I can propose Those grateful livies which my pen would raise Are stricken dumb or bury'd in amaze Therefore as once in Athens there was shown An Altar built unto the God unknown My ignorant devotions must by guess This blind return of gratitude address Till You vouchsafe to shew me where and how I may to this revealed Goddess bow The Forfeiture MY Dearest To let you or the world know What Debt of service I do truly ow To your unpattern'd self were to require A language onely form'd in the desire Of him that writes It is the common fate Of greatest duties to evaporate In silent meaning as we often see Fires by their too much fuel smother'd be Small Obligations may find vent and speak When greater the unable debtor break And such are mine to you whose favours store Hath made me poorer then I was before For I want words and language to declare How strict my Bond or large your bounties are Since nothing in my desp'rate fortune found Can payment make nor yet the summe compounâ— You must lose all or else of force accept The body of a Bankrupt for your debt Then Love your Bond to Execution sue And take my self as forfeited to you The Departure AN ELEGY VVEre I to leave no more then a good friend Or but to hear the summons to my end Which I have long'd for I could then with ease Attire my grief in words and so appease That passion in my bosom which outgrowes The language of strict verse or largest prose But here I am quite lost writing to you All that I pen or think is forc't and new My faculties run cross and prove as weak T' indite this melancholly task as speak Indeed all words are vain well might I spare This rendring of my tortur'd thoughts in ayre Or sighing paper My infectious grief Strikes inward and affords me no relief But still a deeper wound to lose a sight More lov'd then health and dearer then the light But all of us were not at the same time Brought forth nor are we billited in one clime Nature hath pitch't mankind at several rates Making our places diverse as our fates Unto that universal law I bow Though with unwilling knee and do allow Her cruell justice which dispos'd us so That we must counter to our wishes go 'T was part of mans first curse which order'd well We should not alway with our likings dwell 'T is onely the Triumphant Church where we Shall in unsever'd Neighbourhood agree Go then best soul and where You must appear Restore the Day to that dull Hemisphear Nere may the hapless Night You leave behind Darken the comforts of Your purer mind May all the blessings Wishes can invent Enrich your dayes and crown them with content And though You travel down into the West May Your lifes Sun stand fixed in the East Far from the weeping set nor may my car Take in that killing whisper You once were Thus kiss I your fair hands taking my leave As Prisoners at the Bar their doom receive All joyes go with You let sweet peace attend You on the way and wait Your journeys end But let Your discontents and sowrer fate Remain with me born off in my Retrait Might all your crosses in that sheet of lead Which folds my heavy heart lie buried 'T is the last service I would do You and the best My wishes ever meant or tongue profest Once more I take my leave And once for all Our parting shews so like a funerall It strikes my soul which hath most right to be Chief Mourner at this sad solemnitie And think not Dearest ' cause this parting knell Is rung in verses that at Your farewell I onely mourn in Poetry and Ink No my Pens melancholy Plommets sink So low they dive where th' hid affections sit Blotting that Paper where my mirth was writ Believ 't that sorrow truest is which lies Deep in the breast not floating in the eies And he with saddest circumstance doth part Who seals his farewell with a bleeding heart PARADOX That it is best for a Young Maid to marry an Old Man FAir one why cannot you an old man love He may as useful and more constant prove Experience shews you that maturer years Are a security against those fears Youth will expose you to whose wild desire As it is hot so 't is as rash as fire Mark how the blaze extinct in a shes lies Leaving no brand nor embers when it dies Which might the flame renew thus soon consumes Youths wandring hear and vanishes in fumes When ages riper love unapt to stray Through loose and giddy change of objects may In your warm bosom like a cynder lie Quickned and kindled by your sparkling eie 'T is not deni'd there are extremes in both Which may the fancie move to like or loath Yet of the two you better shall endure To marry with the Cramp then Calenture Who would in wisdom choose the Torrid Zone Therein to settle a Plantation Merchants can tell you those hot Climes were made But at the longest for a three years trade And though the Indies cast the sweeter smell Yet health and plenty do more Northward dwell ' For where the raging Sun-beams burn the earth