fire

When first Alexis did in Verse delight,
His Muse in Low, but Graceful Numbers walk't,
And now and then a little Proudly stalk't;
But never aim'd at any noble Flight:
The Herds, the Groves, the gentle purling Streams,
Adorn'd his Song, and were his highest Theams.

But Love these Thoughts, like Mists, did soon disperse,
Enlarg'd his Fancy, and set free his Muse,
Biding him more Illustrious Subjects choose;
The Acts of Gods, and God-like Men reherse.
From thence new Raptures did his Breast inspire,

I1.
Love is enough: though the World be a-waning
.
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
.
Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover
.
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
.
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
.
And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over,
.
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
.
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter

I.
Introth, I do my self perswade,
That the wilde boy is grown a man,
And all his childishnesse off laid,
E're since LUCASTA did his fires fan;
H' has left his apish jigs,
And whipping hearts like gigs:
For t' other day I heard him swear,
That beauty should be crown'd in honours chair.

II.
With what a true and heavenly state
He doth his glorious darts dispence,
Now cleans'd from falsehood, blood and hate,
And newly tipt with innocence!
Love Justice is become,

I.

Introth, I do my self perswade,
That the wilde boy is grown a man,
And all his childishnesse off laid,
E're since Lucasta did his fires fan;
H' has left his apish jigs,
And whipping hearts like gigs:
For t' other day I heard him swear,
That beauty should be crown'd in honours chair.

II.

With what a true and heavenly state
He doth his glorious darts dispence,
Now cleans'd from falsehood, blood and hate,
And newly tipt with innocence!
Love Justice is become,

Love in their little veins inspires
their cheerful notes, their soft desires.
While heat makes buds and blossoms spring,
those pretty couples love and sing.
But winter puts out their desire,
and half the year they want love's fire.

A stranger has come
To share my room in the house not right in the head,
A girl mad as birds

Bolting the night of the door with her arm her plume.
Strait in the mazed bed
She deludes the heaven-proof house with entering clouds

Yet she deludes with walking the nightmarish room,
At large as the dead,
Or rides the imagined oceans of the male wards.

She has come possessed
Who admits the delusive light through the bouncing wall,
Possessed by the skies

I.
The childish god of love did sweare
Thus: By my awfull bow and quiver,
Yon' weeping, kissing, smiling pair,
I'le scatter all their vowes i' th' ayr,
And their knit imbraces shiver.

II.
Up then to th' head with his best art
Full of spite and envy blowne,
At her constant marble heart,
He drawes his swiftest surest dart,
Which bounded back, and hit his owne.

III.
Now the prince of fires burnes;
Flames in the luster of her eyes;

Love in Fantastique Triumph satt,
Whilst bleeding Hearts around him flow'd,
For whom Fresh pains he did create,
And strange Tryanic power he show'd;
From thy Bright Eyes he took his fire,
Which round about, in sport he hurl'd;
But 'twas from mine he took desire,
Enough to undo the Amorous World.
From me he took his sighs and tears,
From thee his Pride and Crueltie;
From me his Languishments and Feares,
And every Killing Dart from thee;
Thus thou and I, the God have arm'd,

Immortal Heat, O let thy greater flame
Attract the lesser to it: let those fires
Which shall consume the world, first make it tame,
And kindle in our hearts such true desires,

As may consume our lusts, and make thee way.
Then shall our hearts pant thee; then shall our brain
All her invention on thine Altar lay,
And there in hymnes send back thy fire again:

Our eies shall see thee, which before saw dust;
Dust blown by wit, till that they both were blinde:
Thou shalt recover all thy goods in kinde,

THE fierce exulting worlds, the motes in rays,
   The churlish thistles, scented briers,
The wind-swept bluebells on the sunny braes,
   Down to the central fires,

Exist alike in Love. Love is a sea
   Filling all the abysses dim
Of lornest space, in whose deeps regally
   Suns and their bright broods swim.

This mighty sea of Love, with wondrous tides,
   Is sternly just to sun and grain;
'Tis laving at this moment Saturn's sides,
   'Tis in my blood and brain.