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You fiends and furies, (if yet any be
Worse than our selves) you that have quak'd to see
These knots untied; and shrunk, when we have
charm'd.

You, that (to arme us) have your selves disarm'd,
And to our powers, resign'd your whips and brands,
When we went forth, the scourge of men and lands,
You, that have seen me ride, when Hecate

Durst not take chariot; when the boistrous sea,
Without a breath of wind, hath knockt the sky;
And that hath thundred, Jove not knowing why:
When we have set the elements at wars,
Made midnight see the Sun, and day the stars;
When the wing'd lightning, in the course, hath staid;
And swiftest rivers have run back, afraid,

To see the corne remove, the groves to range,
Whole places alter, and the seasons change,
When the pale Moon, at the first voice down fell
Poyson'd, and durst not stay the second spell.
You, that have oft been conscious of these sights;
And thou, three-formed star, that, on these nights
Art only powerfull, to whose triple name
Thus we incline, once, twice, and thrice the same;
If now with rites prophane, and foule enough,
We do invoke thee; darken all this roofe,
With present fogs. Exhale Earth's rott'nst vapors,
And strike a blindnesse through these blazing tapers.
Come, let a murmuring charme resound,
The whilst we bury all, i' the ground.
But first, see every foot be bare;

And every knee. HAG. Yes, dame, they are.

FOURTH CHARME.

DEEPE, O deepe, we lay thee to sleepe;
We leave thee drinke by, if thou chance to be dry;
Both milke, and blood, the dew, and the flood.
We breathe in thy bed, at the foot and the head;
We cover thee warme, that thou take no harme:
And when thou dost wake,
Dame Earth shall quake,
And the houses' shake,
And her belly shall ake,

As her backe were brake,
Such a birth to make,

As is the blue drake:

Whose form thou shalt take.

DAME.

Never a starre yet shot?

Where be the ashes? HAG. Here i' the pot. DAM. Cast them up; and the flint-stone Over the left shoulder bone:

Into the west. HAG. It will be best.

FIFTH CHARME.

The sticks are a-crosse, there can be no losse,
The sage is rotten, the sulphur is gotten
Up to the skie, that was i' the ground.
Follow it then, with our rattles, round;
Under the bramble, over the brier,
A little more heat will set it on fire:
Put it in mind, to do it kind,
Flow water, and blow wind.

Rouncy is over, Robble is under,

A flash of light, and a clap of thunder,
A storme of raine, another of hayle.

We all must home, i' the egge-shell sayle;
The mast is made of a great pin,
The tackle of cobweb, the sayle as thin,
And if we goe through and not fall in-

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Not yet? my rage begins to swell;
Darknesse, devils, night, and Hell,
Doe not thus delay my spell.

I call you once, and I call you twice;
I beat you againe, if you stay my thrice:
Thorough these cranyes, where I peepe,
I'le let in the light to see your sleepe.
And all the secrets of your sway
Shall lie as open to the day,
As unto me. Still are you deafe?
Reach me a bough, that ne're bare leafe,
To strike the aire; and aconite,
To hurle upon this glaring light;
A rustie knife, to wound mine arme;
And, as it drops, I'le speake a charme,
Shall cleave the ground, as low as lies
Old shrunk-up Chaos, and let rise,
Once more, his darke, and reeking head,
To strike the world, and Nature dead,
Untill my magick birth be bred.

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A PANEGYRE,

As with the murmure of a moving wood; The ground beneath did seeme a moving flood: Wals, windores, roofs, towers, steeples, all were set With severall eyes, that in this object met. Old men were glad, their fates till now did last ; HIS FIRST HIGH SESSION OF PARLIAMENT IN THIS HIS And infants, that the houres had made such hast KINGDOME, THE 19th of March, 1603.

ON THE HAPPY ENTRANCE OF JAMES, OUR SOVERAIGNE, TO

Licet toto nunc Helicone frui. Mart.

:

