Meets art with art; sometimes, as if in doubt
Not perfect yet, and fearing to be out,
Trails her plain ditty in one long-spun note,
Through the sleek passage of her open throat,
A clear unwrinkled song; then doth she point it
With tender accents, and severely joint it
By short diminutives, that, being rear'd
In controverting warbles, evenly shared,
With her sweet self she wrangles: he, amazed
That from so small a channel should be raised
The torrent of a voice, whose melody
Could melt into such sweet variety,

Strains higher yet, that, tickled with rare art,
The tattling strings, each breathing in his part,
Most kindly do fall out the grumbling base
In surly groans disdains the treble's grace;
The high-percht treble chirps at this, and chides,
Until his finger (moderator) hides

And closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all,
Hoarse, shrill, at once; as when the trumpets call
Hot Mars to th' harvest of death's field, and woo
Men's hearts into their hands; this lesson too
She gives them back; her supple breast thrills out
Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt
Of dallying sweetness, hovers o'er her skill,
And folds in waved notes, with a trembling bill,
The pliant series of her slippery song;
Then starts she suddenly into a throng

Of short thick sobs, whose thund'ring volleys float,
And roll themselves over her lubric throat

In panting murmurs, still'd out of her breast;

That ever-bubbling spring, the sugar'd nest

Of her delicious soul, that there does lie

Bathing in streams of liquid melody;

Music's best seed-plot; when in ripen'd airs

A golden-headed harvest fairly rears

His honey-dropping tops, plough'd by her breath
Which there reciprocally laboureth.

In that sweet soil it seems a holy quire,
Sounded to th' name of great Apollo's lyre;

Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes
Of sweet-lipp'd angel-imps, that swill their throats
In cream of morning Helicon, and then
Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men,

To woo them from their beds, still murmuring
That men can sleep while they their matins sing
(Most divine service): whose so early lay
Prevents the eyelids of the blushing day.
There might you hear her kindle her soft voice,
In the close murmur of a sparkling noise;
And lay the ground-work of her hopeful song,
Still keeping in the forward stream so long,
Till a sweet whirlwind (striving to get out)
Heaves her soft bosom, wanders round about,
And makes a pretty earthquake in her breast,
Till the fledged notes at length forsake their nest,
Fluttering in wanton shoals, and to the sky,
Wing'd with their own wild echoes, prattling fly.
She opes the flood-gate, and lets loose a tide
Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride
On the waved back of every swelling strain,
Rising and falling in a pompous train;
And while she thus discharges a shrill peal
Of flashing airs, she qualifies their zeal
With the cool epode of a graver note;
Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat

Would reach the brazen voice of war's hoarse bird;
Her little soul is ravish'd, and so pour'd

Into loose ecstasies, that she is placed

Above herself, music's enthusiast.

Shame now and anger mix'd a double stain In the musician's face: "Yet, once again, Mistress, I come now reach a strain, my lute, Above her mock, or be for ever mute.

Or tune a song of victory to me,

Or to thyself sing thine own obsequy."

So said, his hands sprightly as fire he flings,

And with a quavering coyness tastes the strings :
The sweet-lipp'd sisters musically frighted,
Singing their fears, are fearfully delighted:

Trembling as when Apollo's golden hairs

Are fann'd and frizzled in the wanton airs

Of his own breath, which married to his lyre,

Doth tune the spheres, and make heaven's self look higher;
From this to that, from that to this he flies,

Feel's music's pulse in all her arteries;
Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads,
His fingers struggle with the vocal threads,
Following those little rills, he sinks into.
A sea of Helicon; his hand does go
Those parts of sweetness which with nectar drop,
Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup:
The humorous strings expound his learned touch
By various glosses; now they seem to grutch,
And murmur in a buzzing din, then gingle
In shrill-toned accents, striving to be single;
Every smooth turn, every delicious stroke

Gives life to some new grace; thus doth he invoke
Sweetness by all her names: thus, bravely thus
(Fraught with a fury so harmonious)

The lute's light genius now does proudly rise,
Heaved on the surges of swoll'n rhapsodies;
Whose flourish (meteor-like) doth curl the air
With flash of high-born fancies, here and there
Dancing in lofty measures, and anon

Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone,
Whose trembling murmurs, melting in wild airs,
Run to and fro, complaining his sweet cares;
Because those precious mysteries that dwell
In music's ravish'd soul he dare not tell,
But whisper to the world: thus do they vary,
Each string his note, as if they meant to carry
Their master's blest soul (snatch'd out at his ears
By a strong ecstasy) through all the spheres

Of music's heaven; and seat it there on high,
In th' empyreum of pure harmony.

At length (after so long, so loud a strife

Of all the strings, still breathing the best life
Of blest variety, attending on

His fingers' fairest revolution,

In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall)
A full-mouth'd diapason swallows all.

This done, he lists what she would say to this
And she, although her breath's late exercise
Had dealt too roughly with her tender throat,
Yet summons all her sweet powers for a note.
Alas! in vain! for while (sweet soul) she tries
To measure all those wild diversities

Of chatt'ring strings, by the small size of one Poor simple voice, raised in a natural tone; She fails, and failing grieves, and grieving dies: She dies, and leaves her life the victor's prize, Falling upon his lute: oh fit to have,

(That lived so sweetly), dead, so sweet a grave!

[ RICHARD LOVELACE was born at Woolwich, in 1618, and was educated at Oxford. He was deputed by the county of Kent to deliver a petition to the House of Commons for the restoration of monarchy, and for this he was sent to prison. He expended nearly all he possessed in the cause of Charles I., and then entered the French army; but being wounded at the siege of Dunkirk, he returned to England, and was thrown into prison, where he remained until the king's execution. He then obtained his liberty; but he had lost all his property, and his destitution brought on a consumption, of which he died in 1658, in a miserable alley.

He was a man of fine personal appearance, most accomplished manners, and excellent character. His poems are the productions of his happier days; he dedicated them, under the name of Lucasta, to Lucy Sacheverell, a highly-accomplished lady, to whom he was strongly attached, but who, hearing that he had died of his wounds at Dunkirk, married another lover. They show a deep devotion to his king and his mistress, and are both graceful and spirited.]