CARE-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,
Relieve my languish, and restore the light,
With dark forgetting of my care, return.
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwreck of my ill-advised youth*;
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,
Without the torments of the night's untruth.
Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires,
To model forth the passions of the morrow;
Never let rising sun approve you liars,
To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.
Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,
And never wake to feel the day's disdain.
The shipwreck of my ill-advised youth.] He again says,
Look on the dear expenses of my youth.
Lord Surrey upbraids Beauty, and calls it
Enemy to youth, that most may I bewail.
My heart was slain, and none but you and I ;
Who should I think the murder should commit?
Since but yourself there was no creature by,
But only I; guiltless of murd'ring it.
It slew itself; the verdict on the view
Do quit the dead, and me not accessary:
Well, well, I fear it will be prov'd by you,
The evidence so great a proof doth carry.
But O, see, see, we need inquire no further,
Upon your lips the scarlet drops are found,
And in your eye the boy that did the murder,
Your cheeks yet pale, since first he gave the wound.
By this I see, however things be past,
Yet heaven will still have murder out at last.
ALEXIS, here she stay'd, among these pines
(Sweet hermitress) she did alone repair,
Here did she spread the treasure of her hair,
More rich than that brought from the Colchian mines.
She set her by these musket eglantines,
The happy place the print seems yet to bear;
Her voice did sweeten here thy sugar'd lines,
To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did lend their ear:
Me here she first perceiv'd, and here a morn
Of bright carnations did o'erspread her face;
Here did she sigh, here first my hopes were born,
And I first got a pledge of promis'd grace.
But, ah! what serv'd it to be happy so?
Sith passed pleasures double but new woe.
UNTO the boundless ocean of thy beauty
Runs this poor river, charg'd with streams of zeal;
Returning thee the tribute of my duty,
Which here my love, my youth, my plaints reveal.
Here I unclasp the book of my chang'd soul,
Where I have cast th' accounts of all my care:
Here have I summ'd my sighs; here I enrol
How they were spent for thee; look what they are,
Look on the dear expenses of my youth,
And see how just I reckon with thine eyes :
Examine well thy beauty with my truth,
And cross my cares, ere greater sums arise.
Read it, sweet maid, though it be done but slightly;
Who can show all his love, doth love but lightly.
Daniel, Son. 1.
TRUST not, sweet soul, those curled waves of gold
With gentle tides which on your temples flow;
Nor temples spread with flakes of virgin snow,
Nor snow of cheeks with Tyrian grain enroll'd.
Trust not those shining lights which wrought my woe,
When first I did their burning rays behold;
Nor voice, whose sounds more strange effects do show,
Than of the Thracian harper have been told.
Look to this dying lily, fading rose,
Dark hyacinth, of late whose blushing beams
Made all the neighbouring herbs and grass rejoice,
And think how little is 'twixt life's extremes.
The cruel tyrant that did kill those flowers
Shall once (aye me!) not spare that spring of yours.
LOVE, banish'd heaven, in earth was held in scorn,
Wand'ring abroad in need and beggary,
And wanting friends; though of a goddess born,
Yet crav'd the alms of such as passed by.
I, like a man devout and charitable,
Clothed the naked, lodg'd this wand'ring guest;
With sighs and tears still furnishing his table
With what might make the miserable bless'd,
But this ungrateful, for my good desert,
Entic'd my thoughts against me to conspire,
Who gave consent to steal away my heart,
And set my breast, his lodging, on a fire;
Well, well, my friends, when beggars grow thus bold,
No marvel then though charity grow cold.
WHAT doth it serve, to see sun's burning face?
And skies enamell'd with both Indies' gold?
Or moon at night in jetty chariot roll❜d *?
And all the glory of that starry place?
What doth it serve, earth's beauty to behold?
The mountain's pride, the meadow's flowery grace;
The stately comeliness of forests old,
The sport of floods which would themselves embrace?
* Or moon at night in jetty chariot roll'd?] Browne represents Night as drawn in a carriage of the same materials :
All-drowsy Night, who in a car of jet
By steeds of iron-gray drawn through the sky.
Brit. Past. B. II. Son. i. p. 33.
What doth it serve, to hear the sylvans songs,
The wanton mearle, the nightingale's sad strains,
Which in dark shades seem to deplore my wrongs?
For what doth serve all that this world contains,
Sith she for whom those once to me were dear,
No part of them can have now with me here.
WHY should I sing in verse, why should I frame
These sad neglected notes for her dear sake?
Why should I offer up unto her name
The sweetest sacrifice my youth can make?
Why should I strive to make her live for ever,
That never deigns to give me joy to live?
Why should my afflicted muse so much endeavour
Such honour unto cruelty to give
If her defects have purchas'd her this fame,
What should her virtues do, her smiles, her love?
If this her worst, how should her best inflame?
What passions would her milder favours move?
Favours, I think, would sense quite overcome,
And that makes happy lovers ever dumb.
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