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Sweet fellow pris'ners, 'twas a cruel art
The first invention to reftrain the wing;
To keep th' inhabitants o'th' air clofe captive
That were created to sky-freedom: furely
The merciless creditor took his first light,
And prifons their firft models from fuch bird-loops.

Shirley's Bird in a Cage.
Let them fear bondage, who are flaves to fear;
The fweeteft freedom is an honeft heart.

John Ford's Lady's Trial.

Death is the pledge of reft, and with one bail,

Two prifons quits; the body, and the jail.

A prifon is in all things like a grave,
Where we no better privileges have

Bishop King,

Than dead men; nor fo good. The foul once fled
Lives freer now, than when fhe was cloist'red
In walls of flesh; and though fhe organs want
To act her fwift defigns, yet all will grant
Her faculties more clear, now feparate,
Than if the fame conjunction, which of late
Did marry her to earth, had ftood in force;
Uncapable of death, or of divorce:
But an imprifon'd mind, though living, dies,
And at one time, feels two captivities:
A narrow dungeon which her body holds,
But narrow'r body which herself enfolds.

Nature, in spite of fortune, gave us minds,
That cannot like our bodies be enthrall'd.

Bishop King.

Sir Ralph Freeman's Imperiale.

Doft thou ufe me as fond children do

Their birds, fhew me my freedom in a string;

And when thou't play'd with me a while, then pull Me back again, to languifh in my cage?

Sir W. Davenant's Unfortunate Lovers.

Her sweetness is imprifon'd now,

Like

Like weeping roses in a ftill; and is
Like them, ordain'd to last by diffolution.

Sir W. Davenant's Love and Honour.
But Oh,

This difmal place brings it again to thought!
This looks, methinks, much like the dark
And hidden dwelling of the winds,

Where ftorms ingender; which with sudden blafts
Make nature tremble, and lay flat

The stiffeft piles of art.

Ibid.

Captivity

Is th'inheritance of all things finite;
Nor can we boaft our liberty, though we
Are not restrained by ftrong holds; when as
The neigb'ring air confines us, and each man
Is thraldom's perfect emblem: For in all,
The foul is captive, and the body's thrall.

Marriage Broker.

INCONSTANCY.

O fair Cynthia, why do others term thee
Inconftant, whom I've ever found unmoveable ?
Injurious time; corrupt manners; unkind
Men! who finding a conftancy not to

Be match'd in my fweet miftrefs, have chriften'd
Her with the name of wav'ring, waxing, and waning.
Is fhe inconftant that keeps a fettled

Courfe, which fince her firft creation alters
Not one minute in her moving? There is

Nothing thought more admirable, or commendable
In the fea, than the ebbing and flowing;
And shall the moon, from whom the fea taketh
This virtue, be accounted fickle for
Increafing and decreafing? Flowers in

Their buds, are nothing worth till they be blown ;
Nor bloffoms accounted till they be ripe

:

Fruit And fhall we fay then they be changeable, For that they grow from feeds to leaves, from leaves

To

To buds, from buds to their perfections?

Then, why be not twigs that become trees;
Children that become men ; and mornings that
Grow to evenings; term'd wav'ring: For that they
Continue not at one stay? Ay, but Cynthia,
Being in her fulness, decayeth, as

Not delighting in her greatest beauty;
Or with ring when the fhould be most honour'd.
When malice cannot object any thing,
Folly will; making that a vice, which is
The greatest virtue. What thing, my mistress
Excepted, being in the pride of her

Beauty, and latter minute of her age,
That waxeth young again?

Ev'n as one heat another heat expels,

Lilly's Endimion.

Or as one nail by ftrength drives out another;
So the remembrance of my former love,

Is by a newer object quite forgotten.

1.

Shakespear's Two Gentlemen of Verona.

It is the leffer blot, modesty finds;

Women to change their fhapes, than men their minds, 2. Than men their minds?

'Tis true: Oh heaven! Were man

But conftant, he were perfect; that one error

Fills him with faults; makes him run through all fins : Inconftancy falls off, ere it begins.

Now thou haft lov'd me one whole day,

Ibid.

To-morrow, when thou leav'ft, what wilt thou fay? Wilt thou then antedate fome new-made vow ?

Or fay, that now

We are not just thofe perfons, which we were?

Or, that oaths made in reverential fear

Of love and his wrath, any may forswear?
Or, as true deaths true marriages unty,
So lovers contracts, images of those,
Bind but till fleep, death's image, them unlofe?

Or

Or your own end to justify,

For having propos'd change and falfhood, you
Can have no way but falfhood to be true?

Dr. Donne

Let us examine all the creatures, read
The book of nature through, and we fhall find
Nothing doth ftill the fame; the ftars do wander,
And have their divers influence; the elements
Shuffle into innumerable changes;

Our conftitutions vary; herbs, and trees
Admit their frofts, and fummer: And why then
Should our defires, that are fo nimble, and
More fubtile than the fpirits in our blood,
Be fuch ftaid things within us, and not share
Their nat❜ral liberty? Shall we admit a change
In fmaller things, and not allow it in
What most of all concerns us?

There is no mufick in a voice,

That is but one, and ftill the fame ;
Inconftancy is but a name,

"Shirley's Traytor.

To fright poor lovers from a better choice.

Jofeph Rutter's Shepherds Holiday. Truth on mens tongues, the fays, does feldom fit, But what they rafhly fwear, they foon forget: She fays, they write in fand, when they take oaths, And keep their vows, juft as they wear their cloaths, Whilft only they be new, and fresh i'th' fashion; But once grown old, like words they speak in paffion, They lay them by forgot; and their words leave With watery eyes to wail the faith they gave To their more wat'ry vows; and then in pride, In fcorn's triumphal chariot will they ride Over their spoils; and tyrannoufly, glory How many female trophies deck their story: So quick-heel'd Thefeus of two conquefts vapour, Poor Ariadne, and the Minotaure;

And

And leaves fame in the labyrinth, to tell
Of that, or himself, which was beast most fell :
So did falle Jafon, by his vow-breach prove,
'Twas gain he fought for, not Medea's love.
Thus flipp'ry ftreams the yielding banks do court,
Then gliding thence, fay they but lov'd in sport:
Thus winds woce flow'rs, but having of their smells.
Robb'd them, fly thence perfum'd to other cells.

Baron.

Oh men
! Oh manners! What a medley's this
When each man's mind more than face diff'rent is?
For by forms only we diftinguish'd be
One from another: But alas! To fee,
We vary from ourselves each day in mind,
Nor know we in ourselves, ourselves to find.

In thy fair breaft, and once-fair foul,
I thought my vows were writ alone;
But others oaths fo blurr'd the fcroll,
That I no more could read my own:
And am I ftill oblig'd to pay,

When you

had thrown the bond away ?

Nor muft we only part in joy;

Our tears as well must be unkind :
Weep you, that could fuch truth destroy;
And I, that could fuch falfenefs find.
Yet we may love, but on this diff'rent score,
You what I am, I what you were before.

You are not, Cynthia, better pleas'd than I,
That you first led the way

Through this dark night of blind inconftancy,
And first found break of day.

Perhaps fo foon I could not difengage,

Having a greater score;

Some birds will longer hover round the cage,

Though 'twas their goal before.

Heath.

Yet

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