"The motion of the heavens that did beget

The golden age, and by whose harmony Heaven is preserved, in me on work is set;

All instruments of deepest melody,

Set sweet in my desires to my love's liking;

With this sweet kiss in me, their tunes apply

As if the best musician's hands were striking;

This kiss in me hath endless music closed,

Like Phoebus' lute on Nisus' towers imposed.

"And as a pebble cast into a spring,
We see a sort of trembling circles rise,
One forming other in their issuing,
Till over all the fount they circulize;

So this perpetual-motion-making kiss
Is propagate through all my faculties,

And makes my breast an endless fount of bliss,

Of which, if gods could drink, their matchless fare

Would make them much more blessed than they are.

"The mind then clear, the body may be used,

Which perfectly your touch can spiritualize;
As by the great elixir is transfused
Copper to gold, then that deed of prize :
Such as transform into corrupt effects
What they receive from nature's purities,
Should not wrong them that hold her
due respects;

To touch your quickening side then give me leave,

Th' abuse of things must not the use bereave."

Herewith, even glad his arguments to hear, Worthily willing to have lawful grounds To make the wondrous power of heaven appear

In nothing more than her perfections found,

Close to her navel she her mantle wrests, Slacking it upwards, and the folds unwound,

Showing Latona's twins, her plenteous breasts,

The sun and Cynthia in their triumph-robes Of lady-skin, more rich than both their globes.

Whereto she bade blest Ovid put his hand; He, well acknowledging it much too base For such an action, did a little stand, Ennobling it with titles full of grace,

And conjures it with charge of reverend

Wealth of the labourer, wrong's revengement taker,

Pattern of concord, lord of exercise,

So think in all the pleasures these have shown

Liken'd to this, thou wert but mere annoy'd,

That all hands' merits in thyself alone With this one touch, have more than recompence,

And therefore feel with fear and reverence.

"See Cupid's Alps, which now thou must go over,

Where snow that thaws the sun doth ever lie,

Where thou may'st plain and feelingly discover

The world's fore past, that flow'd with milk and honey;

Where-like an empress seeing nothing wanting

That may her glorious child-bed beautify— Pleasure herself lies big with issue panting;

Ever deliver'd, yet with child still growing, Full of all blessing, yet all bliss bestowing."

This said, he laid his hand upon her side, Which made her start like sparkles from a fire,

Or like Saturnia from th' Ambrosian pride Of her morn's slumber, frighted with admire,

When Jove laid young Alcides to her breast,

So startled she, not with a coy retire,

But with the tender temper she was blest,

Proving her sharp, undull'd with handling yet,

Which keener edge on Ovid's longings set.

And feeling still he sigh'd out this effect;
"Alas! why lent not heaven the soul a
tongue?

Nor language, nor peculiar dialect,
To make her high conceits as highly sung?
But that a fleshly engine must unfold
A spiritual notion: birth from princes
sprung,

Peasants must nurse, free virtue wait on gold,

And a profess'd, though flattering enemy, Must plead my honour and my liberty.

"Dear hand, most duly honoured in this, And therefore worthy to be well employ'd, Yet know that all that honour nothing is, Compared with that which now must be enjoy'd;

Our human honours, yoking men with beasts,

And noblest minds with slaves; thus beauty's bliss,

Love and all virtues that quick spirit feasts

"Sweet touch, the engine that love's bow doth bend,

The sense wherewith he feels him deified,
The object whereto all his actions tend,
In all his bliudness his most pleasing guide,
For thy sake will I write the Art of Love.
Since thou dost blow his fire and feed his
pride,

doth move,

For thee I hate who hate society,

And such as self-love makes his slavery.

"In these dog-days how this contagion smothers

The purest blood with virtue's diet fined, Nothing their own, unless they be some other's

Spite of themselves, are in themselves confined,

And live so poor they are of all despised, Their gifts held down with scorn should be divined,

And they like mummers mask, unknown, unprized:

A thousand marvels mourn in some such breast,

Would make a kind and worthy patron blest.

"To me, dear sovereign, thou art patroness, And I, with that thy graces have infused, Will make all fat and foggy brains confess Riches may from a poor verse be deduced:

fainted,

I.

MUSES that sing Love's sensual empery,

And lovers kindling your enraged fires At Cupid's bonfires burning in the eye, Blown with the empty breath of vain desires,

You that prefer the painted cabinet

Before the wealthy jewels it doth store yee,
That all your joys in dying figures set,
And stain the living substance of your
glory,

Abjure those joys, abhor their memory,

And let my love the honour'd subject be Of love, and honour's complete history; Your eyes were never yet let in to see The majesty and riches of the mind, But dwell in darkness; for your God is blind.

