They should obey a shade,
Lest they too far extend.
-So though you're white as swan or snow, And have the power to move
A world of men to love;
Yet, when your lawns and silks shall flow,
And that white cloud divide
Into a doubtful twilight ;-then,
Then will your hidden pride
Raise greater fires in men.
YE have been fresh and green,
Ye have been fill'd with flowers;
And ye the walks have been
Where maids have spent their hours.
You have beheld how they
With wicker arks did come,
To kiss and bear away
The richer cowslips home.
You've heard them sweetly sing,
And seen them in a round;
Each virgin, like a spring,
With honeysuckles crown'd.
But now, we see none here,
Whose silvery feet did tread,
And with dishevell'd hair
Adorn'd this smoother mead.
Like unthrifts, having spent
Your stock, and needy grown,
You're left here to lament
Your poor estates alone.
TO A GENTLEWOMAN, OBJECTING TO HIM HIS
GRAY HAIRS
Am I despised, because you say,
And I dare swear, that I am gray ?
Know, Lady, you have but your day!
And time will come when you shall wear
Such frost and snow upon your hair;
And when, though long, it comes to pass,
You question with your looking-glass,
And in that sincere crystal seek
But find no rose-bud in your cheek,
Nor any bed to give the shew
Where such a rare carnation grew :
Ah! then too late, close in your chamber keeping,
It will be told
That you are old,—
By those true tears you're weeping.
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 plow
Loathéd furrows in your brow:
And the dimness of your eye
Will no other thing imply,
But you must die
UPON MRS ELIZ. WHEELER, UNDER THE NAME OF
SWEET Amarillis, by a spring's
Soft and soul-melting murmurings,
Slept; and thus sleeping, thither flew
A Robin-red-breast; who at view,
Not seeing her at all to stir,
Brought leaves and moss to cover her :
But while he, perking, there did pry
About the arch of either eye,
The lid began to let out day,—
At which poor Robin flew away;
And seeing her not dead, but all disleaved, He chirpt for joy, to see himself deceived.
No fault in women, to refuse
The offer which they most would chuse.
-No fault in women, to confess
How tedious they are in their dress;
-No fault in women, to lay on
The tincture of vermilion ;
And there to give the cheek a dye
Of white, where Nature doth deny.
-No fault in women, to make show
Of largeness, when they're nothing so ;
When, true it is, the outside swells
With inward buckram, little else.
-No fault in women, though they be
But seldom from suspicion free;
-No fault in womankind at all,
If they but slip, and never fall.
ABOUT the sweet bag of a bee
Two Cupids fell at odds;
And whose the pretty prize should be
They vow'd to ask the Gods.
Which Venus hearing, thither came,
And for their boldness stript them;
And taking thence from each his flame,
With rods of myrtle whipt them.
Which done, to still their wanton cries,
When quiet grown she'd seen them,
She kiss'd and wiped their dove-like eyes,
And gave the bag between them.
THE PRESENT: OR, THE BAG OF THE BEE
FLY to my mistress, pretty pilfering bee,
And say, thou bring'st this honey-bag from me ;
When on her lip thou hast thy sweet dew placed,
Mark if her tongue but slyly steal a taste;
If so, we live; if not, with mournful hum,
Tell forth my death; next, to my burial come.
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