THE DEDICATION.

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE JOHN

SIR,

Το

LOVELACE, ESQUIRE.1

SUCASTA (fair, but hapless maid!)
Once flourisht underneath the shade
Of
your illustrious Mother; now,

An orphan grown, she bows to you!
you, her vertues' noble heir;

Oh may she find protection there!

Nor let her welcome be the less,

'Cause a rough hand makes her address:
One (to whom foes the Muses are)
Born and bred up in rugged war:

This gentleman was the eldest son of John, second Lord Lovelace of Hurley, co. Berks, by Anne, daughter of Thomas, Earl of Cleveland. The first part of Lucasta was inscribed by the poet himself to Lady Lovelace, his mother.

For, conscious how unfit I am,
I only have pronounc'd her name
To waken pity in your brest,

And leave her tears to plead the rest.

SIR,

Your most obedient

Servant and kinsman

DUDLEY POSTHUMUS-LOVELACE.

POEMS.

TO LVCASTA.

HER RESERVED LOOKS.

UCASTA, frown, and let me die,
But smile, and see, I live;
The sad indifference of your eye
Both kills and doth reprieve.

You hide our fate within its screen;
We feel our judgment, ere we hear.
So in one picture I have seen
An angel here, the devil there.

LUCASTA LAUGHING.

EARK, how she laughs aloud,
Although the world put on its shrowd:
Wept at by the fantastic crowd,

Who cry one drop, let fall

From her, might save the universal ball.
She laughs again

At our ridiculous pain;
And at our merry misery

She laughs, until she cry.

Sages, forbear

That ill-contrived tear,

Although your fear

Doth barricado hope from your soft ear.
That which still makes her mirth to flow,
Is our sinister-handed woe,

Which downwards on its head doth go,
And, ere that it is sown, doth grow.
This makes her spleen contract,

And her just pleasure feast:

For the unjustest act

Is still the pleasant'st jest.

NIGHT.

TO LUCASTA.

IGHT! loathed jaylor of the lock'd up sun,
And tyrant-turnkey on committed day,
Bright eyes lye fettered in thy dungeon,
And Heaven it self doth thy dark wards
obey.

Thou dost arise our living hell;

With thee grones, terrors, furies dwell;

Until Lucasta doth awake,

And with her beams these heavy chains off shake.

Behold! with opening her almighty lid,

Bright eyes break rowling, and with lustre spread,
And captive day his chariot mounted is;