HESPERIDES.

571. A HYMN TO THE GRACES.

WHEN I love (as some have told,
Love I shall when I am old),
O ye Graces! make me fit
For the welcoming of it.

Clean my rooms, as temples be,

T'entertain that deity.

Give me words wherewith to woo,

Suppling and successful too;

Winning postures, and, withal,

Manners each

way musical:

Sweetness to allay my sour

And unsmooth behaviour.

For I know you have the skill

Vines to prune, though not to kill,

And of any wood ye see,

You can make a Mercury.

Suppling, softening.

Mercury, god of eloquence and inventor of the lyre.

572. TO SILVIA.

No more, my Silvia, do I mean to pray

For those good days that ne'er will come away. I want belief; O gentle Silvia, be

The patient saint, and send up vows for me.

575. THE POET HATH LOST HIS PIPE.

I CANNOT pipe as I was wont to do,
Broke is my reed, hoarse is my singing, too;
My wearied oat I'll hang upon the tree,
And give it to the sylvan deity.

576. TRUE FRIENDSHIP.

WILT thou my true friend be?
Then love not mine, but me.

577. THE APPARITION OF HIS MISTRESS CALLING HIM TO ELYSIUM.

Desunt nonnulla

COME then, and like two doves with silv'ry wings,
Let our souls fly to th' shades where ever springs
Sit smiling in the meads; where balm and oil,
Roses and cassia crown the untill'd soil.

Where no disease reigns, or infection comes
To blast the air, but ambergris and gums.
This, that, and ev'ry thicket doth transpire

Transpire, breathe.

More sweet than storax from the hallowed fire,
Where ev'ry tree a wealthy issue bears

Of fragrant apples, blushing plums, or pears;
And all the shrubs, with sparkling spangles, shew
Like morning sunshine tinselling the dew.
Here in green meadows sits eternal May,
Purfling the margents, while perpetual day
So double gilds the air, as that no night
Can ever rust th' enamel of the light.
Here, naked younglings, handsome striplings, run
Their goals for virgins' kisses; which when done,
Then unto dancing forth the learned round
Commixed they meet, with endless roses crown'd.
And here we'll sit on primrose-banks, and see
Love's chorus led by Cupid; and we'll be
Two loving followers, too, unto the grove
Where poets sing the stories of our love.
There thou shalt hear divine Musæus sing
Of Hero and Leander; then I'll bring

Thee to the stand, where honour'd Homer reads
His Odysseys and his high Iliads;

About whose throne the crowd of poets throng

To hear the incantation of his tongue :

To Linus, then to Pindar; and that done,

I'll bring thee, Herrick, to Anacreon,

Quaffing his full-crown'd bowls of burning wine,

And in his raptures speaking lines of thine,

Purfling, trimming, embroidering.

Margents, bowers.

Round, rustic dance.