
Give me a fickle man  
That would be somewhat fain but knows not what,  
There is a cure for that:  
Let him quaff freely of this powerful flood,  
He shall be what he would.  
To all our wishes Sack content does bring,  
And but ourselves can make us every thing.    

An Epitaph on some bottles of Sack and Claret laid in sand.  
ENter and see this tomb (Sirs) do not fear  
No spirits but of Sack will fright you here:  
Weep o'er this tomb, your waters here may have  
Wine for their sweet companion in this grave.  
A dozen Shakespears here inter'd do lie;  
Two dozen Jonson's full of Poetry.  
Unhappy Grapes could not one pressing do,  
But now at last you must be buried too:  
'twere commendable sacrilege no doubt  
Could I come at your graves to steal you out.  
Sleep on but scorn to die, immortal liquour,  
The burying of thee thus shall make thee quicker.  
Mean while thy friends pray loud that thou Mayst have  
A speedy resurrection from thy grave.   

How to choose a Mistress.  
HEr for a Mistress would I fain enjoy  
That hangs out lip and pouts at every toy;  
Speaks like a wag, is bold; dares stoutly stand  
And bids love welcome with a wanton hand:  
If she be modest wise and chaste of life,  
Hang her she's good for nothing but a wife.   

Upon a Picture.  
BEhold those fair eyes, in whose sight  
Sparkles a lustre no less bright  
Than that of rising Stars when they  
Would make the night outshine the day.  
To those pure lips the humming be,  
May as to blooming Roses flee:  
The wanton wind about doth hurl,  
Courting in vain that lovely curl;  
And makes a murmur in despair,  
To dally the unmooved hair.  
View but the cheeks where the red Rose  
And lily white a beauty grows,  
So orient as might adorn  
The flowing of the brightest morn.  
Sure 'tis no Picture, ne'er was made  
So much perfection in a shade:  
Her shape is soul enough to give  
A senseless Marble power to live.  
If this an idol be, no eye  
Can ever scape Idolatry.   

On Lady's Attire.  
YOu Ladies that wear cypress veils,  
Turned lately to white linen rails;  
And to your girdles wear your bands,  
And show your arms instead of hands.  
What could you do in Lent so meet  
As, fittest dress, to wear a sheet?  
'twas once a band, 'tis now a cloak;  
A acorn one day proves a oak.  
Wear but your linens to your feet  
And then the band will be a sheet.  
By which device and wise excess  
You do your penance in a dress:  
And none shall know by what they see  
Which Ladies censured, and which free.   

The Answer.  
BLack cypress veils are shrowds of night,  
White linen rails are rays of light,  
Which to our girdles though we wear  
We have arms to keep your hands off there.  
Who makes our bands to be our cloak,  
Makes John a styles of John a noak.  
We wear our linen to our feet,  
Yet need not make our band our sheet▪  
Your Clergy wear as long as we,  
Yet that implies conformity.  
Be wise, recant what you have writ,  
lest you do penance for your wit;  
And lest loves charms do weave a string  
To tie you as you did your ring.   

On a Gentlewoman that had the smallpox.  
A Beauty smother than the Ivory plain,  
Late by the Pox injuriously was slain.  
'twas not the Pox, love shot a thousand darts  
And made those pits for graves to bury hearts:  
But since that beauty hath regaind its light,  
Those hearts are doubly slain it shines so bright.   

On a fair gentlewoman's blistered lip.  
HIde not your sprouting lip, nor kill  
The juicy bloom with bashful skill▪  
Know it is an amorous dew  
That swells to court your coral hew.  
And what a blemish you esteem  
To other eyes a Pearl may seem;  
Whose watery growth is not above  
The thrifty seize which Pearls do love:  
And doth so well become that part  
That chance may seem a secret art:  
Doth any judge the face less fair  
Whose tender silk a moral doth bear?  
Are apples thought less sound and sweet  
When honey specks and red do meet?  
Or will a Diamond shine less clear  
If in the midst a soil appear?  
Then is your lip made fairer by  
Such sweetness of deformity.  
The Nectar which men strive to sip  
Springs like a well upon your lip.  
Nor doth it show immodesty,  
But overflowing chastity.  
O who will blame the fruitful trees  
When too much gum or sap he sees?  
Here nature from her store doth send  
Only what other parts can lend.  
If lovely buds ascend so high,  
The root below cannot be dry.   

To his Mistress.  
Keep on your mask and hide your eye,  
For in beholding you I die.  
Your fatal beauty gorgonlike  
Dead with astonishment doth strike.  
Your piercing eyes that now I see  
Are worse than Basilisks to me.  
Shut from mine eyes those hills of snow,  
Their melting valley do not show:  
Those azure paths lead to despair,  
Oh vex me not, forbear, forbear;  
For while I thus in torments dwell,  
The sight of Heaven is worse than Hell.  
In those fair cheeks two pits do lie  
To bury those slain by your eye:  
So this at length doth comfort me,  
That fairly buried I shall be:  
My grave with Roses, lilies, spread,  
Methinks 'tis life for to be dead:  
Come then and kill me with your ●ye,  
For if you let me live, I die.  
When I perceive your lips again  
Recover those your eyes have slain,  
With kisses that (like balsam pure)  
Deep wounds as soon as made do cure;  
Methinks 'tis sickness to be sound,  
And there's no health to such a wound.  
When in your bosom I behold  
Two hills of snow yet never cold:  
Which lovers, whom your beauty kills,  
Revive by climbing those your hills.  
Methinks there's life in such a death  
That gives a hope of sweeter breath.  
Then since one death prevails not where  
So many Antidotes are ne'er:  
And your bright eyes do but in vain  
Kill those who live as fast as slain;  
That I no more such death survive,  
Your way's to bury me alive  
In place unknown, and so that I  
Being dead may live and living die.   

A lover to one dispraising his Mistress.  
WHy slight you her whom I approve▪  
Thou art no peer to try my love;  
Nor canst discern where her form lies,  
Unless thou sawest her with my eyes  
Say she were foul, or blacker than  
The night, or Sun burnt African;  
If liked by me, 'tis I alone  
Can make a beauty where there's none:  
For rated in my fancy she  
Is so as she appears to me.  
'tis not the feature or a face  
That doth my fair Election grace.  
Nor is my fancy only led  
By a well tempered white and red;  
Could I enamoured grow on those,  
The lily and the blushing Rose  
United in one stalk might be  
As dear unto my thoughts as she,  
But I look farther and do find  
A richer beauty in her mind:  
Where something is so lasting fair,  
As time and age cannot impair.  
Hadst thou a prospective so clear  
That thou couldst view my object there;  
When thou her virtues didst espy,  
Thou'dst wonder and confess that I  
Had cause to like; and learn from hence  
To love by judgement, not by sense.   

On the death of a fair gentlewoman's robin-redbreast.  
Whatsoever birds in groves are bred  
Provide your anthems, Robin's dead.  
Poor Robin that was wont to nest  
In fair Siloras' lovely breast,  
And thence would peep into her eye,  
To see what feather stood awry.  
This pretty bird might freely sip  
The sugared Nectar from her lip.  
When many love-burnt souls have pined  
To see their rival so retained.  
But what caused Robin's death was this,  
Robin sure surfeited with bliss;  
Or else cause her fair cheek-possest  
A purer red than Robin's breast,  
Wherein consisted all his pride,  
The little bird for envy died.   

On the death of Sir Tho: Pelham.  
Merely for death to grieve and mourn  
Were to repine that man was borne.  
When weak old age doth fall asleep  
'Twere foul ingratitude to weep.  
Those threads alone should force out tears  
Whose sudden crack breaks off some years.  
Here 'tis not so, full distance here  
Sunders the cradle from the beer.  
A fellow-traveller he hath been  
So long with time, so worn to'th skin,  
That were it not just now bereft  
His body first the soul had left.  
Threescore and ten is natures date,  
Our journey when we come in late:  
Beyond that time the overplus  
Was granted not to him, but us.  
For his own sake the Sun ne'er stood,  
But only for the people's good:  
Even so he was held out by air  
Which poor men uttered in their prayer:  
And as his goods were lent to give,  
So were his days that they might live.  
So ten years more to him were told  
Enough to make another old:  
Oh that death would still do so,  
Or else on goodmen would bestow  
That wast of years which unthrifts fling  
Away by their distempering.  
That some might thrive by this decay  
As well as that of land and clay.  
'twas now well done: no cause to mourn  
On such a seasonable stone;  
Where death is but a guest, we sin  
Not bidding welcome to his inn.  
Sleep, sleep, goodman, thy rest embrace,  
Sleep, sleep, th''ve trod a weary race.   

Of music.  

WHen whispering strains with creeping wind  
Distil soft passion through the heart,  
And whilst at every touch we find  
Our pulses beat and bear a part.  
When threads can make  
Our heartstrings shake;  
Philosophy can scarce deny  
Our souls consists in harmony.   

When unto heavenly joys we feign  
What ere the soul affecteth most,  
Which only thus we can explain  
By music of the winged host:  
Whose rays we think  
Make stars to wink;  
Philosophy can scarce deny  
Our souls consist of harmony.   

O lull me, lull me, charming air,  
My senses each with wonder sweet;  
Like snow on wool thy fallings are,  
Soft like spirits are thy feet.  
Grief who needs fear  
That hath an ear?  
Down let him lie  
And slumbering die,  
And change his soul for harmony.    

To his Mistress.  
I'll tell you how the Rose did first grow red,  
And whence the lilies whiteness borrowed.  
You blushed and straight the Rose with red was dight,  
The lilies kissed your hands and so grew white.  
You have the native colour, these the die,  
And only flourish in your livery:  
Before that time each Rose was but one stain,  
The lily nought but paleness did contain.   

On a black Gentlewoman.  
IF shadows be a Pictures excellence  
And make it seem more glorious to the sense:  
If stars in brightest day are lost for sight  
And seem more glorious in the mask of night.  
Why should you think fair creature that you lack  
Perfection cause your eyes and hair are black.  
Or that your beauty, which so far exceeds  
The new-sprung lilies in their maidenheads,  
The rosy colour of your cheeks and lips  
Should by that darkness suffer an eclipse.  
Rich Diamonds are fairer being set  
And compassed within a foileof jet.  
Nor can it be dame nature should have made  
So bright a Sun to shine without a shade.  
It seems that nature when she first did fancy  
Your rare composure studied Negromancy:  
And when to you these gifts she did impart  
She used altogether the Black Art.  
She framed the magic circle of your eyes,  
And made those hairs the chains wherein she ties  
Rebellious hearts, those veins, which do appear  
Twined in Meanders about every sphere,  
Mysterious figures are, and when you list  
Your voice commandeth like an exorcist.  
Now if in magic you have skill so far  
Vouchsafe to make me your familiar.  
Nor hath kind nature her black art revealed  
By outward parts alone, some are concealed.  
As by the spring head men may easily know  
The nature of the streams that run below.  
So your black eyes and hair do give direction,  
That all the rest are of the like complexion.  
The rest where all rest lies that blesseth man,  
That Indian mine, that straight of Magellan.  
The world's dividing gulf, through which who ventures  
With hoist sails and ravished senses enters  
To a new world of bliss. Pardon I pray  
If my rude muse presumes for to display  
Secrets forbid, or hath her bounds surpassed  
In praising sweetness which she ne'er did taste:  
Starved men may talk of meat, and blind men may  
(Though hid from light) yet know there is a day.  
A rover in the mark his arrow sticks  
Sometimes as well as he that shoots at pricks.  
And if I might direct my shaft aright,  
The black mark would I hit, and not the white.   

