PRO.

Blessings may be repeated, while they cloy:
But shall we starve, 'cause surfeitings destroy?
And if fruition did the taste impair
Of kisses, why should yonder happy pair,
Whose joys just Hymen warrants all the night,
Confume the day too in this less delight?

CON.

Urge not 'tis necessary; alas! we know
The homeliest thing that mankind does, is fo.
The world is of a large extent we fee,
And must be peopled, children there must be.
So must bread too: but fince there are enough
Born to that drudgery, what need we plough?

PRO.

I need not plough, since what the stooping hine
Gets of my pregnant land, must all be mine:
But in this nobler tillage, 'tis not fo;
For when Anchises did fair Venus know,
What interest had poor Vulcan in the boy,
Famous Æneas, or the present joy?

CON.

Women enjoy'd, whate'er before they've been,
Are like Romances read, or scenes once seen:
Fruition dulls, or spoils the Play, much more
Than if one read, or knew, the plot before.

PRO.

Plays and Romances, read and feen, do fall
In our opinions: yet, not feen at all,

Whom

1

ANSWER TO SIR JOHN SUCKLING. 119

Whom would they please? To an heroic tale

Would you not listen, left it should grow stale?

V

CON.

Tis expectation makes a blessing dear;

Heaven were not heaven, if we knew what it weres

PRO.

If 'twere not heaven if we knew what it were,
'Twould not be heaven to those that now are there.

CON.

And as in prospects we are there pleas'd most,
Where something keeps the eye from being loft,
And leaves us room to guess: fo bere, restraint
Holds up delight, that with excess would faint.

PRO.

Restraint preferves the pleasure we have got,
But he ne'er has it, that enjoys it not.
In goodly profpects, who contracts the space,
Or takes not all the beauty of the place?
We wish remov'd what standeth in our light,
And nature blame for limiting our fight:
Where you stand wisely winking, that the view
Of the fair prospect may be always new.

CON.

1

!

They, who know all the wealth they have, are poor; He's only rich that cannot tell his store.

PRO.

Not he that knows the wealth he has, is poor;
But he that dares not touch, nor use his store.

T

Of the different Success of their Loves.
HRICE happy Pair! of whom we cannot know
Which first began to love, or loves most now:

Fair course of passion! where two lovers start,
And run together, heart still yok'd with heart:
Successful youth! whom Love has taught the way
To be victorious, in the first effay.

Sure love 's an art best practised at first,
And where th' experienced still profper worst!
I, with a different fate, pursued in vain
The haughty Cælia; till my just disdain
Of her neglect, above that paffion borne,
Did pride to pride oppose, and scorn to scorn.
Now the relents; but all too late, to move
A heart directed to a nobler love:

The scales are turn'd, her kindness weighs no more
Now, than my vows and service did before.
So, in some well-wrought hangings, you may fee
How Hector leads, and how the Grecians flee :
Here, the fierce Mars his courage so inspires,
That with bold hands the Argive fleet he fires :
But there, from heaven the * blue-ey'd virgin falls,
And frighted Troy retires within her walls:
They that are foremost in that bloody race,
Turn head anon, and give the conquerors chase.
So like the chances are of love and war,
That they alone in this diftinguish'd are;
In love, the victors from the vanquish'd fly:
They fly that wound, and they pursue that die.

An APOLOGY for having loved before.

T

HEY that never had the use

Of the grape's furprizing juice,

To the first delicious cup
All their reason render up:
Neither do, nor care to know,
Whether it be best or no.

So, they that are to love inclin'd,

Sway'd by chance, not choice or art,

To the first that 's fair or kind,
Make a present of their heart:

'Tis not she that first we love,
But whom dying we approve. approve.

To man, that was in th' evening made,
Stars gave the first delight;
Admiring, in the gloomy shade,

Those little drops of light :
Then, at Aurora, whose fair hand
Remov'd them from the skies,
He gazing toward the east did stand,
She entertain'd his eyes.

But when the bright fun did appear,
All those he 'gan despise;

His wonder was determin'd there,
And could no higher rife :

He

He neither might, nor wish'd to know
A more refulgent light:

For that (as mine your beauties now)
Employ'd his utmost sight.

F

AIREST piece of well-form'd earth !
Urge not thus your haughty birth:
The power, which you have o'er us, lies
Not in your race, but in your eyes.
None but a prince!-alas! that voice
Confines you to a narrow choice.
Should you no honey vow to taste,
But what the master-bees have plac'd
In compass of their cells, how small
A portion to your share would fall!
Nor all appear among those few,
Worthy the stock from whence they grew :
The sap, which at the root is bred,
In trees, through all the boughs is spread;
But virtues, which in parents shine,
Make not like progress through the line.
*Tis not from whom, but where, we live:
The place does oft those graces give.
Great Julius, on the mountains bred,
A flock perhaps, or herd, had led :
* He that the world fubdued, had been
But the best wrestler on the green.

* Alexander.

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