Poems by J.C. ; with additions.

To Mrs. K. T. who ask't him why he was dumb.

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 neither 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-falne Puritan, 'Tis zeal that tongue-ties that good man: For heat of Conscience, all men hold, Is th' only way to catch their cold. How should loves 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 goodnesse of an Ave Mary. How can I speak, that twice am checkt By this and that Religious Sect? Still dumb, and in your face I spie Still cause, and still Divinity. As soon as blest with your salute, My manners taught me to be mute: For, least they cancell all the blisse You sign'd with so divine a kisse, The lips you seal must needs consent Unto the tongues imprisonment. My tongue in hold, my voice doth rise (With a strange E-la to my eyes; Where it gets bail, and in that sense Begins a new-found Eloquence.

Oh listen with attentive sight To what my pratling eyes indite: Or (Lady) since 'tis in your choice, To give, or to suspend my voice, With the same key set ope the door Wherewith you lockt it fast before; Kisse once again, and when you thus Have doubly been miraculous, My Muse shall write with Handmaids duty The Golden Legend of your beauty.

He, whom his dumbnesse now confines, But mean-to speak the rest by signs.

I. C.