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Heaven does not impart

Such a grace as to love unto every one's heart;
For many may wish

To be wounded, and miss:

Then blessed be love's fire,

And more blessed her eyes, that first taught me desire.

TYRANNIC LOVE; OR, THE ROYAL MARTYR. 1669.

ST. CATHERINE ASLEEP.

OU pleasing dreams of love and sweet delight, Appear before this slumbering Virgin's sight: Soft visions set her free

From mournful piety;

Let her sad thoughts from heaven retire;

And let the melancholy love

Of those remoter joys above

Give place to your more sprightly fire;

Let purling streams be in her fancy seen,

And flowery meads, and vales of cheerful green;

And in the midst of deathless groves

Soft sighing wishes lie,

And smiling hopes fast by,

And just beyond them ever-laughing loves.

THE COURSE OF LOVE.

AH, how sweet it is to love!

Ah, how gay is young desire!
And what pleasing pains we prove
When we first approach love's fire!
Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.

Sighs, which are from lovers blown,
Do but gently heave the heart:
Even the tears they shed alone,

Cure, like trickling balm, their smart.

Lovers when they lose their breath,

Bleed away in easy death.

Love and time with reverence use;
Treat them like a parting friend,
Nor the golden gifts refuse,

Which in youth sincere they send:
For each year their price is more,
And they less simple than before.
Love, like spring-tides, full and high,
Swells in every youthful vein;
But each tide does less supply,
Till they quite shrink in again :
If a flow in age appear,

'Tis but rain, and runs not clear.

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HO ever saw a noble sight,

WHO

That never viewed a brave sea-fight! Hang up your bloody colours in the air,

Up with your lights, and your nettings prepare; Your merry mates cheer with a lusty bold spright, Now each man his brindice, and then to the fight. St. George! St. George! we cry,

The shouting Turks reply.

Oh now it begins, and the gun-room grows hot,

Ply it with culverin and with small shot;

Hark, does it not thunder? no, 'tis the gun's roar,

The neighbouring billows are turned into gore;
Now each man must resolve to die,

For here the coward cannot fly.

Drums and trumpets toll the knell,

And culverins the passing bell.

Now, now they grapple, and now board amain;
Blow up the hatches, they're off all again:

Give them a broadside, the dice run at all,

Down comes the mast, and yard and tacklings fall;
She grows giddy now, like blind Fortune's wheel,
She sinks there, she sinks, she turns up her keel.
Who ever beheld so noble a sight,

As this so brave, so bloody sea-fight!

ALBION AND ALBANUS.

1685.

NEREIDS RISING FROM THE SEA.

FROM the low palace of old father Ocean,
Come we in pity our cares to deplore;
Sea-racing dolphins are trained for our motion,
Moony tides swelling to roll us ashore.

Every nymph of the flood, her tresses rending,
Throws off her armlet of pearl in the main;
Neptune in anguish his charge unattending,
Vessels are foundering, and vows are in vain.

KING ARTHUR; OR, THE BRITISH WORTHY. 1691.

YOUR

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OUR hay it is mowed, and your corn is reaped:
Your barns will be full, and your hovels heaped:

Come, my boys, come;

Come, my boys, come;

And merrily roar out harvest home!

Harvest home,

Harvest home;

And merrily roar out harvest home!

Come, my boys, come, &c.

*This rustic madrigal, with its rant against the parsons, forms part of the enchantments of Merlin, and is sung by Comus and pea

sants.

The introduction of Comus is as anomalous as the allusion to

tithes.

We have cheated the parson, we'll cheat him again, For why should a blockhead have one in ten?

One in ten,

One in ten;

For why should a blockhead have one in ten,

For prating so long like a book-learned sot,
Till pudding and dumpling burn to pot,
Burn to pot,

Burn to pot;

Till pudding and dumpling burn to pot.

Burn to pot, &c.

We'll toss off our. ale till we cannot stand:
And hoigh for the honour of Old England:
Old England,

Old England;

And hoigh for the honour of Old England.

Old England, &c.

CLEOMENES; OR, THE SPARTAN HERO. 1692.

FIDELITY.

No, no, poor suffering heart, no change endeavour,

Choose to sustain the smart, rather than leave her;
My ravished eyes behold such charms about her,
I can die with her, but not live without her;*
One tender sigh of hers to see me languish,
Will more than pay the price of my past anguish ;
Beware, O cruel fair, how you smile on me,
'Twas a kind look of yours that has undone me.
Love has in store for me one happy minute,
And she will end my pain who did begin it;
Then no day void of bliss, of pleasure, leaving,
Ages shall slide away without perceiving :

* As for the women, though we scorn and flout 'em,
We may live with, but cannot live without 'em.
The Will.

Cupid shall guard the door, the more to please us,
And keep out Time and Death, when they would seize us;
Time and Death shall depart, and say, in flying,
Love has found out a way to live by dying.

LOVE TRIUMPHANT; OR, NATURE WILL PREVAIL. 1693.

THE TYRANT JEALOUSY.

WHAT state of life can be so blessed

As love, that warms a lover's breast?

Two souls in one, the same desire
To grant the bliss, and to require!
But if in heaven a hell we find,
"Tis all from thee,

O Jealousy!

"Tis all from thee,

Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy,

Thou tyrant of the mind!

All other ills, though sharp they prove,
Serve to refine, and perfect love:
In absence, or unkind disdain,
Sweet hope relieves the lover's pain.
But ah! no cure but death we find,
To set us free

From Jealousy:

O Jealousy!

Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy,

Thou tyrant of the mind.

False in thy glass all objects are,
Some set too near, and some too far;
Thou art the fire of endless night,
The fire that burns and gives no light.
All torments of the damned we find
In only thee,

O Jealousy!

Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy,

Thou tyrant of the mind!

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