I'll love each fair one that I see, till I find one at last that shall love me. the country does with milk and honey flow. it never more abroad shall roam, tho' it could next voyage bring th' Indies home. But I must sweat in love and labour yet, till I a competency get; they're slothful fools who leave a trade, till they a moderate fortune by 't have made. Variety I ask not; give me one to live perpetually upon. The person Love does to us fit, like manna, has the taste of all in it. AGAINST HOPE. Hope, whose weak being ruin'd is, alike if it succeed and if it miss, whom good or ill does equally confound, and both the horns of Fate's dilemma wound; vain shadow! which dost vanish quite, both at full noon and perfect night! the stars have not a possibility of blessing thee: if things, then, from their end we happy call, 'tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all. Hope! thou bold taster of delight, who, whilst thou should'st but taste, devour'st it quite! the joys which we entire should wed, for joy, like wine, kept close does better taste; Hope! Fortune's cheating lottery! where for one prize an hundred blanks there be; when thy false beams o'er Reason's light prevail, Brother of Fear! more gayly clad; the merrier fool o' th' two, yet quite as mad; by the strange witchcraft of Anon! by thee the one does changing Nature through and th'other chases woman, whilst she goes FOR HOPE. Hope, of all ills that men endure, the only cheap and universal cure! thou captive's freedom! and thou sick man's health ! thou loser's vict'ry! and thou beggar's wealth! thou manna, which from heav'n we eat, to ev'ry taste a sev'ral meat! thou strong retreat! thou sure entail'd estate, Hope! thou first-fruits of happiness! and art a blessing still in hand! whilst thee, her earnest-money, we retain, whether she her bargain break or else fulfil; in thee or in possession ! only the future is thine, the present his! 3 Hope! thou sad lover's only friend! thou way, that may'st dispute it with the end! for love, I fear, 's a fruit that does delight the taste itself less than the smell and sight. Fruition more deceitful is than thou canst be when thou dost miss ; men leave thee by obtaining, and straight flee some other way again to thee: and that's a pleasant country, without doubt, to which all soon return that travel out. AGE. Oft am I by the women told, ELEGY UPON ANACREON, WHO WAS CHOAKED BY A GRAPE-STONE: Spoken by the God of Love. How shall I lament thine end, my my friend? best servant, and so much deified as I, it sound not too profane and odd, for 'tis true, most mighty poet! (though I like not, men should know it) I am in naked nature less, less by much, than in thy dress. All thy verse is softer far than the downy feathers are like thy verse, each hour did pass; Some do but their youth allow me, just what they, by nature owe me; the time, that's mine, and not their own, the certain tribute of my crown ;' when they grow old, they grow to be too busy, or too wise for me. Thou wert wiser, and didst know, none too wise for love can grow; love was with thy life entwin'd close as heat with fire is join'd, a powerful brand prescrib'd the date of thine, like Meleager's fate. Th' antiperistasis of age more enflam'd thy amorous rage; thy silver hairs yielded me more, than even golden curls, before. |