If Nature gave me power to write in verse,
She gave it me thy praises to rehearse:
Thy wondrous beauty and thy wit
Has such a sovereign right to it,

That no man's Mufe for public vent is free,
Till she has paid her customs first to thee.

BATHING IN THE RIVER.

HE fish around her crowded, as they do

ΤΗ

To the falfe light that treacherous fishers shew, And all with as much ease might taken be, As fhe at firft took me ;

For ne'er did light so clear

Among the waves appear,

Though every night the fun himself set there.

Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discovers
And not to me, thy no less filent lover?
As fome from men their buried gold commit
To ghofts, that have no ufe of it ;

Half their rich treasures fo

Maids bury; and, for aught we know,

(Poor ignorants !) they 're mermaids all below..

The amorous waves would fain about her stay,
But ftill new amorous waves drive them away,
And with fwift current to thofe joys they hafte,
That do as fwiftly waste

I laugh'd the wanton play to view; }
But 'tis, alas at land fo too,

And ftill old lovers yield the place to new.

Kifs her, and as you part, you amorous waves
(My happier rivals, and my fellow-flaves)
Point to your flowery banks, and to her fhew
The good your bounties do;

Then tell her what your pride doth cost,

And how your use and beauty 's loft,
When rigorous winter binds you up with froft..
Tell her, her beauties and her youth, like thee,
Hafte without stop to a devouring sea ;
Where they will mix'd and undistinguish'd lie
With all the meaneft things that die;

As in the ocean thou

No privilege doft know

Above th' impurest streams that thither flow.

Tell her, kind flood! when this has made her fad,
Tell her there's yet one remedy to be had :
Shew her how thou, though long fince past, doft find.
Thyself yet ftill behind :

Marriage (fay to her) will bring.
About the felf-fame thing.

But fhe, fond maid, fhuts and feals-up the fpring,

LOVE

GIVEN

OVER..

T is enough; enough of time and pain

IT

Haft thou confum'd in vain;

Leave, wretched Cowley ! leave

Thyfelf with fhadows to deceive;

Think that already loft which thou must never gain.

VOL. I.

Y

Three

い

Three of thy luftiest and thy freshest years

(Tofs'd in ftorms of hopes and fears)

Like helpless fhips that be

Set on fire i' th' midst o' the sea,

Have all been burnt in love, and all been drown'd in

tears.

Refolve then on it, and by force or art

Free thy unlucky heart;

Since Fate does disapprove

Th' ambition of thy love,

And not one star in heaven offers to take thy part.

If e'er I clear my heart from this defire,

If e'er it home to its breast retire,

It ne'er fhall wander more about,

Though thousand beauties call it out:

A lover burnt like me for ever dreads the fire.

The pox, the plague, and every small disease,
May come as oft as ill-fate please ;

But death and love are never found

To give a second wound,

We 're by thofe ferpents bit, but we 're devour'd by thefe.

Alas! what comfort is 't that I am grown

Secure of being again o'erthrown ?

Since fuch an enemy needs not fear
Left any elfe fhould quarter there,

Who has not only fack'd, but quite burnt down, the

town.

A POEM

THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER. 1679.

Meeting accidentally with this poem in manu

script, and being informed that it was a piece of the incomparable Mr. A. C's, I thought it unjust to hide fuch a treasure from the world. I remembered that our author, in his preface to his works †, makes mention of fome poems written by him on the late civil war, of which the following copy is queftionably a part. In his most imperfect and unfinished pieces, you will discover the hand of fo great a master. And (whatever his own modesty might have advised to the contrary) there is not one careless stroke of his but what should be kept facred to pofterity. He could write nothing that was not worth the preferving, being habitually a poet, and always infpired. In this piece the judicious reader will find the turn of the verfe to be his; the fame copious and lively imagery of fancy, the fame warmth of paffion and delicacy of wit, that sparkles in all his writings. And certainly

This and the two following Poems are not given with certainty as Cowley's. They have been ascribed to him; are poffibly genuine; and therefore are preferved in this collection. N.

See p. 16 of this Volume.

Y 2

no

no labours of a genius fo rich in itself, and so cultivated with learning and manners, can prove an unwelcome prefent to the world.

WHAT rage does England from itself divide,

More than the feas from all the world befide?

From every part the roaring cannons play,
From every part blood roars as loud as they.
What English ground but still some moisture bears,
Of young men's blood, and more of mothers' tears ?
What air 's unthicken'd with the fighs of wives,
Though more of maids for their dear lovers' lives?
Alas! what triumphs can this victory shew,

That dyes us red in blood and blushes too!
How can we wish that conqueft, which bestows
Cypress, not bays, upon the conquering brows?
It was not so when Henry's dreadful name,
Not fword, nor caufe, whole nations overcame.
To fartheft Weft did his swift conquefts run,
Nor did his glory fet but with the sun.
In vain did Roderic to his hold retreat,
In vain had wretched Ireland call'd him great;
Ireland! which now most basely we begin

To labour more to lose than he to win.

It was not fo when in the happy East,

Richard, our Mars, Venus's Ille possest:

'Gainft the proud Moon he th' English cross display'd,
Eclips'd one horn, and th' other paler made;
When our dear lives we ventur'd bravely there,
And digg'd our own to gain Christ's fepulchre.

That