TO.

4 PAINTER'S HANDSOME DAUGHTER.

SUCH
are your father's pictures, that we do
Beleeve they are not counterfeits, but true;
So lively, and so fresh, that we may swear
Instead of draughts, he hath plac'd creatures there;
People, not shadows; which in time will be
Not a dead number, but a colony: [arts,
Nay, more yet, some think they have skill and
That th' are well-bred, and pictures of good parts;
And you your self, faire Julia, do disclose
Such beauties, that you may seem one of those;
That having motion gain'd at last, and sense,
Began to know it self, and stole out thence.
Whiles thus his æmulous art with Nature strives,
Some think h' hath none, others he hath two
wives.

If you love none, fair maid, but look on all,
You then among his set of pictures fall;
If that you look on all, and love all men,
The pictures too will be your sisters then,
For they as they have life, so th' have this fate,
In the whole lump either to love or hate;
Your choice must shew you're of another fleece,
And tell you are his daughter, not his piece :
All other proofs are vain; go not about;
We two'l embrace, and love, and clear the doubt.
When you've brought forth your like, the world
will know

You are his child; what picture can do so.

THE GNAT.

A GNAT mistaking her bright eye
For that which makes, and rules the day,
Did in the rayes disporting fly,
Wont in the sun-beams so to play.

Her eye whose vigour all things draws,
Did suck this little creature in,

As warmer jet doth ravish straws, And thence ev'n forc'd embraces win.

Inviting heat stream'd in the rayes, But hungry fire work'd in the eye;

Whose force this captive gnat obeys, And doth through it her martyr dye.

The wings went into air; the fire Did turn the rest to ashes there :

But ere death, strugling to retire, She thence enforc'd an easie teare. Happy, O gnat, though thus made nought, We wretched lovers suffer more,

Our sonnets are thy buzzings thought, And we destroy'd by what w' adore. Perhaps would she but our deaths mourn, We should revive to dye agen:

Thou gain'd'st a tear, but we have scorn; She weeps for flies, but laught at men,

LOVE - TEARES.

BRAG not a golden rain O Jove; we see Cupid descends in showers as well as thee.

EXPECT no strange, or puzzling meat, no pye
Built by confusion, or adultery,

Of forced nature; no mysterious dish
Requiring an interpreter, no fish
Found out by modern luxury: our corse board
Press'd with no spoyls of elements, doth afford
Meat, like our hunger, without art, each mess
Thus differing from it only, that 'tis less.

Imprimis, some rice porredge, sweet, and hot,
Three knobs of sugar season the whole pot.
Item, one pair of eggs in a great dish,

So ordered that they cover all the fish.
Item, one gaping haddock's head, which will
At least afright the stomach, if not fill.

Item, one thing in circles, which we take
Some for an eele, but th' wiser for a snake.

We have not still the same, sometimes we may Eat muddy plaise, or wheate; perhaps next day

Red, or white herrings, or an apple pye:
There's some variety in misery.

To this come twenty men, and though apace,
We bless these gifts, the meal's as short as grace.
Nor eat we yet in tumult; but the meat
Is broke in order; hunger here is neat;
Division, subdivision, yet two more
Members, and they divided as before.
O what a fury would your stomach feel
To see us vent our logick on an eele ?
And in one herring to revive the art
Of Keckerman, and shew the eleventh part?
Hunger in armes is no great wonder, we
Suffer a siege without an enemy.

On Midlent Sunday, when the preacher told The prodigal's return, and did unfold His tender welcome, how the good old man Sent for new rayment, how the servant ran To kill the fatling calf, O how each ear List'ned unto him, greedy ev'n to hear The bare relation; how was every eye Fixt on the pulpit; how did each man pry, And watch, if, whiles he did this word dispence, A capon, or a hen would fly out thence?

Happy the Jews cry we, when quailes came down In dry and wholsome showers, though from the frown

Of Heaven sent, though bought at such a rate;
To perish full is not the worst of fate;
We fear we shall dye empty, and enforce
The grave to take a shaddow for a corse:
For, if this fasting hold, we do despair
Of life; all needs must vanish into air;
Air, which now only feeds us, and so be
Exhal'd, like vapours to eternity.

W' are much refin'd already, that dull house
Of clay (our body) is diaphanous;
And if the doctor would but take the pains
To read upon us, sinnews, bones, guts, veines,
All would appear, and he might shew each one,
Without the help of a dissection.

In the aboundance of this want, you will
Wonder perhaps how I can use my quill?
Troth I am like small birds, which now in spring,
When they have nought to eat do sit and sing.

THE CHAMBERMAID'S POSSET.

My ladie's young chaplain could never arrive
More than to four points, or thereabout:
He propos'd fifteen, but was gravell'd at five,
My lady stood up and still preach'd 'em out.

The red-hatted vertues in number but four,
With grief he rememb'red, for one was not:
The habits divine, not yet in our power,
Were faith, hope, and (brethren) the third I ha'
forgot.

