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Mark how she courts the banks, whilst they
As amorously their arms display,
T'embrace and clip her silver waves:
See how she strokes their sides, and craves
An entrance there, which they deny ;
Whereat she frowns, threatening to fly
Home to her stream, and 'gins to swim
Backward, but from the channel's brim
Smiling returns into the creek,
With thousand dimples on her cheek.

Be thou this eddy, and I'll make
My breast thy shore, where thou shalt take
Secure repose, and never dream
Of the quite forsaken stream:
Let him to the wide ocean haste,
There lose his colour, name, and taste;
Thou shalt save all, and, safe from him,
Within these arms for ever swim.

SONG.

PERSUASIONS TO ENJOY.

If the quick spirits in your eye
Now languish, and anon must die;
If ev'ry sweet, and ev'ry grace
Must fly from that forsaken face :
Then, Celia, let us reap our joys,
Ere time such goodly fruit destroys.

Or, if that golden fleece must grow
For ever, free from aged snow;
If those bright suns must know no shade,
Nor your fresh beauties ever fade;
Then fear not, Celia, to bestow
What still being gather'd still must grow.
Thus, either Time his sickle brings
In vain, or else in vain his wings.

INGRATEFUL BEAUTY THREATENED.

KNOW, Celia, since thou art so proud, "Twas I that gave thee thy renown: Thou hadst, in the forgotten crowd

Of common beauties, lived unknown, Had not my verse exhaled thy name, And with it impt the wings of Fame.

That killing power is none of thine,

I gave it to thy voice and eyes: Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine:

Thou art my star, shinest in my skies; Then dart not from thy borrow'd sphere Lightning on him that fix'd thee there. Tempt me with such affrights no more, Lest what I made I uncreate: Let fools thy mystic forms adore,

I'll know thee in thy mortal state. Wise poets, that wrap truth in tales, Knew her themselves through all her veils.

DISDAIN RETURNED.

HE that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires;
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.

But a smooth and stedfast mind,

Gentle thoughts and calm desires, Hearts with equal love combined,

Kindle never-dying fires. Where these are not, I despise Lovely cheeks, or lips or eyes.

No tears, Celia, now shall win

My resolved heart to return; I have search'd thy soul within,

And find nought but pride and scorn; I have learn'd thy arts, and now Can disdain as much as thou. Some power, in my revenge, convey That love to her I cast away.

GOOD COUNSEL TO A YOUNG MAID.

WHEN you the sun-burnt pilgrim see, Fainting with thirst, haste to the springs; Mark how at first with bended knee

He courts the crystal nymphs, and flings His body to the earth, where he Prostrate adores the flowing deity. But when his sweaty face is drench'd

In her cool waves, when from her sweet Bosom his burning thirst is quench'd ;

Then mark how with disdainful feet He kicks her banks, and from the place That thus refresh'd him, moves with sullen pace. So shalt thou be despised, fair maid,

When by the sated lover tasted; What first he did with tears invade,

Shall afterwards with scorn be wasted; When all the virgin springs grow dry, When no streams shall be left but in thine eye.

EPITAPH ON THE LADY MARY VILLIERS.

THE Lady Mary Villiers lies

Under this stone: With weeping eyes
The parents that first gave her breath,
And their sad friends, laid her in earth.
If any of them, reader, were
Known unto thee, shed a tear:
Or if thyself possess a gem,
As dear to thee as this to them;
Though a stranger to this place,
Bewail in their's thine own hard case;
For thou perhaps at thy return
May'st find thy darling in an urn.

SONG.

THE WILLING PRISONER TO HIS MISTRESS.

LET fools great Cupid's yoke disdain, Loving their own wild freedom better; Whilst, proud of my triumphant chain,

I sit and court my beauteous fetter.

Her murdering glances, snaring hairs,

And her bewitching smiles, so please me, As he brings ruin, that repairs

The sweet afflictions that disease me.

Hide not those panting balls of snow
With envious veils from my beholding;
Unlock those lips, their pearly row

In a sweet smile of love unfolding.

And let those eyes, whose motion wheels
The restless fate of every lover,

Survey the pains my sick heart feels,

And wounds, themselves have made, discover.

A PASTORAL DIALOGUE.

SHEPHERD, NYMPH, CHORUS.

Shep. THIS mossy bank they prest. Nym. That
Did canopy the happy pair
[aged oak
All night from the damp air.
Cho. Here let us sit, and sing the words they spoke,

Till the day-breaking their embraces broke.
Shep. See, love, the blushes of the morn appear:
And now she hangs her pearly store
(Robb'd from the eastern shore)
I' th' cowslip's bell and rose's ear:
Sweet, I must stay no longer here.

Nym. Those streaks of doubtful light usher not But show my sun must set; no morn

Shall shine till thou return:

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[day,

Shep. If thine eyes gild my paths, they may forbear Their useless shine. Nym. My tears will quite Extinguish their faint light.

