THERSIS. Fair Nymph! I have in your delights no share; Nor ought to be concerned in your care : Yet would I fing, if I your forrows knew ; And to my aid invoke no Mufe but you.

GA L A T E A. Hear then, and let your fong'augment our grief, Which is fo great, as not to wish relief..

She that had all which nature gives, or chance; Whom fortune join'd with virtue to advance To all the joys this island could afford, The greatest Mistress, and the kindeft Lord : Who with the royal, mixt her noble, blood; And in high grace with GLORIANA stood: Her bounty, sweetness, beauty, goodness, such, That none e'er thought her happiness too much: So well-inclind her favors to confer, And kind to all, as heav'n had been to her! The virgin's part, the mother, and the wife, So well the acted in the span of life, That tho’ few years (too few alas!) she told, She seem'd in all things, but in beauty, old. As unripe fruit, whose verdant stalks do cleave Close to the tree, which grieves no less to leave The smiling pendent which adorns her so, And, until autumn, on the bough should grow:: So seem'd her youthful foul not eas'ly forc'd, Or from so fair, so sweet, a feat divorc'd. Her fate at oncé did hafty feem, and flow; At once too cruel, and unwilling too.

THYRS I S.
Under how hard a law are mortals born !
Whom now we envy, we anon must mourn:
What heav'n fets highest, and seems most to prize,
Is soon removed from our wond'ring eyes!
But since the * Sisters did so soon untwine
So fair a thread, I'll strive to piece the line.
Vouchsafe, fad Nymph! to let me know the dame,
And to the Muses I'll commend her name:
Make the wide country echo to your moan,
The lift’ning trees, and favage mountains, groan:
What rock's not moved when the death is sung
Of one fo good, fo lovely, and so young?

G A L A T E A. 'Twas HAMILTON! - whom I had nam'd before, But naming her, grief lets me fay no more.

;

game, while

As these vast beams express the beast,
Whose fhady brows alive they dreft.
Such

yet

the world was new,
The mighty NIMROD did persue.
What huntsman of our feeble race,
Or dogs, dare such a monster chase?
Resembling, with each blow he strikes,
The charge of a whole troop of pikes.
O fertile head! which ev'ry year
Could such a crop of wonder bear!

* Parca,

The

The teeming earth did never bring
So soon, so hard, so huge a thing :
Which might it never have been cast,
(Each year's growth added to the last,)
These lofty branches had fupply'd
The Earth 's bold sons' prodigious pride:
Heav'n with these engines had been scald,
When mountains heap'd on mountains fail'd.

To a LADY in retirement,

SEES

E ES not my Love, how Time refumes

The glory which he lent these flow'rs?
Though none should taste of their perfumes,

Yet must they live but some few hours :
TIME, what we forbear, devours !

Had Helen, or th' * EGYPTIAN Queen,

Been near so thrifty of their graces ;
Those beauties must at length have been

The spoil of age, which finds out faces
In the most retired places.

Should some malignant planet bring

A barren drought, or ceaseless show'r,
Upon the autumn, or the spring,

And spare us neither fruit, nor flow'r;
Winter would not stay an hour.

Of coming years, then more respect

Were due to fo divine a fashion;
Nor would I indulge my passion.

The Miser's Speech; in a Masque.

ALLS of this metal slack'd ATLANTA's pace, B And on the hit

amorous youth bestow'd the race:
VENUS, (the nymph's mind meafuring by her own,)
Whom the rich spoils of cities overthrown
Had proftrated to Mars, could well advise

Th’advent'rous lover how to gain the prize.
Nor less may JUPITER to gold ascribe :
For, when he turn'd himself into a bribe,
Who can blame DANAE, or the brázén tow'r,
That they withstood not that almighty show'r?
Never till then did Love make Jove put on
A form more bright, and nobler than his own:
Nor were it just, would he resume that shape,
That slack devotion Mould his thunder scape.
'Twas not revenge for griev'd Apollo's wrong,
Those afle's ears on M I das' temples hung:
But fond repentance of his happy wish,
Because his meat grew metal like his dish.
Would Bacchus bless me fo, I'd constant hold
Unto my wish, and die creating gold.

* Hippomenes.

Upon

Upon B EN. JOHNSON. M

IRROR of Poets ! Mirror of our age!

Which, her whole face beholding on thy Stage, Pleas'd, and displeas'd, with her own faults, indures A remedy like those whom music cures. Thou haft alone those various inclinations, Which nature gives to ages, sexes, nations : So traced with thy all-refembling Pen, That, what-e'er custom has impos’d on men, Or ill-got habit, (which deforms them fo, That scarce a brother can his brother know) Is represented to the wond'ring Eyes Of all that fee, or read, thy comedies. · Who-ever in those glasses looks, may find The spots return'd, or graces, of his mind: And, by the help of fo divine an art, At leisure view, and dress, his nobler part. NARCIS SU S, cozen'd by that flatt'ring well, Which nothing could but of his beauty tell, Had here, discov'ring the deform'd estate Of his fond mind, preserv'd himself with hate. But virtue too, as well as vice, is clad In flesh and blood so well, that Plato had Beheld, what his high fancy once embrac'd, Virtue with colors, fpeech, and motion grac'd. The sundry postures of thy copious Muse Who would express, a thousand tongues must use : Whose fate's no lefs peculiar than thy art; For as thou could'It all characters impart, So none could render thine ; which still escapes, Like PROTEU s, in variety of shapes:

Who