AN

ELEGIE ON THE LADY MARKHAM. AS unthrifts groan in straw for their pawn'd beds; As women weep for their lost maiden-heads; When both are without hope or remedy, Such an untimely griefe I have for thee.

I never saw thy face, nor did my heart Urge forth mine eyes unto it whilst thou wert; But being lifted hence, that which to thee Was Death's sad dart, prov'd Cupid's shaft to me. Whoever thinkes me foolish that the force Of a report can make me love a coarse, Know he, that when with this I do compare The love I do a living woman beare, I find my selfe most happy: now I know Where I can find my mistris, and can go Unto her trimm'd bed, and can lift away Her grasse-greene mantle, and her sheet display, And touch her naked, and though th' envious mould In which she lies uncovered, moist and cold, Strive to corrupt her, she will not abide With any art her blemishes to hide, As many living do, and know their need, Yet cannot they in sweetness her exceed; But make a stinke with all their art and skill, Which their physicians warrant with a bill, Nor at her doore doth heapes of coaches stay, Foot-men and midwives to bar up my way: Nor needs she any maid or page to keep, To knock me early from my golden sleep, With letters that her honour all is gone, If I not right her cause on such a one. Her heart is not so hard to make me pay For every kisse a supper and a play: Nor will she ever open her pure lips To utter oaths, enough to drown our ships, To bring a plague, a famine, or the sword, Upon the land, though she should keep her word; Yet, e're an houre be past, in some new vaine Break them, and sweare them double o're againe.

Pardon me, that with thy blest memory
I mingle mine own former miserie :
Yet dare I not excuse the fate that brought
These crosses on me, for then every thought
That tended to thy love was black and foule,
Now all as pure as a new-baptiz'd soule:
For I protest for all that I can see,

I would not lie one night in bed with thee;
Nor am I jealous, but could well abide
My foe to lie in quiet by thy side.

You wormes (my rivals) whilst she was alive,
How many thousands were there that did strive
To have your freedome? For their sake forbeare
Unseemly holes in her soft skin to weare:
But if you must, (as what worms can abstaine
To taste her tender body?) yet refraine
With your disordered eatings to deface her,
But feed your selves so as you most may grace her.
First, through her ear-tips see you make a paire
Of holes, which, as the moist inclosed aire
Turnes into water, may the cleane drops take,
And in her eares a paire of jewels make.
Have ye not yet enough of that white skin,
The touch whereof, in times past, would have been
Enough t' have ransom'd many a thousand soule
Captive to love? If not, then upward roule,
Your little bodies, where I would you have
This epitaph upon her forehead grave.

With thankfull smiles, may read in her own daies;
Or, when shall I a breathing woman praise?
Never; I am ambitious in my strings,
'They never sound but of eternall things,
Such as freed soules: but had I thought it fit
To praise a soul unto a body knit,

I would confesse, I spent my time amiss
When I was slow to give due praise to this.
Thus when all sleep my time is come to sing,
And from her ashes must iny poems spring;
Though in the race I see some swiftly run,
I will not crown them till the goale be won,
They that have fought, not they that are to fight,
May claime the glorious garland as their right'.

A CHARME.

SLEEP, old man, let silence charme thee, Dreaming slumbers overtake thee, Quiet thoughts and darknesse armie thee, That no creaking do awake thee.

Phœbe hath put out her light,

All her shadows closing; Phoebe lend her hornes to night

To thy head's disposing.

Let no fatall bell nor clock

Pierce the hollow of thy eare: Tongulesse be the early cock,

Or what else may adde a feare.

Let no rat, nor silly mouse,

Move the senselesse rushes, Nor a cough disturbe this house Till Aurora blushes.

Come, my sweet Corrinna, come;

Laugh, and leave thy late deploring: Sable midnight makes all dumbe,

But thy jealous husband's snoring.

| Wonder and perfection must be led
A bridall captive unto Tithon's bed?
Ag'd, and deformed Tithon! must thy twine
Circle and blast at once what care and time
Had made for wonder? must pure beauty have
No other soile but ruine and a grave?

So have I seene the pride of Nature's store,
The orient pearle, chain'd to the sooty Moore.
So bath the dia:nond's bright ray been set
In night, and wedded to the negro-jet.
See, see, how thick those flowers of pearle do fall
To weep her ransome, or her funerall,
Whose every treasur'd drop, congeal'd, might bring
Freedome and rausome to a fettered king,
While tyrant wealth stands by, and laughs to see
How he can wed, love, and antipathy.
Hymen, thy pine burnes with adulterate fire;
Thou and thy quiver'd boy did once conspire
To mingle equall flames, and then no shine
Of gold, but beauty, dress'd the Paphian shrine,
Roses and lillies kiss'd; the amorous vine,

Did with the faire and straight limb'd elme entwine.

