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A Contemplation upon Flowers



Brave flowers—that I could gallant it like you,
And be as little vain!
You come abroad, and make a harmless show,
And to your beds of earth again.
You are not proud: you know your birth:
For your embroider'd garments are from earth.

You do obey your months and times, but I
Would have it ever Spring:
My fate would know no Winter, never die,
Nor think of such a thing.
O that I could my bed of earth but view
And smile, and look as cheerfully as you!

O teach me to see Death and not to fear,
But rather to take truce!...

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Poems by Henry King

Being waked out of my sleep by a snuff of Candle which offended me, I thus thought



Perhaps 'twas but conceit. Erroneous sence!
Thou art thine own distemper and offence.
Imagine then, that sick unwholsom steam
Was thy corruption breath'd into a dream.
Nor is it strange, when we in charnells dwell,
That all our thoughts of earth and frailty smell.
Man is a Candle, whose unhappy light
Burns in the day, and smothers in the night.
And as you see the dying taper waste,
By such degrees does he to darkness haste.
Here is the diff'rence: When our bodies lamps
Blinded by age, or choakt with mortall damps,
Now faint and dim and sickly 'gin to wink,
And in their hollow sockets lowly sink;
When all our vital fires ceasing to burn,
Leave nought but snuff and ashes in our Urn:
God will restore those fallen lights again,
And kindle them to an Eternal flame.

Poems by Henry King

By occasion of the Young Prince his happy birth



At this glad Triumph, when most Poets use
Their quill, I did not bridle up my Muse
For sloth or less devotion. I am one
That can well keep my Holy-dayes at home;
That can the blessings of my King and State
Better in pray'r then poems gratulate;
And in their fortunes bear a loyal part,
Though I no bone-fires light but in my heart.
Truth is, when I receiv'd the first report
Of a new Starre risen and seen at Court;
Though I felt joy enough to give a tongue
Unto a mute, yet duty strook me dumb:
And thus surpriz'd by rumour, at first sight
I held it some allegiance not to write.
For howere Children, unto those that look
Their pedigree in God's, not the Church book,
Fair pledges are of that eternitie...

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Poems by Henry King

Sonnet. VVere thy heart soft as thou art faire



Vvere thy heart soft as thou art faire,
Thou wer't a wonder past compare:
But frozen Love and fierce disdain
By their extremes thy graces stain.
Cold coyness quenches the still fires
Which glow in Lovers warm desires;
And scorn, like the quick Lightnings blaze,
Darts death against affections gaze.
O Heavens, what prodigy is this
When Love in Beauty buried is!
Or that dead pity thus should be
Tomb'd in a living cruelty.

Poems by Henry King

St. Valentines day



Now that each feather'd Chorister doth sing
The glad approches of the welcome Spring:
Now Phœbus darts forth his more early beam,
And dips it later in the curled stream,
I should to custome prove a retrograde
Did I still dote upon my sullen shade.
Oft have the seasons finisht and begun;
Dayes into Months, those into years have run,
Since my cross Starres and inauspicious fate
Doom'd me to linger here without my Mate:
Whose loss ere since befrosting my desire,
Left me an Altar without Gift or Fire.
I therefore could have wisht for your own sake
That Fortune had design'd a nobler stake
For you to draw, then one whose fading day
Like to a dedicated Taper lay
Within a Tomb, and long burnt out in vain,
Since nothing there saw better by the flame....

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Poems by Henry King

Upon the Kings happy return from Scotland



So breaks the day when the returning Sun
Hath newly through his Winter Tropick run,
As You (Great Sir!) in this regress come forth
From the remoter Climate of the North.
To tell You now what cares, what fears we past,
What Clouds of sorrow did the land ore-cast,
Were lost, but unto such as have been there
Where the absented Sun benights the year:
Or have those Countreys traveld which nere feel
The warmth and vertue of his flaming wheel.
How happy yet were we! that when you went,
You left within your Kingdomes firmament
A Partner-Light, whose lustre may despise
The nightly glimm'ring Tapers of the skies,
Your peerless Queen; and at each hand a Starre
Whose hopeful beams from You enkindled are.
Though (to say truth) the light which they could bring...

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Poems by Henry King

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