No More Learning

n.
Magnanimous despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing.
Where feeble hope could ne'er have flown,
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.

III.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed ;
But fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt

IV.

For fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close ;
Their union would her ruin be.
And her tyrannic jwwer depose.



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72 THE POEMS



V.

And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have placed,
(Though Love's whole world on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embraced,

VI.

Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear.
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramped into a planisphere.

VII.

As lines, so loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet :
But ours, so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.

vin.
Tlierefore the love which us doth bind.
But fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.



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OF MABYELL. 73



THE PICTURE OF T. C. IN A PROSPECT
OP FLOWERS.

I.
See with what simplicity
This nymph begins her golden days I
In the green grass she loves to He,
And there with her fair aspect tames
The wilder flowers and gives them names,
But only with the roses plays,

And them does tell
What colours best become them and what smelL

II.

Who can foretell for what high cause,
This darling of the Gods was bom ?
Yet this is she whose chaster laws
The wanton Love shall one day fear,
And, under her command severe,
See his bow broke, and ensigns torn.

Happy who can
Appease this virtuous enemy of man I



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74 THE POEMS



III.

O then let me in time compound
And parley with those conquering eyeSy
Ere they have tried their force to wound ;
Ere with their glancing wheels they drive
In triumph over hearts that strive,
And them that yield but more despise,

Let me be laid,
Where I may see the glories from some shade.

IV.

Meantime, whilst every verdant thing
Itself does at thy beauty charm,
Beform the errors of the spring ;
Make that the tulips may have share
Of sweetness, seeing they are fair ;
And roses of their thorns disarm ;

But most procure
That violets may a longer age endure,

V.

But O, young beauty of the woods.
Whom nature courts with fruits and flowers,
Gather the flowers, but spare the buds.
Lest Floba, angry at thy crime
To kill her infants in their prime,
Should quickly make the example yours,

And ere we see, .