HEAV'N now not strives, alone, our breasts to fill
With joyes but urgeth his full favours still.
Againe, the glory of our westerne world
Unfolds himselfe and from his eyes are hoorl'd
(To day) a thousand radiant lights, that streame
To every nook and angle of his realme.
His former rayes did only cleare the sky;
But these his searching beams are cast, to pry
Into those dark and deep concealed vaults,
Where men commit black incest with their faults;
And snore supinely in the stall of sin :
Where Murder, Rapine, Lust, do sit within,
Carowsing humane blood in yron bowles,
And make their den the slaughter-house of soules:
From whose foule reeking cavernes first arise
Those damps, that so offend all good men's eyes,
And would (if not dispers'd) infect the crown,
And in their vapour her bright metall drown.
To this so cleare and sanctified an end,
I saw, when reverend Themis did descend
Upon his state; let down in that rich chaine,
That fastneth heavenly power to earthly raigne:
Beside her, stoup❜t on either hand, a maid,
Faire Dice, and Eunomia; who were said
To be her daughters: and but faintly known
On Earth, till now, they came to grace his throne.
Her third, Irene, help'd to beare his traine;
And in her office vow'd she would remaine,
Till forraine malice, or unnaturall spight
(Which Fates avert) should force her from her right.
With these he pass'd, and with his people's hearts
Breath' in his way; and soules (their better parts)
Hasting to follow forth in shouts, and cryes.
Upon his face all threw their covetous eyes,
As on a wonder: some amazed stood,

As if they felt, but had not known their good.
Others would faine have shewn it in their words:
But, when their speech so poore a help affords
Unto their zeal's expression; they are mute:
And only with red silence him salute.
Some cry from tops of houses; thinking noyse
The fittest herald to proclaime true joyes :
Others on ground run gazing by his side,
All, as unwearied, as unsatisfied:

And every windore griev'd it could not move
Along with him, and the same trouble prove.
They that had seen, but foure short dayes before,
His gladding look, now long'd to see it more.
And as of late, when he through London went,
The amorous city spar'd no ornament,
That might her beauties heighten; but so drest,
As our ambitious dames, when they make feasts,
And would be courted: so this town put on
Her brightest tyre; and, in it, equall shone
To her great sister: save that modesty,
Her place, and yeares, gave her precedency.
The joy of either was alike, and full;
No age, nor sexe, so weak, or strongly dull,
That did not beare a part in this consent
Of hearts and voyces. All the aire was rent,

To bring them forth: whil'st riper age'd, and apt
To understand the more, the more were rapt.
This was the people's love, with which did strive
The nobles' zeale, yet either kept alive

The other's flame, as doth the wike and waxe,
That friendly temper'd, one pure taper makes.
Meane while, the reverend Themis draws aside
The king's obeying will, from taking pride
In these vaiue stirs, and to his mind suggests
How he may triumph in his subjects' brests,
With better pomp. She tels him first, "that kings
Are here on Earth the most conspicuous things:
That they, by Heaven, are plac'd upon his throne,
To rule like Heaven; and have no more their own,
As they are men, than men. That all they do,
Though hid at home, abroad is search'd into:
And being once found out, discover'd lyes
Unto as many envies, there, as eyes.
That princes, since they know it is their fate,
Oft-times, to have the secrets of their state
Betraid to fame, should take more care, and feare
In publique acts what face and forme they beare.
She then remembred to his thought the place
Where he was going; and the upward race
Of kings, preceding him in that high court;
Their laws, their ends; the men she did report:
And all so justly, as his eare was joy'd

To heare the truth, from spight of flattery voyd.
She shewd him, who made wise, who honest acts;
Who both, who neither: all the cunning tracts,
And thrivings statutes she could promptly note;
The bloody, base, and barbarous she did quote;
Where laws were made to serve the tyrant's will;
Where sleeping they could save, and waking kill;
Where acts gave licence to impetuous lust
To bury churches, in forgotten dust,
And with their ruines raise the pander's bowers:
When publique justice borrow'd all her powers
From private chambers; that could then create
Laws, judges, consellors, yea prince and state."
All this she told, and more, with bleeding eyes,
For right is as compassionate as wise.
Nor did he seeme their vices so to love,
As once defend, what Themis did reprove.
For though by right, and benefit of times,
He ownde their crowns, he would not so their crimes.
He knew that princes, who had sold their fame
To their voluptuous lusts, had lost their name;
And that no wretch was more unblest than he,
Whose necessary good 't was now to be
An evill king and so must such be still,
Who once have got the habit to do ill.
One wickednesse another must defend;
For vice is safe, while she hath vice to friend.
He knew, that those, who would with love com-
Must with a tender (yet a stedfast) hand [mand,
Sustaine the reynes, and in the check forbeare
To offer cause of injury, or feare.

That kings, by their example, more do sway
Than by their power; and men do more obay
When they are led, than when they are compell`d.
In all these knowing arts our prince excell'd.
And now the dame had dried her dropping eyne,
When, like an April Iris, flew her shine

About the streets, as it would force a spring
From out the stones, to gratulate the king.
She blest the people, that in shoales did swim
To heare her speech; which still began in him,
And ceas'd in them. She told them, what a fate
Was gently falne from Heaven upon this state;
How deare a father they did now enjoy
That came to save, what discord would destroy:
And entring with the power of a king,
The temp'rance of a private man did bring,
That wan affections, ere his steps wan ground;
And was not hot, or covetous to be crown'd
Before men's hearts had crown'd him. Who (unlike
Those greater bodies of the sky, that strike
The lesser fiers dim) in his accesse

Brighter than all, hath yet made no one lesse;
Though many greater; and the most, the best.
Wherein, his choice was happy with the rest
Of his great actions, first to see, and do
What all men's wishes did aspire unto.

