My constancy I to the planets give;

My truth to them who at the court do live;
Mine ingenuity and openness

To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;
My silence t' any who abroad have been;

My money to a capuchin.

Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me To love there, where no love receiv'd can be, Only to give to such as have no good capacity.

My faith I give to Roman Catholics;

All my good works unto the schismatics

Of Amsterdam; my best civility

And courtship to an university:

My modesty I give to soldiers bare.

My patience let gamesters share.

Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me Love her, that holds my love disparity,

Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

THE FUNERAL.

WHOEVER Comes to shroud me, do not harm

Nor question much

That subtle wreath of hair about mine arm;
The mystery, the sign, you must not touch,
For 't is my outward soul,

Viceroy to that, which unto heav'n being gone,

Will leave this to control,

And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.

For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall

Through every part,

Can tie those parts, and make me one of all; [art Those hairs, which upward grow, and strength and

Have from a better brain,

Can better do 't: except she meant that I
By this should know my pain,

As prisoners then are manacl'd, when they 're condemn'd to die.

THE RELIQUE.

WHEN my grave is broke up again
Some second guest to entertain,

(For graves have learn'd that woman-head,
To be to more than one a bed)

And he that digs it, spies

A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
Will he not let us alone,

And think that there a loving couple lies,

Who thought that this device might be some way
To make their souls, at the last busy day,
Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?

If this fall in a time, or land,

Where mass-devotion doth command,
Then he that digs us up, will bring
Us to the bishop, or the king,
To make us reliques; then
Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I
A something else thereby;

All women shall adore us, and some men ;
And since at such time miracles are sought,
I would have that age by this paper taught
What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

First we lov'd well and faithfully,

Yet knew not what we lov'd, nor why;
Diff'rence of sex we never knew,
No more than guardian angels do;
Coming and going we

Perchance might kiss, but yet between those meals
Our hands ne'er touch'd the seals,
Which Nature, injur'd by late law, set free:
These miracles we did; but now, alas!
All measure and all language I should pass,
Should I tell what a miracle she was.

UPON THE

LOSS OF HIS MISTRESS'S CHAIN,

FOR WHICH HE MADE SATISFACTION.

Nor, that in colour it was like thy hair,
Armlets of that thou may'st still let me wear:
Nor, that thy hand it oft embrac'd and kiss'd,
For so it had that good, which oft I miss'd:
Nor for that silly old morality,

That as these links were knit, our loves should be;
Mourn I, that I thy sevenfold chain have lost:
Nor for the luck's sake; but the bitter cost.
O! shall twelve righteous angels, which as yet
No leaven of vile solder did admit;
Nor yet by any way have stray'd or gone
From the first state of their creation;
Angels, which Heaven commanded to provide
All things to me, and be my faithful guide;
To gain new friends, t' appease old enemies;
To comfort my soul, when I lie or rise:
Shall these twelve innocents by thy severe
Sentence (dread judge) my sins great burden bear?
Shall they be damn'd, and in the furnace thrown,
And punish'd for offences not their own?
They save not me, they do not ease my pains,
When in that hell they're burnt and ty'd in chains :
Were they but crowns of France, I cared not,
For most of them their natural country rot

I think possesseth, they come here to us,
So pale, so lame, so lean, so ruinous;
And howsoe'er French kings most Christian be,
Their crowns are circumcis'd most Jewishly;
Or were they Spanish stamps still travelling,
That are become as catholic as their king,
Those unlick'd bear-whelps, unfil'd pistolets,
That (more than cannon-shot) avails or lets,
Which, negligently left unrounded, look
Like many angled figures in the book

Of some dread conjurer, that would enforce
Nature, as these do justice, from her course.
Which, as the soul quickens head, feet, and heart,
As streams like veins run through th' earth's ev'ry
Visit all countries, and have slily made
Gorgeous France ruin'd; ragged and decay'd
Scotland, which knew no state, proud in one day;
And mangled seventeen-headed Belgia:

Or were it such gold as that, wherewithall
Almighty chymics from each mineral
Having by subtle fire a soul out-pull'd,
Are dirtily and desperately gull'd:

[part,

I would not spit to quench the fire they 're in,
For they are guilty of much heinous sin.
But shall my harmless angels perish? Shall
I lose my guard, my ease, my food, my all?
Much hope, which they should nourish, will be dead;
Much of my able youth, and lusty head
Will vanish, if thou, love, let them alone,
For thou wilt love me less, when they are gone;
And be content, that some lewd squeaking crier,
Well pleas'd with one lean thread-bare groat for hire,
May like a devil roar through every street,
And gall the finder's conscience, if they meet.
Or let me creep to some dread conjurer,
That with fantastic scenes fills full much paper;
Which hath divided heaven in tenements,
And with whores, thieves, and murderers, stuff"d his
So full, that though he pass them all in sin,
He leaves himself no room to enter in.

But if, when all his art and time is spent,
He say 't will ne'er be found, yet be content;
Receive from him the doom ungrudgingly,
Because he is the mouth of Destiny.

[rents

Thou say'st, alas! the gold doth still remain, Though it be chang'd, and put into a chain; So in the first fall'n angels resteth still Wisdom and knowledge, but 't is turn'd to ill: As these should do good works, and should provide Necessities; but now must nurse thy pride: And they are still bad angels; mine are none : For form gives being, and their form is gone: Pity these angels yet: their dignities Pass virtues, powers, and principalities.

