CLEMENCY.

FOR punishment in warre, it will suffice,
If the chiefe author of the faction dyes;

Let but few smart, but strike a feare through all:
Where the fault springs, there let the judgement fall.

HIS AGE, DEDICATED TO HIS PECULIAR FRIEND,

M. JOHN WICKES, UNDER THE NAME OF

POSTHUMUS.

AH Posthumus! our yeares hence flye,
And leave no sound, nor piety,

Or prayers, or vow

Can keepe the wrinkle from the brow;
But we must on,

As fate do's lead or draw us; none,
None, Posthumus, co'd ere decline
The doome of cruell Proserpine.

The pleasing wife, the house, the ground
Must all be left, no one plant found

To follow thee,

Save only the curst-cipresse tree;

A merry mind

Looks forward, scornes what's left behind;
Let's live, my Wickes, then, while we may,
And here enjoy our holiday.

W'ave seen the past best times, and these

Will nere return; we see the seas,

And moons to wain,

But they fill up their ebbs again;
But vanisht man,

Like to a lilly lost, nere can,
Nere can repullulate, or bring
His dayes to see a second spring.

But on we must, and thither tend,

Where Anchus and rich Tullus blend
Their sacred seed;

Thus has infernall Jove decreed;

We must be made,

Ere long a song, ere long a shade.
Why then, since life to us is short,
Lets make it full up by our sport.

Crown we our heads with roses then, And 'noint with Sirian balme; for when We two are dead,

The world with us is buried.

Then live we free,

As is the air, and let us be

Our own fair wind, and mark each one
Day with the white and luckie stone.

We are not poore, although we have

No roofs of cedar, nor our brave

Baiæ, nor keep

Account of such a flock of sheep;
Nor bullocks fed

To lard the shambles; barbels bred
To kisse our hands; nor do we wish
For Pollio's lampries in our dish.

If we can meet, and so conferre,
Both by a shining salt-seller,

And have our roofe,

Although not archt, yet weather proofe, And seeling free,

From that cheape candle baudery;

We'le eate our beane with that full mirth,

As we were lords of all the earth.

Well, then, on what seas we are tost,
Our comfort is, we can't be lost.

Let the winds drive

Our barke, yet she will keepe alive
Amidst the deepes;

'Tis constancy, my Wickes, which keepes The pinnace up; which, though she erres I' th' seas, she saves her passengers.

Say, we must part; sweet mercy blesse
Us both i' th' sea, camp, wildernesse !
Can we so farre

Stray to become lesse circular,

Then we are now?

No, no, that selfe same heart, that vow, Which made us one, shall ne'r undoe,

Or ravell so, to make us two.

Live in thy peace; as for my selfe,
When I am bruised on the shelfe
Of time, and show

My locks behung with frost and snow;
When with the reume,

The cough, the ptisick, I consume

Unto an almost nothing; then,

The ages fled, Ile call agen;

And with a teare compare these last
Lame and bad times with those are past,
While Baucis by,

My old leane wife shall kisse it dry;
And so we'l sit

By th' fire, foretelling snow and slit,
And weather by our aches, grown

Now old enough to be our own

True calenders, as pusses eare

Washt or's, to tell what change is neare; Then to asswage

The gripings of the chine by age;

I'le call my young

Iülus to sing such a song

I made upon my Julia's brest,

And of her blush at such a feast.

Then shall he read that flowre of mine Enclos'd within a christall shrine ;

A primrose next;

A piece then of a higher text;
For to beget

In me a more transcendant heate,
Then that insinuating fire,

Which crept into each aged sire.

When the faire Hellen from her eyes

Shot forth her loving sorceries;

At which I'le reare

Mine aged limbs above my

chaire ;

And hearing it,

Flutter and crow, as in a fit

Of fresh concupiscence, and cry, "No lust there's like to poetry."

Thus frantick crazie man, God wot,
Ile call to mind things half forgot;
And oft between

Repeat the times that I have seen;
Thus ripe with tears,

And twisting my Iülus hairs,

Doting, Ile weep and say, " in truth,

"Baucis, these were my sins of youth."