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THYRSIS, GALATEA.

THYRSIS.

As lately I on silver Thames did ride,
Sad Galatea on the bank I spy'd:
Such was her look as sorrow taught to shine;
And thus she grac'd me with a voice divine.

GAL. You, that can tune your sounding strings so Of ladies' beauties, and of love, to tell, [well, Once change your note, and let your lute report The justest grief, that ever touch'd the court.

[share,

THYR. Fair nymph! I have in your delights no Nor ought to be concerned in your care; Yet would I sing, if I your sorrows knew; And to my aid invoke no muse but you. GAL. Hear then, and let your song augment our [grief, Which is so great, as not to wish relief.

She that had all which Nature gives, or Chance, Whom Fortune join'd with Virtue to advance To all the joys this island could afford, The greatest mistress, and the kindest lord; Who with the royal mixt her noble blood, And in high grace with Gloriana stood; Her bounty, sweetness, beauty, goodness, such, That none e'er thought her happiness too much; So well inclin'd her favours to confer, And kind to all, as Heaven had been to her! The virgin's part, the mother, and the wife, So well she acted in the span of life, That, though few years (too few, alas!) she told, She seem'd in all things, but in beauty, old. As unripe fruit, whose verdant stalks do cleave Close to the tree, which grieves no less to leave The smiling pendant, which adorns her so, And until autumn on the bough should grow: So seem'd her youthful soul not easily forc'd, Or from so fair, so sweet, a seat divorc'd. Her fate at once did hasty seem, and slow; At once too cruel, and unwilling too.

THYR. Under how hard a law are mortals born! Whom now we envy, we anon must mourn: What Heaven sets highest, and seems most to prize, Is soon removed from our wondering eyes! But since the sisters 3 did so soon untwine So fair a thread, I'll strive to piece the line. Vouchsafe, sad nymph! to let me know the dame, And to the muses I'll commend her name: Make the wide country echo to your moan, The listening trees, and savage mountains, groan. What rock's not moved when the death is sung Of one so good, so lovely, and so young!

GAL. 'Twas Hamilton!-whom I had nam'd before, But naming her, grief lets me say no more.

ON THE HEAD OF A STAG. So we some antique hero's strength Learn by his lance's weight, and length; As these vast beams express the beast, Whose shady brows alive they drest. Such game, while yet the world was new, The mighty Nimrod did pursue. What huntsman of our feeble race, Or dogs, dare such a monster chase? Resembling, with each blow he strikes, The charge of a whole troop of pikes.

3 Parcæ.

O fertile head! which every year
Could such a crop of wonder bear!
The teeming Earth did never bring,
So soon, so hard, so huge a thing:
Which might it never have been cast,
(Each year's growth added to the last)
These lofty branches had supply'd
The Earth's bold sons' prodigious pride:
Heaven with these engines had been scal'd,
When mountains heap'd on mountains fail'd.

TO A LADY IN RETIREMENT. SEES not my love, how Time resumes

The glory which he lent these flowers?
Though none should taste of their perfumes,
Yet must they live but some few hours:
Time, what we forbear, devours!
Had Helen, or th' Egyptian queen 4,

Been near so thrifty of their graces;
Those beauties must at length have been
The spoil of age, which finds out faces
In the most retired places.
Should some malignant planet bring

A barren drought, or ceaseless shower,
Upon the autumn, or the spring,

And spare us neither fruit nor flower;
Winter would not stay an hour.
Could the resolve of Love's neglect

Preserve you from the violation
Of coming years, then more respect
Were due to so divine a fashion;
Nor would I indulge my passion.

THE MISER'S SPEECH:
IN A MASQUE.

