[In "Wither Redivivus, in a small new-year's-gift," 4to. 1689, and there called " a copy from verses "long since made."] [From 11 stanzas.] OPINION rules the human state, Shall sea or mountain separate Whom God hath join'd in nature's band? Lend me the bright wings of the morn, Far swifter than the lamp of night: Features and colours of the hair, These all do meet in harmony; In single simple love alone These various colours are but one. I' th' phlegmatic I sweetness find, The melancholy, grave and wise; From choler, flames of love arise: All these complexions are but one. The nightingale doth never say Unto the cuckoo or the jay, These various notes are all but one. With open arms let me embrace The Heathen, Christian, Turk, or Jew, The lovely and deformed face, The sober and the jovial crew. In single simple love alone All forms and features are but one. REASON. [In Stephens's " Oxford Miscellanies," 1685, 8vo.] [From 8 stanzas.] REASON, thou vain impertinence, Deluding hypocrite, begone! And go and plague your men of sense, In vain some dreaming thinking fool Would make thee o'er our senses reign, And all our noble passions rule, And constitute this creature man. In vain some dotard may pretend At best, thou'rt but a glimmering light, Which serves not to direct our way; But, like the moon, confounds our sight, And only shews it is not day. COYNESS. [In the same Collection.] [From 6 stanzas.] NAY, I confess I should despise A too, too easy gotten prize! If thou would'st have me still love on With all the flames I first begun, Then you must still as scornful be: For, if you once but burn like me, My flames will languish and be gone, Like fire that's shin'd on by the sun. Nor lay these arts too soon aside, ANTIENT SONG. [From Dryden's Collection.] A SILLY shepherd woo'd, but wist not Time perpetually is changing; A woman's fancy's like a fever, Or an ague, that doth come by fits; Hot, and cold, but constant never, Even as the pleasant humour hits. Sick, and well again, and well, and sick, In love it is a woman's trick. |