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OLD TITYRUS TO EUGENIA.
EUGENIA, young and fair, and sweet,
The glories of the plains,
In thee alone the Graces meet

To conquer all the swains:
Tall as the poplar of the grove,
Straight as the winged shaft of Love,
As the spring's early blossoms white,
Soft as the kisses of the light,
Serene and modest as the morn,
Ere vapours do from fens arise,
To dim the glory of the skies,
Untainted or with pride or scorn,
[born.
T'oblige the world, bright nymph, thou sure wast

O! be still fair, thou charming maid,
For beauty is no crime;

May thy youth's flower never fade,

But still be in its prime :

Be calm, and clear, and modest still,
Oblige as many as you will,
Still, still be humble, still be sweet,
By those ways conquer all you meet;
But let them see 'tis undesign'd,

Nat'ral virtues, not put on
To make a prize of any one,
The native goodness of your mind,
And have a care of being over-kind.
That's (my Eugenia) a mistake,
That noblest ardours cools,

And serves on th' other side to make
Damn'd overweening fools.

Be courteous unto all, and free,
As far as virgin modesty ;

Be not too sby, but have a care
Of being too familiar;

The swain you entertain alone,

To whom you lend your hand or lip,
Will think he has you on the hip,
And straight conclude you are his own,
Women so easy, men so vain, are grown.
Reserv'dness is a mighty friend
To form and virtue too,
A shining merit should pretend
To such a star as you :
'Tis not a roundelay well play'd,
A song well sung, a thing well said,
A fall well giv'n, a bar well thrown,
Should carry such a lovely one.
Should these knacks win you, you will be
(Of all the nymphs that with their beams
Gild sweet Columba's crystal streams)
Lost to the world, yourself, and me,
And more despis'd than freckled Lalage.
Maintain a modest kind of state,
'Tis graceful in a maid;

It does at least respect create,
And makes the fools afraid.

Eugenia, you must pitch upon

A Sylvia, not a Corydon;

'Twould grate my soul to see those charms In an unworthy shepherd's arms.

A little coldness (girl) will do,

Let baffled lovers call it pride,

Pride's an excess o' th' better side; Contempt to arrogance is due,

Keep but state now, and keep't hereafter too.

EPISTLE

TO JOHN BRADSHAW, ESQ.

SIR, you may please to call to mind,
That letters you did lately find

From

me,

which I conceiv'd were very kind:

So hearty kind, that by this hand, sir,
Briefly, I do not understand, sir,

[swer.

Why you should not vouchsafe some kind of an

What though in rhyme you're no proficient?
Your love should not have been deficient,
When downright prose to me had been sufficient.
'Tis true, I know that you dare fight, sir,
But what of that? that will not fright, sir:
I know full well your worship too can write, sir.

Where the peace, therefore, broken once is,
Unless you send some fair responses,

I doubt there will ensue some broken sconces.
Then dream not valour can befriend you,
For if I justly once suspend you,

Your sanct'ary, nor your club, can yet defend you:

But fairly, sir, to work to go:

What the fiend is the matter, trow,

Should make you use an old companion so?

I know the life you lead a-days,

And, like poor swan, your foot can trace
From home to pray'rs, thence to the forenam'd
place'.

And can you not from your precation,
And your as daily club-potation,

To think of an old friend find some vacation?

'Tis true you sent a little letter,

With a great present, which was better,
For which I must remain your humble debtor.

But for th' epistle, to be plain,
That's paid with int'rest back again,
For I sent one as long at least as twain.

Then mine was rhyme, and yours but reason;
If, therefore, you intend t' appease one,
Let me hear from you in some mod'rate season.
'Tis what y'are bound to by the tie
Of friendship first, then equity,

To which I'll add a third, call'd charity.

For one that's banish'd the grand monde,
Would sometimes by his friends be own'd:
'Tis comfort after whipping to be moan'd.

But though I'm damn'd t' a people here,
Than whom my dog's much civiler,

I hear from you some twice or thrice a year.
Saints that above are plac'd in glory,
Unless the papists tell a story,
Commiserate poor souls in purgatory.

