[1] ‘Mrs. Arden’:  some suggest that this lady was probably either a maid
    of honour, or a gentlewoman of the bed-chamber to King Charles the
    First’s Queen.

OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE DWARFS.[1]

Design, or chance, makes others wive;
But Nature did this match contrive;
Eve might as well have Adam fled,
As she denied her little bed
To him, for whom Heaven seemed to frame,
And measure out, this only dame.

Thrice happy is that humble pair,
Beneath the level of all care! 
Over whose heads those arrows fly
Of sad distrust and jealousy; 10
Secured in as high extreme,
As if the world held none but them.

To him the fairest nymphs do show
Like moving mountains, topp’d with snow;
And every man a Polypheme
Does to his Galatea seem;
None may presume her faith to prove;
He proffers death that proffers love.

Ah, Chloris! that kind Nature thus
From all the world had severed us; 20
Creating for ourselves us two,
As love has me for only you!

[1] ‘Dwarfs’:  Gibson and Shepherd, each three feet ten inches in height. 
    They were pages at Court, and Charles I. gave away the female
    infinitesimal.

LOVE’S FAREWELL.

1 Treading the path to nobler ends,
  A long farewell to love I gave,
  Resolved my country, and my friends,
  All that remain’d of me should have.

2 And this resolve no mortal dame,
  None but those eyes could have o’erthrown;
  The nymph I dare not, need not name,
  So high, so like herself alone.

3 Thus the tall oak, which now aspires
  Above the fear of private fires,
  Grown and design’d for nobler use,
  Not to make warm, but build the house,
  Though from our meaner flames secure,
  Must that which falls from heaven endure.

FROM A CHILD.

Madam, as in some climes the warmer sun
Makes it full summer ere the spring’s begun,
And with ripe fruit the bending boughs can load,
Before our violets dare look abroad;
So measure not by any common use
The early love your brighter eyes produce. 
When lately your fair hand in woman’s weed
Wrapp’d my glad head, I wish’d me so indeed,
That hasty time might never make me grow
Out of those favours you afford me now; 10
That I might ever such indulgence find,
And you not blush, nor think yourself too kind;
Who now, I fear, while I these joys express,
Begin to think how you may make them less. 
The sound of love makes your soft heart afraid,
And guard itself, though but a child invade,
And innocently at your white breast throw
A dart as white-a ball of new fallen snow.