10 Nor while they leave him shall they lose the sun, But in thy fairest eyes find two for one.

ON HOPE.

BY WAY OF QUESTION AND ANSWER, BETWEEN A. COWLEY AND R. CRASHAW.

COWLEY.

HOPE, whose weak being ruin'd is
Alike, if it succeed, and if it miss;
Whom ill and good doth equally confound,
And both the horns of Fate's dilemma wound;
Vain shadow! that doth vanish quite
Both at full noon, and perfect night,
The Fates have not a possibility

Of blessing thee.

If things then from their ends we happy call, 'Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.

CRASHAW.

Dear Hope! Earth's dow'ry, and Heaven's debt,

The entity of things that are not yet.

Subtlest, but surest being! thou by whom

Our nothing hath a definition.

Fair cloud of fire, both shade and light,

Our life in death, our day in night.

Fates cannot find out a capacity

Of hurting thee.

From thee their thin dilemma with blunt horn

10

Shrinks, like the sick moon at the wholesome morn. 20

COWLEY.

Hope, thou bold taster of delight,

Who, 'stead of doing so, devour'st it quite.
Thou bring'st us an estate, yet leav'st us poor,
By clogging it with legacies before.

The joys which we entire should wed,
Come deflowr'd virgins to our bed:
Good fortunes without gain imported be,
So mighty custom's paid to thee;

For joy, like wine, kept close, doth better taste-
If it take air before, its spirits waste.

CRASHAW.

Thou art Love's legacy under lock

Of faith, the steward of our growing stock.
Our crown-lands lie above, yet each meal brings
A seemly portion for the sons of kings.

Nor will the virgin-joys we wed

Come less unbroken to our bed,

Because that from the bridal cheek of bliss,
Thou thus steal'st down a distant kiss;

Hope's chaste kiss wrongs no more joy's maidenhead, Than spousal rites prejudge the marriage-bed.

COWLEY.

Hope, Fortune's cheating lottery,

Where for one prize an hundred blanks there be.
Fond archer, Hope, who tak'st thine aim so far,
That still, or short, or wide, thine arrows are.
Thine empty cloud the eye itself deceives
With shapes that our own fancy gives:
A cloud, which gilt and painted now appears,
But must drop presently in tears.

40

When thy false beams o'er reason's light prevail,
By ignes fatui, not north stars, we sail.

CRASHAW.

Fair hope! our earlier Heaven, by thee Young Time is taster to Eternity.

The gen'rous wine with age grows strong, not sour; Nor need we kill thy fruit to smell thy flower,

Thy golden head never hangs down,

Till in the lap of love's full noon

It falls and dies: oh no, it melts away
As doth the dawn into the day:

As lumps of sugar lose themselves, and twine
Their subtle essence with the soul of wine.

COWLEY.

Brother of fear! more gaily clad,

The merrier fool o' th' two, yet quite as mad;
Sire of repentance! shield of fond desire,
That blows the chymic's, and the lover's fire,
Still leading them insensibly on,

With the strange witchcraft of Anon:

By thee the one doth changing Nature through
Her endless labyrinths pursue,

And th' other chases woman, while she goes

49

60

More ways and turns than hunted Nature knows. 70

CRASHAW.

Fortune, alas! above the world's law wars:

Hope kicks the curl'd heads of conspiring stars.
Her keel cuts not the waves, where our winds stir,
And Fate's whole lott'ry is one blank to her.
Her shafts and she fly far above,

And forage in the fields of light and love.

Sweet Hope! kind cheat! fair fallacy! by thee 77
We are not where, or what we be,

But what and where we would: thus art thou
Our absent present and our future now.

CRASHAW.

Faith's sister! nurse of fair Desire!
Fear's antidote! a wise, and well stay'd fire
Temper'd 'twixt cold despair and torrid joy:
Queen regent in young love's minority.
Though the vex'd chymic vainly chases
His fugitive gold through all her faces,
And love's more fierce, more fruitless fires assay
One face more fugitive than all they,
True Hope's a glorious huntress, and her chase
The God of Nature in the field of grace.

90

THE DELIGHTS OF THE MUSES.

MUSIC'S DUEL.

Now westward Sol had spent the richest beams.
Of Noon's high glory, when, hard by the streams
Of Tiber, on the scene of a green plat,
Under protection of an oak, there sat
A sweet lute's-master, in whose gentle airs
He lost the day's heat and his own hot cares.

Close in the covert of the leaves there stood
A nightingale come from the neighb'ring wood,
(The sweet inhabitant of each glad tree,
Their Muse, their Syren-harmless Syren she.)
There stood she list'ning, and did entertain
The music's soft report, and mould the same
In her own murmurs, that whatever mood
His curious fingers lent, her voice made good.
The man perceived his rival and her art;
Disposed to give the light-foot lady sport
Awakes his lute, and 'gainst the fight to come
Informs it, in a sweet præludium,

Of closer strains, and, ere the war begin,
He lightly skirmishes on ev'ry string

Charged with a flying touch; and straightway she
Carves out her dainty voice as readily,