A PARADOX._Lucasta

Tis true the beauteous Starre<17.1>

To which I first did bow

Burnt quicker, brighter far,

Than that which leads me now;

Which shines with more delight,

For gazing on that light

So long, neere lost my sight.

II.

Through foul we follow faire,

For had the world one face,

And earth been bright as ayre,

We had knowne neither place.

Indians smell not their neast;

A Swisse or Finne tastes best

The spices of the East.<17.2>

III.

So from the glorious Sunne

Who to his height hath got,

With what delight we runne

To some black cave or grot!

And, heav'nly Sydney you

Twice read, had rather view

Some odde romance so new.

IV.

The god, that constant keepes

Unto his deities,

Is poore in joyes, and sleepes

Imprison'd in the skies.

This knew the wisest, who

From Juno stole, below

To love a bear or cow.

<17.1> i.e. LUCASTA.

<17.2> The East was celebrated by all our early poets as the land

of spices and rich gums:--

"For now the fragrant East,

The spicery o' th' world,

Hath hurl'd

A rosie tincture o'er the Phoenix nest."

OTIA SACRA, by Mildmay, Earl of Westmoreland, 1648, p. 37.

SONG.

SET BY MR. HENRY LAWES.

TO AMARANTHA;<18.1> THAT SHE WOULD DISHEVELL HER HAIRE.

Amarantha sweet and faire,

Ah brade<18.2> no more that shining haire!

As my curious hand or eye,

Hovering round thee, let it flye.

II.

Let it flye as unconfin'd

As it's calme ravisher, the winde,

Who hath left his darling, th' East,

To wanton o're that<18.3> spicie neast.

III.

Ev'ry tresse must be confest:

But neatly tangled at the best;

Like a clue of golden thread,

Most excellently ravelled.

IV.

Doe not then winde up that light

In ribands, and o'er-cloud in night,

Like the sun in's early ray;

But shake your head, and scatter day.

See, 'tis broke! within this grove,

The bower and the walkes of love,

Weary lye we downe and rest,

And fanne each other's panting breast.

VI.

Heere wee'll strippe and coole our fire,

In creame below, in milk-baths<18.4> higher:

And when all wells are drawne dry,

I'll drink a teare out of thine eye.

VII.

Which our very joys shall leave,

That sorrowes thus we can deceive;

Or our very sorrowes weepe,

That joyes so ripe so little keepe.

<18.1> A portion of this song is printed, with a few orthographical

variations, in the AYRES AND DIALOGUES, part i. 1653; and it is

also found in Cotgrave's WITS INTERPRETER, 1655, where it is called

"Amarantha counselled." Cotgrave used the text of Lawes, and only

gives that part of the production which he found in AYRES AND

DIALOGUES.

<18.2> Forbear to brade--Lawes' AYRES AND DIALOGUES, and Cotgrave.

<18.3> This--Lawes' AYRES AND DIALOGUES. Cotgrave reads HIS.

<18.4> Milk-baths have been a favourite luxury in all ages.

Peele had probably in his mind the custom of his own time and

country when he wrote the following passage:--

"Bright Bethsabe shall wash in David's bower,

In water mix'd with purest almond flower,

And bathe her beauty in the milk of kids."

KING DAVID AND FAIR BETHSABE, 1599.

SONNET.

SET BY MR. HUDSON.

Depose your finger of that ring,

And crowne mine with't awhile;

Now I restor't. Pray, dos it bring

Back with it more of soile?

Or shines it not as innocent,

As honest, as before 'twas lent?

II.

So then inrich me with that treasure,

'Twill but increase your store,

And please me (faire one) with that pleasure

Must please you still the more.

Not to save others is a curse

The blackest, when y'are ne're the worse.

ODE.

SET BY DR. JOHN WILSON.<19.1>

TO LUCASTA. THE ROSE.

Sweet serene skye-like flower,

Haste to adorn her bower;

From thy long clowdy bed

Shoot forth thy damaske<19.2> head.

II.

New-startled blush of FLORA!

The griefe of pale AURORA,

Who will contest no more,

Haste, haste, to strowe her floore.

III.

Vermilion ball, that's given

From lip to lip in Heaven;

Loves couches cover-led,

Haste, haste, to make her bed.

IV.

Dear offspring of pleas'd VENUS,

And jollie plumpe SILENUS;

Haste, haste, to decke the haire,

Of th' only sweetly faire.

