The Underwood Read Online

But as men drink up

In haste the bottom of a medicined cup,

And take some syrup after, so do I,

To put all relish from my memory

Of parting, drown it in the hope to meet

Shortly again, and make our absence sweet.

This makes me, mistress, that sometime by stealth,

Under another name, I take your health,

And turn the ceremonies of those nights

I give or owe my friends, into your rites:

But ever without blazon, or least shade

Of vows so sacred, and in silence made;

For though love thrive, and may grow up with cheer

And free society, he's born elsewhere,

And must be bred so to conceal his birth,

As neither wine do rack it out, or mirth.

Yet should the lover still be airy and light,

In all his actions rarified to sprite;

Not, like a Midas, shut up in himself,

And turning all he toucheth into pelf,

Keep in, reserved, in his dark-lantern face,

As if that excellent dullness were love's grace;

No, mistress, no, the open merry man

Moves like a sprightly river, and yet can

Keep secret in his channels what he breeds,

'Bove all your standing waters, choked with weeds.

They look at best like cream bowls, and you soon

Shall find their depth: they're sounded with a spoon.

They may say grace, and for love's chaplains pass,

But the grave lover ever was an ass;

Is fixed upon one leg, and dares not come

Out with the other, for he's still at home;

Like the dull wearied crane that, come on land,

Doth, while he keeps his watch, betray his stand.

Where he that knows will, like a lapwing, fly

Far from the nest, and so himself belie

To others as he will deserve the trust

Due to that one that doth believe him just.

And such your servant is, who vows to keep

The jewel of your name as close as sleep

Can lock the sense up, or the heart a thought,

And never be by time or folly brought,

Weakness of brain, or any charm of wine,

The sin of boast, or other countermine

(Made to blow up love's secrets) to discover

That article may not become your lover:

Which in assurance to your breast I tell,

If I had writ no word but Dear, farewell.

An Elegy

Since you must go, and I must bid farewell,

Hear, mistress, your departing servant tell

What it is like, and do not think they can

Be idle words, though of a parting man:

It is as if a night should shade noonday,

Or that the sun was here, but forced away,

And we were left under that hemisphere

Where we must feel it dark for half a year.

What fate is this, to change men's days and hours,

To shift their seasons and destroy their powers!

Alas, I ha' lost my heat, my blood, my prime,

Winter is come a quarter ere his time;

My health will leave me; and when you depart

How shall I do, sweet mistress, for my heart?

You would restore it? No, that's worth a fear

As if it were not worthy to be there:

Oh, keep it still, for it had rather be

Your sacrifice than here remain with me.

And so I spare it. Come what can become

Of me, I'll softly tread unto my tomb;

Or like a ghost walk silent amongst men,

Till I may see both it and you again.

An Elegy

Let me be what I am: as Virgil cold,

As Horace fat, or as Anacreon old;

No poet's verses yet did ever move,

Whose readers did not think he was in love.

Who shall forbid me then in rhythm to be

As light and active as the youngest he

That from the muses' fountains doth endorse

His lines, and hourly sits the poet's horse?

Put on my ivy garland; let me see

Who frowns, who jealous is, who taxeth me.

Fathers and husbands, I do claim a right

In all that is called lovely: take my sight

Sooner than my affection from the fair.

No face, no hand, proportion, line, or air

Of beauty, but the muse hath interest in;

There is not worn that lace, purl, knot, or pin,

But is the poet's matter; and he must,

When he is furious, love, although not lust.

But then consent, your daughters and your wives,

If they be fair and worth it, have their lives

Made longer by our praises. Or, if not,

Wish you had foul ones and deformed got,

Cursed in their cradles, or there changed by elves,

So to be sure you do enjoy yourselves.

Yet keep those up in sackcloth too, or leather,

For silk will draw some sneaking songster thither.

It is a rhyming age, and verses swarm

At every stall; the city cap's a charm.

But I who live, and have lived, twenty year

Where I may handle silk as free and near

As any mercer, or the whale-bone man

That quilts those bodies, I have leave to span;

Have eaten with the beauties and the wits

And braveries of court, and felt their fits

Of love and hate, and came so nigh to know

Whether their faces were their own or no;

It is not likely I should now look down

Upon a velvet petticoat or a gown,

Whose like I have known the tailor's wife put on

To do her husband's rites in, ere 'twere gone

Home to the customer; his lechery

Being, the best clothes still to preoccupy.

Put a coach-mare in tissue, must I horse

Her presently? or leap thy wife of force,

When by thy sordid bounty she hath on

A gown of that was the caparison?

So I might dote upon thy chairs and stools

That are like clothed: must I be of those fools

Of race accounted, that no passion have

But when thy wife, as thou conceiv'st, is brave?

Then ope thy wardrobe, think me that poor groom

That from the footman, when he was become

An officer there, did make most solemn love

To every petticoat he brushed, and glove

He did lay up, and would adore the shoe

Or slipper was left off, and kiss it too;

Court every hanging gown, and after that

Lift up some one and do I'll tell not what.

Thou didst tell me, and wert o'erjoyed to peep

In at a hole, and see these actions creep

From the poor wretch, which, though he played in prose,

He would have done in verse with any of those

Wrung on the withers by Lord Love's despite,

Had he'd the faculty to read and write!