Whilst you, sir captain, Heav'n remit ye,
Who live in Heav'n on Earth, the city,
On me, who live in Hell, can have no pity.

In faith it looks unkind! pray mend it,
Write the least scrip you will, and send it,
And I will bless and kiss the hand that penn'd it.
■ Viz. the sanctuary.

EPISTLE TO JOHN BRADSHAW, ESQ. WHAT though I writ a tedious letter, Whereas a shorter had been better, And that 'twas writ in moor-land's metre, To make it run, I thought, the sweeter, Yet there was nought in that epistle, At which your worship ought to bristle; For though it was too long, 'twas civil, And though the rhyme, 'tis true, was evil, I will maintain 'twas well meant yet, And full of heart, though void of wit: Why with a horse-pox, then should I thought my friend, keep such ado, And set Tom Weaver on my back, Because I ha'n't forsooth the knack To please your over-dainty ear; (Impossible for me I fear)

you,

Nor can my poesy strew with posies
Of red, white, damask, Provence roses,
Bear's-ears, anemonies, and lilies,
As he did in diebus illis?

What man! all amblers are not couryats,
Neither can all who rhyme be laureats:
Besides the moor-lands not a clime is,
Nor of the year it now the time is
To gather flowers, I suppose,
Either for poetry or prose;
Therefore, kind sir, in courteous fashion,
I wish you spare your expectation.
And since you may be thin of clothing,
(Something being better too than nothing)
Winter now growing something rough,
I send you here a piece of stuff,
Since your old Weaver's dead and gone,
To make a fustian waistcoat on '.
Accept it, and I'll rest your debtor,
When more wit sends it, I'll send better.

And here I cannot pretermit
To that epitome of wit,

Knowledge and art, to him whom we
Saucily call, and I more saucily
Presume to write the little d.
All that your language can improve
Of service, honour, and of love :-
After whose name the rest I know
Would sound so very flat and low,
They must excuse, if in this case
I wind them up et cæteras.
Lastly, that in my tedious scribble
I may not seem incorrigible,
I will conclude by telling you
(And on my honest word 'tis true)
I long as much as new made bride
Does for the marriage even tide,
Your plump corpusculum t' embrace,
In this abominable place:

And therefore when the spring appears,
(Till when short days will seem long years)
And that under this scurvy hand,

I give you, sir, to understand,

In April, May, or then abouts,

Dove's people are your humble trouts,
Be sure you do not fail but come,
To make the Peak Elisium;

Where you shall find then, and for ever,
As true a friend' as was Tom Weaver'.

1 For rhimes take a new figure.
2 Though not half so good a poet.

! A dissolute poet of Cromwell's time. C.

THE RETIREMENT.

STANZES IRREGULIERS.

ΤΟ MR. ISAAC WALTON.

FAREWEL thou busy world, and may We never meet again: Here I can eat, and sleep, and pray, And do more good in one short day, Than he who his whole age out-wears Upon thy most conspicuous theatres, Where nought but vice and vanity do reign.

Good God! how sweet are all things here! How beautiful the fields appear!

How cleanly do we feed and lie!

Lord! what good hours do we keep!
How quietly we sleep!

What peace! what unanimity!
How innocent from the lewd fashion,
Is all our bus'ness, all our conversation!
Oh how happy here's our leisure!
Oh how innocent our pleasure!
Oh ye vallies, oh ye mountains,
Oh ye groves and chrystal fountains,
How I love at liberty,

By turn to come and visit ye!

O solitude, the soul's best friend, That man acquainted with himself dost make, And all bis Maker's wonders to intend; With thee I here converse at will,

And would be glad to do so still;

For it is thou alone that keep'st the soul awake.

How calm and quiet a delight

It is alone

To read, and meditate, and write,

By none offended, nor offending none;

To walk, ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease,

And pleasing a man's self, none other to displease!
Oh my beloved nymph! fair Dove,
Princess of rivers, how I love
Upon thy flow'ry banks to lie,

And view thy silver stream,
When gilded by a summer's beam,
And in it all thy wanton fry

Playing at liberty,

And with my angle upon them,
The all of treachery

I ever learn'd, to practise and to try!