See! rosie is her bower,

Her floore is all this flower;

Her bed a rosie nest

By a bed of roses prest.

VI.

But early as she dresses,

Why fly you her bright tresses?

Ah! I have found, I feare;

Because her cheekes are neere.

<19.1> Dr. John Wilson was a native of Feversham in Kent,

a gentleman of Charles the First's chapel, and chamber-musician

to his majesty. For an account of his works,

see Burney's HISTORY OF MUSIC, vol. iii. pp. 399-400,

or Hawkins' HISTORY OF MUSIC, iii. 57, where a portrait

of Wilson, taken from the original painting, will be found.

Wood, author of the FASTI and ATHENAE, says that he was

in his time, "the best at the lute in all England." Herrick,

in his HESPERIDES, 1648, has these lines in reference to

Henry Lawes:--

"Then if thy voice commingle with the string,

I hear in thee the rare Laniere to sing,

OR CURIOUS WILSON."

<19.2> In a MS. copy of the poem contemporary with the author,

now before me, this word is omitted.

LOVE CONQUER'D.

A SONG.

SET BY MR. HENRY LAWES.

The childish god of love did sweare

Thus: By my awfull bow and quiver,

Yon' weeping, kissing, smiling pair,

I'le scatter all their vowes i' th' ayr,

And their knit imbraces shiver.

II.

Up then to th' head with his best art

Full of spite and envy blowne,

At her constant marble heart,

He drawes his swiftest surest dart,

Which bounded back, and hit his owne.

III.

Now the prince of fires burnes;

Flames in the luster of her eyes;

Triumphant she, refuses, scornes;

He submits, adores and mournes,

And is his votresse sacrifice.

IV.

Foolish boy! resolve me now

What 'tis to sigh and not be heard?

He weeping kneel'd, and made a vow:

The world shall love as yon' fast two;

So on his sing'd wings up he steer'd.

A LOOSE SARABAND.

SET BY MR. HENRY LAWES.

Ah me! the little tyrant theefe!

As once my heart was playing,

He snatcht it up and flew away,

Laughing at all my praying.

II.

Proud of his purchase,<20.1> he surveys

And curiously sounds it,

And though he sees it full of wounds,

Cruel one, still<20.2> he wounds it.

III.

And now this heart is all his sport,

Which as a ball he boundeth

From hand to breast, from breast to lip,

And all its<20.3> rest confoundeth.

IV.

Then as a top he sets it up,

And pitifully whips it;

Sometimes he cloathes it gay and fine,

Then straight againe he strips it.

He cover'd it with false reliefe,<20.4>

Which gloriously show'd it;

And for a morning-cushionet

On's mother he bestow'd it.

VI.

Each day, with her small brazen stings,

A thousand times she rac'd it;

But then at night, bright with her gemmes,

Once neere her breast she plac'd it.

VII.

There warme it gan to throb and bleed;

She knew that smart, and grieved;

At length this poore condemned heart

With these rich drugges repreeved.

VIII.

She washt the wound with a fresh teare,

Which my LUCASTA dropped,

And in the sleave<20.5>-silke of her haire

'Twas hard bound up and wrapped.

IX.

She proab'd it with her constancie,

And found no rancor nigh it;

Only the anger of her eye

Had wrought some proud flesh by it.

Then prest she narde in ev'ry veine,

Which from her kisses trilled;

And with the balme heald all its paine,

That from her hand distilled.

XI.

But yet this heart avoyds me still,

Will not by me be owned;

But's fled to its physitian's breast;

There proudly sits inthroned.

<20.1> Prize. It is not uncommonly used by the early dramatists

in this sense; but the verb TO PURCHASE is more usually found than

the noun.

"Yet having opportunity, he tries,

Gets her goodwill, and with his purchase flies."

Wither's ABUSES STRIPT AND WHIPT, 1613.

<20.2> Here I have hazarded an emendation of the text. In original

we read, CRUELL STILL ON. Lovelace's poems were evidently printed

without the slightest care.

<20.3> Original reads IT'S.

<20.4> Original has BELIEFE.

<<20.5>> Soft, like floss.

ORPHEUS TO WOODS.

SONG.

SET BY MR. CURTES.

Heark! Oh heark! you guilty trees,

In whose gloomy galleries

Was the cruell'st murder done,

That e're yet eclipst the sunne.

Be then henceforth in your twigges

Blasted, e're you sprout to sprigges;

Feele no season of the yeere,

But what shaves off all your haire,

Nor carve any from your wombes

Ought but coffins and their tombes.

