A Catholic Hymn. [Printed among other "Miscellanies" in "The Poems of "Ben. Johnson junior," 1672. It is also to be found in "Withers Redivivus, in a small new-year's-gift," 4to.1689, and there called "A copy from verses long since made." The text of the latter has been preferred in the following extract.] OPINION rules the human state, And domineers in every land: Shall sea or mountain separate Whom God hath join'd in nature's band? They're all my father's children dear. Lend me the bright wings of the morn, Far swifter than the lamp of night: Features and colours of the hair, These all do meet in harmony; All tinctures of variety: In single simple love alone These various colours are but one. I' th' phlegmatic I sweetness find, From choler flames of love arise: All these complexions are but one. The nightingale doth never say Why sing you not so sweet as I? Each tunes his harp in love alone, With open arms let me embrace The Heathen, Christian, Turk, or Jew, The lovely and deformed face, The sober and the jovial crew. In single simple love alone All forms and features are but one. Reason. [In "Miscellany Poems and Translations by Oxford hands.” Printed for Anthony Stephens, 1685, 8vo.] [From 8 stanzas.] REASON, thou vain impertinence, And go and plague your men of sense, In vain some dreaming thinking fool And all our noble passions rule, And constitute this creature man. In vain some dotard may pretend At best, thou'rt but a glimmering light, Coyness. [In the same Collection.] [From 6 stanzas.] NAY, I confess I should despise Be coy, be cruel yet a while, Nor grant one gracious look or smile! Then every little grace from thee Will seem a heaven on earth to me. If thou would'st have me still love on With all the flames I first begun, Then you must still as scornful be: For, if you once but burn like me, My flames will languish and be gone, Like fire shin'd on by the sun. * Nor lay these arts too soon aside, Ancient Song. [From Dryden's Collection. Vol. VI. 341. Ed. 1716.] A SILLY shepherd woo'd, but wist not Time perpetually is changing; A woman's fancy's like a fever, Or an ague, that doth come by fits; |