AGAINST THE LOVE OF GREAT
NHAPPY youth, betrayd by Fate HAPPY hesrayed by such a love hath sainted hate, And damned those celestiall bands Are onely knit with equal hands; The love of great ones is a love, Gods are incapable to prove: For where there is a joy uneven, There never, never can be Heav'n: 'Tis such a love as is not sent To fiends as yet for punishment; Ixion willingly doth feele
The gyre of his eternal wheele, Nor would he now exchange his paine
For cloudes and goddesses againe.
Wouldst thou with tempests lye? Then bow
To th' rougher furrows of her brow, Or make a thunder-bolt thy choyce? Then catch at her more fatal voyce; Or 'gender with the lightning? trye The subtler flashes of her eye: Poore Semele wel knew the same,
Who both imbrac't her God and flame; And not alone in soule did burne, But in this love did ashes turne.
How il doth majesty injoy The bow and gaity oth' boy, As if the purple-roabe should sit, And sentence give ith' chayr of wit.
Say, ever-dying wretch, to whom Each answer is a certaine doom, What is it that you would possesse, The Countes, or the naked Besse? Would you her gowne or title do? Her box or gem, the thing or show? If you meane her, the very her, Abstracted from her caracter, Unhappy boy! you may as soone With fawning wanton with the Moone, Or with an amorous complaint Get prostitute your very saint; Not that we are not mortal, or
Fly Venus altars, and abhor
The selfesame knack, for which you pine;
But we (defend us!) are divine,
[Not] female, but madam born, and come From a right-honourable wombe. Shal we then mingle with the base, And bring a silver-tinsell race? Whilst th' issue noble wil not passe The gold alloyd (almost halfe brasse), And th' blood in each veine doth appeare, Part thick Booreinn, part Lady Cleare; Like to the sordid insects sprung From Father Sun and Mother Dung: Yet lose we not the hold we have, But faster graspe the trembling slave; Play at baloon with's heart, and winde The strings like scaines, steale into his minde Ten thousand false and feigned joyes
Far worse then they; whilst, like whipt boys, After this Scourge hee's hush with toys.
This heard, Sir, play stil in her eyes,
And be a dying, live like flyes Caught by their angle-legs, and whom The torch laughs peece-meale to consume.
HEN love with unconfined wings 4 HEN
Hovers within my gates;
And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the grates; When I lye tangled in her haire, And fetterd to her eye, P
The birds, that wanton in the aire, Know no such liberty.
When flowing cups run swiftly round With no allaying Thames,
Our carelesse heads with roses bound, Our hearts with loyal flames; When thirsty griefe in wine we steepe,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the deepe,
Know no such libertie.
When (like committed linnets) I With shriller throat shall sing The sweetnes, mercy, majesty, And glories of my King.
When I shall voyce aloud, how good He is, how great should be, Inlarged winds, that curle the flood,
Know no such liberty.
Stone walls doe not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage; Mindes innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage;
If I have freedome in my love, And in my soule am free, Angels alone that sore above Enjoy such liberty.
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