Hereat, the people could no longer hold
Their bursting joyes; but through the ayre was rol'd
The length'ned showt, as when th' artillery
Of Heaven is discharg'd along the sky:
And this confession flew from every voyce,
Never had land more reason to rejoyce,
Nor to her blisse, could ought now added bee,
Save, that she might the same perpetuall see.
Which when Time, Nature, and the Fates deny'd,
With a twice louder shoute again they cry'd,
Yet, let blest Brittaine aske (without your wrong)
Still to have such a king, and this king long.

Solus rex, et poeta non quotannis nascitur.

AN

EXPOSTULATION WITH INIGO JONES.

MR. Surveyor, you that first began From thirty pounds in pipkins, to the man You are from them leap'd forth an architect, Able to talk of Euclid, and correct Both him and Archimede: damn Archytas, The noblest engineer that ever was; Control Ctesippus, overbearing us With mistook names, out of Vitruvius: Drawn Aristotle on us, and thence shown How much Architectonice is your own: Whether the building of the stage, or scene, Or making of the properties it mean, Vizors, or antics; or it comprehend Something your sur-ship doth not yet intend. By all your titles, and whole style at once, Of tireman, mountebank, and justice Jones, I do salute you: are you fitted yet? Will any of these express your place, or wit? Or are you so ambitious 'bove your peers, You'd be an Assinigo by your years? Why, much good do't you: be what part you will, You'll be, as Langley says, "an Inigo still." What makes your wretchednesse to bray so loud, In town and court? are you grown rich and proud? Your trappings will not change you, change your No velvet suit you wear will alter kind. A wooden dagger, is a dagger of wood; Nor gold, nor ivory haft can make it good. What is the cause you pomp it so, I ask, And all men echo, you have made a masque:

[mind:

I chime that too, and I have met with those
That do cry up the machine, and the shows;
The majesty of Juno in the clouds,
And peering forth of Iris in the shrouds;
Th' ascent of lady Fame, which none could spy,
Not they that sided her: dame Poetry,
Dame History, dame Architecture too,
And goodly Sculpture, brought with much ado
To hold her up: O shows, shows, mighty shows,
The eloquence of masques! what need of prose,
Or verse or prose, t' express immortal you?
You are the spectacles of state, 't is true,
Court hieroglyphics, and all arts afford,
In the mere perspective of an inch board:
You ask no more than certaine politic eyes,
Eyes, that can pierce into the mysteries
Of many colours, read them, and reveal
Mythology, there painted on slit-deal.
O! to make boards to speak! there is a task!
Painting and carpentry are the, soul of masque.
Pack with your pedling poetry to the stage,
This is the money-got, mechanic age.
To plant the music, where no ear can reach,
Attire the persons, as no thought can teach
Sense, what they are; which by a specious, fine
Term of architects is call'd design;
But in the practis'd truth, destruction is
Of any art, beside what he calls bis.
Whither, O whither will this tireman grow
His name is Exomolos, we all know,
The maker of the properties; in sum,
The scene, the engine; but he now is come
To be the music-master; tabler too:
He is, or would be, the main Dominus Do-
All of the work, and so shall still for Ben,
Be Inigo, the whistle, and his men.

He's warm on his feet, now he says; and can

Swim without cork: why,thank the good queen Anne, I am too fat to envy, he too lean

To be worth envy; henceforth I do mean

To pity him, as smiling at his feat

Of Lantern-lerry, with fuliginous heat
Whirling his whimsies, by a subtilty
Suck'd from the veins of shop-philosophy.

What would he do now, giving his mind that way,
In presentation of some puppet-play?
Should but the king his justice-hood employ,
In setting forth of such a solemn toy,
How would he firk, like Adam Overdo,
Up and about; dive into cellars too,
Disguis'd, and thence drag forth enormity,
Discover vice, commit absurdity:
Under the moral, show he had a pate
Moulded or strok'd up to survey a state.
O wise surveyor, wiser architect,
But wisest Inigo; who can reflect
On the new priming of thy old sign-posts,
Reviving with fresh colours the pale ghosts
Of thy dead standards; or with marvel see
Thy twice conceiv'd, thrice paid for imagery:
And not fall down before it, and confess
Almighty Architecture, who no less
A goddess is, than painted cloth, deal board,
Vermilion, lake, or crimson can afford
Expression for; with that unbounded line,
Aim'd at in thy omnipotent design.
What poesy ere was painted on a wall,
That might compare with thee: what story shall,
Of all the worthies, hope t' outlast thy own,
So the materials be of Purbeck stone.