BALLS of this metal slack'd At'lanta's pace,
And on the amorous youth 5 bestow'd the race:
Venus, (the nymph's mind measuring by her own)
Whom the rich spoils of cities overthrown
Had prostrated to Mars, could well advise
Th' adventurous lover how to gain the prize.
Nor less may Jupiter to gold ascribe:
For, when he turn'd himself into a bribe,
Who can blame Danaë, or the brazen tower,
That they withstood not that almighty shower?
Never till then did Love make Jove put on
A form more bright, and nobler, than his own :
Nor were it just, would he resume that shape,
That slack devotion should his thunder scape.
"Twas not revenge for griev'd Apollo's wrong,
Those ass's ears on Midas' temples hung,
But fond repentance of his happy wish,
Because his meat grew metal like his dish.
Would Bacchus bless me so, I'd constant hold
Unto my wish, and die creating gold.

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ON MR. FLETCHER'S
Thou hast alone those various inclinations,
Which Nature gives to ages, sexes, nations:
So traced with thy all-resembling pen,
That whate'er custom has impos'd on men,
Or ill-got habit (which deforms them so,
That scarce a brother can his brother know)
Is represented to the wondering eyes
Of all, that see or read thy comedies.
Whoever in those glasses looks, may find
The spots return'd, or graces, of his mind,
And, by the help of so divine an art,
& leisure view and dress his nobler part.
Narcissus, cozen'd by that flattering well,
Which nothing could but of his beauty tell,
Had here, discovering the deform'd estate
Of his fond mind, preserv'd himself with hate.
But virtue too, as well as vice, is clad

la fish and blood so well, that Plato had
Beeld, what his high fancy once embrac'd,
Virtue with colours, speech, and motion grac'd.
The sundry postures of thy copious Muse

Who would express, a thousand tongues must use;
Whose fate's no less peculiar than thy art;
For as thou couldst all characters impart,

So none could render thine; which still escapes,
Like Proteus, in variety of shapes;
Why was, nor this, nor that; but all we find,
And all we can imagine, in mankind.

ON MR. JOHN FLETCHER'S PLAYS.

Fun! to thee we do not only owe
All those good plays, but those of others too:
Thy wit repeated, does support the stage,
Credits the last, and entertains this age.
No worthies, form'd by any Muse but thine,
Could purchase robes, to make themselves so fine.
What brave commander is not proud, to see
Thy brave Melantius in his gallantry?
Our greatest ladies love to see their scorn
Outdone by thine, in what themselves have worn:
Th impatient widow, ere the year be done,
Sees thy Aspasia weeping in her gown.

PLAYS...TO MR. SANDYS.

I never yet the tragic strain assay'd,
Deterr'd by that inimitable Maid 6.
And, when I venture at the comic style,
Try Scornful Lady seems to mock my toil.
Thus has thy Muse at once improv'd and marr'd
Our sport in plays, by rendering it too hard!
50, when a sort of lusty shepherds throw
The bar by turns, and none the rest out-go
So far, but that the best are measuring casts,
Their emulation and their pastime lasts:
But, if some brawny yeoman of the guard
Step in, and toss the axletree a yard,

Or more, beyond the furthest mark, the rest,
Despairing stand; their sport is at the best.

TO MR. GEORGE SANDYS,

ON HIS TRANSLATION OF SOME PARTS OF THE BIBLE.

How bold a work attempts that pen,
Which would enrich our vulgar tongue
With the high raptures of those men,
Who here with the same spirit sung,

"The Maid's Tragedy.

Wherewith they now assist the choir
Of angels, who their songs admire!
Whatever those inspired souls

Were urged to express, did shake
The aged deep, and both the poles;

Their numerous thunder could awake Dull Earth, which does with Heaven consent To all they wrote, and all they meant. Say, sacred bard! what could bestow Courage on thee, to soar so high? Tell me, brave friend! what help'd thee so To shake off all mortality?

To light this torch thou hast climb'd higher, Than he 7 who stole celestial fire.

TO MR. HENRY LAWES,

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WHO HAD THEN NEWLY SET A SONG OF MINE, IN THE
YEAR 1635.

