228. UPON A GENTLEWOMAN WITH A SWEET VOICE.

So long you did not sing or touch your lute,

We knew 'twas flesh and blood that there sat mute. But when your playing and your voice came in, 'Twas no more you then, but a cherubin.

229. UPON CUPID.

As lately I a garland bound,
'Mongst roses I there Cupid found;
I took him, put him in my cup,
And drunk with wine, I drank him up.
Hence then it is that my poor breast
Could never since find any rest.

230. UPON JULIA'S BREASTS.

DISPLAY thy breasts, my Julia-there let me
Behold that circummortal purity,

Between whose glories there my lips I'll lay,
Ravish'd in that fair via lactea.

231. BEST TO BE MERRY.

FOOLS are they who never know
How the times away do go;

But for us, who wisely see

Where the bounds of black death be,

Let's live merrily, and thus

Gratify the Genius.

Circummortal, more than mortal.

232. THE CHANGES TO CORINNA.

Be not proud, but now incline
Your soft ear to discipline.

You have changes in your life—

Sometimes peace and sometimes strife;
You have ebbs of face and flows,
As your health or comes or goes;
You have hopes, and doubts, and fears
Numberless, as are your hairs.
You have pulses that do beat
High, and passions less of heat.
You are young, but must be old,
And, to these, ye must be told
Time ere long will come and plough
Loathed furrows in your brow:
And the dimness of your eye

Will no other thing imply

But you must die

As well as I.

234. NEGLECT.

Art quickens nature; care will make a face; Neglected beauty perisheth apace.

235. UPON HIMSELF.

MOP-EYED I am, as some have said,
Because I've lived so long a maid:
But grant that I should wedded be,

Mop-eyed, shortsighted.

Should I a jot the better see?

No, I should think that marriage might,
Rather than mend, put out the light.

236. UPON A PHYSICIAN.

THOU Cam'st to cure me, doctor, of my cold,
And caught'st thyself the more by twenty fold:
Prithee go home; and for thy credit be
First cured thyself, then come and cure me.

238. TO THE rose. A SONG.

Go, happy rose, and interwove
With other flowers, bind my love.
Tell her, too, she must not be
Longer flowing, longer free,
That so oft has fetter'd me.

Say, if she's fretful, I have bands

Of pearl and gold to bind her hands.
Tell her, if she struggle still,

I have myrtle rods (at will)

For to tame, though not to kill.

Take thou my blessing, thus, and go

And tell her this, but do not so,
Lest a handsome anger fly,

Like a lightning, from her eye,

And burn thee up as well as I.

240. TO HIS BOOK.

THOU art a plant sprung up to wither never,
But like a laurel to grow green for ever.

241. UPON A PAINTED GENTLEWOMAN.
'tis true;

MEN say y'are fair, and fair ye are,

But, hark! we praise the painter now, not you.

243. DRAW-GLOVES.

Ar draw-gloves we'll play,

And prithee let's lay
A wager, and let it be this:

Who first to the sum

Of twenty shall come,

Shall have for his winning a kiss.

244. TO MUSIC, TO BECALM A SWEET-SICK YOUTH.

CHARMS, that call down the moon from out her

sphere,

On this sick youth work your enchantments here:

Bind up his senses with your numbers so

As to entrance his pain, or cure his woe.
Fall gently, gently, and a while him keep
Lost in the civil wilderness of sleep:

That done, then let him, dispossessed of pain,
Like to a slumb'ring bride, awake again.

Draw-gloves, a game of talking by the fingers.

245. TO THE HIGH AND NOBLE PRINCE GEorge, duke, MARQUIS, AND EARL OF BUCKINGHAM.

NEVER my book's perfection did appear
Till I had got the name of Villars here:
Now 'tis so full that when therein I look
I see a cloud of glory fills my book.
Here stand it still to dignify our Muse,
Your sober handmaid, who doth wisely choose
Your name to be a laureate wreath to her
Who doth both love and fear you, honoured sir.

246. HIS RECANTATION.

LOVE, I recant,

And pardon crave

That lately I offended;

But 'twas,

Alas!

To make a brave,

But no disdain intended.

No more I'll vaunt,

For now I see

Thou only hast the power
To find

And bind

A heart that's free,

And slave it in an hour.