Epitaph on the Earl of Strafford

HERE lies wise and valiant dust

Huddled up 'twixt fit and just,

Strafford, who was hurried hence

'Twixt treason and convenience.

He spent his time here in a mist,

A Papist, yet a Calvinist;

His Prince's nearest joy and grief,

He had, yet wanted all relief;

The prop and ruin of the state;

The people's violent love and hate;

One in extremes loved and abhorred.

Riddles lie here, or in a word --

Here lies blood; and let it lie

Speechless still and never cry.

John Cleveland

Mark Antony

WHENAS the nightingale chanted her verses

  And the wild forester couch'd on the ground,

Venus invited me in the evening whispers

  Unto a fragrant field with roses crown'd,

  Where she before had sent

  My wishes' complement;

  Unto my heart's content

  Play'd with me on the green.

     Never Mark Antony

     Dallied more wantonly

     With the fair Egyptian Queen.

First on her cherry cheeks I mine eyes feasted,

  Thence fear of surfeiting made me retire;

Next on her warmer lips, which, when I tasted,

  My duller spirits made me active as fire.

  Then we began to dart,

  Each at another's heart,

  Arrows that knew no smart,

  Sweet lips and smiles between.

     Never Mark Antony

     Dallied more wantonly

     With the fair Egyptian Queen.

Wanting a glass* to plait her amber tresses,           [mirror]

  Which like a bracelet rich decked mine arm,

Gaudier than Juno wears whenas she graces

  Jove with embraces more stately than warm,

  Then did she peep in mine

  Eyes' humor* crystalline;           [liquid]

  I in her eyes was seen

  As if we one had been.

     Never Mark Antony

     Dallied more wantonly

     With the fair Egyptian Queen.

Mystical grammar of amorous glances;

  Feeling of pulses, the physic of love;

Rhetorical courtings and musical dances;

  Numbering of kisses arithmetic prove;

  Eyes like astronomy;

  Straight-limb'd geometry;

  In her arts' ingeny*         [ingenuity]

  Our wits were sharp and keen.

     Never Mark Antony

     Dallied more wantonly

     With the fair Egyptian Queen.

John Cleveland

Upon Phillis Walking in a Morning before Sun-rising

[Ed. Note: "Voluntaries" in line 18 are improvised pieces of music, generally performed on the organ, preceding and sometimes following a church service; "curate" in line 54 is one who serves in place of or as a substitute for another. --Nelson]

THE sluggish morn as yet undress'd,

My Phillis brake from out her east,

As if she'd made a match to run

With Venus, usher to the sun.

The trees (like yeomen of the guard

Serving her more for pomp than ward),

Rank'd on each side, with loyal duty

Weave branches to enclose her beauty.

The plants, whose luxury was lopp'd

Or age with crutches underpropp'd,

(Whose wooden carcasses are grown

To be but coffins of their own)

Revive, and at her general dole

Each receives his ancient soul.

The winged choristers began

To chirp their matins, and the fan

Of whistling winds like organs play'd,

Until their voluntaries made

The waken'd earth in odors rise

To be her morning sacrifice.

The flowers, call'd out of their beds,

Start and raise up their drowsy heads;

And he that for their color seeks

May find it vaulting* in her cheeks,          [leaping]

Where roses mix,--no civil war

Divides her York and Lancaster.

The marigold (whose courtier's face

Echoes the sun and doth unlace

Her at his rise,--at his full stop

Packs and shuts up her gaudy shop)

Mistakes her cue and doth display:

Thus Phillis antedates the day.

These miracles had cramped the sun,

Who, thinking that his kingdom's won,

Powders with light his frizzled* locks          [curled]

To see what saint his luster mocks.

The trembling leaves through which he play'd,

Dappling the walk with light and shade

Like lattice-windows, give the spy

Room but to peep with half an eye;

Lest her full orb his sight should dim

And bid us all good night in him,

Till she should spend a gentle ray

To force us a new fashioned day.

By what religious palsy's this

Which makes the boughs divest their bliss,

And that they might her footsteps straw*,          [strew]

Drop their leaves in shivering awe?

Phillis perceived and (lest her stay

Should wed October unto May,

And, as her beauty caused a spring,

Devotion might an autumn bring)

Withdrew her beams, yet made no night,

But left the sun her curate-light.

John Cleveland