The World’s Wit and Humor: An Encyclopedia in 15 Volumes. 1906.
Abraham Cowley (16181667)A Lovers Chronicle
M
If I remember well, my breast—
Margarita first of all;
But awhile the wanton maid
With my restless heart had play’d,
Martha took the flying ball.
To the beauteous Catharine.
Beauteous Catharine gave place
(Though loth and angry she to part
With the possession of my heart)
To Eliza’s conquering face.
Had she not evil counsels ta’en;
Fundamental laws she broke,
And still new favourites she chose,
Till up in arms my passions rose,
And cast away her yoke.
Both to reign at once began;
Alternately they sway’d;
And sometimes Mary was the fair,
And sometimes Anne the crown did wear,
And sometimes both I obey’d.
And did rigorous laws impose;
A mighty tyrant she!
Long, alas! should I have been
Under that iron-sceptred queen,
Had not Rebecca set me free.
’Twas then a golden time with me:
But soon those pleasures fled;
For the gracious princess died,
In her youth and beauty’s pride,
And Judith reignéd in her stead.
Judith held the sovereign power:
Wondrous beautiful her face!
But so weak and small her wit,
That she to govern was unfit,
And so Susanna took her place.
Arm’d with a resistless flame,
And th’ artillery of her eye;
Whilst she proudly march’d about,
Greater conquests to find out,
She beat out Susan by-the-by.
Black-eyed Bess, her viceroy-maid;
To whom ensued a vacancy:
Thousand worse passions then possess’d
The interregnum of my breast;
Save me from such an anarchy!
And a third Mary, next began;
Then Joan, and Jane, and Audria;
And then a pretty Thomasine,
And then another Catharine,
And then a long et-cetera.
The strength and riches of their state;
The powder, patches, and the pins,
The ribbons, jewels, and the rings,
The lace, the paint, and warlike things,
That make up all their magazines;
To take and keep men’s hearts;
The letters, embassies, and spies,
The frowns, and smiles, and flatteries,
The quarrels, tears, and perjuries,
(Numberless, nameless mysteries!)
By Machiavel, the waiting-maid,
I more voluminous should grow
(Chiefly if I, like them, should tell
All change of weathers that befell)
Than Holinshed or Stow.
Since few of them were long with me.
An higher and a nobler strain
My present Empress doth claim,
Heleonora, first o’ th’ name;
Whom God grant her long to reign!