And we're encourag'd in't, the statutes do't,
Which bind some men, to shew they cann't dispute.
Suffer me, sir, to tell you that we do
Owe these few daies' solemnity to you;
For had you not among our gowns been seen
Enlivening all, Oxford had only been
A peopled village, and our Act at best
A learned wake, or glorious shepheards' feast:
Where (in my judgement) the best thing to see
Had been Jerusalem or Nineveh,

Where, for true exercise, none could surpass
The puppets, and Great Britaine's looking-glass.
Nor are those names unusuall: July here
Doth put forth all th' inventions of the year:
Rare works, and rarer beasts do meet; we see
In the same street Africk and Germany.
Trumpets 'gainst trumpets blow, the faction's
much,

These cry the monster-masters, those the Dutch:
All arts find welcome, all men come to do
Their tricks and slights; juglers, and curats too,
Curats that threaten markets with their looks,
Arm'd with two weapons, knives and table-books;
Men that do itch (when they have eate) to note
The chief distinction 'twixt the sheep and goat;
That do no questions relish, but what be
Bord'ring upon the absolute decree,

And then haste home, lest they should miss the lot
Of venting reprobation, whiles 'tis hot.
But, above all good sports, give me the sight
Of the lay exercise on Monday night.
Where a reserved stomach doth profess
A zeal-prepared hunger, of no less
Than ten days' laying up, where we may see
How they repaire, how ev'ry man comes three,
Where, to the envy of our townsmen, some
Among the rest do by prescription come,
Men that themselves do victuall twice a year,
At Christmas with their landlords, and once here.
None praise the Act more, and say less; they do
Make all wine good by drinking, all beer too;
This was their Christian freedom here: nay, we
Our selves too, then, durst plead a liberty:
We reform'd nature, and awak'd the night,
Making it spring as glorious as the light;
That, like the day did dawn, and break forth here,
Though in a lower, yet as bright a sphere:
Sleep was a thing unheard of, unless 'twere
At sermon after dinner, all wink'd there;
No brother then known by the rowling white,
Ev'n they sate there as children of the night;
None come to see and to be seen; none heares,
My lord's fee-buck closeth both eyes and eares;
No health did single, but our chancellors pass,
Viscounts and earles throng'd seven in a glass.
Manners and language ne'r more free; some meant
Scarce one thing, and did yet all idioms vent;
Spoke Minshew in a breath; the inceptor's wine
Made Latine native: gray coats then spoke fine,
And thought that wiser statute had done wrong
T'allot us four years yet to learn the tongue.

But Oxford, tho' throng'd with such people, was
A court where e'r you only pleas'd to pass;
We reckon'd this your gift, and that this way
Part of the progress, not your journey lay.

I could relate you more, but that I fear You'l find the dregs o'th' time surviving here; And that gets some excuse: think then you see Some reliques of the Act move yet in me,

ON THE GREAT FROST. 1634. SHEW me the flames you brag of, you that be Arm'd with those two fires, wine and poetry: Y' are now benumb'd, spight of your gods and

verse;

And may your metaphors for prayers rehearse; Whiles you that call'd snow, fleece and feathers, do Wish for true fleeces, and true feathers too.

Waters have bound themselves, and cannot run, Suff'ring what Xerxes' fetters would have done; Our rivers are one chrystall; shoares are fit Mirrours, being now, not like to glass, but it: Our ships stand all as planted, we may swear They are not born up only, but grow there. Whiles waters thus are pavements, firm as stone, And without faith are each day walk'd upon, What parables call'd folly heretofore, Were wisedome now, "to build upon the shoare." There's no one dines among us with washt hands, Water's as scarce here, as in Africk sands; And we expect it not but from some god Opening a fountain, or some prophet's rod, Who need not seek out where he may unlock A stream, what e'r he strook would be true rock. When Heaven drops some smaller showers, our sense Of griefe's encreas'd, being but deluded thence; For whiles we think those drops to entertain, They fall down pearl, which came down half way

rain.

Green land's removall, now the poor man fears,
Seeing all waters frozen, but his tears.
We suffer day continuall, and the snow
Doth make our little night become noon now.
We hear of some enchristal'd, such as have
That, which procur'd their death, become their
Bodies, that destitute of soul yet stood, [grave.
Dead, and not faln; drown'd, and without a floud;
Nay we, who breath still, are almost as they,
And only may be stil'd a softer clay;
We stand like statues, as if cast, and fit
For life, not having, but expecting it;
Each man's become the Stoick's wise oue hence;
For can you look for passion, where's no sense?
Which we have not, resolv'd to our first stone,
Unless it be one sense to feel w' have none.
Our very smiths now work not, nay, what's more,
Our Dutchmen write but five hours, and give o'er.
We dare provoke fate now: we know what is
That last cold, death, only by suff'ring this.
All fires are vestall now, and we, as they,
Do in our chimneys keep a lasting day;
Boasting within doores this domestique sun,
Adored too with our religion.