But thou art resolute; thy will be done;
Yet with such anguish, as her only son
The mother in the hungry grave doth lay,
Unto the fire these martyrs I betray.
Good souls, (for you give life to every thing)
Good angels, (for good messages you bring)
Destin'd you might have been to such an one,
As would have lov'd and worshipp'd you alone:
One that would suffer hunger, nakedness,
Yea death, ere he would make your number less.
But I am guilty of your sad decay:
May your few fellows longer with me stay.

But oh, thou wretched finder, whom I hate
So, that I almost pity thy estate,
Gold being the heaviest metal amongst all,
May my most heavy curse upon thee fall:

Here fetter'd, manacled, and hang'd in chains,
First may'st thou be; then chain'd to hellish pains;
Or be with foreign gold brib'd to betray
Thy country, and fail both of it and thy pay.
May the next thing, thou stoop'st to reach, contain
Poison, whose nimble fume rot thy moist brain :
Or libels, or some interdicted thing,
Which, negligently kept, thy ruin bring.
Lust-bred diseases rot thee; and dwell with thee
Itching desire, and no ability.

May all the evils, that gold ever wrought;
All mischief, that all devils ever thought;
Want after plenty; poor and gouty age;
The plague of travailers, love and marriage,
Afflict thee; and at thy life's last moment
May thy swoln sins themselves to thee present.
But I forgive: repent, thou honest man:
Gold is restorative, restore it then:

But if that from it thou be'st loth to part,
Because 't is cordial, would 't were at thy heart.

TO SIR HENRY GOODYERE.

WHO makes the last a pattern for next year,

Turns no new leaf, but still the same things reads; Seen things he sees again, heard things doth hear, And makes his life but like a pair of beads.

A palace when 't is that which it should be,

Leaves growing, and stands such, or else decays: But he which dwells there, is not so; for he

Strives to urge upward, and his fortune raise.

So had your body her morning, hath her noon,
And shall not better, her next change is night:
But her fair larger guest, t' whom sun and moon
Are sparks, and short-liv'd, claims another right.

'The noble soul by age grows lustier,

Her appetite and her digestion mend;
We must not starve, nor hope to pamper her
With woman's milk and pap unto the end.

Provide you manlier diet; you have seen

All libraries, which are schools, camps, and courts; But ask your garners, if you have not been In harvest too indulgent to your sports.

Would you redeem it? Then yourself transplant

A while from hence. Perchance outlandish ground Bears no more wit than ours; but yet more scant Are those diversions there which here abound.

To be a stranger hath that benefit,

We can beginnings, but not habits choke.
Go. Whither? Hence. You get, if you forget;
New faults, till they prescribe to us, are smoke.

Our soul, whose country's heav'n, and God her father,
Into this world, corruption's sink, is sent;
Yet so much in her travail she doth gather,
That she returns home wiser than she went.

It pays you well, if it teach you to spare, And make you asham'd to make your hawk's praise yours,

Which when herself she lessens in the air,

You then first say, that high enough she tow'rs.

Now if this song be too harsh for rhyme, yet as
The painter's bad god made a good devil,
'T will be good prose, although the verse be evil.
If thou forget the rhyme, as thou dost pass,
Then write, that I may follow, and so be
Thy echo, thy debtor, thy foil, thy zanee.

I shall be thought (if mine like thine I shape)
All the world's lion, though I be thy ape.

TO MR. B. B.

Is not thy sacred hunger of science

Yet satisfy'd? is not thy brain's rich hive Fulfill'd with honey, which thou dost derive From the arts' spirits and their quintessence? Then wean thyself at last, and thee withdraw From Cambridge, thy old nurse; and, as the rest, Here toughly chew and sturdily digest Th' immense vast volumes of our common law; And begin soon, lest my grief grieve thee too, Which is that that, which I should have begun In my youth's morning, now late must be done : And I as giddy travellers must do,

Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost Light and strength, dark and tir'd must then ride

post.

TO MR. J. W.

ALL hail, sweet poet! and full of more strong fire,
Than hath or shall enkindle my dull spirit,
I lov'd what Nature gave thee, but thy merit
Of wit and art I love not, but admire;
Who have before or shall write after thee,
Their works, though toughly laboured, will be
Like infancy or age to man's firm stay,
Or early and late twilights to mid-day.

Men say, and truly, that they better be,
Which be envy'd than pity'd: therefore I,
Because I wish the best, do thee envy :
O would'st thou by like reason pity me,
But care not for me, I, that ever was
In Nature's and in Fortune's gifts, alas!
(But for thy grace got in the Muse's school)
A monster and a beggar, am a fool.

Oh, how I grieve, that late-born modesty Hath got such root in easy waxen hearts,

ΤΟ

SIR HENRY WOOTTON,

AT HIS GOING AMBASSADOR TO VENICE.

AFTER those rev'rend papers, whose soul is [name, Our good and great king's lov'd hand and fear'd By which to you he derives much of his,

And (how he may) makes you almost the same,

A taper of his torch, a copy writ

From his original, and a fair beam Of the same warm and dazzling Sun, though it Must in another sphere his virtue stream;

After those learned papers, which your hand Hath stor'd with notes of use and pleasure too, From which rich treasury you may command

Fit matter, whether you will write or do ;

After those loving papers, which friends send With glad grief to your sea-ward steps farewell, Which thicken on you now, as pray'rs ascend

To heaven in troops at a good man's passing bell;

Admit this honest paper, and allow

It such an audience as yourself would ask;

And hath for nature, what you have for task.

To swear much love, not to be chang'd before
Honour alone will to your fortune fit;
Nor shall I then honour your fortune more,
Than I have done your noble-wanting wit.