The Underwood

Edited by Colin Burrow

INTRODUCTION

The Underwood first appeared in the second folio of 1640–1. It includes a prefatory note by Jonson, which explains that it contains ‘lesser poems of later growth’ than The Forest. Jonson’s friend Kenelm Digby provided the printer with a manuscript of the collection after the poet’s death in 1637. Opinions vary as to whether the poems were in any sense edited or arranged by Digby, or whether he simply passed on a collection of papers to the printer (see Textual Essay in the Electronic Edition fomeditater a detailed discussion). The presence of Jonson’s prefatory note suggests that the poet had participated at least to some degree in the construction of the volume. However, it cannot be assumed that the collection as printed in F2 always reflects the kind of volume that Jonson would have produced had he lived: the two poems to the Earl of Newcastle on his ability as a fencer and as a horseman (Und. 53 and 59) are side by side in the Newcastle manuscript, the latter having been pasted in to the manuscript volume on a separate sheet. They are also placed together in Benson’s 1640 volumes of Jonson’s poems. Yet in the sequence of F2 they are separated by five poems, the majority of which are about the difficulties of obtaining money. There may be art in separating two poems of praise to a wealthy patron from each other by pieces that stress the hard practicalities of earning a living from verse, but this could equally well be a sign of disorder in the manuscript. Works by other hands have also crept into the collection, which further suggests that the manuscript from which F2 was set did not reflect Jonson’s final shaping of a poetic sequence: Und. 39, 80, and 81 are by John Donne, Sidney Godolphin, and Sir Henry Wotton respectively (they are reproduced among Dubia in the Electronic Edition, although in fact they are clearly not by Jonson). It is possible that these poems were transcribed by Jonson among his papers, since Jonson’s autograph of ‘Happier Life’ has a transcription of Wotton’s ‘Character of a Happy Life’ in Jonson’s hand on the same page. But it is extremely unlikely that he would have wished to print the poems by other hands among his own collection.

The Underwood nonetheless shows some signs of care in the disposition of material: divine poems, which continue the mood of the final poem in The Forest, are followed by a group of love lyrics. Several of these are unlike anything Jonson had attempted before: 2.9, 2.10, 5, 6, and 7 ventriloquize female voices, and this early section of the volume frequently puts the poet into a passive and vulnerable relationship to his female addressees. The meditative and panegyric poems which then follow are arranged with some attempt at chronological order. This goes to the extent of providing dates (and not always entirely unproblematic dates) for a number of the royal panegyrics later in the collection. A few early poems that had not previously been printed are concentrated in the first third of the volume: the Ode to the Earl of Desmond (Und. 25) is presented as a throwback to an earlier age, ‘Writ in Queen Elizabeth’s Time; Since Lost and Recovered’, and it may be that the group of Odes which surround that poem derive from the early years of the seventeenth century, at the peak of Jonson’s experimentation with the form. In the main, however, the contents of The Underwood post-date the majority of poems in The Forest. The majority of poems positioned later in the volume derive from the 1620s and 1630s, apart from the group of classical translations that end the collection. These dwell on erotic pleasures and the happy life, and may have been designed to end the gathering of poems on a note of relative optimism; they probably date from roughly the period at which Jonson was at work on The Forest.

So, like the Epigrams and The Forest, The Underwood is a retrospective collection of writings, albeit one that may be less artfully arranged than the earlier volumes. Since it is not just retrospectively but posthumously printed, the gap between the time at which the poems were composed and the time of their publication (a gap that Jonson had exploited to some degree in his earlier collections) becomes charged with nostalgia. This is a vital element in the effect of the whole collection. As A. Patterson (1984), 134–52 notes, the volume contains a number of poems which celebrate resistant and isolated figures, many of whom, such as Sir Walter Ralegh in Und. 24, the Earl of Desmond in Und. 25, Francis Bacon in Und. 51, and Bishop Williams in Und. 61, had either died or fallen utterly from favour by the time The Underwood was printed. From the perspective of 1640–1 the praise of these men becomes defiant and resistant, and the dead Jonson seems to be speaking to his successors of the need to praise those who receive unjust treatment from the political world.

The Underwood came to influence a whole generation of poetic volumes printed in the 1640s, which preserved the relics of poets who were dead and gone by the time their works were published. Examples include Thomas Carew’s Poems (1640), and Sir John Suckling’s Fragmenta Aurea (1646), the former of which had the same publisher as Jonson’s second folio. It indeed may have had some influence even before its publication, since Jonson’s former servant, Richard Brome, described Thomas Jordan’s Poetical Varieties as ‘Under-wood’ in 1637 (Poetical Varieties, A4). The Underwood did more than any other single volume to generate a cult of resistant nostalgia, in which dead poets praised a world which, from the darkening political perspective of the 1640s, appeared to be halcyon days before the emergence of discord in the church and war in the state. This is not just a consequence of the date at which the volume was published, and nor is the volume by any means a simple elegy for lost happiness. An arc of disappointment seems to determine the structure of The Underwood: after the initial pious pieces, ‘A Celebration of Charis’ (Und. 2) presents Jonson as a senex amans, galvanizing his gouty limbs to dance and woo, and failing to win more than a statement of worldly misanthropic wisdom from his mistress. This long, multi-partite poem is answered at the end of the collection by the fragmentary group of elegies on Venetia Digby, in which poems in praise of Venetia’s picture and her mind are followed by works that lament her death and rejoice in her apotheosis. The fact that the ‘Eupheme’ sequence is presented as fragmentary (which, as the headnote to that group of poems suggests, may be an artful pretence) gives additional force to its laments for Venetia Digby: the poet who composed the poems is dead, his addressee is dead, and even the texts of his laments are partially irretrievable. The ‘Eupheme’ poems pick up a major concern of Jonson’s ‘Execration upon Vulcan’ (Und. 43), in which the poet lambastes the god of fire for having destroyed a number of his unpublished works. Physical frailty is counterpointed with textual fragility, and both are set off by the extraordinary rhetorical energy of the poet throughout the volume. The collection as a whole creates a picture of the ageing Jonson as an isolated figure who vigorously insists on his moral independence from, and intellectual superiority to, the world around him, but whose poems do not always have the power to influence his surroundings, or even to survive the ravages of time and fire.

This is not the only element in The Underwood’s portrayal of Jonson. It presents its author figure as no longer the consuming presence described eating and drinking in the hall of Penshurst (Forest 2.67–75). He is at the start of the collection presented as an ageing lover who tries to bear his fifty years lightly (Und. 2.1.3). Although he regresses to a mere forty-seven a little later in the collection (Und. 9.15), he still has a ‘mountain belly’ and ‘hundreds of grey hairs’. Later poems in the collection present him as sick and dependent on patronage (Und. 62), or show him attempting to scrounge a pound or two from a Clerk of the Exchequer in order to bring his weight up to a full twenty stone, and so win a bet (Und. 54). The treasury officials and officers of the Royal Household whose job it was to distribute royal pensions become friends, addressees, and vital sources of support. This suggests that The Underwood does not just include ‘lesser poems of later growth’ than The Forest, but that it contains poems which present the relationship between poet and patron in ways that differ significantly from Jonson’s earlier verse. Its poems on patronage tend not to explore the ideally reciprocal relationship between poet and virtuous subject that had been outlined in the poems to female patrons in The Forest (the poem to Selden, Und. 14, which is close in date and theme to the Epigrams volume, is the nearest approximation to such a thing). Instead, they often emphasize the unreliable channels of influence by which poems reach patrons who can reward them. In this respect Und. 78 to Venetia Digby is particularly revealing: she is not an image of virtue which Jonson has simply to mirror to the world (as Katherine D’Aubigny had been in Forest 13); rather she is a channel of access, first to her husband, Sir Kenelm, and then to Lord Treasurer Weston. The volume suggests that praising a powerful person and being rewarded for doing so are activities which are connected by increasingly fragile chains of influence.

Partly for these reasons, The Underwood has often been too readily dismissed as a late and debilitated collection. The traditional view that Jonson in his later career retreated into palsied melancholy and grumpy hostility to the main currents of his time has taken a long time to dislodge, despite the persuasive force of Anne Barton (1984) and Martin Butler (1992c). The Cary and Morison Ode (Und. 70) has often been seen as the one high point in a collection of second-rate poems by an ageing and disaffected poet. In fact, poems within the collection respond with great sharpness to the immediate circumstances of their composition, and show that Jonson late in his career was far more conscious of and more stubbornly critical of tendencies in the political world around him than he had been in earlier poems: both ‘An Epistle to a Friend’ (Und. 15) and ‘A Speech According to Horace’ (Und. 44) show a sharp attentiveness to events in Europe in the 1620s, and attack with the vehemence of Juvenal the absurdity of noble and courtly conduct (see M. Butler, 1992b). Und. 79 artfully reworks one of Jonson’s earlier Stuart panegyrics to suggest some of the deficiencies in the policies and attitudes of Charles I. Jonson is not out of touch and sulking in his sickbed in this volume: rather the collection repeatedly suggests that, even if a poet is in touch with his surroundings, the world around him may well prove unresponsive to his counsel.

The volume also displays a kind of triumph, which inverts the triumph of the inaccessible Charis over her ageing lover in Und. 2.4, in the way that the poem to Jonson’s muse, Venetia Digby (Und. 78), is embedded among a group of poems to Lord Treasurer Weston, one of the richest and most powerful men in England. The sequence suggests that Venetia’s influence enabled Jonson’s poems to edge their way upwards to one of the epicentres of power and influence in the England of the 1630s. A. Patterson (1984) is surely correct to emphasize that the collection contains poems to people who fell (and seventeenth-century readers clearly thought of Jonson partly as a defender of lost causes, which is probably why in one manuscript a poem of consolation to Francis Bacon after his fall from favour in 1621 is attributed to him – reproduced in the Electronic Edition among Dubia); but it also contains poems to people who rose. The poems from the 1630s show Jonson able to direct his praise at the centre of court life, but their triumphalism is carefully balanced by their conjunction with pieces that continue to beg for funds and material support. The volume is not an exploration of failure or of isolation: its sequence and combination of poems, whether arranged by Jonson or not, convey a measured and complex view of the poet: he can be intimate with the richest and most powerful families in England, but he can still be required to beg for favours; he can be a panegyrist of royalty, and yet can still intimate unease with the direction of royal policy.

He can also sport and sing. And, for this reason, to emphasize the political sharpness and the retrospective bite of the poems in this collection above all other features is as misleading as to stress their melancholy and isolation. The Underwood also has room for experiments with lyric, such as ‘Oh, do not wanton with those eyes’ (Und. 4) and ‘The Dream’ (Und. 11), which, together with ‘The Hourglass’ (Und. 8), show Jonson as a founding master of the ‘Cavalier’ style in his ability to combine sharpness and musicality with ruefulness. The volume also contains a number of (probably quite early) experiments with the amorous elegy in a manner so reminiscent of Donne that one of Donne’s own elegies slipped into the printed volume along with those by Jonson. The diversity of The Underwood, as well as the wide temporal spread of its contents, makes it far less easy to locate as a cultural artefact than either the Epigrams or The Forest. It does not focus on a few key relationships between Jonson and particular noble families as The Forest had done, nor does it speak simply from a single period in the poet’s career. Rather, the impulse towards the fragmentary and the emphasis on the impermanence of relationships which had run below the surface of the earlier volumes are developed to the full, resulting in a collection of poems that gives a sense of a poet’s life as one of local folly, hard work at cautious praise, sporadic political resistance, and perhaps a final subordination to the failures and fragility of patrons.

The Forest had contained one poem which was turned into a fragment as a result of deliberate revision (Forest 12). The Underwood contains another of these (see headnote to Und. 20, which may well be called ‘A Satirical Shrub’ in order to encourage its readers to think back to The Forest), and a second (84.8) which is presented as a fragment, although in this case it is very unlikely to have ever been completed. As the epigraph from Martial prefixed to The Underwood suggests, this collection is a kind of monument to Jonson, to which tributes can be paid posthumously. But it is a not a monument which testifies to the power of a poet or of art to transcend or transform an age. Rather, it suggests that a poet works inconsistently athwart the energies of his time. Sometimes the praise flows out and the rewards flow in; sometimes the praise is checked; sometimes the rewards are checked. And at every stage the frailty of texts, the volatility of public favour, and the unpredictability of the political world shape the creations of the poet. In these respects the irresoluble questions about the role Jonson played in creating the volume do not simply make problems for its interpreters. Throughout the collection the poet seems not quite to be in control of his circumstances. It is entirely appropriate that poems which explore these concerns should figure in a collection over which the dead poet could exert far less than his preferred level of authorial control.

In Und. 78 Jonson imagines Venetia Digby passing manuscript copies of his poems to her husband, who would then pass them on to the Lord Treasurer Weston. Thereafter ‘Being sent to one, they will be read of all’ (78.32). It is likely that in the years between 1616 and his death Jonson circulated small groups of poems in manuscript to friends and patrons – and poems associated with the Weston and Digby families in particular are found in multiple seventeenth-century manuscript versions. He does not seem to have compiled large, ordered collections of his own manuscript poetry. Several of his later royal panegyrics also found their way into a number of manuscript miscellanies, as did works of which Jonson was perhaps more than usually proud, such as the Cary and Morison Ode (Und. 70), and Und. 8, 9, and 43. He subsequently revised many of these poems, possibly for print. Und. 43, ‘An Execration upon Vulcan’, which seems to have circulated in manuscript as an independent work, was carefully worked over: in the F2 version Jonson revised the poem for at least the second time in order to emphasize the close relation between the works he claims were destroyed in 1623 and his own physical being. Other revisions to poems in The Underwood show Jonson carefully rethinking his own age (Und. 9.15, Und. 20.5), or the appropriate tone in which to address a patron.

Some of the earlier or intermediate manuscript versions of these poems found a printer. In the months before Thomas Walkley printed F2, a rival publisher called John Benson obtained copies of (probably) several small manuscript collections of Jonson’s verse. He printed these along with Und. 43 (which provided his volume with its title, Ben Jonson’s Execration Against Vulcan with Diverse Epigrams by the Same Author to Several Noble Personages in this Kingdom), in 1640. This volume probably does not resemble anything that Jonson would have wished to print, but, despite its slightly murky origins, Benson’s edition does in several cases preserve versions of poems which slightly precede those found in F2, and he does seem to have obtained texts which were relatively close to Jonson’s earlier versions.

The many revisions to and scribal appropriations of poems from The Underwood make its text unusually difficult to edit. This edition follows F2 for the vast majority of substantive readings, except in a few cases where a manuscript of clear authority offers a manifestly more reliable text of a later version. The reasons for this approach are set out fully in the Textual Essay in the Electronic Edition: briefly put, the versions of poems found in F2 on the whole reflect the final stages of Jonson’s revisions, although they do not always do so accurately, and there is no means of knowing if he would have wished to revise them further if he had lived longer. Because the text of The Underwood is something of a tangle, readers should be sure to consult the collations (both the abbreviated collation in the print edition, which seeks to foreground Jonson’s probable revisions, and the full collation in the Electronic Edition). These indicate the complex scribal and authorial processes which underlay the production of Jonson’s last, largest, and most varied collection of verse.

Cineri, gloria sera venit. (Martial)

TO THE READER

With the same leave the ancients called that kind of body silva or ῎Υλη, in which

there were works of diverse nature and matter congested, as the multitude call

timber trees promiscuously growing a ‘wood’ or ‘forest’, so am I bold to entitle

these lesser poems of later growth by this of ‘underwood’, out of the analogy

they hold to The Forest in my former book, and no otherwise. 5

Ben Jonson

THE UNDERWOOD

1.1 The Sinner’s Sacrifice: To the Holy Trinity

1.

O holy, blessèd, glorious Trinity

Of persons, still one God, in unity,

The faithful man’s believèd mystery,

Help, help to lift

2.

Myself up to thee, harrowed, torn, and bruised 5

By sin and Satan, and my flesh misused,

As my heart lies in pieces, all confused,

Oh take my gift.

3.

All-gracious God, the sinner’s sacrifice,

A broken heart, thou wert not wont despise, 10

But ’bove the fat of rams or bulls to prize

An off’ring meet

4.

For thy acceptance. Oh, behold me right,

And take compassion on my grievous plight.

What odour can be, than a heart contrite, 15

To thee more sweet?

5.

Eternal father, God, who didst create

This all of nothing, gavest it form and fate,

And breath’st into it life and light, with state

To worship thee; 20

6.

Eternal God the Son, who not denied’st

To take our nature, becam’st man, and died’st,

To pay our debts upon thy cross, and cried’st,

‘All’s done in me’;

7.

Eternal Spirit, God from both proceeding, 25

Father and Son, the comforter in breeding

Pure thoughts in man, with fiery zeal them feeding

For acts of grace:

8.

Increase those acts, O glorious Trinity

Of persons, still one God in unity, 30

Till I attain the longed-for mystery

Of seeing your face,

9.

Beholding one in three and three in one,

A Trinity to shine in union,

The gladdest light dark man can think upon; 35

Oh, grant it me!

10.

Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, you three

All coeternal in your majesty

Distinct in persons, yet in unity

One God to see, 40

11.

My maker, saviour, and my sanctifier:

To hear, to meditate, sweeten my desire,

With grace, with love, with cherishing entire;

Oh then how blest,

12.

Among thy saints elected to abide, 45

And with thy angels, placèd side by side,

But in thy presence truly glorified,

Shall I there rest!

1.2

A Hymn to God the Father

Hear me, O God!

A broken heart

Is my best part:

Use still thy rod,

That I may prove 5

Therein thy love.

If thou hadst not

Been stern to me,

But left me free,

I had forgot 10

Myself and thee.

For sin’s so sweet,

As minds ill bent

Rarely repent,

Until they meet 15

Their punishment.

Who more can crave

Than thou hast done?

That gav’st a son

To free a slave, 20

First made of naught,

With all since bought.

Sin, death, and hell

His glorious name

Quite overcame, 25

Yet I rebel,

And slight the same.

But I’ll come in

Before my loss

Me farther toss, 30

As sure to win,

Under his cross.

1.3

A Hymn On the Nativity of My Saviour

I sing the birth was born tonight,

The author both of life and light;

The angels so did sound it,

And like the ravished shepherds said,

Who saw the light, and were afraid, 5

Yet searched, and true they found it.

The Son of God, th’eternal King,

That did us all salvation bring,

And freed the soul from danger;

He whom the whole world could not take, 10

The Word, which heaven and earth did make,

Was now laid in a manger.

The Father’s wisdom willed it so,

The Son’s obedience knew no ‘no’,

Both wills were in one stature; 15

And as that wisdom had decreed,

The Word was now made flesh indeed,

And took on him our nature.

What comfort by him do we win,

Who made himself the price of sin, 20

To make us heirs of glory!

To see this babe, all innocence,

A martyr born in our defence;

Can man forget this story?

2 A Celebration of Charis in Ten Lyric Pieces

2.1 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: 5

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, 10

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 15

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, 20

Keep the middle age at stay,

And let nothing high decay,

Till she be the reason why

All the world for love may die.

2.2

How He Saw Her

I beheld her on a day

When her look out-flourished May,

And her dressing did out-brave

All the pride the fields then have.

Far I was from being stupid, 5

For I ran and called on Cupid:

‘Love, if thou wilt ever see

Mark of glory, come with me.

Where’s thy quiver? Bend thy bow:

Here’s a shaft, thou art too slow!’ 10

And (withal) I did untie

Every cloud about his eye;

But he had not gained his sight

Sooner than he lost his might,

Or his courage; for away 15

Straight he ran, and durst not stay,

Letting bow and arrow fall,

Nor for any threat or call

Could be brought once back to look.

I, foolhardy, there up took 20

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 25

And my motion from me quite;

So that there I stood a stone,

Mocked of all; and called of one

(Which with grief and wrath I heard)

Cupid’s statue with a beard, 30

Or else one that played his ape,

In a Hercules his shape.

2.3 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 5

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 oath to make 10

Me the scope of his next draught,

Aimèd with that self-same shaft.

He no sooner heard the law,

But the arrow home did draw

And (to gain her by his art) 15

Left it sticking in my heart:

Which when she beheld to bleed,

She repented of the deed,

And would fain have changed the fate,

But the pity comes too late. 20

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, 25

Hear and make example too.

2.4

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 5

Unto her beauty;

And, enamoured, 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. 10

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 15

Than words that soothe her!

And from her archèd 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. 20

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,

Before rude hands have touched it?

Ha’ you marked but the fall o’the snow

Before the soil hath smutched it?

Ha’ you felt the wool o’the beaver? 25

Or swan’s down ever?

Or have smelt o’the bud o’the briar?

Or the nard in the fire?

Or have tasted the bag o’the bee?

Oh so white! Oh so soft! Oh so sweet is she! 30

2.5 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 5

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, 10

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 15

Just above her sparkling eyes,

Both her brows, bent like my bow.

By her looks I do her know,

Which you call my shafts. And see!

Such my mother’s blushes be, 20

As the bath your verse discloses

In her cheeks, of milk and roses,

Such as oft I wanton in!

And, above her even chin,

Have you placed the bank of kisses 25

Where you say men gather blisses,

Ripened with a breath more sweet

Than when flowers and west winds meet.

Nay, her white and polished neck,

With the lace that doth it deck, 30

Is my mother’s! Hearts of slain

Lovers made into a chain!

And between each rising breast

Lies the valley called my nest,

Where I sit and preen my wings 35

After flight, and put new stings

To my shafts! Her very name

With my mother’s is the same.’

‘I confess all,’ I replied,

‘And the glass hangs by her side, 40

And the girdle ’bout her waist,

All is Venus, save unchaste.

But, alas, thou see’st the least

Of her good, who is the best

Of her sex; but couldst thou, Love, 45

Call to mind the forms that strove

For the apple, and those three

Make in one, the same were she.

For this beauty yet doth hide

Something more than thou hast spied. 50

Outward grace weak love beguiles:

She is Venus when she smiles,

But she’s Juno when she walks,

And Minerva when she talks.’

2.6 Claiming a Second Kiss by Desert

Charis, guess, and do not miss,

Since I drew a morning kiss

From your lips, and sucked an air

Thence as sweet as you are fair,

What my muse and I have done: 5

Whether we have lost or won,

If by us the odds were laid,

That the bride (allowed a maid)

Looked not half so fresh and fair,

With th’advantage of her hair, 10

And her jewels, to the view

Of th’assembly, as did you!

