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MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

ANNO ÆTATIS 17.

ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT, OF A COUGH.

I.

O FAIREST flower, no sooner blown but Soft silken primrose fading timelessly, Summer's chief honour, if thou hadst outBleak Winter's force that made thy blosso For he being amorous on that lovely dye That did thy cheek envermeil, thought But kill'd, alas, and then bewail'd his fata

II.

For since grim Aquilo his charioteer
By boisterous rape th' Athenian damsel
He thought it touch'd his deity full near,

6

go

O] Shakespeare's Passionate Pilgrim.
Swet Rose, fair flower, untimely pluckt, soon va
Pluckt in the bud, and vaded in the spring!
Bright orient pearle, alack, too timely shaded,
Fair Creature, kild too soone by Death's sharpe st

hiss] Shakesp. Venus and Adonis,

'He thought to kiss him, and hath kill'd him so.

New

kewise he some fair one wedded not, reby to wipe away the infamous blot of long-uncoupled bed, and childless eld, ich 'mongst the wanton Gods a foul reproach was held.

III.

mounting up in icy-pearled car,

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rough middle empire of the freezing air wander'd long, till thee he spy'd from far; ere ended was his quest, there ceas'd his care. own he descended from his snow-soft chair, But all unwares with his cold-kind embrace 20 nhous'd thy virgin soul from her fair biding place.

IV.

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et art thou not inglorious in thy fate; or so Apollo, with unweeting hand, Whilome did slay his dearly-loved mate, oung Hyacinth, born on Eurotas' strand, oung Hyacinth, the pride of Spartan land; But then transform'd him to a purple flower: Alack, that so to change thee Winter had no power!

v.

Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead,
Or that thy corse corrupts in earth's dark womb,

12 infamous] The common accentuation of our elder poetry Drummond's Urania, 1616,

'On this infamous stage of woe to die.'

Todd.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

am'st again to visit us once more? rt thou that sweet-smiling youth?

157

at crown'd matron sage white-robed Truth? any other of that heavenly brood

[good? own in cloudy throne to do the world some

IX.

60

ert thou of the golden-winged host, having clad thyself in human weed, arth from thy prefixed seat didst post, after short abode fly back with speed, f to show what creatures heav'n doth breed, hereby to set the hearts of men on fire corn the sordid world and unto heav'n aspire?

X.

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oh, why didst thou not stay here below bless us with thy heav'n-lov'd innocence, slake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe, turn swift-rushing black Perdition hence, drive away the slaughtering Pestilence, To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart? ■t thou canst best perform that office where thou

art.

XI.

70

hen thou, the Mother of so sweet a Child, er false imagin'd loss cease to lament,

53 Or wert] In this line a dissyllable word is wanting. r. J. Heskin conjectured Or wert thou Mercy,' &c.