Th' adorning thee with so much art Too apt before to kill. 'Tis not their beauty or their face, For which by men they worship'd be; But their high office and their place. Thou art my goddess, my saint she; I pray to her, only to pray to thee. COUNSEL. AH! what advice can I receive! A little puff of breath, we find, Small fires can quench and kill; Now whilst you speak, it moves me much, THE CURE. COME, doctor! use thy roughest art, Cut, burn, and torture, every part, There is no danger, if the pain Should me to a fever bring; Compar'd with heats I now sustain, A fever is so cool a thing, (Like drink which feverish men desire) That I should hope 'twould almost quench my fire. THE SEPARATION. Ask me not what my love shall do or be 'Twill last, I'm sure, and that is all we know. But still continue; as, they say, Sad troubled ghosts about their graves do stray. THE TREE. I CHOSE the flourishing'st tree in all the park, With freshest boughs and fairest head; I cut my love into his gentle Lark, And in three days, behold! 'tis dead: My very written flames so violent be, They 've burnt and wither'd-up the tree. How should I live myself, whose heart is found Deeply graven every where With the large history of many a wound, Larger than thy trunk can bear? With art as strange as Homer in the nut, Love in my heart has volumes put. What a few words from thy rich stock did take As a strong poison with one drop does make Love (I see now) a kind of witchcraft is, Or characters could ne'er do this. Pardon, ye birds and nymphs, who lov'd this shade; And pardon me, thou gentle tree; I thought her name would thee have happy made, And blessed omens hop'd from thee: "Notes of my love, thrive here," said 1, "and grow; And with ye let my love do so." Alas, poor youth! thy love will never thrive ! Go, tie the dismal knot (why should'st thou live?) HER UNBELIEF. 'Tis a strange kind of ignorance this in you, That your bright beams, as those of comets do, That truly you my idol might appear, Whilst all the people smell and see Thou sitt'st, and dost not see, nor smell, nor hear, Nay, th' unconcern'd themselves do prove Fair infidel! by what unjust decree Must I, who with such restless care I, by thy unbelief, am guiltless slain : And raise me from the dead again! COME, let's go on, where love and youth does I've seen too much, if this be all. Alas! how far more wealthy might I be [call; To show such stores, and nothing grant, As man and wife in picture do: But th' amour at last improv'd; Unless it lead to farther bliss, Beyond the tyrannous pleasures of the eye; Unless it heal, as well as strike: I would not, salamander-like, In scorching heats always to live desire, His loving beams unlock each maiden flower, Then on the earth, with bridegroom-heat, The Sun himself, although all eye he be, THE INCURABLE. I TRY'D if books would cure my love, but found I apply'd receipts of business to my wound, As well might men who in a fever fry, Mathematic doubts debate; As well might men who mad in darkness lie, I try'd devotion, sermons, frequent prayer, But those did worse than useless prove; I try'd in wine to drown the mighty care; Like drunkards' eyes, my troubled fancy there I try'd what mirth and gaiety would do, 'Gainst this, some new desire to stir, The physic made me worse, with which I strove As wholesome med'cines the disease improve HONOUR. SHE loves, and she confesses too; What's this, ye gods! what can it be? Have I o'ercome all real foes, THE INNOCENT ILL. THOUGH all thy gestures and discourses be That what to th' eye a beauteous face, So cunningly it wounds the heart, It strikes such heat through every part, Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracks have That a fly's death's a wound to thee; Of judge, of torturer, and of weapon too. Which God did for our faults create! kill! He. Never, my dear, was Honour yet undone Like tapers shut in ancient urns, She. Thou first, perhaps, who didst the fault commit, Wilt make thy wicked boast of it; Nor think a perfect victory gain'd, Unless they through the streets their captive lead enchain'd. He. Whoe'er his secret joys has open laid, 'Tis you the conqueror are, 'tis you Who have not only ta'en, but bound and gagg'd me too. She. Though public punishment we escape, the Will rack and torture us within: [sin skin at last. He. That thirsty drink, that hungry food, I songht, That wounded balm is all my fault; VERSES LOST UPON A WAGER. AS soon hereafter will I wagers lay 'Gainst what an oracle shall say; Fool that I was, to venture to deny A tongue so us'd to victory! A tongue so blest by Nature and by Art, She said, she said herself it would be so ; When they descend to human view) So dazzling bright, yet so transparent clear, Which could thy shape naked like Truth espy. Than what I ow'd to thee before: Thy wondrous beauty and thy wit BATHING IN THE RIVER. THE fish around her crowded, as they do To the false light that treacherous fishers shew, And all with as much ease might taken be, As she at first took me ; For ne'er did light so clear Among the waves appear, Though every night the Sun himself set there, Why to mute fish should thou thyself discover, Maids bury: and, for aught we know, I laugh'd the wanton play to view; And still old lovers yield the place to new. Then tell her what your pride doth cost, LOVE GIVEN OVER. Ir is enough; enough of time and pain Think that already lost which thou must never gain. Three of thy lustiest and thy freshest years, (Toss'd in storms of hopes and fears) Like helpless ships that be Set on fire i' th' midst o' the sea, Have all been burnt in love, and all been drown'd in tears. Resolve then on it, and by force or art Free thy unlucky heart; Since Fate does disapprove Th' ambition of thy love, And not one star in Heaven offers to take thy part. If e'er I clear my heart of this desire, If e'er it home to its breast retire, A lover burnt like me for ever dreads the fire. The pox, the plague, and every small disease Alas! what comfort is 't that I am grownł the town. THE FORCE OF LOVE. PRESERVED FROM AN OLD MANUSCRIPT. THROW an apple up an hill, Down the mountain flows the stream, Metals grow within the mine, Man is born to live and die, Does the cedar love the mountain! As the wencher loves a lass, We're by those serpents bit; but we're devour'd When young maidens courtship shutiy by these. When the Moon out-shines the San Ir a man should undertake to translate Pindar word for word, it would be thought, that one madman had translated another; as may appear, when he that understands not the original, reads the verbal traduction of him into Latin prose, than which nothing seems more raving. And sure, rhyme, without the addition of wit, and the spirit of poetry, (quod nequeo monstrare & sentio tantum) would but make it ten times more distracted than it is in prose. We must consider in Pindar the great difference of time betwixt his age and ours, which changes, as in pictures, at least the colours of poetry; the no less difference betwixt the religions and customs of our countries; and a thousand particularities of places, persons, and manners, which do but confusedly appear to our eyes at so great a distance. And lastly (which were enough alone for my purpose) we must consider, that our ears are strangers to the music of his numbers, which, sometimes (especially in songs and odes) And almost without any thing else, makes an excellent poet; for though the grammarians and critics have laboured to reduce his verses into regular feet and measures (as they have also those of the Greek and Latin comedies) yet in effect they are little better than prose to our ears. And I would gladly know what applause our best pieces of English poesy could expect from a Frenchman or Italian, if converted faithfully, and word for word, into French or Italian prose. when we have considered all this, we must needs confess, that, after all these losses sustained by Pindar, all we can add to him by our wit or invention (not deserting still his subject) is not like to make him a richer man than he was in his own country. This is in some measure to be applied to all translations; and the not observing of it, is the cause that all which ever I yet saw are so much inferior to their originals. The like happens too in pictures, from the same root of exact imitation; which, being a vile and un |