Shep. Those drops will make their beams more
Love's flames will shine in every tear. [clear,

Cho. They kiss'd, and wept ; and from their lips
In a mix'd dew of briny sweet,
[and eyes,
Their joys and sorrows meet;
But she cries out. Nym. Shepherd, arise,
The sun betrays us else to spies.

Shep. The winged hours fly fast whilst we embrace;
But when we want their help to meet,
They move with leaden feet.
Nym. Then let us pinion time, and chace
The day for ever from this place.

Shep. Hark! Nym. Ah me, stay! Shep. For ever.

Nym. No, arise;

We must be gone. Shep. My nest of spice. Nym. My soul. Shep. My paradise. [eyes Cho. Neither could say farewell, but through their Grief interrupted speech with tears supplies.

FEMININE HONOUR.

IN what esteem did the gods hold

Fair innocence and the chaste bed, When scandal'd virtue might be bold,

Bare-foot upon sharp culters, spread
O'er burning coals, to march; yet feel
Nor scorching fire nor piercing steel!

Why, when the hard-edged iron did turn
Soft as a bed of roses blown,
When cruel flames forgot to burn

Their chaste, pure limbs, should man alone
'Gainst female innocence conspire,
Harder than steel, fiercer than fire?
Oh hapless sex! unequal sway

Of partial honour! who may know Rebels from subjects that obey,

When malice can on vestals throw Disgrace, and fame fix high repute On the loose shameless prostitute? Vain Honour thou art but disguise, A cheating voice, a juggling art ; No judge of Virtue, whose pure eyes

Court her own image in the heart, More pleased with her true figure there, Than her false echo in the ear.

SONG.

Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauties orient deep
These flow'rs, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more, whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For, in pure love, heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more, whither doth haste
The nightingale, when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.
Ask me no more, where those stars light,
That downwards fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become, as in their sphere.

Ask me no more, if east or west,
The phoenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.

UPON MR. W. MONTAGUE'S RETURN FROM

TRAVEL.

LEAD the black bull to slaughter, with the boar
And lamb then purple with their mingled gore
The ocean's curled brow, that so we may
The sea-gods for their careful waftage pay:
Send grateful incense up in pious smoke

To those mild spirits that cast a curbing yoke
Upon the stubborn winds, that calmly blew
To the wish'd shore our long'd-for Montague:
Then, whilst the aromatic odours burn

In honour of their darling's safe return,
The Muse's quire shall thus, with voice and hand,
Bless the fair gale that drove his ship to land.

Sweetly-breathing vernal air,

That with kind warmth dost repair
Winter's ruins; from whose breast
All the gums and spice of th' East
Borrow their perfumes; whose eye
Gilds the morn, and clears the sky;
Whose dishevel'd tresses shed
Pearls upon the violet bed;

On whose brow, with calm smiles dress'd,
The halcyon sits and builds her nest;
Beauty, youth, and endless spring,
Dwell upon thy rosy wing;
Thou, if stormy Boreas throws
Down whole forests when he blows,
With a pregnant flow'ry birth
Canst refresh the teeming earth:
If he nip the early bud,
If he blast what's fair or good,
If he scatter our choice flowers,
If he shake our hills or bowers,

If his rude breath threaten us; Thou canst stroke great Eolus, And from him the grace obtain To bind him in an iron chain.

THE MISTAKE.

WHEN on fair Celia I did spy
A wounded heart of stone,
The wound had almost made me cry,
Sure this heart was my own :

But when I saw it was enthroned
In her celestial breast,
O then! I it no longer own'd,

For mine was ne'er so blest.

Yet if in highest heavens do shine

Each constant martyr's heart; Then she may well give rest to mine, That for her sake doth smart:

Where, seated in so high a bliss,

Though wounded it shall live: Death enters not in Paradise ;

The place free life doth give.

Or, if the place less sacred were,
Did but her saving eye

Bathe my kind heart in one kind tear,
Then should I never die.

Slight balms may heal a slighter sore;
No med'cine less divine

Can ever hope for to restore
A wounded heart like mine.

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158

WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF STERLINE.

I would be wise, but that I often see

The fox suspected while the ass goes free;
I would be fair, but see the fair and proud
Like the bright sun oft setting in a cloud;
I would be poor, but know the humble grass
Still trampled on by each unworthy ass;
Rich, hated; wise, suspected; scorn'd if poor;
Great, fear'd; fair, tempted; high, still envied

more.

I have wish'd all, but now I wish for neither Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair-poor I'll be rather.

Would the world now adopt me for her heir,
Would beauty's queen entitle me "the fair,"
Fame speak me fortune's minion, could I vie
Angels with India; with a speaking eye
Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike justice
dumb

As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue
To stones by epitaphs; be call'd great master
In the loose rhymes of every poetaster;
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives:
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign,
Than ever fortune would have made them

mine;

And hold one minute of this holy leisure Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.

