But she that did a virgin seem,
Possessed, appears a wandering stream;
For his supposed love, a third

Lays greedy hold upon a bird,

And stands amazed to find his dear
A wild inhabitant of the air.

To these old tales such nymphs as you
Give credit, and still make them new;
The amorous now like wonders find
In the swift changes of your mind.
But, Cælia, if you apprehend
The muse of your incensed friend,
Nor would that he record your blame,
And make it live, repeat the same;
Again deceive him, and again,

And then he swears he'll not complain;
For still to be deluded so,

Is all the pleasure lovers know;
Who, like good falconers, take delight,
Not in the quarry, but the flight.

TO A LADY,

FROM WHOM HE RECEIVED A SILVER PEN.

MAD

ADAM! intending to have tried
The silver favour which you gave,
In ink the shining point I dyed,
And drenched it in the sable wave;
When, grieved to be so foully stained,
On you it thus to me complained.

'Suppose you had deserved to take
From her fair hand so fair a boon,
Yet how deservèd I to make
So ill a change, who ever won
Immortal praise for what I wrote,
Instructed by her noble thought?

WALLER.

10

'I, that expressed her commands
To mighty lords, and princely dames,
Always most welcome to their hands,
Proud that I would record their names,
Must now be taught an humble style,
Some meaner beauty to beguile !'

So I, the wrongèd pen to please,
Make it my humble thanks express,
Unto your ladyship, in these:
And now 'tis forced to confess
That your great self did ne'er indite,
Nor that, to one more noble, write.

ON THE HEAD OF A STAG.

we some antique hero's strength Learn by his lance's weight and length; As these vast beams express the beast, Whose shady brows alive they dressed. Such game, while yet the world was new, The mighty Nimrod did pursue. What huntsman of our feeble race, Or dogs, dare such a monster chase, Resembling, with each blow he strikes, The charge of a whole troop of pikes? O fertile head! which every year Could such a crop of wonder bear! The teeming earth did never bring So soon, so hard, so huge a thing; Which might it never have been cast, (Each year's growth added to the last) These lofty branches had supplied The earth's bold sons' prodigious pride; Heaven with these engines had been scaled, When mountains heaped on mountains failed.

THE MISER'S SPEECH.

IN A MASK.

ALLS of this metal slacked Atlanta's pace,

BALLS

And on the amorous youth* bestowed the race; Venus, (the nymph's mind measuring by her own) Whom the rich spoils of cities overthrown Had prostrated to Mars, could well advise The adventurous lover how to gain the prize. Nor less may Jupiter to gold ascribe; For, when he turned himself into a bribe, Who can blame Danae, or the brazen tower, That they withstood not that almighty shower? Never till then did love make Jove put on A form more bright, and nobler than his own; Nor were it just, would he resume that shape, That slack devotion should his thunder 'scape. "Twas not revenge for grieved Apollo's wrong, Those ass's ears on Midas' temples hung, But fond repentance of his happy wish, Because his meat grew metal like his dish. Would Bacchus bless me so, I'd constant hold Unto my wish, and die creating gold.

TO CHLORIS.†

HLORIS! since first our calm of peace
Was frighted hence, this good we find,
Your favours with your fears increase,
And growing mischiefs make

* Hippomenes.

you kind.

In the first edition, this piece was entitled To Chloris, upon a favour received. Mr. Fenton is led to doubt its genuineness from the following memorandum, which he found written, in an unknown hand, opposite the title of the verses, in an old copy of Waller's poems: 'Which Mr. Waller says is suppositious, in an edition given my father (out of which I transcribed the additions into this), faultily

So the fair tree, which still preserves
Her fruit and state while no wind blows,
In storms from that uprightness swerves,
And the glad earth about her strows
With treasure, from her yielding boughs.

S

TO A LADY IN RETIREMENT.

EES not my love how time resumes
The glory which he lent these flowers?
Though none should taste of their perfumes,
Yet must they live but some few hours;
Time what we forbear devours!

Had Helen, or the Egyptian Queen,*
Been ne'er so thrifty of their graces,
Those beauties must at length have been
The spoil of age, which finds out faces
In the most retired places.

Should some malignant planet bring
A barren drought, or ceaseless shower,
Upon the autumn or the spring,
And spare us neither fruit nor flower;
Winter would not stay an hour.
Could the resolve of love's neglect
Preserve you from the violation
Of coming years, then more respect
Were due to so divine a fashion,
Nor would I indulge my passion.

printed, but corrected by the author under his own hand.' This unauthenticated memorandum is simply absurd. Waller could not have employed the term 'suppositious,' which implies a doubt, concerning a matter upon which he could have had no doubt. The internal evidence of the piece is conclusive of the authorship. There are few verses of this kind in the whole collection more distinctly marked by the hand of Waller.

* Cleopatra.

TO MR. GEORGE SANDYS,*

ON HIS TRANSLATION OF SOME PARTS OF THE BIBLE.

HOW bold a work attempts that pen,
Which would enrich our vulgar tongue
With the high raptures of those men
Who, here, with the same spirit sung
Wherewith they now assist the choir
Of angels, who their songs admire!

Whatever those inspired souls
Were urged to express, did shake
The aged deep, and both the poles;

Their numerous thunder could awake

Dull earth, which does with Heaven consent
To all they wrote, and all they meant.

Say, sacred bard! what could bestow
Courage on thee to soar so high?

Tell me, brave friend! what helped thee so
To shake off all mortality?

To light this torch, thou hast climbed higher
Than he who stole celestial fire.†

CHLORIS AND HYLAS.

MADE TO A SARABAND.

CHLORIS.

YLAS, oh Hylas! why sit we mute,
Now that each bird saluteth the spring?

*The translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses, son of Archbishop Sandys, and author, in addition to a variety of other publications, of an elaborate work of travels, which went through several editions. The translations that suggested these lines of Waller's were a metrical paraphrase of the Song of Solomon, published in 1641, and dedicated to the King; and A Paraphrase of the Psalms of David and the Hymns of the Old and New Testament, published in 1636, and reprinted in 1640-a book in which Charles I. is said to have taken great delight when he was a prisoner at Carisbrooke. † Prometheus.