Shine, Hesperus, shine forth thou wished star.
Why stayes the bride-groome to invade
Her, that would be a matron made?
Good-night, whilst yet we may
Good-night, to you a virgin, say:
To morrow, rise the same
Your mother is, and use a nobler name.
Speed well in Hymen's warre,
That, what you are,
By your perfection, wee
And all may see.
Shine, Hesperus, shine forth thou wished star.
To night is Venus' vigil kept.
This night no bride-groome ever slept ;
And if the faire bride doo,
The married say, 't is his fault, too.
Wake too: for they 'I tell nothing of your nights: But, that in Hymen's warre
You perfect are.
And such perfection, wee
Doe pray, should bee.
Shine, Hesperus, shine forth thou wished starre.
That, ere the rosie-fingerd morne
Behold nine moones, there may be borne
A babe, t' uphold the fame
Of Radcliffe's blood, and Ramsey's name:
That may, in his great seed,
Weare the long honours of his father's deed.
Such fruits of Hymen's warre
Most perfect are;
And all perfection, wee
Wish, you should see.
Shine, Hesperus, shine forth, thou wished starre.
FROM THE MASQUE OF QUEENS.
SISTERS, stay, we want our dame;
Call upon her by her name,
And the charme we use to say;
That she quickly anoynt, and come away.
Dame, dame, the watch is set:
Quickly come, we all are met.
From the lakes, and from the fens,
From the rocks, and from the dens,
From the woods, and from the caves,
From the church-yards, from the graves,
From the dungeon, from the tree
That they die on, here are wee.
Comes she not yet?
Strike another heate.
The weather is faire, the wind is good,
Up, dame, o' your horse of wood:
Or else, tuck up your gray frock,
And sadle your goate, or your greene cock,
And make his bridle a bottome of thrid,
To rowle up how many miles you have rid.
Quickly come away;
For we all stay.
Nor yet? nay, then, We'll try her agen.
The owle is abroad, the bat, and the toad,
And so is the cat-a-mountaine,
The ant, and the mole sit both in a hole,
And frog peeps out o' the fountaine;
The dogs, they do bay, and the timbrels play,
The spindle is now a-turning;
The Moone it is red, and the starres are fled,
But all the sky is a-burning:
The ditch is made, and our nayles the spade,
With pictures full, of waxe, and of wooll;
Their lives I stick, with needles quick;
There lacks but the blood, to make up the flood.
Quickly, dame, then, bring your part in,
Spurre, spurre, upon little Martin,
Merrily, merrily, make him saile,
A worme in his mouth, and a thorne in 's taile,
Fire above, and fire below,
With a whip i' your hand, to make him go.
O, now she's come!
Let all be dumbe.
Well done, my Hags. And, come we fraught with spight,
To overthrow the glory of this night?
Holds our great purpose? HAG. Yes. DAM. But want's
Of our just number? HAG. Call us one, by one, And then our Dame shall see. DAM. First, then, advance
My drowsie servaut, stupide Ignorance,
Known by thy scaly vesture; and bring on
Thy fearefull sister, wild Suspition,
Whose eyes do never sleep; let her knit hands
With quick Credulity, that next her stands,
Who hath but one eare, and that always ope;
Two-faced Falsehood follow in the rope;
And lead on Murmure, with the cheeks deep hung;
She Malice, whetting of her forked tongue;
And Malice, Impudence, whose forehead's lost;
Let Impudence lead Slander on, to boast
Her oblique look; and to her subtle side,
Thou, black-mouth'd Execration, stand apply'd;
Draw to thee Bitternesse, whose pores sweat gal;
She flame-ey'd Rage; Rage, Mischiefe. HAG. Here
we are all.
DAM. Joyne now our hearts, we faithfull opposites
To Fame and Glory. Let not these bright nights
Of honour blaze, thus to offend our eyes;
Shew our selves truely envious, and let rise
Our wonted rages: do what may beseeme
Such names and natures; Vertue else will deeme
Our powers decreas'd, and think us banish'd Earth,
No lesse than Heaven. All her antique birth,
As Justice, Faith, she will restore; and, bold
Upon our sloth, retrive her age of gold.
We must not let our native manners, thus,
Corrupt with ease. Ill lives not, but in us.
I hate to see these fruits of a soft peace,
And curse the piety gives it such increase.
Let us disturbe it then, and blast the light;
Mixe Hell with Heaven, and make Nature fight
Within her selfe; loose the whole henge of things:
And cause the ends run back, into their springs.
