JOHN WILMOT,

EARL OF ROCHESTER.

1647-1680.

["Poems on Several Occasions." (?) 1680.]

A SONG.

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.

But, if I seem to fall in war,

T'excuse the murder you commit,
Be to my memory just, so far,

As in thy heart t' acknowledge it:

That's all I ask; which thou must give
To him, that dying, takes a pride

It is for thee; and would not live

Sole prince of all the world beside.

ESTRENNES.

TO CALISTA.

I reckon the first day I saw those eyes,
Which in a moment made my heart their prize,
To all my whole futurity,

The first day of my first new year:
Since then I first began to be,

And knew why Heaven placed me here;
For till we love, and love discreetly too,
We nothing are, nor know we what we do.

Love is the soul of life, though that I know
Is called soul too, but yet it is not so.

Not rational at least, until

Beauty, with her diviner light,

Illuminates the groping will,

And shows us how to choose aright; And that's first proved by th' objects it refuses, And by being constant then to that it chooses.

Days, weeks, months, years, and lustres take
So small time up i' th' lover's almanac,
And can so little love assuage,

That we (in truth) can hardly say,

When we have lived at least an age,

A long one, we have loved a day. This day to me, so slowly does time move, Seems but the noon unto my morning love.

Love by swift time, which sickly passions dread, Is no more measured than 't is limitéd:

That passion, where all others cease,

And with the fuel lose the flame,

Is evermore in its increase,

And yet being love, is still the same; They err call liking love; true lovers know He never loved who does not always so.

You, who my last love have, my first love had,
To whom my all of love was, and is paid,
Are only worthy to receive

The richest new year's gift I have,
My love, which I this morning give,
A nobler never monarch gave,

Which each new year I will present anew,
And you'll take care, I hope, it shall be due.