Her scorched mantle withers into dearth Yet when that drought becomes the Harvests curse Snow doth the tender Corn most kindly nurse Why now then wooe you not some snowy head To take you in meer pitty to his bed I doubt the harder task were to perswade Him to love you for if what I have said In Virgins as in Vegetals holds true Hee 'l prove the better Nurse to cherish you Some men we know renown'd for wisdom grown By old records and antique Medalls shown Why ought not women then be held most wise Who can produce living antiquities Besides if care of that main happiness Your sex triumphs in doth your thoughts possess I mean your beauty from decay to keep No wash nor mask is like an old mans sleep Young wives need never to be Sun-burnt fear Who their old husbands for Umbrellaes wear How russet looks an Orchard on the hill To one that 's water'd by some neighh'ring Drill Are not the floated Medowes ever seen To flourish soonest and hold longest green You may be sure no moist'ning lacks that Bride Who lies with Winter thawing by her side She-should be fruitful too as fields that joyne Unto the melting waste of Appenine Whil'st the cold morning-drops bedew the Rose It doth nor leaf nor smell nor colour lose Then doubt not Sweet Age hath supplies of wet To keep You like that flowr in water set Dripping Catarrhs and Fontinells are things Will make You think You grew betwixt two Springs And should You not think so You scarce allow The force or Merit of Your Marriage-Vow Where maids a new Creed learn must from thence Believe against their own or others sence Else Love will nothing differ from neglect Which turns not to a vertue
benights my day Sad eyes like mine and wounded hearts Shun the bright rayes which beauty darts Unwelcome is the Sun that pries Into those shades where sorrow lies Go shine on happy things To me That blessing is a miserie Whom thy fierce Sun not warmes but burnes Like that the sooty Indian turnes I le serve the night and there confin'd Wish thee less fair or else more kind SONNET DRy those fair those chrystal eyes Which like growing fountains rise To drown their banks Griefs sullen brooks Would better flow in furrow'd looks Thy lovely face was never meant To be the shoar of discontent Then clear those watrish starres again Which else portend a lasting rain Lest the clouds which settle there Prolong my Winter all the Year And the example others make In love with sorrow for thy sake SONNET VVHen I entreat either thou wilt not hear Or else my suit arriving at thy ear Cools and dies there A strange extremitie To freeze i th' Sun and in the shade to frie. Whil'st all my blasted hopes decline so soon T is Evening with me though at high Noon For pity to thy self if not to me Think time will ravish what I lose from thee If my scorcht heart wither through thy delay Thy beauty withers too And swift decay Arrests thy Youth So thou whil'st I am slighted Wilt be too soon with age or sorrow nighted To a Lady who sent we a copy of verses at my going to bed LAdy your art or wit could nere devise To shame me more then in this nights surprise Why I am quite unready and my eye Now winking like my candle doth deny To guide my hand if it had ought to write Nor can I make my drowsie sense indite Which by your verses musick as a spell Sent from the Sybellean Oracle Is charm'd and bound in wonder and delight Faster then all the leaden chains of night What pity is it then you should so ill Employ the bounty of your flowing quill As to expend on him your bedward thought Who can acknowledge that large love in nought But this lean wish that fate soon send you those Who may requite your rhimes with midnight prose Mean time may all delights and pleasing Theams Like Masquers revell in your Mâ—â—den dreams Whil'st dull to write and to do more unmeet I as the night invites me fall asleep The Pink. FAir one you did on me beâ—tow Comparisons too sweet to ow And but I found them sent from you I durst not think they could be true But 't is your uncontrolled power Goddess-like to produce a flower And by your breath without more seed Make that a Pink which was a Weed Because I would be loth to miss So sweet a Metamorphosis Upon what stalk soere I grow Disdain not you sometimes to blow And cherish by your Virgin eye What in your frown would droop and die So shall my thankful leaf repay Perfumed wishes every day And o're your fortune breathe a spell Which may his obligation tell Who though he nought but she can give Must ever your Sweet creature live To his Friends of Christ-Church upon the mislike of the Marriage of the Arts acted at Woodstock BUt is it true the Court mislik't the Play That Christ Church and the Aâ—ts have lost the day That Ignoramus should so far excell Their Hobby horse from ours hath born the Bell Troth you are justly serv'd that would present Ought unto them but shallow merriment