The lovely passion each to other bare,
With the resemblance of that matchless pair.
Narcissus to the thing for which he pined,
Was not more like than yours to her fair mind,
Save that she graced the several parts of life,
A spotless virgin, and a faultless wife.
Such was the sweet converse 'twixt her and you,
As that she holds with her associates now.
How false is hope, and how regardless fate, That such a love should have so short a date! Lately I saw her sighing part from thee; (Alas that that the last farewell should be!) So looked Astræa, her remove designed, On those distressèd friends she left behind. Consent in virtue knit your hearts so fast, That still the knot, in spite of death, does last; For as your tears, and sorrow-wounded soul, Prove well that on your part this bond is whole, So all we know of what they do above, Is that they happy are, and that they love. Let dark oblivion, and the hollow grave, Content themselves our frailer thoughts to have; Well chosen love is never taught to die, But with our nobler part invades the sky. Then grieve no more that one so heavenly shaped The crooked hand of trembling age escaped; Rather, since we beheld her not decay, But that she vanished so entire away, Her wondrous beauty, and her goodness, merit We should suppose that some propitious spirit In that celestial form frequented here, And is not dead, but ceases to appear.
ANGER, in hasty words or blows,
Itself discharges on our foes;
And sorrow, too, finds some relief
In tears, which wait upon our grief;
So every passion, but fond love,
Unto its own redress does move;
But that alone the wretch inclines
To what prevents his own designs;
Makes him lament, and sigh, and weep,
Disordered, tremble, fawn and creep;
Postures which render him despised,
Where he endeavours to be prized.
For women, (born to be controlled)
Stoop to the forward and the bold;
Affect the haughty and the proud,
The gay, the frolic, and the loud.
Who first the generous steed oppressed,
Not kneeling did salute the beast;
But with high courage, life, and force,
Approaching, tamed the unruly horse.
Unwisely we the wiser East
Pity, supposing them oppressed
With tyrants' force, whose law is will,
By which they govern, spoil and kill:
Each nymph, but moderately fair,
Commands with no less rigour here.
Should some brave Turk, that walks among
His twenty lasses, bright and young,
And beckons to the willing dame,
Preferred to quench his present flame,
Behold as many gallants here,
With modest guise and silent fear,
All to one female idol bend,
While her high pride does scarce descend
To mark their follies, he would swear
That these her guard of eunuchs were,
And that a more majestic queen,
Or humbler slaves, he had not seen.
All this with indignation spoke,
In vain I struggled with the yoke
Of mighty Love; that conquering look,
When next beheld, like lightning strook
My blasted soul, and made me bow
Lower than those I pitied now.
So the tall stag, upon the brink
Of some smooth stream about to drink,
Surveying there his armèd head,
With shame remembers that he fled
The scornèd dogs, resolves to try
The combat next; but if their cry
Invades again his trembling ear,
He straight resumes his wonted care,
Leaves the untasted spring behind,
And, winged with fear, outflies the wind.
FOR DRINKING OF HEALTHS.
LET brutes and vegetals, that cannot think,
So far as drought and nature urges, drink;
A more indulgent mistress guides our spirits,
Reason, that dares beyond our appetites,
(She would our care, as well as thirst, redress)
And with divinity rewards excess.
Deserted Ariadne, thus supplied,
Did perjured Theseus' cruelty deride;
Bacchus embraced, from her exalted thought
Banished the man, her passion, and his fault.
Bacchus and Phoebus are by Jove allied,
And each by other's timely heat supplied;
All that the grapes owe to his ripening fires
Is paid in numbers which their juice inspires.
Wine fills the veins, and healths are understood
To give our friends a title to our blood;
Who, naming me, doth warm his courage so,
Shows for my sake what his bold hand would do.
OF MY LADY ISABELLA,
PLAYING ON THE LUTE.
SUCH moving sounds from such a careless touch!
So unconcerned herself, and we so much!
What art is this, that with so little pains
Transports us thus, and o'er our spirits reigns?
The trembling strings about her fingers crowd,
And tell their joy for every kiss aloud.
Small force there needs to make them tremble so;
Touched by that hand, who would not tremble too?
Here love takes stand, and while she charms the ear,
Empties his quiver on the listening deer.
Music so softens and disarms the mind,
That not an arrow does resistance find.
Thus the fair tyrant celebrates the prize,
And acts herself the triumph of her eyes:
So Nero once, with harp in hand, surveyed
His flaming Rome, and as it burned he played.
OF MRS. ARDEN.*
EHOLD, and listen, while the fair
Breaks in sweet sounds the willing air,
And with her own breath fans the fire
Which her bright eyes do first inspire.
What reason can that love control,
Which more than one way courts the soul?
So when a flash of lightning falls
On our abodes, the danger calls
For human aid, which hopes the flame
To conquer, though from heaven it came;
But if the winds with that conspire,
Men strive not, but deplore the fire.
* Fenton suggests that this lady was probably either a maid of honour, or a gentlewoman of the bed chamber to King Charles the First's Queen; perhaps one of the ladies that acted in Montague's Shepherd's Paradise, ridiculed in Suckling's Session of the Poets.
OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE DWARFS.*
ESIGN, or chance, makes others wive;
But Nature did this match contrive;
Eve might as well have Adam fled,
As she denied her little bed
To him, for whom Heaven seemed to frame,
And measure out, this only dame.
Thrice happy is that humble pair,
Beneath the level of all care!
Over whose heads those arrows fly
Of sad distrust and jealousy;
Secured in as high extreme,
As if the world held none but them.
To him the fairest nymphs do show
Like moving mountains, topped with snow;
And every man a Polypheme
Does to his Galatea seem;
None may presume her faith to prove;
He proffers death that proffers love.
Ah, Chloris? that kind Nature thus
From all the world had severed us;
Creating for ourselves us two,
As love has me for only you!
LOVE'S FAREWELL.
READING the path to nobler ends,
A long farewell to love I gave,
* Richard Gibson, a page of the back stairs, and Mrs. Anne Shepherd. They were both about the same height-three feet ten inches. Charles I. sanctioned the wedding by his presence, and gave away the bride. The dwarfs had nine children, five of whom attained maturity, and grew to the ordinary standard. Gibson, who appears to have cultivated painting with some success, lived to the age of seventyfive, and his wife survived him nearly twenty years.
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