black eye That your reflected forms may make us know That shining light in darkness all would find Were they not upward blind With the Sun beams below Sonnet of Black Beauty BLack beauty which above that common light Whose Power can no colours here renew But those which darkness can again subdue Do'st still remain unvary'd to the sight And like an object equal to the view And neither chang'd with day nor hid with night When all these colours which the world call bright And which old Poetry doth so persue Are with the night so perished and gone That of their being there remains no mark Thou still abidest so intirely one That we may know thy blackness is a spark Of light inaccessible and alone Our darkness which can make us think it dark Another Sonnet to Black it self THou Black wherein all colours are compos'd And unto which they all at last return Thou colour of the Sun where it doth burn And shadow where it cools in thee is clos'd Whatever nature can or hath dispos'd In any other here from thee do rise Those tempers and complexions which disclos'd As parts of thee do work as mysteries Of that thy hidden power when thou dost reign The characters of fate shine in the Skies And tell us what the Heavens do ordain But when Earth's common light shines to our eys Thou so retir'st thy self that thy disdain All revelation unto Man denys The first Meeting AS sometimes with a sable Cloud We see the Heav'ns bow'd And darkning all the fire Untill the lab'ring fires they do contain Break forth again Ev'n so from under your black hair I saw such an unusual blaze Light'ning and sparkling from your eyes And with unused prodigies Forcing such amaze That I did judge your Empire here Was not of love alone but fear But as all that is violent Doth by degrees relent So when that sweetest face Growing at last to be serene and clear Did now appear With all its wonted heav'nly Grace And your appeased eyes did send A beam from them so soft and mild That former terrors were exil'd And all that could amaze did end Darkness in me was chang'd to light Wonder to love love to delight Nor here yet did your goodness cease My heart and eyes to bless For being past all hope That I could now enjoy a better state An orient gate As if the Heav'ns themselves did ope First found in thee and then disclos'd So gracious and sweet a smile That my soul ravished the while And wholly from it self unloos'd Seem'd hov'ring in your breath to rise To feel an air of Paradise Nor here yet did your favours end For whil'st I down did bend As one who now did miss A soul which grown much happier then before Would turn no more You did bestow on me a Kiss And in that Kiss a soul infuse Which was so fashion'd by your mind And which was so much more refin'd Then that I formerly did use That if one soul found joys in thee The other fram'd them new in me But as those bodies which dispense Their beams imparting hence Those beams do recollect Until they in themselves resumed have The forms they gave So when your gracious aspect From me was turned once away Neither could I thy soul retain Nor you gave mine leave to remain To make with you a longer stay Or suffer'd ought else to appear But your hair nights hemisphere Only as we in Loadstones find Vertue of such a kind That what they once do give B'ing neither to be chang'd by any Clime Or forc'd by time Doth ever in its subjects live So though I be from you retir'd The power you gave yet still abides And my soul ever so guides By your magnetique touch inspir'd That all it moves or is inclin'd Comes from the motions of your mind A merry Rime sent to the Lady Wroth upon the Birth of my L. of Pembroke's Child born in the Spring MAdam though I am one of those That every Spring use to compose That is add feet unto round Prose Yet you a further art disclose And can as every body knows Add to those feet fine dainty toes Satyrs add nails but they are shrews My Muse therefore no further goes But for her feet craves shooes and hose Let a fair season add a Rose While thus attired wee 'l oppose The tragick buskins of our foes And herewith Madam I will close And 't is no matter how it shews All I care is if the child grows The Thought 1. IF you do love as well as I Then every minute from your heart A thought doth part And winged with desire doth fly Till it hath met in a streight line A thought of mine So like to yours we cannot know Whether of both doth come or go Till we define Which of us two that thought doth ow. 2. I say then that your thoughts which pass Are not so much the thoughts you meant As those I sent For as my image in a Glass Belongs not to the Glass you see But unto me So when your fancy is so clear That you would think you saw me there It needs must be That it was I did first appear 3. Likewise when I send forth a thought My reason tells me 't is the same Which from you came And which your beauteous Image wrought Thus while our thoughts by turns do lead None can precede And thus while in each others mind Such interchanged forms we find Our loves may plead To be of more then vulgar kind 4. May you then often think on me And by that thinking know 't is true I thought on you I in the same belief will be While by this mutual address We will possess A love must live when we do dy Which rare and secret property You will confess If you do love as well as I. To a Lady who did sing excellently 1. WHen our rude unfashion'd words that long A being in their elements enjoy'd Sensless and void Come at last to be formed by thy tongue And from thy breath receive that life and place And perfect grace That now thy power diffus'd through all their parts Are able to remove All the obstructions of the hardest hearts And teach the most unwilling how to love 2. When they again exalted by thy voice Tun'd by thy soul dimiss'd into the air To us repair A living moving and harmonious noise Able to give the love they do create A second state And charm not only all his griefs away And his defects restore But make him perfect who the Poets say Made all was ever yet made heretofore 3. When again all these rare perfections meet Composed in the circle of thy face As in their place So to make up of all one perfect sweet Who is not then so ravish'd with delight Ev'n of thy sight That he can be assur'd his sense is true Or that he die or live Or that he do enjoy himself or you Or only the delights which
