breg They, neighbours to your eyes, | Then Revenge, married to Ambition, Show but like Phosphor when the Sun doth rise. Begat black War; then Avarice crept on; . I would have all my mistress' parts Then limits to each field were strain'd, And Terminus a god-head gain'd, To men before was found, Besides the sea, no bound. In what plain, or what river, hath not been War's story writ in blood (sad story!) seen? For 'tis not buildings make a court, This truth too well our England knows : 'Twascivil slaughter dy'd her rose ; Or pomp, but 'tis the king's resort : Nay, then her lily too · With blood's loss paler grew. Such griefs, nay worse than these, we now should le than a golden one it cannot be. Did not just Charles silence the rage of steel ; He to our land blest Peace doth bring, All neighbour countries envying.. Happy who did remain Unborn till Charles's reign! Where dreaming chymics! is your pain and cost? How is your oil, how is your labour lost ! od from black clouds Our Charles, blest alchymist! (though strange, your brow, Believe it, future times !) did change The iron-age of old . Into an age of gold. ODE VI. UPON THE SHORTNESS OF MAN'S LIFE. | MARK that swift arrow! how it cuts the air, Return, and tears sport's nearest neighbours are. How it out-runs thy following eye ! "Tis by the gods appointed so, l'se all persuasions now, and try That good fare should with mingled dangers flow. If thou canst call it back, or stay it there. Who drave his oxen yesterday, That way it went ; but thou shalt find Doth now over the noblest Romans reign, : No tract is left behind. And on the Gabii and the Cures lay | Fool! 'tis thy life, and the fond archer thou. The yoke which from his oxen he had ta'en: Of all the time thou'st shot away, Pll bid thee fetch but yesterday, Besides repentance, what canst find That it hath left behind ? Our life is carried with too strong a tide; To his old country-farm of yesterday, A doubtful cloud our substance bears, And is the horse of all our years. Each day doth on a winged whirlwind ride. We and our glass run out, and must Both render up our dust. | But his past life who without grief can see; Who never thinks his end too near, But says to Fame, “Thou art mine heir ;', That man extends life's natural brevityIN COMMENDATION OF THE TIME WE LIVE UNDER, THE This is, this is the only way · REIGN OF OUR GRACIOUS KING CHARLES. To out-live Nestor in a day. Curst be that wretch (Death's factor sure) who | AN ANSWER TO AN INVITATION TO brought Dire swords into the peaceful world, and taught CAMBRIDGE. Nichols, my better self! forbear; are, The schoolboy's sin will light on me, Tell me not how you feed your mind With dainties of philosophy; In Ovid's nut I shall not find The taste once pleased me. 10 tell me not of logic's diverse cheer! I shall begin to loathe our crainbo here. Tell me not how the waves appear Why do I stay then? I would meet Of Cam, or how it cuts the learned shire; Thee there, but plummets hang upon my feet; I shall contemn the troubled Thames 'Tis iny clief wish to live with thee, On ber chief holiday; ev'n when her streams But not till I deserve thy company: Are with rich folly gilded; when Till then, we'll scorn to let that toy, Some forty miles, divide our hearts : Write to me, and I shall enjoy Friendship and wit, thy better parts. When th' city shines with flags and pageants there, | Though envious Fortune larger bindrance bring, And satin doublets, seen not twice a year, We 'll easily see each other; Love hath wings. MISCELLANIES, pass TIE MOTTO. | And, whilst with wearied steps we upwards go, See us, and clouds, below, ODE. OF WIT, | Tell me, 0 tell, what kind of thing is Wit, Unless you write my elegy ; Thou who master art of it? Whilst others great, by being born, are grown; For the first matter loves variety less; Their mothers' labour, not their own. Less women love 't, either in love or dress. In this scale gold, in th other fame does lie, A thousand different shapes it bears, The weight of that mounts this so high. Comely in thousand shapes appears. These men are Fortune's jewels, moulded bright; Yonder we saw it plain; and here 'tis now, Brought forth with their own fire and light: Like spirits, in a place we know not how. If I, her vulgar stone, for either look, London, that vents of false ware so much store, Out of myself it must be strook, In no ware deceives us more; Like Zeuxis' birds, fly to the painted grape. Same things do through our judgment Raise up the buried man. Unpast Alps stop me; but I'll cut them all, As through a multiplying-glass; And march, the Muses' Hannibal. And sometimes, if the object be too far, Hence, all the flattering vanities that lay We take a falling meteor for a star, Nets of roses in the way! Hence 'tis, a Wit, that greatest word of fame, Hence, the desire of honours or estate, Grows such a common name; And all that is not above Fate ! And Wits by our creation they become, Hence, Love himself, that tyrant of my days! Just so as titular bishops made at Rome. Which intercepts my coming praise. 