AMYNTOR' FROM BEYOND THE

SEA TO ALEXIS.2

A DIALOGUE.

Amyntor.

LEXIS! ah Alexis! can it be,

Though so much wet and drie
Doth drowne our eye,

Thou keep'st thy winged voice from me?

Alexis.

Amyntor, a profounder sea, I feare,
Hath swallow'd me, where now
My armes do row,

I floate i'th' ocean of a teare.

Lucasta weepes, lest I look back and tread

Your Watry land againe.

I'd through the raine;

Such showrs are quickly over-spread.

Conceive how joy, after this short divorce,
Will circle her with beames,

When, like your streames,

You shall rowle back with kinder force,

Amyn.

1

Endymion Porter?

2 Lovelace himself.

Alex.

And call the helping winds to vent your thought.
Amyntor! Chloris! where

Or in what sphere

Say, may that glorious fair be sought?

Amyn. She's now the center of these armes e're blest, Whence may she never move,

Till Time and Love

Haste to their everlasting rest.

Alex. Ah subtile swaine! doth not my flame rise high

And can I breath without her air?-Amyn.
Why, then,

From thy tempestuous earth,

Where blood and dearth

Raigne 'stead of kings, agen

Wafte thy selfe over, and lest storms from far

Arise, bring in our sight

The seas delight,

Lucasta, that bright northerne star.

Alex. But as we cut the rugged deepe, I feare
The green god stops his fell

Chariot of shell,

And smooths the maine to ravish her.

Amyn. Oh no, the prince of waters' fires are done; He as his empire's old,

And rivers, cold;

His queen now runs abed to th' sun;

But all his treasure he shall ope' that day:
Tritons shall sound: his fleete

In silver meete,

And to her their rich offrings pay.

Alex. We flye, Amyntor, not amaz'd how sent
By water, earth, or aire:

ROM the dire monument of thy black roome,
Wher now that vestal flame thou dost in-

tombe,

As in the inmost cell of all earths wombe.

II.

Sacred Lucasta, like the pow'rfull ray

Of heavenly truth, passe this Cimmerian way,
Whilst all the standards of your beames display.

III.

Arise and climbe our whitest, highest hill;

There your sad thoughts with joy and wonder fill, And see seas calme1 as earth, earth as your will.

IV.

Behold! how lightning like a taper flyes,
And guilds your chari't, but ashamed dyes,
Seeing it selfe out-gloried by your eyes.

V.

Threatning and boystrous tempests gently bow, And to your steps part in soft paths, when now There no where hangs a cloud, but on your brow.

VI.

No showrs but 'twixt your lids, nor gelid snow,
But what your whiter, chaster brest doth ow, 2
Whilst winds in chains colder for3 sorrow blow.

VII.

Shrill trumpets doe only sound to eate,
Artillery hath loaden ev'ry dish with meate,

And drums at ev'ry health alarmes beate.

VIII.

All things Lucasta, but Lucasta, call,

Trees borrow tongues, waters in accents fall,

The aire doth sing, and fire is musicall.

1 Original has colme.

2 i. e. own.

3 Original reads your.

Original has fire's, but fire is is required by the metre, and

it is probably what the poet wrote.

IX.

Awake from the dead vault in which you dwell,
All's loyall here, except your thoughts rebell
Which, so let loose, often their gen'rall quell.

X.

See! she obeys! By all obeyed thus,

No storms, heats, colds, no soules contentious,
Nor civill war is found; I

XI.

meane, to us.

Lovers and angels, though in heav'n they show,
And see the woes and discords here below,
What they not feele, must not be said to know.

AMARANTHA.

A PASTORALL.1

P with the jolly bird of light

Who sounds his third retreat to night;
Faire Amarantha from her bed

Ashamed starts, and rises red

As the carnation-mantled morne,

Who now the blushing robe doth spurne,

And puts on angry gray, whilst she,

The envy of a deity,

Arayes her limbes, too rich indeed

To be inshrin'd in such a weed;

The punctuation of this piece is in the original edition singularly corrupt. I have found it necessary to amend it throughout.