TO CASTARA, AFTER THEIR MARRIAGE.
THIS day is ours. The marriage angell now Sees th' altar, in the odour of our vow,
Yield a more precious breath than that which moves The whispering leaves in the Panchayan groves. View how his temples shine, in which he weares A wreath of pearle, made of those precious teares Thou wepst a virgin, when crosse winds did blow, Our hopes disturbing in their quiet flow. But now, Castara, smile! no envious night Dares interpose itselfe t' eclipse the light Of our clear joyes. For even the laws divine Permit our mutuall love so to entwine,
That kings, to balance true content, shall say: "Would they were great as we, we blest as they."
TO CASTARA, INVITING HER TO SLEEPE.
SLEEPE, my Castara! silence doth invite
Thy eyes to close up day: though envious light Grieves, Fate should her the sight of them debarre; For she is exiled, while they open are.
Rest in thy peace secure. With drowsy charmes Kinde sleepe bewitcheth thee unto her armes; And finding where Love's chiefest treasure lies, Is like a thief stole under thy bright eyes. Thy innocence rich as the gaudy quilt
Wrought by the Persian hand, thy dreames from guilt Exempted, Heaven with sweete repose doth crowne Each virtue softer than the swan's famed downe.
As exorcists wild spirits mildly lay,
May sleepe thy fever calmly chase away.
I HEARD a sigh, and something in
Did whisper what my soul before did feare,
That it was breathed by thee; may the easie spring, Enriched with odours, wanton on the wing
Of the easterne wind; may ne'er his beauty fade,
If he the treasure of this breath conveyed:
'Twas thine by the musicke which th' harmonious breath Of swans is like, prophetic in their death: And the odour; for as it the nard expires, Perfuming, phoenix-like, his funerall fires, The winds of Paradise send such a gale, To make the lover's vessels calmly saile To his loved port. This shall, where it inspires,
Increase the chaste, extinguish unchaste fires.
TO CASTARA, AGAINST OPINION.
WHY should we build, Castara, in the aire Of fraile opinion? Why admire as faire, What the weake faith of man gives us for right? The juggling world cheates but the weaker sight. What is in greatnesse happy? As free mirth, As ample pleasures of th' indulgent earth, We joy, who, on the ground our mansion finde, As they, who saile, like witches, in the wind
Of court applause.-What can their powerful spell Over enchanted man more than compel
Nor serves their charme
Themselves to good, but to worke others harme.
Tyrant Opinion but depose, and we
Will absolute i' th' happiest empire be.
TO CASTARA, MELANCHOLY.
WERE but that sigh a penitential breath That thou art mine, it would blow with it death, T'enclose me in my marble, where I'd be Slave to the tyrant wormes, to set thee free. What should we envy? Though with larger saile Some dance upon the ocean; yet more fraile And faithlesse is that wave, than where we glide, Blest in the safety of a private tide.
We still have land in ken; and 'cause our boat Dares not affront the weather, we'll ne'er float Farre from the shore. To daring them, each cloud Is big with thunder: every winde speaks loud:
And rough wilde rockes about the shore appeare; Yet virtue will find room to anchor there.
TO CASTARA, UPON THOUGHT OF AGE AND DEATH.
THE breath of Time shall blast the flow'ry spring, Which so perfumes thy cheeke, and with it bring So dark a mist, as shall eclipse the light Of thy faire eyes in an eternal night. Some melancholy chamber of the earth,
(For that, like Time, devours whom it gave birth,) Thy beauties shall entombe, while all who e'er Loved nobly, offer up their sorrows there. But I, whose griefe no formal limits bound, Beholding the darke caverne of that ground, Will there immure my selfe. And thus I shall Thy mourner be, and my own funerall.
Else by the weeping magicke of my verse, Thou hadst revived to triumph o'er thy hearse.
TO CASTARA, HOW HAPPY, THOUGH IN AN OBSCURE FORTUNE.
WERE we by Fate throwne downe below our feare, Could we be poore? Or question Nature's care In our provision? She who doth afford A feathered garment fit for every bird, And only voice enough t' expresse delight: She who apparels lillies in their white, As if in that she'd teach man's duller sense, Who are highest, should be so in innocence : She who in damask doth attire the rose, (And man to himself a mockery to propose, 'Mong whom the humblest judges grow to sit,) She, who in purple clothes the violet:
If thus she cares for things even voyd of sense, Shall we suspect in us her providence ?
LOVE'S ANNIVERSARIE: TO THE SUNNE.
THOU art returned, (great light,) to that blest houre In which I first by marriage, sacred power, Joyned with Castara, hearts; and as the same Thy lustre is, as then, so is our flame;
Which had increast, but that by Love's decree 'Twas such at first, it ne'er could greater be. But tell me, (glorious lampe,) in thy surveye, Of things below thee, what did not decaie By age to weaknesse? I, since that, have seene The rose bud forth and fade, the tree grow greene
And wither, and the beauty of the field
With winter wrinkled. Even thy selfe dost yield Something to Time, and to thy grave fall nigher; But virtuous love is one sweet endless fire.
WHY should we feare to melt away in death? May we but die together. When beneath, In a coole vault, we sleepe, the world will prove Religious, and call it the shrine of love.
There, when o' the wedding eve some beauteous maid, Suspicious of the faith of man, hath paid The tribute of her vowes, o' the sudden she Two violets sprouting from the tomb will see, And cry out: "Ye sweet emblems of their zeale Who live below, sprang ye up to reveale
The story of our future joyes, how we, The faithful patterns of their love, shall be?
If not, hang down your heads, opprest with dew, And I will weepe and wither hence with you."
TO CASTARA, ON WHAT WE WERE BEFORE OUR CREATION.
WHEN Pelion, wond'ring, saw that raine, which fell But now from angry Heaven, to heavenward swell: When the Indian Ocean did the wanton play, Mingling its billowes with the Balticke sea, And the whole earth was water: O where, then, Were we, Castara? In the fate of men Lost underneath the waves? Or to beguile Heaven's justice, lurked we in Noah's floating isle? We had no being then. This fleshly frame, Wed to a soule long after, hither came A stranger to itselfe. Those months, that were But the last age, no news of us did heare-
What pomp is then in us? who th' other day Were nothing; and in triumph now, but clay.
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