1

STARVE not yourself, because you may

Thereby make me pine away;
Nor let brittle beauty make
You your wiser thoughts forsake:
For that lovely face will fail,
Beauty's sweet, but beauty's frail;
'Tis sooner past, 'tis sooner done,
Than summer's rain, or winter's sun:
Most fleeting when it is most dear;
'Tis gone, while we but say 'tis here.
These curious locks so aptly twin'd,
Whose every, hair a soul doth bind,
Will change their auburn hue, and grow
White, and cold as winter's snow.
That eye which now is Cupid's nest
Will prove his grave, and all the rest
Will follow; in the cheek, chin, nose,
Nor lily shall be found, nor rose.
And what will then become of all
Those, whom now you servants call?
Like swallows, when their summer's done,
They'll fly, and seek some warmer sun.

T. Carew's Poems.

HUE AND CRY AFTER CHLORIS.

And

TELL me, ye wand'ring spirits of the air,
Did you not see a nymph more bright, more fair
Than beauty's darling, or of looks more sweet
Than stol'n content? If such an one you meet,
Wait on her hourly wheresoe'er she flies,
cry, and cry, Amyntor for her absence dies.

Go search the vallies; pluck up ev'ry rose,
You'll find a scent, a blush of her in those ;
Fish, fish for pearl or coral, there you'll see
How oriental all her colours be.

Go call the echoes to your aid, and cry,
Chloris, Chloris; for that's her name for whom I die.

But stay awhile, I have inform'd you ill,
Were she on earth she had been with me still:

Go fly to heav'n, examine ev'ry sphere,

And try what star hath lately lighted there;

If any brighter than the sun you see,

Fall down, fall down and worship it, for that is she *.

Select Airs. Printed for J. Playford,

1659.

* These verses are somewhat on the plan of Tasso's Amore Fuggitivo, who was indebted to the first Idyllium of Moschus. See an elegant paraphrase of this in Crashaw's Delights of the Muses, p. 110, Edit. 1670. Likewise the Hue and Cry after Cupid, by Ben Jonson, in his Masque on the Marriage of Lord Haddington.

Soft souls she binds in tender twist,
Small flies in spinner's web;
She sets afloat some luring streams,
But makes them soon to ebb.

Her wat'ry eyes have burning force*;
Her floods and flames conspire:
Tears kindle sparks, sobs fuel are,
And sighs do blow her fire.

May never was the month of love,
For May is full of flowers;
But rather April, wet by kind,
For love is full of showers.

Like tyrant, cruel wound she gives,
Like surgeon, salve she lends ;
But salve and sore have equal force,
For death is both their ends.

With soothing words enthralled souls
She chains in servile bands;
Her eye in silence hath a speech
Which eye best understands †.

* Her wat❜ry eyes have burning force.] Anacreon, in his directions to the painter, orders him to give his mistress the moist, watery

eye:

Τὸ δὲ βλέμμα νῦν ἀληθῶς
Ἀπὸ τὸ πυρὸς ποίησον,
Αμα γλαυκὸν, ως ̓Αθήνής,
Αμα δ' ὑγρὸν, ὡς Κυθήρής.

+ Her eye in silence hath a speech

In Amicam Suam.

Which eye best understands.] The expression of silence was

Her little sweet hath many sours,

Short hap immortal harms;
Her loving looks are murd'ring darts,
Her songs bewitching charms.

Like winter rose and summer ice
Her joys are still untimely ;
Before her Hope, behind Remorse :
Fair first, in fine unseemly.

Modes, passions, fancies, jealous fits,
Attend upon her train:
She yieldeth rest without repose,
And heaven in hellish pain.

Her house is Sloth, her door Deceit,
And slippery Hope her stairs;
Unbashful Boldness bids her guests,
And every vice repairs.

Her diet is of such delights

As please till they be past;

But then the poison kills the heart

That did entice the taste.

never more poetically introduced, or applied with greater truth, than by Mr. Sheridan, in his noble verses to the memory of Garrick:

Th' expressive glance, whose subtil comment draws
Entranc'd affection, and a mute applause;

Gesture that marks, with force and feeling fraught;
A sense in silence, and a will in thought.

G. Fletcher has, in his description of Justice, with great sublimity, attributed to her the power of interpreting the silence of thought:

for she each wish could find

Within the solid heart; and with her ears

The silence of the thought, loud speaking hears.

Part I. St. 10,