For the star-light of her eyes

Brighter shines through those dark skies.

Black, or fair, or tall, or low,

I alike with all can sport, The bold sprightly Thais woo, Or the frozen vestal court. Every beauty takes my mind, Tied to all, to none confin'd.

The Exequies.

DRAW near

You lovers, that complain

Of fortune or disdain,

And to my ashes lend a tear!

Melt the hard marble with your groans,
And soften the relentless stones,

Whose cold embraces the sad subject hide

Of all Love's cruelties, and Beauty's pride!

No verse,

No epicedium bring;

Nor peaceful requiem sing,

To charm the terrors of my herse!
No profane numbers must flow near
The sacred silence that dwells here:

Vast griefs are dumb: softly, oh softly mourn! Lest you disturb the peace attends my urn.

Yet strew

Upon my dismal grave

Such offerings as you have;
Forsaken cypress, and sad yew;

For kinder flowers can take no birth
Or growth from such unhappy earth.
Weep only o'er my dust, and say, "Here lies
To Love and Fate an equal sacrifice."

SONG.

WHEN, dearest beauty, thou shalt pay
Thy faith and my vain hope away
To some dull soul, that cannot know
The worth of that thou dost bestow;
Lest with my sighs and tears I might
Disturb thy unconfin'd delight,
To some dark shade I will retire,
And there, forgot by all, expire.

Thus, whilst the difference thou shalt prove

Betwixt a feign'd and real love,

Whilst he, more happy, but less true,

Shall reap those joys I did pursue,

And with those pleasures crowned be By Fate, which love design'd for me, Then thou perhaps thyself wilt find Cruel too long, or too soon kind.

66

ROBERT HEATH

66

I KNOW nothing more of, than that he was the author of Clarastella," (a collection of love-verses) together with Poems occasional, Elegies, Epigrams, Satyrs," in one volume, 12mo, printed in 1650.

SONG.

INVEST my head with fragrant rose,
That on fair Flora's bosom grows!
Distend my veins with purple juice,
That mirth may through my soul diffuse!
'Tis wine and love, and love in wine,
Inspires our youth with flames divine.

Thus, crown'd with Paphian myrtle, I
In Cyprian shades will bathing lie;
Whose snow if too much cooling, then
Bacchus shall warm my blood again.

'Tis wine and love, and love in wine,
Inspires our youth with flames divine.

Life's short, and winged pleasures fly;
Who mourning live, do living die.

On down and floods then, swan-like, I
Will stretch my limbs, and singing die.

'Tis wine and love, and love in wine,
Inspires our youth with flames divine.

To Clarastella saying she would commit herself to a

Nunnery.

[From 9 stanzas.]

STAY, Clarastella, prithee stay!
Recall those frantic vows again!
Wilt thou thus cast thyself away,

As well as me in fond disdain ?

Wilt thou be cruel to thyself? chastise

Thy harmless body, 'cause your powerful eyes
Have charm'd my senses by a strange surprize?

Is it a sin to be belov'd?

If but the cause you could remove,
Soon the effect would be remov'd;
Where beauty is, there will be love.
Nature, that wisely nothing made in vain,
Did make you lovely to be lov'd again,

And, when such beauty tempts, can love refrain?
When Heaven was prodigal to you,

And you with beauty's glory stor'd, He made you, like himself, for view, To be beheld, and then ador'd.