Waller, who followed the court to Paris, was the author of
two songs, which are still favorites, _Go, Lovely Rose_, and _On a
Girdle_, and he first introduced the smooth, correct manner of writing
in couplets, which Dryden and Pope carried to perfection. Gallantly
rather than love was the inspiration of these courtly singers. In such
verses as Carew's _Encouragements to a Lover_, and George Wither's _The
Manly Heart_,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?--
we see the revolt against the high, passionate, Sidneian love of the
Elizabethan sonneteers, and the note of _persiflage_ that was to mark
the lyrical verse of the Restoration. But the poetry of the cavaliers
reached its high-water mark in one fiery-hearted song by the noble and
unfortunate James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, who invaded Scotland in
the interest of Charles II., and was taken prisoner and put to death at
Edinburgh in 1650.
My dear and only love, I pray
That little world of thee
Be governed by no other sway
Than purest monarchy.
In language borrowed from the politics of the time, he cautions his
mistress against _synods_ or _committees_ in her heart; swears to make
her glorious by his pen and famous by his sword; and, with that fine
recklessness which distinguished the dashing troopers of Prince Rupert,
he adds, in words that have been often quoted,
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all.
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