SEE Cytherea's birds, that milk-white pair,
On yonder leafy myrtle-tree, which groan,
And waken with their kisses in the air,
Th' enamoured zephyrs murmuring one by one:
If thou but sense hadst like Pygmalion's stone,
Or hadst not seen Medusa's snaky hair,
Love's lessons thou might'st learn and learn, sweet fair, To summer's heat, e'er that thy spring be grown.
And if those kissing lovers seem but cold,
Look that elm this ivy doth embrace,
And binds and clasps with many a wanton fold,
And courting sleep, o'ershadows all the place;
Nay, seems to say, Dear tree, we shall not part,
In sign whereof, lo! in each leaf a heart!
WHAT doth it serve to see the sun's bright face,
And skies enamelled with the Indian gold?
Or moon at night in jetty chariot rolled,
And all the glory of that starry place?
What doth it serve earth's beauty to behold,
The mountain's pride, the meadow's flow'ry grace,
The stately comeliness of forests old,
The sport of floods which would themselves embrace?
What doth it serve to hear the sylvan's songs,
The cheerful thrush, the nightingale's sad strains,
Which in dark shades seem to deplore my wrongs?
For what doth serve all that this world contains,
Since she, for whom those once to me were dear,
Can have no part of them now with me here?
OH! burning thoughts, now let me take some rest,
And your tumultuous broils awhile appease:
Is't not enough, stars, fortune, love, molest
Me all at once, but ye must too displease?
Let hope, though false, yet lodge within my breast;
My high attempt, though dangerous, yet praise :
What though I trace not right heaven's steepy ways,
It doth suffice my fall shall make me blest.
I do not dote on days, I fear not death,
So that my life be good, I wish't not long ;
Let me renowned live from the worldly throng,
And when Heaven lists, recall this borrowed breath.
Men but like visions are,-time doth all claim-
He lives, who dies, to win a lasting name.
SONNET AFTER THE DEATH OF MISS CUNNINGHAM.
SWEET Spring, thou turn'st with all thy goodly train,
Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flow'rs,
The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain,
The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their show'rs.
Thou turn'st, sweet Spring;-but ah! my pleasant hours,
And happy days with thee come not again ;
The sad memorials only of my pain
Do with thee come, which turn my sweets to sours.
Thou art the same which still thou wert before,
Delicious, wanton, amiable and fair;
But she, whose breath embalmed thy wholesome air,
Is gone; nor gold nor gems can her restore.
Neglected virtue, seasons go and come,
Whilst thine forgot lie closèd in a tomb,
My Lute, be as thou wert when thou didst grow
With thy green mother in some shady grove,
When immelodious winds but made thee move,
And birds on thee their ramage did bestow.
Sith that dear voice which did thy sounds approve,
Which wont in such harmonious strains to flow,
Is reft from earth to tune those spheres above,
What art thou but a harbinger of woe?
Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more,
But orphan wailings to the fainting ear;
Each stop a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear,
Be, therefore, silent as in woods before:
Or if that any hand to touch thee deign,
Like widowed turtle still her loss complain.
ON THE SAME SUBJECT OF HIS LOSS.
O IT is not to me, bright lamp of day,
That in the east thou show'st thy golden face;
O it is not to me thou leav'st that sea,
And in those azure lists beginn'st thy race.
Thou shin'st not to the dead in any place;
And I dead from this world am past away,
Or if I seem, a shadow, yet to stay,
It is a while but to bewail my case:
My mirth is lost, my comforts are dismayed,
And unto sad mishaps their place do yield;
My knowledge represents a bloody field,
Where I my hopes and helps see prostrate laid.
So plaintful is life's course which I have run,
That I do wish it never had begun.
ON THE SAME, TO ALEXANDER EARL OF STIRLING.
ALEXIS, here she strayed; among these pines,
Sweet hermitress, she did alone repair;
Here did she spread the treasures of her hair,
More rich than that brought from the Indian mines :
She set her by these musky eglantines,
The happy place the print seems yet to bear;
Her voice did sweeten here thy sugared lines,
To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did lend their ear:
Me here she first perceived, and here a morn
Of bright carnations did o'erspread her face;
Here did she sigh; here first my hopes were born,
And I first got a pledge of promised grace.
But, ah! what served it to be happy so,
Sith passed pleasures double but new woe?
ON THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE.
A PASSING glance, a light'ning 'long the skies,
Which ush'ring thunder, dies straight to our sight;
A sparke that doth from jarring mixtures rise,
Thus drowned is in the huge depths of day and night;
Is this small trifle, life,-held in such price,
Of blinded wights, who ne'er judge aught aright.
Of Parthian shaft so swift is not the flight
As life,—that wastes itself, and living dies.
Ah! what is human greatness, valour, wit!
What fading beauty, riches, honour, praise?
To what doth serve in golden thrones to sit,
Thrall earth's vast round, triumphal arches raise ?
That's all a dream, learn in this lady's fall,
In whom, save death, nought mortal was at all.
DEAR quirister, who from those shadows sends,
Ere that the blushing dawn dare shew her light,
Such sad lamenting strains, that night attends,
(Become all ear,) stars stay to hear thy plight;
If one, whose grief even reach of thought transcends,
Who ne'er (not in a dream) did taste delight,
May thee importune, who like case pretends,
And seems to joy in woe, in woe's despite ;
Tell me, (so may thou fortune milder try,
And long, long sing!) for what thou thus complains,
Sith, winter gone, the sun in dappled sky
Enamoured smiles on woods and flowery plains!
The bird, as if my questions did her move,
With trembling wings, sobbed forth, I love, I love.
Now, while the Night her sable veil hath spread,
And silently her resty coach doth roll,
Rousing with her from Tethys' azure bed
Those starry nymphs which dance about the pole;
While Cynthia, in purest cyprus cled,
The Latmian shepherd in a trance descries,
And whiles looks pale from height of all the skies,
Whiles dyes her beauties in a bashful red;
While Sleep, in triumph closèd hath all eyes,
And birds and beasts a silence sweet do keep,
And Proteus' monstrous people in the deep,
The winds and waves hushed up to rest entice;
I wake, muse, weep, and who my heart hath slain,
See still before me to augment my pain.
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