THE SPRING.

[From The Mistress.]

THOUGH you be absent here, I needs must say

The trees as beauteous are, and flowers as gay,

As ever they were wont to be;
Nay the birds' rural music too
Is as melodious and free,

As if they sung to pleasure you:

I saw a rose-bud ope this morn; I'll

swear

The blushing morning open'd not more fair.

How could it be so fair, and you away? How could the trees be beauteous, flowers so gay?

Could they remember but last year,
How you did them, they you delight,
The sprouting leaves which saw you
here,

And call'd their fellows to the sight, Would, looking round for the same sight in vain,

Creep back into their silent barks again.

Where'er you walk'd trees were as reverend made,

As when of old gods dwelt in every shade.
Is't possible they should not know,
What loss of honor they sustain,
That thus they smile and flourish now,
And still their former pride retain?
Dull creatures! 'tis not without cause
that she,

Who fled the god of wit, was made a tree.

In ancient times sure they much wiser were,

When they rejoic'd the Thracian verse to hear;

In vain did nature bid them stay, When Orpheus had his song begun, They call'd their wondering roots away, And bade them silent to him run. How would those learned trees have followed you?

You would have drawn them, and their poet too.

But who can blame them now? for, since you're gone,

They're here the only fair, and shine alone.

You did their natural rights invade :
Where ever you did walk or sit,
The thickest boughs could make no
shade,

Although the Sun had granted it: The fairest flowers could please no

more, near you,

Than painted flowers, set next to them, could do.

When e'er then you came hither, that shall be

The time, which this to others is, to me. The little joys which here are now, The name of punishments do bear, When by their sight they let us know How we depriv'd of greater are.

'Tis you the best of seasons with you bring;

This is for beasts, and that for men the spring.

WHEN love with unconfinèd wings

Hovers within my gates,

And my divine Althea brings

To whisper at my grates;

When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fetter'd to her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

WHY SO PALE AND WAN?

WHY 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!

I PRITHEE, send me BACK MY

HEART.

I PRITHEE, send me back my heart,
Since I cannot have thine;
For if from yours you will not part,

Why, then, shouldst thou have mine?

Yet now I think on't, let it lie,

To find it were in vain; For thou'st a thief in either eye Would steal it back again.

Why should two hearts in one breast lie,
And yet not lodge together?
O Love! where is thy sympathy,
If thus our breasts thou sever?

Aн, Chloris! that I now could sit
As unconcerned, as when

Your infant beauty could beget

No pleasure nor no pain.

When I the dawn used to admire,
And praised the coming day,
I little thought the growing fire
Must take my rest away.

Your charms in harmless childhood lay,
Like metals in the mine:
Age from no face took more away,
Than youth concealed in thine.

But as your charms insensibly

To their perfection pressed, Fond love as unperceived did fly, And in my bosom rest.

My passion with your beauty grew,
And Cupid at my heart,

Still, as his mother favored you,
Threw a new flaming dart.

Each gloried in their wanton part:
To make a lover, he
Employed the utmost of his art—
To make a beauty she.

Though now I slowly bend to love,
Uncertain of my fate,

If your fair self my chains approve,
I shall my freedom hate.

Lovers, like dying men, may well
At first disordered be;
Since none alive can truly tell

What fortune they must see.

EUTHANASIA; OR, THE HAPPY

DEATH.

WOULD'ST see blithe looks, fresh cheeks beguile

Age? would'st see December smile?
Would'st see hosts of new roses grow
In a bed of reverend snow?
Warm thoughts, free spirits, flattering
Winter's self into a spring?

In some would'st see a man that can
Live to be old, and still a man?
Whose latest and most leaden hours,
Fall with soft wings stuck with soft
flowers;

And when life's sweet fable ends,
Soul and body part like friends;
No quarrels, murmurs, no delay -
A kiss, a sigh, and so — away;
This rare one, reader, would'st thou see?
Hark hither! and thyself be he.

ЕРІТАРН.

To these, whom death again did wed,
This grave's their second marriage-bed.
For though the hand of Fate could force,
'Twixt soul and body a divorce,
It could not sunder man and wife,
'Cause they both lived but one life.
Peace, good reader, do not weep;
Peace, the lovers are asleep;
They (sweet turtles) folded lie,
In the last knot love could tie.
And though they lie as they were dead,
Their pillow stone, their sheets of lead;
(Pillow hard, and sheets not warm)
Love made the bed, they'll take no harm.
Let them sleep, let them sleep on,
Till this stormy night be gone,
And th' eternal morrow dawn;
Then the curtains will be drawn,
And they wake into that light
Whose day shall never die in night.

THE TEAR.

WHAT bright soft thing is this,
Sweet Mary, thy fair eyes expense?

A moist spark it is.

A wat'ry diamond; from whence The very term I think was found, The water of a diamond.

O'tis not a tear,

'Tis a star about to drop

From thine eye its sphere, The sun will stoop and take it up, Proud will his sister be to wear This thine eye's jewel in her ear.

O'tis a tear,

Too true a tear; for no sad een
How sad soe'er

Rain so tear as thine;
Each drop leaving a place so dear,
Weeps for itself, as its own tear.

Such a pearl as this is

(Slipt from Aurora's dewy breast)

The rosebud's sweet lip kisses; And such the rose itself when vext With ungentle flames, does shed, Sweating in too warm a bed.

Such the maiden gem,
By the wanton spring put on,

Peeps from her parent stem, And blushes on the wat'ry sun; This wat'ry blossom of thy een, Ripe will make the richer wine.

Fair drop, why quak'st thou so? 'Cause thou straight must lay thy head In the dust? O no,

The dust shall never be thy bed; A pillow for thee will I bring, Stuff'd with down of angel's wing:

Thus carried up on high,
(For to heaven thou must go)

Sweetly shalt thou lie,

And in soft slumbers bathe thy woe, Till the singing orbs awake thee, And one of their bright chorus make thee.

There thyself shalt be

An eye, but not a weeping one,
Yet I doubt of thee,

Whether th' hadst rather there have
shone,

An eye of heaven; or still shine here, In th' heaven of Mary's eye a tear.

O! THOU UNDAUNTED. O! THOU undaunted daughter of desires, By all thy dower of lights and fires;

By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love;
By thy large draughts of intellectual
day;

And by thy thirsts of love, more large than they;

By all thy brim-fill'd bowls of fierce de sire;

By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire;

By the full kingdom of that final kiss, That seal'd thy parting soul, and made thee his;

By all the heavens thou hast in him,
Fair sister of the seraphim;

By all of him we have in thec,
Leave nothing of myself in me;
Let me so read thy life, that I
Unto all life of mine may die.

Which keeps my little loaf of bread
Unchipt, unflead;

Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar
Make me a fire,

Close by whose living coal I sit,
And glow like it.

Lord, I confess too, when I dine.
The pulse is thine,

And all those other bits that be
There placed by thee;

The worts, the purslain, and the mess
Of water-cress,

Which of thy kindness thou hast sent;
And my content

Makes those, and my belovèd beet,
To be more sweet.

'Tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth

With guiltless mirth,

And giv'st me wassail bowls to drink,
Spiced to the brink.