On a Gentlewoman walking in the Snow.  
I Saw fair Cloris walk alone,  
When feathered rain came softly down,  
And Jove descended from his Tower  
To court her in a silver shower:  
The wanton snow flew to her breast  
Like little birds into their nest,  
And overcome with whiteness there  
For grief dissolved into a tear,  
Which trickling down her garments hem  
To deck her freezed into a gem.   

Upon one dead in the snow.  
WIthin a fleece of silent waters drowned.  
Before I met with death a grave I found.  
That which e●iled my life from her sweet home  
For grief straight froze itself into a Tomb.  
Only one Element my fate thought meet  
To be my death, grave, tomb, and winding sheet.  
Phoebus himself my Epitaph had writ;  
But blotting many ere he thought one fit,  
He wrote until my tomb and grave were gone;  
And 'twas an Epitaph that I had none;  
For every man that passed along that way  
Without a sculpture read that there I lay.  
Here now the second time enclosed I lie  
And thus much have the best of destiny.  
Corruption (from which only one was free)  
Devoured my grave, but did not seize on me.  
My first grave took me from the race of men,  
My last shall give me back to life again.   

On a woman dying in travel the child unborn.  
WIthin this grave there is a grave entombed,  
Here lies a mother and a child inwombd.  
'twas strange that nature so much vigour gave  
To one that ne'er was born, to make a grave.  
Yet an injunction stranger nature willed her,  
Poor mother, to be tomb to that which killed her:  
And not with so much cruelty content,  
Buries the child, the grave, and monument.  
Where shall we write the Epitaph? whereon?  
The child, the grave, the monument is gone:  
Or if upon the child we write a staff,  
Where shall we write the tombs own Epitaph?  
Only this way is left, and now we must  
As on a table carpeted with dust  
Make chisells of our fingers, and engrave  
An Epitaph both on the tomb and grave  
Within the dust: but when some hours are gone  
Will not the Epitaph have need of one?  
I know it well: yet grave it therefore deep  
That those which know the loss may truly weep  
And shed their tears so justly in that place  
Which we before did with a finger trace,  
That filling up the letters they may lie  
As inlaid crystal to posterity.  
Where (as in glass) if any write another  
Let him say thus, here lies a hapless mother  
Whom cruel sat hath made to be a tomb,  
And kept in travel till the day of doom.   

On Man.  
ILl busied man why shouldst thou take such care  
To lenghthen out thy lives short callendar;  
Each dropping season, and each flower doth cry  
Fool as I fade and wither thou must die.  
The beating of thy pulse when thou art well  
Is but the tolling of thy passing bell:  
Night is thy hearse, whose sable Canopy  
Covers alike deceased day and thee.  
And all those weeping dews which nightly fall  
Are but as tears shed for thy funeral.   

On Faireford windows.  
TEll me you anti-Saints why glass  
With you is longer lived than brass:  
And why the Saints have scaped their falls  
Better from windows then from walls.  
Is it because the brethren's fires  
Maintain a glass-house in Blackfriars?  
Next which the Church stands North and South,  
And East and West the Preachers mouth.  
Or is't because such painted ware  
Resembles something what you are,  
So pied, so seeming, so unsound  
In doctrine and in manners found,  
That ont of emblemattick wit  
You spare yourselves in sparing it?  
If it be so then Faireford boast,  
Thy Church hath kept what all have lost;  
And is preserved from the bane  
Of either war or Puritan.  
Whose life is coloured in the paint,  
The inside dross, the outside Saint.   

On a Gentlewoman playing on the Lute.  
BE silent you still music of the spheres,  
And every sense make haste to be all ears;  
And give devout attention to her airs,  
To which the Gods do listen as to prayers  
Of pious votaries: the which to hear  
Tumult would be attentive, and would swear  
To keep less noise at Nile if there she sing,  
Or with a sacred touch grace but one string.  
Amongst so many auditors, so many throngs  
Of Gods and men, that press to hear her songs,  
Oh let me have an unespied room,  
And die with such an anthem o'er my tomb.   

On Love.  

WHen I do love I would notwish to speed,  
To plead fruition rather than desire,  
But on sweet lingering expectation feed,  
And gently would protract not feed my fire.  
What though my love a martyrdom you name,  
No Salamander ever feels the flame.   

That which is obvious I as much esteem  
As Courtiors do old clothes: for novelty  
Doth relish pleasures, and in them we deem  
The hope is sweeter than the memory.  
Enjoying breeds a glut, men better taste  
Comforts to come, than pleasures that are past.    

The Catholic.  

I Hold as faith  
What Rome's Ch: saith  
Where the King is head  
The flocks misled  
Where the Altars dressed  
The peoples blessed  
He's but an ass  
Who shuns the mass  
What England's Church allow  
My conscience disallows  
That Church can have no shame  
That holds the Pope supreme  
There's service scarce divine  
With table bread and wine  
Who the Communion flies  
Is Catholic and wise.    

On Faireford windows.  
I Know no paint of Poetry  
Can mend such colours Imagery  
In sullen ink; Yet Faireford I  
May relish thy fair memory.  
Such is the echoes fainter found;  
Such is the light when Sun is drowned.  
So did the fancy look upon  
The work before it was begun.  
Yet when those shows are out of sight  
My weaker colours may delight.  
Those Images so faithfully  
Report the feature to the eye,  
As you would think each picture was  
Some visage in a lookingglass;  
Not a glass-window face, unless  
Such as Cheapside hath, when a press  
Of painted gallant looking out  
Bedeck the casement round about.  
But these have holy phisnomy;  
Each pane instructs the laity  
With silent eloquence, for here  
Devotion leads the eye not ear  
To note the cetechising paint;  
Whose easy phrase did so acquaint  
Our sense with Gospel that the Creed  
In such a hand the weak may read.  
Such types can yet of virtue be,  
And Christ as in a glass we see.  
Behold two Turtles in one Cage  
With such a lovely equipage,  
As they who mark them well may doubt  
Some young ones have been there stolen out.  
When with a fishing rod the clerk  
St. Peter's draught of fish doth mark:  
Such is the scale, the eye, the fin,  
You'd think they strove and leapt within:  
But if the net which holds them broke  
He with his angle some would take.  
But would you walk a turn in Paul's,  
Look up, one little pane inroules  
A fairer Temple, fling a stone  
The Church is out of the window flown.  
Consider but not ask your eyes,  
And ghosts at midday seem to rise.  
The Saints their striving to descend  
Are past the glass and downward bend.  
Look there the Devils all would cry,  
Did they not see that Christ was by.  
See where he suffers for thee, see  
His body taken from the tree:  
Had ever death such life before?  
The limber corpse besullied ore  
With meager paleness doth display  
A middle state twixt flesh and clay:  
His arms, his head, his legs, his crown  
Like a true Lambskin dangling down:  
Who can forbear the grave being nigh  
To bring fresh ointment in his eye?  
The Puritans were sure deceived  
Who thought those shadows moved and heaved.  
So held from stoning Christ; the wind  
And boisterous tempests were so kind  
As on his Image not to pray,  
Whom both the winds and Sea obey.  
At Momus wish be not dismayed;  
For if each Christians heart were glazed  
With such a window, than each breast  
Might be his own Evangelist.   

On the praise of an ill-favoured Gentlewoman.  
MArry and love thy Flavia, for she  
Hath all things whereby others beauteous be:  
For though her eyes be small, her mouth is great,  
Though her lips Ivory be, her teeth be jet:  
Though they be dark, yet she is light enough,  
And though her harsh hair fail, her skin is rough,  
And what if it be yellow, her hairs red,  
Give her but thine she has a maidenhead.  
These things are beauties elements, where these  
Compounded are in one she needs must please:  
If red and white and each good quality  
Be in the wench, ne'er ask where it doth lie:  
In buying things perfumed we ask if there  
Be musk and amber in it, but not where.  
Though all her parts be not i'th' usual place,  
She hath the anagram of a good face.  
When by the gam-ut some musicians make  
A perfect song, others will undertake  
By the same gam-ut changed to equal it:  
Things simply good can never be unfit.  
For one nights revels silk and gold we use,  
But in long journey's cloth and leather choose.  
Beauty is barren oft; and husbands say  
There's the best land where is the foulest way.  
And what a sovereign medicine will she be  
If thy past sins have taught thee jealousy.  
Here needs no spies nor Eunuchs: her commit  
Safe to thy foes yea to thy Marmoset.  
When Belgias Cities th' ruined country drown  
That dirty foulness arms and guards the Town.  
So doth her face guard her, and so for thee,  
Which by occasion absent oft mayest be.  
She whose face like the clouds turns day to night,  
And mightier than the Sea makes Moors seem white.  
Who though seven years she in the street hath laid  
A Nunnery durst receive and think a maid.  
And though in child-bed-labour she did lie  
Midwives would swear 'twere but a tympany.  
If she accuse herself, i'll credit less  
Than witches which impossibles confess.   

Upon heaven's best Image, his fair and virtuous Mistress M. S.  

THe most insulting tyrants can but be  
Lords of our bodies, still our minds are free.  
My Mistress thralls my soul, those chains of Gold  
Her locks my very thoughts infetterd hold.  
Then sure she is a goddess, and if I  
Should worship her, 'tis no idolatry.   

Within her cheeks a fragrant garden lies  
Where Roses mixed with lilies feast mine eyes:  
Here's always spring, no winter to annoy  
Those heavenly flowers, only some tears of joy  
Do water them, and sure if I be wise  
This garden is another paradise.   

Her eyes two heavenly lamps, whose ordered motion  
Sways all my reason, my sense, my devotion;  
And yet those beams did then most glorious shine  
When passions dark had maskd this soul of mine:  
Now if the night her glory best declare,  
What can I deem them but a sta●ry pair.   

Her brow is virtue's court, where she alone  
Triumphant sits in faultless beauty's throne:  
Did you but mark its pureness, you would swear  
Diana's come from Heaven to sojourn there.  
Only this Cynthia dims not even at noon,  
There wants a man (methinks) in such a Moon.   

Her breath is great Jove's incense, sweeter far  
Than all Arabian winds and spices are:  
Her voice the spheres best music, and those twins▪  
Her arms a precious pair of Cherubs wings.  
In brief she is a map of Heaven, and there  
O would that I a constellation were.    

The black maid to the fair boy.  
Fair boy (Alas) why fliest thou me  
That languish in such flames for thee.  
I'm black, 'tis true; why so is night,  
And lovers in dark shades delight.  
The whole world do but close your eye  
Will be to you as black as I:  
Or oped and view how dark a shade  
Is by your own fair body made,  
Which follows thee where e'er thou go,  
O who allowed would not do so:  
Then let me ever live so nigh,  
And thou shalt need no shade but I.   

His Answer.  
BLack girl complain not that I fly,  
Since fate commands antipathy.  
Prodigious must that union prove  
Where black and white together move:  
And a conjunction of our lips  
Not kisses makes but an eclipse,  
In which the mixed black and white  
Pretends more terror than delight.  
Yet if my shadow thou wilt be,  
Enjoy thy dearest wish; but see  
Thou keep my shadows property,  
And flee away when I come nigh;  
Else stay till death hath blinded me,  
And I'll bequeathe myself to thee.   

