Such chearful modesty, such humble state,
Moves certain love; but with as doubtful fate,
As when, beyond our greedy reach, we fee
Inviting fruit on too fublime a tree.
All the rich flowers through his Arcadia found,
Amaz'd we fee in this one garland bound.
Had but this copy (which the artist took
From the fair picture of that noble book)
Stood at Kalander's, the brave friends * had jarr'd;
And, rivals made, th' ensuing story marr'd.
Just nature, first instructed by his thought,
In his own house thus practis'd what he taught:
This glorious piece transcends what he could think;
So much his blood is nobler than his ink!
TO VAN DYCK.
ARE Artisan, whose pencil moves
Not our delights alone, but loves!
From thy shop of beauty we
Slaves return, that enter'd free.
The heedless lover does not know
Whose eyes they are that wound him fo:
But, confounded with thy art,
Inquires her name that has his heart.
Another, who did long refrain,
Feels his old wound bleed fresh again,
With dear remembrance of that face,
Where now he reads new hope of grace:
* Pyrocles and Mufidorus.
Nor scorn nor cruelty does find :
But gladly fuffers a false wind
To blow the ashes of despair
From the reviving brand of care.
Fool! that forgets her stubborn look
This softness from thy finger took.
Strange! that thy hand should not inspire
The beauty only, but the fire :
Not the form alone, and grace,
But act, and power, of a face.
May'st thou yet thyself as well,
As all the world besides, excel!
So you th' unfeigned truth rehearse,
(That I may make it live in verse)
Why thou couldst not, at one afsay,
That face to after-times convey,
Which this admires. Was it thy wit
To make her oft before thee fit?
Confefs, and we 'll forgive thee this:
For who would not repeat that bliss ?
And frequent fight of fuch a dame
Buy, with the hazard of his fame ?
Yet who can tax thy blameless skill,
Though thy good hand had failed still;
When nature's self so often errs?
She for this many thousand years
Seems to have practis'd with much care,
To frame the race of women fair;
Yet never could a perfect birth
Produce before, to grace the earth:
Which waxed old, ere it could fee
Her that amaz'd thy Art, and thee.
But now 'tis done, O let me know
Where those immortal colors grow,
That could this deathless piece compose?
In lilies? or the fading rose?
No; for this theft thou hast climb'd higher,
Than did Prometheus for his fire.
AD Dorothea liv'd when mortals made
Choice of their Deities, this facred shade
Had held an altar to her power, that gave.
The peace and glory which these alleys have:
Embroider'd so with flowers where she stood,
That it became a garden of a wood.
Her prefence has fuch more than human grace,
That it can civilize the rudest place:
And beauty too, and order can impart,
Where nature ne'er intended it, nor art.
The plants acknowledge this, and her admire,..
No less than those of old did Orpheus' lyre:
If the fit down, with tops all tow'rds her bow'd,
They round about her into arbors crowd:
Or if she walk, in even ranks they stand,
Like some well-marshal'd and obfequious band.
Amphion fo made ftones and timber leap
Into fair figures, from a confus'd heap:
And in the symmetry of her parts is found
A power, like that of harmony in found.
Ye lofty beeches, tell this matchless dame,
That if together ye fed all one flame,
It could not equalize the hundredth part,
Of what her eyes have kindled in my heart!
Go, boy, and carve this paffion on the bark
Of yonder tree, which stands the facred mark
Of noble Sidney's birth; when such benign,
Such more than mortal-making stars did shine;
That there they cannot but for ever prove
The monument and pledge of humble love:
His humble love, whose hope shall ne'er rise higher,
Than for a pardon that he dares admire.
TO MY LORD OF LEICESTER.
NOT that thy trees at Pens-Hurst groan,
Oppreffed with their timely load;
And feem to make their filent moan,
That their great Lord is now abroad:
They to delight his taste, or eye,
Would spend themselves in fruit, and dye.
Not that thy harmless deer repine,
And think themselves unjustly flain
By any other hand than thine,
Whose arrows they would gladly stain:
No, nor thy friends, which hold too dear
That peace with France, which keeps thee there.
All these are less than that great cause,
Which now exacts your prefence here;
Wherein there meet the divers laws
Of public and domestic care,
For one bright Nymph our youth contends,
And on your prudent choice depends.
Not the bright shield of * Thetis' fon,
(For which fuch stern debate did rife,
That the great Ajax Telamon
Refus'd to live without the prize)
Those Achive Peers did more engage,
Than the the gallants of our age.
That beam of beauty, which begun
To warm us so, when thou wert here,
Now scorches like the raging sun,
When Sirius does first appear.
O fix this flame; and let despair
Redeem the rest from endless care!
Of the LADY who can fleep when she pleases.
O wonder Sleep from careful lovers flies,
To bathe himself in Sacharifsa's eyes.
As fair Astræa once from earth to heaven,
By ftrife and loud impiety was driven:
So with our plaints offended, and our tears,
Wife Somnus to that paradife repairs;
Waits on her will, and wretches does forfake,
To court the Nymph, for whom those wretches wake.
More proud than Phœbus of his throne of gold
Is the foft God, those softer limbs to hold;
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