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 Radcliffe'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 New Inn, and bears this explanatory notice: "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 oaths

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

stuff.

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.52 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,

52 Sir Charles Cavendish was the third son of Sir William Cavendish, the faithful and confidential servant of Cardinal Wolsey.

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

58 The second wife of Sir Charles Cavendish, and mother of the Duke of Newcastle.