Or, that did you sit or walk,

You were more the eye and talk

Of the court, today, than all 15

Else that glistered in Whitehall;

So, as those that had your sight,

Wished the bride were changed tonight

And did think such rites were due

To no other grace but you! 20

Or, if you did move tonight

In the dances, with what spite

Of your peers you were beheld,

That at every motion swelled

So to see a lady tread, 25

As might all the graces lead,

And was worthy (being so seen)

To be envied of the queen.

Or, if you would yet have stayed,

Whether any would upbraid 30

To himself his loss of time,

Or have charged his sight of crime,

To have left all sight for you:

Guess of these which is the true;

And if such a verse as this 35

May not claim another kiss.

2.7

Begging Another, on Colour of Mending the Former

For Love’s sake, kiss me once again;

I long, and should not beg in vain:

Here’s none to spy or see.

Why do you doubt or stay?

I’ll taste as lightly as the bee, 5

That doth but touch his flower, and flies away.

Once more, and (faith) I will be gone,

Can he that loves ask less than one?

Nay you may err in this,

And all your bounty wrong: 10

This could be called but half a kiss.

What we’re but once to do, we should do long.

I will but mend the last, and tell

Where, how, it would have relished well;

Join lip to lip, and try; 15

Each sucks out other’s breath.

And, whilst our tongues perplexèd lie,

Let who will think us dead, or wish our death.

2.8 Urging Her of a Promise

Charis one day in discourse

Had of Love, and of his force,

Lightly promised she would tell

What a man she could love well:

And that promise set on fire 5

All that heard her, with desire.

With the rest I long expected

When the work would be effected;

But we find that cold delay

And excuse spun every day, 10

As, until she tell her one,

We all fear she loveth none.

Therefore, Charis, you must do’t,

For I will so urge you to’t,

You shall neither eat nor sleep, 15

No, nor forth your window peep,

With your emissary eye,

To fetch in the forms go by,

And pronounce which band or lace

Better fits him than his face; 20

Nay, I will not let you sit

’Fore your idol glass a whit,

To say over every purl

There, or to reform a curl,

Or with secretary Cis 25

To consult if fucus this

Be as good as was the last.

All your sweet of life is past:

Make account, unless you can

(And that quickly) speak your man. 30

2.9 Her Man Described by Her Own Dictamen

Of your trouble, Ben, to ease me,

I will tell what man would please me.

I would have him if I could

Noble, or of greater blood.

Titles, I confess, do take me, 5

And a woman God did make me:

French to boot, at least in fashion,

And his manners of that nation.

Young I’d have him too, and fair,

Yet a man, with crispèd hair 10

Cast in thousand snares and rings

For Love’s fingers, and his wings.

Chestnut colour, or more slack

Gold, upon a ground of black.

Venus’ and Minerva’s eyes, 15

For he must look wanton-wise.

Eyebrows bent like Cupid’s bow,

Front, an ample field of snow;

Even nose and cheek withal

Smooth as is the billiard ball; 20

Chin as woolly as the peach,

And his lip should kissing teach,

Till he cherished too much beard,

And make Love or me afeared.

He would have a hand as soft 25

As the down, and show it oft;

Skin as smooth as any rush,

And so thin to see a blush

Rising through it ere it came.

All his blood should be a flame 30

Quickly fired, as in beginners

In Love’s school, and yet no sinners.

’Twere too long to speak of all

What we harmony do call

In a body should be there. 35

Well he should his clothes, too, wear,

Yet no tailor help to make him

Dressed, you still for man should take him,

And not think he’d ate a stake

Or were set up in a brake. 40

Valiant he should be as fire,

Showing danger more than ire.

Bounteous as the clouds to earth,

And as honest as his birth.

All his actions to be such 45

As to do no thing too much.

Nor o’erpraise, nor yet condemn;

Nor out-value, nor contemn;

Nor do wrongs, nor wrongs receive;

Nor tie knots, nor knots unweave; 50

And from baseness to be free,

As he durst love truth and me.

Such a man, with every part,

I could give my very heart;

But of one, if short he came, 55

I can rest me where I am.

2.10 Another Lady’s Exception, Present at the Hearing

For his mind, I do not care,

That’s a toy that I could spare:

Let his title be but great,

His clothes rich, and band sit neat,

Himself young, and face be good, 5

All I wish is understood.

What you please, you parts may call,

’Tis one good part I’d lie withal.

3 The Musical Strife, in a Pastoral Dialogue

She

Come, with our voices let us war,

And challenge all the spheres,

Till each of us be made a star,

And all the world turn ears.

He

At such a call what beast or fowl 5

Of reason empty is

What tree or stone doth want a soul?

What man but must lose his?

She

Mix then your notes, that we may prove

To stay the running floods, 10

To make the mountain quarries move,

And call the walking woods.

He

What need of me? Do you but sing,

Sleep and the grave will wake.

No tunes are sweet, nor words have sting, 15

But what those lips do make.

She

They say the angels mark each deed,

And exercise below,

And out of inward pleasure feed

On what they viewing know. 20

He

Oh, sing not you then, lest the best

Of angels should be driven

To fall again, at such a feast

Mistaking earth for heaven.

She

Nay, rather both our souls be strained 25

To meet their high desire;

So they in state of grace retained

May wish us of their choir.

4

A Song

Oh, do not wanton with those eyes,

Lest I be sick with seeing;

Nor cast them down, but let them rise,

Lest shame destroy their being.

Oh, be not angry with those fires, 5

For then their threats will kill me;

Nor look too kind on my desires,

For then my hopes will spill me.

Oh, do not steep them in thy tears,

For so will sorrow slay me; 10

Nor spread them as distract with fears;

Mine own enough betray me.

5 In the Person of Womankind: A Song Apologetic

Men, if you love us, play no more

The fools or tyrants with your friends,

To make us still sing o’er and o’er

Our own false praises, for your ends:

We have both wits and fancies too, 5

And if we must, let’s sing of you.

Nor do we doubt but that we can,

If we would search with care and pain,

Find some one good in some one man;

So going thorough all your strain 10

We shall at last of parcels make

One good enough for a song’s sake.

And as a cunning painter takes

In any curious piece you see

More pleasure while the thing he makes 15

Than when ’tis made, why so will we.

And having pleased our art, we’ll try

To make a new, and hang that by.

6 Another: In Defence of their Inconstancy: A Song

Hang up those dull and envious fools

That talk abroad of woman’s change.

We were not bred to sit on stools:

Our proper virtue is to range.

Take that away, you take our lives; 5

We are no women then, but wives.

Such as in valour would excel

Do change, though man, and often fight,

Which we in love must do as well,

If ever we will love aright. 10

The frequent varying of the deed

Is that which doth perfection breed.

Nor is’t inconstancy to change

For what is better, or to make

(By searching) what before was strange 15

Familiar, for the use’s sake;

The good from bad is not descried

But as ’tis often vexed and tried.

And this profession of a store

In love, doth not alone help forth 20

Our pleasure, but preserves us more

From being forsaken than doth worth;

For were the worthiest woman cursed

To love one man, he’d leave her first.

7

A Nymph’s Passion

I love, and he loves me again,

Yet dare I not tell who;

For if the nymphs should know my swain

I fear they’d love him too;

Yet if it be not known, 5

The pleasure is as good as none,

For that’s a narrow joy is but our own.

I’ll tell, that if they be not glad,

They yet may envy me:

But then if I grow jealous-mad, 10

And of them pitied be,

It were a plague ’bove scorn,

And yet it cannot be forborne,

Unless my heart would as my thought be torn.

He is, if they can find him, fair, 15

And fresh and fragrant too,

As summer’s sky, or purgèd air,

And looks as lilies do,

That were this morning blown.

Yet, yet, I doubt he is not known, 20

And fear much more, that more of him be shown.

But he hath eyes so round and bright,

As make away my doubt

Where Love may all his torches light

Though hate had put them out; 25

But then, t’increase my fears,

What nymph soe’er his voice but hears

Will be my rival, though she have but ears.

I’ll tell no more, and yet I love,

And he loves me; yet no 30

One unbecoming thought doth move

From either heart, I know;

But so exempt from blame,

As it would be to each a fame

If love, or fear, would let me tell his name. 35

8

The Hourglass

Do but consider this small dust

Here running in the glass,

By atoms moved:

Could you believe that this

The body was 5

Of one that loved?

And in his mistress’ flame, playing like a fly,

Turned to cinders by her eye?

Yes; and in death, as life, unblessed,

To have’t expressed, 10

Even ashes of lovers find no rest.

9

My Picture Left in Scotland

I now think Love is rather deaf than blind,

For else it could not be,

That she

Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,

And cast my love behind; 5

I’m sure my language to her was as sweet

And every close did meet

In sentence of as subtle feet,

As hath the youngest he

That sits in shadow of Apollo’s tree. 10

Oh, but my conscious fears

That fly my thoughts between,

Tell me that she hath seen

My hundreds of grey hairs

Told seven and forty years, 15

Read so much waist, as she cannot embrace

My mountain belly, and my rocky face;

And all these through her eyes have stopped her ears.

10 Against Jealousy

Wretched and foolish jealousy,

How cam’st thou thus to enter me?

I ne’er was of thy kind,

Nor have I yet the narrow mind

To vent that poor desire, 5

That others should not warm them at my fire:

I wish the sun should shine

On all men’s fruit and flowers as well as mine.

But under the disguise of love,

Thou say’st, thou only cam’st to prove 10

What my affections were.

Think’st thou that love is helped by fear?

Go, get thee quickly forth,

Love’s sickness, and his noted want of worth,

Seek doubting men to please; 15

I ne’er will owe my health to a disease.

11 The Dream

Or scorn or pity on me take,

I must the true relation make:

I am undone tonight.

Love in a subtle dream disguised

Hath both my heart and me surprised, 5

Whom never yet he durst attempt awake;

Nor will he tell me for whose sake

He did me the delight,

Or spite,

But leaves me to inquire, 10

In all my wild desire

Of sleep again, who was his aid,

And sleep so guilty and afraid,

As, since, he dares not come within my sight.

12 An Epitaph on Master Vincent Corbett

I have my piety too, which could

It vent itself but as it would,

Would say as much as both have done

Before me here, the friend and son;

For I both lost a friend and father, 5

Of him whose bones this grave doth gather:

Dear Vincent Corbett, who so long

Had wrestled with diseases strong,

That though they did possess each limb,

Yet he broke them, ere they could him, 10

With the just canon of his life,

A life that knew nor noise, nor strife,

But was by sweet’ning so his will

All order and disposure still;

His mind as pure and neatly kept 15

As were his nurseries, and swept

So of uncleanness or offence,

There never came ill odour thence:

And add his actions unto these,

They were as specious as his trees. 20

’Tis true, he could not reprehend;

His very manners taught t’amend,

They were so even, grave, and holy;

No stubbornness so stiff, nor folly

To licence ever was so light, 25

As twice to trespass in his sight:

His look would so correct it when

It chid the vice, yet not the men.

Much from him I profess I won,

And more, and more I should have done, 30

But that I understood him scant;

Now I conceive him by my want,

And pray who shall my sorrows read,

That they for me their tears will shed;

For, truly, since he left to be, 35

I feel I’m rather dead than he.

Reader; whose life and name did e’er become

An honest epitaph, deserved a tomb:

Nor wants it here through penury or sloth;

Who makes the one, so’t be the first, builds both. 40

13 An Epistle to Sir Edward Sackville, Now Earl of Dorset

If, Sackville, all that have the power to do

Great and good turns, as well could time them too,

And knew their how, and where, we should have then

Less store of proud, hard, or ingrateful men.

For benefits are owed with the same mind 5

As they are done, and such return they find.

You then whose will not only, but desire,

To succour my necessities took fire,

Not at my prayers, but your sense, which laid

The way to meet what others would upbraid, 10

And in the act did so my blush prevent,

As I did feel it done as soon as meant;

You cannot doubt but I, who freely know

This good from you, as freely will it owe;

And though my fortune humble me to take 15

The smallest courtesies with thanks, I make

Yet choice from whom I take them, and would shame

To have such do me good, I durst not name.

They are the noblest benefits, and sink

Deepest in man, of which when he doth think, 20

The memory delights him more, from whom,

Than what, he hath received. Gifts stink from some,

They are so long a-coming, and so hard.

Where any deed is forced, the grace is marred.

Can I owe thanks for benefits received 25

Against his will that doth them? That hath weaved

Excuses or delays, or done them scant,

That they have more oppressed me than my want?

Or if he did it not to succour me,

But by mere chance? For interest? Or to free 30

Himself from farther trouble, or the weight

Of pressing, like one taken in a strait?

All this corrupts the thanks; less hath he won

That puts it in his debt-book ere’t be done,

Or that doth sound a trumpet, and doth call 35

His grooms to witness; or else lets it fall

In that proud manner, as a good so gained

Must make me sad for what I have obtained.

No! Gifts and thanks should have one cheerful face,

So each that’s done and ta’en becomes a brace: 40

He neither gives or does, that doth delay

A benefit, or that doth throw’t away,

No more than he doth thank that will receive

Naught but in corners, and is loath to leave

Least air or print, but flies it. Such men would 45

Run from the conscience of it if they could.

As I have seen some infants of the sword,

Well known and practised borrowers on their word,

Give thanks by stealth and whispering in the ear,

For what they straight would to the world forswear; 50

And speaking worst of those from whom they went

But then, fist-filled, to put men off the scent:

‘Now damn me, sir, if you shall not command

My sword (’tis but a poor sword, understand)

As far as any poor sword in the land.’ 55

Then, turning unto him is next at hand,

Damns whom he’s damned unto: ‘He’s the veryest gull,

H’as feathers, and will serve a man to pull.’

Are they not worthy to be answered so,

Who to such natures let their full hands flow, 60

And seek not wants to succour, but inquire,

Like money-brokers, after names, and hire

Their bounties forth to him who last was made,

Or stands to be, on commission o’the blade?

Sir, still, the hunters of false fame apply 65

Their thoughts and means to make up loud the cry;

But one is bitten by the dog he fed,

And, hurt, seeks cure; the surgeon bids take bread,

And sponge-like with it dry up the blood quite,

Then give it to the hound that did him bite. 70

‘Pardon,’ says he, ‘That were a way to see

All the town curs take each their snatch at me.’

Oh, is it so? Knows he so much, yet will

Feed those, at whom the fable points at still?

I not deny it, but to help the need 75

Of any is a great and generous deed:

Yea, to th’ungrateful: for he forth must tell

Many a piece and pound, will place one well;

But such men ever want. Their very trade

Is borrowing; that but stopped, they do invade 80

All as their prize, turn pirates here at land,

Ha’ their Bermudas and their straits i’th’Strand,

Man out their boats to th’Temple, and not shift

Now, but command; make tribute what was gift;

And it is paid them with a trembling zeal, 85

And superstition. I dare scarce reveal

If it were clear, but being so in cloud

Carried and wrapped, I only am allowed

My wonder, why the taking a clown’s purse,

Or robbing the poor market-folks should nurse 90

Such a religious horror in the breasts

Of our town gallantry! Or why there rests

Such worship due to th’ kicking of a punk!

Or swaggering with the watch or tapster drunk,

Or feats of darkness acted in mid-sun, 95

And told of with more licence than they’re done!

Sure there’s a mystery in it I not know,

That men such reverence to such actions show!

And almost deify the authors, make

Loud sacrifice of drink for their health’s sake, 100

Rere-suppers in their names, and spend whole nights

Unto their praise, in certain swearing rites!

Cannot a man be reckoned in the state

Of valour, but at this idolatrous rate?

Nor be received to sit at the tall board 105

Till he perform these orgies of the sword?

I thought that fortitude had been a mean

’Twixt fear and rashness, not a lust obscene,

Or appetite of offending, but a skill,

Or science of discerning good and ill. 110

And you, sir, know it well to whom I write,

That with these mixtures we put out her light;

Her ends are honesty and public good!

And where they want, she is not understood.

No more are these of me; let them then go. 115

I have the list of mine own faults to know,

Look to, and keep. He’s not a man hath none,

But like to be, that every day mends one

And feels it; else he tarries by the beast.

Can I discern how shadows are decreased 120

Or grown, by height or lowness of the sun?

And can I less of substance? When I run,

Ride, sail, am coached, know I how far I have gone,

And my mind’s motion not? Or have I none?

No! He must feel and know, that will advance: 125

Men have been great, but never good, by chance

Or on the sudden. It were strange that he

Who was this morning Anderson should be

Sidney ere night; or that did go to bed

Coryate should rise the most sufficient head 130

Of Christendom: and neither of these know,

Were the rack offered them, how they came so.

’Tis by degrees that men arrive at glad

Profit in aught; each day some little add;

In time ’twill make a heap. This is not true 135

Alone in money, but in manners too.

Yet we must more than move still, or go on;

We must accomplish: ’tis the last keystone

That makes the arch. The rest that there are put

Are nothing till that comes to bind and shut. 140

Then stands it a triumphal mark. Then men

Observe the strength, the height, the why, and when

It was erected; and still walking under

Meet some new matter to look up and wonder.

Such notes are virtuous men! They live as fast 145

As they are high; are rooted, and will last.

They need no stilts, nor rise up on their toes,

As if they would belie their stature; those

Are dwarfs in honour, and have neither weight

Nor fashion; if they chance aspire to height, 150

’Tis like light canes, that first rise big and brave,

Shoot forth in smooth and comely spaces, have

But few and fair divisions; but being got

Aloft, grow less and straitened, full of knot;

And last go out in nothing. You that see 155

This difference can well choose which you will be.

You know (without my flatt’ring you) too much

For me to be your index. Keep you such,

That I may love your person (as I do)

Without your gift, though I can rate that too 160

By thanking thus the courtesy to life

Which you would bury; but therein the strife

May grow so great to be example, when

(As their true rule or lesson) either men,

Donors or donees, to their practice shall 165

Find you to reckon nothing, me owe all.

14 An Epistle to Master John Selden

I know to whom I write: here, I am sure,

Though I am short, I cannot be obscure.

Less shall I for the art or dressing care:

Truth and the graces best when naked are.

Your book, my Selden, I have read, and much 5

Was trusted that you thought my judgement such

To ask it, though in most of works it be

A penance, where a man may not be free,

Rather than office, when it doth or may

Chance that the friend’s affection proves allay 10

Unto the censure. Yours all need doth fly

Of this so vicious humanity.

Than which there is not unto study a more

Pernicious enemy. We see before

A many of books, even good judgements wound 15

Themselves through favouring what is there not found:

But I on yours far otherwise shall do;

Not fly the crime, but the suspicion too.

Though I confess (as every muse hath erred,

And mine not least) I have too oft preferred 20

Men past their terms, and praised some names too much;

But ’twas with purpose to have made them such.

Since, being deceived, I turn a sharper eye

Upon myself, and ask to whom, and why,

And what I write? And vex it many days 25

Before men get a verse, much less a praise;

So that my reader is assured I now

Mean what I speak, and still will keep that vow.

Stand forth my object, then, you that have been

Ever at home, yet have all countries seen, 30

And like a compass keeping one foot still

Upon your centre, do your circle fill

Of general knowledge; watched men, manners too,

Heard what times past have said, seen what ours do:

Which grace shall I make love to first? Your skill, 35

Or faith in things, or is’t your wealth and will

T’instruct and teach, or your unwearied pain

Of gathering? Bounty in pouring out again?

What fables have you vexed! What truth redeemed!

Antiquities searched! Opinions disesteemed! 40

Impostures branded, and authorities urged!

What blots and errors have you watched and purged

Records and authors of! How rectified

Times, manners, customs! Innovations spied!

Sought out the fountains, sources, creeks, paths, ways, 45

And noted the beginnings and decays!

Where is that nominal mark or real rite,

Form, act, or ensign that hath ’scaped your sight?

How are traditions there examined, how

Conjectures retrieved! And a story now 50

And then of times (besides the bare conduct

Of what it tells us) weaved in to instruct.

I wondered at the richness, but am lost

To see the workmanship so exceed the cost!

To mark the excellent seasoning of your style, 55

And manly elocution, not one while

With horror rough, then rioting with wit!

But to the subject still the colours fit

In sharpness of all search, wisdom of choice,

Newness of sense, antiquity of voice! 60

I yield, I yield: the matter of your praise

Flows in upon me, and I cannot raise

A bank against it. Nothing but the round,

Large clasp of nature such a wit can bound.

Monarch in letters! ’Mongst thy titles shown 65

Of others’ honours, thus, enjoy thine own.

I first salute thee so, and gratulate

With that thy style, thy keeping of thy state

In offering this thy work to no great name,

That would, perhaps, have praised and thanked the same, 70

But naught beyond. He thou hast given it to,

Thy learnèd chamber-fellow, knows to do

It true respects. He will not only love,

Embrace, and cherish, but he can approve

And estimate thy pains, as having wrought 75

In the same mines of knowledge, and thence brought

Humanity enough to be a friend,

And strength to be a champion, and defend

Thy gift ’gainst envy. Oh, how I do count

Among my comings in, and see it mount, 80

The gain of your two friendships! Hayward and

Selden! Two names that so much understand!

On whom I could take up, and ne’er abuse

The credit, what would furnish a tenth muse!

But here’s no time nor place my wealth to tell: 85

You both are modest. So am I. Farewell.

15 An Epistle to a Friend, to Persuade Him to the Wars

Wake, friend, from forth thy lethargy: the drum

Beats brave and loud in Europe, and bids come

All that dare rouse, or are not loath to quit

Their vicious ease, and be o’erwhelmed with it.

It is a call to keep the spirits alive 5

That gasp for action, and would yet revive

Man’s buried honour in his sleepy life,

Quick’ning dead nature to her noblest strife.

All other acts of worldlings are but toil

In dreams, begun in hope, and end in spoil. 10

Look on th’ambitious man, and see him nurse

His unjust hopes, with praises begged, or (worse)

Bought flatteries, the issue of his purse,

Till he become both their and his own curse!

Look on the false and cunning man that loves 15

No person, nor is loved; what ways he proves

To gain upon his belly; and at last

Crushed in the snaky brakes that he had passed!

See, the grave, sour, and supercilious sir

(In outward face, but, inward, light as fur 20

Or feathers) lay his fortune out to show,

Till envy wound or maim it at a blow!

See him that’s called, and thought, the happiest man,

Honoured at once, and envied (if it can

Be honour is so mixed) by such as would 25

For all their spite be like him if they could.

