Love, making all things elfe his foes,
Like a fierce torrent, overflows
Whatever doth his courfe oppose

This was the cause the poets fùng,
Thy mother from the fea was fprung,
But they were mad to make thee young,

Her father, not her fon, art thou :
From our defires our actions grow;

And from the caufe th' effect muft flow.

Love is as old as place or time;
'Twas he the fatal tree did climb,

Grandfire of father Adam's crime.

Well may'ft thou keep this world in awe;
Religion, wifdom, honour, law,

The tyrant in his triumph draw.

'Tis he commands the powers above;
Phoebus refigns his darts, and Jove
His thunder, to the God of Love.

To him doth his feign'd mother yield;
Nor Mars (her champion) 's flaming fhield
Guards him, when Cupid takes the field.

He clips Hope's wings, whofe airy blifs
Much higher than fruition is;
But less than nothing, if it`miss.

When

When matches Love alone projects,

The cause transcending the effects,

That wild-fire's quench'd in cold neglects.

Whilft those conjunctions prove the best,
Where Love's of blindness difpoffeft,
By perfpectives of interest.

Though Solomon with a thousand wives,
To get a wife fucceffor ftrives,

But one (and he a fool) furvives.

Old Rome of children took no care,

They with their friends their beds did share,
Secure t'adopt a hopeful heir.

Love, drowsy days and ftormy nights
Makes; and breaks friendship, whose delights
Feed, but not glut our appetites.

Well-chofen friendship, the most noble
Of virtues, all our joys makes double,
And into halves divides our trouble.

But when th' unlucky knot we tie,
Care, avarice, fear, and jealousy,
Make friendship languish till it die.

The wolf, the lion, and the bear,
When they their prey in pieces tear,
To quarrel with themselves forbear.

Yet timorous deer, and harmless sheep,
When love into their veins doth creep,
That law of nature cease to keep.

Who then can blame the amorous boy,
Who, the fair Helen to enjoy,
To quench his own, fet fire on Troy?

Such is the world's prepofterous fate,
Amongst all creatures, mortal hate
Love (though immortal) doth create.

But love may beasts excuse, for they
Their actions not by reafon fway,

But their brute appetites obey.

But man's that favage beaft, whose mind
From reafon to felf-love declin'd,

Delights to prey upon his kind.

On Mr. ABRAHAM COWLEY'S Death, and Burial amongst the ancient Poets.

LD Chaucer, like the morning ftar,

OLD

To us difcovers day from far;

His light thofe mifts and clouds diffolv'd,
Which our dark nation long involv'd :
But he defcending to the fhades,
Darkness again the age invades.
Next (like Aurora) Spenfer rofe,
Whofe purple blush the day foreshews;

The

1

The other three, with his own fires,
Phœbus, the poets' god, infpires;

By Shakespeare's, Jonfon's, Fletcher's lines,
Our stage's luftre Rome's out-fhines :
These poets near our princes fleep,
And in one grave their mansion keep. !
They liv'd to fee so many days,
Till time had blafted all their bays:
But curfed be the fatal hour

That pluck'd the fairest, sweetest flower
That in the Mufes' garden grew,

And amongst wither'd laurels threw.

Time, which made them their fame out-live,

To Cowley scarce did ripenefs give.

Old mother Wit, and Nature, gave
Shakespeare and Fletcher all they have;
In Spenfer, and in Jonfon, Art
Of flower Nature got the start;

But both in him fo equal are,

None knows which bears the happiest share :

To him no author was unknown,

Yet what he wrote was all his own;

He melted not the ancient gold,

Nor, with Ben Jonfon, did make bold

To plunder all the Roman ftores

Of poets, and of orators :

Horace's wit, and Virgil's ftate,

He did not freal, but emulate!

And when he would like them appear,

Their garb, but not their cloaths, did wear :

Nor did he like the omen,

For fear it might be his doom.
One day for to fing,

With gullet in ftring,

---A hymn of Robert Wisdom.

But what was all this business?
For fure it was important:
For who rides i' th' wet

When affairs are not great,

The neighbours make but a sport on't.

To a goodly fat sow's baby,
O John, thou hadft a malice,
The old driver of fwine

That day fure was thine,
Or thou hadft not quitted Calais.

NATURA NATURATA.

WHAT gives us that fantastic fit,

That all our judgment and our wit

To vulgar custom we submit?

Treafon, theft, murder, and all the reft

Of that foul legion we fo detest,

Are in their proper names exprest.

Why is it then thought fin or fhame,
Thofe neceffary parts to name,

From whence we went, and whence we came ?

Nature,