By such degrees to joy they come,
And are so long withstood,
So slowly they receive the sum,
It hardly does them good.
'Tis cruel to prolong a pain,
And to defer a joy,
Believe me, gentle Celemene,
Offends the wingéd boy.
An hundred thousand oaths your fears
Perhaps would not remove;
And if I gazed a thousand years,
I could no deeper love.
Phillis, men say that all my vows
Are to thy fortune paid;
Alas! my heart he little knows,
Who thinks my love a trade.
Were I of all these woods the lord,
One berry from thy hand.
More real pleasure would afford
Than all my large command.
My humble love has learned to live,
On what the nicest maid,
Without a conscious blush, may give
Beneath the myrtle shade.
["Miscellaneous Poems?" (?) 1681.]
CHLORA, come view my soul, and tell
Whether I have contrived it well;
How all its several lodgings lie,
Composed into one gallery,
And the great arras-hangings, made
Of various faces, by are laid,
That, for all furniture, you'll find
Only your picture in my mind.
Here thou art painted in the dress
Of an inhuman murtheress,
Examining upon our hearts,
(Thy fertile shop of cruel arts,)
Engines more keen than ever yet
Adorned a tyrant's cabinet,
Of which the most tormenting are,
Black eyes, red lips, and curled hair.
But, on the other side, thou 'rt drawn
Like to Aurora in the dawn,
When in the east she slumbering lies,
And stretches out her milky thighs,
While all the morning quire does sing,
And manna falls and roses spring,
And, at thy feet, the wooing doves
Sit perfecting their harmless loves.
Like an enchantress here thou show'st,
Vexing thy restless lover's ghost,
And, by a light obscure, dost rave
Over his entrails, in the cave,
Divining thence, with horrid care,
How long thou shalt continue fair,
And (when informed) them throw'st away,
To be the greedy vulture's prey.
But, against that, thou sittest afloat,
Like Venus in her pearly boat;
The halcyons, calming all that's nigh,
Betwixt the air and water fly;
Or, if some rolling wave appears,
A mass of ambergrease it bears,
Nor blows more wind than what may well
Convoy the perfume to the smell.
These pictures, and a thousand more,
Of thee, my gallery do store,
In all the forms thou canst invent,
Either to please me, or torment;
For thou alone, to people me,
Art grown a numerous colony,
And a collection choicer far
Than or Whitehall's, or Mantua's were.
But of these pictures, and the rest,
That at the entrance likes me best,
Where the same posture and the look
Remains with which I first was took;
A tender shepherdess, whose hair
Hangs loosely playing in the air,
Transplanting flowers from the green hill
To crown her head and bosom fill.
THE PICTURE OF T. C. IN A PROSPECT OF FLOWERS.
See with what simplicity
This nymph begins her golden days!
In the green grass she loves to lie,
And there with her fair aspect tames
The wilder flowers and gives them names,
But only with the roses plays,
And them does tell
What colours best become them, and what smell.
Who can foretell for what high cause
This darling of the gods was born?
Yet this is she whose chaster laws
The wanton Love shall one day fear,
And, under her command severe,
See his bow broke, and ensigns torn.
Happy who can
Appease this virtuous enemy of man!
O then let me in time compound
And parley with those conquering eyes,
Ere they have tried their force to wound;
Ere with their glancing wheels they drive
In triumph over hearts that strive,
And them that yield but more despise,
Let me be laid
Where I may see the glories from some shade.
Meantime, whilst every verdant thing
Itself does at thy beauty charm,
Reform the errors of the spring;
Make that the tulips may have share
Of sweetness, seeing they are fair;
And roses of their thorns disarm;
That violets may a longer age endure.
But O, young beauty of the woods,
Whom Nature courts with fruits and flowers,
Gather the flowers, but spare the buds,
Lest Flora, angry at thy crime
To kill her infants in their prime,
Should quickly make the example yours,
And ere we see,
Nip, in the blossom, all our hopes in thee.
THE MOWER TO THE GLOW-WORMS.
Ye living lamps, by whose dear light
The nightingale does sit so late,
And studying all the summer night,
Her matchless songs does meditate;
Ye country comets, that portend
No war nor prince's funeral,
Shining unto no other end
Than to presage the grass's fall;
Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame
To wandering mowers shows the way,
That in the night have lost their aim,
And after foolish fires do stray;
Your courteous lights in vain you waste,
Since Juliana here is come,
For she my mind hath so displaced,
That I shall never find my home.
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