ic- 
 
 h$qi\^tt%\Am A^M 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 English Verse 
 
 CHAUCER TO BURNS 
 
 ,■■- .^ 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 W;>' LINTON AND R. H. STODDARD 
 
 LONDON 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1884
 
 
 ]^'' 
 
 :4
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Thf, origins of English Verse are to be sought in 
 various directions, recondite as well as obvious ; for 
 while there is no difficulty in following it from Chaucer 
 down, we must remember that when it reached Chau- 
 cer it was not a rill but a river, — a river whose volume 
 had been increased by many affluents, each with a 
 spring or well-head of its ov/n. The first singers were 
 the minstrels, or glee-men, who chanted at feasts and 
 festivals and accompanied themselves on the harp. 
 Who they were and what they sung we have to conject- 
 ure, for their names and their songs have alike per- 
 ished. We only know that their profession was a rec- 
 ognized one, and that grave dignitaries of the Church 
 thought it an honor to be skilled therein. The first 
 poet whose name has reached us is Caedmon. There is 
 a touch of the marvellous in his story as it is related by 
 Bede, and a touch of the romantic as it is related by 
 Morley. What appears to be authentic in it is that he 
 lived in the seventh century, and was a tenant on some 
 abbey lands at Whitby. He was so much less instruct- 
 ed than his equals, Wright tells us, that he had not 
 even learned any poetry, and when the harp was
 
 Vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 turned toward him in tlie hall where at supper it was 
 customary for each person to sing in his turn, he 
 would often retire to hide his shame. On one of these 
 occasions he quitted the table, and went to the stable, — 
 for it was his duty that night to watch the cattle, — and 
 watching awhile he laid himself down, and fell into a 
 sound slumber. In his sleep a stranger came to him, 
 and said, " Czedmon, sing." And he answered, " I know 
 nothing to sing, for my incapacity in this respect was 
 the cause of my leaving the hall to come hither." 
 "Nay," said the stranger, "but thou hast something 
 to sing." "What must I sing?" " Sing the Creation." 
 And thereupon he began to sing verses which he had 
 never heard before. When he awoke he not only 
 remembered the lines that he had made in his sleep, 
 but he found that he could go on with them in the 
 same strain. In the morning he went to the steward, 
 and, telling him what had happened to him, was con- 
 ducted to the Abbess Hilda, who, ordering portions of 
 the Scriptures to be related to him, bade him go home 
 and turn them into verse. He returned the next day 
 with his task accomplished, and in a short time was 
 received into the monastery, where he continued his 
 Scriptural studies and Scriptural verses. Csedmon par- 
 aphrased the whole of Genesis, with the exception of 
 the portion devoted to events subsequent to Isaac, and 
 passed on to the history of Moses and his laws, and 
 the passage through the Red Sea. Then he made an 
 abrupt transition to the Book of Daniel, that he might 
 tell the story of the Three Children in the Fiery Fur- 
 nace, set forth the wisdom of Daniel in expounding 
 dreams, and denounce the doom of Belshazzar. His
 
 INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 genius took a broader flight in the second book, which 
 opens with the complaint of the fallen angels in hell 
 and the lamentation of the souls detained in Limbo, 
 and then depicts the descent of Christ for the liberation 
 of those souls, concluding with a description of the 
 terrors of the Day of Judgment. Such was the first 
 English poet, and such was his poem, which was writ- 
 ten in short lines, without rhyme, the rhythm depend- 
 ing upon accent. 
 
 We stand on firm ground when we come to Casd- 
 mon, but before we reach him, and after we leave him, 
 we are without a guide in the shifting sands of chro- 
 nology. He must have had predecessors, and he must 
 have had descendants ; but who they were, and what 
 they wrote, cannot now be determined with any cer- 
 tainty. Belonging to his period, and perhaps his con- 
 temporary, was the unknown poet who put Beowulf 
 into verse, and thereby presei'ved the historical matter 
 which it embodies, and which pertains to the end of 
 the fifth century. In the Traveller's Song, which is 
 thought to have been composed in the latter half of 
 the sixth century, we have the name of its singer, Wid- 
 sith, and an account of the different peoples which he 
 had visited as a glee-man. The stream of English 
 Verse was distinguished by two main currents as it 
 swept along through the succeeding centuries, — the 
 source of one being history, and the source of the 
 other religion. The next poet whose name has de- 
 scended to us was Cynewulf. He may have been a 
 Bishop of Lindisfarne, who died in the year 780, or he 
 may have been an Abbot of Peterborough, who died in 
 the year 1014. He is known to have written three
 
 viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 poems, one entitled Elene, based on the legend of St. 
 Helena, and the finding of the True Cross ; a second, 
 entitled Juliana, based on the legend of that martyr in 
 the days of the Emperor Maximian ; and a third, which 
 was rather a series of religious poems than a single 
 poem, entitled Christ. There are several other relig- 
 ious poems of Cynewulf's period, which embraced two 
 centuries and a quarter, all the work of unknown 
 hands. The most important are a legend of St. 
 Guthlac, a legend of St. Andrew, a vision of the Holy 
 Rood, the Phoenix, an allegory on the life of the 
 Christian, The Panther, a fable applied to the resurrec- 
 tion of Christ, The Fate of the Apostles, The False- 
 hood of Men, and two Addresses of the Soul to the 
 Body. Besides these remain fragments of a poem on 
 Judith, and a poem on The Grave, 2iX\^— flotsam and 
 jetsain from the current of history — a fragment of an 
 old chant about the battle of Finnesburgh, a consider- 
 able portion of a poem on the battle of Maldon, fought 
 in the year 993, and an Ode on the victory of King 
 Athelstan over the Scots and Danes at Brunanburg, in 
 the year 938, which last the reader will find, if he cares 
 to, in the first volume of Ellis's Specimens. 
 
 The historical current in English Verse was soon to 
 be swollen with a powerful affluent, the source of which 
 must be traced to Nennius, who may have lived in the 
 eighth, or ninth, or tenth century. He wrote in Latin 
 prose a History of the Britons, which contains the earli- 
 est account of the legend of King Arthur, and was fol- 
 lowed by William of Malmesbury, who was probably 
 born in the last decade of the eleventh century, and 
 who also wrote in Latin prose a History of the Kings of
 
 INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 England. A few years after his death Geoffrey of 
 Monmouth, a Welsh priest, wrote a Latin prose His- 
 tory of British Kings. In its earliest form, which con- 
 sisted of four books, it was a translation of an ancient 
 History of Britain, which Walter Calenius, Archdea- 
 con of Oxford, found in Brittany, written in the Cym- 
 ric tongue. He afterward enlarged it to eight books, 
 adding to it the Prophecies of Merlin, which he had 
 translated from Cymric verse into Latin prose, and 
 finally completed it in twelve books, in the year 1147. 
 The popularity of the History of Geoffrey of Mon- 
 mouth, and the desire to gratify the wife of a North- 
 ern baron who could not read Latin, induced Geoffrey 
 Gaimar to translate this History into French verse of 
 eight syllables. A few years later Wace, a native of 
 the island of Jersey, turned it into a French metrical 
 romance, Brut d' Angleterre. 
 
 The early history of Britain, which was filtered, we 
 are told, from a lost Cymric original into the Latin 
 prose of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and which flowed 
 thence, as we have seen, in the French verse of Gaimar 
 and Wace, reached the stream of English Verse through 
 Layamon, or Laweman, a parish priest at Ernley. He 
 expanded Wace's Brut with additions from other 
 sources until its length was more than doubled. His 
 measure was the alliterative measure that Csedmon had 
 employed, though it was less regular in structure, with 
 occasional rhymes. The same elements that were active 
 in the period of Csedmon were active in the period of 
 Layamon, the verse-movements of history and religion 
 being contemporaneous in both. Beside the Brut of 
 Layamon we must place the Ormulum, the work of a
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 canon of the order of St. Augustine, named Ormin, or 
 Orm. This holy man set out to compose a series of 
 Homilies upon those portions of the New Testament 
 which were read in the daily service of the Church, his 
 plan being to give a paraphrastic version of the Gos- 
 pel of the day, adapting the matter to the rules of his 
 verse, and then to add an exposition of the subject in 
 its doctrinal and practical bearings. " Some idea may 
 be formed of the extent of Ormin's labors when we 
 consider that, out of the entire series of Homilies, 
 provided for nearly the whole of the yearly service, 
 nothing is left but the text of the thirty-second." As 
 this fragment amounts to nearly ten thousand lines, or 
 nearly twenty thousand as they are printed, some idea 
 may also be formed of the superhuman piety and 
 patience of Ormin's readers. The measure of the 
 Ormulum consists of fifteen syllables, divided into two 
 sections, the one of eight, the other of seven syllables, 
 and is without rhyme or alliteration. Related in spirit 
 to Ormin and Csedmon was an anonymous writer who 
 about the middle of the thirteenth century produced a 
 metrical version of the story of Genesis and Exodus 
 in octosyllabic verse, and a cluster of unknown writers 
 who in the period between Caedmon and Ormin pro- 
 duced various metrical Homilies, Creeds, Paternosters, 
 Joys of the Virgin, besides short devotional and moral 
 poems. 
 
 From the thirteenth century we should date the ori- 
 gin or earliest composition of English metrical ro- 
 mances, of the majority of which it is safe to say, that 
 if not translations from, they are based upon, French 
 originals. But we must not allow ourselves to be be-
 
 INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 gulled Into the charmed circle of the Metrical Romance, 
 which has created a large literature of its own. Our 
 business Is with the main stream of English Verse, and 
 not with the rivers or lakes which may have flowed out 
 from it. We resume, therefore, its historical current, 
 which we quitted for a moment when we came to Lay- 
 amon, and proceed with it until we reach Peter Lang- 
 toft, a canon of Augustlnlans at Bridlington, who wrote 
 in French verse a Chronicle of England, which need 
 not detain us, and Robert of Gloucester, a monk of 
 the abbey of that town, who also wrote, in Eng- 
 lish verse, a Chronicle of England. " It was in long 
 lines of seven accents, and occasionally six, and was 
 the first complete history of his country, from the 
 earliest times to his own day, written in popular rhymes 
 by an Englishman." Robert of Gloucester was fol- 
 lowed by Robert Mannyng, otherwise called Robert of 
 Brunn, from his birthplace in Lincolnshire, who recast 
 in English rhymes the French metrical chronicles of 
 Wace and Langtoft, the former in octosyllables, the 
 latter in Alexandrines. That we are able to indicate, 
 even briefly, two of the elements of English Verse from 
 the time of Caedmon to the time of Robert of Brunn, 
 we owe to the zeal of the religious men who composed 
 the writings that we have mentioned, and the industry 
 of the religious men who transcribed them. Co-work- 
 ers with these, toward the close of this period, were 
 the writers of the French metrical romances, many of 
 which were probably composed in England, as were 
 the Lais of Marie de France. There were, no doubt, 
 other elements in English Verse than those that have 
 been indicated ; but they have disappeared from the
 
 Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 body of it, because they were of a vocal and not of a 
 literary nature. A people among whom minstrels and 
 glee-men were as highly thought of as we know they 
 were among the Anglo-Saxons cannot have been with- 
 out songs of their own making. They must have had 
 battle ballads, — a paean over every battle that was won, 
 a lamentation over every battle that was lost, and they 
 must have had lyrics of love, for they abound among 
 the folk-songs of all European peoples. Campbell 
 quotes a stanza from one of these productions, and 
 says it would not disgrace the lyric poetry of a refined 
 age: 
 
 " For her love I cark and care, 
 For her love I droop and dare ; 
 For her love my bliss is bare. 
 
 And all I vfnx wan. 
 For her love in sleep I slake, 
 For her love all night I wake ; 
 For her love mourning I make 
 
 More than any man." 
 
 If Campbell had not stripped this of its antiquated 
 spelling one might approximate its date, but as it stands 
 it would be rash to do so. It cannot, however, be very 
 old. Belonging to an earlier period is this nature- 
 lyric : 
 
 •' Summer is y-comen in, 
 
 Loude ting cuckoo : 
 Groweth seed. 
 And bloweth mead, 
 
 And springeth the wood now ; 
 Ewe bleateth after Iamb, 
 
 Loweth after calf cow.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XlU 
 
 Bullock startetli, 
 Buck verteth, 
 
 Merry sing cuckoo ! 
 
 Cuckoo, cuckoo ! 
 Well sings thou, cuckoo ! 
 Ne swick thou never now." 
 
 Early English Verse should be read with a thorough 
 knowledge of the people for whom it was written, and 
 the language in which it was written, for read other- 
 wise it possesses but little interest, and even that little 
 is of a relative rather than a positive character. It 
 nriust always have an important place in the intellectual 
 history of England, and largely on account of the light 
 that it sheds upon its early history and its early religion. 
 It is in Wace and Geoffrey of Monmouth that we first 
 find Sabrina, and Gorboduc, and Lear, and that noblest 
 of all kingly figures — Arthur ; and it was from these and 
 the Latin poet Walter Map, that the whole cycle of the 
 Arthurian epic grew. And seven hundred years be- 
 fore Dante, and a thousand years before Milton, the 
 genius of the groom, or monk, Layamon had penetra- 
 ted the circles of Hell. 
 
 One form which the religious element in English 
 Verse assumed in the eleventh or twelfth century re- 
 mains to be noticed, — the dramatic form. It probably 
 originated in France, in the Mysteries, through which 
 the priests sought to impress the leading events and 
 personages of Scripture upon the minds of the illiter- 
 ate, and it was common to the period. Geoffrey of 
 Gorham is said to have written a miracle-play of St. 
 Katharine in the first years of the twelfth century, and 
 Hilarius, who had studied under Abelard at Paraclete,
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 certainly wrote three, — one turning upon a miracle of 
 St. Nicholas, anoLlier upon the raising of Lazarus, and 
 a third upon the history of Daniel. At first these sa- 
 cred dramas appear to have been acted by priests in 
 the interior of churches on holy days, but the churches 
 soon proving too small to hold the crowds that thronged 
 to witness them, they were acted upon scaffoldings 
 erected outside. By the middle of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury they were acted by the laity as well as the clergy, 
 generally by different guilds, or companies, who ranked 
 among their possessions the properties in which they 
 were exhibited. The sets of these plays belonging 
 to the guilds became so numerous that several days 
 were occupied in acting them. Many sets have un- 
 doubtedly been lost, but three remain, and are known 
 from the names of the places where they were acted as 
 the Chester Plays, of which there are twenty-four, the 
 Wakefield Plays, of which there are thirty-two, and the 
 Coventry Plays, of which there are forty-two. The 
 Chester Plays are believed to have been written by 
 Ralph Higden, a Benedictine monk, whom tradition 
 sends three times to Rome in order to obtain the Pope's 
 leave to have them acted in English, and they are 
 said to have been so acted — or a portion of them — at 
 Chester in the years 1327-1328. This miracle-play 
 literature can be read, but it demands great curiosity 
 and great patience, for the feeling which is awakened 
 in the reading is the reverse of pious. 
 
 The historical and religious elements of English 
 Verse were active in the fourteenth century, the one in 
 Lawrence Minot, and the other in William Langland. 
 Of Minot, whom Morley pronounces the first national
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 song-writer, nothing is known, except that he lived in 
 the reign of Edward III., and that he celebrated ten 
 of his battles in Scotland, and France, and Brabant. 
 The ballads of Minot were probably written about the 
 time of the actions they celebrate, which extended 
 from the year 1333 to the year 1352. Little is known 
 of Langland, the author of the Vision of Piers Plough- 
 man. He is said to have been born at Cleobury, in 
 Shropshire, and he is also said to have been born at 
 Skipton-under-Wychwood, in Oxfordshire, and he is 
 believed to have been attached at one time to the 
 monastery at Great Malvern. The Vision of Piers 
 Ploughman is a long allegorical poem, divided into 
 twenty sections, or Passus, each of which professes, as 
 Craik has observed, to form a separate vision, though 
 the connection of the several parts is so inartificial or 
 confused that the composition may be regarded as 
 being in reality not so much one poem as a succession 
 of poems. " The general subject," Craik continues, 
 " may be said to be the same with that of Bunyan's 
 Pilgrim's Progress, the exposition of the impediments 
 and temptations which beset the crusade of this our 
 mortal life ; and the method, too, like Bunyan's, is the 
 allegorical ; but the spirit of the poetry is not so much 
 picturesque or even descriptive, as satirical. Vices 
 and abuses of all sorts come in for their share of the 
 exposure and invective ; but the main attack through- 
 out is directed against the corruptions of the church, 
 and the hypocrisy and worldliness, the ignorance, 
 indolence, and sensuality of the ecclesiastical order. 
 To this favorite theme the author constantly returns 
 with new affection and sharper zest from any higher
 
 XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 matter he may occasionally take up. Hence it has 
 been commonly assumed that he must have himself 
 belonged to the ecclesiastical profession, that he was 
 probably a priest or monk. And his Vision has been 
 regarded not only as mainly a religious poem, but as 
 almost a Puritanical and Protestant work, although 
 produced nearly two centuries before either Protest- 
 antism and Puritanism was ever heard of." Langland 
 knew what was fermenting in the minds of his country- 
 men, and how to reach them effectively. A specimen 
 of the measure of Piers Ploughman will show what it 
 is like. Here are the first twelve lines, which hardly 
 require a glossary. 
 
 *' In a somer seson 
 
 When softe was the sonne, 
 
 I shoop me into shroudes 
 
 As I a sheep weeie, 
 
 In habite as an heremite 
 
 Unholy of werkes, 
 
 Went wide in this world 
 
 Wondres to here; 
 
 Ac on a May morwenynge 
 
 On Malverne hilles 
 
 Me bifel a feely 
 
 Of fairy e me thoghte." 
 
 About thirty years before Langland penned the be- 
 ginning of Piers Ploughman, Minot celebrated in his 
 first ballad the battle of Halidon Hill, which was fought 
 on the 19th of July, 1333. Here is the opening stanza: 
 
 "Trew king, that sittes in trone. 
 Unto the i tell my tale. 
 And unto the i bid a bone. 
 
 For thou ert bute of all my bale :
 
 INTRODUCTION. XVll 
 
 Als thou made midelerd and the mone, 
 And bestes and fowles grete and smale, 
 
 Unto me send thi sucore sone, 
 
 Anddresce my dedes in this dale." 
 
 Such were the origins of English Verse, and such 
 the channels through which it flowed until about the 
 middle of the fourteenth century. Poetical in a posi- 
 tive sense it was not, for though it was distinguished 
 for downright manhood, and was not without invention 
 of a certain sort, it was very prolix, and very dull. 
 If the historians of English Literature read it, as some 
 of them claim to do, it is from a sense of duty and not 
 pleasure, for pleasure in reading it is impossible. Con- 
 temporary with Langland, the religious satirist, and 
 JNIiaot, the historical balladist, was the first true and 
 the first great poet of England, the Father of English 
 Poetry, Geoifrey Chaucer. 
 
 The poetry of Chaucer is the noblest monument of 
 English genius until we come to Shakespeare. His 
 editors help us in tracing it back to some of its afflu- 
 ents, but they do not help us in tracing it back to its 
 original springs. These were not in the books he read, 
 but in his own large and gracious personality. For a 
 man of the world he had read much. Among the 
 Latin poets, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Statius, and among 
 the Latin prose-writers Livy, Macrobius, and Boethius. 
 Among the French poets Guillaume de Lorris, Jean 
 de Meung, Granson, De Deguileville, Machault, and 
 among the Italian poets Dante, Petrarcha, and Boc- 
 caccio. His first models were French poets, but from 
 the first he was independent of his models, for while 
 he imitated them, and even translated them, it was with
 
 Xviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 omissions, and additions, and improvements of his own. 
 He took a great delight in their work, and, wishing 
 his countrymen to share the delight, he made it more 
 beautiful than it was. He was strongly inspired by the 
 Italian poets at a later period, but he never lost his 
 love for French poetry, which charmed him to the last. 
 There is no need here to point out his obligations to 
 this or that writer ; to say that such stanzas in such a 
 poem are a close translation of the Filostrato of Boc- 
 caccio, that there is a faint echo of the music of the 
 Teseide there, and so on. He never paraded his origi- 
 nality, — ^-it was not the fashion of the time, — but gave 
 his readers the best he could, bestowing the property 
 of others as freely as his own. He took whatever he 
 wanted, and whatever he took he made his own. One 
 would like to read his poems in the order in which they 
 were written, but this is impossible, so little known is 
 his literary life. Recent editors have constructed an 
 order of their own, in which, by the way, no two of 
 them agree, and have decided that he is not the author 
 of certain poems which have always been attributed to 
 him. They accomplish this last feat by internal evi- 
 dence evolved from their inner consciousness. What 
 English versification was in the time of Chaucer has 
 been indicated in the brief extracts from Minot and 
 Langland, and we have but to glance at the balladry of 
 the one and the alliterative rhythm of the other, and 
 then open Chaucer anywhere to see his vast, his im- 
 measurable superiority. He was the Father of English 
 Versification as he was the Father of English Poetry. 
 Five centuries have passed since he created it, and it 
 remains to-day as he left it. Nothing has been taken
 
 INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 from it, and nothing added to it, except the mighty 
 line which Surrey was the first to use in English Verse. 
 He gave us the seven-line stanza, so admirable for nar- 
 rative purposes, and he gave us the heroic couplet. 
 
 Chaucer's seven-line stanza, which is sometimes called 
 rhyme royal, was more popular with his contemporary 
 Gower, and his successors, Lydgate, Occleve, James the 
 First, Henryson, and Dunbar, than the heroic couplet, 
 although the latter was handled with considerable free- 
 dom and vigor by Gawain Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, 
 in his Scotch-English translation of the JEneid. It 
 was revived in the age of Elizabeth by Spenser, Mar- 
 lowe, Peele, and others. Marlowe Avas the first of the 
 Elizabethans to perceive that it was better adapted to 
 rapidity of narrative-movement than the seven-line 
 stanza, and we have in his Hero and Leander, — or so 
 much of it as he wrote, — not only a lovely story charm- 
 ingly told, but a masterly example of the heroic couplet, 
 with all its variety of cadences and artifices of rhetoric. 
 It was used in satire by Hall, Marston, Donne, and 
 Wither ; in epigram by Jonson ; in pastoral by Browne 
 and Herrick ; in amatory reflection by Habington. 
 When Waller and Denham strove to be weighty they 
 wrote heroic couplets. When Marmion, Chamberlayne, 
 and Chalkhill thought they had stories to tell, they tried 
 to tell them in heroic couplets. Dryden abused them 
 and the good sense of his audiences in his rhyming 
 tragedies. Pope polished them to perfection in his 
 social and ethical studies. Churchill laid about him 
 with them as though they were bludgeons. Cowper 
 moralized with them ; and the stern singer Crabbe 
 set to their monotonous music the vice and misery of
 
 XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 England's poor. They made the elegant platitudes of 
 Rogers and Campbell appear dignified, and they added 
 stings to the petulant wrath of Byron. The succession 
 of hands through which they passed after leaving the 
 loving heart of Chaucer robbed them of their ease, and 
 strength, and simplicity long before they reached the 
 present century. Browne diluted them with a cloying 
 sweetness ; Donne roughened them with discords ; Dry- 
 den burdened them like pack-horses with his prosaic 
 good sense ; and Pope, high-heeled, peruked, laced, 
 taught them the measured movement of the minuet. 
 But there was life in them through all — the English 
 life that old Father Chaucer first breathed into them, 
 and it recovered its freshness and beauty when Hunt, 
 the master, wrote The Story of Rimini, and Keats, the 
 scholar, wrote Endymion and Lamia. Keats in Lamia 
 and Marlowe in Hero and Leander grasp hands across 
 a gulf of two centuries and a quarter, and, stretch- 
 ing his hands to both, across another gulf of two cen- 
 turies, stands the serene figure of Chaucer smiling be- 
 nignantly. 
 
 The individuality of Chaucer runs through all his 
 poetry, though it is felt less in what he wrote with his 
 prentice hand than in the Canterbury Tales, which he 
 began in his middle life, and left unfinished at his 
 death. His early poems are not interesting to nine- 
 teenth century readers, however interesting they may 
 be in a historical survey of English Verse, still the 
 poorest of them are better than the best that were 
 written by Gower, or Lydgate. They are long, but not 
 dull, they run on melodiously, and they occasionally 
 sparkle with felicitous phrases. His touch is less cer-
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxi 
 
 tain in them than in his later poems. What they lack 
 he discovered when he wrote stories. It was the talent 
 which through poetic sympathy summoned back the 
 illustrious personages of antiquity, as in The Legend 
 of Good Women ; it was the genius which through in- 
 stinctive observation comprehended men, and women, 
 and manners, as in the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer's 
 perception of character and his skill in delineating it 
 were marvellous. Dramatist before the drama existed, 
 he was the forerunner of Shakespeare. He was famil- 
 iar with all ranks and every walk of life, — a broad, ad- 
 venturous, healthy, sunny spirit, that took the world as 
 he found it. He divined the hidden springs of pathos, 
 and he knew the sources of humor. Chaucer's charac- 
 ters are more than portraits of classes : they are people, 
 real, live, individual. The same blood that ran in their 
 veins runs in ours, and what they were five centuries 
 ago we are to-day. A great poet by virtue of his nat- 
 ural gifts, he was the greatest of narrative poets by 
 virtue of his knowledge of mankind. His range was 
 large, and his sympathies quick. Idealist and realist, 
 nothing was too high or too low for his pencil, — noth- 
 ing too tragic or too comic. His art was conscious and 
 profound. His details never degenerated into the cat- 
 alogue manner of the metrical romances, for though 
 abundant, they were always subordinated to the main 
 effect. He attained Style. The general impression left 
 by his poetry is, that it was sung when the world was 
 fresher and fairer than it is now, when man was 
 younger, and healthier, and happier, when the sun 
 was brighter and the moon clearer, when the Spring was 
 longer, the daisies thicker, and the lark sang endlessly
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 at the gate of heaven, — a world of childhood, and inno- 
 cence, and love, — the Golden Age. And there imagi- 
 nation loves to picture the poet, grave but genial, with 
 his eyes cast down, dreamy but observant, — a manly, 
 scholarly, courtly, gracious gentleman. It was thus 
 that he appeared to Akenside when he wrote his In- 
 scription for a statue of Chaucer at Woodstock. 
 
 *' Such was old Chaucer ; such the placid mien 
 Of him who first with harmony inform'd 
 The language of our fathers. Here he dwelt 
 For many a cheerful day. These ancient walls 
 Have often heard him, while his legends blythe 
 He sung : of love, or knighthood, or the wiles 
 Of homely life ; through each estate and age. 
 The fashions and the follies of the world 
 With cunning hand portraying. Though perchance 
 From Blenheim's towers, O stranger, thou art come 
 Glowing with Churchill's trophies ; yet in vain 
 Dost thou applaud them, if thy heart be cold 
 To him, this other hero ; who, in times 
 Dark and untaught, began with charming verse 
 To tame the rudeness of his native land." 
 
 Having traced the progress of English Verse from 
 its religious and historic origins to Chaucer, we have 
 now to indicate the main channels through which it 
 flowed from Chaucer to Burns. This task need not 
 occupy us long, partly because it has been so often and 
 so ably performed by others that no portion of the lit- 
 erary history of England is better known, and partly 
 because it performs itself in this volume. If it be read 
 with the intelligence which such an anthology demands, 
 and which does not necessarily imply scholarship, al-
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXIH 
 
 though it does imply the critical spirit, it will be its 
 own historian. No one can read it without perceiving 
 that English Verse was distinguished by such and such 
 qualities at such and such periods : that certain classes 
 of subjects were present in it, or were absent from it; 
 that its rhythms were not permanent biat changeable, 
 discordant combinations of sound slipping into musi- 
 cal cadences, or the reverse ; that it was now pedantic 
 and labored, and now careless and unscholarly ; now 
 abstract, and now personal ; now frigid, and now pas- 
 sionate ; now lyrical, and now dramatic ; now romantic, 
 and now classical ; — there is no occasion to read between 
 the lines to read all this, for it is as clear in the letter 
 as in the spirit. 
 
 Tlie period between Chaucer and Wyatt and Surrey 
 was barren of poets but prolific of versifiers. Ritson 
 enumerates between sixty and seventy of the last in 
 the fifteenth century alone. They were of all ranks 
 and professions, the clerical predominating, ranging 
 from monks and priests up through college chaplains 
 and canons to bishops. The laity were represented by 
 an ironmonger, a proctor, an alderman, a courtier, a 
 groom of the royal chamber, a duke, and a king. The 
 staple of their verse was religion, with a little history 
 intermixed, comments upon the Penitential Psalms, 
 ballads on the Virgin, addresses to Christ, Lives of the 
 Saints, moral treatises, and chronicles of England and 
 France. Chaucer's contemporary, Gower, a man of 
 birth and fortune, wrote three long poems, one in 
 French verse, entitled Speculum Meditantis, another in 
 Latin elegiac verse, entitled Vox Clamantis, and another 
 in English octosyllabic verse entitled Confessio A mantis.
 
 Xxiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Campbell says that his English poetry contains a digest 
 of all that constituted the knowledge of his age ; that 
 his contemporaries greatly esteemed him ; and that 
 the Scottish and English writers of the subsequent 
 period speak of him with unqualified admiration. 
 Gower was prolix where Chaucer was garrulous, and 
 ■where Chaucer merely nodded he was overcome with 
 slumber. No one cares to awaken the moral Gower: 
 he sleeps the sleep of the just. Lydgate, another con- 
 temporary of Chaucer, a monk in the Benedictine mon- 
 astery of Bury St. Edmunds, was an indefatigable 
 versifier. The names of two hundred and fifty-one of 
 his productions will be found in Ritson. He is best 
 known by The Storie of Thebes, founded on the 
 Thebaid of Statins and the Teseide of Boccaccio, The 
 Hystory, Sege, and Dystruccion of Troy, founded on 
 the Latin prose history of Troy by Guido di Colonna, 
 and The Falls of Princes, founded on a French 
 version of a Latin treatise by Boccaccio, De Casibiis 
 Virorum Illustrium. As Boccaccio claimed (or Lyd- 
 gate's printer for him) that his lamentable history 
 went back to the creation of Adam and came down to 
 his own time, the poem into which it burgeoned was 
 naturally a vast one. Occleve, a third contemporary 
 of Chaucer, whom he appears to have known person- 
 ally, wrote largely upon a variety of topics, his chief 
 work being a poem entitled De Regimine Principum. 
 It is a free version of a Latin treatise with that title, 
 and is written in Chaucer's stanza. A specimen of it 
 may not be uninteresting as illustrating the poetic 
 manner of the period, and as showing the estimation 
 in which Chaucer was then held.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXV 
 
 " O maister dere and fader reverent, 
 My maister Chaucer ! floure of eloquence, 
 Mirrour of fructuous entendement, 
 O universal I'adir in science, 
 Alias ! that thou thyne excellent prudence 
 In thy bedde niortel myghtest not bequeathe: 
 What eyled Dethe ? alias ! why wold he sle the ? 
 
 O Dethe, that didest not harme singulere 
 
 In slaughtre of hym, but all this lond it smerteth : 
 
 But natheles yit hast thow no powere 
 
 His name to slee ; hys hye vertu asterteth 
 
 Unslayne fro the, whiche ay us lyfly herteth 
 
 With bookes of his ornat enditying, 
 
 This is to alle this lond enlumynyng." 
 
 The Stream of English Verse was swollen in the 
 fifteenth century by several rivers of Scottish origin. 
 Barbour, a churchman, who studied at the University 
 of Oxford, and rose to the dignity of Archdeacon of 
 Aberdeen, wrote The Broite, a metrical history of 
 Scottish kings, from Brutus and his son Albanac down. 
 The Bruce, a metrical history of that famous king and 
 hero, and many Lives of Saints. Henry the JNIinstrel, 
 commonly called Blind Harry, celebrated another 
 Scottish hero in The Wallace- — a long poem in heroic 
 couplets. Wyntoun, prior of the monastery of St. 
 Serf's Inch, wrote in octosyllabic rhyme an Original 
 Cronykil of Scotland, which began with the creation 
 of the world, and came down to the first decade of the 
 fifteenth century. James the First, prisoner of state in 
 England for nearly twentv years, wrote, in rhyme roy- 
 al. The King's Quair, the subject of which was his 
 love for the Lady Joanna Beaufort, whom he first saw 
 walking in the garden below the window of his prison
 
 xxvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in the Round Tower of Windsor Castle, and whom he 
 married soon afterward. Henryson, a student of the 
 University of Glasgow, and, in later life, a schoolmas- 
 ter in Dumfermline, wrote The Testament of Cresseid, 
 a continuation of Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida, a 
 translation of ^sop's Fables, and Robin and Makyne, 
 the earliest known English pastoral. Dunbar, a stu- 
 dent of the University of St. Andrews, a Franciscan no- 
 vitiate, and, later. Court poet, wrote The Lament for the 
 Makars, The Thistle and the Rose, The Golden Targe, 
 The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, The Two Married 
 Women and the Widow, The Devil's Inquest, A Win- 
 ter's Walk, and The Merle and the Nightingale. Doug- 
 las, scholar and prelate, wrote The Palice of Honour, 
 Kind Hart, and made a translation of the ^lEneid, 
 which Craik says was the first English version of any 
 ancient classic that had yet appeared in either king- 
 dom. Campbell considers this group of Scottish ver- 
 sifiers superior on the whole, in originality and spirit, 
 to their English contemporaries, though their style was, 
 for the most part, cast in a worse taste. " The pre- 
 vailing fault of English diction, in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury," he says, "is redundant ornament, and an affec- 
 tation of anglicising Latin words. In this pedantry 
 and use of ' aureate terms,' the Scottish versifiers went 
 even beyond their brethren of the south. Some ex- 
 ceptions to this remark, I am aware, may be found in 
 Dunbar, who sometimes exhibits simplicity and lyrical 
 terseness ; but even Jus style has frequent deformities 
 of quaintness, false ornament, and alliteration. The best 
 of them, when they meant to be most eloquent, tore up 
 roots from the Latin, which never took root in the Ian-
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxvli 
 
 guage, like children making a mock garden with flow- 
 ers and branches stuck in the ground, which speedily 
 wither." 
 
 Following the stream of English Verse we have seen 
 that it was distinguished so far by two main currents — 
 religion and history. As we proceed we shall see them 
 still, no longer flowing side by side, with the same 
 speed, but now rising and now falling, and now blend- 
 ing with other currents of equal if not superior vol- 
 ume. The historical current, which reached its height 
 in Lydgate, and slowly ebbed through the Scottish dis- 
 ciples of Chaucer, rose again in The Mirror for Magis- 
 trates. There was a similar movement in the allegor- 
 ical current in these Scottish poets. It rose and sank 
 ill James the First, and Dunbar, and Douglas, and rose 
 again in England in The Pastime of Pleasure. Lydgate 
 was the intellectual father of Sackville, and Chaucer, 
 through his Scottish descendants, and through Hawes, 
 was the intellectual father of Spenser. Another cur- 
 rent, which we have not noted, and which was strong 
 in Langland — the satirical current — meandered lazily 
 along until it reached Skelton, when it broke into a 
 cascade of doggerel scurrility, directed against the 
 clergy in general, and Cardinal Wolsey in particular. 
 There is a quality in Skelton, which, if it existed be- 
 fore his day, was not felt before he struck it — the lyri- 
 cal quality, of which we soon have an abundance. 
 The stream of English Verse received a new affluent 
 from Wyatt and Surrey — the affluent of personality, 
 and a new metrical form — the sonnet. 
 
 Like Chaucer before them, Wyatt and Surrey drew 
 much of their inspiration from Italian poetry, but, un-
 
 xxvill INTRODUCTION. 
 
 like Chaucer, they drew it from the amatory sonnets of 
 Petrarcha. That neither the spirit nor the form of 
 these compositions should have impressed Chaucer and 
 his successors is somewhat singular when one stops to 
 consider the extent of their obligations to the Italian 
 poets. But so it was. There is no trace of the ama- 
 tory spirit and no trace of the sonnet form in English 
 Verse vmtil both were introduced by Wyatt and Surrey. 
 The new current was an important one, though neither 
 was poet enough to know it, or to impart force to it. 
 If they felt, they failed to make their readers feel, and 
 they failed to master the instrument with which they 
 sought to reach them. Their handling of the sonnet 
 was clumsy, as, indeed, was the handling of most of 
 their successors. Sidney could, and did, write the Ital- 
 ian sonnet, and so could, and did, Drummond, and 
 Milton, and one or two others, perhaps ; but the major- 
 ity of English sonneteers did not write it, if they could. 
 They wrote poems the length of which was just four- 
 teen lines, quatorzains, and rhymed them as they 
 pleased, or as they could. The sonnets of Shakespeare, 
 for example, consisted simply of three quatrains of al- 
 ternate rhymes and a couplet. The form of Spenser 
 was peculiar to himself, although it did not originate 
 with him, but probably with James the Sixth in his po- 
 etic nonage (1581) in The Essayes of a Prentise in the Di- 
 vine Art of Poesie. Beginning with Wyatt and Surrey, 
 and practically ending with Milton, the sonnet may be 
 said to have flourished a little more than a centiuy, and 
 about half that time as a form of amatory expression. 
 It was courtly and impassioned in Sidney, tender and 
 pretty in Daniel, sensible but dull in Drayton, plaintive
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXIX 
 
 and sweet in Drummond, afifectionate but mysterious 
 in Shakespeare, and grave and epical in. Milton. Wyatt 
 and Surrey will always be remembered as the fathers 
 of English sonnetry. But Surrey has a stronger claim 
 to distinction than attaches to that immature paternity, 
 for he was the creator of English blank verse. That 
 he did not perceive its capacity, but constructed it as 
 he would have constructed the heroic couplet, without 
 rhymes, is true. But neither did his contemporaries 
 perceive its capacity. Grimoald, who employed it dur- 
 ing the first decade after his death, and Sackville, who 
 employed it during the first half of the second decade, 
 and Gascoigne, who employed it at the close of the 
 third decade, constructed it upon the lines that Surrey 
 had laid down. Sackville discovered its use when> 
 with Norton, he wrote the first English tragedy, Gorbu- 
 duc, but unfortunately he did not learn how to use it. 
 That glorious discovery was made b)' Marlowe, w'ho 
 abandoned the jigging veins of rhyming mother wits 
 for its high astounding terms. His line was mighty. 
 It was mightier with Shakespeare, in whose hands it 
 sustained the stress of every passion that his genius 
 could impose upon it, and mightiest with Milton, who 
 alone raised it to epical heights. Had Surrey not 
 created blank verse we could not have had Lear and 
 Paradise Lost. But other forces than the dramatic cur- 
 rent were flowing steadily along in the great stream of 
 English Verse, and among them was the historic cur- 
 rent, which, setting, as in the earlier poets, from the 
 legendary antiquity of Britain, reached the era of Eliz- 
 abeth in a long and swelling wave. Projected by Sack- 
 ville about two years after the publication of the poems
 
 XXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of Wyatt and Surrey, and carried on by a band of poets, 
 The Mirror for Magistrates rose from dulness to dig- 
 nity in the year before Shakespeare was born, when 
 Sackville contributed the Induction, and The Com- 
 plaint of Henry the Duke of Buckingham, Of the 
 former Hallam says : " The Induction displays best his 
 poetical genius ; it is, like much earlier poetry, a rep- 
 resentation of allegorical personages, but with a fer- 
 tility of imagination, vividness of description, and 
 strength of language, which not only leave his prede- 
 cessors far behind, but may fairly be compared with 
 some of the most poetical passages in Spenser. Sack- 
 ville's Induction forms a link which unites the school 
 of Chaucer and Lydgate to the Fairy Queen." The 
 Mirror for Magistrates was an important book, for it 
 not only impressed Spenser when he wrote the Fairy 
 Queen, but it impressed Daniel when he wrote the 
 Complaint of Rosamund, and the History of the Civil 
 Wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster, and 
 Drayton when he wrote the Legends of Robert, Duke 
 of Normandy, Matilda the Fair, Pierce Gaveston, Earl 
 of Cornwall, and Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and 
 the Barons' Wars, and England's Heroical Epistles. 
 Nor did its importance end here, for it may possibly, 
 as Campbell intimates, have suggested to Shakespeare 
 the idea of his historical plays. Closely related to, if 
 not inspired by. The Mirror for Magistrates, was War- 
 ner's Albion's England, the earliest portion of which 
 appeared about ten years before Daniel's Civil Wars, 
 and distantly related to it — at least in a topographical 
 sense — was Drayton's Polyoibion, which appeared about 
 fifteen years after his Fleroical Epistles.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXI 
 
 Three currents still remain to be traced in the ever- 
 broadening stream of English Verse, — the satirical cur- 
 rent, the religious current, and the lyrical current. Of 
 the first it may be observed here, that, while it has 
 never at any time fulfilled any definition which recog- 
 nizes poetry as the highest ideal yet attained by the 
 imagination of man, it was in the beginning an honest, 
 if not an imperative, exercise of the poetical faculty, 
 springing, in the case of a man like Langland, out of 
 the time in which he lived. At a later period the 
 satirist wrote to show how clever he was, how superior, 
 and what a lofty standard of morals he maintained. 
 Other men — other poets — were as blind as moles : he 
 had the eye of the eagle. Other poets submitted tamely 
 to the things which were : he would go up and down, 
 and lash those things with a whip of scorpions. It was 
 an arrogant assumption on his part, and it effected 
 nothing which the sober second-thought of mankind 
 would not speedily have effected. The dunces of 
 Pope's day would have perished, even if he had not 
 written The Dunciad. The cascade of Skelfon's dog- 
 gerel whirled on awhile and subsided into the rough 
 rhythm of the Elizabethan couplet. Hall claimed to 
 be the first English satirist, but his claina cannot be al- 
 lowed. Gascoigne published his Steel Glass when Hall 
 was a babe in arms, or, to speak with more exactness, 
 twenty-one years before the first three books of his 
 Toothless Satyrs saw the light ; and though they were 
 not published until later, there is proof that some of 
 the satires of Donne were written earlier than that pro- 
 duction. And Lodge preceded him four years in his Fig 
 for Momus. But if Hall was not the first, he was cer-
 
 XXXll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tainly the founder of the line of English satirists, which, 
 beginning in the latter years of the reign of Elizabeth, 
 continued through the reigns of James and Charles the 
 First, the chasm of the Commonwealth, and the reigns 
 of William and Anne, and ended in the reign of 
 George the Third. The satirical productions of Hall, 
 which consist of the three books of Toothless Satyrs al- 
 ready mentioned, and three additional books of Byting 
 Satyrs, have little to recommend them to the modern 
 reader of English Verse, for they are disfigured with af- 
 fected expressions, archaic phrases, and a curious ob- 
 scurity of thought. Resolute in intention, and merciless 
 in execution, his energy never flags, and his invectives 
 never give out. The virtue with which he plies the 
 lash, and which gives him such a savage delight, is a 
 vice in disguise. His hatred of vice is more monstrous 
 than vice itself. So thought the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury and Bishop of London, the censors of the press, 
 who forthwith ordered that the satires should be burnt 
 — a fate which also befell the satires of Marston, Mar- 
 lowe's Ovid, the epigrams of Davies, and other loose 
 publications which these censorious prelates did not ap- 
 prove of. They also ordered that no more satires and 
 epigrams should be printed. Their occupations gone, 
 our young English Juvenals betook themselves to other 
 occupations — Hall to the Church, in which he rose to be 
 successively Bishop of Exeter and Norwich, as well as a 
 shining light in divinity, and Marston to the stage, for 
 which he wrote eight comedies that are full of satiric 
 power. He was dramatist enough to excite the enmity 
 of Jonson, who told Drummond that he had fought sev- 
 eral times with Marston, whose comedies were written
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXxill 
 
 by his father-in-law, while he wrote his father-in-law's 
 sermons. Passing over Jonson, the character of whose 
 dramatic work was largely satirical, we come to Wither, 
 who found as little favor with the great in the reign of 
 James as Marston and Hall in the reign of Elizabeth, 
 and who was locked up in the Marshalsea for daring 
 to think that the great wanted Abuses Stript and 
 Whipt. We are inclined to pity young Master Wither 
 until we recollect that it is to this imprisonment we 
 owe The Shepherd's Hunting, which contains, Camp- 
 bell thinks, the very finest touches that ever came from 
 his hasty and irregular pen. Other satirists of the 
 seventeenth century were Butler (if that inexhaustible 
 mine of wit, Hudibras, may be called a satire) ; Mar- 
 veil, assistant of Milton, when that great poet was 
 Cromwell's Latin Secretary, and after the Restoration 
 Member of Parliament for Hull ; Oldham, son of a 
 nonconformist minister, usher of a free school, and, 
 later, one of the wits at Will's Coffee-house ; and, last, 
 Dryden, whose large mind and vigorous common-sense 
 made satire powerful, if they could not make it poeti- 
 cal. The line which began with Hall and Marston, 
 ended with Pope and Churchill — with Pope, in whose 
 little hand satire was the keenest of rapiers, and 
 Churchill, in whose big fist it was the stoutest of 
 oaken cudgels. Further than the genius of Pope and 
 Dryden carried satire, it could not go in English 
 Verse. It was life and manners ; it was the strife of 
 sects and parties ; it was history. But it was not 
 poetry. 
 
 The religious current in English Verse was steady 
 rather than strong in the last half of the sixteenth
 
 xxxiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and the first half of the seventeenth centuries. It 
 was not always easy to distinguish it from the cur- 
 rents with which it was flowing, and which were col- 
 ored with the same national qualities — the gravity 
 which colored the historic current in Sackville, the 
 morality Avhich colored the satiric current in Gas- 
 coigne, and so on. It reflected the English character, 
 which from the beginning was serious, and was as 
 marked in the writers of occasional verses as in the 
 poets. The anthologies of the period from Tottel's to 
 Davison's are largely didactic. We find a little rivu- 
 let from it at Wilton in the spring of 1580, whither 
 Sidney had lately come from Court, having lost the 
 favor of Elizabeth for writing against the project of 
 her marriage with the Duke of Anjou, and where his 
 sister Mary had become the mother of Shakespeare's 
 Pembroke. A loving and noble pair, they worked to- 
 gether ''hiring the summer in the princely gardens at 
 Wilton on a translation of the Psalms, and when they 
 had finished it Sidney amused his sister by writing the 
 Arcadia for her, most of it in her presence, upon loose 
 sheets of paper. Shortly before this time Guillaume 
 de Saluste, a French Huguenot noble, wrote a religious 
 poem entitled, La Sepmaine, ou Creation du Monde, 
 which so hit the taste of his countrymen that it went 
 through thirty editions in six years, and was translated 
 into Latin, Italian, German, and English. The fame 
 of du Bartas attracted the attention of the royal young 
 pedant, James the Sixth, who five years later than the 
 Arcadian summer of the Sidneys published his Es- 
 sayes of a Prentise, wherein figured his Scotch-English 
 version oi L' Uranie oi "the divine and illuster poete,
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXV 
 
 Salust du Bartas." His determination to be a poet 
 lasted until death with the British Solomon, for he was 
 in hand with a translation of the Psalms when God 
 called him to sing Psalms with the angels. This royal 
 version, which was stayed in the one and thirtieth 
 Psalm, was finished by William Alexander, Earl of 
 Stirling, and published in 163 1. Five years before the 
 close of the sixteenth century Spenser returned to 
 London from his Irish estate, partly to visit his friends, 
 and partly to bring out the last three books of the 
 Fairy Queen. They were published during the follow- 
 ing year, as were also his Hymns of Heavenly Love 
 and Heavenly Beauty, — pearls of Platonic thought, 
 still lucent in the sacred stream of English Verse. It 
 was nearly choked up two years later by the mer- 
 chant-adventurer Sylvester, who deposited therein his 
 leaden translation of the Divine Weeks and Works of 
 the interminable du Bartas. He was followed by Da- 
 vies, student of Oxford, and lawyer, who in the second 
 of the two elegies of which his Nosce Teipsum was com- 
 posed expounded the Soul of Man and the Immortality 
 thereof. 
 
 Giles Fletcher, a scholar of Trinity College, and a 
 cousin of Fletcher, the dramatist, led the sacred choir 
 of seventeenth century poets with Christ's Victory and 
 Triumph in Heaven and Earth over and after Death 
 (1610), a long allegorical poem in the manner of Spen- 
 ser. Quarles, an Essex man, educated at Christ's Col- 
 lege, and at Lincoln's Inn, poured forth vokimes of 
 Biblical metre, of an earthy nature, in A Feast for 
 Worms in a Poem on the History of Jonah (1620); 
 Hadassa, or the History of Queen Esther (1621J ; Job
 
 xxxvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Militant, with Meditations Divine and Moral, and Sion's 
 Elegies, wept by Jcremie the Prophet (1624) ; and 
 Sion's Sonnets, sung by Solomon the King, and Para- 
 phrased (1625). The pensive Drummond struck a 
 divine note in the year that Shakespeare died in his 
 Poems (1616), and in the year that Shakespeare's fel- 
 lows published the First Folio (1623) he gathered 
 a nosegay of Flowres of Sion. Herbert of Bemerton, 
 the darling of the heavenly Muses, came next in The 
 Temple(i63i); then Wither, whilom satirist, hunter with 
 shepherds, and worshipper of ideal virtue, with his 
 translation of the Psalms (1632) ; then Sandys, son of the 
 Archbishop of York, and translator of Ovid's Metamor- 
 phoses, with his Paraphrase of the Psalms (1636) ; and 
 then Crashaw, a Fellow of Peterhouse, who w^as ex- 
 pelled from Cambridge for refusing to subscribe the 
 Covenant, and became a Catholic, and who followed 
 Herbert, longo intervallo, in his Steps to the Temple 
 (1646). Other poets to whom Siloa's brook was a 
 source of inspiration at this period were Drayton, who 
 wrote the Harmony of the Church, containing the 
 Spiritual Songs and Holy Hymns of Godly Men, Pa- 
 triarchs and Prophets, all sweetly sounding to the 
 Glory of the Highest ; Sir John Beaumont, elder 
 brother of Beaumont, the dramatist, who wrote the 
 Crown of Thorns ; Donne, who wrote Sacred Sonnets, 
 probably after James had made him Dean of St. Paul's ; 
 Cowley, who wrote the Davideis ; Flabington, who 
 spiritualized the third edition of his Castara with 
 twenty-two sacred poems ; and King, Bishop of Chi- 
 chester, and Vaughan, the Silurist, who were both 
 touched to fine issues by the devotional spirit of :he
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXVll 
 
 time. But a greater than these — the son of a prosper- 
 ous scrivener, a scholar of St. Paul's, and a Bachelor 
 of Arts at Christ's College, Cambridge — had already 
 surpassed all these poets in sacred song, and was at 
 last to surpass all poets with a Divine Epic. 
 
