Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

William Habington (1605–1654)

The Description of Castara

LIKE the violet which alone

Prospers in some happy shade;

My Castara lives unknown,

To no looser eye betrayed,

For she ’s to her self untrue,

Who delights i’ th’ public view.

Such is her beauty as no arts

Have enriched with borrowed grace;

Her high birth no pride imparts,

For she blushes in her place.

Folly boasts a glorious blood,

She is noblest, being good.

Cautious, she knew never yet

What a wanton courtship meant;

Nor speaks loud to boast her wit,

In her silence eloquent:

Of her self survey she takes

But ’tween men no difference makes.

She obeys with speedy will

Her grave parents’ wise commands;

And so innocent that ill

She nor acts nor understands;

Women’s feet run still astray

If once to ill they know the way.

She sails by that rock, the court,

Where oft honour splits her mast:

And retiredness thinks the port,

Where her fame may anchor cast:

Virtue safely cannot sit,

Where vice is enthroned for wit.

She holds that day’s pleasure best

Where sin waits not on delight;

Without mask, or ball, or feast,

Sweetly spends a winter’s night:

O’er that darkness, whence is thrust

Prayer and sleep, oft governs lust.

She her throne makes reason climb,

While wild passions captive lie;

And each article of time

Her pure thoughts to Heaven fly:

All her vows religious be,

And her love she vows to me.