Of female humours; nor the Protean rages

Of pied-faced fashion, that doth shrink and swell, Working poor men like waxen images,

And makes them apish strangers where they dwell,

Can alter her, titles of primacy,

Courtship of antic gestures, brainless jests,
Blood without soul of false nobility,
Nor any folly that the world infests
Can alter her who with her constant guises
To living virtues turns the deadly vices.

VII.

To living virtues turns the deadly vices;
For covetous she is of all good parts,
Incontinent, for still she shows entices
To consort with them sucking out their hearts,
Proud, for she scorns prostrate humility,
And gluttonous in store of abstinence,
Drunk with extractions still'd in fervency
From contemplation, and true continence,
Burning in wrath against impatience,

And sloth itself, for she will never rise
From that all-seeing trance, the band of sense,
Wherein in view of all souls' skill she lies.

No constancy to that her mind doth move,
Nor riches to the virtues of my love.

VIII.

Nor riches to the virtues of my love,
Nor empire to her mighty government;
Which fair analysed in her beauties' grove,

Shows Laws for care, and Canons for content; And as a purple tincture given to glass,

By clear transmission of the sun doth taint
Opposed subjects; so my mistress' face

Doth reverence in her viewers' brows depaint, And like the pansy, with a little veil,

She gives her inward work the greater grace; Which my lines imitate, though much they fail Her gifts so high, and times' conceit so base; Her virtues then above my verse must raise her, For words want art, and Art wants words to praise her.

IX.

For words want art, and Art wants words to praise

her;

Yet shall my active and industrious pen

Wind his sharp forehead through those parts that raise her,

And register her worth past rarest women. Herself shall be my Muse; that well will know

Her proper inspirations; and assuage—

With her dear love-the wrongs my fortunes show,

Which to my youth bind heartless grief in age. Herself shall be my comfort and my riches,

And all my thoughts I will on her convert; Honour, and error, which the world bewitches, Shall still crown fools, and tread upon desert, And never shall my friendless verse envy Muses that Fame's loose feathers beautify.

X.

Muses that Fame's loose feathers beautify,
And such as scorn to tread the theatre,
As ignorant: the seed of memory

Have most inspired, and shown their glories there To noblest wits, and men of highest doom,

That for the kingly laurel bent affair

The theatres of Athens and of Rome,

Have been the crowns, and not the base impair. Far, then, be this foul cloudy-brow'd contempt From like-plumed birds: and let your sacred rhymes

From honour's court their servile feet exempt, That live by soothing moods, and serving times: And let my love adorn with modest eyes,

Muses that sing Love's sensual emperies.

Lucidius olim.

THE AMOROUS ZODIAC.

I.

I NEVER see the sun, but suddenly

My soul is moved with spite and jealousy
Of his high bliss, in his sweet course discern'd:
And am displeased to see so many signs,
As the bright sky unworthily divines,
Enjoy an honour they have never earn'd.

II.

To think heaven decks with such a beauteous show, A harp, a ship, a serpent, or a crow;

And such a crew of creatures of no prices,

But to excite in us th' unshamefaced flames, With which, long since, Jove wrong'd so many dames,

Reviving in his rule their names and vices.

III.

Dear mistress, whom the Gods bred here below, T'express their wondrous power, and let us know

That before thee they nought did perfect make; Why may not I-as in those signs, the sunShine in thy beauties, and as roundly run,

To frame, like him, an endless Zodiac,

IV.

With thee I'll furnish both the year and sky,
Running in thee my course of destiny:

And thou shalt be the rest of all my moving,
But of thy numberless and perfect graces,

To give my moons their full in twelve months'

spaces,

I choose but twelve in guerdon of my loving.

V.

Keeping even way through every excellence,
I'll make in all an equal residence

Of a new Zodiac; a new Phoebus guising,
When, without altering the course of nature,
I'll make the seasons good, and every creature
Shall henceforth reckon day, from my first rising.

VI.

To open then the spring-time's golden gate,
And flower my race with ardour temperate,

I'll enter by thy head, and have for house
In my first month, this heaven Ram-curled tress,
Of which Love all his charm-chains doth address,
A sign fit for a spring so beauteous.

VII.

Lodged in that fleece of hair, yellow and curl'd,
I'll take high pleasure to enlight the world,
And fetter me in gold, thy crisps implies