Thus soft she lies; and over-head
A spinner's circle is bespread
With cob-web curtains; from the roof
So neatly sunck, as that no proof
Of any tackling can declare
What gives it hanging in the aire.
The fringe about this, are those threds
Broke at the losse of maiden-heads;
And all behung with these pure pearls,
Dropt from the eyes of ravisht girles,
Or writhing brides, when, panting, they
Give unto love the straiter way.
For musick now, he has the cries
Of fained lost virginities;
The which the elves make to excite
A more unconquer'd appetite.
The king's undrest; and now upon
The gnat's watch-word the elves are gone.
And now the bed, and Mab possest
Of this great little kingly guest;
We'll nobly think, what's to be done
He'll do no doubt: This flax is spun.
TO HIS PECULIAR FRIEND, MASTER THOMAS
I'VE paid thee what I promis'd; that's not all; Besides, I give thee here a verse that shall, When hence thy circum-mortall part is gon, Arch-like, hold up, thy name's inscription.
Brave men can't die; whose candid actions are Writ in the poet's endlesse kalendar:
Whose velome and whose volumne is the skie, And the pure starres the praising poetrie.
TO JULIA IN THE TEMPLE.
BESIDES us two, i' th' Temple here's not one
To make up now a congregation.
Let's to the altar of perfumes then go,
And say short prayers: and when we have done so
Then we shall see, how in a little space
Saints will come in to fill each pew and place.
WHAT, Conscience, say, is it in thee,
When I a heart had one,
To take away that heart from me,
And to retain thy own?
For shame or pitty, now encline
To play a loving part;
Either to send me kindly thine,
Or give me back my heart.
Covet not both; but if thou dost
Resolve to part with neither;
Why! yet to shew that thou art just,
Take me and mine together.
HIS WEAKNESSE IN WOES.
I CANNOT suffer; and in this, my part
Of patience wants. Grief breaks the stoutest heart.
To print our poems, the propulsive cause
Is Fame, the breath of popular applause.
YE silent shades, whose each tree here
Some relique of a saint doth weare;
Who for some sweet-heart's sake, did
The fire and martyrdome of love.
Here is the legend of those saints
That di'd for love, and their complaints;
Their wounded hearts, and names we find
Encarv'd upon the leaves and rind.
Give way, give way to me, who come
Scorch❜t with the selfe-same martyrdome ;
And have deserv'd as much, Love knowes,
As to be canoniz'd 'mongst those
Whose deeds and deaths here written are
Within your Greenie-kalendar.
By all those virgins fillets hung
Upon your boughs, and requiems sung
For saints and soules departed hence,
Here honour'd still with frankincense;
By all those teares that have been shed,
As a drink-offering to the dead;
By all those true-love knots, that be
With motto's carv'd on every tree,
By sweet S. Phillis! pitie me;
By deare S. Iphis! and the rest
Of all those other saints now blest ;
Me, me forsaken, here admit
Among your mirtles to be writ;
That my poore name may have the glory
To live remembred in your story.
AN EPITAPH UPON A VIRGIN.
HERE a solemne fast we keepe,
While all beauty lyes asleep,
Husht be all things, no noyse here
But the toning of a teare;
Or a sigh of such as bring
Cowslips for her covering.
TO THE RIGHT GRATIOUS PRICE, LODWICK,
DUKE OF RICHMOND AND LENOX.
Of all those three brave brothers, fal'n i'th'warre,
(Not without glory) noble sir, you are,
Despite of all concussions, left the stem
To shoot forth generations like to them.
Which may be done, if, sir, you can beget
Men in their substance, not in counterfeit.
Such essences as those three brothers, known
Eternall by their own production.
Of whom, from Fam's white trumpet, this Ile tell, Worthy their everlasting chronicle,
Never since first Bellona us'd a shield,
Such three brave brothers fell in Mars his field.
These were those three Horatii Rome did boast;
Rom's where these three Horatii we have lost.
One Cordelion had that age long since,
This three, which three you make up oure, brave prince.
O JEALOUSIE, that art
The canker of the heart;
And mak'st all hell
Where thou dost dwell;
For pitie be
No furie, or no fire-brand to me.
Farre from me Ile remove
All thoughts of irksome love;
And turn to snow,
Or christall grow,
To keep still free,
O, soul-tormenting Jealousie! from thee.
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