My Castara lives unknown, To no looser eye betray'd. Such is her beauty, as no arts Have enrich'd with borrow'd Her high birth no pride imparts, For she blushes in her place. Folly boasts a glorious blood:She is noblest, being good. : grace; She her throne makes Reason climb, And, each article of time, Her pure thoughts to heaven fly. All her vows religious be, And her love she vows to me. Of True Delight. WHY doth the ear so tempt the voice That cunningly divides the air? Why doth the palate buy the choice Delights o' th' sea t' enrich her fare? As soon as I my ear obey, The echo's lost e'en with the breath; And when the sewer takes away, I'm left with no more taste than death. Be curious in pursuit of eyes, To procreate new loves with thine; Satiety makes sense despise What superstition thought divine. Quick fancy how it mocks delight! The rose yields her sweet blandishment, The violet enchants the scent, When early in the spring she breathes. But winter comes, and makes each flower Or an intruding cold hath power Our senses, like false glasses, show Chaste Virtue's only true and fair. To Castara. GIVE me a heart, where no impure Which jealousy doth not obscure, Which not the softness of the age To vice or folly doth decline : Give me that heart, Castara!-for 'tis thine. Take thou a heart, where no new look Provokes new appetite; With no fresh charm of beauty took, Which virtue doth to one confine : Take thou that heart, Castara! -for 'tis mine. * * THOMAS RANDOLPH, SON of the steward to Edward Lord Zouch, was born in Northamptonshire, 1605, educated on the foundation of Westminster, and in 1623 sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he afterwards became fellow. Having taken the degree of A.M. he was admitted ad eundem at Oxford, and "became," says Wood, "famous for his ingenuity, an adopted son of Ben Jonson, and accounted one of the most pregnant wits of his age." He died in his twenty-ninth year, 1634, coming to an untimely end, according to the authority just quoted, “by indulging himself too much with the liberal conversation of his admirers ; a thing incident to poets." Langbaine tells us, he was "too much addicted to the principles of his predecessor Aristippus, pleasure and contempt of wealth." He left six plays behind him, five of which are to be found in the collection of his poems published by his brother after his death, 12mo, 1640, and several times afterwards the fifth edition, in 1664, professing to be much enlarged and corrected. See a high character of these, particularly "The Muses' Looking-glass," in Langbaine, and the Biographia Dramatica. The former allows Randolph, what he grants to very few, the praise of originality; and Phillips observes, that "the quick conceit and clear poetic fancy discovered in his extant poems, seemed to promise something extraordinary." Vide also the Biographia Britannica. ODE To Mr. Anthony Stafford, to hasten him into the Country. COME, spur away! I have no patience for a longer stay; But must go down And leave the chargeable noise of this great town. I will the country see, Doth look more gay Than Foppery in plush and scarlet clad. Farewell, you city wits, that are Almost at civil war! 'Tis time that I grow wise when all the world grows mad. More of my days I will not spend to gain an idiot's praise : Or to make sport For some slight puny of the inns of court. Then, worthy Stafford, say, How shall we spend the day, With what delights |