Next1 the great and powerful hand Whose art even Nature hath out-done; Intend, not perfect, what is man, These certainely we must prefer, Who mended what she wrought, and her; And kind incomparable fayre After this travell of mine eyes This and the next eleven lines are not in MS. 2 The MS. reads she. 3 The MS. reads for but th' "the." 4 In the houses of such as could afford the expense, the walls of rooms were formerly lined with tapestry instead of paper. Wee bound our loose hayre with the vine, One swell'd an oriental bowle To Chloris! Chloris! Heare, oh, heare! Now streight the Indians richest prize Cloudes are sent up on wings of thyme, So drencht we our oppressing cares, If this were not a Paradice In all, except these harmlesse sins: Behold! flew in two cherubins, Cleare as the skye from whence they came, And brighter than the sacred flame; The boy adorn'd with modesty, Yet armed so with majesty, A sword and casket, and did looke Like Love in armes ; he wrote but five, Yet spake eighteene: each grace did strive, So MS.; original has a. 2 An allusion to the fable of Jupiter and Ganymede. And twenty Cupids thronged forth, Or have you seene the lightning shrowd, So through her vayle her bright haire flew, But thinne, because her eyes were neere. 2 To eating worme or fouler storme; No serpent lurke to do them harme; No sharpe frost cut, no North-winde teare, 3 But may the sun and gentle weather, When you are both growne ripe together, "Till th' sithe is snatcht away from Time. 1 Mix'd with droppinge snow-MS. 2 This and the succeeding line are not in MS. 3 This and the six following lines are not in MS. 4 Here we have a figure, which reminds us of Jonson's famous lines on the Countess of Pembroke; but certainly in this instance the palm of superiority is due to Lovelace, whose conception of Time having his scythe snatched from him is bolder and finer than that of the earlier and greater poet. THE SCRUTINIE. SONG. SET BY MR. THOMAS CHARLES.1 W I. HY shouldst thou sweare I am forsworn, Since thine I vow'd to be? Lady, it is already Morn, And 'twas last night I swore to thee II. Have I not lov'd thee much and long, III. Not but all joy in thy browne haire But I must search the black and faire, Like skilfulle minerallists that sound For treasure in un-plow'd-up ground. 'This poem appears in Wits Interpreter, by John Cotgrave, ed. 1662, p. 214, under the title of " On his Mistresse, who unjustly taxed him of leaving her off." 2 So Cotgrave. Lucasta reads should you. IV. Then if, when I have lov'd my1 round, PRINCESSE LOYSA3 DRAWING. SAW a little Diety, Whom Venus, at first blush, surpris'd, Now wanton, and ith' coole oth' Sunne And thousands more, whom he had slaine; I will un-God that toye! cri'd she; Then markt she Syrinx running fast To Pan's imbraces, with the haste Shee fled him once, whose reede-pipe rent He finds now a new Instrument. 1 thee-Cotgrave. 2 In spoil-Cotgrave. 3 Probably the second daughter of Frederic and Elizabeth of Bohemia, b. 1622. See ToWNEND's Descendants of the Stuarts, 1858, p. 7. |