Such streams Rome's yellow Tyber cannot show,
Th' Iberian Tagus, nor Ligurian Po:

The Meuse, the Danube, and the Rhine,
Are puddle-water all compar'd with thine;
And Loire's pure streams yet too polluted are
With thine much purer to compare :
The rapid Garonne, and the winding Seine.
Are both too mean,
Beloved Dove, with thee
To vie priority:

Nay, Tame and Isis, when conjoin'd, submit,
And lay their trophies at thy silver feet.

Oh my beloved rocks! that rise
To awe the earth and brave the skies,
From some aspiring mountain's crown
How dearly do I love,

Giddy with pleasure, to look down,
And from the vales to view the noble heights above!

720

Oh my beloved caves! from dog-star heats,
And hotter persecution safe retreats,
What safety, privacy, what true delight,
In the artificial night

Your gloomy entrails make,
Have I taken, do I take!
How oft, when grief has made me fly
To hide me from society,

Even of my dearest friends, have I

In your recesses' friendly shade
All my sorrows open laid,

And my most secret woes entrusted to your privacy!

Lord! would men let me alone,

What an over-happy one
Should I think myself to be,
Might I in this desart place,

Which most men by their voice disgrace,
Live but undisturb'd and free!
Here in this despis'd recess

Would I, maugre winter's cold,
And the summer's worst excess,
Try to live out to sixty full years old,

And all the while, Without an envious eye On any thriving under fortune's smile, Contented live, and then contented die.

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FOND Love, deliver up thy bow,
I am become more love than thou;
I am as wanton grown, and wild,
Much less a man, and more a child,
From Venus born, of chaster kind,
A better archer, though as blind.
Surrender without more ado,
I am both king and subject too,
I will command, but must obey,
I am the hunter and the prey,
I vanquish, yet am overcome,
And sentencing receive my doom.

No springing beauty 'scapes my dart,
And ev'ry ripe one wounds my heart;
Thus whilst I wound, I wounded am,
And, firing others, turn to flame,
To show how far love can combine
The mortal part with the divine.

Faith, quit thine empire, and come down,
That thou and I may share the crown,
I've tri'd the worst thy arms can do,
Come then, and taste my power too,
Which (howsoe'er it may fall short)
Will doubtless prove the better sport.
Yet do not; for in field and town,
The females are so loving grown,
So kind, or else so lustful, we,
Can neither err, though neither see ;
Keep then thine own dominions, lad,
Two Loves would make all women mad.

SONNET.

Go false one, now I see the cheat,
Your love was all a counterfeit,
And I was gall'd to think that you,
Or any she, could long be true.
How could you once so kind appear,
To kiss, to sigh, and shed a tear,
To cherish and caress me so,
And now not let but bid me go?

Oh woman! frailty is thy name,
Since she's untrue y'are all to blame,
And but in man no truth is sound:

'Tis a fair sex, we all must love it,

But (on my conscience) could we prove it, They all are false ev'n under ground.

STANZES DE MONSIEUR BERTAUD

WHILST wishing Heaven in his ire
Would punish with some judgment dire
This heart to love so obstinate;
To say I love her is to lie,
Though I do love t' extremity,

Since thus to love her is to hate.

But since from this my hatred springs,
That she neglects my sufferings,

And is unto my love ingrate,
My hatred is so full of flame,
Since from affection first it came,
That 'tis to love her thus to hate.

I wish that milder love, or death,
That ends our miseries with our breath,,
Would my affections terminate;
For to my soul, depriv'd of peace,
It is a torment worse than these
Thus wretchedly to love and hate.
Let love be gentle or severe,
It is in vain to hope or fear

His grace or rage in this estate,
Being I from my fair one's spirit
Nor mutual love, nor hatred merit,
Thus foolishly to love and hate.
Or, if by my example here
It just and equal do appear,

She love and loath, who is my fate, Grant me, ye powers, in this case, Both for my punishment and grace, That, as I do, she love and hate.