 Milton had just completed his twenty-first year, 
 when, in December, 1629, he wrote his hymn On the 
 Morning of Christ's Nativity, which was followed on the 
 ist of January, 1630, by his ode on The Circumcision, 
 and at Easter by an imfinished poem on The Passion, 
 He remained at the University seven years, and, quit- 
 ting it Master of Arts in the summer of 1632, went to 
 the little rural village of Horton, not far from Windsor 
 Castle, whither his father had removed on his retire- 
 ment from business, and devoted the next six years 
 to study and meditation. He strictly meditated the 
 Muse, and she was not thankless, for she crystallized 
 the morning dew of his genius into those exquisite 
 jewels in the ears of antiquity, L Allegro and // Pense- 
 roso ; she directed him in the graver walks of the 
 drama while he wrote that noblest of all English 
 masques, Comus ; and she strengthened and solemnized 
 his strain in that incomparable monody, Lycidas. In 
 his thirtieth year he made a pilgrimage to Italy, as was 
 the fashion with young English gentlemen of the time, 
 and, travelling slowly by land and water, visited some 
 of its famous cities and famous men — among the latter 
 Manso, Marquis of Villa, the friend and biographer of 
 Tasso, whom he met at Naples, and the blind Galileo, 
 with whom he spoke at his country house near Flo- 
 rence. But this happy, poetic life was not to last. 
 For if the English poets had long shown an aptitude
 
 XXXVlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 for writing history, the English people had long shown 
 an aptitude for making history, and they were now 
 making it in a new direction. We find him after his 
 return to England living for a time in lodgings in St. 
 Bride's Church-yard, where he taught Edward and John 
 Phillips, the sons of his dead sister Anne, and where he 
 still meditated the Muse. He sketched out the plans 
 of several sacred dramas, one on Sodom, another on The 
 Deluge, another on The Redemption of Isaac, and — 
 greatest of all — another on the Fall of Man, which had 
 not yet assumed epical proportions. How and what he 
 made history we know, and we know how and what 
 history made him, changing the heavenly poet into the 
 earthly politician, the exquisite scholar into the scur- 
 rilous controversialist, and those eyes that wont to out- 
 watch the Bear and unsphere the spirit of Plato into 
 blind, sightless orbs ! He sank with the Commonwealth, 
 but, unlike the Commonwealth, he sank to rise again. 
 The greatness of the man was conspicuous in his blind- 
 ness, for though he was fallen on evil days and evil 
 tongues, he was unchanged, and though he was in 
 solitude he was not alone. Urania visited his slumbers 
 nightly, and governed his song, and found an audience 
 — fit audience, though few. The Spirit of Heavenly 
 Song attained its greatest height with Paradise Lost in 
 1667, and, slowly wheeling through the firmament of 
 English Verse, began to descend in 167 1 with Paradise 
 Regained and Samson Agonistes. It reached the low- 
 est deep in the next half century in the Psalms and 
 Hymns of Watts. 
 
 The movement of the lyrical current in English 
 Verse, at whatever period it may have entered it, and
 
 INTRODUCTION, Xxxix 
 
 whatever may have been its origin, demanded recog- 
 nition in the last half of tlie sixteenth century. Per- 
 ceptible beside the sonnet movement of Wyatt, Surrey, 
 and others in Tottel's Miscellany, it was noticeable 
 among the sonnets of Sidney, and marked in the poetic 
 work of his contemporaries. If it had not been sup- 
 plied at this period by the law which governs the intel- 
 lectual development of peoples, it would have been 
 supplied at this period by the social condition of the 
 English people, which clamored for musical expres- 
 sion. The age of Elizabeth was musical beyond any 
 that preceded or succeeded it. "Nobody could then 
 pretend to a liberal education who had not made such 
 a progress in Musick as to be able to sing his part at 
 sight ; and it was usual when ladies and gentlemen 
 met, for Madrigal books to be laid before them, and 
 every one to sing their part." Not to be able to sing 
 was to be looked upon with wonder, if not disfavor, 
 the accomplishment was so universal. No reader of 
 English Verse need be told that every Elizabethan poet 
 of note except Spenser was a writer of lyrics. The 
 lyric element was as active then as the dramatic 
 element, and when the dramatic element exhausted its 
 energies the lyric dwindled, peaked, and pined. How 
 dominant the reign of the Lyric was in English Verse 
 Dr. Rimbault has shown us in his Bibliotheca Madriga- 
 liafta. It lasted fifty years (15SS-1638), and produced 
 ninety-two separate collections of Madrigals, Ballets, 
 Ayres, Canzonets, Roundelays, Catches, Glees, Pas- 
 torals, and the music to which they were wedded — the 
 whole amounting to upward of two thousand different 
 pieces ! This corpus poetarum was not selected, as one
 
 xl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 might suppose, from the great names of the time, for 
 tliougli the lines of Shakespeare, Spenser, Raleigh, 
 Sidney, Drayton, Sylvester, Nash, and others may 
 occasionally be recognized, the names of the writers, 
 except in a few instances, are entirely unknown. It 
 is a pity, for some of them were poets. The majority 
 probably wrote at the request of their friends, — prac- 
 titioners in the art of music, bachelors of music, 
 gentlemen of Her Majesty's honorable chapel, organ- 
 ists, lutenists, and what not, the minority writing to 
 order for Byrd, Morley, Dowland, Wilbye, Weelkes, 
 Este, Alison, Farmer, Campion, and other popular 
 composers. The Lyric Literature of England is dis- 
 tinguished for its extent, and its excellence. Every- 
 thing that lyric poetry can be it is. It is simple and 
 artless ; it is studied and artful. It is the wild note of 
 a bird in bush or brake ; it is the trained voice in a 
 choir. The shepherd sings as he unpens his flock : 
 the ploughman sings as he urges on his steer: the milk- 
 maid sings as she sits with her pail beside the full- 
 uddered kine. Lads and lasses warble roundelays as 
 they dance around the Maypole. Roysterers troll 
 catches as they drain their cups of Sack or Sherris. 
 My lady trills a canzonet as she touches the virginals 
 in her chamber, and my lord without hums a hunting- 
 chorus as he strolls toward his stables. What Dr. 
 Johnson said of his fellows at Pembroke College a 
 century and a half later was true of the Elizabethan 
 poets — they were a nest of singing birds. They put 
 their soiils into their songs as never poets before or 
 since, and they enriched them with every poetic quality 
 — vv^ith simplicity and freshness, sweetness and tender-
 
 INTRODUCTION. xH 
 
 ness, humor and pathos, the happy secrets of love and 
 the pensive suggestions of melanclioly — all thoughts, all 
 feelings, all emotions — whatever is written in the red- 
 leaved tablets of the heart, or the book and volume of 
 the brain. Shakespeare was superior to all the poets 
 of his time in lyrical writing, as he was superior to 
 them in dramatic writing, but not so much so in the 
 former as the latter, for Lodge, and Breton, and 
 Jonson approached him in the lyric in his own genera- 
 tion, and in the next generation Beaumont and Fletcher 
 were abreast with him, albeit upon a somewhat lower 
 plane. There is a dramatic quality in the lyrics of 
 Shakespeare and Beaumont and Fletcher which is not 
 to be found in those of their brother dramatists, though 
 there are indications of it in Ford and Webster, and a 
 marked example of it in Shirley. The seventeenth cen- 
 tury lyric was elegant and poetic in the hands of Carew, 
 courtly and witty in the hands of Suckling, naif and 
 joyous in the hands of Herrick, and nobly impassioned 
 in the hands of Lovelace. Darling of the light- 
 hearted Cavaliers, it flaunted before the eyes of Oliver 
 and his Roundheads, and when they assembled in their 
 conventicles to snuffle psalms through the nose it 
 drank confusion to them amid the clinking of tavern- 
 glasses. "God send this Crum well down!" It sur- 
 vived the Commonwealth, which destroyed so much ; 
 it even survived the Restoration, which destroyed so 
 much more — the Restoration which turned the grandest 
 drama in the world into opera, the blank verse of 
 Shakespeare into the rhyming couplets of Dryden, 
 and the nobles of England into the boon companions 
 of a dissolute king. All this the lyric survived ; for
 
 xHi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 though its jubilant tones were hushed, it was still a 
 voice in English Verse — a clear, sweet voice in Sedley, 
 a low, plaintive voice in Rochester, a womanly voice 
 in Aphra Behn. An immortal Voice, for when, slum- 
 bering and murmuring in its dreams, it awoke at last 
 in the next century, it was with a start and a cry— a 
 sweet, wild cry, a deep, loud shout — the long trium- 
 phant song of the Master Singer — Burns. 
 
 Such, in brief, is the history of English Verse from 
 its first great story-teller to its first great song-writer — 
 from Chaucer to Burns. 
 
 R. H. Stoddard. 
 
 The Century, 
 
 New York, August 20th, 1883.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Geoffrey Chaucer : page 
 
 His Good Counsel 3 
 
 The Complaint unto his empty Purse 4 
 
 Robert Henryson : 
 
 The Garment of Good Ladies 5 
 
 William Dunbar: 
 
 Advice to Lovers 6 
 
 To a Lady 7 
 
 Sir Thomas Wyatt: 
 
 To his unkind Mistress 7 
 
 Disdain me not ! 8 
 
 Yea or Nay 9 
 
 Complaining of her unkindness 9 
 
 Henry Howard, Earl Surrey: 
 
 His Lady's beauty 11 
 
 Description of Spring 12 
 
 A Vow to love faithfully 12 
 
 Thomas, Lord Vaux : 
 
 Of a contented spirit 13 
 
 Nicolas Grimoald : 
 
 A true Love 13 
 
 John Heywood: 
 
 A Praise of his Lady 14
 
 xHv CONTENTS. 
 
 John Harington : pagb 
 
 The Heart of stone i6 
 
 George Gascoignk : 
 
 The Arraignment of a Lover ib 
 
 Barnabe Googe : 
 
 To the tune of Apelles i8 
 
 Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford : 
 
 Fair Fools 20 
 
 Nicholas Breton : 
 
 Phillida and Coridon 20 
 
 A sweet Lullaby 21 
 
 Pastoral 23 
 
 Her Eyes 24 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh : 
 
 The Lie 25 
 
 A Vision 27 
 
 Edmund Spenser : 
 
 Prothalamion 28 
 
 Amoretti {Sonnets) 33 
 
 Epithalamion 34 
 
 John Lyly: 
 
 Song of Apelles 47 
 
 Pan's Syrinx 47 
 
 Sir Edward Dyer: 
 
 Mind's Wealth 4S 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney : 
 
 Heart and Soul 49 
 
 The Meeting 51 
 
 Love is dead 54 
 
 Epithalamium 55 
 
 Sonnets to Stella 58 
 
 Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke: 
 
 Cynthia 61
 
 CONTENTS. xlv 
 
 Thomas Watson : pagh 
 
 On Sidney's death 62 
 
 The Kiss 63 
 
 Jealous of Ganymede 63 
 
 My love is past 64 
 
 Henry Constable : 
 
 Diaphenia 64 
 
 The Fowler 65 
 
 If true love 6.5 
 
 Thomas Lodge : 
 
 Rosalynde's Madrigal 66 
 
 Rosalynde 67 
 
 A Lover's Protestation 69 
 
 Phillis 69 
 
 HUMFREY GiFFORD : 
 
 In the praise of Friendship 70 
 
 Geokge Peele : 
 
 Cupid's Curse 71 
 
 Colin's Song 72 
 
 Robert Greene : 
 
 Sweet Content 73 
 
 Samela 73 
 
 Philomela's Ode 74 
 
 Infida's Song 75 
 
 Francis Bacon, Lord Verul.\m : 
 
 The World-Bubble 77 
 
 Robert Southwell : 
 
 Change and Compensation 78 
 
 Samuel Daniel : 
 
 To Delia {Sonnets) 79 
 
 Bartholomew Griffin: 
 
 To Fidessa {So?inets) 81 
 
 John L/AVIES {0/ Hereford) : 
 
 The Picture of an Happy Man 82 
 
 The Shooting Star , 84 
 
 In praise of Music 85
 
 x!vi CONTENTS- 
 
 JOHN Davies [of Hereford) : page 
 
 Love's Blazonry 85 
 
 Joshua Sylvester : 
 
 A Mind content S5 
 
 Two Hearts in One 87 
 
 Love unaltered 87 
 
 Thomas Nash : 
 
 Spring 88 
 
 Summer 88 
 
 Michael Drayton : 
 
 Rowland's Roundelay 89 
 
 Song of Motto and Perkin 90 
 
 What love is 91 
 
 The Divorce 92 
 
 Christopher Marlowe : 
 
 The Passionate Shepherd to his Love 93 
 
 Uncertain Authors : 
 
 The Nymph's Reply 94 
 
 Phillida's Love-call 94 
 
 To Cynthia 96 
 
 The Hermit's Song 97 
 
 Waly! Waly! 98 
 
 Phillada 99 
 
 Beauty bathing loi 
 
 Importune me no more ! 102 
 
 William Shakespeare: 
 
 Ariel's Songs 103 
 
 Sigh no more ! 104 
 
 Spring 104 
 
 Winter 105 
 
 Blow, Winter Wind ! 105 
 
 Under the Greenwood Tree 106 
 
 Mistress mine 107 
 
 Come away, Death ! 107 
 
 Orpheus 108 
 
 Serenade 108 
 
 Dirge 108 
 
 Sonnets 109
 
 CONTENTS. xlvii 
 
 Robert Devbreux, Earl of Essex: face 
 
 The False forgotten 114 
 
 Barnabe Barnes: 
 
 Parthenophe 115 
 
 Madrigals 116 
 
 Sir John Davies : 
 
 To the Lark 117 
 
 Richard Barnfield : 
 
 An Ode 118 
 
 The Chiefest Good 119 
 
 Ganymede 120 
 
 Johjm Donne: 
 
 Break of Day 120 
 
 The Funeral 121 
 
 The Undertaking 122 
 
 Ben Jonson : 
 
 The Triumph of Charis 123 
 
 Echo's Song 124 
 
 Gypsy Songs 124 
 
 Her Man 125 
 
 In the person of Womankind 127 
 
 To Cynthia 127 
 
 On Margaret Ratcliffe 12S 
 
 Simplicity 129 
 
 Song of Satyrs 129 
 
 To Celia 129 
 
 Thomas Dekker : 
 
 Content 130 
 
 John Webster : 
 
 Dirge 131 
 
 Dirge 131 
 
 William Rowley : 
 
 Song 132 
 
 Francis and Walter Davison : 
 
 Upon her protesting that she loved him 132 
 
 Only She pleases him 133 
 
 A Comparison 133
 
 xlviii CONTENTS. 
 
 Francis and Walter Davison : pacs 
 
 To her Hand 134 
 
 Thomas Hbywood: 
 
 Good-Morrovv 134 
 
 Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher : 
 
 Bridal Song 135 
 
 Beauty clear and fair 136 
 
 Hymn to Pan 136 
 
 Death-Song 137 
 
 Tombs in Westminster Abbey 137 
 
 Song for a Dance 138 
 
 Take those lips away ! 138 
 
 Come, Sleep ! 139 
 
 True Beauty 139 
 
 Giles Fletcher : 
 
 World-Glory's Wooing Song 140 
 
 John Ford: 
 
 Dirge 141 
 
 No more 142 
 
 Shadows 142 
 
 Comforts lasting 143 
 
 Nathaniel Field : 
 
 Matin Song 143 
 
 Uncertain Authors : 
 
 To Night 144 
 
 His Lady's Grief 145 
 
 Love me not for comely Grace ! 145 
 
 The Tomb of Desire 146 
 
 Weep no more ! 147 
 
 Love till death 147 
 
 Since first I saw your face 148 
 
 On a beautiful Virgin 149 
 
 Sir Henry Wotton : 
 
 On his Mistress 150 
 
 Sir Robert Aytoun : 
 
 The Forsaken 150
 
 CONTENTS. xHx 
 
 William Drummond : page 
 
 Phoebus, arise ! 151 
 
 Sonnets 153 
 
 Sextain 154 
 
 On the death of Lady Jane Maitland 155 
 
 Robert Burton : 
 
 The Abstract of Melancholy 156 
 
 George Wither : 
 
 What care I ? 159 
 
 Respectful Love {Sonnels) 160 
 
 William Browne : 
 
 Syrens' Song 161 
 
 Whom I love 162 
 
 Welcome 163 
 
 Marina 164 
 
 A Round 165 
 
 Thomas Carew: 
 
 Ask me no more 166 
 
 Love's Eternity 167 
 
 Outer Beauty 167 
 
 Chloris in the snow 168 
 
 Thomas Goffe : 
 
 To Sleep 168 
 
 George Herbert : 
 
 The Virtuous Soul 168 
 
 Constancy 169 
 
 The Pulley 170 
 
 Francis Quarles: 
 
 Worlds Falseness 171 
 
 Henry King : 
 
 The Dirge 172 
 
 The Forfeiture to his Wife 173 
 
 Robert Herrick : 
 
 To Julia 174 
 
 To Daffodils 175 
 
 To Blossoms 175
 
 1 CONTENTS. 
 
 Robert Herrick : page 
 
 To Violets 176 
 
 The Tear I77 
 
 To Water-Nymphs 178 
 
 To Electra 178 
 
 A Valentine 178 
 
 To Daisies 179 
 
 James Shirley : 
 
 Death the Conqueror 179 
 
 Earthly Glories 180 
 
 The Passing-Bell 181 
 
 The Looking-Glass 181 
 
 To One saying She was old 181 
 
 William Strode : 
 
 A Commendation of Music 182 
 
 Thomas Randolph : 
 
 To Mr. Anthony Stafford 183 
 
 William Habington : 
 
 Qui quasi flos egreditur 186 
 
 The Perfection of Love 187 
 
 Fine young Folly 188 
 
 Castara 189 
 
 Sir William Davenant : 
 
 Day-break 190 
 
 Edmund Waller : 
 
 On a Girdle 191 
 
 The Rose 191 
 
 Stay, Phoebus ! 192 
 
 To my young lady Lucy Sidney 192 
 
 Sir John Suckling : 
 
 A Ballad of a Wedding 193 
 
 Non est mortale quod opto 197 
 
 Such Constancy 197 
 
 Why so pale ? 198 
 
 Sir Richard Fanshawe : 
 
 Of Beauty 198
 
 CONTENTS. H 
 
 John Milton : pagb 
 
 At the age of twenty-three 199 
 
 L'AJlegro 199 
 
 II Penseroso 203 
 
 Lycidas 208 
 
 To the Nightingale 214 
 
 To the Lord General Cromwell 214 
 
 To Sir Harry Vane the younger 215 
 
 On the late Massacre in Piedmont 215 
 
 On his blindness 216 
 
 To Mr. Lawrence 216 
 
 To Cyriack Skinner 217 
 
 On his deceased Wife 217 
 
 Lucius Gary, Viscount Falkland: 
 
 An Epitaph 218 
 
 Thomas Nabbes : 
 
 Her real worth 218 
 
 James Grahame, Marquis of Montrose : 
 
 To his Love 219 
 
 Richard Crashaw : 
 
 Wishes 220 
 
 Sir John Denham : 
 
 Invocation to Morpheus 224 
 
 Richard Lovelace : 
 
 The Grasshopper 225 
 
 To Althea, from prison 226 
 
 To Lucasta 227 
 
 Abraham Cowley: 
 
 Hymn to Light 228 
 
 The Wish 231 
 
 Against adornment 232 
 
 An Epitaph 233 
 
 Sir Edward Sherburne : 
 
 The Heart-Magnet 233 
 
 False Lycoris 234
 
 lii CONTENTS. 
 
 Richard Brome : page 
 
 Beggars' Song 23S 
 
 Alexander Brome : 
 
 The Resolve 23^ 
 
 Palinode 236 
 
 Andrew Marvell: 
 
 The Picture of little T. C 238 
 
 To the Glow-worms 239 
 
 Horatian Ode 240 
 
 Clorinda and Damon 243 
 
 A Definition of Love 245 
 
 Henry Vaughan : 
 
 Epithalamium 246 
 
 Thomas Stanley : 
 
 Love not to be renewed 247 
 
 John Hall : 
 
 Epitaph 248 
 
 John Dryden -. 
 
 Alexander's Feast 249 
 
 Ode for Saint Cecilia's Day 253 
 
 Richard Flecknoe: 
 
 Chloris 2SS 
 
 R. Fletcher: 
 
 An Epitaph 256 
 
 Sir Charles Sedley: 
 
 To Celia 256 
 
 Allan Ramsay : 
 
 The Yellow-haired Laddie , 257 
 
 Alexander Pope : 
 
 Ode on Solitude 25^
 
 CONTENTS. Hii 
 
 James Thomson : page 
 
 The Seasons (a Hymn) 258 
 
 The Happy Man 262 
 
 Thomas Gray : 
 
 Elegy in a Country Churchyard 263 
 
 The Epitaph 266 
 
 The Bard 267 
 
 Hymn to Adversity 271 
 
 William Collins : 
 
 To Evening 273 
 
 The Passions 274 
 
 Mark Akenside : 
 
 Inscription for a Grotto 278 
 
 On a Sermon against Glory 278 
 
 Jean Elliot : 
 
 The Flowers o' the Forest 279 
 
 "William Cowper : 
 
 On the loss of the Royal George 280 
 
 To Mary 281 
 
 The Poplar Field 283 
 
 Michael Bruce : 
 
 To the Cuckoo 283 
 
 Sir William Jones: 
 
 An Ode 285 
 
 Thomas Chatterton : 
 
 Roundelay 286 
 
 William Blakb : 
 
 Song 287 
 
 To the Muses 288 
 
 Song 288 
 
 The Piper 289 
 
 The Tiger 290 
 
 Robert Burns : 
 
 Mary Morison 291 
 
 To a Mouse 291
 
 liv CONTENTS. 
 
 Robert Burns : page 
 
 To a Mountain Daisy 293 
 
 Ae fond Kiss 295 
 
 Of a" the Airts 295 
 
 Bonnie Lesley 296 
 
 The Banlvs o' Doon 297 
 
 Duncan Gray 298 
 
 Ane-and-twenty 299 
 
 Whistle ! and I'll come to you 300 
 
 A man's a man for a' that 300 
 
 Carolina, Lady Nairn : 
 
 The Land o' the Leal 302 
 
 Notes 303 
 
 Index of First Lines 323
 
 CHAUCER TO BURNS 
 
 1 400- 1 800.
 
 OF POESY. 
 
 Her divine skill taught me this: 
 That from every thing I saw 
 I could some invention draw, 
 And raise pleasure to her height 
 Through the meanest object's sight. 
 By the murmur of a spring, 
 Or the least bough's rustling, 
 By a daisy whose leaves spread 
 Shut when Titan goes to bed, 
 Or a shady bush or tree. 
 She could more infuse in me 
 Than all Nature's beauties can 
 In some other wiser man. 
 
 She doth tell me where to borrow 
 Comfort in the midst of sorrow ; 
 
 She hath taught me, by her might. 
 To draw comfort and delight. 
 Therefore, thou best earthly bliss! 
 I will cherish thee for this : 
 Poesy ! thou sweet'st content 
 That e'er Heaven to mortals lent ! 
 
 Wither. 
 — From The Shepherd's Hunting.
 
 Chaucer to Burns. 
 
 GEOFFREY CHAUCER, 
 
 Born 1340? — died 1400. 
 
 HIS GOOD COUNSEL. 
 
 Flee from the press and dwell with soothfastness ! 
 
 Suffice thee thy good though it be small ! 
 
 For hoarding liath hate, and climbing tickleness ; 
 
 Press hath envy, and weal is blent over all. 
 
 Savour no more than thee behov^ shall ! 
 
 Rede well thyself, that other folk canst rede ! 
 
 And truth thee shall deliver, it is no dread. 
 
 Pain^ thee not each crooked to redress, 
 In trust of her that turneth as a ball ! 
 Great rest standeth in little business : 
 Beware also to spurn against a nail ! 
 Strive not as doth a crocke with a wall ! 
 Deemfe thyself, that deemest other's deed ! 
 And truth thee shall deliver, it is no dread. 
 
 That thee is sent receive in buxomness ! 
 The wrestling of this world asketh a fall. 
 Here is no home, here is but wilderness : 
 Forth, pilgrim ! forth, beast ! out of thy stall. 
 Look up on high, and thanke God of all ! 
 Weive thy lusts, and let thy ghost thee lead ! 
 And truth thee shall deliver, it is no dread.
 
 GEOFFREY CHAUCER. 
 
 THE COMPLAINT OF CHAUCER UNTO HIS 
 EMPTY PURSE. 
 
 I. 
 
 To you, my Purse ! and to none other wight, 
 
 Complain I, for ye be my Lady dear : 
 
 I ain so sorry now that ye be hght. 
 
 For certes, but ye make me heavy cheer 
 
 Me were as lief be laid upon a bier. 
 
 For which unto your mercy thus I cry : 
 
 Be heavy again, or ellis mote I die ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Now vouchesafe this day, or yet be night, 
 That I of you the blissful sound may hear ; 
 Or see your colour, like the sunne bright, 
 That of yellowness hadde never peer 
 Ye be my life, ye be mine heartes stere, 
 Queen of comfort and of good company : 
 Be heavy again, or ellis mote I die ! 
 
 III. 
 Now, Purse ! that be to me my life's light, 
 And saviour as down in this world here. 
 Out of this town helpe me through your might, 
 Since that ye will not be my treasurer ! 
 For I am shave as nigh as any frere. 
 But I pray you unto your courtesy, 
 Be heavy again, or ellis mote I die ! 
 
 The Envoy of Chaucer to the King. 
 
 O conqueror of Brutus' Albion ! 
 Which that by line and free election 
 Been very king, this song to you I send ; 
 And ye that mowen all mine harm amend, 
 Have mind upon my supplication !
 
 ROBERT HENRYSON. 
 
 ROBERT HENRYSON. 
 
 1425 ?— 1480— 1500. 
 
 THE GARMENT OF GOOD LADIES. 
 Would my good Lady love me best, 
 
 And work after my will, 
 I should ane garment goodliest 
 
 Gar mak' her body till. 
 
 Of high honour should be her hood 
 
 Upon her head to wear, 
 Garnish' d with governance so good 
 
 No deeming should her deir. 
 
 Her sark should be, her body next, 
 
 Of chastity so white ; 
 With shame and dread together mix'd. 
 
 The same should be perfyt. 
 
 Her kirtle should be of clear Constance, 
 
 Lasit with lesum love, 
 The maillies of continuance. 
 
 For never to remove. 
 
 Her gown should be of goodliness, 
 Well ribbon'd with renown, 
 
 Purfiird with pleasure in ilk place, 
 Furred with fine fashion. 
 
 Her belt should be of benignity 
 
 About her middle meet ; 
 Her mantle of humility. 
 
 To thole baith wind and wet. 
 
 Her hat should be of fair having, 
 
 And her tippet of truth ; 
 Her patelet of good pansing, 
 
 Her hats-ribbon of ruth.
 
 WILLIAM DUNBAR. 
 
 Her sleeves should be of esperance, 
 To keep her from despair ; 
 
 Her gloves of the good governance, 
 To hide her fingers fair. 
 
 Her shoon should be of sickerness, 
 In sign that she nought slide ; 
 
 Her hose of honesty, I guess, 
 I should for her provide. 
 
 Would she put on this garment gay, 
 I durst swear by my seill, 
 
 That she wore never green nor gray 
 That set her half so weil. 
 
 WILLIAM DUNBAR. 
 1456 ?— 1513-20 ? 
 
 ADVICE TO LOVERS. 
 If ye would love and loved be, 
 In mind keep well these thingis three, 
 And sadly in thy breast imprent, — 
 Be secret, true, and patient ! 
 
 For he that patience can not leir. 
 He shall displeasance have perquier. 
 Though he had all this worldis rent : 
 Be secret, true, and patient ! 
 
 For who that secret can not be, 
 Him all good fellowship shall flee, 
 And credence none shall him be lent : 
 Be secret, true, and patient ! 
 
 And he that is of heart untrue, 
 From he be ken'd, farewell ! adieu ! 
 Fie on him ! fie ! his fame is went : 
 Be secret, true, and patient !
 
 SIR THOMAS WYATT. 
 
 Thus he that wants ane of these three 
 Ane lover glad may never be, 
 But aye in some thing discontent : 
 Be secret, true, and patient ! 
 
 Nought with thy tongue thyself discure 
 The thingis thou hast of nature ; 
 For if thou dost, thou should repent : 
 Be secret, true, and patient ! 
 
 rO A LADY. 
 
 Sweet Rose of virtue and of gentleness ! 
 Delightsome Lily of every lustiness ! 
 Richest in bounty and in beauty clear 
 And every virtue that to heaven is dear, 
 Except only that ye are merciless ! 
 
 Into your garth this day I did pursue : 
 There saw I flowers that fresh were of hue, 
 Both white and red most lusty were to seen, 
 And wholesome herbis upon stalkis green ; 
 Yet leaf nor flower find could I none of Rue. 
 
 I doubt that March, with his cold blastis keen, 
 Has slain this gentle herb that I of mene : 
 Whose piteous death does to my heart such pain 
 That I would make to plant his root again, 
 So comforting his leaves unto me been. 
 
 SIR THOMAS WYATT. 
 
 1503—1542. 
 
 TO HIS UNKIND MISTRESS. 
 And wilt thou leave me thus ? 
 Say nay, say nay, for shame ! 
 To save thee from the blame 
 Of all my grief and grame.
 
 SIR THOMAS WYATT. 
 
 And wilt thou leave me thus ? 
 Say nay ! say nay ! 
 
 And wilt thou leave me thus, 
 That hath loved thee so long, 
 In wealth and woe among ? 
 And is thy heart so strong 
 As for to leave me thus ? 
 Say nay ! say nay ! 
 
 And wilt thou leave me thus. 
 That hath given thee my heart. 
 Never for to depart, 
 Neither for pain nor smart ? 
 And wilt thou leave me thus ? 
 Say nay ! say nay ! 
 
 And wilt thou leave me thus, 
 And have no more pity 
 Of him that loveth thee ? 
 Alas, thy cruelty! 
 And wilt thou leave me thus ? 
 Say nay ! say nay ! 
 
 DISDAIN ME NOT! 
 Disdain me not without desert ! 
 
 Nor leave me not so suddenly ! 
 Since well ye wot that in my hert 
 
 I mean ye not but honestly. 
 
 Refuse me not without cause why ! 
 
 Forethink me not, to be unjust ! 
 Since that by lot of fantasy 
 
 This careful knot needs knit I must. 
 
 Mistrust me not ! though some there be 
 That fain would spot my steadfastness. 
 
 Believe them not ! since that ye see 
 The proof is not as they express.
 
 SIR THOMAS WYATT. 
 
 Forsake me not till I deserve ! 
 
 Nor hate me not till I offend ! 
 Destroy me not till that I swerve, 
 
 But since ye know what I intend ! 
 
 Disdain me not that am your own ! 
 
 Refuse me not that am so true ! 
 Mistrust me not till all be known ! 
 
 Forsake me not, ne for no new ! 
 
 y£A OR NAY. 
 
 Madam ! Withouten many words, — 
 Once I am sure you will, or no : 
 
 And if you will, then leave your boordes 
 And use your wit and show it so ! 
 
 For with a beck you shall me call ; 
 
 And if of One that burns alway 
 Ye have pity or ruth at all. 
 
 Answer him fair with Yea or Nay I 
 
 If it be Yea, I shall be fain ; 
 
 If it be Nay, friends as before, 
 You shall another man obtain, 
 
 And I, mine own, be yours no more. 
 
 COMPLAINING OF HER UNKINDNESS. 
 
 My Lute ! awake ! perform the last 
 Labour that thou and I shall waste. 
 
 And end that I have now begun : 
 And when this song is sung and past. 
 
 My Lute ! be still : for I have done. 
 
 As to be heard where ear is none, 
 As lead to grave in marble stone, 
 
 My song may pierce her heart as soon :
 
 lO SIR THOMAS WYATT. 
 
 Should we then sigh, or sing, or moan ? 
 No, no, my Lute ! for I have done. 
 
 The rocks do not so cruelly 
 Repulse the waves continually 
 
 As She my suit and Affection, 
 So that I am past remedy : 
 
 Whereby my Lute and I have done. 
 
 Proud of the spoil that thou hast got 
 Of simple hearts through Love his shot, 
 
 By whom. Unkind ! thou hast them won, 
 Think not he hath his vow forgot, 
 
 Although my Lute and I have done ! 
 
 Vengeance shall fall on thy disdain, 
 That makest but game on earnest pain : 
 
 Think not alone under the sun 
 Unquit to cause thy lovers' plain. 
 
 Although my Lute and I have done! 
 
 May chance thee lie, wither'd and old, 
 In winter nights that are so cold, 
 
 Plaining in vain unto the Moon : 
 Thy wishes then dare not be told. 
 
 Care then who list ! for I have done. 
 
 And then may chance thee to repent 
 The time that thou hast lost and spent 
 
 To cause thy lovers sigh and swoon : 
 Then shalt thou know beauty but lent ; 
 
 And wish and want as I have done. 
 
 Now cease, my Lute ! this is the last 
 Labour that thou and I shall waste ; 
 
 And ended is that we begun. 
 Now is this song both sung and past : 
 
 My Lute ! be still, for I have done.
 
 HENRY HOWARD. II 
 
 HENRY HOWARD, 
 
 (Earl Surrey.) 1517—1547- 
 
 HIS LADY'S BEAUTY. 
 
 Give place, ye Lovers ! here before 
 
 That spent your boasts and brags in vain 
 
 My Lady's beauty passeth more 
 
 The best of yours, I dare well sayn, 
 
 Than doth the sun the candle-light 
 
 Or brightest day the darkest night. 
 
 And thereto hath a troth as just 
 
 As had Penelopfe the fair : 
 For what she saith ye may it trust, 
 
 As it by writing sealed were. 
 And virtues hath she many moe 
 Than I with pen have skill to show. 
 
 I could rehearse, if that I would. 
 The whole effect of Nature's plaint, 
 
 When she had lost the perfect mould, 
 The like to whom she could not paint : 
 
 With wringing hands how she did cry ; 
 
 And what she said : I know it, ay ! 
 
 I know she swore with raging mind. 
 
 Her kingdom only set apart, 
 There was no loss by law of kind 
 
 That could have gone so near her heart : 
 And this was chiefly all her pain, — 
 ' She could not make the like again." 
 
 Sith Nature thus gave her the praise, 
 To be the chiefest work she wrought. 
 
 In faith, methink, some better ways 
 On your behalf might well be sought
 
 12 HENRY HOWARD. 
 
 Than to compare, as ye have done, 
 To match the candle with the sun. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF SPRING. 
 
 Wherein each thing reneius save only the Lover. 
 
 The sweet season, that bud and bloom forth brings, 
 "With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale ; 
 The nightingale with feathers new she sings ; 
 The turtle to her make hath told her tale, — 
 Summer is come, for every spray now springs ; 
 The hart hath hung his old head on the pale ; 
 The buck in brake his winter coat he flings ; 
 The fishes float with new repaired scale ; 
 The adder all her slough away she slings ; 
 The swift swallow pursueth the flowers smale ; 
 The busy bee her honey now she mings ; 
 Winter is worne that was the flowers' bale : 
 And thus I see among these pleasant things 
 Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs. 
 
 A VOW TO LOVE FAITHFULLY. 
 
 Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green, 
 Or where his beams do not dissolve the ice. 
 In temperate heat where he is felt and seen ; 
 In presence press'd of people, mad or wise ; 
 Set me in high, or yet in low degree ; 
 In longest night, or in the shortest day ; 
 In clearest sky, or where clouds thickest be ; 
 In lusty youth, or when my hairs are grey ; 
 Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell ; 
 In hill or dale, or in the foaming flood ; 
 Thrall or at large, alive whereso I dwell, 
 Sick or in health, in evil fame or good ; 
 Hers will I be ; and only with this thought 
 Content myself, although my chance be nought.
 
 NICOLAS GRIMOALD. 1 3 
 
 THOMAS, LORD VAUX. 
 1511—1562. 
 
 OF A CONTENTED SPIRIT. 
 When all is done and said, in the end this shall you find : 
 He most of all doth bathe in bliss that hath a quiet mind ; 
 And, clear from worldly cares, to dream can be content 
 The sweetest time in all this life in thinking to be spent. 
 
 The body subject is to fickle Fortune's power. 
 And to a million of mishaps is casual every hour ; 
 And death in time doth change it to a clod of clay : 
 Whenas the mind, which is divine, runs never to decay. 
 
 Companion none is like unto the mind alone, [or none : 
 
 For many have been harm'd by speech, — through thinking few. 
 Fear oftentimes restraineth words, but makes not thoughts to 
 
 cease ; 
 And he speaks best that hath the skill when for to hold his peace. 
 
 Our wealth leaves us at death, our kinsmen at the grave ; 
 But virtues of the mind unto the heavens with us we have : 
 "Wherefore, for Virtue's sake, I can be well content 
 The sweetest time of all my life to deem in thinking spent. 
 
 NICOLAS GRIMOALD. 
 
 1519?— 1563? 
 
 A TRUE LOVE. 
 What sweet relief the showers to thirsty plants we see. 
 What dear delight the blooms to bees, my true Love is to me ; 
 As fresh and lusty Ver foul Winter doth exceed, 
 As morning bright with scarlet sky doth pass the evening's weed. 
 As mellow pears above the crabs esteemed be, 
 So doth my Love surmount them all whom yet I hap to see. 
 The oak shall olives bear, the lamb the lion fray, 
 The owl shall match the nightingale in tuning of her lay. 
 Or I my Love let slip out of mine entire heart :
 
 14 JOHN HEYWOOD. 
 
 So deep reposed in my breast is She for her desert. 
 
 For many blessed gifts, O happy, happy land ! 
 
 Where Mars and Pallas strive to make their glory most to stand ; 
 
 Yet, land ! more is thy bliss that in this cruel age 
 
 A Venus imp thou hast brought forth, so steadfast and so sage. 
 
 Among the Muses nine a tenth if Jove would make, 
 
 And 10 the Graces three a fourth, Her would Apollo take. 
 
 Let some for honour hunt, or hoard the massy gold : 
 
 With Her so I may live and die, my weal can not be told. 
 
 JOHN HEYWOOD. 
 1505 ?— 1570-80. 
 
 A PRAISE OF HIS LADY. 
 Give place, you Ladies ! and begone ; 
 
 Boast not yourselves at all ! 
 For here at hand approacheth One 
 
 Whose face will stain you all. 
 
 The virtue of her lively looks 
 Excels the precious stone ; 
 
 I wish to have none other books 
 To read or look upon. 
 
 In each of her two crystal eyes 
 
 Smileth a naked boy : 
 It would you all in heart suffice 
 
 To see that lamp of joy. 
 
 I think Nature hath lost the mould 
 Where She her shape did take ; 
 
 Or else I doubt if Nature could 
 So fair a creature make. 
 
 She may be very well compared 
 
 Unto the Phoenix kind. 
 Whose like was never seen or heard 
 
 That any man can find.
 
 JOHN HEY WOOD. 1 5 
 
 In life she is Diana chaste, 
 
 In truth Penelope ; 
 In word and eke in deed steadfast : 
 
 What will you more we say ? 
 
 If all the world were sought so far, 
 
 Who could find such a wight ? 
 Her beauty twinkleth like a star 
 
 Within the frosty night. 
 
 Her rosiall colour comes and goes 
 
 With such a comely grace, 
 More readier too than doth the rose. 
 
 Within her lively face. 
 
 At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet, 
 
 Ne at no wanton play, 
 Nor gazing in an open street. 
 
 Nor gadding as a stray. 
 
 The modest mirth that she doth use 
 
 Is mix'd with shamefacedness ; 
 All vice she doth wholly refuse, 
 
 And hateth idleness. 
 
 O Lord ! it is a world to see 
 
 How virtue can repair 
 And deck in her such honesty 
 
 Whom Nature made so fair. 
 
 Truly She doth as far exceed 
 
 Our women now-a-days 
 As doth the gillyflower a weed. 
 
 And more a thousand ways. 
 
 How might I do to get a graff 
 
 Of this unspotted tree ? 
 For all the rest are plain but chaflf 
 
 Which seem good corn to be.
 
 l6 GEORGE GASCOIGNE. 
 
 This gift alone I shall her give : 
 
 When Death doth what he can, 
 Her honest fame shall ever live 
 
 Within the mouth of man. 
 
 JOHN HARINGTON. 
 1520 ?— 1565 ? 
 
 TJIE HEART OF STONE. 
 Whence comes my love ? O heart ! disclose ! 
 'Twas from cheeks that shamed the rose, 
 From lips that spoil the rubies' praise, 
 From eyes that mock the diamonds' blaze. 
 Whence comes my woe ? As freely own, 
 Ah me ! 'twas from a heart like stone. 
 
 The blushing cheek speaks modest mind, 
 The lips befitting words most kind, 
 The eyes do tempt to love's desire 
 And seem to say — 'Tis Cupid's fire : 
 Yet all so fair but speak my moan, 
 Sith nought doth say the heart of stone. 
 
 Why thus my love so kind bespeak 
 
 Sweet lip, sweet eye, sweet blushing cheek; 
 
 Yet not a heart to ease my pain ? 
 
 O Venus ! take thy gifts again : 
 
 Make not so fair to cause our moan, 
 
 Or make a heart that's like our own ! 
 
 GEORGE GASCOIGNE. 
 
 T-S?,'S-l ?— 1577. 
 
 THE ARRAIGNMENT OF A LOVER. 
 At Beauty's Bar as I did stand, 
 
 When False Suspect accused me, 
 George ! quoth the Judge, — hold up thy hand ! 
 
 Thou art arraign'd of flattery ;
 
 GEORGE GASCOIGNE. 
 
 Tell therefore how thou wilt be tried ! 
 Whose judgment here wilt thou abide ? 
 
 My Lord ! quoth I, — this Lady here, 
 Whom I esteem above the rest, 
 
 Doth know my guilt if any were : 
 
 Wherefore her doom shall please me best. 
 
 Let her be judge and juror both 
 
 To try me, guiltless by mine oath! 
 
 Quoth Beauty— No ! it fitteth not 
 A Prince herself to judge the cause : 
 
 W^ill is our Justice, well you wot, 
 Appointed to discuss our laws. 
 
 If you will guiltless seem to go, 
 
 God and your country quit you so ! 
 
 Then Craft, the crier, call'd a quest, 
 Of whom was Falsehood foremost fere ; 
 
 A pack of pickihanks were the rest, 
 Which came false witness for to bear : 
 
 The jury such, the judge unjust, 
 
 Sentence was said I should be truss'd. 
 
 Jealous, the gaoler, bound me fast 
 
 To hear the verdict of the bill 
 George ! quoth the Judge,— now thou art cast, 
 
 Thou must go hence to heavy hill 
 And there be hang'd all by the head : 
 God rest thy soul when thou art dead ! 
 
 Down fell I then upon my knee. 
 All flat before Dame Beauty's face, 
 
 And cried — Good Lady ! pardon me 
 Which here appeal unto your grace : 
 
 You know, if I appear untrue. 
 
 It was in too much praising you. 
 
 And though this judge do make such haste 
 To shed with shame my guiltless blood, 
 r.— 2 
 
 17
 
 BARNABE GOOGE. 
 
 Yet let your pity first be placed 
 
 To save the man that meant you good ! 
 So shall you show yourself a Queen, 
 And I may be your servant seen. 
 
 Quoth Beauty — Well ! because I guess 
 What thou dost mean henceforth to be, 
 
 Although thy faults deserve no less 
 Than Justice here hath judged thee, 
 
 Wilt thou be bound to stint all strife, 
 
 And be true prisoner all thy life ? 
 
 Yes, Madam ! quoth I, — that I shall: 
 Lo, Faith and Truth my sureties! 
 
 Why then, quoth She, — come when I call ; 
 I ask no better warranties. 
 
 Thus am I Beauty's bounden thrall. 
 
 At her command when she doth call. 
 
 BARNABE GOOGE. 
 
 1540 ?— 1594. 
 
 TO THE TUNE OF APELLES. 
 The rushing rivers that do run, 
 
 The vallies sweet adorned fiew 
 That lean their sides against the sun, 
 
 With flowers fresh of sundry hue, 
 Both ash and elm, and oak so high, 
 Do all lament my woeful cry. 
 
 While winter black with hideous storms 
 Doth spoil the ground of summer's green, 
 
 While spring-time sweet the leaf returns 
 That late on tree could not be seen, 
 
 While summer burns, while harvest reigns. 
 
 Still, still do rage my restless pains. 
 
 No end I find in all my smart. 
 But endless torment I sustain.
 
 BARNABE GOOGE. 
 
 Since first, alas ! my woeful heart 
 
 By sight of thee was forced to plain,— 
 Since that I lost my liberty, 
 Since that thou madest a slave of me. 
 
 My heart, that once abroad was free, 
 Thy beauty hath in durance brought ; 
 
 Once reason ruled and guided me, 
 And now is wit consumed with thought; 
 
 Once I rejoiced above the sky, 
 
 And now for thee, alas ! I die. 
 
 Once I rejoiced in company. 
 And now my chief and whole delight 
 
 Is from my friends away to fly 
 And keep alone my wearied sprite. 
 
 Thy face divine and my desire 
 
 From flesh have me transform'd to fire. 
 
 O Nature ! thou that first didst frame 
 My Lady's hair of purest gold, 
 
 Her eyes of crystal to the same. 
 Her lips of precious rubies' mould. 
 
 Her neck of alabaster white, — 
 
 Surmounting far each other wight : 
 
 Why didst thou not that time devise, 
 Why didst thou not foresee, before 
 
 The mischief that thereof doth rise 
 And grief on grief doth heap with store, 
 
 To make her heart of wax alone 
 
 And not of flint and marble stone? 
 
 O Lady ! show thy favour yet : 
 Let not thy servant die for thee ! 
 
 Where Rigour ruled let Mercy sit! 
 Let Pity conquer Cruelty ! 
 
 Let not Disdain, a fiend of hell, 
 
 Possess the place where Grace should dwell ! 
 
 19
 
 20 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 EDWARD VERE. 
 (Earl of Oxford.) 1541 — 1604, 
 
 FAIR FOOLS. 
 
 If women could be fair and yet not fond, 
 Or that their love were firm, not fickle still, 
 I would not marvel that they make men bond 
 By service long to purchase their good will : 
 But when I see how frail these creatures are, 
 I muse that men forget themselves so far. 
 
 To mark the choice they make, and how they change, 
 How oft from Phoebus they do flee to Pan ; 
 Unsettled still, like haggards wild they range, 
 These gentle birds that fly from man to man : 
 Who would not scorn and shake them from the fist, 
 And let them fly, fair fools ! which way they list ? 
 
 Yet for disport we fawn and flatter both, 
 To pass the time when nothing else can please ; 
 And train them to our lure with subtle oath, 
 Till weary of their wiles ourselves we ease : 
 And then we say, when we their fancy try, 
 To play with fools O what a fool was I ! 
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 1542-52 ? — 1626. 
 
 PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 
 
 In the merry month of May, 
 In a morn by break of day, 
 With a troop of damsels playing 
 Forth I yode, forsooth ! a-maying. 
 When anon, by a wood side 
 Where that May was in his pride, 
 I espied all alone 
 Phillida and Coridon.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 21 
 
 Much ado there was, God wot : 
 He would love, and she would not. 
 She said — Never man was true ; 
 He says — None was false to you ; 
 He said — He had loved her long ; 
 She says — Love should have no wrong ; 
 Coridon would kiss her then ; 
 She says- — Maids must kiss no men 
 Till they do for good and all ; 
 Then she made the Shepherd call 
 All the heavens to witness truth — 
 Never loved a truer youth. 
 Thus with many a pretty oath, 
 Yea and nay, and faith and troth, 
 Such as silly shepherds use 
 When they will not love abuse. 
 Love, which had been long deluded, 
 Was with kisses sweet concluded ; 
 And Phillida with garlands gay 
 Was made the Lady of the May. 
 
 A SWEET LULLABY. 
 
 Come, little Babe ! come, silly soul ! 
 
 Thy father's shame, thy mother's grief : 
 Born, as I doubt, to all our dole, 
 
 And to thyself unhappy chief. 
 Sing lullaby, and lap it warm. 
 Poor soul that thinks no creature harm ! 
 
 Thou little think'st and less dost know 
 The cause of all thy mother's moan ; 
 
 Thou want'st the wit to wail her woe, 
 And I myself am all alone. 
 
 Why dost thou weep ? why dost thou wail ? 
 
 And know'st not yet what thou dost ail.
 
 22 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 Come, little wretch ! ah, silly heart ! 
 
 Mine only joy ! what can I more ? 
 If there be any wrong, thy smart, 
 
 That may the destinies implore, — 
 'Twas I, I say, against my will ; 
 I wail the time, but be thou still ! 
 
 And dost thou smile ? O thy sweet face ! 
 
 Would God himself he might thee see : 
 No doubt thou would'st soon purchase grace, 
 
 I know right well, for thee and me. 
 But come to Mother, Babe ! and play : 
 For father false is fled away. 
 
 Sweet Boy ! if it by fortune chance 
 
 Thy father home again to send. 
 If death do strike me with his lance. 
 
 Yet may'st thou me to him commend : 
 If any ask thy mother's name. 
 Tell how by love she purchased blame I 
 
 Then will his gentle heart soon yield : 
 
 I know him of a noble mind ; 
 Although a lion in the field, 
 
 A lamb in town thou shalt him find. 
 Ask blessing. Babe ! be not afraid : 
 His sugar'd words hath me betray'd. 
 
 Then may'st thou joy and be right glad ; 
 
 Although in woe I seem to moan, 
 Thy father is no rascal lad, 
 
 A noble youth of blood and bone :. 
 His glancing looks, if he once smile. 
 Right honest women may beguile. 
 
