How humble is thy muse (dear) that can deign
Such servants as my pen to entertain;
When all the sons of wit glory to be
Clad in thy muse's gallant livery:
I shall disgrace my master, prove a stain,
And no addition to his honour'd train.
Though all that read me will presume to swear
I ne'er read thee: yet if it may appear
I love the writer and admire the writ,
I my own want betray, not wrong thy wit.
Did thy work want a praise, my barren brain
Could not afford it: my attempt were vain.
It needs no fool: all that ere writ before
Are fools to thy fair poems, and no more.
Then to be lodg'd in the same sheets with thine,
May prove disgrace to yours, but grace to mine.
NORRIS JEPHSON, Col.
TO MY MUCH LOVED FRIEND,
RICHARD LOVELACE, ESQ.
DEAR Lovelace, I am now about to prove
I cannot write a verse but can write love.
On such a subject as thy book, I could
Write books much greater, but not half so good.
But as the humble tenant that does bring
A chick or eggs for's offering,
Is ta'en into the butt'ry, and does fox
Equal with him that gave a stalled ox:
So, (since the heart of ev'ry cheerful giver
Makes pounds no more accepted than a stiver,) Though some thy praise in rich styles sing, I may In stiver still write love as well as they.
I write so well that I no critics fear;
For who'll read mine, when as thy book's so near,
Unless thyself? Then you shall secure mine
From those, and I'll engage myself for thine;
They'll do't themselves, then this allay you'll take,
I love thy book, and yet not for thy sake.
TO MY NOBLE AND MOST INGENIOUS FRIEND,
So from the pregnant brain of Jove did rise
Pallas, the queen of wit, and beauteous eyes:
As fair Lucasta from thy temples flows,
Temples no less ingenious than Jove's.
Alike in birth, so shall she be in fame,
And be immortal to preserve thy name.
Now when the wars augment our woes and fears,
And the shrill noise of drums oppress our ears,
Now peace and safety from our shores are fled
To holes and caverns to secure their head:
Now all the graces from the land are sent,
And the nine muses suffer banishment,
Whence spring these raptures? whence this heavenly rhyme?
So calm and even in so harsh a time:
Well might that charmer his fair Celia crown,
And that more polish'd Tytirus renown
His Sacharissa, when in groves and bow'rs
They could repose their limbs on beds of flow'rs:
When wit had praise, and merit had reward,
And every noble spirit did accord
To love the muses, and their priests to raise,
And interpale their brows with flourishing bays;
But in a time distracted so to sing,
When peace is hurried hence on rage's wing,
When the fresh bays is from the temple torn,
And every art and science made a scorn,
Then to raise up by music of thy arts
Our drooping spirits and our grieved hearts,
Then to delight our souls, and to inspire
Our breast with pleasure, from thy charming lyre;
Then to divert our sorrows by thy strains,
Making us quite forget our seven years' pains
In the past wars, unless that Orpheus be
A sharer in thy glory: for when he
Descended down for his Euridice,
He struck his lute with like-admired art,
And made the damned to forget their smart.
JOHN PINCHBACKE, Col.
Ψεύδεται όςις ἔφη δολιχός χρόν@ οἶδεν ἀμείβεν
Οὔνομα, και παν των μνημοσυνην ολέσαι.
Ωδην γαρ ποιεῖν ἀγαθην πον@ ἄφθονός εςι,
Ον μηδεὶς αἰων οἶδεν οδᾶσι φαγείν.
Ωδην' σοί, φίλε, δῶκε μὲν ἄφθιτον ὤγαθε, μέσα,
Ως εἰς αἰῶνας ἄνομα κε τέον.
VILLIERS HARINGTON, Lieut. Col.
TO HIS MUCH HONOURED FRIEND,
MR. RICHARD LOVELACE,
He that doth paint the beauties of your verse
Must use your pencil, be polite, soft, terse;
Forgive that man whose best of art is love,
If he no equal master to you prove;
My heart is all my eloquence, and that
Speaks sharp affection, when my words fall flat,
I read you like my mistress, and descry
In every line the quickness of her eye,
Her smoothness in each syllable, her grace
To marshal ev'ry word in the right place:
It is the excellence and soul of wit
When ev'ry thing is free, as well as fit.
For metaphors pack'd up and crowded close,
Swathe the mind's sweetness, and display the throws;
And like those chickens hatch'd in furnaces,
Produce or one limb more, or one limb less
Than nature bids: survey such when they write
No clause but's justled with an epithet;
So powerfully you draw when you persuade,
Passions in you, in us are virtues made;
Such is the magic of that lawful shell
That where it doth but talk, it doth compel:
For no Apelles till this time e'er drew
A Venus to the waist so well as you.
THE world shall now no longer mourn, nor vex
For th' obliquity of a cross-grain'd sex;
Nor beauty swell above her banks, (and made
For ornament) the universe invade
So fiercely, that 'tis question'd in our books,
Whether kills most, the Amazon's sword or looks.
Lucasta in love's game discreetly makes
Women and men jointly to share the stakes,
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