Then, if when I have loved my round,
Thou prov'st the pleasant she;
With spoils of meaner beauties crowned,
I laden will return to thee,
Even sated with variety.
Thou snowy farm with thy five tenements!
Tell thy white mistress here was one
That called to pay his daily rents:
But she a-gathering flowers and hearts is gone,
And thou left void to rude possession.
But grieve not, pretty Ermine cabinet,
Thy alabaster lady will come home;
If not, what tenant then can fit
The slender turnings of thy narrow room,
But must ejected be by his own doom?
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 allowed to fiddle with the case.
UPON PHILLIS, WALKING IN A MORNING BEFORE SUN-RISING.
THE sluggish morn as yet undressed,
My Phillis brake from out her East,
As if she'd made a match to run
With Venus, Usher to the Sun.
The trees (like yeomen of her guard,
Serving more for pomp than ward,
Banked on each side with loyal duty)
Wave branches to enclose her beauty.
The plants, whose luxury was lopped,
Or age with crutches underpropped,
(Whose wooden carcasses are grown
To be but coffins of their own,)
Revive, and at her general dole
Each receives his ancient soul.
The winged choristers began
To chirp their matins; and the fan
Of whistling winds, like organs, played
Unto their voluntaries, made
The wakened earth in odours rise
To be her morning sacrifice.
The flowers, called out of their beds,
Start and raise up their drowsy heads,
And he that for their colour seeks,
May find it vaulting in her cheeks,
Where roses mix no civil war
Between her York and Lancaster.
The marigold, whose courtier's face
Echoes the sun, and doth unlace
Her at his rise, at his full stop
Packs, and shuts up her gaudy shop;
Mistakes her cue, and doth display;
Thus Phillis antedates the day.
These miracles had cramped the sun,
Who, thinking that his kingdom's won,
Powders with light his frizzled locks,
To see what saint his lustre mocks.
The trembling leaves through which he played,
Dappling the walk with light and shade,
(Like lattice-windows,) give the spy
Room but to peep with half an eye,
Lest her full orb his sight should dim,
And bid us all good night in him,
Till she would spend a gentle ray,
To force us a new-fashioned day.
But what religious palsy 's this,
Which makes the boughs divest their bliss,
And that they might her footsteps straw,
Drop their leaves with shivering awe?
Phillis perceives, (and lest her stay
Should wed October unto May,
And, as her beauty caused a Spring,
Devotion might an Autumn bring,)
Withdrew her beams, yet made no night,
But left the sun her curate-light.
["Trivial Poems and Triolets." 1651.]
FAIR beauties! if I do confess
Myself inconstant in my drink,
You ought not to love me the less,
say but that which most men think:
And (troth) there is less hurtful art
In a light tongue, than a false heart.
Some use to swear that you will find
Nothing but truth within their breasts;
Yet waver more than does the wind,
When in a tempest least it rests;
Nought of my thoughts I'll say to you,
But what you'll find to be most true.
More than I promise I'll perform;
They give you oaths, but keep them not;
You build i' th' air, when as you form
False hopes on vows long since forgot.
Leave, leave them then, and deal with me,
So you will ne'er deceivéd be.
Fairly beforehand I declare,
That when I'm weary, I shall leave;
Fore-warned thus, you'll be aware,
Whilst falser men would ye deceive:
Besides, in this I nothing do,
But what I'd swear you will do too.
When of your love I weary grow,
Before I change, I'll tell you on't;
Do you the same when you are so,
And give me time to think upon 't;
Elsewhere I soon shall place my heart,
Then, kindly we'll shake hands, and part.
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