 Come, little Boy ! and rock a-sleep ; 
 
 Sing lullaby, and be thou still ! 
 I, that can do nought else but weep, 
 
 Will sit by thee, and wait my fill.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 23 
 
 God bless my babe, and lullaby ! 
 From this thy father's quality. 
 
 PASTORAL. 
 
 Good Muse ! rock me asleep 
 With some sweet harmony : 
 
 This weary eye is not to keep 
 Thy wary company. 
 
 Sweet Love ! begone awhile : 
 Thou know'st my heaviness : 
 
 Beauty is born but to beguile 
 IVIy heart of happiness. 
 
 See how iny little flock, 
 
 That loved to feed on high, 
 
 Do headlong tumble down the rock 
 And in the valley die ! 
 
 The bushes and the trees, 
 
 That were so fresh and green. 
 
 Do all their dainty color leese, 
 And not a leaf is seen. 
 
 , The blackbird and the thrush. 
 
 That made the woods to ring, 
 With all the rest are now at hush, 
 And not a note they sing. 
 
 Sweet Philomel, the bird 
 
 That hath the heavenly throat, 
 
 Doth now, alas ! not once afford 
 Recording of a note. 
 
 The flowers have had a frost, 
 Each herb hath lost her savour ; 
 
 And Phillida, the fair, hath lost 
 The comfort of her favour.
 
 24 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 Now all these careful sights 
 
 So kill me in conceit 
 That how to hope upon delights. 
 
 It is but mere deceit. 
 
 And therefore, my sweet Muse ! 
 
 Thou know'st what help is best : 
 Do now thy heavenly cunning use 
 
 To set my heart at rest ! 
 
 And in a dream bewray 
 
 What fate shall be my friend : 
 Whether my life shall still decay. 
 
 Or when my sorrow end ! 
 
 HER EYES. 
 
 Pretty twinkling starry eyes ! 
 How did Nature first devise 
 Such a sparkling in your sight 
 As to give Love such delight. 
 As to make him like a fly 
 Play with looks until he die ? 
 
 Sure ye were not made at first 
 For such mischief to be cursed 
 As to kill affection's care, 
 That doth only truth declare : 
 Where worth's wonders never wither 
 Love and Beauty live together. 
 
 Blessed eyes ! then give your blessing, 
 That in passion's best expressing 
 Love, that only lives to grace ye, 
 May not suffer pride deface ye ; 
 But in gentle thoughts' directions 
 Show the praise of your perfections !
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 2$ 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 
 1552—1618. 
 
 THE LIE. 
 
 Go, Soul ! the body's guest, 
 Upon a thankless arrant ! 
 
 Fear not to touch the Best ! 
 The truth shall be thy warrant. 
 
 Go! since I needs must die, 
 
 And give the world the lie ! 
 
 Say to the Court, it glows 
 And shines like rotten wood ! 
 
 Say to the Church, it shows 
 
 What's good, and doth no good ! 
 
 If Church and Court reply, 
 
 Then give them both the lie ! 
 
 Tell Potentates they live 
 Acting by others' action ! 
 
 Not loved unless they give. 
 
 Not strong but by their faction. 
 
 If Potentates reply, 
 
 Give Potentates the lie ! 
 
 Tell men of high condition 
 That manage the Estate, 
 
 Their purpose is ambition. 
 Their practice only hate ! 
 
 And if they once reply, 
 
 Then give them all the lie ! 
 
 Tell them that brave it most, 
 They beg for more by spending, 
 
 Who in their greatest cost 
 
 Seek nothing but commending ! 
 
 And if they make reply, 
 
 Then give them all the lie !
 
 26 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 
 
 Tell Zeal it wants devotion ! 
 
 Tell Love it is but lust ! 
 Tell Time it is but motion ! 
 
 Tell Flesh it is but dust ! 
 And wish them not reply : 
 For thou must give the lie. 
 
 Tell Age it daily wasteth ! 
 
 Tell Honour how it alters ! 
 Tell Beauty how she blasteth ! 
 
 Tell Favour how it falters ! 
 And as they shall reply, 
 Give every one the lie ! 
 
 Tell Wit how much it wrangles 
 
 In tickle points of niceness ! 
 Tell Wisdom she entangles 
 
 Herself in over-wiseness ! 
 And when they do reply, 
 Straight give them both the lie ! 
 
 Tell Physic of her boldness ! 
 
 Tell Skill, it is pretension ! 
 Tell Charity of coldness ! 
 
 Tell Law, it is contention ! 
 And as they do reply. 
 So give them still the lie ! 
 
 Tell Fortune of her blindness! 
 
 Tell Nature of decay ! 
 Tell Friendship of unkindness ! 
 
 Tell Justice of delay ! 
 And if they will reply, 
 Then give them all the lie ! 
 
 Tell Arts they have no soundness. 
 But vary by esteeming !
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 2/ 
 
 Tell Schools they want profoundness, 
 
 And stand too much on seeming ! 
 If Arts and Schools reply 
 Give Arts and Schools the lie ! 
 
 Tell Faith, it's fled the City ! 
 
 Tell how the Country erreth ! 
 Tell, Manhood shakes off pity ! 
 
 Tell, Virtue least preferreth ! 
 And if they do reply. 
 Spare not to give the lie ! 
 
 So when thou hast, as I 
 
 Commanded thee, done blabbing, 
 
 Although to give the lie 
 
 Deserves no less than stabbing. 
 
 Stab at thee he that will ! 
 
 No stab the soul can kill. 
 
 A VISION 
 
 Upon the Conceit of the Faery Queen, 
 
 Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay, 
 Within that temple where the Vestal flame 
 Was wont to burn ; and, passing by that way 
 To see that buried dust of living fame 
 Whose tomb fair Love and fairer Virtue kept, 
 All suddenly I saw the Faery Queen : 
 At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept ; 
 And from thenceforth those Graces were not seen, 
 For they this Queen attended : in whose stead 
 Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse. 
 Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed. 
 And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce, 
 Where Flomer's spright did tremble all for grief, 
 And cursed the access of that celestial thief.
 
 28 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 1552—1598. 
 
 PROTHALAMION. 
 
 Calm was the day, and through the trembling air 
 
 Sweet-breathing Zephyrus did softly play, 
 
 A gentle spirit that lightly did delay 
 
 Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair, 
 
 When I (whom sullen care — 
 
 Through discontent of my long fruitless stay 
 
 In Prince's Court and expectation vain 
 
 Of idle hopes which still do fly away 
 
 Like empty shadows — did afflict my brain) 
 
 Walk'd forth to ease my pain 
 
 Along the shore of silver-streaming Thames : 
 
 Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems, 
 
 Was painted all with variable flowers. 
 
 And all the meads adorn'd with dainty gems 
 
 Fit to deck maidens' bowers 
 
 And crown their paramours, 
 
 Against the bridal day, which is not long : 
 
 Sweet Thames ! run softly till I end my song. 
 
 There in a meadow by the river's side 
 
 A flock of Nymphs I chanced to espy, 
 
 All lovely daughters of the flood thereby, 
 
 With goodly greenish locks all loose untied 
 
 As each had been a bride ; 
 
 And each one had a little wicker basket 
 
 Made of fine twigs entrailed curiously, 
 
 In which they gather'd flowers to fill their flasket, 
 
 And with fine fingers cropp'd full featously 
 
 The tender stalks on high. 
 
 Of every sort which in that meadow grew 
 
 They gather'd some : the violet pallid blue,
 
 EDMUND SPENSER, 29 
 
 The little daisy that at evening closes, 
 The virgin lily, and the primrose true. 
 With store of vermeil roses. 
 To deck their bridegrooms' posies 
 Against the bridal day, which was not long. 
 Sweet Thames ! run softly till I end my song. 
 
 With that I saw two Swans of goodly hue 
 
 Come softly swimming down along the lee, 
 
 Two fairer birds I yet did never see : 
 
 The snow which doth the top of Pindus strew 
 
 Did never whiter shew ; 
 
 Nor Jove himself, when he a swan would be 
 
 For love of Leda, whiter did appear, — 
 
 Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he, 
 
 Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near : 
 
 So purely white they were 
 
 That even the gentle stream, the which them bare, 
 
 Seem'd foul to them and bade his billows spare 
 
 To wet their silken feathers, lest they might 
 
 Soil their fair plumes with water not so fair 
 
 And mar their beauties bright. 
 
 That shone as Heaven's light, 
 
 Against their bridal day, which was not long. 
 
 Sweet Thames ! run softly till I end my song. 
 
 Eftsoons the Nymphs, which now had flowers their fill, 
 
 Ran all in haste to see that silver brood 
 
 As they came floating on the crystal flood ; 
 
 Whom when they saw, they stood amazed still, 
 
 Their wondering eyes to fill : 
 
 Them seem'd they never saw a sight so fair 
 
 Of fowls so lovely that they sure did deem 
 
 Them heavenly-born, or to be that same pair 
 
 Which through the sky draw Venus' silver team : 
 
 For sure they did not seem 
 
 To be begot of any earthly seed,
 
 30 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 But rather angels, or of angels' breed : 
 
 Yet were they bred of summer's heat (they say) 
 
 In sweetest season, when each flower and weed 
 
 The earth did fresh array, — 
 
 So fresh they seem'd as day, 
 
 Even as their bridal day, which was not long. 
 
 Sweet Thames ! run softly till I end my song. 
 
 Then forth they all out of their baskets drew 
 
 Great store of flowers, the honour of the field, 
 
 That to the sense did fragrant odours yield ; 
 
 All which upon those goodly Birds they threw 
 
 And all the waves did strew, 
 
 That like old Peneus' waters they did seem 
 
 When down along by pleasant Tempe's shore, 
 
 Scatter'd with flowers, through Thessaly they stream, 
 
 That they appear, through lilies' plenteous store. 
 
 Like a bride's chamber-floor. 
 
 Two of these Nymphs meanwhile two garlands bound 
 
 Of freshest flowers which in that mead they found. 
 
 The which presenting all in trim array, 
 
 Their snowy foreheads therewithal they crown'd ; 
 
 Whilst One did* sing this lay 
 
 Prepared against that day,— 
 
 Against their bridal day, which was not long. 
 
 Sweet Thames ! run softly till I end my song. 
 
 " Ye gentle Birds! the world's fair ornament 
 And heavens' glory, whom this happy hour 
 Doth lead unto your lovers' blissful bower, 
 Joy may you have and gentle hearts' content 
 Of your love's complement ; 
 And let fair Venus, that is queen of love, 
 With her heart-quelling Son upon you smile. 
 Whose smile (they say) hath virtue to remove 
 All love's dislike and friendship's faulty guile 
 For ever to assoil !
 
 EDMUND SPENSER. 3 1 
 
 Let endless peace your steadfast hearts accord, 
 And blessed plenty wait upon your board ; 
 And let your bed with pleasures chaste abound, 
 That fruitful issue may to you afford 
 Which may your foes confound ; 
 And make your joys redound, 
 Upon your bridal day, which is not long ! 
 Sweet Thames ! run softly till I end my song." 
 
 So ended she ; and all the rest around 
 
 To her redoubled that her undersong 
 
 Which said their bridal day should not be long; 
 
 And gentle Echo from the neighbour ground 
 
 Their accents did resound. 
 
 So forth those joyous Birds did pass along 
 
 Adown the lee that to them murmur'd low. 
 
 As he would speak but that he lack'd a tongue, 
 
 Yet did by signs his glad affection show, 
 
 Making his stream run slow ; 
 
 And all the fowl which in his stream did dwell 
 
 Gan flock about these twain, that did excel 
 
 The rest so far as Cynthia doth shend 
 
 The lesser stars. So they, enranged well, 
 
 Did on those two attend. 
 
 And their best service lend 
 
 Against their wedding day, which was not long. 
 
 Sweet Thames ! run softly till I end my song. 
 
 At length they all to merry London came, — 
 To merry London, my most kindly nurse, 
 That to me gave this life's first native source. 
 Though from another place I take my name, 
 An house of ancient fame : 
 
 There when they came whereas those bricky towers, 
 The which on Thames' broad aged back do ride, 
 Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers 
 There whilome wont the Templar knights to bide,
 
 2 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 Till they decay'd through pride ; 
 
 Next whereunto there stands a stately place 
 
 Where oft I gained gifts and goodly grace 
 
 Of that great lord which therein wont to dwell, 
 
 Whose want too well now feels my friendless case : — 
 
 But ah ! here fits not well 
 
 Old woes, but joys, to tell 
 
 Against the bridal day, which is not long. 
 
 Sweet Thames ! run softly till I end my song. 
 
 Yet therein now doth lodge a noble Peer, 
 
 Great England's glory and the world's wide wonder, 
 
 Whose dreadful name late through all Spain did thunder, 
 
 And Hercules' two Pillais standing near 
 
 Did make to quake and fear. 
 
 Fair branch of honour ! flower of chivalrj' ! 
 
 That fillest England with thy triumph's fame, 
 
 Joy have thou of thy noble victory, 
 
 And endless happiness of thine own name 
 
 That promiseth the same. 
 
 That through thy prowess and victorious arms 
 
 Thy country may be freed from foreign harms 
 
 And great Eliza's glorious name may ring 
 
 Through all the world, fill'd with thy wide alarms, 
 
 Which some brave Muse may sing 
 
 To ages following 
 
 Upon the bridal day, which is not long ! 
 
 Sweet Thames ! run softly till I end my song. 
 
 From those high towers this noble Lord issiiing, 
 
 Like radiant Hesper when his golden hair 
 
 In the ocean billows he hath bathed fair. 
 
 Descended to the river's open viewing, 
 
 With a great train ensuing : 
 
 Above the rest were goodly to be seen 
 
 Two gentle Knights of lovely face and feature 
 
 Beseeming well the bower of any Queen,
 
 EDMUND SPENSER. 33 
 
 With gifts of art and ornaments of nature 
 
 Fit for so goodly stature, — 
 
 That Uke the twins of Jove they seem'd in sight 
 
 Which deck the baldric of the heavens bright : 
 
 They two, forth pacing to the river's side, 
 
 Received those two fair Birds, their love's delight ; 
 
 Which at the appointed tide 
 
 Each One did make his Bride. 
 
 Against their bridal day, which is not long, 
 
 Sweet Thames ! run softly, till I end my song. 
 
 AMORETTI. 
 
 Thrice happy She that is so well assured 
 Unto herself, and settled so in heart. 
 That neither will for better be allured 
 Ne fear'd with worse to any chance to start ; 
 But like a steady ship doth strongly part 
 The raging waves and keeps her coui'se aright, 
 Ne aught for tempest doth from it depart, 
 Ne aught for fairer weather's false delight ! 
 Such self-assurance need not fear the spite 
 Of grudging foes, ne favour seek of friends ; 
 But in the stay of her own steadfast might 
 Neither to one herself nor other bends. 
 Most happy she that so assured doth rest. 
 But he most happy whom such one loves best ! 
 
 Fresh Spring ! the herald of love's mighty king, 
 In whose coat-armour richly are display'd 
 All sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring, 
 In goodly colours gloriously array'd, — 
 Go to my Love, where she is careless laid 
 Yet in her winter's bower, not well awake ; 
 Tell her the joyous Time will not be stay'd 
 1—3
 
 34 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 Unless she do him by the forelock take ! 
 
 Bid her therefore herself soon ready make 
 
 To wait on Love amongst his lovely crew^, 
 
 Where every one that misseth then her make 
 
 Shall be by him amerced with penance due ! 
 
 Make haste, therefore, sweet Love ! whilst it is prime : 
 
 For none can call again the passed Time. 
 
 The doubt which ye misdeem, fair Love ! is vain, 
 
 That fondly fear to lose your liberty ; 
 
 When losing one, two liberties ye gain, 
 
 And make him bond that bondage erst did fly. 
 
 Sweet be the bands the which true love doth tie. 
 
 Without constraint or dread of any ill : • 
 
 The gentle bird feels no captivity 
 
 Within her cage, but sings and feeds her fill. 
 
 There pride dare not approach, nor discord spill 
 
 The league 'twixt them that loyal love hath bound ; 
 
 But simple truth and mutiial good will 
 
 Seeks with sweet peace to salve each other's wound 
 
 There Faith doth fearless dwell in brazen tower, 
 
 And spotless Pleasure builds her sacred bower. 
 
 epithalamton: 
 
 Ye learned Sisters ! which have oftentimes 
 
 Been to me aiding, others to adorn 
 
 Wliom ye tliought worthy of your graceful rhymes, 
 
 That even the greatest did not greatly scorn 
 
 To hear their names sung in your simple lays, 
 
 But joyed in their praise ; 
 
 And when ye list your own mishaps to mourn 
 
 Which death, or love, or fortune's wreck did raise. 
 
 Your string could soon to sadder tenor turn. 
 
 And teach the woods and waters to lament
 
 EDMUND SPENSER. 35 
 
 Your doleful dreariment : 
 Now lay those sorrowful complaints aside ; 
 And, having all your heads with garlands crown'd, 
 Help me mine own Love's praises to resound ! 
 Ne let the same of any be envied ! 
 So Orpheus did for his own Bride : 
 So I unto myself alone will sing ; 
 The woods shall to me answer, and my echo ring. 
 
 Early, before the world's light-giving lamp 
 His golden beam upon the hills doth spread, 
 Having dispersed the night's uncheerful damp, 
 Do ye awake, and with fresh lustihed 
 Go to the bower of my beloved Love, 
 My truest turtle-dove ! 
 Bid her awake ! for Hymen is awake, 
 And long since ready forth his masque to move, 
 With his bright tead that flames with many a flake, 
 And many a bachelor to wait on him 
 In their fresh garments trim. 
 Bid her awake therefore, and soon her dight ! 
 For lo ! the wished day is come at last 
 That shall for all the pains and sorrows past 
 Pay to her usury of long delight ; 
 And whilst she doth her dight, 
 Do ye to her of joy and solace sing, 
 That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring ! 
 
 Bring with you all the Nymphs that you can hear. 
 
 Both of the rivers and the forests green ; 
 
 And of the sea that neighbours to her near : 
 
 All with gay garlands goodly well beseen ! 
 
 And let them also with them bring in hand 
 
 Another gay garlknd, 
 
 For my fair Love, of lilies and of roses 
 
 Bound true-love-wise with a blue silk ribbknd ! 
 
 And let them make great store of bridal posies ;
 
 36 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 And let them eke bring store of other flowers, 
 To deck the bridal bowers ; 
 
 And let the ground whereas her foot shall tread, 
 For fear the stones her tender foot should wrong, 
 Be strew'd with fragrant flowers all along 
 And diaper'd like the discolour'd mead ! 
 Which done, do at her chamber door await, 
 For she will waken straight, 
 The whiles do ye this song unto her sing ! 
 The woods shall to you answer, and your echo ring. 
 
 Ye Nymphs of Mulla, which with careful heed 
 The silver scaly trouts do tend full well. 
 And greedy pikes which use therein to feed 
 (Those trouts and pikes all others do excel) ; 
 And ye likewise which keep the rushy lake 
 Where none do fishes take ! 
 
 Bind up the locks the which hang scatter'd light, 
 And in his waters, which your mirror make, 
 Behold your faces as the crystal bright. 
 That when you come whereas my Love doth lie 
 No blemish she may spy. 
 
 And eke, ye light-foot Maids which keep the deer 
 That on the hoary mountain use to tower, 
 And the wild wolves which seek them to devour 
 With your steel darts do chase from coming near ! 
 Be also present here, 
 To help to deck her, and to help to sing, 
 That all the woods may answer and your echo ring. 
 
 Wake now, my Love ! awake ! for it is time : 
 
 The rosy Morn long since left Tithon's bed, 
 
 All ready to her silver coach to climb. 
 
 And Phcebus 'gins to show his glorious head. 
 
 Hark how the cheerful birds do chant their lays 
 
 And carol of Love's praise ! 
 
 The merry lark her matins sings aloft,
 
 KDMUND SPENSER. 17 
 
 The thrush replies, the mavis descant plays, 
 The ouzel shrills, the ruddock warbles soft : 
 So goodly all agree with sweet consent 
 To this day's merriment. 
 
 Ah, my dear Love ! why do ye sleep thus long? 
 When meeter were that ye should now awake 
 To await the coming of your joyous Make, 
 And harken to the birds' love-learned song 
 The dewy leaves among : 
 For they of joy and pleasance to you sing. 
 That all the woods them answer and their echo ring. 
 
 My Love is now awake out of her dreams, 
 And her fair eyes, like stars that dimmed were 
 With darksome cloud, now show their goodly beams, 
 More bright than Hesperus his head doth rear. 
 Come now, ye damsels, daughters of delight ! 
 Help quickly her to dight ! 
 
 But first come ye, fair Hours ! which were begot 
 In Jove's sweet paradise, of Day and Night, 
 Which do the seasons of the year allot 
 And all that ever in this world is fair 
 Do make and still repair ; 
 
 And ye three Handmaids of the Cyprian Queen ! 
 The which do still adorn her beauty's pride : 
 Help to adorn my beautifuUest Bride ! 
 And as ye her array still throw between 
 Some graces to be seen ; 
 And, as ye use to Venus, to her sing ! 
 The whiles the woods shall answer and your echo ring. 
 
 Now is my Love all ready forth to come : 
 Let all the virgins therefore well await ! 
 And ye fresh boys that tend upon her Groom, 
 Prepare yourselves ! for he is coming straight. 
 Set all your things in seemly good array 
 Fit for so joyfull day,
 
 38 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 The joyfullest day that ever sun did see ! 
 Fair Sun ! show forth thy favourable ray ; 
 And let thy lifeful heat not fervent be 
 For fear of burning her sun-shiny face. 
 Her beauty to disgrace. 
 O fairest Phoebus ! father of the Muse, 
 If ever 1 did honour thee aright, 
 Or sing the thing that mote thy mind delight, 
 Do not thy servant's simple boon refuse : 
 But let this day, let this one day be mine ! 
 Let all the rest be thine. 
 Then I thy sovereign praises loud will sing, 
 That all the woods shall answer, and their echo ring. 
 
 Hark how the minstrels gin to shrill aloud 
 
 Their merry music that resounds from far : 
 
 The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling croud, 
 
 That well agree withouten breach or jar ! 
 
 But most of all the damsels do delight 
 
 When they their timbrels smite 
 
 And thereunto do dance and carol sweet, 
 
 That all the senses they do ravish quite ; 
 
 The whiles the boys run up and down the street, 
 
 Crying aloud with strong confused noise. 
 
 As if it were one voice, 
 " Hymen, io Hymen ! Hymen ! " they do shout, — 
 
 That even to the heavens their shouting shrill 
 
 Doth reach, and all the firmament doth fill ; 
 
 To which the people standing all about 
 
 As in approvance do thereto applaud, 
 
 And loud advance her laud ; 
 
 And evermore they " Hymen ! Hymen ! " sing. 
 That all the woods them answer and their echo ring. 
 
 Lo where She comes along with portly pace, 
 Like Phoebe from her chamber of the East 
 Arising foiih to run her mighiy race,
 
 EDMUND SPENSER. 39 
 
 Clad all in white, that seems a virgin best ! 
 So well it her beseems that ye would ween 
 Some angel she had been. 
 Her long loose yellow locks like golden wire, 
 Sprinkled with pearl, and pearling flowers atween, 
 Do like a golden mantle her attire ; 
 And being crowned with a garland green, 
 Seem like some maiden Queen. 
 Her modest eyes, abashed to behold 
 So many gazers as on her do stare. 
 Upon the lowly ground affixed are ; 
 Nor dare lift up her countenance too bold. 
 But blush to hear her praises sung so loud. 
 So far from being proud. 
 Nathless do ye still loud her praises sing, 
 That all the woods may answer and your echo ring ! 
 
 Tell me, ye merchants' daughters ! did ye see 
 So fair a creature in your town before. 
 So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as She, 
 Adorn'd with Beauty's grace and Virtue's store ? 
 Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright, 
 Her forehead ivory white, 
 
 Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath ruddied, 
 Her lips like cherries charming men to bite, 
 Her breast like to a bowl of cream uncrudded, 
 • Her paps like lilies budded. 
 Her snowy neck like to a marble tower, — 
 And all her body like a palace fair. 
 Ascending up with many a stately stair 
 To Honour's seat and Chastity's sweet bower. 
 Why stand ye still, ye virgins ! in amaze. 
 Upon her so to gaze ? 
 Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing. 
 To which the woods did answer and your echo ring. 
 
 But if ye saw that which no eyes can see,
 
 40 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 The inward beauty of her Hvely spright, 
 Garnish'd with heavenly gifts of high degree, 
 Much more then would ye wonder at that sight, 
 And stand astonish'd like to those which read 
 Medusa's 'mazeful head. 
 
 There dwells sweet love and constant chastity, 
 Unspotted faith and comely womanhood, 
 Regard of honour and mild modesty, — 
 There Virtue reigns as Queen in royal throne, 
 And giveth laws alone, 
 To which the base affections do obey 
 And yield their services unto her will ; 
 Ne thought of things uncomely ever may 
 Thereto approach to tempt her mind to ill. 
 Had ye once seen these her celestial treasures 
 And unrevealed pleasures, 
 Then would ye wonder, and her praises sing 
 That all the woods should answer and your echo ring ! 
 
 Open the temple gates unto my Love ! 
 Open them wide that she may enter in. 
 And all the posts adorn as doth behove. 
 And all the pillars deck with garlands trim, 
 For to receive this Saint with honour due 
 That cometh in to you ! 
 
 With trembling steps and humble reverence 
 She cometh in, before the Almighty's view. 
 Of her, ye virgins ! learn obedience, 
 Whenso ye come into those holy places, 
 To humble your proud faces. 
 Bring her up to the high altar, that she may 
 The sacred ceremonies there partake 
 The which do endless matrimony make ; 
 And let the roaring organs loudly play 
 The praises of the Lord in lively notes, 
 The whiles with hollow throats
 
 EDMUND SPENSER. 4 1 
 
 The choristers ihc joyous anthem sing, 
 That all the woods may answer, and their echo ring ! 
 
 Behold whiles She before the altar stands, 
 Hearing the holy jjriest that to her speaks 
 And blessed her with his too happy hands. 
 How the red roses flush up in her cheeks 
 And the pure snow with goodly vermeil stain. 
 Like crimson dyed in grain ! 
 That even the Angels, which continually 
 About the sacred altar do remain. 
 Forget their service, and about her fly, 
 Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fair 
 The more they on it stare. 
 But her sad eyes still fasten'd on the ground 
 Are governed with goodly modesty. 
 That suffers not one look to glance away 
 Which may let in a little thought unsound. 
 Why blush ye, Love ! to give to me your hand. 
 The pledge of all our band ? 
 Sing, ye sweet angels! " Alleluia" sing! 
 That all the woods may answer and your echo ring. 
 
 Now all is done ! Bring home the Bride again ! 
 
 Bring home the triumph of our victory ! 
 
 Bring home with you the glory of her gain ! 
 
 W^ith joyance bring her, and with jollity ! 
 
 Never had man more joyful day than this 
 
 Whom heaven would heap with bliss. 
 
 Make feast therefore now all this livelong day ! 
 
 This day for ever to me holy is. 
 
 Pour out the wine without restraint or stay ! 
 
 Pour not by cups, but by the belly-full ! 
 
 Pour out to all that wuU ; 
 
 And sprinkle all the posts and walls with wine, 
 
 That they may sweat and drunken be withal ! 
 
 Crown ye God Bacchus with a coronal,
 
 42 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 And Hymen also crown with wreaths of vine ; 
 And let the Graces dance unto the rest, — 
 For they can do it best : 
 The whiles the maidens do their carol sing, 
 To which the woods shall answer and their echo ring. 
 
 Ring ye the bells, ye young men of the town I 
 And leave your wonted labours for this day : 
 This day is holy : do ye write it down, 
 That ye for ever it remember may ! 
 This day the sun is in his chiefest height, 
 With Barnaby the bright, — 
 From whence declining daily by degrees, 
 He somewhat loseth of his heat and light. 
 When once the Crab behind his back he sees. 
 But for this time it ill ordained was 
 To choose the longest day in all the year, 
 And shortest night when longest fitter were : 
 Yet never day so long but late would pass. 
 Ring ye the bells to make it wear away ; 
 And bonfires make all day. 
 And dance about them, and about them sing : 
 That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring ! 
 
 Ah, when will this long weary day have end. 
 And lend me leave to come unto my Love ? 
 How slowly do the hours their numbers spend ! 
 How slowly does sad Time his feathers move I 
 Haste thee, O fairest Planet ! to thy home 
 Within the western foam : 
 Thy tir^d steeds long since have need of rest. 
 Long though it be, at last I see it gloom, 
 And the bright Evening Star with golden crest 
 Appear out of the East. 
 
 Fair Child of Beauty ! glorious lamp of Love, 
 That all the host of heaven in ranks dost lead 
 And guidest lovers through the night's sad dread !
 
 EDMUND SPENSER. 43 
 
 How cheerfully thou lookest from above, 
 And seem'st to laugh atween thy twinkling light, 
 As joying in the sight 
 Of these glad many which for joy do sing, 
 That all the woods them answer and their echo ring ! 
 
 Now cease, ye damsels ! your delights forepast : 
 Enough is it that all the day was yours. 
 Now day is done, and night is nighing fast : 
 Now bring the Bride into the bridal bowers ! 
 The night is come : now soon her disarray, 
 And in her bed her lay ! 
 Lay her in lilies and in violets, 
 And silken curtains over her display. 
 And odour'd sheets, and Arras coverlets ! 
 Behold, how goodly my fair Love does lie 
 In proud humility : 
 
 Like unto Maia whereas Jove her took, 
 In Tempe, lying on the flowery grass 
 'Twixt sleep and wake, after she weary was 
 With bathing in the Acidalian brook ! 
 Now it is night : ye damsels may be gone, 
 And leave my Love alone ; 
 And leave likewise your former lay to sing ! 
 The woods no more shall answer, nor your echo ring. 
 
 Now welcome. Night ! thou Night so long expected. 
 
 That long day's labour dost at last defray 
 
 And all my cares, which cruel Love collected, 
 
 Hast summ'd in one and canceled for aye. 
 
 Spread thy broad wing over my Love and me, 
 
 That no man may us see ; 
 
 And in thy sable mantle us enwrap, 
 
 From fear of peril and foul horror free ! 
 
 Let no false treason seek us to entrap, 
 
 Nor any dread disquiet once annoy 
 
 The safety of our joy !
 
 44 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 But let the time be calm and quietsome, 
 Without tempestuous storms or sad affray, 
 Like as when Jove with fair Alcmena lay- 
 When he begot the great Tirynthian groom, 
 Or like as when he with thyself did lie 
 And begot Majesty ! 
 
 And let the maids and young men cease to sing ; 
 Ne let the woods them answer, nor their echo ring ! 
 
 Let no lamenting cries, nor doleful tears, 
 Be heard all night within nor yet without ; 
 Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden fears, 
 Break gentle sleep with misconceived doubt ! 
 Let no deluding dreams nor dreadful sights 
 Make sudden sad affrights ; 
 
 Ne let house-fires, nor lightning's helpless harms, 
 Ne let the Pouke, nor other evil sprights, 
 Ne let mischievous witches with their charms, 
 Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not, 
 Fray us with things that be not ! 
 Let not the screech-owl nor the stork be heard. 
 Nor the night-raven that still deadly yells, 
 Nor damned ghosts call'd up with mighty spells, 
 Nor grisly vultures make us once afear'd ; 
 Ne let the unpleasant choir of frogs still croaking 
 Make us to wish their choking ! 
 Let none of these their dreary accents sing ; 
 Ne let the woods them answer, nor their echo ring ! 
 
 But let still Silence true night watches keep ! 
 That sacred peace may in assurance reign, 
 And timely sleep, when it is time to sleep. 
 May pour his limbs forth on your pleasant plain : 
 The whiles an hundred little winged loves, 
 Like divers-feather'd doves. 
 Shall fly and flutter round about your bed, 
 And in the secret dark, that none reproves.
 
 EDMUND SPENSER. 45 
 
 Their pretty stealths shall work and snares shall spread 
 To filch away sweet snatches of delight, 
 Conceal'd through covert night. 
 Ye sons of Venus ! play your sports at will : 
 For greedy pleasure, careless of your toys, 
 Thinks more upon her paradise of joys 
 Than what ye do, albeit good or ill. 
 All night therefore attend your merry play ! 
 For it will soon be day : 
 Now none doth hinder you that say or sing, 
 Ne will the woods now answer, nor your echo ring. 
 
 Who is the same which at my window peeps, 
 Or whose is that fair face that shines so bright ? 
 Is it not Cynthia, she that never sleeps 
 But walks about high heaven all the night ? 
 O fairest Goddess ! do thou not envy 
 My love with me to spy ! 
 
 For thou likewise didst love, though now unthought, 
 And for a fleece of wool, which privily 
 The Latmian Shepherd once unto thee brought, 
 His pleasures with thee wrought : 
 Therefore to us be favourable now ! 
 And sith of womens' labours thou hast charge, 
 And generation goodly dost enlarge, 
 Incline thy will to effect our wishful vow. 
 And the chaste womb inform with timely seed 
 That may our comfort breed ! 
 Till which we cease our hopeful hap to sing : 
 Ne let the woods us answer, nor our echo ring ! 
 
 And thou, great Juno ! which with awful might 
 The laws of wedlock still doth patronize 
 And the religion of the faith first plight 
 With sacred rites hast taught to solemnize, — 
 And eke for comfort often called art 
 Of women in their smart, —
 
 46 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 Eternally bind thou this lovely band, 
 And all thy blessings unto us impart ! 
 And thou, glad Genius ! in whose gentle hand 
 The bridal bower and genial bed remain 
 Without blemish or stain, 
 And the sweet pleasures of their love's delight 
 With secret aid dost succour and supply 
 Till they bring forth the fruitful progeny, 
 Send us the timely fruit of this same night ! 
 And thou, fair Hebfe ! and thou Hymen free ! 
 Grant that it may so be. 
 
 Till which we cease your further praise to sing : 
 Ne any woods shall answer, nor your echo ring. 
 
 And ye, high Heavens ! the temple of the Gods, 
 In which a thousand torches flaming bright 
 Do burn, that to us wretched earthly clods 
 In dreadful darkness lend desired light, — 
 And all ye Powers which in the same remain, 
 More than we men can feign ! 
 Pour out your blessing on us plenteously 
 And happy influence upon us rain. 
 That we may raise a large posterity, — 
 Which from the earth, which they may long possess 
 With lasting happiness. 
 Up to your haughty palaces may mount, 
 And for the guerdon of their glorious merit 
 May heavenly tabernacles there inherit, 
 Of blessed Saints for to increase the count! 
 So let us rest, sweet Love ! in hope of this : 
 And cease till then our timely joys to sing, 
 The woods no more us answer, nor our echo ring ! 
 
 Song ! made in lieu of many ornaments 
 
 With which my Love should duly have been deck'd, 
 
 Which cutting off through hasty accidents, 
 
 Ye would not stay your due time to expect,
 
 JOHN LYLY. 47 
 
 But promised both to recompense, — 
 
 Be unto her a goodly ornament, 
 
 And for short time an endless monument ! 
 
 JOHN LYLY. 
 1554—1601. 
 
 SONG OF APELLES. 
 
 Cupid and my Campaspe play'd 
 
 At cards for kisses, Cupid paid : 
 
 His stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows, 
 
 His mother's doves and team of sparrows ; 
 
 Loses them too ; then down he throws 
 
 The coral of his lip, the rose 
 
 Growing on's cheek (but none knows how), 
 
 With these the crystal of his brow, 
 
 And then the dimple of his chin : 
 
 All these did my Campasp^ win. 
 
 At last he set her both his eyes ; 
 
 She won, and Cupid blind did rise. 
 
 O Love ! has she done this to thee. 
 
 What shall, alas ! become of me ? 
 
 PAN'S SYHINX. 
 
 Pan's Syrinx was a girl indeed, 
 Though now she's turn'd into a reed : 
 From that dear reed Pan's pipe doth come, 
 A pipe that strikes Apollo dumb. 
 Nor flute, nor lute, nor gittern can 
 So chaunt it as the pipe of Pan ; 
 Cross-garter'd swains, and dairy girls 
 With faces smug and round as pearls. 
 When Pan's shrill pipe begins to play 
 With dancing wear out night and day. 
 The bagpipe's drone his hum lays by
 
 48 SIR EDWARD DYER. 
 
 When Pan sounds up his minstrelsy : 
 His minstrelsy ? O base ! this quill, 
 "Which at my mouth with wind I fill, 
 Puts me in mind, though her I miss, 
 That still my Syrinx' lips I kiss. 
 
 SIR EDWARD DYER. 
 1550 ?— 1607. 
 
 MIND'S WEALTH. 
 
 My mind to me a kingdom is : 
 
 Such present joys therein I find 
 That it excels all other bliss 
 
 That earth affords or grows by kind : 
 Though much I want which most would have, 
 Yet still my mind forbids to crave. 
 
 No princely pomp, no wealthy store. 
 
 No force to win the victory. 
 No wily wit to salve a sore, 
 
 No shape to feed a loving eye, — 
 To none of these I yield as thrall : 
 For why ? my mind doth serve for all. 
 
 I see how plenty surfeits oft, 
 
 And hasty climbers soon do fall ; 
 
 I see that those which are aloft 
 Mishap doth threaten most of all : 
 
 These get with toil, they keep with fear ; 
 
 Such cares my mind could never bear. 
 
 Content I live, this is my stay : 
 I seek no more than may suffice, 
 
 I press to bear no haughty sway ; 
 
 Look ! what I lack my mind supplies : 
 
 Lo, thus I triumph like a king, 
 
 Content with that my mind doth bring.
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 49 
 
 Some have too much, yet still do crave ; 
 
 I little have, and seek no more : 
 They are but poor, though much they have ; 
 
 And I am rich with little store : 
 They poor, I rich ; th^y beg, I give ; 
 They lack, I leave ; they pine, I live. 
 
 I laugh not at another's loss, 
 
 I grudge not at another's gain ; 
 No worldly waves my mind can toss ; 
 
 My state at one doth still remain : 
 I fear no foe, I fawn no friend ; 
 I loathe not life, nor dread my end. 
 
 Some weigh their pleasure by their lust. 
 
 Their wisdom by their rage of will ; 
 Their treasure is their only trust, 
 
 A cloaked craft their store of skill : 
 But all the pleasure that I find 
 Is to maintain a quiet mind. 
 
 My wealth is health and perfect ease ; 
 
 My conscience clear my chief defence, 
 I neither seek by bribes to please 
 
 Nor by deceit to breed offence. 
 Thus do I live ; thus will I die : 
 ' Would all did so as well as I ! 
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 1554—1586. 
 
 HEART AND SOUL. 
 O Fair ! O Sweet ! when I do look on thee 
 In whom all joys so well agree. 
 Heart and soul do sing in me. 
 
 This you hear is not my tongue 
 Which once said what I conceived : 
 For it was of use bereaved, 
 
 1—4
 
 50 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 With a cruel answer stung. 
 No ! though tongue to roof be cleaved. 
 Fearing lest he chastised be, 
 Heart and soul do sing in me. 
 
 O Fair ! O Sweet ! when I do look on thee 
 In whom all joys so well agree, 
 Heart and soul do sing in me. 
 
 Just accord all music makes : 
 In thee just accord excelleth. 
 Where each part in such peace dwelleth 
 
 One of other beauty takes. 
 Since then truth to all minds telleth 
 
 That in thee lives harmony. 
 
 Heart and soul do sing in me. 
 
 O Fair ! O Sweet ! when I do look on thee 
 In whom all joys so well agree. 
 Heart and soul do sing in me. 
 
 They that heaven have known do say 
 That whoso this grace obtaineth, 
 To see what fair sight there reigneth, 
 
 Forced are to sing alway : 
 So then since that heaven remaineth 
 
 In thy face I plainly see. 
 
 Heart and soul do sing in me. 
 
 O Fair ! O Sweet ! when I do look on thee 
 In whom all joys so well agree. 
 Heart and soul do sing in me. 
 
 Sweet ! think not I am at ease 
 For because my chief part singeth : 
 This song from death-sorrow springeth, 
 
 As from swan in last disease : 
 For no dumbness nor death bringeth 
 
 Stay to true love's melody, 
 
 Heart and soul do sing in me.
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 51 
 
 THE MEETING. 
 
 In a grove, most rich of shade, 
 Where birds wanton music made, 
 May, then young, his pied weeds showing, 
 New-perfumed with flowers fresh growing, 
 
 Astrophel with Stella sweet 
 Did for mutual comfort meet, 
 Both within themselves oppressed, 
 But each in the other blessed. 
 
 Him great harms had taught much care, 
 Her fair neck a foul yoke bare ; 
 But her sight his cares did banish. 
 In his sight her yoke did vanish. 
 
 Wept they had, alas the while ! 
 But now tears themselves did smile, 
 While their eyes, by love directed, 
 Interchangeably reflected. 
 
 Sigh they did : but now betwixt 
 Sighs of woes were glad sighs mix'd ; 
 With arms cross'd, yet testifying 
 Restless rest, and living dying. 
 
 Their ears hungry of each word 
 Which the dear tongue would afford, 
 But their tongues restrain'd from walking 
 Till their hearts had ended talking. 
 
 But, when their tongues could not speak. 
 Love itself did silence break ; 
 Love did set his lips asunder, 
 Thus to speak in love and wonder. 
 
 Stella ! sovereign of my joy. 
 Fair triumpher of annoy !
 
 52 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 Stella, star of heavenly fire ! 
 Stella, loadstar of desire ! 
 
 Stella, in whose shining eyes 
 
 Are the lights of Cupid's skies. 
 
 Whose beams, where they once are darted, 
 
 Love therewith is straight imparted ! 
 
 Stella, whose voice, when it speaks, 
 Senses all asunder breaks ! 
 Stella, whose voice, when it singeth, 
 Angels to acquaintance bringeth ! 
 
 Stella, in whose body is 
 Writ each character of bliss ; 
 Whose face all all beauty passeth, 
 Save thy mind, which yet surpasseth ! 
 
 Grant, O grant, — but speech, alas ! 
 Fails me, fearing on to pass ; 
 Grant, — O nie ! what am I saying ? 
 But no fault there is in praying : 
 
 Grant — O Dear ! on knees I pray, 
 (Knees on ground he then did stay). 
 That, not I, but since I love you. 
 Time and place for me may move you. 
 
 Never season was more fit ; 
 
 Never room more apt for it ; 
 
 Smiling air allows my reason ; 
 
 These birds sing — " Now use the season ! " 
 
 This small wind, which so sweet is, 
 See how it the leaves doth kiss ! 
 Each tree in its best attiring, 
 Sense of love to love inspiring. 
 
 Love makes earth the water drink ; 
 Love to earth makes water sink ;
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 53 
 
 And, if dumb things be so witty, 
 Shall a heavenly grace want pity ? 
 
 There his hands, in their speech, fain 
 Would have made tongue's language plain ; 
 But her hands, his hands repelling, 
 Gave repulse all grace excelling. 
 
 Then she spake : her speech was such 
 As not ears but heart did touch ; 
 "While such wise she love denied 
 As yet love she signified. 
 
 Astrophel ! said she, — my love 
 
 Cease in these effects to prove ! 
 
 Now be still ! yet still believe me, 
 
 Thy grief more than death would grieve me. 
 
 If that any thought in me 
 Can taste comfort but of thee. 
 Let me, fed with hellish anguish. 
 Joyless, hopeless, endless languish ! 
 
 If those eyes you praised be 
 Half so dear as you to me. 
 Let me home return stark-blinded 
 Of those eyes, and blinder-minded ! 
 
 If to secret of my heart 
 
 I do any wish impart 
 
 Where thou art not foremost placed, 
 
 Be both wish and I defaced ! 
 
 If more may be said, I say ; 
 
 All my bliss in thee I lay : 
 
 If thou love, my love content thee ! 
 
 For all love, all faith is meant thee. 
 
 Trust me, while I thee deny, 
 In myself the smart I try ;
 
 54 
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 
 
 Tyrant Honour doth thus use thee ; 
 Stella's self might not refuse thee. 
 
 Therefore, Dear ! this no more move, 
 Lest, though I leave not thy love, 
 Which too deep in me is framed, 
 I should blush when thou art named ! — 
 
 Therewithal away she went. 
 Leaving him so passion-rent 
 With what she had done and spoken, 
 That therewith my song is broken. 
 
 LOVE IS DEAD. 
 
 Ring out your bells ! let mourning shows be spread ! 
 For Love is dead. 
 All love is dead, infected 
 
 With plague of deep disdain : 
 Worth, as nought worth, rejected, 
 And faith fair scorn doth gain. 
 From so ungrateful fancy. 
 From such a female phrenzy, 
 From them that use men thus, 
 Good Lord ! deliver us. 
 
 Weep, neighbours ! weep : do you not hear it said 
 That Love is dead ? 
 His death-bed peacock's folly. 
 His winding-sheet is shame, 
 His will false seeming holy, 
 His sole executor blame. 
 From so ungrateful fancy, 
 From such a female phrenzy, 
 From them that use men thus. 
 Good Lord ! deliver us. 
 
 Let dirge be sung, and trentals rightly read ! 
 For Love is dead.
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 55 
 
 Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth, 
 
 My Mistress' marble heart ; 
 Which epitaph containeth — 
 " Her eyes were once his dart." 
 
 From so ungrateful fancy, 
 
 From such a female phrenzy, 
 
 From them that use men thus, 
 Good Lord ! deliver us. 
 
 Alas ! I lie : rage hath this error bred : 
 Love is not dead. 
 Love is not dead, but sleepeth 
 
 In her unmatched mind, 
 Where she his counsel keepeth 
 Till due deserts she find. 
 Therefore from so vile fancy, 
 To call such wit a frenzy 
 Who love can temper thus, 
 Good Lord ! deliver us. 
 
 EPITHALAMIUM. 
 
 Let Mother Earth now deck herself in flowers, 
 To see her offspring seek a good increase, 
 Where justest love doth vanquish Cupid's powers, 
 And war of thoughts is swallow'd up in peace, 
 Which never may decrease, 
 But, like the turtles fair. 
 Live one in two, a well-united pair : 
 Which that no chance may stain, 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 O Heaven ! awake, show forth thy stately face ; 
 Let not these slumbering clouds thy beauties hide ; 
 But with thy cheerful presence help to grace 
 The honest Bridegroom and the bashful Bride, 
 Whose loves may ever bide,
 
 56 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 Like to the elm and vine, 
 With mutual embracements them to twine : 
 
 In which delightful pain, 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 Ye Muses all ! which chaste affects allow 
 And have to Thyrsis shown your secret skill, 
 To this chaste love your sacred favours bow ; 
 And so to him and her your gifts distill 
 That they all vice may kill 
 And, like to lilies pure. 
 May please all eyes, and spotless may endure : 
 
 Where that all bliss may reign, 
 O Hymen! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 Ye Nymphs which in the waters empire have ! 
 Since Thyrsis' music oft doth yield you praise. 
 Grant to the thing which we for Thyrsis crave : 
 Let one time— but long first — close up their days, 
 One grave their bodies seize ; 
 And, like two rivers sweet 
 When they though divers do together meet. 
 
 One stream both streams contain ! 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 Pan ! father Pan, the god of silly sheep ! 
 Whose care is cause that they in number grow, — 
 Have much more care of them that them do keep. 
 Since from these good the others' good doth flow ; 
 And make their issue show 
 In number like the herd 
 Of younglings which thyself with love hast rear'd, 
 
 Or like the drops of rain ! 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 Virtue ! if not a God, yet God's chief part ! 
 Be thou the knot of this their open vow :
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 57 
 
 That still he be her head, she be his heart ; 
 He lean to her, she unto him do bow ; 
 Each other still allow ; 
 Like oak and misletoe. 
 Her strength from him, his praise from her do grow ! 
 
 In which most lovely train, 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 But thou, foul Cupid ! sire to lawless lust, 
 Be thou far hence with thy empoison'd dart, 
 Which, though of glittering gold, shall here take rust, 
 Where simple love, which chasteness doth impart, 
 Avoids thy hurtful art. 
 Not needing charming skill 
 Such minds with sweet afifections for to fill : 
 
 Which being pure and plain, 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 All churlish words, shrewd answers, crabbed looks, 
 All privateness, self-seeking, inward spite. 
 All waywardness which nothing kindly brooks, 
 All strife for toys and claiming master's right. 
 Be hence aye put to flight ; 
 All stirring husband's hate 
 'Gainst neighbours good for womanish debate 
 
 Be fled : as things most vain ! 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 All peacock pride and fruits of peacock's pride, 
 Longing to be with loss of substance gay. 
 With recklessness what may the house betide 
 So that you may on higher slippers stay. 
 For ever hence away ! 
 Yet let not sluttery. 
 The sink of filth, be counted housewifery, 
 
 But keeping whole your main ! 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain !
 
 58 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 But, above all, away vile jealousy, 
 The evil of evils, just cause to be unjust ! 
 How can he love, suspecting treachery ? 
 How can she love, where love can not win trust? 
 Go, snake ! hide thee in dust ; 
 Nor dare once show thy face 
 Where open hearts do hold so constant place 
 
 That they thy sting restrain ! 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 The Earth is deck'd with flowers, the Heavens display'd. 
 Muses grant gifts, Nymphs long and joined life, 
 Pan store of babes, virtue their thoughts well stay'd, 
 Cupid's lust gone, and gone is bitter strife. 
 Happy man ! happy wife ! 
 No pride shall them oppress. 
 Nor yet shall yield to loathsome sluttishness ; 
 
 And jealousy is slain, 
 For Hymen will their coupled joys maintain. 
 
 SONNETS TO STELLA. 
 
 Stella ! the only planet of my night, 
 
 Light of my life, and life of my desire, 
 
 Chief good, whereto my hope doth only aspire, 
 
 World of my wealth, and heaven of my delight : 
 
 Why dost thou spend the treasures of thy spright, 
 
 With voice more fit to wed Amphion's lyre. 
 
 Seeking to quench in me the noble fire 
 
 Fed by thy worth, and blinded by thy sight? 
 
 And all in vain : for while thy breath most sweet 
 
 With choicest words, thy words with reasons rare. 
 
