Then give me leave to leave my rent with thee;
Five kisses, one unto a place:
For though the lute's too high for me,
Yet servants, knowing minikin nor base,
Are still allow'd to fiddle with the case.
TO FLETCHER REVIVED.
How have I been religious? what strange good
Has 'scap'd me that I never understood ?
Have I hell-guarded heresy o'erthrown?
Heal'd wounded states? made kings and kingdoms
That fate should be so merciful to me,
To let me live t' have said I have read thee.
Fair star ascend! the joy! the life! the light Of this tempestuous age, this dark world's sight! Oh from thy crown of glory dart one flame May strike a sacred reverence, whilst thy name (Like holy Flamens to their God of day) We bowing, sing; and whilst we praise, we pray.
Bright spirit! whose eternal motion
Of wit, like time, still in itself did run,
Binding all others in it, and did give
Commission, how far this or that shall live;
Like destiny of poems, who, as she
Signs death to all, herself can never die.
And now thy purple-robed tragedy, In her embroider'd buskins, calls mine eye, Where the brave Ætius we see betray'd, T' obey his death, whom thousand lives obey'd; Whilst that the mighty fool his sceptre breaks, And through his gen'ral's wounds his own doom speaks, Weaving thus richly Valentinian
The costliest monarch with the cheapest man.
Soldiers may here to their old glories add, The lover love, and be with reason mad: Not as of old, Alcides furious, Who wilder than his bull did tear the house (Hurling his language with the canvas stone), 'Twas thought the monster roar'd the sob'rer tone.
But ah! when thou thy sorrow didst inspire
With passions, black as is her dark attire,
Virgins as suff'rers have wept to see
So white a soul, so red a cruelty;
That thou hast griev'd, and with unthought redress,
Dry'd their wet eyes who now thy mercy bless;
Yet loth to lose thy wat'ry jewel, when
Joy wip'd it off, laughter straight sprung't again.
Now ruddy cheeked mirth with rosy wings,
Fans ev'ry brow with gladness, whilst she sings
Delight to all, and the whole theatre
A festival in heaven doth appear:
Nothing but pleasure, love, and (like the morn)
Each face a gen'ral smiling doth adorn.
Hear, ye foul speakers, that pronounce the air
Of stews and shores, I will inform you where
And how to clothe aright your wanton wit,
Without her nasty bawd attending it:
View here a loose thought said with such a grace,
Minerva might have spoke in Venus' face;
So well disguis'd, that 'twas conceiv'd by none
But Cupid had Diana's linen on;
And all his naked parts so veil'd, th' express,
The shape, with clouding the uncomliness;
That if this reformation which we
Receiv'd, had not been buried with thee,
The stage (as this work) might have liv'd and lov'd
Her lines, the austere Skarlet had approv'd;
And th' actors wisely been from that offence
As clear, as they are now from audience.
Thus with thy genius did the scene expire,
Wanting thy active and correcting fire,
That now (to spread a darkness over all)
Nothing remains but poesy to fall:
And though from these thy embers we receive
Some warmth, so much as may be said, we live,
That we dare praise thee, blushless, in the head
Of the best piece Hermes to love e'er read,
That we rejoice and glory in thy wit,
And feast each other with rememb'ring it,
That we dare speak thy thought, thy acts recite;
Yet all men henceforth be afraid to write.
MY ASYLUM IN A GREAT EXTREMITY.
WITH that delight the royal captive's brought
Before the throne, to breath his farewell thought,
To tell his last tale, and so end with it;
Which gladly he esteems a benefit;
When the brave victor at his great soul dumb
Finds something there, fate cannot overcome,
Calls the chain'd prince, and by his glory led,
First reaches him his crown, and then his head;
Who ne'er till now thinks himself slave and poor;
For though nought else, he had himself before;
He weeps at this fair chance, nor will allow,
But that the diadem doth brand his brow,
And under-rates himself below mankind,
Who first had lost his body, now his mind.
With such a joy came I to hear my doom, And haste the preparation of my tomb,
When like good angels who have heav'nly charge
To steer and guide man's sudden giddy barge,
She snatch'd me from the rock I was upon,
And landed me at life's pavilion:
Where I, thus wound out of th' immense abyss,
Was straight set on a pinnacle of bliss.
Let me leap in again! and by that fall
Bring me to my first woe, so cancel all:
Ah's, this a quitting of the debt you owe,
To crush her and her goodness at one blow?
Defend me from so foul impiety,
Would make friends grieve, and furies weep to see.
Now ye sage spirits which infuse in men
That are oblig'd, twice to oblige again;
Inform my tongue in labour, what to say,
And in what coin or language to repay;
But you are silent as the ev'ning's air,
When winds unto their hollow grots repair:
Oh then accept the all that left me is, Devout oblations of a sacred wish!
When she walks forth, ye perfum'd wings o'th' east Fan her, till with the sun she hastes to th' west; And when her heav'nly course calls up the day, And breaks as bright, descend some glistering ray,
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