Venus must lose her title now,
And leave to brag of Cupid's bow;
Silly queen!

She hath but one, but I can spy
Ten thousand Cupids in thy eye.

TO THE PAINTER.

FOND man, that hop'st to catch that face Vith those false colours, whose short grace erves but to show the lookers on The faults of thy presumption; Or at the least to let us see, That is divine, but yet not she: Say you could imitate the rays Of those eyes that out-shine the day's; Or counterfeit, in red and white, That most uncounterfeited light Of her complexion; yet canst thou, Great master though thou be) tell how To print a virtue? Then desist; This fair your artifice hath miss'd: You should have mark'd how she begins To grow in virtue, not in sins; Instead of that same rosy dye, You should have drawn out Modesty, Whose beauty sits enthroned there, And learns to look and blush at her. Or can you colour just the sanie, When virtue blushes; or when shame, When sickness, and when innocence, Shews pale or white unto the sense? Can such coarse varnish e'er be said To imitate her white and red? This may do well elsewhere in Spain, Among those faces dy'd in grain; So you may thrive, and what you do Prove the best picture of the two. Besides (if all I hear be true) 'T is taken ill by some, that you Should be so insolently vain, As to contrive all that rich gain Into one tablet, which alone May teach us superstition; Instructing our amazed eyes T'admire and worship imag'ries, Such as quickly might out-shine Some new saint, wer 't allow'd a shrine, And turn each wand'ring looker-on Into a new Pygmalion.

Yet your art cannot equalize
This picture in her lover's eyes:
His eyes the pencils are, which limb
Her truly, as her's copy him;
His heart the tablet, which alone
Is for that portrait the tru'st stone;
If you would a truer see,

Mark it in their posterity,

And you shall read it truly there,
When the glad world shall see their heir.

LOVE'S COURTSHIP.

Kiss, lovely Celia, and be kind;
Let my desires freedom find:
Sit thee down,
And we will make the gods confess,
Mortals enjoy some happiness.

Mars would disdain his mistress' charms,
If he beheld thee in my arms,
And descend,
Thee his mortal queen to make,
Or live as mortal for thy sake.

Nor may the Sun behold our bliss,
For sure thy eyes do dazzle his;
If thou fear
That he 'll betray thee with his light,
Let me eclipse thee from his sight.

And while I shade thee from his eye,
Oh let me hear thee gently cry,
Celia yields.
Maids often lose their maidenhead,
Ere they set foot in nuptial bed.

ON A DAMASK ROSE
STICKING UPON A LADY'S BREAST.

LET pride grow big, my rose, and let the clear
And damask colour of thy leaves appear.
Let scent and looks be sweet, and bless that hand
That did transplant thee to that sacred land.
O happy thou that in that garden rests,
That paradise between that lady's breasts:
There's an eternal spring; there shalt thou lie,
Betwixt two lilly mounts, and never die:
There shalt thou spring among the fertile vallies,
By buds, like thee, that grow in midst of allies.
There none dare pluck thee, for that place is such,
That but a god divine there 's none dare touch;
If any but approach, straight doth arise

A blushing lightning-flash, and blasts his eyes.
There, 'stead of rain, shall living fountains flow;
For wind, her fragrant breath for ever blow.
Nor now, as erst, one sun shall en thee shine,
But those two glorious suns, her eyes divine.
O then what monarch would not think 't a grace,
To leave his regal throne to have thy place?
Myself, to gain thy blessed seat, do vow
Would be transform'd into a rose as thou.

THE PROTESTATION.

A SONNET.

No more shall meads be deck'd with flowers,
Nor sweetness dwell in rosy bowers;
Nor greenest buds on branches spring,
Nor warbling birds delight to sing;
Nor April violets paint the grove;
If I forsake my Celia's love.

The fish shall in the ocean burn,
And fountains sweet shall bitter turn;
The humble oak no flood shall know
When floods shall highest hills o'erflow;
Black Lethe shall oblivion leave;
If e'er my Celia I deceive.

Love shall his bow and shaft lay by, And Venus' doves want wings to fly;

The Sun refuse to show his light,
And day shall then be turn'd to night,
And in that night no star appear;
If once I leave my Celia dear.

Love shall no more inhabit Earth,
Nor lovers more shall love for worth;
Nor joy above in Heaven dwell,
Nor pain torment poor souls in Hell;
Grim death no more shall horrid prove;
If e'er I leave bright Celia's love.

THE

TOOTH-ACH CURED BY A KISS.