 Thy reasons firmly set on virtue's feet, 
 
 Labour to kill in me this killing care, 
 
 O, think I then, what paradise of joy 
 
 It is so fair a Virtue to enjoy !
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 59 
 
 Stella ! the fullness of my thoughts of thee 
 Can not be stay'd within my panting breast ; 
 But they do swell and struggle forth of me 
 Till that in words thy figure be express'd ; 
 And yet, as soon as they so formed be, 
 According to my lord Love's own behest. 
 With sad eyes 1 their weak proportion see 
 To portrait that which in this world is best. 
 So that I can not choose but write my mind, 
 And can not choose but put out what I write : 
 While these poor babes their death in birth do find. 
 And now my pen these lines had dashed quite, 
 But that they stopp'd his fury from the same 
 Because their fore-front bare sweet Stella's name. 
 
 Alas ! have I not pain enough, my friend ! 
 Upon whose breast a fiercer grip doth tire 
 Than did on him who first stole down the fire, 
 While Love on me doth all his quiver spend. 
 But with your rhubarb words you must contend 
 To grieve me worse, in saying that Desire 
 Doth plunge my well-form'd soul even in the mire 
 Of sinful thoughts which do in ruin end ? 
 If that be sin which doth the manners frame. 
 Well-staid with truth in word and faith of deed, 
 Ready of wit, and fearing nought but shame, — 
 If that be sin which in fix'd hearts doth breed 
 A loathing of all loose unchastity, — 
 Then love is sin, and let me sinful be ! 
 
 My Muse may well grudge at my heavenly joy 
 If still I force her in sad rhymes to creep : 
 She oft hath drunk my tears now hopes to enjoy 
 Nectar of mirth, since I Jove's cup do keep.
 
 6o SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 Sonnets be not bound 'prentice to annoy; 
 Trebles sing high, so well as bases deep. 
 Grief but Love's winter livery is : the boy 
 Hath cheeks to smile, so well as eyes to weep. 
 Come then, my Muse ! show thou height of delight 
 In well-raised notes ; my pen, the best it may, 
 Shall paint out joy though but in black and white. 
 Cease, eager Muse ! peace, pen ! for my sake stay ! 
 I give you here my hand for truth of this : 
 Wise silence is best music unto bliss. 
 
 Because I breathe not love to every one, 
 Nor do not use set colours for to wear. 
 Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair, 
 Nor give each speech a full point of a groan, 
 The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan 
 Of them who in their lips Love's standard bear, 
 What ho ! " say they of me, " now dare we swear 
 He can not love : no ! no ! let him alone ! " 
 And think so still, so Stella know my mind ! 
 Profess indeed I do not Cupid's art ; 
 But you, fair maids ! at length this true shall find,- 
 That his right badge is but worn in the heart : 
 Dumb swains, not chattering pies, do lovers prove 
 They love indeed who quake to say they love. 
 
 O joy too high for my low style to show ! 
 
 O bliss fit for a nobler state than me ! 
 
 Envy ! put out thine eyes, lest thou do see 
 
 What oceans of delight in me do flow ! 
 
 My friend ! that oft saw through all masks my woe, 
 
 Come, come, and let me pour myself on thee ! 
 
 Gone is the winter of my misery ; 
 
 My Spring appears : O see what here doth grow !
 
 FULKE GREVILLE. 6 1 
 
 For Stella hath, with words where faith doth shine, 
 
 Of her high heart given me the monarchy. 
 
 I, I, — O, I may say that she is mine ! 
 
 And though she give but this conditionly, 
 
 This realm of bliss while virtuous course I take, 
 
 No kings be crown'd.but they some covenants make. 
 
 ] My true Love hath my heart, and I have his, 
 I By just exchange one for the other given : 
 I hold his dear, and mine he can not miss ; 
 There never was a bargain better driven. 
 His heart in me keeps me and him in one ; 
 My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides : 
 He loves my heart, for once it was his own ; 
 I cherish his, because in me it bides. 
 His heart his wound received from my sight ; 
 My heart was wounded with his wounded heart : 
 For, as from me on him his hurt did light. 
 So still methought in me his hurt did smart. 
 Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss: 
 My true Love hath my heart, and I have his. 
 
 FULKE GREVILLE. 
 (Lord Brooke.) 1554— 1628. 
 
 CYNTHIA. 
 
 Away with these self-loving lads 
 Whom Cupid's arrow never glads ! 
 Away, poor souls that sigh and weep, 
 In love of them that lie and sleep ! 
 For Cupid is a meadow God, 
 And forceth none to kiss the rod. 
 
 God Cupid's shaft, like Destiny, 
 Doth either good or ill decree ; 
 Desert is borne out oi" his bow,
 
 62 THOMAS WATSON. 
 
 Reward upon his feet doth go : 
 
 What fools are they that have not known 
 
 That Love hkes no laws but his own ! 
 
 My songs they be of Cynthia's praise, 
 I wear her rings on holy-days ; 
 On every tree I write her name, 
 And every day I read the same : 
 Where Honour Cupid's rival is, 
 There miracles are seen of his. 
 
 If Cynthia crave her ring of me, 
 I blot her name out of the tree ; 
 If doubt do darken things held dear, 
 Then well fare nothing once a year ! 
 For many run, but one must win : 
 Fools only hedge the cuckoo in. 
 
 The worth that worthiness should move 
 Is love, which is the due of love ; 
 And love as well the shepherd can 
 As can the mighty nobleman. 
 Sweet Nymph ! 'tis true you worthy be : 
 Yet without love nought worth to me. 
 
 THOMAS WATSON. 
 
 ISS7 ?— 1592 ? 
 
 ON SIDNE Y'S DEA TH. 
 
 How long with vain complaining. 
 With dreary tears and joys refraining. 
 Shall we renew his dying 
 Whose happy soul is flying, 
 Not in a place of sadness, 
 But in eternal gladness ? 
 Sweet Sidney lives in heaven : then let our weeping 
 Be turn'd to hymns and songs of pleasant keeping !
 
 THOMAS WATSON. 63 
 
 THE KISS. 
 
 In time long past, when in Diana's chace 
 
 A bramble bush prick'd Venus in the foot, 
 
 Old ^sculapius help'd her heavy case 
 
 Before the hurt had taken any root : 
 
 Wherehence, although his beard were crisping hard, 
 
 She yielded him a kiss for his reward. 
 
 My luck was like to his, this other day, 
 When She whom I on earth do worship most 
 For kissing me vouchsafed thus to say — 
 " Take this for once, and make thereof no boast !" 
 Forthwith my heart gave signs of joy by skips, 
 As though our souls had join'd by kissing lips. 
 
 And since that time I thought it not amiss 
 
 To judge which were the best of all these three, — 
 
 Her breath, her speech, or that her dainty kiss : 
 
 And (sure) of all the kiss best liked me. 
 
 For that it was which did revive my heart, 
 
 Oppress'd and almost dead with daily smart. 
 
 JEALOUS OF GANYMEDE. 
 
 This latter night, amidst my troubled rest, 
 A dismal dream my fearful heart appall'd, 
 Whereof the sum was this : Love made a feast. 
 To which all neighbour Saints and Gods were call'd : 
 The cheer was more than mortal men can think. 
 And mirth grew on by taking in their drink. 
 
 Then Jove amidst his cups, for service done, 
 
 'Can thus to jest with Ganymede, his boy : 
 ** I fain would find for thee, my pretty Son ! 
 
 A fairer wife than Paris brought to Troy." 
 " Why, Sir ! " quoth he, " if Phoebus stand my friend. 
 
 Who knows the world, this gear will soon have end."
 
 64 HENRY CONSTABLE. 
 
 Then Jove replied that Phoebus should not choose 
 But do his best to find the fairest face ; 
 And she once found should ne will nor refuse, 
 But yield herself and change her dwelling-place. 
 Alas ! how much was then my heart affright : 
 Which bade me wake and watch my Fair Delight. 
 
 MY LOVE IS PAST. 
 
 Love hath delight in sweet delicious fare ; 
 Love never takes Good Counsel for his friend ; 
 Love author is and cause of idle care ; 
 Love is distraught of wit and hath no end ; 
 Love shooteth shafts of burning hot desire ; 
 Love burnetii more than either flame or fire. 
 
 Love doth much harm through jealousy's assault ; 
 Love once embraced will hardly part again ; 
 Love thinks in breach of faith there is no fault ; 
 Love makes a sport of others' deadly pain ; 
 Love is a wanton child, and loves to brawl ; 
 Love with his war brings many souls to thrall. 
 
 These are the smallest faults that lurk in Love ; 
 These are the hurts that I have cause to curse ; 
 These are those truths which no man can disprove ; 
 These are such harms as none can suffer worse. 
 All this I write that others may beware. 
 Though now myself twice free from all such care. 
 
 HENRY CONSTABLE. 
 
 1555 ?— i6iS ? 
 
 DIAPHENIA. 
 
 Diaphenia, like the daffadowndilly, 
 White as the sun, fair as the lily ! 
 Heigh ho ! how I do love thee :
 
 HENRY CONSTABLE. 6$ 
 
 I do love thee as my lambs 
 Are beloved of their dams. 
 
 How bless'd were I if thou wouldst prove me ! 
 
 Diaphenia, like the spreading roses, 
 That in thy sweet all sweets encloses, 
 
 Fair Sweet ! how I do love thee : 
 I do love thee as each flower 
 Loves the sun's life-giving power : 
 
 For dead, thy breath to life might move mo. 
 
 Diaphenia, like to all things blessed 
 When all thy praises are expressed, 
 
 Dear Joy ! how I do love thee : 
 As the birds do love the Spring, 
 Or the bees their careful king : 
 
 Then in requite, sweet Virgin ! love me ! 
 
 TJIJS FOWLER. 
 
 The fowler hides, as closely as he may. 
 
 The net where caught the silly bird should be, 
 
 Lest he the threatening prison should but see 
 
 And so for fear be forced to fly away. 
 
 My Lady so, the while she doth essay 
 
 In curled knots fast to entangle me. 
 
 Puts on her veil, to the end I should not flee 
 
 The golden net wherein I am a prey. 
 
 Alas, Most Sweet ! what need is of a net 
 
 To catch a bird that is already tame ? 
 
 Sith with your hand alone you may it get, 
 
 For it desires to fly into the same. 
 
 "What needs such cost my thoughts then to entrap 
 
 When of themselves they fly into your lap ? 
 
 IF TRUE LOVE. 
 
 If true love might true love's reward obtain, 
 Dumb wonder only might speak of my joy ; 
 I.-5
 
 ^ THOMAS LODGE. 
 
 But too much worth hath made thee too much coy, 
 And told me long ago I loved in vain. 
 Not the vain hope of undeserved gain 
 Hath made me paint in verses mine annoy ; 
 But for thy pleasure, that thou might'st enjoy 
 Thy beauty's sight, in glasses of my pain. 
 See then Thyself, though me thou wilt not hear, 
 By looking on my verse ! For pain in verse, 
 Love doth in pain, beauty in love appear. 
 So, if thou would'st my verses' meaning see. 
 Expound them thus when I my love rehearse — 
 " None loves like him ! " that is " None fair like mc ! " 
 
 THOMAS LODGE. 
 
 1556 ?— 1625. 
 
 ROSAL YNDE'S MADRIGAL. 
 
 Love in my bosom like a bee 
 
 Doth suck his sweet : 
 Now with his wings he plays with mc, 
 Now with his feet : 
 Within mine eyes he makes his ncit, 
 Llis bed amidst my tender breasl, 
 My kisses are his daily feast : 
 And yet he robs me of my rest. 
 Ah, wanton ! will ye ? 
 
 And if I sleep, then percheth he 
 
 With pretty flight, 
 And makes his pillow of my knee 
 The livelong night : 
 Strike I my lute he tunes the string. 
 He music plays if so I sing. 
 Lie lends me every lovely thing. 
 Yet cruel he my heart doth sting. 
 Whist, wanton ! still ye !
 
 THOMAS LODGE. 6/ 
 
 Else I with roses every day- 
 Will whip you hence ; 
 And bind you when you want to play, 
 For your offence : 
 I'll shut mine eyes to keep you in, 
 I'll make you fast it for your sin, 
 I'll count your power not worth a pin : 
 Alas ! what hereby shall I win, 
 If he gainsay me ? 
 
 What if I beat the wanton boy 
 
 With many a rod ? 
 He will repay me with annoy. 
 Because a God. 
 Then sit thou safely on my knee. 
 And let thy bower my bosom be ! 
 Look in mine eyes ! I like of thee : 
 O Cupid ! so thou pity me. 
 Spare not, but play thee ! 
 
 ROSAL YNDE. 
 
 Like to the clear in highest sphere 
 Where all imperial glory shines. 
 Of self-same colour is her hair, 
 Whether unfolded or in twines : 
 
 Heigh ho ! fair Rosalynde ! 
 Her eyes are sapphires set in snow, 
 Resembling heaven by every wink ; 
 The Gods do fear whenas they glow. 
 And I do tremble when I think. 
 
 Heigh ho ! would she were mine ! 
 
 Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud 
 That beautifies Aurora's face ; 
 Or like the silver crimson shroud
 
 68 THOMAS LODGE, 
 
 That Phoebus' smiling looks doth grace : 
 
 Heigh ho ! fair Rosalynde ! 
 Her lips are like two budded roses 
 Whom ranks of lilies neighbour nigh, 
 Within which bounds she balm encloses 
 Apt to entice a deity. 
 
 Heigh ho ! would she were mine ! 
 
 Her neck is like a stately tower 
 Where Love himself imprison'd lies 
 To watch for glances every hour 
 From her divine and sacred eyes : 
 
 Heigh ho ! fair Rosalynde ! 
 Her paps are centres of delight ; 
 Her breasts are orbs of heavenly frame, 
 Where Nature moulds the dew of light 
 To feed perfection with the same. 
 
 Heigh ho ! would she were mine ! 
 
 With orient pearl, with ruby red, 
 With marble white, with sapphire blue. 
 Her body every way is fed, 
 Yet soft in touch and sweet in view : 
 
 Heigh ho ! fair Rosalynde ! 
 Natui'e herself her shape admires ; 
 The Gods are wounded in her sight ; 
 And Love forsakes his heavenly fires, 
 And at her eyes his brand doth light. 
 
 Heigh ho ! would she were mine ! 
 
 Then muse not, Nymphs ! though I bemoan 
 The absence of fair Rosalynde : 
 Since for a Fair there's fairer none, 
 Nor for her virtues so divine. 
 Heigh ho ! fair Rosalynde ! 
 Heigh ho, my heart ! would God that she were mine !
 
 THOMAS LODGE. 69 
 
 A LOVER'S PROTESTATION. 
 
 First shall the heavens want starry light, 
 The seas be robbed of their waves, 
 
 The day want sun, and sun want bright, 
 
 The night want shade, the dead men graves, 
 
 The April flowers and leaf and tree, 
 
 Before I false my faith to Thee. 
 
 First shall the tops of highest hills 
 
 By humble plains be over-pried. 
 And poets scorn the Muses' quills, 
 
 And fish forsake the water glide, 
 And Iris lose her colour'd weed, 
 Before I fail Thee at thy need. 
 
 First direful hate shall turn to peace. 
 
 And love relent in deep disdain. 
 And death his fatal stroke shall cease, 
 
 And envy pity every pain, 
 And pleasure mourn, and sorrow smile, 
 Before I talk of any guile. 
 
 First Time shall stay his stayless race. 
 And Winter bless his brows with corn. 
 
 And snow bemoisten July's face, 
 
 And Winter spring, and Summer mourn. 
 
 Before my pen by help of Fame 
 
 Cease to recite thy sacred name. 
 
 PHILLIS. 
 
 Love guards the roses of thy lips, 
 And flies about them like a bee : 
 
 If I approach he forward skips. 
 And if I kiss he stingeth me. 
 
 Love in thine eyes doth build his bower. 
 And sleeps within their pretty shine ;
 
 •JO HUMFREY GIFFORD, 
 
 And if I look the Boy will lour, 
 
 And from their orbs shoots shafts divine. 
 
 Love works thy heart within his fire, 
 And in my tears doth firm the same ; 
 
 And if I tempt it will retire, 
 
 And of my plaints doth make a game. 
 
 Love ! let me cull her choicest flowers. 
 
 And pity me, and calm her eye ! 
 Make soft her heart ! dissolve her lours I 
 
 Then will I praise thy deity. 
 But if thou do not. Love ! I'll truly serve her 
 In spite of thee, and by firm faith deserve her. 
 
 HUMFREY GIFFORD. 
 IS— i6— 
 
 IN THE PRAISE OF FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 Reveal, O tongue ! the secrets of my thought ! 
 Tell forth the gain that perfect Friendship brings ! 
 Express what joys by her to man are brought ! 
 Unfold her praise which glads all earthly things ! 
 If one might say, in earth a heaven to be, 
 It is (no doubt) where faithful friends agree. 
 
 To all estates true friendship is a stay, 
 To every wight a good and welcome guest, — 
 Our life were death were she once ta'en away : 
 Consuming cares would harbour in our breast ; 
 Foul malice eke would banish all delight, 
 And puff us up with poison of despite. 
 
 If that the seeds of envy and debate 
 
 Might yield no fruit, but wither and decay, 
 
 No canker'd minds would hoard up heaps of hate, 
 
 No hollow hearts dissembling parts should play, 
 
 No claw-back then would fawn in hope of meed : 
 
 Such life to lead were perfect life indeed.
 
 GEORGE PEELE. /I 
 
 But nowadays desire of worldly pelf 
 With all estates makes friendship very cold ; 
 Few for their friends, each shifteth for himself: 
 If in thy purse thou hast good store of gold, 
 Full many a One thy friendship will embrace ; 
 Thy wealth once spent, they turn away their face. 
 
 Let us still pray unto the Lord above, 
 For to relent our hearts as hard as stone. 
 That through the world one knot of royal love 
 In perfect truth might link us all in one ! 
 Then should we pass this life without annoys, 
 And after death possess eternal joys. 
 
 GEORGE PEELE. 
 1558 ?— 1596 ? 
 
 CUPID'S CURSE. 
 
 CEnone — Fair and fair and twice so fair, 
 As fair as any may be, — 
 The fairest shepherd on our green, 
 A Love for any Ladie ! 
 Paris — Fair and fair and twice so fair. 
 As fair as any may be, 
 Thy Love is fair for thee alone 
 And for no other Ladie. 
 QiNONE — My Love is fair, my Love is gay. 
 As fresh as been the flowers in May ; 
 And of my Love my roundelay, 
 My merry merry merry roundelay. 
 
 Concludes with Cupid's Curse : 
 They that do change old love for new, 
 Pray Gods they change for worse ! 
 EoTH — They that do change old love for new, 
 Pray Gods they change for worse !
 
 72 GEORGE PEELE, 
 
 CEnone — Fair and fair and twice so fair, 
 As fair as any may be,— 
 The fairest shepherd on our green, 
 A Love for any Ladie ! 
 Paris — Fair and fair and twice so fair, 
 As fair as any may be. 
 Thy Love is fair for thee alone, 
 And for no other Ladie. 
 QiNONE — My Love can pipe, my Love can sing. 
 My Love can many a pretty thing ; 
 And of his lovely praises ring 
 My merry merry roundelays : 
 
 Amen to Cupid's Curse ! 
 They that do change old love for new, 
 Pray Gods they change for worse ! 
 Both — They that do change old love for new, 
 Pray Gods they change for worse ! 
 
 COLIN'S SONG. 
 
 gentle Love '. ungentle for thy deed : 
 
 Thou makest my heart 
 
 A bloody mark. 
 With piercing shot to bleed. 
 Shoot soft, sweet Love ! for fear thou shoot amiss. 
 
 For fear too keen 
 
 Thy arrows been 
 And hit the heart where my Beloved is ! 
 
 Too fair that fortune were, nor never I 
 
 Shall be so bless'd 
 
 Among the rest. 
 That Love shall seize on her by sympathy : 
 Then since with Love my prayers bear no boot, 
 
 This doth remain 
 
 To cease my pain : 
 
 1 take the wound and die at Venus' foot.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 73 
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 1560 ? — 1592 ? 
 
 SWEET CONTENT. 
 
 Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content ; 
 
 The quiet mind is richer than a crown ; 
 
 Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent ; 
 
 The poor estate scorns Fortune's angry frown : 
 
 Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss. 
 
 Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss. 
 
 The homely house that harbours quiet rest. 
 The cottage that affords no pride nor care, 
 The mean that grees with country music best, 
 The sweet consort of mirth and modest fare, — 
 Obscured life sets down as type of bliss : 
 A mind content both crown and kingdom is. 
 
 SAMEL A. 
 
 Like to Diana in her summer weed, 
 
 Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye, 
 
 Goes fair Samela ; 
 Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed, 
 When wash'd by Arethusa Fount they lie, 
 
 Is fair Samela ; 
 As fair Aurora, in her morning grey 
 Deck'd with the ruddy glister of her love, 
 
 Is fair Samela ; 
 Like lovely Thetis on a calmed day, 
 Whenas her brightness Neptune's fancy move, 
 
 Shines fair Samela ; 
 Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams, 
 Her teeth are pearl, the breasts are ivory
 
 74 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 Of fair Samela ; 
 Her cheeks like rose and lily yield forth gleams, 
 Her brows' bright arches framed of ebony : 
 
 Thus fair Samela 
 Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue, 
 And Juno in the show of majesty, 
 
 For she's Samela ; 
 Pallas in wit : all three, if you well view, 
 For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity, 
 
 Yield to Samela. 
 
 PHILOMELA' S ODE 
 That she sang in her arbour. 
 
 Sitting by a river side, 
 Where a silent stream did glide. 
 Muse I did of many things 
 That the mind in quiet brings : — 
 I gan think how some men deem . 
 Gold their god ; and some esteem 
 Honour as the chief content 
 That to man in life is lent ; 
 And some others do contend 
 Quiet none like to a friend ; 
 Others hold there is no wealth 
 Compared to a perfect health ; 
 Some man's mind in quiet stands 
 When he is lord of many lands : 
 But I did sigh, and said all this 
 Was but a shade of perfect bliss ; 
 And in my thoughts I did approve 
 Nought so sweet as is true love. 
 Love 'twixt lovers passeth these. 
 When mouth kisseth and heart grees, 
 With folded arms and lips meeting, 
 Each soul another sweetly greeting : 
 For by the breath the soul fleeteth.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 75 
 
 And soul with soul in kissing meeteth. 
 
 If love be so sweet a thing 
 
 That such happy bliss doth bring, 
 
 Happy is love's sugar'd thiall ; 
 
 But unhappy maidens all 
 
 Who esteem your virgin blisses 
 
 Sweeter than a wife's sweet kisses. 
 
 No such quiet to the mind 
 
 As true love with kisses kind ! 
 
 But if a kiss prove unchaste, 
 
 Then is true love quite disgraced. 
 
 Though love be sweet, learn this of me — 
 
 No love sweet but honesty ! 
 
 INFIDA'S SONG. 
 
 Sweet Adon ! darest not glance thine eye- 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! — 
 
 Upon thy Venus that must die ? 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ! 
 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ! mon bel ! 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! 
 
 See how sad thy Venus lies, — 
 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami '. — 
 
 Love in heart and tears in eyes : 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ! 
 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ! mon bel ! 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! 
 
 Thy face as fair as Paphos' brooks — 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! — 
 
 Wherein Fancy baits her hooks ; 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ! 
 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ! mon bel ! 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami !
 
 J^ ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 Thy cheeks like cherries that do grow — 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! — 
 
 Amongst the western mounts of snow ; 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ! 
 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ! mon bcl ! 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! 
 
 Thy lips vermilion full of love, — 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! — 
 
 Thy neck as silver-white as dove ; 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ! 
 
 N'oserez-vous? mon bel ! mon bel ! 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! 
 
 Thine eyes like flames of holy fires — 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! — 
 
 Burn all my thoughts with sweet desires : 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ! 
 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ! mon bel ! 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! 
 
 All thy beauties sting my heart ; — 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! — 
 
 I must die through Cupid's dart : 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ! 
 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ! mon bel ! 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! 
 
 Wilt thou let thy Venus die ? — 
 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! 
 Adon were unkind, say I — 
 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ! 
 N'oserez-vous? mon bel ! mon bel! 
 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! — 
 
 To let fair Venus die for woe — 
 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! — 
 
 That doth love sweet Adon so, 
 Je vous en prie, pity me !
 
 FRANCIS BACON. 'JJ 
 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bcl ! mon bel ! 
 N'oserez-vous ? mon bel ami ! 
 
 FRANCIS BACON. 
 (Lord Verulam.) 1560 — 1626. 
 
 THE WORLD-BUBBLE. 
 
 The World's a bubble, and the Life of Man 
 
 Less than a span : 
 In his conception wretched, from the womb 
 
 So to the tomb ; 
 Cursed from the cradle, and brought up to years 
 
 With cares and fears. 
 Who then to frail Mortality shall trust 
 But limns on water or but writes in dust. 
 
 Yet, since with sorrow here we live oppress'd, 
 
 What life is best ? 
 Courts are but only superficial schools 
 
 To dandle fools ; 
 The rural parts are turn'd into a den 
 
 Of savage men ; 
 And Where's the city from foul vice so free 
 But may be term'd the worst of all the three ? 
 
 Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed, 
 
 Or pains his head ; 
 Those that live single take it for a curse, 
 
 Or do things worse ; 
 Some would have children, those that have them moan 
 
 Or wish them gone : 
 What is it then to have or have no wife, 
 But single thraldom or a double strife ? 
 
 Our own affections still at home to please 
 
 Is a disease ; 
 To cross the seas to any foreign soil
 
 78 ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 
 
 Peril and toil ; 
 Wars with their noise affright us ; when they cease, 
 
 We are worse in peace. 
 What then remains but that we still should cry 
 For being born or, being born, to die ? 
 
 ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 
 
 1562 ?— 1594. 
 
 CHANGE AND COMPENSATION. 
 
 The lopped tree in time may grow again ; 
 Most-naked plants renew both fruit and flower ; 
 The sorest wight may find release of pain ; 
 The driest soil suck in some moistening shower : 
 Times go by turns, and chances change by course, 
 From foul to fair, from better hap to worse. 
 
 The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow, — 
 She draws her favours to the lowest ebb ; 
 Her tides have equal times to come and go ; 
 Her loom doth weave the fine and coarser web : 
 No joy so great but runneth to an end, 
 No hap so hard but may in fine amend. 
 
 Not always fall of leaf, nor ever Spring ; 
 No endless night, yet no eternal day ; 
 The saddest birds a season find to sing ; 
 The roughest storm a calm may soon allay : 
 Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all, 
 That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall. 
 
 A chance may win that by mischance was lost ; 
 
 The net that holds not great takes little fish ; 
 
 In some things all, in all things none are cross'd ; 
 
 Few all they need, but none have all they wish : 
 
 Unmeddled joys here to no man befall ; 
 
 Who least hath some, who most hath never all.
 
 SAMUEL DANIEL. 
 
 79 
 
 SAMUEL DANIEL. 
 
 1562 ? — 1619. 
 
 TO DELIA. 
 
 Unto the boundless ocean of thy beauty 
 
 Runs this poor river, charged with streams of zeal, 
 
 Returning thee the tribute of my duty. 
 
 Which here my love, my youth, my plaints reveal. 
 
 Here I unclasp the book of my charged soul. 
 
 Where I have cast the accounts of all my care ; 
 
 Here have I summ'd my sighs, here I enroll 
 
 How they were spent for thee : look what they are ! 
 
 Look on the dear expenses of my youth, 
 
 And see how just I reckon with thine eyes ! 
 
 Examine well thy beauty with my truth. 
 
 And cross my cares ere greater sums arise ! 
 
 Read it, sweet INIaid ! though it be done but slightly 
 
 Who can show all his love doth love but lightly. 
 
 I once may see when years shall wreak my wrong, 
 
 When golden hairs shall change to silver wire, 
 
 And those bright rays that kindle all this fire 
 
 Shall fail in force, their working not so strong. 
 
 Then Beauty, now the burthen of my song, 
 
 Whose glorious blaze the world doth so admire, 
 
 Must yield up all to tyrant Time's desire ; 
 
 Then fade those flowers that deck'd her pride so long. 
 
 When, if she grieve to gaze her in her glass. 
 
 Which then presents her winter- wither'd hue. 
 
 Go you, my Verse ! go tell her what she was, 
 
 For what she was she iDest shall find in you. 
 
 Your fiery heat lets not her glory pass. 
 
 But, Phosnix-like, shall make her live anew. 
 
 Care-charmer, Sleep ! son of the sable Night,
 
 80 SAMUEL DANIEL. 
 
 Brother to Death, in silent darkness born ! 
 Relieve my languish, and restore the light, 
 With dark forgetting of my care's return ; 
 And let the day be time enough to mourn 
 The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth. 
 Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn, 
 Without the torment of the night's untruth ! 
 Cease, Dreams! the images of day-desires, 
 To model forth the passions of the morrow ; 
 Never let rising sun approve you liars, 
 To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow ! 
 Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain, 
 And never wake to feel the day's disdain ! 
 
 Beauty, sweet Love ! is like the morning dew, 
 Whose short refresh upon the tender green 
 Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth shew, 
 And straight is gone as it had never been. 
 Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish ; 
 Short is the glory of the blushing rose, — 
 The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish, 
 Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose : 
 When thou, surcharged with burthen of thy years, 
 Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth, 
 And that in Beauty's lease expired appears 
 The date of age, the kalends of our dearth : — 
 But ah, no more ! this must not be foretold : 
 For women grieve to think they must be old. 
 
 I must not grieve my Love, whose eyes would read 
 Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smile : 
 Flowers have a time before they come to seed. 
 And she is young, and now must sport the while. 
 And sport, sweet Maid ! in season of these years, 
 And learn to gather flowers before they wither,
 
 BARTHOLOMEW GRIFFIN. 8 1 
 
 And where the sweetest blossom first appears 
 Let love and youth conduct thy pleasures thither I 
 Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air, 
 And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise ! 
 Pity and smiles do best become the Fair ; 
 Pity and smiles must only yield thee praise. 
 Make me to say, when all my griefs are gone, 
 Happy the heart that sigh'd for such a One ! 
 
 BARTHOLOMEW GRIFFIN. 
 
 IS— i6— 
 
 TO FIDESSA. 
 
 Tongue ! never cease to sing Fidessa's praise ; 
 
 Heart ! howe'er she deserve, conceive the best ; 
 
 Eyes ! stand amazed to see her beauty's rays ; 
 
 Lips ! steal one kiss and be for ever bless'd ; 
 
 Hands ! touch that hand wherein your life is closed ; 
 
 Breast ! lock up fast in thee thy life's sole treasure ; 
 
 Arms ! still embrace, and never be disclosed ; 
 
 Feet ! run to her without or pace or measure : 
 
 Tongue ! heart ! eyes ! lips ! hands ! breast ! arms ! feet I 
 
 Consent to do true homage to your Queen : 
 
 Lovely, fair, gent, wise, virtuous, sober, sweet, 
 
 Whose like shall never be, hath never been ! 
 
 O that I were all tongue, her praise to show ! 
 
 Then surely my poor heart were freed from woe. 
 
 If great Apollo offer'd as a dower 
 His burning throne to Beauty's excellence,— 
 If Jove himself came in a golden shower 
 Down to the earth, to fetch fair lo thence, — 
 If Venus in the curled locks was tied 
 Of proud Adonis, not of gentle kind, — 
 If Tellus for a shepherd's favour died 
 (The favour cruel Love to her assign'd), — 
 I.— 6
 
 82 JOHN DAVIES. 
 
 If heaven's winged herald Hermes had 
 
 His heart enchanted with a country maid, — 
 
 If poor Pygmalion was for Beauty mad,— 
 
 If Gods and men have all for Beauty stray'd, — 
 
 I am not then ashamed to be included 
 
 'Mongst those that love and be with love deluded. 
 
 JOHN DAVIES. 
 
 (of Hereford.) 1560-5 — 1618. 
 
 THE PICTURE OF AN HAPPY MAN. 
 How bless'd is he, though ever cross'd, 
 
 That can all crosses blessings make ; 
 That finds himself ere he be lost, 
 
 And lose that found, for virtue's sake. 
 
 Yea, bless'd is he in life and death, 
 
 That fears not death, nor loves this life ; 
 
 That sets his will his wit beneath ; 
 And hath continual peace in strife. 
 
 That striveth but with frail-Desire, 
 
 Desiring nothing that is ill ; 
 That rules his soul by Reason's squire. 
 
 And works by Wisdom's compass still. 
 
 That nought observes but what preserves 
 His mind and body from offence ; 
 
 That neither courts nor seasons serves. 
 And learns without experience. 
 
 That hath a name as free from blot 
 As Virtue's brow, or as his life 
 
 Is from the least suspect or spot, 
 Although he lives without a wife. 
 
 That doth, in spite of all debate, 
 
 Possess his soul in patience ; 
 And pray, in love, for all that hate ; 
 
 And hate but what doth give offence.
 
 JOHN DAVIES. 3^ 
 
 Whose soul is like a sea too still, 
 
 That rests, though moved : yea, moved (at least) 
 With love and hate of good and ill, 
 
 To waft the mind the more to rest. 
 
 That singly doth and doubles not, 
 
 But is the same he seems ; and is 
 Still simply so, and yet no sot, 
 
 But yet not knowing ought amiss. 
 
 That never sin concealed keeps. 
 
 But shows the same to God, or moe ; 
 
 Then ever for it sighs and weeps, 
 And joys in soul for grieving so. 
 
 That by himself doth others mete. 
 
 And of himself still meekly deems ; 
 That never sate in scorner's seat ; 
 
 But as himself the worst esteems. 
 
 That loves his body for his soul, 
 
 Soul for his mind, his mind for God, 
 God for Himself ; and doth controul 
 
 CONTENT, if it with Him be odd. 
 
 That to his soul his sense subdues, 
 
 His soul to reason, and reason to faith ; 
 
 That vice in virtue's shape eschews. 
 And both by wisdom rightly weigh'th. 
 
 That rests in action, acting nought 
 
 But what is good in deed and show ; 
 That seeks but God within his thought, 
 
 And thinks but God to love and know. 
 
 That, all unseen, sees all (like Him), 
 And makes good use of what he sees ; 
 
 That notes the tracks and tricks of Time, 
 And flees with the one, the other flees.
 
 84 JOHN DAVIES. 
 
 That lives too low for envy's looks, 
 
 And yet too high for loath'd contempt ; 
 
 That makes his friends good men and books, 
 And nought without them doth attempt. 
 
 That lives as dying, living yet 
 
 In death, for life he hath in hope ; 
 As far from state as sin and debt, 
 
 Of happy life the means and scope. 
 
 That fears no frowns, nor cares for fawns 
 
 Of Fortune's favourites, or foes ; 
 That neither checks with kings nor pawns, 
 
 And yet still wins what checkers lose. 
 
 That ever lives a light to all, 
 
 Though oft obscured, like the sun ; 
 And though his fortunes be but small, 
 
 Yet Fortune doth not seek, nor shun ; 
 
 That never looks but grace to find, 
 
 Nor seeks for knowledge to be known ; 
 
 That makes a kingdom of his mind. 
 Wherein, with God, he reigns alone. 
 
 This man is great with little state, 
 
 Lord of the world epitomized : 
 Who with staid front out-faceth Fate ; 
 
 And, being empty, is sufficed, — 
 Or is sufficed with little, since (at least) 
 He makes his conscience a continual feast. 
 
 TBE SHOOTING STAR. 
 
 So shoots a Star as doth my Mistress glide 
 At midnight through my chamber, which she makes 
 Bright as the sky when moon and stars are spied, 
 V/herewith my sleeping eyes amazed wake :
 
 JOHN DAVIES. 85 
 
 Which ope no sooner than herself she shuts 
 Out of my sight, away so fast she flies ; 
 Which me in mind of my slack service puts ; 
 For which all night I wake, to plague mine eyes. 
 Shoot, Star ! once more, and if I be thy mark 
 Thou shalt hit me, for thee I'll meet withal. 
 Let mine eyes once more see thee in the dark ! 
 Else they with ceaseless waking out will fall : 
 And if again such time and place I lose 
 To close with thee, let mine eyes never close. 
 
 IN PRAISE OF MUSIC. 
 
 The motion which the nine -fold sacred quire 
 
 Of angels make : the bliss of all the bless'd, 
 
 Which (next the Highest) most fills the highest desire 
 
 And moves but souls that move in Pleasure's rest : 
 
 The heavenly charm that lullabies our woes, 
 
 And recollects the mind that cares distract. 
 
 The lively death of joyless thoughts o'erthrows. 
 
 And brings rare joys but thought on into act : 
 
 Which like the Soul of all the world doth move, 
 
 The universal nature of this All : 
 
 The life of life, and soul of joy and love, 
 
 High rapture's heaven : the That I can not call 
 
 (Like God) by real name : and what is this 
 
 But Music, next the Highest, the highest bliss ? 
 
 LOVE'S BLAZONRY. 
 
 When I essay to blaze my lovely Love 
 And to express her all in colours quaint, 
 I rob earth, sea, air, fire, and all above, 
 Of their best parts, but her worst parts to paint : 
 Staidness from earth, from sea the clearest part, 
 From air her subtlety, from fire her light ; 
 From sun, moon, stars, the glory they impart : 
 So rob and wrong I all, to do her right.
 
 86 JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 
 
 But if the beauty of her mind I touch, 
 
 Since that before touch'd touch but parts externe, 
 
 I ransack heaven a thousand times as much : 
 
 Since in that mind we may that Mind discern, 
 
 That all in All that are or fair or good. 
 
 And so She's most divine, in flesh and blood. 
 
 JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 
 
 1563— 1618. 
 
 A MIND CONTENT. 
 
 I weigh not Fortune's frown nor smile, 
 I joy not much in earthly joys ; 
 
 I seek not state, I reck not style, 
 I am not fond of fancy's toys ; 
 
 I rest so pleased with what I have, 
 
 I wish no more, no more I crave. 
 
 I quake not at the thunder's crack, 
 I tremble not at noise of war, 
 
 I swoon not at the news of wrack, 
 I shrink not at a blazing star : 
 
 I fear not loss, I hope not gain ; 
 
 I envy none, I none disdain. 
 
 1 see Ambition never pleased, 
 
 I see some Tantals starve in store, 
 
 I see Gold's dropsy seldom eased, 
 I see even Midas gape for more : 
 
 I neither want, nor yet abound ; 
 
 Enough's a feast, content is crown'd. 
 
 I feign not friendship where I hate, 
 I fawn not on the great in show ; 
 
 I prize, I praise a mean estate, 
 Neither too lofty nor too low :
 
 JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 8/ 
 
 This, this is all my choice, my cheer, — • 
 A mind content, a conscience clear. 
 
 TWO HEARTS IN ONE. 
 
 The poets feign that when the world began 
 
 Both sexes in one body did remain. 
 
 Till Love, offended with this double man, 
 
 Caused Vulcan to divide him into twain : 
 
 In this division he the heart did sever ; 
 
 But cunningly he did indent the heart. 
 
 That if there were a reuniting ever 
 
 Each heart might know which was his counterpart. 
 
 See then, dear Love ! the indenture of my heart. 
 
 And read the covenants writ with holy fire ; 
 
 See if your heart be not the counterpart 
 
 Of my true heart's indented chaste desire ! 
 
 And if it be, so may it ever be, — 
 
 Two hearts in one, 'twixt you, my Love ! and me. 
 
 L O VE UNAL TERED. 
 
 Were I as base as is the lowly plain, 
 
 And you, my Love, as high as heaven above. 
 
 Yet should the thoughts of me, your humble swain, 
 
 Ascend to heaven in honour of my Love. 
 
 Were I as high as heaven above the plain, 
 
 And you, my Love, as humble and as low 
 
 As are the deepest bottoms of the main. 
 
 Where'er you were, with you my love should go. 
 
 Were you the earth, dear Love ! and I the skies, 
 
 ]\Iy love should shine on you like to the sun, 
 
 And look upon you with ten thousand eyes, 
 
 Till heaven wax'd blind and till the world were done. 
 
 Where'er I am, below, or else above you. 
 
 Where'er you are, my heart shall truly love you.
 
 88 THOMAS NASH. 
 
 THOMAS NASH. 
 1567 — i6cx). 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king : 
 Then blooms each thing ; then maids dance in a ring ; 
 Cold doth not sting ; the pretty birds do sing — 
 ■ Cuckoo ! jugge, jugge ! pu-we ! to-witta-woo ! 
 
 The palm and may make country houses gay ; 
 Lambs frisk and play ; the shepherds pipe all day ; 
 And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay — 
 Cuckoo ! jugge, jugge ! pu-we ! to-witta-woo ! 
 
 The fields breathe sweet ; the daisies kiss our feet ; 
 Young lovers meet ; old wives a-sunning sit ; 
 In every street these tunes our ears do greet — 
 Cuckoo ! jugge, jugge ! pu-we ! to-witta-woo ! 
 Spring ! the sweet Spring ! 
 
 SUMMER. 
 
 Fair Summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore 1 
 So fair a Summer never look for more ! 
 All good things vanish less than in a day : 
 Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay. 
 Go not yet hence, bright soul of the sad year ! 
 The earth is hell when thou leavest to appear. 
 
 What ! shall those flowers that deck'd thy garland erst 
 Upon thy grave be wastefully dispersed ? 
 O trees ! consume your sap in sorrow's source ; 
 Streams ! turn to tears your tributary course. 
 Go not yet hence, bright soul of the sad year ! 
 The earth is hell when thou leavest to appear.
 
 MICHAEL DRAYTON. 89 
 
 MICHAEL DRAYTON. 
 1563— 1631. 
 
 F O WLAND' S RO UNDELA Y. 
 
 Rowland — Of her pure eyes, that now is seen, 
 
 Chorus — Come, let us sing, ye faithful swains ! 
 Rowland — O She alone the Shepherds' Queen, 
 Chorus — Her flock that leads : 
 
 The Goddess of these meads, 
 These mountains, and these plains. 
 
 Rowland — Those eyes of hers that are more clear 
 
 Chorus — Than can poor shepherds' song express, 
 Rowland — Than be his beams that rules the year : 
 Chorus — Fie on that praise 
 
 In striving things to raise 
 That doth but make them less ! 
 
 Rowland — That do the flowery Spring prolong, 
 
 Chorus — So all things in her sight do joy, 
 Rowland — And keep the plenteous Summer young. 
 Chorus — And do assuage 
 
 The wrathful Winter's rage 
 That would our flocks annoy, 
 
 Rowland — Jove saw her breast that naked lay. 
 
 Chorus — A sight most fit for Jove to see, 
 Rowland — And swore it was the Milky Way : 
 Chorus— Of all most pure 
 
 The path, we us assure, 
 To his bright court to be. 
 
 Rowland — He saw her tresses hanging down, 
 
 Chorus — That moved with the gentle air, 
 Rowland — And said that Ariadne's Crown 
 Chorus — With those compared 
 
 The Gods should not regard, 
 Nor Berenice's Hair.
 
 90 MICHAEL DRAYTON. 
 
 Rowland — When She hath watch'd my flocks by night. 
 
 Chorus— O happy flocks that She did keep ! 
 Rowland — They never needed Cynthia's light, 
 Chorus — That soon gave place, 
 Amazed with her grace 
 That did attend thy sheep. 
 
 Rowland — Above, where heaven's high glories are, 
 
 Chorus — When She is placed in the skies, 
 Rowland — She shall be call'd the Shepherds' Star : 
 Chorus — And evermore 
 
 We shepherds will adore 
 Her setting and her rise. 
 
 SONG OF MOTTO AND PERK IN. 
 
 Motto — Tell me, thou skilful shepherd swain ! 
 
 Who's yonder in the valley set ? 
 Perkin — O, it is She whose sweets do stain 
 
 The lily, rose, the violet. 
 
 Motto — Why doth the Sun, against his kind, 
 Stay his bright chariot in the skies ? 
 
 Perkin — He pauseth, almost stricken blind 
 With gazing on her heavenly eyes. 
 
 Motto — Why do thy flocks forbear their food, 
 
 Which sometime was their chief delight ? 
 
 Perkin — Because they need no other good 
 That live in presence of her sight. 
 
 Motto — How come these flowers to flourish still. 
 Not withering with sharp Winter's death ? 
 
 Perkin — She hath robb'd Nature of her skill. 
 
 And comforts all things with her breath. 
 
 Motto — Why slide these brooks so slow away, 
 As swift as the wild roe that were ?
 
 MICHAEL DRAYTON. QI 
 
 Perkin — O muse not, shepherd ! that they stay, 
 When they her heavenly voice do hear. 
 
 Motto — From whence come all these goodly swains 
 And lovely girls attired in green ? 
 
 Perkin — From gathering garlands on the plains, 
 
 To crown thy Syl : our shepherds' Queen. 
 
 The sun that lights this world below, 
 Flocks, brooks, and flowers, can witness bear, 
 These shepherds and these nymphs do know, 
 Thy Sylvia is as chaste as fair. 
 
 WHAT LOVE IS. 
 
 What is Love but the desire 
 
 Of that thing the fancy pleaseth ? 
 A holy and resistless fire 
 
 Weak and strong alike that seizeth : 
 Which not Heaven hath power to let, 
 
 Nor wise Nature can not smother ; 
 Whereby Phoebus doth beget 
 
 On the Universal Mother : 
 That the everlasting chain 
 
 Which together all things tied, 
 And unmoved doth them retain. 
 
 And by which they shall abide : 
 That consent we clearly find 
 
 Which doth things together draw. 
 And so, strong in every kind. 
 
 Subjects them to Nature's law : 
 Whose high virtue Number teaches, 
 
 In which every thing doth move. 
 From the lowest depth that reaches 
 
 To the height of heaven above : 
 Harmony that, wisely found 
 
 When the cunning hand doth strike,
 
 92 MICHAEL DRAYTON. 
 
 Whereas every amorous sound 
 
 Sweetly marries with the like. 
 The tender cattle scarcely take 
 
 From their dams, the fields to prove, 
 But each seeketh out a make : 
 
 Nothing lives that doth not love. 
 Not so much as but the plant — 
 
 As Nature every thing doth pair — 
 By it if the male do want, 
 
 Doth dislike and will not bear. 
 Nothing, then, is like to Love, 
 
 In the which all creatures be : 
 From it ne'er let me remove ! 
 
 Nor let it remove from me ! 
 
 THE DIVORCE. 
 
 Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part ! 
 
 Nay ! I have done ; You get no more of Me : 
 
 And I am glad, yea ! glad with all my heart 
 
 That thus so cleanly I myself can free. 
 
 Shake hands, for ever ! cancel all our vows I 
 
 And, when we meet at any time again, 
 
 Be it not seen in either of our brows 
 
 That we one jot of former love retain ! 
 
 Now, at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, 
 
 When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies. 
 
 When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death. 
 
 And Innocence is closing up his eyes, — 
 
 Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, 
 
 From death to life thou mightst him yet recover.
 
 CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. 93 
 
 CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. 
 
 1564—1593. 
 
 THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD 
 
 TO HIS LOVE. 
 
 Come live with me and be my Love ! 
 And we will all the pleasures prove 
 That hill and valley, dale and field, 
 Woods or steepy mountains yield. 
 
 And we will sit upon the rocks, 
 Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, 
 By shallow rivers to whose falls 
 Melodious birds sing madrigals. 
 
 And I will make thee beds of roses. 
 And a thousand fragrant posies, 
 A cap of flowers, and a kirtle 
 Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle ; 
 
 A gown made of the finest wool 
 Which from our pretty lambs we pull ; 
 Fair-lin^d slippers for the cold 
 With buckles of the purest gold ; 
 
 A belt of straw and ivy-buds, 
 With coral clasps and amber studs : 
 And if these pleasures may thee move, 
 Come live with me and be my Love ! 
 
 The shepherd swains shall dance and sing 
 For thy delight each May morning : 
 If these delights thy mind may move, 
 Then live with me and be my Love !
 
 94 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 
 
 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 
 
 THE NYMPH'S REPLY. 
 
 If all the world and love were young, 
 And truth in every shepherd's tongue, 
 These pretty pleasures might me move 
 To live with thee and be thy Love. 
 
 But time drives flocks from field to fold. 
 When rivers rage, and rocks grow cold, 
 And Philomel becometh dumb ; 
 The rest complains of cares to come. 
 
 The flowers do fade, and wanton fields 
 To wayward Winter reckoning yields ; 
 A honey tongue, a heart of gall, 
 Is fancy's Spring, but sorrow's Fall. 
 
 Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, 
 Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies, 
 Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, 
 In folly ripe, in reason rotten. 
 
 Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, 
 Thy coral clasps and amber studs, 
 All these in me no means can move 
 To come to thee and be thy Love. 
 
 But could youth last, and love still breed, 
 Had joys no date, nor age no need. 
 Then these delights my mind might move 
 To live with thee and be thy Love. 
 
 PHILLIDA'S LOVE-CALL. 
 
 Phillida — Corydon ! arise, my Corydon ! 
 
 Titan shineth clear. 
 Corydon— Who is it that calleth Corydon ? 
 
 Who is it that I hear ?
 
 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 95 
 
 Phillida — Phillida, thy true love, calleth thee : 
 Arise then, arise then, 
 Arise and keep thy flock with me ! 
 CORYDON — Phillida, my true love, is it she? 
 I come then, I come then, 
 I come and keep my flock with thee. 
 
 Phillida — Here are cherries ripe, my Corydon ! 
 
 Eat them for my sake ! 
 Corydon — Here's my oaten pipe, my Lovely One ! 
 
 Sport for thee to make. 
 Phillida — Here are threads, my true love ! fine as silk, 
 
 To knit thee, to knit thee 
 A pair of stockings white as milk. 
 Corydon — Here are reeds, my true love ! fine and neat, 
 
 To make thee, to make thee 
 A bonnet to withstand the heat. 
 
 Phillida — I will gather flowers, my Corydon ! 
 
 To set in thy cap. 
 Corydon — I will gather pears, my Lovely One ! 
 
 To put in thy lap. 
 Phillida — I will buy my true love garters gay. 
 
 For Sundays, for Sundays, 
 To wear about his legs so tall. 
 Corydon — I will buy my true love yellow say, 
 
 For Sundays, for Sundays, 
 To wear about her middle small. 
 
