Joys, as winged dreams, fly fast;
Why should sadness longer last?
Grief is but a wound to wo;

Gentlest fair! mourn, mourn no mo.

SONG.

[In "The Captain."]

"TELL me, dearest, what is love?"

Tis a lightning from above; 'Tis an arrow, 'tis a fire;

"Tis a boy they call Desire;

Those

"Tis a grave
Gapes to have

poor fools that long to prove.

"Tell me more, are women true?" Yes, some are, and some as you.

Some are willing, some are strange,

Since you men first taught to charge

And, till troth

Be in both,

All shall love, to love anew.

"Tell me more yet, can they grieve;" Yes, and sicken sore, but live,

And be wise, and delay

When you men are as wise as they :

"Then I see

"Faith will be

"Never till they both believe."

SONG.

[In "The Elder Brother."]

BEAUTY clear and fair,

Where the air

Rather like a perfume dwells;

Where the violet and the rose

Their blue veins in blush disclose,

And come to honour nothing else!

Where to live near

And planted there,

Is to live and still live new ;

Where to gain a favour is

More than light, perpetual bliss;
Make me live by serving you!

[In "A Wife for a Month."]

LET those complain that feel Love's cruelty,
And in sad legends write their woes:
With roses gently he has corrected me;
My war is without rage or blows;

My mistress' eyes shine fair on my desires,
And hope springs up inflam'd with her new fires.

No more au exile will I dwell,

With folded arms and sighs all day,
Reckoning the torments of my hell,
And flinging my sweet joys away.

I am call'd home again to quiet peace;
My mistress smiles, and all my sorrows cease.

Yet what is living in her eye,

Or being blest with her sweet tongue,

If these no other joys imply?

A golden gyve, a pleasing wrong.

To be your own but one poor month, I'd give
My youth, my fortune, and then leave to live.

FRANCIS BEAUMONT.

A CHARM.

[From his "Poems," 1640, 4to.]

SLEEP, old man! let silence charm thee; Dreaming slumbers overtake thee; Quiet thoughts, and darkness arm thee, That no creaking do awake thee.

Phoebe hath put out her light,
All her shadows closing:
Phoebe lends her horns to-night
To thy head's disposing.

Let no fatal bell nor clock

Pierce the hollow of thy ear:

Tongueless be the early cock,
Or what else may add a fear.

Let no rat, nor silly mouse

Move the senseless rushes;

Nor a cough disturb this house
Till Aurora blushes.

Come, my sweet Corinna, come,

Laugh, and leave thy late deploring! Sable midnight makes all dumb

But thy jealous husband's snoring.

And with thy sweet perfumed kisses
Entertain a stranger!

Love's delight and sweetest bliss is
Got with greatest danger.

On the Life of Man. *

LIKE to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue.
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood,-
E'en such is man-whose borrow'd light
Is straight call'd in and paid to-night.
The wind blows out, the bubble dies,
The spring intomb'd in autumn lies,
The dew's dried up, the star is shot,
The flight is past--and man forgot.

This is also contained in Bishop King's Poems, 1657.