Page images
PDF
EPUB

SONGS.

BY THOMAS CAREW, ESQ.

I'L

MURDRING BEAUTY.

gaze no more on her bewitching face, Since ruine harbours there in every place : For my enchanted foul alike fhe drowns

5

With calms and tempefts of her smiles and frowns.
I'l love no more those cruel eyes of hers,
Which, pleas'd or anger'd, ftill are murderers.
For if the dart (like lightning) thro' the ayr
Her beams of wrath, the kils me with despair;
If the behold me with a pleasing eye,

I furfet with exceffe of joy, and dye.

ETERNITY OF LOVE PROTESTED.

How ill doth he deferve a lover's name,

Whose pale weak flame

Cannot retain

10

His heat in spight of absence or disdain;
But doth at once, like paper fet on fire,
Burn and expire!

True love can never change his feat,
Nor did he ever love that could retreat.

That noble flame, which my breft keeps alive,
Shall ftill furvive

When my foule's filed;

Nor fhall my love dye when my bodye's dead;
That shall wait on me to the lower shade,

And never fade.

My very afhes in their urn

Shall, like a hallowed lamp, for ever burn.

5

10

15

THE FAREWELL.

BY HENRY KING, BISHOP OF CHICHESTER.'

*

Splendidis longùm valedico nugis.

FAREWELL, fond Love, under whofe childish whip
I have ferv'd out a weary prentiship;

Thou that haft made me thy fcorn'd property,
To dote on rocks, but yielding loves to fly :
Go, bane of my dear quiet and content,
Now practise on fome other patient.

5

Farewell, falfe Hope, that fann'd my warm defire,
Till it had rais'd a wild unruly fire,

Which nor fighs cool, nor tears extinguish can,
Although my eyes out-flow'd the ocean :
Forth of my thoughts for ever, thing of air,
Begun in errour, finish'd in despair.

10

Farewell, vain World, upon whose restless stage Twixt Love and Hope, I have foold out my age; Henceforth, ere fue to thee for

my redress,

Ile wooe the wind, or court the wilderness;

And buried from the dayes difcovery,

Study a flow yet certain way to dy.

15

My woful monument fhall be a cell,

The murmur of the purling brook my knell; 20
My lafting epitaph the rock fhall grone:
Thus when fad lovers ask the weeping stone,
What wretched thing does in that center lie?
The hollow eccho will reply, 'twas I.

THE STORY OF PHOEBUS AND DAPHNE

APPLIED.

BY EDMUND WALLER, ESQ.

THIRSIS, a youth of the inspired train,
Fair Sacharissa lov'd, but lov'd in vain :
Like Phœbus fung the no leffe amorous boy;
Like Daphne she, as lovely and as coy :
With numbers he the flying nimph pursues,
With numbers fuch as Phoebus felf might use:
Such is the chafe when love and fancy leads
Ore craggy mountains, and through flowry meads;
Invok'd to teftifie the lovers care,

5

10

Or form fome image of his cruell fair.
Urg'd with his fury, like a wounded deer,
Ore these he fled; and, now approaching near,
Had reacht the nimph with his harmonious lay,
Whom all his charms could not incline to ftay;
Yet what he sung in his immortal strain,
Though unsuccessfull, was not fung in vain :
All, but the nimph that should redress his wrong,
Attend his passion, and approve his fong.
Like Phœbus thus, acquiring unfought praise,
He catcht at love, and fill'd his arm with bayes,

15

« PreviousContinue »