Welcome, pure thoughts! welcome, ye silent groves!

These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves.

Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing
My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring;
A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet virtue's face;
Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced
fears:

Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly,
And learn to affect a holy melancholy;
And if Contentment be a stranger then,
I'll ne'er look for it but in heav'n again.
* Angels-pieces of money.

ON THE SUDDEN RESTRAINT OF THE EARL OF
SOMERSET (THE FAVOURITE OF JAMES L.)
THEN FALLING FROM FAVOUR.

DAZZLED thus with height of place,
Whilst our hopes our wits beguile,
No man marks the narrow space
'Twixt a prison and a smile.

Yet since Fortune's favours fade,
You that in her arms do sleep
Learn to swim and not to wade,

For the hearts of kings are deep.
But if greatness be so blind
As to trust in towers of air,
Let it be with goodness lined,

That at least the fall be fair.

Then though dark and you shall say,
When friends fail and princes frown,
Virtue is the roughest way,

But proves at night a bed of down.

A MEDITATION.

FROM SANSCROFT'S COLLECTION.

[Mr. Malone, from whose handwriting I copy this, says, "not, I think, printed."]

O, THOU great Power! in whom we move,
By whom we live, to whom we die,
Behold me through thy beams of love,
Whilst on this couch of tears I lie,
And cleanse my sordid soul within
By thy Christ's blood, the bath of sin.
No hallow'd oils, no gums I need,

No new-born drams of purging fire;
One rosy drop from David's seed

Was worlds of seas to quench thine ire:
O, precious ransom! which once paid,
That Consummatum est was said.

And said by him, that said no more,
But seal'd it with his sacred breath:
Thou then, that has dispurged our score,
And dying wert the death of death,
Be now, whilst on thy name we call,
Our life, our strength, our joy, our all !

WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF STERLINE.

[Born, 1580. Died, 1640.]

WILLIAM ALEXANDER, of Menstrie, travelled | Having repaired to the court of James the First, on the Continent as tutor to the Earl of Argyll; and after his return to his native country (Scotland), having in vain solicited a mistress, whom he celebrates in his poetry by the name of Aurora, he married the daughter of Sir William Erskine.

he obtained the notice of the monarch, was appointed gentleman usher to Prince Charles, and was knighted by James. Both of those sovereigns patronized his scheme for colonizing Nova Scotia, of which the latter made him lord lieutenant

Charles the First created him Earl of Sterline in 1633, and for ten years he held the office of secretary of state for Scotland, with the praise of moderation, in times that were rendered pecu

liarly trying by the struggles of Laud against the Scottish presbyterians.-He wrote some very heavy tragedies; but there is elegance of expression in a few of his shorter pieces*.

SONNETS.

FROM HIS

SOME men delight huge buildings to behold,
Some theatres, mountains, floods, and famous
springs,

Some monuments of monarchs, and such things
As in the books of fame have been enroll'd,
Those stately towns that to the stars were raised;
Some would their ruins see (their beauty's gone),
Of which the world's three parts each boasts of one:
Though none of those, I love a sight as rare,
Even her that o'er my life as queen doth sit;
Juno in majesty, Pallas in wit,

As Phoebe chaste, than Venus far more fair;
And though her looks even threaten death to me,
Their threat'nings are so sweet I cannot flee.

I CHANCED, my dear, to come upon a day
Whilst thou wast but arising from thy bed,
And the warm snows, with comely garments cled,
More rich than glorious, and more fine than gay.
Then, blushing to be seen in such a case,
O how thy curled locks mine eyes did please;
And well become those waves thy beauty's seas,
Which by thy hairs were framed upon thy face;
Such was Diana once, when being spied
By rash Acton, she was much commoved:

"AURORA."

Yet, more discreet than th' angry goddess proved, Thou knew'st I came through error, not of pride, And thought the wounds I got by thy sweet sight Were too great scourges for a fault so light.

AWAKE, my muse, and leave to dream of loves,
Shake off soft fancy's chains-I must be free;
I'll perch no more upon the myrtle tree,
Nor glide through th' air with beauty's sacred
doves;

But with Jove's stately bird I'll leave my nest,
And try my sight against Apollo's rays.

Then, if that ought my vent'rous course dismays,
Upon th' olive's boughs I'll light and rest;
I'll tune my accents to a trumpet now,
And seek the laurel in another field.
Thus I that once (as Beauty's means did yield)
Did divers garments on my thoughts bestow,
Like Icarus, I fear, unwisely bold,

Am purposed other's passions now t' unfold.

[* "Lord Sterline is rather monotonous, as sonneteers usually are, and he addresses his mistress by the appellation, Fair tygress.' Campbell observes that there is elegance of expression in a few of his shorter pieces."HALLAM, Lit. Hist., vol. iii. p. 505.]

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