Sir John was resolved to suffer a drench,
To furnish his spirit with better provision

A posset was made by a leviticall wench,

It was of the chambermaid's own composition.

The milk it came hot from an orthodox cow
Ne'r rid by the pope, nor yet the pope's bull;
The heat of zeal boyled it, God knows how:
'Twas the milk of the word; belceve it who will.

The ingredients were divers, and most of them new,
No vertue was judg'd in an antient thing:
In the garden of Leyden some part of them grew,
And some did our own universities bring.
Imprimis, two handfull of long digressions,
Well squeezed and press'd at Amsterdam,
They cured Buchanan's dangerous passions,
Each grocer's shop now will afford you the same.
Two ounces of Calvinisme not yet refin'd,

By the better physicians not thought to be good;
But 'twas with the seal of a conventicle sign'd,
And approv'd by the simpling brotherhood.
One quarter of practicall piety next,

[Styx.

With an ounce and a half of histrio-mastrix, Three sponfull of T. C's confuted text, Whose close-noated ghost hath long ago past

Next stript whipt abuses were cast in the pot,
With the worm eaten motto not now in fashion,
All these in the mouth are wondrous hot,
But approvedly cold in operation.

Next Clever and Doddisme both mixed and fine,
With five or six scruples of conscience cases,
Three drams of Geneva's strict discipline,

All steept in the sweat of the silenc'd faces.
One handfull of doctrines, and uses, or more,
With the utmost branch of the fifteenth point,
Then duties enjoyn'd and motives good store,
All boyl'd to a spoonfull, though from a siz'd
pint.

These all have astringent and hard qualities,
And for notable binders received be,

To avoid the costiveness thence might arise,
She allay'd them with Christian liberty.
The crumbs of comfort did thicken the mess,
'Twas turn'd by the frown of a sowre fac'd brother,
But that you will say converts wickedness,
'Twill serve for the one as well as the other.
An ell London-measure of tedious grace,
Was at the same time conceiv'd, and said,
"Twas eat with a spoon defi'd with no face,
Nor the imag'ry of an apostle's head.

Sir John after this could have stood down the Sur,
Dividing the pulpit and text with one fist,
The glass was compe l'd still rubbers to run,
And he counted the fift Evangelist.

The pig that for haste, much like a devout

Entranced brother, was wont to come in
With white staring eyes, not quite roasted out,
Came now in a black persecution skin.

Stale mistris Priscilla her apron-strings straite
Let down for a line just after his cure:

Sir John did not nibble, but pouch'd the deceit :
An advouzon did bait him to make all sure.

ON A GENTLEWOMAN'S SILK-HOOD.

Is there a sanctity in love begun

That every woman veils, and turns lay-nun? Alas your guilt appears still through the dress; You do not so much cover as confess :

Too late, I now recall,

The gods foretold me this thy fall;
I grasp'd thee in my dream,
And loe thou meltd'st into a stream;
But when they will surprise,
They shew the fate, and blind the eyes.
Which wound shall I first kiss?
Here? there? or that? or this?
Why gave he not the like to me,

That wound by wound might answer'd be? We would have joyntly bled, by griefs ally'd, And drank each other's soul, and so have dy'd.

In silent groves below

Thy bleeding wounds thou now dost show;
And there perhaps to fame
Deliver'st up Parthenia's name;
Nor do thy loves abate.

O gods! O stars! O death! O fate!
But thy proud spoyler here

Doth thy snatch'd glories wear;
And big with undeserv'd success

Swels up his acts, and thinks fame legs;
And counts my groans not worthy of relief,
O hate! O anger! O revenge! O grief!

Parthenia then shall live,
And something to thy story give.
Revenge inflame my breast
To send thy wand'ring spirit rest.
By our fast tye, our trust,
Our one mind, our one faith I must:
By my past hopes and fears,

My passions, and my tears;

By these thy wounds (my wounds) I vow, And by thy ghost, my griefe's god now, I'l not revoke a thought. Or to thy tomb My off'ring he, or I his crime will come.

ARIADNE DESERTED BY THESEUS,

AS SHE SITS UPON A ROCK IN THE ISLAND NAXOS, THUS COMPLAINS.

THESEUS! O Theseus heark! but yet in vain,

Alas deserted I complain,

It was some neighbouring rock, more soft than he, Whose hollow bowels pittied me,

And then-yet rather let him live, and twine
His woof of daies, with some thred stoln from mine;
But if you'l torture him, how e'r,
Torture my heart, you'l find him there.

Till my eyes drank up his,

And his drank mine,

1 ne'r thought souls might kiss,
And spirits joyn:

Pictures till then
Took me as much as men,
Nature and art
Moving alike my heart,
But his fair visage made me find
Pleasures and fears,

Hopes, sighs, and tears,

As severall seasons of the mind.

