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Such joys, such sweets, doth your return Bring all your friends, fair lord, that burn With love, to hear your modesty relate, The business of your blooming wit, With all the fruit shall follow it, Both to the honour of the king and state. O how will then our court be pleas'd, To see great Charles of travail eas'd, When he beholds a graft of his own hand, Shoot up an olive, fruitful, fair,

To be a shadow to his heir,

And both a strength and beauty to his land!

EPITHALAMION.

OR A SONG,

Celebrating the NUPTIALS of that noble Gentleman, Mr. HIEROME WESTON, Son and heir of the lord WESTON, Lord High Treasurer of England, with the lady FRANCES STEWART, daughter of ESME duke of Lenox, deceased, and sister of the surviving duke of the

same name.

EPITHALAMION, &c.] Jerome returned from his embassy in 1632, and became earl of Portland in 1634, so that this poem was probably written in the intermediate year. This marriage was much forwarded by Charles, in compliment (lord Clarendon says) to the treasurer; the bride, who was distantly related to the king, was the youngest daughter of Esme, third duke of Lenox, the friend and patron of Jonson; she is celebrated for her beauty and amiable qualities, and was happy in a husband, altogether worthy of her. In her issue she was less fortunate; her only son, whom lord Clarendon mentions (in his "Life") as a young man of excellent parts, being killed in the action with the Dutch fleet under Opdam in 1665. "He died fighting very bravely." The title fell to his uncle, who died without issue, when it became extinct: and thus was verified the pious and prophetic hope of that rancorous puritan sir Antony Weldon, that "God would reward Weston, and that he and his posterity, which, like a Jonah's gourd, sprang up suddenly from a beggarly estate to much honour and great fortunes, would shortly wither!" Court of King Charles, p. 43.

XCIII

EPITHALAMION.

HOUGH thou hast past thy summerstanding, stay

Awhile with us, bright sun, and help our light;

Thou canst not meet more glory on
the way,

Between the tropics, to arrest thy sight,
Than thou shalt see to-day:

[graphic]

We woo thee stay;

And see what can be seen,

The bounty of a king, and beauty of his queen.

See the procession! what a holy day,
Bearing the promise of some better fate,
Hath filled, with caroches, all the way,

From Greenwich hither to Rowhampton gate!
When look'd the year, at best,

So like a feast;

Or were affairs in tune,

By all the spheres consent, so in the heart of June?

What beauty of beauties, and bright youths at charge
Of summers liveries, and gladding green,

Do boast their loves and braveries so at large,
As they came all to see, and to be seen!
When look'd the earth so fine,

Or so did shine,

In all her bloom and flower,

To welcome home a pair, and deck the nuptial bower?

It is the kindly season of the time,

The month of youth, which calls all creatures forth To do their offices in nature's chime,

And celebrate, perfection at the worth,
Marriage, the end of life,
That holy strife,

And the allowed war,

Through which not only we, but all our species are.

Hark how the bells upon the waters play

Their sister-tunes from Thames his either side, As they had learn'd new changes for the day, And all did ring the approaches of the bride; The lady Frances drest Above the rest

Of all the maidens fair;

In graceful ornament of garland, gems, and hair.

See how she paceth forth in virgin-white,
Like what she is, the daughter of a duke,
And sister; darting forth a dazzling light
On all that come her simplesse to rebuke!
Her tresses trim her back,

As she did lack

Nought of a maiden queen,

With modesty so crown'd, and adoration seen.

Stay, thou wilt see what rites the virgins do,
The choicest virgin-troop of all the land!
Porting the ensigns of united two,

Both crowns and kingdoms in their either hand:
Whose majesties appear,

To make more clear

This feast, than can the day,

Although that thou, O sun, at our entreaty stay!

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