The Willough-wearer.
ALas! how often by some Rillets side,
With heavy bosome have I trod the Meads,
And since they were with grasse and Chrystall beads
So trimly cluster'd, thus began to chide:
Yee want nor dew to fledg your verdant quills,
Nor Western-wind to fanne the Summers heat:
Shoots not the Soyl from you superiour hills,
To make your clovers fragrant, and compleat?
With store of soveraign blooms are ye not drest,
And studded thick? or does not many a Swan,
And the Sweet
Nayades, that ravish can
With precious modulations, speak you blest?
But then what makes such store of Willough here?
Why foster ye this badge of discontent?
Me thinks you should some nobler Pendant weare,
The Palme, fat Olive, or the Lawrell Gent:
I say, since happy, and so highly blest,
Me thinks ye should converse with plants of grace;
And like a Lady tricking up her face,
With Pearles and Rubies be, not pebles drest.
Fie, fie, dismisse this Livery forlorn,
Confine it to some craggy mountain top,
Or barren Desert, where it may be worn
With more propriety; or since my hope
In Seas of sad dispair is toss'd and torn,
And daily drencht with many a rigid billow,
Passe it to me; give me your wofull Willough.
The Redundant Lover.
DEar, since we parted, never did I see
A beauteous Summer fly, or fancy pyed,
Or garden-bed, or Plume, or Picture, dyed
With daintier colours, but I thought on thee.
I never heard a more melodious note,
Attain'd a delicater touch, or ought
Of better worth; but 'twas a present quote
Of thy perfection, thou wert in my thought.
Nay since familiar to remember things
By contraries, by black, white; Saints, by Devils:
To this end have I even made use of evils;
And to my mind each loathsome object brings
Thy purity; dearest my loves intention,
Makes every thing that is, to make thy mention.
The Commune bonum.
THE Law, like
Esop, in exteriour show
Is harsh and homely; but each man inclin'd
Laboriously to sift it, till he know
With what delight, the inner side is lin'd;
Will vouch it pleasing, as was
Esops mind;
'Tis sweet, but does in rugged phrases dwell,
'Tis like a Pearl, hid in an Oyster-shell.
The Pious Turtles.
DId Heav'n but gently to my wish reply,
Lo thus would we converse my lovely deare;
I say thus would we live while being here;
And when to part from hence, thus would we dy.
Upon some shady, sandy, higher ground,
Where the sweet birds should warbling musick give
And at whose foot some pittering Rillet wound,
Like
Baucis and
Philemon would we live.
Our clothing should be warm, and new and neat,
Not costly nor too curious; and our diet,
Though plentifull and good; yet free from riot,
Not adding thirst to drink, nor lust to meat.
No viperous envie, nor ambitious dreams,
No care to pay some griping Landlord Rent,
No clamorous wealth, of many ploughs and teames,
Should interrupt the calme of our content.
Our handy labour should be sole addrest
To the well husbanding of Hops, and Bees:
Or to some Orchard, where the fruitfull trees
Strove w
ch should yield the most, and w
ch the best.
Nay born by faith upon her lofty wings,
We would beyond this under earth endeavour,
Conversing with divine invisible things;
So living, loving so, we might live ever;
And when death came at length, to play his prize,
Depart in peace, closing each others eyes.
Love in good sadnesse.
THou youthfull art, and fair; well clad, and fed
And flatter'd too no doubt: yet dear be sure,
That these inducements make thee not secure;
For with thy birth, thy death was also bred.
Thy birth infers thy buriall; all the space
A mortall does above the ground converse,
He does but climbe his execution place;
'Tis but a lingring passage to his herse.
Observe a skull, out at whose rotten ports
The worms hang dovvn, and in an hundred yeare,
Such as that is, shalt thou and I appear;
Cold, darknesse, silence, must our sole consorts,
And the raw worms our richest ear-rings be,
Which I entreat remember well, and me.
The holy Climax.
MY lovely dearest, when I but survay
The curious building of thy house of clay,
The musick of it, and contend the while,
Who 'tis that dwells in such a precious pile;
I find a soul so nobly there discoursing;
Distributing so vertually her powers,
That straight it leads me to that Lord of ours;
Such strange invisible mysteries inforcing:
And I conclude, if on the center base,
Such goodnesse such perfection he discloses,
How is the circle then adorn'd, the place
Where he upon his heavenly throne reposes?
Or how is he himselfe both good, and great,
That when they were not, gave all these a making?