is The sad Non Vltra of Mans Bliss The Back of this most pretious Frame Holds up in Majesty the same Where to make Musick to all Hearts Love bound the descant of her parts Though all this Beauties Temple be There 's known within no Deity Save Vertues shrin'd within her Will As I began so say I still I sing her Worth and Praises Ey Of whom a Poet cannot ly To her Face FAtal Aspect that hast an Influence More powerful far than those Immortal Fires That but incline the Will and move the Sense Which thou alone constrain'st kindling Desires Of such an holy force as more inspires The Soul with Knowledge than Experience Or Revelation can do with all Their borrow'd helps Sacred Astonishment Sits on thy Brow threatning a sudden fall To all those Thoughts that are not lowly sent In wonder and amaze dazling that Eye Which on those Mysteries doth rudely gaze Vow'd only unto Loves Divinity Sure Adam sinn'd not in that spotless Face To her Body REgardful Presence whose fix'd Majesty Darts Admiration on the gazing Look That brings it not State sits inthron'd in thee Divulging forth her Laws in the fair Book Of thy Commandements which none mistook That ever humbly came therein to see Their own unworthiness Oh! how can I Enough admire that Symmetry exprest In new proportions which doth give the Ly To that Arithmetique which hath profest All Numbers to be Hers thy Harmony Comes from the Spheres and there doth prove Strange measures so well grac'd as Majesty It self like thee would rest like thee would move To her Mind EXalted Mind whose Character doth bear The first Idea of Perfection whence Adam's came and stands so how canst appear In words that only tell what here-Tofore hath been thou need'st as deep a sence As prophecy since there 's no difference In telling what thou art and what shall be Then pardon me that Rapture do profess At thy outside that want for what I see Description if here amaz'd I cease Thus Yet grant one Question and no more crav'd under Thy gracious leave How if thou would'st express Thy self to us thou should'st be still a wonder Thus ends my Love but this doth grieve me most That so it ends but that ends too this yet Besides the Wishes hopes and time I lost Troubles my mind awhile that I am set Free worse then deny'd I can neither boast Choice nor success as my Case is nor get Pardon from my self that I loved not A better Mistress or her worse this Debt Only's her due still that she be forgot Ere chang'd lest I love none this done the taint Of soul Inconstancy is clear'd at least In me there only rests but to unpaint Her form in my mind that so dispossest It be a Temple but without a Saint Vpon Combing her Hair BReaking from under that thy cloudy Vail Open and shine yet more shine out more clear Thou glorious golden-beam-darting hair Even till my wonderstrucken Senses fail Shoot out in light and shine those Rays on far Thou much more fair than is the Queen of Love When she doth comb her in her Sphere above And from a Planet turns a Blazing-Star Nay thou art greater too more destiny Depends on thee then on her influence No hair thy fatal hand doth now dispence But to some one a thred of life must be While gracious unto me thou both dost sunder Those Glories which if they united were Might have amazed sense and shew'st each hair Which if alone had been too great a wonder And now spread in their goodly length sh ' appears No Creature which the earth might call her own But rather one that in her gliding down Heav'ns beams did crown to shew us she was theirs And come from thence how can they fear times rage Which in his power else on earth most strange Such Golden treasure doth to Silver change By that improper Alchimy of Age. But stay me-thinks new Beauties do arise While she withdraws these Glories which were spread Wonder of Beauties set thy radiant head And strike out day from thy yet fairer eyes Ditty in imitation of the Spanish Entre tantoque L' Avril NOw that the April of your youth adorns The Garden of your face Now that for you each knowing Lover mourns And all seek to your Grace Do not repay affection with Scorns What though you may a matchless Beauty vaunt And that all Hearts can move By such a power as seemeth to inchant Yet without help of Love Beauty no pleasure to it self can grant Then think each minute that you lose a day The longest Youth is short The shortest Age is long time flies away And makes us but his sport And that which is not Youth's is Age's prey See but the bravest Horse that prideth most Though he escape the Warr Either from master to the man is lost Or turn'd unto the Carr Or else must die with being ridden Post Then lose not beauty Lovers time and all Too late your fault you see When that in vain you would these dayes recall Nor can you vertuous be When without these you have not wherewithall The State-progress of Ill. I Say 't is hard to write Satyrs Though Ill Great'ned in his long course and swelling still Be now like to a Deluge yet as Nile 'T is doubtful in his original this while We may thus much on either part presume That what so universal are must come From causes great and far Now in this state Of things what is least like Good men hate Since 't will be the less sin I do see Some Ill requir'd that one poison might free The other so States to their Greatness find No faults requir'd but their own and bind The rest And though this be mysterious still Why should we not examine how this Ill Did come at first how 't keeps his greatness here When 't is disguis'd and when it doth appear This Ill having some Atttibutes of God As to have made it self and bear the rod Of all our punishments as it seems came Into the world to rule it and to tame The pride of Goodness and though his Reign Great in the hearts of men he doth maintain By love not right he yet the tyrant here Though it be him we love and God we fear Pretence yet wants not that it was before Some part of Godhead as Mercy that store For Souls grown Bankrupt their first stock of Grace And that which the sinner of the last place Shall number out unless th' Highest will shew Some power not yet reveal'd to Man below But that I may proceed and so go on To trace Ill in his first progression And through his secret'st wayes and where that he Had left his nakedness as well as we And did appear himself I note that in Gradus melisunt quo Peccamus nobis The yet infant-world how mischief and sin Gradus melisunt quo Nocemus aliis His Agents here on earth easie known Are now conceal'd
