She's that fixt heav'n, which never moves.
II.
In
marble, steele, or porphyrie,
Who carves or stampes his armes or face,
Lookes it by rust or storme must dye:
This womans love no time can raze,
Hardned like ice in the sun's eye,
Or your
reflection in a glasse,
Which keepes possession, though you passe.
III.
We not behold a watches hand
To stir, nor plants or flowers to grow;
Must we infer that this doth stand,
And
therefore, that those do not blow?
This she acts calmer, like Heav'ns brand,
The stedfast
lightning, slow loves dart,
She kils, but ere we feele the smart.
IV.
Oh, she is
constant as the winde,
That revels in an ev'nings aire!
Certaine as wayes unto the blinde,
More reall then her flatt'ries are;
Gentle as chaines that honour binde,
More faithfull then an Hebrew Jew,
But as the divel not halfe so true.
AMYNTOR<31.1> FROM BEYOND THE SEA TO ALEXIS.<31.2>
A DIALOGUE.
Amyntor.
Alexis! 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.
Amyn. 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,
And call the helping winds to vent your thought.
Alex. 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
As yours, and burne as hot?
Am not I shot
With the selfe same artillery?
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:
Or if with her
By fire: ev'n there
I move in mine owne element.
<31.1> Endymion Porter?
<31.2> Lovelace himself.
CALLING LUCASTA FROM HER RETIREMENT.
ODE.
I.
From the dire
monument of thy black roome,
Wher now that vestal flame thou dost intombe,
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 calme<32.1> 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,<32.2>
Whilst winds in chains colder for<32.3> 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<32.4> musicall.
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 meane, to us.
XI.
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.
<32.1> Original has COLME.
<32.2> i.e. own.
<32.3> Original reads YOUR.
<32.4> Original has FIRE'S, but FIRE IS is required by the metre,
and it is probably what the poet wrote.
AMARANTHA.
A PASTORALL.<33.1>
Up 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;
Yet lovely 'twas and
strait, but fit;
Not made for her, but she to it:
By nature it sate close and free,
As the just bark unto the tree:
Unlike Love's martyrs of the towne,
All day imprison'd in a gown,
Who, rackt in silke 'stead of a dresse,
Are cloathed in a frame or presse,
And with that liberty and room,
The dead expatiate in a tombe.
No cabinets with curious washes,
Bladders and perfumed plashes;
No venome-temper'd water's here,
Mercury is banished this sphere:
Her payle's all this, in which wet glasse
She both doth
cleanse and view her face.
Far hence, all Iberian smells,
Hot amulets, Pomander spells,
Fragrant gales, cool ay'r, the fresh
And naturall odour of her flesh,
Proclaim her sweet from th' wombe as morne.
Those colour'd things were made, not borne.
Which, fixt within their narrow
straits,
Do looke like their own counterfeyts.
So like the Provance rose she walkt,
Flowerd with blush, with verdure stalkt;
Th' officious wind her loose hayre curles,
The dewe her happy linnen purles,
But wets a tresse, which instantly
Sol with a crisping beame doth dry.
Into the garden is she come,
Love and delight's Elisium;
If ever earth show'd all her store,
View her discolourd budding floore;
Here her glad eye she largely feedes,
And stands 'mongst them, as they 'mong weeds;
The flowers in their best aray
As to their queen their
tribute pay,
And
freely to her lap proscribe
A daughter out of ev'ry tribe.
Thus as she moves, they all bequeath
At once the
incense of their
breath.
The noble Heliotropian
Now turnes to her, and knowes no sun.
And as her
glorious face doth vary,
So opens loyall golden Mary<33.2>
Who, if but glanced from her sight,
Straight shuts again, as it were night.
The
violet (else lost ith' heap)
Doth spread fresh
purple for each step,
With whose
humility possest,
Sh' inthrones the Poore Girle<33.3> in her breast:
The July-flow'r<33.4> that hereto thriv'd,