That do partake of fair perfection;
Since in the darkest night they may,
By love's quick motion, find a way,
To fee each other by reflection.
The waving fea can with each flood
Bathe fome high promont, that has flood
Far from the main, up in the river:
Oh think not then but love can do
As much, for that's an ocean too,
Which flows not every day, but ever.
Short abfence hurt him more,
And made his wound far greater than before,
Abfence not long enough to root out quite
All love, encreases love at fecond fight.
Thomas May's Henry II.
I do not doubt his love, but I could with
His prefence might confirm it: when I fee
A fire well fed, fhoot up his wanton flame,
And dart itself into the face of heav'n;
I grant that fire, without a fresh supply,
May for a while be ftill a fire; but yet
How doth its luftre languish, and itself
Grow dark, if it too long want the embrace
Of it's lov'd pyle? how ftraight it buried lies
In its own ruins.
Robert Mead's Combat of Love and Friendship.
1. How fad and dismal found the farewells which
Poor lovers take, whom deftiny disjoins,
Although they know their abfence will be fhort;
And when they meet again, how mufical
And sweet, are all the mutual joys they breathe?
2. Like birds, who when they fee the weary fun
Forfake the world, they lay their little heads
Beneath their wings, to eale that weight which his
Departure adds unto their grief.
1. 'Tis true, my love: but when they see that bright Perpetual traveller return, they warm
And air their feathers at his beams, and fing
Until their gratitude hath made them hoarse.
Sir William Davenant's Platonick Lovers.
Convict me of my crime, and as 'tis meet,
I'll do you daily penance in a fheet.
But, prove me absent first, and then,
I'll write apologys, or burn my pen.
Planets are where they work, not where they move,
I am not where I live, but where I love.
Thomas Ford.
Without your fight my life is lefs fecure ;
Those wounds you gave, your eyes can only cure;
No balm in abfence will effectual prove,
Nature provides no weapon-falve for love.
Sir Robert Howard's Vefal Virgin.
If fhe be gone, the world, in my esteem,
Is all bare walls; nothing remains in it
But duft and feathers; like a Turkish inn,
And the foul steps where plunderers have been.
John Crown's Ambitious Statefman.
ABSTINENCE.
Ev'n with the stroke and line of his great justice;
He doth with holy abstinence fubdue
That in himself, which he fpurs on in pow'r,
Shakespear's Meafure for Measure.
Yet, abftinence in things we must profess
Which nature fram'd for need, not for excess.
Against diseases here the ftrongest fence Is the defenfive virtue, abflinence.
ACCIDENT. As the unthought-on accident is guilty Of what we wildly do, fo we profess
Ourselves to be the flaves of chance, and flies
Of every wind that blows.
Shakespear's Winter's Tale.
Great works do oft yield grievous accidents,
Which ftir up peoples rage beyond intents.
Good things, that come of course, far lefs do please, Than thofe, which come by fweet Contingencies.
Sir William Davenant's Cruel Brother. ACCLAMATION S.
And let the kettle to the trumpets fpeak,
The trumpets to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heav'ns, the heavn's to the earth, Now the King drinks to Hamlet.
Shakespear's Hamlet. 1. Give way, make place; room for the conful. 2. Hail!
Hail, great Sejanus! 1. Hail, my honour'd lord!
3. We fhall be mark'd anon, for our not-hail,
4. That is already done. 3. It is a note
Of upftart greatnefs, to obferve and watch
For these poor trifles, which the noble mind
Neglects and fcorns. 4. Ay, and they think themselves
Deeply difhonour'd, where they are omitted;
As if they were neceflities that help'd
To the perfection of their dignities;
And hate the men that but refrain them.
His fpeech was anfwer'd with a gen'ral noise Of acclamations, doubtlefs figns of joys Which Soldiers utter'd, as they forward went, The fure fore-runners of a fair event:
So when the winter, to the fpring bequeaths
The rule of time, and mild Favonius breaths,
A choir of fwans, to that sweet mufick fings,
The air refounds the motion of their wings,
When over plains they fly in order'd ranks,
To sport themselves upon Caifter's banks.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS.
Noble fhe is by birth, made good by virtue,
Exceeding fair, and her behaviour to it,
Is like a fingular musician
To a sweet inftrument, or elfe as doctrine
Is to the foul, that puts it into act,
And prints it full of admirable forms,
Without which 'twere an empty, idle flame.
Her eminent judgment to difpofe thofe parts,
Sits on her brow and holds a filver scepter,
With which fhe keeps time to the several musicks,
Plac'd in the facred concert of her beauties:
Love's compleat armoury is manag'd in her,
To ftir affection, and the difcipline
To check and to affright it from attempting
Any attaint might difproportion her,
Or make her graces less than circular;
Yet her even carriage, is as far from coyness
As from immodefty; in play, in dancing,
In fuffering courtship, in requiting kindness,
In ufe of places, hours, and companies
Free as the Sun, and nothing more corrupted;
As circumfpect as Cynthia in her vows,
And conftant as the center to observe them;
Ruthful, and bounteous, never fierce nor dull,
In all her courses ever at the full.
George Chapman's Monfieur D'Olive.
She is of the best blood, yet betters it With all the graces of an excellent spirit :
Mild as the infant rose, and innocent
As when heav'n lent her us. Her mind, as well
As face, is yet a paradice untainted
With blemishes, or the fpreading weeds of vice. Robert Baron's Mirza.
ACCUSATION.
1. You would grow unjust unto yourself, To own the error of your fate.
2. Fortune and fate are merely names,
For were they real pow'rs, they'd not endure,
That fools fhould prove them guilty of our ills.
1. Your paffion makes you fubject to mistake.
2. 'Tis a fad truth, and no mistake of rage;
If
every ftar were guilty of thofe crimes
Of which fo fev'rally they've been accus'd,
By the long continu'd race of erring men,
They would have loft their hurtful influence
Ere this, for the supreme just power would
Then neglect them.
Sir William Davenant's Fair Favourite.
Give me good proofs of what you have alledg’d.
'Tis not enough to fay, in fuch a bush
There lies a thief, in fuch a cave a beast,
But you muft fhew him to me ere I foot,
Elfe I may kill one of my ftraggling sheep:
I'm fond of no man's perfon, but his virtue.
Prove that the duke and loyalty are strangers,
And he and I will be as far afunder
As life and death; the grave shall be betwixt us. Crown's First Part of Henry VI. ACTION.
Away then, work with boldness, and with speed, On greatest actions greatest dangers feed.
Chriftopher Marloe's Luft's Dominion.
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd;
As knots by the conflux of meeting fap
Infect the found pine, and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Shakespear's Troilus and Crefida.
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