Volume 1 — VPON TWO GREENE APRICOCKES SENT TO COWLEY BY SIR CRASHAW.[87]

Take these, Time's tardy truants, sent by me1 To be chastis'd (sweet friend) and chide by thee. Pale sons of our Pomona! whose wan cheekes Have spent the patience of expecting weekes, Yet are scarce ripe enough at best to show5 The redd, but of the blush to thee they ow. By thy comparrison they shall put on More Summer in their shame's reflection, Than ere the fruitfull Phœbus' flaming kisses Kindled on their cold lips. O had my wishes10 And the deare merits of your Muse, their due, The yeare had found some fruit early as you; Ripe as those rich composures Time computes Blossoms, but our blest tast confesses fruits. How does thy April-Autumne mocke these cold15 Progressions 'twixt whose termes poor Time grows old! With thee alone he weares no beard, thy braine Gives him the morning World's fresh gold againe. 'Twas only Paradice, 'tis onely thou, Whose fruit and blossoms both blesse the same bough.20 Proud in the patterne of thy pretious youth, Nature (methinks) might easily mend her growth. Could she in all her births but coppie thee, Into the publick yeares proficiencie, No fruit should have the face to smile on thee25 (Young master of the World's maturitie) But such whose sun-borne beauties what they borrow Of beames to day, pay back again to morrow, Nor need be double-gilt. How then must these Poor fruites looke pale at thy Hesperides!30 Faine would I chide their slownesse, but in their Defects I draw mine own dull character. Take them, and me in them acknowledging, How much my Summer waites upon thy Spring.