Yee pow'rs! if e're

And I am candied ice.

I shall be forc❜t unto my sepulcher,

Or violently hurl'd into my urne,

Oh make me choose rather to freeze than burne.

THE GRASSEHOPPER.

TO MY NOBLE FRIEND, MR. CHARLES COTTON.1

ODE.

I.

H thou, that swing'st upon the waving eare
Of some well-filled oaten beard,3

Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious teare
Dropt thee from Heav'n, where now
th'art reard.

1 Charles Cotton the elder, father of the poet' He died in 1658. This poem is extracted in Censura Literaria, ix. 352, as a favourable specimen of Lovelace's poetical genius. The text is manifestly corrupt, but I have endeavoured to amend it. In Elton's Specimens of Classic Poets, 1814, i. 148, is a translation of Anacreon's Address to the Cicada, or Tree-Locust (Lovelace's grasshopper?), which is superior to the modern poem, being less prolix, and more natural in its manner. In all Lovelace's longer pieces there are too many obscure and feeble conceits, and too many evidences of a leaning to the metaphysical and antithetical school of poetry.

2 Original has haire.

3 i. e. a beard of oats.

4 Meleager's invocation to the tree-locust commences thus in Elton's translation :

"Oh shrill-voiced insect! that with dew-drops sweet
Inebriate-

See also Cowley's Anacreontiques, No. X. The Grasshopper.

II.

The joyes of earth and ayre are thine intire,

That with thy feet and wings dost hop and flye;
And when thy poppy workes, thou dost retire
To thy carv'd acorn-bed to lye.

III.

Up with the day, the Sun thou welcomst then,
Sportst in the guilt plats1 of his beames,
And all these merry dayes mak'st merry men,2
Thy selfe, and melancholy streames.

IV.

But ah, the sickle! golden eares are cropt;
Ceres and Bacchus bid good night;

Sharpe frosty fingers all your flowrs have topt,
And what sithes spar'd, winds shave off quite.

V.

Poore verdant foole! and now green ice, thy joys
Large and as lasting as thy peirch3 of grasse,

1i.e. horizontal lines tinged with gold. See Halliwell's Glossary of Archaic Words, 1860, art. PLAT (seventh and eighth meaning). The late editors of Nares cite this passage from Lucasta as an illustration of guilt-plats, which they define to be "plots of gold." This definition, unsupported by any other evidence, is not very satisfactory, and certainly it has no obvious application here.

2 Randolph says:—

66

toiling ants perchance delight to hear The summer musique of the gras-hopper."

Poems, 1640, p. 90. It is a question, perhaps, whether Lovelace intended by the grasshopper the cicada or the locusta. See Sir Thomas Browne's Inquiries into Vulgar Errors (Works, by Wilkins, 1836, iii. 93). 3 Perch.

Bid us lay in 'gainst winter raine, and poize
Their flouds with an o'erflowing glasse.

VI.

Thou best of men and friends? we will create
A genuine summer in each others breast;
And spite of this cold Time and frosen Fate,
Thaw us a warme seate to our rest.

VII.

Our sacred harthes shall burne eternally
As vestal flames; the North-wind, he
Shall strike his frost-stretch'd winges, dissolve
and flye

This Etna in epitome.

VIII.

Dropping December shall come weeping in,
Bewayle th' usurping of his raigne;

But when in show'rs of old Greeke1 we beginne,
Shall crie, he hath his crowne againe !

IX.

Night as cleare Hesper shall our tapers whip
From the light casements, where we play,

And the darke hagge from her black mantle strip,
And sticke there everlasting day.

X.

Thus richer then untempted kings are we,

That asking nothing, nothing need: Though lord of all what seas imbrace, yet he That wants himselfe, is poore indeed.

i.e. old Greek wine.

AN ELEGIE.

ON THE DEATH OF MRS. CASSANDRA COTTON,

ONLY SISTER TO MR. C. COTTON.'

ITHER with hallowed steps as is the ground,
That must enshrine this saint with lookes

profound,

And sad aspects as the dark vails

you weare, Virgins opprest, draw gently, gently neare; Enter the dismall chancell of this roome,

Where each pale guest stands fixt a living tombe;
With trembling hands helpe to remove this earth
To its last death and first victorious birth:
Let gums and incense fume, who are at strife
To enter th' hearse and breath in it new life;
Mingle your steppes with flowers as you goe,
Which, as they haste to fade, will speake your woe.

And when y' have plac't your tapers on her urn,
How poor a tribute 'tis to weep and mourn!
That flood the channell of your eye-lids fils,
When you lose trifles, or what's lesse, your wills.
If you'l be worthy of these obsequies,

Be blind unto the world, and drop your eyes;

1 Cassandra Cotton, only daughter of Sir George Cotton, of Warblenton, co. Sussex, and of Bedhampton, co. Hants, died some time before 1649, unmarried. She was the sister of Charles Cotton the elder, and aunt to the poet. See Walton's Angler, ed. Nicolas, Introduction, clxvi.

H

Waste and consume, burn downward as this fire
That's fed no more: so willingly expire;

Passe through the cold and obscure narrow way,
Then light your torches at the spring of day,
There with her triumph in your victory.
Such joy alone and such solemnity
Becomes this funerall of virginity.

Or, if you faint to be so blest, oh heare!
If not to dye, dare but to live like her:
Dare to live virgins, till the honour'd age
Of thrice fifteen cals matrons on the stage,
Whilst not a blemish or least staine is seene
On your white roabe 'twixt fifty and fifteene;
But as it in your swathing-bands was given,
Bring't in your winding sheet unsoyl❜d to Heav'n.
Dære to do purely, without compact good,
Or herald, by no one understood

But him, who now in thanks bows either knee
For th' early benefit and secresie.

Dare to affect a serious holy sorrow,

To which delights of pallaces are narrow,
And, lasting as their smiles, dig you a roome,
Where practise the probation of your tombe
With ever-bended knees and piercing pray'r,
Smooth the rough passe through craggy earth to ay'r;
Flame there as lights that shipwrackt mariners
May put in safely, and secure their feares,
Who, adding to your joyes, now owe you theirs.
Virgins, if thus you dare but courage take
To follow her in life, else through this lake