FATE 's now grown merciful to men,
Turning disease to bliss:

For had not kind rheum vex'd me then
I might not Celia kiss.

Physicians, you are now my scorn;
For I have found a way
To cure diseases, when forlorn

By your dull art, which may

Patch up a body for a time,

But can restore to health No more than chymists can sublime True gold, the Indies' wealth.

1

The angel, sure, that us'd to move
The pool men so admir'd,
Hath to her lip, the seat of love,
As to his Heaven, retir'd.

TO THE JEALOUS MISTRESS.

ADMIT (thou darling of mine eyes)

I have some idol lately fram'd; That, under such a false disguise,

Our true loves might the less be fam'd; Canst thou, that know'st my heart, suppose I'll fall from thee, and worship those? Remember (dear) how loath and slow

I was to cast a look or smile, Or one love-line to mis-bestow,

Till thou hadst chang'd both face and stile; And art thou grown afraid to see That mask put on thou mad'st for me?

I dare not call those childish fears,
Coming from love, much less from thee,
But wash away with frequent tears
This counterfeit idolatry;

And henceforth kneel at ne'er a shrine, To blind the world, but only thine.

"For an

The pool of Bethesda near Jerusalem, which was frequented by all kinds of diseased people, waiting for the moving of the waters. angel," says St. John, "went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease

he had."

THE DART.

OFT when I look, I may descry
A little face peep through that eye :
Sure that's the boy, which wisely chose
His throne among such beams as those,
Which, if his quiver chance to fall,
May serve for darts to kill withal.

THE MISTAKE.

WHEN on fair Celia I did spy

A wounded heart of stone, The wound had almost made me cry, "Sure this heart was my own:"

But when I saw it was enthron'd
In her celestial breast,
O then! I it no longer own'd,
For mine was ne'er so blest.

Yet if in highest Heavens do shine Each constant martyr's heart; Then she may well give rest to mine, That for her sake doth smart:

Where, seated in so high a bliss,

Though wounded, it shall live: Death enters not in Paradise;

The place free life doth give.

Or, if the place less sacred were,
Did but her saving eye

Bathe my sick heart in one kind tear,
Then should I never die.

Slight balms may heal a slighter sore; No medicine less divine

Cau ever hope for to restore
A wounded heart like mine.

TO MY LORD ADMIRAL',

ON HIS LATE SICKNESS AND RECOVERY,

WITH joy like ours, the Thracian youth invade
Orpheus returning from th' Elysian shade,
Embrace the hero, and his stay implore,
Make it their public suit he would no more
Desert them so, and for his spouse's sake,
His vanish'd love, tempt the Lethæan lake:
The ladies too, the brightest of that time,
Ambitious all his lofty bed to climb,
Their doubtful hopes with expectation feed,
Which shall the fair Eurydice succeed;
Euridice, for whom his numerous moan
Through all the air; his sounding strings dilate
Makes list'ning trees and savage mountains groas
Sorrow like that which touch'd our hearts of late;

The duke of Buckingham, the unhappy fa vourite of Charles I. by whom he was appointed lord high admiral of England.

They know no night, nor glaring noon,
Measure no hours of Sun or Moon,

Nor mark Time's restless glass;
Their kisses measure, as they flow,
Minutes, and there embraces show
The hours as they do pass.

Their motions the year's circle make, And we from their conjunctions take Rules to make love an almanack.

A MARRIED WOMAN.

WHEN I shall marry, if I do not find A wife thus moulded, I'll create this mind: Nor from her noble birth, nor ample dower, Beauty, or wit, shall she derive a power To prejudice my right; but if she be A subject born, she shall be so to me, As to the soul the flesh, as appetite To reason is; which shall our wills unite In habits so confirm'd, as no rough sway Shall once appear, if she but learn t' obey. For, in habitual virtues, sense is wrought To that calm temper, as the body's thought To have nor blood nor gall, if wild and rude Passions of lust and anger are subdu'd; When 't is the fair obedience to the soul Doth in the birth those swelling acts controul. If I in murder steep my furious rage, Or with adult'ry my hot lust assuage, Will it suffice to say, "My sense, the beast, Provok'd me to 't?" Could I my soul divest, My plea were good. Lions and bulls commit Both freely, but man must in judgment sit, And tame this beast; for Adam was not free, When in excuse he said, "Eve gave it me:" Had he not eaten, she perhaps had been Unpunish'd; his consent made her's a sin.

LOVE'S FORCE.