Live long the feasting-room, and e'er thou burn
Again, thy architect to ashes turn:
Whom not ten fires, nor a parliament can,
With all remonstrance make an honest man.

TO A FRIEND,

AN EPIGRAM OF HIM.

SIR, Inigo doth fear it, as I hear,

And labours to seem worthy of this fear;
That I should write upon him some sharp verse,
Able to eat into his bones and pierce

The marrow. Wretch! I quit thee of thy pain:
Thou 'rt too ambitious, and dost fear in vain:
The Lybian lion hunts no butter-flies:

He makes the camel and dull ass his prize.
If thou be so desirous to be read,

Seek out some hungry painter, that for bread,
With rotten chalk or coal upon the wall,
Will well design thee to be viewed of all,
That sit upon the common draught or strand;
Thy forehead is too narrow for my brand.

ΤΟ

INIGO MARQUIS WOULD-BE.

A COROLLARY.

BUT 'cause thou hear'st the mighty king of Spain Hath made his Inigo marquis, wouldst thou fain Our Charles should make thee such? 'twill not be

come

All kings to do the self-same deeds with some:
Besides his man may merit it, and be

A noble honest soul; what's this to thee?
He may have skill, and judgment to design
Cities and temples; thou a cave for wine,
Or ale he build a palace'; thou the shop,
With sliding windows, and false lights a-top:
He draw a forum, with quadrivial streets;
Thou paint a lane where Tom Thumb Geffrey meets.
He some Colossus, to bestride the seas,
From the famed pillars of old Hercules:
Thy canvas giant at some channel aims,
Or Dowgate torrents falling into Thames;
And straddling shows the boys brown paper fleet
Yearly set out there, to sail down the street:
Your works thus differing, much less so your style,
Content thee to be Pancridge earl the while,
An earl of show; for all thy worth is show;
But when thou turn'st a real Inigo,

Or canst of truth the least intrenchment pitch,
We'll have thee styl'd the marquis of Town-ditch.

Though I confess a Beaumont's book to be
The bound and frontier of our poetry:
And doth deserve all muniments of praise,
That art, or engine, or the strength can raise ;
Yet who dares offer a redoubt to rear?
To cut a dike? or stick a stake up here
Before this work? where envy hath not cast
A trench against it, nor a batt'ry plac'd?
Stay till she make her vain approaches; then,
If maimed she come off, 'tis not of men
This fort of so impregnable access;

But higher pow'r, as spight could not make less,
Nor flatt'ry; but secur'd by th' author's name
Defies what's cross to piety, or good fame:
And like a hallowed temple, free from taint
Of ethnicism, makes his Muse a saint.

ΤΟ

MR. JOHN FLETCHER,

UPON HIS FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS.

THE wise and many-headed bench that sits
Upon the life and death of plays and wits, [man,
(Compos'd of gamester, captain, knight, knight's
Lady or pucelle, that wears mask or fan,
Velvet, or taffeta cap, rank'd in the dark
With the shop's foreman, or some such brave spark
That may judge for his sixpence) had, before
They saw it half, damn'd thy whole play and more:
Their motives were, since it had not to do
With vices, which they look'd for, and came to.
I, that am glad thy innocence was thy guilt,
And wish that all the Muses' blood were spilt
In such a martyrdom, to vex their eyes,
Do crown thy murder'd poem: which shall rise
A glorified work to time, when fire

Or moths shall eat what all these fools admire.

EPITAPH

ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE, SISTER TO SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

UNDERNEATH this marble herse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother;
Death, ere thou hast slain another,
Learn'd, and fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw his dart at thee.

ON

THE HONOURED POEMS

OF HIS HONOURED FRIEND, SIR JOHN BEAUMONT.

THIS book will live, it hath a genius; this
Above his reader or his praiser is.
Hence, then, profane: here needs no words' expence
In bulwarks, rav'lins, ramparts for defence:
Such as the creeping common pioneers use,
When they do sweat to fortify a Muse,

A VISION

ON THE MUSES OF HIS FRIEND M. DRAYTON.

Ir hath been question'd, Michael, if I be
A friend at all; or, if at all, to thee:
Because who make the question, have not seen
Those ambling visits pass in verse between
Thy Muse and mine, as they expect. 'Tis true,
You have not writ to me, nor I to you;
And though I now begin, 'tis not to rub
Haunch against haunch, or raise a rhyming club
About the town; this reck'ning I will pay,
Without conferring symbols; this 's my day.