THE GLANCE.

COLD vertue guard me, or I shall endure
From the next glance a double calenture
Of fire and lust; two flames, two Semeleis
Dwell in those eyes, whose looser glowing raies
Would thaw the frozen Russian into lust,
And parch the negroe's hotter blood to dust.

Dart not your balls of wild-fire here, go throw
Those flakes upon the eunuch's colder snow,
Till he in active blond do boile as high

As he that made him so in jealousie.

When the loose queene of love did dresse her eyes In the most taking flame to win the prize At Ida; that faint glare to this desire

Burnt like a taper to the zone of fire:

And could she then the lustfull youth have crown'd
With thee, his Hellen, Troy had never found
Her fate in Sinon's fire, thy hotter eyes

Had made it burne a quicker sacrifice

To lust, whilst every glance in subtile wiles
Had shot it selfe like lightning through the piles.
Go blow upon some equall blood, and let
Earth's hotter ray engender and beget
New flames to dresse the aged Paphians' quire,
And lend the world new Cupids borne on fire.
Dart no more here those flames, nor strive to throw
Your fire on him who is immur'd in snow :
Those glances werke on me like the weake shine
The frosty Sun throwes on the Appennine,
When the hill's active coldnesse doth go neere

To freeze the glimmering taper to his spheare:
Each ray is lost on me like the faint light
The glow-worme shoots at the cold breast of night..
Thus vertue can secure, but for that name
I had been now sin's martyr, and your flame.

A SONNET.

FLATTERING hope away and leave me, She'll not come, thou dost deceive me ;

Harke the cock crows, th' envious light

Chides away the silent night;

Yet she comes not, oh how I tyre
Betwixt cold feare and hot desire.

Here alone enforc'd to tarry
While the tedious minutes marry,

And get houres; those daies and yecres
Which I count with sighs and feares:
Yet she comes not, oh how I tyre
Betwixt cold feare and hot desire.

Restlesse thoughts a while remove
Unto the bosome of my love,
Let her languish in my paine,

Feare, and hope, and feare againe ;
Then let her tell me in love's fire,
What torment's like unto desire.
Endlesse wishing, tedious longing,
Hopes and feares together thronging;
Rich in dreames, yet poore in waking,
Let her be in such a taking
Then let her tell me in love's fire,
What torment's like unto desire.
Come then, love, prevent day's eyeing,
My desire would faine be dying:
Smother me with breathlesse kisses,
Let me dreame no more of blisses;
But tell me which is in love's fire
Best, to enjoy, or to desire.

TRUE BEAUTY.

MAY I find a woman faire,
And her mind as cleare as aire,
If her beauty goe alone,
'Tis to me as if 't were none.

May I find a woman rich,
And not of too high a pitch:
If that pride should cause disdaine,
Tell me, lover, where's thy gaine?

May I find a woman wise,
And her falsehood not disguise;
Hath she wit as she hath will,
Double arm'd she is to ill.

May I find a woman kind,
And not wavering like the wind:
How should I call that love mine,
When 'tis his, and his, and thine?

May I find a woman true,
There is beauty's fairest hue ;
There is beauty, love, and wit,
Happy he can compasse it.

THE INDIFFERENT.

NEVER more will I protest
To love a woman but in jest:
For as they cannot be true,
So to give each man his due,
When the woing fit is past,
Their affection cannot last.

Therefore if I chance to meet
With a mistris faire and sweet,
She my service shall obtaine,
Loving her for love againe :

Thus much liberty I crave.
Not to be a constant slave.

But when we have try'd each other,
If she better like another,
Let her quickly change for me,
Then to change am I as free.
He or she that loves too long
Sell their freedome for a song,

LOVE'S FREEDOME.
WHY should man be only ty'd
To a foolish female thing,
When all creatures else beside,
Birds and beasts, change every spring?
Who would then to one be bound,
When so many may be found?

Why should I my sel e confine
To the limits of one place,
When I have all Europe mine,
Where I list to run my race.

Who would then to one be bound,
When so many may be found?

Would you thinke him wise that now
Still one sort of meat doth eat,
When both sea and land allow
Sundry sorts of other meat?

Who would then to one be bound,
When so many may be found?

E're old Saturne chang'd his throne,
Freedome raign'd and banish'd strife,
Where was he that knew his own,
Or who call'd a woman wife?

Who would then to one be bound,
When so many may be found?

Ten times happier are those men
That enjoy'd those golden daies :
Untill time redresse 't againe
I will never Hymen praise.

