The world to his great Master; and youle finde Ambition mocks it selfe, and grasps the wind. Not conquest makes us great. Blood is to deare A price for glory: Honour doth appeare To statesmen like a vision in the night, And jugler-like workes oth' deluded sight. Th' unbusied onely wise: For no respect Indangers them to error; They affect Truth in her naked beauty, and behold Man with an equall eye, not bright in gold Or tall in title; so much him they weigh As Vertue raiseth him above his clay. Thus let us value things: And since we find Time bends us toward death, lets in our mind Create new youth; and arme against the rude Assaults of age; that no dull solitude Oth' country dead our thoughts, nor busie care Oth' towne make us not thinke, where now we are And whether we are bound. Time nere forgot His journey, though his steps we numbred not. _To_ CASTARA. _What Lovers will say when she and he are dead._ I wonder when w'are dead, what men will say; Will not poore Orphan Lovers weepe. The parents of their Loves decay; And envy death the treasure of our sleepe? Will not each trembling Virgin bring her feares To th' holy silence of my Urne? And chide the Marble with her teares, Cause she so soone faith's obsequie must mourne. For had Fate spar'd but _Araphill_ (she'le say) He had the great example stood, And forc't unconstant man obey The law of Loves Religion, not of blood. And youth by female perjury betraid, Will to _Castara's_ shrine deplore His injuries, and death obrayd, That woman lives more guilty, then before. For while thy breathing purified the ayre Thy Sex (hee'le say) did onely move By the chaste influence of a faire, Whose vertue shin'd in the bright orbe of love. Now woman, like a Meteor vapor'd forth From dunghills, doth amaze our eyes; Not shining with a reall worth, But subtile her blacke errors to disguise. Thus will they talke, _Castara_, while our dust In one darke vault shall mingled be. The world will fall a prey to lust, When Love is dead, which hath one fate with me. _To his Muse._ Here Virgin fix thy pillars, and command They sacred may to after ages stand In witnesse of loves triumph. Yet will we _Castara_, find new worlds in Poetry, And conquer them. Not dully following those Tame lovers, who dare cloth their thoughts in prose. But we will henceforth more Religious prove, Concealing the high mysteries of love From the prophane. Harmonious like the spheares, Our soules shall move, not reacht by humane eares. That Musicke to the Angels, this to fame, I here commit. That when their holy flame, True lovers to pure beauties would rehearse, They may invoke the _Genius_ of my verse. _FINIS._ A Friend