It was no dream! I was awake, and saw.
Lend me thy voice, O Fame, that I may draw
Wonder to truth, and have my vision hurl'd
Hot from thy trumpet round about the world.
I saw a beauty, from the sea to rise,

That all Earth look'd on, and that Earth all eyes!
It cast a beam, as when the cheerful Sun
Is fair got up, and day some hours begun :
And fill'd an orb as circular as Heav'n!
The orb was cut forth into regions seven,
And those so sweet, and well-proportion'd parts,
As it had been the circle of the arts:
When, by thy bright ideas standing by,
I found it pure and perfect poesy.
There read I, straight, thy learned legends three,
Heard the soft airs, between our swains and thee,
Which made me think the old Theocritus,

Or rural Virgil come to pipe to us.
But then thy Epistolar Heroic Songs,
Their loves, their quarrels, jealousies, and wrongs,
Did all so strike me, as I cried, "Who can
With us be call'd the Naso, but this man?"
And looking up, I saw Minerva's fowl,
Perch'd over head, the wise Athenian owl:

I thought thee then our Orpheus, that would'st try,
Like him, to make the air one volary.
And I had styl'd thee Orpheus, but before
My lips could form the voice, I heard that roar,
And rouse the marching of a mighty force,
Drums against drums, the neighing of the horse,
The fights, the cries, and wond'ring at the jars,
I saw and read it was the Baron's Wars.
O how in those dost thou instruct these times,
That rebels' actions are but valiant crimes.
And carried, though with shout and noise, confess
A wild and an unauthoris'd wickedness!

Say'st thou so, Lucan? but thou scorn'st to stay
Under one title: thou hast made thy way
And flight about the isle, well near, by this
In thy admired Periegesis,

Or universal circumduction

Of all that ready thy Poly-Olbion.

That read it; that are ravish'd; such was I,
With every song, I swear, and so would die.
But that I hear again thy drum to beat
A better cause, and strike the bravest heat
That ever yet did fire the English blood,
Our right in France, if rightly understood.
There thou art Homer; pray thee use the style
Thou hast deserv'd, and let me read the while
Thy catalogue of ships, exceeding his,
Thy list of aids and force, for so it is:
The poet's act, and for his country's sake,
Brave are the musters that the Muse will, make.
And when he ships them, where to use their arms,
How do his trumpets breathe! what loud alarms!
Look how we read the Spartans were inflam'd
With bold Tytæus' verse: when thou art nam'd,
So shall our English youth urge on, and cry
An Agincourt, an Agincourt, or die.
This book, it is a catechism to fight,
And will be bought of every lord or knight
That can but read; who cannot, may in prose
Get broken pieces, and fight well by those.
The miseries of Margaret the queen,
Of tender eyes will more be wept than seen.
I feel it by mine own, that overflow
And stop my sight in every line I go.
But then, refreshed by thy fairy court,
I look on Cynthia, and Syrena's sport,

As on two flow'ry carpets, that did rise,
And with their grassy green restor❜d mine eyes.
Yet give me leave to wonder at the birth
Of thy strange Moon-calf, both thy strain of mirth,
And gossip got acquaintance, as to us
Thou hast brought Lapland, or old Cohalus,
Empusa, Lamia, or some monster more,
Than Afric knew, or the full Grecian store.
I gratulate it to thee, and thy ends,
To all thy virtuous and well-chosen friends;
Only my loss is, that I am not there,
And till I worthy am to wish I were,
I call the world that envies me, to see
if I can be a friend, and friend to thee.

ON

MICHAEL DRAYTON,

BURIED IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY'.

Do, pious marble, let thy readers know
What they, and what their children owe
To Drayton's sacred name; whose dust
We recommend unto thy trust.
Protect his memory, preserve his story,
And be a lasting monument of his glory.
And when thy ruins shall disclaim,
To be the treasury of his name;
His name, which cannot fade, shall be
An everlasting monument to thee.

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED
MR. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE,
AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US.

To draw no envy, Shakspeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame:
While I confess thy writings to be such,
As neither man nor Muse can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise,
For silliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin, where it seem'd to raise.
These are, as some infamous bawd or whore
Should praise a matron. What could hurt her more?
But thou art proof against them, and indeed
Above th' ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin. Soul of the age!
Th' applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!
My Shakspeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,

I mean with great, but disproportion'd muses:

1 This epitaph, which has been given to Jonson, was written by Quarles.

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