VERSE makes heroic virtue live;
But you can life to verses give.
As, when in open air we blow,

The breath (though strain'd) sounds flat and low,
But if a trumpet take the blast,
It lifts it high and makes it last:
So, in your airs our numbers drest,
Make a shrill sally from the breast
Of nymphs, who, singing what we penn'd,
Our passions to themselves commend ;
While Love, victorious with thy art,
Governs at once their voice and heart.
You, by the help of tune and time,

8

Can make that song, which was but rhyme:
Noy pleading, no man doubts the cause,
Or questions verses set by Lawes.

As a church-window, thick with paint,
Lets in a light but dim and faint;
So others, with division, hide
The light of sense, the poet's pride:
But you alone may truly boast
That not a syllable is lost:
The writer's and the setter's skill
At once the ravish'd ears do fill.
Let those, which only warble long,
And gargle in their throats a song,
Content themselves with ut, re, mi :
Let words and sense be set by thee.

TO SIR WILLIAM D'AVENANT,
UPON HIS TWO FIRST BOOKS OF GONDIBERT: WRITTEN IN
FRANCE.

THUS the wise nightingale, that leaves her home,
Her native wood, when storms and winter come,
Pursuing constantly the cheerful spring,
To foreign groves does her old music bring.

The drooping Hebrews banish'd, harps, unstrung,
At Babylon upon the willows hung:
Yours sounds aloud, and tells us you excel
No less in courage, than in singing well;
While, unconcern'd, you let your country know,
They have impoverish'd themselves, not you:
Who, with the Muses' help, can mock those Fates,
Which threaten kingdoms, and disorder states.

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So Ovid, when from Cæsar's rage he fled,
The Roman Muse to Pontus with him led;
Where he so sung, that we, through pity's glass,
See Nero milder than Augustus was.
Hereafter, such, in thy behalf, shall be
Th' indulgent censure of posterity.

To banish those, who with such art can sing,
Is a rude crime, which its own curse doth bring:
Ages to come shall ne'er know how they fought,
Nor how to love their present youth be taught.
This to thyself.-Now to thy matchless book,
Wherein those few that can with judgment look,
May find old love in pure fresh language told;
Like new-stamp'd coin, made out of angel-gold:
Such truth in love, as th' antique world did know,
In such a style, as courts may boast of now;
Which no bold tales of gods or monsters swell,
But human passions, such as with us dwell.
Man is thy theme; his virtue, or his rage,
Drawn to the life in each elaborate page.
Mars, nor Bellona, are not named here,
But such a Gondibert as both might fear:
Venus had here, and Hebe, been outshin'd,
By thy bright Birtha, and thy Rhodalind.
Such is thy happy skill, and such the odds,
Betwixt thy worthies, and the Grecian gods!
Whose deities in vain had here come down,
Where mortal beauty wears the sovereign crown:
Such as, of flesh compos'd, by flesh and blood,
Though not resisted, may be understood.

TO MY

WORTHY FRIEND MR. WASE,

THE TRANSLATOR OF GRATIUS.

THUS, by the music, we may know
When noble wits a-hunting go,
Through groves, that on Parnassus grow.

The Muses all the chase adorn;
My friend on Pegasus is borne:
And young Apollo winds the horn.

Having old Gratius in the wind,
No pack of critics e'er could find,
Or he know more of his own mind.

Here huntsmen with delight may read
How to choose dogs, for scent or speed,
And how to change or mend the breed:

What arms to use, or nets to frame,
Wild beasts to combat, or to tame;
With all the mysteries of that game.
But, worthy friend! the face of war
In ancient times doth differ far,
From what our fiery battles are.
Nor is it like, since powder known,
That man, so cruel to his own,
Should spare the race of beasts alone.

No quarter now: but with the gun
Men wait in trees from sun to sun,
And all is in a moment done.

And therefore we expect your next
Should be no comment, but a text,
To tell how modern beasts are vext.