That being, gives them order; nor forsaking
His Creatures, keeps both it and them compleat.
And then in contemplation of so vast
A world of wonders here again I rouze
My spirit neere confounded, and in hast,
Falling full lowly prostrate, pay my vowes.
A Cordiall of Vipers.
AS Dice run most by paires, and shun excesse,
So fewest friends love best when more love less.
The stream of friendship coming once to leak
At many Sluces shallow growes and weak.
As Dice though white, their fowl spots cannot lack
So friends in friends must beare w
th faults though black.
Sparing to cut, to feare, but in extreams,
Even lenatively making moats of beames,
They must not hollow-harted fulloms be,
Nor base Bar-cater-treyes; but quadratly
Run in the game of friendship, be sincere
Above the brunt of either hope or feare.
As Sice ace throw'n are friends still as before,
So friends though rich, must still love friends though poor;
This world to no such certainty advances,
But their may come a cast may change their chances
They must conclude their state here like the Dice,
Where now the Sice is Ace, now Ace the Sice:
And thus the deadliest Drug, and justly hated,
May ye tturn cordiall, if but calcinated.
Hony of Hellebore.
VVE are at play, and Gamesters till our graves;
Our Saints and Sabbaths, are like
Queenes &
Kings,
The rest with
Martha, do but many things:
Only our Wakes, and Markets, play the Knaves.
Time is the Pack, our dayes are severall Cards,
And Custome a Groom-porter voyd of shame,
Does with his carnall moth-eaten regards,
Oft over-rule and undivine our game.
Custome (full oft I say) more gray then wise,
Thus cheats us in our play, my lovely dear:
But let us cautive be at length, and bear
Room of this current, crossing common guise.
Let us at length our Sabbath so dispend,
That piercing farther then the formall skin
Of shifting suits, and Linnen; we contend
They be Religious, glorious eke within.
At length our mirth so manage, and employ,
That as inferiour flames with swift ascent,
Move to their high superior Element:
This also may relate to heavenly joy.
Let not our ballance, nor our bargains, know
Or knave or false five finger; to divine
Of wealth by these attain'd, it melts like snow:
Leaving the place all dirt, where it has lyen.
Let us so cribage out so well defeat
Cros-cards and idle doelittles, that neither
Impeding it we win both game and set,
A treasure heap'd and thrust and shook together
Let us each Card even every common day
So gratiously dispose, that all our weeks
Embroyder'd be with murnivalls and gleeks.
Nay such a treasure from our pious play
Resulted be, that Ophir in compare,
And proud
Peru, but toyes and trifles are.
The Crosse a culisse.
THe Crosse is both a Step dame and a Mother,
Some men it kills, and some again, it cures;
Like fire it some destroyes, refines some other,
Full often ill, and well full oft enurs;
The righteous man that into trouble comes,
Moulds it into his foyl, gives fairer fire,
Makes it his rise, his wing to help him higher;
Like spice is beaten thus into perfumes.
And then the ruffling height of weaker souls
It tempers sweetly, cuts the combe of pride
That else would soon be perking; only fools
Will still be so though miserably brayde
In many a mortar; and at length declin'd
As sadly small, as dust before the wind.
A Funerall Farewell.
I Had my tother halfe, and 'twas as white
As Miniver, or Snow, before it light
Upon the ground; so neat in every part,
And then withall charessing so my heart,
That now I neither envie'd
Crassus gold
Nor
Cossus garlands; with so manifold
Importancies enabling me, that now
I had a pair of hearts, my hands but two,
Were multiply'd to foure, likewise my feet,
Such
Alter-Idems turning of so knit
Commist a fellow-feeling, no disease,
Could either single toe, or finger seise,
But all were sufferers. Then could I vant
Of likewise doubly five concomitant,
As brisk, and active senses; nay my soul
So doubled was, and in a word, even all
My trim at large, that now I could discourse,
Urge
pro and
con, communicate, converse,
All with my double self; nor knew the fell
Extent of solitude. Even strange to tell,
I now so clung an
Individuum was,
So fixt at home, and yet so bivious
At the same time, and far abroad; that now,
While ranging vvith my hounds, or vvith my plough
In the circumference; yet was I still
At home upon my center; could be while
At
The name of my Mansion house.
