A budding star, that might have grown
Into a sun when it had blown.
This hopeful beauty did create
New life in Love's declining state;
But now his empire ends, and we
From fire and wounding darts are free;
His brand, his bow, let no man fear:
The flames, the arrows, all lie here.

ΙΟ

15

1640.

ASK ME NO MORE WHERE JOVE BESTOWS

Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauty's orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.

SIR JOHN SUCKLING

WHY SO PALE AND WAN, FOND LOVER

Why so pale and wan, fond lover?

Prithee, why so pale?

Will, when looking well can't move her,

Quit, quit, for shame; this will not move,

This cannot take her.

If of herself she will not love,

Nothing can make her:

The devil take her!

1637 or 1638.

5、

ΙΟ

15

1638.

FROM

A BALLAD UPON A WEDDING

I tell thee, Dick, where I have been,
Where I the rarest things have seen;

O, things without compare!
Such sights again cannot be found
In any place on English ground,
Be it at wake or fair.

At Charing Cross, hard by the way,
Where we (thou know'st) do sell our hay,

There is a house with stairs;

And there did I see coming down
Such folk as are not in our town,
Forty, at least, in pairs.

5

ΙΟ

Amongst the rest, one pest❜lent fine

(His beard no bigger, though, than thine)

Walked on before the rest.

15

Our landlord looks like nothing to him:
The King (God bless him!) 't would undo him,
Should he go still so drest.

At Course-a-Park, without all doubt,
He should have first been taken out
By all the maids i' th' town,

Though lusty Roger there had been,
Or little George upon the Green,

Or Vincent of the Crown.

But wot you what? the youth was going
To make an end of all his wooing;

The parson for him stayed.

Yet by his leave, for all his haste,
He did not so much wish all past,

Perchance, as did the maid.

20

25

30

The maid (and thereby hangs a tale),
For such a maid no Whitsun-ale
Could ever yet produce:

No grape, that's kindly ripe, could be
So round, so plump, so soft as she,
Nor half so full of juice.

35

Her finger was so small the ring

Would not stay on, which they did bring;

Thou 'dst swear her teeth her words did break,

Just in the nick the cook knocked thrice,
And all the waiters in a trice

His summons did obey:

Each serving-man, with dish in hand,

70

Marched boldly up, like our trained band,
Presented, and away.

85

(I trow) besides the bride.

Now hats fly off, and youths carouse;

Healths first go round, and then the house;

The bride's came thick and thick:

1640.

And when 't was named another's health,
Perhaps he made it hers by stealth;

And who could help it, Dick?

O' th' sudden up they rise and dance;
Then sit again, and sigh and glance;
Then dance again, and kiss.
Thus sev'ral ways the time did pass,
Till ev'ry woman wished her place,
And ev'ry man wished his!

TRUE LOVE

No, no, fair heretic, it needs must be
But an ill love in me,

And worse for thee;

For were it in my power
To love thee now this hour
More than I did the last,
I would then so fall

I might not love at all:

90

95

1640.

5

Love that can flow and can admit increase,
Admits as well an ebb and may grow less.

ΙΟ

True love is still the same: the torrid zones,

And those more frigid ones,

It must not know;

For love grown cold or hot

Is lust or friendship, not

The thing we have,

For that's a flame would die,

Held down or up too high.

Then, think I love more than I can express,

And would love more could I but love thee less.

Before 1642.

CONSTANCY

Out upon it, I have loved

Three whole days together;

And am like to love three more,
If it prove fair weather.

1646.

15

20