Thus would I further yet engage
Your gentle Muse to court the age
With somewhat of your proper rage:
Since none doth more to Phoebus owe,
Or in more languages can show
Those arts, which you so early know.

TO HIS

WORTHY FRIEND MASTER EVELYN,
UPON HIS TRANSLATION OF LUCRETIUS.

LUCRETIUS (with a stork-like fate,
Born and translated in a state)
Comes to proclaim, in English verse,
No monarch rules the universe:
But chance and atoms make this ALL
In order democratical;

Where bodies freely run their course,
Without design, or fate, or force.
And this in such a strain he sings,
As if his Muse, with angels' wings,
Had soar'd beyond our utmost sphere,
And other worlds discover'd there.
For his immortal, boundless wit,
To Nature does no bounds permit;
But boldly has remov'd those bars
Of heaven, and earth, and seas, and stars,
By which they were before suppos'd,
By narrow wits, to be inclos'd;

Till his free muse threw down the pale,
And did at once dispark them all.

So vast this argument did seem,
That the wise author did esteem
The Roman language (which was spread
O'er the whole world, in triumph led)
A tongue too narrow to unfold
The wonders which he would have told.
This speaks thy glory, noble friend!
And British language does commend :
For here Lucretius whole we find,
His words, his music, and his mind.
Thy art has to our country brought
All that he writ, and all he thought.

Ovid translated, Virgil too,

Show'd long since what our tongue could do:
Nor Lucan we, nor Horace spar'd;
Only Lucretius was too hard.
Lucretius, like a fort, did stand
Untouch'd, till your victorious hand
Did from his head this garland bear,
Which now upon your own you wear.
A garland! made of such new bays,
And sought in such untrodden ways,
As no man's temples e'er did crown,
Save this great author's, and your own.

TO HIS

WORTHY FRIEND SIR THOS. HIGGONS,

UPON HIS TRANSLATION OF THE VENETIAN TRIUMPH.

THE winged lion's 9 not so fierce in fight,
As Liberi's hand presents him to our sight;
Nor would his pencil make him half so fierce,
Or roar so loud, as Businello's verse:

9 The arms of Venice.

VERSES TO DR. ROGERS...CHLORIS AND HYLAS.

57

But your translation does all three excel,
The fight, the piece, and lofty Businel.
As their small gallies may not hold compare
With our tall ships, whose sails employ more air;
So does th' Italian to your genius vail,
Mor'd with a fuller and a nobler gale.
Tous, while your Muse spreads the Venetian story,
You make all Europe emulate her glory:
You make them blush, weak Venice should defend
The cause of Heaven, while they for words contend;
Shed Christian blood, and populous cities rase,
Because they're taught to use some different phrase.
If listening to your charms, we could our jars
Compose, and on the Turk discharge these wars;
Our British arms the sacred tomb might wrest
From pagan hands, and triumph o'er the East:
And then you might our own high deeds recite,
And with great Tasso celebrate the fight.

VERSES TO DR. GEORGE ROGERS,

CS HIS TAKING THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR IN PHYSIC AT
PADUA, IN THE YEAR 1664.

Wary, as of old, the Earth's bold children strove,
With hills on hills, to scale the throne of Jove,
Pallas and Mars stood by their sovereign's side,
And their bright arms in his defence employ'd;
While the wise Phoebus, Hermes, and the rest,
Who joy in peace, and love the muses best,
Descending from their so distemper'd seat,
Our groves and meadows chose for their retreat.
There first Apollo try'd the various use
Of herbs, and learn'd the virtues of their juice,
And fram'd that art, to which who can pretend
Ajuster title than our noble friend,

Whom the like tempest drives from his abode,
And like employment entertains abroad?

This crowns him here; and in the bays so earn'd,
His country's honour is no less concern'd;
Since it appears not all the English rave,
To ruin bent; some study how to save:
And as Hippocrates did once extend
His sacred art, whole cities to amend ;

So we, brave friend, suppose that thy great skill,
Thy gentle mind, and fair example, will,
At thy return, reclaim our frantic isle,
Thy spirits calm, and peace again shall smile.
EDM. WALLER, Anglus.

