Let it not your wonder move, / Less your laughter, that I love. / Though I now write fifty years, / I have had, and have, my peers; / Poets, though divine, are men, / Some have lov'd as old again. / And it is not always face, / Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace; / Or the feature, or the youth. / But the language and the truth, / With the ardour and the passion, / Gives the lover weight and fashion. / If you then will read the story, / First prepare you to be sorry / That you never knew till now / Either whom to love or how; / But be glad, as soon with me, / When you know that this is she / Of whose beauty it was sung; / She shall make the old man young, / Keep the middle age at stay, / And let nothing high decay, / Till she be the reason why / All the world for love may die.

See the chariot at hand here of Love, / Wherein my lady rideth! / Each that draws is a swan or a dove, / And well the car Love guideth. / As she goes, all hearts do duty / Unto her beauty; / And enamour'd, do wish, so they might / But enjoy such a sight, / That they still were to run by her side, / Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride. / Do but look on her eyes, they do light / All that Love's world compriseth! / Do but look on her hair, it is bright / As Love's star when it riseth! / Do but mark, her forehead's smoother / Than words that soothe her; / And from her arched brows, such a grace / Sheds itself through the face / As alone there triumphs to the life / All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife. / Have you seen but a bright lily grow, / Before rude hands have touch'd it? / Ha' you mark'd but the fall o' the snow / Before the soil hath smutch'd it? / Ha' you felt the wool o' the beaver? / Or swan's down ever? / Or have smelt o' the bud o' the briar? / Or the nard in the fire? / Or have tasted the bag of the bee? / Oh so white! Oh so soft! Oh so sweet is she!

False world, good night! since thou hast brought / That hour upon my morn of age; / Henceforth I quit thee from my thought, / My part is ended on thy stage. / Yes, threaten, do. Alas! I fear / As little as I hope from thee: / I know thou canst not show nor bear / More hatred than thou hast to me. / My tender, first, and simple years / Thou didst abuse and then betray; / Since stir’d’st up jealousies and fears, / When all the causes were away. / Then in a soil hast planted me / Where breathe the basest of thy fools; / Where envious arts professèd be, / And pride and ignorance the schools; / Where nothing is examined, weigh’d, / But as ’tis rumour’d, so believed; / Where every freedom is betray’d, / And every goodness tax’d or grieved. / But what we’re born for, we must bear: / Our frail condition it is such / That what to all may happen here, / If ‘t chance to me, I must not grutch. / Else I my state should much mistake / To harbour a divided thought / From all my kind—that, for my sake, / There should a miracle be wrought. / No, I do know that I was born / To age, misfortune, sickness, grief: / But I will bear these with that scorn / As shall not need thy false relief. / Nor for my peace will I go far, / As wanderers do, that still do roam; / But make my strengths, such as they are, / Here in my bosom, and at home.

Rhyme, the rack of finest wits, / That expresseth but by fits / True conceit, / Spoiling senses of their treasure, / Cozening judgment with a measure, / But false weight; / Wresting words from their true calling, / Propping verse for fear of falling / To the ground; / Jointing syllabes, drowning letters, / Fast'ning vowels as with fetters / They were bound! / Soon as lazy thou wert known, / All good poetry hence was flown, / And art banish'd. / For a thousand years together / All Parnassus' green did wither, / And wit vanish'd. / Pegasus did fly away, / At the wells no Muse did stay, / But bewail'd / So to see the fountain dry, / And Apollo's music die, / All light failed! / Starveling rhymes did fill the stage; / Not a poet in an age / Worth crowning; / Not a work deserving bays, / Not a line deserving praise, / Pallas frowning; / Greek was free from rhyme's infection, / Happy Greek by this protection / Was not spoiled. / Whilst the Latin, queen of tongues, / Is not yet free from rhyme's wrongs, / But rests foiled. / Scarce the hill again doth flourish, / Scarce the world a wit doth nourish / To restore / Phbus to his crown again, / And the Muses to their brain, / As before. / Vulgar languages that want / Words and sweetness, and be scant / Of true measure, / Tyrant rhyme hath so abused, / That they long since have refused / Other csure. / He that first invented thee, / May his joints tormented be, / Cramp'd forever. / Still may syllabes jar with time, / Still may reason war with rhyme, / Resting never. / May his sense when it would meet / The cold tumor in his feet, / Grow unsounder; / And his title be long fool, / That in rearing such a school / Was the founder.