Such songsters there are store of: witness he

That chanced the lace laid on a smock to see

And straightway spent a sonnet; with that other

That (in pure madrigal) unto his mother

Commended the French hood and scarlet gown

The Lady Mayoress passed in through the town

Unto the Spittle sermon. Oh, what strange

Variety of silks were on the Exchange,

Or in Moorfields this other night! sings one;

Another answers, 'las, those silks are none,

In smiling l'envoy, as he would deride

Any comparison had with his Cheapside.

And vouches both the pageant and the day,

When not the shops but windows do display

The stuffs, the velvets, plushes, fringes, lace,

And all the original riots of the place.

Let the poor fools enjoy their follies, love

A goat in velvet, or some block could move

Under that cover, an old midwife's hat,

Or a close-stool so cased, or any fat

Bawd in a velvet scabbard! I envy

None of their pleasures, nor will ask thee why

Thou art jealous of thy wife's or daughter's case:

More than of either's manners, wit, or face.

An Execration upon Vulcan

And why to me this, thou lame lord of fire,

What had I done that might call on thine ire?

Or urge thy greedy flame thus to devour

So many my years' labours in an hour?

I ne'er attempted, Vulcan, 'gainst thy life,

Nor made least line of love to thy loose wife,

Or in remembrance of thy affront and scorn,

With clowns and tradesmen, kept thee closed in horn.

'Twas Jupiter that hurled thee headlong down,

And Mars that gave thee a lanthorn for a crown.

Was it because thou wert of old denied

By Jove to have Minerva for thy bride

That, since, thou tak'st all envious care and pain

To ruin any issue of the brain?

Had I wrote treason there, or heresy,

Imposture, witchcraft, charms, or blasphemy,

I had deserved, then, thy consuming looks;

Perhaps to have been burned with my books.

But, on thy malice, tell me, didst thou spy

Any least loose or scurrile paper lie

Concealed or kept there, that was fit to be,

By thy own vote, a sacrifice to thee?

Did I there wound the honour of the crown,

Or tax the glories of the church and gown,

Itch to defame the state, or brand the times,

And myself most, in some self-boasting rhymes?

If none of these, then why this fire? Or find

A cause before, or leave me one behind.

Had I compiled from Amadis de Gaul,

The Esplandians, Arthurs, Palmerins, and all

The learned library of Don Quixote,

And so some goodlier monster had begot;

Or spun out riddles, and weaved fifty tomes

Of logogriphs, and curious palindromes;

Or pumped for those hard trifles, anagrams,

Or eteostics, or those finer flams

Of eggs, and halberds, cradles and a hearse,

A pair of scissors and a comb in verse,

Acrostics and telestichs on jump names,

Thou then hadst had some colour for thy flames

On such my serious follies. But, thou'lt say,

There were some pieces of as base allay,

And as false stamp there: parcels of a play,

Fitter to see the fire-light than the day,

Adulterate moneys, such as might not go;

Thou shouldst have stayed till public fame said so.

She is the judge, thou executioner;

Or if thou needs wouldst trench upon her power,

Thou mightst have yet enjoyed thy cruelty

With some more thrift and more variety:

Thou mightst have had me perish piece by piece,

To light tobacco, or save roasted geese,

Singe capons, or poor pigs, dropping their eyes;

Condemned me to the ovens with the pies,

And so have kept me dying a whole age,

Not ravished all hence in a minute's rage.

But that's a mark whereof thy rites do boast,

To make consumption ever, where thou goest.

Had I foreknown of this thy least desire

To have held a triumph or a feast of fire,

Especially in paper, that that steam

Had tickled your large nostril, many a ream

To redeem mine I had sent in: Enough!

Thou should'st have cried, and all been proper stuff.

The Talmud and the Alcoran had come,

With pieces of the Legend; the whole sum

Of errant knighthood, with the dames and dwarfs,

The charmed boats, and the enchanted wharves;

The Tristrams, Lancelots, Turpins and the Peers,

All the mad Rolands, and sweet Olivers,

To Merlin's marvels and his cabal's loss,

With the chimera of the Rosy Cross,

Their seals, their characters, hermetic rings,

Their gem of riches, and bright stone that brings

Invisibility, and strength, and tongues;

The Art of Kindling the True Coal, by Lungs:

With Nicholas Pasquill's Meddle With Your Match,

And the strong lines, that so the time do catch;

Or Captain Pamphlet's horse and foot, that sally

Upon the Exchange, still, out of Pope's Head Alley;

The weekly Courants, with Paul's seal, and all

The admired discourses of the prophet Ball:

These, hadst thou pleased either to dine or sup,

Had made a meal for Vulcan to lick up.

But in my desk what was there to accite

So ravenous and vast an appetite?

I dare not say a body, but some parts

There were of search, and mastery in the arts.

All the old Venusine in poetry,

And lighted by the Stagirite, could spy

Was there made English; with a Grammar too,

To teach some that their nurses could not do,

The purity of language; and among

The rest, my journey into Scotland sung,

With all the adventures; three books not afraid

To speak the fate of the Sicilian maid

To our own ladies; and in story there

Of our fifth Henry, eight of his nine year;

Wherein was oil, beside the succour, spent

Which noble Carew, Cotton, Selden lent;

And twice twelve years' stored-up humanity,

With humble gleanings in divinity,

After the fathers, and those wiser guides

Whom faction had not drawn to study sides.

