To find it out far sooner would I go
To find a pearle covered with hills of snow;
'Twere buried vertue, and thou mightst me, move
To reverence the tombe, but not to love,
No more than dotingly to cast mine eye
Upon the urne where Lucrece' ashes lye.
But thou art faire, and sweet, and every good
That ever yet durst mixe with flesh and blood:
The Devil! ne're saw in his fallen state
An object whereupon to ground his hate
So fit as thee; all living things but he
Love thee; how happy then must that man be
When from amongst all creatures thou dost take?
Is there a hope beyond it? Can he make
A wish to change thee for? This is my blisse,
Let it run on now, I know what it is.
TO THE MUTABLE FAIRE.
HERE, Calia, for thy sake I part
With all that grew so neere my heart;
The passion that I had for thee,
The faith, the love, the constancy;
And that I may successefull prove,
Transforme myself to what you love.
Foole that I was, so much to prize
Those simple vertues you despise ?
Foole, that with such dull arrows strove,
Or hop'd to reach a flying dove;
For you that are in motion still
Decline our force, and mock our skill;
Who, like Don Quixote, do advance
Against a windmill our vaine lance.
Now will I wander through the aire,
Mount, make a stoope at every faire,
And with a fancy unconfin'd
(As lawlesse as the sea, or wind)
Pursue you wheresoe're you flie,
And with your various thoughts comply.
The formall stars do travell so
As we their names and courses know;
And he that on their changes looks
Would thinke them govern'd by our books;
But never were the clouds reduc'd
To any art the motion us'd,
By those free vapours are so light,
So frequent, that the couquer'd sight
Despaires to find the rules that guide
Those gilded shadows as they slide;
And therefore of the spatious aire
Jove's royall consort had the care,
And by that power did once escape
Declining bold Ixion's rape;
She with her own resemblance grac'd
A shining cloud, which he imbrac'd.
Such was that image, so it smil'd
With seeming kindness, which beguil'd
Your Thirsis lately, when he thought
He had his fleeting Cœlia caught;
'Twas shap'd like her, but for the faire
He fill'd his armes with yeelding aire,
A fate for which he grieves the lesse
Because the gods had like successe:
For in their story one (we see)
Pursues a nymph, and takes a tree;
A second with a lover's haste
Soone overtakes what he had chaste;
But she that did a virgin seeme,
Possess'd, appears a wand'ring streame.
For his supposed love a third
Laies greedy hold upon a bird;
And stands amaz'd to see his deare
A wild inhabitant of the aire.
To such old tales such nymphs as you
Give credit, and still make them new;
The amorons now like wonders find
In the swift changes of your mind.
But, Calia, if you apprehend
The Muse of your incensed friend :
Nor would that he record your blame,
And make it live, repeat the same;
Againe deceive him, and againe,
And then he sweares he'l not complaine;
For still to be deluded so
Is all the pleasures lovers know,
Who, like good falkners, take delight
Not in the quarrey, but the flight.
OF LOVING AT FIRST SIGHT.
Nor caring to observe the wind,
Or the new sea explore,
Snatcht from thy selfe, how far behind
Already I behold the shore..
May not a thousand dangers sleep
In the smooth bosome of this deep:
No, 'tis so rocklesse, and so cleare,
That the rich bottom does appeare
Pav'd all with precious things, not forne
From shipwrackt vessels, but there borue;
Sweetnesse, truth, and every grace
Which time and use are wont to teach,
The eye may in a moment reach,
And read distinctly in her face.
Some other nymph with colour faint,
And pencill slow may Cupid paint;
And a weake heart in time destroy,
She has a stampe and prints the boy,
Can with a single looke inflame
The coldest breast, the rudest tame.
THE ANTIPLATONIC.
For shame thou everlasting wooer,
Still saying grace, and never falling to her.
Love that's in contemplation plac'd,
Is Venus drawn but to the waste?
Unlesse your flame confesse its gender,
And your parley cause surrender;
Y' are salamanders of a cold desire,
That live untoucht amid the hottest fire.
What though she be a dame of stone,
The widow of Pigmalion;
As hard and unrelenting she
As the new crusted Niobe;
Or what doth more of statue carry,
A nun of the Platonic quarry?
Love mel's the rigour which the rocks have bred,
A flint will break upon a feather bed.
For shame, you pretty female elves.
Cease for to candy up your selves:
No more, you sectaries of the game,
No more of your calciuing flame.
