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By any force, or any art,

Be brought to move one step from thee,
Mayst thou no passion have for me!

If my busy' Imagination

Do not thee in all things fashion,
So that all fair species be
Hieroglyphic marks of thee;
If when she her sports does keep
(The lower soul being all asleep)
She play one dream, with all her art,
Where thou hast not the longest part
If aught get place in my remembrance,
Without some badge of thy resemblance—
So that thy parts become to me
A kind of art of memory ;-
If my Understanding do
Seek any knowledge but of you;
If she do near thy body prize
Her bodies of philosophies;
If she to the Will do show
Aught desirable but you;
Or, if that would not rebel,
Should she another doctrine tell;
If my Will do not resign

All her liberty to thine;

If she would not follow thee,

Though Fate and thou should disagree;

And if (for I a curse will give,

Such as shall force thee to believe)

My soul be not entirely thine;

May thy dear body ne'er be mine!

THE PASSIONS.

FROM Hate, Fear, Hope, Anger, and Envy, free,
And all the passions else that be,
In vain I boast of liberty,

In vain this state a freedom call;
Since I have Love, and Love is all:
Sot that I am, who think it fit to brag
That I have no disease besides the plague!
So in a zeal the sons of Israel

Sometimes upon their idols fell,

And they deposed the powers of hell;
Baal and Astarté down they threw,
And Acharon and Moloch too :

All this imperfect piety did no good,
Whilst yet, alas! the calf of Bethel stood.

my

vine

Fondly I boast, that I have dress'd
With painful art, and that the wine
Is of a taste rich and divine;
Since Love, by mixing poison there,
Has made it worse than vinegar.
Love even the taste of nectar changes so,
That Gods choose rather water here below.

Fear, Anger, Hope, all passions else that be,
Drive this one tyrant out of

me,

And practise all your tyranny!

The change of ills some good will do:
The' oppressed wretched Indians so,

Being slaves by the great Spanish monarch made,

Call in the States of Holland to their aid.

WISDOM.

'Tis mighty wise that you would now be thought,
With your grave rules from musty morals brought;
Through which some streaks too of divinity ran,
Partly of Monk and partly Puritan ;

With tedious repetitions too you ’ave ta’en
Often the name of vanity in vain :

Things which, I take it, friend, you'd ne'er recite,
Should she I love but say to' you, "Come at night."
The wisest king refused all pleasures quite,
Till Wisdom from above did him enlight;
But, when that gift his ignorance did remove,
Pleasures he chose, and placed them all in love.
And, if by' event the counsels may be seen,
This Wisdom 'twas that brought the southern
queen :

She came not, like a good old wife, to know
The wholesome nature of all plants that grow;
Nor did so far from her own country roam,
To cure scald heads and broken shins at home:
She came for that, which more befits all wives,
The art of giving, not of saving, lives.

THE DESPAIR.

BENEATH this gloomy shade,
By Nature only for my sorrows made,
I'll spend this voice in cries;

In tears I'll waste these

By Love so vainly fed;

eyes,

So Lust, of old, the Deluge punished.

"Ah, wretched youth!" said I;

"Ah, wretched youth!" twice did I sadly cry; "Ah, wretched youth!" the fields and floods reply.

When thoughts of Love I entertain,

I meet no words but " Never," and " In vain.” "Never," alas! that dreadful name

Which fuels the internal flame : "Never" my time to come must waste; "In vain" torments the present and the past. “In vain, in vain,” said I;

“In vain, in vain!" twice did I sadly cry ;
“ In vain, in vain!" the fields and floods reply.

No more shall fields or floods do so;
For I to shades more dark and silent go:
All this world's noise appears to me
A dull, ill-acted comedy:

No comfort to my wounded sight,
In the sun's busy and impertinent light.

Then down I laid my head,

Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead, And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.

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Ah, sottish Soul!" said I,

When back to' its cage again I saw it fly;

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Fool, to resume her broken chain,

And row her galley here again!

Fool, to that body to return

Where it condemn'd and destin'd is to burn!

Once dead, how can it be,

Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,

That thou shouldst come to live it o'er again in me?"

THE WISH.

WELL then; I now do plainly see
This busy world and I shall ne'er agree;
The very honey of all earthly joy
Does of all meats the soonest cloy;
And they, methinks, deserve my pity,
Who for it can endure the stings,
The crowd, and buz, and murmurings,
Of this great hive, the city.

Ah, yet, ere I descend to the' grave,
May I a small house and large garden have!
And a few friends, and many books, both true,
Both wise, and both delightful too!

And, since love ne'er will from me flee,

A mistress moderately fair,

And good as guardian-angels are,

Only beloved, and loving me!

Oh, fountains! when in you shall I Myself, eased of unpeaceful thought, espy? Oh, fields! oh, woods! when, when shall I be made The happy tenant of your shade?

Here's the spring-head of pleasure's flood; Where all the riches lie, that she

Has coin'd and stamp'd for good.

Pride and ambition here,

Only in far-fetch'd metaphors appear;

Here nought but winds can hurtful murmurs scatter, And nought but echo flatter.

VOL. II.

D

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