No cure to care, farewell all joy, Yet ere thou die, thyself employ That thou may'st mount the sky: Where thou may'st move commanding Jove That Pluto he might go To wed thy wife, who ended thy life; For this will cure thy woe! CARE'S CURE, OR A FIG FOR CARE. [From "Panedone, or Health from Helicon," 1621.] HAPPY is that state of his, Takes the world as it is. Lose he honour, friendship, wealth, Lose he liberty or health; Lose he all that earth can give, Should I ought dejected be, Or put finger in the eye When I see my Damon die? Or repine such should inherit More of honours than of merit? To see virtue in disgrace? Should I weep, when I do try They had wealth unto their wit? Should I spend the morn in tears, Or to see his wife at once Branch his brow and break his sconce, Or to hear her in her spleen Should I sigh, because I see While the great break out again; Or so many schisms and sects, Both in church and common-weal? No, there's nought on earth I fear Thus to love, and thus to live, Thus to take, and thus to give, Thus to laugh, and thus to sing, Thus to mount on pleasure's wing, Thus to sport, and thus to speed, Thus to flourish, nourish, feed, Thus to spend, and thus to spare, Is to bid a fig for care. WILLIAM BROWN, Seems to have been born about 1590, at Tavistock, in Devon. shire, educated at Oxford, and afterwards at the Middle Temple, where he published, in 1613, the first part of his "Britannia's Pastorals." In 1614 was published his "Shepherd's Pipe," and, two years after, the second part of the Pastorals. In 1624 he returned to Exeter college, and became tutor to Robert Dormer, afterwards earl of Carnarvon. He then went into the family of the earl of Pembroke, and is supposed to have died in 1645. An elegant edition of his works, which were become extremely scarce, was published in 1772, in three small volumes, by Mr. Davies. We are obliged to Brown for having preserved, in his Shepherd's Pipe, a curious poem by Occleve. Mr. Warton supposes his works to "have been well known to Milton." SONG. [In Britannia's Pastorals.] SHALL I tell you whom I love? Hearken then a while to me: And if such a woman move Nature did her so much right, As e'er yet embrac'd a heart; Wit she hath, without desire To make known how much she hath : And her anger flames no higher Than may fitly sweeten wrath; Full of pity as may be, Reason masters every sense, And her virtues grace her birth; Lovely as all excellence, Modest in her most of mirth; Likelihood enough to prove Such she is; and if you know Be she brown, or fair, or-so, Be assur'd 'tis she, or none, That I love, and love alone. |