III.

Coward fate degenʼrate man
Like little children uses, when

He whips us first, untill we weepe,
Then, 'cause we still a weeping keepe.

IV.

Then from thy firme selfe never swerve;
Teares fat the griefe that they should sterve;
Iron decrees of destinie

Are ner'e wipe't out with a wet eye.

V.

But this way you may gaine the field,
Oppose but sorrow, and 'twill yield;
One gallant thorough-made resolve
Doth starry influence dissolve.

TO A LADY

THAT DESIRED ME I WOULD BEARE MY

PART WITH HER IN A SONG.

MADAM A. L.1

HIS is the prittiest motion:

Madam, th' alarums of a drumme

That cals your lord, set to your cries,
To mine are sacred symphonies.

"Madam A. L." is not in MS. copy. "The Lady A. L.” and "Madam A. L." may very probably be two different persons: for Carew in his Poems (edit. 1651, 8vo. p. 2) has a piece "To A. L.; Persuasions to Love," and it is possible that the

What, though 'tis said I have a voice;

I know 'tis but that hollow noise

Which (as it through my pipe doth speed)
Bitterns do carol through a reed;

A. L. of Carew, and the A. L. mentioned above, are identical. The following poem is printed in Durfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, v. 120, but whether it was written by Lovelace, and addressed to the same lady, whom he represents above as requesting him to join her in a song, or whether it was the production of another pen, I cannot at all decide. It is not particularly unlike the style of the author of Lucasta. At all events, I am not aware that it has been appropriated by anybody else, and as I am reluctant to omit any piece which Lovelace is at all likely to have composed, I give these lines just as I find them in Durfey, where they are set to music:

66

"To his fairest VALENTINE Mrs. A. L.

Come, pretty birds, present your lays,
And learn to chaunt a goddess praise;
Ye wood-nymphs, let your voices be
Employ'd to serve her deity:
And warble forth, ye virgins nine,
Some music to my Valentine.

"Her bosom is love's paradise,

There is no heav'n but in her eyes;
She's chaster than the turtle-dove,
And fairer than the queen of love:
Yet all perfections do combine
To beautifie my Valentine.

"She's Nature's choicest cabinet,

Where honour, beauty, worth and wit

Are all united in her breast.

The graces claim an interest:

All virtues that are most divine
Shine clearest in my Valentine."

In the same key with monkeys jiggs,

Or dirges of proscribed piggs,

Or the soft Serenades above

In calme of night,1 when cats make3 love.

Was ever such a consort seen!
Fourscore and fourteen with forteen?
Yet sooner they'l agree, one paire,
Then we in our spring-winter aire ;
They may imbrace, sigh, kiss, the rest:
Our breath knows nought but east and west.
Thus have I heard to childrens cries

The faire nurse still such lullabies,

That, well all sayd (for what there lay),

The pleasure did the sorrow pay.

Sure ther's another way to save
Your phansie, madam; that's to have
('Tis but a petitioning kinde fate)
The organs sent to Bilingsgate,
Where they to that soft murm'ring quire
Shall teach you all you can admire!

'Nights-Editor's MS. 2 Where-Ibid.

3 Do-Ibid.

There is here either an interpolation in the printed copy, or

an hiatus in the MS. The latter reads:

:

"Yet may I 'mbrace, sigh, kisse, the rest," &c.,

thus leaving out a line and a half or upward of the poem, as it

is printed in Lucasta.

5 MS. reads:-"Youre phansie, madam,"

omitting "that's to have."

6 Original and MS. have reach.

Or do but heare, how love-bang Kate
In pantry darke for freage of mate,

With edge of steele the square wood shapes,
And Dido1 to it chaunts or scrapes.

The merry Phaeton oth' carre

You'l vow makes a melodious jarre ;

Sweeter and sweeter whisleth He

To un-anointed2 axel-tree;

Such swift notes he and 's wheels do run;
For me, I yeeld him Phæbus son.

Say, faire Comandres, can it be

You should ordaine a mutinie?

This must refer, I suppose, to the ballad of QUEEN DIDO. which the woman sings as she works. The signification of lovebang is not easily determined. Bang, in Suffolk, is a term applied to a particular kind of cheese; but I suspect that "lovebang Kate" merely signifies "noisy Kate" here. As to the old ballad of Dido, see Stafford Smith's Musica Antiqua, i. 10, ii. 158; and Collier's Extracts from the Registers of the Stationers' Company, i. 98. I subjoin the first stanza of "Dido" as printed in the Musica Antiqua :

·

"Dido was the Carthage Queene,

And lov'd the Troian knight,

That wandring many coasts had seene,

And many a dreadfull fight.

As they a-hunting road, a show'r

Drove them in a loving bower,
Down to a darksome cave:

Where Enæas with his charmes

Lock't Queene Dido in his armes

And had what he would have."

A somewhat different version is given in Durfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, vi. 192-3.

2 An unanoynted-MS.

K

For where I howle, all accents fall,
As kings harangues, to one and all.1

Ulisses art is now withstood : 2
You ravish both with sweet and good;
Saint Syren, sing, for I dare heare,
But when I ope', oh, stop your eare.

Far lesse be't æmulation

To passe me, or in trill or3 tone,

Like the thin throat of Philomel,

4

And the smart lute who should excell,

As if her soft chords should begin,
And strive for sweetnes with the pin.5

Yet can I musick too; but such
As is beyond all voice or touch;
My minde can in faire order chime,

Whilst my true heart still beats the time;
My soule['s] so full of harmonie,

That it with all parts can agree;

If you winde up to the highest fret,7

It shall descend an eight from it,

And when you shall vouchsafe to fall,
Sixteene above it shall call,

you

This and the three preceding lines are not in MS.

2 Alluding of course to the very familiar legend of Ulysses

and the Syrens.

3 A quaver (a well-known musical expression).

A-MS.

6 And-MS.

5 A musical peg.

7 A piece of wire attached to the finger-board of a guitar.