Women commence by Cupid's dart,
As a king hunting dubs a hart;
Love's votaries inthrale each other's soule,
Till both of them live but upon parole.
Vertue's no more in women kind,
But the green sicknesse of the mind.
Phylosophy, their new delight,
A kind of charcoale appetite.
There is no sophistry prevailes
Where all-convincing love assailes;
But the disputing petticoat will warp,
As skilfull gamesters are to seek at sharp.
The souldier, that man of iron,
Whom ribs of horrour all inviron;
That's strung with wire instead of veines,
In whose embraces you're in chaines;
Jet a magnetic girle appeare,
Straight he turnes Cupid's cuiraseer.
Love stormes his lips, and takes the fortresse in,
For all the bristled turn-pikes of his chin.
Since love's artillery then checks
The breast-works of the firmest sex,
Come let us in affections riot,
Th'are sickly pleasures keep a diet.
Give me a lover bold and free,
Not eunucht with formality:
Like an embassadour that beds a queen,
With the nice caution of a sword between.
SAY, lovely dreame, where couldst thou find Shades to counterfeit that face?
Colours of this glorious kind
Come not from any mortall place.
In Heaven it selfe thou sure wert drest
With that angel-like disguise:
Thus deluded am I blest,
And see my joy with closed eyes.
But, ab! this image is too kind
To be other than a dreame,
Cruel Sacharissa's mind
Never put on that sweete extreame.
Faire dreame, if thou intend'st me grace,
Change this heavenly forme of thine;
Paint despis'd love in thy face,
And make it to appeare like mine.
Pale, wan, and meager, let it looke,
With a pitty-moving shape,
Such as wander by the brooke
Of Lethe, or from graves escape.
Then to that matchlesse nymph appeare,
In whose shape thou shinest so,
Softly in her sleeping eare,
With humble words expresse my woe.
Perhaps from greatnesse, state and pride,
Thus surprised she may fall;
Sleep does disproportion hide,
And death resembling equals all.
BEHOLD the brand of beauty tost;
See how the motion does dilate the flame, Delighted love his spoiles does boast, And triumph in this game :
Fire to no place confin'd,
Is both our wonder, and our feare, Moving the mind
Like lightning hurled through the aire.
High Heaven the glory doth increase
Of all her shining lamps this artfull way; The Sun in figures such as these
Joies with the Moone to play;
To these sweet straines they advance, Which do result from their own spheres, As this nymph's dance
Moves with the numbers which she heares.
HEAVEN knows my love to thee, fed on desires
So hallowed, and unmixt with vulgar fires,
As are the purest beames shot from the Sun
At his full height, and the devotion
Of dying martyrs could not burne more cleare,
Nor innocence in her first robes appeare
Whiter than our affections; they did show
Like frost forc'd out of flames and fire from snow.
So pure the phoenix, when she did refine
Her age to youth, borrow'd no flames but mine.
But now my day's so 're cast, for I have now
Drawn anger, like a tempest, o're the brow
Of my faire mistris; those your glorious eyes
Whence I was wont to see my day-star rise
Thereat, like revengefull meteors; and I feele
My torment, my gilt double, my Hell;
'Twas a mistake, and might have veniall been,
Done to another, but it was made sin,
And justly mortall too, by troubling thee,
Slight wrongs are treasons done to majesty.
O all ye blest ghosts of deceased loves,
That now lie sainted in the Eclesian groves,
Mediate for mercy for me; at her shrine [mine:
Meet with full quire, and joine your prayers with
Conjure her by the merits of your kisses,
By your past sufferings, and your present blisses.
Conjure her by your mutuall hopes and feares,
By all your intermixed sighs and teares,
To plead my pardon: go to her and tell
That you will walke the guardian sentinell,
My soule's safe Genii, that she need not feare
A mutinous thought, or one close rebell there;
But what needs that, when she alone sits there
Sole angell of that orbe? in her own spheare
Alone she sits, and can secure it free
From all irregular motions; only she,
Can give the balsome that must cure this sore,
And the sweet antidote to sin no more*.
VFON MR. CHARLES BEAUMONT,
WHO DIED OF A CONSUMPTION.
WHILE others drop their teares upon thy bearse, Sweet Charles, and sigh t' increase the wind, my verse,
♦ These lines occur among Randolph's poems. N.