 Phillida — When my Corydon sits on a hill, 
 
 Making melody, — 
 Corydon — When my Lovely One goes to her wheel, 
 
 Singing cheerily, — ■ 
 Phillida — Sure, methinks, my true love doth excel 
 
 For sweetness, for sweetness, 
 Our Pan, that old Arcadian knight ; 
 Corydon — And methinks my true love bears the bell
 
 9^ UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 
 
 For clearness, for clearness, 
 Beyond the Nymphs, that be so bright. 
 
 Phillida — Had my Corydon, my Corydon, 
 
 Been, alack ! her swain, — 
 Corydon — Had my Lovely One, my Lovely One, 
 
 Been in Ida plain, — 
 Phillida — Cynthia Endymion had refused, 
 
 Preferring, preferring 
 My Corydon to play withal. 
 Corydon — The Queen of Love had been excused 
 
 Bequeathing, bequeathing 
 My Phillida the golden ball. 
 
 Phillida — Yonder comes my mother, Corydon ! 
 
 Whither shall I fly ? 
 Corydon — Under yonder beech, my Lovely One ! 
 
 While she passeth by. 
 Phillida — Say to her thy true love was not here ! 
 
 Remember ! remember 
 To-morrow is another day ! 
 Corydon — Doubt me not, my true love ! do not fear I 
 
 Farewell then ! farewell then ! 
 Heaven keep our loves alway ! 
 
 TO CYNTHIA. 
 
 My thoughts are wing'd with hope, my hopes with love : 
 Mount, love! unto the Moon in clearest night; 
 
 And say, as she doth in the heavens move. 
 In earth so wanes and waxes my delight. 
 
 And whisper this, but softly, in her ears, — 
 
 Hope oft doth hang the head, and trust shed tears. 
 
 And you, my thoughts ! that some mistrust do carry, 
 If for mistrust my Mistress do you blame. 
 
 Say, though you alter, yet you do not vary. 
 As she doLh change and yet remain the same :
 
 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 97 
 
 Distrust doth enter hearts, but not infect, 
 And love is sweetest season'd with suspect. 
 
 If she for this with clouds do mask her eyes. 
 And make the heavens dark with her disdain, 
 
 With windy sighs disperse them in the skies, 
 Or with thy tears dissolve them into rain ! 
 
 Thoughts, hopes, and love, return to me no more 
 
 Till Cynthia shine as she hath done before ! 
 
 THE HERMIT'S SONG. 
 
 From fame's desire, from love's delight retired, 
 In these sad groves an hermit's life I lead ; 
 
 And those false pleasures which I once admired 
 With sad remembrance of my fall I dread. 
 
 To birds, to trees, to earth, impart I this : 
 
 For She less secret and as senseless is. 
 
 Experience, which repentance only brings, 
 
 Doth bid me now my heart from love estrange : 
 
 Love is disdain'd when it doth look at kings, 
 And love low placed base and apt to change. 
 
 Their power doth take from him his liberty ; 
 
 Her want of worth makes him in cradle die. 
 
 You men that give false worship unto Love, 
 And seek that which you never shall obtain. 
 
 The endless work of Sisiphus you prove. 
 
 Whose end is this — to know you strive in vain. 
 
 Hope and Desire, which now your idols be. 
 
 You needs must lose, and feel despair with me. 
 
 You woods ! in you the fairest nymphs have walk'd. 
 Nymphs at whose sight all hearts did yield to love ; 
 
 You woods ! in whom dear lovers oft have talk'd : 
 How do you now a place of mourning prove ! 
 
 Wanstead ! my Mistress saith this is the doom. 
 
 Thou art love's child-bed, nursery, and tomb.
 
 98 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 
 
 WALY! WALY! 
 
 O, waly ! waly ! up the bank, 
 
 And waly ! waly ! down the brae ; 
 And waly ! waly ! yon burn-side 
 
 Where I and my Love wont to gae ! 
 I lean'd my back unto an aik, 
 
 I thought it was a trusty tree ; 
 But first it bow'd, and syne it brak' : 
 
 Sae my true Love did lightly me. 
 
 O, waly ! waly ! but love be bonny, 
 
 A little time while it is new ; 
 But when 'tis auld, it waxeth cauld 
 
 And fades away like morning dew. 
 O wherefore should I busk my head ? 
 
 O wherefore should I kame my hair ? 
 For my true Love has me forsook, 
 
 And says he'll never love me mair. 
 
 Now Arthur's Seat shall be my bed, 
 
 The sheets shall ne'er be fyled by me ; 
 Saint Anthon's well shall be my drink, 
 
 Since my true Love's forsaken me. 
 Martinmas wind ! when wilt thou blaw 
 
 And shake the green leaves off the tree ? 
 O gentle Death ! when wilt thou come ? 
 
 For of my life I am wearie. 
 
 'Tis not the frost that freezes fell, 
 
 Nor blawing wind's inclemency ; 
 'Tis not sic cauld that gars me cry : 
 
 But my Love's heart grown cauld to me. 
 When we came in by Glasgow town, 
 
 We were a comely sight to see : 
 My Love was clad in the black velvet, 
 
 And I myself in cramoisie.
 
 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 99 
 
 \ But had I wist before I kiss'd 
 
 That love had been sae ill to win, 
 I I'd lock'd my heart in a case of gold, 
 And pinn'd it with a silver pin. 
 O ! O ! if my young babe were born. 
 
 And set upon the nurse's knee ; 
 And I myself were dead and gane. 
 Since a maid again I'll never be ! 
 
 J'B/LLADA. 
 
 O, what a pain is love ! 
 
 How shall I bear it ? 
 She will unconstant prove : 
 
 I greatly fear it. 
 She so torments my mind, 
 
 That my strength faileth. 
 And wavers with the wind 
 
 As a ship saileth : 
 Please her the best I may, 
 She loves still to gainsay : 
 Alack and well-a-day ! 
 
 Phillada flouts- me. 
 
 All the fair yesterday 
 
 She did pass by me, 
 She look'd another way 
 
 And would not spy me ; 
 I woo'd her for to dine. 
 
 But could not get her ; 
 Will had her to the wine — 
 
 He might intreat her. 
 With Daniel she did dance, 
 On me she look'd askance : 
 O thrice unhappy chance ! 
 
 Phillada flouts me. 
 
 Fair Maid ! be not so coy,
 
 lOO UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 
 
 Do not disdain me ! 
 I am my mother's joy : 
 
 Sweet ! entertain me ! 
 She'll give me when she dies 
 
 All that is fitting : 
 Her poultry, and her bees. 
 
 And her goose sitting, 
 A pair of mattrass beds, 
 And a bag full of shreds : 
 And yet, for all this guedes, 
 
 Phillada flouts me. 
 
 She hath a clout of mine, 
 
 Wrought with blue Coventry, 
 Which she keeps for a sign 
 
 Of my fidelity : 
 But, 'faith, if she flinch, 
 
 She shall not wear it ; 
 To Tib, my t'other wench, 
 
 I mean to bear it. 
 And yet it grieves my heart 
 So soon from her to part : 
 Death strike me with his dart ! 
 
 Phillada flouts me. 
 
 Thou shalt eat crudded cream 
 
 All the year lasting, 
 And drink the crystal stream 
 
 Pleasant in tasting. 
 Whig and whey whilst thou lust, 
 
 And ramble -berries, 
 Pie-lid and pastry crust, 
 
 Pears, plums, and cherries ; 
 Thy raiment shall be thin, 
 
 Made of a weevil's skin 
 
 Yet all's not worth a pin : 
 
 Phillada flouts me.
 
 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. lOI 
 
 Fair maiden ! have a care, 
 
 And in time take me ! 
 I can have those as fair, 
 
 If you forsake me : 
 For Doll the dairy maid 
 
 Laugh'd at me lately, 
 And wanton Winifred 
 
 Favours me greatly. 
 One throws milk on my clothes, 
 T'other plays with my nose : 
 What wanting signs are those ! 
 
 Phillada flouts me. 
 
 I can not work nor sleep 
 
 At all in season : 
 Love wounds my heart so deep, 
 
 Without all reason. 
 I 'gin to pine away 
 
 In my Love's shadow, 
 Like as a fat beast may 
 
 Penn'd in a meadow. 
 I shall be dead, I fear, 
 Within this thousand year : 
 And all for that my dear 
 
 Phillada flouts me. 
 
 BEAUTY BATHING. 
 
 Beauty sat bathing by a spring, 
 
 Where fairest shades did hide her : 
 The winds blew calm, the birds did sing. 
 
 The cool streams ran beside her. 
 My wanton thoughts enticed mine eye, 
 
 To see what was forbidden ; 
 But better memory said — Fie ! 
 
 So vain desire was chidden. 
 Hey, nonnie ! nonnie !
 
 102 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 
 
 Into a slumber then I fell, 
 
 When fond imagination 
 Seemed to see, but could not tell 
 
 Her feature or her fashion. 
 But even as babes in dreams do smile, 
 
 And sometimes fall a-\veeping, 
 So I awaked, as wise this while 
 
 As when I fell a-sleeping. 
 
 Hey, nonnie ! nonnie ! 
 
 IMPORTUNE ME NO MORE! 
 
 When I was fair and young, and favour graced mc. 
 Of many was I sought, their Mistress for to be : 
 But 1 did scorn them all ; and answer'd them therefore — • 
 Go ! go ! go seek some otherwhere ! 
 Importune me no more ! 
 
 How many weeping eyes I made to pine with woe. 
 How many sighing hearts, 1 have no skill to show : 
 Yet I the prouder grew, and answer'd them therefore — 
 Go ! go ! go seek some otherwhere ! 
 Importune me no more ! 
 
 Then spake fair Venus for that fair victorious Boy, 
 And said — " Fine Dame ! since that you be so coy, 
 I will so pluck your plumes that you shall say no more — 
 Go ! go ! go seek some otherwhere ! 
 Importune me no more ! " 
 
 When she had said these words, such change grew in my breast 
 That neither night nor day since that I could take any rest : 
 Then lo ! I did repent that I had said before — 
 Go ! go ! go seek some otherwhere ! 
 Importune me no more !
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. IO3 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 1564 — 1616. 
 
 ARIEL'S SONGS. 
 
 Come unto these yellow sands, 
 
 And then take hands ! 
 Courtsied when you have and kiss'd — 
 
 The wild waves whist — 
 Foot it featly here and there ! 
 And, sweet Sprites ! the burden bear ! 
 Hark! hark! 
 
 Bow, wow ! 
 The watch-dogs' bark ! 
 
 Bow, wow ! 
 Hark ! hark ! I hear 
 The strain of strutting Chanticleer : 
 
 Cry Cock-a-doodle-doo ! 
 
 Full fathom five thy father lies : 
 
 Of his bones are coral made ; 
 Those are pearls that were his eyes ; 
 
 Nothing of him that doth fade 
 But doth suffer a sea-change 
 Into something rich and strange. 
 Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell : 
 
 Ding-dong ! 
 Hark ! now I hear them — Ding-dong bell ! 
 
 Where the bee sucks, there lurk I ; 
 
 In a cowslip's bell I lie ; 
 
 There I couch when owls do cry ; 
 
 On the bat's back I do fly, 
 
 After sunset, merrily. 
 
 Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, 
 
 Under the blossom that hangs on the bough !
 
 I04 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 SIGH NO MORE ! 
 
 Sigh no more, Ladies ! sigh no more 
 
 Men were deceivers ever ; 
 One foot in sea and one on shore, 
 
 To one thing constant never. 
 Then sigh not so ! but let them go. 
 
 And be you blithe and bonny ! 
 Converting all your sounds of woe 
 
 Into Hey, nonny, nonny ! 
 
 Sing no more ditties, sing no mo 
 
 Of dumps so dull and heavy ! 
 The fraud of men was ever so 
 
 Since summer first was leafy. 
 Then sigh not so ! but let them go. 
 
 And be you blithe and bonny ! 
 Converting all your sounds of woe 
 
 Into Hey, nonny, nonny ! 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 When daisies pied, and violets blue, 
 And lady-smocks all silver white, 
 
 And cuckoo buds of yellow hue, 
 
 Do paint the meadows with delight, 
 
 The Cuckoo then, on every tree. 
 
 Mocks married men, for thus sings he : 
 Cuckoo ! 
 
 Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! O word of fear, 
 
 Unpleasing to a married ear! 
 
 When shepherds pipe on oaten straws. 
 And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, 
 
 When turtles tread, and rooks and daws. 
 And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. I05 
 
 The Cuckoo then, on every tree, 
 Mocks married men, for thus sings he : 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! O word of fear, 
 Unpleasing to a inarried ear ! 
 
 WIN'TER. 
 
 When icicles hang by the wall, 
 
 And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, 
 And Tom bears logs into the hall. 
 
 And milk comes frozen home in pail, 
 When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, 
 Then nightly sings the staring owl : 
 
 Tu whit ! 
 Tu whit ! to who ! a merry note, 
 While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 
 
 When all aloud the wind doth blow. 
 
 And coughing drowns the parson's saw, 
 And birds sit brooding in the snow, 
 
 And Marian's nose looks red and raw, 
 When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, 
 Then nightly sings the staring owl : 
 
 Tu whit ! 
 Tu whit ! to who ! a merry note, 
 While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 
 
 BLOW, WINTER WIND I 
 
 Blow ! blow ! thou winter wind ! 
 Thou art not so unkind 
 
 As man's ingratitude : 
 Thy tooth is not so keen. 
 Because thou art not seen, 
 
 Although thy breath be rude.
 
 I06 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Heigh ho ! sing heigh ho, unto the green holly ! 
 Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. 
 
 Then heigh ho, the holly ! 
 
 This life is most jolly. 
 
 Freeze ! freeze ! thou bitter sky ! 
 Thou dost not bite so nigh 
 
 As benefits forgot : 
 Though thou the waters warp, 
 Thy sting is not so sharp 
 
 As friend remember'd not. 
 Heigh ho ! sing heigh ho, unto the green holly ! 
 Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. 
 
 Then heigh ho, the holly ! 
 
 This life is most jolly. 
 
 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 Under the greenwood tree, 
 Who loves to lie with me. 
 And tune his merry note 
 Unto the sweet bird's throat. 
 Come hither ! come lather ! come hither ! 
 Here shall he see 
 No enemy 
 But winter and rough weather. 
 
 Who doth ambition shun, 
 And loves to live i' the sun. 
 Seeking the food he eats. 
 And pleased with what he gets. 
 Come hither ! come hither ! come hither ! 
 Here shall he see 
 No enemy 
 But winter and rough weather.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. lO/ 
 
 MISTRESS MINE. 
 
 O Mistress mine ! where are you roaming ? 
 O stay and hear ! your true Love's coming, 
 
 That can sing both high and low : 
 Trip no further, pretty Sweeting ! 
 Journeys end in lovers meeting, — 
 
 Every wise man's son doth know. 
 
 What is love ? 'Tis not hereafter : 
 Present mirth hath present laughter, 
 
 What's to come is still unsure. 
 In delay there lies no plenty : 
 Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty ! 
 
 Youth's a stuff will not endure. 
 
 COME AWAY, DEATH! 
 
 Come away, come away. Death ! 
 And in sad cypress let me be laid : 
 
 Fly away, fly away, breath ! 
 I am slain by a fair cruel Maid. 
 My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, 
 
 O prepare it ! 
 My part of death, no one so true 
 Did share it. 
 
 Not a flower, not a flower sweet, 
 On my black coffin let there be strown ! 
 
 Not a friend, not a friend greet 
 My poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown ! 
 A thousand thousand sighs to save. 
 
 Lay me, O where 
 Sad true lover never find my grave, 
 To weep there !
 
 I08 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 ORPHEUS. 
 
 Orpheus with his lute made trees, 
 And the mountain tops that freeze, 
 
 Bow themselves when he did sing : 
 To his music plants and flowers 
 Ever sprung, as sun and showers 
 
 There had made a lasting Spring. 
 
 Every thing that heard him play, 
 Even the billows of the sea, 
 
 Hung their heads and then lay by : 
 In sweet music is such art. 
 Killing care and grief of heart. 
 
 Fall asleep, or hearing die ! 
 
 SERENADE. 
 
 Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings. 
 And Phoibus gins arise, 
 His steeds to water at those springs 
 
 On chaliced flowers that lies : 
 And winking Mary-buds begin 
 
 To ope their golden eyes ; 
 With every thing that pretty been : 
 My Lady sweet ! arise ! 
 Arise ! arise ! 
 
 DIRGE. 
 
 Fear no more the heat o' the sun, 
 Nor the furious winter's rages ! 
 
 Thou thy worldly task hast done. 
 
 Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages. 
 
 Golden lads and girls, all must. 
 
 As chimney sweepers, come to dust.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. IO9 
 
 Fear no more the frown o' the great ! 
 
 Thou art past the tyrant's stroke : 
 Care no more to clothe and eat ! 
 
 To thee the reed is as the oak. 
 The sceptre, learning, physic, must 
 All follow thee and come to dust. 
 
 Fear no more the lightning flash. 
 Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone ! 
 
 Fear not slander, censure rash ! 
 Thou hast finish'd joy and moan. 
 
 All lovers young, all lovers must 
 
 Consign to thee and come to dust. 
 
 No exorcisor harm thee ! 
 
 Nor no witchcraft charm thee ! 
 Ghost unlaid forbear thee ! 
 
 Nothing ill come near thee ! 
 Quiet consummation have. 
 And renowned be thy grave ! 
 
 SOAWETS. 
 
 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
 
 I summon up remembrance of things past, 
 
 I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
 
 And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste 
 
 Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, 
 
 For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, 
 
 And weep afresh love's long since cancel'd woe. 
 
 And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight : 
 
 Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 
 
 And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 
 
 The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, 
 
 Which I now pay as if not paid before. 
 
 But if the while I think of thee, dear friend ! 
 
 All losses are restored and sorrows end.
 
 no WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 O, how thy worth with manners may I sing 
 
 When thou art all the better part of me ? 
 
 What can mine own praise to mine own self bring; 
 
 And what is't but mine own when I praise thee ? 
 
 Even for this let us divided live, 
 
 And our dear love lose name of single one : 
 
 That by this separation I may give 
 
 That due to thee which thou deservest alone ! 
 
 O absence ! what a torment wouldst thou prove, 
 
 Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave 
 
 To entertain the time with thoughts of love 
 
 (Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive), 
 
 And that thou teachest how to make one twain 
 
 By praising him here who doth hence remain. 
 
 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments 
 
 Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme ; 
 
 But you shall shine more bright in these contents 
 
 Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time. 
 
 When wasteful war shall statues overturn. 
 
 And broils root out the work of masonry. 
 
 Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn 
 
 The living record of your memory. 
 
 'Gainst death and all oblivious enmity 
 
 Shall you pace forth ; your praise shall still find room 
 
 Even in the eyes of all posterity 
 
 That wears this world out to the ending doom. 
 
 So till the Judgment, that yourself arise, 
 
 You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. 
 
 Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea. 
 But sad mortality o'ersways their power, 
 How with this rage shall Beauty hold a plea, 
 Whose action is no stronger than a flower ? 
 O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. Ill 
 
 Against the wreckful siege of battering days, 
 
 Wlien rocks impregnable are not so stout 
 
 Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays ? 
 
 O fearful meditation ! where, alack ! 
 
 Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest be hid ? 
 
 Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back ? 
 
 Or who his spoil of Beauty can forbid ? 
 
 O, none ! unless this miracle have might : 
 
 That in black ink my love may still shine bright. 
 
 Tired with all these, for restful death I cry : 
 
 As to behold desert a beggar born ; 
 
 And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity ; 
 
 And purest faith unhappily forsworn ; 
 
 And gilded honour shamefully misplaced ; 
 
 And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted ; 
 
 And right perfection wrongfully disgraced ; 
 
 And strength by limping sway disabled ; 
 
 And art made tongue-tied by authority ; 
 
 And folly doctor-like controuling skill ; 
 
 And simple truth miscall'd simplicity ; 
 
 And captive good attending captain ill : 
 
 Tired with all these, from these I would be gone, 
 
 Save that to die I leave my Love alone. 
 
 That time of year thou may'st in me behold 
 
 When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 
 
 Upon those boughs which shake against the cold : 
 
 Bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang. 
 
 In me thou see'st the twilight of such day 
 
 As after sunset fadeth in the West ; 
 
 Which by-and-by black night doth take away, — 
 
 Death's second self that seals up all in rest. 
 
 In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire 
 
 That on the ashes of his youth doth lie
 
 112 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 As the death-bed whereon it must expire, 
 
 Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by. 
 
 This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong 
 
 To love that well which thou must leave ere long. 
 
 The forward violet thus did I chide : — 
 
 Sweet Thief ! whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, 
 
 If not from my Love's breath ? Tlie purple pride 
 
 Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells 
 
 In my Love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed. 
 
 The lily I condemned for thy hand ; 
 
 And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair ; 
 
 The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, 
 
 One blushing shame, another white despair ; 
 
 A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both 
 
 And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath, 
 
 But for his theft, in pride of all his growth, 
 
 A vengeful canker eat him up to death. 
 
 More flowers I noted : yet I none could see 
 
 But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee. 
 
 My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming : 
 
 I love not less, though less the show appear : 
 
 Tliat love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming 
 
 The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere. 
 
 Our love was new, and then but in the Spring, 
 
 When I was wont to greet it with my lays : 
 
 As Philomel in summer's front doth sing, 
 
 And stops her pipe in growth of riper days. 
 
 Not that the summer is less pleasant now 
 
 Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, 
 
 But that wild music burthens every bough. 
 
 And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. 
 
 Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue : 
 
 Because I would not dull you with my song.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. I13 
 
 When in the chronicle of wasted time 
 
 I see descriptions of the fairest wights, 
 
 And beauty making beautiful old rhyme 
 
 In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, 
 
 Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, 
 
 Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, 
 
 I see their antique pen would have express'd 
 
 Even such a beauty as you master now. 
 
 So all their praises are but prophecies 
 
 Of this our time, all you prefiguring ; 
 
 And, for they look'd but with divining eyes, 
 
 They had not skill enough your worth to sing : 
 
 For we, which now behold these present days, 
 
 Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. 
 
 How oft when thou, my Music ! music play'st 
 Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds 
 With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st 
 The wiry concord that mine ear confounds. 
 Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap 
 To kiss the tender inward of thy hand. 
 Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, 
 At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand ! 
 To be so tickled they would change their state 
 And situation with those dancing chips 
 O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait. 
 Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips. 
 Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, 
 Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss ! 
 
 My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun ; 
 Coral is far more red than her lips' red ; 
 If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun ; 
 If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. 
 I have seen roses damask'd red and white, 
 I.— 8
 
 114 ROBERT DEVEREUX. 
 
 But no such roses see I in her cheeks ; 
 
 And in some perfumes is there more dehght 
 
 Than in the breath that from my Mistress reeks. 
 
 I love to hear her speak, yet well I know 
 
 That music hath a far more pleasing sound ; 
 
 I grant I never saw a Goddess go, — 
 
 My Mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. 
 
 And yet, by heaven, I think my Love as rare 
 
 As any She belied with false compare. 
 
 Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
 Admit impediment! Love is not love 
 Which alters when it alteration finds 
 Or bends with the remover to remove. 
 
 no! it is an ever-fixed mark 
 
 That looks on tempests and is never shaken : 
 
 It is the star to every wandering bark, 
 
 "Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. 
 
 Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
 
 Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 
 
 Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
 
 But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 
 
 If this be error, and upon me proved, 
 
 1 never writ, nor no man ever loved. 
 
 ROBERT DEVEREUX. 
 (Earl of Essex.) 1568 — 1601. 
 
 THE FALSE FORGOTTEN. 
 
 Change thy mind since she doth change ! 
 
 Let not fancy still abuse thee ! 
 Thy untruth can not seem strange 
 
 When her falsehood doth excuse thee. 
 Love is dead, and thou art free : 
 She doth live, but dead to thee.
 
 BARNABE BARNES. 
 
 115 
 
 When she loved thee best a while, 
 See how still she did delay thee : 
 
 Using shows for to beguile, 
 
 Those vain hopes which have betray'd thee ! 
 
 Now thou see'st, but all too late, 
 
 Love loves truth, which women hate. 
 
 Love ! farewell ! more dear to me 
 Than my life which thou preservedst. 
 
 Life ! thy joy is gone from thee ; 
 Others have what thou deservedst : 
 
 They enjoy what's not their own. 
 
 Happier life to live alone ! 
 
 Yet, thus much to ease my mind, — 
 Let her know what she hath gotten : 
 
 She whom time hath proved unkind. 
 Having changed, is quite forgotten : 
 
 For time now hath done her worst. 
 
 Would she had done so at first ! 
 
 Love no more, since she is gone ! 
 
 She is gone, and loves another : 
 Being once deceived by one, 
 
 Leave to love, and love no other ! 
 She was false, bid her adieu ! 
 She was best, but yet untrue. 
 
 BARNABE BARNES. 
 1568-9 — 1609. 
 
 PAR THENOPHE. 
 Why doth heaven bear a sun 
 
 To give the world an heat ? 
 
 Why there have stars a seat ? 
 On earth (when all is done) 
 Parthenophe's bright sun 
 
 Doth give a greater heat.
 
 Il6 BARN ABE BARNES. 
 
 And in her heaven there be 
 Such fair bright blazing stars, 
 Which still make open wars 
 
 With those in heaven's degree : 
 
 These stars far brighter be 
 
 Than brightest of heaven's stars. 
 
 Why doth earth bring forth roses, 
 
 Violets, or lilies, 
 
 Or bright daffadillies ? 
 In her clear cheeks she closes 
 Sweet damask roses, 
 
 In her neck white lilies, 
 
 Violets in her veins. 
 
 Why do men sacrifice 
 
 Incense to deities ? 
 Her breath more favour gains, 
 And pleaseth heavenly veins 
 
 More than rich sacrifice. 
 
 MADRIGALS. 
 I 
 Phoebus, rich father of eternal light 
 
 And in his hand a wreath of heliochrise 
 He brought, to beautify those tresses 
 Whose train, whose softness, and whose gloss more bright, 
 
 Apollo's locks did overprize : 
 Thus with this garland while her brows he blesses, 
 The golden shadow with his tincture 
 Cover'd her locks, I gilded with the cincture. 
 
 Then, as she was 'bove human glory graced, 
 
 The Saint (methought) departed. 
 And suddenly upon her feet she started. 
 Juno beheld, and fain would have defaced
 
 SIR JOHN DAVIES. II7 
 
 That female miracle, proud Nature's wonder, 
 
 Lest Jove through heaven's clear windows should espy her 
 
 And for her beauty Juno's love neglect : 
 Down she descends, and as she walked by her 
 A branch of lilies Juno tears in sunder. 
 Then from her sphere did Venus down reflect, 
 Lest Mars by chance her beauty should affect ; 
 
 And with a branch of roses 
 She beat upon her face. Then Juno closes 
 And with white lilies did her beauty chasten. 
 But lovely Graces in memorial 
 Let both the rose and lily's colours fall 
 Within her cheeks, which to be foremost hasten. 
 
 SIR JOHN DAVIES. 
 
 1570 — 1626. 
 
 TO THE LARK. 
 
 Early, cheerful, mounting Lark, 
 Light's gentle usher, morning's clerk, 
 In merry notes delighting ! 
 Stint awhile thy song, and h&rk. 
 And learn my new inditing. 
 
 Bear up this hymn, to heaven it bear ; 
 E'en up to heaven, and sing it there ; 
 To heaven each morning bear it ! 
 Have it set to some sweet sphere, 
 And let the angels hear it ! 
 
 Renown'd Astrea, that great name, 
 
 Exceeding great in worth and fame, 
 
 Great worth hath so renown'd it, 
 
 It is Astrea's name I praise : 
 
 Now then, sweet Lark ! do thou it raise, 
 
 And in high heaven resound it !
 
 Il8 RICHARD BARNFIELD. 
 
 RICHARD BARNFIELD. 
 
 1574—1627. 
 
 AN ODE. 
 
 As it fell upon a day 
 
 In the merry month of May, 
 
 Sitting in a pleasant shade 
 
 Which a grove of myrtles made, 
 
 Beasts did leap, and birds did sing, 
 
 Trees did grow, and plants did spring : 
 
 Every thing did banish moan 
 
 Save the nightingale alone. 
 
 She, poor bird ! as all forlorn, 
 
 Lean'd her breast up-till a thorn, 
 
 And there sung the dolefulst ditty, 
 
 That to hear it was great pity. 
 
 Fie ! fie ! fie ! now would she cry ; 
 
 Teru ! Teru ! by-and-by : 
 
 That to hear her so complain 
 
 Scarce I could from tears refrain, 
 
 For her griefs so lively shown 
 
 Made me think upon mine own. 
 
 Ah ! thought I, thou mourn'st in vain ; 
 
 None takes pity on thy pain : 
 
 Senseless trees, they can not hear thee ; 
 
 Ruthless bears, they will not cheer thee ; 
 
 King Pandion, he is dead; 
 
 All thy friends are lapp'd in lead. 
 
 All thy fellow birds do sing. 
 
 Careless of thy sorrowing. 
 
 Whilst as fickle Fortune smiled, 
 
 Thou and I were both beguiled. 
 
 Every one that flatters thee 
 
 Is no friend to misery : 
 
 Words are easy, like the wind ;
 
 RICHARD BARNFIELD. II9 
 
 Faithful friends are hard to find : 
 
 Every man will be thy friend 
 
 Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend ; 
 
 But if store of crowns be scant, 
 
 No man will supply thy want. 
 
 If that one be prodigal, 
 
 Bountiful they will him call, 
 
 And with such-like flattering 
 
 Pity but he were a king ; 
 
 If he be addict to vice, 
 
 Quickly him they will entice ; 
 
 If to women he be bent, 
 
 They have at command^ment : 
 
 But if Fortune once do frown, 
 
 Then farewell his great renown I 
 
 They that fawn'd on him before, 
 
 Use his company no more. 
 
 He that is thy friend indeed, 
 
 He will help thee in thy need : 
 
 If thou sorrow, he will weep ; 
 
 If thou wake, he can not sleep : 
 
 Thus of every grief in heart 
 
 He with thee doth bear a part. 
 
 These are certain signs to know 
 
 Faithful friend from flattering foe. 
 
 THE CHIEF EST GOOD. 
 
 The Stoics think (and they come near the truth) 
 
 That virtue is the chiefest good of all ; 
 
 The Academics on Idea call; 
 
 The Epicures in pleasure spend their youth ; 
 
 The Peripatetics judge felicity 
 
 To be the chiefest good above all other : 
 
 One man thinks this, and that conceives another ; 
 
 So that in one thing very few agree. 
 
 Let Stoics have their Virtue if they will,
 
 120 JOHN DONNE. 
 
 And all the rest their chief supposed good ! 
 Let cruel martialists delight in blood, 
 And misers joy their bags with gold to fill ! 
 My chiefest good, my chief felicity, 
 Is to be gazing on my Love's fair eye. 
 
 GANYMEDE. 
 
 Sometimes I wish that I his pillow were, 
 
 So might I steal a kiss, and yet not seen ; 
 
 So might I gaze upon his sleeping eyne, 
 
 Although I did it with a panting fear : 
 
 But when I well conceive how vain my wish is, 
 
 Ah, foolish Bees ! think I, that do not suck 
 
 His lips for honey, but poor flowers do pluck 
 
 Which have no sweet in them, when his sole kisses 
 
 Are able to revive a dying soul. 
 
 Kiss him ! — but sting him not ! for if you do 
 
 His angry voice your flying will pursue. 
 
 But, when they hear his tongue, what can controul 
 
 Their back return ? for then they plainly see 
 
 How honeycombs from his lips dropping be. 
 
 JOHN DONNE. 
 1573—1631. 
 
 BREAK OF DA Y. 
 
 Stay, O Sweet ! and do not rise ! 
 The light that shines comes from thine eyes 
 The day breaks not ; it is my heart, 
 Because that you and I must part. 
 
 Stay ! or else my joys will die, 
 
 And perish in their infancy. 
 
 'Tis true, 'tis day : what though it be ? 
 O wilt thou therefore rise from me ?
 
 JOHN DONNE. 121 
 
 Why should we rise because 'tis light ? 
 
 Did we lie down because 'twas night ? 
 Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither, 
 Should in despite of light keep us together. 
 
 Light hath no tongue, but is all eye : 
 
 If it could speak as well as spy, 
 
 This were the worst that it could say, 
 
 That being well I fain would stay, 
 And that I loved my heart and honour so 
 That I would not from him that had them go. 
 
 Must business thee from hence remove ? 
 
 Oh, that's the worst disease of love. 
 
 The poor, the foul, the false, love can 
 
 Admit, but not the busied man. 
 He which hath business, and makes love, doth do 
 Such wrong as when a married man should woo. 
 
 THE FUNERAL. 
 
 Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm 
 
 Nor question much 
 That subtle wreath of hair about mine arm ! 
 The mystery, the sign you must not touch : 
 
 For 'tis my outward soul. 
 Viceroy to that which, unto heaven being gone. 
 Will leave this to controul 
 And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution. 
 
 For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall 
 
 Through every part 
 Can tie those parts and make me one of all, 
 Those hairs, which upward grew and strength and art 
 
 Have from a better brain, 
 Can better do't : except she mean'd that I 
 By this should know my pain, 
 As prisoners then are manacled, when they're condemn'd to die.
 
 122 JOHN DONNE. 
 
 Whate'er she mean'd by't, bury it with me ! 
 
 For since I am 
 Love's Martyr, it might breed idolatry 
 If into other hands these reUcs came. 
 
 As 'twas humility 
 T' afiford to it all that a soul can do, 
 So 'tis some bravery 
 That, since you would have none of me, I bury some of you. 
 
 THE UNDERTAKING. 
 
 I have done one braver thing 
 
 Than all the Worthies did ; 
 And yet a braver thence doth spring, 
 
 Which is, to keep that hid. 
 
 It were but madness now to impart 
 
 The skill of specular stone. 
 When he, which can have learn'd the art 
 
 To cut it, can find none. 
 
 So if I now should utter this, 
 
 Others, because no more 
 Such stuff to work upon there is, 
 
 Would love but as before. 
 
 But he, who loveliness within 
 
 Hath found, all outward loathes : 
 For he, who colour loves and skin, 
 
 Loves but their oldest clothes. 
 
 If, as I have, you also do 
 
 Virtue in woman see, 
 And dare love that, and say so too. 
 
 And forget the He and She, — 
 
 And if this love, though placed so, 
 From profane men you hide,
 
 BEN JONSON. 123 
 
 Which will no faith on this bestow 
 Or, if they do, deride, — 
 
 Then you have done a braver thing 
 
 Than all the Worthies did ; 
 And a braver thence will spring. 
 
 Which is, to keep that hid. 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 1573—1637. 
 
 y^ THE TRIUMPH OF CHARIS. 
 
 See the chariot at hand here of Love, 
 
 Wherein my Lady rideth ! 
 Each that draws is a swan or a dove, 
 
 And well the car Love guideth. 
 As she goes all hearts do duty 
 
 Unto her beauty. 
 And enamour'd do wish, so they might 
 
 But enjoy such a sight. 
 That they still were to run by her side. 
 Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride. 
 
 Do but look on her eyes ! they do light 
 
 All that Love's world compriseth ; 
 Do but look on her hair ! it is bright 
 
 As Love's star when it riseth. 
 Do but mark ! her forehead's smoother 
 
 Than words that soothe her ; 
 And from her arch'd brows such a grace 
 
 Sheds itself through the face 
 As alone there triumphs to the life 
 All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife. 
 
 Have you seen but a bright lily grow 
 Before rude hands have touch'd it ?
 
 124 BEN JONSON. 
 
 Have you mark'd but the fall of the snow 
 
 Before the soil hath smutch'd it ? 
 Have you felt the wool of the beaver. 
 
 Or swan's down ever? 
 Or have smell'd o' the bud of the briar, 
 
 Or the nard in the fire ? 
 Or have tasted the bag of the bee ? 
 O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she ! 
 
 ECHO'S SONG. 
 
 Slow, slow, fresh fount ! keep time with my salt tears ; 
 
 Yet slower, yet : O faintly, gentle springs ! 
 List to the heavy part the music bears : 
 
 Woe weeps out her division when she sings. 
 
 Droop, herbs and flowers ! 
 
 Fall, grief! in showers : 
 
 Our beauties are not ours. 
 
 O, I could still. 
 Like melting snow upon some craggy hill. 
 
 Drop, drop, drop, drop : 
 Since Nature's Pride is now a wither'd daffodil. 
 
 GYPSY SONGS. 
 
 The faery beam upon you ! 
 
 The stars to glister on you ! 
 A moon of light 
 In the noon of night 
 
 Till the fire-drake hath o'ergone you ! 
 
 The wheel of Fortune guide you ! 
 
 The Boy with the bow beside you 
 Run aye in the way 
 Till the bird of day 
 
 And the luckier lot betide you !
 
 BEN JONSON. 125 
 
 To the old long life and treasure ! 
 To the young all health and pleasure ! 
 
 To the fair their face 
 
 "With the heaven's grace, 
 And the foul to be loved at leisure ! 
 To the witty all clear mirrors ! 
 To the foolish their dark errors ! 
 
 To the loving sprite 
 
 A secure delight ! 
 To the jealous his own false terrors ! 
 
 HER MAN. 
 
 DESCRIBED BY HER OWN DICTAMEN. 
 
 Of your trouble, BEN ! to ease me, 
 I will tell what man would please me. 
 I would have him, if I could, 
 Noble, or of greater blood, — 
 Titles, I confess, do take me, 
 And a woman God did make me ; 
 French to boot, at least in fashion, 
 And his manners of that nation. 
 
 Young I'd have him too, and fair, 
 Yet a man ; with crisped hair, 
 Cast in thousand snares and rings 
 For Love's fingers and his wings, 
 Chestnut colour, — or, more slack, 
 Gold upon a ground of black ; 
 Venus' and Minerva's eyes. 
 For he must look wanton-wise. 
 
 Eye-brows bent like Cupid's bow ; 
 Front an ample field of snow ; 
 Even nose ; and cheeks withal 
 Smooth as is the billiard-ball ;
 
 126 BEN JONSON. 
 
 Chin as woolly as the peach ; 
 And his lip should kissing teach, 
 Till he cherish'd too much beard 
 And made Love, or me, afear'd. 
 
 He should have a hand as soft 
 As the down, and show it oft ; 
 Skin as smooth as any rush, 
 And so thin to see a blush 
 Rising through it, ere it came ; 
 All his blood should be a flame 
 Quickly fired, as in beginners 
 In Love's school, and yet no sinners. 
 
 'Twere too long to speak of all : 
 
 What we harmony do call 
 
 In a body should be there ; 
 
 Well he should his clothes too wear, 
 
 Yet no tailor help to make him, — 
 
 Dress'd, you still for a man should take him, 
 
 And not think he had eat a stake, 
 
 Or were set up in a brake. 
 
 Valiant he should be, as fire 
 Showing danger more than ire ; 
 Bounteous as the clouds to earth ; 
 And as honest as his birth ; 
 All his actions to be such 
 As to do no thing too much, — 
 Nor o'erpraise nor yet condemn. 
 Nor out-value nor contemn, 
 
 Nor do wrongs nor wrongs receive, 
 Nor tie knots nor knots unweave ; 
 And from baseness to be free. 
 As he durst love Truth and Me.
 
 BEN JONSON. 127 
 
 Such a man, with every part, 
 I could give my very heart : 
 But of one if short he came, 
 I can rest me where I am. 
 
 IN THE PERSON OF WOMANKIND. 
 
 A SONG APOLOGETIC. 
 
 Men ! if you love us, play no more 
 The fools or tyrants with your friends, 
 
 To make us still sing o'er and o'er 
 Our own false praises, for your ends : 
 
 We have both wits and fancies too ; 
 
 And if we must, let's sing of you ! 
 
 Nor do we doubt but that we can, 
 
 If we would search with care and pain, 
 
 Find some one good in some one man ; 
 So, going thorough all your strain, 
 
 We shall at last of parcels make 
 
 One good enough — for a song's sake. 
 
 And as a cunning painter takes. 
 In any curious piece you see, 
 
 More pleasure while the thing he makes 
 Than when 'tis made, why so will we : 
 
 And having pleased our art we'll try 
 
 To make a new, and hang that by. 
 
 TO CYNTHIA. 
 
 Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair I 
 Now the Sun is laid to sleep, 
 
 Seated in thy silver chair 
 
 State in wonted manner keep : 
 
 Hesperus intreats thy light, 
 
 Goddess excellently bright !
 
 128 BEN JONSON. 
 
 Earth ! let not thy envious shade 
 
 Dare itself to interpose ; 
 Cynthia's shining orb was made 
 
 Heaven to clear when day did close i 
 Bless us then with wished sight, 
 Goddess excellently bright ! 
 
 Lay thy bow of pearl apart, 
 
 And thy crystal-shining quiver ; 
 
 Give unto the flying hart 
 
 Space to breathe, how short soever : 
 
 Thou that makest a day of night, 
 
 Goddess excellently bright 1 
 
 OJV MARGARET RATCLIFFE. 
 
 Marble ! weep, for thou dost cover 
 A dead beauty underneath thee. 
 Rich as Nature could bequeath thee : 
 Grant then no rude hand remove her ! 
 All the gazers on the skies 
 Read not in fair heaven's story 
 Expresser truth or truer glory 
 Than they might in her bright eyes. 
 
 Rare as wonder was her wit, 
 And like nectar overflowing ; 
 Till Time, strong by her bestowing, 
 Conquer'd hath both life and it : 
 Life whose grief was out of fashion 
 In these times. Few so have rued 
 Fate in another. To conclude, — 
 For wit, feature, and true passion, 
 Earth ! thou hast not such another.
 
 BEN JONSON- 129 
 
 SIMPLICITY. 
 
 Still to be neat, still to be dress'd 
 
 As you were going to a feast, 
 
 Still to be powder'd, still perfumed, — • 
 
 Lady ! it is to be presumed, 
 
 Though art's hid causes are not found, 
 
 All is not sweet, all is not sound. 
 
 Give me a look, give me a face 
 
 That makes simplicity a grace ; 
 
 Robes loosely flowing, hair as free ! 
 
 Such sweet neglect more taketh me 
 
 Than all the adulteries of art : 
 
 They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. 
 
 SONG OF SA TYRS. 
 
 A CATCH. 
 
 Buzz ! quoth the Blue-Fly, 
 Hum ! quoth the Bee 
 Buzz and hum ! they cry, 
 
 And so do we. 
 In his ear ! in his nose ! 
 Thus, — do you see ? 
 
 ( They tickle him') 
 He ate the Dormouse 
 
 Else it was he ! 
 
 TO CELIA. 
 
 Drink to me only with thine eyes, 
 And I will pledge with mine ! 
 
 Or leave a kiss but in the cup. 
 And I'll not look for wine ! 
 
 The thirst that from the soul doth rise 
 Doth ask a drink divine ;
 
 I30 THOMAS DEKKER. 
 
 But might I of Jove's nectar sup, 
 I would not change from thine, 
 
 I sent thee late a rosy wreath. 
 
 Not so much honouring thee 
 As giving it a hope that there 
 
 If might not wither'd be : 
 But thou thereon didst only breathe, 
 
 And sent it back to me ; 
 Since when it grows, and smells (I swear) 
 
 Not of itself but thee. 
 
 THOMAS DEKKER. 
 
 1575?— 1640? 
 
 CONTENT. 
 
 Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers : 
 
 O sweet Content ! 
 Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed : 
 
 O punishment ! 
 Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed 
 To add to golden numbers golden numbers ? 
 O sweet Content ! O sweet, O sweet Content ! 
 
 Work apace, apace, apace, apace ! 
 
 Honest Labour bears a lovely face : 
 Then hey, nonny, nonny ! hey, nonny, nonny ! 
 
 Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring, 
 
 O sweet Content ! 
 Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears 
 
 O punishment ! 
 Then he that patiently Want's burden bears 
 No burden bears, but is a king, a king : 
 O sweet Content ! O sweet, O sweet Content ! 
 
 Work apace, apace, apace, apace ! 
 
 Honest Labour bears a lovely face : 
 Then hey nonny, nonny ! hey nonny, nonny !
 
 JOHN WEBSTER. 131 
 
 JOHN WEBSTER. 
 
 1570 ? — 1640 ? 
 
 DIRGE. 
 
 Hark ! now every thing is still, 
 
 The screech-owl and the whistler shrill 
 
 Call upon our Dame aloud, 
 
 And bid her quickly don her shroud. 
 
 Much you had of land and rent, — 
 
 Your length in clay's now competent ; 
 
 A long war disturb'd your mind, — 
 
 Here your perfect peace is sign'd. 
 
 Of what is't fools make such vain keeping ? 
 
 Sin their conception, their birth weeping, 
 
 Their life a general mist of error. 
 
 Their death a hideous storm of terror. 
 
 Strew your hair with powders sweet ; 
 
 Don clean linen ; bathe your feet ; 
 
 And (the foul fiend more to check) 
 
 A crucifix let bless your neck ! 
 
 'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day : 
 
 End your groan and come away ! 
 
 DIRGE. 
 
 Call for the robin red-breast and the wren, 
 
 Since o'er shady groves they hover 
 
 And with leaves and flowers do cover 
 
 The friendless bodies of unburied men ! 
 
 Call unto his funeral dole 
 
 The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole, 
 
 To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm, 
 
 And (when gay tombs are robb'd) sustain no harm ! 
 
 But keep the wolf far thence that's foe to men ! 
 
 For with his nails he'll dig them up again.
 
 132 FRANCIS AND WALTER DAVISON. 
 
 WILLIAM ROWLEY. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Art thou gone in haste, 
 
 I'll not forsake thee ; 
 Runnest thou ne'er so fast, 
 
 I'll overtake thee : 
 O'er the dales, o'er the downs, 
 
 Through the green meadows. 
 From the fields, through the towns. 
 
 To the dim shadows ; 
 
 All along the plain, 
 
 To the low fountains, 
 Up and down again 
 
 From the high mountains : 
 Echo then shall again 
 
 Tell her I follow, 
 And the floods to the woods 
 
 Carry my holla, holla ! 
 
 FRANCIS DAVISON. 
 
 1575 ?— 1619. 
 
 WALTER DAVISON. 
 
 1581 — 1602-6. 
 
 UPON HER PROTESTING 
 
 THAT SHE LOVED HIM. 
 
 Lady ! you are with beauties so enriched, 
 
 Of body and of mind. 
 
 As I can hardly find 
 Which of them all hath most my heart bewitched. 
 
 Whether your skin so white, so smooth, so tender. 
 
 Or face so lovely fair, 
 
 Or heart-ensnaring hair. 
 Or dainty hand, or leg and foot so slender.
 
 FRANCIS AND WALTER DAVISON. 1 33 
 
 Or whether your sharp wit and lively spirit, 
 Where pride can find no place, 
 Or your most pleasing grace, 
 
 Or speech, which doth true eloquence inherit. 
 
 Most lovely all, and each of them doth move me 
 More than words can express ; 
 But yet I must confess 
 
 I love you most because you please to love me. 
 
 ONL V SHE PLEASES HIM. 
 
 Passion may my judgment blear. 
 Therefore sure I will not swear 
 
 That others are not pleasing : 
 But (I speak it to my pain 
 And my life shall it maintain) 
 
 None else yields my heart easing. 
 
 Ladies I do think there be. 
 Other some as fair as she. 
 
 Though none have fairer features ; 
 But my turtle-like affection, 
 Since of her I made election, 
 
 Scorns other fairest creatures. 
 
 Surely I will not deny 
 
 But some others reach as high 
 
 With their sweet warbling voices ; 
 But, since her notes charm'd mine ear, 
 Even the sweetest tunes I hear 
 
 To me seem rude harsh noises. 
 
 A comparison: 
 
 Some there are as fair to see too, 
 
 But by art and not by nature ; 
 Some as tall, and goodly be too. 
 
 But want beauty to their stature ;
 
 134 THOMAS HEY WOOD. 
 
 Some have gracious, kind behaviour, 
 But are foul or simple creatures ; 
 
 Some have wit, but want sweet favour, 
 Or are proud of their good features : 
 
 Only you — and you want pity — 
 
 Are most fair, tall, kind, and witty. 
 
 TO HER HAND, 
 
 UPON HER GIVING HIM HER GLOVE. 
 
 O Hand ! of all hands living 
 The softest, moistest, whitest ; 
 More skill'd than Phoebus on a lute in running, 
 More than Minerva with a needle cunning, 
 Than Mercury more wily 
 In stealing hearts most slily ! 
 Since thou, dear Hand ! in theft so much delightest, 
 
 Why fall'st thou now a-giving ? 
 Ay me ! thy gifts are thefts, and with strange art 
 In giving me thy glove thou steal'st my heart. 
 
 THOMAS HEYWOOD. 
 1575 ?— 1649 ? 
 
 GOOD-MORROW. 
 
 Pack, clouds ! away, and welcome, day I 
 With night we banish sorrow : 
 
 Sweet air ! blow soft ; mount, lark ! aloft : 
 To give my Love good-morrow. 
 
 Wings from the wind, to please her mind, 
 Notes from the lark I'll borrow : 
 
 Bird ! prune thy wing ; nightingale ! sing : 
 To give my Love good-morrow. 
 To give my Love good-morrow 
 Notes from them all I'll borrow.
 
 ■RANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER. 1 35 
 
 Wake from thy nest, robin red-breast ! 
 
 Sing, birds ! in every furrow ; 
 And from each hill let music shrill 
 
 Give my fair Love good-morrow. 
 Blackbird and thrush, in every bush, 
 
 Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow. 
 You pretty elves ! amongst yourselves 
 
 Sing my fair Love good-morrow. 
 
 To give my Love good-morrow, 
 
 Sing, birds ! in every furrow. 
 
 FRANCIS BEAUMONT. 
 
 1585-6— 1613-16. 
 
 JOHN FLETCHER. 
 
 1579—1625. 
 
 BRIDAL SONG. 
 
 Roses, their sharp spines being gone, 
 Not royal in their smells alone, 
 
 But in their hue ; 
 Maiden pinks, of odour faint ; 
 Daisies, smell-less yet most quaint ; 
 
 And sweet thyme true ; 
 
 Primrose, first-born child of Ver, 
 Merry spring-time's harbinger ; 
 
 With hair-bells slim ; 
 Ox-lips, in their cradles growing ; 
 Marygolds, on death-beds blowing ; 
 
 Larks-heels trim : 
 
 All dear Nature's children sweet 
 
 Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet. 
 
