[1] ‘Mourning’:  Carlisle was a luxurious liver, and died in 1636, poor,
    but, like many spendthrifts, popular.  He had represented Prince
    Charles at his marriage with Princess Henrietta at Paris.
[2] ‘Dame’:  Venus.

IN ANSWER TO ONE WHO WRIT A LIBEL AGAINST THE COUNTESS OF CARLISLE.

1 What fury has provoked thy wit to dare,
    With Diomede, to wound the Queen of Love? 
  Thy mistress’ envy, or thine own despair? 
    Not the just Pallas in thy breast did move
  So blind a rage, with such a diff’rent fate;
  He honour won, where thou hast purchased hate.

2 She gave assistance to his Trojan foe;
    Thou, that without a rival thou may’st love,
  Dost to the beauty of this lady owe,
    While after her the gazing world does move. 
  Canst thou not be content to love alone? 
  Or is thy mistress not content with one?

3 Hast thou not read of Fairy Arthur’s shield,
    Which, but disclosed, amazed the weaker eyes
  Of proudest foes, and won the doubtful field? 
    So shall thy rebel wit become her prize. 
  Should thy iambics swell into a book,
  All were confuted with one radiant look.

4 Heaven he obliged that placed her in the skies;
    Rewarding Phoebus, for inspiring so
  His noble brain, by likening to those eyes
    His joyful beams; but Phoebus is thy foe,
  And neither aids thy fancy nor thy sight,
  So ill thou rhym’st against so fair a light.

OF HER CHAMBER.

They taste of death that do at heaven arrive;
But we this paradise approach alive. 
Instead of death, the dart of love does strike,
And renders all within these walls alike. 
The high in titles, and the shepherd, here
Forgets his greatness, and forgets his fear. 
All stand amazed, and gazing on the fair,
Lose thought of what themselves or others are;
Ambition lose, and have no other scope, 9
Save Carlisle’s favour, to employ their hope. 
The Thracian[1] could (though all those tales were true
The bold Greeks tell) no greater wonders do;
Before his feet so sheep and lions lay,
Fearless and wrathless while they heard him play. 
The gay, the wise, the gallant, and the grave,
Subdued alike, all but one passion have;
No worthy mind but finds in hers there is
Something proportion’d to the rule of his;
While she with cheerful, but impartial grace,
(Born for no one, but to delight the race 20
Of men) like Phoebus so divides her light,
And warms us, that she stoops not from her height.

[1] ‘Thracian’:  Orpheus.—­

THYRSIS, GALATEA.[1]

THYRSIS.

As lately I on silver Thames did ride,
Sad Galatea on the bank I spied;
Such was her look as sorrow taught to shine,
And thus she graced me with a voice divine.