we now have such abode With him in Heaven as we had here before He left us dead Nor shall we question more Whether the Soul of man be memory As Plato thought We and posterity Shall celebrate his name and vertuous grow Only in memory that he was so And on those tearms we may seem yet to live Because he lived once though we shall strive To sigh away this seeming life so fast As if with us 'twere not already past We then are dead for what doth now remain To please us more or what can we call pain Now we have lost him And what else doth make Diff'rence in life and death but to partake Nor joy nor pain Oh death could'st not fulfil Thy rage against us no way but to kill This Prince in whom we liv'd that so we all Might perish by thy hand at once and fall Under his ruine thenceforth though we should Do all the actions that the living would Yet we shall not remember that we live No more then when our Mothers womb did give That life we felt not Or should we proceed To such a wonder that the dead should breed It should be wrought to keep that memory Which being his can therefore never dy Novemb. 9. 1612. Epitaph of King James HEre lyes King James who did so propagate Unto the World that blest and quiet state Wherein his Subjects liv'd he seem'd to give That peace which Christ did leave and so did live As once that King and Shepherd of his Sheep That whom God saved here he seem'd to keep Till with that innocent and single heart With which he first was crown'd he did depart To better life Great Brittain so lament That Strangers more then thou may yet resent The sad effects and while they feel the harm They must endure from the victorious arm Of our King Charles may they so long complain That tears in them force thee to weep again A Vision WIthin an open curled Sea of Gold A Bark of Ivory one day I saw Which striking with his Oars did seem to draw Tow'rd a fair Coast which I then did behold A Lady held the Stern while her white hand Whiter then either Ivory or Sail Over the surging Waves did so prevail That she had now approached near the Land When suddenly as if she fear'd some wrack And yet the Sky was fair and Air was clear And neither Rock nor Monster did appear Doubting the Point which spi'd she turned back Then with a Second course I saw her steer As if she meant to reach some other Bay Where being approach'd she likewise turn'd away Though in the Bark some Waves now entred were Thus varying oft her course at last I found While I in quest of the Adventure go The Sail took down and Oars had ceas'd to row And that the Bark it self was run aground Wherewith Earths fairest Creature I beheld For which both Bark and Sea I gladly lost Let no Philosopher of Knowledge boast Unless that he my Vision can unfold Tears flow no more or if you needs must flow Fall yet more slow Do not the world invade From smaller springs then yours rivers have grown And they again a Sea have made Brackish like you and which like you hath flown Ebb to my heart and on the burning fires Of my desires Let your torrents fall From smaller sparks then theirs such sparks arise As into flame converting all This world might be but my love's sacrifice Yet if the tempests of my sighs so slow You both must flow And my desires still burn Since that in vain all help my love requires Why may not yet their rages turn To dry those tears and to blow out those fires Italy 1614. Ditty to the tune of A che del Quantomio of Pesarino WHere now shall these Accents go At which Creatures silent grow While Woods and Rocks do speak And seem to break Complaints too long for them to hear Saying I call in vain Echo All in vain = = = Where there is no relief Ec. Here is no relief Ah why then should I fear Unto her rocky heart to speak that grief In whose laments these bear a part Then cruel heart Do but some answer give I do but crave = Do you forbid to live or bid to live Echo Live Ditty CAn I then live to draw that breath Which must bid farewell to thee Yet how should death not seize on me Since absence from the life I hold so dear must needs be death While I do feel in parting Such a living dying As in this my most fatal hour Grief such a life doth lend As quick'ned by his power Even death cannot end I am the first that ever lov'd He yet that for the place contends Against true love so much offends That even this way it is prov'd For whose affection once is shown No longer can the World beguile Who see his pennance all the while He holds a Torch to make her known You are the first were ever lov'd And who may think this not so true So little knows of love or you It need not otherwise be prov'd For though the more judicious eyes May know when Diamonds are right There is requir'd a greater light Their estimate and worth to prise While they who most for beauty strives Can with no Art so lovely grow As she who doth but only ow So much as true affection gives Thus first of Lovers I appear For more appearance makes me none And thus are you belov'd alone That are pris'd infinitely dear Yet as in our Northern Clime Rare fruits though late appear at last As we may see some years b'ing past Our Orenge-trees grow ripe with time So think not strange if Love to break His wonted silence now make bold For a Love is seven years old Is it not time to learn to speak Then gather in that which doth grow And ripen to that fairest hand 'T is not enough that trees do stand If their fruit fall and perish too Epitaph of a stinking Poet. HEre stinks a Poet I confess Yet wanting breath stinks so much less A Ditty to the tune of Coseferite made by Lorenzo Allegre to one sleeping to be sung Ah wonder SO fair a Heaven So fair c. And no Starr shining Ay me and no Starr c. 'T is past my divining Yet stay May not perchance this be some rising Morn Which in the scorn Of our Worlds light discloses This Air of Violets that Sky of Roses T is so An Oriental Sphere Doth open and appear Ascending bright Then since thy hymen I chant May'st thou new pleasures grant Admired light Epitaph on Sir Edward Saquevile's Child who dyed in his Birth REader here lies a Child that never cry'd And therefore never dy'd 'T was neither old nor yong Born to this and the other world in one Let us then cease to mone Nothing that ever dy'd hath liv'd so long Kissing COme