How in these ruins, Vulcan, thou dost lurk,

All soot and embers, odious as thy work!

I now begin to doubt if ever grace

Or goddess could be patient of thy face.

Thou woo Minerva! or to wit aspire!

'Cause thou canst halt, with us, in arts and fire!

Son of the wind – for so thy mother, gone

With lust, conceived thee; father thou hadst none;

When thou wert born and that thou look'st at best,

She durst not kiss, but flung thee from her breast.

And so did Jove, who ne'er meant thee his cup:

No mar'l the clowns of Lemnos took thee up,

For none but smiths would have made thee a god.

Some alchemist there may be yet, or odd

Squire of the squibs, against the pageant day

May to thy name a Vulcanale say,

And for it lose his eyes with gunpowder,

As the other may his brains with quicksilver.

Well fare the wise men yet, on the Bankside,

My friends the watermen! They could provide

Against thy fury, when to serve their needs

They made a Vulcan of a sheaf of reeds,

Whom they durst handle in their holiday coats,

And safely trust to dress, not burn, their boats.

But, O those reeds! Thy mere disdain of them

Made thee beget that cruel stratagem

(Which some are pleased to style but thy mad prank)

Against the Globe, the glory of the Bank.

Which, though it were the fort of the whole parish,

Flanked with a ditch and forced out of a marish,

I saw with two poor chambers taken in

And razed, ere thought could urge, This might have been!

See the world's ruins, nothing but the piles

Left! and wit since to cover it with tiles.

The brethren, they straight noised it out for news,

'Twas verily some relic of the stews

And this a sparkle of that fire let loose

That was raked up in the Winchestrian goose

Bred on the Bank, in time of Popery,

When Venus there maintained the mystery.

But others fell with that conceit by the ears,

And cried, it was a threatening to the bears,

And that accursed ground, the Parish Garden;

Nay, sighed a sister, 'twas the nun, Kate Arden,

Kindled the fire! But then, did one return,

No fool would his own harvest spoil or burn!

If that were so, thou rather wouldst advance

The place that was thy wife's inheritance.

O no! cried all, Fortune, for being a whore,

Scaped not his justice any jot the more;

He burnt that idol of the revels too:

Nay, let Whitehall with revels have to do,

Though but in dances, it shall know his power;

There was a Judgement shown too in an hour.

He is true Vulcan still! He did not spare

Troy, though it were so much his Venus' care.

Fool, wilt thou let that in example come?

Did not she save from thence to build a Rome?

And what hast thou done in these petty spites,

More than advanced the houses and their rites?

I will not argue thee, from those, of guilt,

For they were burnt but to be better built.

'Tis true that in thy wish they were destroyed,

Which thou hast only vented, not enjoyed.

So wouldst thou have run upon the Rolls by stealth,

And didst invade part of the commonwealth

In those records which, were all chroniclers gone,

Will be remembered by six clerks to one.

But say, all six good men, what answer ye?

Lies there no writ out of the Chancelry

Against this Vulcan, no injunction,

No order, no decree? Though we be gone

At common law, methinks in his despite

A court of Equity should do us right,

But to confine him to the brew-houses,

The glass-house, dye-vats, and their furnaces;

To live in sea-coal and go forth in smoke,

Or – lest that vapour might the city choke –

Condemn him to the brick-kilns, or some hill-

Foot (out in Sussex) to an iron mill;

Or in small faggots have him blaze about

Vile taverns, and the drunkards piss him out;

Or in the bellman's lanthorn, like a spy,

Burn to a snuff, and then stink out and die.

I could invent a sentence yet were worse,

But I'll conclude all in a civil curse:

Pox on your flameship, Vulcan; if it be

To all as fatal as it hath been to me,

And to Paul's steeple, which was unto us

'Bove all your fireworks had at Ephesus

Or Alexandria; and though a divine

Loss, remains yet as unrepaired as mine.

Would you had kept your forge at Aetna still,

And there made swords, bills, glaives, and arms your fill,

Maintained the trade at Bilbo, or elsewhere,

Struck in at Milan with the cutlers there,

Or stayed but where the friar and you first met,

Who from the Devil's Arse did guns beget,

Or fixed in the Low Countries, where you might

On both sides do your mischiefs with delight,

Blow up and ruin, mine and countermine,

Make your petards and granats, all your fine

Engines of murder, and receive the praise

Of massacring mankind so many ways.

We ask your absence here, we all love peace,

And pray the fruits thereof and the increase;

So doth the king, and most of the king's men

That have good places: therefore once again

Pox on thee, Vulcan, thy Pandora's pox,

And all the evils that flew out of her box

Light on thee; or if those plagues will not do,

Thy wife's pox on thee, and Bess Broughton's too.

A Speech according to Horace

Why yet, my noble hearts, they cannot say

But we have powder still for the King's Day,

And ordnance too; so much as from the Tower

To have waked, if sleeping, Spain's ambassador,

Old Aesop Gondomar: the French can tell,

For they did see it the last tilting well,

That we have trumpets, armour, and great horse,

Lances, and men, and some a breaking force.