Verses sent to a Lady, which she sending back unread, were returned with this inscription.  
REead (Fair maid) and know the heat  
That warms these lines is like the beat.  
Thy chaste pulse keeps; thy morning's thought  
Hath not more temper.: were there aught  
On this virgin paper shed  
That might to crimson turn thy red  
I should blush for thee, but I vow  
'tis all as spotless as thy brow.  
Read then, and know what art thou hast,  
That thus canst make a Poet chaste.   

The Verses.  
ON a day ('tis in thy power  
To make me bless or curse that hour)  
I saw thy face, they face then maskd  
Like Ivory in Ebon casked.  
But that dark cloud once drawn away,  
Just like the dawning of the day  
So broke thy beauty forth, and I  
Grew sad, glad, neither, instantly:  
Yet through thy mercy, or my chance,  
Me thought I saw a pleasing glance  
Thou threw'st on me: a sugar smile  
Dimpled thy cheeks, and all the while  
Mirth dancd upon thy brow, to prove  
It came from kindness if not love.  
Oh make it good; in this let me  
Not Poet but a Prophet be.  
And think not (fairest) that thy fame  
Is wronged by a poet's Mistress name;  
Queens have been proud on't, for their Kiugs  
Are but our subjects; nay all things  
Shall unto all posterity  
Appear as we will have them, we  
Give men valour, maid's chastity  
And beauty too: if Homer would  
Helen had been an hag, and-Troy had stood.  
And though far humbler be my verse,  
Yet some there will be will rehearse  
And like it too perhaps; and than  
The life that now thou lendest my pen  
The world shall pay thee back again.   

The Nightingale.  
MY limbs were weary, and my head oppressed  
With drowsiness and yet I could not rest.  
My bed was such no down nor feathers can  
Make one more soft, though Jove again turn Swan.  
No fear distracted thoughts my slumber broke,  
I heard no screech-owl squeak, nor raven croak;  
Nay even the flea (that proud insulting else)  
Had taken truce, and was asleep itself:  
But 'twas nights darling, and the woods chief jewel  
The Nightingale that was so sweetly crewel.  
And wooed my ears to rob my eyes of sleep.  
That whilst she sung of Tereus, they might weep,  
And yet rejoice the tyrant did her wrong,  
Her cause of woe was burden of her song;  
Which whilst I listened too, and grieved to hear,  
'twas such I could have wished myself all ear.  
'tis false the Poets feign of Orpheus, he  
Could neither move a stone, a beast, nor tree  
To follow him; but wheresoever she flies  
She makes a grove, where Satyrs and Fairies  
About her perch to dance her roundelays,  
For she sings ditties to them whilst Pan plays.  
Yet she sung better now, as if in me  
She meant with sleep to try the mastery.  
But whilst she chanted thus, the Cock for spite  
(Days hoarser herald) chid away the night.  
Thus robbed of sleep, mine eyelids nightly guest,  
Methought I lay content, though not at rest.   

Barclay his Epitaph.  
HE that's imprisoned in this narrow room  
Were't not for custom needs nor verse nor tomb;  
Nor can there from these memory be lent  
To him, who must be his tombs monument;  
And by the virtue of his lasting name  
Must make his tomb live long, not it his fame.  
For when this gaudy pageantry is gone,  
Children of the unborn world shall spy the stone  
That covers him, and to their fellows cry  
Just here, just here abouts Barclay doth lie.  
Let them with feigned titles fortify  
Their tombs, whose sickly virtues fear to die.  
And let their tombs belie them, call them blessed,  
And charitable marble feign the rest.  
He needs not, when life's true story is done,  
The lying proscript of a perjured stone.  
Then spare his tomb, that's needless and unsafe,  
Whose virtue must outlive his Epitaph.   

A welcome to Sack.  
SO soft streams meet, so streams with gladder smiles  
Meet after long divorcement by the isles  
When love the child of likeness leadeth on  
Their crystal natures to an union.  
So meet stolen kisses when the moonshine nights  
Call forth fierce lovers to their wished delights.  
So Kings and Queens meet when desire convinces  
All thoughts but those that aim at getting Princes;  
As I meet thee soul of my life and fame▪  
Eternal lamp of love, whose radiant flame  
Outstares the Heavens Osiris, and thy gleams  
Darkens the splendour of his midday beams.  
Welcome o welcome my illustrious spouse,  
Welcome as is the end unto my vows.  
Nay far more welcome than the happy soil  
The sea-scourged Merchant after all his toil  
Salutes with tears of joy, when fires display  
The smoking chimneys of his Ithaca.  
Where hast thou been so long from my embraces  
Poor pitied exile, tell me did thy graces  
Fly discontented hence, and for a time  
Did rather choose to bless some other clime:  
And was it to this end thou went'st to move me  
More by thy absence to desire and love thee.  
Why frowns my sweet? why does my Saint defer  
Her bosom smiles from me her worshipper.  
Why are those happy looks (the which have been  
Time past so fragrant) sickly now drawn in  
Like a dull twilight? tell me has my soul  
Profaned in speech, or done an act more foul  
Against thy purer nature, for that fault  
I'll expiate with fire, with hair, and salt,  
And with the crystal humour of the spring  
Purge hence the guilt, and air, the quarrelling.  
Wilt thou not smile, or tell me what amiss,  
Have I been cold to hug thee, too remiss  
And temperate in embracings? has desire  
To thee-ward died in the embers, and no fire  
Left in this raked up ash-heap as a mark  
To testify the glowing of a spark?  
Have I divorced thee only to combine▪  
And quench my lust upon some other wine?  
True I confess I left thee, and appeal  
'twas done by me more to confirm my zeal  
And double my affection, as do those  
Whose love grows more inflamed by being foes.  
But to forsake thee ever, could there be  
A thought of such impossibility?  
When thou thyself dost say thy Isles shall lack  
Grapes, ere that Herrick leaves Canary Sack.  
Thou art my life, my Heaven, salt to all  
My dearest dainties, thou the principal  
Fire to all my functions, giv'st me blood,  
Chine, spirit, and marrow and what else is good,  
Thou mak'st me airy, active, to be borne  
Like Iphictus upon the tops of corn,  
And mak'st me winged like the nimble hours  
To dance and caper on the heads of flowers,  
And ride the Sunbeams. Can there be a thing  
Under the heavenly Isis that can bring  
More love unto my life, or can present  
My Genius with a fuller blandishment?   

A Parodox on the praise of a painted face.  
NOt kiss? by Jove I must and make impression  
As long as Cupid dares to hold his Session  
Upon thy flesh and blood, our kisses shall  
Out minute time, and without number fall.  
Do not I know these balls of blushing red  
That on thy cheeks thus amorously are spread;  
Thy snowy neck, those veins upon thy brow  
Which with their azure crinkling sweetly bow,  
Are from art borrowed, and no more thine own  
Then chains that on St. George's day are shown  
Are proper to the wearer? yet for this  
I idol thee, and beg a courteous kiss.  
The Fucus and ceruse which on thy face  
The cunning hand doth lay to add more grace,  
Deceive me with such pleasing fraud, that I  
Find in thy art wh●t can in nature lie:  
Much like a Painter which upon some wall  
On which the cadent sunbeams use to fall,  
Paints with such art a guilded butterfly,  
That silly maids with slow-made fingers try  
To catch it, and then blush at their mistake,  
Yet of this painted fly much reckoning make.  
Such is our state, since what we look upon  
Is nought but colour and proportion:  
Give me a face that is as full of lies  
As Gipsies or your cunning Lotteries;  
That is more false and more sophisticate  
Than are your relics, or a man of state:  
Yet such being glazed by the slight of art  
Gain admiration, and win many a heart.  
Put case there be a difference in the mould,  
Yet may thy Venus be more brisk and bold.  
— for oftentimes we see  
Rich Candy wines in wooden bowls to be.  
The odoriferous Civet doth not lie  
Within the Muscats nose, or ear, or eye,  
But in a baser place: for prudent nature  
In drawing up the various forms and stature,  
Gives from the curious shop of her large treasure  
To fair parts comeliness, to baser pleasure.  
The fairest flower that in the spring doth grow  
Is not so much for use, as for a show.  
As lilies, Hyacinths, the gorgeous birth  
Of all pied flowers which diaper the earth,  
Please more with their discoloured purple train  
Then wholesome potherbs which for use remain.  
Should I a golden speckled Serpent kiss  
Because the colour which he wears is his?  
A perphumed cordovant who would not wear,  
Because it's sent is borrowed other where?  
The clothes and vestments which grace us all  
Are not our own but adventitiall.  
Time rifles nature's beauty, but sly art  
Repairs by cunning each decayed part,  
Fills here a wrinkle, and there purls a vein;  
And with a cunning hand runs o'er again  
The breaches dented by the pen of time,  
And makes deformity to be no crime▪  
So when great men are gripped by sickness: hand,  
Illustrious physic pregnantly doth stand  
To patch up foul diseases, and doth strive  
To keep their tottering carcases alive.  
Beauty a candle is, with every puff  
Blown out, leaves nothing but a stinking snuff  
To fill our nostrils with: thus boldly think  
The purest candle yields the foulest stink:  
As the pure food, and daintiest nutriment,  
Yields the most strong and hottest excrement.  
Why hang we then on things so apt to vary,  
So fleeting, brittle, and so temporary,  
That agues, coughs, the toothache, or catarrh,  
Slight touches of diseases spoil and mar.  
But when that age their beauty doth displace,  
And ploughs up furrows in their once smooth face;  
Then they become forsaken and do show  
Like stately abbeys destroyed long ago.  
Love grant me then a reparable face,  
That whilst there colours are can want no grace:  
Pygmalion's painted statue I could love,  
If it were warm, and soft, or could but move.   

A Song.  

WHen Orpheus sweetly did complain  
Upon his Lute with heavy strain  
How his Eurydice was slain;  
The trees to hear  
Obtained an ear  
And after left it off again.   

At every stroke and every stay  
The boughs kept time and nodding lay,  
And listened bending every way;  
The ashen tree  
As well as well as he  
Began to shake and learned to play.   

If wood could speak, a tree might hear,  
If wood can sound our grief so near,  
A tree might drop an amber tear:  
If wood so well  
Could sound a knell,  
The cypress might condoal the bear.   

The standing nobles of the grove,  
Hearing dead wood to speak and move,  
The fatal axe began to love;  
They envied death  
That gave such breath,  
As men alive do Saints above.    

Upon Mr. Hopton's death.  
GRiefs prodigals where are you? unthrifts where?  
Whose tears and sighs extemporary are;  
Poured out, not spent, who never ask a day  
Your debt of sorrow on the grave to pay;  
But as if one hours' mourning could suffice,  
Dare think it now no sin to have dry eyes:  
Away, profane not Hopton's death, nor shame  
His grave with grief not worthy of that name:  
Sorrow conceived and vented both together;  
Like prayers of Puritans, or in foul weather  
The sailors forced devotion, when in fear  
They pray this minute, and the next they swear.  
No I must meet with men, men that do know  
How to compute their tears and weigh their woe;  
That can set down in an exact account  
To what the loss of Hopton doth amount:  
Tell you particulars, how much of truth  
Of unmatched virtue and untainted youth  
Is gone with him, and having summed all look  
Like bankrupt Merchants on their table book,  
With eyes confounded and amazed to find  
The poor and blank remainder left behind.   

