To the celebrated literary partnership of Beaumont and Fletcher, this author, though the younger of the two associates, is believed to have brought the correcter judgment, if not the more creative genius. His miscellaneous poems, published by his brother, after the poet's early death, contain little beside the subjoined extracts, suitable to the present collection. It ought to be remembered, in extenuation of the blemishes which deform them, that they are the effusions of youth and exuberant spirits, nearly all of them having been written in his boyish years.
HERE she lies, whose spotless fame
Invites a stone to learn her name:
The rigid Spartan that denied
An epitaph to all that died,
Unless for war, on charity
Would here vouchsafe an elegy.
She died a wife, but yet her mind,
Beyond virginity refin'd,
From lawless fire remain'd as free
As now from heat her ashes be:
Her husband, yet without a sin,
Was not a stranger, but her kin;
That her chaste love might seem no other
To her husband than a brother.
Keep well this pawn, thou marble chest;
Till it be call'd for let it rest;
For while this jewel here is set,
GOD'S PROVIDENCE THE HONEST MAN'S
FORTUNE.
MAN is his own star, and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Command all light, all influence, all fate,
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good, or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still;
And when the stars are labouring, we believe
It is not that they govern, but they grieve
For stubborn ignorance: all things that are
Made for our general uses are at war;
Even we among ourselves, and from the strife
Your first unlike opinions got a life.
O man, thou image of thy Maker's good,
What canst thou fear when breath'd into thy blood
His Spirit is that built thee? what dull sense
Makes thee suspect, in need, that providence?
Who made the morning, and who plac'd the light
Guide to thy labours? Who call'd up the night,
And bid her fall upon thee like sweet show'rs
In hollow murmurs, to lock up thy powers?
Who gave thee knowledge, who so trusted thee
To let thee grow so near himself, the tree?
Must he then be distrusted? shall his frame
Discourse with him, why thus and thus I am?
He made the angels thine, thy fellows all;
Nay, even thy servants when devotions call:
O canst thou be so stupid, then, so dim,
To seek a saving influence, and lose him?
Can stars protect thee? or can poverty,
Which is the light to heaven, put out his eye?
He is my star, in him all truth I find,
All influence, all fate; and when my mind'
Is furnished with his fulness, my poor story
Should outlive all their age and all their glory.
The hand of danger cannot fall amiss,
When I know what, and in whose power, it is:
Nor want, the cause of man, shall make me groan;
A holy hermit is a mind alone.
Doth not experience teach us all we can
To work ourselves into a glorious man?
Love's but an exhalation to best eyes;
The matter spent, and then the fool's fire dies:
Were I in love, and could that bright star bring
Increase to wealth, honour, and every thing;
Were she as perfect good as we can aim,
The first was so, and yet she lost the game.
My mistress then be knowledge and fair truth;
So I enjoy all beauty and all youth:
And though to time her lights and laws she lends,
She knows no age that to corruption bends.
Friends' promises may lead me to believe,
But he that is his own friend knows to live:
Affliction, when I know it is but this,
A deep allay whereby man tougher is
To bear the hammer, and the deeper still,
We still arise more image of his will;
Sickness an hum'rous cloud 'twixt us and light,
And death, at longest, but another night.
Man is his own star, and that soul that can
Be honest, is the only perfect man.
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