We laugh at fire-briefs now, although they be
Commended to us by his majesty ;
And 'tis no treason, for we cannot guess
Why we should pay them for their happiness.
Each hand would be a Scævola's: let Rome
Call that a pleasure henceforth, not a doom.
A feaver is become a wish: we sit
And think fall'n angels have one benefit,
Nor can the thought be impious, when we see
Weather, that Bowker durst not prophesie;
Such as may give new epochaes, and make
Another SINCE in his bold almanack;
Weather may save his doom, and by his for
Re thought enough for him to undergo.

TO MR. W. B.

AT THE BIRTH OF HIS FIRST CHILD.

Y'ARE now transcrib'd, and publike view
Perusing finds the copy true,
Without erratas new crept in,
Fully compleat and genuine :
And nothing wanting can espy,
But only bulk and quantity:
The text in letters small we see,
And the arts in one epitome.
O what pleasure do you take
To hear the nurse discovery make,
How the nose, the lip, the eye,
The forehead full of majesty,
Shews the father? how to this
The mother's beauty'added is:
And after all with gentle numbers
To wooe the infant into slumbers.

And these delights he yields you now,
The swath, and cradle, this doth show:
But hereafter when his force
Shall wield the rattle, and the horse;
When his ventring tongue shall speak
All synalæphaes', and shall break

This word short off, and make that two,
Pratling as obligations do ;
"Twill ravish the delighted sense
To view these sports of innocence,
And make the wisest dote upon
Such pretty imperfection.

These hopeful cradles promise such
Future goodness, and so much,
That they prevent my prayers, and I
Must wish but for formality.

I wish religion timely be
Taught him with his A B C.

I wish him good and constant health,
His father's learning, but more wealth;
And that to use, not hoard; a purse
Open to bless, not shut to curse.
May he have many, and fast friends,
Meaning good-will, not private ends,
Such as scorn to understand,

When they name love, a peece of land.
May the swath and whistle be
The hardest of his bonds. May he
Have no sad cares to break his sleep,
Nor other cause, than now, to weep.
May he ne'r live to be again,
What he is now, a child: may pain
If it do visit, as a guest

Only call in, not dare to rest.

! A collision of a vowel left out in scanning.

FOR A YOUNG LORD TO HIS MISTRIS,

WHO HAD TAUGHT HIM A SONG,

TAUGHT from your artfull strains, my fair,
I've only liv'd e'r since by air;
Whose sounds do make me wish I were
If souls (as some say) musick be
Either all voice, or else all eare.
I've learnt from you there's one in me;
From you, whose accents make us know
That sweeter spheres move here below;
From you, whose limbs are so well met
That we may swear your bodie's set:
Whose parts are with such graces crown'd,
That th'are that musick without sound.
I had this love perhaps before,

But you awak'd and made it more:
As when a gentle ev'ning showre
Calls forth, and adds sent to the flower;
Henceforth I'l think my breath is due
No more to nature, but to you.
Sing I to pleasure then, or fame,
I'I know no antheme, but your name;
This shall joy life, this sweeten death:
You that have taught, may claim my breath.

ON MR. STOKES

HIS BOOK ON THE ART OF VAULTING.

OR,

IN LIBRUM VERE CABALISTICUM DE ASCENSU CORPO-
RUN GRAVIUM H. E. IN TRACTATU DE ARTE SALIEN-
DI EDITUM A CUIL. STOKES ALME ACADEMIE
HIPPARCHO, ET SOLO TEMPORUM HORUM EPHIALTE.
CARMEN DE SULTORIEM.

READER, here is such a book,
Will make you leap before you look,
And shift, without being thought a rook.
The author's airy, light, and thin;
Whom no man saw e'r break a shin,
Or ever yet leap out of's skin.

When e'r he strain'd at horse, or bell,
Tom Charles himself who came to smell
His faults, still swore 'twas clean and well.

His tricks are here in figures dim,
Each line is heavier than his limb,
And shadows weighty are to him.
Were Dee alive, or Billingsly,
We shortly should each passage see
Demonstrated by A. B. C.

How would they vex their mathematicks,
Their ponderations, and their staticks,
To shew the art of these volaticks?

Be A the horse, and the man B.
Parts from the girdle upwards C.
And from the girdle downward D.

If the parts D. proportion'd weigh
To the parts C. neither will sway,
But B lye equall upon A.