In the first ruder age, when Love was wild,
Not yet by laws reclaim'd, not reconcil'd
To order, nor by reason mann'd, but flew,
Full-plum'd by nature, on the instant view,
Upon the wings of appetite, at all
The eye could fair, or sense delightful call,
Election was not yet; but as their cheap
Food from the oak, or the next acorn-heap,
As water from the nearest spring or brook,
So meu their undistinguish'd females took
By chance, not choice. But soon the heavenly spark,
That in man's bosom lurk'd, broke through this dark
Confusion; then the noblest breast first felt
Itself for its own proper object melt.

A FANCY.

MARK how this polish'd eastern sheet
Doth with our northern tincture meet;
For though the paper seem to sink,
Yet it receives and bears the ink;

And on her smooth, soft brow these spots, Seem rather ornaments than blots, Like those you ladies use to place Mysteriously about your face; Not only to set off and break Shadows and eye-beams, but to speak To the skill'd lover, and relate, Unheard, his sad or happy fate. Nor do their characters delight, As careless works of black and white: But 'cause you underneath may find A sense that can inform the mind; Divine or moral rules impart, Or raptures of poetic art: So what at first was only fit To fold up silks, may wrap up wit.

TO HIS MISTRESS.

GRIEVE not, my Celia, but with haste Obey the fury of thy fate, "T is some perfection to waste

Discreetly out our wretched state, To be obedient in this sense Will prove thy virtue, though offence.

Who knows but Destiny may relent,
For many miracles have been,
Thou proving thus obedient

To all the griefs she plung'd thee in; And then the certainty she meant Reverted is by accident.

But yet I must confess 't is much,

When we remember what hath been, Thus parting never more to touch,

To let eternal absence in; Though never was our pleasure yet So pure, but chance distracted it.

What, shall we then submit to Fate,

And die to one another's love? No, Celia, no, my soul doth hate

Those lovers that inconstant prove. Fate may be cruel, but if you decline, The crime is yours, and all the glory mine.

Fate and the planets sometimes bodies part, But canker'd nature only alters th' heart.

IN PRAISE OF HIS MISTRESS. You, that will a wonder know, Go with me, Two Suns in a Heaven of snow Both burning be, All they fire, that do but eye them, But the snow's unmelted by them.

Leaves of crimson tulips met, Guide the way Where two pearly rows be set As white as day. When they part themselves asunder, She breathes oracles of wonder. VOL, V.

Hills of milk with azure mix'd
Swell beneath,
Waving sweetly, yet still fix'd,
While she doth breathe.
From those hills descends a valley
Where all fall, that dare to dally.

As fair pillars under stand
Statues two,
Whiter than the silver swan
That swims in Po;
If at any time they move her,
Every stept begets a lover.

All this but the casket is
Which contains
Such a jewel, as the miss
Breeds endless pains;
That's her mind, and they that know it
May admire, but cannot show it.

TO CELIA,

UPON LOVE'S UBIQUITY.

As one that strives, being sick, and sick to death, By changing places, to preserve a breath, A tedious restless breath, removes and tries A thousand rooms, a thousand policies, To cozen pain, when he thinks to find ease, At last he finds all change, but his disease; So (like a ball with fire and powder fill'd) I restless am, yet live, each minute kill'd, And with that moving torture must retain, With change of all things else, a constant pain, Say I stay with you, presence is to me Nought but a light to show my misery, And parting are as racks, to plague love on, The further stretch'd, the more affliction. Go I to Holland, France, or Furthest Inde, I change but only countries, not my mind. And though I pass through air and water free, Despair and hopeless fate still follow me. Whilst in the bosom of the waves I reet, My heart I 'll liken to the tottering keel, The sea to my own troubled fate, the wind To your disdain, sent from a soul unkind: But when I lift my sad looks to the skies, Then shall I think I see my Celia's eyes; And when a cloud or storm appears between, I shall remember what her frowns have been. Thus, whatsoever course my fates allow, All things but make me mind my business, you. The good things that I meet, I think streams be From you the fountain; but when bad I see, How vile and cursed is that thing, think I, That to such goodness is so contrary? My whole life is 'bout you, the center star, But a perpetual motion circular.

I am the dial's hand, still walking round;
You are the compass; and I never sound
Beyond your circle; neither can I shew
Aught but what first expressed is in you,
That wheresoe'er my tears do cause me move,
My fate still keeps me bounded with your love;
Which ere it die, or be extinct in me,

Time shall stand still, and moist waves flaming be:

Ss