n a Queen.
All had been rivals, and you might have spared,
Or kill'd, and tyrannised, without a guard;
No power achieved, either by arms or birth,
Equals love's empire both in heaven and earth.
Such eyes as yours on Jove himself have thrown
As bright and fierce a lightning as his own;
Witness our Jove, prevented by their flame
In his swift passage to th'Hesperian dame; 40

When, like a lion, finding, in his way
To some intended spoil, a fairer prey,
The royal youth pursuing the report
Of beauty, found it in the Gallic court;
There public care with private passion fought
A doubtful combat in his noble thought:
Should he confess his greatness, and his love,
And the free faith of your great brother[3] prove;
With his Achates breaking through the cloud
Of that disguise which did their graces shroud;[4] 50
And mixing with those gallants at the ball,
Dance with the ladies, and outshine them all;
Or on his journey o'er the mountains ride?--
So when the fair Leucothoe he espied,
To check his steeds impatient Phoebus yearn'd,
Though all the world was in his course concern'd.
What may hereafter her meridian do,
Whose dawning beauty warm'd his bosom so?
Not so divine a flame, since deathless gods
Forbore to visit the defiled abodes 60
Of men, in any mortal breast did burn;
Nor shall, till piety and they return.

[1] 'Sea-born niece': Venus.
[2] 'Majesty's picture': Henrietta, daughter of Henry IV., married by
proxy to Charles I. in Paris, 1st May 1625. Marriages made in May
are said to be unlucky--_this_ certainly was.
[3] 'Great brother': Louis XIII., King of France.
[4] 'Graces shroud': 'Achates,' the Duke of Buckingham.

TO AMORET.

1 Amoret! the Milky Way
Framed of many nameless stars!
The smooth stream where none can say
He this drop to that prefers!

2 Amoret! my lovely foe!
Tell me where thy strength does lie?
Where the pow'r that charms us so?
In thy soul, or in thy eye?

3 By that snowy neck alone,
Or thy grace in motion seen,
No such wonders could he done;
Yet thy waist is straight and clean
As Cupid's shaft, or Hermes' rod,
And pow'rful, too, as either god.

TO PHYLLIS.

Phyllis! why should we delay
Pleasures shorter than the day?
Could we (which we never can!)
Stretch our lives beyond their span,
Beauty like a shadow flies,
And our youth before us dies.