HAG. What our Dame bids us do,
We are ready for. DAM. Then fall too.
But first relate me, what you have sought,
Where you have been, and what you have brought.
1. I have been, all day, looking after
A raven, feeding upon a quarter;
And, soon as she turn'd her beack to the south,
I snatch'd this morsell out of her mouth.
2. I have beene gathering wolves' haires,
The mad dogs' foame, and the adders' eares;
The spurgings of a dead-man's eyes,
And all since the evening starre did rise.
3. I, last night, lay all alone
O' the ground, to heare the mandrake grone; And pluckt him up, though he grew full low; And, as I had done, the cocke did crow.
4. And I ha' beene choosing out this scull,
From charnell houses, that were full;
From private grots, and publicke pits,
And frighted a sexten out of his wits.
5. Under a cradle I did creepe,
By day; and, when the child was asleepe,
At night, I suck'd the breath; and rose,
And pluck'd the nodding nurse by the nose.
6. I had a dagger: what did I with that?
Kill'd an infant, to have his fat.
A piper it got, at a church-ale,
I bade him, againe blow wind i' the taile.
7. A murderer, yonder, was hung in chaines, The Sun and the wind had shrunk his veines ; I bit off a sinew, I clipp'd his haire.
I brought off his rags, that danc'd i' the ayre.
8. The scritch-owles' egs, and the feathers black,
The blood of the frog, and the bone in his back,
I have been getting; and made of his skin
A purset, to keep sir Cranion in.
9. And I ha' been plucking (plants among)
Hemlock, henbane, adder's-tongue,
Night-shade, moone-wort, libbard's-bane;
And twise, by the dogs, was like to be tane.
10. I, from the jaws of a gardiner's bitch,
Did snatch these bones, and then leap'd the ditch
Yet went I back to the house againe,
Kill'd the black cat, and here's the braine.
11. I went to the toad breeds under the wall,
I charm'd him out, and he came at my call;
I scratch'd out the eyes of the owle before,
I tore the bat's wing; what would you have more!
Yes, I have brought (to helpe our vows)
Horned poppy, cypresse boughs,
The fig-tree wild, that grows on tombes,
And juice, that from the larch-tree comes,
The basilick's blood, and the viper's skin:
And, now, our orgies let's begin.
[Here, the Dame put her selfe in the midst of them, and began her following invocation; wherein she tooke occasion, to boast all the power attributed to witches by the ancients; of which, every poet (or the most) doe give some: Homer to Circe, in the Odyss.; Theocritus to Simatha, in Pharmaceu tria; Virgil to Alphesibæus, in his. Ovid to Dipsas, in Amor. to Medea and Circe, in Metamorph. Tibullus to Saga; Horace to Canidic, Sagana, Veia, Folia; Seneca to Medea, and the nurse, in Herc. Ete. Petr. Arbiter to his Saga, in Frag. and Claudian to Megæra, lib. 1. in Rufinum; who takes the habit of a witch, as these do, and supplies that historicall part in the poeme, beside her morall person of a Fury; confirming the same drift, in ours.]
You fiends and furies, (if yet any be
Worse than our selves) you that have quak'd to see
These knots untied; and shrunk, when we have
charm'd.
You, that (to arme us) have your selves disarm'd,
And to our powers, resign'd your whips and brands,
When we went forth, the scourge of men and lands,
You, that have seen me ride, when Hecate
Durst not take chariot; when the boistrous sea,
Without a breath of wind, hath knockt the sky;
And that hath thundred, Jove not knowing why:
When we have set the elements at wars,
Made midnight see the Sun, and day the stars;
When the wing'd lightning, in the course, hath staid;
And swiftest rivers have run back, afraid,
To see the corne remove, the groves to range,
Whole places alter, and the seasons change,
When the pale Moon, at the first voice down fell
Poyson'd, and durst not stay the second spell.
You, that have oft been conscious of these sights;
And thou, three-formed star, that, on these nights
Art only powerfull, to whose triple name
Thus we incline, once, twice, and thrice the same;
If now with rites prophane, and foule enough,
We do invoke thee; darken all this roofe,
With present fogs. Exhale Earth's rott'nst vapors,
And strike a blindnesse through these blazing tapers.
Come, let a murmuring charme resound,
The whilst we bury all, i' the ground.
But first, see every foot be bare;
And every knee. HAG. Yes, dame, they are.