THE EIGHTH PSALM PARAPHRASED.

1. O LORD, our governor, whose potent sway
All pow'rs in Heav'n and Earth obey,
Throughout the spacious Earth's extended frame
How great is thy adored name!

Thy glories thou hast seated, Lord, on high,
Above the empirean sky.

2. Out of the mouths of infants, newly come
From the dark closet of the womb,

Thou hast ordained powerful truth to rise,
To baffle all thine enemies;

That thou the furious rage might'st calm again,

Of bloody and revengeful men.

3. When on thy glorious Heavens I reflect,

Thy work, almighty architect,

The changing Moon and Stars that thou hast made
Tilluminate night's sable shade:

4. Oh! what is man, think I, that Heaven's King
Should mind so poor a wretched thing;
Or man's frail offspring, that Almighty God
Should stoop to visit his abode ?

5. For thou createdst him but one degree
Below the heav'nly hierarchy

Of bless'd and happy angels, and didst crown
Frail dust with glory and renown.

6. Over the works of thy almighty hand
Thou giv'st him absolute command,
And all the rest that thou hast made

Under his feet hast subject laid;

7. All sheep, and oxen, and the wilder breed Of beasts, that on their fellows feed;

8 The air's inhabitants, and scaly brood,
That live and wanton in the flood,

And whatsoe'er does either swim or creep
Thorough th' investigable deep:

9. Throughout the spacious Earth's extended frame
How great is thy adored name!

ADVICE.

Go, thou perpetual whining lover,
For shame leave off this humble trade,
'Tis more than time thou gav'st it over,
For sighs and tears will never move her,

By them more obstinate she's made,

And thou by love, fond, constant love, betray'd.

The more, vain fop, thou su'st unto her, The more she does torment thee still, Is more perverse the more you woo her, When thou art humblest lays thee lower, And when most prostrate to her will Thou meanly begg'st for life, does basely kill.

By Heav'n 'tis against all nature,

Honour and manhood, wit and sense,
To let a little female creature
Rule on the poor account of feature,
And thy unmanly patience
Monstrous and shameful as her insolence.

Thou may'st find forty will be kinder,
Or more compassionate at least,
If one will serve, two hours will find her,
And half this 'do for ever bind her,

As firm and true as thine own breast,
On love and virtue's double interest:

VOL. VI.

But if thou canst not live without her,
This only she, when it comes to't,
And she relent not (as I doubt her)
Never make more ado about her,

To sigh and wimper is no boot;
Go, hang thyself, and that will do't.

LYRICK.

EX CORNELIO GALLO.

TRANS.

LYDIA, thou lovely maid, whose white
The milk and lily does outvie,
The pale and blushing roses light,
Or polish'd Indian ivory,

Dishevel, sweet, thy yellow hair,
Whose ray doth burnish'd gold disprize,
Disclose thy neck so white and fair,
That doth from snowy shoulders rise.
Virgin, unveil those starry eyes,
Whose sable brows like arches spread,
Unveil those cheeks, where the rose lies
Streak'd with the Tyrian purple's red.

Lend me those lips with coral lin❜d,
And kisses mild of doves impart,
Thou ravishest away my mind,
Those gentle kisses wound my heart.

Why suck'st thou from my panting breast
The youthful vigour of my blood?
Hide those twin-apples, ripe, if press'd,
To spring into a milky flood.

From thy expanded bosom breathe
Perfumes Arabia doth not know;
Thy ev'ry part doth love bequeath,
From thee all excellencies flow.

Thy bosom's killing white then shade,
Hide that temptation from mine eye;
See'st not I languish, cruel maid!
Wilt thou then go, and let me die?

ESTRENNES.

TO CALISTA.

Í RECKON the first day I saw those eyes,
Which in a moment made my heart their prize
To all my whole futurity,

The first day of my first new year,
Since then I first began to be,

And knew why Heaven plac'd me here
For till we love, and love discreetly too,
We nothing are, nor know we what we do.

