| |
|
How have I
bin religious? what strange good
Has scap't me, that
I never understood?
Have I hel-guarded Haeresie
o'rthrowne?
Heald wounded states? made kings and
kingdoms one?
That FATE should be so merciful to me,
To let me live t' have said I have read thee.
Faire star, ascend! the joy! the life! the light
Of
this tempestuous age, this darke worlds sight!
Oh,
from thy crowne of glory dart one flame
May strike a
sacred reverence, whilest thy name
(Like holy flamens
to their god of day)
We bowing, sing; and whilst we
praise, we pray.
Bright spirit! whose aeternal
motion
Of wit, like Time, stil in it selfe did run,
Binding all others in it, and did give
Commission,
how far this or that shal live;
Like DESTINY of poems
who, as she
Signes death to all, her selfe cam never
dye.
And now thy purple-robed Traegedy,
In her
imbroider'd buskins, cals mine eye,
Where the brave
Aetius we see betray'd,
T' obey his death, whom
thousand lives obey'd;
Whilst that the mighty foole
his scepter breakes,
And through his gen'rals wounds
his own doome speakes,
Weaving thus richly
VALENTINIAN,
The costliest monarch with the cheapest
man.
Souldiers may here to their old glories adde,
The LOVER love, and be with reason MAD:
Not, as of
old, Alcides furious,
Who wilder then his bull did
teare the house
(Hurling his language with the canvas
stone):
Twas thought the monster ror'd the sob'rer
tone.
But ah! when thou thy sorrow didst inspire
With passions, blacke as is her darke attire,
Virgins
as sufferers have wept to see
So white a soule, so
red a crueltie;
That thou hast griev'd, and with
unthought redresse
Dri'd their wet eyes who now thy
mercy blesse;
Yet, loth to lose thy watry jewell,
when
Joy wip't it off, laughter straight sprung't
agen.
Now ruddy checked Mirth with rosie wings
Fans ev'ry brow with gladnesse, whilst she sings
Delight to all, and the whole theatre
A festivall in
heaven doth appeare:
Nothing but pleasure, love; and
(like the morne)
Each face a gen'ral smiling doth
adorne.
Heare ye, foul speakers, that pronounce
the aire
Of stewes and shores, I will informe you
where
And how to cloath aright your wanton wit,
Without her nasty bawd attending it:
View here a
loose thought sayd with such a grace,
Minerva might
have spoke in Venus face;
So well disguis'd, that
'twas conceiv'd by none
But Cupid had Diana's linnen
on;
And all his naked parts so vail'd, th' expresse
The shape with clowding the uncomlinesse;
That if
this Reformation, which we
Receiv'd, had not been
buried with thee,
The stage (as this worke) might
have liv'd and lov'd
Her lines, the austere Skarlet
had approv'd;
And th' actors wisely been from that
offence
As cleare, as they are now from audience.
Thus with thy Genius did the scaene expire,
Wanting thy active and correcting fire,
That now (to
spread a darknesse over all)
Nothing remaines but
Poesie to fall:
And though from these thy Embers we
receive
Some warmth, so much as may be said, we live;
That we dare praise thee blushlesse, in the head
Of
the best piece Hermes to Love e're read;
That we
rejoyce and glory in thy wit,
And feast each other
with remembring it;
That we dare speak thy thought,
thy acts recite:
Yet all men henceforth be afraid to
write.
|
|
|