They saw too store of feathers, and more may,

If they stay here but till Saint George's Day.

All ensigns of a war are not yet dead,

Nor marks of wealth so from our nation fled

But they may see gold chains and pearl worn then,

Lent by the London dames to the lords' men;

Withal, the dirty pains those citizens take

To see the pride at court their wives do make;

And the return those thankful courtiers yield

To have their husbands drawn forth to the field,

And coming home, to tell what acts were done

Under the auspice of young Swinnerton.

What a strong fort old Pimlico had been,

How it held out, how (last) 'twas taken in!

Well, I say, thrive; thrive, brave Artillery Yard,

Thou seed-plot of the war, that hast not spared

Powder or paper to bring up the youth

Of London in the military truth

These ten years' day, as all may swear that look

But on thy practice and the posture-book;

He that but saw thy curious captain's drill

Would think no more of Flushing or the Brill,

But give them over to the common ear

For that unnecessary charge they were.

Well did thy crafty clerk and knight, Sir Hugh,

Supplant bold Panton, and brought there to view

Translated Aelian's Tactics to be read

And the Greek discipline, with the modern, shed

So in that ground, as soon it grew to be

The City question whether Tilly or he

Were now the greater captain; for they saw

The Bergen siege, and taking in Breda,

So acted to the life, as Maurice might

And Spinola, have blushed at the sight.

O happy art, and wise epitome

Of bearing arms, most civil soldiery!

Thou canst draw forth thy forces, and fight dry

The battles of thy aldermanity,

Without the hazard of a drop of blood

More than the surfeits in thee that day stood.

Go on, increase in virtue and in fame,

And keep the glory of the English name

Up among nations. In the stead of bold

Beauchamps, and Nevilles, Cliffords, Audleys old,

Insert thy Hodges, and those newer men,

As Styles, Dyke, Ditchfield, Millar, Crips, and Fenn;

That keep the war, though now it be grown more tame,

Alive yet in the noise, and still the same;

And could, if our great men would let their sons

Come to their schools, show 'em the use of guns,

And there instruct the noble English heirs

In politic and militar affairs.

But he that should persuade to have this done

For education of our lordings, soon

Should he hear of billow, wind, and storm

From the tempestuous grandlings: Who'll inform

Us in our bearing, that are thus and thus

Born, bred, allied? What's he dare tutor us?

Are we by bookworms to be awed? Must we

Live by their scale that dare do nothing free?

Why are we rich or great, except to show

All licence in our lives? What need we know

More than to praise a dog, or horse, or speak

The hawking language; or our day to break

With citizens? Let clowns and tradesmen breed

Their sons to study arts, the laws, the creed;

We will believe, like men of our own rank

In so much land a year, or such a bank

That turns us so much moneys, at which rate

Our ancestors imposed on prince and state.

Let poor nobility be virtuous; we,

Descended in a rope of titles, be

From Guy, or Bevis, Arthur, or from whom

The herald will. Our blood is now become

Past any need of virtue. Let them care

That in the cradle of their gentry are,

To serve the state by counsels and by arms;

We neither love the troubles nor the harms.

What love you then? Your whore. What study? Gait,

Carriage, and dressing. There is up of late

The Academy, where the gallants meet –

What, to make legs? Yes, and to smell most sweet:

All that they do at plays. Oh, but first here

They learn and study, and then practise there.

But why are all these irons in the fire

Of several makings? Helps, helps, to attire

His lordship. That is for his band, his hair

This, and that box his beauty to repair,

This other for his eyebrows – hence, away!

I may no longer on these pictures stay:

These carcases of honour, tailors' blocks

Covered with tissue, whose prosperity mocks

The fate of things; whilst tottered virtue holds

Her broken arms up to their empty moulds.

An Epistle to Master Arthur Squib

What I am not, and what I fain would be,

Whilst I inform myself, I would teach thee,

My gentle Arthur, that it might be said

One lesson we have both learned and well read.

I neither am, nor art thou, one of those

That hearkens to a jack's pulse, when it goes;

Nor ever trusted to that friendship yet

Was issue of the tavern or the spit:

Much less a name would we bring up or nurse

That could but claim a kindred from the purse.

Those are poor ties depend on those false ends,

'Tis virtue alone, or nothing, that knits friends.

And as within your office you do take

No piece of money, but you know or make

Inquiry of the worth, so must we do:

First weigh a friend, then touch, and try him too;

For there are many slips and counterfeits.

Deceit is fruitful. Men have masks and nets,

But these with wearing will themselves unfold:

They cannot last. No lie grew ever old.

Turn him, and see his threads; look if he be

Friend to himself, that would be friend to thee.

For that is first required, a man be his own.

But he that's too much that is friend of none.

Then rest, and a friend's value understand:

It is a richer purchase than of land.

An Epigram on Sir Edward Coke, When He Was Lord Chief Justice of England

He that should search all glories of the gown,

And steps of all raised servants of the crown,

He could not find, than thee, of all that store,

Whom fortune aided less, or virtue more.

Such Coke, were thy beginnings, when thy good

In others' evil best was understood;

When, being the stranger's help, the poor man's aid,

Thy just defences made the oppressor afraid.

