BEN JONSON.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine:

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee,

As giving it a hope that there

It could not withered be.
But thou thereon did'st only breathe,
And sent 'st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

["Underwoods." 1640.]

A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS.

HIS EXCUSE FOR LOVING.

Let it not your wonder move,
Less your laughter, that I love.
Though I now write fifty years,
I have had, and have my peers;
Poets, though divine, are men :
Some have loved as old again.
And it is not always face,
Clothes, or fortune gives the grace;

Or the feature, or the youth;
But the language, and the truth,
With the ardour, and the passion,
Gives the lover weight and fashion.
If you then will read the story,
First, prepare you to be sorry,
That you never knew till now,
Either whom to love, or how:

115

But be glad, as soon with me,
When you know that this is she,
Of whose beauty it was sung,
She shall make the old man young.

Keep the middle age at stay,
And let nothing high decay,

Till she be the reason, why,
All the world for love may die.

HIS DISCOURSE WITH CUPID.

Noblest Charis, you that are
Both my fortune and my star!
And do govern more my blood,
Than the various moon the flood!
Hear, what late discourse of you,
Love and I have had; and true.
'Mongst my muses finding me,

Where he chanced your name to see

Set, and to this softer strain :

Sure," said he, "if I have brain,

This, here sung, can be no other
By description, but my mother!
So hath Homer praised her hair;
So Anacreon drawn the air

Of her face, and made to rise,

Just about her sparkling eyes,

Both her brows, bent like my bow;

By her looks I do her know,

Which you call my shafts. And see! Such my mother's blushes be,

As the bath your verse discloses

In her cheeks, of milk and roses;

Such as oft I wanton in:

And, above her even chin,

Have you placed the bank of kisses, Where, you say, men gather blisses,

Ripened with a breath more sweet
Than when flowers and west-winds meet.
Nay, her white and polished neck,
With the lace that doth it deck,
Is my mother's! Hearts of slain
Lovers made into a chain!

And between each rising breast,
Lies the valley, called my nest,
Where I sit and proyne my wings
After flight; and put new stings
To my shafts! Her very name,
With my mother's is the same."
I confess all, I replied,

And the glass hangs by her side,
And the girdle 'bout her waist,
All is Venus, save unchaste.
But, alas, thou see'st the least
Of her good, who is the best

Of her sex; but could'st thou, Love,
Call to mind the forms that strove

For the apple, and those three
Make in one, the same were she.
For this beauty yet doth hide
Something more than thou hast spied.
Outward grace weak Love beguiles:
She is Venus when she smiles,
But she's Juno when she walks,

And Minerva when she talks.

CLAIMING A SECOND KISS BY DESERT.

Charis, guess, and do not miss,
Since I drew a morning kiss
From your lips, and sucked an air
Thence, as sweet as you are fair,
What my muse and I have done:
Whether we have lost or won,

If by us the odds were laid,
That the bride, allowed a maid,
Looked not half so fresh and fair,
With th' advantage of her hair,
And her jewels, to the view
Of th' assembly, as did you.

Or, that you did sit, or walk,
You were more the eye and talk
Of the court, to-day, than all
Else that glistened in Whitehall;
So, as those that had your sight,

Wished the bride were changed to night,
And did think such rites were due,

To no other grace but you!

Or, if you did move to-night In the dances, with what spite Of your peers you were beheld, That at every motion swelled So to see a lady tread,

As might all the graces lead,

And was worthy, being so seen,
To be envied of the queen.

Or, if you would yet have stayed,
Whether any would upbraid

To himself his loss of time;

Or have charged his sight of crime,

To have left all sight for you:
Guess of these which is the true;

And if such a verse as this,

May not claim another kiss.

WILLIAM ALEXANDER,

EARL OF STIRLING.

15.80-164 0.

AURORA.

OF

THE Aurora of the Earl of Stirling was a reality and not a myth, his biographers tell us, though they have not succeeded in discovering her name. He is said to have fallen in love with her in his fifteenth year, and to have kept her image fresh in his heart during a long tour on the Continent with the Earl of Argyle, whom he accompanied as tutor, or companion. On his return to Scotland he devoted himself to solitude and sonnets. "He now pressed his suit”—(I quote from his biography in the "LIVES Of SCOTTISH POETS")" with all the ardour of manhood, and enthusiasm of poetry; but though he actually penned upwards of a hundred songs and sonnets in her praise, the fair enslaver was not to be moved. The object of Alexander's passion," the biographer continues, after quoting one of his songs, "at last gave her hand to another; and as the poet himself poetically tells us, 'the lady, so unrelenting to him, matched her morning to one in the evening of his age.' Alexander sustained his disappointment with great philosophy; he neither drowned himself, nor burnt his sonnets; but, reserving the latter for future use, became again a wooer. In his next attachment he was more fortunate, and after a brief courtship, obtained in marriage the hand of Janet, the daughter and heiress of Sir William Erskine."

Stirling's sonnets were first published in 1604.

I swear, Aurora, by thy starry eyes,

And by those golden locks whose lock none slips,

And by the coral of thy rosy lips,

And by the naked snows which beauty dyes;

I swear by all the jewels of thy mind,

Whose like yet never worldly treasure bought,