Love, brave Vertue's younger brother,1
Erst hath made my heart a mother;
Shee consults the conscious spheares
To calculate her young son's yeares.
Shee askes, if sad, or saving powers,5
Gave omen to his infant howers;
Shee askes each starre that then stood by,
If poore Love shall live or dy.
Ah, my heart, is that the way?
Are these the beames that rule thy day?10
Thou know'st a face in whose each looke,
Beauty layes ope Love's fortune-booke;
On whose faire revolutions wait
The obsequious motions of man's fate:
Ah, my heart, her eyes, and shee,15
Have taught thee new astrologie.
How e're Love's native houres were set,
What ever starry synod met,
'Tis in the mercy of her eye,
If poore Love shall live or dye.20
If those sharpe rayes putting on
Points of death, bid Love be gon:
(Though the Heavens in counsell sate
To crowne an uncontroulèd fate,
Though their best aspects twin'd upon25
The kindest constellation,
Cast amorous glances on his birth,
And whisper'd the confederate Earth
To pave his pathes with all the good,
That warmes the bed of youth and blood)30
Love hath no plea against her eye:
Beauty frownes, and Love must dye.
But if her milder influence move,
And gild the hopes of humble Love:
(Though Heaven's inauspicious eye35
Lay blacke on Love's nativitie;
Though every diamond in Love's crowne
Fixt his forehead to a frowne:)
Her eye, a strong appeale can giue,
Beauty smiles, and Love shall live.40
O, if Love shall live, O, where
But in her eye, or in her eare,
In her brest, or in her breath,
Shall I hide poore Love from Death?
For in the life ought else can give,45
Love shall dye, although he live.
Or, if Love shall dye, O, where
But in her eye, or in her eare,
In her breath, or in her breast,
Shall I build his funerall nest?50
While Love shall thus entombèd lye,
Love shall live, although he dye.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
In line 16 the heavens are the planets. To 'crown' his fate is to invest it with regal power, and so place it beyond control. It is doubtful whether 'uncontrouled' expresses that state or result of crowning, or whether the clause is hyperbolical, and means to put further beyond control an already uncontrolled fate. 'Twin'd' seems a strange word to use, but refers, I presume, to the apparently irregular and winding-like motions of the planets through the constellations until they result in the favourable aspects mentioned. According to astrology, the beneficence or maleficence of the planetary aspects varies with the nature of the constellation in which they occur. Henry Vaughan, Silurist, uses 'wind' very much as Crashaw uses 'twin'd:' see s.v. in our edition.
In line 14 we have accepted the reading 'man's' for 'Loves' from the Sancroft ms.
