The Hesperides & Noble Numbers Part 65

757. A SONG.

Burn, or drown me, choose ye whether, So I may but die together; Thus to slay me by degrees Is the height of cruelties.

What needs twenty stabs, when one Strikes me dead as any stone?

O show mercy then, and be Kind at once to murder me.

758. PRINCES AND FAVOURITES.

Princes and fav'rites are most dear, while they By giving and receiving hold the play; But the relation then of both grows poor, When these can ask, and kings can give no more.

759. EXAMPLES; OR, LIKE PRINCE, LIKE PEOPLE.

Examples lead us, and we likely see; Such as the prince is, will his people be.

760. POTENTATES.

Love and the Graces evermore do wait Upon the man that is a potentate.

761. THE WAKE.

Come, Anthea, let us two Go to feast, as others do.

Tarts and custards, creams and cakes, Are the junkets still at wakes: Unto which the tribes resort, Where the business is the sport.

Morris-dancers thou shall see, Marian, too, in pageantry, And a mimic to devise Many grinning properties.

Players there will be, and those Base in action as in clothes; Yet with strutting they will please The incurious villages.

Near the dying of the day There will be a cudgel-play, Where a c.o.xcomb will be broke Ere a good word can be spoke: But the anger ends all here, Drenched in ale, or drown'd in beer.

Happy rustics! best content With the cheapest merriment, And possess no other fear Than to want the wake next year.

_Marian_, Maid Marian of the Robin Hood ballads.

_Action_, _i.e._, dramatic action.

_Incurious_, careless, easily pleased.

_c.o.xcomb_, to cause blood to flow from the opponent's head was the test of victory.

762. THE PETER-PENNY.

Fresh strewings allow To my sepulchre now, To make my lodging the sweeter; A staff or a wand Put then in my hand, With a penny to pay S. Peter.

Who has not a cross Must sit with the loss, And no whit further must venture; Since the porter he Will paid have his fee, Or else not one there must enter.

Who at a dead lift Can't send for a gift A pig to the priest for a roaster, Shall hear his clerk say, By yea and by nay, _No penny, no paternoster_.

_S. Peter_, as the gate-ward of heaven.

_Cross_, a coin.

763. TO DOCTOR ALABASTER.

Nor art thou less esteem'd that I have plac'd, Amongst mine honour'd, thee almost the last: In great processions many lead the way To him who is the triumph of the day, As these have done to thee who art the one, One only glory of a million: In whom the spirit of the G.o.ds does dwell, Firing thy soul, by which thou dost foretell When this or that vast dynasty must fall Down to a fillet more imperial; When this or that horn shall be broke, and when Others shall spring up in their place again; When times and seasons and all years must lie Drowned in the sea of wild eternity; When the black doomsday books, as yet unseal'd, Shall by the mighty angel be reveal'd; And when the trumpet which thou late hast found Shall call to judgment. Tell us when the sound Of this or that great April day shall be, And next the Gospel we will credit thee.

Meantime like earth-worms we will crawl below, And wonder at those things that thou dost know.

For an account of Alabaster see Notes: the allusions here are to his apocalyptic writings.

_Horn_, used as a symbol of prosperity.

_The trumpet which thou late hast found_, _i.e._, Alabaster's "Spiraculum Tubarum seu Fons Spiritualium Expositionum," published 1633.

_April day_, day of weeping, or perhaps rather of "opening" or revelation.

764. UPON HIS KINSWOMAN, MRS. M. S.

Here lies a virgin, and as sweet As e'er was wrapt in winding sheet.

Her name if next you would have known, The marble speaks it, Mary Stone: Who dying in her blooming years, This stone for name's sake melts to tears.

If, fragrant virgins, you'll but keep A fast, while jets and marbles weep, And praying, strew some roses on her, You'll do my niece abundant honour.

765. FELICITY KNOWS NO FENCE.

Of both our fortunes good and bad we find Prosperity more searching of the mind: Felicity flies o'er the wall and fence, While misery keeps in with patience.

766. DEATH ENDS ALL WOE.

Time is the bound of things; where'er we go _Fate gives a meeting, Death's the end of woe_.

767. A CONJURATION TO ELECTRA.

By those soft tods of wool With which the air is full; By all those tinctures there, That paint the hemisphere; By dews and drizzling rain That swell the golden grain; By all those sweets that be I' th' flowery nunnery; By silent nights, and the Three forms of Hecate; By all aspects that bless The sober sorceress, While juice she strains, and pith To make her philters with; By time that hastens on Things to perfection; And by yourself, the best Conjurement of the rest: O my Electra! be In love with none, but me.

_Tods of wool_, literally, tod of wool=twenty-eight pounds, here used of the fleecy clouds.

_Tinctures_, colours.

_Three forms of Hecate_, the _Diva triformis_ of Hor. Od. iii. 22.

Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, Persephone in the world below.

_Aspects_, _i.e._, of the planets.

768. COURAGE COOLED.

I cannot love as I have lov'd before; For I'm grown old and, with mine age, grown poor.

_Love must be fed by wealth_: this blood of mine Must needs wax cold, if wanting bread and wine.

769. THE SPELL.

Holy water come and bring; Cast in salt, for seasoning: Set the brush for sprinkling: Sacred spittle bring ye hither; Meal and it now mix together, And a little oil to either.

Give the tapers here their light, Ring the saints'-bell, to affright Far from hence the evil sprite.