Such was thy process, when integrity

And skill in thee now grew authority;

That clients strove, in question of the laws,

More for thy patronage than for their cause,

And that thy strong and manly eloquence

Stood up thy nation's fame, her crown's defence.

And now such is thy stand; while thou dost deal

Desired justice to the public weal

Like Solon's self, explait'st the knotty laws

With endless labours, whilst thy learning draws

No less of praise than readers in all kinds

Of worthiest knowledge that can take men's minds.

Such is thy all, that (as I sung before)

None fortune aided less, or virtue more.

Of if chance must, to each man that doth rise,

Needs lend an aid, to thine she had her eyes.

An Epistle Answering to One that Asked to be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben

Men that are safe and sure in all they do

Care not what trials they are put unto;

They meet the fire, the test, as martyrs would,

And though opinion stamp them not, are gold.

I could say more of such, but that I fly

To speak myself out too ambitiously,

And showing so weak an act to vulgar eyes,

Put conscience and my right to compromise.

Let those that merely talk, and never think,

That live in the wild anarchy of drink,

Subject to quarrel only, or else such

As make it their proficiency how much

They have glutted in and lechered out that week,

That never yet did friend or friendship seek

But for a sealing: let these men protest.

Or the other on their borders, that will jest

On all souls that are absent, even the dead,

Like flies or worms which man's corrupt parts fed:

That to speak well, think it above all sin,

Of any company but that they are in;

Call every night to supper in these fits,

And are received for the covey of wits;

That censure all the town, and all the affairs,

And know whose ignorance is more than theirs;

Let these men have their ways, and take their times

To vent their libels, and to issue rhymes,

I have no portion in them, nor their deal

Of news they get to strew out the long meal;

I study other friendships, and more one

Than these can ever be; or else wish none.

What is't to me whether the French design

Be, or be not, to get the Valtelline?

Or the States' ships sent forth belike to meet

Some hopes of Spain in their West Indian Fleet?

Whether the dispensation yet be sent,

Or that the match from Spain was ever meant?

I wish all well, and pray high heaven conspire

My prince's safety and my king's desire;

But if, for honour, we must draw the sword,

And force back that which will not be restored,

I have a body yet that spirit draws

To live, or fall a carcass in the cause.

So far without inquiry what the States,

Brunsfield, and Mansfeld, do this year, my fates

Shall carry me at call, and I'll be well,

Though I do neither hear these news, nor tell

Or Spain or France, or were not pricked down one

Of the late mystery of reception,

Although my fame to his not under-hears,

That guides the motions and directs the bears.

But that's a blow by which in time I may

Lose all my credit with my Christmas clay

And animated porcelain of the court;

Aye, and for this neglect, the coarser sort

Of earthen jars there may molest me too:

Well, with mine own frail pitcher, what to do

I have decreed; keep it from waves and press,

Lest it be jostled, cracked, made nought, or less;

Live to that point I will, for which I am man,

And dwell as in my centre as I can,

Still looking to, and ever loving, heaven;

With reverence using all the gifts thence given.

'Mongst which, if I have any friendships sent,

Such as are square, well-tagged, and permanent,

Not built with canvas, paper, and false lights,

As are the glorious scenes at the great sights,

And that there be no fevery heats, nor colds,

Oily expansions, or shrunk dirty folds,

But all so clear and led by reason's flame,

As but to stumble in her sight were shame;

These I will honour, love, embrace, and serve,

And free it from all question to preserve.

So short you read my character, and theirs

I would call mine, to which not many stairs

Are asked to climb. First give me faith, who know

Myself a little. I will take you so,

As you have writ yourself. Now stand, and then,

Sir, you are sealed of the tribe of Ben.

The Dedication of the King's New Cellar to Bacchus

Since, Bacchus, thou art father

Of wines, to thee the rather

We dedicate this cellar,

Where now, thou art made dweller,

And seal thee thy commission;

But 'tis with a condition

That thou remain here taster

Of all to the great master.

And look unto their faces,

Their qualities, and races,

That both their odour take him

And relish merry make him.

For, Bacchus, thou art freer

Of cares, and overseer

Of feast and merry meeting,

And still begin'st the greeting;

See then thou dost attend him,

Lyaeus, and defend him

By all the arts of gladness

From any thought like sadness.

So mayst thou still be younger

Than Phoebus, and much stronger

To give mankind their eases,

And cure the world's diseases;

So may the muses follow

Thee still, and leave Apollo,

And think thy stream more quicker

Than Hippocrene's liquor:

And thou make many a poet

Before his brain do know it;

So may there never quarrel

Have issue from the barrel;

But Venus and the graces

Pursue thee in all places,

And not a song be other

Than Cupid and his mother.

That when King James, above here,

Shall feast it, thou mayst love there

The causes and the guests too,

And have thy tales and jests too,

Thy circuits and thy rounds free

As shall the feast's fair grounds be.

Be it he hold communion

In great Saint George's union,

Or gratulates the passage

Of some well-wrought embassage,

Whereby he may knit sure up

The wished peace of Europe;

Or else a health advances,

To put his court in dances,

And set us all on skipping,

When with his royal shipping

The narrow seas are shady,

And Charles brings home the lady.

Accessit fervor capiti, numerusque lucernis.

An Epigram on the Court Pucelle

Does the court pucelle then so censure me,

And thinks I dare not her? Let the world see.

