DISDAIN RETURNED.

HE that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,

Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires,
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.

But a smooth and steadfast mind,
Gentle thoughts and calm desires,
Hearts, with equal love combined
Kindle never-dying fires;
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.

No tears, Celia, now shall win,

My resolved heart to return;

I have searched thy soul within
And find nought but pride and scorn;
I have learned thy arts, and now

Can disdain as much as thou!

THE PRIMROSE.

ASK me why I send you here

This firstling of the infant year;

Ask me why I send to you

This primrose all bepearled with dew;
I straight will whisper in your ears,

The sweets of love are washed with tears:

Ask me why this flower doth show

So yellow, green, and sickly too;
Ask me why the stalk is weak,
And bending, yet it doth not break;
I must tell you, these discover
What doubts and fears are in a lover.

EPITAPH ON THE LADY MARY VILLERS.

THE Lady Mary Villers lies

Under this stone; with weeping eyes

The parents that first gave her birth,
And their sad friends, laid her in earth.
If
any of them, reader, were
Known unto thee, shed a tear;
Or if thyself possess a gem
As dear to thee as this to them,
Though a stranger to this place,
Bewail in theirs thine own hard case,
For thou, perhaps, at thy return
May'st find thy darling in an urn.

SIR JOHN SUCKLING.

(1609-1641.)

Suckling's Collected Poems were first published in 1646 under the title of Fragmenta Aurea. As in the cases of Carew and Lovelace also, many of his songs were set to music and circulated long before the for mal edition of his poems. They are reprinted in Chalmers' Poets, vol. vi., and have been edited, together with the plays, by Mr. W. C. Haz (2 vols., London, 1874).

WHY

ORSAMES' SONG.

HY so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?

Will, when looking well can't move her,

Looking ill prevail?

Prithee, why so pale?

Why so dull and mute, young sinner?

Prithee, why so mute?

Will, when speaking well can't win her, Saying nothing do't?

Prithee, why so mute?

Quit, quit, for shame, this will not move:
This cannot take her.

If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her:
The devil take her!

CONSTANCY.

OUT upon it, I have loved,

Three whole days together;
And am like to love three more,
If it prove fair weather.

Time shall moult away his wings,
Ere he shall discover

In the whole wide world again
Such a constant lover.

But the spite on 't is, no praise
Is due at all to me:

Love with me had made no stays,
Had it any been but she.

Had it any been but she,

And that very face,

There had been at least ere this

A dozen in her place.

RICHARD LOVELACE.

(1618-1658.).

From the volume entitled Lucasta, 1649. His poems have been edited by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt in the Library of Old Authors, 1864.

GOING TO THE WARS.

'ELL me not, sweet, I am unkind,

TELL

That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field,

And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore,—

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.

TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON

WHEN love with unconfinèd wings

Hovers within my gates,

And my divine Althea brings

To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fettered to her eye,

The birds that wanton in the air

Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round

With no allaying Thames,

Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;

When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.

When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud, how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds that curl the flood
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

THE ROSE.

WEET, serene, sky-like flower,

SWEET

Hasten to adorn her bower,

From thy long cloudy bed
Shoot forth thy damask head.

New-startled blush of Flora,
The grief of pale Aurora

(Who will contest no more),
Haste, haste to strew her floor!

Vermilion ball that's given
From lip to lip in heaven,