In whom sits beauty with so firm a brow, That age, nor care, nor torment can contract it;

Heaven's glories shining there, do stuff allow,

And virtue's constant graces do compact it. Her mind-the beam of God-draws in the fires

Of her chaste eyes, from all earth's tempting fuel;

Which upward lifts the looks of her desires,

And makes each precious thought in her a jewel.

And as huge fires compress'd more proudly flame,

So her close beauties further blaze her fame.

IV.

So her close beauties further blaze her fame;
When from the world, into herself reflected;
She lets her shameless glory in her shame,
Content for heaven to be of earth rejected.
She thus depress'd, knocks at Olympus' gate,
And in th' untainted temple of her heart
Doth the divorceless nuptials celebrate
'Twixt God and her; where love's pro-
faned dart

Feeds the chaste flames of Hymen's firma

ment,

Wherein she sacrificeth, for her part; The robes, looks, deeds, desires and whole descent

Of female natures, built in shops of art, Virtue is both the merit and reward

Of her removed and soul-infused regard.

V.

Of her removed and soul-infused regard, With whose firm species, as with golden lances,

She points her life's field, for all wars prepared,

And bears one chanceless mind, in all mischances;

Th'i nverted world that goes upon her head, And with her wanton heels doth kick

the sky,

My love disdains, though she be honoured,

And without envy sees her empery

Loathes all her toys, and thoughts cupidinine,

Arranging in the army of her face

All virtue's forces, to dismay loose eyne, That hold no quarter with renown or grace.

War to all frailty; peace of all things pure, Her look doth promise and her life assure.

VI.

Her look doth promise and her life assure; A right line forcing a rebateless point, In her high deeds, through everything obscure,

To full perfection; not the weak disjoint Of female humours; nor the Protean rages Of pied-faced fashion, that doth shrink and swell,

Working poor men like waxen images, And makes them apish strangers where they dwell,

Can alter her, titles of primacy,

Courtship of antic gestures, brainless jests, Blood without soul of false nobility, Nor any folly that the world infests Can alter her who with her constant guises To living virtues turns the deadly vices.

VII.

To living virtues turns the deadly vices; For covetous she is of all good parts, Incontinent, for still she shows entices To consort with them sucking out their hearts,

Proud, for she scorns prostrate humility, And gluttonous in store of abstinence, Drunk with extractions still'd in fervency From contemplation, and true conti

nence,

Burning in wrath against impatience,

And sloth itself, for she will never rise From that all-seeing trance, the band of

sense,

Wherein in view of all souls' skill she lies. No constancy to that her mind doth move, Nor riches to the virtues of my love.

VIII.

Nor riches to the virtues of my love,

Nor empire to her mighty government; Which fair analysed in her beauties' grove, Shows Laws for care, and Canons for content;

And as a purple tincture given to glass,

By clear transmission of the sun doth taint Opposed subjects; so my mistress' face Doth reverence in her viewers' brows depaint,

And like the pansy, with a little veil, She gives her inward work the greater grace;

Which my lines imitate, though much they fail

Her gifts so high, and times' conceit so base:

Her virtues then above my verse must raise her,

For words want art, and Art wants words to praise her.

IX.

For words want art, and Art wants words to praise her;

Yet shall my active and industrious pen Wind his sharp forehead through those parts that raise her,

And register her worth past rarest women. Herself shall be my Muse; that well will know

Her proper inspirations; and assuageWith her dear love-the wrongs my fortunes show,

Which to my youth bind heartless grief in age.

Herself shall be my comfort and my riches, And all my thoughts I will on her convert;

Honour, and error, which the world bewitches,

Shall still crown fools, and tread upon desert,

And never shall my friendless verse envy Muses that Fame's loose feathers beautify.

X.

Muses that Fame's loose feathers beautify,
And such as scorn to tread the theatre,
As ignorant: the seed of memory
Have most inspired, and shown their
glories there

To noblest wits, and men of highest doom,
That for the kingly laurel bent affair
The theatres of Athens and of Rome,
Have been the crowns, and not the base
impair.

Far, then, be this foul cloudy-brow'd contempt

From like-plumed birds: and let your sacred rhymes

From honour's court their servile feet exempt,

That live by soothing moods, and serving times:

And let my love adorn with modest eyes, Muses that sing Love's sensual emperies.

Lucidius olim.