To My Lord Admiral, of His Late Sickness and Recovery

With joy like ours the Thracian youth invadesOrpheus, returning from th'Elysian shades;Embrace the hero, and his stay implore;Make it their public suit he would no moreDesert them so, and for his spouse's sake,His vanish'd love, tempt the Lethean lake.The ladies, too, the brightest of that time(Ambitious all his lofty bed to climb),Their doubtful hopes with expectation feed,Who shall the fair Eurydice succeed:Eurydice! for whom his numerous moanMakes list'ning trees and savage mountains groan;Through all the air his sounding strings dilateSorrow, like that which touch'd our hearts of late.Your pining sickness, and your restless pain,At once the land affecting, and the main,When the glad news that you were admiralScarce through the nation spread, 'twas feared by allThat our great Charles, whose wisdom shines in you,Would be perplexed how to choose anew.So more than private was the joy and grief,That at the worst it gave our souls relief,That in our age such sense of virtue lived,They joy'd so justly, and so justly grieved.Nature (her fairest light eclipsèd) seemsHerself to suffer in those sharp extremes;While not from thine alone thy blood retires,But from those cheeks which all the world admires.The stem thus threaten'd, and the sap in thee,Droop all the branches of that noble tree!Their beauty they, and we our love suspend;Nought can our wishes, save thy health, intend.As lilies overcharged with rain, they bendTheir beauteous heads, and with high heaven contend;Fold thee within their snowy arms, and cry--'He is too faultless, and too young, to die!'So like immortals round about thee theySit, that they fright approaching death away.Who would not languish, by so fair a trainTo be lamented, and restored again?

Or, thus withheld, what hasty soul would go,Though to the blest? O'er young Adonis soFair Venus mourn'd, and with the precious showerOf her warm tears cherish'd the springing flower.

The next support, fair hope of your great name,And second pillar of that noble frame,By loss of thee would no advantage have,But step by step pursue thee to the grave.

And now relentless Fate, about to endThe line which backward does so far extendThat antique stock, which still the world suppliesWith bravest spirits, and with brightest eyes,Kind Phoebus, interposing, bid me say,Such storms no more shall shake that house; but they,Like Neptune, and his sea-born niece, shall beThe shining glories of the land and sea;With courage guard, and beauty warm, our age,And lovers fill with like poetic rage.

'Nation spread': the Earl of Northumberland, appointed Lord HighAdmiral in the year 1638.