O! if Love shall live, O! where,
But in her eye, or in her ear,
In her breast, or in her breath,
Shall I hide poor Love from death?
For in the life aught else can give,
Love shall die, although he live.

Or if Love shall die, O! where,
But in her eye, or in her ear,
In her breath, or in her breast,
Shall I build his funeral nest?
While Love shall thus entombed lie,
Love shall live, although he die.

OUT OF VIRGIL,

IN THE PRAISE OF THE SPRING.

ALL trees, all leafy groves, confess the Spring
Their gentlest friend: then, then the lands begin
To swell with forward pride, and seed desire
To generation: Heaven's almighty sire
Melts on the bosom of his love, and pours
Himself into her lap in fruitful showers,
And by a soft insinuation, mixt

With Earth's large mass, doth cherish and assist
Her weak conceptions: no lone shade, but rings
With chatting birds' delicious murmurings.
Then Venus' mild instinct (at set times) yields
The herds to kindly meetings, then the fields
(Quick with warm Zephyr's lively breath) lay forth
Their pregnant bosoms in a fragrant birth.
Fach body's plump and juicy, all things full
Of supple moisture: no coy twig but will
Trust his beloved bosom to the Sun,
(Grown lusty now): no vine so weak and young
That fears the foul-mouth'd Auster, or those storis
That the south-west wind hurries in his arms,
But hastes her forward blossoms, and lays out,
Freely lays out her leaves; nor do I doubt
But when the world first out of Chaos sprang,
So smil'd the days, and so the tenour ran
Of their felicity. A spring was there,
An everlasting spring the jolly year
Led round in his great circle: no wind's breath
As then did smell of winter, or of death;
When life's sweet light first shone on beasts, and
From their hard mother Earth sprang hardy men;
When beasts took up their lodging in the wood,
Stars in their higher chambers: never cou'd
'The tender growth of things endure the sepse
Of such a change, but that the Heav'ns' indulgence
Kindly supplies sick Nature, and doth mold
A sweetly-temper'd mean, nor hot nor cold.

[when

WITH A PICTURE SENT TO A FRIEND.

I PAINT SO ill, my piece had need to be

Painted again by some good poesy,

I write so ill, my slender line is scarce

So much as th' picture of a well-limn'd verse:
Yet may the love I send be true, though I
Send not true picture nor true poesy:
Both which I should not need to fear,
away,
My love, or feign'd, or painted, should appear.

IN PRAISE OF LESSIUS,

HIS RULE OF HEALTH.

Go, now, with some daring drug,
Bait the disease, and while they tug,
Thou, to maintain their cruel strife,
Spend the dear treasure of thy life:
Go, take physic, doat upon
Some big-nam'd composition,
The oraculous doctor's mystic bills,
Certain hard ords made into pills;
And what at length shalt get by these?
Only a costlier disease.

Go, poor man, think what shall be
Remedy against thy remedy.

That which makes us have no need
Of physic, that's physic indeed.

Hark hither, reader, would'st thou see
Nature her own physician be;
Would'st see a man, all his own wealth,
His own physic, his own health?
A man whose sober soul can tell
How to wear her garments well?
Her garments that upon her sit,

As garments should do, close and fit?
A well-cloth'd soul that's not opprest,
Nor chok'd with what she should be drest?
A soul sheath'd in a chrystal shrine,
Through which all her bright features shine?
As when a piece of wanton lawn,
A thin aereal veil is drawn

O'er Beauty's face, seeming to hide,
More sweetly shows the blushing bride.
A soul, whose intellectual beams
No mists do mask, no lazy steams?
A happy soul, that all the way
To Heaven hath a summer's day?

Would'st thou see a man, whose well-warm'd blood
Bathes him in a genuine flood?

A man, whose tuned humours be

A set of rarest harmony?

Would'st see blithe looks, fresh cheeks, beguile
Age, would'st see December smile?
Would'st see a nest of roses grow

In a bed of reverend snow?

Warm thoughts, free spirits, flattering
Winter's self into a spring?

In sum, would'st see a man that can
Live to be old, and still a man?