 Blessing their sense ! 
 Not an angel of the air. 
 Bird melodious or bird fair, 
 
 Be absent hence !
 
 136 FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER. 
 
 The crow, the slanderous cuckoo, nor 
 The boding raven, nor chough hoar, 
 
 Nor chattering pie, 
 On our bird house perch, or sing. 
 Or with them any discord bring ; 
 
 But from it fly ! 
 
 BEAUTY CLEAR AND FAIR. 
 
 Beauty clear and fair, 
 Where the air 
 
 Rather like a perfume dwells ; 
 Where the violet and the rose 
 Their blue veins in blush disclose,. 
 
 And come to honour nothing else I 
 
 Where to live near, 
 
 And planted there. 
 
 Is to live, and still live new ; 
 Where to gain a favour is 
 More than light, perpetual bliss : 
 
 Make me live by serving you ! 
 
 Dear ! back recall my spright 
 To this light, 
 
 A stranger to himself and all. 
 Both the wonder and the story 
 Shall be yours, and eke the glory : 
 
 I am your servant, and your thrall. 
 
 HYMN TO PAN. 
 
 All ye woods and trees and bowers ! 
 All ye virtues and ye powers 
 That inhabit in the lakes. 
 In the pleasant springs, or brakes I
 
 FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER. 13/ 
 
 Move your feet 
 
 To our sound, 
 
 Whilst we greet 
 
 All this ground 
 With his honour and his name 
 That defends our flocks from blame I 
 He is great, and he is just ; 
 He is ever good, and must 
 Thus be honour'd. Daffodillies, 
 Roses, pinks, and loved lilies, 
 
 Let us fling 
 
 Whilst we sing : 
 
 Ever holy ! 
 
 Ever holy ! 
 Ever honour'd ! ever young ! 
 Thus great Pan is ever sung. 
 
 DEA TH-SONG. 
 
 Lay a garland on my hearse, 
 
 Of the dismal yew ! 
 Maidens ! willow-branches bear ; 
 
 Say I died true ! 
 My Love was false, but I was firm 
 
 From my hour of birth : 
 Upon my buried body lay 
 
 Lightly, gentle earth ! 
 
 70 MBS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Mortality ! behold, and fear, 
 What a change of flesh is here ! 
 Think how many royal bones 
 Sleep within these heaps of stones ! 
 Here they lie had realms and lands. 
 Who now want strength to stir their hands
 
 138 FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER. 
 
 Where from their pulpits seal'd with dust 
 They preach — " In greatness is no trust ! " 
 Here's an acre sown indeed 
 With the richest, royalest seed 
 That the earth did e'er suck in 
 Since the first man died for sin ! 
 Here the bones of Birth have cried — 
 *' Though Gods they were, as men they died! " 
 Here are sands, ignoble things, 
 Dropp'd from the ruin'd sides of Kings ! 
 Here's a world of pomp and state 
 Buried in dust, once dead, by Fate. 
 
 SONG FOR A DANCE. 
 
 Shake off your heavy trance ! 
 
 And leap into a dance 
 
 Such as no mortals use to tread : 
 
 Fit only for Apollo 
 To play to, for the Moon to lead. 
 
 And all the Stars to follow ! 
 
 TAKE THOSE LIPS A WA Y! 
 
 Take, O take those lips away 
 That so sweetly were forsworn ! 
 
 And those eyes, like break of day, 
 Lights that do mislead the morn ! 
 
 But my kisses bring again. 
 
 Seals of love, though seal'd in vain ! 
 
 Hide, O hide those hills of snow 
 Which thy frozen bosom bears. 
 
 On whose tops the pinks that grow 
 Are yet of those that April wears ! 
 
 But first set my poor heart free. 
 
 Bound in those icy chains by thee !
 
 FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER, 1 39 
 
 COME, SLEEP! 
 
 Come, Sleep ! and with thy sweet deceiving 
 
 Lock me in deUght awhile ; 
 
 Let some pleasing dreams beguile 
 
 All my fancies, that from thence 
 
 I may feel an influence 
 All my powers of care bereaving ! 
 
 Though but a shadow, but a sliding, 
 Let me know some little joy ! 
 We that suffer long annoy 
 Are contented with a thought 
 Through an idle fancy wrought : 
 
 O, let my joys have some abiding ! 
 
 TRUE BEAUTY. 
 
 May I find a woman fair 
 And her mind as clear as air ! 
 If her beauty go alone, 
 'Tis to me as if 'twere none. 
 
 May I find a woman rich. 
 
 And not of too high a pitch ! 
 
 If that pride should cause disdain, 
 
 Tell me, Lover! where's thy gain? 
 
 May I find a woman wise. 
 And her falsehood not disguise ! 
 Hath she wit as she hath will, 
 Double-arm'd she is to ill. 
 
 May I find a woman kind, 
 And not wavering like the wind ! 
 How should I call that love mine 
 When 'tis his, and his, and thine ?
 
 I40 GILES FLETCHER. 
 
 May I find a woman true ! 
 There is beauty's fairest hue : 
 There is beauty, love, and wit. 
 Happy he can compass it ! 
 
 GILES FLETCHER. 
 
 1588 ?— 1623. 
 
 WORLD-GLORY'S WOOING SONG. 
 
 Love is the blossom where there blows 
 
 Every thing that lives or grows : 
 
 Love doth make the heavens to move, 
 
 And the sun doth burn in love ; 
 
 Love the strong and weak doth yoke. 
 
 And makes the ivy climb the oak ; 
 
 Under whose shadow lions wild, 
 
 Soften'd by Love, grow tame and mild ; 
 
 Love no medicine can appease ; 
 
 He burns the fishes in the seas ; 
 
 Not all the skill his wounds can staunch ; 
 
 Not all the seas his fire can quench ; 
 
 Love did make the bloody spear 
 
 Once a leafy coat to wear, 
 
 Whilst in his leaves there shrouded lay 
 
 Sweet birds for love that sing and play : 
 
 And of all Love's joyful frame 
 
 I the bud and blossom am. 
 
 Only bend thy knee to me ! 
 
 Thy wooing shall thy winning be. 
 
 See ! see the flowers that below 
 Now as fresh as morning blow ! 
 And, of all, the virgin Rose 
 That as bright Aurora shows :
 
 JOHN FORD. 141 
 
 How they all imleafed die, 
 
 Losing their virginity, 
 
 Like unto a summer shade, — 
 
 But now born, and now they fade. 
 
 Every thing doth pass away : 
 
 There is danger in delay. 
 
 Come ! come gather then the Rose ! 
 
 Gather it, or it you lose ! 
 
 All the sand of Tagus' shore 
 
 In my bosom casts his ore ; 
 
 All the valleys' swimming corn 
 
 To my house is yearly borne ; 
 
 Every grape of every vine 
 
 Is gladly bruized to make me wine ; 
 
 While ten thousand kings as proud 
 
 To carry up my train have bow'd, 
 
 And a world of ladies send me 
 
 In my chambers to attend me : 
 
 All the stars in heaven that shine 
 
 And ten thousand more are mine. 
 
 Only bend thy knee to me ! 
 
 Thy wooing shall thy winning be. 
 
 JOHN FORD. 
 1586 — 1640. 
 
 DIRGE. 
 
 Glories, pleasures, pomps, delights, and ease 
 
 Can but please 
 The outward senses when the mind 
 Is or untroubled or by peace refined. 
 Crowns may flourish and decay ; 
 Beauties shine, but fade away ; 
 Youth may revel, yet it must
 
 142 JOHN FORD. 
 
 Lie down in a bed of dust ; 
 Earthly honours flow and waste : 
 Time alone doth change and last. 
 Sorrows mingled with contents prepare 
 
 Rest for care ; 
 Love only reigns in death, though art 
 Can find no comfort for a broken heart. 
 
 NO MORE. 
 
 O, no more, no more ! too late 
 
 Sighs are spent : the burning tapers 
 
 Of a life as chaste as Fate, 
 Pure as are unwritten papers, 
 
 Are burn'd out : no heat, no light 
 
 Now remains ; 'tis ever night. 
 
 Love is dead : let lovers' eyes 
 Lock'd in endless dreams, 
 The extreme of all extremes, 
 
 Ope no more ! for now Love dies : 
 
 Now Love dies, implying 
 
 Love's martyrs must be ever ever dying. 
 
 SHADOWS. 
 
 Fly hence. Shadows ! that do keep 
 Watchful sorrows charm'd in sleep. 
 Though the eyes be overtaken, 
 Yet the heart doth ever waken 
 Thoughts chain'd up in busy snares 
 Of continual woes and cares : 
 Love and griefs are so express'd 
 As they rather sigh than rest. 
 Fly hence, Shadows ! that do keep 
 Watchful sorrows charm'd in sleep !
 
 NATHANIEL FIELD. 1 43 
 
 COMFORTS LASTING. 
 
 Comforts lasting, loves increasing, 
 Like soft hours, never ceasing ; 
 Plenty's pleasure, peace complying. 
 Without jars or tongues envying ; 
 Hearts by holy union wedded, 
 More than theirs by custom bedded ; 
 Fruitful issues ; life so graced 
 Not by age to be defaced, 
 Budding as the year ensu'th. 
 Every Spring another youth : 
 All that thought can add beside. 
 Crown this bridegroom and this bride ! 
 
 NATHANIEL FIELD. 
 
 IS**— 1632. 
 
 MATIN SONG. 
 
 Rise, Lady Mistress ! rise ! 
 
 The night hath tedious been ; 
 No sleep hath fallen into mine eyes. 
 
 Nor slumbers made me sin. 
 Is not She a saint then, say! 
 Thought of whom keeps sin away ? 
 
 Rise Madam ! rise, and give me light, 
 Whom darkness still will cover 
 
 And ignorance, more dark than night. 
 Till thou smile on thy lover. 
 
 All want day till thy beauty rise : 
 
 For the grey morn breaks from thine eyes
 
 144 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 
 
 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 
 
 TO NIGHT. 
 
 O Night ! O jealous Night ! repugnant to my measures ; 
 
 Night so long desired, yet cross to my content ! 
 There's none but only thou that can perform my pleasures, 
 Yet none but only thou that hindereth my intent. 
 
 Thy beams, thy spiteful beams, thy lamps that burn too brightly, 
 Discover all my trains and naked lay my drifts : 
 That night by night I hope, yet fails my purpose nightly. 
 Thy envious glaring gleam defeateth so my shifts. 
 
 Sweet Night ! withhold thy beams, withhold them till to-morrow, 
 Whose joys in lack so long a hell of torment breeds ; 
 Sweet Night, sweet gentle Night ! do not prolong my sorrow ! 
 Desire is guide to me, and love no loadstar needs. 
 
 Let sailors gaze on stars and moon so freshly shining ; 
 Let them that miss the way be guided by the light : 
 
 1 know my Lady's bower, there needs no more divining, 
 Affection sees in dark, and love hath eyes by night. 
 
 Dame Cynthia ! couch awhile, hold in thy horns from shining, 
 And glad not louring Night with thy too glorious rays ; 
 But be she dim and dark, tempestuous and repining. 
 That in her spite my sport may work thy endless praise. 
 
 And when thy will is wrought, then Cynthia! shine, good ladyl 
 All other nights and days, in honour of that night, — 
 That happy heavenly night, that night so dark and shady. 
 Wherein my love had eyes that lighted my delight.
 
 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 145 
 
 HIS LAD Y'S GRIEF. 
 I saw my Lady weep, 
 
 And Sorrow proud to be advanced so 
 In those fair eyes where all perfections keep. 
 
 Her face was full of woe : 
 But such a woe, believe ! as wins more hearts 
 Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts. 
 
 Sorrow was there made fair, 
 
 And passion wise, tears a delightful thing. 
 Silence beyond all speech a wisdom rare ; 
 
 She made her sighs to sing. 
 And all things with so sweet a sadness move 
 As made my heart at once both grieve and love. 
 
 O, Fairer than aught else 
 
 The world can show, leave off in time to grieve ! 
 Enough ! enough ! your joyful look excels : 
 
 Tears kill the heart, believe ! 
 O strive not to be excellent in woe, 
 Which only breeds your beauty's overthrow ! 
 
 LOVE ME NOT FOR COMELY GRACE! 
 
 Love me not for comely grace. 
 For my pleasing eye or face, 
 Nor for any outward part ; 
 No ! nor for my constant heart ! 
 For these may fail, or turn to ill : 
 
 So thou and I shall sever. 
 Keep therefore a true woman's eye, 
 And love me well, yet know not why ! 
 So hast thou the same reason still 
 
 To doat upon me ever. 
 I.— 10
 
 146 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 
 
 THE TOMB OF DESIRE. 
 
 When Venus saw Desire must die — 
 Whom high Disdain 
 Had justly slain 
 For killing Truth with scornful eye, — 
 The earth she leaves, and gets her to the sky 
 
 Her golden hair she tears ; 
 
 Black weeds of woe she wears ; 
 For help unto her Father doth she cry : 
 
 Who bids her stay a space, 
 
 And hope for better grace. 
 
 To save his life she hath no skill : 
 Whom should she pray ? 
 What do, or say, 
 But weep for wanting of her will ? 
 Meantime Desire hath ta'en his last farewell. 
 
 And in a meadow fair, 
 
 To which the Nymphs repair. 
 His breathless corse is laid with worms to dwell. 
 
 So glory doth decay 
 
 When death takes life away. 
 
 When morning's star had chased the night, 
 The Queen of Love 
 Look'd from above. 
 
 To see the grave of her delight ; 
 
 And as with heedful eye she view'd the place, 
 She spied a flower unknown, 
 That on his grave was grown 
 
 Instead of learned verse, his tomb to grace. 
 If you the name require, — 
 Hearfs-ease, from dead desire.
 
 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 
 
 147 
 
 WEEP NO MORE! 
 
 Weep you no more, sad fountains ! 
 
 What need you flow so fast ? 
 Look how the snowy mountains 
 Heaven's sun doth gently waste ! 
 But my Sun's heavenly eyes 
 View not your weeping. 
 That now lies sleeping 
 Softly, now softly lies. 
 
 Sleeping. 
 
 Sleep is a reconciling, 
 
 A rest that peace begets ; 
 Doth not the sun rise smiling, 
 When fair at even he sets ? 
 Rest you then, rest, sad eyes ! 
 Melt not in weeping, 
 While she lies sleeping 
 Softly, now softly lies. 
 
 Sleeping ! 
 
 LOVE TILL DEATH. 
 
 There is a Lady, sweet and kind,— 
 Was never face so pleased my mind 1 
 I did but see her passing by, 
 And yet I love her till I die. 
 
 Her gesture, motion, and her smiles, 
 Her wit, her voice, my heart beguiles : 
 Beguiles my heart, I know not why : 
 And yet I love her till I die. 
 
 Her free behaviour, winning looks, 
 Will make a lawyer burn his books : 
 I touch'd her not,— alas ! not I : 
 And yet I love her till I die.
 
 148 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 
 
 Had I her fast betwixt my arms, — 
 
 Judge, you that think such sports were harms ! 
 
 Were't any harm ? No, no ! fie, fie ! 
 
 For I will love her till I die. 
 
 Should I remain confined there 
 So long as Phoebus in his sphere, 
 I to request, she to deny. 
 Yet would I love her till I die. 
 
 Cupid is winged, and doth range 
 Her country, — so my Love doth change : 
 But change the earth or change the sky, 
 Yet will I love her till I die. 
 
 SINCE FIRST I SAW YOUR FACE. 
 
 Since first I saw your face I resolved 
 
 To honour and renown you : 
 If now I be disdain'd, I wish 
 
 My heart had never known you. 
 What, I that loved and you that liked, 
 
 Shall we begin to wrangle ? 
 No, no, no ! my heart is fast, 
 
 And can not disentangle. 
 
 If I admire or praise you too much. 
 
 That fault you may forgive me ; 
 Or if my hands had stray'd to touch. 
 
 Then justly might you leave me. 
 I ask'd your leave, you bade me love : 
 
 Is't now a time to chide me ? 
 No, no, no ! I'll love you still. 
 
 What fortune e'er betide me. 
 
 The sun, whose beams most glorious are, 
 Rejecteth no beholder ;
 
 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 
 
 149 
 
 And your sweet beauty, past compare, 
 Makes my poor eyes the bolder. 
 
 Where beauty moves, and wit dehghts, 
 And signs of kindness bind me, 
 
 There, O there, where'er I go, 
 I leave my heart behind me. 
 
 If I have wrong'd you, tell me wherein, 
 
 And I will soon amend it ; 
 In recompense of such a sin. 
 
 Here is my heart ; — I'll send it. 
 If that will not your mercy move. 
 
 Then for my life I care not ; 
 Then, O then, torment me still. 
 
 And take my life ! I care not. 
 
 ON A BEAUTIFUL VIRGIN. 
 
 In this marble buried lies 
 Beauty may enrich the skies. 
 And add light to Phoebus' eyes. 
 
 Sweeter than Aurora's air, 
 When she paints the lilies fair 
 And gilds cowslips with her hair. 
 
 Chaster than the virgin Spring, 
 Ere her blossoms she doth bring, 
 Or cause Philomel to sing. 
 
 If such goodness live 'mongst men. 
 Bring me it ! I shall know then 
 She is come from heaven agen. 
 
 But if not, ye standers by ! 
 Cherish me, and say that I 
 Am the next design'd to die.
 
 ISO SIR ROBERT AYTOUN. 
 
 SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 1568—1639. 
 
 ON HIS MISTRESS, 
 
 THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA. 
 
 You meaner beauties of the night, 
 That poorly satisfy our eyes 
 More by your number than your light ! 
 You common people of the skies ! 
 What are you when the Sun shall rise ? 
 
 You curious chanters of the wood, 
 That warble forth Dame Nature's lays. 
 Thinking your passions understood 
 By your weak accents ! what's your praise 
 When Philomel her voice shall raise ? 
 
 You violets that first appear, 
 By your pure purple mantles known, 
 Like the proud Virgins of the Year, 
 As if the Spring were all your own ! 
 What are you when the Rose is blown ? 
 
 So when my Mistress shall be seen 
 In beauty of her form and mind, — 
 By virtue first, then choice, a Queen, — 
 Tell me, if she were not design'd 
 The eclipse and glory of her kind ? 
 
 SIR ROBERT AYTOUN. 
 1570—1637-8. 
 
 THE FORSAKEN. 
 
 I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair, 
 
 And I might have gone near to love thee. 
 
 Had I not found the slightest prayer 
 
 That lips could speak had power to move thee
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 151 
 
 But I can let thee now alone, 
 As worthy to be loved by none. 
 
 I do confess thou'rt sweet, yet find 
 
 Thee such an unthrift of thy sweets, 
 
 Thy favours are but like the wind 
 
 Which kisseth everything it meets : 
 
 And since thou canst love more than one, 
 Thou'rt worthy to be loved by none. 
 
 The morning rose that untouch'd stands 
 
 Arm'd with her briars, how sweet she smells ! 
 
 But pluck'd, and strain'd through ruder hands. 
 
 Her sweet no longer with her dwells : 
 But scent and beauty both are gone, 
 And leaves fall from her one by one. 
 
 Such fate ere long will thee betide. 
 
 When thou hast handled been awhile, 
 
 Like fair flowers, to be thrown aside : 
 
 And thou shalt sigh when I shall smile. 
 To see thy love to every one 
 Hath brought thee to be loved by none. 
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 
 
 1585—1649. 
 
 PHCEBUS, ARISE! 
 
 Phoebus ! arise. 
 
 And paint the sable skies 
 
 With azure, white, and red ! 
 
 Rouse Memnon's Mother from her Tithon's bed, 
 
 That she thy cari^re with roses spread ! 
 
 The nightingales thy coming each where sing : 
 
 Make an eternal Spring ! 
 
 Give life to this dark world which lieth dead ! 
 
 Spread forth thy golden hair
 
 152 WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 
 
 In larger locks than thou wast wont before, 
 
 And emperor-like decore 
 
 With diadem of pearl thy temples fair ! 
 
 Chase hence the ugly Night, 
 
 Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light ! 
 
 This is that happy morn, 
 
 That day, long-wished day 
 
 Of all my life so dark 
 
 (If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn 
 
 And Fates not hope betray) 
 
 Which only white deserves 
 
 A diamond for ever should it mark. 
 
 This is the morn should bring unto this grove 
 
 My Love, to hear and recompense my love. 
 
 Fair king who all preserves ! 
 
 But show thy blushing beams, 
 
 And thou two sweeter eyes 
 
 Shalt see than those which by Peneus' streams 
 
 Did once thy heart surprise ; 
 
 Nay ! suns, which shine as clear 
 
 As thou when two thou didst to Rome appear ! 
 
 Now, Flora ! deck thyself in fairest guise ! 
 
 If that ye, Winds ! would hear 
 
 A vJice surpassing far Amphion's lyre, 
 
 Your stormy chiding stay ! 
 
 Let Zephyr only breathe, 
 
 And with her tresses play, 
 
 Kissing sometimes those purple ports of death ! 
 
 The Winds all silent are ; 
 
 And Phoebus in his chair, 
 
 Ensaffroning sea and air, 
 
 Makes vanish every star ; 
 
 Night like a drunkard reels 
 
 Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming wheels ; 
 
 The fields with flowers are deck'd in every hue ; 
 
 i
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMONU. 1 53 
 
 The clouds bespangle with bright gold their blue ; 
 
 Here is the pleasant place : 
 And every thing save Her who all should grace. 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 That learned Grecian, who did so excel 
 
 In knowledge passing sense that he is named 
 
 Of all the after-worlds Divine, doth tell 
 
 That at the time when first our souls are framed. 
 
 Ere in these mansions blind they come to dwell, 
 
 They live bright rays of that Eternal Light 
 
 And others see, know, love, in heaven's great height. 
 
 Not toil'd with aught to reason doth rebel. 
 
 Most true it is : for straight at the first sight 
 
 My mind me told that in some other place 
 
 It elsewhere saw the Idea of that face. 
 
 And loved a Love of heavenly pure delight. 
 
 No wonder now I feel so fair a flame, 
 
 Since I her loved ere on this earth she came. 
 
 Trust not, sweet Soul ! those curled waves of gold 
 
 With gentle tides which on your temples flow. 
 
 Nor temples spread with flakes of virgin snow, 
 
 Nor snow of cheeks with Tyrian grain enroll'd 
 
 Trust not those shining lights which wrought my woe. 
 
 When first I did their burning rays behold ; 
 
 Nor voice whose sounds more strange effects do show 
 
 Than of the Thracian harper have been told ! 
 
 Look to this dying lily, fading rose, 
 
 Dark hyacinth, of late whose blushing beams 
 
 Made all the neighbouring herbs and grass rejoice ; 
 
 And think how little is 'twixt life's extremes ! 
 
 The cruel tyrant that did kill those flowers 
 
 Shall once, ay me ! not spare that Spring of yours.
 
 154 WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 
 
 Sweet Soul ! which in the April of thy years 
 
 So to enrich the heaven madest poor this round, 
 
 And now with golden rays of glory crown'd 
 
 Most bless'd abidest above the sphere of spheres : 
 
 If heavenly laws, alas ! have not thee bound 
 
 From looking to this globe that all upbears, 
 
 If ruth and pity there above be found, 
 
 O deign to lend a look unto these tears ! 
 
 Do not disdain, dear Ghost ! this sacrifice ; 
 
 And, though I raise not pillars to thy praise, 
 
 Mine offerings take ! Let this for me suffice : 
 
 My heart a living pyramid 1 raise. 
 
 And whilst kings' tombs with laurels flourish green, 
 
 Thine shall with myrtles and these flowers be seen. 
 
 SEXTAIN. 
 
 Sith gone is my delight and only pleasure. 
 
 The last of all my hopes, the cheerful sun 
 
 That clear'd my life's dark day, Nature's sweet treasure. 
 
 More dear to me than all beneath the moon. 
 
 What resteth now but that upon this mountain 
 
 I weep till heaven transform me to a fountain ? 
 
 Fresh, fair, delicious, crystal, pearly fountain. 
 
 On whose smooth face to look She oft took pleasure ! 
 
 Tell me (so may thy streams long cheer this mountain, 
 
 So serpent ne'er thee stain, nor scorch thee sun. 
 
 So may with gentle beams thee kiss the moon !) 
 
 Dost thou not mourn to want so fair a treasure ? 
 
 While She her glass'd in thee rich Tagus' treasure 
 
 Thou envy needed not, nor yet the fountain 
 
 In which the hunter saw the naked Moon ; 
 
 Absence hath robb'd thee of thy wealth and pleasure, 
 
 And I remain like marigold, of sun 
 
 Deprived, that dies, by shadow of some mountain.
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 155 
 
 Nymphs of the forests, nymphs who on this mountain 
 Are wont to dance, showing your beauty's treasure 
 To goat-feet Sylvans and the wondering Sun ! 
 Whenas you gather flowers about this fountain, 
 Bid Her farewell who placed here her pleasure ; 
 And sing her praises to the stars and moon ! 
 
 Among the lesser lights as is the Moon, 
 
 Blushing through scarf of clouds on Latmos mountain 
 
 Or when her silver locks she looks for pleasure 
 
 In Thetis' stream proud of so gay a treasure, 
 
 Such was my Fair when she sat by this fountain, 
 
 With other nymphs, to shun the amorous Sun. 
 
 As is our earth in absence of the sun, 
 
 Or when of sun deprived is the moon. 
 
 As is without a verdant shade a fountain, 
 
 Or wanting grass a mead, a vale, a mountain, — 
 
 Such is my state, bereft of my dear treasure. 
 
 To know whose only worth was all my pleasure. 
 
 Ne'er think of pleasure, heart ! — eyes ! shun the sun ; 
 Tears be your treasure, which the wandering moon 
 Shall see you shed, by mountain, vale, and fountain ! 
 
 ON THE DEA TH OF LAD Y JANE MAITLAND. 
 
 The flower of virgins in her prime of years 
 
 By ruthless destinies is ta'en away 
 
 And rapt from earth, poor earth ! before this day 
 
 Which ne'er was rightly named a vale of tears. 
 
 Beauty to heaven is fled ; sweet Modesty 
 No more appears ; She whose harmonious sounds 
 Did ravish sense and charm mind's deepest wounds, 
 Embalm'd with many a tear now low doth lie. 
 
 Fair hopes evanish'd are : She should have graced 
 A prince's marriage-bed ; but lo ! in heaven
 
 156 ROBERT BURTON. 
 
 Bless'd paramours to her were to be given ; 
 She lived an angel, novi^ is with them placed. 
 
 Virtue was but a name abstractly trimm'd, 
 Interpreting what She was in effect, 
 A shadow from her frame, which did reflect 
 A portrait by her excellences limn'd. 
 
 Thou ! whom free-will or chance hath hither brought, 
 And read'st — " Here lies a branch of Maitland's stem 
 And Seaton's offspring," know that either name 
 Designs all worth yet reach'd by human thought. 
 Tombs elsewhere rise life to their guests to give : 
 Those ashes can frail monuments make live. 
 
 ROBERT BURTON. 
 
 1576-8— 1639-40. 
 
 THE ABSTRACT OF MELANCHOLY. 
 When I go musing all alone, 
 Thinking of divers things foreknown. 
 When I build castles in the air. 
 Void of sorrow and void of fear, 
 Pleasing myself with phantasms sweet, 
 Methinks the time runs very fleet. 
 All my joys to this are folly : 
 Nought so sweet as melancholy ! 
 
 When I lie waking, all alone. 
 Recounting what I have ill done. 
 My thoughts on me then tyrannize, 
 Fear and sorrow me surprise : 
 Whether I tarry still or go, 
 Methinks the time moves very slow. 
 All my griefs to this are jolly : 
 Nought so sad as melancholy ! 
 
 When to myself I act, and smile. 
 
 With pleasing thoughts the time beguile,
 
 ROBERT BURTON. 
 
 157 
 
 By a brook-side or wood so green, 
 Unheard, unsought for, or unseen, 
 A thousand pleasures do me bless 
 And crown my soul with happiness. 
 All my joys besides are folly : 
 Nought so sweet as melancholy ! 
 
 When I lie, sit, or walk alone, 
 I sigh, I grieve, making great moan, 
 In a dark grove, or irksome den, 
 With discontents and furies, — then 
 A thousand miseries at once 
 Mine heavy heart and soul ensconce. 
 All my griefs to this are jolly : 
 None so sour as melancholy ! 
 
 Methinks I hear, methinks I see, 
 Sweet music, wondrous melody, 
 Towns, palaces, and cities fine, — 
 Here now, then there, the world is mine 
 Rare beauties, gallant ladies shine, 
 Whate'er is lovely or divine. 
 All other joys to this are folly : 
 None so sweet as melancholy ! 
 
 Methinks I hear, methinks I see. 
 Ghosts, goblins, fiends, — my phantasy 
 Presents a thousand ugly shapes, 
 Headless bears, black men, and apes ; 
 Doleful outcries, fearful sights, 
 My sad and dismal soul affrights. 
 All my griefs to this are jolly : 
 None so damn'd as melancholy ! 
 
 Methinks I court, m.ethinks I kiss, 
 Methinks I now embrace my Miss : 
 O blessed days ! O sweet content ! 
 In Paradise my time is spent.
 
 158 ROBERT BURTON. 
 
 Such thoughts may still my fancy move, 
 So may I ever be in love ! 
 All my joys to this are folly : 
 Nought so sweet as melancholy ! 
 
 When I recount love's many frights, 
 My sighs and tears, my waking nights, 
 My jealous fits, — O mine hard fate ! 
 I now repent, but 'tis too late. 
 No torment is so bad as love. 
 So bitter to my soul can prove. 
 All my griefs to this are jolly : 
 Nought so harsh as melancholy ! 
 
 Friends and companions ! get you gone ! 
 
 'Tis my desire to be alone : 
 
 Ne'er well but when my thoughts and I 
 
 Do domineer in privacy. 
 
 No gem, no treasure like to this, 
 
 'Tis my delight, my crown, my bliss. 
 
 All my joys to this are folly : 
 
 Nought so sweet as melancholy ! 
 
 'Tis my sole plague to be alone : 
 I am a beast, a monster grown ; 
 I will no light, no company, 
 I find it now my misery : 
 The scene is turn'd, my joys are gone, 
 Fear, discontent, and sorrows come. 
 All my griefs to this are jolly : 
 Nought so fierce as melancholy ! 
 
 I'll not change life with any king, 
 I ravish'd am : can the world bring 
 More joy than still to laugh and smile, 
 In pleasant toys time to beguile ? 
 Do not, O do not trouble me ! 
 So sweet content I feel and see.
 
 GEORGE WITHER. 1 59 
 
 All my joys to this are folly : 
 None so divine as melancholy ! 
 
 I'll change my state with any wretch 
 Thou canst from jail or dunghill fetch ; 
 My pain past cure, another hell, 
 I may not in this torment dwell. 
 Now desperate, I hate my life : 
 Lend me a halter or a knife ! 
 All my griefs to this are jolly : 
 Nought so damn'd as melancholy ! 
 
 GEORGE WITHER. 
 
 1588—1667. 
 
 WHAT CARE? 
 
 Shall I, wasting in despair, 
 
 Die because a woman's fair? 
 
 Or make pale my cheeks with care 
 
 'Cause another's rosy are ? 
 
 Be she fairer than the Day, 
 Or the flowery meads in May, — 
 If she be not so to me, 
 What care I how fair she be ? 
 
 Shall my foolish heart be pined 
 'Cause I see a woman kind, 
 Or a well-disposed nature 
 Joined with a lovely feature ? 
 Be she meeker, kinder than 
 Turtle-dove or pelican, — 
 If she be not so to me. 
 What care I how kind she be ? 
 
 Shall a woman's virtues move 
 Me to perish for her love ?
 
 l6o GEORGE WITHER. 
 
 Or her well-deserving known 
 
 Make me quite forget mine own ? 
 
 Be she with that goodness bless'd 
 Which may gain her name of Best, — 
 If she be not such to me, 
 What care I how good she be ? 
 
 'Cause her fortune seems too high, 
 
 Shall I play the fool and die ? 
 
 Those that bear a noble mind. 
 
 Where they want of riches find. 
 
 Think what with them they would do 
 That without them dare to woo : 
 And unless that mind I see, 
 What care I, though great she be ? 
 
 Great, or good, or kind, or fair, 
 I will-none the more despair : 
 If she love me (this believe !) 
 I will die ere she shall grieve ; 
 
 If she slight me when I woo, 
 
 I can scorn and let her go, — 
 
 For if she be not for me. 
 
 What care I for whom she be ? 
 
 RESPECTFUL LOVE. 
 
 I 
 
 What is the cause when I elsewhere resort 
 
 I have my gestures and discourse more free, 
 
 And if I please can any Beauty court, 
 
 Yet stand so dull and so demure by thee ? 
 
 Why are my speeches broken whilst I talk ? 
 
 Why do I fear almost thy hand to touch ? 
 
 Why dare I not embrace thee as we walk. 
 
 Since with the greatest nymphs I've dared as much ? 
 
 Ah ! know that none of these I e'er affected,
 
 WILLIAM BROWNE. l6r 
 
 And therefore used a careless courtship there : 
 Because I neither their disdain respected, 
 Nor reckon'd them nor their embracings dear. 
 But loving Tliec my love hath found content, 
 And rich delights in things indifferent. 
 
 Why covet I thy blessed eyes to see, 
 
 Whose sweet aspect may cheer the saddest mind ? 
 
 Why when our bodies must divided be 
 
 Can I no hour of rest or pleasure find ? 
 
 Why do I sleeping start, and waking moan 
 
 To find that of my dreamed hopes I miss? 
 
 Why do I often contemplate alone 
 
 Of such a thing as thy perfection is ? 
 
 And wherefore when we meet doth passion stop 
 
 My speechless tongue and leave me in a panting ? 
 
 Why doth my heart, o'ercharged with fear and hope. 
 
 In spite of reason almost droop to fainting? 
 
 Because in me thy excellences moving 
 
 Have drawn to me an excellence in loving. 
 
 WILLIAM BROWNE. 
 1588-91—1643-5. 
 
 S//?EJVS' SOiVG. 
 
 Steer, hither steer your winged pines, 
 
 All beaten mariners ! 
 Here lie Love's undiscover'd mines, 
 
 A prey to passengers ; 
 Perfumes far sweeter than the best 
 Which make the phoenix' urn and nest : 
 
 Fear not your ships, 
 Nor any to oppose you save our lips ; 
 
 But come on shore, 
 Where no joy dies till love hath gotten more ! 
 I.— II
 
 l62 WILLIAM BROWNE. 
 
 For swelling waves our panting breasts 
 
 Where never storms arise 
 Exchange, and be awhile our guests 1 
 
 For stars gaze on our eyes ! 
 The compass Love shall hourly sing ; 
 And as he goes about the ring 
 
 We will not miss 
 To tell each point he nameth, with a kiss. 
 
 Then come on shore, 
 Where no joy dies till love hath gotten more ! 
 
 WHOM I LOVE. 
 
 Shall I tell you whom I love ? 
 
 Hearken then awhile to me ! 
 And if such a woman move 
 
 As I now shall versify, 
 Be assured 'tis she, or none, 
 That I love, and love alone. 
 
 Nature did her so much right 
 
 As she scorns the help of Art, 
 In as many virtues dight 
 
 As e'er yet embraced a heart : 
 So much good, so truly tried, 
 Some for less were deified. 
 
 Wit she hath, without desire 
 
 To make known how much she hath ; 
 
 And her anger flames no higher 
 Than may fitly sweeten wrath, — 
 
 Full of pity'as may be : 
 
 Though perhaps not so to me. 
 
 Reason masters every sense ; 
 
 And her virtues grace her birth ; 
 Lovely as all excellence ; 
 
 Modest in her most of mirth :
 
 WILLIAM BROWNE. 1 63 
 
 Likelihood enough to prove 
 Only worth could kindle love. 
 
 Such she is : and if you know 
 
 Such a one as I have sung, 
 Be she brown, or fair, or — so 
 
 That she be but somewhile young, 
 Be assured 'tis she, or none. 
 That I love, and love alone. 
 
 WELCOME. 
 Welcome ! welcome ! do I sing, — 
 Far more welcome than the Spring : 
 He, that parteth from you never, 
 Shall enjoy a Spring forever. 
 
 Love, that to the voice is near 
 Breaking from your ivory pale 
 Need not walk abroad to hear 
 The delightful nightingale. 
 Welcome ! welcome then I sing 
 
 Love that looks still on your eyes, 
 Though the winter have begun 
 To benumb our arteries. 
 Shall not want the summer's sun. 
 Welcome ! welcome then I sing 
 
 Love that still may see your cheeks, 
 Where all rareness still reposes, 
 Is a fool if e'er he seeks 
 Other lilies, other roses. 
 Welcome ! welcome then I sing 
 
 Love to whom your soft lips yield. 
 And perceives your breath in kissing. 
 All the odours of the field 
 Never, never shall be missing. 
 Welcome t welcome then I sing
 
 1 64 WILLIAM BROWNE. 
 
 Love that question would anew 
 What fair Eden was of old, 
 Let him rightly study you, 
 And a brief of that behold ! 
 Welcome ! welcome then I sing ! 
 Far more welcome than the Spring : 
 He, that parteth from you never, 
 Shall enjoy a Spring for ever. 
 
 MARINA. 
 
 Marina's gone : and now sit I 
 
 As Philomela (on a thorn, 
 Turn'd out of Nature's livery). 
 
 Mirthless, alone, and all forlorn : 
 Only she sings not, while my sorrows can 
 Breathe forth such notes as fit a dying swan. 
 
 So shuts the marigold her leaves 
 
 At the departure of the sun ; 
 So from the honeysuckle sheaves 
 
 The bee goes when the day is done ; 
 So sits the turtle when she is but one ; 
 And so all woe, as I, since She is gone. 
 
 To some few birds kind Nature hath 
 Made all the summer as one day : 
 
 Which once enjoy'd, cold Winter's wrath, 
 As night, they sleeping pass away. 
 
 Those happy creatures are, that know not yet 
 
 The pain to be deprived or to forget. 
 
 I oft have heard men say there be 
 Some that with confidence profess 
 
 The helpful Art of Memory : 
 
 But could they teach forgetfulness, 
 
 I'd learn ; and try what further art could do 
 
 To make me love her and forget her too.
 
 WILLIAM BROWNE. 1 65 
 
 Sad Melancholy, that persuades 
 
 Men from themselves, to think they be 
 
 Headless or other bodies' shades, 
 
 Hath long and bootless dwelt with me : 
 
 For could I think She some Idea were, 
 
 I still might love, forget, and have her here. 
 
 But such She is not : nor would I, 
 
 For twice as many torments more 
 As her bereaved company 
 
 Hath brought to those I felt before : 
 For then no future time might hap to know 
 That She deserved or I did love her so. 
 
 Ye hours then but as minutes be 
 
 (Though so I shall be sooner old) 
 Till I those lovely graces see 
 
 Which but in Her can none behold ! 
 Then be an age ! that we may never try 
 More grief in parting, but grow old and die. 
 
 A ROUND. 
 
 Now that the Spring hath fill'd our veins 
 
 With kind and active fire. 
 And made green liveries for the plains, 
 
 And every grove a quire : 
 
 Sing we a song of merry glee, 
 
 And Bacchus fill the bowl ! 
 Then, Here's to thee ! And thou to me ! 
 
 And every thirsty soul ! 
 
 Nor Care nor Sorrow e'er paid debt. 
 
 Nor never shall do mine ; 
 I have no cradle going yet, — 
 
 Nor I, by this good wine !
 
 l66 THOMAS CAREW 
 
 No wife at home to send for me, 
 
 No hogs are in my ground, 
 No suit at law to pay a fee : 
 
 Then round, old Jockey ! round ! 
 
 Shear sheep that have them ! cry we still ; 
 But see that no man 'scape 
 
 To drink of the sherry 
 
 That makes us so merry 
 And plump as the lusty grape 1 
 
 THOMAS CAREW. 
 
 1589— 1639. 
 
 ASK ME NO MORE. 
 
 Ask me no more where Jove bestows, 
 When June is past, the fading rose I 
 For in your beauty's orient deep 
 These flowers, as in their causes sleep. 
 
 Ask me no more whither do stray 
 The golden atoms of the Day ! 
 For, in pure love, heaven did prepare 
 Those powders to enrich your hair. 
 
 Ask me no more whither doth haste 
 The nightingale when May is past ! 
 For in your sweet dividing throat 
 She winters, and keeps warm her note. 
 
 Ask me no more where those stars light 
 That downwards fall in dead of night ! 
 For in your eyes they sit, and there 
 Fix'd become as in their sphere. 
 
 Ask me no more if East or West 
 The Phcenix builds her spicy nest !
 
 THOMAS CAREW. 1 6/ 
 
 For unto you at last she flies, 
 And in your fragrant bosom dies. 
 
 LOVE'S ETERNITY. 
 
 How ill doth he deserve a Lover's name 
 
 Whose pale weak flame 
 
 Can not retain 
 His heat in spite of absence or disdain, 
 But doth at once, like paper set on fire, 
 
 Burn and expire ! 
 True Love can never change his seat ; 
 Nor did he ever love that could retreat. 
 
 That noble flame which my breast keeps alive 
 
 Shall still survive 
 
 When my soul's fled ; 
 Nor shall my love die when my body's dead : 
 That shall wait on me to the lower shade, 
 
 And never fade ; 
 My very ashes in their urn 
 Shall, like a hallow'd lamp, forever burn. 
 
 OUTER BEAUTY. 
 
 He that loves a rosy cheek, 
 
 Or a coral lip admires, 
 Or from star-like eyes doth seek 
 
 Fuel to maintain his fires, 
 As old Time makes these decay, 
 So his flames must waste away. 
 
 But a smooth and steadfast mind, 
 Gentle thoughts, and calm desires, 
 
 Hearts with equal love combined, 
 Kindle never-dying fires : 
 
 Where these are not, I despise 
 
 Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.
 
 i68 gp:orge Herbert 
 
 CHLORIS IN THE SNOU . 
 
 I saw fair Chloris walk alone 
 
 When feather'd rain came softly down, — 
 
 Then Jove descended from his Tower 
 
 To court her in a silver shower : 
 
 The wanton snow flew to her breast, 
 
 Like little birds into their nest ; 
 
 But overcome with whiteness there 
 
 For grief it thaw'd into a tear ; 
 
 Then, falling down her garment hem. 
 
 To deck her, froze into a gem. 
 
 THOMAS GOFFE. 
 
 1592— 1627. 
 
 TO SLEEP. 
 
 Drop golden showers, gentle Sleep ! 
 
 And all ye Angels of the Night 
 
 Which do us in protection keep, 
 
 Make this Queen dream of delight ! 
 
 Morpheus ! kind a little, be 
 
 Death's now true image, for 'twill prove 
 
 To this poor Queen that thou art he : 
 
 Her grave is made i' the bed of Love. 
 
 Thus with sweet sweets can Heaven mix gall, 
 
 And marriage turn to funeral. 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT. 
 1592-3— 1<532-4. 
 
 THE VIRTUOUS SOUL. 
 
 Sweet Day ! so cool, so calm, so bright, 
 
 The bridal of the earth and sky, — 
 The dews shall weep thy fall to-night : 
 For thou must die !
 
 GEORGE HERBERT. 1 69 
 
 ■ Sweet Rose ! whose hue, angry and brave, 
 Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, — 
 Thy root is ever in its grave ; 
 And thou must die. 
 
 Sweet Spring ! full of sweet days and roses, 
 
 A box whose sweets compacted he, — 
 My music shows ye have your closes, 
 And all must die. 
 
 Only a sweet and virtuous Soul, 
 
 Like season'd timber, never gives ; 
 But though the whole world turn to coal, 
 Then chiefly lives. 
 
 CONSTANCY. 
 
 Who is the honest man ? 
 
 He that doth still and strongly good pursue ; 
 
 To God, his neighbour, and himself most true ; 
 
 Whom neither force nor fawning can 
 Unpin, or wrench from giving all their due. 
 
 Whose honesty is not 
 
 So loose or easy that a ruffling wind 
 
 Can blow away, or glittering look it blind ; 
 
 Who rides his sure and even trot. 
 While the world now rides by, now lags behind. 
 
 Who, when great trials come, 
 
 Nor seeks nor shuns them, but doth calmly stay 
 
 Till he the thing and the example weigh ; 
 
 All being brought into a sum, 
 What place or person calls for he doth pay. 
 
 Whom none can work or woo 
 To use in anything a trick or sleight, 
 For above all things he abhors deceit : 
 His words and works, and fashion too,
 
 I/O GEORGE HEKBERT. 
 
 All of a piece, and all are clear and straight. 
 
 Who never melts, or thaws. 
 
 At close temptations ; when the day is done 
 
 His goodness sets not, but in dark can run. 
 
 The sun to others writeth laws 
 And is their virtue : virtue is his sun. 
 
 Who, when he is to treat 
 
 With sick folk, women, those whom passions sway, 
 
 Allows for that, and keeps his constant way ; 
 
 Whom others' faults do not defeat ; 
 But, though men fail him, yet his part doth play. 
 
 Whom nothing can procure, 
 
 When the wide world runs bias from his will, 
 
 To writhe his limbs and share, not mend, the ill. 
 
 This is the marksman safe and sure. 
 Who still is right, and prays to be so still. 
 
 THE PULLEY. 
 
 When God at first made Man, 
 
 Having a glass of blessings standing by, — 
 
 Let us (said He) pour on him all we can : 
 Let the world's riches, which dispersi^d lie. 
 Contract into a span ! 
 
 So strength first made a way. 
 
 Then beauty flovv'd, then wisdom, honour, pleasure : 
 
 When almost all was out God made a stay, 
 Perceiving that alone of all his treasure 
 Rest in the bottom lay. 
 
 For if I sliould (said He) 
 
 Bestow this jewel also on my creature, 
 
 He would adore my gifts instead of Me, 
 And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature : 
 So both should losers be.
 
 FRANCIS QUARLES. Ijl 
 
 Yet let him keep the rest, 
 But keep them with repining restlessness ! 
 Let him be rich and weary that at least, 
 If goodness lead him not, yet weariness 
 May toss him to my breast ! 
 
 FRANCIS QUARLES. 
 
 1592—16^4. 
 
 WORLD'S FALSENESS. 
 
 False World ! thou liest : thou canst not lend 
 
 The least delight ; 
 Thy favours can not gain a friend, 
 
 They are so slight ; 
 Thy morning pleasures make an end 
 
 To please at night ; 
 Poor are the wants that thou suppliest : 
 And yet thou vaunt'st, and yet thou viest 
 
 With Heaven : fond Earth ! thou boast'st; false World ! thou 
 liest. 
 
 Thy babbling tongue tells golden tales 
 
 Of endless treasure ; 
 Thy bounty offers easy sales 
 
 Of lasting pleasure ; 
 Thou ask'st the conscience what she ails, 
 
 And swear'st to ease her ; 
 There's none can want where thou suppliest, 
 There's none can give where thou deniest : 
 Alas, fond World ! thou boast'st ; false World ! thou liest. 
 
 What well-advised ear regards 
 
 What Earth can say ? 
 Thy words are gold, but thy rewards 
 
 Are painted clay ; 
 Thy cunning can but pack the cards 
 
 Thou canst not play ;
 
 1/2 HENRY KING. 
 
 Thy game at weakest still thou viest ; 
 
 If seen and then revied, deniest : 
 
 Thou art not what thou seem'st : false World ! thou liest. 
 
 Thy tinsel bosoin seems a mint 
 
 Of new-coin'd treasure ; 
 A paradise that has no stint, 
 
 No change, no measure : 
 A painted cask, but nothing in't, 
 
 Nor wealth nor pleasure ! 
 Vain Earth that falsely thus compliest 
 With Man ! vain Man that thus reliest 
 On Earth ! Vain Man ! thou doat'st ; vain Earth ! thou liesto 
 
 What mean dull souls in this high measure 
 
 To haberdash 
 In Earth's base wares, whose greatest treasure 
 
 Is dross and trash, 
 The height of whose enchanting pleasure 
 
 Is but a flash ? 
 Are these the goods that thou suppliest 
 Us mortals with ? Are these the highest ? 
 Can these bring cordial peace ! False World ! thou liest. 
 
 HENRY KING. 
 1591-2 — 1669. 
 
 THE DIRGE. 
 
 What is the existence of Man's Life 
 
 But open war or slumber'd strife. 
 
 Where sickness to his sense presents 
 
 The combat of the elements. 
 
 And never feels a perfect peace 
 
 Till death's cold hand signs his release ? 
 
 It is a storm, where the hot blood 
 Outvies in rage the boiling flood ;
 
 HENRY KING. 173 
 
 And each loud passion of the mind 
 Is like a furious gust of wind, 
 Which beats his bark with many a wave 
 Till he casts anchor in the grave. 
 
 It is a flower, which buds and grows, 
 And withers as the leaves disclose ; 
 Whose Spring and Fall faint seasons keep, 
 Like fits of waking before sleep. 
 Then shrinks into that fatal mould 
 Where its first being was enroll'd. 
 
 It is a dream, whose seeming truth 
 Is moralized in age and youth, 
 Where all the comforts he can share 
 As wandering as his fancies are. 
 Till in the midst of dark decay 
 The dreamer vanish quite away. 
 
 It is a dial, which points out 
 The sunset, as it moves about. 
 And shadows out in lines of night 
 The subtle stages of Time's flight, 
 Till all-obscuring earth hath laid 
 The body in perpetual shade. 
 
 It is a weary interlude, 
 Which doth short joys, long woes include : 
 The world the stage, the prologue tears, 
 The acts vain hopes and varied fears : 
 The scene shuts up with loss of breath, 
 And leaves no epilogue but death. 
 
 THE FORFEITURE 
 
 TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 My Dearest ! to let you or the world know 
 What debt of service I do trulv owe
 
 174 ROBERT HERRICK. 
 
 To your unpattern'd self were to require 
 
 A language only form'd in the desire 
 
 Of him that writes. It is the common fate 
 
 Of greatest duties to evaporate 
 
 In silent meaning, as we often see 
 
 Fires by their too much fuel smother'd be : 
 
 Small obligations may find vent, and speak, 
 
 When greater the unable debtor break. 
 