Thus would his horse and all his vectures,
Reduc'd to figures, and to sectures,

Produce new diagrams and lectures

And justly too, for the pomado,
And the most intricate strapado,
He'l do for naught in a bravado.

The Herculean leap he can with slight,
And that twice fifty times a night,
To please the ladies: Will is right.
'The Angelica ne'r put him too't,
Then for the Pegasus, he'l do't,
And strike a fountain with his foot.

When he the stag-leap does, you'd swear
The stag himself, if he were there,
Would like the unwieldy oxe appear.
He'l fit his strength, if you desire,
Just as his horse, lower or higher,
And twist his limbs like nealed wyer.
Had you, as I, but seen him once,
You'd swear that Nature for the nonce,
Had made his body without bones.
For arms, sometimes hee'l lye on one,
Sometimes on both, sometimes on none,
And like a meteor hang alone.

Let none henceforth our eares abuse,
How Dædalys 'scap'd the twining stewes,
Alas that is but flying news.

He us'd wax plumes, as Ovid sings, Will scorns to tamper with such things, He is a Dædalus without wings.

Good faith, the Mewes had best look to't,
Lest they go down, and Sheen to boot,
Will and his wooden horse will do't.
The Troian steed let souldiers scan,
And praise th' invention you that can,
Will puts 'em down both horse and man.
At once six horses Theutobocchus
Leap'd o'r, if Florus' do not mock us,
"Twas well, but let him not provoke us;
For were the matter to be tri'd,
"Twere gold to silver on Will's side,
He'd quell that Theutobocchus' pride.
I'l say but this to end the brawle,
Let Theutobocchus in the fall
Cut Will's cross caper, and take all.
Then go thy ways, brave Will, for one,
By Jove 'tis thou must leap, or none,
To pull bright honour from the Moon.

Philippus Stoicus e Societate
Porta Borealis Oxon.

LOVE INCONCEALABLE.

STIG. ITAL.

WHO can bide fire? If't be uncover'd, light, If cover'd, smoake betraies it to the sight: Love is that fire, which still some sign affords, If hid, the'are sighs; if open, they are words.

THE TEARES.

Ir souls consist of water, I

May swear yours glides out of your eye:
If they may wounds receive, and prove
Festred through grief, or ancient love,
Then fairest, through these christall doores
Teares flow as purgings of your sores.
And now the certain cause I know
Whence the rose and lilly grow,

In your fair cheeks: the often showres
Which you thus weep, do breed these flowers.
If that the flouds could Venus bring,
And warlike Mars from flowers spring,
Why may not hence two gods arise,

This from your cheeks, that from your eyes?

I'l ne'r come nigh A learned sigh,

Nor credit vows in mood and figure.

'Twas Venus to me whisper'd this,
Swear and embrace, protest and kiss,
Such oaths and vows are fickle things,
My wanton son does lend them wings:
The kiss must stay, the oath must fly :
Heav'n is the schoole
That gives this rule:
I cann't prove true
To that and you,

The goddess is in fault, not I.

Who for my wrong would thus much do,
For my revenge may something too;
She, O she make thee true to all,
Marry an army, and then fall
Through scornfull hatred and disdain:
But mayst thou be

Still false to me;
For if thy mind

Once more prove kind

Thou'lt swear thine oaths all o'r again.

BEAUTIE AND DENIALL. No, no, it cannot be! for who e'r set A blockhouse to defend a garden yet? Roses ne'r chide my boldness when I go To crop their blush; why should your cheeks do so? The lillies ne'r deny their silk to men ; [then? Why should your hands push off, and draw back The Sun forbids me not his heat; then why Comes there to Earth an edict from your eye? I smell perfumes, and they ne'r think it sin; Why should your breath not let me take it in? A dragon kept the golden apples; true; But must your breasts be therefore kept so too? All fountaines else flow freely, and ne'r shrink; And must yours cheat my thirst when I would Where nature knows no prohibition, Shall art prove anti-nature, and make one?

[drink?

But O! we scorn the profer'd lip and face; And angry frowns sometimes add quicker grace Than quiet beauty: 'tis that melting kiss That truly doth distil immortall bliss, Which the fierce struggling youth by force at length Doth make the purchase of his eager strength; Which, from the rifled weeping virgin scant Snatch'd, proves a conquest, rather than a grant. Beleeve't not 'tis the paradox of some one, That in old time did love an Amazon,

THOU, who didst never see the light,
Nor knowst the pleasure of the sight,
But alwaies blinded, canst not say
Now it is night, or now 'tis day,
So captivate her sense, so blind her eye,
That still she love me, yet she ne'r know why.

Thou, who dost wound us with such art,
We see no bloud drop from the heart,
And subt❜ly cruell leav'st no sign

To tell the blow or hand was thine.
O gently, gently wound my fair, that shee
May thence beleeve the wound did come from thee.

