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Forgive me such experience as, too soon, Shew'd me unlucky Love, by which I guess How maids are by their innocence undon,

And trace those sorrows that them first oppress.

"Forgive such passion as to speech perswades,
And to my tongue my observation brought;
And then forgive my tongue, which to your maids
Too rashly carry'd what experience taught.

"For since I saw this wounded stranger here,
Your inward musick still untun'd has been;
You who could need no hope, have learnt to fear,
And practis'd grief, e're you did know to sin.

"This being Love, to Agatha I told,

Did on her tongue, as on still death, rely; But winged Love she was too young to hold, And, wanton-like, let it to others fly.

"Love, who in whisper scap'd, did publick grow, Which makes them now their time in silence

waste;

Makes their neglected needles move so slow,

And thro' their eies their hearts dissolve so faste.

"For oft, dire tales of Love has fill'd their heads;

And while they doubt you in that tyrant's pow'r, The spring (they think) may visit woods and meads, But scarce shall hear a bird, or see a flow'r.”

"Ah! how" (said Birtha) " shall I dare confesse

My griefs to thee, Love's rash, impatient spy? Thou (Thula) who didst run to tell thy guesse,

With secrets known, wilt to confession flie.

"But if I love this prince, and have in Heav'n Made any friends by vowes, you need not fear He will make good the feature Heav'n has giv'n, And be as harmless as his looks appear.

"Yet I have heard that men, whom maids think kinde,

Calm as forgiven saints at their last hour,
Oft prove like seas, inrag'd by ev'ry winde,
And all to whom their bosoms trust, devour.

"Howe're, Heav'n knows, (the witness of the

minde)

My heart bears men no malice, nor esteems Young princes of the common cruel kinde, Nor love so foul as it in story seems.

"Yet if this prince brought love, what e're it be,
I must suspect, though I accuse it not;
For since he came, my medc'nal huswiffrie,
Confections, and my stills, are all forgot.

"Blossoms in windes, berries in frosts, may fall! And flowers sink down in rain! for I no more Shall maids to woods for early gath'rings call, Nor haste to gardens to prevent a showre."

Then she retires; and now a lovely shame,

That she reveal'd so much, possess'd her cheeks; In a dark lanthorn she would bear love's flame, To hide her self, whilst she her lover seeks,

And to that lover let our song return:
Whose tale so well was to her father told,

As the philosopher did seem to mourn

That youth had reach'd such worth, and he so

old.

Yet Birtha was so precious in his eies,

And her dead mother still so near his mind, That farther yet he thus his prudence tries, Ere such a pledg he to his trust resign'd.

“Whoeʼre” (said he) "in thy first story looks,
Shall praise thy wise conversing with the dead;
For with the dead he lives, who is with books,
And in the camp, (Death's moving palace) bred.

"Wise youth, in books and batails, early findes

What thoughtless lazy men perceive too late; Books show the utmost conquests of our minds, Batails, the best of our lov'd bodys' fate.

"Yet this great breeding, joyn'd with kings' high blood,

(Whose blood ambition's feaver over-heats) May spoile digestion, which would else be good, As stomachs are deprav'd with highest meats.

"For though books serve as diet of the minde, If knowledge, early got, self value breeds, By false digestion it is turn'd to winde,

And what should nourish, on the eater feeds.

"Though war's great shape best educates the sight, And makes small soft'ning objects less our care; Yet war, when urg'd for glory, more than right. Shews victors but authentick murd'rers are.

"And I may fear that your last victories

Were glory's toyles, and you will ill abide (Since with new trophies still you fed your eies) Those little objects which in shades we hide.

"Could you, in Fortune's smiles, foretel her frowns,
Our old foes slain, you would not hunt for new;
But victors, after wreaths, pretend to crowns,
And such think Rhodalind their valour's due."

To this the noble Gondibert replies:

"Think not ambition can my duty sway; I look on Rhodalind with subject's eies, Whom he that conquers must in right obay.

"And though I humanly have heretofore
And beauty lik'd, I never lov'd till now;
Nor think a crown can raise his value more,
To whom already Heav'n does love allow.

"Though, since I gave the Hunns their last defeat, I have the Lombards' ensignes onward led, Ambition kindled not this victor's heat,

But 'tis a warmth my father's prudence bred.

"Who cast on more than wolvish man his eie,
Man's necessary hunger judg'd, and saw
'That caus'd not his devouring maledy;

But, like a wanton whelp, he loves to gnaw.

"Man still is sick for pow'r, yet that disease
Nature (whose law is temp'rance) ne'r inspires;
But 'tis a humour, which fond man does please,
A luxury, fruition only tires.

"And as in persons, so in publick states,
The lust of pow'r provokes to cruel warre;
For wisest senates it intoxicates,

And makes them vain, as single persons are.

"Men into nations it did first divide,

[stiles;

Whilst place, scarce distant, gives them diff'rent Rivers, whose breadth inhabitants may stride, Part them as much as continents and isles.

"On equal, smooth, and undistinguish'd ground,
The lust of pow'r does liberty impair,
And limits, by a border and a bound,
What was before as passable as air:

"Whilst change of languages oft breeds a warre, (A change which fashion does as oft obtrude, As women's dresse) and oft complexions are, And diff'rent names, no less a cause of feud.

"Since men so causelessly themselves devour, (And hast'ning still their else too hasty fates, Act but continu'd massacres for pow'r)

My father ment to chastise kings and states.

"To overcome the world, till but one crown
And universal neighbourhood he saw ;
Till all were rich by that allyance grown,
And want no more should be the cause of law.

"One family the world was first design'd;
And tho' some fighting kings so sever'd are,
That they must meet by help of seas and winde,
Yet when they fight 'tis but a civil warre.