make them known as well as if reveal'd Such as contain the kind and difference And all the properties arising thence All praises else as more or less then due Will prove or strongly false or weakly true Having deliver'd now what praises are It rests that I should to the world declare Thy praises DVNN whom I so lov'd alive That with my witty Carew I should strive To celebrate the dead did I not need A language by it self which should exceed All those which are in use For while I take Those common words which men may even rake From Dunghil-wits I find them so defil'd Slubber'd and false as if they had exil'd Truth and propriety such as do tell So little other things they hardly spell Their proper meaning and therefore unfit To blazon forth thy merits or thy wit Nor will it serve that thou did'st so refine Matter with words that both did seem divine When thy breath utter'd them for thou b'ing gone They streight did follow thee Let therefore none Hope to find out an Idiom and sence Equal to thee and to thy Eminence Unless our Gracious King give words their bound Call in false titles which each where are found In Prose and Verse and as bad Coin and light Suppress them and their values till the right Take place and do appear and then in lieu Of those forg'd Attributes stamp some anew Which being currant and by all allow'd In Epitaphs and Tombs might be avow'd More then their Escocheons Mean while because Nor praise is yet confined to its Laws Nor rayling wants his proper dialect Let thy detraction thy late life detect And though they term all thy heat frowardness Thy solitude self-pride fasts niggardness And on this false supposal would inferr They teach not others right themselves who err Yet as men to the adverse part do ply Those crooked things which they would rectifie So would perchance to loose and wanton Man Such vice avail more then their vertues can The Brown Beauty 1. WHile the two contraries of Black and White In the Brown Phaie are so well unite That they no longer now seem opposite Who doubts but love hath this his colour chose Since he therein doth both th' extremes compose And as within their proper Centre close 2. Therefore as it presents not to the view That whitely raw and unconcocted hiew Which Beauty Northern Nations think the true So neither hath it that adust aspect The Moor and Indian so much affect That for it they all other do reject 3. Thus while the White well shadow'd doth appear And black doth through his lustre grow so clear That each in other equal part doth bear All in so rare proportion is combin'd That the fair temper which adorns her mind Is even to her outward form confin'd 4. Phaie your Sexes honour then so live That when the World shall with contention strive To whom they would a chief perfection give They might the controversie so decide As quitting all extreams on either side You more then any may be dignify'd An Ode upon a Question moved Whether Love should continue for ever HAving interr'd her Infant-birth The watry ground that late did mourn Was strew'd with flow'rs for the return Of the wish'd Bridegroom of the earth The well accorded Birds did sing Their hymns unto the pleasant time And in a sweet consorted chime Did welcom in the chearful Spring To which soft whistles of the Wind And warbling murmurs of a Brook And vari'd notes of leaves that shook An harmony of parts did bind While doubling joy unto each other All in so rare consent was shown No happiness that came alone Nor pleasure that was not another When with a love none can express That mutually happy pair Melander and Celinda fair The season with their loves did bless Walking thus towards a pleasant Grove Which did it seem'd in new delight The pleasures of the time unite To give a triumph to their love They stay'd at last and on the Grass Reposed so as o'r his breast She bow'd her gracious head to rest Such a weight as no burden was While over eithers compass'd waste Their folded arms were so compos'd As if in straitest bonds inclos'd They suffer'd for joys they did taste Long their fixt eyes to Heaven bent Unchanged they did never move As if so great and pure a love No Glass but it could represent When with a sweet though troubled look She first brake silence saying Dear friend O that our love might take no end Or never had beginning took I speak not this with a false heart Wherewith his hand she gently strain'd Or that would change a love maintain'd With so much love on either part Nay I protest though Death with his Worst Counsel should divide us here His terrors could not make me fear To come where your lov'd presence is Only if loves fire with the breath Of life be kindled I doubt With our last air 't will be breath'd out And quenched with the cold of death That if affection be a line Which is clos'd up in our last hour Oh how 't would grieve me any pow'r Could force so dear a love as mine She scarce had done when his shut eyes An inward joy did represent To hear Celinda thus intent To a love he so much did prize Then with a look it seem'd deny'd All earthly pow'r but hers yet so As if to her breath he did ow This borrow'd life he thus repli'd O you wherein they say Souls rest Till they descend pure heavenly fires Shall lustful and corrupt desires With your immortal seed be blest And shall our Love so far beyond That low and dying appetite And which so chast desires unite Not hold in an eternal bond Is it because we should decline And wholly from our thoughts exclude Objects that may the sense delude And study only the Divine No sure for if none can ascend Ev'n to the visible degree Of things created how should we The invisible comprehend Or rather since that Pow'r exprest His greatness in his works alone B'ing here best in 's Creatures known Why is he not lov'd in them best But is 't not true which you pretend That since our love and knowledge here Only as parts of life appear So they with it should take their end O no Belov'd I am most sure Those vertuous habits we acquire As being with the Soul intire Must with it evermore endure For if where sins and vice reside We find so foul a guilt remain As never dying in his stain Still punish'd in the Soul doth bide Much more that true and real joy Which in a vertuous love is found Must be more solid in its ground Then Fate or Death can e'r destroy Else should our Souls in vain elect And vainer yet were Heavens laws When to an everlasting Cause They gave a perishing Effect Nor here on earth then nor above Our good affection can impair For where God doth admit the fair Think you that