'Tis not a tale, 'tis not a jest Come, my best friends, my books! and lead me Admir'd with laughter at a feast, on ; Nor florid talk, which can that title gain ; 'Tis time that I were gone. The proofs of Wit for ever must remain. 'Tis not to force some lifeless verses meet Thy scholar's victories thou dost far out-do; With their five gouty feet, , He conquer'd th' earth, the whole world you. | All, every where, like man's, must be the soul, Welcome, learn'd Cicero! whose blest tongue and And Reason the inferior powers controul. wit Such were the numbers which could call Preserves Rome's greatness yet: The stones into the Theban wall. Thou art the first of orators; only he Such miracles are ceas'd; and now we see Who best can praise thee, next must be. No towns or houses rais'd by poetry. Welcome the Mantuan swan, Virgil the wise! Yet'tis not to adorn and gild each part; Whose verse walks highest, but not flies; That shows more cost tban art. Who brought green Poesy to her perfect age, Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear; And made that art which was a rage. Rather than all things Wit, let pone be there. Tell me, ye mighty Three! what shall I do Several lights will not be seen, To be like one of you? If there be nothing else between. Lut you have climb'd the mountain's top, there sit Men doubt, because they stand so thick i'th' sky, On the calm tourishing head of it, T'If those be stars which paint the galaxy.. | Whilst we, like younger brothers, get at best But a small stock, and must work out the rest. How could he answer 't, should the state think fit To question a monopoly of wit ? Such is the man whom we require the same We lent the North ; untouch'd, as is his fame, He is too good for war, and ought to be As far from danger, as from fear he's free. Those men alone (and those are useful too) Whose valour is the only art they know Were for sad war and bloody battles born; Let then the state defend, and he adorn. Tis not when two like words make up one noise (Jests for Dutch men and English boys); In which who finds out Wit, the same may see In an'grams and acrostic poetry: Much less can that bave any place At which a virgin hides her face. "Such dross the fire must purge away: 'tis just The author blush there, where the reader must. 'Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage • When Bajazet begins to rage ; Nor a tall metaphor in the bombast way; Nor the dry chips of short-lungod Seneca ; Nor upon all things to obtrude And furce some odd siinilitude. Yet all things there agree; Or, as the primitive forms of all (If we compare great things with small) Which, without discord, or confusion, lie In that strange mirror of the Deity. But Love, that moulds one man up out of two, Makes me forget, and injure you : I took you for myself, sure, when I thought That you in any thing were to be taught. Correct my errour with thy pen; And, if any ask me then ON THE DEATH OF SIR HENRY JOOTTON. WHAT shall we say, since silent now is he Who when he spoke, all things would silent be? Who had so many languages in store, That only Fame shall speak of himn in more; Whom England now no more retum'd must see ; He's gone to Heaven on his fourth embassy. On Earth he traveil'd often ; not to say H' had been abroad, or pass loose time away. In whatsoever land he chanc'd to come, He read the men and manners, bringing home Their wisdom, learning, and their piety, As if he went to conquer, not too see. So well he understood the most and best Of tongues, that Babel sent into the West; Spoke them so truly, that he had (you'd swear) Not only liv'd, but been born every where. Justly each nation's speech to him was known, Who for the world was made, not us alone; Nor ought the language of that man be less, Who in his breast had all things to express. We say, that learning's