Popes, likewise at
Paris. To proceed,So beneficiall was my being ty'd
In
Hymens rosie bands, that now my hope
Was propagation, and the rearing up
A Tree of such Descendants; so repleat
With commendable fruit, as should relate
My Name beyond mine Urne. Lo this the trance,
The whilome treasure did so much advance
And damask my condition but alas
So withers worldly growth like Summers grass,
That now again my diminution cryes
For even a thousand payre of weeping eyes,
To paraphrase it; now my late recruits
Conspicuous increments, and double suits
Being depriv'd, alas! I dwindled am
To poore again and single, to become
Half under ground; where rest thy selfe in peace
My dearest tother part; ô rest, and cease
From all thy terrene labours, with a guard
Of blessed Angells, keeping watch and ward,
About thee constantly; and when my pulse
(So wound up in the womb, by that excelse
Celestiall Architect,) the tale has run
Of minutes here in charge; has fully spun
Off
Clotho's Distaffe; be my reliques lay'd
So neere to thine, that wither'd when, and dry'd,
From moyst and viscuous; even our crumbling dust,
May blend promiscuously: till when the just
Shine as the Firmament, and having turn'd
Many to righteousnesse, are as adorn'd,
As glorious as the stars; we rise a-new,
(By that omnipotence that can subdue
All things unto it self) we newly rise
Of old relations, former terrene tyes,
So voyd and inscient; that our all in all
Be wholly swallow'd, ravish'd full and whole,
With the beatick vision; retributing
Habituall prayses, allelujahs shouting,
To that immensly gracious God of Heaven,
Who maugre six
Leviathans and seven,
With even a world of thick, and stormy weather,
Could freely, safely stear, and bring us thither.
A Key to the Hedge-hog Combatant; and my Motto Militia Mea Multiplex.
WHen I survay (poor wretch) thy severall foes,
Me thinks it does pathetickly disclose
Mine own Militia; for with opon Mart,
As man pursues thee, as the
Though he be in his
[...]ound posture, and with all his Pikes cha
[...]ged; yet (as
Topsall relates it) The Fox finding som little accesse about his face, lick
[...] him there, till with the flatterie he opens himself, and then he seises him.
Fox with Art,Allayes thy martiall fury, falsly licks
Thy life a way; and Serpent also seeks
It is as implacably: Lo thus conspire
Both
Ammon Amelek, and those of
Tyre.
The World, the Flesh, and (out alas) the great
Red Dragon, with his tayl that can defeat
The very stars, so these I say concur,
To slay my silly soul: were it a war,
Though with some such as hungry Lyons wage,
And evening Wolves, of all those quivers rage,
Like open Sepulchers; there might be yet
Some hope, some little plank a shore to set
Even after ship wrack, but when thus to grapple
With that prodigious fiend whose mortall apple
Defeated
Eve her selfe. To daily cope
With many a horrid squadron many a troope
Of fierce and fiery darts, that charge me home,
And often through; alas wretch that I am!
Where shall I seek for succour? who can stave
This roaring rabble off? ô help, and save,
Thou God of Battails; else am I but built
Upon the sily sand, but water spilt.
The Leveller.
THe sordid fly that does so basely sing,
And on the dunghill feed, with Pyes, & Crows,
Will yet soone after banquet with a King,
Bib on his cup; play with the beard, the nose,
Of
Craessus, as of
Codrus; levelling
Princes with Pawnes Mirabolanes with slowes,
Alas alas the while, King by thy leave,
All worldly pomp is flyblown, poor, and will deceive
Alas the neatest foot that ever came
In the most supercilious royall shoe,
By the black oxe is often troden lame
Nay troden off; then
Pompey bid adieu
To longer playing in the dangerous flame
Of terrene gaieties, but aiming now
The glorious kingdome that will never fade,
Tophet was else for Kings and towring Keysars made.
The Borachioes.
AS Willoughs noted so for tipling Trees,
Are barren, and but badges of disgrace;
As Fennes and Marshes, yield but nipping flyes,
But venemous fogges, and reptil's bad, and base:
Lo thus the boundlesse Independent shot,
Beggers as sundry formes, and oft as vile;
As
Phaebus does, when with embraces hot,
He beds the moist salacious mud of
Nile.
It changes some to Struthions, and as those:
Forget their egges, their actions so do these;
Demanding when they wake, how came the blowes,
What have we done, they should our weapons seise.
Some men it does to mimick anticks foole;
Change some to subtile Foxes that imploy
Their cups as Crucibles, wherein to boyl,
And sublimate a skill, to cousen by.