others readier are Now that he speaks are complemental speeches That never go off but below the breeches Of him he doth salute while he doth wring And with some loose French words which he doth string Windeth about the arms the legs and sides Most serpent-like of any man that bides His indirect approach which being done Almost without an introduction If he have heard but any bragging French Boast of the favour of some noble Wench He 'll swear 't was he did her Graces possess And damn his own soul for the wickedness Of other men strangest of all in that But I am weary to describe you what E're this you can As for the little fry That all along the street turn up the eye At every thing they meet that have not yet Seen that swoln vitious Queen Margaret Who were a monster ev'n without her sin Nor the Italian Comedies wherein Women play Boys I cease to write To end this Satyre and bid thee good night Sept. 1608. I must depart but like to his last breath That leaves the seat of life for liberty I go but dying and in this our death Where soul and soul is parted it is I The deader part yet fly away While she alas in whom before I liv'd dyes her own death and more I feeling mine too much and her own stay But since I must depart and that our love Springing at first but in an earthly mould Transplanted to our souls now doth remove Earthly effects what time and distance would Nothing now can our loves allay Though as the better Spirits will That both love us and know our ill We do not either all the good we may Thus when our souls that must immortal be For our loves cannot dye nor we unless We dye not both together shall be free Unto their open and eternal peace Sleep Death's Embassadour and best Image doth yours often so show That I thereby must plainly know Death unto us must be freedom and rest May 1608. Madrigal HOw should I love my best What though my love unto that height be grown That taking joy in you alone I utterly this world detest Should I not love it yet as th' only place Where Beauty hath his perfect grace And is possest But I beauties despise You universal beauty seem to me Giving and shewing form and degree To all the rest in your fair eyes Yet should I not loâ—â— them as parts whereon Your beauty their perfection And top doth rise But ev'n my self I hate So far my love is from the least delight That at my very self I spite Sensless of any happy state Yet may I not wiâ—h justest reason fear How hating hers â— truly her Can celebrate Thus unresolved still Although world life nay what is fair beside I cannot for your sake abide Methinks I love not to my fill Yet if a greater love you can devise In loving you some otherwise Believe't I will Another DEar when I did from you remove I left my Joy but not my Love That never can depart It neither higher can ascend Nor lower bend Fixt in the center of my heart As in his place And lodged so how can it change Or you grow strange Those are earth's properties and base Each where as the bodies divine Heav'ns lights and you to me will shine To his Friend Ben Johnson of his Horace made English 'T Was not enough Ben Johnson to be thought Of English Poets best but to have brought In greater state to their acquaintance one So equal to himself and thee that none Might be thy second while thy Glory is To be the Horace of our times and his Epitaph Caecil Boulser quae post languescentem morbum non sine inquietudine spiritus conscientiae obiit MEthinks Death like one laughing lyes Shewing his teeth shutting his eys Only thus to have found her here He did with so much reason fear And she despise For barring all the gates of sin Death's open wayes to enter in She was with a strict siege beset To what by force he could not get By time to win This mighty Warrior was deceived yet For what he muting in her powers thought Was but their zeal And what by their excess might have been wrought Her fasts did heal Till that her noble soul by these as wings Transcending the low pitch of earthly things As b'ing reliev'd by God and set at large And grown by this worthy a higher charge Triumphing over Death to Heaven fled And did not dye but left her body dead July 1609. Epitaph Guli Herbert de Swansey qui sine prole obiit Aug. 1609. GReat Spirit that in new ambition Stoop'd not below his merit But with his proper worth being carry'd on Stoop'd at no second place till now in one He doth all place inherit Live endless here in such brave memory The best tongue cannot spot it While they which knew or but have heard of thee Must never hope thy like again can be Since thou hast not begot it In a Glass-Window for Inconstancy LOve of this clearest frailest Glass Divide the properties so as In the division may appear Clearness for me frailty for her Elegy for the Prince MUst he be ever dead Cannot we add Another life unto that Prince that had Our souls laid up in him Could not our love Now when he left us make that body move After his death one Age And keep unite That frame wherein our souls did so delight For what are souls but love Since they do know Only for it and can no further go Sense is the Soul of Beasts because none can Proceed so far as t' understand like Man And if souls be more where they love then where They animate why did it not appear In keeping him alive Or how is fate Equal to us when one man 's private hate May ruine Kingdoms when he will expose Himself to certain death and yet all those Not keep alive this Prince who now is gone Whose loves would give thousands of lives for one Do we then dye in him only as we May in the worlds harmonique body see An universally diffused soul Move in the parts which moves not in the whole So though we rest with him we do appear To live and stir a while as if he were Still quick'ning us Or do perchance we live And know it not See we not Autumn give Back to the earth again what it receiv'd In th' early Spring And may not we deceiv'd Think that those powers are dead which do but sleep And the world's soul doth reunited keep And though this Autumn gave what never more Any Spring can unto the world restore May we not be deceiv'd and think we know Our selves for dead Because that we are so Unto each other when as yet we live A life his love and memory doth give Who was our worlds soul and to whom we are So reunite that in him we repair All other our affections ill bestow'd Since by this love