ORPHEUS<21.1> TO BEASTS.

SONG.

SET BY MR. CURTES.<21.2>

Here, here, oh here! EURIDICE,

Here was she slaine;

Her soule 'still'd through a veine:

The gods knew lesse

That time divinitie,

Then ev'n, ev'n these

Of brutishnesse.

II.

Oh! could you view the melodie

Of ev'ry grace,

And musick of her face,<21.3>

You'd drop a teare,

Seeing more harmonie

In her bright eye,

Then now you heare.

<21.1> By Orpheus we may perhaps understand Lovelace himself,

and by Euridice, the lady whom he celebrates under the name

of Lucasta. Grainger mentions (BIOG. HIST. ii. 74) a portrait

of Lovelace by Gaywood, in which he is represented as Orpheus.

I have not seen it. The old poets were rather fond of likening

themselves to this legendary personage, or of designating

themselves his poetical children:--

"We that are ORPHEUS' sons, and can inherit

By that great title"--

Davenant's WORKS, 1673, p. 215.

Many other examples might be given. Massinger, in his CITY MADAM,

1658, makes Sir John Frugal introduce a representation of the story

of the Thracian bard at an entertainment given to Luke Frugal.

<21.2> A lutenist. Wood says that after the Restoration he became

gentleman or singing-man of Christ Church, Oxford. He was one of

those musicians who, after the abolition of organs, &c. during the

civil war, met at a private house at Oxford for the purpose of

taking his part in musical entertainments.

<21.3> "Such was Zuleika; such around her shone

The nameless charms unmark'd by her alone;

The light of love, the purity of grace,

The mind, the music breathing from her face."

Byron's BRIDE OF ABYDOS, canto 1.

(WORKS, ed. 1825, ii. 299.)

DIALOGUE.

LUCASTA, ALEXIS.<22.1>

SET BY MR. JOHN GAMBLE.<22.2>

Lucasta.

TELL me, ALEXIS, what this parting is,

That so like dying is, but is not it?

Alexis.

It is a swounding for a while from blisse,

'Till kind HOW DOE YOU call's us from the fit.

Chorus.

If then the spirits only stray, let mine

Fly to thy bosome, and my soule to thine:

Thus in our native seate we gladly give

Our right for one, where we can better live.

II.

Lu. But ah, this ling'ring, murdring farewel!

Death quickly wounds, and wounding cures the ill.

Alex. It is the glory of a valiant lover,

Still to be dying, still for to recover.

Cho. Soldiers suspected of their courage goe,

That ensignes and their breasts untorne show:

Love nee're his standard, when his hoste he sets,

Creates alone fresh-bleeding bannerets.

III.

Alex. But part we, when thy figure I retaine

Still in my heart, still strongly in mine eye?

Lu. Shadowes no longer than the sun remaine,

But <whee> his beams, that made 'em, fly, they fly.

Cho. Vaine dreames of love! that only so much blisse

Allow us, as to know our wretchednesse;

And deale a larger measure in our paine

By showing joy, then hiding it againe.

IV.

Alex. No, whilst light raigns, LUCASTA still rules here,

And all the night shines wholy in this sphere.

Lu. I know no morne but my ALEXIS ray,

To my dark thoughts the breaking of the day.

Chorus.

Alex. So in each other if the pitying sun

Thus keep us fixt, nere may his course be run!

Lu. And oh! if night us undivided make;

Let us sleepe still, and sleeping never wake!

The close.

Cruel ADIEUS may well adjourne awhile

The sessions of a looke, a kisse, or smile,

And leave behinde an angry grieving blush;

But time nor fate can part us joyned thus.

<22.1> i.e. the poet himself.

<22.2> "John Gamble, apprentice to Ambrose Beyland, a noted

musician, was afterwards musician at one of the playhouses;

from thence removed to be a cornet in the King's Chapel.

After that he became one in Charles the Second's band of violins,

and composed for the theatres. He published AYRES AND DIALOGUES

TO THE THEORBO AND BASS VIOL, fol. Lond., 1659."--Hawkins.

SONNET.

SET BY MR. WILLIAM LAWES.

When I by thy faire shape did sweare,

And mingled with each vowe a teare,

I lov'd, I lov'd thee best,

I swore as I profest.

For all the while you lasted warme and pure,

My oathes too did endure.