On his Mistress eye.  
AM I once more blessed with a grace so high  
As to be looked on with that other eye?  
Or shall I think it once more sent again  
To iterate my souls sweet lasting pain?  
Your other eye, dear soul, had fire before  
And darts enough, you need not have sought more  
From this revived; scarce could I endure  
The lustre of this eye when 'twas obscure:  
How shall I now when like a fresh-born Sun  
It strikes forth such a new reflection?  
Yet welcome, dearest torment, spare not me  
Dart forth more flames, they please if sent from thee  
I hope your eyes as they in lustre do,  
Will imitate the Sun in virtue too.  
If plagues and sicknesses from him be sent  
Yet gives he warmth, life, growth and nourishment.  
This is my comfort now, if one eye strike,  
The other may give remedy alike.  
Welcome again clear lamp of beauty; shine,  
Shine bright on Earth as do the soul divine,  
To which my thoughts with like devotion run  
As Indians adore the rising Sun.  
Now shall I mine own Image view alive  
In this extenuating perspective,  
This living looking glass, when thou shalt grace  
Me, sweet, so much as to admit my face  
Neighbour to thine, o how I then shall love  
To see my shape in that black stream to move:  
Against all reason I then more admire  
My shadow there, than my whole self entire.  
How oft (though loath from that sweet seat to part)  
Strive I to travel that way to thy heart;  
Where if one wink do thy quick look recall,  
I lose, poor wretch, my shadow, self, and all.  
Thus all the life which I so glorious thought  
By thy sole wink is quenched and turned to nought.  
Oh how I wont to curse that cobweb lawn  
Which like a curtain o'er thy eye was drawn,  
As if that death upon that eye did sit,  
And this had been the winding sheet for it,  
The which, as it from off that eye was thrown,  
Seemed to look pale for grief that it was gone.  
Yet when both this and tother dainty robe  
Did close like cases that most heavenly globe,  
Think not they could disparage your fair eyes;  
No more than painters do their chiefest prize;  
Who use to hang some veil or silken sheet,  
That men may more desire and long to se'it.   

To Dr. Griffith healed of a strange cure by Bernard Wright of Oxford.  
WElcome abroad, o welcome from your bed  
I joy to see you thus delivered.  
After four years in travel issues forth  
A birth of lasting wonder, whereat truth  
Might well suspect herself, a new disease  
Borne to advance the Surgeons of our days  
Above all others: a perfidious bone  
Eaten and undermined by humours grown:  
Lodged in the captive thigh, which first of any  
Halted, yet furnished with a bone to many;  
No Golgotha, nor charnel house, nor field,  
If all were searched could such another yield,  
A bone so locked and hugged, as is a bar  
That back and forward may be wrested far  
But not pulled out at either hole, nor could  
The cunning workman come to 't as he would:  
cross veins did guard the sore, a hollow cave  
Must wade into the flesh, the surgeon's grave  
Thus being digged, the file without delay  
Must grate the bone, and carve those chips away.  
Blessed be the midmen whose dexterity  
Pulled out a birth like Bacchus from the thigh.  
Tutors of nature, whose well guided art  
Can rectify her wants in every part:  
Who by preserving others pay the debt  
They owe to nature, and do rebeget  
Her strength grown ruinate: I could be glad  
Such lived the days which they to others add:  
Nor can I rightly tell the happier man  
The patient or the Surgeon; do but scan  
His praise thy ease, 'twas sure an ecstasy  
That killed Van-otto not a lethargy;  
Striving to crown his work he bravely tried  
His last and greatest cure then gladly died.  
Bernard must tarry longer; should he fly  
After his brother all the world must die▪  
Or live a cripple; Griffiths' happy fate  
Requires the same hand still to iterate  
No less a miracle: the joiners skill  
Could never mend his carved pate so well  
As he hath healed a natural: the stout  
And boasting Paracelsus who gives out  
His rule can give man's life eternity,  
Would faintly doubt of his recovery;  
He that hath wrought these cures I think he can  
As well of scraps make up a perfect man.  
Oh had you seen his marrow drop away,  
Or the others brains drop out, then would you say  
Nothing could cure this fracture or that bone  
Save Bernard or the Resurrection.  
Now smile upon thy torment, pretty thing  
How will you use it? bury it in a ring  
Like a death's head, or send it to the grave  
In earnest of the body it must have:  
Or if you will you may the same translate  
Into a die because 'twas fortunate;  
The ring were blessed, 'tis like a Diamond born  
Out of a Rock, so was it hewn and torn  
Out of your thigh: the gem worth nothing is  
Until it be cut forth, no more is this.  
Happy are you that know what treasure 'tis  
To find lost health, they only feel the bliss:  
Thou that hast felt these pains, Mayst well maintain  
Man's chiefest pleasure is but want of pain.  
Enjoy thyself; for nothing worse can come  
To one so schooled and versed in martyrdom.   

The Liberty and Requiem of an imprisoned Royalist.  

BEat on proud billows, Boreas blow  
Swelled curled Waves high as Jove's roof,  
Your incivility shall know,  
That innocence is tempest proof.  
Though surly Nereus' frown, my thoughts are calm,  
Then strike (afflictions) for your wounds are balm.   

That which the world miscalls a jail,  
A private closet is to me,  
Whilst a good conscience is my bail,  
And innocence my liberty.  
Locks, bars, walls, loneness, tho together met,  
Make me no prisoner, but an Anchoret.   

Ay, whilst I wished to be retired,  
Into this private room was turned  
As if their wisdoms had conspired  
A Salamander should be burned:  
And like those Sophies who would drown a fish,  
I am condemned to suffer what I wish.   

The cynic hug his poverty,  
The Pelicane her wilderness,  
And 'tis the Indians' pride to lie  
Naked on frozen Caucasus.  
And like to these, Stoics severe we see  
Make torments easy by their apathy.   

These manacles upon my arm  
I as my sweetheart's favours wear,  
And then to keep my ankles warm  
I have some Iron shackles there:  
These walls are but my garrison, this Cell  
Which men call jail, doth prove my citadel   

So he that struck at Jason's life,  
Thinking h' had made his purpose sure,  
By a malicious friendly knife,  
Did only wound him to a cure.  
Malice I see wants wit, for what is meant  
Mischief, oft times proves favour by th' event.   

I'm in this Cabinet locked up  
Like some high prized Margarite;  
Or like some great Mogul, or Pope,  
Am cloistered up from public sight:  
Retiredness is a part of majesty,  
And thus, proud Sultan, I'm as great as thee.   

Here sin for want of food doth starve,  
Where tempting objects are not seen,  
And these walls do only serve  
To keep vice out, not keep me in▪  
Malice of late's grown charitable sure,  
I'm not committed, but am kept secure.   

When once my Prince affliction hath,  
Prosperity doth treason seem,  
And then to smooth so rough a path  
I can learn patience too from him.  
Now not to suffer shows no loyal heart,  
When Kings want ●ase subjects must love to smart.   

What tho I cannot see my King  
Either in's person or his coin,  
Yet contemplation is a thing  
Which renders what I have not mine▪  
My King from me no Adamant can part,  
Whom I do wear engraven in my heart.   

My soul's free, as th' ambient air,  
Although my baser part's immured,  
Whilst loyal thoughts do still repair  
T' accompany my solitude.  
And though rebellion do my body bind,  
My King can only captivate my mind.   

Have you not seen the Nightingale  
When turned a Pilgrim to a cage,  
How she doth sing her wonted tale  
In that her narrow hermitage;  
Even there her chanting melody doth prove  
That all her bars are trees, her cage a grove.   

I am that bird, which they combine  
Thus to deprive of liberty,  
Who though they do my corpse confine,  
Yet maugre hate my soul is free:  
And tho immured, yet can I chirp and sing  
Disgrace to rebels, glory to my King.    

To his imperious Mistress.  

WEll, well 'tis true,  
I am now fallen in love,  
And 'tis with you;  
And now I plainly see,  
While you're enthroned by me above  
You all your art and power improve  
To tyrannize o'er me,  
And make my flames the objects of your scorn,  
While you rejoice, and feast your eyes, to see me quite forlorn.   

But yet be wise,  
And don't believe that I  
Do think your eyes  
More bright than Stars can be,  
Or that you Angels far outvie  
In their celestial livery  
'twas all but Poetry.  
I could have said as much by any she,  
You are no beauty of yourself, but are made so by me.   

Though we like fools  
Fathom the Earth and sky,  
And drain the Schools  
For names t' express you by,  
Outrend all loud hyperbolyes  
To dub our fancies deities  
By Cupid's heraldry;  
We know you're flesh and blood as well as men,  
And when we please can mortalize, and make you so again.   

Yet since my fate  
Hath drawn me to the thing  
Which I did hate,  
I'll not my labour loose;  
But will love, and as I begin  
To the purpose, now my hand is in,  
Spite of the art you use:  
And have you know the world is not so bare;  
there's things enough to love besides such toys as Ladies are.   

I'll love good wine,  
I'll love my book and muse,  
Nay all the nine;  
I'll love my real friend:  
I'll love my horse; and could I choose  
One that my love would not abuse,  
To her my love should bend.  
I will love those that laugh, and those that sing,  
I'll never pine myself away for any female thing.    

On Dr. Ravis Bishop of London.  
WHen I passed Paul's and travelled on the walk  
Where all our Britain sinners swear and talk:  
Old Harry Ruffians, Bankrupts, and soothsayers,  
And youths whose cozenage is as old as theirs:  
And there beheld the body of my Lord  
Trod under foot of vice which he abhorred;  
It grieved me that the Landlord of all times  
Should set long lives and leases to their crimes,  
And to his springing honours should afford  
Scarce so much Sun as to the prophet's gourd:  
But since swift flights of virtue have good ends,  
Like breath of angels which a blessing sends  
And vanisheth withal, whilst fouler deeds  
Expect a tedious harvest for bad seeds.  
I blame not fame and nature, if they gave  
Where they could give no more, their last a grave;  
And justly do thy grieved friends forbear  
Marble and Alabaster boys to rear  
O'er thy Religious dust, because they know  
Thy worth, which such allusions cannot show,  
For thou hast trod amongst those happy ones,  
Who trust not in their superscriptions,  
Their hired Epitaphs and perjured stone,  
Which so belies the soul when she is gone:  
Thou dost commit thy body as it lies  
To tongues of living men, not unborn eyes;  
What profits then a sheet of lead? what good  
If on thy corpse a Marble quarry stood?  
Let those that fear their rising purchase vaults,  
And rear them statues to excuse their faults;  
As if like birds that peck at painter's grapes▪  
The judge knew not their persons from their shapes.  
Nor needs the chancellor boast, whose pyramid  
Above the House and Altar reared is;  
For though thy body fill a viler room,  
Thou shalt not change deeds with him for his tomb   

On Dr. Langton.  
BEcause of fleshy mould we be  
Subject unto mortality;  
Let no man wonder at his death,  
More flesh he had, and then less breath:  
But if you question how he died  
'twas not the fall of swelling pride,  
'twas no ambition to ascend  
Heaven in humility: his end▪  
Assured us his God did make  
This piece for our example sake.  
Had you but seen him in his way  
To Church his last best Sabbath day,  
His struggling soul did make such haste  
As if each breath should be his last;  
Each stone he trod on sinking strove  
To make his grave, and showed his love▪  
O how his sweating body wept,  
Knowing how soon it should be swept  
Ith' mould; but while he steals to pray,  
His weighty members long to stay,  
Each word did bring a breathless tear,  
As if he'd leave his spirit there:  
He gone looks back as 'twere to see  
The place where he would buried be,  
Bowing as if did desire  
At the same time for to expire:  
Which being done he long shall dwell  
Within the place he loved so well;  
Where night and morning hundreds come  
A Pilgrimage unto his tomb.   