hither Womankind and all their worth Give me thy Kisses as I call them forth Give me the billing-Kiss that of the Dove A Kiss of love The melting-Kiss a Kiss that doth consume To a perfume The extract-Kiss of every sweet a part A Kiss of Art The Kiss which ever stirs some new delight A Kiss of Might The twaching smacking Kiss and when you cease A Kiss of Peace The Musick-Kiss crotchet and quaver time The Kiss of Rime The Kiss of Eloquence which doth belong Unto the tongue The Kiss of all the Sciences in one The Kiss alone So 't is enough Ditty IF you refuse me once and think again I will complain You are deceiv'd Love is no work of Art It must be got and born Not made and worn Or such wherein you have no part Or do you think they more then once can dy Whom you deny Who tell you of a thousand deaths a day Like the old Poets fain And tell the pain They met but in the common way Or do you think it is too soon to yield And quit the Field You are deceiv'd they yield who first intreat Once one may crave for love But more would prove This heart too little that too great Give me then so much love that we may burn Past all return Who mid'st your beauties flames and spirit lives So great a light must find As to be blind To all but what their fire gives Then give me so much love as in one point Fix'd and conjoynt May make us equal in our flames arise As we shall never start Until we dart Lightning upon the envious eyes Then give me so much love that we may move Like starrs of love And glad and happy times to Lovers bring While glorious in one sphere We still appear And keep an everlasting Spring Elegy over a Tomb. MUst I then see alas eternal night Sitting upon those fairest eyes And closing all those beams which once did rise So radiant and bright That light and heat in them to us did prove Knowledge and Love Oh if you did delight no more to stay Upon this low and earthly stage But rather chose an endless heritage Tell us at least we pray Where all the beauties that those ashes ow'd Are now bestow'd Doth the Sun now his light with yours renew Have Waves the curling of your hair Did you restore unto the Sky and Air The red and white and blew Have you vouchsafed to flowrs since your death That sweetest breath Had not Heav'ns Lights else in their houses slept Or to some private life retir'd Must not the Sky and Air have else conspir'd And in their Regions wept Must not each flower else the earth could breed Have been a weed But thus enrich'd may we not yield some cause Why they themselves lament no more That must have changed course they held before And broke their proper Laws Had not your beauties giv'n this second birth To Heaven and Earth Tell us for Oracles must still ascend For those that crave them at your tomb Tell us where are those beauties now become And what they now intend Tell us alas that cannot tell our grief Or hope relief 1617. Epitaph on Sir Francis Vere Reader IF thou appear Before this tomb attention give And do not fear Unless it be to live For dead is great Sir Francis Vere Of whom this might be said should God ordain One to destroy all sinners whom that one Redeem'd not there that so he might atone His chosen flock and take from earth that stain That spots it still he worthy were alone To finish it and have when they were gone This World for him made Paradise again To M rs Diana Cecyll DIana Cecyll that rare beauty thou dost show Is not of Milk or Snow Or such as pale and whitely things do ow. But an illustrious Oriental Bright Like to the Diamonds refracted light Or early Morning breaking from the Night Nor is thy hair and eyes made of that ruddy beam Or golden-sanded stream Which we find still the vulgar Poets theme But reverend black and such as you would say Light did but serve it and did shew the way By which at first night did precede the day Nor is that symmetry of parts and force divine Made of one vulgar line Or such as any know how to define But of proportions new so well exprest That the perfections in each part confest Are beauties to themselves and to the rest Wonder of all thy Sex let none henceforth inquire Why they so much admire Since they that know thee best ascend no higher Only be not with common praises woo'd Since admiration were no longer good When men might hope more then they understood To her Eyes BLack eyes if you seem dark It is because your beams are deep And with your soul united keep Who could discern Enough into them there might learn Whence they derive that mark And how their power is such That all the wonders which proceed from thence Affecting more the mind then sense Are not so much The works of light as influence As you then joined are Unto the Soul so it again By its connexion doth pertain To that first cause Who giving all their proper Laws By you doth best declare How he at first b'ing hid Within the veil of an eternal night Did frame for us a second light And after bid It serve for ordinary sight His Image then you are If there be any yet who doubt What power it is that doth look out Through that your black He will not an example lack If he suppose that there Were grey or hasle Glass And that through them though sight or soul might shine He must yet at the last define That beams which pass Through black cannot but be divine To her Hair BLack beamy hairs which so seem to arise From the extraction of those eyes That into you she destin-like doth spin The beams she spares what time her soul retires And by those hallow'd fires Keeps house all night within Since from within her awful front you shine As threads of life which she doth twine And thence ascending with the fatal rays Do crown those temples where Love's wonders wrought We afterwards see brought To vulgar light and praise Lighten through all your regions till we find The causes why we are grown blind That when we should your Glories comprehend Our sight recoils and turneth back again And doth as 't were in vain It self to you extend Is it because past black there is not found A fix'd or horizontal bound And so as it doth terminate the white It may be said all colours to infold And in that hand to hold Somewhat of infinite Or is it that the centre of our sight Being vailed in its proper night Discerns your blackness by some other sense Then that by which it doth py'd colours see Which only therefore be Known by their difference Tell us when on her front in curls you lye So diapred from that
