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Giddy with change, and therefore cannot see Right, the right way; yet must your comfort be Your conscience, and not wonder if none asks For truth's complexion, where they all wear masks.

Let who will follow fashions and attires,
Maintain their liegers forth for foreign wires,
Melt down their husbands lands, to pour away
On the close groom and page, on new-year's
day,

And almost all days after, while they live;
They find it both so witty, and safe to give.
Let them on powders, oils, and paintings spend,
Till that no usurer, nor his bawds dare lend
Them or their officers; and no man know,
Whether it be a face they wear or no.
Let them waste body and state; and after all,
When their own parasites laugh at their fall,
May they have nothing left, whereof they can
Boast, but how oft they have gone wrong to man,
And call it their brave sin: for such there be
That do sin only for the infamy;

And never think, how vice doth every hour
Eat on her clients, and some one devour.
You, madam, young have learn'd to shun these

shelves,

Whereon the most of mankind wreck themselves,
And keeping a just course, have early put
Into your harbor, and all passage shut

Gainst storms or pirates, that might charge your

peace;

For which you worthy are the glad increase
Of your blest womb, made fruitful from above
To pay your lord the pledges of chaste love;
And raise a noble stem, to give the fame
To Clifton's blood, that is denied their name.
Grow, grow, fair tree! and as thy branches
shoot,

Hear what the Muses sing above thy root,
By me, their priest, if they can aught divine:
Before the moons have fill'd their triple trine,
To crown the burden which you go withal,
It shall a ripe and timely issue fall,
T' expect the honors of great AUBIGNY;
And greater rites, yet writ in mystery,
But which the fates forbid me to reveal.
Only thus much out of a ravish'd zeal
Unto your name, and goodness of your life,
They speak; since you are truly that rare wife,
Other great wives may blush at, when they see
What your tried manners are, what theirs should

be;
How you love one, and him you should, how still
You are depending on his word and will;
Not fashion'd for the court, or strangers' eyes;
But to please him, who is the dearer prize
Unto himself, by being so dear to you.
This makes, that your affections still be new,
And that your souls conspire, as they were gone
Each into other, and had now made one.
Live that one still! and as long years do pass,
Madam, be bold to use this truest glass;
Wherein your form you still the same shall find;
Because nor it can change, nor such a mind.

XIV. ODE TO SIR WILLIAM SIDNEY ON HIS
BIRTH-DAY.

Now that the hearth is crown'd with smiling fire,
And some do drink, and some do dance,

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And judge me after: if I dare pretend To aught but grace, or aim at other end. As thou art all, so be thou all to me,

First, midst, and last, converted One, and Three! My faith, my hope, my love; and in this state, My judge, my witness, and my advocate. Where have I been this while exiled from thee, And whither rapt, now thou but stoop'st to me? Dwell, dwell here still! O, being every where, How can I doubt to find thee ever here?

I know my state, both full of shame and scoru,
Conceived in sin, and unto labor born,
Standing with fear, and must with horror fall,
And destined unto judgment, after all.

I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground
Upon my flesh t' inflict another wound:
Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death,
With holy PAUL, lest it be thought the breath
Of discontent; or that these prayers be
For weariness of life, not love of thee.

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WITH the same leave the ancients called that kind of body Sylva, or "Yλn, in which there were works of divers na. ture and matter congested; as the multitude called Timber-Trees promiscuously growing, a Wood or Forest; so I an bold to entitule these lesser poems of later growth, by this of UNDERWOOD, out of the analogy they hold to the Forest in my former book, and no otherwise. BEN JONSON

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Who more can crave
Than thou hast done'
That gav'st a Son
To free a slave:

First made of nought;
With all since bought.

Sin, death, and hell
His glorious name
Quite overcame;
Yet I rebel,

And slight the same.

But, I'll come in,
Before my loss,
Me farther toss,
As sure to win

Under his cross.

III. AN HYMN ON THE NATIVITY OF MY SAVIOR.

I sing the birth was born to-night,

The author both of life and light;

The angels so did sound it.

And like the ravish'd shepherds said,
Who saw the light, and were afraid,

Yet search'd, and true they found it

The Son of God, the Eternal King,
That did us all salvation bring,

And freed the soul from danger; He whom the whole world could not take, The Word, which heaven and earth did make Was now laid in a manger.

The Father's wisdom will'd it so,
The Son's obedience knew no No,

Both wills were in one stature ;
And as that wisdom had decreed,
The Word was now made Flesh indeed,
And took on him our nature.

What comfort by him do we win,
Who made himself the price of sin,
To make us heirs of glory!

To see this Babe, all innocence
A martyr born in our defence;

Can man forget this story?

A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS;

IN TEN LYRIC PIECES.

I. HIS EXCUSE FOR LOVING.

Let it not your wonder move,
Less your laughter, that I love.
Though I now write fifty years,
I have had, and have my peers;
Poets, though divine, are men :
Some have loved as old again.
And it is not always face,
Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace;
Or the feature, or the youth:
But the language, and the truth,
With the ardor, and the passion,
Gives the lover weight and fashion.
If you then will read the story,
First, prepare you to be sorry,
That you never knew till now,
Either whom to love, or how:
But be glad, as soon with me,
When you know that this is she,
Of whose beauty it was sung,
She shall make the old man young,
Keep the middle age at stay,
And let nothing high decay;
Till she be the reason, why,
All the world for love may die.

