(15)
Yet though your skill and pity could dispence,
More daies to her beguiled Innocence:
No Art removes à ruin'd Virgins shame,
Unlesse revived she, be not the same.
Thus 'tis more easy to recall the Dead
Then to restore a once-lost Maidenhead.
THou Pill too strong for fate! in whose defence
Mira'cles stept in to rescue innocence.
Death was thy Ordeall, and Compurgatrix
And Minos did thy Judges doome refix.
Thou didst bring forth in riddles, so surviv'st.
By giving breath thou Kild'st,by dying liv'st.
Thy rude spawns fleeting soule did sure retire
To thee the Damme, as a reserve entire,
Giving thee second life, when thine was done
Thou wert thine owne superfetation.
Strange fruit o'th' cursed and the barren Tree
That madst the Hangman practice Midwifery,
Nature new hatchd thee, as first Men, who tooke
Birth from harsh Entrals of a Vitall Oak,
One of the Daughters of Deucalion
Thou wakest from thy Tomb, as they from stone.
The Maids Game.
ALone this subtle Gamestresse on a day
Went to Deaths house at Tick-Tack for to play.
To knowe if he was't home, or gone from thence,
His Porter, th' Hangman held her in Suspence.
At length he met her, plaid, and soone did spy,
The Maid had left a Blot upon a Dye.
Death threw, and thought h'had wone, but she said nay
Doctors like Doublemen stood in the way
After she cast, obtain'd a Double Game,
By putting in t'one Point both death and shame.
