Your lineall Honours, and are well content

To glory in the age of your great name,

Though on a Herralds faith you build the same:

I do not envy you, nor thinke you blest

Though you may beare a Gorgon on your Crest

By direct line from Perseus; I will boast

No farther then my Father; that’s the most

I can, or should be proud of; and I were

Unworthy his adoption, if that here

I should be dully modest; boast I must

Being sonne of his Adoption, not his lust.

And to say truth, that which is best in mee

May call you father, ’twas begot by thee.

Have I a sparke of that coelestiall flame

Within me, I confesse I stole the same

Prometheus like, from thee; and may I feed

His vulture, when I dare deny the deed.

Many more moones thou hast, that shine by night,

All Bankrups, wer’t not for a borrow’d light;

Yet can forsweare it; I the debt confesse,

And thinke my reputation ne’re the lesse.

For Father let me be resolv’d by you;

Is’t a disparagement from rich Peru

To ravish gold; or theft, for wealthy Ore

To ransack Tagus, or Pactolus shore?

Or does he wrong Alcinous, that for want

Doth take from him a sprig or two, to plant

A lesser Orchard? sure it cannot bee:

Nor is it theft to steale some flames from thee,

Grant this, and I’le cry guilty, as I am,

And pay a filiall reverence to thy name.

For when my Muse upon obedient knees,

Askes not a Fathers blessing, let her leese

The fame of this Adoption; ’tis a curse

I wish her ’cause I cannot thinke a worse.

And here, as Piety bids me, I intreat

Phoebus to lend thee some of his own heat,

To cure thy Palsie; else I will complaine

He has no skill in hearbs; Poets in vaine

Make him the God of Physicke; ’twere his praise

To make thee as immortall as thy Baies;

As his owne Daphne; ’twere a shame to see

The God, not love his Preist, more then his Tree.

But if heaven take thee, envying us thy Lyre,

’Tis to pen Anthems for an Angels quire.

Upon the Loss of His Little Finger

Arithmetique nine digits, and no more

Admits of, then I still have all my store.

For what mischance hath tane from my left hand,

It seemes did only for a Cipher stand.

But this I’le say for thee departed joynt,

Thou wert not given to steale, nor pick, not point

At any in disgrace; but thou didst go

Untimely to thy Death only to show

The other members what they once must doe;

Hand, arme, legge, thigh, and all must follow too.

Oft didst thou scan my verse, where if I misse

Henceforth I will impute the cause to this.

A fingers losse (I speake it not in sport)

Will make a verse a Foot too short.

Farewell deare finger, much I greive to see

How soone mischance hath made a Hand of thee.

Upon His Picture

When age hath made me what I am not now,

And every wrinkle tells me where the plow

Of time hath furrowed; when an ice shall flow

Through every vein, and all my head wear snow;

When death displays his coldness in my cheek,

And I myself in my own picture seek,

Not finding what I am, but what I was,

In doubt which to believe, this or my glass:

Yet though I alter, this remains the same

As it was drawn, retains the primitive frame

And first complexion; here will still be seen

Blood on the cheek, and down upon the chin;

Here the smooth brow will stay, the lively eye,

The ruddy lip, and hair of youthful dye.

Behold what frailty we in man may see,

Whose shadow is less given to change than he!

On the Death of a Nightingale

Goe solitary wood, and henceforth be

Acquainted with no other Harmonie,

Then the Pyes chattering, or the shreeking note

Of bodeing Owles, and fatall Ravens throate.

Thy sweetest Chanters dead, that warbled forth

Layes, that might tempests calme, and still the North;

And call downe Angels from their glorious Spheare

To heare her Songs, and learne new Anthems there.

That soule is fled, and to Elisium gone;

Thou a poore desert left; goe then and runne,

Begge there to stand a grove, and if shee please

To sing againe beneath thy shadowy Trees;

The soules of happy Lovers crown’d with blisses

Shall flock about thee, and keepe time with kisses.