Free from satiety, care, and anxiety,
Charms in variety fall to his share;
Bacchus's blisses and Venus's kisses,-
This, boys, this is the bachelor's fare.
A wife, like a canister, chattering, clattering,
Tied to a dog for his torment and dread,
All bespattering, bumping, and battering,
Hurries and worries him till he is dead:
Old ones are too devils haunted with blue devils,
Young ones are new devils raising despair;
Doctors and nurses combining their curses,
Adieu to full purses and bachelor's fare.
Through such folly days once sweet holidays
Soon are imbitter'd with wrangling and strife;
Wives turn jolly days to melancholy days,
All perplexing and vexing one's life;
Children are riotous, maid-servants fly at us,
Mammy to quiet us growls like a bear;
Polly is squalling and Molly is bawling,
While dad is recalling his bachelor's fare.
When they are older grown, then they are bolder grown,
Turning your temper, and spurning your rule; Girls through foolishness, passion, or mulishness, Parry your wishes, and marry a fool.
Boys will anticipate, lavish, and dissipate
All that your busy pate hoarded with care; Then tell me what jollity, fun, and frivolity Equals in quality bachelor's fare.
IN the rough blast heaves the billow,
In the light air waves the willow;
Every thing of moving kind
Varies with the veering wind;
What have I to do with thee,
Dull unjoyous Constancy?
Sombre tale and satire witty,
Sprightly glee and doleful ditty,
Measured sighs and roundelay,
Welcome all, but do not stay;
For what have I to do with thee,
Dull unjoyous Constancy?
TIME and Love are ever foes,
Following still a different aim;
Where the rosy tyrant glows
Steals old Time and damps the flame.
Angry Love a vengeful blow
Oft inflicts as rage inspires,
And where Time has scatter'd snow
Joys to wake the rebel fires.
Men in every age and clime
Equal still their triumphs prove,
Oft from love forgetting time,
Oft from time forgetting love.
* Sung in the comedy of Fashionable Friends.
THE Soote seasón that bud and bloom forth brings
With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale :
The nightingall with fethers new she sings;
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.
Summer is come: for every spray now springs.
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;
The fishes fleete with new-repayred scale;
The adder all her slough away she flinges;
The swift swallów pursueth the flies smálle;
The busy bee her honey how she minges!
Winter is worne that was the floures bale. And thus I see among these pleasant things Each care decays; and yet my sorrow springs.
NEW yeare, forth looking out of Ianus gate,
Doth seeme to promise hope of new delight;
And bidding the' old adieu, his passed date
Bids all old thoughts to die in dumpish spright:
And, calling forth out of sad Winters night
Fresh Love, that long hath slept in cheerlesse
bower,
Wils him awake, and soone about him dight
His wanton wings and darts of deadly power.
For lusty Spring now in his timely howre
Is ready to come forth, him to receive;
And warns the Earth with divers colord flowre
To decke hir selfe, and her faire mantle weave.
Then you, faire flowre! in whom fresh youth doth
Prepare your selfe new love to entertaine. [raine,
BE nought dismayd that her unmoved mind
Doth still persist in her rebellious pride:
Such love, not lyke to lusts of baser kynd,
The harder wonne, the firmer will abide.
The durefull oake, whose sap is not yet dride,
Is long ere it conceive the kindling fyre;
But, when it once doth burne, it doth divide
Great heat, and makes his flames to heaven aspire.
So hard it is to kindle new desire
In gentle brest that shall endure for ever:
Deepe is the wound, that dints the parts entire
With chaste effects, that nought but death can sever.
Then thinke not long in taking litle paine
To knit the knot that ever shall remaine.
THE merry cuckow, messenger of Spring,
His trompet shrill hath thrise already sounded,
That warnes al lovers wayte upon their king,
Who now is coming forth with girland crouned.
With noyse whereof the quyre of byrds resounded
Their anthemes sweet, devized of loves prayse,
That all the woods theyr ecchoes back rebounded,
As if they knew the meaning of their layes.
But mongst them all, which did Loves honor rayse,
No word was heard of her that most it ought;
But she his precept proudly disobayes,
And doth his ydle message set at nought.
Therefore, O Love, unlesse she turne to thee
Ere cuckow end, let her a rebell be!
WHAT guyle is this, that those her golden tresses She doth attyre under a net of gold;
And with sly skill so cunningly them dresses, That which is gold or haire may scarse be told? Is it that mens frayle eyes which gaze too bold She may entangle in that golden snare ;
And, being caught, may craftily enfold
Their weaker harts, which are not wel aware?
Take heed therefore, myne eyes, how ye doe stare
Henceforth too rashly on that guilefull net,
In which if ever ye entrapped are,
Out of her bands ye by no meanes shall get.
Fondnesse it were for any, being free,
To covet fetters, though they golden bee!
MARK when she smiles with amiable cheare,
And tell me whereto can ye lyken it;
When on each eyelid sweetly doe appeare
A hundred Graces as in shade to sit.
Lykest it seemeth, in my simple wit,
Unto the fayre sunshine in somers day;
That, when a dreadfull storme away is flit,
Thrugh the broad world doth spred his goodly ray;
At sight whereof, each bird that sits on spray,
And every beast that to his den was fled,
Comes forth afresh out of their late dismay,
And to the light lift up their drouping hed.
So my storme-beaten hart likewise is cheared
With that sunshine when cloudy looks are cleared.
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