Nor was thy style wholly composed of groves,
Or the soft strains of shepherds and their loves;
When thou would'st comic be, each smiling birth,
In that kind, came into the world all mirth,
All point, all edge, all sharpness; we did sit
Sometimes five acts out in pure sprightful wit,
Which flow'd in such true salt, that we did doubt
In which scene we laugh'd most two shillings out.
Shakespeare to thee was dull, whose best jest lies
I' the ladies' questions, and the fools' replies,
Old-fashion'd wit, which walk'd from town to town
In trunk-hose, which our fathers called the clown;
Whose wit our nice times would obsceneness call,
And which made bawdry pass for comical.
Nature was all his art; thy vein was free
As his, but without his scurrility;
From whom mirth came unforced, no jest perplex'd,
But, without labour, clean, chaste, and unvex'd.
SIDNEÆN showers
Of sweet discourse, whose powers
Can crown old Winter's head with flowers.
Upon Two Green Apricocks sent to Cowley
by Sir Crashaw.
TAKE these, Time's tardy truants, sent by me
To be chastised (sweet friend) and chid by thee.
Pale sons of our Pomona ! whose wan cheeks
Have spent the patience of expecting weeks,
Yet are scarce ripe enough at best to show
The red, but of the blush to thee they owe.
By thy comparison they shall put on
More summer in their shame's reflection,
Than e'er the fruitful Phoebus' flaming kisses
Kindled on their cold lips. O had my wishes
And the dear merits of your Muse, their due,
The year had found some fruit early as you;
Ripe as those rich composures Time computes
Blossoms, but our blest taste confesses fruits.
How does the April-Autumn mock these cold
Progressions 'twixt whose terms poor Time grows
old!
With thee alone he wears no beard, thy brain Gives him the morning world's fresh gold again. 'Twas only Paradise, 'tis only thou,
Whose fruit and blossoms both bless the same
Proud in the pattern of thy precious youth,
Nature (methinks) might easily mend her growth, Could she in all her births but copy thee.
Into the public years proficiency,
No fruit should have the face to smile on thee (Young master of the world's maturity)
But such whose sun-born beauties what they borrow
Of beams to-day, pay back again to-morrow,
Nor need be double-gilt. How then must these
Poor fruits look pale at thy Hesperides !
Fain would I chide their slowness, but in their
Defects I draw mine own dull character.
Take them, and me in them acknowledging,
How much my Summer waits upon thy Spring.
On Mr. George Herbert's Book, intituled
The Temple of Sacred Poems.
Sent to a Gentlewoman.
KNOW you, fair, on what you look?
Divinest love lies in this book:
Expecting fire from your fair eyes,
To kindle this his sacrifice.
When your hands untie these strings,
Think, you've an angel by the wings;
One that gladly would be nigh,
To wait upon each morning sigh ;
To flutter in the balmy air
Of your well-perfumed prayer;
These white plumes of his he'll lend you,
Which every day to heaven will send you:
To take acquaintance of each sphere,
And all your smooth-faced kindred there.
And though Herbert's name do owe
These devotions; fairest, know
While I thus lay them on the shrine
Of your white hand, they are mine.
From Commendatory. Verses on Jonson. As when Augustus reign'd, and war did cease, Rome's bravest wits were usher'd in by peace:
Shake-
speare,
Beaumont,
Jonson.
So in our halcyon days, we have had now
Wits, to which, all that after come, must bow.
And should the stage compose herself a crown
Of all those wits, which hitherto she has known;
Though there be many that about her brow,
Like sparkling stones, might a quick lustre throw;
Yet, Shakespeare, Beaumont, Jonson, these three
shall
Make up the gem in the point vertical.
And now, since Jonson 's gone, we well may say,
The stage hath seen her glory and decay.
Whose judgment was 't refinèd it? or who
Gave laws, by which hereafter all must go,
But solid Jonson? from whose full strong quill,
Each line did like a diamond drop distil,
Though hard, yet clear.
CLEVELAND.
To the Memory of Ben Jonson.
THE Muses' fairest light in no dark time;
The wonder of a learned age; the line
Which none can pass; the most proportion'd wit
To Nature, the best judge of what was fit;
The deepest, plainest, highest, clearest pen;
The voice most echo'd by consenting men ;
The soul which answer'd best to all well said
By others, and which most requital made;
Tuned to the highest key of ancient Rome,
Returning all her music with his own,
In whom with nature, study claimed a part,
And yet who to himself owed all his art:
Here lies Ben Jonson! Every age will look
With sorrow here, with wonder on his book.
To Sir Will. D'Avenant upon his two first books of Gondibert, finished before his Voyage to America.
METHINKS heroic poesy till now
Like some fantastic fairy-land did show;
Gods, devils, nymphs, witches, and giants' race,
And all but man, in man's best work had place.
Thou, like some worthy knight, with sacred arms
Dost drive the monsters thence, and end the charms:
Instead of those dost men and manners plant,
The things which that rich soil did chiefly want.
Yet even thy mortals do their gods excel,
Taught by thy muse to fight and love so well.
By fatal hands whilst present empires fall,
Thine from the grave past monarchies recall.
So much more thanks from human kind does merit
The poet's fury, than the zealot's spirit.
And from the grave thou mak'st this empire rise,
Not like some dreadful ghost to affright our eyes,
But with more beauty and triumphant state,
Than when it crown'd at proud Verona sate.
So will our God rebuild man's perish'd frame,
And raise him up much better, yet the same:
So God-like poets do past things rehearse,
Not change, but heighten Nature by their verse.
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