To the Bell-Founder of great Tom of Christ-Church in Oxford.  

THou that by ruin dost repair,  
And by destruction art a Founder:  
Whose art doth tell us what men are,  
Who by corruption shall rise sounder:  
In this fierce fires intensive heat,  
Remember this is Tom the great.   

And, Cyclops, think at every stroke  
With which thy sledge his side shall wound,  
That then some Statute thou hast broke  
Which long depended on his sound;  
And that our college-gates do cry  
They were not shut since Tom did die.   

Think what a scourge 'tis to the City  
To drink and swear by Carfax Bell,  
Which bellowing without tune or pity  
The night and day divides not well;  
But the poor tradesmen must give o'er  
His ale at eight or sit till four.   

We all in haste drink off our wine,  
As if we never should drink more;  
So that the reckoning after nine  
Is larger now than that before.  
Release this tongue which erst could say  
Home scholars; drawer what's to pay?   

So thou of order shalt be Founder,  
Making a Ruler for the people,  
One that shalt ring thy praises rounder  
Than tother six bells in the steeple:  
Wherefore think when Tom is running  
Our manners wait upon thy cunning.   

Then let him raised be from ground  
The same in number, weight, and sound;  
For may thy conscience rule thy gain,  
Or would thy theft might be thy bane.    

On a Gentleman, that kissing his Mistress left blood upon her.  
WHat mystery is this that I should find  
My blood in kissing you to stay behind?  
'twas not for want of colour that required  
My blood for paint: no dye could be desired  
On that fair cheek, where scarlet were a spot,  
And where the juice of lilies but a blot:  
If at the presence of the murderer  
The wound will bleed, and tell the cause is there,  
A touch will do much more: even so my heart  
When secretly it felt your killing dart  
Showed it in blood; which yet doth more complain  
Because it cannot be so touched again.  
This wounded heart to show its love most true  
Sent forth a drop and wrote its mind on you;  
Was ever paper half so white as this,  
Or wax so yielding to the printed kiss?  
Or seal so strong? no letter ere was writ  
That could the author's mind so truly fit:  
For though myself to foreign countries fly  
My blood desires to keep you company;  
Here I could spill it all, thus I can free  
My enemy from blood though slain I be:  
But slain I cannot be, nor meet with ill,  
Since but to you I have no blood to spill.   

On an aged Gentlewoman.  
NO spring nor summer's beauty hath such grace  
As I have seen in one autumnal face.  
Young beauties force their loves, and that's a rape,  
Yours doth but counsel, yet they cannot scape:  
If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame,  
Affection takes here reverences name▪  
Were her first years the golden age? that's true;  
But now she's gold oft tried and ever new:  
That was her torrid and inflaming time,  
This is her tolerable tropic clime.  
Fair eyes, who asks more heat than comes from thence,  
He in a fever wishes pestilence.  
Call not those wrinkles graves, if graves they were  
They were loves graves, for else they are nowhere;  
Yet lies not love dead here, but here doth sit  
Vowed to this trench like to an Anchoret:  
And here till her (which must be his) death's  
He doth not dig a grave, but build a tomb:  
Here dwells he, though he sojourn everywhere doom  
In progress, yet his standing house is here.  
She always evening is, nor noon nor night,  
Where's no voluptuousnsse, though a delight.  
Xerxes' strange love, the broad-leaved plantain tree,  
Was loved for age, none being so large as she  
Or else because being young, nature did bless  
Her youth with age's glory barrenness.  
If we love things long sought, age is a thing  
Which we are sixty years a compassing:  
If transitory things which soon decay,  
Age must be loveliest at the latest day.  
But name not winter-faces, whose skin's slack,  
Lank like an unthrifts purse, or empty sack;  
Whose eyes seek light within, for all here's shade,  
Whose mouth's a hole rather worn out then made,  
Whose several tooth to a several place is gone  
To vex their souls at the Resurrection:  
Name not these living deaths-heads unto me,  
For such not ancient, but antiques be.  
I hate extremes; yet I had rather stay  
With tombs than cradles to wear out the day:  
Since that loves natural motion is▪ may still  
My love descend and journey down the hill;  
Not panting after growing beauties, so  
I shall ebb on with them that homewards go.   

On his Mistress going to Sea.  
FArewell fair Saint, may not the Seas and wind  
Swell like the heart and eyes you leave behind,  
But calm and gentle (like the looks they bear)  
Smile on your face and whisper in your ear:  
Let no foul billow offer to arise  
That it may nearer look upon your eyes,  
lest wind and waves enamoured with such form  
Should throng and crowd themselves into a storm;  
But if it be your fate (vast Seas) to love,  
Of my becalmed heart learn how to move:  
Move then, but in a gentle lover's pace,  
No wrinkles nor no furrows in your face;  
And ye fierce winds see that you tell your tale  
In such a breath as may but fill her sail:  
So whilst you court her each his several way  
You will her safely to her port convey;  
And lose her in a noble way of wooing,  
Whilst both contribute to your own undoing.   

A Copy of Verses spoke to King CHARLES by way of entertainment when he was pleased to grace S. John's college with his visit. 1636.  

WEre they not angels sang, did not mine ears  
Drink in a sacred Anthem from you spheres?  
Was I not blessed with Charles and Mary's name,  
Names wherein dwells all music? 'tis the same.  
Hark, I myself now but speak Charles and Mary,  
And 'tis a Poem, nay 'tis a library▪   

All hail to your dread Majesties, whose power  
Adds lustre to our feast, and to our bower:  
And what place fitter for so royal guests  
Then this, where every book presents a feast.  
Here's Virgil's well-dressed Venison, here's the wine  
Made Horace sing so sweetly; here you dine  
With the rich Cleopatra's warelike love;  
Nay you may feast and frolic here with Jove.  
Next view that bower, which is as yet all green,  
But when you're there, the red and white are seen.  
A bower, which had ('tis true) been beautified  
With catechising Arras on each side;  
But we the Baptists sons did much desire  
To have it like the dwelling of our sire  
A grove or desert. See (dread liege) you'll guess  
Even our whole college in a wilderness.  
Your eyes and ears being fed, taste of that feast,  
Which hath its pomp and glory from its guest.    

Upon the new Quadrangle of St. John's college in Oxford, built by the most Reverend Father in God the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.  
'tIs done; and now where's he that cried it down  
For the long tedious business of the Town;  
Let him but see it thus, and he'll contend  
How we could such a Quadrat so soon end,  
Nay think 'twas time little enough to frame  
The exact model only of the same.  
'tis finished then; and so, there's not the eye  
Can blame it, that's best skilled in Symmetry:  
You'd think each stone were raised by Orpheus' art,  
There's such sweet harmony in every part.  
Thus they are one: yet if you please to pry  
But farther in the quaint variety  
Of the choice workmen, there will seem to be  
A disagreeing uniformity.  
Here Angels, stars, there virtue's arts are seen,  
And in whom all these meet the King and Queen.  
Next view the smoothfaced columns, and each one  
Looks like a pile of well joined Punice-stone:  
Nor wonder, for as smooth, as clear they are  
As is your Mistress glass, or what shines there.  
So that you'd think at first sight at a blush  
The massy solid earth Diaphanous.  
But these are common, would you see that thing  
In which our King delights, which in our King?  
Look up, and then with reverence cast your eye  
Upon our Mary's comely Majesty:  
'tis she, and yet had you herself ere seen,  
You'd swear but for the crown 'twere not the Queen.  
Nor is't the workman's fault; for what can be  
I would fain know like to a Deity?  
Unless her Charles; yet hath his statue proved  
So like himself you'd think it spoke and moved,  
But that you plainly see 'tis brass; nay were  
The Guard but near, they'd cry the King, be bare.  
Rare form, and as rare matter; that can give  
O●r Charles after his reign ages to live.  
Not like your graver Citizens wise cost,  
Who think they have King enough on a signpost:  
Where he may stand (for all I see) unknown,  
But for the loving superscription.  
No; here he reigns in state, to every eye  
So like himself in complete Majesty,  
That men shall cry, viewing his limbs and face  
All fresh three ages hence, long live his Grace.  
Blessed be that subject then, which did foresee  
The Kings (though he's as God) mortality:  
And through a Princely care hath found the way  
To reinthrone his dust and crown his clay;  
That so what strange events soe'er may fall  
Through peace or war antimonarchical:  
Though these three Kingdoms should become one flame  
And that consume us with our King and his name;  
Yet here our gracious Charles whenever lent  
To his much honoured Marble, and there spent  
To a dust's atom, being then scarce a thing,  
May still reign on, and long survive a King.   

Fortune's Legacy.  
BLind fortune if thou wants a guide;  
I'll show thee how thou shalt divide,  
Distribute unto each his due:  
Justice is blind and so are you.  
Tothth' usurer this doom impart,  
May Scriveners break and then his heart;  
His debtors all to beggary call,  
Or what's as bad turn Courtiers all.  
Unto the tradesmen that sell dear  
A long Vacation all the year,  
Revenge us too for their deceits  
By sending wives light as their weights.  
But fortune how wilt recompense  
The Frenchmens' daily insolence?  
That they may know no greater pain  
May they return to France again.  
To lovers, that will not believe  
Their sweet mistakes, thy blindness give.  
And lest the Players should grow poor  
Give them Aglaura's more and more.  
To physicians if thou please  
Give them another new disease.  
To scholars give (if thou canst do't)  
A Benefice without a suit.  
To court Lords grant monopolies,  
And to their wife's communities:  
So fortune thou shalt please them all,  
When Lords do rise and Ladies fall.  
Give to the lawyers I beseech  
As much for silence as for speech.  
Give Ladies Ushers strength of back,  
And unto me a cup of Sack.   

Upon a gentlewoman's entertainment of him.  
WHether, sweet Mistress, I should most  
Commend your music or your cost:  
Your well spread table, or the choice  
Banquet of your hand and voice,  
There's none will doubt. For can there be  
Twixt earth and Heaven analogy?  
Or shall a trencher or dish stand  
In competition with your hand?  
Your hand, that turns men all to ear:  
Your hand, whose every joints a sphere.  
For certainly he that shall see  
The swiftness of your harmony,  
Will straightways in amazement prove  
The spheres to you but slowly move;  
And in that thought confess that thus  
The Heavens are come down to us.  
As he may well; when he shall hear  
Such airs as may be sung even there;  
Your sacred Anthems, strains that may  
Grace the eternal choir to play:  
And certainly they were prepared  
By angels only to be heard  
Then happy I that was so blessed  
To be yours and your music's quest;  
For which I'd change all other cheer,  
Thinking the best though given to dear.  
For yours are delicates that fill,  
And filling leave us empty still:  
Sweetmeats that surfeit to delight,  
Whose fullness is mere appetite.  
Then farewell all our heavenly fare,  
Those singing dainties of the air;  
For you to me do seem as good  
As all the consorts of the wood;  
And might I but enjoy my choice,  
My choir should be your only voice.   