Some for obstreperous Geese it does designe,
Fills some with such Salt-Peter, that disputing
Or but some hair, or Mathematick line,
They take immediate fire, with bloud confuting.
Some to such honey-suckles sweet it turnes,
VVith often vowes, that about every wight
They twine themselves. And some with lust so burns
They deem each dirty cloud a
Juno bright.
Nay, yet again, and further, some it fuddles,
To senselesse Conduits, only fit to pisse,
And to be pist against: To monsters, puddles
And Statues many, quadrat but for this.
Lo,
Pythagore; lo here the transmigration,
Thou might'st have dreamt of, for with brutish soul.
It thus imbroyles us: Oaks of most elation,
With many blowes fall; Reason so with bowls.
Up then ye base
Borachioes, call excesse,
But an infidious
Circe, but presaging
A brutish transformation, even no lesse
Then of the soul it self, and thus engaging
Her everlasting blisse: up keep a dyot;
Does ought kill soul and body both? yes ryot.
A Divine Meditation VPON The Decease of those Noble LORDS under-named.
SO so, let
Babel, Edom, shoot like those
In Harvest at our losse; with mocks and Mowes,
Tell it in
Gath; thus adding deep, to deep,
Worm wood to bitternesse; yet God will keep
His darling from the Dog, can out of stones
Raise
Abraham children, he that interpones
So for his Church, though
Dorset, Hamilton,
Southampton, Oxford, and
Belfast, be gone
The way of flesh and bloud, will sooner yet
His covenant with day and night forget,
Then faile to
Sion; not the squalidest
Sea-monsters, but they gently draw the breast,
Suckling their young; or if a mother can
Forget her child, yet God is love in grain;
Will vindicat his Turtle-Dove, nay cover
Her wings with Silver, and her feathers over
VVith yellow Gold. Nor
Babell be so perk,
At some thus of the temples carved work,
For sin deducted us; we but with rods,
Thou shalt be whipt with Scorpions; and in Gods
Right hand there is a cup, the dregs whereof
Shall be thy portion;
Ahabs Ivory roofe,
And loe the
Tirian Turrets, built so high,
That Eagles at a lower random fly,
Nay even the gyants there in Sentinell,
Are lessen'd into
Ezekiel 27. 11.
Gammadims; must feelHis line of vengeance, who could so divide
Out
Succoth, meete out
Schechem: and ô ride
On prosperiously, thou fairer far then men;
Girding thy sword thus, for thy right hand then
Shall teach thee terrible things; shall thresh the horns
Of our fierce Bullocks, rabbid Unicorns,
Like wheat of
Madmanah, Ride on, ride on,
Strengthning the feeble knees, and every bone,
That thou hast broken; still they shake the head,
Cry so so would we have it, eate like bread
Thy people up; and then the late decease
Of these heroick Lords, diruted has
As many of our Barres, has made our breach
More desperate; ô be gracious then, and reach
Thy soveraigne flagons; let no clouds returne
After the rain; and for stakes-out worne
Thus in the service of thy Tabernacle
Distribute thousands; blesse, ô blesse the tackle
Of thy poor labouring Ark, and crown her toyle
VVith
Ararat and her high places, while
Our mighty hunters despicably melt
Like fat of Lambs, or be like water spilt,
Nor to be gather'd up again; else will
Thine enemies blaspheme, upbraiding still
The promise of his comming; I and say
To day shall
Jove it as did yesterday,
And in far greater measure: bow thy ear
Thou good and glorious Cherub-rider, hear
And answer us, How long? how long ô Lord?
O bare thine arme again, ô draw thy sword.
The fatall Progresse.
HOw blessed is the man that well bethinks
Him of his progresse here, can nominate it
A weary chain of time, his steps the links
And make his death the jewell hanging at it;
No step but does him fatally diminish,
And brings him a link neerer to his dust,
Time will that chain of his, that progresse finish,
Deducting him by link and link at last
To stench and ashes; if we chance to start
Some old old
Tritavus whose iron strength
Tugs it with time, and toughly does support
Him
Nestors age, his progress yet at length
Has such a bottome link as rakes him up.
VVe have our bounders, thus farr we may reach,
But go no further, here we faint and stop
Like the Sea billowes on the level beach.
O then be wise be wise, since heaven I say
Has magisterially prescrib'd and voted
The tale of all our days and howers nay
The beatings of our pulses summ'd and toted;
Prepare prepare be wise, refining so
The links the paces of thy terrene race
As may by chimicall contaction know
To deaurat each other, and so dresse
Up death it selfe, the Pendant that from Cruell,
It may become thy deare and pretious jewell
A brief Epitaph Payed to the Merit of my learned kinsman Mr. JOHN GREAVES, deceased the 7 h of October 1652.