What though her chamber be the very pit

Where fight the prime cocks of the game, for wit?

And that as any are struck, her breath creates

New in their stead, out of the candidates?

What though with tribade lust she force a muse,

And in an epicoene fury can write news

Equal with that which for the best news goes,

As airy light, and as like wit as those?

What though she talk, and can at once with them

Make state, religion, bawdry, all a theme?

And as lip-thirsty, in each word's expense,

Doth labour with the phrase more than the sense?

What though she ride two mile on holidays

To church, as others do to feasts and plays,

To show their 'tires, to view and to be viewed?

What though she be with velvet gowns endued,

And spangled petticoats brought forth to eye,

As new rewards of her old secrecy?

What though she hath won on trust, as many do,

And that her truster fears her: must I too?

I never stood for any place: my wit

Thinks itself nought, though she should value it.

I am no statesman, and much less divine;

For bawdry, 'tis her language, and not mine.

Farthest I am from the idolatry

To stuffs and laces: those my man can buy.

And trust her I would least, that hath foreswore

In contract twice; what can she perjure more?

Indeed, her dressing some man might delight,

Her face there's none can like by candle-light.

Not he that should the body have, for case

To his poor instrument, now out of grace.

Shall I advise thee, pucelle? Steal away

From court, while yet thy fame hath some small day;

The wits will leave you, if they once perceive

You cling to lords, and lords, if them you leave

For sermoneers: of which now one, now other

They say you weekly invite with fits of the mother,

And practise for a miracle; take heed

This age would lend no faith to Darrel's deed:

Or if it would, the court is the worst place,

Both for the mothers and the babes of grace;

For there the wicked in the chair of scorn

Will call it a bastard, when a prophet's born.

An Epigram to the Honoured Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland

The wisdom, madam, of your private life

Wherewith this while you live a widowed wife,

And the right ways you take unto the right,

To conquer rumour and triumph on spite;

Not only shunning by your act to do

Aught that is ill, but the suspicion too,

Is of so brave example, as he were

No friend to virtue could be silent here.

The rather when the vices of the time

Are grown so fruitful, and false pleasures climb

By all oblique degrees that killing height

From whence they fall, cast down with their own weight.

And though all praise bring nothing to your name,

Who, herein studying conscience and not fame,

Are in yourself rewarded; yet 'twill be

A cheerful work to all good eyes, to see

Among the daily ruins that fall foul,

Of state, of fame, of body, and of soul,

So great a virtue stand upright to view,

As makes Penelope's old fable true:

Whilst your Ulysses hath ta'en leave to go,

Countries and climes, manners and men to know.

Only your time you better entertain,

Than the great Homer's wit for her could feign;

For you admit no company but good,

And when you want those friends, or near in blood,

Or your allies, you make your books your friends,

And study them unto the noblest ends,

Searching for knowledge, and to keep your mind

The same it was inspired, rich, and refined.

These graces, when the rest of ladies view,

Not boasted in your life, but practised true,

As they are hard for them to make their own,

So are they profitable to be known:

For when they find so many meet in one,

It will be shame for them, if they have none.

Lord Bacon's Birthday

Hail, happy genius of this ancient pile!

How comes it all things so about thee smile?

The fire, the wine, the men! and in the midst

Thou stand'st as if some mystery thou didst!

Pardon, I read it in thy face, the day

For whose returns, and many, all these pray:

And so do I. This is the sixtieth year

Since Bacon, and thy lord was born, and here;

Son to the grave wise Keeper of the Seal,

Fame and foundation of the English weal.

What then his father was, that since is he,

Now with a title more to the degree;

England's high Chancellor: the destined heir

In his soft cradle to his father's chair;

Whose even thread the fates spin round and full,

Out of their choicest and their whitest wool.

'Tis a brave cause of joy, let it be known,

For 'twere a narrow gladness, kept thine own.

Give me a deep-crowned bowl, that I may sing,

In raising him, the wisdom of my king.

A Poem Sent Me by Sir William Burlase

The Painter to the Poet

To paint thy worth, if rightly I did know it,

And were but painter half like thee, a poet,

Ben, I would show it;

But in this skill my unskilled pen will tire,

Thou, and thy worth, will still be found far higher,

And I a liar.

Then what a painter's here! or what an eater

Of great attempts! when as his skill's no greater,

And he a cheater!

Then what a poet's here! whom, by confession

Of all with me, to paint without digression,

There's no expression.

My Answer

The Poet to the Painter

Why? though I seem of a prodigious waist,

I am not so voluminous and vast

But there are lines wherewith I might be embraced.

'Tis true, as my womb swells, so my back stoops,

And the whole lump grows round, deformed, and droops,

But yet the tun at Heidelberg had hoops.

You were not tied by any painter's law

To square my circle, I confess, but draw

My superficies: that was all you saw.

Which if in compass of no art it came

To be described but by a monogram,

With one great blot, you had formed me as I am.

But whilst you curious were to have it be

An archetype for all the world to see,

You made it a brave piece, but not like me.

Oh, had I now your manner, mastery, might,

Your power of handling shadow, air, and sprite,

How I would draw, and take hold and delight.

But you are he can paint; I can but write:

A poet hath no more but black and white,

Ne knows he flattering colours, or false light.

