Then let this truth reciprocally run,

The fun's heaven's coalery, and coals our fun.

Death, a Voyage:

No family

Ere rigg'd a foul for heaven's difcovery,
With whom more venturers might boldly dare
Venture their stakes, with him in joy to share.
DONNE.

TH

HEIR thoughts and expreffions were fometimes grofsly abfurd, and fuch as no figures or licence can reconcile to the understanding,

A Lover neither dead nor alive:

Then down I laid my head,

I

Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead,

And my freed foul to a ftrange fomewhere fled:

Ah, fottifh foul, faid I,

When back to its cage again I faw it fly:
Fool to refume her broken chain!

And row her galley here again!

Fool, to that body to return

Where it condemn'd and deftin'd is to burn!

Once dead, how can it be,

Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,

That thou houldft come to live it o'er again in

me?

COWLEY.

A Lover's

A Lover's heart, a hand grenado.

Wo to her stubborn heart, if once mine come Into the felf-fame room,

"Twill tear and blow up all within,

Like a grenado fhot into a magazin.

Then shall Love keep the ashes, and torn parts,

Of both our broken hearts:

Shall out of both one new one make;

From her's th' allay; from mine, the metal

take.

COWLEY.

The poetical Propagation of Light:

The Prince's favour is diffus'd o'er all,

From which all fortunes, names, and natures

fall;

Then from those wombs of stars, the Bride's

bright eyes,

At every glance a conftellation flies,

And fowes the court with stars, and doth prevent In light and power, the all-ey'd firmament: First her eye kindles other ladies' eyes,

Then from their beams their jewels luftres rife; And from their jewels torches do take fire, And all is warmth, and light, and good defire.

DONNE.

THEY

THEY HEY were in very little care to clothe their notions with elegance of dress, and therefore mifs the notice and the praise which are often gained by thofe, who think lefs, but are more diligent to adorn their thoughts.

That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality, is by Cowley thus expreffed:

Thou in my fancy doft much higher ftand,

Than women can be plac'd by Nature's hand; And I must needs, I'm fure, a loser be,

To change thee, as thou'rt there, for very thee.

That prayer and labour fhould co-operate, are thus taught by Donne:

In none but us, are fuch mixt engines found,
As hands of double office: for the ground
We till with them; and them to heaven we
raise;

Who prayerlefs labours, or without this, prays,
Doth but one half, that's none.

By the fame author, a common topick, the danger of procraftination, is thus illuftrated:

-That which I fhould have begun

In my youth's morning, now late must be done;
And I, as giddy travellers must do,

Which stray or fleep all day, and having loft Light and strength, dark and tir'd must then ride poft.

All that Man has to do is to live and die; the fum of humanity is comprehended by Donne in the following lines:

Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie
After, enabled but to fuck and cry.

Think, when 'twas grown to most, 'twas a poor
inn,

A province pack'd up in two yards of skin,
And that ufurp'd, or threaten'd with a rage
Of fickneffes, or their true mother, age.
But think that death hath now enfranchis'd thee;
Thou haft thy expanfion now, and liberty;
Think, that a rufty piece difcharg'd is flown
In pieces, and the bullet is his own,
And freely flies: this to thy foul allow,
Think thy fhell broke, think thy foul hatch'd
but now.

VOL. 1.

E

THEY

THEY were fometimes indelicate and difgufting. Cowley thus apoftrophifes

beauty:

-Thou tyrant, which leav'ft no man free! Thou fubtle thief, from whom nought fafe can be!

Thou murtherer, which haft kill'd, and devil, which would'ft damn me.

Thus he addreffes his Mistress:

Thou who, in many a propriety,

So truly art the fun to me,

Add one more likenefs, which I'm fure you can, And let me and my fun beget a man.

Thus he reprefents the meditations of a Lover:

Though in thy thoughts fearce any tracts have

been

So much as of original fin,

Such charms thy beauty wears as might

Defires in dying confeft faints excite.

Thou with ftrange adultery

Doft in each breaft a brothel keep;
Awake, all men do luft for thee,
And fome enjoy thee when they fleep.

The