endless, and blame Fate For not allowing life a longer date : He did the ntinost bounds of knowledge find, He found them not so large as was his mind; But, like the brave Pellæan youth, did moan Because that art had no more worlds than one; And, when he saw that he through all had past, He dy'd, lest he should idle grow at last. TO THE LORD FALKLAND, EXPEDITION AGAINST THE SCOTS. And this great prince of knowledge is by Fate ON THE DEATH OF MR. JORDAN, SECOND MASTER AT WESTMINSTER SCHOOL. Hence, and make room for me, all you who come Only to read the epitaph on this tomb! Here lies the master of my tender years, The guardian of my parents' hope and fears; Whose government ne'er stood me in a tear; All weeping was reserv'd to spend it here. Come hither, all who his rare virtues knew, And mourn with me: he was your tutor too. Let's join our sighs, till they fly far, and shew . His native Belgia what she's now to do. The league of grief bids her with us lament; By her he was brought forth, and hither sent In payment of all men we there had lost, And all the English blood those wars have cost. Wisely did Nature this learn'd man divide; His birth was theirs, his death the mournful pride Of England ; and, t'avoid the envious strife Of other lands, all Europe had his life, ON HIS MAJESTY'S RETURN...DEATH OF VANDYCK. . But we in chief; our country soon was grown How justly would our neighbours smile A debtor more to him, than he to 's own. At these mad quarrels of our isle; He pluckt from youth the follies and the crimes, Swell’d with proud hopes to snatch the whole away And built up men against the future times; Whilst we bet all, and yet for nothing play! For deeds of age are in their causes then, How was the silver Tine frighted before, And though he taught but boys, he made the men. And durst not kiss the armed shore ! Hence 'twas a master, in those ancient days | His waters ran more swiftly than they use, When men sought knowledge first, and by it | And hasted to the sea to tell the news : praise, The sea itself, how rough soe'er, Was a thing full of reverence, profit, fame; Could scarce believe such fury here. Father itself was but a second name. How could the Scots and we be enemies grown? That, and its master Charles, hall made us one. No blood so loud as that of civil war: It calls for dangers from afar. Thus our fore-fathers got, thus left, a name : All their rich blood was spent with gains, Was nought on Earth but his own memory ; But that which swells their children's veins. His memory, where all things wriiten were, Why sit we still, our spirits wrapt in lead ? As sure and fixt as in Fate's books they are. | Not like them whilst they liv'd, but now they're Thus he in arts so rast a treasure gain'd, dead. : Wbilst still the use came in, and stock remain'd: The noise at home was but Fate's policy, And, having purchas'd all that man can know, To raise our spirits more high : He labour'd with 't to enrich others now; So a bold lion, ere he seeks his prey, Did thus a new and harder task sustain, Lashes his sides and roars, and then away. Like those that work in mines for others' gain : How would the German eagle fear, To see a new Gustavus there ; Sure there are actions of this height and praise Destin'd to Charles's days! That none could a more grateful scholar have; What will the triumphs of his battles be, For what I owd his life I'll pay his grave. Whose very peace itself is victory ! When Heaven bestows the best of kings, It bids us think of mighty things : His valour, wisdom, offspring, speak no less; ON HIS MAJESTY'S RETURN = And we, the prophets' soiis, write not by guess. And we, the prop ON THE DEATH OF SIR ANTHONY VANDYCK; THE FAMOUS PAINTER. . You like a god your ends obtain; Vandyck is dead; but what bold Muse shall dare Who, when rude Chaos for his help did call, (Though poets in that word with painters share) Spoke but the word and sweetly order'd all. T express her sadness ? Poesy must becoine This happy concord in no blood is writ, An art libe Painting here, an art that's dumb. None can grudge Heaven full thanks for it : Let's all our solemn grief in silence keep, No mothers here lament their children's fate, Like some sad picture which he made to teep, And like the peace, but think it comes too late. Or those who saw't; for none his works could view No widows hear the jocund bells, Unmoved with the same passions which he drew, And take them for their husbands: