SONG.

Nor the phoenix in his death,

Nor those banks where violets grow,
And Arabian winds still blow,

Yield a perfume like her breath.

But, O! marriage, makes the spell,
And 'tis poison if I smell.

The twin beauties of the skies,

(When the half-sunk sailors haste To rend sail and cut their mast) Shine not welcome as her eyes;

But those beams, than storms more black,
If they point at me, I wrack.

Then for fear of such a fire,

Which kills worse than the long night

Which benumbs the Moscovite,

I must from my life retire.

But, oh no, for if her eye

Warm me not, I freeze and die.

THE DESCRIPTION OF CASTARA.

[Abridged from 7 stanzas.]

LIKE the violet, which alone
Prospers in some happy shade,

My Castara lives unknown,
To no looser eye betray'd;
For she's to herself untrue,
Who delights i' th' public view.

Such is her beauty, as no arts

Have enrich'd with borrow'd grace;

Her high birth no pride imparts,
For she blushes in her place.
Folly boasts a glorious blood:-
She is noblest, being good.

She her throne makes reason climb,
While wild passions captive lie;

And, each article of time,

Her pure thoughts to heaven fly.

All her vows religious be,

And her love she vows to me.

OF TRUE DELIGHT.

WHY doth the ear so tempt the voice
That cunningly divides the air?
Why doth the palate buy the choice
Delights o' th' sea t' enrich her fare?

As soon as I my ear obey,

The echo's lost ev'n with the breath; And when the sewer takes away,

I'm left with no more taste than death.

Be curious in pursuit of eyes,

To procreate new loves with thine ;Satiety makes sense despise

What superstition thought divine.

Quick fancy how it mocks delight!
As we conceive things are not such:
The glow-worm is as warm as bright,
Till the deceitful flame we touch.

The rose yields her sweet blandishment, Lost in the folds of lovers' wreaths:

The violet enchants the scent,

When early in the spring she breathes.

But winter comes, and makes each flower Shrink from the pillow where it grows;

Or an intruding cold hath power

To scorn the perfume of the rose.

Our senses, like false glasses, show
Smooth beauty where brows wrinkled are,
And make the cozen'd fancy glow:
Chaste virtue's only true and fair.

TO CASTARA.

GIVE me a heart, where no impure
Disorder'd passions rage,
Which jealousy doth not obscure,

Nor vanity t' expence engage;
Nor woo'd to madness by quaint oaths,
Or the fine rhetoric of cloaths,

Which not the softness of the age

To vice or folly doth decline:

Give me that heart, Castara-for 'tis thine.

Take thou a heart, where no new look

Provokes new appetite;

With no fresh charm of beauty took,
Or wanton stratagem of wit;
Not idly wandering here and there,
Led by an amorous eye or ear,

Aiming each beauteous mark to hit;
Which virtue doth to one confine:

Take thou that heart, Castara-for 'tis mine.