Who would then to one be bound,
When so many may be found?

ON THE LIFE OF MAN.
LIKE to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are,

Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood :
Even such is man, whose borrowed light
Is straight call'd in and paid to night:
The wind blowes out, the bubble dies,
The spring intomb'd in autumn lies:
The dew's dry'd up, the star is shot,
The flight is past, and man forgot".

2 These lines are in bishop King's poems, 1657...

Ellis.

AN EPITAPH.

HERE she lies, whose spotlesse fame,
Invites a stone to learne her name:
The rigid Spartan that denied
An epitaph to all that died,
Unlesse for war, on charity
Would here vouchsafe an elegie:
She died a wife, but yet her mind,
Beyond virginity refin'd,

From lawlesse fire remain'd as free,
As now from heat her ashes be:
Her husband, yet without a sin,
Was not a stranger, but her kin,

That her chaste love might seeme no other
To her husband than a brother.

Keep well this pawn, thou marble chest,
Till it be call'd for let it rest;

For while this jewell here is set,

The grave is like a cabinet.

A SONNET.

LIKE a ring without a finger,
Or a bell without a ringer;
Like a horse was never ridden,
Or a feast and no guest bidden;
Like a well without a bucket,
Or a rose if no man pluck it:

Just such as these may she be said
That lives, ne're loves, but dies a maid.

The ring, if worne, the finger decks,
The bell pull'd by the ringer speakes;
The horse doth ease if he be ridden,
The feast doth please if guest be bidden;
The bucket draws the water forth,
The rose when pluck'd is still most worth:
Such is the virgin, in my eyes,

That lives, loves, marries, e're she dies.

Like to a stock not grafted on,
Or like a lute not play'd upon;
Like a jack without a weight,
Or a barque without a fraight;
Like a lock without a key,
Or a candle in the day :

Just such as these may she be said
That lives, ne're loves, but dies a maid.

The graffed stock doth beare best fruit,
There's music in the fingered lute;
The weight doth make the jack go ready,
The fraught doth make the barque go steady;
The key the lock doth open right:
The candle's usefull in the night:

Such is the virgin, in my eyes,

That lives, loves, marries, e're she dies.
Like a call without Anon, sir,
Or a question and no answer;
Like a ship was never rigg'd,
Or a mine was never digg'd;
Jike a wound without a tent,
Or civet boxe without a scent:

Just such as these may she be said
That lives, ne're loves, but dies a maid,

Th' Anon, sir, doth obey the call,
The question answered pleaseth all;

Who riggs a ship sailes with the wind,
Who digs a mine doth treasure find;
The wound by wholesome tent hath ease,
The boxe perfum'd the senses please:
Such is the virgin in my eyes,

That lives, loves, marries, e're she dies.
Like marrow bone was never broken,
Or commendations and no token;
Like a fort and none to win it,

Or like the Moone and no man in it:
Like a schoole without a teacher,
Or like a pulpit and no preacher:

Just such as these may she be said,
That lives, ne're loves, but dies a maid.

The broken marrow-bone is sweet,
The token doth adorne the grect;

There's triumph in the fort, being woon,
The man rides glorious in the Moon;

The schoole is by the teacher still'd,
The pulpit by the preacher fill'd:
Such is the virgin, in my eyes,

That lives, loves, marrics, e're she dies.

Like a cage without a bird,
Or a thing too long deferr'd;
Like the gold was never tryed,
Or the ground unoccupied ;
Like a house that's not possessed,
Or the book was never pressed:

Just such as these may she be said
That lives, ne're loves, but dies a maid.

The bird in cage doth sweetly sing,
Due season prefers every thing;
The gold that's try'd from drosse is pur'd,
There's profit in the ground mannur'd;
The house is by possession graced,

The book when press'd is then embraced:
Such is the virgin in my eyes,

That lives, loves, marrics, e're she dies.

A DESCRIPTION OF LOVE. Love is a region full of fires,

Aud burning with extreame desires ;
An object seeks, of which possest,
The wheeles are fix'd, the motions rest,
The flames in ashes lie opprest;
This meteor striving high to rise,
The fewell spent, fals down and dies.
Much sweeter, and more pure delights
Are drawn from faire alluring sights,
When ravisht minds attempt to praise
Commanding eyes like heavenly raies,
Whose force the gentle heart obeys;
Than where the end of this pretence
Descends to base inferiour sence.

Why then should lovers (most will say)
Expect so much th' enjoying day;
Love is like youth, he thirsts for age,
He scornes to be his mother's page;
But when proceeding times asswage
The former heat, he will complaine,
And wish those pleasant houres againe.
We know that hope and love are twins,
Hope gone, fruition now begins';