I sing the birth was born tonight, / The Author both of life and light; / The angels so did sound it, / And like the ravished shepherds said, / Who saw the light, and were afraid, / Yet searched, and true they found it. / The Son of God, the eternal King, / That did us all salvation bring, / And freed the soul from danger; / He whom the whole world could not take, / The Word, which heaven and earth did make, / Was now laid in a manger. / The Father’s wisdom willed it so, / The Son’s obedience knew no “No,” / Both wills were in one stature; / And as that wisdom had decreed, / The Word was now made Flesh indeed, / And took on Him our nature. / What comfort by Him do we win? / Who made Himself the Prince of sin, / To make us heirs of glory? / To see this Babe, all innocence, / A Martyr born in our defense, / Can man forget this story?

Hear me, O God! / A broken heart / Is my best part. / Use still thy rod, / That I may prove / Therein thy Love. / If thou hadst not / Been stern to me, / But left me free, / I had forgot / Myself and thee. / For sin's so sweet, / As minds ill-bent / Rarely repent, / Until they meet / Their punishment. / Who more can crave / Than thou hast done? / That gav'st a Son, / To free a slave, / First made of nought; / With all since bought. / Sin, Death, and Hell / His glorious name / Quite overcame, / Yet I rebel / And slight the same. / But I'll come in / Before my loss / Me farther toss, / As sure to win / Under His cross.

On the happy entrace of Iames, our Soveraigne, to His first high Session of Parliament in this his Kingdome, the 19 of March, 1603. / Licet toto nunc Helicone frui. / Mart. / Heav'n now not strives, alone, our breasts to fill / With joyes: but urgeth his full favors still. / Againe, the glory of our Westerne World / Unfolds himselfe: and from his eyes are hoorl'd / (To day) a thousand radiant lights, that streame / To every nook and angle of his Realme. / His former rayes did only cleare the sky; / But these his searching beams are cast, to pry / Into those dark and deep concealed vaults, / Where men commit black incest with their faults; / And snore supinely in the stall of sin: / Where Murder, Rapine, Lust, do sit within, / Carowsing humane blood in yron bowles, / And make their den the slaughter-house of soules: / From whose foule reeking cavernes first arise / Those damps, that so offend all good mens eyes, / And would (if not dispers'd) infect the Crown, / And in their vapor her bright metall drown. / To this so cleare and sanctified an end, / I saw, when reverend Themis did descend / Upon his State; let down in that rich chaine, / That fastneth heavenly power to earthly raigne: / Beside her, stoup't on either hand, a maid, / Faire Dice, and Eunomia; who were said / To be her daughters: and but faintly known / On earth, till now, they came to grace his throne. / Her third, Irene, help'd to beare his traine; / And in her office vow'd she would remaine, / Till forraine malice, or unnaturall spight / (Which Fates avert) should force her from her right. / With these he pass'd, and with his peoples hearts / Breath'd in his way; and soules (their better parts) / Hasting to follow forth in shouts, and cryes. / Upon his face all threw their covetous eyes, / As on a wonder: some amazed stood, / As if they felt, but had not known their good / Others would faine have shew'n it in their words: / But, when their speech so poore, a help affords / Unto their zeals expression; they are mute: / And only with red silence him salute. / Some cry from tops of houses; thinking noyse / The fittest herald to proclaime true joyes: / Others on ground run gazing by his side, / All, as unwearied, as unsatisfied: / And every windore griev'd it could not move / Along with him, and the same trouble prove. / They that had seen, but foure short dayes before, / His gladding look, now long'd to see it more. / And as of late, when he through London went, / The amorous City spar'd no ornament, / That might her beauties heighten; but so drest, / As our ambitious Dames, when they make feast, / And would be courted: so this Town put on / Her brightest tyre; and, in it, equall shone / To her great sister: save that modesty, / Her place, and yeares, grave her precedency. / The joy of either was alike, and full; / No age, nor sexe, so weak, or strongly dull, / That did not beare a part in this consent / Of hearts, and voyces. All the aire was rent, / As with the murmure of a moving wood; / The ground beneath did seeme a moving flood: / Wals, windores, roofs, towers, steeples, all were set / With severall eyes, that in this object met. / Old men were glad, their fates till now did last; / And infants, that the houres had made such hast / To bring them forth: Whil'st riper age'd, and apt / To understand the more, the more were rapt. / This was the peoples love, with which did strive / The Nobles zeale, yet either kept alive / The others flame, as doth the wike and waxe, / That friendly temper'd, one pure taper makes. / Meane while, the reverend Themis draws aside / The Kings obeying will, from taking pride / In these vaine stirs, and to his mind suggests / How he may triumph in his Subjects brests, / "With better pomp. She tels him first, that Kings / "Are here on earth the most conspicuous things: / "That they, by Heaven, are plac'd upon his throne, / "To rule like Heaven; and have no more their own, / "As they are men, then men. That all they do / "Though hid at home, abroad is search'd into: / "And being once found out, discover'd lyes / "Unto as many envies, there, as eyes. / "That Princes, since they know it is their fate, / "Oft-times, to have the secrets of their State / "Betraid to fame, should take more care, and feare / "In publique acts what face and forme they beare. / "She then remembred to his thought the place / "Where he was going; and the upward race / "Of Kings, præceding him in that high Court; / "Their laws, their ends; the men she did report: / "And all so justly, as his eare was joy'd / "To heare the truth, from spight of flattery voyd. / "She shewd him, who made wise, who honest Acts; / "Who both, who neither: all the cunning tracts, / "And thrivings statutes she could promptly note; / "The bloody, base, and barbarous she did quote; / "Where laws were made to serve the tyran' will; / "Where sleeping they could save, and waking kill; / "Where acts gave licence to impetuous lust / "To bury Churches, in forgotten dust, / "And with their ruines raise the panders bowers: / "When, publique justice borrow'd all her powers / "From private chambers; that could then create / "Laws, Judges, Consellors, yea Prince, and State. / "All this she

