Short Poems

Nis, he makes Verses; but the Lines he writes,
Serve but for matter to make Paper-kites.

Bad are all surfeits: but Physitians call
That surfeit tooke by bread, the worst of all.

Thou mighty Lord and master of the Lyre,
Unshorn Apollo, come, and re-inspire
My fingers so, the Lyrick-strings to move,
That I may play, and sing a Hymne to Love.

We blame, nay we despise her paines
That wets her Garden when it raines:
But when the drought has dri'd the knot;
Then let her use the watring pot.
We pray for showers (at our need)
To drench, but not to drown our seed.

Our Crosses are no other then the rods,
And our Diseases, Vultures of the Gods:
Each griefe we feele, that likewise is a Kite
Sent forth by them, our flesh to eate, or bite.

If that my Fate has now fulfill'd my yeere,
And so soone stopt my longer living here;
What was't (ye Gods!) a dying man to save,
But while he met with his Paternall grave;
Though while we living 'bout the world do roame,
We love to rest in peacefull Urnes at home,
Where we may snug, and close together lye
By the dead bones of our deare Ancestrie.

I Make no haste to have my Numbers read.
Seldome comes Glorie till a man be dead.

If well the Dice runne, lets applaud the cast:
The happy fortune will not alwayes last.

Our Bastard-children are but like to Plate,
Made by the Coyners illegitimate.

Hence a blessed soule is fled,
Leaving here the body dead:
Which (since here they can't combine)
For the Saint, we'l keep the Shrine.