Had it later been wrote, On Sandys they ran aground; ABRAHAM COWLEY. [Born in London, 1618, the son of a grocer; died at Chertsey, 28 July 1667. He was extraordinarily precocious, publishing at the age of fifteen a volume of Poetical Blossoms. During the Parliamentary War he was mostly abroad, and was laboriously employed in conducting a correspondence in cipher between the King and Queen. Afterwards he became a doctor of medicine, paying some considerable attention to botany. At the age of forty-two he retired to a life of rural and lettered seclusion at Chertsey: this also, it would seem, palled upon him, and death put a period to it after a brief interval of years. Cowley is one of the poets of remote and brilliant turns of thought, and elaborated literary distinction. One does not love his poetry; but one can admire it often-if only one would read it]. THE CHRONICLE, A BALLAD. But, when a while the wanton maid Martha soon did it resign Eliza till this hour might reign, Mary then, and gentle Anne, Both to reign at once began; Alternately they swayed; And sometimes Mary was the fair, And sometimes Anne the crown did wear, And sometimes both I obeyed. Another Mary then arose, A mighty tyrant she! Long, alas! should I have been When fair Rebecca set me free, One month, three days, and half an hour, But so weak and small her wit But, when Isabella came, But in her place I then obeyed Thousand worst passions then possessed Gentle Henrietta then, And a third Mary, next began: But should I now to you relate The strength and riches of their state, If I should tell the politic arts And all the little lime-twigs laid But I will briefer with them be, Whom God grant long to reign! RICHARD LOVELACE. [Born in 1618, son of Sir William Lovelace, of Woolwich; died in London, 1658. He was twice imprisoned in the royal cause-firstly, in the Gatehouse, Westminster, in 1642, for delivering to the House of Commons the Kentish petition "for restoring the king to his rights" &c., and again in 1648, when he remained in confinement until the execution of Charles I. was past. His miscellaneous poems appeared under the title of Lucasta: he wrote also a tragedy and a comedy, never printed. Lovelace died in poverty and obscurity, though probably not in such abject want as some writers have represented. He was, in his early youth, accounted," says Wood, "the most amiable and beautiful person that ever eye beheld; a person also of innate modesty, virtue, and courtly deportment "]. TO A LADY THAT DESIRED ME I WOULD BEAR MY PART WITH HER IN A SONG. MADAM A. L. THIS is the prettiest motion !1 What though 'tis said I have a voice; Which (as it through my pipe doth speed) In the same key with monkeys' jigs, Or the soft serenades above In calm of night, when cats make love. Was ever such a consort seen? They may embrace, sigh, kiss, the rest : 1 "Motion" and "drum" make up a very extraordinary rhyme. True, Lovelace was loose in his rhymes, and in his execution generally: yet I almost think a word must be missed here-perhaps "come!" (in the sense of "go to!") Our breath knows nought but east and west. The fair nurse still such lullabies That well, all said (for what there lay), The pleasure did the sorrow pay. Sure there's another way to save With edge of steel the square wood shapes, The merry Phaeton o' the car, Such swift notes he and 's wheels do run, Say, fair commandress, can it be You should ordain a mutiny? Far less be't emulation To pass me or in trill or tone,- And the smart lute, who should excel; Yet can I music too; but such That it with all parts can agree. If you wind up to the highest fret,3 It shall descend an eight from it; And, when you shall vouchsafe to fall, 1 The ballad of Queen Dido. "Love-bang" seems to mean "fond of noise, obstreperous." Freage" is a word unknown to me. 66 2 A musical peg. 3 A piece of wire attached to the finger-board of a guitar, Sixteen above you it shall call, Come then, bright cherubim, begin! Take all notes with your skilful eyes; Sound all my thoughts, and see expressed THE DUEL. LOVE drunk, the other day, knocked at my breast; My man, my ear, told me he came to attest He said that, by the law, the challenged might Which I not weighed, young and indifferent,' So we both met in one of his mother's groves ;- I stripped myself naked all o'er, as he : For so I was best armed, when bare. For, when my arm to its true distance came, This, this is Love we daily quarrel so,- We whip ourselves with our own twisted woe, And wound the air for a fly. The only way to undo this enemy Is to laugh at the boy, and he will cry. "To falsify a thrust," says Phillips (World of Words), "is to make a feigned pass." Lovelace here employs the word as a substantive. |