To a black Gentlewoman Mistress A. H.  
GRieve not (Fair maid) cause you are black; so's she  
That's spouse to him who died upon the tree:  
And so is every thing. For to your thought,  
If you but wink, the worlds as dark as nought.  
Or do but look abroad and you shall meet  
In every hallowed Church, in every street,  
The fairest still in this; who think they lack  
Of their perfections if not all in black:  
Their gowns, their veils are so, nay more their necks,  
Their very beauties are foiled off with specks  
Of the dark colour. Whilst thus to her mate  
Each seems more fair. Now they but personate  
What you are really. Your fairest hair  
Shadows the Picture of your face more fair:  
Your two black spheres are like two Globes beset  
With Ebony, or ringed about with Jet.  
O how I now desire e'en to depart  
From all the rest, and study the Black art:  
But since that's not allowed me, I will see  
How I may truly, fairest, study thee.   

To the Memory of BEN: JOHNSON.  
AS when the vestal hearth went out, no fire  
Less holy than the flame that did expire  
Could kindle it again: so at thy fall  
Our wit great Ben, is too apocryphal  
To celebrate the loss; since 'tis too much  
To write thy Epitaph, and not be such.  
What thou wert, like the hard Oracles of old  
Without an ecstasy cannot be told.  
We must be ravished first, thou must infuse  
Thyself into us both the theme and muse.  
Else, though we all conspired to make thy hearse  
Our work, so that it had been but one great verse:  
Though the Priest had translated for that time  
The Liturgy, and buried thee in rhyme;  
So that in meeter we had heard it said  
Poetic dust is to poetic laid:  
And though that dust being Shakespears, thou Might'st have  
Not his room but the Poet for thy grave;  
So that as thou didst Prince of numbers die  
And live, so now thou Might'st in numbers lie;  
'twere frail solemnity. Verses on thee  
And not like thine, would but kind libels be;  
And we, not speaking thy whole worth, should raise  
Worse blots than they that envied thy praise▪  
Indeed thou needst not us, since above all  
Invention, thou wert thine own funeral.  
Hereafter when time hath fed on thy Tomb,  
The inscription worn out, and the marble dumb;  
So that 'twould pose a critic to restore  
Half words, and words expired so long before.  
When thy maimed statue hath a sentencd face,  
And looks that are the horror of the place;  
That 'twill be learning and antiquity  
To ask a Selden to say this was thee;  
Thou'lt have a whole name still: nor needst thou fear  
That will be ruined, or loose nose or hair.  
Let others write so thin, that they can't be  
Authors till rotten, no posterity  
Can add to thy works, th' had their whole growth then  
When first borne, and came aged from the pen.  
Whilst living thou enjoyest the fame and sense,  
And all that time gives but the reverence.  
When thou'rt of Homer's years, no man will say  
Thy Poems are less worthy, but more grey.  
'tis bastard Poetry, and of the false blood  
Which can't withot succession be good.  
Things that will always last, do thus agree  
With things eternal, they at once perfect be.  
Scorn then their censure, who gave out thy wit  
As long about a Comedy did sit,  
As Elephants bring forth; and that thy blots  
And mendings took moretime then Fortune plots:  
That such thy drought was, and so great thy thirst,  
That all thy Plays were drawn at the Mermaid first.  
That the Kings yearly Butt wrote, and his wine  
Had more right than thou to thy Catiline.  
Let such men keep a diet, let their wit  
Be racked, and while they write, suffer a fit  
When they have felt tortures which outpaine the gout,  
Such as with less the State draws Treason out;  
Though they should the length of consumption lie,  
Sick of their Verse, and of their Poem die,  
'twould not be thy worst Scene, but would at last  
Confirm their boastings, and show't made in haste.  
He that writes well, writes quick, since the rules true,  
Nothing is slowly done, that's always new.  
So when thy Fox had ten times Acted been,  
Each day was first, but that 'twas cheaper seen.  
And so thy alchemist Played o'er and o'er,  
Was new o'th' stage, when 'twas not at the door.  
We, like the Actors, did repeat, the pit  
The first time saw, the next conceived thy wit:  
Which was cast in those forms, such rules, such arts,  
That but to some not half thy Acts were parts:  
Since of some silken judgements we may say  
They filled a box two hours, but saw no Play.  
So that the unlearned lost their money, and  
Scholars saved only, that could understand.  
Thy Scene was free from monsters, no hard plot  
Called down a God t' untie the unlikely knot.  
The stage was still a stage, two entrances  
Were not two parts of the world disjoynd by Seas.  
Thine were land Tragedies, no Prince was found  
To swim a whole Scene out, then oth'stage drowned,  
pitched fields▪ and Red-Bul wars, still felt thy doom,  
Thou laidst no sieges to the music Room;  
Nor wouldst allow to thy best Comedies  
Humours that should above the people rise:  
Yet was thy language and thy stile so high  
Thy Sock to the ankle, Buskin reachd tothth' thigh:  
And both so chaste, so 'bove dramatic clean,  
That we both safely saw and lived thy Scene.  
No foul loose line did prostitute thy wit,  
Thou wrotst thy Comedies; didst not commit.  
We did the vice arraigned not tempting hear,  
And were made judges not bad parts by the ear.  
For thou even sin didst in such words array,  
That some who came bad parts, went out good Play.  
Which ended not with th' Epilogue, the age  
Still Acted▪ and grew innocent from the stage.  
'tis true thou hadst some sharpness, but thy salt  
Served but with pleasure to reform the fault:  
Men were laughed into virtue, and none more  
Hated Face acted then were such before.  
So did thy sting not blood but humours draw;  
So much doth satire more correct than Law;  
Which was not nature in thee, as some call  
Thy teeth, who say thy wit lay in thy gall.  
That thou didst quarrel first, and then in spite  
Didst 'gainst a person of such vices write:  
And 'twas revenge not truth, that on the stage  
Carlo was not presented, but thy rage:  
And that when thou in company wert met,  
Thy meat took notes, and thy discourse was net.  
We know thy free vain had this innocence,  
To spare the party, and to brand the offence.  
And the just indignation thou wert in  
Did not expose Shift but his tricks and gin.  
Thou Might'st have used th'old comic freedom, these  
Might have seen themselves played like Socrates.  
Like Cleon Mammon might the Knight have been;  
If as Greek Authors thou hadst turned Greek spleen;  
And hadst not chosen rather to translate  
Their learning into English, not their hate.  
Indeed this last, if thou hadst been bereft  
Of thy humanity, might be called theft.  
The other was not, whatsoever was strange  
Or borrowed in thee did grow thine by th' change.  
Who without Latin helps, hadst been as rare  
As Beaument, Fletcher, or as Shakespeare were:  
And like them from thy native stock couldst say  
Poets and Kings are not born every day.   

An Answer to the Letter of the cloak.  
Mr. Roberts,  

I Wonder that you should send for the Cloak,  
I thought you scorned it should be spoke  
That once your promise should be broke,  
If from your word you do revoke  
I have wit enough to keep the Cloak.   

You say you'll make me smart for the Cloak,  
I do not care a fart for the Cloak,  
Yet I will study the black art in the Cloak  
Rather than I will part with the Cloak.   

You say you mean to try for the Cloak,  
I scorn to tell a lie for the Cloak,  
My word I'll never deny for the Cloak  
Although I thought you'd cry for the Cloak.   

I do protest most deep in the Cloak  
I did both mourn and weep in the Cloak,  
And if I should not keep the Cloak  
I were a very sheep in the Cloak.   

I took your Cloak to mourn in your Cloak,  
My corpse I did adorn in your Cloak,  
And many a time have I sworn in your Cloak  
That I will never return in your Cloak.   

Your father we did bury in the Cloak,  
And after we were merry in the Cloak,  
And then I told Mr. Perry of the Cloak,  
And yet I am not weary of the Cloak.   

Yet still I stand in fear of the Cloak  
That I shall be never the near for the Cloak:  
I pray you, good Sir, forbear the Cloak  
I know that you can spare the Cloak.   

It cost me many a tear in your Cloak,  
And many a beaker of bear in your Cloak;  
And yet I stand in fear of your Cloak  
That I shall be ne'er the near for your Cloak.   

Therefore, good Sir, forbear the Cloak,  
For though I have worn bare the Cloak,  
I had rather for to tear the Cloak  
Then see another wear the Cloak.  
Your friend in truth till death me choke  
If you will let me have the Cloak.    

love's Courtship.  

HArk my Flora, Love doth call us  
To the strife that must befall us:  
He hath robbed his mother's Myrtles,  
And hath pulled her downy Turtles.  
See our genial posts are crowned,  
And our beds like billows rise:  
Softer lists are nowhere found,  
And the strife its self's the prize.   

Let not shades and dark affright thee,  
Thy eyes have lustre that will light thee:  
Think not any can surprise us,  
Love himself doth now disguise us:  
From thy wast that girdle throw  
Night and silence both wait here,  
Words or actions who can know  
Where there's neither eye nor ear.   

Show thy bosom and then hide it,  
Licence touching and then chide it;  
Proffer something and forbear it,  
Give a grant and then forswear it:  
Ask where all my shame is gone,  
Call us wanton wicked men;  
Do as Turtles kiss and groan,  
Say thou ne'er shalt joy again.   

I can hear thee curse, yet chase thee;  
Drink thy tears and still embrace thee:  
Easy riches are no treasure,  
She that's willing spoils the pleasure:  
Love bids learn the wrestler's slight,  
Pull and struggle when we twine;  
Let me use my force to night,  
The next conquest shall be thine.    