Yet when of friendship I would draw the face,

A lettered mind and a large heart would place

To all posterity: I will write Burlase.

An Epigram to William, Earl of Newcastle

When first, my lord, I saw you back your horse,

Provoke his mettle, and command his force

To all the uses of the field and race,

Methought I read the ancient art of Thrace,

And saw a centaur, past those tales of Greece;

So seemed your horse and you both of a piece!

You showed like Perseus upon Pegasus,

Or Castor mounted on his Cyllarus,

Or what we hear our home-born legend tell

Of bold Sir Bevis and his Arundel;

Nay, so your seat his beauties did endorse

As I began to wish myself a horse.

And surely had I but your stable seen

Before, I think my wish absolved had been.

For never saw I yet the muses dwell,

Nor any of their household, half so well.

So well, as when I saw the floor and room,

I looked for Hercules to be the groom,

And cried, Away with the Caesarian bread!

At these immortal mangers Virgil fed.

Epistle to Mr. Arthur Squib

I am to dine, friend, where I must be weighed

For a just wager, and that wager paid

If I do lose it: and, without a tale,

A merchant's wife is regent of the scale.

Who, when she heard the match, concluded straight,

An ill commodity! It must make good weight.

So that upon the point my corporal fear

Is she will play Dame Justice too severe,

And hold me to it close; to stand upright

Within the balance, and not want a mite,

Bur rather with advantage to be found

Full twenty stone, of which I lack two pound:

That's six in silver; now within the socket

Stinketh my credit, if into the pocket

It do not come. One piece I have in store;

Lend me, dear Arthur, for a week five more

And you shall make me good, in weight and fashion,

And then to be returned; or protestation

To go out after – till when, take this letter

For your security. I can no better.

To Mr. John Burgess

Would God, my Burgess, I could think

Thoughts worthy of thy gift, this ink;

Then would I promise here to give

Verse that should thee and me outlive.

But since the wine hath steeped my brain

I only can the paper stain;

Yet with a dye that fears no moth,

But scarlet-like outlasts the cloth.

Epistle to My Lady Covell

You won not verses, madam, you won me,

When you would play so nobly, and so free.

A book to a few lines; but it was fit

You won them too, your odds did merit it.

So have you gained a servant and a muse:

The first of which, I fear, you will refuse;

And you may justly, being a tardy, cold,

Unprofitable chattle, fat and old,

Laden with belly, and doth hardly approach

His friends, but to break chairs or crack a coach.

His weight is twenty stone, within two pound,

And that's made up as doth the purse abound.

Marry, the muse is one can tread the air,

And stroke the water: nimble, chaste and fair;

Sleep in a virgin's bosom without fear,

Run all the rounds in a soft lady's ear,

Widow or wife, without the jealousy

Of either suitor or a servant by.

Such, if her manners like you, I do send:

And can for other graces her commend,

To make you merry on the dressing stool

A-mornings, and at afternoons to fool

Away ill company, and help in rhyme

Your Joan to pass her melancholy time.

By this, although you fancy not the man,

Accept his muse; and tell (I know you can)

How many verses, madam, are your due!

I can lose none in tendering these to you.

I gain in having leave to keep my day,

And should grow rich, had I much more to pay.

To Master John Burgess

Father John Burgess

Necessity urges

My woeful cry,

To Sir Robert Pye:

And that he will venture

To send my debenture.

Tell him his Ben

Knew the time, when

He loved the muses;

Though now he refuses

To take apprehension

Of a year's pension,

And more is behind:

Put him in mind

Christmas is near;

And neither good cheer,

Mirth, fooling, nor wit,

Nor any least fit

Of gambol or sport

Will come at the court,

If there be no money;

No plover, or coney

Will come to the table,

Or wine to enable

The muse or the poet,

The parish will know it;

Nor any quick warming-pan help him to bed,

If the 'chequer be empty, so will be his head.

Epigram to My Bookseller

Thou, friend, wilt hear all censures; unto thee

All mouths are open, and all stomachs free:

Be thou my book's intelligencer, note

What each man says of it, and of what coat

His judgement is; if he be wise and praise,

Thank him; if other, he can give no bays.

If his wit reach no higher but to spring

Thy wife a fit of laughter, a cramp-ring

Will be reward enough, to wear like those

That hang their richest jewels in their nose,

Like a rung bear or swine: grunting out wit

As if that part lay for a –– most fit!

If they go on, and that thou lov'st alife

Their perfumed judgements, let them kiss thy wife.

An Epigram to William, Earl of Newcastle

They talk of fencing and the use of arms,

The art of urging and avoiding harms,

The noble science and the mastering skill

Of making just approaches, how to kill,

To hit in angles, and to clash with time:

As all defence or offence were a chime!

I hate such measured, give me mettled! fire,

That trembles in the blaze, but then mounts higher,

A quick and dazzling motion! When a pair

Of bodies meet like rarefied air!

Their weapons shot out with that flame and force

As they outdid the lightning in their course;

This were a spectacle! A sight to draw

Wonder to valour! No; it is the law

Of daring not to do a wrong is true

Valour: to slight it, being done to you;

To know the heads of danger, where 'tis fit

To bend, to break, provoke, or suffer it!

