No, no, that self-same heart, that vow Which made us one, shall ne'er undo, Or ravel so, to make us two.
Live in thy peace; as for myself, When I am bruised on the shelf Of time, and show My locks behung with frost and snow;
When with the rheum, The cough, the pthisic, I consume Unto an almost nothing; then, The ages fled, I'll call again, And with a tear compare these last Lame and bad times with those are past, While Baucis by, My old lean wife, shall kiss it dry;
And so we'll sit By th' fire, foretelling snow and slit And weather by our aches, grown Now old enough to be our own True calendars, as puss's ear Wash'd o'er 's, to tell what change is near;
Then to assuage The gripings of the chine by age, I'll call my young Iulus to sing such a song I made upon my Julia's breast, And of her blush at such a feast.
Then shall he read that flower of mine Enclosed within a crystal shrine;
A primrose next;
A piece then of a higher text;
For to beget In me a more transcendant heat, Than that insinuating fire Which crept into each aged sire When the fair Helen from her eyes Shot forth her loving sorceries;
At which I'll rear Mine aged limbs above my chair;
And hearing it, Flutter and crow, as in a fit Of fresh concupiscence, and cry, 'No lust there's like to Poetry.'
Thus frantic, crazy man, God wot, I'll call to mind things half-forgot;
And oft between Repeat the times that I have seen;
Thus ripe with tears, And twisting my Iulus' hairs, Doting, I'll weep and say, 'In truth, Baucis, these were my sins of youth.'
Then next I'Il cause my hopeful lad, If a wild apple can be had, To crown the hearth;
Lar thus conspiring with our mirth;
Then to infuse Our browner ale into the cruse;
Which, sweetly spiced, we'll first carouse Unto the Genius of the house.
Then the next health to friends of mine.
Loving the brave Burgundian wine, High sons of pith, Whose fortunes I have frolick'd with;
Such as could well Bear up the magic bough and spell;
And dancing 'bout the mystic Thyrse, Give up the just applause to verse;
To those, and then again to thee, We'll drink, my Wickes, until we be Plump as the cherry, Though not so fresh, yet full as merry As the cricket, The untamed heifer, or the pricket, Until our tongues shall tell our ears, We're younger by a score of years.
Thus, till we see the fire less shine From th' embers than the kitling's eyne, We'll still sit up, Sphering about the wassail cup, To all those times Which gave me honour for my rhymes;
The coal once spent, we'll then to bed, Far more than night bewearied.
*68*
THE BAD SEASON MAKES THE POET SAD
Dull to myself, and almost dead to these, My many fresh and fragrant mistresses;
Lost to all music now, since every thing Puts on the semblance here of sorrowing.
Sick is the land to th' heart; and doth endure More dangerous faintings by her desperate cure.
But if that golden age would come again, And Charles here rule, as he before did reign;
If smooth and unperplex'd the seasons were, As when the sweet Maria lived here;
I should delight to have my curls half drown'd In Tyrian dews, and head with roses crown'd:
And once more yet, ere I am laid out dead, Knock at a star with my exalted head.
*69*
ON HIMSELF
A wearied pilgrim I have wander'd here, Twice five-and-twenty, bate me but one year;
Long I have lasted in this world; 'tis true But yet those years that I have lived, but few.
Who by his gray hairs doth his lustres tell, Lives not those years, but he that lives them well:
One man has reach'd his sixty years, but he Of all those three-score has not lived half three:
He lives who lives to virtue; men who cast Their ends for pleasure, do not live, but last.
*70*
HIS WINDING-SHEET
Come thou, who art the wine and wit Of all I've writ;
The grace, the glory, and the best Piece of the rest;
Thou art of what I did intend The All, and End;
And what was made, was made to meet.
Thee, thee my sheet.