No part or corner man can look upon,

But there are objects bid him to be gone

As far as he can fly, or follow, day,

Rather than here so bogged in vices stay. 30

The whole world here, leavened with madness, swells,

And, being a thing blown out of naught, rebels

Against his Maker; high alone with weeds

And impious rankness of all sects and seeds;

Not to be checked or frighted now with fate, 35

But more licentious made and desperate!

Our delicacies are grown capital,

And even our sports are dangers! What we call

Friendship is now masked hatred! Justice fled,

And shamefastness together! All laws dead 40

That kept man living! Pleasures only sought!

Honour and honesty, as poor things thought

As they are made! Pride and stiff clownage mixed

To make up greatness! And man’s whole good fixed

In bravery, or gluttony, or coin; 45

All which he makes the servants of the groin:

Thither it flows! How much did Stallion spend

To have his court-bred filly there commend

His lace and starch, and fall upon her back

In admiration, stretched upon the rack 50

Of lust, to his rich suit and title ‘Lord’?

Ay, that’s a charm and half! She must afford

That all respect; she must lie down: nay, more,

’Tis there civility to be a whore.

He’s one of blood and fashion! And with these 55

The bravery makes, she can no honour leese.

To do’t with cloth or stuffs, lust’s name might merit;

With velvet, plush, and tissues, it is spirit.

Oh, these so ignorant monsters! Light as proud;

Who can behold their manners and not cloud- 60

Like upon them lighten? If nature could

Not make a verse, anger or laughter would,

To see ’em aye discoursing with their glass,

How they may make some one that day an ass;

Planting their purls and curls spread forth like net, 65

And every dressing for a pitfall set

To catch the flesh in, and to pound a prick.

Be at their visits; see ’em squeamish, sick,

Ready to cast at one whose band sits ill,

And then leap mad on a neat piccadill, 70

As if a breeze were gotten i’their tail,

And firk, and jerk, and for the coachman rail,

And jealous each of other, yet think long

To be abroad chanting some bawdy song,

And laugh, and measure thighs, then squeak, spring, itch; 75

Do all the tricks of a salt lady bitch.

For t’other pound of sweetmeats he shall feel

That pays, or what he will. The dame is steel,

For these with her young company she’ll enter,

Where Pitts, or Wright, or Modet would not venter, 80

And comes by these degrees the style t’inherit

Of woman of fashion, and a lady of spirit.

Nor is the title questioned with our proud,

Great, brave, and fashioned folk; these are allowed

Adulteries now, are not so hid or strange: 85

They’re grown commodity upon exchange.

He that will follow but another’s wife

Is loved, though he let out his own for life.

The husband now’s called churlish, or a poor

Nature, that will not let his wife be a whore, 90

Or use all arts, or haunt all companies

That may corrupt her, even in his eyes.

The brother trades a sister, and the friend

Lives to the lord, but to the lady’s end.

Less must not be thought on than mistress; or, 95

If it be thought, killed like her embryons; for,

Whom no great mistress hath as yet infamed,

A fellow of coarse lechery is named,

The servant of the serving-woman, in scorn,

Ne’er came to taste the plenteous marriage-horn. 100

Thus they do talk. And are these objects fit

For man to spend his money on? His wit?

His time? Health? Soul? Will he for these go throw

Those thousands on his back, shall after blow

His body to the Counters, or the Fleet? 105

Is it for these that Fine Man meets the street

Coached, or on foot-cloth thrice changed every day,

To teach each suit he has the ready way

From Hyde Park to the stage, where at the last

His dear and borrowed bravery he must cast? 110

When not his combs, his curling-irons, his glass,

Sweet bags, sweet powders, nor sweet words will pass

For less security? O friend, for these

Is it that man pulls on himself disease,

Surfeit, and quarrel? Drinks the t’other health? 115

Or by damnation voids it, or by stealth?

What fury of late is crept into our feasts?

What honour given to the drunkennest guests?

What reputation to bear one glass more,

When oft the bearer is borne out of door? 120

This hath our ill-used freedom and soft peace

Brought on us, and will every hour increase.

Our vices do not tarry in a place,

But being in motion still (or rather in race)

Tilt one upon another, and now bear 125

This way, now that, as if their number were

More than themselves, or than our lives could take;

But both fell pressed under the load they make.

I’ll bid thee look no more, but flee, flee, friend,

This precipice and rocks that have no end 130

Or side, but threatens ruin. The whole day

Is not enough now, but the night’s to play:

And whilst our states, strength, body, and mind we waste,

Go make ourselves the usurer’s at a cast.

He that no more for age, cramps, palsies can 135

Now use the bones, we see doth hire a man

To take the box up for him, and pursues

The dice with glassen eyes, to the glad views

Of what he throws: like lechers grown content

To be beholders when their powers are spent. 140

Can we not leave this worm? Or will we not?

Is that the truer excuse? Or have we got

In this, and like, an itch of vanity,

That scratching now’s our best felicity?

Well, let it go. Yet this is better than 145

To lose the forms and dignities of men,

To flatter my good lord, and cry his bowl

Runs sweetly, as it had His Lordship’s soul,

Although perhaps it has; what’s that to me,

That may stand by and hold my peace? Will he, 150

When I am hoarse with praising his each cast,

Give me but that again, that I must waste

In sugar candied, or in buttered beer,

For the recovery of my voice? No, there

Pardon His Lordship. Flatt’ry’s grown so cheap 155

With him, for he is followed with that heap

That watch and catch at what they may applaud,

As a poor single flatterer, without bawd,

Is nothing, such scarce meat and drink he’ll give;

But he that’s both, and slave to boot, shall live, 160

And be beloved, while the whores last. O times!

Friend, fly from hence, and let these kindled rhymes

Light thee from hell on earth, where flatterers, spies,

Informers, masters both of arts and lies,

Lewd slanderers, soft whisperers that let blood 165

The life and fame-veins (yet not understood

Of the poor sufferers) where the envious, proud,

Ambitious, factious, superstitious, loud

Boasters, and perjured, with the infinite more

Prevaricators swarm. Of which the store 170

(Because they’re everywhere amongst mankind

Spread through the world) is easier far to find,

Than once to number, or bring forth to hand,

Though thou wert muster-master of the land.

Go, quit ’em all. And take along with thee 175

Thy true friend’s wishes, Colby, which shall be

That thine be just and honest; that thy deeds

Not wound thy conscience when thy body bleeds;

That thou dost all things more for truth than glory,

And never but for doing wrong be sorry; 180

That by commanding first thyself, thou mak’st

Thy person fit for any charge thou tak’st;

That Fortune never make thee to complain,

But what she gives thou dar’st give her again;

That whatsoever face thy fate puts on 185

Thou shrink or start not, but be always one;

That thou think nothing great, but what is good,

And from that thought strive to be understood.

So, ’live or dead, thou wilt preserve a fame

Still precious, with the odour of thy name. 190

And, last, blaspheme not; we did never hear

Man thought the valianter ’cause he durst swear,

No more than we should think a lord had had

More honour in him ’cause we’ve known him mad.

These take, and now go seek thy peace in war: 195

Who falls for love of God, shall rise a star.

16 An Epitaph on Master Philip Gray

Reader, stay,

And if I had no more to say,

But here doth lie till the last day

All that is left of Philip Gray,

It might thy patience richly pay:

For if such men as he could die,

What surety of life have thou, and I?

17 Epistle To a Friend

They are not, sir, worst owers that do pay

Debts when they can: good men may break their day,

And yet the noble nature never grudge;

’Tis then a crime when the usurer is judge,

And he is not in friendship. Nothing there 5

Is done for gain; if’t be ’tis not sincere.

Nor should I at this time protested be,

But that some greater names have broke with me,

And their words too, where I but break my band.

I add that ‘but’ because I understand 10

That as the lesser breach; for he that takes

Simply my band, his trust in me forsakes

And looks unto the forfeit. If you be

Now so much friend as you would trust in me,

Venture a longer time, and willingly: 15

All is not barren land doth fallow lie.

Some grounds are made the richer for the rest;

And I will bring a crop, if not the best.

18 An Elegy

Can beauty, that did prompt me first to write,

Now threaten with those means she did invite?

Did her perfections call me on to gaze,

Then like, then love, and now would they amaze?

Or was she gracious afar off, but near 5

A terror? Or is all this but my fear?

That as the water makes things put in’t straight,

Crooked appear; so that doth my conceit.

I can help that with boldness, and Love sware

And Fortune, once, t’assist the spirits that dare. 10

But which shall lead me on? Both these are blind:

Such guides men use not, who their way would find,

Except the way be error to those ends,

And then the best are still the blindest friends!

Oh, how a lover may mistake! To think 15

Or Love or Fortune blind, when they but wink

To see men fear; or else for truth and state,

Because they would free justice imitate,

Vail their own eyes, and would impartially

Be brought by us to meet our destiny. 20

If it be thus, come Love, and Fortune go:

I’ll lead you on, or if my fate will so

That I must send one first, my choice assigns

Love to my heart, and Fortune to my lines.

19 An Elegy

By those bright eyes, at whose immortal fires

Love lights his torches to inflame desires;

By that fair stand, your forehead, whence he bends

His double bow, and round his arrows sends;

By that tall grove, your hair, whose globy rings 5

He flying curls and crispeth with his wings;

By those pure baths your either cheek discloses,

Where he doth steep himself in milk and roses;

And lastly by your lips, the bank of kisses,

Where men at once may plant and gather blisses: 10

Tell me, my loved friend, do you love or no,

So well as I may tell in verse ’tis so?

You blush, but do not: friends are either none

(Though they may number bodies) or but one.

I’ll therefore ask no more, but bid you love; 15

And so that either may example prove

Unto the other, and live patterns how

Others in time may love, as we do now.

Slip no occasion: as time stands not still,

I know no beauty, nor no youth that will. 20

To use the present, then, is not abuse;

You have a husband is the just excuse

Of all that can be done him; such a one

As would make shift to make himself, alone,

That which we can; who both in you, his wife, 25

His issue, and all circumstance of life,

As in his place, because he would not vary,

Is constant to be extraordinary.

20 A Satirical Shrub

A woman’s friendship! God, whom I trust in,

Forgive me this one foolish deadly sin,

Amongst my many other, that I may

No more (I am sorry for so fond cause) say

At fifty years, almost, to value it, 5

That ne’er was known to last above a fit!

Or have the least of good, but what it must

Put on for fashion, and take up on trust:

Knew I all this afore? Had I perceived

That their whole life was wickedness, though weaved 10

Of many colours, outward fresh from spots,

But their whole inside full of ends and knots?

Knew I, that all their dialogues and discourse

Were such as I will now relate or worse?

Here something is wanting

∗ ∗ ∗

Knew I this woman? Yes; and you do see 15

How penitent I am, or I should be!

Do not you ask to know her; she is worse

Than all ingredients made into one curse,

And that poured out upon mankind, can be!

Think but the sin of all her sex, ’tis she! 20

I could forgive her being proud, a whore,

Perjured, and painted, if she were no more!

But she is such as she might yet forestall

The devil and be the damning of us all.

21

A Little Shrub Growing By

Ask not to know this man. If fame should speak

His name in any metal, it would break.

Two letters were enough the plague to tear

Out of his grave, and poison every ear.

A parcel of court-dirt, a heap and mass 5

Of all vice hurled together, there he was,

Proud, false, and treacherous, vindictive, all

That thought can add: unthankful, the lay-stall

Of putrid flesh alive! Of blood the sink!

And so I leave to stir him, lest he stink. 10

22 An Elegy

Though beauty be the mark of praise,

And yours of whom I sing be such

As not the world can praise too much,

Yet is’t your virtue now I raise.

A virtue, like alloy, so gone 5

Throughout your form, as, though that move

And draw and conquer all men’s love,

This subjects you to love of one.

Wherein you triumph yet, because

’Tis of yourself, and that you use 10

The noblest freedom, not to choose

Against or faith, or honour’s laws.

But who should less expect from you,

In whom alone Love lives again?

By whom he is restored to men, 15

And kept, and bred, and brought up true?

His falling temples you have reared,

The withered garlands ta’en away,

His altars kept from the decay

That envy wished, and nature feared. 20

And on them burn so chaste a flame,

With so much loyalty’s expense

As Love, t’acquit such excellence,

Is gone himself into your name,

And you are he: the deity 25

To whom all lovers are designed,

That would their better objects find:

Among which faithful troop am I,

Who as an offering at your shrine,

Have sung this hymn, and here entreat 30

One spark of your diviner heat

To light upon a love of mine;

Which if it kindle not, but scant

Appear, and that to shortest view,

Yet give me leave t’adore in you 35

What I, in her, am grieved to want.

23

An Ode. To Himself

Where dost thou careless lie,

Buried in ease and sloth?

Knowledge that sleeps doth die;

And this security

It is the common moth 5

That eats on wits, and arts, and oft destroys them both.

Are all th’Aeonian springs

Dried up? Lies Thespia waste?

Doth Clarius’ harp want strings,

That not a nymph now sings? 10

Or droop they as disgraced,

To see their seats and bowers by chatt’ring pies defaced?

If hence thy silence be,

As ’tis too just a cause,

Let this thought quicken thee: 15

Minds that are great and free

Should not on fortune pause:

’Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.

What though the greedy fry

Be taken with false baits 20

Of worded balladry,

And think it poesy?

They die with their conceits,

And only piteous scorn upon their folly waits.

Then take in hand thy lyre, 25

Strike in thy proper strain,

With Japhet’s line, aspire

Sol’s chariot for new fire,

To give the world again:

Who aided him, will thee, the issue of Jove’s brain. 30

And since our dainty age

Cannot endure reproof,

Make not thyself a page

To that strumpet the stage,

But sing high and aloof, 35

Safe from the wolf’s black jaw, and the dull ass’s hoof.

24 The Mind of the Frontispiece to a Book

From Death and dark Oblivion (near the same)

The mistress of man’s life, grave History,

Raising the world to good or evil Fame,

Doth vindicate it to eternity.

Wise Providence would so, that nor the good 5

Might be defrauded, nor the great secured;

But both might know their ways were understood,

When vice alike in time with virtue dured.

Which makes that (lighted by the beamy hand

Of Truth, that searcheth the most hidden springs, 10

And guided by Experience, whose straight wand

Doth mete, whose line doth sound the depth of things)

She cheerfully supporteth what she rears,

Assisted by no strengths but are her own.

Some note of which each varied pillar bears, 15

By which as proper titles she is known

Time’s witness, herald of antiquity,

The light of truth, and life of memory.

25

An Ode to James, Earl of Desmond, Writ
In Queen Elizabeth’s Time;
Since Lost and Recovered

Where art thou, Genius? I should use

Thy present aid. Arise, Invention,

Wake, and put on the wings of Pindar’s muse,

To tow’r with my intention

High as his mind, that doth advance 5

Her upright head above the reach of chance,

Or the time’s envy.

Cinthius, I apply

My bolder numbers to thy golden lyre:

Oh, then inspire 10

Thy priest in this strange rapture; heat my brain

With Delphic fire,

That I may sing my thoughts in some unvulgar strain.

Rich beam of honour, shed your light

On these dark rhymes, that my affection 15

May shine, through every chink, to every sight

Gracèd by your reflection!

Then shall my verses, like strong charms

Break the knit circle of her stony arms,

That holds your spirit, 20

And keeps your merit

Locked in her cold embraces, from the view

Of eyes more true,

Who would with judgement search, searching conclude

(As proved in you) 25

True noblesse. Palm grows straight, though handled ne’er so rude.

Nor think yourself unfortunate,

If subject to the jealous errors

Of politic pretext, that wries a state;

Sink not beneath these terrors, 30

But whisper, O glad innocence,

Where only a man’s birth is his offence,

Or the disfavour,

Of such as savour

Nothing, but practise upon honour’s thrall. 35

Oh, virtue’s fall!

When her dead essence (like the anatomy

In Surgeons’ Hall)

Is but a statist’s theme, to read phlebotomy.

Let Brontes and black Steropes 40

Sweat at the forge, their hammers beating;

Pyracmon’s hour will come to give them ease,

Though but while metal’s heating.

And, after all the Aetnean ire,

Gold that is perfect will outlive the fire. 45

For fury wasteth

As patience lasteth.

No armour to the mind! He is shot-free

From injury

That is not hurt, not he that is not hit; 50

So fools, we see,

Oft scape an imputation more through luck than wit.

But to yourself, most loyal lord,

(Whose heart in that bright sphere flames clearest,

Though many gems be in your bosom stored, 55

Unknown which is the dearest)

If I auspiciously divine,

As my hope tells, that our fair Phoebe’s shine

Shall light those places

With lustrous graces, 60

Where darkness with her gloomy-sceptred hand

Doth now command;

Oh, then, my best-best loved, let me importune,

That you will stand

As far from all revolt, as you are now from fortune. 65

26 An Ode

High-spirited friend,

I send nor balms nor corsives to your wound;

Your fate hath found

A gentler and more agile hand to tend

The cure of that which is but corporal, 5

And doubtful days (which were named critical)

Have made their fairest flight,

And now are out of sight.

Yet doth some wholesome physic for the mind

Wrapped in this paper lie, 10

Which in the taking if you misapply,

You are unkind.

Your covetous hand,

Happy in that fair honour it hath gained,

Must now be reined. 15

True valour doth her own renown command

In one full action; nor have you now more

To do than be a husband of that store.

Think but how dear you bought

This fame which you have caught; 20

Such thoughts will make you more in love with truth.

’Tis wisdom, and that high,

For men to use their fortune reverently,

Even in youth.

27 An Ode

Helen, did Homer never see

Thy beauties, yet could write of thee?

Did Sappho on her seven-tongued lute

So speak (as yet it is not mute)

Of Phaon’s form? Or doth the boy 5

In whom Anacreon once did joy

Lie drawn to life in his soft verse,

As he whom Maro did rehearse?

Was Lesbia sung by learn’d Catullus?

Or Delia’s graces by Tibullus? 10

Doth Cynthia in Propertius’ song

Shine more than she the stars among?

Is Horace his each love so high

Rapt from the earth as not to die?

With bright Lycoris, Gallus’ choice, 15

Whose fame hath an eternal voice.

Or hath Corinna, by the name

Her Ovid gave her, dimmed the fame

Of Caesar’s daughter, and the line

Which all the world then styled divine? 20

Hath Petrarch since his Laura raised

Equal with her? Or Ronsard praised

His new Cassandra ’bove the old,

Which all the fate of Troy foretold?

Hath our great Sidney Stella set 25

Where never star shone brighter yet?

Or Constable’s ambrosiac muse

Made Dian not his notes refuse?

Have all these done (and yet I miss

The swan that so relished Pancharis) 30

And shall not I my Celia bring

Where men may see whom I do sing?

Though I, in working of my song,

Come short of all this learnèd throng,

Yet, sure, my tunes will be the best, 35

So much my subject drowns the rest.

28 A Sonnet: To the Noble Lady, the Lady Mary Wroth

I that have been a lover and could show it,

Though not in these, in rhymes not wholly dumb,

Since I exscribe your sonnets, am become

A better lover, and much better poet.

Nor is my muse or I ashamed to owe it 5

To those true numerous graces, whereof some

But charm the senses, others overcome

Both brains and hearts, and mine now best do know it:

For in your verse all Cupid’s armoury,

His flames, his shafts, his quiver, and his bow, 10

His very eyes are yours to overthrow.

But then his mother’s sweets you so apply,

Her joys, her smiles, her loves, as readers take

For Venus’ ceston every line you make.

29 A Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme

Rhyme, the rack of finest wits,

That expresseth but by fits

True conceit,

Spoiling senses of their treasure,

Cozening judgement with a measure 5

But false weight;

Wresting words from their true calling,

Propping verse, for fear of falling

To the ground;

Jointing syllabes, drowning letters, 10

Fastening vowels, as with fetters

They were bound!

Soon as lazy thou wert known

All good poetry hence was flown,

And art banished. 15

For a thousand years together

All Parnassus’ green did wither

And wit vanished.

Pegasus did fly away;

At the well no muse did stay, 20

But bewailèd

So to see the fountain dry,

And Apollo’s music die,

All light failèd!

Starveling rhymes did fill the stage, 25

Not a poet in an age

Worth a-crowning.

Not a work deserving bays,

Nor a line deserving praise,

Pallas frowning. 30

Greek was free from rhyme’s infection;

Happy Greek, by this protection,

Was not spoilèd!

Whilst the Latin, queen of tongues,

Is not yet free from rhyme’s wrongs, 35

But rests foilèd.

Scarce the hill again doth flourish,

Scarce the world a wit doth nourish,

To restore

Phoebus to his crown again, 40

And the muses to their brain,

As before.

Vulgar languages that want

Words and sweetness, and be scant

Of true measure, 45

Tyrant rhyme hath so abusèd,

That they long since have refusèd

Other caesure.

He that first invented thee,

May his joints tormented be, 50

Cramped for ever.

Still may syllabes jar with time,

Still may reason war with rhyme,

Resting never.

May his sense, when it would meet 55

The cold tumour in his feet,

Grow unsounder.

And his title be long fool,

That in rearing such a school,

Was the founder. 60

30 An Epigram On William, Lord Burghley, Lord High Treasurer of England

If thou wouldst know the virtues of mankind,

Read here in one what thou in all canst find,

And go no farther: let this circle be

Thy universe, though his epitome:

Cecil the grave, the wise, the great, the good, 5

What is there more that can ennoble blood?

The orphan’s pillar, the true subject’s shield,

The poor’s full storehouse, and just servant’s field.

The only faithful watchman for the realm,

That in all tempests never quit the helm, 10

But stood unshaken in his deeds and name,

And laboured in the work, not with the fame;

That still was good for goodness’ sake, nor thought

Upon reward, till the reward him sought.

Whose offices and honours did surprise 15

Rather than meet him; and before his eyes

Closed to their peace, he saw his branches shoot,

And in the noblest families took root

Of all the land; who now at such a rate

Of divine blessing, would not serve a state? 20

31 An Epigram: To Thomas, Lord Ellesmere, The Last Term He Sat Chancellor

So, justest lord, may all your judgements be

Laws, and no change e’er come to one decree;

So may the king proclaim your conscience is

Law to his law, and think your enemies his;

So from all sickness may you rise to health, 5

The care and wish still of the public wealth;

So may the gentler muses and good fame

Still fly about the odour of your name,

As with the safety and honour of the laws

You favour truth, and me, in this man’s cause. 10

32

Another to Him

The judge his favour timely then extends

When a good cause is destitute of friends,

Without the pomp of counsel, or more aid

Than to make falsehood blush, and fraud afraid;

When those good few, that her defenders be, 5

Are there for charity, and not for fee.

