Short Poems

Blondes Bier und blondes Brot
machen den Junggesellen die Backen rot,
blondes Geld und blonde Zopfe
aber verdrehen ihnen die Kopfe

Like to the grey-ey'd Morn, your sparkling eyes
Dart lustre, while a sable clothes the skies.
And your white teeth resemble th' milky way,
The glory of the night, and th' shame of day,
Complain not then Nigrina of thy white,
Since stars shine brightest in the blackest night.

While Juvenal 'gainst Vices doth declaim,
He Vice gives birth, which else had lost a name.

May Ovids books like him exiled die;
Lusts breath's infectious is in Poetry.

Tibullus, Gallus , and Propertius be
Froth'd like Loves Goddesse out of vanity.
These to Lusts Idols do but Altars rear,
And kindle flames of hell while we are here.

Nor are the Latines more; the Æneiads be
But Iliads ; in' Georgicks Hesiods Plagiarie :
In his Bucolicks own's Theocritus Muse:
For other faults, time, and his death excuse.
But while he Dido wrong'd with falser fire,
His verse deserv'd the flames he did desire.

Evnica laughs at me, who'd kisse in vain:
Cupid stings men, by Bees is stung again.
A fool may sometimes opportunely speak;
Each fool may shew this without reading Greek.
While that Pedants thus trifle time in trash,
They for their faults, not boyes deserve the lash.

Nor can th' straw-gatherers of Egypt fit,
Us from their Poets more then vulgar wit.
Virtue with sweat's attain'd set on a hill,
Beggers wish beggers; potters potters ill.
Bad counsel's worst to him who doth it give;
We're born of Gods: it is by them we live.
The mean's above the whole: See Hesiods flowers;
Are these like th' gardens water'd by heav'ns showers?

But of Musaeus sure he better writ;
In writing lesse he needs must shew more wit.
Who writes not one loves song's, scarce wise; who more,
Unto Anticyra send for Hellebore .
The Spanish proverb onely here is true,
He's fool can't write one Sonnet, mad writes two.

The pomp of Day and Night —
The sunset and the sun —
Thou, my own Heart's Delight,
Art Day and Night in one.