The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers

SEE with what simplicity

This nymph begins her golden days!

In the green grass she loves to lie,

And there with her fair aspect tames

The wilder flowers, and gives them names;

But only with the roses plays,

And them does tell

What colour best becomes them, and what smell.
Who can foretell for what high cause

This darling of the gods was born?

Yet this is she whose chaster laws

The wanton Love shall one day fear,

And, under her command severe,

See his bow broke and ensigns torn.

Happy who can

Appease this virtuous enemy of man!
O then let me in time compound

And parley with those conquering eyes,

Ere they have tried their force to wound;

Ere with their glancing wheels they drive

In triumph over hearts that strive,

And them that yield but more despise:

Let me be laid,

Where

I may see the glories from some shade.
Meantime, whilst every verdant thing

Itself does at thy beauty charm,

Reform the errors of the Spring;

Make that the tulips may have share

Of sweetness, seeing they are fair,

And roses of their thorns disarm;

But most procure

That violets may a longer age endure.
But O, young beauty of the woods,

Whom Nature courts with fruits and flowers,

Gather the flowers, but spare the buds;

Lest Flora, angry at thy crime

To kill her infants in their prime,

Do quickly make th' example yours;

And ere we see,

Nip in the blossom all our hopes and thee.

The Definition of Love

MY Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility.
Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing
Where feeble Hope could ne'r have flown
But vainly flapt its tinsel wing.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixt
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds it self betwixt.
For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close:
Their union would her ruin be,
And her Tyrannic pow'r depose.
And therefore her Decrees of Steel
Us as the distant Poles have plac'd,
(Though Love's whole World on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embrac'd.

Unless the giddy Heaven fall,

And Earth some new Convulsion tear;

And, us to join, the World should all

Be cramp'd into a Planisphere.
As Lines so Loves oblique may well

Themselves in every Angle greet:

But ours so truly Parallel,

Though infinite can never meet.
Therefore the Love which us doth bind

But Fate so enviously debars,

Is the Conjunction of the Mind,

And Opposition of the Stars.

A Garden: Written after the Civil Wars

SEE how the flowers, as at parade,
Under their colours stand display'd:
Each regiment in order grows,
That of the tulip, pink, and rose.
But when the vigilant patrol
Of stars walks round about the pole,
Their leaves, that to the stalks are curl'd,
Seem to their staves the ensigns furl'd.
Then in some flower's beloved hut
Each bee, as sentinel, is shut,
And sleeps so too; but if once stirr'd,
She runs you through, nor asks the word.
O thou, that dear and happy Isle,
The garden of the world erewhile,
Thou Paradise of the four seas
Which Heaven planted us to please,
But, to exclude the world, did guard
With wat'ry if not flaming sword;
What luckless apple did we taste
To make us mortal and thee waste!
Unhappy! shall we never more
That sweet militia restore,
When gardens only had their towers,
And all the garrisons were flowers;
When roses only arms might bear,
And men did rosy garlands wear?

An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland

THE forward youth that would appear
Must now forsake his Muses dear,
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing.
'Tis time to leave the books in dust,
And oil the unused armour's rust,
Removing from the wall
The corslet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through adventurous war
Urged his active star:
And like the three-fork'd lightning,
firstBreaking the clouds where it was nurst,
Did thorough his own side
His fiery way divide:
For 'tis all one to courage high,
The emulous, or enemy;
And with such, to enclose
Is more than to oppose.
Then burning through the air he went
And palaces and temples rent;
And Caesar's head at last
Did through his laurels blast.
'Tis madness to resist or blame
The face of angry Heaven's flame;
And if we would speak true,
Much to the man is due,
Who, from his private gardens,
whereHe lived reserved and austere
(As if his highest plot To plant the bergamot),
Could by industrious valour climb
To ruin the great work of time,
And cast the Kingdoms old
Into another mould;
Though Justice against
Fate complain,
And plead the ancient rights in vain—
But those do hold or break
As men are strong or weak—
Nature, that hateth emptiness,
Allows of penetration less,
And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come.
What field of all the civil war
Where his were not the deepest scar?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art;
Where, twining subtle fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope
That Charles himself might chase
To Caresbrooke's narrow case;
That thence the Royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn:
While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands.
He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try;
Nor call'd the gods, with vulgar spite,
To vindicate his helpless right;
But bow'd his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.
This was that memorable hour
Which first assured the forced power:
So when they did design
The Capitol's first line,
A Bleeding Head, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run;
And yet in that the State
Foresaw its happy fate!
And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed:
So much one man can do
That does both act and know.
They can affirm his praises best,
And have, though overcome, confest
How good he is, how just
And fit for highest trust.
Nor yet grown stiffer with command,
But still in the republic's hand—
How fit he is to sway
That can so well obey!
He to the Commons' feet presents
A Kingdom for his first year's rents,
And, what he may, forbears
His fame, to make it theirs:
And has his sword and spoils ungirt
To lay them at the public's skirt.
So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,
She, having kill'd, no more doth search
But on the next green bough to perch;
Where, when he first does lure,
The falconer has her sure.
What may not then our
Isle presume
While victory his crest does plume?
What may not others fear,
If thus he crowns each year?
As Caesar he, ere long, to Gaul,
To Italy an Hannibal,
And to all States not free
Shall climacteric be.
The Pict no shelter now shall find
Within his particolour'd mind,
But, from this valour, sad
Shrink underneath the plaid;
Happy, if in the tufted brake
The English hunter him mistake,
Nor lay his hounds in near
The Caledonian deer.
But thou, the war's and fortune's son,
March indefatigably on;
And for the last effect,
Still keep the sword erect:
Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,
The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.

To His Coy Mistress

HAD we but world enough, and time,

This coyness, Lady, were no crime.

We would sit down and think which way

To walk and pass our long love's day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges' side

Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide

Of Humber would complain.

I wouldLove you ten years before the

Flood,And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires, and more slow;

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast;

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart;

For, Lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found,

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song: then worms shall try

That long preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust:

The grave's a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in this slow-chapt power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Thorough the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.