DEEPE, O deepe, we lay thee to sleepe;
We leave thee drinke by, if thou chance to be dry;
Both milke, and blood, the dew, and the flood.
We breathe in thy bed, at the foot and the head;
We cover thee warme, that thou take no harme:
And when thou dost wake,
Dame Earth shall quake,
And the houses' shake,
And her belly shall ake,
As her backe were brake,
Such a birth to make,
As is the blue drake:
Whose form thou shalt take.
Never a starre yet shot?
Where be the ashes? HAG. Here i' the pot. DAM. Cast them up; and the flint-stone
Over the left shoulder bone:
Into the west. HAG. It will be best.
The sticks are a-crosse, there can be no losse,
The sage is rotten, the sulphur is gotten
Up to the skie, that was i' the ground.
Follow it then, with our rattles, round;
Under the bramble, over the brier,
A little more heat will set it on fire:
Put it in mind, to do it kind,
Flow water, and blow wind.
Rouncy is over, Robble is under,
A flash of light, and a clap of thunder,
A storme of raine, another of hayle.
We all must home, i' the egge-shell sayle;
The mast is made of a great pin,
The tackle of cobweb, the sayle as thin,
And if we goe through and not fall in-
Stay. All our charmes doe nothing win
Upon the night; our labour dies!
Our magick-feature will not rise;
Nor yet the storme! we must repeat
More direfull voyces farre, and beat
The ground with vipers, till it sweat.
Barke dogges, wolves howle,
Seas roare, woods roule,
Clouds crack, all be black,
But the light our charmes doe make.
Not yet? my rage begins to swell;
Darknesse, devils, night, and Hell,
Doe not thus delay my spell.
I call you once, and I call you twice;
I beat you againe, if you stay my thrice:
Thorough these cranyes, where I peepe,
I'le let in the light to see your sleepe.
And all the secrets of your sway
Shall lie as open to the day,
As unto me. Still are you deafe?
Reach me a bough, that ne're bare leafe,
To strike the aire; and aconite,
To hurle upon this glaring light;
A rustie knife, to wound mine arme ;
And, as it drops, I'le speake a charme,
Shall cleave the ground, as low as lies
Old shrunk-up Chaos, and let rise,
Once more, his darke, and reeking head,
To strike the world, and Nature dead,
Untill my magick birth be bred.
As with the murmure of a moving wood; The ground beneath did seeme a moving flood: Wals, windores, roofs, towers, steeples, all were set With severall eyes, that in this object met. Old men were glad, their fates till now did last ; HIS FIRST HIGH SESSION OF PARLIAMENT IN THIS HIS And infants, that the houres had made such hast KINGDOME, THE 19TH OF MARCH, 1603.
ON THE HAPPY ENTRANCE OF IAMES, OUR SOVERAIGNE, TO
Licet toto nunc Helicone frui. Mart.
HEAV'N now not strives, alone, our breasts to fill
With joyes but urgeth his full favours still.
Againe, the glory of our westerne world
Unfolds himselfe and from his eyes are hoorl'd
(To day) a thousand radiant lights, that streame
To every nook and angle of his realme.
His former rayes did only cleare the sky;
But these his searching beams are cast, to pry
Into those dark and deep concealed vaults,
Where men commit black incest with their faults;
And snore supinely in the stall of sin:
Where Murder, Rapine, Lust, do sit within,
Carowsing humane blood in yron bowles,
And make their den the slaughter-house of soules:
From whose foule reeking cavernes first arise
Those damps, that so offend all good men's eyes,
And would (if not dispers'd) infect the crown,
And in their vapour her bright metall drown.
To this so cleare and sanctified an end,
I saw,
when reverend Themis did descend
Upon his state; let down in that rich chaiae,
That fastneth heavenly power to earthly raigne:
Beside her, stoup❜t on either hand, a maid,
Faire Dice, and Eunomia; who were said
To be her daughters: and but faintly known
On Earth, till now, they came to grace his throne.
Her third, Irene, help'd to beare his traine;
And in her office vow'd she would remaine,
Till forraine malice, or unnaturall spight
(Which Fates avert) should force her from her right.
With these he pass'd, and with his people's hearts
Breath'd in his way; and soules (their better parts)
Hasting to follow forth in shouts, and cryes.
Upon his face all threw their covetous eyes,
As on a wonder: some amazed stood,
As if they felt, but had not known their good.
