Lucasta [75]
The majesty and state of Heav'ns great Queen, And when she treats the gods, her noble meen; The sweet victorious beauties and desires O' th' sea-born princess, empresse too of fires; The sacred arts and glorious lawrels torn From the fair brow o' th' goddesse father-born; All these were quarter'd in each snowy coat, With canton'd<87.4> honours of their own, to boot. Paris, by fate new-wak'd from his dead cell, Is charg'd to give his doom impossible. He views in each the brav'ry<87.5> of all Ide; Whilst one, as once three, doth his soul divide. Then sighs so equally they're glorious all: WHAT PITY THE WHOLE WORLD IS BUT ONE BALL!
<87.1> Second son of Sir John Caesar, Knt., who was the second surviving son of Sir Julius Caesar, Knt., Master of the Rolls. Mr. Robert Caesar married the poet's sister Johanna, by whom he had three daughters, co-heirs--Anne, Juliana, and Johanna. These are the ladies commemorated in the text. See Lodge's LIFE OF SIR JULIUS CAESAR, 1827, p. 54.
<87.2> Original reads SPLENDORS.
<87.3> This word is here used to signify simply RESEMBLANCE or COPY.
<87.4> i.e. quartered. CANTON, in heraldry, is a square space at one of the corners of a shield of arms.
<87.5> Bravery here means, as it often does in writers of and before the time of Lovelace, A BEAUTIFUL OR FINE SPECTACLE, or simply BEAUTY. BRAVE in the sense of FINE (gaudy or gallant) is still in use.
PEINTURE.
A PANEGYRICK TO THE BEST PICTURE OF FRIENDSHIP, MR. PET. LILLY.
If Pliny, Lord High Treasurer of all<88.1> Natures exchequer shuffled in this our ball,<88.2> Peinture her richer rival did admire, And cry'd she wrought with more almighty fire, That judg'd the unnumber'd issue of her scrowl, Infinite and various as her mother soul, That contemplation into matter brought, Body'd Ideas, and could form a thought. Why do I pause to couch the cataract,<88.3> And the grosse pearls from our dull eyes abstract, That, pow'rful Lilly, now awaken'd we This new creation may behold by thee?
To thy victorious pencil all, that eyes And minds call reach, do bow. The deities Bold Poets first but feign'd, you do and make, And from your awe they our devotion take. Your beauteous pallet first defin'd Love's Queen, And made her in her heav'nly colours seen; You strung the bow of the Bandite her son,<88.4> And tipp'd his arrowes with religion. Neptune as unknown as his fish might dwell, But that you seat him in his throne of shell. The thunderers artillery and brand, You fancied Rome in his fantastick hand; And the pale frights, the pains, and fears of hell First from your sullen melancholy fell. Who cleft th' infernal dog's loath'd head in three, And spun out Hydra's fifty necks? by thee As prepossess'd w' enjoy th' Elizian plain, Which but before was flatter'd<88.5> in our brain. Who ere yet view'd airs child invisible, A hollow voice, but in thy subtile skill? Faint stamm'ring Eccho you so draw, that we The very repercussion do see. Cheat-HOCUS-POCUS-Nature an assay<88.6> O' th' spring affords us: praesto, and away!<88.7> You all the year do chain her and her fruits, Roots to their beds, and flowers to their roots. Have not mine eyes feasted i' th' frozen Zone Upon a fresh new-grown collation Of apples, unknown sweets, that seem'd to me Hanging to tempt as on the fatal tree, So delicately limn'd I vow'd to try My<88.8> appetite impos'd upon my eye?<88.9> You, sir, alone, fame, and all-conqu'ring rime, File<88.10> the set teeth of all-devouring time. When beauty once thy vertuous paint hath on, Age needs not call her to vermilion; Her beams nere shed or change like th' hair of day,<88.11> She scatters fresh her everlasting ray. Nay, from her ashes her fair virgin fire Ascends, that doth new massacres conspire, Whilst we wipe off the num'rous score of years, And do behold our grandsire[s] as our peers; With the first father of our house compare We do the features of our new-born heir: For though each coppied a son, they all Meet in thy first and true original. Sacred! luxurious! what princesse
<87.1> Second son of Sir John Caesar, Knt., who was the second surviving son of Sir Julius Caesar, Knt., Master of the Rolls. Mr. Robert Caesar married the poet's sister Johanna, by whom he had three daughters, co-heirs--Anne, Juliana, and Johanna. These are the ladies commemorated in the text. See Lodge's LIFE OF SIR JULIUS CAESAR, 1827, p. 54.
<87.2> Original reads SPLENDORS.
<87.3> This word is here used to signify simply RESEMBLANCE or COPY.
<87.4> i.e. quartered. CANTON, in heraldry, is a square space at one of the corners of a shield of arms.
<87.5> Bravery here means, as it often does in writers of and before the time of Lovelace, A BEAUTIFUL OR FINE SPECTACLE, or simply BEAUTY. BRAVE in the sense of FINE (gaudy or gallant) is still in use.
PEINTURE.
A PANEGYRICK TO THE BEST PICTURE OF FRIENDSHIP, MR. PET. LILLY.
If Pliny, Lord High Treasurer of all<88.1> Natures exchequer shuffled in this our ball,<88.2> Peinture her richer rival did admire, And cry'd she wrought with more almighty fire, That judg'd the unnumber'd issue of her scrowl, Infinite and various as her mother soul, That contemplation into matter brought, Body'd Ideas, and could form a thought. Why do I pause to couch the cataract,<88.3> And the grosse pearls from our dull eyes abstract, That, pow'rful Lilly, now awaken'd we This new creation may behold by thee?
To thy victorious pencil all, that eyes And minds call reach, do bow. The deities Bold Poets first but feign'd, you do and make, And from your awe they our devotion take. Your beauteous pallet first defin'd Love's Queen, And made her in her heav'nly colours seen; You strung the bow of the Bandite her son,<88.4> And tipp'd his arrowes with religion. Neptune as unknown as his fish might dwell, But that you seat him in his throne of shell. The thunderers artillery and brand, You fancied Rome in his fantastick hand; And the pale frights, the pains, and fears of hell First from your sullen melancholy fell. Who cleft th' infernal dog's loath'd head in three, And spun out Hydra's fifty necks? by thee As prepossess'd w' enjoy th' Elizian plain, Which but before was flatter'd<88.5> in our brain. Who ere yet view'd airs child invisible, A hollow voice, but in thy subtile skill? Faint stamm'ring Eccho you so draw, that we The very repercussion do see. Cheat-HOCUS-POCUS-Nature an assay<88.6> O' th' spring affords us: praesto, and away!<88.7> You all the year do chain her and her fruits, Roots to their beds, and flowers to their roots. Have not mine eyes feasted i' th' frozen Zone Upon a fresh new-grown collation Of apples, unknown sweets, that seem'd to me Hanging to tempt as on the fatal tree, So delicately limn'd I vow'd to try My<88.8> appetite impos'd upon my eye?<88.9> You, sir, alone, fame, and all-conqu'ring rime, File<88.10> the set teeth of all-devouring time. When beauty once thy vertuous paint hath on, Age needs not call her to vermilion; Her beams nere shed or change like th' hair of day,<88.11> She scatters fresh her everlasting ray. Nay, from her ashes her fair virgin fire Ascends, that doth new massacres conspire, Whilst we wipe off the num'rous score of years, And do behold our grandsire[s] as our peers; With the first father of our house compare We do the features of our new-born heir: For though each coppied a son, they all Meet in thy first and true original. Sacred! luxurious! what princesse