THe man though truly quadrat yet with all
(Strange to relate) complealty sphericall:
By such a noble heat engag'd
For skill and parts, as pilgrimag'd
Him even to
Constantinople is thus named in the Eastern Countries.
Stambols mighty Port,Thence bringing us the Turkish Court;
And then to great and glorious
Cayer,
Exhibiting the
Mummies there,
And other wonders; This is he
Here under sleeping: Should there be
Som Marble richly wrought and gilt
In consequence upon him built?
Tush! keep it rather for some wight
Of meaner principles, of light
Inferior Actings, and that under bids:
His Monument is made of
Of these he has left us a very punctuall des
[...]ription.
PYRAMIDS.The Widdows warning
BE wise, and take no churlish Clown;
Nor blend vvith flocks thy Thistle-down
Choose not for out-side, shun each lover
But golden Ludgate like in cover.
The Ruffian that can sweare and swell,
And covenant with death and hell,
Prefer not: nor the Fox that preyes
In covert and in broken wayes.
Choose not for wealth, where other things
But passant are; yet this has wings.
Nor any piece of Bombast choose,
That with his Place and Title sues;
Taking herein the greater care,
Because they now are chapmans ware.
Take not an husband by report;
Examine first his head, his heart,
His Conscience pierce him to the Lees;
Mark how each joynt of his agrees,
And jumps with thine; for if they vary,
The Priest that does your bodies marry,
But glewes a Potsheard. In a word,
If thou canst marrow with a Bird
Of thine own feather, one whose wars
Spirituall be, whose aim is stars;
VVhose neatly timber'd limbs are lin'd,
VVith as polite, as rich a mind:
This is the VVight, and hast thee
Jane
To render him his rib againe.
The Tearless Epitaph of Mrs. Prudence Meredith, a good soul in adefective body.
IN an uneasie room her soul was pent,
And had while here, a hard imprisonment
VVithin the body, nor could
Prudence, but
Rejoyce to leave her little crumpled knot
Of flesh and bloud, that narrow Goale of hers,
For such a relaxation, as infers
Eternall blessednesse as hopes a new
Resurgent corps, proportionably true
In every lineament, and of privation,
Of sorrow, sicknesse, death and mutulation
Impassible: I say she could not choose
In faith and reason, but avouch her woes
Thus at an end, but cheerly leave her breath;
And thus had
Meredith, a merry death.
OF PRAYER.
THE most pathetick richest language, chosen
To hang in eares of Emperours and Kings,
Is but a tinkling Cimball, does but cousen.
The fancy for a while, and then has wings:
Prayer heaped up, and over does, reply,
When other words, but drop, and droop, and dy:
All other words retail but Saffron ware,
Are of an impotent, a clamorus sound;
But Doe-littles, but petty Chapmen are,
And Petty-foggers: Whereas Prayer is found;
The Staple Merchant, prosecuting even
A Trade in grosse, by whole-sale, and for heaven.
'Tis of such efficac'e, and with such store
Of sacred pertinacie wrastles so,
Like zealous
Jacob, that it gives not o're:
But being blest, without it lets not goe.
Prayer faith, faith Christ, Christ heaven to us demises
And thus the
Climax of our joy arises.
Who then will happy live, and blest expire,
Both soul and body Temple-like imployes
His Alter is his Heart, his Zeal the Fire;
His soul the Priest, and Prayer the Sacrifice:
Nor is it Bullocks having horns and hooves;
But of the Lips, the heart, that God approves.
Up therefore Reader, let thy spirit feast
It selfe with often Prayer; submissly fall,
And like a
Daniel, thrice a day at least,
Thus feed thy soul; or rather like a
Paul,
Be praying alwayes; 'tis celestiall meat:
Up therefore Reader, therefore up and eat.
A Second of the Same.
LOok as a Beggar by the high-wayes side,
Some little child does in her bosome take,
Hopeing though she her self may be deny'd,
Yet to get something for the Infants sake;
And as
Themistocles, when having done
Admetus much displeasure, many harms;
Sought not for grace, but having first his Son,
His only Son infoulded in his arms:
So when thou prayest, bring but thy Jesus by thee
This Babe, this Son; and God will ne're deny thee.
FINIS.