| DEAR hope! earth's dowry, & heavn's debt! | |
| The entity of those that are not yet. | |
| Subtlest, but surest beeing! Thou by whom | |
| Our nothing has a definition! | |
| Substantiall shade! whose sweet allay | 5 |
| Blends both the noones of night & day. | |
| Fates cannot find out a capacity | |
| Of hurting thee. | |
| From Thee their lean dilemma, with blunt horn, | |
| Shrinkes, as the sick moon from the wholsome morn. | 10 |
| Rich hope! love's legacy, under lock | |
| Of faith! still spending, & still growing stock! | |
| Our crown-land lyes above yet each meal brings | |
| A seemly portion for the sonnes of kings. | |
| Nor will the virgin joyes we wed | 15 |
| Come lesse unbroken to our bed, | |
| Because that from the bridall cheek of blisse | |
| Thou steal'st us down a distant kisse. | |
| Hope's chast stealth harmes no more joye's maidenhead | |
| Then spousall rites prejudge the marriage bed. | 20 |
| Fair hope! our earlyer heav'n by thee | |
| Young time is taster to eternity. | |
| Thy generous wine with age growes strong, not sowre. | |
| Nor does it kill thy fruit, to smell thy flowre. | |
| Thy golden, growing, head never hangs down | 25 |
| Till in the lappe of loves full noone | |
| It falls; and dyes! o no, it melts away | |
| As does the dawn into the day. | |
| As lumpes of sugar lose themselves; and twine | |
| Their supple essence with the soul of wine. | 30 |
| Fortune? alas, above the world's low warres | |
| Hope walks; & kickes the curld heads of conspiring starres. | |
| Her keel cutts not the waves where These winds stirr, | |
| Fortune's whole lottery is one blank to her. | |
| Sweet hope! kind cheat! fair fallacy by thee | 35 |
| We are not WHERE nor What we be, | |
| But WHAT & WHERE we would be. Thus art thou | |
| Our absent PRESENCE and our future Now. | |
| Faith's sister! nurse of fair desire! | |
| Fear's antidote! a wise & well-stay'd fire! | 40 |
| Temper twixt chill despair, & torrid joy! | |
| Queen Regent in yonge love's minority! | |
| Though the vext chymick vainly chases | |
| His fugitive gold through all her faces; | |
| Though love's more feirce, more fruitlesse, fires assay | 45 |
| One face more fugitive then all they; | |
| True hope's a glorious hunter & her chase, | |
| The GOD of nature in the feilds of grace. | |
| VIVE JESU. | |
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