The Chrystal. THIS chrystal here, That shines so clear, And carries in its womb a little day, Once hammer'd, will appear Impure as dust, as dark as clay. E'en such will prove Thy face, my love, When age shall soil the lustre of thine eyes, And all that red remove That on thy spicy lip now lies! Nor can a hand Again command, By any art, these ruins into frame; But they will sever'd stand, And ne'er compose the former same. Such is the case Love, of thy face; Both desperate, in this you disagree; Thy beauty needs must pass : It, of itself, will constant be. SONG. DISTIL not poison in mine ears, Could I but follow where you lead, Disrob'd of earth, and plum'd by air, Then I my tenuous self might spread, As quick as fancy, every where. But I'll make sallies now and then; Yet on her chrystal couch still lie.. EDMUND PRESTWICH Was author of "Hippolitus, translated out of Seneca, together "with divers other poems," 1651, 12mo. Langbaine, who mentions this work, professes never to have seen it. See Prestwich's "Respublica," 1777. DID The Meteor. [From 9 stanzas.] you behold that glorious star, my dear, Which shin'd but now, methought, as bright As any other child of light, And seem'd to have as good an interest there? How suddenly it fell, our eyes Pursuing it through all the spacious skies, Through which the now extended flame Had chalk'd the way to earth, from whence it came ? And were you not with wonder struck, to see At first in number perfect made, Thus sometimes more, and sometimes less to be? Or rather, in this second birth, To see heaven copied out so near by earth, We should not know which were th' original? Fair one, these different lights do represent Of you, of which some meteors prove, Of words, and with fine dexterous art Yet these false glow-worm fires a while do shine Equal to the most heaven-born flame, And so well counterfeit the same, That they, though almost beastly, seem divine. A remedy against Love. [From 8 stanzas.] Ir thou like her flowing tresses Which the unshorn Phoebus stain, If thou'rt wounded by her eyes Those the priests that make thee die. If the roses thou hast seen In her cheek still flourishing Argue that there dwells within A calm and perpetual spring, Though she never us'd deceit, Believe all is counterfeit. If her tempting voice have power |