well-rais'd building fall While they do this your Forragers command The Caterpillars to devour their land And with them Wasps your wing'd-worm-horsmen bring To charge in troop those Rebels with their sting All this unless your beauty they confess And now sweet Mistress let m' a while digress T' admire these noble Worms whom I invoke And not the Muses You that eat through Oak And bark will you spare Paper and my Verse Because your praises they do here reherse Brave Legions then sprung from the mighty race Of Man corrupted and which hold the place Of his undoubted Issue you that are Brain-born Minerva-like and like her warr Well-arm'd compleat-mail'd-jointed Souldiers Whose force Herculean links in pieces tears To you the vengeance of all spill-bloods falls Beast-eating Men Men-eating Cannibals Death priviledg'd were you in sunder smit You do not lose your life but double it Best framed types of the immortal Soul Which in your selves and in each part are whole Last-living Creatures heirs of all the earth For when all men are dead it is your birth When you dy your brave self-kill'd Generall For nothing else can kill him doth end all What vermine breeding body then thinks scorn His flesh should be by your brave fury torn Willing to you this Carkass I submit A gift so free I do not care for it Which yet you shall not take untill I see My Mistress first reveal her self to me Mean while Great Mistress whom my soul admires Grant me your true picture who it desires That he your matchiefs beauty might maintain ' Gainst all men that will quarrels entertain For a Flesh-Mistress the worst I can do Is but to keep the way that leads to you And howsoever the event doth prove To have Revenge below Reward above Hear from my bodies prison this my Call Who from my mouth-grate and eye-window bawl Epitaph on Sir Philip Sidney lying in St. Paul's without a Monument to be fastned upon the Church door Reader WIthin this Church Sir Philip Sidney lies Nor is it fit that I should more acquaint Lest superstition rise And Men adore Souldiers their Martyr Lovers their Saint Epitaph for himself Reader THe Monument which thou beholdest here Presents Edward Lord Herbert to thy sight A man who was so free from either hope or fear To have or loose this ordinary light That when to elements his body turned were He knew that as those elements would fight So his Immortal Soul should find above With his Creator Peace Joy Truth and Love Sonnet YOu well compacted Groves whose light shade Mixt equally produce nor heat nor cold Either to burn the young or freeze the old But to one even temper being made Upon a Grave embroidering through each Glade An Airy Silver and a Sunny Gold So cloath the poorest that they do behold Themselves in riches which can never fade While the wind whistles and the birds do sing While your twigs clip and while the leaves do friss While the fruit ripens which those trunks do bring Sensless to all but love do you not spring Pleasure of such a kind as truly is A self-renewing vegetable bliss Made upon the Groves near Merlow Castle To the C. of D. 1. SInce in your face as in a beauteous sphere Delight and state so sweetly mix'd appear That Love 's not light nor Gravity severe All your attractive Graces seem to draw A modest rigor keepeth so in aw That in their turns each of them gives the law 2. Therefore though chast and vertuous desire Through that your native mildness may aspire Untill a just regard it doth acquire Yet if Love thence a forward hope project You can by vertue of a sweet neglect Convert it streight to reverend respect 3. Thus as in your rare temper we may find An excellence so perfect in each kind That a fair body hath a fairer mind So all the beams you diversly do dart As well on th' understanding as the heart Of love and honour equal cause impart Ditty 1. WHy dost thou hate return instead of love And with such merciless despite My faith and hope requite Oh! if th' affection cannot move Learn Innocence yet of the Dove And thy disdain to juster bounds confine Or if t'wards Man thou equally decline The rules of Justice and of Mercy too Thou may'st thy love to such a point refine As it will kill more then thy hate can do 2. Love love Melania then though death insue Yet it is a greater fate To dye through love then hate Rather a victory persue To Beauties lawful conquest due Then tyrant eyes invenom with disdain Or if thy power thou would'st so maintain As equally to be both lov'd and dread Let timely Kisses call to life again Him whom thy eyes have Planet-strucken dead 3. Kiss kiss Melania then and do not stay Until these sad effects appear Which now draw on so near That did'st thou longer help delay My soul must fly so fast away As would at once both life and love divorce Or if I needs must dye without remorse Kiss and embalm me so with that sweet breath That while thou triumph'st o'r Love and his force I may triumph yet over Fate and Death Elegy for Doctor Dunn WHat though the vulgar and received praise With which each common Poet strives to raise His worthless Patron seem to give the height Of a true Excellence yet as the weight Forc'd from his Centre must again recoil So every praise as if it took some foil Only because it was not well imploy'd Turns to those senseless principles and void Which in some broken syllables being couch'd Cannot above an Alphabet be vouch'd In which dissolved state they use to rest Until some other in new forms invest Their easie matter striving so to fix Glory with words and make the parts to mix But since praise that wants truth like words that want Their proper meaning doth it self recant Such tearms however elevate and high Are but like Meteors which the pregnant Sky Varies in divers figures till at last They either be by some dark Cloud o'rcast Or wanting inward sustenance do devolve And into their first Elements resolve Praises like Garments then if loose and wide Are subject to fall off if gay and py'd Make men ridiculous the just and grave Are those alone which men may wear and have How fitting were it then each had that part Which is their due And that no fraudulent art Could so disguise the truth but they might own Their rights and by that property be known For since praise is publick inheritance If any Inter-Commoner do chance To give or take more praise then doth belong Unto his part he doth so great a wrong That all who claim an equal interest May him implead untill he do devest His usurpations and again restore Unto the publick what was theirs before Praises should then like definitions be Round neat convertible such as agree To persons so that were their names conceal'd Must
