When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an heritage:
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
[The last three stanzas of this spirited lyric being a little too free for quotation, I have omitted them.]
Amarantha, sweet and fair,
Ah! braid no more that shining hair!
As my curious hand or eye,
Hovering round thee, let it fly.
Let it fly as unconfined
As its calm ravisher, the Wind;
Who hath left his darling, th' east,
To wanton o'er that spicy nest.
Every tress must be confessed,
But neatly tangled at the best ;
Like a clue of golden thread,
Most excellently ravelléd.
Do not, then, wind up that light
In ribands, and o'ercloud in night,
Like the Sun in 's early ray,
But shake your head, and scatter day!
TO LUCASTA, ON GOING TO THE WARS.
Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.
True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field:
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
Yet this inconstancy is such
As you, too, shall adore;
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.
Why should you say I am forsworn,
Since thine I vowed to be?
Lady, it is already morn,
And 't was last night I swore to thee
That fond impossibility.
Have I not loved thee much, and long,
A tedious twelve hours' space?
I must all other beauties wrong,
And rob thee of a new embrace,
Could I still dote upon thy face.
Not but all joy in thy brown hair
By others may be found;
But I must search the black and fair,
Like skillful mineralists that sound
For treasure in unploughed-up ground.
Then, if when I have loved my round,
Thou prov'st the pleasant she;
With spoils of meaner beauties crowned,
I laden will return to thee,
Even sated with variety.
Thou snowy farm with thy five tenements!
Tell thy white mistress here was one
That called to pay his daily rents:
But she a-gathering flowers and hearts is gone,
And thou left void to rude possession.
But grieve not, pretty Ermine cabinet,
Thy alabaster lady will come home;
If not, what tenant then can fit
The slender turnings of thy narrow room,
But must ejected be by his own doom?
Then give me leave to leave my rent with thee: Five kisses, one unto a place ;
For though the lute's too high for me,
Yet servants, knowing minikin nor base,
Are still allowed to fiddle with the case.
UPON PHILLIS, WALKING IN A MORNING BEFORE SUN-RISING.
THE sluggish morn as yet undressed,
My Phillis brake from out her East,
As if she'd made a match to run
With Venus, Usher to the Sun.
The trees (like yeomen of her guard,
Serving more for pomp than ward,
Banked on each side with loyal duty)
Wave branches to enclose her beauty.
The plants, whose luxury was lopped,
Or age with crutches underpropped,
(Whose wooden carcasses are grown
To be but coffins of their own,)
Revive, and at her general dole
Each receives his ancient soul.
The wingéd choristers began
To chirp their matins; and the fan
Of whistling winds, like organs, played
Unto their voluntaries, made
The wakened earth in odours rise
To be her morning sacrifice.
The flowers, called out of their beds,
Start and raise up their drowsy heads,
And he that for their colour seeks,
May find it vaulting in her cheeks,
Where roses mix no civil war
Between her York and Lancaster.
The marigold, whose courtier's face
Echoes the sun, and doth unlace
Her at his rise, at his full stop
Packs, and shuts up her gaudy shop;
Mistakes her cue, and doth display;
Thus Phillis antedates the day.
These miracles had cramped the sun,
Who, thinking that his kingdom's won,
Powders with light his frizzled locks,
To see what saint his lustre mocks.
The trembling leaves through which he played,
Dappling the walk with light and shade,
(Like lattice-windows,) give the spy
Room but to peep with half an eye,
Lest her full orb his sight should dim,
And bid us all good night in him,
Till she would spend a gentle ray,
To force us a new-fashioned day.
But what religious palsy 's this,
Which makes the boughs divest their bliss,
And that they might her footsteps straw,
Drop their leaves with shivering awe?
Phillis perceives, (and lest her stay
Should wed October unto May,
And, as her beauty caused a Spring,
Devotion might an Autumn bring,)
Withdrew her beams, yet made no night,
But left the sun her curate-light.
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