The boughs of Lotos, form'd into a wreath.

This Monument, thy Maiden beauties due, High on a Plane tree shall be hung to view :

On the smooth rind the Passenger shall see Thy Name ingrav'd, and worship Helens Tree:

Balm, from a Silver box distill'd around Shall all bedew the roots, and scent the sacred ground.

The balm, 'tis true, can aged Plants prolong,

But Helens name will keep it ever young. Hail Bride, hail Bridegroom, son in Law to Jove!

80 With fruitful joys Latona bless your Love!

Let Venus furnish you with full desires, Add vigour to your wills, and fuel to your fires!

Almighty Jove augment your wealthy store, Give much to you, and to his Grandsons more !

From generous Loyns a generous Race will spring,

Each Girl, like her, a Queen; each Boy, like you, a King.

Now sleep if sleep you can; but while you rest,

Sleep close, with folded arms, and breast to breast:

Rise in the morn; but oh before you rise, 90 Forget not to perform your morning Sacrifice.

We will be with you e're the crowing Cock Salute the light, and struts before his feather'd Flock.

Hymen, oh Hymen, to thy Triumphs run, And view the mighty spoils thou hast in Battle won.

WITH inauspicious love, a wretched Swain
Pursu'd the fairest Nimph of all the Plain;
Fairest indeed, but prouder far than fair,
She plung'd him hopeless in a deep despair:
Her heav'nly form too haughtily she priz'd,
His person hated, and his Gifts despis'd;
Nor knew the force of Cupids cruel darts,
Nor fear'd his awful power on human hearts;
But either from her hopeless Lover fled,
Or with disdainful glances shot him dead. 10
No kiss, no look, to cheer the drooping
Boy;

No word she spoke, she scorn'd ev'n to deny.
But, as a hunted Panther casts about
Her glaring eyes, and pricks her list'ning ears
to scout,

So she, to shun his Toyls, her cares imploy'd,
And fiercely in her savage freedom joy'd.
Her mouth she writh'd, her forehead taught
to frown,

Her eyes to sparkle fires to Love unknown:

THE DESPAIRING LOVER. Text from the original of 1685.

Too well thou show'st thy Pedigree from Stone:

Thy Grandames was the first by Pyrrha thrown:

Unworthy thou to be so long desir'd ;
But so my Love, and so my Fate requir'd. 40
I beg not now (for 'tis in vain) to live;
But take this gift, the last that I can give.
This friendly Cord shall soon decide the
strife

Betwixt my ling'ring Love and loathsome life:

This moment puts an end to all my pain;
I shall no more despair, nor thou disdain.
Farewel, ungrateful and unkind! I go
Condemn'd by thee to those sad shades
below.

I go th' extreamest remedy to prove,
To drink Oblivion, and to drench my Love:
There happily to lose my long desires : 51
But ah, what draught so deep to quench my
Fires ?

Farewell, ye never-opening Gates, ye Stones,
And Threshold guilty of my Midnight Moans:
What I have suffer'd here ye know too well;
What I shall do the gods and I can tell.
The Rose is fragrant, but it fades in time:
The Violet sweet, but quickly past the prime;
White Lillies hang their heads, and soon
decay,

And whiter Snow in minutes melts away: 60
Such is your blooming youth, and withering

A weighty Stone (the labour of a Team) 90 And rais'd from thence he reach'd the Neighbouring Beam:

Around its bulk a sliding knot he throws, And fitted to his Neck the fatal noose: Then spurning backward, took a swing, 'till death

Crept up, and stopp'd the passage of his Breath.

The bounce burst ope the door; the Scornful Fair

Relentless lookt, and saw him beat his quivering feet in Air,

Nor wept his fate, nor cast a pitying eye, Nor took him down, but brusht regardless by:

And, as she pass'd, her chance or fate was such,

100

Her Garments toucht the dead, polluted by the touch.

Next to the dance, thence to the Bath did

Of all that breaths, the various progeny, Stung with delight, is goaded on by thee. O're barren Mountains, o're the flowery. Plain,

The leafy Forest, and the liquid Main Extends thy uncontroul'd and boundless reign.

Through all the living Regions dost thou

move,

And scatter'st, where thou goest, the kindly seeds of Love:

spring

Without thy warmth, without thy influence bear, 30

Or beautiful, or lovesome can appear;
Be thou my ayd; My tuneful Song
inspire,

And kindle with thy own productive fire
While all thy Province, Nature, I survey,
And sing to Memmius an immortal lay
Of Heav'n, and Earth,and every where thy
wondrous power display:

To Memmius, under thy sweet influence born,

Whom thou with all thy gifts and graces dost adorn.

40

The rather then assist my Muse and me,
Infusing Verses worthy him and thee.
Mean time on Land and Sea let barb'rous
discord cease,

And lull the listning world in universal peace

To thee Mankind their soft repose must

owe;

move,

1685.

