A

CELEBRATION OF CHARIS.

I.

HIS EXCUSE FOR LOVING.

Let it not your wonder move,
Less your laughter, that I love.
Though I now write fifty years,
I have had, and have my peers;
Poets, though divine, are men:
Some have loved as old again.
And it is not always face,

Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace;
Or the feature, or the youth:

But the language, and the truth,

Though I now write fifty years.] This fixes the date of this little collection to 1624, the last year of health, perhaps, which the poet ever enjoyed.

There is a considerable degree of ease and elegance in these effusions; and, indeed, it may be observed in general, of our poet's lyrics, that a vein of sprightliness and fancy runs through them which a reader of his epistles, &c. is scarcely prepared to expect. In the latter, Jonson, like several other poets of his age, or rather of his school, who also succeeded in lyrics, sedulously reins in the imagination, and contents himself with strength of sentiment and thought, in simple but vigorous language, and unambitious rhyme. His CHARIS has all the vivid colouring of the best ages of antiquity; and it is truly delightful to mark the grace and ease with which this great poet plays with the boundless mass of his literary acquisitions.

VOL. VIII.

X

With the ardour, and the passion,
Gives the lover weight and fashion.
If you then will read the story,
First, prepare you to be sorry,
That you never knew till now,
Either whom to love, or how:
But be glad, as soon with me,
When you know that this is she,
Of whose beauty it was sung,
She shall make the old man young,
Keep the middle age at stay,
And let nothing high decay;
Till she be the reason, why,
All the world for love may die.

II.

HOW HE SAW HER.

I beheld her on a day, When her look out-flourish'd May: And her dressing did out-brave All the pride the fields then have : Far I was from being stupid, For I ran and call'd on Cupid ;LOVE, if thou wilt ever see Mark of glory, come with ine; Where's thy quiver? bend thy bow; Here's a shaft,-thou art too slow! And, withal, I did untie

Every cloud about his eye;

But he had not gain'd his sight
Sooner than he lost his might,
Or his courage; for away
Straight he ran, and durst not stay,
Letting bow and arrow fall:
Not for any threat, or call,

Could be brought once back to look.
I fool-hardy, there up took
Both the arrow he had quit,
And the bow, with thought to hit
This my object; but she threw
Such a lightning, as I drew,
At my face, that took my sight,
And my motion from me quite;
So that there I stood a stone,
Mock'd of all, and call'd of one,
(Which with grief and wrath I heard,)
Cupid's statue with a beard;

Or else one that play'd his ape,
In a Hercules his shape.

III.

WHAT HE SUFFERED.

After many scorns like these,
Which the prouder beauties please ;
She content was to restore

Eyes and limbs, to hurt me more,
And would, on conditions, be
Reconciled to Love and me.
First, that I must kneeling yield
Both the bow and shaft I held
Unto her; which Love might take
At her hand, with oaths, to make
Me the scope of his next draft,
Aimed, with that self-same shaft.
He no sooner heard the law,
But the arrow home did draw,
And, to gain her by his art,
Left it sticking in my heart:
Which when she beheld to bleed,
She repented of the deed,

And would fain have chang'd the fate,
But the pity comes too late.
Loser-like, now, all my wreak
Is, that I have leave to speak;
And in either prose, or song,
To revenge me with my tongue;
Which how dexterously I do,
Hear, and make example too.

IV.

HER TRIUMPH.

See the chariot at hand here of Love,
Wherein my Lady rideth!
Each that draws is a swan or a dove,
And well the car Love guideth.

As she goes, all hearts do duty

Unto her beauty;

And enamour'd, do wish, so they might

But enjoy such a sight, That they still were to run by her side, Through swords, through seas, whither she would

ride.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light
All that Love's world compriseth!

Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As Love's star when it riseth!

Do but mark, her forehead's smoother

Than words that sooth her: And from her arched brows, such a grace Sheds itself through the face,

As alone there triumphs to the life

All the gain, all the good of the elements' strife.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,
Before rude hands have touch'd it?
Have you mark'd but the fall o' the snow
Before the soil hath smutch'd it?
Have you felt the wool of the bever?
Or swan's down ever?

Or have smelt o' the bud of the briar?
Or the nard in the fire?

Or have tasted the bag of the bee?

O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!"

V.

HIS DISCOURSE WITH CUPID.

Noblest CHARIS, you that are
Both my fortune and my star,
And do govern more my blood,
Than the various moon the flood,
Hear, what late discourse of you,
LOVE and I have had; and true.
Mongst my Muses finding me,
Where he chanced your name to see
Set, and to this softer strain;
Sure, said he, if I have brain,
This, here sung, can be no other,
By description, but my mother!
So hath Homer praised her hair;
So Anacreon drawn the air
Of her face, and made to rise
Just about her sparkling eyes,
Both her brows bent like my bow.
By her looks I do her know,

The last two stanzas of the "Triumph" are given in the Devil's an Ass, so that the opening one alone can bear the stamp of "fifty years."