SONG.
Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauties orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For, in pure love, Heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.
Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale, when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.
Ask me no more, where those stars light,
That downwards fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become, as in their sphere.
Ask me no more, if east or west
The phoenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.
SIR JOHN SUCKLING.
This witty baronet was born in 1608. He was the son of the Comptroller of the Household of Charles I. He was uncommonly precocious; at five is said to have spoken Latin, and at sixteen had entered into the service of Gustavus Adolphus, 'the lion of the North, and the bulwark of the Protestant faith.'
On his return to England, he was favoured by Charles, and became, in his turn, a most enthusiastic supporter of the Royal cause; writing plays for the amusement of the Court; and when the Civil War broke out, raising, at his own expense of £1200, a regiment for the King, which is said to have been distinguished only by its 'finery and cowardice.' When the Earl of Strafford came into trouble, Suckling, along with some other cavaliers, intrigued for his deliverance, was impeached by the House of Commons, and had to flee to France. Here an early death awaited him. His servant having robbed him, he drew on, in vehement haste, his boots, to pursue the defaulter, when a rusty nail, or, some say, the blade of a knife, which was concealed in one of them, pierced his heel. A mortification ensued, and he died, in 1641, at thirty-three years of age.
Suckling has written five plays, various poems, besides letters, speeches, and tracts, which have all been collected into one thin volume. They are of various merit; none, in fact, being worthy of print, or at least of preservation, except one or two of his songs, and his 'Ballad upon a Wedding'. This last is an admirable expression of what were his principal qualities—naiveté, sly humour, gay badinage, and a delicious vein of fancy, coming out occasionally by stealth, even as in his own exquisite lines about the bride,