No More Learning

Be she bald, or does she wear
Locks incurl'd of other hair,
I shall find enchantment there.

Be she whole, or be she rent,
So my fancy be content,
She's to me most excellent.

Be she fat, or be she lean,
Be she sluttish, be she clean,
I'm a man for ev'ry scene.


751. OUR OWN SINS UNSEEN.

Other men's sins we ever bear in mind;
_None sees the fardell of his faults behind_.

_Fardell_, bundle.


752. NO PAINS, NO GAINS.

If little labour, little are our gains:
Man's fortunes are according to his pains.


754. VIRTUE BEST UNITED.

By so much, virtue is the less,
By how much, near to singleness.


755. THE EYE.
A wanton and lascivious eye
Betrays the heart's adultery.


756. TO PRINCE CHARLES UPON HIS COMING TO EXETER.

What fate decreed, time now has made us see,
A renovation of the west by thee.
That preternatural fever, which did threat
Death to our country, now hath lost his heat,
And, calms succeeding, we perceive no more
Th' unequal pulse to beat, as heretofore.
Something there yet remains for thee to do;
Then reach those ends that thou wast destin'd to.
Go on with Sylla's fortune; let thy fate
Make thee like him, this, that way fortunate:
Apollo's image side with thee to bless
Thy war (discreetly made) with white success.
Meantime thy prophets watch by watch shall pray,
While young Charles fights, and fighting wins the day:
That done, our smooth-paced poems all shall be
Sung in the high doxology of thee.
Then maids shall strew thee, and thy curls from them
Receive with songs a flowery diadem.

_Sylla's fortune_, in allusion to Sylla's surname of _Felix_.
_Doxology_, glorifying.


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.