B BEAUTY. EAUTY! thou wild fantastic ape, Who doft in every country change thy shape! Here black, there brown, here tawny, and there white ; Thou flatterer! which comply'ft with every fight! Thou Babel, which confound'ft the eye With unintelligible variety! Who haft no certain What, nor Where; But vary'st still, and doft thyself declare Inconftant, as thy fhe-profeffors are. Beauty! Love's scene and masquerade, So gay by well-plac'd lights and distance made; Beauty! thou active, paffive ill ! Which dy'ft thyself as faft as thou dost kill! Pretending to dwell richly in the eye, Beauty! Beauty! whofe conquefts ftill are made O'er hearts by cowards kept, or elfe betray'd; Weak victor! who thyself destroy'd must be When Sickness storms, or Time besieges thee! Thou 'unwholesome thaw to frozen age! Thou strong wine, which youth's fever doft enrage! Thou tyrant, which leav'ft no man free! Thou fubtle thief, from whom nought fafe can be! Thou murderer, which haft kill'd, and devil, which would'ft damn me! A THE PARTING. S men in Greenland left beheld the fun And thought upon the fad half-year With fuch swoln eyes my farewell took ; Ah, those bleft lands to which bright Thou doft fly Say what they please, I say and swear 'Tis beyond eighty' at least, if you 're not here.. It is, it is; I tremble with the froft, And know that I the day have loft; And those wild things which men they call, I find to be but bears or foxes all. Return, Return, return, gay planet of mine East, Of all that fhines thou much the best! And, as thou now defcend'st to sea, More fair and fresh rise up from thence to me! Thou, who in many a propriety, So truly art the fun to me, Add one more likeness (which I'm sure you can) And let me and my fun beget a man! 3 MY PICTURE. ERE, take my likeness with you, whilft 'tis fo; H1 For, when from hence you go, The next fun's rifing will behold Me pale, and lean, and old: The man who did this picture draw, Will fwear next day my face he never faw. I really believe, within a while, If you upon this shadow smile, (Your prefence, which makes all things live!) This will the fubftance, I the fhadow, be. When from your well-wrought cabinet you take it, Ah! be not frighted if you fee For those are the first things that it will do. My My rival-image will be then thought bleft, But thou, who (if I know thee right) Who then shall but my picture's picture be. THE CONCEALMENT. No; to what purpose should I speak? No, wretched heart! fwell till you break. As filent as they will be there: Since that lov'd hand this mortal wound does give, That she may guiltless of it live; 'Tis nobler much for me, that I The cenfuring world will ne'er refrain To fall by her not loving, than her hate. And And yet this death of mine, I fear, Will ominous to her appear; When, found in every other part, Her facrifice is found without an heart; For the laft tempest of my death Shall figh out that too with my breath. Then fhall the world my noble ruin see, Some pity and fome envy me; Then she herself, the mighty she, Shall grace my funerals with this truth; WHAT mines of fulphur in my breaft do lie, That feed th' eternal burnings of my heart! Not Ætna flames more fierce or constantly, And Cupid's forge is fet-up here. Here all thofe arrows' mortal heads are made, I have the trouble, not the gains, of it |