Clievelandi Vindiciæ, or, Clieveland's genuine poems, orations, epistles, &c. purged from the many false and spurious ones which had usurped his name, and from innumerable errours and corruptions in the true copies : to which are added many never printed before, with an account of the author's life.

To M^rs. K. T. who asked him why he was dumb, written calente Calamo.

STay, should I answer, Lady, then In vain would be your Question. Should I be dumb, why then again Your asking me would be in vain. Silence, nor Speech, on either hand, Can satisfie this strange demand. Yet since your Will throws me upon This wished Contradiction; I'le tell you how I did become So strangely, as you hear me, dumb. Ask but the chap-fallen Puritan, 'Tis Zeal that Tongue-tyes that good man; (For heat of Conscience all men hold Is th' only way to catch that cold:) How should Love's Zealot then forbear To be your silenc'd Minister?

Nay your Religion, which doth grant A Worship due to you my Saint, Yet counts it that Devotion wrong, That does it in the Vulgar Tongue. My ruder words would give offence To such an hallow'd Excellence; As th' English Dialect would vary The Goodness of an Ave Mary. How can I speak that twice am check'd By this, and that Religious Sect? Still dumb, and in your Face I spy Still Cause, and still Divinity. As soon as blest with your Salute, My Manners taught me to be mute, Lest I should cancel all the Bliss You sign'd with so divine a Kiss. The Lips you seal must needs consent Unto the Tongue's Imprisonment. My Tongue in hold, my Voyce doth rise With a strange Ela to my eyes. Where it gets Bail, and in that sense Begins a new found Eloquence. Oh listen with attentive sight To what my prating eyes indite! Or, Lady, since 'tis in your choice To give, or to suspend my Voyce,

With the same Key set ope the Door Wherewith you lock'd it fast before. Kiss once again, and when you thus Have doubly been Miraculous. My Muse shall write with Handmaid Duty The Golden Legend of your Beauty. He whom his Dumbness now confines Intends to speak the rest by Signs.