MADRIGAL.
[1613?]

O SAY, dear life, when shall those twin-born berries,
So lovely ripe, by my rude lips be tasted?
Shall I not pluck-sweet, say not nay!-those cherries?
O let them not with summer's heat be blafted!
Nature, thou know'ft, bestowed them free on thee;
Then be thou kind, bestow them free on me.

WARD'S MADRIGALS.

THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE.

[1614.]

How happy is he born and taught,

That serveth not another's will:
Whose armour is his honeft thought,

And fimple truth his utmost skill

Whose paffions not his masters are;
Whose soul is ftill prepared for death,
Untied unto the world by care
Of public fame, or private breath.

Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Nor vice; who never understood

How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of State, but rules of good.

Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his ftrong retreat;
Whose ftate can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great.

Who GOD doth late and early pray
More of his Grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book, or friend.

This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

ON HIS MISTRESS, THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.

[1620.]

You meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfy our eyes,

More by your number than your light,

You common people of the skies,

What are you when the sun shall rise?

You curious chanters of the wood,

That warble forth Dame Nature's lays,
Thinking your paffions understood

By your weak accents, what's your praise,
When Philomel her voice fhall raise?

You violets that first appear,

By your pure purple mantles known, Like the proud virgins of the

year,

As if the Spring were all your own,
What are you when the rose is blown?

So, when my mistress fhall be seen,

In form, and beauty of her mind, By virtue first, then choice, a queen, Tell me, if he were not defigned Th' eclipse and glory of her kind?

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

THE INDIFFERENT.

[1615?]

I.

NEVER more will I proteft
To love a woman, but in jeft:
For as they cannot be true,
So to give each man his due,
When the wooing fit is past,
Their affection cannot last.

II.

Therefore if I chance to meet
With a mistress, fair and sweet,
She my service shall obtain,
Loving her for love again:

This much liberty I crave,

Not to be a conftant flave.

III.

But when we have tried each other,

If he better like another,

Let her quickly change for me,

Then to change am I as free.

He or be that loves too long,

Sell their freedom for a song.

FRANCIS BEAUMONT.

MADRIGAL.

[1616.]

I FEAR not henceforth death,

Sith after this departure yet I breathe;

Let rocks, and seas, and wind,

Their highest treasons show:

Let fky and earth combined

Strive, if they can, to end my life and woe;
Sith grief cannot, me nothing can o'erthrow:
Or if that aught can cause my fatal lot,
It will be when I hear I am forgot.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

A KISS.

[1616.]

HARK, happy lovers, hark,
This first and last of joys,
This sweetener of annoys,

This nectar of the gods

Ye call a kiss, is with itself at odds;
And half so sweet is not

In equal measure got

At light of sun, as it is in the dark:

Hark, happy lovers, hark.

WILLIAM Drummond.

DESIRED DEATH.

[1631?]

DEAR life, while I do touch

These coral ports of bliss,

Which still themselves do kiss,

And sweetly me invite to do as much,

All panting in my lips

My heart my sense doth leave,

No sense my senses have,

And inward powers do find a strange eclipse;

This death so heavenly well

Doth so me please, that I

Would never longer seek in sense to dwell,

If that even thus I only could but die.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.