To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that noble pair, / Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison / It is not growing like a tree / In bulk, doth make man better be; / Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, / To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: / A lily of a day / Is fairer far in May, / Although it fall and die that night; / It was the plant and flower of light. / In small proportions we just beauties see; / And in short measures, life may perfect be. / Call, noble Lucius, then for wine, / And let thy looks with gladness shine: / Accept this garland, plant it on thy head, / And think—nay, know—thy Morison ’s not dead. / He leap’d the present age, / Possest with holy rage / To see that bright eternal Day / Of which we Priests and Poets say / Such truths as we expect for happy men; / And there he lives with memory—and Ben / Jonson: who sung this of him, ere he went / Himself to rest, / Or tast a part of that full joy he meant / To have exprest / In this bright Asterism / Where it were friendship’s schism / Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry / To separate these twy / Lights, the Dioscuri, / And keep the one half from his Harry. / But fate doth so alternate the design, / Whilst that in Heav’n, this light on earth must shine. / And shine as you exalted are! / Two names of friendship, but one star: / Of hearts the union: and those not by chance / Made, or indenture, or leased out to advance / The profits for a time. / No pleasures vain did chime / Of rimes or riots at your feasts, / Orgies of drink or feign’d protests; / But simple love of greatness and of good, / That knits brave minds and manners more than blood. / This made you first to know the Why / You liked, then after, to apply / That liking, and approach so one the t’other / Till either grew a portion of the other: / Each stylèd by his end / The copy of his friend. / You lived to be the great surnames / And titles by which all made claims / Unto the Virtue—nothing perfect done / But as a CARY or a MORISON. / And such the force the fair example had / As they that saw / The good, and durst not practise it, were glad / That such a law / Was left yet to mankind, / Where they might read and find / FRIENDSHIP indeed was written, not in words, / And with the heart, not pen, / Of two so early men, / Whose lines her rules were and records: / Who, ere the first down bloomèd on the chin, / Had sow’d these fruits, and got the harvest in.