All this, my lord, is valour. This is yours,

And was your father's, all your ancestors'!

Who durst live great 'mongst all the colds and heats

Of human life, as all the frosts and sweats

Of fortune, when or death appeared, or bands;

And valiant were with, or without, their hands.

An Epitaph on Henry, Lord La Warr.

To the Passer-by

If, passenger, thou canst but read,

Stay, drop a tear for him that's dead:

Henry, the brave young Lord La Warr,

Minerva's and the muses' care!

What could their care do 'gainst the spite

Of a disease that loved no light

Of honour, nor no air of good,

But crept like darkness through his blood,

Offended with the dazzling flame

Of virtue, got above his name?

No noble furniture of parts,

No love of action and high arts,

No aim at glory, or, in war,

Ambition to become a star

Could stop the malice of this ill,

That spread his body o'er, to kill:

And only his great soul envied

Because it durst have noblier died.

An Epigram

That you have seen the pride, beheld the sport,

And all the games of fortune played at court;

Viewed there the market, read the wretched rate

At which there are would sell the prince and state;

That scarce you hear a public voice alive,

But whispered councils, and those only, thrive:

Yet are got off thence with clear mind and hands

To lift to heaven: who is't not understands

Your happiness, and doth not speak you blest,

To see you set apart, thus, from the rest,

To obtain of God what all the land should ask?

A nation's sin got pardoned – 'twere a task

Fit for a bishop's knees! O bow them oft,

My lord, till felt grief make our stone hearts soft,

And we do weep to water for our sin.

He that in such a flood as we are in

Of riot and consumption, knows the way

To teach the people how to fast and pray,

And do their penance, to avert God's rod:

He is the man, and favourite of God.

An Epigram to King Charles, for a Hundred Pounds He Sent Me in My Sickness. 1629

Great Charles, among the holy gifts of grace

Annexed to thy person and thy place,

'Tis not enough (thy piety is such)

To cure the called king's evil with thy touch;

But thou wilt yet a kinglier mastery try,

To cure the poet's evil, poverty;

And in these cures dost so thyself enlarge

As thou dost cure our evil at thy charge.

Nay, and in this thou show'st to value more

One poet, than of other folk ten score.

O piety, so to weigh the poor's estates!

O bounty, so to difference the rates!

What can the poet wish his king may do,

But that he cure the people's evil too?

To King Charles and Queen Mary. For the Loss of Their First-Born; an Epigram Consolatory

Who dares deny that all first fruits are due

To God, denies the Godhead to be true;

Who doubts those fruits God can with gain restore,

Doth by his doubt distrust his promise more.

He can, he will, and with large interest, pay

What, at his liking, he will take away.

Then, royal Charles and Mary, do not grutch

That the Almighty's will to you is such;

But thank his greatness, and his goodness too,

And think all still the best that he will do.

That thought shall make he will this loss supply

With a long, large, and blessed posterity!

For God, whose essence is so infinite,

Cannot but heap that grace he will requite.

An Epigram to Our Great and Good King Charles, on His Anniversary Day, 1629

How happy were the subject, if he knew

Most pious king, but his own good in you!

How many times, Live long, Charles! would he say,

If he but weighed the blessings of this day,

And as it turns our joyful year about,

For safety of such majesty, cry out?

Indeed, when had Great Britain greater cause

Than now, to love the sovereign and the laws?

When you that reign are her example grown,

And what are bounds to her, you make your own?

When your assiduous practice doth secure

That faith which she professeth to be pure?

When all your life's a precedent of days,

And murmur cannot quarrel at your ways?

How is she barren grown of love, or broke,

That nothing can her gratitude provoke!

O times! O manners! surfeit bred of ease,

The truly epidemical disease!

'Tis not alone the merchant, but the clown

Is bankrupt turned; the cassock, cloak, and gown

Are lost upon account! and none will know

How much to heaven for thee, great Charles, they owe!

An Epigram on the Prince's Birth, 1630

And art thou born, brave babe? Blest be thy birth,

That hath so crowned our hopes, our spring, and earth,

The bed of the chaste lily and the rose!

What month than May was fitter to disclose

This prince of flowers? Soon shoot thou up, and grow

The same that thou art promised; but be slow

And long in changing. Let our nephews see

Thee quickly come the garden's eye to be,

And there to stand so. Haste now, envious moon,

And interpose thyself ('care not how soon)

And threat' the great eclipse. Two hours but run,

Sol will re-shine. If not, Charles hath a son.

–– Non displicuisse meretur,

Festinat, Caesar, qui placuisse tibi.

An Epigram to the Queen, then Lying In,

1630

Hail Mary, full of grace! it once was said,

And by an angel, to the blessed'st maid,

The mother of our Lord: why may not I

Without prophaneness, yet a poet, cry

Hail Mary, full of honours! to my queen,

The mother of our prince? When was there seen,

Except the joy that the first Mary brought,

Whereby the safety of mankind was wrought,

So general a gladness to an isle,

To make the hearts of a whole nation smile,

As in this prince? Let it be lawful so

To compare small with great, as still we owe

Glory to God. Then, Hail to Mary! spring

Of so much safety to the realm and king!

An Ode, or Song, by All the Muses, in Celebration of Her Majesty's Birthday, 1630

1.