That pain must needs be very much,
Which makes me of your hand afraid.
Cordials of pity give me now,

For I too weak of purgings grow,

The World and a Clock.

COWLEY.

Mahol, th' inferior world's fantastic face,
Thro' all the turns of matter's maze did trace;
Great Nature's well-fet clock in pieces took;
On all the fprings and fmalleft wheels did look
Of life and motion, and with equal art
Made up the whole again of every part.

COWLEY.

A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but that it may not want its due honour, Cleiveland has paralleled it with the Sun:

The moderate value of our guiltless ore

Makes no man atheift, and no woman whore ;
Yet why fhould hallow'd veftal's facred fhrine
Deferve more honour than a flaming mine?
Thefe pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be
Than a few embers, for a deity.

Had he our pits, the Perfian would admire
No fun, but warm's devotion at our fire
He'd leave the trotting whipfter, and prefer
Our profound Vulcan 'bove that waggoner.
For wants he heat, or light? or would have ftore
Or both? 'tis here: and what can funs give more
Nay, what's the fun but, in a different name,
A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame!
Then let this truth reciprocally run,

The fun's heaven's coalery, and coals our fun.
Death, a Voyage :

No family

Ere rigg'd a foul for heaven's difcovery,

With whom more venturers might boldly dare
Venture their stakes, with him in joy to fhare.

DONNE.

Their thoughts and expreffions were fometimes grofsly abfurd, and fuch as no figures or licence can reconcile to the understanding.

A Lover neither dead nor alive:

Then down I laid my head

Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead,

And my freed foul to a strange somewhere fied:

Ah, fottifh foul, faid I,

When back to its cage again I faw it fly:

Fool to refume her broken chain !

And row her galley here again!

Fool, to that body to return

Where it condemn'd and deftin'd is to burn!

Once dead, how can it be,

Death fhould a thing so pleasant seem to thee,

That thou fhouldft come to live it o'er again in me?

A Lover's heart, a hand grenado.

COWLEY.

Wo to her stubborn heart, if once mine come

Into the felf-fame room,

'Twill tear and blow up all within,

Like a grenado fhot into a magazin.

Then fhall Love keep the afhes, and torn parts,

Of both our broken hearts:

Shall out of both one new one make;

From her's th' allay, from mine, the metal take.

The poetical Propagation of Light:

COWLEY.

The Prince's favour is diffus'd o'er all,

From which all fortunes, names, and natures fall,
Then from thofe wombs of ftars, the Bride's bright eyes,
At every glance a conftellation flies

D 2

And

And fowes the court with ftars, and doth prevent
In light and power, the all-ey'd firmament :
First her eve kindles other ladies' eyes,

Then from their beams their jewels luftres rife;
And from their jewels torches do take fire,
And all is warmth, and light, and good defire.

DONNE.

THEY were in very little care to clothe their notions with elegance of drefs, and therefore mifs the notice and the praife which are often gained by those, who think lefs, but are more diligent to adorn their thoughts.

That a miftrefs beloved is fairer in idea than in reality, is by Cowley thus expreffed :

Thou in my fancy doft much higher ftand,
Than women can be plac'd by Nature's hand;
And I must needs, I'm fure, a lofer be,

To change thee, as thou'rt there, for very thee.

That prayer and labour fhould co-operate, are thus taught by Donne :

In none but us, are fuch mixt engines found,

As hands of double office; for the ground

We till with them; and them to heaven we raise;
Who prayerlefs labours, or without this, prays,

Both but one half, that's none.

By the fame author, a common topick, the danger of procraftination, is thus illuftrated:

That which I should have begun.

In my youth's morning, now late muft be done;
And I, as giddy travellers muft do,

Which flray or fleep all day, and having loft

Light and ftrength, dark and tir'd muft then ride poft.

All that man has to do is to live and die; the fum

of humanity is comprehended by Donne in the following lines:

Think in how poor a prifon thou didst lie;

After enabled but to fuck and cry.

Think, when 'twas grown to moft, 'twas a poor inn,

A province pack'd up in two yards of fkin,
And that ufurp'd, or threaten'd with a rage
Of fickneffes, or their true mother, age.
But think that death hath now enfranchis'd thee;
Thou haft thy expanfion now, and liberty;
Think, that a rufty piece difcharg'd is flown
In pieces, and the bullet is his own,

And freely flies: this to thy foul allow,

Think thy fhell broke, think thy foul hatch'd but now. THEY were fometimes indelicate and difgufting. Cowley thus apoftrophifes beauty:

-Thou tyrant, which leav'ft no man free!

Thou subtle thief, from whom nought fafe can be! Thou murtherer, which haft kill'd, and devil, which would't damn me.

Thus he addreffes his Mistress:

Thou who, in many a propriety,

So truly art the fun to me,

Add one more likenefs, which I'm fure you can,
And let me and my fun beget a man.

Thus he represents the meditations of a Lover:
Though in thy thoughts fcarce any tracts have been
So much as of original fin,

Such charms thy beauty wears as might
Defires in dying confeft faints excite.

Thou with ftrange adultery

Doft in each breaft a brothel keep;
Awake, all men do luft for thee,
And fome enjoy thee when they fleep.
The true tafte of Tears:

Hither with cryftal vials, lovers, come,

And take my tears, which are love's wine,

And try your mistrefs' tears at home;

For all are false, that tafte not just like mine.

D 3

Dor་"-

This is yet more indelicate :

As the fweet fweat of rofes in a still,

As that which from chaf'd musk-cat's pores doth trill
As the almighty balm of th' early Eaft,

Such are the fweet drops of my miftrefs' breaft.
And on her neck her fkin fuch luftre fets,
They feem no fweat drops, but pearl coronets:
Rank fweaty froth thy mistress' brow defiles.

DONNE

THEIR expreffions fometimes raise horror, when they intend perhaps to be pathetic :

As men in hell are from difcafes free,
So from all other ills am I,

Free from their known formality:
But all pains eminently lie in thee.

COWLEY.

THEY were not always ftrictly curious, whether the opinions from which they drew their illuftrations were true; it was enough that they were popular Bacon remarks, that fome falfehoods are continued by tradition, becaufe they fupply commodious allufions. It gave a piteous groan, and fo it broke;

In vain it fomething would have spoke :
The love within too ftrong for't was,
Like poifon put into a Venice-glass.

COWLEY.

IN forming defcriptions, they looked out not for images, but for conceits. Night has been a common fubject, which poets have contended to adorn. Dryden's Night is well known; Donne's is as follows: Thou feeft me here at midnight, now all reft. Time's dead low-water; when all minds divefst To-morrow's bufinefs, when the labourers have Such reft in bed, that their laft church-yard grave, Subject to change, will fcarce be a type of this, Now when the client, whofe last hearing is

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