Should I a jot the better see?

No, I should think that marriage might,
Rather than mend, put out the light.

236. UPON A PHYSICIAN.

THOU Cam'st to cure me, doctor, of my cold,
And caught'st thyself the more by twenty fold:
Prithee go home; and for thy credit be
First cured thyself, then come and cure me.

238. TO THE Rose. A SONG.

Go, happy rose, and interwove
With other flowers, bind my love.
Tell her, too, she must not be
Longer flowing, longer free,
That so oft has fetter'd me.

Say, if she's fretful, I have bands
Of pearl and gold to bind her hand
Tell her, if she struggle still,
I have myrtle rods (at will)
For to tame, though not to kill.

Take thou my blessing thus, and go

And tell her this, but do not so,
Lest a handsome anger fly

Like a lightning from her eye,

And burn thee up as well as I.

240. TO HIS BOOK.

THOU art a plant sprung up to wither never,
But like a laurel to grow green for ever.

241. UPON A PAINTED GENTLEWOMAN.

MEN say y'are fair, and fair ye are, 'tis true;
But, hark! we praise the painter now, not you.

243. DRAW-GLOVES.

AT draw-gloves we'll play,
And pirthee let's lay
A wager, and let it be this:

Who first to the sum

Of twenty shall come,

Shall have for his winning a kiss.

244. TO MUSIC, TO BECALM A SWEET-SICK YOUTH.

CHARMS, that call down the moon from out her

sphere,

On this sick youth work your enchantments here:
Bind up his senses with your numbers so

As to entrance his pain, or cure his woe.
Fall gently, gently, and a while him keep
Lost in the civil wilderness of sleep:
That done, then let him, dispossessed of pain,
Like to a slumb'ring bride, awake again.

Draw-gloves, a game of talking by the fingers.

245. TO THE HIGH AND NOBLE PRINCE GEORGE, Duke, MARQUIS, AND EARL OF BUCKINGHAM.

NEVER my book's perfection did appear
Till I had got the name of Villars here :
Now 'tis so full that when therein I look
I see a cloud of glory fills my book.
Here stand it still to dignify our Muse,

Your sober handmaid, who doth wisely choose
Your name to be a laureate wreath to her
Who doth both love and fear you, honoured sir.

246. HIS RECANTATION.

LOVE, I recant,

And pardon crave

That lately I offended;

But 'twas,
Alas!

To make a brave,

But no disdain intended.

No more I'll vaunt,

For now I see

Thou only hast the power
To find

And bind

A heart that's free,

And slave it in an hour.

Brave, boast.

247. THE COMING OF GOOD LUCK.

So good luck came, and on my roof did light,
Like noiseless snow, or as the dew of night:
Not all at once, but gently, as the trees
Are by the sunbeams tickled by degrees.

248. 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
Toll forth my death; next, to my burial come.

249. ON LOVE.

LOVE bade me ask a gift,

And I no more did move

But this, that I might shift

Still with my clothes my love:

That favour granted was;

Since which, though I love many,

Yet so it comes to pass

That long I love not any.

Move, urge.

250. THE HOCK-CART OR HARVEst home.

TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE MILDMAY, EARL OF WEST

MORELAND.

COME, Sons of summer, by whose toil
We are the lords of wine and oil:

By whose tough labours and rough hands
We rip up first, then reap our lands.
Crowned with the ears of corn, now come,
And to the pipe sing harvest home.
Come forth, my lord, and see the cart
Dressed up with all the country art:
See here a maukin, there a sheet,
As spotless pure as it is sweet:

The horses, mares, and frisking fillies,
Clad all in linen white as lilies.

The harvest swains and wenches bound
For joy, to see the hock-cart crowned.
About the cart, hear how the rout
Of rural younglings raise the shout;
Pressing before, some coming after,

Those with a shout, and these with laughter.
Some bless the cart, some kiss the sheaves,
Some prank them up with oaken leaves:
Some cross the fill-horse, some with great
Devotion stroke the home-borne wheat:
While other rustics, less attent

To prayers than to merriment,

Run after with their breeches rent.

Well, on, brave boys, to your lord's hearth,

Maukin, a cloth.

Fill-horse, shaft-horse.