Works

ON HER SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY.


Now has rich time brought you a gift of gold -
A long sweet year which you can shape at will,
And deck with roses warm, or with the chill...

Nor wilt thou rest forever, weary heart.
The last illusion is destroyed,
That I eternal thought. Destroyed!
I feel all hope and all desire depart,
For life and its deceitful joys....

And why not I, as hee
That's greatest, if as free,
(In sundry strains that striue,
Since there so many be)
Th' old Lyrick kind reuiue?

I will, yea, and I may;
Who shall oppose my way?...

My spirit to yours, dear brother;
Do not mind because many, sounding your name, do not understand you;
I do not sound your name, but I understand you, (there are others also;)...

Through all the night
Thou dost me fright,
And hold'st mine eyes from sleeping;
And day by day,
My cup can say
My wine is mix'd with weeping.

Thou dost my bread
With ashes knead...

You vain, self-conscious little book,
Companion of my happy days,
How eagerly you seem to look
For wider fields to spread your lays;
My desk and locks cannot contain you,...

Make haste away, and let one be
A friendly patron unto thee;
Lest, rapt from hence, I see thee lie
Torn for the use of pastery;
Or see thy injured leaves serve well
To make loose gowns for mackerel;...

(HOR. EP. I., 20.)


For mart and street you seem to pine
With restless glances, Book of mine!
Still craving on some stall to stand,
Fresh pumiced from the binder's hand....

While thou didst keep thy candour undefil'd,
Dearly I lov'd thee as my first-born child,
But when I saw thee wantonly to roam
From house to house, and never stay at home,...

Take mine advice, and go not near
Those faces, sour as vinegar;
For these, and nobler numbers, can
Ne'er please the supercilious man.

Be bold, my Book, nor be abash'd, or fear
The cutting thumb-nail, or the brow severe;
But by the Muses swear, all here is good,
If but well read, or ill read, understood.

Go thou forth, my book, though late,
Yet be timely fortunate.
It may chance good luck may send
Thee a kinsman or a friend,
That may harbour thee, when I
With my fates neglected lie....

If hap it must, that I must see thee lie
Absyrtus-like, all torn confusedly;
With solemn tears, and with much grief of heart,
I'll recollect thee, weeping, part by part;...

To read my book the virgin shy
May blush while Brutus standeth by,
But when he's gone, read through what's writ,
And never stain a cheek for it.

Who with thy leaves shall wipe, at need,
The place where swelling piles do breed;
May every ill that bites or smarts
Perplex him in his hinder parts.

For being comely, consonant, and free
To most of men, but most of all to me;
For so decreeing that thy clothes' expense
Keeps still within a just circumference;
Then for contriving so to load thy board...

What others have with cheapness seen and ease
In varnish'd maps, by th' help of compasses,
Or read in volumes and those books with all
Their large narrations incanonical,...

When I go hence, ye Closet-Gods, I fear
Never again to have ingression here
Where I have had whatever thing could be
Pleasant and precious to my muse and me.
Besides rare sweets, I had a book which none...

Can I not sin, but thou wilt be
My private protonotary?
Can I not woo thee, to pass by
A short and sweet iniquity?
I'll cast a mist and cloud upon
My delicate transgression,...

A Canzonet

I pray thee leaue, loue me no more,
Call home the Heart you gaue me,
I but in vaine that Saint adore,
That can, but will not saue me:
These poore halfe Kisses kill me quite;...