Make all that married be

Perfection see.
Shine, Hesperus, shine forth thou wished star.
Why stays the bridegroom to invade
Her that would be a matron made ?

Good-night, while yet we may
Good-night to you a virgin say;

To-morrow rise the same
Your mother is, and use a nobler name.
Speed well in Hymen's war,

That what you are
By your perfection, we

And all may see.
Shine, Hesperus, shine forth thou wished star.

To-night is Venus' vigil kept;
This night no bridegroom ever slept;

And if the fair bride do,
The mames say 'tis his fault too.

Wake then, and let your lights
Wake too, for they'll tell nothing of your nights,
But that in Hymen's war

You perfect are.
And such perfection, we

Do pray should be.
Shine, Hesperus, shine forth thou wished star.

That, ere the rosy-fingered morn
Behold nine moons there may be born

A babe, t' uphold the fame

Of Radeliffe's blood and Ramsey's name,

That may in his great seed
Wear the long honors of his father's deed.
Such fruits of Hymen's war

Most perfect are.
And all perfection we

Wish you should see.
Shine, Hesperus, shine forth thou wished star.

ODE TO HIMSELF.

51

Come, leave the loathed stage

And the more loathsome age;
Where pride and impudence, in faction knit,

Usurp the chair of wit.
Indicting and arraigning every day

Something they call a play.
Let their fastidious, vain

Commission of the brain
Run on and rage, sweat, censure and condemn;
They were not made for thee, less thou for them.

Say that thou pour'st them wheat,

And they will acorns eat; 'Twere simple fury still thyself to waste

On such as have no taste!

51 This ode was printed at the close of The Nero Inn, and bears this explanatory votice: “The just indignation the author took at the vulgar censure of his play, by some malicious spectators, begat this following ode to himself." It called out several retorts and compliments in verse.

To offer them a surfeit of

pure

bread Whose appetites are dead! No, give them grains their fill,

Husks, draff to drink and swill: If they love lees, and leave the lusty wine, Envy them not, their palate's with the swine.

No doubt some mouldy tale

Like Pericles, and stale
As the shrieve's crusts, and nasty as his fish

Scraps out of every dish
Thrown forth and raked into the common tub,

May keep up the Play-club:
There, sweepings do as well

As the best-order'd meal;
For who the relish of these guests will fit,
Needs set them but the alms-basket of wit.

And much good do’t you

then: Brave plush and velvet men Can feed on orts; and safe in your stage clothes

Dare quit upon your oathis
The stagers and the stage-wrights too, your peers

Of larding your large ears
With their foul comic socks,

Wrought upon twenty blocks;
Which, if they're torn, and turned and patched

enough, The gamesters share your gilt, and you their Leave things so prostitute

And take the Alcaic lute,
Or thine own Horace, or Anacreon's lyre;

Warm thee by Pindar's fire,
And though thy nerves be shrunk and blood be

cold Ere years

have made thee old, Strike that disdainful heat

Throughout, to their defeat, As curious fools, and envious of thy strain, May, blushing, swear no palsy's in thy brain.

But when they hear thee sing

The glories of thy king,
His zeal to God, and his just awe o'er men:

They may, blood-shaken then,
Feel such a flesh-quake to possess their powers
As they shall cry,

“ Like

ours, In sound of peace or wars,

No harp e'er hit the stars, In tuning forth the acts of his sweet reign, And raising Charles his chariot 'bove his brain.”

CHARLES CAVENDISH TO HIS POSTERITY.5 Sons, seek not me among these polished stones, These only hide part of my flesh and bones, Which, did they e'er so neat and proudly dwell,

Will all turn dust, and may not make me swell.
Let such as justly have outlived all praise,
Trust in the tombs their careful friends do raise;
I made my Life my monument, and yours,
Than which there's no material more endures,
Nor yet inscription like it writ but that;
And teach your nephews it to emulate :
It will be matter loud enough to tell
Not when I died, but how I lived - farewell.

EPITAPH ON LADY KATHERINE OGLE.53

She was the light (without reflex
Upon herself) of all her sex,
The best of women ! Her whole life
Was the example of a wife,
Or of a parent, or a friend!
All circles had their spring and end
In her, and what could perfect be
And without angles, IT WAS SHE. —

All that was solid in the name
Of virtue; precious in the frame,
Or else magnetic in the force,
Or sweet, or various, in the course ;
What was proportion, or could be
By warrant called just symmetry
In number, measure, or degree
Of weight or fashion, IT WAS SHE.

Her soul possessed her flesh's state