No doubt some mouldy tale,

Like Pericles, and stale

As the shrieve's crusts, and nasty as his fish-
Scraps out of every dish

Thrown forth, and raked into the common tub,
May keep up the Play-club:
There, sweepings do as well

As the best-ordered meal;

For who the relish of these guests will fit,
Needs set them but the alms-basket of wit.

And much good do't you then:
Brave plush-and-velvet-men

Can feed on orts; and, safe in your stage-clothes,
Dare quit, upon your oaths,

The stagers and the stage-wrights too, your peers,

Of larding your large ears

With their foul comic socks,

Wrought upon twenty blocks;

Which if they are torn, and turned, and patched enough, The gamesters share your gilt, and you their stuff.

Leave things so prostitute,

And take the Alcaic lute;

Or thine own Horace, or Anacreon's lyre;

Warm thee by Pindar's fire :

And though thy nerves be shrunk, and blood be cold, Ere years have made thee old,

Strike that disdainful heat

Throughout, to their defeat,

As curious fools, and envious of thy strain,
May, blushing, swear no palsy's in thy brain.

But when they hear thee sing

The glories of thy king,

His zeal to God, and his just awe o'er men:
They may, blood-shaken then,

Feel such a flesh-quake to possess their powers,
As they shall cry: 'Like ours

In sound of peace or wars,

No harp e'er hit the stars,

In tuning forth the acts of his sweet reign,
And raising Charles his chariot 'bove his Wain.

SONG. TO CELIA1.

[From The Forest.]

Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine :

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there
It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me :

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

EPIGRAMS.

TO MY MERE ENGLISH CENSURER.

To thee, my way in Epigrams seems new,
When both it is the old way, and the true.
Thou sayst that cannot be; for thou hast seen
Davis and Weever3, and the best have been,
And mine come nothing like. I hope so; yet,
As theirs did with thee, mine might credit get,

From the (prose) love-letters of Philostratus the younger (about 250 A.D.)
Author of the Scourge of Folly.

3

Compiler of Funeral Monuments.

men.

If thou 'dst but use thy faith as thou didst then,
When thou wert wont t'admire, not censure 1
Prithee believe still, and not judge so fast :
Thy faith is all the knowledge that thou hast.

ON COURT-WORM.

All men are worms, but this2 no man. In silk
'Twas brought to court first wrapt, and white as milk'
Where, afterwards, it grew a butterfly,

Which was a caterpillar. So 'twill die.

TO FOOL, OR KNAVE.

Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike:
One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.

ON LUCY, COUNTESS OF BEDFORD.

This morning, timely rapt with holy fire,
I thought to form unto my zealous Muse,
What kind of creature I could most desire

To honour, serve, and love, as Poets use.
I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise,
Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great;
I meant the day-star should not brighter rise,
Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat.
I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,
Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride;
I meant each softest virtue there should meet,
Fit in that softer bosom to reside.

Only a learned, and a manly soul

I purposed her that should, with even powers,
The rock, the spindle, and the shears control

Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours.
Such when I meant to feign, and wished to see,
My Muse bade BEDFORD write, and that was she!

'Censure criticise. 2 This this is. Wife of Edward, third Earl of Bedford. and Daniel.

Compare Pope's 'Sporus.' She was also sung by Donne

AN EPITAPH ON SALATHIEL PAVY, A Child of
QUEEN ELIZABETH'S CHAPEL'.

Weep with me, all you that read
This little story;

And know, for whom a tear you shed
Death's self is sorry.

'Twas a child that so did thrive

In grace and feature,

As Heaven and Nature seemed to strive
Which owned the creature.

Years he numbered scarce thirteen
When Fates turned cruel,

Yet three filled zodiacs had he been
The stage's jewel;

And did act, what now we moan,
Old men so duly,

As, sooth, the Parcæ thought him one,

He played so truly.

So, by error to his fate

They all consented;

But viewing him since, alas, too late

They have repented;

And have sought to give new birth
In baths to steep him;

But being so much too good for earth,
Heaven vows to keep him.

EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH L. H.

Wouldst thou hear what man can say
In a little? Reader, stay.

Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die :
Which in life did harbour give
To more virtue than doth live.

1 These children (called in the next reign Children of Her Majesty's Kevels) were trained up to act before the Queen. Salathiel had acted in two of Jonson's plays, in 1600, and in 1601, when he is supposed to have died.

If at all she had a fault,

Leave it buried in this vault.
One name was ELIZABETH;

The other, let it sleep in death,
Fitter, where it died to tell,

Than that it lived at all. Farewell!

AN ODE TO HIMSELF.

[From Underwoods.]

Where dost thou careless lie

Buried in ease and sloth?

Knowledge that sleeps, doth die;

And this security,

It is the common moth

That eats on wits and arts, and [that]1 destroys them both.

Are all the Aonian springs

Dried up? lies Thespia waste?

Doth Clarius' harp want strings,

That not a nymph now sings;

Or droop they as disgraced,

To see their seats and bowers by chattering pies defaced?

If hence thy silence be,

As 'tis too just a cause,

Let this thought quicken thee:

Minds that are great and free

Should not on fortune pause;

'Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.

What though the greedy fry

Be taken with false baits

Of worded balladry,

And think it poësy?

They die with their conceits,

And only piteous scorn upon their folly waits.