Should with the covenant fly away,
And charity amongst us stay;
Peace and plenty should us nourish,
True religion 'mongst us flourish ?
When you find these lying fellows,
Take and flower with them the gallows.
On others you may too lay hold,
In purse or chest, if they have gold.
Who wise or rich are in this nation,
Malignants are by protestation.
William Drummond.
HILE the milder fates consent,
Let's enjoy our merriment;
Drink, and dance, and pipe, and play;
Kiss our dollies night and day;
Crown'd with clusters of the vine,
Let us sit and quaff our wine;
Call on Bacchus, chaunt his praise ;
Shake the thyrse, and bite the bays;
Rouse Anacreon from the dead,
And return him drunk to bed;
Sing o'er Horace; for ere long
Death will come and mar the song;
Then shall Wilson and Gotiere
Never sing or play more here.
TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME.
ATHER ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best, which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.
TO A LADY SINGING A SONG OF HIS
HLORIS, yourself you so excel
When you vouchsafe to breathe my thought,
That like a spirit with this spell
Of my own teaching I am caught.
The eagle's fate and mine are one,
Which on the shaft that made him die Espied a feather of his own,
Wherewith he wont to soar so high.
Had Echo, with so sweet a grace,
Narcissus' loud complaints return'd,
Not for reflection of his face,
But of his voice, the boy had burn'd.
HAT which her slender waist confined,
Shall now my joyful temples bind;
No monarch but would give his crown, His arms might do what this has done.
It was my heaven's extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer;
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move.
A narrow compass, and yet there
Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair :
Give me but what this riband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.
FROM PRISON.
ONG in thy shackles, Liberty
I ask not from these walls, but thee;
Left for awhile another's bride,
To fancy all the world beside.
Yet ere I do begin to love,
See, how I all my objects prove;
Then my free soul to that confine,
'Twere possible I might call mine.
First I would be in love with Peace,
And her rich swelling breasts increase;
But how, alas! how may that be,
Despising Earth, she will love me?
Fain would I be in love with War,
As my dear just avenging star;
But War is loved so everywhere
Even he disdains a lodging here.
Thee and thy wounds I would bemoan,
Fair thorough-shot Religion;
But he lives only that kills thee,
And who so binds thy hands, is free.
I would love a Parliament
As a main-prop from Heaven sent;
But ah! who's he, that would be wedded
To th' fairest body that's beheaded?
Next would I court my Liberty,
And then my birth-right, Property;
But can that be, when it is known,
There's nothing you can call your own?
A Reformation I would have,
As for our griefs a Sovereign salve;
That is, a cleansing of each wheel
Of state, that yet some rust doth feel.
But not a Reformation so,
As to reform were to o'erthrow;
Like watches by unskilful men
Disjointed, and set ill again.
The Public Faith I would adore,
But she is bankrupt of her store;
Nor how to trust her can I see,
For she that cozens all, must me.
Since then none of these can be
Fit objects for my Love and me;
What then remains, but th' only spring
Of all our loves and joys? The KING.
He who, being the whole ball
Of day on earth, lends it to all;
When seeking to eclipse his right,
Blinded, we stand in our own light.
And now an universal mist
Of error is spread o'er each breast,
With such a fury edged, as is
Not found in th' inwards of th' abyss.
Oh, from thy glorious starry wain
Dispense on me one sacred beam
To light me where I soon may see
How to serve you, and you trust me!
Richard Lovelace.
THE POOR CAVALIER, IN MEMORY OF
HOUGH thou hast lasted 'bove a thousand days,
Till thou art aged and grey through adverse ways;
Yet malice in its highest dare pronounce
No other, but that thou wert scarlet once;
As in fair beauties innocently dead,
Their very paleness hath a tinct of red.
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