THE TURN / Brave infant of Saguntum, clear / Thy coming forth in that great year, / When the prodigious Hannibal did crown / His rage with razing your immortal town. / Thou looking then about, / Ere thou wert half got out, / Wise child, didst hastily return, / And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn. / How summ'd a circle didst thou leave mankind / Of deepest lore, could we the centre find! / THE COUNTER-TURN / Did wiser nature draw thee back, / From out the horror of that sack; / Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right, / Lay trampled on? The deeds of death and night / Urg'd, hurried forth, and hurl'd / Upon th' affrighted world; / Sword, fire and famine with fell fury met, / And all on utmost ruin set: / As, could they but life's miseries foresee, / No doubt all infants would return like thee. / THE STAND / For what is life, if measur'd by the space, / Not by the act? / Or masked man, if valu'd by his face, / Above his fact? / Here's one outliv'd his peers / And told forth fourscore years: / He vexed time, and busied the whole state; / Troubled both foes and friends; / But ever to no ends: / What did this stirrer but die late? / How well at twenty had he fall'n or stood! / For three of his four score he did no good. / THE TURN / He enter'd well, by virtuous parts / Got up, and thriv'd with honest arts; / He purchas'd friends, and fame, and honours then, / And had his noble name advanc'd with men; / But weary of that flight, / He stoop'd in all men's sight / To sordid flatteries, acts of strife, / And sunk in that dead sea of life, / So deep, as he did then death's waters sup, / But that the cork of title buoy'd him up. / THE COUNTER-TURN / Alas, but Morison fell young! / He never fell,--thou fall'st, my tongue. / He stood, a soldier to the last right end, / A perfect patriot and a noble friend; / But most, a virtuous son. / All offices were done / By him, so ample, full, and round, / In weight, in measure, number, sound, / As, though his age imperfect might appear, / His life was of humanity the sphere. / THE STAND / Go now, and tell out days summ'd up with fears, / And make them years; / Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage, / To swell thine age; / Repeat of things a throng, / To show thou hast been long, / Not liv'd; for life doth her great actions spell, / By what was done and wrought / In season, and so brought / To light: her measures are, how well / Each syllabe answer'd, and was form'd, how fair; / These make the lines of life, and that's her air. / THE TURN / It is not growing like a tree / In bulk, doth make men better be; / Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, / To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear: / A lily of a day / Is fairer far, in May, / Although it fall and die that night, / It was the plant and flower of light. / In small proportions we just beauties see; / And in short measures life may perfect be. / THE COUNTER-TURN / Call, noble Lucius, then, for wine, / And let thy looks with gladness shine; / Accept this garland, plant it on thy head, / And think, nay know, thy Morison's not dead. / He leap'd the present age, / Possest with holy rage, / To see that bright eternal day; / Of which we priests and poets say / Such truths as we expect for happy men; / And there he lives with memory, and Ben / THE STAND / Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he went / Himself, to rest, / Or taste a part of that full joy he meant / To have exprest, / In this bright asterism, / Where it were friendship's schism, / Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry, / To separate these twi{-} / Lights, the Dioscuri, / And keep the one half from his Harry. / But fate doth so alternate the design, / Whilst that in heav'n, this light on earth must shine. / THE TURN / And shine as you exalted are; / Two names of friendship, but one star: / Of hearts the union, and those not by chance / Made, or indenture, or leas'd out t' advance / The profits for a time. / No pleasures vain did chime, / Of rhymes, or riots, at your feasts, / Orgies of drink, or feign'd protests; / But simple love of greatness and of good, / That knits brave minds and manners more than blood. / THE COUNTER-TURN / This made you first to know the why / You lik'd, then after, to apply / That liking; and approach so one the t'other / Till either grew a portion of the other; / Each styled by his end, / The copy of his friend. / You liv'd to be the great surnames / And titles by which all made claims / Unto the virtue: nothing perfect done, / But as a Cary or a Morison. / THE STAND / And such a force the fair example had, / As they that saw / The good and durst not practise it, were glad / That such a law / Was left yet to mankind; / Where they might read and find / Friendship, indeed, was written not in words: / And with the heart, not pen, / Of two so early men, / Whose lines her rolls were, and records; / Who, ere the first down bloomed on the chin, / Had sow'd these fruits, and got the harvest in.

I that have been a lover, and could show it, / Though not in these, in rhymes not wholly dumb, / Since I exscribe your sonnets, am become / A better lover, and much better poet. / Nor is my Muse, or I ashamed to owe it / To those true numerous graces; whereof some / But charm the senses, others overcome / Both brains and hearts; and mine now best do know it: / For in your verse all Cupid's armory, / His flames, his shafts, his quiver, and his bow, / His very eyes are yours to overthrow. / But then his mother's sweets you so apply, / Her joys, her smiles, her loves, as readers take / For Venus' ceston, every line you make.