Others would faine have shewn it in their words:
But, when their speech so poore a help affords
Unto their zeal's expression; they are mute:
And only with red silence him salute.
Some cry from tops of houses; thinking noyse
'The fittest herald to proclaime true joyes:
Others on ground run gazing by his side,
All, as unwearied, as unsatisfied:
And every windore griev'd it could not move
Along with him, and the same trouble prove.
They that had seen, but foure short dayes before,
His gladding look, now long'd to see it more.
And as of late, when he through London went,
The amorous city spar'd no ornament,
That might her beauties heighten; but so drest,
As our ambitious dames, when they make feasts,
And would be courted: so this town put on
Her brightest tyre; and, in it, equall shone
To her great sister: save that modesty,
Her place, and ycares, gave her precedency.
The joy of either was alike, and full;
No age, nor sexe, so weak, or strongly dull,
That did not beare a part in this consent
Of hearts and royces. All the aire was rent,
To bring them forth: whil'st riper age'd, and apt
To understand the more, the more were rapt.
This was the people's love, with which did strive
The nobles' zeale, yet either kept alive
The other's flame, as doth the wike and waxe,
That friendly temper'd, one pure taper makes.
Meane while, the reverend Themis draws aside
The king's obeying will, from taking pride
In these vaine stirs, and to his mind suggests
How he may triumph in his subjects' brests,
With better pomp. She tels him first, "that kings
Are here on Earth the most conspicuous things:
That they, by Heaven, are plac'd upon his throne,
To rule like Heaven; and have no more their own,
As they are men, than men. That all they do,
Though hid at home, abroad is search'd into:
And being once found out, discover'd lyes
Unto as many envies, there, as eyes.
That princes, since they know it is their fate,
Oft-times, to have the secrets of their state
Betraid to fame, should take more care, and feare
In publique acts what face and forme they beare.
She then remembred to his thought the place
Where he was going; and the upward race
Of kings, preceding him in that high court;.
Their laws, their ends; the men she did report:
And all so justly, as his eare was joy'd
To heare the truth, from spight of flattery voyd.
She shewd him, who made wise, who honest acts;
Who both, who neither: all the cunning tracts,
And thrivings statutes she could promptly note;
The bloody, base, and barbarous she did quote;
Where laws were made to serve the tyrant's will;
Where sleeping they could save, and waking kill;
Where acts gave licence to impetuous lust
To bury churches, in forgotten dust,
And with their ruines raise the pander's bowers:
When publique justice borrow'd all her powers
From private chambers; that could then create
Laws, judges, consellors, yea prince and state.”
All this she told, and more, with bleeding eyes,
For right is as compassionate as wise.
Nor did he seeme their vices so to love,
As once defend, what Themis did reprove.
For though by right, and benefit of times,
He ownde their crowns, he would not so their crimes.
He knew that princes, who had sold their fame
To their voluptuous lusts, had lost their name;
And that no wretch was more unblest than be,
Whose necessary good 't was now to be
An evill king: and so must such be still,
Who once have got the habit to do ill.
One wickednesse another must defend;
For vice is safe, while she hath vice to friend.
He knew, that those, who would with love com-
Must with a tender (yet a stedfast) hand [mand,
Sustaine the reynes, and in the check forbeare
To offer cause of injury, or feare.
That kings, by their example, more do sway
Than by their power; and men do more obay
When they are led, than when they are compell'd,
In all these knowing arts our prince excell'd.
And now the dame had dried her dropping eyne,
When, like an April Iris, flew her shine
About the streets, as it would force a spring
From out the stones, to gratulate the king.
She blest the people, that in shoales did swim
To heare her speech; which still began in him,
And ceas'd in them. She told them, what a fate
Was gently falne from Heaven upon this state;
How deare a father they did now enjoy
That came to save, what discord would destroy:
And entring with the power of a king,
The temp'rance of a private man did bring,
That wan affections, ere his steps wan ground;
And was not hot, or covetous to be crown'd
Before men's hearts had crown'd him. Who (unlike
Those greater bodies of the sky, that strike
The lesser fiers dim) in his accesse
Brighter than all, hath yet made no one lesse ;
Though many greater; and the most, the best.
Wherein, his choice was happy with the rest
Of his great actions, first to see, and do
What all men's wishes did aspire unto.
Hereat, the people could no longer hold
Their bursting joyes; but through the ayre was rol'd
The length'ned showt, as when th' artillery
Of Heaven is discharg'd along the sky:
And this confession flew from every voyce,
Never had land more reason to rejoyce,
Nor to her blisse, could ought now added bee,
Save, that she might the same perpetuall see.