CHLORIS AND HYLAS.

MADE TO A SARABAND.

CHLORIS.

HTLAS, oh Hylas! why sit we mute,
Now that each bird saluteth the spring?
Wnd up the slacken'd strings of thy lute,
Never canst thou want matter to sing:
For love thy breast does fill with such a fire,
That whatsoe'er is fair moves thy desire.

FL. Sweetest! you know, the sweetest of things of various flowers the bees do compose;

Ya no particular taste it brings

Of violet, woodbine, pink, or rose:
So, love the result is of all the graces,
Which flow from a thousand several faces.

CHLO. Hylas! the birds which chaunt in this grove, Could we but know the language they use,

They would instruct us better in love,

And reprehend thy inconstant Muse: For love their breasts does fill with such a fire, That what they once do choose, bounds their desire. HYL. Chloris! this change the birds do approve, Which the warm season hither does bring: Time from yourself does further remove

You, than the winter from the gay spring: She that like lightning shin'd while her face lasted, The oak now resembles which lightning hath blasted.

IN ANSWER OF

SIR JOHN SUCKLING'S VERSES.

CON.

STAY here, fond youth, and ask no more; be wise; Knowing too much long since lost Paradise.

PRO. And, by your knowledge, we should be bereft Of all that Paradise, which yet is left. [should still CON. The virtuous joys thon hast, thou wouldst Last in their pride; and wouldst not take it ill If rudely, from sweet dreams, and for a toy, Thou wak'd: he wakes himself that does enjoy. PRO. How can the joy, or hope, which you allow, Be styled virtuous, and the end not so? Talk in your sleep, and shadows still admire! 'Tis true, he wakes, that feels this real fire, But-to sleep better: for whoe'er drinks deep Of this Nepenthe, rocks himself asleep.

CON. Fruition adds no new wealth, but destroys; And while it pleaseth much, yet still it cloys. Who thinks he should be happier made for that, As reasonably might hope he might grow fat By eating to a surfeit: this once past, What relishes? ev'n kisses lose their taste.

PRO. Blessings may be repeated, while they cloy; But shall we starve, 'cause surfeitings destroy? And if fruition did the taste impair

Of kisses, why should yonder happy pair,
Whose joys just Hymen warrants all the night,
Consume the day too in this less delight?

CON. Urge not 'tis necessary; alas! we know
The homeliest thing that mankind does is so.
The world is of a large extent we see,

And must be peopled, children there must be:-
So must bread too: but since there are enough
Born to that drudgery, what need we plough?
PRO. I need not plough, since what the stooping
Gets of my pregnant land must all be mine:
But in this nobler tillage, 'tis not so;
For when Anchises did fair Venus know,
What interest had poor Vulcan in the boy,
Famous Æneas, or the present joy?

[hine

CON. Women enjoy'd, whate'er before they've been, Are like romances read, or scenes once seen: Fruition dulls or spoils the play much more, Than if one read or knew the plot before.

PRO. Plays and romances, read and seen, do fall

In our opinions: yet, not seen at all,
Whom would they please? To an heroic tale
Would you not listen, lest it should grow stale?

CON. 'Tis expectation makes a blessing dear; Heaven were not Heaven, if we knew what it were..

PRO. If 'twere not Heaven, if we knew what it were, "Twould not be Heaven to those who now are there.

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CON. And as in prospects we are there pleas'd most, Where something keeps the eye from being lost, And leaves us room to guess: so here, restraint Holds up delight, that with excess would faint.

PRO. Restraint preserves the pleasure we have got, But he ne'er has it, that enjoys it not. In goodly prospects, who contracts the space, Or takes not all the beauty of the place? We wish remov'd what standeth in our light, And Nature blame for limiting our sight; Where you stand wisely winking, that the view Of the fair prospect may be always new.

