Next, may your duck and teeming hen
Both to the cock's tread say Amen;
And for their two eggs render ten.

Last, may your harrows, shears, and plows, Your stacks, your stocks, your sweetest

mows,

All prosper by our virgin vows.

Alas! we bless, but see none here
That brings us either ale or beer;
In a dry house all things are near.

Let's leave a longer time to wait,
Where rust and cobwebs bind the gate,
And all live here with needy fate,

Where chimneys do forever weep

For want of warmth, and stomachs keep, With noise, the servants' eyes from sleep.

It is in vain to sing, or stay

Our free feet here; but we 'll away.
Yet to the Lares this we 'll say:

The time will come when you'll be sad
And reckon this for fortune bad,

T''ave lost the good ye might have had.

137

AN ECLOGUE OR PASTORAL BETWEEN ENDYMION PORTER AND LYCIDAS HERRICK, SET AND SUNG

END. AH! Lycidas, come tell me why
Thy whilom merry oat

LYC.

END.

By thee doth so neglected lie,
And never purls a note?

I prithee speak. LYC. I will. END.
Say on.

"T is thou, and only thou,
That art the cause, Endymion.

For love's sake, tell me how.

LYC. In this regard: that thou dost play Upon another plain,

And for a rural roundelay

Strik'st now a courtly strain.

Thou leav'st our hills, our dales, our bowers,

Our finer fleeced sheep,

Unkind to us, to spend thine hours
Where shepherds should not keep.

I mean the court: let Latmos be
My lov'd Endymion's court.
END. But I the courtly state would see.
Then see it in report.

LYC.

END.

What has the court to do with swains,
Where Phyllis is not known?

Nor does it mind the rustic strains
Of us, or Corydon.

Break, if thou lov'st us, this delay.
Dear Lycidas, ere long

I vow, by Pan, to come away
And pipe unto thy song.

Then Jessamine, with Florabell,
And dainty Amaryllis,

With handsome-handed Drosomell,
Shall prank thy hook with lilies.

LYC. Then Tityrus, and Corydon,

And Thyrsis, they shall follow With all the rest; while thou alone Shalt lead like young Apollo.

And till thou com'st, thy Lycidas,

In every genial cup,

Shall write in spice: Endymion 't was
That kept his piping up.

And, my most lucky swain, when I shall live

to see

Endymion's moon to fill up full, remember

mo:

Meantime, let Lycidas have leave to pipe to

thee.

138

TO A BED OF TULIPS

BRIGHT tulips, we do know
You had your coming hither,
And fading-time does show
That ye must quickly wither.

Your sisterhoods may stay,
And smile here for your hour;
But die ye must away,

Even as the meanest flower.

Come, virgins, then, and see
Your frailties, and bemoan ye;
For, lost like these, 't will be

As time had never known ye.

139

TO THE WATER-NYMPHS DRINKING AT THE

FOUNTAIN

REACH, with your whiter hands, to me

Some crystal of the spring; And I about the cup shall see Fresh lilies flourishing.

Or else, sweet nymphs, do you but this,

To th' glass your lips incline;

And I shall see by that one kiss

The water turn'd to wine.

140

UPON A FLY

A GOLDEN fly one show'd to me,
Clos'd in a box of ivory,

Where both seem'd proud: the fly to have
His burial in an ivory grave;

The ivory took state to hold

A corpse as bright as burnish'd gold.
One fate had both, both equal grace,
The buried, and the burying-place.
Not Vergil's gnat, to whom the spring
All flowers sent to 's burying;
Not Martial's bee, which in a bead
Of amber quick was buried;

Nor that fine worm that does inter
Herself i' th' silken sepulcher;
Nor my rare Phil,1 that lately was
With lilies tomb'd up in a glass;
More honor had than this same fly,
Dead, and clos'd up in ivory.

141

UPON LOVE

LOVE brought me to a silent grove,
And show'd me there a tree,

Where some had hang'd themselves for love,
And gave a twist to me.

1 His sparrow.