Which when Time, Nature, and the Fates deny'd,
With a twice louder shoute again they cry'd,
Yet, let blest Brittaine aske (without your wrong)
Still to have such a king, anil this king long.
Solus rex, et poeta non quotannis nascitur.
EXPOSTULATION WITH INIGO JONES.
MR. Surveyor, you that first began
From thirty pounds in pipkins, to the man
You are: from them leap'd forth an architect,
Able to talk of Euclid, and correct
Both him and Archimede: damn Archytas,
The noblest engineer that ever was;
Control Ctesippus, overbearing us
With mistook names, out of Vitruvius:
Drawn Aristotle on us, and thence shown
How much Architectonice is your own:
Whether the building of the stage, or scene,
Or making of the properties it mean,
Vizors, or antics; or it comprehend
Something your sur-ship doth not yet intend.
By all your titles, and whole style at once,
Of tireman, mountebank, and justice Jones,
I do salute you: are you fitted yet?
Will any of these express your place, or wit?
Or are you so ambitious 'bove your peers,
You'd be an Assinigo by your years?
Why, much good do't you: be what part you will,
You'll be, as Langley says, "an Inigo still."
What makes your wretchednesse to bray so loud,
In town and court? are you grown rich and proud?
Your trappings will not change you, change your
No velvet suit you wear will alter kind.
A wooden dagger, is a dagger of wood;
Nor gold, nor ivory haft can make it good.
What is the cause you pomp it so, I ask,
And all men echo, you have made a masque:
I chime that too, and I have met with those
That do cry up the machine, and the shows;
The majesty of Juno in the clouds,
And peering forth of Iris in the shrouds ;
Th' ascent of lady Fame, which none could spy,
Not they that sided her: dame Poetry,
Dame History, dame Architecture too,
And goodly Sculpture, brought with much ado
To hold her up: O shows, shows, mighty shows,
The eloquence of masques! what need of prose,
Or verse or prose, t' express immortal you?
You are the spectacles of state, 't is true,
Court hieroglyphics, and all arts afford,
In the mere perspective of an inch board:
You ask no more than certaine politic eyes,
Eyes, that can pierce into the mysteries
Of many colours, read them, and reveal
Mythology, there painted on slit-deal.
O! to make boards to speak! there is a task!
Painting and carpentry are the soul of masque.
Pack with your pedling poetry to the stage,
This is the money-got, mechanic age.
To plant the music, where no ear can reach,
Attire the persons, as no thought can teach
Sense, what they are; which by a specious, fine
Term of architects is call'd design;
But in the practis'd truth, destruction is
Of any art, beside what he calls his.
Whither, O whither will this tireman grow
His name is Σκηνοποιος, we all know,
The maker of the properties; in sum,
The scene, the engine; but he now is come
To be the music-master; tabler too:
He is, or would be, the main Dominus Do-
All of the work, and so shall still for Ben,
Be Inigo, the whistle, and his men.
He's warm on his feet, now he says; and can
Swim without cork: why,thank the good queen Anne,
I am too fat to envy, he too lean
To be worth envy; henceforth I do mean
To pity him, as smiling at his feat
Of Lantern-lerry, with fuliginous heat
Whirling his whimsies, by a subtilty
Suck'd from the veins of shop-philosophy.
What would he do now, giving his mind that way,
In presentation of some puppet-play?
Should but the king his justice-hood employ,
In setting forth of such a solemn toy,
How would he firk, like Adam Overdo,
Up and about; dive into cellars too,
Disguis'd, and thence drag forth enormity,
Discover vice, commit absurdity:
Under the moral, show he had a pate
Moulded or strok'd up to survey a state.
O wise surveyor, wiser architect,
But wisest Inigo; who can reflect
On the new priming of thy old sign-posts,
Reviving with fresh colours the pale ghosts
Of thy dead standards; or with marvel see
Thy twice conceiv'd, thrice paid for imagery:
And not fall down before it, and confess
Almighty Architecture, who no less
A goddess is, than painted cloth, deal board,
Vermilion, lake, or crimson can afford
Expression for; with that unbounded line,
Aim'd at in thy omnipotent design.
What poesy ere was painted on a wall,
That might compare with thee: what story shall,
Of all the worthies, hope t' outlast thy own,
So the materials be of Purbeck stone.
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