A Description OF THE Four Seasons or Quarters of the YEAR, AS SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN and WINTER. Likewise of Beautie, the Bees and Ants, and also on Prodigality.
spring
summer
autumn
winter
SPRING.
THE
Pleiades their influence now give,
And all that seem'd as dead afresh, do live.
The croaking Frogs, whom nipping Winter kill'd,
Like Birds, now chirp, and hop about the field;
The Nightingale, the Black-bird and the Thrush,
Now tune their layes on sprayes of every bush;
The wanton frisking Kids, and soft-fleec't Lambs,
Now jump, and play before their feeding Dams;
The tender tops of budding Grass they crop,
They joy in what they have, but more in hope.
This is that part, whose fruitful showers produces
All Plants and Flowers for all delights and uses;
The Pear, the Plum, and Apple-tree now flourish:
The Prim-Rose pale and Azure Violer,
Among the verduous Grass hath Nature set;
But chief of all the pleasant fruitful
May,
Wherein the Earth is clad in rich array:
All Flowers before the Sun-beams now discloses
Except the double Pinks, and matchless Roses.
Now swarms the busie buzzing Honey-Bee,
Whose praise deserves a page, from more then me.
The Meads with Cowslips, Honey-suckles dight,
One hangs his head, the other stands upright:
For fruit my Season yields the early cherry,
The early Pease and wholesom red Strawberry.
On Beauty.
WOuld foolish Females, with their Features,
Remember they're but mortal Creatures,
Of which rightly Man may say,
They're but beauteous Clods of Clay;
Or refined, though pure dust,
From whence they came, and thither must.
And that as their great Grand-dame dy'de before,
Even so mvst they, and then be seen no more.
And all their Gaudy Glory be forgot,
Whilst they must lie, consume, yea, stink and rot.
If these things they would to remembrance call,
Their Honey'd Pleasures would be mixt with Gall,
And all and every one their course would bend,
Within themselves, what is amiss to mend.
The Memory unto the soul is food.
That thinks, and says, and doth the things that's good.
But Showes of Virtue, hiding of their Vice,
Bring simple Ga lant-s to th' Fools Paradise:
For when the Heart thinks Lust abomination,
Sense nick-names it but Youthful Recreation.
Reason delights in Liberality,
Which Sense perverts to Prodigality.
And thus this little Kingdom, Man, doth fade,
With hearing Traitors when they do perswade.
SUMMER.
SPring being past, then
Summer must begin,
With melted Tawny face, and Garments thin.
Now go those frolick Swains, the Shepherd-Lad,
To wash their thick-cloath'd Flocks, with Pipes full glad.
In the cool streams they labour with delight,
Rubbing their dirty coats till they look white.
Whose fleeces, when purely spun, and deeply dy'de,
With Robes thereof Kings have been dignifyde,
This part the Roses are distill'd in Glasses,
Whose fragrant Scent all made-Perfume surpasses;
The Cherry, Goos-berry, is now in th' prime,
And for all sorts of Pease this is the Time.
On goes the Mowers to their flashing Toyle,
The Medows of their burdens to despoil;
The Forks and Rakes do follow them amain,
Which makes the Aged Fields look young again;
The loaden Carts do bear away this Prize
To Barns and Stacks, where it for Fodder lies,
With Sickles eke, the painful Reapers go,
The ruffling Tress of
Terra for to Mow;
And bundles up in sheaves the weighty Wheat,
Which after Manchets make for Kings to eat;
Now's ripe the Pear, Pear-Plum and Apricock,
The Prince of Plums, whose stone is hard as Rock.
On the Ants.
I Walk't, and did a little Mole-hill view,
Full peopled with a most industrious Crew
Of busie Ants, where each one laboured more,
Then if he were to bring home
Indian Ore;
Here wrought the Pioneers, there marcht the Bands,
Here Colonies went forth to Plant new Lands:
These hasted out, and those supplies brought in,
As if they had some sudden siege foreseen:
Until there came an angry Spade, and cast
Countrey and People to a Pit at last.
And therefore as Solomon saith, Go to the Ant thou Sluggard, consider her ways and be wise, Prov. 16.6. For though they are not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the Summer, Prov 30.25.
On the Bees.
AGAIN I view'd a Kingdom in an Hive,
Where every one did work, and so all thrive;
Some go, some come, some war, some watch and wa
[...]d,
Some make the works, and some the works do Guard.
These frame their curious waxen Cells, and those
Do into them their
Nectar-drops dispose:
Until the greedy Gard'ner brought his smoke,
And for the Work, did all the Workmen choke.
AUTUMN.
