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Richard Lovelace - Advice To My Best Brother, Coll: Francis Lovelace.
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  Frank, wil`t live unhandsomely? trust not too far
Thy self to waving seas: for what thy star,
Calculated by sure event, must be,
Look in the glassy-epithete, and see.

  Yet settle here your rest, and take your state,
And in calm halcyon`s nest ev`n build your fate;
Prethee lye down securely, Frank, and keep
With as much no noyse the inconstant deep
As its inhabitants; nay, stedfast stand,
As if discover`d were a New-found-land,
Fit for plantation here.  Dream, dream still,
Lull`d in Dione`s cradle; dream, untill
Horrour awake your sense, and you now find
Your self a bubbled pastime for the wind;
And in loose Thetis blankets torn and tost.
Frank, to undo thy self why art at cost?

  Nor be too confident, fix`d on the shore:
For even that too borrows from the store
Of her rich neighbour, since now wisest know
(And this to Galileo`s judgement ow),
The palsie earth it self is every jot
As frail, inconstant, waveing, as that blot
We lay upon the deep, that sometimes lies
Chang`d, you would think, with `s botoms properties;
But this eternal, strange Ixion`s wheel
Of giddy earth ne`er whirling leaves to reel,
Till all things are inverted, till they are
Turn`d to that antick confus`d state they were.

  Who loves the golden mean, doth safely want
A cobwebb`d cot and wrongs entail`d upon`t;
He richly needs a pallace for to breed
Vipers and moths, that on their feeder feed;
The toy that we (too true) a mistress call,
Whose looking-glass and feather weighs up all;
And cloaths which larks would play with in the sun,
That mock him in the night, when `s course is run.

  To rear an edifice by art so high,
That envy should not reach it with her eye,
Nay, with a thought come neer it.  Wouldst thou know,
How such a structure should be raisd, build low.
The blust`ring winds invisible rough stroak
More often shakes the stubborn`st, prop`rest oak;
And in proud turrets we behold withal,
`Tis the imperial top declines to fall:
Nor does Heav`n`s lightning strike the humble vales,
But high-aspiring mounts batters and scales.

  A breast of proof defies all shocks of Fate,
Fears in the best, hopes in worser state;
Heaven forbid that, as of old, time ever
Flourish`d in spring so contrary, now never.
That mighty breath, which blew foul Winter hither,
Can eas`ly puffe it to a fairer weather.
Why dost despair then, Frank?  Aeolus has
A Zephyrus as well as Boreas.

  `Tis a false sequel, soloecisme `gainst those
Precepts by fortune giv`n us, to suppose
That, `cause it is now ill, `t will ere be so;
Apollo doth not always bend his bow;
But oft, uncrowned of his beams divine,
With his soft harp awakes the sleeping Nine.

  In strictest things magnanimous appear,
Greater in hope, howere thy fate, then fear:
Draw all your sails in quickly, though no storm
Threaten your ruine with a sad alarm;
For tell me how they differ, tell me, pray,
A cloudy tempest and a too fair day?
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