2. TO HIS MUSE.

WHITHER, mad maiden, wilt thou roam?
Far safer 'twere to stay at home,
Where thou mayst sit and piping please
The poor and private cottages,
Since cotes and hamlets best agree
With this thy meaner minstrelsy.

There with the reed thou mayst express
The shepherd's fleecy happiness,

And with thy eclogues intermix

Some smooth and harmless bucolics.
There on a hillock thou mayst sing
Unto a handsome shepherdling,
Or to a girl, that keeps the neat,
With breath more sweet than violet.
There, there, perhaps, such lines as these

May take the simple villages;

But for the court, the country wit

Is despicable unto it.

Stay, then, at home, and do not go
Or fly abroad to seek for woe.
Contempts in courts and cities dwell,
No critic haunts the poor man's cell,

Where thou mayst hear thine own lines read

By no one tongue there censured.

That man's unwise will search for ill,

And may prevent it, sitting still.

3. TO HIS BOOK.

WHILE thou didst keep thy candour undefil'd,
Dearly I lov'd thee as my first-born child,
But when I saw thee wantonly to roam
From house to house, and never stay at home,
I brake my bonds of love, and bade thee go,
Regardless whether well thou sped'st or no.
On with thy fortunes then, whate'er they be:
If good, I'll smile; if bad, I'll sigh for thee.

4. ANOTHER.

To read my book the virgin shy

May blush while Brutus standeth by,

But when he's gone, read through what's writ, And never stain a cheek for it.

7. TO HIS BOOK.

COME thou not near those men who are like bread O'er-leaven'd, or like cheese o'er-renneted.

8. WHEN HE WOULD HAVE HIS VErses read.

IN sober mornings, do not thou rehearse
The holy incantation of a verse;

But when that men have both well drunk and fed,
Let my enchantments then be sung or read.

Brutus, see Martial, xi. 16, quoted in Note at the end of the volume

When laurel spirts i'th' fire, and when the hearth Smiles to itself, and gilds the roof with mirth; When up the thyrse* is rais'd, and when the sound Of sacred orgies † flies, a round, a round.

When the rose reigns, and locks with ointments shine, Let rigid Cato read these lines of mine.

9. UPON JULIA'S RECOVERY.

DROOP, droop no more, or hang the head,

Ye roses almost withered;

Now strength and newer purple get,

Each here declining violet.

O primroses! let this day be

A resurrection unto ye;

And to all flowers ally'd in blood,
Or sworn to that sweet sisterhood:
For health on Julia's cheek hath shed
Claret and cream commingled;
And those her lips do now appear
As beams of coral, but more clear.

IO. TO SILVIA TO WED.

LET us, though late, at last, my Silvia, wed,

And loving lie in one devoted bed.

*"A javelin twined with ivy" (Note in the original edition).

+"Songs to Bacchus" (Note in the original edition.) Round, a rustic dance.

Cato, see Martial, x. 17, quoted in Note.

=

Beams, perhaps here branches: but cp. 440.

Thy watch may stand, my minutes fly post-haste;
No sound calls back the year that once is past.
Then, sweetest Silvia, let's no longer stay;
True love, we know, precipitates delay.

Away with doubts, all scruples hence remove;
No man at one time can be wise and love.

II. THE PARLIAMENT OF ROSES TO JULIA.

I DREAMT the roses one time went
To meet and sit in parliament;
The place for these, and for the rest
of flowers, was thy spotless breast,
Over the which a state was drawn
Of tiffanie or cobweb lawn.

Then in that parly all those powers
Voted the rose the queen of flowers;
But so as that herself should be
The maid of honour unto thee.

12. NO BASHFULNESS IN BEGGING.

To get thine ends, lay bashfulness aside;
Who fears to ask doth teach to be deny'd.

State, a canopy.

Tiffanie, gauze.

Parly, a parliament.

13. THE FROZEN HEART.

I FREEZE, I freeze, and nothing dwells
In me but snow and icicles.

For pity's sake, give your advice,

To melt this snow and thaw this ice.
I'll drink down flames; but if so be
Nothing but love can supple me,
I'll rather keep this frost and snow
Than to be thaw'd or heated so.

14. TO PERILLA.

Ан, my Perilla! dost thou grieve to see
Me, day by day, to steal away from thee?
Age calls me hence, and my grey hairs bid come,
And haste away to mine eternal home;

"Twill not be long, Perilla, after this,
That I must give thee the supremest kiss.
Dead when I am, first cast in salt, and bring
Part of the cream from that religious spring;
With which, Perilla, wash my hands and feet;
That done, then wind me in that very sheet
Which wrapt thy smooth limbs when thou didst
implore

The gods' protection but the night before.
Follow me weeping to my turf, and there
Let fall a primrose, and with it a tear:
Then, lastly, let some weekly-strewings be
Devoted to the memory of me :

Then shall my ghost not walk about, but keep
Still in the cool and silent shades of sleep.

Weekly strewings, i.e., of flowers on his grave.
First cast in salt, cp. 769.