Upon the death of the Lord Stafford, the last of his name.  
MUst then our loves be short still? must we choose  
Not to enjoy? only admire & lose?  
Must axioms hence grow sadly understood,  
And we thus see 'tis dangerous to be good?  
So books begun are broken off, and we  
Receive a fragment for an History;  
And as 'twere present wealth, what was but debt,  
Lose that of which we are not owners yet;  
But as in books that want the closing line,  
We only can conjecture, and repine▪  
So must we here too only grieve, and guess,  
And by our fancy make, what's wanting, less.  
Thus when rich webs are left unfinished,  
The spider doth supply them with her thread.  
For tell me what addition can be wrought  
To him, whose youth was even the bound of thought.  
Whose buddings did deserve the robe, whiles we  
In smoothness did the deeds of wrinkles see:  
When his State-nonage might have been thought fit.  
To break the custom and allowed to sit.  
His actions veiled his age, and could not stay  
For that we call ripeness, and just day.  
Others may wait the staff and the grey hair,  
And call that wisdom which is only fear.  
christian a coldness temperance, and then boast  
Full and ripe virtue, when all actions lost:  
This is not to be noble, but be slack;  
A Stafford ne'er was good by the almanac.  
He, who thus stays the season, and expects,  
Doth not gain habits, but disguise defects.  
Here nature outslips culture: he came tried,  
Straight of himself at first, not rectified:  
Manners so pleasing and so handsome cast,  
That still that overcame which was shown last.  
All minds were captived thence, as if't had been  
The same to him to have been loved and seen.  
Had he not been snatched thus, what drive hearts now  
Into his nets, would have driven Cities too:  
For these his essays which began to win  
Were but bright sparks which showed the mine within.  
Rude draughts unto the Picture; things we may  
Style the first beams of the increasing day;  
Which did but only great discoveries bring,  
As outward coolness shows the inward spring.  
Nor were his actions to content the sight,  
Like Artists pieces placed in a good light,  
That they might take at distance, and obtrude  
Something unto the eye that might delude:  
His deeds did all most perfect then appear  
When you observed, viewed close, and did stand near  
For could there ought else spring from him whose line  
From which he sprung was rule and discipline.  
Whose virtues were as books before him set,  
So that they did instruct, who did beget:  
Taught thence not to be powerful, but know,  
Showing he was their blood by living so.  
For whereas some are by their big-lip known,  
Others by imprinted burning swords were shown;  
So they by great deeds are, from which bright fame  
Engraves free reputation on their name:  
These are their native marks, and it hath been  
The Staffords lot to have their signs within.  
And though this firm hereditatry good  
Might boasted be as flowing with the blood,  
Yet he ne'er grasped this stay: but as those, who  
Carry perfumes about them still, scarce do  
Themselves perceive them, though another's sense  
Suck in the exhaling odour: so he thence  
Ne'er did perceive he carried this good smell,  
But made new still by doing himself well.  
To embalm him then is vain, where spreading fame  
Supplies the want of spices; where the name,  
Itself preserving, may for ointment pass,  
And he still seen lie coffined as in glass.  
Whiles thus his bud dims full flowers, and his sole  
Beginning doth reproach another's whole.  
Coming so perfect up, that there must needs  
Have been found out new titles for new deeds.  
Though youth and laws forbid, which will not let  
Statues be raised, or him stand brazen: yet  
Our minds retains this royalty of Kings,  
Not to be bound to time, but judge of things  
And worship as they merit: there we do  
Place him at height, and he stands golden too.  
A comfort, but not equal to the cross,  
A fair remainder, but not like the loss.  
For he (that last pledge) being gone, we do  
Not only lose the heir but the honour too.  
Set we up then this boast against our wrong,  
He left no other sign that he was young:  
And spite of fate his living virtues will,  
Though he be dead, keep up the Barony still.   

Upon the same.  
Unequal nature, that dost load, not pair  
Bodies with souls, to great for them to bear!  
As some put extracts (that for souls may pass,  
Still quickening where they are) in frailer glass;  
Whose active generous spirits scorn to live  
By such weak means, and slight preservative:  
So high borne minds; whose dawnings like the day  
In torrid climes cast forth a full-noon ray;  
Whose vigorous breasts inherit (Thronged in one)  
A race of souls by long succession;  
And rise in their descents; in whom we see  
Entirely summed a new born ancestry:  
These souls of fire (whose eager thoughts alone  
Create a fever or consumption)  
Orecharge their bodies: labouring in the strife  
To serve so quick and more than mortal life.  
Where every contemplation doth oppress  
Like fits of the Calenture, and kills no less.  
Goodness hath its extremes as well as sin,  
And brings, as vice, death and diseases in.  
This was thy fate, great Stafford; thy fierce speed  
T'outlive thy years, to throng in every deed  
A mass of virtues; hence thy minutes swell  
Not to a long life, but long Chronicle.  
Great name (for that alone is left to be  
Called great; and 'tis no small nobility  
To leave a name) when we deplore the fall  
Of thy brave Stem, and in thee of them all;  
Who dost this glory to thy race dispense,  
Not known to honour, th'end with innocence;  
Me thinks I see a spark from thy dead eye  
Cast beams on thy deceased Nobility.  
Witness those Marble heads, whom Westminster  
Adores (perhaps without a nose or ear)  
Are now twice raised from the dust, and seem  
New sculpt again, when thou art placed by them;  
When thou, the last of that brave house deceased,  
Hadst none to cry (our brother) but the Priest:  
And this true riddle is to ages sent  
Stafford is his forefathers monument.   

A Song of the Precise Cut.  

WIth face and fashion to be known  
For one of sure election,  
With eyes all white and many a groan,  
With neck aside to draw in tone,  
With harp in's nose or he is none.  
See a new teacher of the town,  
O the town, O the towns new teacher.   

With pate cut shorter than the brow,  
With little ruff starched you know how,  
With cloak like Paul, no cape I trow,  
With surplice none, but lately now;  
With hands to thump, no knees to bow.  
See a new teacher, &c.   

With cozening cough and hallow cheek  
To get new gatherings every week,  
With paltry change of and to eke,  
With some small Hebrew, and no Greek,  
To find out words when stuff's to seek.  
See a new teacher, &c.   

With shopboard breeding and intrusion,  
With some outlandish Institution,  
With Ursine's catechism to muse on,  
With Systems method for confusion,  
With grounds strong laid of mere illusion.  
See a new teacher▪ &c.   

With rites indifferent all damned,  
And made unlawful if commanded,  
Good works of Popery down banded,  
And moral laws from him estranged,  
Except the Sabbath still unchanged.  
See a new teacher, &c.   

With speech unthought, quick revelation,  
With boldness in predestination,  
With threats of absolute damnation,  
Yet yea and nay hath some salvation  
For his own Tribe, not every Nation.  
See a new teacher, &c.   

With after licence cost a Crown  
When Bishop new had put him down,  
With tricks called repetition,  
And doctrine newly brought to town  
Of teaching men to hang and drown.  
See a new teacher, &c.   

With flesh-provision to keep lent,  
With shelves of sweetness often spent,  
Which new maid brought, old Lady sent,  
Though to be saved a poor present;  
Yet Legacies assure the event.  
See a new teacher, &c.   

With troops expecting him at door  
That would hear Sermons and no more,  
With Noting-tools and sighs great store,  
With Bibles great to turn them o'er  
While he wrists places by the score.  
See a new teacher, &c.   

With running text, the named forsaken,  
With for and but both by sense shaken,  
Cheap doctrines forced, wild uses raken,  
Both sometimes one by mark mistaken,  
With any thing to any shapen.  
See a new teacher, &c.   

With new wrought caps against the Cannon  
For taking cold, though sure he have none,  
A Sermons end when he began one,  
A new hour long when his glass had run one,  
New use, new points, new notes to stand on.  
See a new teacher, &c.    

Upon the Lady paulet's Gift to the university of Oxford: Being an exact piece of needlework presenting the whole story of the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Saviour.  
COuld we judge here most virtuous Madam: then  
Your needle might receive praise from our pen.  
But this our want bereaves it of that part,  
Whilst to admire and thank is all our Art▪  
The work deserves a Shrine: I should rehearse  
Its glory in a story, not a verse.  
Colours are mixed so subtly, that thereby  
The strength of art doth take and cheat the eye:  
At once a thousand we can gaze upon,  
But are deceived by their transition.  
What toucheth is the same; beam takes from beam  
The next still like, yet differing in the extreme.  
Here runs this tract, thither we see that tends,  
But cannot say here this or there that ends▪  
Thus while they creep insensibly we doubt  
Whether the one pours not the other out.  
Faces so quick and lively, that we may  
Fear if we turn our backs they'll steal away.  
Postures of grief so true, that we may swear  
Your artful fingers have wrought passion there.  
View we the manger, and the Babe, we thence  
Believe the very threads have innocence.  
Then on the cross, such love, such grief we find  
As 'twere a transcript of our saviour's mind:  
Each parcel so expressive, each so fit,  
That the whole seems not so much wrought as writ.  
'tis sacred text, all we may coat, and thence  
Extract what may be pressed in our defence.  
Blessed Mother of the Church, be in the list  
Reckoned with th' four a she Evangelist;  
Nor can the stile be profanation, when  
The needle may convert more than the pen.  
When faith may come by seeing; and each leaf  
Rightly perused, prove gospel to the deaf.  
Had not that Helen haply found the cross  
By this your work, you had repaired that loss.  
Tell me not of Penelope, we do  
See a web here more chaste and sacred too.  
Where are ye now O women, ye that sow  
Temptations labouring to express the bow  
Of the blind Archer: ye that rarely set  
To please your loves a Venus in a net?  
Turn your skill hither, than we shall no doubt  
See the King's daughter glorious too without.  
Women sewed only figleaves hitherto,  
Eve's nakedness is only clothed by you.   

On the same.  
MAdam, your work's all miracle, and you  
The first Evangelist, whose skilful clue  
Hath made a road to Bethlem; now we may  
Without a stars direction find the way  
To the cratch our saviour's cradle, there him see  
Mantled in hay, had not your piety  
Swathed him in silk; they that have skill may see  
(For sure 'tis pricked) the virgin's lullaby.  
The ox would fain be bellowing did he not fear  
That at his noise the Babe would wake and hear.  
And as each passage of his birth's at strife  
To excel, so even the death's drawn to the life.  
See how the greedy soldiers tug to share  
His seamless coat, as if your work they'd tear:  
Look on his read, that's natural, on his gown  
That's a pure scarlet; so acutes his crown,  
That he who thinks not they are thorns indeed,  
Would he were pricked until his fingers bleed.  
His cross a skilful joiner cannot know,  
(So neat 'tis framed) where it be wood or no:  
So closely by the curious needle pointed,  
Had Joseph seen't he knew not where were jointed.  
His side seems yet to bleed and leave a stain,  
As if the blood now trickled from the vein:  
Methinks I hear the thief for mercy call,  
He might have stoleed, 'twas ne'er locked up at all.  
See how he faints; the crimson silk turns pale  
Changing its grain. Could I but see the veil  
Rent, all were finished, but that's well forborn;  
'twere pity such a work as this we●e torn.  
Turn but your eye aside and you may see  
His pensive handmaids take him from the tree,  
Embalming him with tears, none could express,  
Madam, but you death in so fit a dress;  
No hand but yours could teach the needle's eye  
To drop true tears, unfeignedly to cry.  
Follow him to his virgin tomb, and view  
His corpse environed with a miscreate crew  
Of drowsy watch, who look as though they were  
Ne'er bid to watch and pray, but sleep and swear:  
The third day being come, and their Charge gone,  
Only some relics left upon the stone;  
One quakes, another yawns, a third in haste  
To run had not your needle made him fast:  
And to excuse themselves all they can say  
Is that they dreamed some one stole him away:  
You, Madam, by the angel's guidance have  
Found him again since he rose from the grave.  
So zealous of his company, no force  
Could part you had not heaven made the divorce;  
Where he remains till the last day, and then  
I wish with joy you there may meet again.   

On the same.  
Lady,  

YOu have drawn, and are all graces; none so true  
As those lodge in your needlework and you:  
Hither will throng we know these draughts to see  
Whole bevies of Court Maddams; such as be  
Fair spectacles themselves, yet shall these glasses  
Ravish by showing not theirs but your faces:  
Eyes that will shame the crystals, and out steal  
The patterns quaintest lustre those conceal:  
Fingers of Ivory that will pointing stand  
As indices to show where moved the hand,  
And in what method; till a dawning light  
Spread on the Pictures from their neighbouring white;  
Yet so they shall not weave new beauties in  
Those webs, your silk is whiter than their skin:  
'tis said that some will change their own for bought  
Locks, so they be not painted but thus wrought:  
And scanning well these tresses well died threads  
Curl into locks about the female heads,  
So neatly periwiged, will choose to wear  
Rather what you so make than what grows hair.  
This Lady learns a smile from hence, she there  
A devout grief takes forth from Mary's tear,  
So lively dropped; as if i'th' woman 'twas  
Water, what's silk i'th' needle, pearl i'th' glass.  
A third will imitate yourself, and try  
Each pieces counterfeit: which being set by  
As types unto your Gospel, all will guess  
You are the Evangelist, she the prophetess.   