Such shall you hear today, and find great foes

Both armed with wealth, and slander to oppose,

Who, thus long safe, would gain upon the times

A right by the prosperity of their crimes; 10

Who, though their guilt and perjury they know,

Think, yea, and boast that they have done it so,

As, though the court pursues them on the scent,

They will come off, and ’scape the punishment;

When this appears, just lord, to your sharp sight, 15

He does you wrong that craves you to do right.

33 An Epigram to the Counsellor that Pleaded and Carried the Cause

That I hereafter do not think the Bar

The seat made of a more than civil war,

Or the Great Hall at Westminster the field

Where mutual frauds are fought, and no side yield;

That, henceforth, I believe nor books nor men, 5

Who ’gainst the law weave calumnies, my Benn,

But when I read or hear the names so rife

Of hirelings, wranglers, stitchers-to of strife,

Hook-handed harpies, gownèd vultures, put

Upon the reverend pleaders; do now shut 10

All mouths that dare entitle them from hence

To the wolf’s study or dog’s eloquence;

Thou art my cause, whose manners since I knew,

Have made me to conceive a lawyer new.

So dost thou study matter, men, and times, 15

Mak’st it religion to grow rich by crimes!

Dar’st not abuse thy wisdom in the laws,

Or skill, to carry out an evil cause,

But first dost vex and search it! If not sound,

Thou prov’st the gentler ways to cleanse the wound, 20

And make the scar fair; if that will not be

Thou hast the brave scorn to put back the fee!

But in a business that will bide the touch,

What use, what strength of reason! And how much

Of books, of precedents, hast thou at hand? 25

As if the general store thou didst command

Of argument, still drawing forth the best,

And not being borrowed by thee, but possessed;

So com’st thou like a chief into the court,

Armed at all pieces, as to keep a fort 30

Against a multitude, and (with thy style

So brightly brandished) wound’st, defend’st! The while

Thy adversaries fall, as not a word

They had, but were a reed unto thy sword;

Then com’st thou off with victory and palm, 35

Thy hearer’s nectar, and thy client’s balm,

The court’s just honour, and thy judge’s love.

And (which doth all achievements get above)

Thy sincere practice breeds not thee a fame

Alone, but all thy rank a reverend name. 40

34

An Epigram: To the Smallpox

Envious and foul disease, could there not be

One beauty in an age, and free from thee?

What did she worth thy spite? Were there not store

Of those that set by their false faces more

Than this did by her true? She never sought 5

Quarrel with nature, or in balance brought

Art, her false servant; nor, for Sir Hugh Plat,

Was drawn to practise other hue than that

Her own blood gave her. She ne’er had, nor hath,

Any belief in Madam Bawd-be’s bath, 10

Or Turner’s oil of talc. Nor ever got

Spanish receipt to make her teeth to rot.

What was the cause, then? Thought’st thou in disgrace

Of beauty so to nullify a face,

That heaven should make no more, or should amiss 15

Make all hereafter, hadst thou ruined this?

Ay, that thy aim was; but her fate prevailed,

And, scorned, th’ast shown thy malice, but hast failed.

35 An Epitaph: On Elizabeth Chute

What beauty would have lovely styled,

What manners pretty, nature mild,

What wonder perfect, all were filed

Upon record in this blest child.

And, till the coming of the soul 5

To fetch the flesh, we keep the roll.

36

A Song

Lover

Come, let us here enjoy the shade,

For love in shadow best is made.

Though envy oft his shadow be,

None brooks the sunlight worse than he.

Mistress

Where love doth shine there needs no sun; 5

All lights into his one doth run,

Without which all the world were dark,

Yet he himself is but a spark.

Arbiter

A spark to set whole worlds afire,

Who more they burn, they more desire, 10

And have their being their waste to see;

And waste still, that they still might be.

Chorus

Such are his powers, whom time hath styled

Now swift, now slow, now tame, now wild;

Now hot, now cold, now fierce, now mild: 15

The eldest god, yet still a child.

37 An Epistle to a Friend

Sir, I am thankful, first, to heaven for you;

Next to yourself, for making your love true;

Then to your love and gift. And all’s but due.

You have unto my store added a book,

On which with profit I shall never look 5

But must confess from whom what gift I took.

Not like your country neighbours, that commit

Their vice of loving for a Christmas fit,

Which is indeed but friendship of the spit;

But as a friend, which name yourself receive, 10

And which you (being the worthier) gave me leave

In letters, that mix spirits, thus to weave.

Which, how most sacred I will ever keep,

So may the fruitful vine my temples steep,

And Fame wake for me, when I yield to sleep. 15

Though you sometimes proclaim me too severe,

Rigid, and harsh, which is a drug austere

In friendship, I confess; but, dear friend, hear:

Little know they that profess amity

And seek to scant her comely liberty; 20

How much they lame her in her property.

And less they know, who, being free to use

That friendship which no chance but love did choose,

Will unto licence that fair leave abuse.

It is an act of tyranny, not love, 25

In practised friendship wholly to reprove,

As flattery with friends’ humours still to move.

From each of which I labour to be free;

Yet if with either’s vice I tainted be,

Forgive it as my frailty, and not me. 30

For no man lives so out of passion’s sway,

But shall sometimes be tempted to obey

Her fury, yet no friendship to betray.

38

An Elegy

’Tis true, I’m broke! Vows, oaths, and all I had

Of credit lost. And I am now run mad,

Or do upon myself some desperate ill;

This sadness makes no approaches but to kill.

It is a darkness hath blocked up my sense, 5

And drives it in to eat on my offence,

Or there to starve it. Help, O you that may

Alone lend succours, and this fury stay,

Offended mistress; you are yet so fair

As light breaks from you that affrights despair, 10

And fills my powers with persuading joy

That you should be too noble to destroy.

There may some face or menace of a storm

Look forth, but cannot last in such a form.

If there be nothing worthy you can see 15

Of graces or your mercy here in me,

Spare your own goodness yet, and be not great

In will and power only to defeat.

God, and the good, know to forgive and save.

The ignorant and fools no pity have. 20

I will not stand to justify my fault,

Or lay the excuse upon the vintner’s vault;

Or in confessing of the crime be nice,

Or go about to countenance the vice

By naming in what company ’twas in, 25

As I would urge authority for sin.

No; I will stand arraigned and cast, to be

The subject of your grace in pardoning me,

And (styled your mercy’s creature) will live more

Your honour now than your disgrace before. 30

Think it was frailty, mistress, think me man;

Think that yourself, like heaven, forgive me can:

Where weakness doth offend and virtue grieve,

There greatness takes a glory to relieve.

Think that I once was yours, or may be now; 35

Nothing is vile that is a part of you.

Error and folly in me may have crossed

Your just commands; yet those, not I, be lost.

I am regenerate now, become the child

Of your compassion. Parents should be mild: 40

There is no father that for one demerit,

Or two, or three, a son will disinherit:

That as the last of punishments is meant;

No man inflicts that pain, till hope be spent.

An ill-affected limb whate’er it ail 45

We cut not off till all cures else do fail,

And then with pause; for, severed once, that’s gone

Would live his glory that could keep it on.

Do not despair my mending; to distrust

Before you prove a medicine, is unjust. 50

You may so place me, and in such an air

As not alone the cure, but scar be fair.

That is, if still your favours you apply,

And not the bounties you ha’ done, deny.

Could you demand the gifts you gave again? 55

Why was’t? Did e’er the clouds ask back their rain?

The sun his heat and light, the air his dew?

Or winds the spirit, by which the flower so grew?

That were to wither all and make a grave

Of that wise Nature would a cradle have. 60

Her order is to cherish and preserve;

Consumption’s nature to destroy and starve.

But to exact again what once is given

Is nature’s mere obliquity! As heaven

Should ask the blood and spirits he hath infused 65

In man, because man hath the flesh abused.

Oh, may your wisdom take example hence:

God lightens not at man’s each frail offence;

He pardons slips, goes by a world of ills,

And then his thunder frights more than it kills. 70

He cannot angry be, but all must quake;

It shakes even him that all things else doth shake.

And how more fair and lovely looks the world

In a calm sky, than when the heaven is hurled

About in clouds, and wrapped in raging weather, 75

As all with storm and tempest ran together.

Oh, imitate that sweet serenity

That makes us live, not that which calls to die.

In dark and sullen morns, do we not say

‘This looketh like an execution day?’ 80

And with the vulgar doth it not obtain

The name of cruel weather, storm, and rain?

Be not affected with these marks too much

Of cruelty, lest they do make you such.

But view the mildness of your maker’s state, 85

As I the penitent’s here emulate:

He, when he sees a sorrow such as this,

Straight puts off all his anger, and doth kiss

The contrite soul, who hath no thought to win

Upon the hope to have another sin 90

Forgiven him; and in that line stand I,

Rather than once displease you more, to die,

To suffer tortures, scorn, and infamy,

What fools and all their parasites can apply;

The wit of ale, and genius of the malt 95

Can pump for, or a libel without salt

Produce, though threat’ning with a coal, or chalk,

On every wall, and sung where’er I walk.

I number these as being of the chore

Of contumely, and urge a good man more 100

Than sword or fire, or what is of the race,

To carry noble danger in the face:

There is not any punishment or pain

A man should fly from, as he would disdain.

Then, mistress, here, here let your rigour end, 105

And let your mercy make me ashamed t’offend.

I will no more abuse my vows to you

Than I will study falsehood to be true.

Oh, that you could but by dissection see

How much you are the better part of me; 110

How all my fibres by your spirit do move,

And that there is no life in me but love.

You would be then most confident, that though

Public affairs command me now to go

Out of your eyes, and be a while away, 115

Absence or distance shall not breed decay.

Your form shines here, here fixèd in my heart:

I may dilate myself, but not depart.

Others by common stars their courses run;

When I see you, then I do see my sun. 120

Till then, ’tis all but darkness that I have;

Rather than want your light, I wish a grave.

[For Und. 39 see Dubia, Electronic Edition]

40

An Elegy

That love’s a bitter sweet I ne’er conceive,

Till the sour minute comes of taking leave,

And then I taste it. But, as men drink up

In haste the bottom of a med’cined cup,

And take some syrup after, so do I 5

To put all relish from my memory

Of parting, drown it in the hope to meet

Shortly again, and make our absence sweet.

This makes me, mistress, that sometime by stealth

Under another name I take your health, 10

And turn the ceremonies of those nights

I give or owe my friends into your rites,

But ever without blazon or least shade

Of vows so sacred and in silence made;

For though love thrive, and may grow up with cheer 15

And free society, he’s born elsewhere,

And must be bred so to conceal his birth,

As neither wine do rack it out, or mirth.

Yet should the lover still be airy and light

In all his actions rarified to sprite, 20

Not like a Midas shut up in himself,

And turning all he toucheth into pelf,

Keep in, reserved, in his dark-lantern face,

As if that exc’llent dullness were love’s grace.

No, mistress, no; the open merry man 25

Moves like a sprightly river, and yet can

Keep secret in his channels what he breeds,

’Bove all your standing waters choked with weeds.

They look at best like cream-bowls, and you soon

Shall find their depth: they’re sounded with a spoon. 30

They may say grace, and for love’s chaplains pass;

But the grave lover ever was an ass,

Is fixed upon one leg, and dares not come

Out with the other, for he’s still at home;

Like the dull-wearied crane that, come on land, 35

Doth while he keeps his watch betray his stand.

Where he that knows will like a lapwing fly

Far from the nest, and so himself belie

To others, as he will deserve the trust

Due to that one that doth believe him just. 40

And such your servant is, who vows to keep

The jewel of your name as close as sleep

Can lock the sense up, or the heart a thought,

And never be by time or folly brought,

Weakness of brain, or any charm of wine, 45

The sin of boast, or other countermine

(Made to blow up love’s secrets) to discover

That article may not become your lover:

Which in assurance to your breast I tell,

If I had writ no word, but, dear, farewell. 50

41

An Elegy

Since you must go, and I must bid farewell,

Hear, mistress, your departing servant tell

What it is like; and do not think they can

Be idle words, though of a parting man.

It is as if a night should shade noonday, 5

Or that the sun was here, but forced away,

And we were left under that hemisphere

Where we must feel it dark for half a year.

What fate is this, to change men’s days and hours,

To shift their seasons and destroy their powers! 10

Alas, I ha’ lost my heat, my blood, my prime;

Winter is come a quarter ere his time;

My health will leave me; and, when you depart,

How shall I do, sweet mistress, for my heart?

You would restore it? No, that’s worth a fear, 15

As if it were not worthy to be there.

Oh, keep it still; for it had rather be

Your sacrifice than here remain with me.

And so I spare it. Come what can become

Of me, I’ll softly tread unto my tomb, 20

Or like a ghost walk silent amongst men,

Till I may see both it and you again.

42

An Elegy

Let me be what I am: as Virgil cold,

As Horace fat, or as Anacreon old;

No poet’s verses yet did ever move

Whose readers did not think he was in love.

Who shall forbid me then in rhyme to be 5

As light and active as the youngest he,

That from the muses’ fountains doth endorse

His lines, and hourly sits the poets’ horse?

Put on my ivy garland, let me see

Who frowns, who jealous is, who taxeth me. 10

Fathers and husbands, I do claim a right

In all that is called lovely: take my sight

Sooner than my affection from the fair.

No face, no hand, proportion, line, or air

Of beauty, but the muse hath interest in: 15

There is not worn that lace, purl, knot, or pin,

But is the poet’s matter: and he must,

When he is furious, love, although not lust.

But then consent, your daughters and your wives

(If they be fair and worth it) have their lives 20

Made longer by our praises. Or, if not,

Wish you had foul ones, and deformèd got;

Cursed in their cradles, or there changed by elves,

So to be sure you do enjoy yourselves.

Yet keep those up in sackcloth too, or leather; 25

For silk will draw some sneaking songster thither.

It is a rhyming age, and verses swarm

At every stall: the city cap’s a charm.

But I who live, and have lived twenty year

Where I may handle silk as free and near 30

As any mercer, or the whale-bone man

That quilts those bodies I have leave to span,

Have eaten with the beauties and the wits,

And braveries of court, and felt their fits

Of love, and hate, and came so nigh to know 35

Whether their faces were their own or no;

It is not likely I should now look down

Upon a velvet petticoat, or a gown,

Whose like I have known the tailor’s wife put on

To do her husband’s rites in, ere ’twere gone 40

Home to the customer: his lechery

Being the best clothes still to preoccupy.

Put a coach-mare in tissue, must I horse

Her presently? Or leap thy wife of force,

When by thy sordid bounty she hath on 45

A gown of that was the caparison?

So I might dote upon thy chairs and stools

That are like clothed; must I be of those fools

Of race accounted, that no passion have

But when thy wife (as thou conceiv’st) is brave? 50

Then ope thy wardrobe, think me that poor groom

That from the footman, when he was become

An officer there, did make most solemn love

To every petticoat he brushed, and glove

He did lay up, and would adore the shoe 55

Or slipper was left off, and kiss it too,

Court every hanging gown, and after that

Lift up some one, and do I tell not what.

Thou didst tell me, and wert o’erjoyed to peep

In at a hole, and see these actions creep 60

From the poor wretch, which, though he played in prose,

He would have done in verse, with any of those

Wrung on the withers by Lord Love’s despite,

Had he’had the faculty to read and write!

Such songsters there are store of; witness he 65

That chanced the lace laid on a smock to see,

And straightway spent a sonnet; with that other

That (in pure madrigal) unto his mother

Commended the French hood and scarlet gown

The Lady Mayoress passed in through the town 70

Unto the Spittle sermon. ‘Oh, what strange

Variety of silks were on th’Exchange!

Or in Moorfields, this other night!’ sings one,

Another answers ‘’Las, those silks are none’

In smiling l’envoy, as he would deride 75

Any comparison had with his Cheapside,

And vouches both the pageant and the day

When not the shops, but windows do display

The stuffs, the velvets, plushes, fringes, lace,

And all the original riots of the place: 80

Let the poor fools enjoy their follies, love

A goat in velvet; or some block could move

Under that cover; an old midwife’s hat!

Or a close-stool so cased, or any fat

Bawd in a velvet scabbard! I envy 85

None of their pleasures! Nor will ask thee why

Thou art jealous of thy wife’s or daughter’s case,

More than of either’s manners, wit, or face!

43

An Execration upon Vulcan

And why to me this, thou lame lord of fire?

What had I done that might call on thine ire,

Or urge thy greedy flame thus to devour

So many my years’ labours in an hour?

I ne’er attempted, Vulcan, ’gainst thy life, 5

Nor made least line of love to thy loose wife;

Or in remembrance of thy affront and scorn

With clowns and tradesmen, kept thee closed in horn.

’Twas Jupiter that hurled thee headlong down,

And Mars that gave thee a lanthorn for a crown. 10

Was it because thou wert of old denied

By Jove to have Minerva for thy bride,

That, since, thou tak’st all envious care and pain

To ruin any issue of the brain?

Had I wrote treason there, or heresy, 15

Imposture, witchcraft, charms, or blasphemy,

I had deserved then thy consuming looks;

Perhaps to have been burnèd with my books.

But, on thy malice, tell me, didst thou spy

Any least loose or scurrile paper lie 20

Concealed or kept there, that was fit to be,

By thy own vote, a sacrifice to thee?

Did I there wound the honour of the crown?

Or tax the glories of the church and gown?

Itch to defame the state or brand the times, 25

And myself most, in some self-boasting rhymes?

If none of these, then why this fire? Or find

A cause before, or leave me one behind.

Had I compiled from Amadis de Gaul,

Th’Esplandians, Arthurs, Palmerins, and all 30

The learnèd library of Don Quixote,

And so some goodlier monster had begot,

Or spun out riddles, and weaved fifty tomes

Of logogriphs and curious palindromes,

Or pumped for those hard trifles, anagrams, 35

Or eteostichs, or those finer flams

Of eggs, and halberds, cradles, and a hearse,

A pair of scissors, and a comb in verse;

Acrostics and telestichs, on jump names,

Thou then hadst had some colour for thy flames, 40

On such my serious follies; but, thou’lt say,

There were some pieces of as base allay,

And as false stamp there: parcels of a play

Fitter to see the firelight than the day;

Adulterate masquings, such as might not go. 45

Thou shouldst have stayed, till public Fame said so.

She is the judge, thou executioner,

Or, if thou needs wouldst trench upon her power,

Thou mightst have yet enjoyed thy cruelty

With some more thrift and more variety: 50

Thou mightst have had me perish piece by piece,

To light tobacco, or save roasted geese;

Singe capons, or poor pigs, dropping their eyes;

Condemned me to the ovens with the pies;

And so have kept me dying a whole age, 55

Not ravished all hence in a minute’s rage.

But that’s a mark whereof thy rites do boast,

To make consumption ever where thou go’st.

Had I foreknown of this thy least desire,

T’have held a triumph or a feast of fire, 60

Especially in paper, that that steam

Had tickled your large nostril, many a ream

To redeem mine I had sent in: ‘Enough,’

Thou shouldst have cried, and all been proper stuff.

The Talmud and the Alcoran had come, 65

With pieces of the Legend; the whole sum

Of errant knighthood, with their dames and dwarves,

The charmèd boats and their enchanted wharves,

The Tristrams, Lanc’lots, Turpins, and the peers;

All the mad Rolands and sweet Oliveers 70

To Merlin’s marvels’ and his cabal’s loss,

With the chimera of the Rosy-cross,

Their seals, their characters, hermetic rings,

Their gem of riches, and bright stone that brings

Invisibility, and strength, and tongues; 75

The Art of Kindling the True Coal, by Lungs,

With Nicholas Pasquil’s Meddle With Your Match,

And the strong lines that so the time do catch,

Or Captain Pamphlet’s horse and foot, that sally

Upon th’Exchange, still, out of Pope’s Head Alley; 80

The weekly Courants with Paul’s seal, and all

Th’admired discourses of the prophet Ball:

These, hadst thou pleased either to dine or sup,

Had made a meal for Vulcan to lick up.

But in my desk, what was there to accite 85

So ravenous and vast an appetite?

I dare not say a body, but some parts

There were of search and mastery in the arts:

All the old Venusine in poetry,

And lighted by the Stagirite, could spy 90

Was there made English, with a Grammar too,

To teach some that their nurses could not do,

The purity of language. And, among

The rest, my journey into Scotland sung,

With all th’adventures; three books not afraid 95

To speak the fate of the Sicilian maid

To our own ladies, and in story there

Of our fifth Henry, eight of his nine year;

Wherein was oil, beside the succour spent

Which noble Carew, Cotton, Selden lent: 100

And twice-twelve years’ stored up humanity,

With humble gleanings in divinity

After the fathers, and those wiser guides

Whom faction had not drawn to study sides.

How in these ruins, Vulcan, thou dost lurk, 105

All soot and embers, odious as thy work!

I now begin to doubt if ever grace

Or goddess could be patient of thy face.

Thou woo Minerva? Or to wit aspire?

’Cause thou canst halt with us in arts and fire! 110

Son of the wind! For so thy mother, gone

With lust, conceived thee. Father thou hadst none;

When thou wert born, and that thou look’st at best,

She durst not kiss, but flung thee from her breast.

And so did Jove, who ne’er meant thee his cup; 115

No mar’l the clowns of Lemnos took thee up.

For none but smiths would have made thee a god.

Some alchemist there may be yet, or odd

Squire of the squibs, against the pageant day,

May to thy name a Vulcanale say, 120

And for it lose his eyes with gunpowder,

As th’other may his brains with quicksilver.

Well fare the wise men yet, on the Bankside,

My friends the watermen! They could provide

Against thy fury, when to serve their needs 125

They made a Vulcan of a sheaf of reeds,

Whom they durst handle in their holiday coats,

And safely trust to dress, not burn, their boats.

But, oh, those reeds! Thy mere disdain of them

Made thee beget that cruel stratagem 130

(Which some are pleased to style but thy mad prank)

Against the Globe, the glory of the Bank.

Which, though it were the fort of the whole parish,

Flanked with a ditch, and forced out of a marish,

I saw with two poor chambers taken in 135

And razed, ere thought could urge, ‘This might have been!’

See the world’s ruins! Nothing but the piles

Left! And wit since to cover it with tiles.

The brethren, they straight noised it out for news:

’Twas verily some relic of the stews, 140

And this a sparkle of that fire let loose

That was raked up in the Winchestrian goose,

Bred on the Bank in time of popery,

When Venus there maintained the mystery.

But others fell with that conceit by the ears, 145

And cried it was a threat’ning to the bears,

And that accursèd ground, the Paris Garden.

