TO THE PAINTER.

FOND man, that hop'st to catch that face
With those false colours, whose short grace
Serves 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
Tadmire 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.

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.

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 on 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 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

TOOTH-ACH CURED BY A KISS.

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

For had not kind rheum vex'dme 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.
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.

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
Makes list'ning trees and savage mountains groas
Through all the air; his sounding strings dilate
Sorrow like that which touch'd our hearts of late;

The duke of Buckingham, the unhappy vourite of Charles 1. by whom he was appointed lord high admiral of England.

Your pining sickness, and your restless pain,
At once the land affecting, and the main.
When the glad news, that you were admiral,
Scarce through the nation spread, 't was fear'd by all
That our great Charles, whose wisdom shines in you,
Should be perplexed how to chuse a new:
So more than private was the joy and grief,
That at the worst it gave our souls relief,
That in our age such sense of virtue liv'd,
They joy'd so justly, and so justly griev❜d.
Nature, her fairest light eclipsed, seems
Herself to suffer in these sad extremes;
While not from thine alone thy blood retires,
But from those cheeks which all the world admires.
The stem thus threat'ned, and the sap, in thee
Droop all the branches of that noble tree;
Their beauties they, and we our love suspend,
Nought can our wishes save thy health intend;
As lillies overcharg'd with rain, they bend
Their beauteous heads, and with high Heaven con-
Fold thee within their snowy arms, and cry,
"He is too faultless, and too young to die:"
So, like immortals, round about thee they
Sit, that they fright approaching Death away.
Who would not languish by so fair a train,
To be lamented and restor'd again?

[tend,

Or thus with-held, what hasty soul would go,
Though to the blest? O'er young Adonis so
Fair Venus mourn'd, and with the precious show'r
Of her warm tears cherish'd the springing flower,
The next support, fair hope of your great name,
And second pillar of that noble frame,
By loss of thee would no advantage have,
But, step by step, pursues thee to thy grave.
And now relentless Fate, about to end
The line, which backward doth so far extend
That antique stock, which still the world supplies
With bravest spirits, and with brightest eyes,
Kind Phoebus interposing, bade me say,
"Such storms no more shall shake that house; but
Like Neptune and his sea-born niece, shall be
The shining glories of the land and sea,
With courage guard, and beauty warm our age,
And lovers fill with like poetic rage."

ON MISTRESS N.

TO THE GREEN SICKNESS.

STAY, Coward blood, and do not yield
To thy pale sister beauty's field,
Who, there displaying round her white
Ensigns, hath usurp'd thy right;
Invading thy peculiar throne,

The lip, where thou shouldst rule alone;
And on the cheek, where Nature's care
Allotted each an equal share,
Her spreading lily only grows,
Whose milky deluge drowns thy rose.
Quit not the field, faint blood, nor rush
In the short sally of a blush
Upon thy sister foe, but strive
To keep an endless war alive;
Though peace do petty states maintain,
Here war alone makes beauty reign.

[they,

UPON A MOLE IN CELIA'S BOSOM.

THAT lovely spot which thou dost see
In Celia's bosom was a bee,
Who built her amorous spicy nest
I' th' hyblas of her either breast;
But, from close ivory hives she flew
To suck the aromatic dew

Which from the neighbour vale distils,
Which parts those two twin-sister hills;
There feasting on ambrosial meat,
A rowling file of balmy sweet
(As in soft murmurs, before death,
Swan-like she sung) chok'd up her breath.
So she in water did expire,

More precious than the phenix' fire;

Yet still her shadow there remains
Confin'd to those Elysian plains;
With this strict law, that who shall lay
His bold lips on that milky way,

The sweet and smart from thence shall bring
Of the bee's honey and her sting.

AN HYMENEAL SONG

ON THE NUPTIALS OF THE LADY ANNE WENTWORTH', AND THE LORD LOVELACE.

BREAK not the slumbers of the bride, But let the Sun in triumph ride,

Scattering his beamy light; When she awakes, he shall resign His rays, and she alone shall shine In glory all the night.

For she, till day return, must keep An amorous vigil, and not steep Her fair eyes in the dew of sleep.

Yet gently whisper as she lies,
And say her lord waits her uprise,

The priests at th' altar stay; With flow'ry wreaths the virgin crew Attend, while some with roses strew, And myrtles trim the way.

Now to the temple and the priest
See her convey'd, thence to the feast;
Then back to bed, though not to rest.

For now, to crown his faith and truth,
We must admit the noble youth
To revel in love's sphere;
To rule, as chief intelligence,
That orb, and happy time dispense
To wretched lovers here.

For there, exalted far above
All hope, fear, change, or they to move
The wheel that spins the fates of love;

This lady was the daughter of Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford, by his second wife, Arabella daughter of lord Clare. Her husband, mentioned here by the name of lord Lovelace, was Edward Watson lord Rockingham, progenitor of the present marquis of Rockingham.

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.

Whose priest sung sweetest lays, thou didst appear A glorious mystery, so dark, so clear,

As Nature did intend

All should confess, but none might comprehend?

Perhaps all other beauties share a light
Proportion'd to the sight

Of weak mortality, scatt'ring such loose fires,
As stir desires,

And from the brain distil salt, amorous rheums;
Whilst thy immortal flame such dross consumes
And from the earthy mould
With purging fires severs the purer gold.

If so, then why in fame's immortal scrowl
Do we their names inroll,

Whose easy hearts and wanton eyes did sweat
With sensual heat?

If Petrarch's unarm'd bosom catch a wound From a light glance, must Laura be renown'd? Or both a glory gain,

He from ill-govern'd love, she from disdain?

Shall he more fam'd in his great art become
For wilful martyrdom?

Shall he more title gain to chaste and fair,
Through his despair?

Is Troy more noble 'cause to ashes turn'd,
Than virgin cities that yet never burn'd?
Is fire, when it consumes

Temples, more fire, than when it melts perfumes?

'Cause Venus from the ocean took her form. Must love needs be a storm?

'Cause she her wanton shrines in islands rears, Through seas of tears,

O'er rocks and gulphs, with our own sighs for gale, Must we to Cyprus or to Paphos sail?

Can there no way be given,

But a true Hell, that leads to her false Heaven?

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.

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: