Our health, diseases, lethargies, and rheum,

Our friendship's fire, and all our vows are fume.
Of late there's no such things as wit, or sense,
Counsel, instruction, or intelligence:

Discourse that should distinguish man from beast,
Is by the vapour of this weed supprest;
For what we talk is interrupted stuff,
The one half English, and the other puff:
Freedom and truth are things we do not know,
We know not what we say, nor what we do:
We want in all the understanding's light,
We talk in clouds, and walk in endless night.
We smoke, as if we meant, conceal'd by spell,
To spy abroad, yet be invisible:

But no discovery shall the statesman boast,
We raise a mist wherein our selves are lost,
A stinking shade, and whilst we pipe it thus,
Each one appears an ignis fatuus.
Courtier and peasant, nay the madam nice
Is likewise fall'n into the common vice:
We all in Jusky errour groping lie,

Robb'd of our reasons, and the day's bright eye,
Whilst sailors from the main top see our isle
Wrapt up in smoke, like the Etnean pile.

What nameless ill does its contagion shroud
In the dark mantle of this noisome cloud?
Sure 'tis the devil: Oh, I know that's it,
Fob! how the sulphur makes me cough and spit?
'Tis he; or else some fav'rite fiend, at least,
In all the mischief of his malice drest.
Each deadly sin that lurks t' intrap the soul;
Does here conceal'd in curling vapours roll:
And for the body such an unknown ill,
As makes physicians' reading, and their skill,
One undistinguish'd pest made up of all
That men experienc'd do diseases call;
Coughs, asthmas, apoplexies, fevers, rheum,
All that kill dead, or lingeringly consume;
Folly and madness, nay the plague, the pox,
And ev'ry fool wears a Pandora's box.
From that rich mine the stupid sot doth fill,
Smokes up his liver, and his lungs, until
His reeking nostrils monstrously proclaim,
His brains and bowels are consuming flame.
What noble s ul would be content to dwell
In the dark lanthorn of a smoky cell?
To prostitute his body and his mind
To a debauch of such a stinking kind?
To sacrifice to Molech, and to fry,
In such a base, dirty idolatry;

As if frail life, which of itself's too short,
Were to be whift away in drunken sport.
Thus, as if weary of our destin'd years,
We burn the thread so to prevent the shears.
What noble end can simple man propose
For a reward to his all-smoking nose?
His purposes are levell'd sure amiss,
Where neither ornament nor pleasure is.
What can he then design his worthy hire?
Sure 'tis t' inure him for eternal fire:
And thus his aim must admirably thrive,
In hopes of Hell, he damns himself alive.
But my infected Muse begins to choke
In the vile stink of the increasing smoke,
And can no more in equal numbers chime,
Unless to sneeze, and cough, and spit in rhyme.
Half stifled now in this new time's disease,
She must in fumo vanish, and disease.
This is her fault's excuse, and her pretence,
This satire, perhaps, else had look'd like sense.

LAURA SLEEPING.

ODE.

WINDS, whisper gently whilst she sleeps, And fan her with your cooling wings; Whilst she her drops of beauty weeps,

From pure, and yet unrivall'd springs, Glide over beauty's field, her face,

To kiss her lip and cheek be bold, But with a calm and stealing pace;

Neither too rude, nor yet too cold. Play in her beams, and crisp her hair,

With such a gale as wings soft love, And with so sweet, so rich an air,

As breathes from the Arabian grove. A breath as hush'd as lovers' sigh, Or that unfolds the morning door; Sweet as the winds that gently fly,

To sweep the Spring's enamell'd floor. Murmur soft music to her dreams,

That pure and unpolluted run, Like to the new-born christal streams, Under the bright enamour'd Sun. But when she waking shall display

Her light, retire within your bar, Her breath is life, her eyes are day,

And all mankind her creatures are.

LAURA WEEPING.

ODE.

CHASTE, lovely Laura, 'gan disclose,

Drooping with sorrow from her bed, As with ungentle show'rs the rose,

O'ercharg'd with wet, declines her head. With a dejected look and pace,

Neglectingly she 'gan appear, When meeting with her tell-tale glass, She saw the face of sorrow there. Sweet sorrow, drest in such a look,

As love would trick to catch desire;

A shaded leaf in beauty's book,

Charact'red with clandestine fire.

Down dropp'd a tear, to deck her cheeks
With orient treasure of her own;

Such as the diving Negro seeks

'T" adorn the monarch's mighty crown

Then a full show'r of pearly dew,

Upon her snowy breast 'gan fall: As in due homage to bestrew;

Or mourn her beauty's funeral. So have I seen the springing morn

In dark and humid vapours clad, Not to eclipse, but to adorn

Her glories by that conquer'd shade. Spare (Laura) spare those beauty's twins, Do not our world of beauty drown, Thy tears are balm for other sins,

Thou know'st not any of thine own.