Or to your Marriage-table did admit Guests that are stronger far in smell then wit Had some quaint Bawdry larded ev'ry Scene Some fawning Sycophant or courted queane Had there appear'd some sharp cross-garter'd man Whom their loud laugh might nick-name Puritan Cas'd up in factious breeches and small ruffe That hates the surplis and defies the cuffe Then sure they would have given applause to crown That which their ignorance did now cry down Let me advise when next you do bestow Your pains on men that do but little know You do no Chorus nor a Comment lack Which may expound and construe ev'ry Act That it be short and slight for if 't be good T is long and neither lik't nor understood Know t is Court fashion still to discommend All that which they want brain to comprehend The Surrender MY once dear Love hapless that I no more Must call thee so the rich affections store That fed our hopes lies now exhaust and spent Like summes of treasure unto Bankrupts lent We that did nothing study but the way To love each other with which thoughts the day Rose with delight to us and with them set Must learn the hateful Art how to forget We that did nothing wish that Heav'n could give Beyond our selves nor did desire to live Beyond that wish all these now cancell must As if not writ in faith but words and dust Yet witness those cleer vowes which Lovers make Witness the chast desires that never brake Into unruly heats witness that brest Which in thy bosom anchor'd his whole rest T is no default in us I dare acquite Thy Maiden faith thy purpose fair and white As thy pure self Cross Planets did envie â—s to each other and Heaven did untie â— after then vowes could binde O that the Starres When Lovers meet should stand oppos'd in warres Since then some higher Destinies command Let us not strive nor labour to withstand What is past help The longest date of grief Can never yield a hope of our relief And though we waste our selves in moist laments Tears may drown us but not our discontents Fold back our arms take home our fruitless loves That must new fortunes trie like Turtle Doves Dislodged from their haunts We must in tears â—nwind a love knit up in many years â—n this last kiss I here surrender thee â—ack to thy self so thou again art free â—hou in another sad as that resend â—he truest heart that Lover ere did lend Now turn from each So fare our sever'd hearts â—s the divore't soul from her body parts The Legacy My dearest Love when thou and I must part And th' icy hand of death shall seize that heart Which is all thine within some spacious will He leave no blanks for Legacies to fill T is my ambition to die one of those Who but himself hath nothing to dispose And since that is already thine what need I to re-give it by some newer deed Yet take it once again Free circumstance Does oft the value of mean things advance Who thus repeats what he bequeath'd before Proclaims his bounty richer then his store But let me not upon my love bestow What is not worth the giving I do ow Somwhat to dust my bodies pamper'd care Hungry corruption and the worm will share That mouldring relick which in earth must lie Would prove a gift of horrour to thine eie With this cast ragge of my mortalitie â—et all my faults and errours buried he And as my sear-cloth rots so may kind fare Those
sailes That all designes which must on thee embark May be securely plac't as in the Ark. May'st thou where ere thy streamers shall display Enforce the bold disputers to obey That they whose pens are sharper then their swords May yield in fact what they deny'd in words Thus when th' amazed world our Seas shall see Shut from Usurpers to their own Lord free Thou may'st returning from the conquer'd Main With thine own Triumphs be crown'd Soveraign AN EPITAPH On his most honoured Friend Richard Earl of Dorset LEt no profane ignoble foot tread neer This hall ow'd peece of earth Dorset lies here A small sad relique of a noble spirit Free as the air and ample as his merit Whose least perfection was large and great Enough to make a common man compleat A soul refin'd and cull'd from many men That reconcil'd the sword unto the pen Using both well No proud forgetting Lord But mindful of mean names and of his word One that did love for honour not for ends And had the noblest way of making friends By loving first One that did know the Court Yet understood it better by report Then practice for he nothing took from thence But the kings favour for his recompence One for religion or his countreys good That valu'd not his Fortune nor his blood One high in fair opinion rich in praise And full of all we could have wisht but dayes He that is warn'd of this and shall forbear To vent a sigh for him or lend a tear May he live long and scorn'd unpiti'd fall And want a mourner at his funerall The Extquy ACcept thou Shrine of my dead Saint Insteed of Dirges this