TO THE LADYES.

TRUST me, ladyes, I will do
Nothing to distemper you;
If I any fret or vex,

Men they shall be, not your sex.

THE OLD WIVES PRAYER.

HOLY-ROOD, come forth and shield
Us i' th' citie and the field;
Safely guard us, now and aye,
From the blast that burns by day;
And those sounds that us affright
In the dead of dampish night;
Drive all hurtfull feinds us fro,
By the time the cocks first crow.

UPON A CHEAPE LAUNDRESSE.

EPIG.

FEACIE, some say, doth wash her clothes i' th' lie,
That sharply trickles from her either eye.
The laundresses, they envie her good-luck,
Who can with so small charges drive the buck.

What needs she fire and ashes to consume,

Who can scoure linnens with her own salt reume?

2 H

UPON HIS DEPARTURE HENCE.

THUS I

Passe by,
And die,

As one
Unknown

And gon:

I'm made

A shade,
And laid
I'th grave,
There have
My cave:
Where tell
I dwell,
Farewell.

THE WASSAILE.

GIVE way, give way, ye gates, and win
An easie blessing to your bin

And basket, by our entring in.

May both with manchet stand repleat,
Your larders, too, so hung with meat,
That thou a thousand, thousand eat.

Yet ere twelve moones shall whirl about Their silv'rie spheres, ther's none may doubt But more's sent in then was serv'd out.

Next, may your dairies prosper so,
As that your pans no ebbe may know;
But if they do, the more to flow.

Like to a solemne sober stream,
Bankt all with lillies, and the cream
Of sweetest cowslips filling them.

Then may your plants be prest with fruit,
Nor bee or hive you have be mute,

But sweetly sounding like a lute.

Next, may your duck and teeming hen,
Both to the cocks-tread say, Amen;

And for their two egs render ten.

Last, may your harrows, shares, and ploughes, Your stacks, your stocks, your sweetest mowes, All prosper by your virgin-vowes.

Alas! we blesse, but see none here,
That brings us either ale or beere ;
In a drie-house all things are neere.

Let's leave a longer time to wait,
Where rust and cobwebs bind the gate;
And all live here with needy fate;

Where chimneys do for ever weepe,
For want of warmth, and stomachs keepe
With noise the servants eyes from sleep.

It is in vain to sing, or stay

Our free feet here, but we'l away;
Yet to the lares this we'l say:

The time will come, when you'l be sad,
And reckon this for fortune bad,
T'ave lost the good ye might have had.

UPON A LADY FAIRE, BUT FRUITLESSE.

TWICE has Pudica been a bride, and led
By holy Himen to the nuptiall bed.

Two youths sha's known, thrice two and twice three

yeares,

Yet not a lillie from the bed appeares ;

Nor will; for why? Pudica this may know,
Trees never beare, unlesse they first do blow.

HOW SPRINGS CAME FIRST.

THESE springs were maidens once that lov'd,
But lost to that they most approv'd:

My story tells, by Love they were
Turn'd to these springs which we see here:
The pretty whimpering that they make,
When of the banks their leave they take,
Tels ye but this, they are the same,
In nothing chang'd but in their name.

TO ROSEMARY AND BAIES.

My wooing's ended; now my wedding's neere; When gloves are giving, guilded be you there.

UPON SKURFFE.

SKURFFE by his nine bones sweares, and well he may, All know a fellon eate the tenth away.

UPON A SCARRE IN A VIRGIN'S FACE.

"Tis heresie in others; in your face
That scarr's no schisme, but the sign of grace.

UPON HIS EYE-SIGHT FAILING HIM.

I BEGINNE to waine in sight;
Shortly I shall bid goodnight;
Then no gazing more about,
When the tapers once are out.

TO HIS WORTHY FRIEND, M. THO. FALCONBIRGE.

STAND with thy graces forth, brave man, and rise
High with thine own auspitious destinies ;
Nor leave the search and proofe till thou canst find
These, or those ends, to which thou wast design'd.
Thy lucky genius, and thy guiding starre,
Have made thee prosperous in thy wayes thus farre ;