No More Learning

505. PRECEPTS.

Good precepts we must firmly hold,
By daily learning we wax old.


506. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDWARD, EARL OF DORSET.

If I dare write to you, my lord, who are
Of your own self a public theatre,
And, sitting, see the wiles, ways, walks of wit,
And give a righteous judgment upon it,
What need I care, though some dislike me should,
If Dorset say what Herrick writes is good?
We know y'are learn'd i' th' Muses, and no less
In our state-sanctions, deep or bottomless.
Whose smile can make a poet, and your glance
Dash all bad poems out of countenance;
So that an author needs no other bays
For coronation than your only praise,
And no one mischief greater than your frown
To null his numbers, and to blast his crown.
_Few live the life immortal. He ensures
His fame's long life who strives to set up yours. _


507. UPON HIMSELF.

Thou'rt hence removing (like a shepherd's tent),
And walk thou must the way that others went:
Fall thou must first, then rise to life with these,
Mark'd in thy book for faithful witnesses.


508. HOPE WELL AND HAVE WELL: OR, FAIR AFTER FOUL WEATHER.
What though the heaven be lowering now,
And look with a contracted brow?
We shall discover, by-and-by,
A repurgation of the sky;
And when those clouds away are driven,
Then will appear a cheerful heaven.


509. UPON LOVE.

I held Love's head while it did ache;
But so it chanc'd to be,
The cruel pain did his forsake,
And forthwith came to me.

Ay me! how shall my grief be still'd?
Or where else shall we find
One like to me, who must be kill'd
For being too-too kind?


510. TO HIS KINSWOMAN, MRS. PENELOPE WHEELER.

Next is your lot, fair, to be number'd one,
Here, in my book's canonisation:
Late you come in; but you a saint shall be,
In chief, in this poetic liturgy.


511. ANOTHER UPON HER.

First, for your shape, the curious cannot show
Any one part that's dissonant in you:
And 'gainst your chaste behaviour there's no plea,
Since you are known to be Penelope.
Thus fair and clean you are, although there be
_A mighty strife 'twixt form and chastity_.