Stoops to all usage, and will live or die,

To serve, or suffer under tyranny.

Some of these reasons, or some else unknown,
It may be more, or it may be none.

A POSY FOR A NECKLACE.

Lo! on my neck whilst this I bind,
For to hang him that steals my mind;
Unless he hang alive in chains,
I hang and die in lingering pains.
Those threads enjoy a double grace,
Both by the gem and by the place.

VERSES,

WRITTEN BY ONE THAT WAS A SUITOR TO A GENTLEWOMAN MORE VIRTUOUS

THAN FAIR, TO A FRIEND OF HIS THAT DISLIKED HER. THE LADY HERE ALLUDED TO WAS MISS HARRINGTON, AFTERWARDS LADY Rudyerd.

WHY slight'st thou her whom I approve?
Thou art no peer to try my love,

Nor canst discern where her form lies,
Unless thou saw'st her with my eyes.

Say she were foul, or blacker than

The night, or sun-burnt Indian,

Yet, rated in my fancy, she
Is so as she appears to me:
It is not feature, nor a face,

That doth my free election grace;
Nor is my fancy only led

By a well-temper'd white and red;
Could I enamour'd be on those,
The lily and the blushing rose
United in one stock might be
As dear unto my thoughts as she.

But I search further, and do find

A richer treasure in her mind,
Where something is so lasting fair,
That Art nor Age cannot impair.

Hadst thou a perspective so clear,
That thou couldst view my object there;
When thou her virtue shall espy,
Then wonder, and confess that I

Had cause to like her; and learn thence
To love by judgment, not by sense.

A PARADOX,

IN PRAISE OF A PAINTED WOMAN.

Nor kiss! by Love, I must! and make impression;
As long as Cupid dares to hold his session
Upon my flesh of blood, our kisses shall
Outminute time, and without number fall!
Do I not know these balls of blushing red,
Which on thy cheeks thus amorously be spread,

Thy sinewy neck, those veins upon thy brow,
Which with their azure wrinkles sweetly bow,
Are artful borrowed, and no more thine own
Than chains, which on St. George's day are shown,
Are proper to the wearer; yet for this

I idol thee, and beg a luscious kiss:

The Fucus and Ceruse, which on thy face
Thy cunning hand lays on to add new grace,
Deceive me with such pleasing fraud, that I
Find in thy art what can in Nature lie.
Much like a painter, that upon some wall
On which the splendent sunbeams use to fall,
Paints with such art a gilded butterfly,
That silly maids, with slow-moved fingers, try
To catch it, and then blush at their mistake,
Yet of this painted fly much reckoning make:
Such is our state, since that we look upon
Is naught but colour and proportion.
Take me a face as full of fraud and lies
As gipsies, or your running lotteries;
That is more false, or more sophisticate,
Than are saints' reliques or a man of state;
Yet such being glazed by the sleight of art
Gains admiration, - wins in many a heart;
But case there be a difference in the mould,
Yet may thy Venus be more choice, and hold
A dearer treasure: oftentimes we see
Rich Candian wines in wooden bowls to be.
The odoriferous civet doth not lie

Within the musk-cat's nose, or ear, or eye,
But in a baser place: for prudent Nature,
In drawing up of various forms and stature,
Gives, from the curious shop of her rich treasure,
To fair parts comeliness, to baser, pleasure.

The fairest flowers which in spring do grow,
Are not so much for use as for the show;
As lilies, hyacinth, and gorgeous birth
Of all pied flowers which diaper the earth,
Please more, with their discolour'd purple train,
Than wholesome pot-herbs, which for use remain.
Shall I a gaudy, speckled serpent kiss,
Because the colour that he wears is his?
A perfumed cordavant who will wear,
For that his scent is borrow'd otherwhere?
The robes and vestiments which grace us all
Are not our own, but adventitial.
Time rifles Nature's beauty, but sly Art
Repairs by cunning this decaying part;
Fills here a wrinkle, and there purls a vein,
And with her cunning hand runs o'er again.
The breaches dented in the arm of time,
And makes deformity to be no crime;

As when great men are griped with sickness' hand,
Industrious physic frequently doth stand

To patch up foul diseases, and doth strive
To keep their tottering carcases alive:
Beauty a candle is, which every puff

Blows out, and leaves naught but a stinking snuff
To fill our nostrils with this boldly think,
Your clearest candle yields the greatest stink;
As your pure food, and choicest nutriment,
Yields the most hot and nose-strong excrement.
Why hang we, then, on things so apt to vary,-
So fleeting, brittle, and so temporary ?
That agues, coughs, tooth-aches, and catarrh,
Slight touches of diseases, spoil or mar:
But when old age their beauty hath in chase,
And ploughs up furrows in their own smooth face,

Then they become forsaken, and do show,
Like stately abbeys ruin'd long ago.
Nature but gives the model and first draught
Of fair complexion, which by Art is taught
To speak itself a complete form and birth;
So stands a copy to the shapes on Earth.
Love grants me then a reparable face,
Which, whilst that colours are, can want no grace;
Pygmalion's painted statue I could love,

So it were warm, and soft, and could not move.

BENJ. RUDYERD TO THE PRINCE AT HIS RETURN FROM SPAIN.

SIR,
such my fate was, that I had no store
T'erect a goodly pile before my door;
Nor were my flagons tir'd by being taught
Their several stages up and down the vault,
Upon the great bless'd day of your return,
Nothing wherein at all was seen to mourn,
Except it were the heavens; and well they might,
Fearing our triumphs should outshine their light:
So open-hearted men were, as 't had been
No point of faith to think excess a sin.

The poor man trick'd himself with wine that day,
And did not fear to make his landlord stay;
The tradesman shut his shop, and did not care
For the retailing of his neglected ware;
For well he knew there landed on the shore
A prize that him and all the isle might store.