Pious in naming thee, cannot complaine
Of death, or fate, for they were lately slaine
By thy own conflict; and since good men know
What Heaven to such a virgin saint doth owe;
Though some will say they saw thee dead, yet I
Congratulate thy life and victory :
Thy flesh, an upper garment, that it might
Aide thy eternall progresse, first grew light;
Nothing but angel now, which thou wert neere,
Almost reduc'd to thy first spirit here:
But fly, faire soule, while our complaints are just, That cannot follow for our chaines of dust".
Now fie on foolish love, it not befits
Or man or woman know it.
Love was not meant for people in their wits,
And they that fondly shew it
Betray the straw, and feathers in their braine, And shall have Bedlam for their paine:
If single love be such a curse,
To marry is to make it ten times worse.
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a maudrake root, Tell me where all past yeares are, Or who cleft the devil's foot; Teach me to heare mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou beest born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand daies and nights,
Till age snow white haires on thee; Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me All strange wonders that befell thee, And sweare,
Lives a woman true and faire.
WILLING PRISONER TO HIS MISTRIS.
LET fooles great Cupid's yoake disdaine,
Loving their own wild freedome better,
Whilst proud of my triumphant chaine
I sit, and court my beautious fetter.
Her murd'ring glances, snaring haires,
And her bewitching smiles, so please me,
As he brings ruine that repaires
The sweet afflictions that displease me.
Hide not those panting balls of snow
With envious veiles from my beholding;
Unlock those lips, their pearly row
In a sweet smile of love unfolding.
And let those eyes whose motion wheeles
The restlesse fate of every lover,
Survey the paines my sick heart feeles,
And wounds themselves have made discover..
SECRESIE PROTESTED.
FEARE not (deare love) that I'le reveale
Those hours of pleasure we two steale;
No eye shall see, nor yet the Sun
Descry, what thou and I have done;
No eare shall heare our love, but we
Silent as the night will be;
The god of love himselfe (whose dart
Did first wound mine, and then thy heart),
Shall never know that we can tell
What sweets in stoln embraces dwell:
This only meanes may find it out,
If when I die physicians doubt
Or I will take my rise upon a hill
When I perceive thee seated in a cloud
In all the painted glory that thou hast,
And never cease to clap my willing wing,
Till I catch hold on thy discolour'd bow,
And shiver it beyond the angry power
Of your mad mistris to make up againe.
IRIS. Hermes forbeare, Juno will chide and strike:
Is great Jove jealous that I am imployed?
On her love errands she did never yet
Claspe weak mortality in her white armes,
As he hath often done; I only come
To celebrate the long-wish'd nuptials
Here in Olympia, which are now perform'd
Betwixt two goodly rivers that have mix'd
Their gentle winding waves, and are to grow
Into a thousand streames, great as themselves:
I need not name them, for the sound is loud
In Heaven and Earth, and I am sent from her,
The queene of marriage, that was present here,
And smil'd to see them joyne, and bath not chid
Since it was done; god Hermes, let me go.
MER. Nay you must stay. Jove's message is the
[thunder,
Whose eyes are lightning, and whose voice is
Whose breath is airy wind, he will, who knowes
How to be first in Earth as well as Heaven.
IRIS. But what hath he to do with nuptiall rites? Let him sit pleas'd upon his starry throne, And fright poore mortals with his thunder-bolts, Leaving to us the mutuall darts of eyes.
MER. Alas, when ever offer'd he t' abridge Your ladie's power, but only now in these, Whose match concernes the generall government: Hath not each god a part in these high joyes? And shall not he the king of gods presume Without proud Juno's lycence? let her know, That when enamour'd Jove first gave her power To linke soft hearts in undissolving bands, He then foresaw, and to himselfe reserv'd The honour of this marriage; thou shalt stand Still as a rock, while I to blesse this feast, Will summon up with my all-charming rod The nymphs of fountains, from whose watry locks (Hung with the dew of blessing and encrease) The greedy rivers take their nourishment. Ye Nymphs, who, bathing in your loved springs, Bebeld these rivers in their infancy,
And joy'd to see them when their circled heads Refresh'd the aire, and spread the ground with flowers;
Rise from the wels, and with your nimble feet
Performe that office to this happy paire
Which in these plaines you to Alpheus did,
When, passing hence through many seas unmix'd,
He gain'd the favour of his Aretheuse.
Ye maids, who yeareley at appointed times
Advance with kindly teares the gentle flouds,
Descend and powre your blessing on these streames,
Which rouling down from Heaven, aspiring hils,
And now united in the fruitfull vales,
Beare all before them, ravish with their joy,
And swell in glory till they know no bounds.
