GAL. You that can tune your sounding strings so Of ladies' beauties and of love to tell, [well, Once change your note, and let your lute report The justest grief that ever touch'd the Court.
THYR. Fair nymph! I have in your delights no Nor ought to be concerned in your care; [share, Yet would I sing if I your sorrows knew, And to my aid invoke no Muse but you.
GAL. Hear then, and let your song augment our
Which is so great as not to wish relief. [grief,
She that had all which Nature gives, or Chance,
Whom Fortune join'd with Virtue to advance
To all the joys this island could afford,
The greatest mistress and the kindest lord;
Who with the royal mix'd her noble blood,
And in high grace with Gloriana stood;
Her bounty, sweetness, beauty, goodness, such
That none e'er thought her happiness too much;
So well-inclined her favours to confer,
And kind to all, as Heaven had been to her!
The virgin's part, the mother, and the wife,
So well she acted in this span of life,
That though few years (too few, alas !) she told,
She seem'd in all things but in beauty old.
As unripe fruit, whose verdant stalks do cleave
Close to the tree, which grieves no less to leave
The smiling pendant which adorns her so,
And until Autumn on the bough should grow;
So seem'd her youthful soul not easily forced,
Or from so fair, so sweet, a seat divorced :
Her fate at once did hasty seem and slow
At once too cruel, and unwilling too.
THYR. Under how hard a law are mortals born! Whom now we envy, we anon must mourn;
What Heaven sets highest, and seems most to prize,
Is soon removed from our wondering eyes!
But since the Sisters' did so soon untwine
So fair a thread, I'll strive to piece the line.
Vouchsafe, sad nymph! to let me know the dame,
And to the Muses I'll commend her name:
Make the wide country echo to your moan,
The listening trees and savage mountains groan.
What rock's not moved when the death is
sung
Of one so good, so lovely, and so young? [fore,
GAL. "Twas Hamilton!-whom I had named be-
But naming her, grief lets me say no more.
ON THE HEAD OF A STAG.
So we some antique hero's strength
Learn by his lance's weight and length;
As these vast beams express the beast,
Whose shady brows alive they drest.
Such game, while yet the world was new,
The mighty Nimrod did pursue.
What huntsman of our feeble race,
Or dogs, dare such a monster chase?
Resembling, with each blow he strikes,
The charge of a whole troop of pikes.
O fertile head! which every year
Could such a crop of wonder bear!
The teeming earth did never bring,
So soon, so hard, so huge a thing;
Which might it never have been cast,
(Each year's growth added to the last)
These lofty branches had supplied
The earth's bold sons' prodigious pride :
Heaven with these engines had been scaled,
When mountains heap'd on mountains fail'd.
BALLS of this metal slack'd Atalanta's pace,
And on the amorous youth' bestow'd the race:
Venus, (the nymph's mind measuring by her own)
Whom the rich spoils of cities overthrown
Had prostrated to Mars, could well advise
The' adventrous lover how to gain the prize.
Nor less may Jupiter to gold ascribe,
For when he turn'd himself into a bribe,
Who can blame Danae, or the brazen tower,
That they withstood not that almighty shower?
Never till then did love make Jove put on
A form more bright and nobler than his own;
Nor were it just, when he resume that shape,
That slack devotion should his thunder scape.
"Twas not revenge for grieved Apollo's wrong,
Those ass's ears on Midas' temples hung,
But fond repentance of his happy wish,
Because his meat grew metal like his dish.
Would Bacchus bless me so, I'd constant hold
Unto my wish, and die creating gold.
MIRROR of poets! mirror of our age!
Which her whole face beholding on thy stage,
Pleased and displeased with her own faults, endures
A remedy like those whom music cures.
Thou hast alone those various inclinations
Which Nature gives to ages, sexes, nations;
So traced with thy all-resembling pen,
That whate'er custom has imposed on men,
Or ill-got habit, (which deforms them so,
That scarce a brother can his brother know)
Is represented to the wondering eyes
Of all that see or read thy Comedies.
Whoever in those glasses looks, may find
The spots return'd, or graces, of his mind;
And, by the help of so divine an art,
At leisure view and dress his nobler part.
Narcissus, cozen'd by that flattering well,
Which nothing could but of his beauty tell,
Had here, discovering the deform'd estate
Of his fond mind, preserved himself with hate.
But virtue too, as well as vice, is clad
In flesh and blood so well, that Plato had
Beheld, what his high fancy once embraced,
Virtue with colours, speech, and motion graced.
The sundry postures of thy copious Muse
Who would express, a thousand tongues must use,
Whose fate's no less peculiar than thy art;
For as thou couldst all characters impart,
So none could render thine, which still escapes,
Like Proteus, in variety of shapes;
Who was nor this nor that; but all we find,
And all we can imagine, in mankind.
MR. JOHN FLETCHER'S PLAYS.
FLETCHER! to thee we do not only owe
All these good plays, but those of others too:
Thy wit repeated does support the stage,
Credits the last, and entertains this age,
No worthies, form'd by any Muse but thine,
Could purchase robes to make themselves so fine.
What brave commander is not proud to see
Thy brave Melantius in his gallantry?
Our greatest ladies love to see their scorn
Outdone by thine, in what themselves have worn:
The' impatient widow, ere the year be done,
Sees thy Aspasia weeping in her gown.
I never yet the tragic strain assay'd,
Deterr'd by that inimitable Maid';
And when I venture at the comic style,
Thy Scornful Lady seems to mock my toil.
Thus has thy Muse at once improved and marr'd
Our sport in plays, by rendering it too hard!
So when a sort of lusty shepherds throw
The bar by turns, and none the rest outgo
So far, but that the best are measuring casts,
Their emulation and their pastime lasts;
But if some brawny yeoman of the guard
Step in, and toss the axletree a yard
Or more beyond the furthest mark, the rest
Despairing stand, their sport is at the best.
1 The Maid's Tragedy.
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