‘Nay’, sighed a sister, ‘’Twas the nun Kate Arden

Kindled the fire!’ But then did one return:

‘No fool would his own harvest spoil or burn! 150

If that were so, thou rather wouldst advance

The place that was thy wife’s inheritance.’

‘Oh, no’, cried all. ‘Fortune, for being a whore,

’Scaped not his justice any jot the more;

He burnt that idol of the revels too: 155

Nay, let Whitehall with revels have to do,

Though but in dances, it shall know his power;

There was a judgement shown too in an hour.

He is true Vulcan still! He did not spare

Troy, though it were so much his Venus’ care.’ 160

Fool, wilt thou let that in example come?

Did not she save from thence to build a Rome?

And what hast thou done in these petty spites,

More than advanced the houses and their rites?

I will not argue thee from those of guilt, 165

For they were burnt but to be better built.

’Tis true that in thy wish they were destroyed,

Which thou hast only vented, not enjoyed.

So wouldst thou’ve run upon the Rolls by stealth,

And didst invade part of the commonwealth, 170

In those records which, were all chronicles gone,

Will be remembered by six clerks to one.

‘But’, say all six good men, ‘What answer ye?

Lies there no writ out of the Chancery

Against this Vulcan? No injunction? 175

No order? No decree? Though we be gone

At common law, methinks in his despite

A court of Equity should do us right.

But to confine him to the brew-houses,

The glass-house, dye-vats and their furnaces; 180

To live in sea-coal, and go forth in smoke;

Or, lest that vapour might the city choke,

Condemn him to the brick-kilns, or some hill-

Foot (out in Sussex) to an iron-mill;

Or in small faggots have him blaze about 185

Vile taverns, and the drunkards piss him out;

Or in the bell-man’s lantern, like a spy,

Burn to a snuff, and then stink out, and die.’

I could invent a sentence yet were worse;

But I’ll conclude all in a civil curse: 190

Pox on Your Flameship, Vulcan, if it be

To all as fatal as’t hath been to me,

And to Paul’s steeple, which was unto us

’Bove all your fire-works had at Ephesus,

Or Alexandria; and though a divine 195

Loss, remains yet as unrepaired as mine.

Would you had kept your forge at Etna still,

And there made swords, bills, glaives, and arms your fill;

Maintained the trade at Bilbao, or elsewhere,

Struck in at Milan with the cutlers there; 200

Or stayed but where the friar and you first met,

Who from the devil’s arse did guns beget;

Or fixed in the Low Countries, where you might

On both sides do your mischiefs with delight;

Blow up, and ruin, mine and countermine, 205

Make your petards and grenades, all your fine

Engines of murder, and receive the praise

Of massacring mankind so many ways.

We ask your absence here; we all love peace,

And pray the fruits thereof, and the increase; 210

So doth the king, and most of the king’s men

That have good places: therefore once again,

Pox on thee, Vulcan; thy Pandora’s pox,

And all the evils that flew out of her box,

Light on thee: or if those plagues will not do, 215

Thy wife’s pox on thee, and Bess Broughton’s too.

44 A Speech According to Horace

Why yet, my noble hearts, they cannot say,

But we have powder still for the King’s Day,

And ordnance too; so much as from the Tower

T’have waked, if sleeping, Spain’s ambassador,

Old Aesop Gondomar. The French can tell, 5

For they did see it the last tilting well,

That we have trumpets, armour, and great horse,

Lances and men, and some a breaking force.

They saw too store of feathers, and more may

If they stay here but till Saint George’s Day. 10

All ensigns of a war are not yet dead,

Nor marks of wealth so from our nation fled,

But they may see gold chains and pearl worn then,

Lent by the London dames to the Lords’ men;

Withal, the dirty pains those citizens take 15

To see the pride at court their wives do make!

And the return those thankful courtiers yield

To have their husbands drawn forth to the field,

And coming home, to tell what acts were done

Under the auspice of young Swinnerton. 20

What a strong fort old Pimlico had been!

How it held out! How (last) ’twas taken in!

Well, I say, thrive, thrive, brave Artillery Yard,

Thou seed-plot of the war, that hast not spared

Powder, or paper, to bring up the youth 25

Of London in the military truth

These ten years’ day; as all may swear that look

But on thy practice, and the posture book:

He that but saw thy curious captains drill

Would think no more of Flushing, or the Brill, 30

But give them over to the common ear

For that unnecessary charge they were.

Well did thy crafty clerk and knight, Sir Hugh,

Supplant bold Panton, and brought there to view

Translated Aelian’s Tactics to be read, 35

And the Greek discipline (with the modern) shed

So, in that ground, as soon it grew to be

The city question, whether Tilly or he

Were now the greater captain? For they saw

The Bergen siege, and taking in Breda, 40

So acted to the life, as Maurice might,

And Spinola have blushèd at the sight.

O happy art, and wise epitome

Of bearing arms! Most civil soldiery!

Thou canst draw forth thy forces, and fight dry 45

The battles of thy aldermanity,

Without the hazard of a drop of blood,

More than the surfeits in thee that day stood.

Go on, increase in virtue and in fame,

And keep the glory of the English name 50

Up among nations. In the stead of bold

Beauchamps and Nevilles, Cliffords, Audleys old,

Insert thy Hodges, and those newer men,

As Styles, Dike, Ditchfield, Miller, Crips, and Fen,

That keep the war, though now ’t be grown more tame, 55

Alive yet in the noise, and still the same;

And could (if our great men would let their sons

Come to their schools) show ’em the use of guns,

And there instruct the noble English heirs

In politic and militar affairs. 60

But he that should persuade to have this done

For education of our lordings, soon

Should he not hear of billow, wind, and storm,

From the tempestuous grandlings? ‘Who’ll inform

Us, in our bearing, that are thus, and thus, 65

Born, bred, allied? What’s he dare tutor us?

Are we by bookworms to be awed? Must we

Live by their scale, that dare do nothing free?

Why are we rich or great, except to show

All licence in our lives? What need we know, 70

More than to praise a dog, or horse, or speak

The hawking language, or our day to break

With citizens? Let clowns and tradesmen breed

Their sons to study arts, the laws, the creed:

We will believe, like men of our own rank, 75

In so much land a year, or such a bank,

That turns us so much moneys, at which rate

Our ancestors imposed on prince and state.

Let poor nobility be virtuous: we,

Descended in a rope of titles, be 80

From Guy or Bevis, Arthur, or from whom

The herald will. Our blood is now become

Past any need of virtue. Let them care,

That in the cradle of their gentry are,

To serve the state by counsels and by arms; 85

We neither love the troubles nor the harms.’

What love you then? Your whore? What study? Gait,

Carriage, and dressing. There is up of late

The academy, where the gallants meet —

‘What, to make legs?’ ‘Yes, and to smell most sweet;’ 90

‘All that they do at plays.’ ‘Oh, but first here

They learn and study, and then practise there.’

But why are all these irons i’the fire

Of several makings? ‘Helps, helps, t’attire

His Lordship. That is for his band, his hair 95

This and that box his beauty to repair;

This other for his eye-brows.’ Hence, away:

I may no longer on these pictures stay,

These carcasses of honour; tailors’ blocks

Covered with tissue, whose prosperity mocks 100

The fate of things: whilst tattered virtue holds

Her broken arms up to their empty moulds.

45 An Epistle to Master Arthur Squibb

What I am not, and what I fain would be,

Whilst I inform myself, I would teach thee,

My gentle Arthur, that it might be said

One lesson we have both learned and well read:

I neither am, nor art thou, one of those 5

That hearkens to a jack’s pulse when it goes.

Nor ever trusted to that friendship yet,

Was issue of the tavern or the spit:

Much less a name would we bring up or nurse,

That could but claim a kindred from the purse. 10

Those are poor ties, depend on those false ends.

’Tis virtue alone, or nothing, that knits friends:

And as within your office you do take

No piece of money, but you know or make

Inquiry of the worth; so must we do: 15

First weigh a friend, then touch, and try him too:

For there are many slips and counterfeits.

Deceit is fruitful. Men have masks and nets,

But these with wearing will themselves unfold;

They cannot last. No lie grew ever old. 20

Turn him, and see his threads: look if he be

Friend to himself, that would be friend to thee.

For that is first required, a man be his own.

But he that’s too much that is friend of none.

Then rest, and a friend’s value understand: 25

It is a richer purchase than of land.

46 An Epigram on Sir Edward Coke, When He Was
Lord Chief Justice of England

He that should search all glories of the gown,

And steps of all raised servants of the crown,

He could not find, than thee, of all that store

Whom fortune aided less, or virtue more.

Such, Coke, were thy beginnings, when thy good 5

In others’ evil best was understood:

When, being the stranger’s help, the poor man’s aid,

Thy just defences made th’oppressor afraid.

Such was thy process, when integrity

And skill in thee now grew authority; 10

That clients strove, in question of the laws,

More for thy patronage than for their cause,

And that thy strong and manly eloquence

Stood up thy nation’s fame, her crown’s defence.

And now such is thy stand; while thou dost deal 15

Desirèd justice to the public weal,

Like Solon’s self; explait’st the knotty laws

With endless labours, whilst thy learning draws

No less of praise, than readers in all kinds

Of worthiest knowledge, that can take men’s minds. 20

Such is thy all; that (as I sung before)

None fortune aided less, or virtue more.

Or if chance must, to each man that doth rise,

Needs lend an aid, to thine she had her eyes.

47

An Epistle Answering to One
That Asked to be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben

Men that are safe and sure in all they do

Care not what trials they are put unto;

They meet the fire, the test, as martyrs would,

And though opinion stamp them not, are gold.

I could say more of such, but that I fly 5

To speak myself out too ambitiously,

And, showing so weak an act to vulgar eyes,

Put conscience and my right to compromise.

Let those that merely talk and never think,

That live in the wild anarchy of drink, 10

Subject to quarrel only; or else such

As make it their proficiency how much

They’ve glutted in, and lechered out, that week;

That never yet did friend or friendship seek

But for a sealing: let these men protest. 15

Or th’other on their borders, that will jest

On all souls that are absent, even the dead,

Like flies or worms, which man’s corrupt parts fed;

That to speak well, think it above all sin,

Of any company but that they are in; 20

Call every night to supper in these fits,

And are receivèd for the covey of wits,

That censure all the town, and all th’affairs,

And know whose ignorance is more than theirs;

Let these men have their ways and take their times 25

To vent their libels, and to issue rhymes:

I have no portion in them, nor their deal

Of news they get to strew out the long meal.

I study other friendships, and more one

Than these can ever be, or else wish none. 30

What is’t to me whether the French design

Be or be not to get the Valtelline?

Or the States’ ships sent forth be like to meet

Some hopes of Spain in their West Indian fleet?

Whether the dispensation yet be sent, 35

Or that the match from Spain was ever meant?

I wish all well, and pray high heaven conspire

My prince’s safety, and my king’s desire.

But if for honour we must draw the sword,

And force back that which will not be restored, 40

I have a body yet that spirit draws

To live, or fall a carcass in the cause.

So far without enquiry what the States,

Brunswick, and Mansfeld do this year, my fates

Shall carry me at call, and I’ll be well, 45

Though I do neither hear these news, nor tell

Of Spain or France; or were not pricked down one

Of the late mystery of reception,

Although my fame to his not under-hears,

That guides the motions and directs the bears. 50

But that’s a blow, by which in time I may

Lose all my credit with my Christmas clay

And animated porcelain of the court;

Aye, and for this neglect the coarser sort

Of earthen jars there may molest me too: 55

Well, with mine own frail pitcher, what to do

I have decreed: keep it from waves and press;

Lest it be jostled, cracked, made naught or less:

Live to that point I will, for which I am man,

And dwell as in my centre as I can, 60

Still looking to, and ever loving, heaven;

With reverence using all the gifts thence given.

’Mongst which, if I have any friendships sent

Such as are square, well-tagged, and permanent,

Not built with canvas, paper, and false lights, 65

As are the glorious scenes at the great sights;

And that there be no fevery heats nor colds,

Oily expansions, or shrunk dirty folds,

But all so clear, and led by reason’s flame,

As but to stumble in her sight were shame. 70

These I will honour, love, embrace, and serve,

And free it from all question to preserve.

So short you read my character, and theirs

I would call mine, to which not many stairs

Are asked to climb: first, give me faith, who know 75

Myself a little. I will take you so

As you have writ yourself. Now stand, and then,

Sir, you are sealèd of the tribe of Ben.

48 The Dedication of the King’s New Cellar:
To Bacchus

Since, Bacchus, thou art father

Of wines, to thee the rather

We dedicate this cellar,

Where now thou art made dweller;

And seal thee thy commission, 5

But ’tis with a condition

That thou remain here taster

Of all to the great master,

And look unto their faces,

Their qualities and races, 10

That both their odour take him,

And relish merry make him.

For, Bacchus, thou art freer

Of cares, and over-seer

Of feast and merry meeting, 15

And still begin’st the greeting:

See then thou dost attend him,

Lyaeus, and defend him

By all the arts of gladness

From any thought like sadness. 20

So mayst thou still be younger

Than Phoebus, and much stronger,

To give mankind their eases,

And cure the world’s diseases:

So may the muses follow 25

Thee still, and leave Apollo,

And think thy stream more quicker

Than Hippocrene’s liquor;

And thou make many a poet,

Before his brain do know it; 30

So may there never quarrel

Have issue from the barrel,

But Venus and the graces

Pursue thee in all places,

And not a song be other 35

Than Cupid and his mother.

That when King James, above here

Shall feast it, thou mayst love there

The causes and the guests too,

And have thy tales and jests too, 40

Thy circuits and thy rounds free

As shall the feast’s fair grounds be.

Be it he hold communion

In great Saint George’s union,

Or gratulates the passage 45

Of some well-wrought embassage,

Whereby he may knit sure up

The wishèd peace of Europe,

Or else a health advances,

To put his court in dances, 50

And set us all on skipping,

When with his royal shipping

The narrow seas are shady,

And Charles brings home the lady.

Accessit fervor capiti, numerusque Lucernis. 55

49 An Epigram On The Court Pucelle

Does the court pucelle then so censure me,

And thinks I dare not her? Let the world see.

What though her chamber be the very pit

Where fight the prime cocks of the game for wit?

And that as any are struck, her breath creates 5

New in their stead, out of the candidates?

What though with tribade lust she force a muse,

And in an epicene fury can write news

Equal with that which for the best news goes,

As airy, light, and as like wit as those? 10

What though she talk and can at once with them

Make state, religion, bawdry, all a theme?

And, as lip-thirsty in each word’s expense,

Doth labour with the phrase more than the sense?

What though she ride two mile on holy days 15

To church, as others do to feasts and plays,

To show their ’tires, to view, and to be viewed?

What though she be with velvet gowns endued,

And spangled petticoats brought forth to eye

As new rewards of her old secrecy? 20

What though she hath won on trust, as many do,

And that her truster fears her? Must I too?

I never stood for any place: my wit

Thinks itself naught, though she should value it.

I am no statesman, and much less divine; 25

For bawdry, ’tis her language and not mine.

Farthest I am from the idolatry

To stuffs and laces; those my man can buy.

And trust her I would least, that hath forswore

In contract twice; what can she perjure more? 30

Indeed, her dressing some man might delight;

Her face there’s none can like by candle-light:

Not he that should the body have, for case

To his poor instrument, now out of grace.

Shall I advise thee, pucelle? Steal away 35

From court, while yet thy fame hath some small day;

The wits will leave you if they once perceive

You cling to lords, and lords if them you leave

For sermoneers: of which now one, now other,

They say you weekly invite with fits o’th’ mother, 40

And practise for a miracle. Take heed:

This age would lend no faith to Darrel’s deed,

Or if it would, the court is the worst place,

Both for the mothers and the babes of grace;

For there the wicked in the chair of scorn 45

Will call’t a bastard when a prophet’s born.

50

An Epigram: To the Honoured –––– Countess of ––––

The wisdom, madam, of your private life,

Wherewith this while you live a widowed wife,

And the right ways you take unto the right

To conquer rumour and triumph on spite,

Not only shunning by your act to do 5

Aught that is ill, but the suspicion too,

Is of so brave example, as he were

No friend to virtue could be silent here,

The rather when the vices of the time

Are grown so fruitful, and false pleasures climb 10

By all oblique degrees that killing height

From whence they fall, cast down with their own weight.

And though all praise bring nothing to your name,

Who (herein studying conscience and not fame)

Are in yourself rewarded; yet ’twill be 15

A cheerful work to all good eyes to see

Among the daily ruins that fall foul

Of state, of fame, of body, and of soul,

So great a virtue stand upright to view,

As makes Penelope’s old fable true, 20

Whilst your Ulysses hath ta’en leave to go,

Countries and climes, manners and men to know.

Only your time you better entertain

Than the great Homer’s wit, for her, could feign;

For you admit no company but good, 25

And when you want those friends, or near in blood,

Or your allies, you make your books your friends,

And study them unto the noblest ends,

Searching for knowledge, and to keep your mind

The same it was inspired, rich, and refined. 30

These graces, when the rest of ladies view,

Not boasted in your life, but practised true,

As they are hard for them to make their own,

So are they profitable to be known:

For when they find so many meet in one, 35

It will be shame for them, if they have none.

51

Lord Bacon’s Birthday

Hail, happy genius of this ancient pile!

How comes it all things so about thee smile?

The fire, the wine, the men! And in the midst

Thou stand’st as if some mystery thou didst!

Pardon, I read it in thy face, the day 5

For whose returns, and many, all these pray:

And so do I. This is the sixtieth year

Since Bacon, and thy lord was born, and here;

Son to the grave wise Keeper of the Seal,

Fame and foundation of the English weal. 10

What then his father was, that since is he,

Now with a title more to the degree:

England’s high Chancellor: the destined heir

In his soft cradle to his father’s chair,

Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full, 15

Out of their choicest and their whitest wool.

’Tis a brave cause of joy: let it be known,

For ’twere a narrow gladness, kept thine own.

Give me a deep-crowned bowl, that I may sing,

In raising him, the wisdom of my king. 20

52a

A Poem Sent Me by Sir William Burlase:
The Painter to the Poet

To paint thy worth, if rightly I did know it,

And were but painter, half like thee a poet,

Ben, I would show it:

But in this skill, my unskilful pen will tire:

Thou, and thy worth, will still be found far higher, 5

And I a liar.

Then what a painter’s here? Or what an eater

Of great attempts? When as his skill’s no greater,

And he a cheater?

Then what a poet’s here! Whom, by confession 10

Of all with me, to paint without digression

There’s no expression.

52b

My Answer: The Poet to the Painter

Why, though I seem of a prodigious waist,

I am not so voluminous and vast

But there are lines wherewith I might be embraced.

’Tis true, as my womb swells, so my back stoops,

And the whole lump grows round, deformed, and droops; 5

But yet the tun at Heidelberg had hoops.

You were not tied by any painter’s law

To square my circle, I confess; but draw

My superficies: that was all you saw.

Which if in compass of no art it came, 10

To be describèd by a monogram,

With one great blot, you’d formed me as I am.

But whilst you curious were to have it be

An archetype for all the world to see,

You made it a brave piece, but not like me. 15

Oh, had I now your manner, mastery, might,

Your power of handling shadow, air, and sprite,

How I would draw, and take hold and delight.

But you are he can paint; I can but write:

A poet hath no more but black and white, 20

Ne knows he flattering colours, or false light.

Yet when of friendship I would draw the face,

A lettered mind, and a large heart would place

To all posterity; I will write ‘Burlase’.

53 An Epigram To William, Earl of Newcastle

When first, my lord, I saw you back your horse,

Provoke his mettle and command his force

To all the uses of the field and race,

Methought I read the ancient art of Thrace,

And saw a centaur past those tales of Greece; 5

So seemed your horse and you, both of a piece!

You showed like Perseus upon Pegasus,

Or Castor mounted on his Cyllarus,

Or what we hear our home-born legend tell

Of bold Sir Bevis and his Arundel; 10

Nay, so your seat his beauties did endorse

As I began to wish myself a horse.

And surely had I but your stable seen

Before, I think my wish absolved had been.

For never saw I yet the muses dwell, 15

Nor any of their household half so well.

So well, as when I saw the floor and room

I looked for Hercules to be the groom,

And cried ‘Away with the Caesarean bread;

At these immortal mangers Virgil fed.’ 20

54 Epistle To Master Arthur Squibb

I am to dine, friend, where I must be weighed

For a just wager, and that wager paid

If I do lose it. And, without a tale,

A merchant’s wife is regent of the scale,

Who, when she heard the match, concluded straight 5

‘An ill commodity! ’T must make good weight.’

So that upon the point, my corporal fear

Is, she will play Dame Justice too severe,

And hold me to it close; to stand upright

Within the balance, and not want a mite, 10

But rather with advantage to be found

Full twenty stone, of which I lack two pound:

That’s six in silver; now within the socket

Stinketh my credit, if into the pocket

It do not come. One piece I have in store; 15

Lend me, dear Arthur, for a week five more,

And you shall make me good in weight and fashion,

And then to be returned, or protestation

To go out after —— till when take this letter

For your security. I can no better. 20

55

To Master John Burgess

Would God, my Burgess, I could think

Thoughts worthy of thy gift, this ink;

Then would I promise here to give

Verse that should thee and me outlive.

But, since the wine hath steeped my brain, 5

I only can the paper stain;

Yet with a dye that fears no moth,

But, scarlet-like, outlasts the cloth.

56 Epistle To My Lady Covell

You won not verses, madam, you won me,

When you would play so nobly and so free.

A book to a few lines: but it was fit

You won them too; your odds did merit it.

So have you gained a servant and a muse, 5

The first of which, I fear, you will refuse;

And you may justly, being a tardy, cold,

Unprofitable chattel, fat and old,

Laden with belly, and doth hardly approach

His friends but to break chairs, or crack a coach. 10

His weight is twenty stone within two pound,

And that’s made up as doth the purse abound.

Marry, the muse is one can tread the air

And stroke the water, nimble, chaste, and fair;

Sleep in a virgin’s bosom without fear, 15

Run all the rounds in a soft lady’s ear,

Widow or wife, without the jealousy

Of either suitor or a servant by.

Such (if her manners like you) I do send,

And can for other graces her commend, 20

To make you merry on the dressing stool

A-mornings, and at afternoons to fool

Away ill company, and help in rhyme

Your Joan to pass her melancholy time.

By this, although you fancy not the man, 25

Accept his muse, and tell (I know you can)

How many verses, madam, are your due!