II. HOW HE SAW HER.

I beheld her on a day, When her look out-flourish'd May: And her dressing did out-brave All the pride the fields then have : Far I was from being stupid, For I ran and call'd on Cupid ; LOVE, if thou wilt ever see Mark of glory, come with me; Where's thy quiver? bend thy bow; Here's a shaft, thou art too slow! And, withal, I did untie

--

Every cloud about his eye;

But he had not gain'd his sight
Sooner than he lost his might,
Or his courage; for away

Straight he ran, and durst not stay,
Letting bow and arrow fall;
Not for any threat, or call,

Could be brought once back to look.
I fool-hardy, there up took

Both the arrow he had quit,

And the bow, with thought to hit
This my object; but she threw
Such a lightning, as I drew,
At my face, that took my sight,
And my motion from me quite ;
So that there I stood a stone,
Mock'd of all, and call'd of one,
(Which with grief and wrath I heard,
Cupid's statue with a beard;
Or else one that play'd his ape,
In a Hercules his shape.

III. WHAT HE SUFFERED.

After many scorns like these, Which the prouder beauties please; She content was to restore Eyes and limbs to hurt me more, And would, on conditions, be Reconciled to Love and me. First, that I must kneeling yield Both the bow and shaft I held Unto her; which Love might take At her hand, with oaths, to make Me the scope of his next draft, Aimed, with that self-same shaft. He no sooner heard the law, But the arrow home did draw, And, to gain her by his art, Left it sticking in my heart:

Which when she beheld to bleed, She repented of the deed,

And would fain have chang'd the fate,
But the pity comes too late.
Loser-like, now, all my wreak
Is, that I have leave to speak;
And in either prose, or song,
To revenge me with my tongue;
Which how dexterously I do,
Hear, and make example too.

IV. HER TRIUMPH.

Sce the chariot at hand here of Love, Wherein my Lady rideth!

Each that draws is a swan or a dove, And well the car Love guideth. As she goes, all hearts do duty

Unto her beauty;

And enamour'd, do wish, so they might
But enjoy such a sight,

That they still were to run by her side, Through swords, through seas, whither she would rule.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light
All that Love's world compriseth!
Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As Love's star when it riseth!
Do but mark, her forehead's smoother

Than words that soothe her:
And from her arched brows, such a grace
Sheds itself through the face,
As alone there triumphs to the life
All the gain, all the good of the elements' strife.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,

Before rude hands have touch'd it?
Have you mark'd but the fall of the snow
Before the soil hath smutch'd it?
Have you felt the wool of the bever?

Or swan's down ever?
Or have smelt o' the bud of the briar?
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?

U so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!

V. HIS DISCOURSE WITH CUPID

Noblest CHARIS, you that are
Both my fortune and my star,
And do govern more my blood,
Than the various moon the flood,
Hear, what late discourse of you,
LOVE and I have had; and true.
Mongst my Muses finding me,
Where he chanced your name to see
Set, and to this softer strain;
Sure, said he, if I have brain,
This, here sung, can be no other,
By description, but my mother!
So hath Homer praised her hair;
So Anacreon drawn the air
Of her face, and made to rise
Just about her sparkling eyes,
Both her brows bent like my bow.
By her looks I do her know,

Which you call my shafts. And see!
Such my mother's blushes be,
As the bath your verse discloses
In her cheeks, of milk and roses;
Such as oft I wanton in :
And, above her even chin,

Have you placed the bank of kisses,
Where, you say, men gather blisses,
Ripen'd with a breath more sweet,
Than when flowers and west-winds meet
Nay, her white and polish'd neck,
With the lace that doth it deck,
Is my mother's: hearts of slain
Lovers, made into a chain!
And between each rising breast,
Lies the valley call'd my nest,
Where I sit and proyne my wings
After flight; and put new stings
To my shafts: her very name
With my mother's is the same.
I confess all, I replied,

And the glass hangs by her side,
And the girdle 'bout her waist,
All is Venus, save unchaste.
But alas, thou seest the least
Of her good, who is the best

Of her sex: but couldst thou, Love,
Call to mind the forms that strove

For the apple, and those three
Make in one, the same were she.
For this beauty yet doth hide
Something more than thou hast spied,
Outward grace weak love beguiles :
She is Venus when she smiles;
But she's Juno, when she walks,
And Minerva when she talks.

VI. CLAIMING A SECOND KISS BY
DESERT.

CHARIS, guess, and do not miss,
Since I drew a morning kiss
From your lips, and suck'd an air
Thence, as sweet as you are fair,
What my Muse and I have done :
Whether we have lost or won,
If by us the odds were laid,
That the bride, allow'd a maid,
Look'd not half so fresh and fair,
With the advantage of her hair,
And her jewels to the view
Of the assembly, as did you!

Or that did you sit or walk,
You were more the eye and talk
Of the court, to-day, than all
Else that glister'd in Whitehall;
So, as those that had your sight,
Wish'd the bride were chang'd to-night
And did think such rites were due
To no other Grace but you!

Or, if you did move to-night
In the dances, with what spite
Of your peers you were beheld,
That at every motion swell'd
So to see a lady tread,

As might all the Graces lead,
And was worthy, being so seen,
To be envied of the queen.

Or if you would yet have staid,
Whether any would upbraid
To himself his loss of time;
Or have charg'd his sight of crime,
To have left all sight for you.
Guess of these which is the true;

And, if such a verse as this,

May not claim another kiss.

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