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

See with what simplicity

This nymph begins her golden days!

In the green grass she loves to lie,

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.

Who can foretell for what high cause

This darling of the gods was born?
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!

O then let me in time compound
And parley with those conquering eyes,
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.

Meantime, whilst every verdant thing
Itself does at thy beauty charm,
Reform 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.

But O, young beauty of the woods,
Whom Nature courts with fruits and flowers,
Gather the flowers, but spare the buds,

Lest Flora, angry at thy crime

To kill her infants in their prime,

Should quickly make the example yours,
And ere we see,

Nip, in the blossom, all our hopes in thee.

THE MOWER TO THE GLOW-WORMS.

Ye living lamps, by whose dear light
The nightingale does sit so late,
And studying all the summer night,
Her matchless songs does meditate;

Ye country comets, that portend
No war nor prince's funeral,
Shining unto no other end
Than to presage the grass's fall;

Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame
To wandering mowers shows the way,
That in the night have lost their aim,
And after foolish fires do stray;

Your courteous lights in vain you waste,
Since Juliana here is come,

For she my mind hath so displaced,

That I shall never find my home.

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ALL my past life is mine no more,
The flying hours are gone;
Like transitory dreams given o'er,
Whose images are kept in store
By memory alone.

The time that is to come is not;
How can it then be mine?

The present moment 's all my lot;
And that, as fast as it is got,
Phillis, is only thine.

Then talk not of inconstancy,

False hearts, and broken vows;

If I, by miracle, can be

This live-long minute true to thee,

'Tis all that Heaven allows.

SONG.

Give me leave to rail at you,

I ask nothing but my due;

To call you false, and then to say
You shall not keep my heart a day:
But alas! against my will,

I must be your captive still.
Ah! be kinder then, for I

Cannot change, and would not die.

Kindness has resistless charms,

All besides but weakly move ;

Fiercest anger it disarms,

And clips the wings of flying Love.
Beauty does the heart invade,
Kindness only can persuade;

It gilds the lover's servile chain,

And makes the slaves grow pleased again.

CHARLES COTTON.

1630-1687.

["Poems on Several Occasions." (?) 1689.]

TO CHLORIS.

ODE.

FAREWELL, my sweet, until I come
Improved in merit, for thy sake,
With characters of honour, home,

Such as thou canst not then but take.

To loyalty my love must bow,

My honour, too, calls to the field,

Where, for a lady's busk, I now

Must keen and sturdy iron wield.

Yet, when I rush into those arms,

Where death and danger do combine,

I shall less subject be to harms

Than to those killing eyes of thine.

Since I could live in thy disdain,

Thou art so far become my fate,

That I by nothing can be slain,

Until thy sentence speaks my date.

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