The Crystal.

THIS crystal here,

That shines so clear,

And carries in its womb a little day,

Once hammer'd, will appear

Impure as dust, as dark as clay.

E'en such will prove

Thy face, my love,

When age shall soil the lustre of thine eyes,

And all that red remove

That on thy spicy lip now lies!

Nor can a hand

Again command,

By any art, these ruins into frame;

But they will sever'd stand,

And ne'er compose the former same.

Such is the case,

Love, of thy face;

Both desperate, in this you disagree;

Thy beauty needs must pass :

It, of itself, will constant be,

SONG.

DISTIL not poison in mine ears,
Aerial Syrens, nor untie
These sable fetters! yonder spheres
Dance to a silent harmony.

Could I but follow where you lead, Disrob'd of earth, and plum'd by air, Then I my tenuous self might spread, As quick as fancy every where.

But I'll make sallies now and then;
Thus can my unconfined eye
Take journey and return again,
Yet on her crystal couch still lie.

EDMUND PRESTWICH

Was author of " Hippolitus, translated out of Seneca, together with divers other poems," 1651, 12mo. Langbaine, who mentions this work, professes never to have seen it. See Prestwich's "Respublica," 1777.

DID

The Meteor.

[From 9 stanzas.]

you behold that glorious star, my dear, Which shin'd but now, methought, as bright As any other child of light,

And seem'd to have as good an interest there?
How suddenly it fell, our eyes

Pursuing it through all the spacious skies,
Through which the now extended flame

Had chalk'd the way to earth, from whence it
came ?

And were you not with wonder struck, to see
Those forms, which the creation had

At first in number perfect made,

Thus sometimes more, and sometimes less to be?

Or rather, in this second birth,

To see heaven copied out so near by earth,
As, were it not for their own fall,

We should not know which were th' original?

Fair one, these different lights do represent
Such as pretend unto the love

Of you, of which some meteors prove,
Some stars; some high-fix'd in love's firmament,
And some, that seem as bright and fair,
More basely humble, hover in the air
Of words, and with fine dexterous art
Do act a passion never touch'd their heart.

Yet these false glow-worm fires a while do shine Equal to the most heaven-born flame,

And so well counterfeit the same,

That they, though almost beastly, seem divine.
But should some blind unlucky chance
Deform you any ways, or make your wants
Vie greatness with your beauty, then
They drop to their own element again.

A remedy against Love.

[From 8 stanzas.]

1

Ir thou like her flowing tresses
Which the unshorn Phœbus stain,
Think what grief thy heart oppresses,
And how every curl's a chain,
Only made to keep thee fast
Till thy sentence be o'erpast.

If thou'rt wounded by her eyes,
Where thou thinkest Cupids lie,
Think thyself the sacrifice,

Those the priests that make thee die.
If her forehead beauteous show,
Think her forehead Cupid's bow.

If the roses thou hast seen

In her cheek still flourishing Argue that there dwells within

A calm and perpetual spring, Though she never us'd deceit, Believe all is counterfeit.

If her tempting voice have power
To amaze and ravish thee,