I can lose none in tendering these to you.

I gain in having leave to keep my day,

And should grow rich, had I much more to pay. 30

57 To Master John Burgess

Father John Burgess,

Necessity urges

My woeful cry

To Sir Robert Pye:

And that he will venture 5

To send my debenture.

Tell him his Ben

Knew the time when

He loved the muses,

Though now he refuses 10

To take apprehension

Of a year’s pension,

And more is behind:

Put him in mind

Christmas is near, 15

And neither good cheer,

Mirth, fooling, nor wit,

Nor any least fit

Of gambol or sport

Will come at the court, 20

If there be no money;

No plover or cony

Will come to the table,

Or wine to enable

The muse or the poet: 25

The parish will know it.

Nor any quick warming-pan help him to bed:

If the ’chequer be empty, so will be his head.

58 Epigram, to My Bookseller

Thou, friend, wilt hear all censures; unto thee

All mouths are open, and all stomachs free.

Be thou my book’s intelligencer, note

What each man says of it, and of what coat

His judgement is. If he be wise, and praise, 5

Thank him. If other, he can give no bays.

If his wit reach no higher but to spring

Thy wife a fit of laughter, a cramp-ring

Will be reward enough, to wear like those

That hang their richest jewels i’their nose, 10

Like a rung bear or swine, grunting out wit

As if that part lay for a [ ] most fit!

If they go on, and that thou lov’st a-life

Their perfumed judgements, let them kiss thy wife.

59 An Epigram:
To William, Earl of Newcastle

They talk of fencing and the use of arms,

The art of urging and avoiding harms;

The noble science and the mastering skill

Of making just approaches, how to kill;

To hit in angles, and to clash with time, 5

As all defence or offence were a chime!

I hate such measured, give me mettled fire

That trembles in the blaze, but then mounts higher!

A quick and dazzling motion! When a pair

Of bodies meet like rarefied air! 10

Their weapons shot out with that flame and force

As they outdid the lightning in their course;

This were a spectacle! A sight to draw

Wonder to valour! No, it is the law

Of daring not to do a wrong, is true 15

Valour! To slight it, being done to you!

To know the heads of danger! Where ’tis fit

To bend, to break, provoke, or suffer it!

All this, my lord, is valour! This is yours,

And was your father’s! All your ancestors’! 20

Who durst live great ’mongst all the colds and heats

Of human life, as all the frosts and sweats

Of fortune, when or death appeared, or bands!

And valiant were with, or without, their hands.

60 An Epitaph on Henry, Lord La Ware. To the Passer-by

If, passenger, thou canst but read,

Stay, drop a tear for him that’s dead:

Henry, the brave young Lord La Ware,

Minerva’s and the muses’ care!

What could their care do ’gainst the spite 5

Of a disease, that loved no light

Of honour, nor no air of good,

But crept like darkness through his blood,

Offended with the dazzling flame

Of virtue, got above his name? 10

No noble furniture of parts,

No love of action and high arts,

No aim at glory, or, in war,

Ambition to become a star,

Could stop the malice of this ill, 15

That spread his body o’er, to kill,

And only his great soul envied

Because it durst have noblier died.

61 An Epigram

That you have seen the pride, beheld the sport,

And all the games of fortune played at court;

Viewed there the market, read the wretched rate

At which there are would sell the prince and state;

That scarce you hear a public voice alive, 5

But whispered counsels, and those only thrive;

Yet are got off thence, with clear mind and hands,

To lift to heaven: who is’t not understands

Your happiness, and doth not speak you blest,

To see you set apart, thus, from the rest, 10

T’obtain of God what all the land should ask?

A nation’s sin got pardoned! ’Twere a task

Fit for a bishop’s knees! Oh, bow them oft,

My lord, till felt grief make our stone hearts soft,

And we do weep to water for our sin. 15

He that in such a flood as we are in

Of riot and consumption knows the way

To teach the people how to fast and pray,

And do their penance, to avert God’s rod:

He is the man, and favourite of God. 20

62

An Epigram:
To King Charles for a Hundred Pounds He Sent Me in My Sickness. 1629

Great Charles, among the holy gifts of grace

Annexèd to thy person and thy place,

’Tis not enough (thy piety is such)

To cure the called King’s Evil with thy touch;

But thou wilt yet a kinglier mastery try, 5

To cure the Poet’s Evil, poverty:

And in these cures dost so thyself enlarge

As thou dost cure our evil at thy charge.

Nay, and in this thou show’st to value more

One poet than of other folk ten score. 10

Oh, piety so to weigh the poor’s estates!

Oh, bounty, so to difference the rates!

What can the poet wish his king may do,

But that he cure the people’s evil too?

63

To King Charles and Queen Mary: For the Loss of their First-Born: An Epigram Consolatory. 1629

Who dares deny that all first fruits are due

To God denies the godhead to be true;

Who doubts those fruits God can with gain restore

Doth by his doubt distrust his promise more.

He can, he will, and with large int’rest, pay 5

What (at his liking) he will take away.

Then, royal Charles and Mary, do not grutch

That the Almighty’s will to you is such;

But thank his greatness, and his goodness too,

And think all still the best that he will do. 10

That thought shall make he will this loss supply

With a long, large, and blest posterity!

For God, whose essence is so infinite,

Cannot but heap that grace he will requite.

64

An Epigram.
To Our Great and Good King Charles, On His Anniversary Day. 1629

How happy were the subject, if he knew,

Most pious king, but his own good in you!

How many times ‘Live long, Charles’ would he say,

If he but weighed the blessings of this day?

And as it turns our joyful year about 5

For safety of such majesty cry out?

Indeed, when had Great Britain greater cause

Than now, to love the sovereign and the laws?

When you that reign are her example grown,

And what are bounds to her, you make your own? 10

When your assiduous practice doth secure

That faith which she professeth to be pure?

When all your life’s a precedent of days,

And murmur cannot quarrel at your ways?

How is she barren grown of love, or broke, 15

That nothing can her gratitude provoke!

O times! O manners! Surfeit, bred of ease,

The truly epidemical disease!

’Tis not alone the merchant, but the clown

Is bankrupt turned: the cassock, cloak, and gown 20

Are lost upon account! And none will know

How much to heaven for thee, great Charles, they owe!

65

An Epigram on the Prince’s Birth. 1630

And art thou born, brave babe? Blest be thy birth,

That so hath crowned our hopes, our spring, and earth,

The bed of the chaste lily and the rose!

What month than May was fitter to disclose

This prince of flowers? Soon shoot thou up, and grow 5

The same that thou art promised, but be slow,

And long in changing. Let our nephews see

Thee quickly come the garden’s eye to be,

And there to stand so. Haste now, envious moon,

And interpose thyself (care not how soon), 10

And threat the great eclipse. Two hours but run,

Sol will re-shine. If not, Charles hath a son.

—— Non displicuisse meretur

Festinat Caesar qui placuisse tibi.

66 An Epigram to the Queen, Then Lying In. 1630

‘Hail Mary, full of grace’ it once was said,

And by an angel, to the blessèd’st maid,

The mother of our Lord: why may not I

(Without profaneness) yet, a poet, cry

‘Hail Mary, full of honours’ to my queen, 5

The mother of our prince? When was there seen

(Except the joy that the first Mary brought,

Whereby the safety of mankind was wrought)

So general a gladness to an isle,

To make the hearts of a whole nation smile, 10

As in this prince? Let it be lawful, so

To compare small with great, as still we owe

Glory to God. Then hail to Mary! Spring

Of so much safety to the realm and King.

67

An Ode, or Song by all the Muses.
In Celebration of Her Majesty’s Birthday. 1630

1. Clio

Up, public joy; remember

This sixteenth of November

Some brave, uncommon way:

And though the parish steeple

Be silent, to the people 5

Ring thou it holy-day.

2. Melpomene

What though the thrifty Tower

And guns there spare to pour

Their noises forth in thunder,

As fearful to awake 10

This city, or to shake

Their guarded gates asunder?

3. Thalia

Yet let our trumpets sound

And cleave both air and ground,

With beating of our drums: 15

Let every lyre be strung,

Harp, lute, theorbo sprung,

With touch of dainty thumbs!

4. Euterpe

That when the choir is full,

The harmony may pull 20

The angels from their spheres,

And each intelligence

May wish itself a sense,

Whilst it the ditty hears.

5. Terpsichore

Behold the royal Mary, 25

The daughter of great Harry,

And sister to just Lewis,

Comes in the pomp and glory

Of all her brother’s story,

And of her father’s prowess! 30

6. Erato

She shows so far above

The feignèd queen of love,

This sea-girt isle upon,

As here no Venus were;

But that she reigning here 35

Had got the ceston on!

7. Calliope

See, see our active King

Hath taken twice the ring

Upon his pointed lance,

Whilst all the ravished rout 40

Do mingle in a shout

‘Hey! For the flower of France!’

8. Urania

This day the court doth measure

Her joy in state and pleasure,

And with a reverend fear, 45

The revels and the play

Sum up this crownèd day,

Her two-and-twentieth year!

9. Polyhymnia

Sweet, happy Mary! All

The people her do call. 50

And this the womb divine,

So fruitful and so fair,

Hath brought the land an heir,

And Charles a Caroline.

68

An Epigram: To the Household. 1630

What can the cause be, when the King hath given

His poet sack, the household will not pay?

Are they so scanted in their store? Or driven,

For want of knowing the poet, to say him nay?

Well, they should know him, would the King but grant 5

His poet leave to sing his household true;

He’d frame such ditties of their store and want

Would make the very Green Cloth to look blue:

And rather wish, in their expense of sack,

So the allowance from the King to use 10

As the old bard should no Canary lack.

’Twere better spare a butt than spill his muse.

For in the genius of a poet’s verse

The King’s fame lives. Go now, deny his tierce.

69 Epigram: To a Friend and Son

Son, and my friend, I had not called you so

To me, or been the same to you, if show,

Profit, or chance had made us; but I know

What, by that name, we each to other owe:

Freedom and truth, with love from those begot; 5

Wise crafts, on which the flatterer ventures not.

His is more safe commodity or none,

Nor dares he come in the comparison.

But as the wretched painter, who so ill

Painted a dog, that now his subtler skill 10

Was t’have a boy stand with a club and fright

All live dogs from the lane and his shop’s sight,

Till he had sold his piece, drawn so unlike;

So doth the flatterer with fair cunning strike

At a friend’s freedom, proves all circling means 15

To keep him off; and howsoe’er he gleans

Some of his forms, he lets him not come near

Where he would fix, for the distinction’s fear.

For as at distance few have faculty

To judge, so all men coming near can spy. 20

Though now of flattery, as of picture, are

More subtle works, and finer pieces far,

Than knew the former ages, yet to life

All is but web and painting; be the strife

Never so great to get them, and the ends 25

Rather to boast rich hangings, than rare friends.

70

To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of
That Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary And Sir Henry Morison

The Turn

Brave infant of Saguntum, clear

Thy coming forth in that great year,

When the prodigious Hannibal did crown

His rage with razing your immortal town.

Thou, looking then about, 5

Ere thou wert half got out,

Wise child, didst hastily return,

And mad’st thy mother’s womb thine urn.

How summed a circle didst thou leave mankind

Of deepest lore, could we the centre find! 10

The Counter-Turn

Did wiser nature draw thee back

From out the horror of that sack?

Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right

Lay trampled on; the deeds of death and night,

Urged, hurried forth, and hurled 15

Upon th’affrighted world:

Sword, fire, and famine with fell fury met,

And all on utmost ruin set;

As, could they but life’s miseries foresee,

No doubt all infants would return like thee. 20

The Stand

For what is life, if measured by the space,

Not by the act?

Or maskèd man, if valued by his face

Above his fact?

Here’s one outlived his peers, 25

And told forth four-score years;

He vexèd time, and busied the whole state;

Troubled both foes and friends;

But ever to no ends:

What did this stirrer but die late? 30

How well at twenty had he fall’n or stood!

For three of his four-score he did no good.

The Turn

He entered well, by virtuous parts

Got up, and thrived with honest arts:

He purchased friends, and fame, and honours then, 35

And had his noble name advanced with men;

But weary of that flight

He stooped in all men’s sight

To sordid flatteries, acts of strife,

And sunk in that dead sea of life 40

So deep, as he did then death’s waters sup,

But that the cork of title buoyed him up.

The Counter-Turn

Alas, but Morison fell young:

He never fell; thou fall’st, my tongue.

He stood, a soldier to the last right end, 45

A perfect patriot, and a noble friend.

But most a virtuous son.

All offices were done

By him so ample, full, and round,

In weight, in measure, number, sound, 50

As, though his age imperfect might appear,

His life was of humanity the sphere.

The Stand

Go now, and tell out days summed up with fears,

And make them years;

Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage, 55

To swell thine age;

Repeat of things a throng,

To show thou hast been long,

Not lived; for life doth her great actions spell

By what was done and wrought 60

In season, and so brought

To light: her measures are, how well

Each syllabe answered, and was formed, how fair:

These make the lines of life, and that’s her air.

The Turn

It is not growing like a tree 65

In bulk doth make man better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:

A lily of a day

Is fairer far, in May, 70

Although it fall, and die that night;

It was the plant and flower of light.

In small proportions we just beauties see:

And in short measures life may perfect be.

The Counter-Turn

Call, noble Lucius, then, for wine, 75

And let thy looks with gladness shine:

Accept this garland, plant it on thy head,

And think, nay, know thy Morison’s not dead.

He leaped the present age,

Possessed with holy rage, 80

To see that bright eternal day,

Of which we priests and poets say

Such truths as we expect for happy men,

And there he lives with memory, and Ben.

The Stand

Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he went 85

Himself to rest,

Or taste a part of that full joy he meant

To have expressed,

In this bright asterism,

Where it were friendship’s schism 90

(Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry)

To separate these twi-

Lights, the Dioscuri;

And keep the one half from his Harry.

But fate doth so alternate the design, 95

Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine.

The Turn

And shine as you exalted are;

Two names of friendship, but one star:

Of hearts the union. And those not by chance

Made, or indentured, or leased out t’advance 100

The profits for a time.

No pleasures vain did chime

Of rhymes, or riots, at your feasts,

Orgies of drink, or feigned protests;

But simple love of greatness and of good: 105

That knits brave minds, and manners, more than blood.

The Counter-Turn

This made you first to know the why

You liked; then after to apply

That liking, and approach so one the t’other,

Till either grew a portion of the other: 110

Each stylèd by his end

The copy of his friend.

You lived to be the great surnames

And titles, by which all made claims

Unto the virtue. Nothing perfect done 115

But as a Cary or a Morison.

The Stand

And such a force the fair example had,

As they that saw

The good, and durst not practise it, were glad

That such a law 120

Was left yet to mankind;

Where they might read and find

Friendship in deed was written, not in words,

And with the heart, not pen,

Of two so early men, 125

Whose lines her rolls were, and records.

Who, ere the first down bloomèd on the chin,

Had sowed these fruits, and got the harvest in.

71 To the Right Honourable, the Lord High Treasurer of England: An Epistle Mendicant. 1631

MY LORD,

Poor wretched states, pressed by extremities,

Are fain to seek for succours and supplies

Of princes’ aids, or good men’s charities.

Disease, the enemy, and his engineers,

Want, with the rest of his concealed compeers, 5

Have cast a trench about me, now, five years;

And made those strong approaches by faussebraies,

Redoubts, half-moons, horn-works, and such close ways

The muse not peeps out one of hundred days;

But lies blocked up, and straitened, narrowed in, 10

Fixed to the bed and boards, unlike to win

Health, or scarce breath, as she had never been,

Unless some saving honour of the crown

Dare think it, to relieve, no less renown

A bed-rid wit, than a besiegèd town. 15

72 To the King. On his Birthday:
An Epigram Anniversary. November 19, 1632

This is King Charles his day. Speak it, thou Tower,

Unto the ships, and they, from tier to tier,

Discharge it ’bout the island in an hour,

As loud as thunder, and as swift as fire.

Let Ireland meet it out at sea, half way, 5

Repeating all Great Britain’s joy, and more,

Adding her own glad accents to this day,

Like Echo playing from the other shore.

What drums or trumpets, or great ordnance can,

The poetry of steeples, with the bells, 10

Three kingdoms’ mirth, in light and airy man,

Made lighter with the wine. All noises else

At bonfires, rockets, fireworks, with the shouts

That cry that gladness which their hearts would pray,

Had they but grace of thinking, at these routs, 15

On th’often coming of this holy-day:

And ever close the burden of the song,

Still to have such a Charles, but this Charles long.

The wish is great; but where the prince is such,

What prayers, people, can you think too much? 20

73 On the Right Honourable and Virtuous Lord Weston,
Lord High Treasurer of England,
Upon the Day He Was Made Earl of Portland. 17 February 1633

To the Envious

Look up, thou seed of envy, and still bring

Thy faint and narrow eyes to read the king

In his great actions: view whom his large hand

Hath raised to be the port unto his land!

Weston! That waking man! That eye of state! 5

Who seldom sleeps! Whom bad men only hate!

Why do I irritate or stir up thee,

Thou sluggish spawn, that canst, but wilt not, see?

Feed on thyself for spite, and show thy kind:

To virtue and true worth be ever blind. 10

Dream thou couldst hurt it, but before thou wake

T’effect it, feel thou’st made thine own heart ache.

74 To the Right Honourable Jerome,
Lord Weston: An Ode Gratulatory,
For His Return from His Embassy. 1633

Such pleasure as the teeming earth

Doth take in easy nature’s birth,

When she puts forth the life of everything,

And in a dew of sweetest rain

She lies delivered without pain, 5

Of the prime beauty of the year, the spring;

The rivers in their shores do run,

The clouds rack clear before the sun,

The rudest winds obey the calmest air;

Rare plants from every bank do rise, 10

And every plant the sense surprise,

Because the order of the whole is fair!

The very verdure of her nest,

Wherein she sits so richly dressed,

As all the wealth of season there was spread, 15

Doth show the Graces and the Hours

Have multiplied their arts and powers

In making soft her aromatic bed:

Such joys, such sweets, doth your return

Bring all your friends, fair lord, that burn 20

With love to hear your modesty relate

The business of your blooming wit,

With all the fruit shall follow it,

Both to the honour of the king and state.

Oh, how will then our court be pleased, 25

To see great Charles of travail eased,

When he beholds a graft of his own hand

Shoot up an olive, fruitful, fair,

To be a shadow to his heir,

And both a strength and beauty to his land! 30

75

Epithalamion: Or A Song Celebrating the Nuptials of that Noble Gentleman Master Jerome Weston, Son and Heir of the Lord Weston, Lord High Treasurer of England, with the Lady Frances Stuart, Daughter of Esmé, Duke of Lennox Deceased, and Sister of the Surviving Duke of the Same Name

Though thou hast passed thy summer standing, stay

Awhile with us, bright sun, and help our light;

Thou canst not meet more glory on the way

Between thy tropics, to arrest thy sight,

Than thou shalt see today: 5

We woo thee, stay

And see what can be seen,

The bounty of a king, and beauty of his queen!

See, the procession! What a holy day

(Bearing the promise of some better fate) 10

Hath fillèd with caroches all the way

From Greenwich hither to Roehampton gate!

When looked the year at best

So like a feast?

Or were affairs in tune, 15

By all the spheres’ consent, so in the heart of June?

What bevy of beauties, and bright youths at charge

Of summer’s liveries and gladding green,

Do boast their loves and braveries so at large,

As they came all to see, and to be seen! 20

When looked the earth so fine,

Or so did shine

In all her bloom and flower,

To welcome home a pair, and deck the nuptial bower?

It is the kindly season of the time, 25

The month of youth, which calls all creatures forth

To do their offices in nature’s chime,

And celebrate perfection (at the worth),

Marriage, the end of life,

That holy strife, 30

And the allowèd war,

Through which not only we, but all our species, are.

Hark how the bells upon the waters play

Their sister-tunes, from Thames his either side,

As they had learned new changes for the day, 35

And all did ring th’approaches of the bride:

The Lady Frances, dressed

Above the rest

Of all the maidens fair,

In graceful ornament of garland, gems, and hair. 40

See, how she paceth forth in virgin-white,

Like what she is, the daughter of a duke,

And sister: darting forth a dazzling light

On all that come her simplesse to rebuke!

Her tresses trim her back, 45

As she did lack

Naught of a maiden queen,

With modesty so crowned, and adoration seen.

Stay, thou wilt see what rites the virgins do!

The choicest virgin-troop of all the land! 50

Porting the ensigns of united two,

Both crowns and kingdoms in their either hand;

Whose majesties appear

To make more clear

This feast than can the day, 55

Although that thou, O sun, at our entreaty stay!

See, how with roses and with lilies shine

(Lilies and roses, flowers of either sex)

The bright bride’s paths, embellished more than thine

With light of love, this pair doth intertex! 60

Stay, see the virgins sow

(Where she shall go)

The emblems of their way.

Oh, now thou smil’st, fair sun, and shin’st as thou wouldst stay!

With what full hands, and in how plenteous showers, 65

Have they bedewed the earth where she doth tread,

As if her airy steps did spring the flowers,

And all the ground were garden where she led!

See, at another door,

On the same floor, 70

The bridegroom meets the bride

With all the pomp of youth, and all our court beside.

Our court, and all the grandees; now, sun, look,

And, looking with thy best enquiry, tell

In all thy age of journals thou hast took, 75

Saw’st thou that pair became these rites so well,

Save the preceding two?

Who, in all they do,

Search, sun, and thou wilt find

They are th’exampled pair, and mirror of their kind. 80

Force from the phoenix, then, no rarity

Of sex to rob the creature; but from man,

The king of creatures, take his parity

With angels, muse, to speak these: nothing can

Illustrate these, but they 85

Themselves today,

Who the whole act express;

All else we see beside are shadows, and go less.

It is their grace and favour that makes seen

And wondered at the bounties of this day: 90

All is a story of the king and queen!

And what of dignity and honour may

Be duly done to those

Whom they have chose

And set their mark upon 95

To give a greater name and title to: their own!

Weston, their treasure, as their treasurer,

That mine of wisdom and of counsels deep,

Great say-master of state, who cannot err,

But doth his carat and just standard keep 100

In all the proved assays

And legal ways

Of trials, to work down

Men’s loves unto the laws, and laws to love the crown.

And this well moved the judgement of the king 105

To pay with honours to his noble son,

Today, the father’s service; who could bring

Him up, to do the same himself had done.

