To Fletcher Revivd

How have I bin religious? what strange

Has scap't me, that I never understood?

Have I hel-guarded Haeresie o'rthrowne?

Heald wounded states? made kings and kingdoms one?

That

TE should be so merciful to me,

To let me live t' have said I have read thee.  Faire star, ascend! the joy! the life! the

Of this tempestuous age, this darke worlds sight!

Oh, from thy crowne of glory dart one

May strike a sacred reverence, whilest thy name(Like holy flamens to their god of day)We bowing, sing; and whilst we praise, we pray.  Bright spirit! whose aeternal

Of wit, like Time, stil in it selfe did run,

Binding all others in it, and did

Commission, how far this or that shal live;

Like

NY of poems who, as

Signes death to all, her selfe cam never dye.  And now thy purple-robed Traegedy,

In her imbroider'd buskins, cals mine eye,

Where the brave Aetius we see betray'd,

T' obey his death, whom thousand lives obey'd;

Whilst that the mighty foole his scepter breakes,

And through his gen'rals wounds his own doome speakes,

Weaving thus richly

AN,

The costliest monarch with the cheapest man.  Souldiers may here to their old glories adde,

The

ER love, and be with reason

AD:

Not, as of old,

Alcides furious,

Who wilder then his bull did teare the house(Hurling his language with the canvas stone):

Twas thought the monster ror'd the sob'rer tone.  But ah! when thou thy sorrow didst

With passions, blacke as is her darke attire,

Virgins as sufferers have wept to

So white a soule, so red a crueltie;

That thou hast griev'd, and with unthought

Dri'd their wet eyes who now thy mercy blesse;

Yet, loth to lose thy watry jewell,

Joy wip't it off, laughter straight sprung't agen.  Now ruddy checked Mirth with rosie

Fans ev'ry brow with gladnesse, whilst she

Delight to all, and the whole theatreA festivall in heaven doth appeare:

Nothing but pleasure, love; and (like the morne)Each face a gen'ral smiling doth adorne.  Heare ye, foul speakers, that pronounce the

Of stewes and shores,

I will informe you

And how to cloath aright your wanton wit,

Without her nasty bawd attending it:

View here a loose thought sayd with such a grace,

Minerva might have spoke in Venus face;

So well disguis'd, that 'twas conceiv'd by

But Cupid had Diana's linnen on;

And all his naked parts so vail'd, th'

The shape with clowding the uncomlinesse;

That if this Reformation, which

Receiv'd, had not been buried with thee,

The stage (as this worke) might have liv'd and

Her lines, the austere Skarlet had approv'd;

And th' actors wisely been from that

As cleare, as they are now from audience.  Thus with thy Genius did the scaene expire,

Wanting thy active and correcting fire,

That now (to spread a darknesse over all)Nothing remaines but Poesie to fall:

And though from these thy Embers we

Some warmth, so much as may be said, we live;

That we dare praise thee blushlesse, in the

Of the best piece Hermes to Love e're read;

That we rejoyce and glory in thy wit,

And feast each other with remembring it;

That we dare speak thy thought, thy acts recite:

Yet all men henceforth be afraid to write.