Carmen Deo nostro, te decet hymnus sacred poems, / collected, corrected, augmented, most humbly presented. To my Lady the Countesse of Denbigh by her most deuoted seruant. R.C. In heaty [sic] acknowledgment of his immortall obligation to her goodnes & charity.

TO THE SAME PARTY COVNCEL CONCERNING HER CHOISE.

DEar, heaun-designed SOVL! Amongst the rest Of suters that beseige your Maiden brest, Why my not I My fortune try And venture to speak one good word

Not for my self alas, but for my dearer LORD? You'aue seen allready, in this lower sphear Offroth & bubbles, what to look for here. Say, gentle soul, what can you find But painted shapes, Peacocks & Apes, Illustrious flves, Guilded dunghills, glorious LYES, Goodly surmises And deep disguises, Oathes of water, words of wind? TRVTH biddes me say, 'tis time you cease to trust Your soul to any son of dust. 'Tis time you listen to a brauer loue, Which from aboue Calls you vp higher And biddes you come And choose your roome Among his own fair sonnes of fire, Where you among The golden throng That watches at his palace doores May passe along And follow those fair starres of yours; Starrs much too fair & pure to wai•• vpon The false smiles of a sublunary sun. Sweet, let me prophesy that at last t'will proue Your wary loue Laves vp his purer & more pretious vowes, And meanes them for a farre more worthy SPOVSE Then this world of Lyes can giue ye 'Eun for Him with whom nor cost,

Nor loue, nor labour can be lost; Him who neuer will deceiue ye. Let not my lord, the Mighty louer of soules, disdain that I discouer The hidden art Of his high stratagem to win your heart, It was his heaunly art Kindly to crosse you In your mistaken loue, That, at the next remoue Thence he might tosse you And strike your troubled heart Home to himself; to hide it in his brest The bright ambrosiall nest, Of loue, of life, & euerlasting rest. Happy Mystake! That thus shall wake Your wise soul, neuer to be wonne Now w••••h a loue below the sun. Your first cho••ce failes, ô when you choose agen May it not be amongst the sonnes of Men.