Love is the soul of life, thongh that I know
Is call'd soul too, but yet it is not so.
Not rational at least, until

Beauty with her diviner light
Illuminates the groping will,

And shows us how to choose aright; And that's first prov'd by th' objects it refuses, And by being constant then to that it chooses.

Days, weeks, months, years, and lustres take So small time up i'th' lover's almanack,

A a a

And can so little love assuage,

That we (in truth) can hardly say,
When we have liv'd at least an age,

A long one, we have lov'd a day.
This day to me, so slowly does time move,
Seems but the noon unto my morning love.

Love by swift time, which sickly passions dread,
Is no more measur'd than 'tis limited :

That passion where all others cease,
And with the fuel lose the flame,

Is evermore in its increase,

And yet being love, is still the same: They err call liking love; true lovers know He never lov'd who does not always so.

You, who my last love have, my first love had, To whom my all of love was, and is paid,

Are only worthy to receive

The richest new year's-gift I have, My love, which I this morning give, A nobler never monarch gave, Which each new-year I will present a new, And you'll take care, I hope, it shall be due.

EPIGRAMME DE MONSIEUR DES-PORTES. SOME four years ago I made Phillis an offer, Provided she would be my wh re,

Of two thousand good crowns to put in her coffer,
And I think should have given her more.

About two years after, a message she sent me,
She was for a thousand my own,

But unless for an hundred she now would content me,
I sent her word I would have none.

She fell to my price six or seven weeks after,
And then for a hundred would do;

I then told her in vain she talk'd of the matter,
Than twenty no farther I'd go.

T' other day for six ducatoons she was willing,
Which I thought a great deal too dear.
And told her unless it would come for two shilling,
She must seek a chapman elsewhere.

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From whence, when one dead is, it currently follows,
He has run his race, though his goal be the gallows;
And this 'tis, I fancy, sets folk so a madding,
And makes men and women so eager of gadding;
Truth is, in my youth I was one of those people
Would have gone a great way to have seen an high
[Peak,

steeple,

And though I was bred 'mongst the wonders o'th' Would have thrown away money, and ventur'd my neck

To have seen a great hill, a rock, or a cave,
And thought there was nothing so pleasant and
brave;

But at forty years old you may (if you please)
Think me wiser than run such errands as these;
Or, had the same humour still ran in my toes,
A voyage to Ireland I ne'er should have chose:
But to tell you the truth on't, indeed it was neither
Improvement nor pleasure for which I went thither;
I know then you'll presently ask me, for what?
Why, faith, it was that makes the old woman

trot;

And therefore I think I'm not much to be blam'd If I went to the place whereof Nick was asham'd.

Oh Coriate thou traveller fam'd as Ulysses, In such a stupendious labour as this is, Come lend me the aids of thy hands and thy feet, Though the first be pedantic, the other not sweet, Yet both are so restless in peregrination, They'll help both my journey, and eke my relation.

'Twas now the most beautiful time of the year, The days were now long, and the sky was now clear, And May, that fair lady of splendid renown, Had dress'd herself fine, in her flowr'd tabby gown, When about some two hours and an half after noon, When it grew something late, though I thought it too soon,

With a pitiful voice, and a most heavy heart,
I tun'd up my pipes to sing, loth to depart,
The ditty concluded, I call'd for my horse,
And with a good pack did the jument endorse,
Till he groan'd and he f-d under the burthen,
For sorrow had made me a cumbersome Jurden:
And now farewel Dove, where I've caught such
brave dishes

Of over-grown, golden, and silver-scal'd fishes;
Thy trout and thy grailing may now feed securely,
I've left none behind me can take 'em so surely;
Feed on then, and breed on, until the next year,
But if I return I expect my arrear.

By pacing and trotting, betimes in the even, E'er the Sun had forsaken one half of the Heaven, We all at fair Congerton took up our inn, Where the sign of a king kept a king and his queen: But who do you think came to welcome me there? No worse a man, marry, than good master mayor, With his staff of command, yet the man was not

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