Here lies my Saviour; and though he it is  
Lends life to all, yet borrows he from this:  
And doth to th' world by two Nativities come  
Both from your fancy and from Mary's womb▪  
For who observes the Art will move a strife  
Whether the threads be more of silk than life.  
All things are in such proper colours shown;  
The natural seem feigned, these their own:  
And all so well composed, their juncture such,  
It were some separation but to touch:  
As in the varied bow which Heaven▪ bends  
The red appears and yet the blue ne'er ends;  
Here green, and yellow there, yet none can see  
Where green or yellow do begin to be,  
Each into others transient, and so fit  
Still, what you choose nothing would serve but it.  
What punctual thorns here crown the Crucifix;  
I thought your needle, but your silk more pricks.  
The sides wound had appeared by a cleft  
Ith' wound; had you but so much unwrought left  
And open; as through which the spear once stole,  
Now you have filled it 'tis a truer hole.  
Did you pin down the hands and feet 'twould fail  
Much of the truth, the stitch is verier nail:  
Well drops the blood in shadow; were there need  
Of true, but squeeze the Picture and 'twould bleed:  
For life that only floats in vainer breath  
Other arts give: that which returns from death:  
Yours fresh and fully ideates; and is one  
That holds out to a Resurrection.  
Here 'tis that it to Christ jointly procures  
A rising from both bottoms, hell and yours:  
His countenance refined seems not more new  
Issuing out from the grave then from your clew;  
Almost so much of the deity is shown  
In your works as is visible in its own:  
In these materials we may more God see  
Then heathens in a flower, or a true tree.  
But could we reach your fancy and find in't  
The spirituality of every Print;  
We darkly might conceive pure Godheads, one  
Nature, our Christ both of his flesh and bone.  
Blessed soul, who thus internally hast eyed  
Thy Saviour; how hast thou been sanctified?  
I dare to say so long as he stayed in  
Your minds, pure mirror, that you scarce did sin:  
Had but one idle thought disturbed the glass,  
That same reflected blemish would forth pass  
Into the stained table, and no doubt  
The blur within had been a blot without.  
Look o'er the Passion; now you only view  
Old wonnds; had you then sinned you had made new.  
But all is accurate: we cannot find  
One fault in the copy, cause not one i'th' mind:  
And yet 'tis drawn in such brief imagery  
The smallest error cannot unseen lie.  
Each Picture's couched in so little space,  
Had you but missed a thread y''ve lost a face.  
Not as in gouty Arras, where a list  
Of any colour if left out's not missed,  
And where the shuttle twenty times mishot  
Makes not so rude a sphalm, as here a knot  
Or stitch let fallen: 'tis easy to excel  
Wbere's such a latitude of doing well.  
But, Madam, you that in two Tables draw  
The gospel whole, as God wrought all the Law,  
Are both compendious and true: the story  
Doth something loose in bulk, nothing in glory.  
The Magi are made less, but not less wise,  
Their gifts diminish, but their values rise:  
For since they are come hither, that's thought best  
Which they do bring from you, not from the East.  
We cannot pen forth all your Art, much less  
Our Obligations and our thanks express:  
More will be said when we can better prize  
Your Present: mean while (Lady) let this suffice.   

With such delight we your Imbrodry view,  
No other object can please more but you;  
Whose gift hath swollen us to such thankful pride  
W'have now no matter for a wish beside  
The giver; you alone outvie it, and  
we'll wave the work only to kiss your hand.    

Against BEN: JOHNSON.  

1.  
COme leave that saucy way  
Of baiting those that pay  
Dear for the sight of thy declining wit:  
I know it is not fit  
That a sale-Poet (just contempt once thrown)  
Should cry up thus his own.  
I wonder by what dower,  
Or patent you had power  
From all to rape a judgement? let it suffice  
Had you been modest, y''ve been counted wise.   

2.  
'tis known you can do well,  
And that you can excel  
As a translator; but when things require  
A genius and a fire  
Not kindled heretofore by others pains,  
As oft you have wanted brains  
And art to strike the white,  
As you have levelled right:  
But if men vouch not things apocryphal,  
You bellow, rave, and spatter round your gall.   

3.  
jug, Peg, Pierce, Fly, and all  
Your jests so nominal,  
Are things so far below an able brain,  
As they do throw a stain  
Through all the unlucky plot, and do displease  
As deep as Pericles:  
Where yet there is not laid  
Before a chambermaid  
Discourse so weak, as might have served of old  
For Schoolboys when they of love or valour told.   

4.  
Why rage then when the show  
Should judgement be; and know  
That there are those in Plush that scorn to drudge  
For Stages, yet can judge  
Not only Poets looser laws but wits,  
With all their perquisites:  
A gift as rich and high  
As noble Poesy,  
Which though in sport it be for Kings a play,  
'tis next mechanic when it works for pay.   

6.  
Alcaeus Lute had none,  
Nor loose Anacreon,  
That taught so bold assuming of the bays  
When they deserved no praise.  
To rail men into approbation  
'tis new; 'tis yours alone;  
And prospers not. For know  
Fame is as coy, as you;  
Can be disdainful; and who dares to prove  
A rape on her shall gain her scorn not love.   

6.  
Leave then this humorous vain,  
And this more humorous strain,  
Where self conceit and choler of the blood  
Eclipse what else is good:  
Then if you please those raptures high to touch  
Whereof you boast so much,  
And but forbear the crown  
Till the world put it on:  
No doubt from all you may amazement draw,  
Since braver theme no Phoebus ever saw.    

Upon a Gentlewoman who broke her vow.  
WHen first the magic of thine eye  
Usurped upon my liberty,  
Triumphing in my hearts spoil, thou  
Didst lock up thine in such a vow:  
When I prove false may the bright day  
Be governed by the Moons pale ray:  
And I too well remember, this  
Thou saidst and sealdst it with a kiss.  
O heavens! and could so soon that tie  
Relent in slack apostasy?  
Could all thy oaths and mortgaged trust  
Vanish like letters form●d in dust,  
Which the next wind scatters? take heed,  
Take heed, Revolter, know this deed  
Hath wronged the world; which will fare worse  
By thy example then thy curse.  
Hide that false brow in mists thy shame;  
Ne'er see light more, but the dim flame  
Of funeral lamps: thus sit and moan  
And learn to keep thy guilt at home;  
Give it no vent. For if again  
Thy love or vows betray more men;  
At length I fear thy perjured breath  
Will blow out day and waken death.   

A Song upon a Winepot.  

ALl Poets Hippocrene admire,  
And pray to water to inspire  
Their wit and muse with heavenly fire.  
Had they this heavenly fountain seen,  
Sack both their muse and wit had been,  
And this Pintepot their Hippocrene.   

Had they truly discovered it,  
They had like me, thought it unfit  
To pray to water for their wit:  
And had adored Sack as divine,  
And made a Poet God of Wine,  
And this Pintepot had been the Shrine.   

Sack unto them had been instead  
Of Nectar and the heavenly bread,  
And every a boy a Gannemed:  
But had they made a God of it,  
Or styled it Patron of their wit,  
This Pintepot had been a Temple fit.  
Well then companions is't not fit,  
Since to this gem we owe our wit,  
That we should praise the Cabinet;  
And drink a health to this divine  
And bounteous palace of our Wine?  
Die he with thirst that doth repine.    

To one married to an old man.  
SEeing thou wouldst (Bewitched by some ill  
Be buried in those monnmental arms (charms)  
All we can wish is may that earth be light  
Upon thy tender limbs, and so good night.   

A Song.  

I Mean to sing of England's fate,  
(God bless in th' mean time the King and his (Mate)  
That's ruled by the Antipodian state,  
Which nobody can deny.   

Had these seditious times been when  
We had the life of our wise Poet Ben,  
Apprentices had not been Parliament men,  
Which nobody can deny.   

But Puritans bear all the sway;  
And they'll have no Bishops as most of them say,  
But God may have the better another day,  
Which nobody can deny.   

Prin and Burton say women that are lewd and loose  
Shall wear Italian locks for their abuse,  
They'll only have private keys for their own use,  
Which nobody can deny.   

Zealous Prin hath threatened a shrewd downfall  
To cut off long locks both bushy and small,  
But I hope he will not take ears and all,  
Which nobody can deny.   

They'll not allow of what pride in brings,  
No favours in hats nor any such things,  
They'll convert all ribbons into Bible strings,  
Which nobody can deny.   

God bless the King, and Queen also,  
And all true Subjects from high to low,  
The Roundheads can pray for themselves we know,  
Which nobody can deny.    

Upon the Times.  
THe Parliament cries arm, the King says no;  
The new lieutenants cry on, let's go;  
The People all amazed, ask where's the foe?  
The bugbear Scots behind the door cry boo.  
Patience a while, and time will plainly show  
The King stands still faster than they can go.   

A double Chronogram (the one in Latin the other in the English of that Latin) upon the year 1642.  
TV DeVs IaM propItIVs this regI regnoqVe huic VnIVerso.  
OgoD now show faVoVr to the kIng anD thIs whole LanD.   

On the nobleman's Sons Cloak that refused to wear a Gown in Oxford.  
SAw you the Cloak at Church to day  
The long-worn short Cloak lined with Say?  
What had the Man no Gown to wear,  
Or was this sent him from the Mayor?  
Or is't the Cloak which Nixon brought  
To trim the Tub where Golledge taught?  
Or can this best conceal his lips,  
And show Communion sitting hips?  
Or was the Cloak St. Paul's? if so  
With it he found the Parchments too.  
Yes verily; for he hath been  
With mine Host Gajus at the New-Inn.  
A Gown (God bless us) trails o'th' floor  
Like th' petticoat of the Scarlet Whore;  
Whose large stiff pleats he dares confide  
Are ribs from Antichrists own side.  
A mourning Cope, if't looks to the East,  
Is the black surplice of the Beast.  
Stay, read the Cards; the Queens and Kings  
The best i'th' Pack are Gouned things;  
But shortcut Spade with tother three  
Are dubed i'th' Cloak of knavery.  
Beside his Lordship cloaked did stand  
When his Watch went false by slight of hand:  
Then look for more such Cloaks as these  
From th' Court of Wards and Liveries.   

On Alma's voice.  

WHat magic art  
Compels my soul to fly away,  
And leave desert  
My poor composed trunk of clay?  
Strange violence! thus pleasingly to tear  
The soul forth of the body by the ear.   

When Alma sings,  
The pretty Chanters of the sky  
Do droop their wings,  
As in disgrace they meant to die;  
Because their tunes which were before so rare,  
Compared to hers, do but distract the air.   

Each sensitive  
In emulation proudly stands,  
Striving to thrive  
Under the bliss of her commands,  
Whose charming voice doth Bears and Tigers tame,  
And teach the spheres new melodies to frame▪   

The angels all  
(Astonished at her heavenly air)  
Would sudden fall  
From cold amazement to despair;  
But that by nimble theft they all conspire  
To steal her hence for to enrich their choir.   
FINIS.