The cloud descends with the Hyades, at which the maids seeme to be rejoyced, they all dance a while together, then make another stand as if they wanted something.
IRIS. Great wit and power hath Hermes to conA lively dance which of one sex consists.
[trive MER. Alas poore Iris, Venus hath in store A secret ambush of her winged boyes, Who lurking long within these pleasant groves, First stuck these flowers with their equall darts; Those Cupids shall come forth and joyne with these, To honour that which they themselves began. The Cupids come forth and dance, they are weary with their blind pursuing the Nymphs, and the Nymphs weary with flying them.
IRIS. Behold the statues which wise Vulcan
Under the altar of Olympian Jove, [plac'd
And gave to them an artificiall life;
See how they move, drawn by this heavenly joy,
Like the wild trees which followed Orpheus' harpe.
The Statues come down, and they all dance till
the Nymphs out-run them and lose them, then
the Cupids go off, and last the statues.
MER. And what will Juno's Iris do for her? `
IRIS. Just match this show, or mine inventions
Had it been worthier I would have invok'd
The blazing comets, clouds, and falling stars,
And all my kindred, meteors of the aire,
To have excelled it, but I now must strive
To imitate confusion, therefore thou,
Delightfull Flora, if thou ever felt'st
Increase of sweetnesse in those blooming plants
On which the hornes of my faire bow decline,
Send hither all that rurall company
Which deck the maygames with their clownish
Juno will have it so.
[sports,
The second Antimasque rusheth in, they dance
their measure, and as rudely depart.
MER. Iris we strive,
Like winds at liberty, who should do worst
E're we returne. If Jano be the queen
Of marriages, let her give happy way
To what is done in honour of the state
She governs.
IRIS. Hermes so it may be done.
The Nymphs rise and dance a little and then make Meerly in honour of the state, and those
That now have prov'd it; not to satisfie
The lust of Jupiter in having thanks
More than his Juno, if thy snaky rod
Have power to search the Heaven, or sound the sea,
Or call together all the buds of earth,
To bring thee any thing that may do grace
To us, and these, do it, we shall be pleas'd;
They know that from the mouth of Jove himselfe,
Whose words have winks, and need not to be borne,
I took a message, and I bore it through
A thousand yeelding clouds, and never staid
And not a creature nigh 'em,
Might catch his sigh as he doth passe,
And clip his wings, and breake his glasse,
And keep 'em ever by 'em.
When all is done as they ascend.
PEACE and silence be the guide
To the man, and to the bride:
If there be a joy yet new
In marriage, let it fall on you,
That all the world may wonder:
If we should stay we should do worse,
And turne our blessings to a curse,
By keeping you asunder.
PROLOGUES, EPILOGUES, AND SONGS TO SEVERALL PLAIES.
WRITTEN BY MR. FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
THE PROLOGUE TO THE MAD LOVER.
To please all's impossible, and to despaire
Ruines our selves, and damps the writer's care:
Would we knew what to do, or say, or when
To find the minds here equall with the men!
But we must venture; now to sea we go,
Faire fortune with us, give us roome and blow:
Remember y'are all venturers; and in this play
How many twelvepences ye have stowed this day;
Remember for returne of your delight,
We lanch and plough through stormes of feare and spight:
Give us your forewinds fairely, fill our wings,
And steere us right, and as the sailers sing,
Loaden with wealth on wanton seas, so we
Shall make our home-bound voyage cheerefully;
And you our noble merchants, for your treasure,
After their many dances, when they are to take Share equally the fraught, we run for pleasure.
HERE lies the doubt now, let our plaies be good,
Our own care sayling equall in this floud;
Our preparations new, new our attire,
Yet here we are becalm'd still, still i'th' mire;
Here we stick fast, is there no way to cleare
This passage of your judgment, and our feare?
No mitigation of that law? brave friends,
Consider we are yours, made for your ends,
And every thing preserves it selfe, each will,
If not perverse and crooked, utters still,
The best of that it ventures in: have care
Even for your pleasure's sake, of what you are,
And do not ruine all; you may frowne still
But 'tis the nobler way to check the will.
FIRST SONG TO THE MAD LOVER.
STRE. ORPHEUS, I am come from the deeps below To thee, fond man, the plagues of love to show, To the faire fields, where loves eternall dwell, There's none that come, but first they passe through Hell.
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