She asks each star that then stood by
If poor Love shall live or die.
Ah, my heart, is that the way?
Are these the beams that rule thy day?
Thou know'st a face in whose each look
Beauty lays ope Love's fortune-book,
On whose fair revolutions wait
The obsequious motions of Love's fate.
Ah, my heart! her eyes and she
Have taught thee new astrology.
Howe'er Love's native hours were set,
Whatever starry synod met,
If those sharp rays, putting on
Points of death, bid Love begone;
Though the heavens in council sat
To crown an uncontrolled fate;
Though their best aspects twined upon
The kindest constellation,
Cast amorous glances on his birth,
And whisper'd the confederate earth
To pave his paths with all the good
That warms the bed of youth and blood :-
Love has no plea against her eye;
Beauty frowns, and Love must die.
But if her milder influence move,
And gild the hopes of humble Love ;-
Though heaven's inauspicious eye
Lay black on Love's nativity;
Though every diamond in Jove's crown
Fix'd his forehead to a frown ;—
Her eye a strong appeal can give,
Beauty smiles, and Love shall live.
O, if Love shall live, O, where
But in her eye, or in her ear,
In her breast, or in her breath,
Shall I hide poor Love from death?
For in the life aught else can give,
Love shall die, although he live.
Or, if Love shall die, O, where,
But in her eye, or in her ear,
In her breath, or in her breast,
Shall I build his funeral nest?
While Love shall thus entombed lie,
Love shall live, although he die!
OUT OF VIRGIL, IN THE PRAISE OF THE
LL trees, all leafy groves confess the spring Their gentlest friend; then, then the lands begin
To swell with forward pride, and seed desire
To generation; heaven's almighty sire
Melts on the bosom of his love, and pours
Himself into her lap in fruitful showers;
And by a soft insinuation, mix'd
With earth's large mass, doth cherish and assist
Her weak conceptions; no lone shade, but rings
With chattering birds' delicious murmurings.
Then Venus' mild instinct, at set times, yields
The herds to kindly meetings, then the fields,
Quick with warm Zephyr's lively breath, lay forth
Their pregnant bosoms in a fragrant birth ;
Each body's plump and juicy, all things full
Of supple moisture: no coy twig but will
Trust his beloved bosom to the sun,
Grown lusty now; no vine so weak and young
That fears the foul-mouth'd Auster, or those storms
That the south-west wind hurries in his arms,
But hastes her forward blossoms, and lays out,
Freely lays out her leaves; nor do I doubt,
But when the world first out of Chaos sprang,
So smiled the days, and so the tenour ran
Of their felicity: a spring was there,
An everlasting spring; the jolly year
Led round in his great circle; no wind's breath,
As then, did smell of winter, or of death.
When light's sweet light first shone on beasts, and when
From their hard mother earth sprang hardy men;
When beasts took up their lodging in the wood,
Stars in their higher chambers; never could
The tender growth of things endure the sense
Of such a change, but that the heav'n's indulgence
Kindly supplies sick nature, and doth mould
A sweetly-temper'd mean, nor hot nor cold.
WITH A PICTURE SENT TO A FRIEND.
PAINT so ill, my piece had need to be
Painted again by some good poesy ;
I write so ill, my slender line is scarce
So much as th' picture of a well-limn'd verse:
Yet
may the love I send be true, though I
Send not true picture nor true poesy:
Both which away, I should not need to fear
My love or feign'd or painted should appear.
IN PRAISE OF LESSIUS'S RULE OF
HEALTH.*
O now, and with some daring drug,
Bait the disease, and, while they tug,
Thou to maintain their precious strife
Spend the dear treasure of thy life:
Go, take physic, doat upon
Some big-named composition,-
The oraculous doctors' mystic bills,
Certain hard words made into pills;
And what at last shalt get by these?
Only a costlier disease.
Repeated, with some additional lines, at the end of the edition of 1670; and printed, from "Hark hither," among the commendatory verses in praise of the translation of "The Temperate Man, &c. the right Way of preserving Life and Health," &c. of Lessius and others, London, 1678, 12mo.
Go, poor man, think what shall be
Remedy against thy remedy.
That which makes us have no need
Of physic, that's physic indeed.
Hark hither, reader, would'st thou see
Nature her own physician be?
Would'st see a man all his own wealth,
His own physic, his own health?
A man whose sober soul can tell
How to wear her garments well?
Her garments, that upon her sit,
As garments should do, close and fit ?
A well-clothed soul, that's not oppress'd,
Nor choked with what she should be dress'd? A soul sheathed in a crystal shrine,
Through which all her bright features shine?
As when a piece of wanton lawn,
A thin aërial veil is drawn,
O'er beauty's face, seeming to hide,
More sweetly shows the blushing bride.
A soul whose intellectual beams
No mists do mask, no lazy streams?
A happy soul, that all the way
To heaven hath a summer's day?
Would'st see a man whose well-warm'd blood
Bathes him in a genuine flood?
A man whose tunèd humours be
A seat of rarest harmony?
Would'st see blithe looks, fresh cheeks beguile
Age? Would'st see December smile?
Would'st see a nest of roses grow
|