At last, one frosty morning I did spy
This subtile wand'rer journeying in the sky;
At sight of me it trembled, then drew neer,
Then grieving fell, and dropt into a tear:
I bore it to my saint, and pray'd her take
This new born of-spring for the master's sake:
She took it, and prefer'd it to her eare,

And now it hears each thing that's whisper'd there.
O how I envy grief, when that I see
My sorrow makes a gem, more blest than me!
Yet, little pendant, porter to the eare,
Let not my rivall have admittance there;
But if by chance a mild access he gain,
Upon her lip inflict a gentle pain
Only for admonition: so when she

Gives eare to him, at least shee'l think of me.

SADNESS.

WHILES I this standing lake,,
Swath'd up with ewe and cypress boughs,
Do move by sighs and vows,
Let sadness only wake;

That whiles thick darkness blots the light,
My thoughts may cast another night:
In which double shade,

By heav'n, and me made,
O let me weep,
And fall asleep,

And forgotten fade.

Heark! from yond' hollow tree
Sadly sing two anchoret owles,

Whiles the hermit wolf howls,
And all bewailing me,
The raven hovers o'r my bier,
The bittern on a reed I hear
Pipes my elegy,

And warns me to dye;
Whiles from yond' graves
My wrong'd love craves
My sad company.

Cease, Hylas, cease thy call;
Such, O such was thy parting groan,
Breath'd out to me alone

When thou disdain'd didst fall.
Loe thus unto thy silent tomb,
In my sad winding sheet, I come,
Creeping o'r dead bones,
And cold marble stones,

That I may mourn
Over thy urn,

And appease thy groans.

CORINNA'S TOMB.

HERE fair Corinna buri'd lay,
Cloath'd and lock'd up in silent clay;
But neighb'ring shepheards every morn
With constant tears bedew'd her urn,
Until with quickning moysture, she
At length grew up into this tree:
Here now unhappy lovers meet,
And changing sighs (for so they greet)
Each one unto some conscious bough
Relates this oath, and tels that vow,

Thinking that she with pittying sounds
Whispers soft comfort to their wounds:
When 'tis perhaps some wanton wind,
That striving passage there to find,
Doth softly move the trembling leaves
Into a voice, and so deceives.
Hither sad lutes they nightly bring,
And gently touch each querulous string,
Till that with soft harmonious numbers/
They think th' have woo'd her into slumbers;
As if, the grave having an eare,

When dead things speak the dead should hear.
Here no sad lover, though of fame,
Is suff'red to engrave his name,
Lest that the wounding letters may
Make her thence fade, and pine away:
And so she withering through the pain
May sink into her grave again.
O why did Fates the groves uneare?
Why did they envy wood should hear?
Why, since Dodona's holy oake,
Have trees been dumb, and never spoke;
Now lovers' wounds uncured lye,
And they wax old in misery;
When, if true sense did quicken wood,
Perhaps shee'd sweat a balsom floud,
And knowing what the world endures,
Would weep her moysture into cures.

TO THE

MEMORY OF A SHIPWRACKT VIRGIN.

WHETHER thy well-shap'd parts now scattered far
Asunder into treasure parted are;

Whether thy tresses, now to amber grown,
Still cast a softer day where they are shown;
Whether those eyes be diamonds now, or make
The carefull goddess of the flouds mistake,
Chiding their ling'ring stay, as if they were
Stars that forgot t' ascend unto their sphere;
Whether thy lips do into corall grow,
Making her wonder how 't came red below;
Whether those orders of thy teeth, now sown
In several pearls, enrich each channell one;
Whether thy gentle breath in easie gales
Now flies, and chastly fils the pregnant sailes ;
Or whether whole, turn'd syren, thou dost joy
Only to sing, unwilling to destroy;
Or else a nymph far fairer døst encrease
The virgin train of the Nereides;

If that all sense departed not with breath,
And there is yet some memory in death,
Accept this labour, sacred to thy fame,
Swelling with thee, made poem by thy name.

Hearken O winds (if that ye yet have cares
Who were thus deaf unto my fair one's tears)
Fly with this curse; may cavernes you contain
Sitll strugling for release, but still in vain.

Listen O flouds; black night upon you dwell, Thick darkness still enwrap you; may you swell Ouly with grief; may ye to every thirst Flow bitter still, and so of all be curst.

V

And thou unfaithfull, ill-compacted pine, That in her nuptials didst refuse to shine, Blaze in her pile. Whiles thus her death I weep, Swim down, my murmuring lute; move thou the Into soft numbers, as thou passest by, And make her fate become her elegy.

[deep