"To His Fairest Valentine Mrs. A. L

"Come, pretty birds, present your lays,
     And learn to chaunt a goddess praise;
     Ye wood-nymphs, let your voices be
     Employ'd to serve her deity:
     And warble forth, ye virgins nine,
     Some music to my Valentine.

    "Her bosom is love's paradise,
     There is no heav'n but in her eyes;
     She's chaster than the turtle-dove,
     And fairer than the queen of love:
     Yet all perfections do combine
     To beautifie my Valentine.

    "She's Nature's choicest cabinet,
     Where honour, beauty, worth and wit
     Are all united in her breast.
     The graces claim an interest:
     All virtues that are most divine
     Shine clearest in my Valentine."

<53.2> Nights—Editor's MS.

<53.3> Where—Ibid.

<53.4> Do—Ibid.

<53.5> There is here either an interpolation in the printed copy, or an HIATUS in the MS. The latter reads:—

"Yet may I 'mbrace, sigh, kisse, the rest," &c.,

thus leaving out a line and a half or upward of the poem, as it is printed in LUCASTA.

<53.6> MS. reads:—"Youre phansie, madam," omitting "that's to have."

<53.7> Original and MS. have REACH.

<53.8> This must refer, I suppose, to the ballad of Queen Dido, which the woman sings as she works. The signification of LOVE-BANG is not easily determined. BANG, in Suffolk, is a term applied to a particular kind of cheese; but I suspect that "love-bang Kate" merely signifies "noisy Kate" here. As to the old ballad of Dido, see Stafford Smith's MUSICA ANTIQUA, i. 10, ii. 158; and Collier's EXTRACTS FROM THE REGISTERS OF THE STATIONERS' COMPANY, i. 98. I subjoin the first stanza of "Dido" as printed in the MUSICA ANTIQUA:—

    "Dido was the Carthage Queene,
     And lov'd the Troian knight,
     That wandring many coasts had seene,
     And many a dreadfull fight.
     As they a-hunting road, a show'r
     Drove them in a loving bower,
     Down to a darksome cave:
     Where Aenaeas with his charmes
     Lock't Queene Dido in his armes
     And had what he would have."

A somewhat different version is given in Durfey's PILLS TO PURGE
MELANCHOLY, vi. 192-3.

<53.9> AN UNANOYNTED—MS.

<53.10> This and the three preceding lines are not in MS.

<53.11> Alluding of course to the very familiar legend of Ulysses and the Syrens.

<53.12> A quaver (a well-known musical expression).

<53.13> A—MS.

<53.14> A musical peg.

<53.15> AND—MS.

<53.16> A piece of wire attached to the finger-board of a guitar.

<53.17> Original and MS. read AN.

<53.18> The tablature of Lovelace's time was the application of letters, of the alphabet or otherwise, to the purpose of expressing the sounds or notes of a composition.