Farewell (sweet Cooke-ham) where I first obtained Grace from that grace where perfect grace remained; And where the muses gave their full consent, I should have power the virtuous to content; Where princely palace willed me to indite, The sacred story of the soul’s delight. Farewell (sweet place) where virtue then did rest, And all delights did harbor in her breast; Never shall my sad eyes again behold Those pleasures which my thoughts did then unfold. Yet you (great Lady) Mistress of that place, From whose desires did spring this work of grace; Vouchsafe to think upon those pleasures past, As fleeting worldly joys that could not last, Or, as dim shadows of celestial pleasures,
But do not let us quarrel any more, No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once: Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. You turn your face, but does it bring your heart? I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear, Treat his own subject after his own way, Fix his own time, accept too his own price, And shut the money into this small hand When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly? Oh, I'll content him,—but to-morrow, Love! I often am much wearier than you think, This evening more than usual, and it seems As if—forgive now—should you let me sit Here by the window with your hand in mine And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,
1 Sometime now past in the Autumnal Tide, When Phoebus wanted but one hour to bed, The trees all richly clad, yet void of pride, Were gilded o’re by his rich golden head. Their leaves and fruits seem’d painted but was true Of green, of red, of yellow, mixed hew, Rapt were my senses at this delectable view.
2 I wist not what to wish, yet sure thought I, If so much excellence abide below, How excellent is he that dwells on high? Whose power and beauty by his works we know. Sure he is goodness, wisdom, glory, light,
[Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene: It is a parchment, of my rolls the fifth, Hath three skins glued together, is all Greek, And goeth from Epsilon down to Mu: Lies second in the surnamed Chosen Chest, Stained and conserved with juice of terebinth, Covered with cloth of hair, and lettered Xi, From Xanthus, my wife's uncle, now at peace: Mu and Epsilon stand for my own name. I may not write it, but I make a cross To show I wait His coming, with the rest, And leave off here: beginneth Pamphylax.]
I said, "If one should wet his lips with wine, "And slip the broadest plantain-leaf we find,
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one autumnal face. Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape, This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape. If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame; Affection here takes reverence's name. Were her first years the golden age? That's true, But now she's gold oft tried and ever new. That was her torrid and inflaming time, This is her tolerable tropic clime. Fair eyes, who asks more heat than comes from hence, He in a fever wishes pestilence. Call not these wrinkles, graves; if graves they were, They were Love's graves, for else he is no where. Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit
[Introduction] Lo now! four other acts upon the stage, Childhood, and Youth, the Manly, and Old-age. The first: son unto Phlegm, grand-child to water, Unstable, supple, moist, and cold’s his Nature. The second: frolic claims his pedigree; From blood and air, for hot and moist is he. The third of fire and choler is compos’d, Vindicative, and quarrelsome dispos’d. The last, of earth and heavy melancholy, Solid, hating all lightness, and all folly. Childhood was cloth’d in white, and given to show, His spring was intermixed with some snow. Upon his head a Garland Nature set: Of Daisy, Primrose, and the Violet.
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