That far all-seeing eye

Could soon espy 110

What kind of waking man

He had so highly set, and in what barbican.

Stand there; for when a noble nature’s raised

It brings friends joy, foes grief, posterity fame;

In him the times, no less than prince, are praised, 115

And by his rise, in active men, his name

Doth emulation stir;

To th’ dull a spur

It is; to th’envious meant

A mere upbraiding grief and torturing punishment. 120

See, now, the chapel opens; where the king

And bishop stay, to consummate the rites:

The holy prelate prays, then takes the ring,

Asks first ‘Who gives her?’ ‘I, Charles’; then he plights

One in the other’s hand 125

Whilst they both stand

Hearing their charge, and then

The solemn choir cries ‘Joy’, and they return ‘Amen!’

O happy bands! And thou more happy place,

Which to this use wert built and consecrate! 130

To have thy God to bless, thy king to grace,

And this their chosen bishop celebrate,

And knit the nuptial knot,

Which time shall not,

Or cankered jealousy, 135

With all corroding arts, be able to untie!

The chapel empties, and thou mayst be gone

Now, sun, and post away the rest of day:

These two, now holy Church hath made them one,

Do long to make themselves, so, another way: 140

There is a feast behind,

To them of kind,

Which their glad parents taught

One to the other, long ere these to light were brought.

Haste, haste, officious sun, and send them night 145

Some hours before it should, that these may know

All that their fathers and their mothers might

Of nuptial sweets, at such a season, owe,

To propagate their names,

And keep their fames 150

Alive, which else would die,

For fame keeps virtue up, and it posterity.

Th’ignoble never lived; they were awhile,

Like swine, or other cattle, here on earth:

Their names are not recorded on the file 155

Of life, that fall so; Christians know their birth

Alone, and such a race,

We pray may grace,

Your fruitful spreading vine,

But dare not ask our wish in language fescennine: 160

Yet, as we may, we will, with chaste desires

(The holy perfumes of the marriage bed)

Be kept alive those sweet and sacred fires

Of love between you and your lovelihead:

That when you both are old 165

You find no cold

There; but, renewèd, say,

After the last child born, ‘This is our wedding day.’

Till you behold a race to fill your hall,

A Richard, and a Jerome, by their names 170

Upon a Thomas, or a Francis call;

A Kate, a Frank, to honour their grand-dames,

And ’tween their grandsires’ thighs,

Like pretty spies,

Peep forth a gem; to see 175

How each one plays his part of the large pedigree.

And never may there want one of the stem

To be a watchful servant for this state,

But like an arm of eminence ’mongst them

Extend a reaching virtue, early and late: 180

Whilst the main tree still found

Upright and sound,

By this sun’s noonstead’s made

So great, his body now alone projects the shade.

They both are slipped to bed; shut fast the door, 185

And let him freely gather love’s first fruits;

He’s master of the office, yet no more

Exacts than she is pleased to pay: no suits,

Strifes, murmurs, or delay,

Will last till day; 190

Night, and the sheets, will show

The longing couple all that elder lovers know.

76 The Humble Petition of Poor Ben:
To th’ Best of Monarchs, Masters, Men,
King Charles

–– Doth most humbly show it,

To your Majesty your poet:

That whereas your royal father,

James the blessèd, pleased the rather,

Of his special grace to letters, 5

To make all the muses debtors

To his bounty, by extension

Of a free poetic pension,

A large hundred marks’ annuity,

To be given me in gratuity 10

For done service, and to come;

And that this so accepted sum,

Or dispensed in books, or bread

(For with both the muse was fed)

Hath drawn on me, from the times, 15

All the envy of the rhymes,

And the rattling pit-pat noise

Of the less poetic boys;

When their pot-guns aim to hit,

With their pellets of small wit, 20

Parts of me (they judged) decayed;

But we last out, still unlaid.

Please Your Majesty to make

Of your grace, for goodness’ sake,

Those your father’s marks, your pounds; 25

Let their spite (which now abounds)

Then go on, and do its worst;

This would all their envy burst,

And so warm the poet’s tongue,

You’d read a snake in his next song. 30

77 To the Right Honourable, the Lord Treasurer of England:
An Epigram

If to my mind, great lord, I had a state,

I would present you now with curious plate

Of Nuremberg or Turkey; hang your rooms

Not from the Arras, but the Persian looms.

I would, if price or prayer could them get, 5

Send in what or Romano, Tintoret,

Titian, or Raphael, Michelangelo,

Have left in fame to equal or outgo

The old Greek hands in picture or in stone.

This I would do, could I know Weston one 10

Catched with these arts, wherein the judge is wise

As far as sense, and only by the eyes.

But you I know, my lord, and know you can

Discern between a statue and a man;

Can do the things that statues do deserve, 15

And act the business, which they paint or carve.

What you have studied are the arts of life;

To compose men and manners, stint the strife

Of murmuring subjects; make the nations know

What worlds of blessings to good kings they owe, 20

And mightiest monarchs feel what large increase

Of sweets and safeties they possess by peace.

These I look up at with a reverent eye,

And strike religion in the standers-by;

Which, though I cannot as an architect 25

In glorious piles or pyramids erect

Unto your honour, I can tune in song

Aloud; and (haply) it may last as long.

78 An Epigram:
To My Muse, the Lady Digby, on Her Husband,
Sir Kenelm Digby

Though, happy muse, thou know my Digby well,

Yet read him in these lines: he doth excel

In honour, courtesy, and all the parts

Court can call hers, or man could call his arts.

He’s prudent, valiant, just, and temperate; 5

In him all virtue is beheld in state,

And he is built like some imperial room

For that to dwell in, and be still at home.

His breast is a brave palace, a broad street

Where all heroic ample thoughts do meet; 10

Where nature such a large survey hath ta’en

As other souls to his dwell in a lane:

Witness his action done at Scanderoon,

Upon my birthday, the eleventh of June,

When the apostle Barnaby the bright 15

Unto our year doth give the longest light,

In sign the subject and the song will live

Which I have vowed posterity to give.

Go, muse, in and salute him. Say he be

Busy, or frown at first, when he sees thee 20

He will clear up his forehead, think thou bring’st

Good omen to him, in the note thou sing’st,

For he doth love my verses, and will look

Upon them (next to Spenser’s noble book)

And praise them, too. Oh, what a fame ’twill be! 25

What reputation to my lines and me,

When he shall read them at the Treasurer’s board!

The knowing Weston, and that learnèd lord

Allows them! Then what copies shall be had,

What transcripts begged! How cried up, and how glad, 30

Wilt thou be, muse, when this shall them befall!

Being sent to one, they will be read of all.

79

New years expect new gifts: sister, your harp,

Lute, lyre, theorbo, all are called today;

Your change of notes, the flat, the mean, the sharp,

To show the rites, and t’usher forth the way

Of the new year in a new silken warp, 5

To fit the softness of our year’s gift: when

We sing the best of monarchs, masters, men;

For, had we here said less, we had sung nothing then.

A New Year’s Gift
Sung to King Charles. 1636

RECTOR CHORI

Today old Janus opens the new year,

And shuts the old. Haste, haste, all loyal swains, 10

That know the times and seasons when t’appear,

And offer your just service on these plains;

Best kings expect first fruits of your glad gains.

1 Pan is the great preserver of our bounds.

2 To him we owe all profits of our grounds. 15

3 Our milk. 4 Our fells. 5 Our fleeces. 6 And first lambs.

7 Our teeming ewes. 8 And lusty-mounting rams.

9 See where he walks, with Mira by his side.

CHORUS

Sound, sound his praises loud, and with his, hers divide.

SHEPHERDS

Of Pan we sing, the best of hunters, Pan, 20

That drives the hart to seek unusèd ways,

And in the chase more than Silvanus can.

CHORUS

Hear, O you groves; and, hills, resound his praise.

NYMPHS

Of brightest Mira do we raise our song,

Sister of Pan, and glory of the spring: 25

Who walks on earth as May still went along;

CHORUS

Rivers and valleys, echo what we sing.

SHEPHERDS

Of Pan we sing, the chief of leaders, Pan,

That leads our flocks and us, and calls both forth

To better pastures than great Pales can: 30

CHORUS

Hear, O you groves; and, hills, resound his worth.

NYMPHS

Of brightest Mira is our song; the grace

Of all that Nature yet to life did bring;

And were she lost, could best supply her place,

CHORUS

Rivers and valleys echo what we sing. 35

1 Where’er they tread th’enamoured ground,

The fairest flowers are always found;

2 As if the beauties of the year

Still waited on ’em where they were.

1 He is the father of our peace; 40

2 She to the crown hath brought increase.

1 We know no other power than his;

CHORUS

Pan only our great shepherd is,

Our great, our good. Where one’s so dressed

In truth of colours; both are best. 45

RECTOR CHORI

Haste, haste you hither, all you gentler swains,

That have a flock or herd upon these plains;

This is the great preserver of our bounds,

To whom you owe all duties of your grounds;

Your milks, your fells, your fleeces, and first lambs, 50

Your teeming ewes, as well as mounting rams.

Whose praises let’s report unto the woods,

That they may take it echoed by the floods.

CHORUS

’Tis he, ’tis he, in singing he,

And hunting, Pan, exceedeth thee. 55

He gives all plenty and increase;

He is the author of our peace.

RECTOR CHORI

Where’er he goes upon the ground

The better grass and flowers are found.

To sweeter pastures lead he can 60

Than ever Pales could, or Pan;

He drives diseases from our folds,

The thief from spoil his presence holds.

Pan knows no other power than his;

This only the great shepherd is. 65

CHORUS

’Tis he, ’tis he, in singing he,

And hunting, Pan, exceedeth thee.

He gives all plenty and increase;

He is the author of our peace.

[For Und. 80 and 81, see Dubia, Electronic Edition]

82 To My Lord the King, On the Christening His Second Son James

That thou art loved of God, this work is done,

Great king, thy having of a second son:

And by thy blessing may thy people see

How much they are beloved of God in thee;

Would they would understand it! Princes are 5

Great aids to empire, as they are great care

To pious parents, who would have their blood

Should take first seisin of the public good,

As hath thy James, cleansed from original dross,

This day, by baptism, and his Saviour’s cross. 10

Grow up, sweet babe, as blessèd in thy name

As in renewing thy good grandsire’s fame;

Methought Great Britain in her sea before

Sat safe enough, but now securèd more.

At land she triumphs in the triple shade 15

Her rose and lily, intertwined, have made.

Oceano secura meo, securior umbris.

83 An Elegy:
On the Lady Jane Paulet,
Marchioness of Winchester

What gentle ghost, besprent with April dew,

Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?

And beckoning woos me, from the fatal tree

To pluck a garland, for herself, or me?

I do obey you, beauty! For in death 5

You seem a fair one! Oh, that you had breath

To give your shade a name! Stay, stay, I feel

A horror in me! All my blood is steel!

Stiff, stark, my joints ’gainst one another knock!

Whose daughter? Ha? Great Savage of the Rock? 10

He’s good as great. I am almost a stone!

And ere I can ask more of her she’s gone!

Alas, I am all marble! Write the rest

Thou wouldst have written, Fame, upon my breast:

It is a large fair table, and a true, 15

And the disposure will be something new,

When I, who would her poet have become,

At least may bear th’inscription to her tomb.

She was the Lady Jane, and Marchioness

Of Winchester; the heralds can tell this. 20

Earl Rivers’ grandchild – serve not forms, good Fame;

Sound thou her virtues, give her soul a name.

Had I a thousand mouths, as many tongues,

And voice to raise them from my brazen lungs,

I durst not aim at that: the dotes were such 25

Thereof, no notion can express how much

Their carat was! I or my trump must break,

But rather I, should I of that part speak!

It is too near of kin to heaven, the soul,

To be described! Fame’s fingers are too foul 30

To touch these mysteries! We may admire

The blaze and splendour, but not handle fire!

What she did here, by great example, well,

T’enlive posterity her fame may tell!

And, calling truth to witness, make that good 35

From the inherent graces in her blood!

Else, who doth praise a person by a new

But a feigned way doth rob it of the true.

Her sweetness, softness, her fair courtesy,

Her wary guards, her wise simplicity, 40

Were like a ring of virtues ’bout her set,

And piety the centre, where all met.

A reverent state she had, an awful eye,

A dazzling, yet inviting, majesty:

What nature, fortune, institution, fact, 45

Could sum to a perfection, was her act!

How did she leave the world? With what contempt?

Just as she in it lived! And so exempt

From all affection! When they urged the cure

Of her disease, how did her soul assure 50

Her sufferings, as the body had been away,

And to the torturers (her doctors) say

‘Stick on your cupping-glasses, fear not, put

Your hottest caustics to burn, lance, or cut:

’Tis but a body which you can torment, 55

And I, into the world all soul was sent!’

Then comforted her lord, and blessed her son,

Cheered her fair sisters in her race to run,

With gladness tempered her sad parents’ tears,

Made her friends’ joys to get above their fears! 60

And, in her last act, taught the standers-by

With admiration and applause to die!

Let angels sing her glories, who did call

Her spirit home to her original,

Who saw the way was made it, and were sent 65

To carry and conduct the complement

’Twixt death and life! Where her mortality

Became her birthday to eternity!

And now, through circumfusèd light, she looks

On nature’s secrets, there, as her own books: 70

Speaks heaven’s language and discourseth free

To every order, every hierarchy!

Beholds her Maker, and in him doth see

What the beginnings of all beauties be,

And all beatitudes that thence do flow, 75

Which they that have the crown are sure to know!

Go now, her happy parents, and be sad

If you not understand what child you had.

If you dare grudge at heaven, and repent

T’have paid again a blessing was but lent, 80

And trusted so, as it deposited lay

At pleasure to be called for, every day!

If you can envy your own daughter’s bliss,

And wish her state less happy than it is;

If you can cast about your either eye, 85

And see all dead here, or about to die;

The stars, that are the jewels of the night

And day deceasing, with the prince of light,

The sun; great kings, and mightiest kingdoms fall;

Whole nations, nay, mankind, the world, with all 90

That ever had beginning there t’ have end!

With what injustice should one soul pretend

T’escape this common known necessity:

When we were all born, we began to die,

And, but for that contention and brave strife 95

The Christian hath t’enjoy the future life,

He were the wretched’st of the race of men:

But as he soars at that, he bruiseth then

The serpent’s head; gets above death and sin,

And, sure of heaven, rides triumphing in. 100

84

Eupheme:
Or
The Fair Fame
Left to Posterity
Of That Truly Noble Lady, the Lady Venetia Digby,
Late Wife of Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight:
A Gentleman Absolute in All Numbers

Consisting of these Ten Pieces:

The Dedication of her Cradle;

The Song of her Descent;

The Picture of her Body;

Her Mind; 5

Her Being Chosen a Muse;

Her Fair Offices;

Her Happy Match;

Her Hopeful Issue;

Her Αποϑέωσις, or Relation to the Saints; 10

Her Inscription, or Crown.

Vivam amare voluptas, defunctam religio (Statius)

84.1 The Dedication of her Cradle

Fair Fame, who art ordained to crown

With evergreen, and great renown,

Their heads, that Envy would hold down

With her, in shade

Of death, and darkness, and deprive 5

Their names of being kept alive,

By thee and conscience, both who thrive

By the just trade

Of goodness still: vouchsafe to take

This cradle, and for goodness’ sake 10

A dedicated ensign make

Thereof, to time.

That all posterity, as we,

Who read what the crepundia be,

May something by that twilight see 15

’Bove rattling rhyme.

For, though that rattles, timbrels, toys

Take little infants with their noise,

As properest gifts to girls and boys

Of light expense; 20

Their corals, whistles, and prime coats,

Their painted masks, their paper boats,

With sails of silk, as the first notes

Surprise their sense;

Yet here are no such trifles brought, 25

No cobweb cauls, no surcoats wrought

With gold or clasps, which might be bought

On every stall.

But here’s a song of her descent,

And call to the high parliament 30

Of heaven, where seraphim take tent

Of ordering all.

This, uttered by an ancient bard,

Who claims (of reverence) to be heard,

As coming with his harp, prepared 35

To chant her gree,

Is sung; as als’ her getting up

By Jacob’s ladder, to the top

Of that eternal port kept ope

For such as she. 40

84.2 The Song of Her Descent

I sing the just and uncontrolled descent

Of Dame Venetia Digby, styled the fair:

For mind and body the most excellent

That ever nature, or the later air,

Gave two such houses as Northumberland 5

And Stanley, to the which she was co-heir.

Speak it, you bold Penates, you that stand

At either stem, and know the veins of good

Run from your roots; tell, testify the grand

Meeting of graces, that so swelled the flood 10

Of virtues in her, as, in short, she grew

The wonder of her sex, and of your blood.

And tell thou, Alderley, none can tell more true

Thy niece’s line, than thou that gav’st thy name

Into the kindred, whence thy Adam drew 15

Meschin’s honour with the Cestrian fame

Of the first Lupus, to the family

By Ranulph . . .

The rest of this song is lost.

84.3 The Picture of the Body

Sitting, and ready to be drawn,

What makes these velvets, silks, and lawn,

Embroideries, feathers, fringes, lace,

Where every limb takes like a face?

Send these suspected helps to aid 5

Some form defective or decayed;

This beauty, without falsehood fair,

Needs naught to clothe it but the air.

Yet something to the painter’s view

Were fitly interposed; so new, 10

He shall, if he can understand,

Work with my fancy his own hand.

Draw first a cloud, all save her neck,

And out of that make day to break;

Till like her face it do appear, 15

And men may think all light rose there.

Then let the beams of that disperse

The cloud, and show the universe;

But at such distance as the eye

May rather yet adore than spy. 20

The heaven designed, draw next a spring,

With all that youth or it can bring.

Four rivers branching forth like seas,

And paradise confining these.

Last, draw the circles of this globe, 25

And let there be a starry robe

Of constellations ’bout her hurled,

And thou hast painted beauty’s world.

But, painter, see thou do not sell

A copy of this piece; nor tell 30

Whose ’tis; but if it favour find,

Next sitting we will draw her mind.

84.4 The Mind

Painter, you’re come, but may be gone,

Now I have better thought thereon,

This work I can perform alone,

And give you reasons more than one.

Not that your art I do refuse, 5

But here I may no colours use.

Beside, your hand will never hit

To draw a thing that cannot sit.

You could make shift to paint an eye,

An eagle towering in the sky, 10

The sun, a sea, or soundless pit;

But these are like a mind, not it.

No, to express a mind to sense

Would ask a heaven’s intelligence;

Since nothing can report that flame 15

But what’s of kin to whence it came.

Sweet mind, then speak yourself, and say

As you go on, by what brave way

Our sense you do with knowledge fill,

And yet remain our wonder still? 20

I call you ‘Muse’; now make it true:

Henceforth may every line be you,

That all may say that see the frame,

‘This is no picture, but the same.’

A mind so pure, so perfect fine, 25

As ’tis not radiant, but divine:

And so disdaining any trier,

’Tis got where it can try the fire.

There, high exalted in the sphere,

As it another nature were, 30

It moveth all, and makes a flight

As circular as infinite.

Whose notions when it will express

In speech, it is with that excess

Of grace and music to the ear, 35

As what it spoke it planted there.

The voice so sweet, the words so fair,

As some soft chime had stroked the air;

And, though the sound were parted thence,

Still left an echo in the sense. 40

But, that a mind so rapt, so high,

So swift, so pure, should yet apply

Itself to us and come so nigh

Earth’s grossness; there’s the how and why.

Is it because it sees us dull, 45

And stuck in clay here, it would pull

Us forth, by some celestial slight,

Up to her own sublimèd height?

Or hath she here, upon the ground,

Some paradise, or palace found 50

In all the bounds of beauty fit

For her t’inhabit? There is it.

Thrice happy house, that hast receipt

For this so lofty form, so straight,

So polished, perfect, round, and even, 55

As it slid moulded off from heaven.

Not swelling like the ocean proud,

But stooping gently as a cloud,

As smooth as oil poured forth, and calm

As showers, and sweet as drops of balm. 60

Smooth, soft, and sweet, in all a flood

Where it may run to any good;

And, where it stays, it there becomes

A nest of odorous spice and gums.

In action, wingèd as the wind; 65

In rest, like spirits left behind

Upon a bank or field of flowers,

Begotten by that wind and showers.

In thee, fair mansion, let it rest,

Yet know with what thou art possessed: 70

Thou entertaining in thy breast

But such a mind, mak’st God thy guest.

84.8

A whole quaternion in the middest of this poem is lost, containing entirely the three next

pieces of it, and all of the fourth (which in the order of the whole, is the eighth) excepting the

very end: which at the top of the next quaternion goeth on thus:

But, for you, growing gentlemen, the happy branches of two so illustrious houses

as these, wherefrom your honoured mother is in both lines descended, let me 5

leave you this last legacy of counsel; which, so soon as you arrive at years of

mature understanding, open you, sir, that are the eldest, and read it to your

brethren, for it will concern you all alike. Vowed by a faithful servant and client

of your family, with his latest breath expiring it,

B.J. 10

To Kenelm, John, George

Boast not these titles of your ancestors,

Brave youths; they’re their possessions, none of yours:

When your own virtues equalled have their names,

’Twill be but fair to lean upon their fames,

For they are strong supporters; but, till then, 5

The greatest are but growing gentlemen.

It is a wretched thing to trust to reeds,

Which all men do that urge not their own deeds

Up to their ancestors’; the river’s side,

By which you’re planted, shows your fruit shall bide. 10

Hang all your rooms with one large pedigree:

’Tis virtue alone is true nobility.

Which virtue from your father, ripe, will fall;

Study illustrious him, and you have all.

84.9 An Elegy on My Muse, The Truly Honoured Lady, the Lady Venetia Digby, Who, Living, Gave Me Leave to Call Her So. Being Her ΑΠΟΘΕѠΣΙΣ, or Relation to the Saints

Sera quidem tanto struitur medicina dolori.

’Twere time that I died too, now she is dead,

Who was my muse, and life of all I said.

The spirit that I wrote with, and conceived,

All that was good or great in me, she weaved

And set it forth; the rest were cobwebs fine, 5

Spun out in name of some of the old nine!

To hang a window, or make dark the room,

Till, swept away, th’ were cancelled with a broom!

Nothing that could remain, or yet can stir

A sorrow in me, fit to wait on her! 10

Oh! had I seen her laid out a fair corse

By death on earth, I should have had remorse

On nature for her, who did let her lie,

And saw that portion of herself to die.

Sleepy or stupid nature, couldst thou part 15

With such a rarity, and not rouse art

With all her aids to save her from the seise

Of vulture death, and those relentless clees?

