Astrologers say Venus, the self-same star, Is both our Hesperus and Lucifer; The antitype, this Venus, makes it true; She shuts the old year and begins the new. Her brother with a star at noon was born; She, like a star both of the eve and morn. Count o'er the stars, fair Queen, in babes, and vie With every year a new Epiphany. [_Upon Princess Elizabeth._ Not before _1677_. This slight thing is inaccurately entitled, for the Princess was born on December 26, 1638.] [Line: 1 The rhyme of 'star' and 'Lucif_er_', which occurs (with 'travell_er_') in Dryden, is--like all Cleveland's rhymes, I think without exception--perfectly sound on the general principle then observed, and observed partly at all times, that _a vowel may, for rhyming purposes, take the sound that it has in a similar connexion but in another word_.] [Line: 5 brother] Charles II.] The General Eclipse. Ladies that gild the glittering noon, And by reflection mend his ray, Whose beauty makes the sprightly sun To dance as upon Easter-day, What are you now the Queen 's away? Courageous Eagles, who have whet Your eyes upon majestic light, And thence derived such martial heat That still your looks maintain the fight, What are you since the King's good-night? 10 Cavalier-buds, whom Nature teems As a reserve for England's throne, Spirits whose double edge redeems The last Age and adorns your own, What are you now the Prince is gone? As an obstructed fountain's head Cuts the entail off from the streams, And brooks are disinherited, Honour and Beauty are mere dreams Since Charles and Mary lost their beams! 20 Criminal Valours, who commit Your gallantry, whose paean brings A psalm of mercy after it, In this sad solstice of the King's, Your victory hath mewed her wings! See, how your soldier wears his cage Of iron like the captive Turk, And as the guerdon of his rage! See, how your glimmering Peers do lurk, Or at the best, work journey-work! 30 Thus 'tis a general eclipse, And the whole world is al-a-mort; Only the House of Commons trips The stage in a triumphant sort. Now e'en John Lilburn take 'em for't! [_The General Eclipse._ The poem is of course a sort of variation or _scherzo_ on 'You meaner beauties of the night'.] [Line: 20 We are so accustomed to the double name 'Henrietta Maria' that the simple 'Queen Mary' may seem strange. But it was the Cavalier word at Naseby.] [Line: 32 al-a-mort] Formerly quite naturalized, especially in the form all-amort. See _N.E.D._, s.v. 'Alamort'.] Upon the King's Return from Scotland.