Should thine eye, Venus, on his dwell,
Thou wouldst invite him to thy shell,
And caught by that live jet
Venture the second net,

And after all thy dangers, faithless he,
Shouldst thou but slumber, would forsake ev'n thee.

The streames so court the yeelding banks,

And gliding thence ne'r pay their thanks;
The winds so wooe the flow'rs,
Whisp'ring among fresh bow'rs,
And having rob'd them of their smels,
Fly thence perfum'd to other cels.
This is familiar hate to sunile and kill,
Though nothing please thee yet my ruine will.
Death, hover, hover o'r me theu,
Waves, let your christall womb
Be both my fate, and tomb,

I'l sooner trust the sea, than men.

Yet for revenge to Heaven l'l call And breath one curse before I fall, Proud of two conquests Minotaure, and me, That by thy faith, this by thy perjury, Mayst thou forget to wing thy ships with white, That the black say! may to the longing sight Of thy gray father, tell thy fate, and he Bequeath the sea his name, falling like me: Nature and love thus brand thee, whiles I dye 'Cause thou forsak'st, Ægeus 'cause thou drawest nigh.

And yet, O nymphs below who sit,

In whose swift flouds his vows he writ; Snatch a sharp diamond from the richer mines, And in some mirrour grave these sadder lines, Which let some god convey To him, that so he may

In that both read at once, and see
Those looks that caus'd my destiny.
In Thetis' arms I Ariadne sleep,

Drown'd first by my own tears, then in the deep;
Twice banished, first by love, and then by hate,
The life that I preserv'd became my fate;
Who leaving all, was by him left alone,
That from a monster freed himself prov'd one.

That then I-But look! O mine eyes

Be now true spies,
Yonder, yonder,
Comes my dear,
Now my wonder,
Once my fear,

See satyrs dance along
In a confused throng,

Whiles horns' and pipes' rude noise
Do mad their lusty joyes,

Roses his forehead crown,
And that recrowns the flow'rs,
Where he walks up and down
He makes the desarts bow'rs,
The ivy, and the grape

Hide, not adorn his shape.
And green leaves cloath his waving rod,
'Tis either Theseus, or some god.

NO DRAWING OF VALENTINES.

CAST not in Chloe's name among
The common undistinguish'd throng,
I'l neither so advance

The foolish raign of chance,
Nor so depress the throne
Whereon love sits alone:

If I must serve my passions, I'l not owe
Them to my fortune; ere I love, I'l know.
Tell me what god lurks in the lap
To make that councel, we call hap?

What power conveighs the name?
Who to it adds the flame?
Can he raise mutuall fires,
And answering desires?

None can assure me that I shall approve
Her whom I draw, or draw her whom I love.

No longer then this feast abuse.

You choose and like, I like and choose;
My flame is try'd and just,
Yours taken up on trust.
Hail thus blest Valentine,
And may my Chloe shine

To me and none but me, as 1 beleeve

We ought to make the whole year but thy eve.

Your wisdom that doth rule the wise,

And conquers more than your black eyes,
That like a planet doth dispense,
And govern by its influence
(Though to all else discreet you be)
Is blemish'd 'cause y'are fond of me.

Your manners like a fortress bar
The rough approach of men of war;
The king's and prince's servants you
Do use as they their scrivenors do;
The learned gown, the city ruffe,
Your husband too, scurvy enough:
But still with me you meet and close,
As if that I were king of those.

You say you ought howe'r to do The same thing still; I say so too; Let tongues be free, speak what they will, Say our love's loud, but let's love still. I hate a secret stifled flame,

Let yours and mine have voice, and name;
Who censure what twixt us they see
Condemn not you, but envy me.

Go bid the eager flame congeal
To sober ice, bid the Sun steal
The temper of the frozen zone
Till christall say, that cold's its own.
Bid Jove himself, whiles the grave state
Of Heaven doth our lots debate,
But think of Leda, and be wise,
And bid love have equall eyes.

View others Lydia as you would
View pictures, I'l be flesh and bloud;
Fondness, like beauty that's admir'd,
At once is censur'd and desir'd;
And they that do it will confess,
Your soul in this doth but digress;
But when you thus in passions rise,
Y'are fond to them, to me y'are wise.

TO CHLOE,

WHO WISH'D HER SELF YOUNG ENOUGH FOR ME.

CHLOE, why wish you that your years
Would backwards run, till they meet mine,
That perfect likeness, which endears

Things unto things, might us combine?
Our ages so in date agree,

That twins do differ more than we.

There are two births, the one when light
First strikes the new awak'ned sense;
The other when two souls unite;

And we must count our life from thence:
When you lov'd me, and I lov'd you,
Then both of us were born anew.

Love then to us did new souls give,

And in those souls did plant new pow'rs; Since when another life we live,

The breath we breath is his, not ours;
Love makes those young, whom age doth chill,
And whom he finds young, keeps young still.

Love, like that angell that shall call
Our bodies from the silent grave,

Unto one age doth raise us all,

None too much, none too little have;