Then let them shine forth to declare

The sweet serenity within,

May each day of thy life be fair, And to eclipse one hour be sin.

TO SIR ASTON COCKAYNE,

ON CAPTAIN HANNIBALL.

EPIG.

YOUR captain Hanniball does snort and puff,
Arm'd in his brazen-face, and greasy buff, [roar,
'Mongst punks, and panders, and can rant, and
With Cacala the turd, and his poor whore.
But I would wish his valour not mistake us,
All captains are not like his brother Dacus;
Advise him then be quiet; or I shall
Bring captain Hough, to bait your Hanniball.

IN IMITATION OF A SONG

IN THE PLAY OF ROLLO.

TAKE, O take, my fears away,
Which thy cold disdains have bred;
And grant me one auspicious ray,

From thy morn of beauties shed.

But thy killing beams restrain,
Lest I be by beauty slain.

Spread, O spread, those orient twins
Which thy snowy bosom grace,
Where love in milk and roses swims,
Blind with lustre of thy face.

But let love thaw them first, lest I
Do on those frozen mountains die.

TO SIR ASTON COCKAYNE,

ON HIS TRAGEDY OF OVID.

LONG live the poet, and his lovely Muse,
The stage with wit and learning to infuse,
Embalm him in immortal elegy,
My gentle Naso, for if he should die,
Who makes thee live, thou'lt be again pursu'd,
And banish'd Heaven for ingratitude.
Transform again thy metamorphosis

In one, and turn thy various shapes to his,
A twin-born Muse in such embraces curl'd,
As shall subject the scribblers of the world,
And spite of time, and envy, heuceforth sit,
The ruling Gemini of love and wit.

[glide

So two pure streams in one smooth channel In even motion, without ebb or tide, As in your pens Tybur and Ancor meet, And run meanders with their silver feet.

Both soft, both gentle, both transcending high, Both skill'd alike in charming elegy; So equally adinir'd the laurel's due Without distinction both to him and you: Naso was Rome's fam'd Ovid, you alone Must be the Ovid to our Albion; In all things equal, saving in this case, Our modern Ovid has the better grace.

PHILODRAMATOS.

DE DIE MARTIS, & DIE VENERIS.

EPIC.

SATURN and Sol, and Luna chaste,
"Twixt Mars and Venus still are plac'd,
Whilst Mercury and Jove divide
The lovers on the other side.
What may the hidden mystery
Of this unriddled order be?
The gods themselves do justly fear,
That should they trust these two too near,

Mars would be drown'd in Venus, and so they
Should lose a planet, and the week a day.

ALIUD.

SHOULD Mars and Venus have their will, Venus would keep her Friday ill.

TRANSLATIONS OUT OF SEVERAL POETS.

HORACE HIS SECOND EPODE TRANSLATED. HAPPY'S that man that is from city care Sequester'd, as the ancients were ; That with his own ox ploughs his father's lands, Untainted with usurious bands:

That from alarms of war in quiet sleeps;

Nor's frighted with the raging deeps: That shuns litigious law, and the proud state Of his more potent neighbour's gate. Therefore, he either is employ'd to join

The poplar to the sprouting vine, Pruning luxurious branches, grafting some

More hopeful offspring in their room:
Or else his sight in humble vallies feasts,
With scatter'd troops of lowing beasts:
Or refin'd honey in fine vessels keeps;

Or shears his snowy tender sheep :
Or, when Autumnus shows his fruitful bead
Ith' mellow Gelds with apples covered,
How he delights to pluck the grafted pear,

And grapes, whose cheeks do purple wear! Of which to thee, Priapus, tithes abound,

And Silvan patron of his ground.

Now, where the aged oak his green arms spreads,
He lies, now in the flow'ry meads:
Whilst through their deep-woin banks the mur-
muring floods

Do glide, and birds chant in the woods:
And bubbling fountains flowing streams do weep,
A gentle summons into sleep.

But when cold Winter docs the s orms prepare,
And snow of thund'ring Jupiter;
Then with his dogs the furious boar he foils,
'Compell'd into objected toils:

Or, on the forks extends his mashy net,

For greedy thrushes a deceit.