CON. They, who know all the wealth they have, are [poor; He's only rich, that cannot tell his store. PRO. Not he that knows the wealth he has is poor; But he that dares not touch, nor use his store.

To man, that was in th' evening made,
Stars gave the first delight;
Admiring, in the gloomy shade,
Those little drops of light:
Then, at Aurora, whose fair hand
Remov'd them from the skies,
He gazing toward the east did stand,
She entertain'd his eyes.

But when the bright sun did appear,
All those he 'gan despise;
His wonder was determin'd there,

And could no higher rise:

He neither might, nor wish'd to know A more refulgent light:

For that (as mine your beauties now) Employ'd his utmost sight.

TO A FRIEND,

OF THE DIFFERENT SUCCESS OF THEIR LOVES.

THRICE happy pair! of whom we cannot know
Which first began to love, or loves most now:
Fair course of passion! where two lovers start,
And run together, heart still yok'd with heart:
Successful youth! whom love has taught the way
To be victorious, in the first essay.
Sure love's an art best practised at first,
And where th' experienced still prosper worst!
I, with a different fate, pursued in vain
The haughty Cælia; till my just disdain
Of her neglect, above that passion borne,
Did pride to pride oppose, and scorn to scorn.
Now she relents; but all too late, to move
A heart directed to a nobler love:

falls,

The scales are turn'd, her kindness weighs no more
Now, than my vows and service did before.
So, in some well-wrought hangings, you may see
How Hector leads, and how the Grecians flee:
Here, the fierce Mars his courage so inspires,
That with bold hands the Argive fleet he fires:
But there, from Heaven the blue-ey'd virgin
And frighted Troy retires within her walls :
They that are foremost in that bloody race
Turn head anon, and give the conquerors chase.
So like the chances are of love and war,
That they alone in this distinguish'd are;
In love, the victors from the vanquish'd fly,
They fly that wound, and they pursue that die.

AN APOLOGY

FOR HAVING LOVED BEFORE.

THEY, that never had the use
Of the grape's surprising juice,
To the first delicious cup
All their reason render up;
Neither do, nor care to know,
Whether it be best or no.

So they, that are to love inclin'd,
Sway'd by chance, not choice or art,
To the first that's fair or kind,

Make a present of their heart: "Tis not she that first we love, But whom dying we approve.

1 Minerva.

TO ZELINDA.

FAIREST piece of well-form'd earth!
Urge not thus your haughty birth:
The power which you have o'er us, lies
Not in your race, but in your eyes.
None but a prince!-Alas! that voice
Confines you to a narrow choice.
Should you no honey vow to taste,
But what the master-bees have plac'd
In compass of their cells, how small
A portion to your share would fall!
Nor all appear, among those few,
Worthy the stock from whence they grew:
The sap, which at the root is bred,
In trees, through all the boughs is spread;
But virtues, which in parents shine,
Make not like progress through the line.
is not from whom, but where, we live :
The place does oft those graces give.
Great Julius, on the mountains bred,
A flock perhaps, or herd, had led:
He', that the world subdued, had been
But the best wrestler on the green.
"Tis art, and knowledge, which draw forth

The hidden seeds of native worth:,
They blow those sparks, and make them rise
Into such flames as touch the skies.
To the old heroes hence was given
A pedigree, which reach'd to heaven:
Of mortal seed they were not held,
Which other mortals so excell'd.
And beauty too, in such excess
As your's, Zelinda! claims no less.
Smile but on me, and you shall scorn,
Henceforth, to be of princes born.

I can describe the shady grove,
Where your lov'd mother slept with Jove,
And yet excuse the faultless dame,

Caught with her spouse's shape and name:
Thy matchless form will credit bring
To all the wonders I shall sing.

TO MY LADY MORTON,

ON NEW-YEAR'S day, at the louVRE IN PARIS. MADAM! new years may well expect to find Welcome from you, to whom they are so kind;

2 Alexander.

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