On the Marriage of a Beauteous Young Gentlewoman with an Ancient Man

Fondly, too curious Nature, to adorn Aurora with the blushes of the morn: Why do her rosy lips breath gums and spice; Unto the East, and sweet to Paradise? Why do her eyes open the day? her hand And voice intrance the panther, and command Incensed winds; her breasts, the tents of love, Smooth as the godded swan, or Venus' dove; Soft as the balmy dew whose every touch Is pregnant; but why those rich spoils, when such Wonder and perfection must be led A bridal captive unto Tithon's bed? Ag'd, and deformed Tithon! must thy twine Circle and blast at once what care and time Had made for wonder? must pure beauty have No other foil but ruin and a grave? So have I seen the pride of Nature's store, The orient pearl chained to the sooty Moor; So hath the diamond's bright ray been set In night, and wedded to the negro jet. See, see, how thick those showers of pearl do fall To weep her ransom, or her funeral, Whose every treasured drop, congealed, might bring, Freedom and ransom to a fettered kin, While tyrant Wealth stands by, and laughs to see How he can wed love and antipathy. Hymen, thy pine burns with adulterate fire; Thou and thy quivered boy did once conspire To mingle equal flames, and then no shine Of gold, but beauty, dressed the Paphian shrine; Roses and lilies kiss'd; the amorous vine Did with the fair and straight-limb'd elm entwine.

The Author to the Reader

I sing the fortune of a luckless pair, Whose spotless souls now in one body be; For beauty still is Prodromus to care, Crost by the sad stars of nativity: And of the strange enchantment of a well, Given by the Gods, my sportive muse doth write, Which sweet-lipp'd Ovid long ago did tell, Wherein who bathes, straight turns Hermaphrodite: I hope my poem is so lively writ, That thou wilt turn half-mad with reading it.

The Glance

Cold Virtue guard me, or I shall endure From the next glance a double calenture Of fire and lust! Two flames, two Semeles, Dwell in those eyes, whose looser glowing rays Would thaw the frozen Russian into lust, And parch tile negro's hotter blood to dust. Dart not your bllls of wild-fire here; go throw Those flakes upon the eunuch's colder snow, Till he in active blood do boil as high As he that made him so in jealousy. When that loose queen of love did dress her eyes In the most taking flame to the prize At Ida; that faint glare to this desire Burnt like a taper to the zone of fire: And could she then the lustful youth have crowned With thee his Helen, Troy had never found Her fate in Sinon's fire; thy hotter eyes Had made it burn a quicker sacrifice To lust, whilst every glance in subtle wiles Had shot itself like lightning through the piles. Go blow upon some equal blood, and let Earth's hotter ray engender and beget New flames to dress the aged Paphians' quire, And lend the world new Cupids borne on fire. Dart no more here, those flatmes, nor strive to throw Your fire on him who is immured in snow! Those glances work on me like the weak shine The frosty sun throws on the Appenine, When the hill's active coldness doth go near To freeze the glimmering taper to his sphere: Each ray is lost on me, like the faint light The glow-worm shoots at the cold breast of night. Thus virtue can secure; but for that name I had been now sin's martyr, and your flame.