But once turn'd faithlesse to thy selfe and old,

They then with thee incessantly<23.1> grew cold.

II.

I swore my selfe thy sacrifice

By th' ebon bowes<23.2> that guard thine eyes,

Which now are alter'd white,

And by the glorious light

Of both those stars, which of<23.3> their spheres bereft,

Only the gellie's left.

Then changed thus, no more I'm bound to you,

Then swearing to a saint that proves untrue.

<23.1> i.e. at once, immediately.

<23.2> Her eyebrows.

<23.3> Original reads OF WHICH.

LUCASTA WEEPING.

SONG.

SET BY MR. JOHN LANEERE.

Lucasta wept, and still the bright

Inamour'd god of day,

With his soft handkercher of light,

Kist the wet pearles away.

II.

But when her teares his heate or'ecame,

In cloudes he quensht his beames,

And griev'd, wept out his eye of flame,

So drowned her sad streames.

III.<24.1>

At this she smiled, when straight the sun

Cleer'd by her kinde desires;

And by her eyes reflexion

Fast kindl'd there his fires.

<24.1> This stanza is not found in the printed copy of LUCASTA,

1649, but it occurs in a MS. of this poem written, with many

compositions by Lovelace and other poets, in a copy of Crashaw's

POEMS, 1648, 12mo, a portion of which having been formed of the

printer's proof-sheets, some of the pages are printed only on one

side, the reverse being covered with MSS. poems, among the rest

with epigrams by MR. THOMAS FULLER (about fifty in number). There

can be little doubt, from the character of the majority of these

little poems, that by "Mr. Thomas Fuller" we may understand the

church-historian.

TO LUCASTA. FROM PRISON

AN EPODE.<25.1>

Long in thy shackels, liberty

I ask not from these walls, but thee;

Left for awhile anothers bride,

To fancy all the world beside.

II.

Yet e're I doe begin to love,

See, how I all my objects prove;

Then my free soule to that confine,

'Twere possible I might call mine.

III.

First I would be in love with PEACE,

And her rich swelling breasts increase;

But how, alas! how may that be,

Despising earth, she will love me?

IV.

Faine would I be in love with WAR,

As my deare just avenging star;

But War is lov'd so ev'rywhere,

Ev'n he disdaines a lodging here.

Thee and thy wounds I would bemoane,

Faire thorough-shot RELIGION;

But he lives only that kills thee,

And who so bindes thy hands, is free.

VI.

I would love a PARLIAMENT

As a maine prop from Heav'n sent;

But ah! who's he, that would be wedded

To th' fairest body that's beheaded?

VII.

Next would I court my LIBERTY,

And then my birth-right, PROPERTY;

But can that be, when it is knowne,

There's nothing you can call your owne?

VIII.

A REFORMATION I would have,

As for our griefes a SOV'RAIGNE salve;

That is, a cleansing of each wheele

Of state, that yet some rust doth feele.

IX.

But not a reformation so,

As to reforme were to ore'throw,

Like watches by unskilfull men

Disjoynted, and set ill againe.

The PUBLICK FAITH<25.2> I would adore,

But she is banke-rupt of her store:

Nor how to trust her can I see,

For she that couzens all, must me.

XI.

Since then none of these can be

Fit objects for my love and me;

What then remaines, but th' only spring

Of all our loves and joyes, the King?

XII.

He who, being the whole ball

Of day on earth, lends it to all;

When seeking to ecclipse his right,

Blinded we stand in our owne light.

XIII.

And now an universall mist

Of error is spread or'e each breast,

With such a fury edg'd as is

Not found in th' inwards of th' abysse.

XIV.

Oh, from thy glorious starry waine

Dispense on me one sacred beame,

To light me where I soone may see

How to serve you, and you trust me!

<25.1> This was written, perhaps, during the poet's confinement

in Peterhouse, to which he was committed a prisoner on his return

from abroad in 1648. At the date of its composition, there can be

little doubt, from expressions in stanzas vi. and xii. that the

fortunes of Charles I. were at their lowest ebb, and it may be

assigned without much risk of error to the end of 1648.

<25.2> "The publick faith? why 'tis a word of kin,

A nephew that dares COZEN any sin;

A term of art, great BEHOMOTH'S younger brother,

Old MACHAVIEL and half a thousand other;

Which, when subscrib'd, writes LEGION, names on truss,

ABADDON, BELZEBUB, and INCUBUS."

Cleaveland's POEMS, ed. 1669, p. 91.