knells: His pieces so with their live objects strive, No drop of blood is spilt, which might be said That both or pictures seem, or both alive. To mark our joyful holiday with red. Nature herself, amaz'd, does doubting stand, Which is her own, and which the painter's hand; 'Twas only Heaven could work this wondrous thing, And does attempt the like with less success, When her own work in twins she would express. His all-resembling pencil did out-pass And fear no harm but from the weather now; The mimic imagery of lovking-glass. Again may tradesmen love their pain, Nor was his life less perfect than his art. - By knowing row for whom they gain; Nor was his hand less erring than his heart. The armour now may be hung up to sight, "There was no false or fading colour there, And only in their halls the children fright. The figures sweet and well-proportion'd were. The gain of civil wars will not allow Most other men, set next to him in view, Bay to the conqueror's brow : Appear'd more shadows than the men he drew. At such a game what fool would venture in, Thus still he liv'd, till Heav'n did for him call; Where one must lose yet neither side can win? Where reverend Luke salutes him first of all; Where he beholds new sights, divinely fair, FRIENDSHIP IN ABSENCE. W ex chance or cruel business parts us two, What do our souls, I wonder, do? Whilst he, for ever ravish'd with the show, Whilst sleep does our dull bodies tie, Scorns his own art, which we armire below. Methinks at home they should not stay, Only his beauteous lady still he loves Content with dreams, but boldly fly | Sure they do meet, enjoy each other there, And you, fair widow! who stay here alive, And mix, I know not how nor where! Since he so much rejoices, cease to grieve : Their friendly lights together twine, Yourjoys and griefs were wont the same to be; Though we perceive 't not to be so! Begin not now, blest pair! to disagree. Like loving stars, which oft combine, No wonder Death move not his generous mind; Yet not themselves their own conjunctions know. You, and a new-born you, he left behind : "Twere an ill.world, I'll swear, for every friend, Evin Fate express'd his love to his dear wife, If distance could their union end : But Love itself does far advance It scorns such outward circumstance, His time's for ever, every where his place. I'm there with thee, yet here with me thou art, . Lorly'd in each other's heart: Miracles cease not yet in love. How wretched does Prometheus' state appear, When he his mighty power will try, Whilst he his second misery suffers here ! Absence itself does bountcous prove. Draw him no more ; lest, as he tortur'd stands, And strangely ev'n our presence multiply. He blame great Jove's less than the painter's hands. | Pure is the flame of Friendship, and divine, It would the vulture's cruelty outgo, Like that which in Heaven's Sun docs shine: If once again his liver thus should grow. He in the upper air and sky Pity him, Jove! and his bold theft allow; Does no effects of heat bestow; But, as his beains the farther ily, Friendship is less apparent when too nigh, Like objects if they touch the eye. Less meritorious then is love; Here's to thee, Dick; this whining love despise ; For when we friends together seo Pledge me, my friend; and drink till thou be'st So much, so much both one do prove, wise, That their love then seems but self-love to be. Each day think on me, and each day I shall For thee make hours canonical. By every wind that comes this way, Send me, at least, a sigh or two; With all thy servile pairs what canst thou win, Such and so inany I'll repay, But an ill favour'd and uncleanly sin ? | As shall themselves make winds to get to you. A thousand pretty ways we'll think upon, To mock our separation. Alas! ten thousand will not do; My heart will thus no longer stay; Whom would that painted toy a beauty move; No longer 'twill be kept from you, Could he a woman's heart have seen And, when no art affords me help or ease, I seek with verse my griefs to appease ; Just as a bird, that flies about And beats itself against the cage, Follies they have so numberless in store, Finding at last no passage out, It sits and sings, and so o'ercomes its rage. TO THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN, Here's to thee again ; thy senseless sorrows drown; 1 UPON HIS ENLARGEMENT OUT OF THE TOWER. Pardon, my lord, that I am come so late Of liberty, at first I could not grieve ; |