 And such are mine to you, whose favour'd store 
 
 Hath made me poorer than I was before : 
 
 For I want words and language to declare 
 
 How strict my bond, or large your bounties are. 
 
 Since nothing in my desperate fortune found 
 Can payment make, nor yet the sum compound, 
 You must lose all or else of force accept 
 The body of a bankrupt for your debt. 
 Then, Love I your bond to execution sue. 
 And take myself as forfeited to you I 
 
 ROBERT HERRICK. 
 
 1591-4—1674. 
 
 TO JULIA. 
 
 Her lamp the glow-worm lend thee ! 
 
 The shooting stars attend thee ! 
 And the elves also, 
 Whose little eyes glow 
 
 Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee I 
 
 No Will-o'the-Wisp mislight thee ! 
 Nor snake nor slow-worm bite thee ! 
 
 But on ! on thy way, 
 
 Not making a stay, 
 Since ghost there's none to afifright thee I 
 
 Let not the dark thee cumber ! 
 What though the moon does slumber,
 
 ROBERT HERRICK. 175 
 
 The stars o.f the night 
 Will lend thee their light, 
 Like tapers clear without number. 
 
 Then, Julia ! let me woo thee 
 Thus, thus to come unto me : 
 
 And when I shall meet 
 
 Thy silvery feet, 
 My soul I'll pour into thee. 
 
 TO DAFFODILS. 
 
 Fair Daffodils ! we weep to see 
 
 You haste away so soon ; 
 As yet the early-rising sun 
 
 Has not attain'd his noon : 
 Stay ! stay 
 
 Until the hastening day 
 Has run 
 
 But to the even-song ! 
 And, having pray'd together, we 
 
 Will go with you along. 
 
 We have short time to stay as you, 
 
 We have as short a Spring ; 
 As quick a growth to meet decay 
 
 As you, or anything : 
 We die 
 
 As your hours do, and dry 
 Away 
 
 Like to the summer's rain, 
 Or as the pearls of morning dew. 
 
 Ne'er to be found again. 
 
 TO BLOSSOMS. 
 
 Fair pledges of a fruitful tree I 
 Why do ye fall so fast ? 
 Your date is not so past
 
 1/6 ROBERT HERRICK. 
 
 But you may stay yet here awhile 
 To blush and gently smile, 
 And go at last. 
 
 "What ! were ye born to be 
 
 An hour or half's delight, 
 
 And so to bid Good-Night ? 
 'Tis pity Nature brought ye forth 
 Merely to show your worth 
 
 And lose you quite. 
 
 But you are lovely leaves, where we 
 May read how soon things have 
 Their end, though ne'er so brave : 
 
 And after they have shown their pride 
 
 Like you awhile, they glide 
 Into the grave. 
 
 TO VIOLETS. 
 
 Welcome, Maids of Honour ! 
 
 You do bring 
 
 In the Spring, 
 And wait upon her. 
 
 She has Virgins many ^ 
 
 Fresh and fair : 
 
 Yet you are 
 More sweet than any. 
 
 You're the Maiden Posies 
 
 And, so graced. 
 
 To be placed 
 'Fore Damask Roses. 
 
 Yet, though thus respected, 
 
 By-and-by 
 
 Ye do lie, 
 Poor Girls ! neglected.
 
 ROBERT HERRICK. 177 
 
 THE TEAR. 
 
 Glide, gentle Streams ! and bear 
 Along with you my tear 
 
 To that coy Girl 
 Who smiles, yet slays 
 Me with delays, 
 
 And strings my tears as pearl. 
 
 See ! see ! She's yonder set, 
 Making a carcanet 
 
 Of maiden flowers : 
 There, there present 
 This orient 
 
 And pendant pearl of ours I 
 
 Then say I've sent one more 
 Gem to enrich her store ; 
 
 And that is all 
 Which I can send 
 Or vainly spend, 
 
 For tears no more will fall. 
 
 Nor will I seek supply 
 
 Of them, the springs once dry ; 
 
 But I'll devise 
 (Among the rest) 
 A way that's best 
 
 How I may save mine eyes. 
 
 Yet say, should She condemn 
 Me to surrender them, — 
 
 Then say, my part 
 Must be to weep 
 Out them, to keep 
 
 A poor yet loving heart. 
 I.— 12
 
 178 ROBERT HERRICK. 
 
 Say too, She would have this : 
 She shall. Then my hope is 
 
 That, when I'm poor, 
 And nothing have 
 To send or save, 
 
 I'm sure She'll ask no more. 
 
 rO WATER-NYMPHS 
 
 DRINKING AT A FOUNTAIN. 
 
 Reach with your whiter hands to me 
 
 Some crystal of the spring ! 
 And I about the cup shall see 
 
 Fresh lilies flourishing. 
 
 Or else, sweet Nymphs ! do you but this 
 To the glass your lips incline, 
 
 And I shall see by that one kiss 
 The water turn'd to wine. 
 
 TO ELECTRA. 
 
 I dare not ask a kiss, 
 
 I dare not beg a smile. 
 Lest having that or this 
 
 I might grow proud the while. 
 
 No ! no ! the utmost share 
 
 Of my desire shall be 
 Only to kiss that air 
 
 That lately kissed thee. 
 
 A VALENTINE. 
 
 Choose me your Valentine ! 
 
 Next, let us marry ! 
 Love to the death will pine 
 
 If we long tarry.
 
 JAMES SHIRLEY. 
 
 179 
 
 Promise and keep your vows, 
 
 Or vow you never ! 
 Love's doctrine disallows 
 
 Troth-breakers ever. 
 
 You have broke promise twice, 
 
 Dear! to undo me. 
 If you prove faithless thrice, 
 
 None then will woo ye. 
 
 TO DAISIES. 
 Shut not so soon ! the dull-eyed Night 
 
 Has not as yet begun 
 To make a seizure on the light 
 
 Or to seal up the sun. 
 
 No marigolds yet closed are, 
 No shadows great appear. 
 
 Nor doth the early shepherd's star 
 Shine like a spangle here. 
 
 Stay but until my Julia close 
 
 Her life-begetting eye : 
 And let the whole world then dispose 
 
 Itself to live or die. 
 
 JAMES SHIRLEY. 
 
 1596 — 1667. 
 
 DEATH THE CONQUEROR. 
 Victorious men of earth ! no more 
 
 Proclaim how wide your empires are ! 
 Though you bind in every shore 
 And your triumphs reach as far 
 
 As night or day, 
 Yet you, proud monarchs ! must obey 
 And mingle with forgotten ashes when 
 Death calls ye to the crowd of common men.
 
 l80 JAMES SHIRLEY. 
 
 Devouring Famine, Plague, and War, 
 
 Each able to undo mankind. 
 Death's servile emissaries are ; 
 
 Nor to these alone confined, 
 He hath at will 
 
 More quaint and subtle ways to kill : 
 A smile or kiss, as he will use the art, 
 Shall have the cunning skill to break a heart. 
 
 EA R THL Y GL OKIES. 
 
 The glories of our blood and state 
 
 Are shadows, not substantial things : 
 There is no armour against Fate ; 
 Death lays his icy hand on kings : 
 Sceptre and crown 
 Must tumble down. 
 And in the dust be equal made 
 With the poor crooked scythe and spade. 
 
 Some men with swords may reap the field 
 And plant fresh laurels where they kill ; 
 But their strung nerves at last must yield : 
 They tame but one another still. 
 Early or late 
 They stoop to Fate 
 And must give up their murmuring breath 
 When they, pale captives, creep to Death. 
 
 The garlands wither on your brow : 
 
 Then boast no more your mighty deeds ! 
 Upon Death's purple altar now 
 
 See where the victor-victim bleeds I 
 Your heads must come 
 To the cold tomb : 
 Only the actions of the Just 
 Smell sweet and blossom in their dust 
 
 1
 
 JAMES SHIRLEY. l8l 
 
 THE PASSING-BEL' 
 
 Hark, how chimes the Passing-Bell ! 
 There's no music to a knell. 
 All the other sounds we hear 
 Flatter and but cheat our ear. 
 This doth put us still in mind 
 That our flesh must be resign'd 
 And, a general silence made, 
 The world be muffled in a shade. 
 He that on his pillow lies, 
 Tear-embalm'd before he dies, 
 Carries like a sheep his life 
 To meet the sacrificer's knife ; 
 And for eternity is press'd. 
 Sad bell-wether to the rest. 
 
 THE LOOKING-GLASS. 
 
 When this crystal shall present 
 
 Your beauty to your eye. 
 Think ! that lovely face was meant 
 
 To dress another by. 
 For not to make them proud 
 These glasses are allow'd 
 To those are fair, 
 But to compare 
 The inward beauty with the outward grace. 
 And make them fair in soul as well as face. 
 
 7^0 ONE SA YING SHE WAS OLD. 
 
 Tell me not Time hath play'd the thief 
 
 Upon her beauty ! My belief 
 
 Might have been mock'd, and I had been 
 
 An heretic, if I had not seen. 
 
 My Mistress is still fair to me,
 
 152 WILLIAM STRODE. 
 
 And now I all those graces see 
 That die' ^dorn her virgin brow : 
 Her eye hath the same flame in't now 
 To kill or save, — the chemist's fire 
 Equally burns, so my desire ; 
 Not any rose-bud less within 
 Her cheek ; the same snow on her chin ; 
 Her voice that heavenly music bears 
 First charm'd my soul, and in my ears 
 Did leave it trembling ; her lips are 
 The self-same lovely twins they were ; — 
 After so many years I miss 
 No flower in all my Paradise. 
 Time ! I despise thy rage and thee : 
 Thieves do not always thrive, I see. 
 
 WILLIAM STRODE. 
 1600 ? — 1644. 
 
 A COMMEND A TION OF MUSIC. 
 
 When whispering strains do softly steal 
 
 With creeping passion through the heart, 
 And when at every touch we feel 
 Our pulses beat and bear a part, — 
 When threads can make 
 A heart-string quake, — 
 Philosophy 
 Can scarce deny 
 The soul consists of harmony. 
 
 When unto heavenly joys we feign 
 Whate'er the soul affecteth most. 
 Which only thus we can explain 
 By music of the winged host, — 
 Whose lays we think 
 Make stars to wink, —
 
 THOMAS RANDOLPH. I83 
 
 Philosophy 
 Can scarce deny 
 Our soul consists of harmony. 
 
 O lull me, lull me, charming Air ! 
 
 My senses rock with wonder sweet I 
 Like snow on wool thy fallings are ; 
 
 Soft, like a spirit, are thy feet. • 
 
 Grief who needs fear 
 That hath an ear ? 
 Down let him lie. 
 And slumbering die, 
 And change his soul for harmony ! 
 
 THOMAS RANDOLPH. 
 
 1605— 1634-S. 
 
 TO MR. ANTHONY STAFFORD. 
 
 To hasten him into the country. 
 
 Come, spur away! 
 I have no patience for a longer stay, 
 
 But must go down, 
 And leave the chargeable noise of this great town : 
 I will the country see 
 Where old Simplicity, 
 
 Though hid in grey, 
 Doth look more gay 
 Than Foppery in plush and scarlet clad. 
 Farewell, you city wits 1 that are 
 Almost at civil war : 
 'Tis time that I grow wise when all the world goes mad. 
 
 More of my days 
 I will not spend to gain an idiot's praise ; 
 
 Or to make sport 
 For some slight puny of the Inns of Court.
 
 1 84 THOMAS RANDOLPH. 
 
 Then, worthy Stafford ! say ! 
 How shall we spend the day. 
 With what delights 
 Shorten the nights ? 
 When from this tumult we are got secure, 
 
 Where Mirth with all her freedom goes, 
 Yet shall no finger lose, 
 Where every word is thought, and every thought is pure. 
 
 There from the tree 
 We'll cherries pluck, and pick the strawberry ; 
 
 And every day 
 Go see the wholesome country-girls make hay, — 
 Whose brown hath lovelier grace 
 Than any painted face 
 That I do know 
 Hyde Park can show, — 
 Where I had rather gain a kiss than meet 
 
 (Though some of them in greater state 
 Might court my love with plate) 
 The beauties of the Cheap and wives of Lombard Street. 
 
 But think upon 
 Some other pleasures ! these to me are none. 
 
 Why do I prate 
 Of women, that are things against my fate ? 
 I never mean to wed 
 That torture to my bed ; 
 My Muse is she 
 My Love shall be. 
 Let clowns get wealth and heirs ! When I am gone, 
 And the great bugbear, grisly Death, 
 Shall take this idle breath, 
 If I a poem leave, that poem is my son. 
 
 Of this no more ! 
 We'll rather taste the bright Pomona's store : 
 No fruit shall 'scape
 
 THOMAS RANDOLPH. 
 
 Our palates, from the damson to the grape; 
 Then full we'll seek a shade, 
 And hear what music's made, 
 How Philomel 
 Her tale doth tell, 
 And how the other birds do fill the quire, 
 
 The thrush and blackbird lend their throats, 
 Warbling melodious notes. 
 We will all sports enjoy which others but desire. 
 
 Ours is the sky ! 
 Where at what fowl we please our hawk shall fly ; 
 
 Nor will we spare 
 To hunt the crafty fox or timorous hare, 
 But let our hounds run loose 
 In any ground they'll choose ; 
 The buck shall fall. 
 The stag, and all. 
 Our pleasures must from their own warrants be : 
 For to my Muse, if not to me, 
 I'm sure all game is free ; 
 Heaven, earth, are all but parts of her great royalty. 
 
 And when we mean 
 To taste of Bacchus' blessings now and then, 
 And drink by stealth 
 A cup or two to noble Barkley's health, 
 I'll take my pipe and try 
 The Phrygian melody : 
 
 Which he that hears 
 Lets through his ears 
 A madness to distemper all the brain. 
 Then I another pipe will take, 
 And Doric music make 
 To civilize with graver notes our wits again.
 
 1 86 WILLIAM HABINGTON. 
 
 WILLIAM HABINGTON. 
 
 1605—1654. 
 
 QUI QUASI FLOS EGREDITUR. 
 
 Fair Madam ! you 
 
 May see what's man in yon bright rose ; 
 Though it the wealth of Nature owes, 
 It is oppress'd and bends with dew. 
 
 "Which shows, though Fate 
 May promise still to warm our lips, 
 And keep our eyes from an eclipse, 
 It will our pride with tears abate. 
 
 Poor silly flower 1 
 
 Though on thy beauty thou presume, 
 And breath which doth the Spring perfume, 
 Thou may'st be cropp'd this very hour. 
 
 And though it may 
 Then thy good fortune be to rest 
 On the pillow of some Lady's breast, 
 Thou'lt wither and be thrown away. 
 
 For 'tis thy doom, 
 However, that there shall appear 
 No memory that thou grew'st here, 
 Ere the tempestuous winter come. 
 
 But flesh is loath 
 By meditation to foresee 
 How loathed a nothing it must be, — 
 Proud in the triumphs of its growth ; 
 
 And tamely can 
 Behold this mighty world decay 
 And wear by the age of Time away, 
 Yet not discourse the fall of man. 
 
 i
 
 WILLIAM HABINGTON. 1 8/ 
 
 But, Madam ! these 
 
 Are thoughts to cure sick human pride ; 
 And medicines are in vain applied 
 To bodies far 'bove all disease. 
 
 For you so live 
 
 As the Angels, in one perfect state : 
 Safe from the ruins of our fate 
 By virtue's great preservative. 
 
 And though we see 
 Beauty enough to warm each heart, 
 Yet you, by a chaste chemic art, 
 Calcine frail love to piety. 
 
 THE PERFECTION OF LOVE. 
 You who are earth and can not rise 
 
 Above your sense, 
 Boasting the envied wealth which lies 
 Bright in your Mistress' lips or eyes, 
 Betray a pitied eloquence. 
 
 That which doth join our souls so light 
 
 And quick doth move 
 That, like the eagle in his flight, 
 It doth transcend all human sight, 
 Lost in the element of love. 
 
 You poets reach not this who sing 
 
 The praise of dust. 
 But kneaded, when by theft you bring 
 The rose and lily from the Spring 
 To adorn the wrinkled face of Lust. 
 
 When we speak love, nor art nor wit 
 
 We gloss upon : 
 Our souls engender, and beget 
 Ideas, — which you counterfeit 
 In your dull propagati6n.
 
 1 88 WILLIAM HABINGTON. 
 
 While Time seven ages shall disperse 
 
 We'll talk of love ; 
 And when our tongues hold no commerce 
 Our thoughts shall mutually converse, 
 And yet the blood no rebel prove. 
 
 And though we be of several kind, 
 
 Fit for offence, 
 Yet are we so by love refined 
 From impure dross, we are all mind : 
 
 Death could not more have conquer'd sense. 
 
 How suddenly those flames expire 
 
 Which scorch our clay ! 
 Prometheus-like when we steal fire 
 From heaven, 'tis endless and entire ; 
 It may know age, but not decay. 
 
 FINE YOUNG FOLLY. 
 Fine young Folly ! though you were 
 That fair beauty I did swear, 
 
 Yet you ne'er could reach my heart : 
 For we courtiers learn at school 
 Only with your sex to fool ; 
 
 You're not worth the serious part. 
 
 When I sigh and kiss your hand, 
 Cross my arms and wondering stand, 
 
 Holding parley with your eye ; 
 Then dilate on my desires. 
 Swear the sun ne'er shot such fires : 
 
 All is but a handsome lie. 
 
 When I eye your curl or lace, 
 Gentle Soul ! you think your face 
 
 Straight some murder doth commit ; 
 And your virtue doth begin 
 To grow scrupulous of my sin, 
 
 When I talk to show my wit.
 
 WILLIAM HABINGTON. 1 89 
 
 Therefore, Madam ! wear no cloud, 
 Nor to check my love grow proud : 
 
 For in sooth I much do doubt 
 'Tis the powder in your hair, 
 Not your breath, perfumes the air ; 
 
 And your clothes that set you out. 
 
 Yet, though truth has this confess'd, 
 And I vow I love in jest. 
 
 When I next begin to court 
 And protest an amorous flame 
 You will swear I earnest am : — 
 
 Bedlam ! this is pretty sport. 
 
 CASTARA. 
 
 Like the violet, which alone 
 Prospers in some happy shade, 
 My Castara lives unknown. 
 To no looser eye betray'd : 
 For she's to herself untrue 
 Who delights i' the public view. 
 
 Such is her beauty as no arts 
 Have enrich'd with borrow'd grace ; 
 Her high birth no pride imparts, 
 For she blushes in her place. 
 Folly boasts a glorious blood ; 
 She is noblest being good. 
 
 Cautious, she knew never yet 
 
 What a wanton courtship meant ; 
 
 Nor speaks loud to boast her wit, 
 
 In her silence eloquent. 
 
 Of herself survey she takes. 
 
 But 'tween men no difference makes. 
 
 She obeys with speedy will 
 
 Her grave parents' wise commands ;
 
 I90 SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. 
 
 And so innocent, that ill 
 She nor acts nor understands. 
 Women's feet run still astray 
 If to ill they know the way. 
 
 She sails by that rock, the Court, 
 Where oft Virtue splits her mast ; 
 And retiredness thinks the port 
 Where her fame may anchor cast. 
 Virtue safely can not sit 
 Where Vice is enthroned for Wit. 
 
 She holds that day's pleasure best 
 Where sin waits not on delight ; 
 Without masque, or ball, or feast. 
 Sweetly spends a winter's night, 
 O'er that darkness whence is thrust 
 Prayer and sleep, if governs lust. 
 
 She her throne makes Reason climb, 
 
 While wild passions captive lie ; 
 
 And each article of time 
 
 Her pure thoughts to heaven fly. 
 
 All her vows religious be. 
 
 And her love she vows to me. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. 
 1605-6 — 1668. 
 
 DA Y-BREAK. 
 
 The lark now leaves his watery nest 
 And, climbing, shakes his dewy wings : 
 
 He takes this window for the East, 
 And to implore your light he sings. 
 
 Awake ! awake ! the Morn will never rise 
 
 Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.
 
 EDMUND WALLER. I9I 
 
 The merchant bows unto the seaman's star ; 
 
 The ploughman from the sun his season takes ; 
 But still the lover wonders what they are 
 
 Who look for day before his Mistress wakes. 
 Awake ! awake ! break through your veils of lawn ; 
 Then draw your curtains, and begin the dawn ! 
 
 EDMUND WALLER. 
 1605— 1687. 
 
 ON A GIRDLE. 
 That which her slender waist confined 
 Shall now my joyful temples bind : 
 No monarch but would give his crown 
 His arms might do what this has done ! 
 
 It was my heaven's extremest sphere, 
 The pale which held that lovely deer : 
 My joy, my grief, my hope, my love, 
 Did all within this circle move. 
 
 A narrow compass, and yet there 
 Dwelt all that's good and all that's fair : 
 Give me but what this ribbon bound, 
 Take all the rest the sun goes round ! 
 
 THE ROSE. 
 
 Go, lovely Rose ! 
 Tell her that wastes her time and me 
 
 That now she knows, 
 "When I resemble her to thee. 
 How sweet and fair she seems to be ! 
 
 Tell her, that's young 
 And shuns to have her graces spied, 
 
 That hadst thou sprung 
 In deserts where no men abide 
 Thou must have uncommeaded died.
 
 192 EDMUND WALLER. 
 
 Small is the worth 
 Of beauty from the light retired : 
 
 Bid her come forth. 
 Suffer herself to be desired, 
 And not blush so to be admired ! 
 
 Then die ! that she 
 The common fate of all things rare 
 
 May read in thee : 
 How small a part of time they share 
 They are so wondrous sweet and fair. 
 
 STAY, PHCEBUS! 
 
 Stay, Phoebus ! stay ! 
 
 The world to which you fly so fast, 
 Conveying day 
 
 From us to them, can pay your haste 
 With no such object nor salute your rise 
 With no such wonder as De Mornay's eyes. 
 
 Well does this prove 
 
 The error of those antique books 
 
 Which made you move 
 About the world : Her charming looks 
 Would fix your beams, and make it ever day, 
 Did not the rolling earth snatch her away. 
 
 TO MY YOUNG LADY LUCY SIDNEY. 
 
 Why came I so untimely forth 
 Into a world which, wanting thee, 
 
 Could entertain us with no worth 
 Or shadow of felicity. 
 
 That time should me so far remove 
 
 From that which I was born to love ? 
 
 Yet, Fairest Blossom ! do not slight 
 
 That age which you may know so soon :
 
 SIR JOHN SUCKLING. 193 
 
 The rosy morn resigns her light 
 
 And milder glory to the noon ; 
 And then what wonders shall you do 
 Whose dawning beauty warms us so ? 
 
 Hope waits upon the flowery prime ; 
 
 And Summer, though it be less gay, 
 Yet is not look'd on as a time 
 
 Of declination or decay : 
 For with a full hand that does bring 
 All that was promised by the Spring. 
 
 SIR JOHN SUCKLING. 
 1608-9 — 1642- 
 
 A BALLAD OF A WEDDING. 
 
 I tell thee, Dick ! where I have been, 
 Where I the rarest things have seen, 
 
 O, things beyond compare ! 
 Such sights again can not be found 
 In any place on English ground, 
 
 Be it at wake or fair. 
 
 At Charing-Cross, hard by the way 
 Where we, thou know'st, do sell our hay, 
 
 There is a House with stairs ; 
 And there did I see coming down 
 Such volk as are not in our town, 
 
 Vorty at least, in pairs. 
 
 Among the rest One pest'lent fine. 
 His beard no bigger though than thine, 
 
 Walk'd on before the best : 
 Our Landlord looks like nothing to him ; 
 The King, God bless him ! 'twould undo him 
 
 Should he go still so dress'd. 
 
 I— 13
 
 194 SIR JOHN SUCKLING. 
 
 At course-a-park, without all doubt, 
 He should have first been taken out 
 
 By all the maids i' the town, 
 Though lusty Roger there had been, 
 Or little George upon the Green, 
 
 Or Vincent of the Crown. 
 
 But wot you what ? the Youth was going 
 To make an end of all his wooing ; 
 
 The parson for him stay'd : 
 Yet by his leave, for all his haste, 
 He did not so much wish all past, 
 
 Perchance, as did the Maid. 
 
 The Maid, — and thereby hangs a tale, 
 For such a Maid no Widson ale 
 
 Could ever yet produce : 
 No grape that's kindly ripe could be 
 So round, so plump, so soft as she, 
 
 Nor half so full of juice. 
 
 Her finger was so small the ring 
 Would not stay on which he did bring, 
 
 It was too wide a peck ; 
 And to say truth, for out it must. 
 It look'd like the great collar, just, 
 
 About our young colt's neck. 
 
 ' Her feet beneath her petticoat 
 j Like little mice stole in and out, 
 I As if they fear'd the light ; 
 
 But, Dick ! she dances such a way, 
 
 No sun upon an Easter day 
 Is half so fine a sight. 
 
 He would have kiss'd her once or *wice, 
 But she would not, she was so nice,
 
 SIR JOHN SUCKLING. 195 
 
 She would not do't in sight ; 
 And then she look'd as who would say 
 I will do what I list to-day, 
 
 And you shall do't at night. 
 
 Her cheeks so rare a white was on, 
 No daisy makes comparison, — 
 
 Who seeks them is undone : 
 For streaks of red were mingled there 
 Such as are on a Katherine pear. 
 
 The side that's next the sun. 
 
 Her lips were red, and one was thin. 
 Compared to that was next her chin, — 
 
 Some bee had stung it newly : 
 But, Dick ! her eyes so guard her face, 
 I durst no more upon them gaze 
 
 Than on the sun in Jiily. 
 
 Her mouth so small, when she does speak, 
 Thou'dst swear her teeth her words did break, 
 
 That they might passage get ; 
 But she so handled still the matter, 
 They came as good as ours, or better. 
 
 And are not spent a whit. 
 
 If wishing should be any sin 
 
 The parson himself had guilty been, 
 
 She look'd that day so purely ; 
 And did the Youth so oft the feat 
 At night as some did in conceit, 
 
 It would have spoil'd him surely. 
 
 Passion o' me ! how I run on : 
 
 There's that that would be thought upon, 
 
 I trow, besides the Bride : 
 The business of the kitchen's great,
 
 196 SIR JOHN SUCKLING. 
 
 For it is fit that men should eat ; 
 Nor was it there denied. 
 
 Just in the nick the cook knock'd thrice, 
 And all the waiters in a trice 
 
 His summons did obey ; 
 Each serving-man with dish in hand 
 March'd boldly up, like our train'd band. 
 
 Presented, and away. 
 
 When all the meat was on the table 
 What man of knife, or teeth, was able 
 
 To stay to be intreated ? 
 And this the very reason was 
 Before the parson could say grace 
 
 The company was seated. 
 
 Now hats fly off, and youths carouse ; 
 Healths first go round, and then the house, — 
 
 The Bride's came thick and thick; 
 And when 'twas named another's health, 
 Perhaps he made it her's by stealth : 
 
 And who could help it ? Dick ! 
 
 O' the sudden up they rise and dance ; 
 Then sit again, and sigh, and glance ; 
 
 Then dance again and kiss : 
 Thus several ways the time did pass, 
 Whilst every woman wish'd her place, 
 
 And every man wish'd his. 
 
 By this time all were stolen aside 
 To counsel and undress the Bride, 
 
 But that he must not know : 
 But it was thought he guess'd her mind, 
 And did not mean to stay behind 
 
 Above an hour or so.
 
 SIR JOHN SUCKLING. 197 
 
 NON EST MORTALE QUOD OPTO. 
 
 Thou think'st I flatter, when thy praise I tell, 
 
 But thou dost all hyperboles excell ; 
 
 For I am sure thou art no mortal creature. 
 
 But a divine one throned in human feature. 
 
 Thy piety is such that Heaven by merit. 
 
 If ever any did, thou should'st inherit : 
 
 Thy modesty is such that had'st thou been 
 
 Tempted as Eve thou would'st have shun'd her sin. 
 
 So lovely fair thou art that sure Dame Nature 
 
 Meant thee the Pattern of the Female Creature ; 
 
 Besides all this thy flowing wit is such 
 
 That were it not for thee 't had been too much 
 
 For Woman kind ; should Envy look thee o'er, 
 
 It would confess thus much, if not much more. 
 
 I love thee well, yet wish some bad in thee. 
 
 For, sure I am thou art too good for me. 
 
 SUCH CONSTANCY. 
 I Out upon it ! I have loved 
 I Three whole days together ; 
 \ And am like to love three more, 
 \ If it prove fair weather. 
 
 Time shall moult away his wings 
 
 Ere he shall discover 
 In the whole wide world again 
 
 Such a constant lover. 
 
 But the spite on't is, no praise 
 
 Is due at all to me : 
 Love with me had made no stays 
 
 Had it any been but She.
 
 198 SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE. 
 
 Had it any been but She, 
 
 And that very face, 
 There had been at least ere this 
 
 A dozen dozen in her place. 
 
 WHY SO PALE ? 
 
 Why so pale and wan ? fond lover ! 
 
 Prithee, why so pale ? 
 Will, if looking well can't move her. 
 
 Looking ill prevail ? 
 
 Prithee, why so pale ? 
 
 Why so dull and mute ? young sinner ! 
 
 Prithee, why so mute ? 
 Will, when speaking well can't win her, 
 
 Saying nothing do't ? 
 
 Prithee, why so mute ? 
 
 Quit, quit, for shame ! this will not move, 
 
 This can not take her ; 
 If of herself she will not love, 
 
 Nothing can make her : 
 
 The Devil take her ! 
 
 SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE. 
 1607 — 1666. 
 
 OF BEAUTY. 
 
 Let us use it while we may 
 
 Snatch those joys that haste away ! 
 
 Earth her winter coat may cast, 
 
 And renew her beauty past : 
 
 But, our winter come, in vain 
 
 We solicit Spring again ; 
 
 And when our furrows snow shall cover 
 
 Love may return, but never lover.
 
 JOHN MILTON. 199 
 
 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 1608 — 1674. 
 
 AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE. 
 
 How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, 
 
 Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year ! 
 
 My hasting days tly on with full career, 
 
 But my late Spring no bud or blossom shew'th. 
 
 Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth 
 
 That I to manhood am arrived so near ; 
 
 And inward ripeness doth much less appear 
 
 That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th. 
 
 Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow, 
 
 It shall be still in strictest measure even 
 
 To that same lot, however mean or high, 
 
 Tow'rd which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven. 
 
 All is, if I have grace to use it so. 
 
 As ever in my great Task-Master's eye. 
 
 LALLEGRO. 
 
 Hence, loathed Melancholy ! 
 
 Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, 
 
 In Stygian cave forlorn 
 'Mongst horrid shapes and shrieks and sights unholy ! 
 Find out some uncouth cell 
 Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings 
 
 And the night-raven sings ! 
 There, under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks 
 
 As ragged as thy locks. 
 In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell ! — 
 But come, thou Goddess ! fair and free. 
 In Heaven yclept Euphrosyne, 
 And by men heart-easing Mirth ! 
 Whom lovely Venus, at a birth
 
 200 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 With two sister Graces more, 
 
 To ivy crowned Bacchus bore : 
 
 Or wliether (as some sager sing) 
 
 The frolic wind that breathes the Spring, 
 
 Zephyr, witli Aurora playing, 
 
 As he met her once a-Maying, 
 
 There on beds of violets blue 
 
 And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew, 
 
 Fiird her with thee, a daughter fair, 
 
 So buxom, blithe, and debonair. 
 
 Haste thee, Nymph ! and bring with thee 
 Jest, and youthful Jollity, 
 Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, 
 Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles 
 Such as hang on Hebe's cheek 
 And love to live in dimple sleek. 
 Sport that wrinkled Care derides. 
 And Laughter holding both his sides ! 
 Come ! and trip it, as you go, 
 On the light fantastic toe ! 
 And in thy right hand lead with thee 
 The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty ! 
 And, if I give thee honour due, 
 Mirth ! admit me of thy crew, 
 To live with her and live with thee, 
 In unreprovfed pleasures free : 
 To hear the lark begin his flight 
 And singing startle the dull night 
 From his watch-tower in the skies 
 Till the dappled dawn doth rise ; 
 Then to come, in spite of sorrow. 
 And at my window bid Good-Morrow 
 Through the sweet-briar or the vine 
 Or the twisted eglantine, — 
 While the cock with lively din 
 Scatters the rear of darkness thin.
 
 JOHN MILTON. 201 
 
 And to the stack or the barn-door 
 
 Stoutly struts his dames before ; 
 
 Oft listening how the hounds and horn 
 
 Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn, 
 
 From the side of some hoar hill 
 
 Through the high wood echoing shrill ; 
 
 Sometimes walking, not unseen, 
 
 By hedge-row elms on hillocks green. 
 
 Right against the Eastern Gate 
 
 Where the great Sun begins his state. 
 
 Robed in flames and amber light. 
 
 The clouds in thousand liveries dight, — 
 
 "While the ploughman near at hand 
 
 Whistles o'er the furrow'd land, 
 
 And the milkmaid singeth blithe, 
 
 And the mower whets his scythe, 
 
 And every shepherd tells his tale 
 
 Under the hawthorn in the dale ! — 
 
 Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, 
 
 While the landscape round it measures : 
 
 Russet lawns, and fallows grey 
 
 Where the nibbling flocks do stray. 
 
 Mountains on whose barren breast 
 
 The labouring clouds do often rest, 
 
 Meadows trim with daisies pied. 
 
 Shallow brooks, and rivers wide ; 
 
 Towers and battlements it sees, 
 
 Bosom'd high in tufted trees, — 
 
 Where perhaps some beauty lies, 
 
 The cynosure of neighbouring eyes ; 
 
 Hard by a cottage chimney smokes 
 
 From betwixt two aged oaks, 
 
 Where Corydon and Thyrsis met 
 
 Are at their savoury dinner set. 
 
 Of herbs and other country messes 
 
 Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses ;
 
 202 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 And then in haste her bower she leaves, 
 
 With Thestylis to bind the sheaves 
 
 Or, if the earher season lead, 
 
 To the tann'd haycock in the mead. 
 
 Sometimes with secure delight 
 
 The upland hamlets will invite, — 
 
 When the merry bells ring round. 
 
 And the jocund rebecks sound 
 
 To many a youth and many a maid 
 
 Dancing in the chequer'd shade, 
 
 And young and old come forth to play 
 
 On a sunshine holiday, 
 
 Till the livelong daylight fail ; 
 
 Then to the spicy nut-brown ale. 
 
 With stories told of many a feat : 
 
 How fairy Mab the junkets eat ; 
 
 She was pinch'd and pull'd — she said, 
 
 And he by friar's lantern led ; 
 
 Tells how the drudging goblin sweat 
 
 To earn his cream-bowl duly set, 
 
 When in one night ere glimpse of morn 
 
 His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn 
 
 That ten day-labourers could not end, — 
 
 Then lies him down, the lubber fiend, 
 
 And stretch'd out all the chimney's length 
 
 Basks at the fire his hairy strength, — 
 
 And crop-full out of door he flings 
 
 Ere the first cock his matin rings : 
 
 Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, 
 
 By whispering winds soon lull'd asleep. 
 
 Tower'd cities please as then, 
 
 And the busy hum of men : 
 
 Where throngs of knights and barons bold 
 
 In weeds of peace high triumphs hold ; 
 
 With store of ladies, whose bright eyes 
 
 Rain influence and judge the prize
 
 JOHN MILTON. 20; 
 
 Of wit or arms, while both contend 
 
 To win her grace whom all commend. 
 
 There let Hymen oft appear, 
 
 In saffron robe, with taper clear; 
 
 And pomp and feast and revelry, 
 
 With masque and antique pageantry : 
 
 Such sights as youthful poets dream 
 
 On summer eves by haunted stream ! 
 
 Then to the well-trod stage anon, 
 
 If Jonson's learned sock be on. 
 
 Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's Child, 
 
 Warble his native wood -notes wild t 
 
 And ever, against eating cares, 
 
 Lap me in soft Lydian airs. 
 
 Married to immortal verse ! 
 
 Such as the meeting soul may pierce, 
 
 In notes with many a winding bout 
 
 Of linked sweetness long drawn out, 
 
 With wanton heed and giddy cunning, 
 
 The melting voice through mazes running. 
 
 Untwisting all the chains that tie 
 
 The hidden soul of harmony : 
 
 That Orpheus' self may heave his head 
 
 From golden slumber on a bed 
 
 Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear 
 
 Such strains as would have won the ear 
 
 Of Pluto, to have quite set free 
 
 His half-regain'd Eurydice. 
 
 These delights if thou canst give, 
 
 Mirth ! with thee I mean to live. 
 
 IL PENSEROSO. 
 
 Hence, vain deluding Joys ! 
 The brood of Folly, without father bred : 
 How little you bested
 
 J04 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys ! 
 
 Dwell in some idle brain ; 
 And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess 
 
 As thick and numberless 
 As the gay motes that people the sun-beams, 
 
 Or likest hovering dreams — 
 The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train ! — 
 But hail ! thou Goddess sage and holy I 
 Hail ! divinest melancholy ! 
 Whose saintly visage is too bright 
 To hit the sense of human sight, 
 And therefore to our weaker view 
 O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue, — 
 Black, but such as in esteem 
 Prince Memnon's Sister might beseem, 
 Or that starr'd Ethiop Queen that strove 
 To set her beauty's praise above 
 The Sea Nymphs, and their powers offended. 
 Yet thou art higher far descended : 
 Thee bright -hair'd Vesta long of yore 
 To solitary Saturn bore, — 
 His daughter she, in Saturn's reign 
 Such mixture was not held a stain : 
 Oft in glimmering bovvers and glades 
 He met her, and in secret shades 
 Of woody Ida's inmost grove. 
 Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. 
 Come, pensive Nun ! devout and pure. 
 Sober, steadfast, and demure, 
 All in a robe of darkest grain 
 Flowing with m.ajestic train, 
 And sable stole of cypress lawn 
 Over thy decent shoulders drawn : 
 Come ! but keep thy wonted state. 
 With even step, and musing gait, 
 And looks commercing with the skies,
 
 JOHN MILTON. 20$ 
 
 Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes : 
 
 There, held in holy passion still, 
 
 Forget thyself to marble, till 
 
 With a sad leaden downward cast 
 
 Thou fix them on the earth as fast ! 
 
 And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet, 
 
 Spare Fast that oft with Gods doth diet 
 
 And hears the Muses in a ring 
 
 Aye round about Jove's altar sing ! 
 
 And add to these retired Leisure 
 
 That in trim gardens takes his pleasure ! 
 
 But, first and chiefest, with thee bring 
 
 Him that yon soars on golden wing 
 
 Guiding the Fiery-wheeled Throne, 
 
 The Cherub Contemplation ! 
 
 And the mute silence hist along : 
 
 'Less Philomel will deign a song, 
 
 In her sweetest saddest plight 
 
 Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, 
 
 While Cynthia checks her dragon-yoke 
 
 Gently o'er the accustom'd oak ! 
 
 Sweet Bird ! that shunn'st the noise of folly. 
 
 Most musical, most melancholy : 
 
 Thee, chantress ! oft the woods among 
 
 I woo, to hear thy evensong ; 
 
 And, missing thee, 1 walk unseen 
 
 On the dry smooth-shaven green, 
 
 To behold the vv'andering Moon 
 
 Riding near her highest noon. 
 
 Like one that had been led astray. 
 
 Through the heaven's wide pathless way ; 
 
 And oft, as if her head she bow'd, 
 
 Stooping through a fleecy cloud. 
 
 Oft, on a plat of rising ground, 
 
 I hear the far-off curfew sound, 
 
 Over some wide-water'd shore
 
 206 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 Swinging slow with sullen roar ; 
 Or, if the air will not permit, 
 Some still, removed place will fit, 
 Where glowing embers through the room 
 Teach light to counterfeit a gloom, 
 Far from all resort of mirth 
 Save the cricket on the hearth, 
 Or the bellman's drowsy charm 
 To bless the doors from nightly harm. 
 Or let my lamp at midnight hour 
 Be seen in some high lonely tower. 
 Where I may oft out-watch the Bear 
 With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere 
 The spirit of Plato, to unfold 
 What worlds or what vast regions hold 
 The immortal mind that hath forsook 
 Her mansion in this fleshly nook ; 
 And of those demons that are found 
 In fire, air, flood, or underground, 
 Whose power hath a true consent 
 With planet or with element. 
 Sometimes let gorgeous Tragedy 
 In sceptred pall come sweeping by ! 
 Presenting Thebes, or Pelop's line, 
 Or the tale of Troy divine, 
 Or what (though rare) of later age 
 Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage. 
 But O, sad Virgin ! that thy power 
 Might raise Musajus from his bower ; 
 Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing 
 Such notes as, warbled to the string. 
 Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek 
 And made hell grant what love did seek ; 
 Or call up him that left half-told 
 The story of Cambuscan bold, 
 Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
 
 JOHN MILTON. 20/ 
 
 And who had Canac^ to wife, 
 
 That own'd the virtuovis ring and glass, 
 
 And of the wondrous horse of brass 
 
 On which the Tartar king did ride ; 
 
 And if aught else great bards beside 
 
 In sage and solemn tunes have sung, 
 
 Of tourneys, and of trophies hung, 
 
 Of forests, and enchantments drear, 
 
 Where more is mean'd than meets the ear ! 
 
 Thus, Night ! oft see me in thy pale career. 
 
 Till civil-suited Morn appear. 
 
 Not trick'd and frounced as she was wont 
 
 With the Attic boy to hunt. 
 
 But kerchief 'd in a comely cloud 
 
 While rocking winds are piping loud, 
 
 Or usher'd with a shower still 
 
 When the gust hath blown his fill, 
 
 Ending on the rustling leaves 
 
 With minute drops from off the eaves. 
 
 And when the Sun begins to fling 
 
 His flaring beams, me, Goddess ! bring 
 
 To arched walks of twilight groves 
 
 And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves : 
 
 Of pine, or monumental oak, 
 
 Where the rude axe with heaved stroke 
 
 Was never heard, the Nymphs to daunt 
 
 Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt ! 
 
 There in close covert by some brook, 
 
 Where no profaner eye may look, 
 
 Hide me from Day's garish eye, 
 
 While the bee with honey'd thigh, 
 
 That at her flowery work doth sing. 
 
 And the waters murmuring. 
 
 With such concert as they keep 
 
 Entice the dewy-feather'd Sleep ; 
 
 And let some strange mysterious dream
 
 208 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 Wave at his wings, in airy stream, 
 
 Of lively portraiture display'd, 
 
 Softly on my eyelids laid ! 
 
 And as I wake, sweet music breathe 
 
 Above, about, or underneath. 
 
 Sent by some Spirit to mortals good, 
 
 Or the unseen Genius of the wood ! 
 
 But let my due feet never fail 
 
 To walk the studious cloister's pale, 
 
 And love the high embowed roof. 
 
 With antique pillars massy-proof. 
 
 And storied windows richly dight 
 
 Casting a dim religious light ! 
 
 There let the pealing organ blow 
 
 To the full-voiced choir below 
 
 In service high and anthems clear 
 
 As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 
 
 Dissolve me into ecstasies, 
 
 And bring all Heaven before mine eyes ! 
 
 And may at last my weary age 
 
 Find out the peaceful hermitage, 
 
 The hairy gown, and mossy cell 
 
 Where I may sit and rightly spell 
 
 Of every star that heaven doth shew 
 
 And every herb that sips the dew : 
 
 Till old experience do attain 
 
 To something like prophetic strain ! — 
 
 These pleasures. Melancholy ! give ! 
 
 And I with thee will choose to live. 
 
 L YCIDAS. 
 
 Yet once more, O ye laurels ! and once more, 
 Ye myrtles brown ! with ivy never sere ! 
 I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, 
 And with forced fingers rude
 
 JOHN MILTON. 209 
 
 Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 
 Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear 
 Compels me to disturb your season due : 
 For Lycidas is dead, — dead ere his prime, 
 Young Lycidas, — and hath not left his peer. 
 Who would not sing for Lycidas ? he knew 
 Himself to sing and build the lofty rhyme. 
 He must not float upon his watery bier 
 Unwept, and welter to the parching wind 
 Without the meed of some melodious tear. 
 
 Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well 
 That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring ! 
 Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string ! 
 Hence with denial vain and coy excuse ! 
 
 So may some gentle Muse 
 With lucky words favour my destined urn 
 
 And, as he passes, turn 
 And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud ! 
 
 For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, 
 Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill ; 
 Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd 
 Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, 
 We drove a-field, and both together heard 
 What time the grey fly winds her sultry horn. 
 Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night 
 Oft till the star that rose at evening bright 
 Tovv'rd heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. 
 Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, 
 Temper'd to the oaten flute ; 
 
 Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel 
 From the glad sound would not be absent long ; 
 And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. 
 
 But O the heavy change now thou art gone, 
 Now thou art gone and never must return ! 
 Thee, Shepherd ! thee the woods, and desert caves 
 With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, 
 I.-14
 
 2IO JOHN MILTON. 
 
 And all their echoes, mourn. 
 
 The willows and the hazel copses green 
 
 Shall now no more be seen 
 
 Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. 
 
 As killing as the canker to the rose, 
 
 Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze. 
 
 Or frost to flowers that their gay wardrobe wear 
 
 When first the white-thorn blows, — 
 
 Such, Lycidas ! thy loss to shepherd's ear. 
 
 Where were ye, Nymphs ! when the remorseless deep 
 Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas ? 
 For neither were ye playing on the steep 
 Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, 
 Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high, 
 Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream. 
 Ay me ! I fondly dream — 
 
 Had ye been there, for what could that have done ? 
 
 What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore. 
 The Muse herself, for her enchanting son 
 Whom Universal Nature did lament. 
 When by the rout that made the hideous roar 
 His gory visage down the stream was sent, 
 Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore ? 
 
 Alas ! what boots it with uncessant care 
 To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade. 
 And strictly meditate the thankless Muse ? 
 Were it not better done, as others use, 
 To sport with Amaryllis in the shade. 
 Or with the tangles of Neasra's hair ? 
 Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
 (That last infirmity of noble mind) 
 To scorn delights and live laborious days ; 
 But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, 
 And think to burst out into sudden blaze. 
 Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears 
 And slits the thin-spun life. " But not the praise ! "
 
 JOHN MILTON. 211 
 
 Phcebus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears : 
 " Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 
 
 Nor in the glistering foil 
 
 Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies ; 
 
 But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes 
 
 And perfect witness of all-judging Jove : 
 
 As he pronounces lastly on each deed, 
 
 Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed ! " 
 O fountain Arethuse ! and thou honour'd flood, 
 
 Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd with vocal reeds ! 
 
 That strain I heard was of a higher mood. 
 
 But now my oat proceeds. 
 
 And listens to the Herald of the Sea, 
 
 That caine in Neptune's plea. 
 
 He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds, 
 
 What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain ? 
 
 And question'd every gust of rugged wings 
 
 That blows from off each beaked promontory. 
 
 They knew not of his story ; 
 
 And sage Hippotades their answer brings : 
 
 That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd ; 
 
 The air was calm ; and on the level brine 
 
 Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd. 
 
 It was that fatal and perfidious bark. 
 
 Built in the eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, 
 
 That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. 
 
 Next Camus, reverend Sire, went, footing slow, 
 
 His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge 
 
 Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge 
 
 Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe : 
 " Ah ! who hath reft," quoth he, " my dearest pledge ? " 
 
 Last came, and last did go. 
 
 The Pilot of the Galilean Lake : 
 
 Two massive keys he bore, of metals twain 
 
 (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain) ; 
 
 He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake.
 
 212 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 " How well could I have spared for thee, young Swain ! 
 Enow of such as for their bellies' sake 
 Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold : 
 Of other care they little reckoning make 
 Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast 
 And shove away the worthy bidden guest. 
 Blind Mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to hold 
 A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else the least 
 That to the faithful herdman's art belongs. 
 What recks it them ? what need they ? they are sped ; 
 And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs 
 Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw : 
 The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed. 
 But, swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw. 
 Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread ; 
 Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw 
 Daily devours apace, and nothing said. 
 But that two-handed engine at the door 
 Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more." — 
 
 Return, Alpheus ! the dread voice is past 
 That shrunk thy streams ; return, Sicilian Muse ! 
 And call the vales, and bid them hither cast 
 Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues. 
 Ye valleys low, where the mild whispei's use 
 Of shades and wanton winds and gushing brooks, 
 On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks. 
 Throw hither all your quaint enamel'd eyes 
 That on the green turf suck the honey'd showers, 
 And purple all the ground with vernal flowers ! 
 Bring the rath primrose that forsaken dies. 
 The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine. 
 The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet. 
 The glowing violet, 
 
 The musk-rose and the well-attired woodbine. 
 With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head. 
 And every flower that sad embroidery wears ;
 
 JOHN MILTON. 21 3 
 
 Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, 
 
 And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, 
 
 To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies ! 
 
 For so, to interpose a little ease. 
 
 Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise ! 
 
 Ay me ! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas 
 
 Wash far away. Where'er thy bones are hurl'd, — 
 
 Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, 
 
 Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide 
 
 Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world ; 
 
 Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, 
 
 Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old, 
 
 Where the great Vision of the guarded mount 
 
 Looks tow'rd Namancos and Bayona's hold, 
 
 Look homeward, Angel ! now, and melt with ruth ! 
 
 And O, ye dolphins ! waft the hapless youth ! — 
 
 Weep no more, woeful shepherds ! weep no more : 
 For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, 
 Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. 
 So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed. 
 And yet anon repairs his drooping head, 
 And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore 
 Flames in the forehead of the morning sky : 
 So Lycidas sank low, but mounted high. 
 Through the dear might of Hini that walk'd the waves, 
 Where, other groves and other streams along, 
 With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, 
 And hears the unexpressive nuptial-song 
 In the bless'd kingdoms meek of joy and love. 
 There entertain him all the Saints above, 
 In solemn troops and sweet societies 
 That sing and singing in their glory move. 
 And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes. 
 Now, Lycidas ! the shepherds weep no more : 
 Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore 
 In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
 
 214 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 To all that wander in that perilous flood. 
 
 Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, 
 While the still Morn went out with sandals grey : 
 He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, 
 With eager thought warbling his Doric lay. 
 And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills, 
 And now was dropp'd into the western bay. 
 At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue : 
 To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new ! 
 
