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Therefore, Madam! wear no cloud,
Nor to check my love grow proud :
For in sooth I much do doubt
'Tis the powder in your hair,
Not your breath, perfumes the air;
And your clothes that set you out.

Yet, though truth has this confess'd,
And I vow I love in jest,

When I next begin to court
And protest an amorous flame
You will swear I earnest am :-
Bedlam! this is pretty sport.

CASTARA.

Like the violet, which alone
Prospers in some happy shade,
My Castara lives unknown,
To no looser eye betray'd:

For she's to herself untrue

Who delights i' the public view.

Such is her beauty as no arts

Have enrich'd with borrow'd grace;
Her high birth no pride imparts,
For she blushes in her place.
Folly boasts a glorious blood:
She is noblest being good.

Cautious, she knew never yet
What a wanton courtship meant;
Nor speaks loud to boast her wit,
In her silence eloquent.

Of herself survey she takes,

But 'tween men no difference makes.

She obeys with speedy will

Her grave parents' wise commands ;

And so innocent, that ill
She nor acts nor understands.
Women's feet run still astray
If to ill they know the way.

She sails by that rock, the Court,
Where oft Virtue splits her mast ;
And retiredness thinks the port
Where her fame may anchor cast.
Virtue safely can not sit
Where Vice is enthroned for Wit.

She holds that day's pleasure best
Where sin waits not on delight;
Without masque, or ball, or feast,
Sweetly spends a winter's night,
O'er that darkness whence is thrust
Prayer and sleep, if governs lust.

She her throne makes Reason climb,
While wild passions captive lie;
And each article of time

Her pure thoughts to heaven fly.
All her vows religious be,
And her love she vows to me.

SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT.

1605-6-1668.

DAY-BREAK.

The lark now leaves his watery nest
And, climbing, shakes his dewy wings :
He takes this window for the East,

And to implore your light he sings. Awake! awake! the Morn will never rise Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.

The merchant bows unto the seaman's star ;

The ploughman from the sun his season takes ; But still the lover wonders what they are

Who look for day before his Mistress wakes. Awake! awake! break through your veils of lawn ; Then draw your curtains, and begin the dawn!

EDMUND WALLER.

1605-1687.

ON A GIRDLE.

That which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind :
No monarch but would give his crown
His arms might do what this has done!

It was my heaven's extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer :
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move.

A narrow compass, and yet there
Dwelt all that's good and all that's fair :
Give me but what this ribbon bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round!

THE ROSE.

Go, lovely Rose !

Tell her that wastes her time and me

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be!

Tell her, that's young

And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung

In deserts where no men abide

Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired :
Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not blush so to be admired!

Then die! that she

The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee:

How small a part of time they share
They are so wondrous sweet and fair.

STAY, PHEBUS!

Stay, Phœbus! stay!

The world to which you fly so fast,
Conveying day

From us to them, can pay your haste

With no such object nor salute your rise With no such wonder as De Mornay's eyes.

Well does this prove

The error of those antique books
Which made you move

About the world: Her charming looks Would fix your beams, and make it ever day, Did not the rolling earth snatch her away.

TO MY YOUNG LADY LUCY SIDNEY.
Why came I so untimely forth

Into a world which, wanting thee,
Could entertain us with no worth
Or shadow of felicity,

That time should me so far remove
From that which I was born to love?

Yet, Fairest Blossom! do not slight

That age which you may know so soon:

The rosy morn resigns her light
And milder glory to the noon;
And then what wonders shall you do
Whose dawning beauty warms us so ?

Hope waits upon the flowery prime;
And Summer, though it be less gay,
Yet is not look'd on as a time

Of declination or decay :

For with a full hand that does bring
All that was promised by the Spring.

SIR JOHN SUCKLING.

1608-9-1642.

A BALLAD OF A WEDDING.

I tell thee, Dick! where I have been,
Where I the rarest things have seen,
O, things beyond compare!
Such sights again can not be found
In any place on English ground,
Be it at wake or fair.

At Charing-Cross, hard by the way
Where we, thou know'st, do sell our hay,
There is a House with stairs;

And there did I see coming down
Such volk as are not in our town,
Vorty at least, in pairs.

Among the rest One pest'lent fine,
His beard no bigger though than thine,
Walk'd on before the best :

Our Landlord looks like nothing to him

;

The King, God bless him! 'twould undo him Should he go still so dress'd.

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