he excludeth Love These eyes again then eyes shall see And hands again these hands enfold And all chast pleasures can be told Shall with us everlasting be For if no use of sense remain When bodies once this life forsake Or they could no delight partake Why should they ever rise again And if every imperfect mind Make love the end of knowledge here How perfect will our love be where All imperfection is refin'd Let then no doubt Celinda touch Much less your fairest mind invade Were not our souls immortal made Our equal loves can make them such So when one wing can make no way Two joyned can themselves dilate So can two persons propagate When singly either would decay So when from hence we shall be gone And be no more nor you nor I As one anothers mystery Each shall be both yet both but one This said in her up-lifted face Her eyes which did that beauty crown Were like two starrs that having faln down Look up again to find their place While such a moveless silent peace Did seize on their becalmed sense One would have thought some Influence Their ravish'd spirits did possess The Green-Sickness Beauty 1. THough the pale white within your cheeks compos'd And doubtful light unto your eye confin'd Though your short breath not from it self unloos'd And careless motions of your equal mind Argue your beauties are not all disclos'd 2. Yet as a rising beam when first 't is shown Points fairer then when it ascends more red Or as a budding Rose when first 't is blown Smells sweeter far then when it is more spread As all things best by principles are known 3. So in your green and flourishing estate A beauty is discern'd more worthy love Then that which further doth it self dilate And those degrees of variation prove Our vulgar wits so much do celebrate 4. Thus though your eyes dart not that piercing blaze Which doth in busie Lovers looks appear It is because you do not need to gaze On other object then your proper sphere Nor wander further then to run that maze 5. So if you want that blood which must succeed And give at last a tincture to your skin It is because neither in outward deed Nor inward thought you yet admit that sin For which your Cheeks a guilty blush should need 6. So if your breath do not so freely flow It is because you love not to consume That vital treasure which you do bestow As well to vegetate as to perfume Your Virgin leaves as fast as they do grow 7. Yet stay not here Love for his right will call You were not born to serve your only will Nor can your beauty be perpetual 'T is your perfection for to ripen still And to be gather'd rathen then to fall The Green-Sickness Beauty FRom thy pale look while angry Love doth seem With more imperiousness to give his Law Then where he blushingly doth beg esteem We may observe py'd beauty in such aw That the brav'st Colour under her command Affrighted oft before you doth retire While like a Statue of your self you stand In such symmetrique form as doth require No lustre but his own As then in vain One should flesh-colouring to Statues add So were it to your native White a Stain If it in other ornaments were clad Then what your rich proportions do give Which in a boundless fair being unconfin'd Exalted in your soul so seem to live That they become an emblem of your mind That so who to your Orient White should joyn Those fading qualities most eyes adore Were but like one who gilding Silver Coin Gave but occasion to suspect it more La Gralletta Gallante OR The Sun-burn'd Exotique Beauty 1. CHild of the Sun in whom his Rays appear Hatch'd to that lustre as doth make thee wear Heav'ns livery in thy skin What need'st thou fear The injury of Air and change of Clime When thy exalted form is so sublime As to transcend all power of change or time 2. How proud are they that in their hair but show Some part of thee thinking therein they ow The greatest beauty Nature can bestow When thou art so much fairer to the sight As beams each where diffused are more bright Then their deriv'd and secondary light 3. But thou art cordial both to sight and taste While each rare fruit seems in his time to haste To ripen in thee till at length they waste Themselves to inward sweets from whence again They like Elixirs passing through each vein An endless circulation do maintain 4. How poor are they then whom if we but greet Think that raw juyce which in their lips we meet Enough to make us hold their Kisses sweet When that rich odour which in thee is smelt Can it self to a balmy liquor melt And make it to our inward senses felt 5. Leave then thy Country Soil and Mothers home Wander a Planet this way till thou come To give our Lovers here their fatal doom While if our beauties scorn to enjoy thine It will be just they to a Jaundise pine And by thy Gold shew like some Copper-mine Platonick Love 1. MAdam your beauty and your lovely parts Would scarce admit poetick praise and Arts As they are Loves most sharp and piercing darts Though as again they only wound and kill The more deprav'd affections of our will You claim a right to commendation still 2. For as you can unto that height refine All Loves delights as while they do incline Unto no vice they so become divine We may as well attain your excellence As without help of any outward sense Would make us grow a pure Intelligence 3. And as a Soul thus being quite abstract Complies not properly with any act Which from its better Being may detract So through the virtuous habits you infuse It is enough that we may like and chuse Without presuming yet to take or use 4. Thus Angels in their starry Orbs proceed Unto affection without other need Then that they still on contemplation feed Though as they may unto this Orb descend You can when you would so much lower bend Give joys beyond what man can comprehend 5. Do not refuse then Madam to appear Since every radiant Beam comes from your Sphere Can so much more then any else endear As while through them we do discern each Grace The multiplied lights from every place Will turn and Circle with their rays your face Platonick Love 1. MAdam believe 't Love is not such a toy As it is sport but for the Idle Boy Or wanton Youth since it can entertain Our serious thoughts and make us know how vain All time is spent we do not thus imploy 2. For though strong passion oft on youth doth seize It is not yet affection but disease Cause from repletion which their blood doth vex So that they love not Woman but the Sex And care no more then how themselves to please 3. Whereas true Lovers check that appetite Which would presume