complaint And for sweet flowres to crown thy hearse Receive a strew of weeping verse From thy griev'd friend whom thou might'st see Quite melted into tears for thee Dear loss since thy untimely fate My task hath been to meditate On thee on thee thou art the book The library whereon I look Though almost blind For thee lov'd clay I languish out not live the day Using no other exercise But what I practise with mine eyes By which wet glasses I find out How lazily time creeps about To one that mourns this onely this My exercise and bus'ness is So I compute the weary houres With sighs dissolved into showres Nor wonder if my time go thus Backward and most preposterous Thou hast benighted me thy set This Eve of blackness did beget Who was 't my day though overcast Before thou had'st thy Noon-tide past And I remember must in tears Thou scarce had'st seen so many years â—s Day tells houres By thy cleer Sun â—y love and fortune first did run â—ut thou wilt never more appear â—olded within my Hemisphear â—ince both thy light and motion â—ike a fled Star is fall'n and gon And twixt me and my soules dear wish The earth now interposed is Which such a strange eclipse doth make As ne're was read in Almanake I could allow thee for a time To darken me and my sad Clime Were it a month a year or ten I would thy exile live till then And all that space my mirth adjourn So thou wouldst promise to return And putting off thy ashy shrowd At length disperse this sorrows cloud But woe is me the longest date Too narrow is to calculate These empty hopes never shall I Be so much blest as to descry A glimpse of thee till that day come Which shall the earth to cinders doome And a fierce Feaver must calcine The body of this world like thine My Little World that fit of fire Once off our bodies shall aspire To our soules bliss then we shall rise And view our selves with cleerer eyes In that calm Region where no night Can hide us from each others sight Mean time thou hast her earth much good May my harm do thee Since it stood With Heavens will I might not call Her longer mine I give thee all My short-liv'd right and interest In her whom living I lov'd best With a most free and bounteous grief I give thee what I could not keep Be kind to her and prethee look Thou write into thy Dooms-day book Each parcell of this Rarity Which in thy Casket shrin'd doth ly See that thou make thy reck'ning streight And yield her back again by weight For thou must audit on thy trust Each graine and atome of this dust As thou wilt answer Him that lent Not gave thee my dear Monument So close the ground and 'bout her shade Black curtains draw my Bride is laid Sleep on my Love in thy cold bed Never to be disquieted My last good night Thou wilt not wakâ— Till I thy fate shall overtake Till age or grief or sickness must Marry my body to that dust It so much loves and fill the room My heart keeps empty in thy Tomb. Stay for me there I will not faile To meet thee in that hallow Vale. And think not much of my delay I am already on the way And follow thee with all the speed Desire can make or sorrows breed Each minute is a short degree And ev'ry houre a step towards thee At night when I betake to rest Next morn I rise neerer my West Of life almost by eight houres saile Then when sleep breath'd his drowsie gale Thus from the Sun my Bottom stears And my dayes Compass downward bears Nor labour I to stemme the tide Through which to Thee I swiftly glide 'T is true with shame and grief I yield Thou like the Vann first took'st the field And gotten hast the victory In thus adventuring to dy Before me whose more years might crave A just precedence in the grave But heark My Pulse like a soft Drum Beats my approch tells Thee I come And slow howere my marches be I shall at last sit down by Thee The thought of this bids me go on And wait my dissolution With hope and comfort Dear forgive The crime I am content to live Divided with but half a heart Till we shall meet and never part The Anniverse AN ELEGY SO soon grown old hast thou been six years dead Poor earth once by my Love inhabited And must I live to calculate the time To which thy blooming youth could never climbe But fell in the ascent yet have not I Studi'd enough thy losses history How happy were mankind if Death's strict lawes Consum'd our lamentations like the cause Or that our grief turning to dust might end With the dissolved body of a friend But sacred Heaven O how just thou art In stamping deaths impression on that heart Which through thy favours would grow insolent Were it not physick't by sharp discontent If then it stand resolv'd in thy decree That still I must doom'd to a Desart be Sprung out of my lone thoughts which know no path But what my own misfortune beaten hath If thou wilt bind me living to a coarse And I must slowly waste I then of force Stoop to thy great appointment and obey That will