A friery is a cube, which strongly stands,
Fashion'd by men, fupported by heaven's hands:
Orders of holy priesthood are as high
I' th' eyes of angels, as a king's dignity:
Both thefe unto a crown give the full weight.
Sam. Rowley's Noble Spanish Soldier,
This holy cell
Is dedicated to the son of peace;
The foot of war never prophan'd this floor,
Nor doth wrath here with his consuming voice
Affright these buildings; charity with prayer,
Humility with abftinence combin'd,
Are here the guardians of a grieved mind.
ABSENCE.
Like as the culver on the bared bough,
Sits mourning for the abfence of her mate,
And in her fongs fends many a wishful vow,
For his return, that feems to linger late:
So I alone, now left difconfolate,
Mourn to myself the absence of my love;
And wandering here and there all defolate,
Seek with my plaints to match that mournful dove.
Ne joy of aught that under heaven doth hove,
Can comfort me, but her own joyous fight:
Whofe sweet afpect both God and man can move,
In her unspotted pleafance to delight.
Dark is my day, while her fair light I miss,
And dead my life, that wants fuch lively bliss.
Tho' abfent, prefent in defires they be, Our foul much further than our eyes can fee.
Dull fublunary lover's love
(Whose foul is fenfe) cannot admit
Of abfence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing, which elemented it.
But we by a love fo far refin'd,
That ourfelves know not what it is,
Inter-affured of the mind,
Careless eyes, lips, and hands to mifs.
Our two fouls therefore, which are one,"
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expanfion;
Like gold to airy thinnefs beat.
If they be two, they are two fo
As ftiff twin compaffes are two,
The foul, the fixt foot makes no fhew
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And tho' it in the center fit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
It is as if a night should fhade noon-day, Or that the fun was here, but forc'd away; And we were left under that hemisphere, Where we must feel it dark for half a year.
Stop the chafed boar, or play
With the lyon's paw, yet fear
From the lover's fide to tear
. The idol of his foul away.
Though love enter by the fight
To the heart, it doth not flie
From the mind, when from the eye
The fair objects take their flight.
But fince want provokes defire,
When we lose what we before
Have enjoy'd, as we want more,
So is love more fet on fire.
Love doth with an hungry eye
Glut on beauty, and you may
Safer fnatch the tyger's prey,
Than his vital food away.
Yet though abfence for a space,
Sharpen the keen appetite,
Long continuance doth quite
All love's characters efface.
For the fenfe not fed, denies
Nourishment unto the mind,
Which with expectation pin'd,
Love of a confumption dies.
Wonder not if I ftay not here: Hurt lovers (like to wounded deer) Muft fhift the place; for ftanding ftill Leaves too much time to know our ill:Where there is a traitor eye,
That lets in from an enemy
All that may fupplant an heart,
"Tis time the chief should use some art:
Who parts the object from the sense,
Wifely cuts off intelligence.
Oh how quickly men must die
Should they stand all love's battery!
Perfindae's eyes great mischief do,
So do we know the cannon too;
But men are safe at diftance itill:
Where they reach not they cannot kill.
Love is a fit, and foon is past,
Ill diet only makes it laft;
Who is still looking, gazing ever,
Drinks wine in th' very height o' th' fever.
Thus abfence dies, and dying proves
No absence can fubfift with loves
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 stood
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,
Absence 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, shoot up his wanton flame,
And dart itself into the face of heav'n;
I grant that fire, without a fresh fupply,
May for a while be still 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 straight it buried lies
In its own ruins.
Robert Mead's Combat of Love and Friendship,
1. How fad and difmal found the farewells which
Poor lovers take, whom deftiny disjoins,
Although they know their abfence will be short;
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 eafe that weight which his
Departure adds unto their grief.
1. 'Tis true, my love: but when they fee that bright. Perpetual traveller return, they warm
And air their feathers at his beams, and fing
Until their gratitude hath made them hoarie.
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 abfent firft, 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;
Thofe wounds you gave, your eyes can only cure;
No balm in absence will effectual prove,
Nature provides no weapon-falve for love.
Sir Robert Howard's Veflal Virgin.
If the 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 fteps where plunderers have been.
John Crown's Ambitious Statesman.
ABSTINENCE,
Ev'n with the ftroke and line of his great juftice;
He doth with holy abftinence 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 strongest fence Is the defenfive virtue, abftinence.
ACCIDENT. As the unthought-on accident is guilty Of what we wildly do, fo we profess
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