Francis Beaumont Poems

As unthrifts groan in straw for their pawn'd beds,
As women weep for their lost maidenheads,
When both are without hope or remedy,
Such an untimely grief I have for thee.
...

Madam, so may my verses pleasing be,
So may you laugh at them and not at me,
'Tis something to you gladly I would say;
But how to do't I cannot find the way.
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Cold Virtue guard me, or I shall endure
From the next glance a double calenture
Of fire and lust! Two flames, two Semeles,
Dwell in those eyes, whose looser glowing rays
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Like to the weake estate of a poore friend,
To whom sweet fortune hath bene euer slow,
VVhich dayly doth that happy howre attend,
VVhen his poore state may his affection shew:
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When Cupid read this title, straight he said,
'Wars, I perceive, against me will be made.'
But spare, oh Love! to tax thy poet so,
Who oft bath borne thy ensign 'gainst thy foe;
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Sleep not too much; nor longer than asleep
Within thy bed thy lazy body keep;
For when thou, warm awake, shall feel it soft,
Fond cogitations will assail thee oft:
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If it might stand with justice to allow
The swift conversion of all follies; now,
Such is my mercy, that I could admit
All sorts should equally approve the wit
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Hear, you bad writers, and though you not see,
I will inform you where you happy be:
Provide the most malicious thoughts you can,
And bend them all against some private man
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If thou hadst itch'd after the wild applause
Of common people, and hadst made thy laws
In writing such as catch'd at present voice,
I should commend the thing, but not thy choice.
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I know too well, that, no more than the man,
That travels through the burning desarts, can,
When he is beaten with the raging sun,
Half-smother'd with the dust, have power to run
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