In a costly palace Youth his temples hides With a new-devised peruke that reaches to his sides; In a wretched workhouse Age's crown is bare, With a few thin locks just to fence out the cold air. In peace, as in war, 'tis our young gallants' pride, To walk, each one i' the streets, with a rapier by his side, That none to do them injury may have pretence; Wretched Age, in poverty, must brook offence. * * * * * HYPOCHONDRIACUS. By myself walking, To myself talking, When as I ruminate On my untoward fate, Scarcely seem I Alone sufficiently, Black thoughts continually Crowding my privacy; They come unbidden, Like foes at a wedding, Thrusting their faces In better guests' places, Peevish and malecontent, Clownish, impertinent, Dashing the merriment: So in like fashions Dim cogitations Follow and haunt me, Striving to daunt me, In my heart festering, In my ears whispering, "Thy friends are treacherous, Thy foes are dangerous, Thy dreams ominous." Fierce Anthropophagi, Spectra, Diaboli, What scared St. Anthony, Hobgoblins, Lemures, Dreams of Antipodes, Night-riding Incubi, Troubling the fantasy, All dire illusions Causing confusions; Figments heretical, Scruples fantastical, Doubts diabolical; Abaddon vexeth me, Mahu perplexeth me, Lucifer teareth me---- _Jesu! Maria! liberate nos ab his diris tentationibus Inimici._ * * * * * A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO. May the Babylonish curse Straight confound my stammering verse, If I can a passage see In this word-perplexity, Or a fit expression find, Or a language to my mind, (Still the phrase is wide or scant) To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! Or in any terms relate Half my love, or half my hate: For I hate, yet love, thee so, That, whichever thing I show, The plain truth will seem to be A constrain'd hyperbole, And the passion to proceed More from a mistress than a weed. Sooty retainer to the vine, Bacchus' black servant, negro fine; Sorcerer, that mak'st us dote upon Thy begrimed complexion, And, for thy pernicious sake, More and greater oaths to break Than reclaimèd lovers take 'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay Much too in the female way, While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath Faster than kisses or than death. Thou in such a cloud dost bind us, That our worst foes cannot find us, And ill-fortune, that would thwart us. Shoots at rovers, shooting at us; While each man, through thy height'ning steam, Does like a smoking Etna seem, And all about us does express (Fancy and wit in richest dress) A Sicilian fruitfulness.