THE Vintage now is ripe, the Grapes are prest,
Whose lively Liquor oft is curst and blest;
The Raisins now in clusters dried be,
The Oringe, Lemon dangle on the Tree;
The Fig is ripe, the Pomegranate also,
And Apples now their yellow sides do show;
Of Medler, Quince, of Warden and of Peach,
The Season's now at hand of all and each;
The fruitful Trees, all wither'd now do stand,
Whose yellow sapless leaves by wind are fann'd:
Which notes, when youth and strength have past their prime,
Decrepit Age must also have his time:
The sap doth slily creep towards the Earth,
There rests until the Sun gives it a birth:
Almost at shortest is the shortned day,
The Northern pole beholdeth not one Ray!
Now
Greenland, Groenland, Lapland, Finland, see
No Sun to lighten their obscurity.
This Month is Timber for all uses fell'd,
When cool'd, the sap to the roots hath low'st repell'd:
Beef, Brawns and Pork are now in great'st request.
And solio'st meats our stomacks can digest:
This time warm cloaths, full diet, and good fires,
Our pinching flesh, and appetite requires▪
On Prodigality.
I
Dread when I do see a Prodigal,
On whom a fair Estate of late did fall:
When as is spent his Credit and his Chink,
And he quite wasted, to a snuff doth stink,
Who in the Spring or Summer of his Pride.
Was worshipt, honour'd, almost deifi'd:
And whilst the Golden Angels did attend him,
What swarmes of Friends and Kindred did befriend him:
Perswading him, that give, and spend, and lend,
Were Virties which on Gentry do depend.
But though of late be seem'd in wealth to swim,
Yet many b
[...]se occasions do suck him.
The Prodigals Estate, like to a Flux.
The Mercer, Draper, and the Silk-man plucks.
The Tailor, Millener, Dogs, Drabs and Dice,
Trey-trip, or Passage, or the most at thrice:
At Irish, Tick-tack, Doublets, Draughts or Chess,
He flings his Money free with carelessness;
Kuff, Slam, Trump, Nod, Whisk, Hole, Saut, New Cut;
Unto the keeping of four Knaves he'll put.
Bowles, Shove-groate, Tennis, no Game comes amiss,
His Purse a Nurse for any body is:
His vain Expences daily suck and soak,
And be himself sucks only drink and smoak:
And thus the Prodigal, himself alone
Giv's suck to Thousands, and himself sucks none.
WINTER.
COLD, Moist, young Phlegmy Winter now doth le
In swadling Clothes, like new-born Infancie;
Bound up with Frosts, and Fur'd with Hails and Snows,
And like an Infant still he taller grows.
December is the first; And now the Sun
To th' Southward Tropick her swift Race hath run
[...].
This Month he's Hous'd in horned
Capricorn,
From thence begins to length the shortned Morn:
Through
Christendom with great Festivity,
Now's held, a Guest, (but blest) Nativity.
Old frozen
January next comes in,
Chilling the blood, and shrinking up the skin.
In
Aquarius now keeps the loved Sun,
And Northward his unwearied Race doth run,
The day much longer then it was before,
The Cold not lessned, but augmented more.
Now Toes, and Ears, and Fingers often freeze,
And Travellers somtimes their Noses leeze.
Moist snowie
February is my last,
I care not how the Winter-time doth hast;
In
Pisces now the Golden Sun doth shine,
And Northward still approaches to the line;
The Rivers now do ope, and Snows do melt,
And some warm Glances from the Sun are felt,
Which is increased by the lengthned day,
Until by's heat he drives all Cold away.
Printed and sold by Rob. Walton at the Globe and Compasses; at the West-end of St. Pauls Church, turning down towards Ludgate, where you may be fitted with All sorts of Maps and Copy-books, large or small, Coloured or not, the Marrow of Humane Learning, the Lawrel of Metaphysick, an Artificial Description of Logick, the Tree of Mans Life, His Majesty in Armour on Horsback, and underneath the Manner of his Riding through London the day before his Coronation, another of him in Parliament Robes, and underneath the Manner of his going to his Coronation, the King and Queen, the Story of David and Abigail, Orpheus Playing on his Musick, and Beasts about him, the Manner of the tortures used by the Heathen Emperours of Rome on the Christians, and a Comparison of the like bloody cruelties used by the Pope and that Party since they got up, a Description of the four Ages of Man, Childhood, Youth Middle-Age and Old Age, a Description of the four Elements, Earth, Water, Fie and Air, A Looking-Glasse for Youth, 1. The Devilentices Youth. 2. Wisdom gives good Advice to Youth. 3. Time declares his Experience to Youth. 4. Death sounds an Alarum to Youth. 5. Youth Reasons with Death. 6. The Soul speaks to the Devil. 7. All is Vanity. And 8. Of the Chief Good. The four Elements, each with Borders about them, and Verses, all these in large sheets, and many others, that here is not space to mention. And he is the oldest in London in that way, and doth truly say, as the Poet,
That when each Man keeps to his own Trade,
Then all thing will be better made.