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
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
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