And quiet to the weary World restore.

roar:

Not that anothers pain is our delight; But pains unfelt produce the pleasing sight. 'Tis pleasant also to behold from far The moving Legions mingled in the War: But much more sweet thy lab'ring steps) to guide

To Vertues heights, with wisdom well supply'd,

And all the Magazins of Learning fortifi'd :) From thence to look below on humane kind,

10 Bewilder'd in the Maze of Life, and blind : To see vain fools ambitiously contend For Wit and Pow'r; their last endeavours

bend

T'outshine each other, waste their time and health

In search of honour, and pursuit of wealth. O wretched man! in what a mist of Life, Inclos'd with dangers and with noisie strife, He spends his little Span; And overfeeds His cramm'd desires with more than nature needs!

20

For Nature wisely stints our appetite, And craves no more than undisturb'd delight:

Which minds unmix'd with cares, and fears, obtain ;

A Soul serene, a body void of pain.
So little this corporeal frame requires ;
So bounded are our natural desires,
That wanting all, and setting pain aside,
With bare privation sence is satisfied.
If Golden Sconces hang not on the Walls,
To light the costly Suppers and the Balls;
If the proud Palace shines not with the
30
Of burnish'd Bowls, and of reflected Plate;
If well tun'd Harps, nor the more pleasing
sound

state

Of Voices, from the vaulted roofs rebound; Yet on the grass, beneath a poplar shade, By the cool stream our careless limbs are lay'd;

With cheaper pleasures innocently bless'd, When the warm Spring with gaudy flow'rs is dress'd.

Nor will the rageing Feavours fire abate, With Golden Canopies and Beds of State: But the poor Patient will as soon be sound 40 On the hard mattrass, or the Mother ground. Then since our Bodies are not eas'd the

more

By Birth, or Pow'r, or Fortunes wealthy store,

'Tis plain, these useless toyes of every kind

As little can relieve the lab'ring mind: Unless we could suppose the dreadful sight Of marshall'd Legions moving to the fight, Cou'd, with their sound and terrible array, Expel our fears, and drive the thoughts of death away;

But, since the supposition vain appears, 50 Since clinging cares, and trains of inbred fears,

Are not with sounds to be affrighted thence, But in the midst of Pomp pursue the Prince,

Not aw'd by arms, but in the presence

bold,

Man,

If Souls can die, as well as Bodies can ?
For, as before our Birth we felt no Pain,
When Punique arms infested Land and Main,
When Heaven and Earth were in confusion
hurl'd,

For the debated Empire of the World,
Which aw'd with dreadful expectation lay,
Sure to be Slaves, uncertain who shou'd
sway:

So, when our mortal frame shall be disjoyn'd, The lifeless Lump uncoupled from the mind, From sense of grief and pain we shall be free;

11 We shall not feel, because we shall not Be. Though Earth in Seas, and Seas in Ileav'n were lost,

We shou'd not move, we only shou'd be tost. Nay, ev'n suppose when we have suffer'd Fate,

The Soul cou'd feel, in her divided state, What's that to us? for we are only we While Souls and Bodies in one frame agree. Nay, tho' our Atomsshou'd revolve by chance, And matter leape into the former dance; 20 Tho' time our life and motion cou'd restore, And make our Bodies what they were before, What gain to us wou'd all this bustle bring? The new-made Man wou'd be another thing; When once an interrupting pause is made, That individual Being is decay'd.

We, who are dead and gone, shall bear no part

In all the pleasures, nor shall feel the smart, Which to that other Mortal shall accrew, Whom, of our Matter Time shall mould

40

For whosoe're shall in misfortunes live, Must Be, when those misfortunes shall arrive; And since the Man who Is not, feels not woe, (For death exempts him and wards off the blow,

Which we, the living, only feel and bear) What is there left for us in Death to fear? When once that pause of life has come between,

'Tis just the same as we had never been. And therefore if a Man bemoan his lot, That after death his mouldring limbs shall rot, 50

Or flames, or jaws of Beasts devour his Mass,
Know, he's an unsincere, unthinking Ass.
A secret Sting remains within his mind,
The fool is to his own cast offals kind.
He boasts no sense can after death remain ;
Yet makes himself a part of life again;
As if some other He could feel the pain.
If, while he live, this Thought molest his
head,

60

What Wolf or Vulture shall devour me dead,
He wasts his days in idle grief, nor can
Distinguish 'twixt the Body and the Man;
But thinks himself can still himself survive:
And what when dead he feels not, feels alive.
Then he repines that he was born to die,
Nor knows in death there is no other He,
No living He remains his grief to vent,
And o're his senseless Carcass to lament.
If after death 'tis painful to be torn
By Birds and Beasts, then why not so to
burn,

Or drench'd in floods of honey to be soak'd, Imbalm'd to be at once preserv'd and choak’d;

71

Or on an ayery Mountains top to lie,
Expos'd to cold and Heav'ns inclemency;
Or crowded in a Tomb to be opprest
With Monumental Marble on thy breast?
But to be snatch'd from all the household
joys,

From thy Chast Wife, and thy dear prattling
Boys,