The fearful hare too, and the stranger crane
With gins he takes, a pleasant gain.
Who but with such diversions would remove
All the malignant cares of love?
But, if to these he have a modest spouse,
"To nurse his children, keep his house,
Such, as the Sabine women, or the tann'd
Wife o'th' painful Apulian,

To make a good fire of dry wood, when come

From his hard labour weary home; The wanton cattle in their booths to tie,

Stripping their stradling udders dry, Drawing the must from forth the cleanly vats,

To wash down their unpurchas'd cates; Mullet or thornback cannot please me more,

Nor oysters from the Lucrine shore, When by an eastern tempest. they are tost,

Into the sea, that sweeps this coast.
The turkey fair of Afric shall not come,

Within the confines of my womb :
As olives from the fruitfull'st branches got,
Ionian snites so sweet are not;

Or sorrel growing in the meadow ground,
Or mallows for the body sound;

The lamb kill'd for the Terminalia ;

Or kid redeem'd from the wolf's prey. Whilst thus we feed, what joy 'tis to behold

The pastur'd sheep haste to their fold! And th' wearied ox with drooping neck to come Haling th' inverted culture home; And swarms of servants from their labour quit About the shining fire sit!

Thus when the usurer Alphius had said,

Now purposing this life to lead,

I'th' Ides call'd in his money; but for gain
I'th' Kalends put it forth again.

HORAT. ODE IX. LIB. 3.

AD LYDIAM.

HOR.

WHILST I was acceptable unto thee,

And that no other youthful arm might cling About thy snowy neck, than mine more free, More blest I flourish'd than the Persian king.

THESE, pleasant Martial, are the things
That to man's life contentment brings;
Wealth by succession got, not toil;
A glowing hearth; a fruitful soil;
No strife; few suits; a mind not drown'd
In cares; clean strength; a body sound;
Prudent simplicity; equal friends;
No diet, that to lavish tends;
A night not steep'd in drink, yet freed
From care; a chaste and peaceful bed s
Untroubled sleeps, that render night
Shorter, and sweeter till the light;

To be best pleas'd with thine own state, Neither to wish, nor fear thy fate.

DE FORTUNA; AN SIT CŒCA.

ID. LIB. VIII. EP. 3.

AD MUSAM.

It was enough five, six, seven books to fill,
Yea and too much; why, Muse, dost scribble still?
Cease, and be modest. Fame no farther grace
Can add; my book's worn out in every place.
When ras'd Messalla's monumentals must
Lie with Licinus's lofty tomb in dust,

I shall be read, and travellers that come
Transport my verses to their father's home.
Thus I had once resolv'd, (her clothes and head
Besmear'd with ointment) when Thalia said,
"Canst thou, ungrateful, thus renounce thy
rhyme?

Tell me, how would'st thou spend thy vacant time?
To tragic buskins would'st thy sock transfer,
And in heroic verse sing bloody war?
That tyrannous pedants with awful voice
May terrify old men, virgins, and boys:
Let rigid antiquaries such things write,
Who by a blinking lamp consume the night,
With Roman air touch up thy poem's dress,
That th' age may read its manners, and confess :

EPIG. EX JOHANN. SECUNDO.

WHY do they speak the goddess Fortune blind
Because she's only to th' unjust inclin'd;
This reason, not her blindness, does declare,
They only Fortune need who wicked are.

OUT OF ASTREA.

MADRIGAL.

I THINK I could my passion sway,
Though great, as beauty's power can move
To such obedience, as to say,

I cannot; or I do not love.

But to pretend another flame,

Since I adore thy conqu'ring eye,
To thee and truth, were such a shame,
I cannot do it, though I die.

If I must one, or th' other do,
Then let me die, I beg of you.

ID. LIB. VIII. EP. 35.

IN PESSIMOS CONJUGES.

SINCE y'are alike in manners, and in life,
A wicked husband, and a wicked wife,
I wonder much you are so full of strife!

ID. LIB. VIII. EP. 59.
IN VACERRAM.

BUT antique poets thou admirest noue,
And only praisest them are dead and gone.
I beg your pardon, good Vacerra, I
Can't on such terms find in my heart to die.

ID. LIB. VIII. EP. 41.

AD FAUSTINUM.

SAD Athenagoras nought presents me now,
As in December he was wont to do.
If Athenagoras be sad, or no,

I'll see: I'm sure that he has made me so.

ID. LIB. XII. EP. 7.

DE LIGIA.

In by her hairs Ligia's age be told, 'Tis soon cast up, that she is three years old.

OUT OF ASTREA.

THE beauty which so soon to cinders turn'd,
By death of her humanity depriv'd,
Like light'ning vanish'd, like the bolt it burn'd:

So great this beauty was, and so short-liv'd. Those eyes, so practis'd once in all the arts,

That loyal love attempted, or e'er knew: Those fair eyes now are shut, that once the hearts Of all that saw their lustre, did subdue.

