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Oh then be wise! and, whilst your season
Affords you days for sport, do reason!
Spend not in vain your life's short hour,
But crop in time your beauty's flower,
Which will away, and doth together
Both bud and fade, both blow and wither!

SONG.

Persuasions to enjoy.

If the quick spirits in your eye
Now languish, and anon must die;
If every sweet, and every grace,
Must fly from that forsaken face;
Then, Celia, let us reap our joys,
Ere time such goodly fruit destroys.

Or, if that golden fleece must grow
For ever free from aged snow;

If those bright suns must know no shade,

Nor

your fresh beauties ever fade;

Then fear not, Celia, to bestow

What still being gather'd, still must grow. Thus either Time his sickle brings

In vain, or else in vain his wings.

GOOD COUNSEL TO A YOUNG MAID.

WHEN you the sun-burnt pilgrim see,
Fainting with thirst, haste to the springs;
Mark how, at first with bended knee,

He courts the chrystal nymphs, and flings
His body to the earth, where he
Prostrate adores the flowing deity.

But when his sweaty face is drench'd

In her cool waves; when from her sweet Bosom his burning thirst is quench'd,

Then mark how with disdainful feet

He kicks her banks, and from the place,
That thus refresh'd him, moves with sullen pace.

So shalt thou be despis'd, fair maid,

When by the sated lover tasted;

What first he did with tears invade,

Shall afterwards with scorn be wasted:

When all thy virgin springs grow dry,

When no streams shall be left, but in thine eye.

DISDAIN RETURNED.

He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires;
As old time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.

But a smooth and stedfast mind,
Gentle thoughts, and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combin'd,
Kindle never-dying fires.
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks, or lips, or eyes.

THE PRIMROSE.

Ask me why I send you here
This firstling of the infant year;
Ask me why I send to you

This primrose, all bepearl'd with dew;

I straight will whisper in your ears,
The sweets of love are wash'd with tears.

Ask me why this flower doth shew
So yellow, green, and sickly too;
Ask me why the stalk is weak,
And bending, yet it doth not break;
I must tell you, these discover

What doubts and fears are in a lover.

THE INQUIRY.

AMONGST the myrtles as I walk'd, Love and my sighs thus intertalk'd: "Tell me, said I, in deep distress,

"Where may I find my shepherdess ?"

"Thou fool," said love, “know'st thou not this,

"In every thing that's good she is?

"In yonder tulip go and seek,

"There thou may'st find her lip, her cheek:

"In yon enamell'd pansy by,

"There thou shalt have her curious eye;

"In bloom of peach, in rosy bud,

"There wave the streamers of her blood."

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""Tis true," said I; and thereupon I went to pluck them one by one, To make of parts a union:

But, on a sudden, all was gone.

With that I stopt: said love," These be, "Fond man, resemblances of thee;

"And, as these flowers, thy joys shall die, "Ev'n in the twinkling of an eye:

"And all thy hopes of her shall wither "Like those short sweets thus knit together."

SONG.

Good Counsel to a Young Maid.

GAZE not on thy beauty's pride,
Tender maid, in the false tide

That from thy lover's eyes doth glide.

Let thy faithful chrystal show
How thy colours come and go:

Beauty takes a foil from woe.

Love, that in those smooth streams lies,

Under pity's fair disguise,

Will thy melting heart surprise.

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