Thou wouldst have lost the phoenix, had the kind

Been trusted to thee, not to ’tself assigned. 20

Look on thy sloth, and give thyself undone

(For so thou art with me) now she is gone.

My wounded mind cannot sustain this stroke:

It rages, runs, flies, stands, and would provoke

The world to ruin with it; in her fall 25

I sum up mine own breaking, and wish all.

Thou hast no more blows, Fate, to drive at one:

What’s left a poet, when his muse is gone?

Sure, I am dead and know it not! I feel

Nothing I do, but like a heavy wheel 30

Am turnèd with another’s powers. My passion

Whirls me about, and to blaspheme in fashion,

I murmur against God for having ta’en

Her blessèd soul, hence, forth this valley vain

Of tears, and dungeon of calamity! 35

I envy it the angels’ amity!

The joy of saints, the crown for which it lives,

The glory and gain of rest, which the place gives!

Dare I profane, so irreligious be

To ’greet or grieve her soft euthanasy! 40

So sweetly taken to the court of bliss,

As spirits had stol’n her spirit in a kiss,

From off her pillow and deluded bed,

And left her lovely body unthought dead!

Indeed, she is not dead! But laid to sleep 45

In earth, till the last trump awake the sheep

And goats together, whither they must come

To hear their judge and his eternal doom;

To have that final retribution,

Expected with the flesh’s restitution. 50

For, as there are three natures, schoolmen call

One corporal only; th’other spiritual,

Like single; so there is a third, co-mixed

Of body and spirit together, placed betwixt

Those other two, which must be judged or crowned: 55

This, as it guilty is, or guiltless found,

Must come to take a sentence by the sense

Of that great evidence, the conscience,

Who will be there, against that day prepared

T’accuse or quit all parties to be heard! 60

Oh day of joy and surety to the just,

Who in that feast of resurrection trust!

That great eternal holy day of rest,

To body and soul, where love is all the guest,

And the whole banquet is full sight of God: 65

Of joy the circle and sole period!

All other gladness with the thought is barred;

Hope hath her end, and faith hath her reward!

This being thus, why should my tongue or pen

Presume to interpel that fullness, when 70

Nothing can more adorn it than the seat

That she is in, or make it more complete?

Better be dumb than superstitious!

Who violates the Godhead is most vicious

Against the nature he would worship. He 75

Will honoured be in all simplicity,

Have all his actions wondered at and viewed

With silence and amazement, not with rude

Dull, and profane, weak, and imperfect eyes,

Have busy search made in his mysteries! 80

He knows what work h’ hath done to call this guest

Out of her noble body to this feast,

And give her place, according to her blood,

Amongst her peers, those princes of all good!

Saints, martyrs, prophets, with those hierarchies; 85

Angels, archangels, principalities,

The dominations, virtues, and the powers,

The thrones, the cherub, and seraphic bowers,

That, planted round, there sing before the Lamb

A new song to his praise, and great I AM. 90

And she doth know, out of the shade of death,

What ’tis t’enjoy an everlasting breath!

To have her captived spirit freed from flesh,

And on her innocence, a garment fresh

And white, as that, put on; and in her hand 95

With boughs of palm, a crownèd victress stand!

And will you, worthy son, sir, knowing this,

Put black and mourning on? And say you miss

A wife, a friend, a lady, or a love,

Whom her redeemer honoured hath above 100

Her fellows, with the oil of gladness, bright

In heaven’s empyrean, with a robe of light?

Thither you hope to come, and there to find

That pure, that precious, and exalted mind

You once enjoyed. A short space severs ye 105

Compared unto that long eternity

That shall re-join ye. Was she, then, so dear

When she departed? You will meet her there

Much more desired, and dearer than before,

By all the wealth of blessings, and the store 110

Accumulated on her by the Lord

Of life and light, the Son of God, the Word!

There all the happy souls that ever were

Shall meet with gladness in one theatre,

And each shall know, there, one another’s face, 115

By beatific virtue of the place.

There shall the brother with the sister walk,

And sons and daughters with their parents talk;

But all of God; they still shall have to say,

But make him all in all their theme that day, 120

That happy day, that never shall see night!

Where he will be all beauty to the sight;

Wine or delicious fruits unto the taste;

A music in the ears will ever last,

Unto the scent, a spicery or balm; 125

And to the touch a flower, like soft as palm.

He will all glory, all perfection be:

God, in the union, and the Trinity!

That holy, great, and glorious mystery

Will there revealèd be in majesty! 130

By light and comfort of spiritual grace,

The vision of our Saviour, face to face

In his humanity! To hear him preach

The price of our redemption, and to teach

Through his inherent righteousness, in death, 135

The safety of our souls, and forfeit breath!

What fullness of beatitude is here?

What love with mercy mixèd doth appear,

To style us friends, who were, by nature, foes?

Adopt us heirs by grace, who were of those 140

Had lost ourselves, and prodigally spent

Our native portions, and possessèd rent?

Yet have all debts forgiven us, and advance

By’ imputed right to an inheritance

In his eternal kingdom, where we sit 145

Equal with angels, and co-heirs of it?

Nor dare we under blasphemy conceive

He that shall be our supreme judge should leave

Himself so uninformed of his elect,

Who knows the hearts of all, and can dissect 150

The smallest fibre of our flesh; he can

Find all our atoms from a point t’a span,

Our closest creeks and corners, and can trace

Each line, as it were graphic, in the face.

And best he knew her noble character, 155

For ’twas himself who formed and gave it her.

And to that form lent two such veins of blood

As nature could not more increase the flood

Of title in her! All nobility

(But pride, that schism of incivility) 160

She had, and it became her! She was fit

T’have known no envy but by suffering it!

She had a mind as calm as she was fair;

Not tossed or troubled with light lady-air;

But kept an even gait; as some straight tree 165

Moved by the wind, so comely movèd she.

And by the awful manage of her eye

She swayed all business in the family!

To one she said ‘Do this’; he did it; so

To another ‘Move’; he went. To a third ‘Go’; 170

He ran; and all did strive with diligence

T’obey and serve her sweet commandements.

She was, in one, a many parts of life:

A tender mother, a discreeter wife,

A solemn mistress, and so good a friend, 175

So charitable to religious end,

In all her petite actions so devote,

As her whole life was now become one note

Of piety and private holiness.

She spent more time in tears herself to dress 180

For her devotions, and those sad essays

Of sorrow, than all pomp of gaudy days;

And came forth ever cheerèd with the rod

Of divine comfort, when she’d talked with God.

Her broken sighs did never miss whole sense, 185

Nor can the bruisèd heart want eloquence:

For prayer is the incense most perfumes

The holy altars, when it least presumes.

And hers were all humility! They beat

The door of grace, and found the mercy-seat. 190

In frequent speaking by the pious psalms

Her solemn hours she spent, or giving alms,

Or doing other deeds of charity,

To clothe the naked, feed the hungry. She

Would sit in an infirmary whole days, 195

Poring, as on a map, to find the ways

To that eternal rest where now sh’ hath place

By sure election, and predestined grace!

She saw her Saviour, by an early light,

Incarnate in the manger, shining bright 200

On all the world! She saw him on the cross,

Suffering and dying to redeem our loss!

She saw him rise, triumphing over death,

To justify and quicken us in breath!

She saw him, too, in glory to ascend 205

For his designèd work, the perfect end

Of raising, judging, and rewarding all

The kind of man, on whom his doom should fall!

All this by faith she saw, and framed a plea,

In manner of a daily apostrophe, 210

To him should be her judge, true God, true man,

Jesus, the only gotten Christ! Who can,

As being redeemer and repairer too

Of lapsèd nature, best know what to do

In that great act of judgement: which the Father 215

Hath given wholly to the Son (the rather

As being the son of man) to show his power,

His wisdom, and his justice, in that hour,

The last of hours and shutter-up of all;

Where first his power will appear, by call 220

Of all are dead to life! His wisdom show

In the discerning of each conscience so!

And most his justice, in the fitting parts

And giving dues to all mankind’s deserts!

In this sweet ecstasy she was rapt hence. 225

Who reads will pardon my intelligence,

That thus have ventured these true strains upon,

To publish her a saint. My muse is gone.

In pietatis memoriam

quam praestas 230

Venetiae tuae illustrissimae

Maritae digno Digbeie

Hanc ΑΠΟΘΕѠΣΙΝ tibi, tuisque, sacro.

The tenth, being her Inscription or Crown, is lost.

85 The Praises of a Country Life
[Horace, Epode 2]

Happy is he, that from all business clear,

As the old race of mankind were,

With his own oxen tills his sire’s left lands,

And is not in the usurer’s bands;

Nor, soldier-like, started with rough alarms, 5

Nor dreads the sea’s enragèd harms;

But flees the bar and courts with the proud boards,

And waiting-chambers of great lords.

The poplar tall he then doth marrying twine

With the grown issue of the vine, 10

And with his hook lops off the fruitless race,

And sets more happy in the place;

Or in the bending vale beholds afar

The lowing herds there grazing are;

Or the pressed honey in pure pots doth keep 15

Of earth; and shears the tender sheep;

Or when that autumn through the fields lifts round

His head, with mellow apples crowned,

How, plucking pears his own hand grafted had,

And purple matching grapes, he’s glad! 20

With which, Priapus, he may thank thy hands,

And, Silvan, thine that kept’st his lands!

Then now beneath some ancient oak he may,

Now in the rooted grass him lay,

Whilst from the higher banks do slide the floods; 25

The soft birds quarrel in the woods,

The fountains murmur as the streams do creep,

And all invite to easy sleep.

Then, when the thundering Jove his snow and showers

Are gathering by the wintry hours, 30

Or hence, or thence, he drives with many a hound

Wild boars into his toils pitched round;

Or strains on his small fork his subtle nets

For th’eating thrush, or pitfalls sets;

And snares the fearful hare, and new-come crane, 35

And ’counts them sweet rewards, so ta’en.

Who (amongst these delights) would not forget

Love’s cares so evil and so great?

But if, to boot with these, a chaste wife, meet

For household aid, and children sweet, 40

Such as the Sabines’, or a sun-burnt blowze,

Some lusty, quick Apulian’s spouse,

To deck the hallowed hearth with old wood fired

Against the husband comes home tired;

That, penning the glad flock in hurdles by, 45

Their swelling udders doth draw dry;

And, from the sweet tub, wine of this year takes,

And unbought viands ready makes:

Not Lucrine oysters I could then more prize,

Nor turbot, nor bright golden-eyes, 50

If with bright floods, the winter troubled much,

Into our seas send any such:

Th’Ionian godwit, nor the guinea-hen,

Could not go down my belly then

More sweet than olives that new gathered be 55

From fattest branches of the tree,

Or the herb sorrel, that loves meadows still,

Or mallows, loosing body’s ill;

Or at the feast of bounds, the lamb then slain,

Or kid forced from the wolf again. 60

Among these cates how glad the sight doth come

Of the fed flocks approaching home!

To view the weary oxen draw, with bare

And fainting necks, the turnèd share!

The wealthy household swarm of bondmen met, 65

And ’bout the steaming chimney set!

These thoughts when usurer Alfius, now about

To turn mere farmer, had spoke out,

’Gainst th’ides his moneys he gets in with pain;

At th’ calends puts all out again. 70

Vitae Rusticae Laudes

Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis,

Ut prisca gens mortalium,

Paterna rura bobus exercet suis,

Solutus omni faenore:

Nec excitatur classico miles truci, 5

Nec horret iratum mare:

Forumque vitat et superba civium

Potentiorum limina.

Ergo aut adulta vitium propagine

Altas maritat populos: 10

Inutilisque falce ramos amputans,

Feliciores inserit:

Aut in reducta valle mugientium

Prospectat errantis greges:

Aut pressa puris mella condit amphoris, 15

Aut tondet infirmas ovis;

Vel cum decorum mitibus pomis caput

Autumnus arvos extulit,

Ut gaudet insitiva decerpens pira

Certantem et uvam purpurae, 20

Qua muneretur te, Priape, et te, pater

Silvane, tutor finium!

Libet iacere modo sub antiqua ilice,

Modo in tenaci gramine.

Labuntur altis interim ripis aquae, 25

Queruntur in silvis aves

Fontesque lymphis obstrepunt manantibus,

Somnos quod invitet levis.

At cum tonantis annus hibernus Iovis

Imbris nivisque conparat, 30

Aut trudit acris hinc et hinc multa cane

Apros in obstantis plagas

Aut amite levi rara tendit retia;

Turdis edacibus dolos

Pavidumque leporem et advenam laqueo gruem 35

Iucunda captat praemia.

Quis non malarum, quas amor curas habet

Haec inter obliviscitur?

Quod si pudica mulier in partem iuvet

Domum atque dulces liberos, 40

Sabina qualis aut perusta solibus

Pernicis uxor Apuli,

Sacrum vetustis exstruat lignis focum

Lassi sub adventum viri

Claudensque textis cratibus laetum pecus 45

Distenta siccet ubera;

Et horna dulci vina promens dolio

Dapes inemptas adparet:

Non me Lucrina iuverint conchylia,

Magisve rhombus, aut scari, 50

Siquos Eois intonata fluctibus

Hiems ad hoc vertat mare,

Non Afra avis descendat in ventrem meum,

Non attagen Ionicus

Iucundior, quam lecta de pinguissimis 55

Oliva ramis arborum,

Aut herba lapathi prata amantis, et gravi

Malvae salubres corpori,

Vel agna festis caesa Terminalibus, 60

Vel haedus ereptus lupo.

Has inter epulas, ut iuvat pastas ovis

Videre properantis domum!

Videre fessos vomerem inversum boves

Collo trahentis languido;

Positosque vernas, ditis examen domus, 65

Circum renidentis Lares!

Haec ubi locutus faenerator Alfius,

Iam iam futurus rusticus,

Omnem relegit Idibus pecuniam,

Quaerit Kalendis ponere. 70

86 [Horace] Ode the First. The Fourth Book.
To Venus

Venus, again thou mov’st a war

Long intermitted; pray thee, pray thee, spare:

I am not such as in the reign

Of the good Cinara I was: refrain,

Sour mother of sweet loves, forbear 5

To bend a man now at his fiftieth year,

Too stubborn for commands so slack:

Go where youth’s soft entreaties call thee back.

More timely hie thee to the house,

With thy bright swans, of Paulus Maximus; 10

There jest and feast, make him thine host,

If a fit liver thou dost seek to toast;

For he’s both noble, lovely, young,

And for the troubled client files his tongue,

Child of a hundred arts, and far 15

Will he display the ensigns of thy war.

And when he smiling finds his grace

With thee ’bove all his rivals’ gifts take place,

He’ll thee a marble statue make

Beneath a sweet-wood roof, near Alba lake: 20

There shall thy dainty nostril take

In many a gum, and, for thy soft ear’s sake,

Shall verse be set to harp and lute,

And Phrygian hautboy, not without the flute.

There twice a day in sacred lays 25

The youths and tender maids shall sing thy praise;

And in the Salian manner meet

Thrice ’bout thy altar with their ivory feet.

Me now nor wench, nor wanton boy,

Delights, nor credulous hope of mutual joy; 30

Nor care I now healths to propound;

Or with fresh flowers to girt my temple round.

But why, oh, why, my Ligurine,

Flow my thin tears down these pale cheeks of mine?

Or why, my well-graced words among, 35

With an uncomely silence fails my tongue?

Hard-hearted, I dream every night

I hold thee fast! But fled hence, with the light,

Whether in Mars his field thou be,

Or Tiber’s winding streams, I follow thee. 40

Odes, 4.1: Ad Venerem

Intermissa, Venus, diu

Rursus bella moves? parce precor, precor.

Non sum qualis eram bonae

Sub regno Cinarae: desine, dulcium

Mater saeva Cupidinum, 5

Circa lustra decem flectere mollibus

Iam durum imperiis; abi,

Quo blandae iuvenum te revocant preces.

Tempestivius in domo

Pauli purpureis ales oloribus 10

Comissabere Maximi,

Si torrere iecur quaeris idoneum.

Namque et nobilis et decens

Et pro sollicitis non tacitus reis

Et centum puer artium 15

Late signa feret militiae tuae,

Et quandoque potentior

Largis muneribus riserit aemuli,

Albanos prope te lacus

Ponet marmoream sub trabe citrea. 20

Illic plurima naribus

Duces tura lyraeque et Berecynthiae

Delectabere tibiae

Mixtis carminibus non sine fistula;

Illic bis pueri die 25

Numen cum teneris virginibus tuum

Laudantes pede candido

In morem Salium ter quatient humum.

Me nec femina nec puer

Iam nec spes animi credula mutui 30

Nec certare iuvat mero

Nec vincire novis tempora floribus.

Sed cur heu, Ligurine, cur

Manat rara meas lacrima per genas?

Cur facunda parum decoro 35

Inter verba cadit lingua silentio?

Nocturnis te ego somniis

Iam captum teneo, iam volucrem sequor

Te per gramina Martii

Campi, te per aquas, dure, volubilis. 40

87

[Horace] Odes, 3.9, To Lydia: Dialogue of Horace and Lydia

Horace

Whilst, Lydia, I was loved of thee,

And ’bout thy ivory neck no youth did fling

His arms more acceptable free,

I thought me richer than the Persian king.

Lydia

Whilst Horace loved no mistress more, 5

Nor after Chloe did his Lydia sound,

In name I went all names before,

The Roman Ilia was not more renowned.

Horace

’Tis true, I’m Thracian Chloe’s, I,

Who sings so sweet, and with such cunning plays 10

As, for her, I’d not fear to die,

So fate would give her life, and longer days.

Lydia

And I am mutually on fire

With gentle Calais, Thurine Ornith’s son,

For whom I doubly would expire, 15

So fates would let the boy a long thread run.

Horace

But say old love return should make,

And us disjoined force to her brazen yoke,

That I bright Chloe off should shake,

And to left Lydia, now, the gate stood ope? 20

Lydia

Though he be fairer than a star,

Thou lighter than the bark of any tree,

And than rough Adria angrier far,

Yet would I wish to love, live, die with thee.

Odes, 3.9: Ad Lydiam: Dialogus Horatii et Lydiae

HORATIUS

Donec gratus eram tibi,

Nec quisquam potior bracchia candida

Cervici iuvenis dabat,

Persarum vigui rege beatior.

LYDIA

Donec non alia magis 5

Arsisti, neque erat Lydia post Chloen,

Multi Lydia nominis

Romana vigui clarior Ilia.

HORATIUS

Me nunc Thressa Chloe regit,

Dulcis docta modos, et citharae sciens, 10

Pro qua non metuam mori,

Si parcent animae fata superstiti.

LYDIA

Me torret face mutua

Thurini Calais filius Ornyti,

Pro quo bis patiar mori, 15

Si parcent puero fata superstiti.

HORATIUS

Quid si prisca redit Venus,

Diductosque iugo cogit aeneo,

Si flava excutitur Chloe

Reiectaeque patet ianua Lydiae? 20

LYDIA

Quamquam sidere pulchrior

Ille est, tu levior cortice et inprobo

Iracundior Adria,

Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens.

88 [A Fragment of Petronius Arbiter Translated]

Doing a filthy pleasure is, and short;

And done, we straight repent us of the sport:

Let us not then rush blindly on unto it,

Like lustful beasts, that only know to do it.

For lust will languish, and that heat decay; 5

But thus, thus keeping endless holiday,

Let us together closely lie and kiss;

There is no labour, nor no shame in this:

This hath pleased, doth please, and long will please; never

Can this decay, but is beginning ever. 10

Fragmentum Petronii Arbitri

Foeda est in coitu, et brevis voluptas,

Et taedet veneris statim peractae.

Non ergo ut pecudes libidinosae,

Caeci protinus irruamus illuc:

Nam languescit amor, peritque flamma. 5

Sed sic, sic, sine fine feriati,

Et tecum iaceamus osculantes,

Hic nullus labor est, ruborque nullus,

Hoc iuvit, iuvat et diu iuvabit,

Hoc non deficit, incipitque semper. 10

89 [Martial, Epigram 8.77 Translated]

Liber, of all thy friends thou sweetest care;

Thou worthy in eternal flower to fare,

If thou be’st wise, with Syrian oil let shine

Thy locks, and rosy garlands crown thy head;

Dark thy clear glass with old Falernian wine, 5

And heat with softest love thy softer bed.

He that, but living half his days, dies such

Makes his life longer than ’twas given him, much.

Epigramma Martialis, 8.77

Liber, amicorum dulcissima cura tuorum,

Liber, in aeterna vivere digne rosa,

Si sapis, Assyrio semper tibi crinis amomo

Splendeat et cingant florea serta caput;

Candida nigrescant vetulo crystalla Falerno 5

Et caleat blando mollis amore torus.

Qui sic vel medio finitus vixit in aevo,

Longior huic facta est, quam data vita fuit.

The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

The Underwood (printed 1641)

Edited by Colin Burrow

INTRODUCTION

THE UNDERWOOD

Cineri, gloria sera venit. (Martial)

TO THE READER

THE UNDERWOOD

1.1

The Sinner’s Sacrifice: To the Holy Trinity

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

1.2

A Hymn to God the Father

1.3

A Hymn On the Nativity of My Saviour

2

A Celebration of Charis in Ten Lyric Pieces

2.1

His Excuse for Loving

2.2

How He Saw Her

2.3

What He Suffered

2.4

Her Triumph

2.5

His Discourse with Cupid

2.6

Claiming a Second Kiss by Desert

2.7

Begging Another, on Colour of Mending the Former

2.8

Urging Her of a Promise

2.9

Her Man Described by Her Own Dictamen

2.10

Another Lady’s Exception, Present at the Hearing

3

The Musical Strife, in a Pastoral Dialogue

She

He

She

He

She

He

She

4

A Song

5

In the Person of Womankind: A Song Apologetic

6

Another: In Defence of their Inconstancy: A Song

7

A Nymph’s Passion

8

The Hourglass

9

My Picture Left in Scotland

10

Against Jealousy

11

The Dream

12

An Epitaph on Master Vincent Corbett

13

An Epistle to Sir Edward Sackville, Now Earl of Dorset

14

An Epistle to Master John Selden

15

An Ode to James, Earl of Desmond, Writ
In Queen Elizabeth’s Time;
Since Lost and Recovered

An Epigram on Sir Edward Coke, When He Was
Lord Chief Justice of England

An Epistle Answering to One
That Asked to be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben

The Dedication of the King’s New Cellar:
To Bacchus