If this be true, beauty is ravish'd hence,
Love vanquish'd droops, that ever conquered,
And she who gave life by her influence,

Is, if she live not in my bosom, dead.
Henceforth what happiness can fortune send,

Since death, this abstract of all joy has won ; Since shadows do the substance still attend,

And that our good does but our ill-fore-run? It seems, my Cleon, in thy rising morn,

That destiny thy whole day's course had bound, And that thy beauty, dead, as soon as born, Its fatal hearse has in its cradle found. No, no, thou shalt not die; I death will prove, Who life by thy sweet inspiration drew; If lovers live in that which doth them love,

Thou liv'st in me, who ever lov'd most true. If I do live, love then will have it known, That even death itself he can controul, Or, as a god, to have his power shown;

Will that I live without or heart, or soul. But, Cleon, if Heav'n's unresisted will

'Point thee, of death th' inhuman fate to try, Love to that fate equals my fortune still,

Thou by my mourning, by thy death I die.

SONG OF THE INCONSTANT HYLAS.

Must triumph in their end, and victor be, Let's have a brave design, and to be free, Cut off at once the briar, rose, and all.

Let us put out the fire love has begot,
Break the tough cord tied with so fast a knot,
And voluntary take a brave adieu.
So shall we nobly conquer love and fate,
And at the liberty of choice do that,
Which time itself, at last, would make us do.

OUT OF ASTREA

Ir one disdain me, then I fly
Her cruelty, and her disdain;
And e'er the morning gild the sky,
Another mistress do obtain.

They err who hope by force to move
A woman's heart to like; or love.
It oft falls out that they, who in
Discretion seem us to despise,
Nourish a greater fire within,
Although perhaps conceal'd it lies.

Which we, when once we quit our rooms,
Do kindle for the next that comes.

The faithful fool that obstinate
Pursues a cruel beauty's love,
To him, and to his truth ingrate
Idolater does he not prove?

That from his pow'rless idol, never
Receives a med'cine for his fever.
They say the unweary'd lover's pains
By instance meet with good success;
For he by force his end obtains :
'Tis an odd method of address,

To what design so e'er 't relate,
Still, still to be importunate.
Do but observe the hourly fears
Of your pretended faithful lover,
Nothing but sorrow, sighs, and tears,
You in his cheerfull'st looks discover;

As though the lover's sophistry
Were nothing but to whine and cry.
Ought he by a man's name be stil'd,
That (losing the honour of a man)
Whines for his pippin, like a child
Whipp'd and sent back to school again,

Or rather fool that thinks amiss,
He loves, but knows not what love is!
For my part I'll decline this folly,
By others' harms (thank fate) grown wise,
Such dotage begets melancholy,
I must profess love's liberties;

And never angry am at all

At them who me inconstant call.

SONNET.

OUT OF ASTREA.

SINCE I must now eradicate the flame,
Which, seeing you, love in my bosom plac'd,
And the desires which thus long could last,
Kindled so well, and nourish'd in the same.

STANZES DE MONSIEUR DE SCUDERY. FAIR nymph, by whose perfections mov'd, My wounded heart is turn'd to flame; By all admired, by all approv'd, Indure at least to be belov'd,

Although you will not love again.
Aminta, as unkind as fair,

What is there that you ought to fear?
For cruel if I you declare,
And that indeed you cruel are,

Why the reproach may you not hear?

Even reproaches should delight,

If friendship for me you have none;
And if no anger, I have yet
Enough perhaps that may invite

Your hatred, or compassion.
When your disdain is most severe,

When you most rigorous do prove, When frowns of anger most you wear; You still more charming do appear,

And I am more and more in love. Ah! let me, sweet, your sight enjoy,

Though with the forfeit of my life;
For fall what will, I'd rather die,
Beholding you, of present joy,

Than absent, of a ling'ring grief.
Let your eyes lighten till expiring
In flame my heart a cinder lie;
Falling is nobler than retiring,
And in the glory of aspiring,

'Tis brave to tumble from the sky.

Yet I would any thing embrace,

Might serve your anger to appease ;
And, if I may obtain my grace,
Your steps shall leave no print, nor trace
I will not with devotion kiss.

If (cruel) you will have it so,

No word my passion shall betray; My wounded heart shall hide its woe: But if it sigh, those sighs will blow,

And tell you what my tongue would say.

Should yet your rigour higher rise,

Even those offending sighs shall cease;

I will my pain and grief disguise :
But (sweet) if you consult mine eyes,
Those eyes will tell you my distress,
If th' utmost my respect can do,

Still more your cruelty displease;
Consult your face, and that will show
What love is to such beauty due,

And to the state of my disease.