394.

395.

THOMAS STANLEY

The Relapse

TURN away those cruel eyes,
The stars of my undoing!

Or death, in such a bright disguise,
May tempt a second wooing.

Punish their blind and impious pride,
Who dare contemn thy glory;
It was my fall that deified

1625-1678

Thy name, and seal'd thy story.
Yet no new sufferings can prepare
A higher praise to crown thee;
Though my first death proclaim thee fair,
My second will unthrone thee.

Lovers will doubt thou canst entice

No other for thy fuel,

And if thou burn one victim twice,
Both think thee poor and cruel.

THOMAS D'URFEY

Chloe Divine

1653-1723

CHLOE's a Nymph in flowery groves,

A Nereid in the streams;

Saint-like she in the temple moves,
A woman in my dreams.

Love steals artillery from her eyes,

The Graces point her charms;

Orpheus is rivall'd in her voice,
And Venus in her arms.

396.

Never so happily in one

Did heaven and earth combine:
And yet 'tis flesh and blood alone
That makes her so divine.

CHARLES COTTON

To Cælia

WHEN, Cœlia, must my old day set,

And my young morning rise

In beams of joy so bright as yet
Ne'er bless'd a lover's eyes?

My state is more advanced than when
I first attempted thee:

I sued to be a servant then,

But now to be made free.

I've served my time faithful and true,
Expecting to be placed

In happy freedom, as my due,
To all the joys thou hast :
Ill husbandry in love is such

A scandal to love's power,
We ought not to misspend so much
As one poor short-lived hour.

Yet think not, sweet, I'm weary grown,

That I pretend such haste;

Since none to surfeit e'er was known

Before he had a taste:

My infant love could humbly wait
When, young, it scarce knew how
To plead; but grown to man's estate,
He is impatient now.

1630-1687

KATHERINE PHILIPS (ORINDA')

397. To One persuading a Lady to

Marriage

1631-1664

FORBEAR, bold youth; all's heaven here,
And what you do aver

To others courtship may appear,

'Tis sacrilege to her.

She is a public deity;

And were't not very odd
She should dispose herself to be
A petty household god?

First make the sun in private shine
And bid the world adieu,
That so he may his beams confine

In compliment to you:
But if of that you do despair,

Think how you did amiss

To strive to fix her beams which are
More bright and large than his.

JOHN DRYDEN

398.

Ode

1631-1700

To the Pious Memory of the accomplished young lady, Mrs. Anne
Killigrew, excellent in the two sister arts of Poesy and
Painting

THOU youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the blest;
Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,

Rich with immortal green above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
Thou roll'st above us, in thy wandering race,
Or, in procession fixt and regular,
Mov'd with the heaven's majestic pace;
Or, call'd to more superior bliss,

Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss:
Whatever happy region is thy place,
Cease thy celestial song a little space;
Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
Since Heaven's eternal year is thine.
Hear, then, a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse,
In no ignoble verse;

But such as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy first-fruits of Poesy were given,
To make thyself a welcome inmate there;
While yet a young probationer,
And candidate of heaven.

If by traduction came thy mind,
Our wonder is the less, to find

A soul so charming from a stock so good;
Thy father was transfus'd into thy blood:
So wert thou born into the tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
But if thy pre-existing soul

Was form'd at first with myriads more,
It did through all the mighty poets roll

Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,

And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.

If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind! Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore : Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find,

Than was the beauteous frame she left behind : Return, to fill or mend the quire of thy celestial kind.

May we presume to say, that, at thy birth,

New joy was sprung in heaven as well as here on earth?
For sure the milder planets did combine
On thy auspicious horoscope to shine,
And even the most malicious were in trine.
Thy brother-angels at thy birth

Strung each his lyre, and tun'd it high,
That all the people of the sky

Might know a poetess was born on earth;

And then, if ever, mortal ears

Had heard the music of the spheres.

And if no clust'ring swarm of bees

On thy sweet mouth distill'd their golden dew, 'Twas that such vulgar miraclès

Heaven had not leisure to renew:

For all the blest fraternity of love

Solemniz'd there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above.

O gracious God! how far have we
Profan'd thy heavenly gift of Poesy!
Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
Debas'd to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordain'd above,
For tongues of angels and for hymns of love!
O wretched we! why were we hurried down
This lubrique and adulterate age

(Nay, added fat pollutions of our own),

To increase the streaming ordures of the stage? What can we say to excuse our second fall? Let this thy Vestal, Heaven, atone for all! Her Arethusian stream remains unsoil'd,