THE BEGINNING OF HELIODORUS.
THE Smiling morn had newly wak'd the day,
And tipt the mountains in a tender ray:
When on a hill (whose high imperious brow
Looks down, and sees the humble Nile below
Lick his proud feet, and haste into the seas
Thro' the great mouth that's nam'd from Hercules)
A band of men, rough as the arms they wore,
Look'd round, first to the sea, then to the shore.
The shore, that show'd them what the sea deny'd,
Hope of a prey. There, to the main land ty’d,
A ship they saw, no men she had: yet prest
Appear'd with other lading, for her breast
Deep in the groaning waters wallowed
Up to the third ring; o'er the shore was spread

From th' rising Sun, obtaining by just suit
A Spring's engender, and an Autumn's fruit.
Who in those volumes, at her motion pen'd,
Unto Creation's Alpha doth extend.
Again ascend, and view Chronology,
By optic skill pulling far History

Nearer; whose hand the piercing eagle's eye
Strengthens to bring remotest objects nigh.
Under whose feet, you see the setting Sun,
From the dark gnomon, o'er her volumes run,
Drown'd in eterual night, never to rise;
Till Resurrection show it to the eyes

Of earth-worn men; and her shrill trumpet's sound
Affright the bones of mortals from the ground:
The columns both are crown'd with either sphere,
To show Chronology and History bear
No other culmen than the double art,
Astronomy, Geography impart.

OR THUS.

LET hoary Time's vast bowels be the grave
To what his bowels' birth and being gave:
Let Nature die, and (phenix-like) from death
Revived Nature take a second breath:
If on Time's right hand sit fair History;
If, from the seed of empty ruin, she
Can raise so fair an harvest: let her be
Ne'er so far distant, yet Chronology
(Sharp-sighted as the eagle's eye, that can
Out-stare the broad-beam'd day's meridian)
Will have a perspicil to find her out,

And, thro' the night of errour and dark doubt,
Discern the dawn of Truth's eternal ray,
As when the rosy morn buds into day.

Now that Time's empire might be amply fill'd,
Babel's bold artists strive (below) to build
Ruin a temple; on whose fruitful fall
History rears her pyramids more tall
Than were th' Egyptian (by the life, these give,
The Egyptian pyramids themselves must live :)
On these she lifts the world; and on their base
Shows the two terms and limits of Time's race:
That, the Creation is the Judgement this;
That, the world's morning; this her midnight is.

AN EPITAPH UPON MR. ASHTON,

A CONFORMABLE CITIZEN.

THE modest front of this small floor,
Believe me, reader, can say more
Than many a braver marble can,
"Here lies a truly honest man:"
One whose conscience was a thing,
That troubled neither church nor king,
One of those few that in this town
Honour all preachers, hear their own,
Sermons he heard, yet not so many
As left no time to practise any.
He heard them reverendly, and then
His practice preach'd them o'er agen.
His parlour-sermons rather were
Those to the eye, than to the ear.

His prayers took their price and strength
Not from the loudness, nor the length.
He was a Protestant at home,
Not only in despite of Rome.
Helov'd his father, yet his zeal
Tore not off his mother's veil.

To th' church he did allow her dress,
True beauty to true holiness.

Peace, which he lov'd in life, did lend
Her hand to bring him to his end:
When Age and Death call'd for the score,
No surfeits were to reckon for;
Death tore not (therefore) but sans strife
Gently untwin'd his thread of life.
-What remains, then, but that thou
Write these lines, reader, in thy brow,
And by his fair example's light,
Burn in thy imitation bright.
So while these lines can but bequeath
A life perhaps unto his death,
His better epitaph shall be,
His life still kept alive in thee.

OUT OF CATULLUS.
COME, and let us live, my dear,
Let us love, and never fear
What the sourest fathers say:
Brightest Sol, that dies to day,
Lives again as blithe to morrow;
But if we, dark sons of sorrow
Set; O! then how long a night
Shuts the eyes of our short light!
Then let amorous kisses dwell
On our lips, begin and tell

A thousand and a hundred score,
An hundred and a thousand more,
Till another thousand smother
That, and that wipe of another.
'Thus, at last, when we have numbred
Many a thousand, many a hundred;
We'll confound the reckoning quite,
And lose our selves in wild delight:
While our joys so multiply,
As shall mock the envious eye.

Of chrystal flesh, through which to shine:
Meet you her, my wishes,

Bespeak her to my blisses,

And be ye call'd, my absent kisses.

I wish her beauty,

That owes not all its duty

To gaudy tire, or glistring shoe-tie.

Something more than

Taffata or tissue can,

Or rampant feather, or rich fan.

More than the spoil

Of shop, or silkworm's toil,.

Or a bought blush, or a set smile..