 TO THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray 
 Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still ! 
 Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill, 
 While the jolly hours lead on propitious May. 
 Thy liquid notes, that close the eye of day, 
 First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill 
 Portend success in love. O, if Jove's will 
 Have link'd that amorous power to thy soft lay, 
 Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate 
 Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh. 
 As thou from year to year hast sung too late 
 For my relief, yet hadst no reason why ! 
 Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate. 
 Both them I serve, and of their train am L 
 
 TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL. 
 
 Cromwell ! our chief of men, who through a cloud 
 
 Not of war only but detractions rude. 
 
 Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, 
 
 To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plough'd. 
 
 And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud 
 
 Hast rear'd God's trophies, and his work pursued,-^ 
 
 While Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbued,
 
 JOHN MILTON. 21$ 
 
 And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud, 
 
 And Worcester's laureate wreath : yet much remains 
 
 To conquer still ; Peace hath her victories 
 
 No less renown'd than War : new foes arise, 
 
 Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains. 
 
 Help us to save free conscience from the paw 
 
 Of hireling wolves, whose Gospel is their maw ! 
 
 TO SIR HARRY VANE THE YOUNGER. 
 
 Vane ! young in years, but in sage counsel old, 
 
 Than whom a better senator ne'er held 
 
 The helm of Rome when gowns, not arms, repell'd 
 
 The fierce Epirot and the African bold, 
 
 Whether to settle peace or to unfold 
 
 The drift of hollow States hard to be spell'd ; 
 
 Then to advise how war may best upheld 
 
 Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold. 
 
 In all her equipage ; besides to know 
 
 Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, 
 
 What severs each, thou hast learn'd, which few have done 
 
 The bounds of either sword to thee we owe. 
 
 Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans 
 
 In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son. 
 
 ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT. 
 
 Avenge, O Lord ! thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones 
 Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold : 
 Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, 
 When all our fathers worship'd stocks and stones, 
 Forget not ! In thy book record their groans 
 Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 
 Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that roll'd 
 Mother with infant down the rocks ! Their moans 
 The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
 
 2l6 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 To heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow 
 O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway 
 The triple Tyrant ! that from these may grow 
 A hundred-fold who, having learn'd thy way. 
 Early may flee the Babylonian woe. 
 
 ON HIS BLINDNESS. 
 
 When I consider how my light is spent 
 Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, 
 And that one talent which is death to hide 
 Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 
 To serve therewith my Maker and present 
 My true account lest he returning chide, — 
 ' Doth God exact day-labour, light denied ? " 
 I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent 
 That murmur, soon replies — " God doth not need 
 Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best 
 Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state 
 Is kingly : thousands at his bidding speed 
 And post o'er land and ocean without rest ; 
 They also serve who only stand and wait." 
 
 TO MR. LAWRENCE. 
 
 Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son ! 
 Now that the fields are dank and ways are mire, 
 Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire 
 Help waste a sullen day, what may be won 
 From the hard season gaining ? Time will run 
 On smoother, till Favonius reinspire 
 The frozen earth and clothe in fresh attire 
 The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun. 
 What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, 
 Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise 
 To hear the lute well-touch'd, or artful voice
 
 JOHN MILTON. 217 
 
 Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air ? 
 
 He who of these delights can judge, and spare 
 
 To interpose them oft, is not unwise. 
 
 TO CYRIACK SKINNER. 
 
 Cyriack ! this three years' day these eyes, though clear 
 
 To outward view of blemish or of spot, 
 
 Bereft of light their seeing have forgot ; 
 
 Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 
 
 Of sun or moon or star throughout the year. 
 
 Or man or woman. Yet I argue not 
 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
 
 Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer 
 
 Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask ? 
 
 The conscience, friend ! to have lost them overplied 
 
 In Liberty's defence, my noble task, 
 
 Of which all Europe rings from side to side. 
 
 This thought might lead me through the world's vain masque, 
 
 Content, though blind, had I no better guide. 
 
 ON HIS DECEASED WIFE. 
 
 Methought I saw my late espoused Saint 
 
 Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, 
 
 Whom Jove's great Son to her glad husband gave. 
 
 Rescued from Death by Force : though pale and faint. 
 
 Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint 
 
 Purification in the Old Law did save, 
 
 And such as yet once more I trust to have 
 
 Full sight of her in heaven without restraint. 
 
 Came vested all in white, pure as her mind. 
 
 Her face was veil'd ; yet to my fancied sight 
 
 Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined 
 
 So clear as in no face with more delight. 
 
 But O, as to embrace me she inclined, 
 
 I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.
 
 21 8 THOMAS NABBES. 
 
 LUCIUS GARY. 
 (Viscount Falkland.) i6io— 1643. 
 
 AN EPITAPH. 
 The chief perfections of both sexes join'd, 
 With neither's vice nor vanity combined, 
 Of this our age the wonder, love, and care, 
 The example of the following, and despair : 
 Such beauty that from all hearts love must flow, 
 Such majesty that none durst tell her so : 
 A wisdom of so large and potent sway, 
 Rome's Senate might have wish'd, her Conclave may 
 Which did to earthly thoughts so seldom bow. 
 Alive she was scarce less in heaven than now : 
 So void of the least pride, to her alone 
 These radiant excellences seem'd unknown : 
 Such once there was, but let thy grief appear ! 
 Reader! there is not. Huntingdon lies here. 
 
 THOMAS NABBES. 
 1612? — 1645. 
 
 HER REAL WORTH. 
 What though with figures I should raise 
 Above all height my Mistress' praise. 
 Calling her cheek a blushing rose. 
 The fairest June did e'er disclose. 
 Her forehead lilies, and her eyes 
 The luminaries of the skies ; 
 That on her lips ambrosia grows, 
 And froni her kisses nectar flows ? 
 Two great hyperboles ! unless 
 She loves me she is none of these. 
 But if her heart and her desires 
 Do answer mine with equal fires, 
 These attributes are then too poor : 
 She is all these, and ten times more.
 
 JAMES GRAHAME. 219 
 
 JAMES GRAHAME. 
 (Marquis of Montrosk.) 1612-13— 1650. 
 
 TO HIS LOVE. 
 
 My dear and only Love ! I pray 
 
 That little world of thee 
 Be govern'd by no other sway 
 
 Than purest monarchy : 
 For if confusion have a part, 
 
 Which virtuous souls abhor, 
 And hold a synod in thy heart, 
 
 I'll never love thee more. 
 
 As Alexander I will reign, 
 
 And I will reign alone : 
 My thoughts did evermore disdain 
 
 A rival on my throne. 
 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. 
 
 And I will reign and govern still. 
 
 And always give the law, 
 And have each subject at my will. 
 
 And all to stand in awe : 
 But 'gainst my batteries if I find 
 
 Thou kick, or vex me sore, 
 As that thou set me up a blind, 
 
 I'll never love thee more. 
 
 And in the empire of thy heart, 
 Where I should solely be. 
 
 If others do pretend a part 
 Or dare to vie with me, — 
 
 Or Committees if thou erect 
 And go on such a score, —
 
 220 RICHARD CRASHAW 
 
 I'll mock and smile at thy neglect, 
 And never love thee more. 
 
 But if thou wilt prove faithful then 
 
 And constant of thy word, 
 I'll make thee famous by my pen, 
 
 And glorious by my sword. 
 I'll serve thee in such noble ways 
 
 Was never heard before ; 
 I'll deck and crown thy head with bays. 
 
 And love thee more and more. 
 
 RICHARD CRASHAW. 
 1615—1652. 
 
 WISHES. 
 
 TO HIS SUPPOSED MISTRESS. 
 
 Whoe'er she be, 
 That not impossible She 
 That shall command my heart and me ; 
 
 Where'er she lie, 
 Lock'd up from mortal eye. 
 In shady leaves of destiny : 
 
 Till that ripe Birth 
 Of studied Fate stand forth 
 And teach her fair steps tread our earth ; 
 
 Till that Divine 
 Idea take a shrine 
 Of crystal flesh, through which to shine : 
 
 Meet her, my Wishes ! 
 Bespeak her to my blisses. 
 And be you call'd my absent kisses. — 
 
 I wish her beauty 
 
 That owes not all its duty
 
 RICHARD CRASHAW. 221 
 
 To gaudy tire or glistering shoe-tye, — 
 
 Something more than 
 
 Taffeta or tissue can, 
 
 Or rampant feather or rich fan, — 
 
 More than the spoil 
 Of shop, or silkworm's toil, 
 Or a bought blush, or a set smile ; 
 
 A face that's best 
 By its own beauty dress'd. 
 And can alone commend the rest, — 
 
 A face made up 
 Out of no other shop 
 Than what Nature's white hand sets ope ; 
 
 A cheek where youth 
 And blood, with pen of truth 
 Write what their reader sweetly ru'tli, — 
 
 A cheek where grows 
 More than a morning rose, 
 Which to no box its being owes ; 
 
 Lips where all day 
 A lover's kiss may play. 
 Yet carry nothing thence away ; 
 
 Looks that oppress 
 Their richest tires, but dress 
 Themselves in simple nakedness ; 
 
 Eyes that displace 
 The neighbour diamond and outface 
 That sun-shine by their own sweet grace ; 
 
 Tresses that wear 
 Jewels, but to declare 
 How much themselves more precious are, —
 
 222 RICHARD CRASHAW. 
 
 Whose native ray- 
 Can tame the wanton day 
 Of gems that in their bright shades play, — 
 
 Each ruby there 
 Or pearl that dare appear, 
 Be its own blush, be its own tear ; 
 
 A well-tamed heart, 
 For whose more noble smart 
 Love may be long choosing a dart ; 
 
 Eyes that bestow 
 Full quivers on Love's bow, 
 Yet pay less arrows than they owe ; 
 
 Smiles that can warm 
 The blood, yet teach a charm 
 That chastity shall take no harm ; 
 
 Blushes that been 
 The burnish of no sin, 
 Nor flames of aught too hot within ; 
 
 Joys that confess 
 Virtue for their Mistress, 
 And have no other head to dress ; 
 
 Fears fond, and flight. 
 As the coy bride's when night 
 First does the longing lover right ; 
 
 Tears quickly fled 
 And vain, as those are shed 
 For dying maidenhed ; 
 
 Days that need borrow 
 No part of their good morrow 
 From a fore-spent night of sorrow, — 
 
 Days that, in spite
 
 RICHARD CRASHAW. 223 
 
 Of darkness, by the light 
 Of a clear mind are day all night ; 
 
 Nights sweet as they 
 Made short by lovers' play, 
 Yet long by the absence of the day ; 
 
 Life that dares send 
 A challenge to his end, 
 And when it comes say — Welcome, friend ; 
 
 Sidneian showers 
 Of sweet discourse, whose powers 
 Can crown old Winter's head with flowers ; 
 
 Soft silken hours. 
 Open suns, shady bowers ; 
 'Bove all, nothing within that lours ; 
 
 Whate'er delight 
 Can make Day's forehead bright 
 Or give down to the wings of Night. 
 
 In her whole frame 
 Have Nature all the name, 
 Art and Ornament the shame ! 
 
 Her flattery 
 Picture and poesy. 
 Her counsel her own virtue be ! 
 
 I wish her store 
 Of worth may leave her poor 
 Of wishes ; and I wish no more. 
 
 Now, if Time knows 
 That Her whose radiant brows 
 Weave them a garland of my vows. 
 
 Her whose just bays 
 
 My future hopes can raise
 
 224 SIR JOHN DENHAM. 
 
 A trophy to her present praise, 
 
 Her that dares be 
 What these Unes wish to see, 
 I seek no further it is She. 
 
 'Tis She : and here 
 Lo I unclothe and clear 
 My Wishes' cloudy character. 
 
 May She enjoy it 
 Whose merit dares apply it 
 But modesty dares still deny it ! 
 
 Such Worth as this is 
 Shall fix my flying wishes, 
 And determine them to kisses. 
 
 Let her full glory, 
 My fancies ! fly before ye ! 
 Be you my fictions, but Her Story ! 
 
 SIR JOHN DENHAM. 
 1615—1668. 
 
 INVOCATION TO MORPHEUS. 
 Morpheus, the humble God that dwells 
 In cottages and smoky cells, 
 Hates gilded roofs and beds of down 
 And, though he fears no prince's frown. 
 Flies from the circle of a crown. 
 
 Come, I say, thou powerful God ! 
 And thy leaden charmed rod, 
 Dipp'd in the Lethean Lake, 
 O'er his wakeful temples shake ! 
 Lest he should sleep and never wake. 
 
 Nature ! alas ! why art thou so 
 Obliged to thy greatest foe ?
 
 RICHARD LOVELACE. 22$ 
 
 Sleep, that is thy best repast, 
 Yet of death it bears a taste : 
 And both are the same thing at last. 
 
 RICHARD LOVELACE. 
 
 1618— 1658. 
 
 THE GRASSHOPPER. 
 
 To nty noble friend Mr. Charles Cotton. 
 
 O thou that swing'st upon the waving hair 
 
 Of some well-filled oaten beard, 
 Drunk every night with a delicious tear 
 
 Dropp'd thee from heaven, where thou wast rear'd ! 
 
 The joys of earth and air are thine entire, 
 
 That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly ; 
 
 And when thy poppy works, thou dost retire 
 To thy carved acorn-bed to lie. 
 
 Up with the day, the sun thou welcomest then, 
 Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams ; 
 
 And all these merry days makest merry men, 
 Thyself, and melancholy streams. 
 
 But, ah ! the sickle ! golden ears are cropp'd, 
 
 Ceres and Bacchus bid good-night, 
 Sharp frosty fingers all your flowers have topp'd. 
 
 And what scythes spared winds shave off quite. 
 
 Poor verdant fool, and now green ice ! thy joys 
 (Large and as lasting as thy perch of grass) 
 
 Bid us lay in 'gainst winter rains, and poise 
 Their floods with an o'erflowing glass. 
 
 Thou best of men and friends ! we will create 
 A genuine summer in each other's breast 
 
 And, spite of this cold time and frozen fate, 
 Thaw us a warm seat to our rest. 
 I.-1S
 
 226 RICHARD LOVELACE. 
 
 Our sacred hearths shall burn eternally, 
 As Vestal flames ; the North- Wind, he 
 
 Shall strike his frost-stretch'd wings, dissolve, and fly 
 This yEtna in epitome. 
 
 Dropping December shall come weeping in. 
 
 Bewail the usurping of his reign ; 
 But, when in showers of old Greek we begin, 
 
 Shall cry he hath his crown again. 
 
 Night, as clear Hesper, shall our tapers whip 
 From the light casements where we play, 
 
 And the dark hag from her black mantle strip. 
 And stick there everlasting day. 
 
 Thus richer than untempted kings are we 
 
 That, asking nothing, nothing need. 
 Though lord of all that seas embrace, yet he 
 
 That wants himself is poor indeed. 
 
 TO ALTHEA. 
 (from prison.) 
 
 When Love with unconfined wings 
 
 Hovers within my gates. 
 And my divine Althea brings 
 
 To whisper at the grates, — 
 When I lie tangled in her hair, 
 
 And fetter'd to her eye, — 
 The birds that wanton in the air 
 
 Know no such liberty. 
 
 When flowing cups run swiftly round, 
 
 With no allaying Thames, 
 Our careless heads with roses bound, 
 
 Our hearts with loyal flames, — 
 When thirsty grief in wine we steep. 
 
 When healths and draughts go free,-
 
 RICHARD LOVELACE. 22/ 
 
 Fishes that tipple in the deep 
 Know no such Uberty. 
 
 When hke committed Hnnets I 
 
 With shriller note shall sing 
 The sweetness, mercy, majesty, 
 
 And glories of my King, — 
 When I shall voice aloud how good 
 
 He is, how great should be, — 
 Enlarged winds that curl the flood 
 
 Know no such liberty. 
 
 Stone walls do not a prison make. 
 
 Nor iron bars a cage : 
 Minds innocent and quiet take 
 
 That for an hermitage. 
 If I have freedom in my love, 
 
 And in my soul am free, 
 Angels alone that soar above 
 
 Enjoy such liberty. 
 
 TO LUC AST A. 
 
 ON HIS GOING TO THE WARS. 
 
 Tell me not, Sweet ! I am unkind, 
 
 That from the nunnery 
 Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind 
 
 To war and arms I fly ! 
 
 True, a new Mistress now I chase, — 
 
 The first foe in the field ; 
 And with a stronger faith embrace 
 
 A sword, a horse, a shield. 
 
 Yet this inconstancy is such 
 
 As you too shall adore : 
 I could not love thee. Dear ! so much, 
 
 Loved I not Honour more.
 
 228 ABRAHAM COWLEY, 
 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY. 
 
 1618— 1667, 
 
 HYMN TO LIGHT. 
 
 First-born of Chaos, who so fair didst come 
 
 From the old Negro's darksome womb ! 
 Which when it saw the lovely child, 
 
 The melancholy mass put on kind looks and smiled. 
 
 Thou tide of glory, which no rest dost know, 
 
 But ever ebb and ever flow ! 
 
 Thou golden shower of a true Jove, 
 Who does in thee descend, and Heaven to Earth make love ! 
 
 Hail ! active Nature's watchful life and health. 
 
 Her joy, her ornament, her wealth ! 
 
 Hail to thy husband, Heat, and thee ! 
 Thou the world's beauteous bride, the lusty bridegroom he 
 
 Say, from what golden quivers of the sky 
 
 Do all thy winged arrows fly ? 
 
 Swiftness and power by birth are thine : 
 From thy great Sire they came, thy sire the Word Divine. 
 
 'Tis, I believe, this archery to show. 
 
 That so much cost in colours thou. 
 
 And skill in painting, dost bestow 
 Upon thy ancient Arms, the gaudy heavenly Bow. 
 
 Swift as light, thoughts their empty career run ; 
 
 Thy race is finish'd when begun : 
 
 Let a post-angel start with thee, 
 And thou the goal of earth shalt reach as soon as he. 
 
 Thou in the Moon's bright chariot, proud and gay. 
 
 Dost thy bright wood of stars survey ; 
 
 And all the year dost with thee bring 
 Of thousand flowery lights thine own nocturnal Spring.
 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY. 229 
 
 Thou Scythian-like dost round thy lands above 
 
 The Sun's gilt tent for ever move ; 
 
 And still as thou in pomp dost go, 
 The shining Pageants of the World attend thy show. 
 
 Nor amidst all these triumphs dost thou scorn 
 
 The humble glow-worms to adorn, 
 
 And with those living spangles gild 
 (O greatness without pride !) the bushes of the field. 
 
 Night and her ugly subjects thou dost fright ; 
 
 And Sleep, the lazy Owl of Night : 
 
 Ashamed, and fearful to appear, 
 They screen their horrid shapes with the black hemisphere. 
 
 With them there hastes, and wildly takes the alarm, 
 
 Of painted Dreams a busy swarm : 
 
 At the first opening of thine eye 
 The various Clusters break, the antic Atoms fly. 
 
 The guilty serpents and obscener beasts 
 
 Creep conscious to their secret rests : 
 
 Nature to thee does reverence pay ; 
 111 omens and ill sights removes out of the way. 
 
 At thy appearance Grief itself is said 
 
 To shake his wings and rouse his head ; 
 And cloudy Care has often took 
 
 A gentle beamy smile, reflected from thy look. 
 
 At thy appearance Fear itself grows bold, — 
 
 Thy sunshine melts away his cold : 
 
 Encouraged at the sight of thee. 
 To the cheek colour com.es, and firmness to the knee. 
 
 Even Lust, the master of a harden'd face, 
 
 Blushes if thou beest in the place ; 
 
 To darkness' curtains he retires. 
 In sympathizing night he rolls his smoky fires.
 
 230 ABRAHAM COWLEY. 
 
 When, Goddess ! thou Hft'st up thy waken'd head 
 
 Out of the Morning's purple bed, 
 
 Thy choir of birds about thee play, 
 And all the joyful world salutes the rising day. 
 
 The Ghosts, and Monster Spirits, that did presume 
 
 A Body's privilege to assume, 
 
 Vanish again invisibly. 
 And Bodies gain again their visibility. 
 
 All the world's bravery that delights our eyes 
 
 Is but thy several liveries : 
 
 Thou the rich dye on them bestow'st. 
 Thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as thou go'st. 
 
 A crimson garment in the Rose thou wear'st ; 
 
 A crown of studded gold thou bearst ; 
 
 The virgin Lilies in their white 
 Are clad but with the lawn of almost naked Light. 
 
 The Violet, Spring's little infant, stands 
 
 Girt in thy purple swaddling bands ; 
 
 On the fair Tulip thou dost doat, — 
 Thou clothest it in a gay and parti-colour'd coat. 
 
 With flame condensed thou dost the Jewel fix. 
 
 And solid colours in it mix : 
 
 Flora herself envies to see 
 Flowers fairer than her own, and durable as she. 
 
 Ah, Goddess ! would thou couldst thy hand withhold, 
 And be less liberal to Gold : 
 j Didst thou less value to it give. 
 
 Of how much care, alas ! mightst thou poor Man relieve. 
 
 To rne the Sun is more delightful far. 
 
 And all fair Days much fairer are : 
 
 But few, ah ! wondrous few there be 
 Who do not Gold prefer, O Goddess ! even to Thee.
 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY. 23 1 
 
 Through the soft ways of heaven and air and sea, 
 
 Which open all their pores to thee, 
 
 Like a clear river dost thou glide. 
 And with thy living stream through the close channels slide. 
 
 But where firm bodies thy free course oppose, 
 Gently thy source the land o'erflows, 
 Takes there possession, and does make 
 
 Of colours mingled Light, a thick and standing lake. 
 
 But the vast Ocean of unbounded Day 
 
 In the Empyrean Heaven does stay : 
 
 Thy rivers, lakes, and springs below, 
 From thence took first their rise, thither at last must flow. 
 
 THE WISH. 
 
 Well then ! I now do plainly see 
 This busy world and I shall ne'er agree. 
 The very honey of all earthly joy 
 Does of all meats the soonest cloy ; 
 
 And they, methinks, deserve my pity 
 Who for it can endure the stings. 
 The crowd, and buzz, and murmurings, 
 
 Of this great hive, the City. 
 
 Ah ! yet ere I descend to the grave, 
 May I a small house and large garden have ; 
 And a few friends and many books, both true, 
 Both wise, and both delightful too ! 
 
 And, since love ne'er will from me flee, 
 A Mistress moderately fair. 
 As good as guardian angels are. 
 
 Only beloved and loving me ! 
 
 O fountains ! when in you shall I 
 
 Myself eased of unpeaceful thoughts espy ? 
 
 O fields ! O woods ! when, when shall I be made 
 
 The happy tenant of your shade ?
 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY. 
 
 Here's the spring-head of pleasures' flood ; 
 Here's wealthy Nature's treasury 
 Where all the riches lie that she 
 
 Has coin'd and stamp'd for good ! 
 
 Pride and ambition here 
 
 Only in far-fetch'd metaphors appear ; 
 
 Here nought but winds can hurtful murmurs scatter ; 
 
 And nought but Echo flatter. 
 
 The Gods, when they descended, hither 
 From heaven did always choose their way : 
 And therefore we may boldly say 
 
 That 'tis the way to thither. 
 
 How happy here should I 
 And one dear She live, and embracing die ! 
 She who is all the world, and can exclude 
 In deserts solitude. 
 
 I should have then this only fear : 
 Lest men, when they my pleasure see. 
 Should hither throng to live like me ; 
 
 And so make a City here. 
 
 AGAINST ADORNMENT. 
 
 Tyrian dye why do you wear, 
 
 You whose cheeks best scarlet are ? 
 
 Why do you fondly pin 
 
 Pure linens o'er your skin. 
 
 Your skin that's whiter far, — 
 Casting a dusky cloud before a star ? 
 
 Why bears your neck a golden chain ? 
 Did Nature make your hair in vain 
 
 Of gold most pure and fine ? 
 
 With gems why do you shine ? 
 
 They, neighbours to your eyes, 
 Show but like Phosphor when the Sun doth rise.
 
 SIR EDWARD SHERBURNE. 233 
 
 I would have all my Mistress' parts 
 
 Owe more to Nature than to Arts ; 
 I would not woo the dress, 
 Or One whose nights give less 
 Contentment than the day : 
 
 She's fair whose beauty only makes her gay. 
 
 For 'tis not buildings make a Court, 
 Or pomp, but 'tis the King's resort : 
 
 If Jupiter down pour 
 
 Himself and in a shower 
 
 Hide such bright Majesty, 
 Less than a golden one it can not be. 
 
 AN EPITAPH. 
 
 Underneath this marble stone 
 
 Lie two Beauties join'd in One : 
 
 Two whose loves death could not sever. 
 
 For both lived, both died together; 
 
 Two whose souls, being too divine 
 
 For earth, in their own sphere now shine 
 
 Who have left their loves to fame. 
 
 And their earth to earth again. 
 
 SIR EDWARD SHERBURNE. 
 
 1618 — 1702. 
 
 THE HEART-MAGNET. 
 
 Shall I, hopeless, then pursue 
 A fair shadow that still flies me ? 
 
 Shall I still adore and woo 
 
 A proud heart that does despise me ? 
 
 I a constant love may so. 
 
 But, alas ! a fruitless show.
 
 234 SIR EDWARD SHERBURNE. 
 
 Shall I by the erring light 
 
 Of two crossing stars still sail, 
 That do shine, but shine in spite. 
 
 Not to guide but make me fail ? 
 I a wandering course may steer, 
 But the harbour ne'er come near. 
 
 Whilst these thoughts my soul possess 
 Reason passion would o'ersway, 
 
 Bidding me my flames suppress 
 Or divert some other way : 
 
 But what reason would pursue, 
 
 That my heart runs counter to. 
 
 So a pilot, bent to make 
 
 Search for some unfound-out land, 
 
 Does with him the magnet take, 
 Sailing to the unknown strand : 
 
 But that, steer which way he will, 
 
 To the lov^d North points still. 
 
 FALSE LYCORIS. 
 
 Lately, by clear Thames, his side, 
 Fair Lycoris I espied. 
 With the pen of her white hand 
 These words printing on the sand : 
 
 No7ie Lycoris doth approve 
 
 But Mirtillo for her love. 
 Ah, false Nymph ! those words were fit 
 In sand only to be writ : 
 For the quickly rising streams 
 Of Oblivion and the Thames 
 In a little moment's stay 
 From the shore wash'd clean away 
 What thy hand had there impress'd, 
 And Mirtillo from thy breast.
 
 ALEXANDER BROME. 235 
 
 RICHARD BROME. 
 
 16*" — 1652. 
 
 BEGGARS' SONG. 
 Come ! come away ! the Spring, 
 By every bird tliat can but sing 
 Or chirp a note, doth now invite 
 Us forth to taste of his dehght, 
 In field, in grove, on hill, in dale ; 
 But above all the nightingale, 
 Who in her sweetness strives to outdo 
 The loudness of the hoarse cuckoo. 
 Cuckoo ! cries he ; jug, jug, jug ! sings she : 
 From bush to bush, from tree to tree. 
 Why in one place then tarry we ? 
 
 Come away ! Why do we stay? 
 We have no debt or rent to pay ; 
 No bargains or accompts to make ; 
 Nor land nor lease, to let or take. 
 Or if we had, should that remore us 
 When all the world's our own before us, 
 And where we pass and make resort 
 It is our kingdom and our court. 
 Cuckoo ! cries he ; jug, jug, jug ! sings she 
 From bush to bush, from tree to tree. 
 Why in one place then tarry we ? 
 
 ALEXANDER BROME. 
 
 1623 — 1666. 
 
 THE RESOLVE. 
 Tell me not of a face that's fair. 
 
 Nor lip and cheek that's red, 
 Nor of the tresses of her hair, 
 
 Nor curls in order laid, 
 Nor of a rare seraphic voice
 
 236 ALEXANDER BROME. 
 
 That like an angel sings ! 
 Though, if I were to take my choice, 
 
 I would have all these things. 
 But if that thou wilt have me love, 
 
 And it must be a She, 
 The only argument can move 
 
 Is that she will love me. 
 
 The glories of your ladies be 
 
 But metaphors of things. 
 And but resemble what we see 
 
 Each common object brings : 
 Roses out-red their lips and cheeks, 
 
 Lilies their whiteness stain ; 
 What fool is he that shadows seeks 
 
 And may the substance gain ? 
 Then if thou'lt have me love a Lass, 
 
 Let it be one that's kind ! 
 Else I'm a servant to the glass 
 
 That's with Canary lined. 
 
 PALINODE. 
 
 No more, no more of this, I vow! 
 'Tis time to leave this fooling now. 
 
 Which few but fools call wit. 
 There was a time when I begun, 
 And now 'tis time I should have done 
 
 And meddle no more with it : 
 He physic's use doth quite mistake. 
 Who physic takes for physic's sake. 
 
 My heat of youth, and love, and pride. 
 Did swell me with their strong spring-tide, 
 
 Inspired my brain and blood ; 
 And made me then converse with toys 
 Which are call'd Aluses by the boys, 
 
 And dabble in their flood.
 
 ALEXANDER BROME. 23/ 
 
 I was persuaded in those days 
 
 There was no crown hke love and bays. 
 
 But now my youth and pride are gone, 
 And age and cares come creeping on, 
 
 And business checks my love : 
 What need I take a needless toil 
 To spend my labour, time, and oil, 
 
 Since no design can move ? 
 For now the cause is ta'en away 
 What reason is't the effect should stay ? 
 
 'Tis but a folly now for me 
 
 To spend my time and industry 
 
 About such useless wit : 
 For when I think I have done well, 
 I see men laugh, but can not tell 
 
 Where't be at me or it. 
 Great madness 'tis to be a drudge, 
 When those that can not write dare judge. 
 
 Besides the danger that ensu'th 
 
 To him that speaks or writes the truth, 
 
 The premium is so small : 
 To be call'd Poet and wear bays, 
 And factor turn of songs and plays, — 
 
 This is no wit at all. 
 Wit only good to sport and sing 
 Is a needless and an endless thing. 
 
 Give me the wit that can't speak sense, 
 Nor read it but in's own defence. 
 
 Ne'er learn'd but of his Gran'am ! 
 He that can buy and sell and cheat 
 May quickly make a shift to get 
 
 His thousand y^o\xx\<X per aiinum ; 
 And purchase without more ado 
 The poems, and the poet too.
 
 238 ANDREW MARVELL. 
 
 ANDREW MARVELL. 
 1621 — 1678. 
 
 THE PICTURE OF LITTLE T. C. 
 
 In a prospect ofjloiuers. 
 
 See ! with what simplicity 
 
 This Nymph begins her golden days. 
 In the green grass she loves to lie, 
 And there with her fair aspect tames 
 The wilder flowers, and gives them names ; 
 
 But only with the roses plays. 
 And them does tell 
 What colour best becomes them, and what smell. 
 
 Who can foretell for what high cause 
 This Darling of the Gods was born? 
 
 Yet this is She whose chaster laws 
 
 The wanton Love shall one day fear. 
 
 And, under her command severe, 
 See his bow broke and ensigns torn. 
 Happy who can 
 
 Appease this virtuous enemy of man ! 
 
 O then let me in time compound ; 
 
 And parley with those conquering eyes 
 Ere they have tried their force to wound. 
 Ere with their glancing wheels they drive 
 In triumph over hearts that strive. 
 
 And them that yield but more despise! 
 Let me be laid 
 Where I may see the glories from some shade ! 
 
 Meantime, whilst every verdant thing 
 Itself does at thy beauty charm,
 
 ANDREW MARVELL. 239 
 
 Reform the errors of the Spring ! 
 Make that the tuHps may have share 
 Of sweetness, seeing they are fair ; 
 And roses of their thorns disarm ; 
 But most procure 
 That violets may a longer age endure ! 
 
 But O, Young Beauty of the Woods ! 
 
 Whom Nature courts with fruits and flowers, 
 Gather the flowers, but spare the buds I 
 Lest Flora, angry at thy crime 
 — To kill her infants in their prime, 
 
 Should quickly make the example yours ; 
 And, ere we see, 
 Nip in the blossom all our hopes in thee. 
 
 TO THE GLOW-WORMS. 
 
 Ye living lamps, by whose dear light 
 
 The nightingale does sit so late, 
 And, studying all the summer night, 
 
 Her matchless songs does meditate ! 
 
 Ye country comets, that portend 
 
 No war nor prince's funeral, 
 Shining unto no higher end 
 
 Than to presage the grass's fall ! 
 
 Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame 
 To wandering mowers shows the way. 
 
 That in the night have lost their aim 
 And after foolish fires do stray t 
 
 Your courteous lights in vain you waste 
 
 Since Juliana here is come : 
 For she my mind hath so displaced 
 
 That I shall never find my home.
 
 240 ANDREW MARVELL. 
 
 HORATIAN ODE. 
 
 Upon CromiueWs Keiurn /rovt Ireland. 
 
 The forward youth that would appear 
 Must now forsake his Muses dear, 
 
 Nor in the shadows sing 
 
 His numbers languishing. 
 
 'Tis time to leave the books in dust, 
 And oil the unused armour's rust. 
 
 Removing from the wall 
 
 The corslet of the hall. 
 
 So restless Cromwell could not cease 
 In the inglorious arts of peace, 
 
 But through adventurous war 
 
 Urged his active star ; 
 
 And, like the three-fork'd lightning first 
 Breaking the clouds where it was nursed, 
 
 Did thorough his own side 
 
 His fiery way divide. 
 
 (For 'tis all one to courage high, 
 The emulous or enemy ; 
 
 And with such to enclose 
 
 Is more than to oppose.) 
 
 Then burning through the air he went. 
 And palaces and temples rent. 
 
 And Csesar's head at last 
 
 Did through his laurels blast. 
 
 'Tis madness to resist or blame 
 The face of heavens angry flame ; 
 
 And, if we would speak true, 
 
 Much to the man is due, 
 
 Who from his private gardens, where
 
 ANDREW MARVELL. 241 
 
 He lived reserved and austere 
 (As if his highest plot 
 To plant the bergamot), 
 
 Could by industrious valour climb 
 To ruin the great work of Time, 
 
 And cast the kingdoms old 
 
 Into another mould. 
 
 Though Justice against Fate complain, 
 And plead the ancient rights in vain : 
 
 But those do hold or break 
 
 As men are strong or weak. 
 
 Nature, that hateth emptiness, 
 Allows of penetration less, 
 
 And therefore must make room 
 
 Where greater Spirits come. 
 
 What field of all the Civil War 
 Where his were not the deepest scar ? 
 
 And Hampton shows what part 
 
 He had of wiser art, — 
 
 Where, twining subtle fears with hope 
 
 He wove a net of such a scope 
 
 That Charles himself might chase 
 To Carisbrook's narrow case ; 
 
 That thence the royal actor borne 
 The tragic scaffold might adorn, 
 
 While round the armed bands 
 
 Did clap their bloody hands. 
 
 He nothing common did or mean 
 Upon that memorable scene, 
 
 But with his keener eye 
 
 The axe's edge did try ; 
 
 Nor call'd the Gods, with vulgar spite, 
 To vindicate his helpless right, 
 I.— 16
 
 242 ANDREW MARVELL. 
 
 But bow'd his comely head 
 Down as upon a bed. 
 
 This was that memorable hour 
 Which first assured the forced power : 
 
 So, when they did design 
 
 The Capitol's first line, 
 
 A bleeding head, where they begun, 
 Did fright the architects to run : 
 
 And yet in that the State 
 
 Foresaw its happy fate. 
 
 And now the Irish are ashamed 
 To see themselves in one year tamed : 
 So much can one man do 
 That does both act and know. 
 
 They can affirm his praises best, 
 And have, though overcome, confess'd 
 
 How good he is, how just, 
 
 And fit for highest trust. 
 
 Nor yet grown stiffer with command, 
 But still in the Republic's hand, 
 
 How fit is he to sway 
 
 That can so well obey ! 
 
 He to the Commons' feet presents 
 A kingdom for his first year's rents. 
 
 And (what he may) forbears 
 
 His fame, to make it theirs ; 
 
 And has his sword and spoil ungirt 
 To lay them at the Public's skirt : 
 
 So when the falcon high 
 
 Falls heavy from the sky, 
 
 She, having kill'd, no more doth search 
 But on the next green bough to perch, 
 
 Where when he first does lure 
 
 The falconer has her sure.
 
 ANDREW MARVELL. 
 
 243 
 
 What may not then our Isle presume 
 While victory his crest does plume ? 
 What may not others fear, 
 If thus he crowns each year? 
 
 As Cassar he ere long to Gaul, 
 To Italy an Hannibal, 
 
 And to all States not free 
 
 Shall climacteric be. 
 
 The Pict no shelter now shall find 
 Within his parti-colour'd mind. 
 
 But from this valour sad 
 
 Shrink underneath the plaid : 
 Happy if in the tufted brake 
 The English hunter him mistake, 
 
 Nor lay his hounds in near 
 
 The Caledonian deer. 
 
 But thou, the War's and Fortune's Son ! 
 
 March indefatigably on ; 
 And for the last effect 
 Still keep the sword erect ! 
 
 Besides the force it has to fright 
 The spirits of the shady night. 
 The same arts that did gain 
 A power must it maintain. 
 
 CLORINDA AND DAMON. 
 
 CLORINDA 
 Damon ! come drive thy flocks this way ! 
 
 DAMON 
 No ! 'Tis too late they went astray. 
 
 CLORINDA 
 I have a grassy 'scutcheon spied, 
 Where Flora blazons all her pride : 
 The grass I aim to feed thy sheep. 
 The flowers I for thy temples keep.
 
 244 ANDREW MARVELL. 
 
 DAMON 
 Grass withers and the flowers too fade. 
 
 CLORINDA 
 
 Seize the short joys then ere they vade ! 
 Seest thou that unfrequented cave ? 
 
 DAMON 
 That den ? 
 
 CLORINDA 
 Love's shrine. 
 
 DAMON 
 
 But virtue's grave. 
 CLORINDA 
 In whose cool bosom we may lie, 
 Safe from the sun. 
 
 DAMON 
 
 Not heaven's eye. 
 
 CLORINDA 
 
 Near this a fountain's liquid bell 
 Tinkles within the concave shell. 
 
 DAMON 
 Might a soul bathe there and be clean, 
 Or slake its drought ? 
 
 CLORINDA 
 
 What is't you mean ? 
 
 DAMON 
 
 Clorinda ! pastures, caves, and springs, — 
 These once had been enticing things. 
 
 CLORINDA 
 
 And what late change ? 
 
 DAMON 
 
 The other day 
 Pan met me. 
 
 CLORINDA 
 What did great Pan say ?
 
 ANDREW MARVELL. 245 
 
 DAMON 
 Words that transcend poor shepherds' skill ; 
 But he e'er since my songs does fill, 
 And his name swells my slender oat. 
 
 CLORINDA 
 Sweet must Pan sound in Damon's note. 
 
 DAMON 
 Clorinda's voice might make it sweet. 
 
 CLORINDA 
 
 Who would not in Pan's praises meet ? 
 CHORUS 
 Of Pan the flowery pastures sing ! 
 Caves echo, and the fountains ring. 
 Sing then while he doth us inspire ! 
 For all the world is our Pan's quire. 
 
 A DEFINITION OF LOVE. 
 
 My love is of a birth as rare 
 
 As 'tis for object strange and high : 
 
 It was begotten by Despair 
 Upon Impossibility. 
 
 Magnanimous Despair alone 
 
 Could show me so divine a thing, 
 Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown 
 
 But vainly flapp'd its tinsel wing. 
 
 And yet I quickly might arrive 
 Where my extended soul is fix'd : 
 
 But Fate does iron wedges drive. 
 And always crowds itself betwixt. 
 
 For Fate with jealous eye does see 
 
 Two perfect loves, nor lets them close : 
 
 Their union would her ruin be 
 And her tyrannic power depose.
 
 246 HENRY VAUGHAN. 
 
 And therefore her decrees of steel 
 
 Us as the distant poles have placed — 
 
 Though Love's whole world on us doth wheel, 
 Not by themselves to be embraced : 
 
 Unless the giddy heaven fall 
 
 And earth some new convulsion tear, 
 
 And, us to join, the world should all 
 Be cramp'd into a planisphere. 
 
 As lines, so loves oblique may well 
 
 Themselves in every angle greet : 
 But ours, so truly parallel, 
 
 Though infinite can never meet. 
 
 Therefore the love which us doth bind, 
 
 But Fate so enviously debars, 
 Is the conjunction of the mind 
 
 And opposition of the stars. 
 
 HENRY VAUGHAN. 
 1621 — 1695. 
 
 EPITHALAMIUM 
 
 TO THE BEST AND MOST ACCOMPLISHED COUPLE. 
 
 Blessings as rich and fragrant crown your heads 
 As the mild heaven on roses sheds 
 "When at their cheeks like pearls they wear 
 The clouds that court them in a tear ! 
 And may they be fed from above 
 By Him which first ordain'd your love ! 
 
 Fresh as the Hours may all your pleasures be, 
 And healthful as Eternity ! 
 Sweet as the flowers' first breath, and close 
 As the unseen spreadings of the Rose 
 When she unfolds her curtain'd head 
 And makes her bosom the Sun's bed !
 
 THOMAS STANLEY. 247 
 
 Soft as yourselves run your whole lives, and clear 
 As your own glass, or what shines there ! 
 Smooth as Heaven's face, and bright as he 
 When without mask or tiffany, 
 In all your time not one jar meet, — 
 But peace as silent as his feet ! 
 
 Like the Day's warmth may all your comforts be, 
 Untoil'd for and serene as he. 
 Yet free and full as is that sheaf 
 Of sunbeams gilding every leaf 
 "When now the tyrant heat expires 
 And his cool'd locks breathe milder fires I 
 
 And as the parcel'd glories he doth shed 
 Are the fair issues of his head, 
 Which, ne'er so distant, are soon known 
 By the heat and lustre for his own, 
 So may each branch of yours we see 
 Your copies and our wonders be ! 
 
 And when no more on earth you may remain, 
 Invited hence to heaven again, 
 Then may your virtuous virgin-flames 
 Shine in those heirs of your fair names, 
 And teach the world that mystery — 
 Yourselves in your posterity ! 
 
 So yjou to both worlds shall rich presents bring ; 
 And, gather'd up to heaven, leave here a Spring. 
 
 THOMAS STANLEY. 
 1625 — 1678. 
 
 LOVE NOT TO BE RENEWED. 
 I prithee let my heart alone ! 
 
 Since now 'tis raised above thee : 
 Not all the beauty thou dost own 
 
 Again can make me love thee.
 
 24S JOHN HALL. 
 
 He that was shipwreck'd once before 
 
 By such a Syren's call, 
 And yet neglects to shun that shore, 
 
 Deserves his second fall. 
 
 Each flattering kiss, each tempting smile, 
 
 Thou dost in vain bestow, 
 Some other lovers might beguile 
 
 Who not thy falsehood know. 
 
 But I am proof against all art : 
 No vows shall e'er persuade me 
 
 Twice to present a wounded heart 
 To her that hath betray'd me. 
 
 Could I again be brought to love 
 
 Thy form, though more divine, 
 I might thy scorn as justly move 
 
 As now thou sufferest mine. 
 
 JOHN HALL. 
 1627 — 1656. 
 
 EPITAPH 
 
 ON A GENTLEMAK AND HIS WIFE WHO DIED BOTH WITHIN A VERY FEW DAYS. 
 
 Thrice happy Pair ! who had and have 
 Living one bed, now dead one grave : 
 Whose love being equal, neither could 
 A life unequal wish to hold ; 
 But left a question, whether one 
 Did follow 'cause her mate was gone, 
 Or the other went before to stay 
 Till that his fellow came away : 
 So that one pious tear now must 
 Besprinkle either parent's dust, 
 And two great sorrows jointly run 
 And close into a larger one, 
 Or rather turn to joy, to see 
 The burial but the wedding be.
 
 JOHN DRYDEN. 249 
 
 JOHN DRYDEN. 
 
 1631 — 1700. 
 
 ALEXANDER'S FEAST. 
 
 THE POWER OF MUSIC. 
 
 'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won 
 By Philip's warlike son : 
 
 Aloft, in awful state. 
 
 The godlike hero sate 
 On his imperial throne ; 
 His valiant peers were placed around, 
 Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound 
 (So should desert in arms be crown'd) ; 
 The lovely Thais by his side 
 Sate like a blooming Eastern bride. 
 In flower of youth and beauty's pride. 
 Happy, happy, happy pair ! 
 
 None but the brave. 
 
 None but the brave. 
 None but the brave deserves the fair. 
 
 Timotheus, placed on high 
 Amid the tuneful quire. 
 With flying fingers touch'd the lyre : 
 
 The trembling notes ascend the sky, 
 And heavenly joys inspire. 
 
 The song began from Jove, 
 
 Who left his blissful realms above 
 
 (Such is the power of mighty Love) : 
 
 A dragon's fiery form belied the God, 
 
 Sublime on radiant spheres he rode, 
 
 When he to fair Olympia press'd ; 
 
 And while he sought her snowy breast ; 
 
 Then round her slender waist he curl'd, 
 And stamp'd an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.
 
 250 JOHN DRYDEN. 
 
 The listening crowd admire the lofty sound : 
 
 A present deity ! they shout around ; 
 
 A present deity ! the vaulted roofs rebound. 
 
 With ravish'd ears 
 
 The monarch hears ; 
 
 Assumes the God, 
 
 Affects to nod, 
 And seems to shake the spheres. 
 
 The praise of Bacchus then the sweet Musician sung : 
 Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young. 
 The jolly God in triumph comes : 
 Sound the trumpets ! beat the drums ! 
 Flush'd with a purple grace 
 He shows his honest face : 
 Now give the hautboys breath ! he comes, he comes. 
 Bacchus, ever fair and young, 
 Drinking joys did first ordain ; 
 Bacchus' blessings are a treasure. 
 Drinking is the soldier's pleasure : 
 Rich the treasure, 
 Sweet the pleasure : 
 Sweet is pleasure after pain. 
 
 Soothed with the sound, the King grew vain : 
 Fought all his battles o'er again ; 
 And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain. 
 The Master saw the madness rise, 
 His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes ; 
 And, while he heaven and earth defied. 
 Changed his hand, and check'd his pride. 
 
 He chose a mournful Muse, 
 
 Soft pity to infuse ; 
 He sung Darius great and good, 
 
 By too severe a fate 
 Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
 
 JOHN DRYDEN. 251 
 
 Fallen from his high estate, 
 
 And weltering in his blood : 
 Deserted at his utmost need 
 By those his former bounty fed, 
 On the bare earth exposed he lies. 
 With not a friend to close his eyes. 
 With downcast looks the joyless Victor sate. 
 Revolving in his alter'd soul 
 The various turns of chance below ; 
 And now and then a sigh he stole, 
 
 And tears began to flow. 
 
 The mighty Master smiled, to see 
 That love was in the next degree : 
 'Twas but a kindred sound to move, 
 For pity melts the mind to love. 
 Softly sweet, in Lydian measures, 
 Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures : 
 War, he sung, is toil and trouble ; 
 Honour but an empty bubble : 
 Never ending, still beginning, 
 
 Fighting still, and still destroying : 
 If the world be worth thy winning. 
 
 Think, O think it worth enjoying ! 
 Lovely Thais sits beside thee : 
 Take the good the Gods provide thee ! 
 
 The many rend the skies with loud applause. 
 
 So Love was crown'd ; but Music won the cause. 
 The Prince, unable to conceal his pain. 
 Gazed on the fair 
 Who caused his care. 
 And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd, 
 Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again ; 
 
 At length, with love and wine at once oppress'd, 
 
 The vanquished Victor sunk upon her breast.
 
 252 JOHN DRYDEN, 
 
 Now strike the golden lyre again ! 
 A louder yet, and yet a louder strain ! 
 Break his bands of sleep asunder, 
 And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder ! 
 Hark ! hark ! the horrid sound 
 Has raised up his head ; 
 As awaked from the dead, 
 And amazed, he stares around. 
 Revenge ! revenge ! Timotheus cries : 
 See the Furies arise I 
 
 See the snakes that they rear, 
 How they hiss in their hair, 
 And the sparkles that flash from their eyes ! 
 Behold a ghastly band, 
 Each a torch in his hand ! 
 These are Grecian ghosts that in battle were slain 
 And unburied remain, 
 Inglorious on the plain. 
 Give the vengeance due 
 To the valiant crew ! 
 Behold how they toss their torches on high, 
 How they point to the Persian abodes 
 And glittering temples of their hostile Gods ! 
 The princes applaud with a furious joy ; 
 And the King seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy ; 
 Thais led the way. 
 To light him to his prey, 
 And, like another Helen, fired another Troy. 
 
 Thus, long ago. 
 
 Ere heaving bellows learn'd to blow. 
 While organs yet were mute, 
 Timotheus, to his breathing flute 
 And sounding lyre. 
 Could swell the soul to rage or kindle soft desire. 
 At last divine Cecilia came, 
 Inventress of the vocal frame :
 
 JOHN DRYDEN, 253 
 
 The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, 
 Enlarged the former narrow bounds, 
 And added length to solemn sounds, 
 With Nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before. 
 Let old Timotheus yield the prize, 
 
 Or both divide the crown ! 
 He raised a mortal to the skies ; 
 She drew an angel down. 
 
 ODE FOR SAINT CECILIA'S DAY. 
 
 From harmony, from heavenly harmony 
 This universal frame began : 
 When Nature underneath a heap 
 Of jarring atoms lay, 
 And could not heave her head, 
 The Tuneful Voice was heard from high : 
 
 " Arise, ye more than dead ! " 
 Then cold and hot and moist and dry 
 In order to their stations leap 
 And Music's power obey. 
 From harmony, from heavenly harmony 
 This universal frame began : 
 From harmony to harmony 
 Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
 The diapason closing full in Man. 
 
 What passion can not Music raise and quell ? 
 When Jubal struck the chorded shell 
 His listening brethren stood around, 
 And, wondering, on their faces fell 
 To worship that celestial sound. 
 
 Less than a God they thought there could not dwell 
 Within the hollow of that shell 
 That spoke so sweetly and so well. 
 
 What passion can not Music raise and quell ?
 
 254 JOHN DRYDEN. 
 
 The trumpet's loud clangour 
 
 Excites us to arms, 
 With shrill notes of anger 
 And mortal alarms ; 
 The double double double beat 
 Of the thundering drum 
 Cries — Hark ! the foes come, — 
 Charge ! charge ! 'tis too late to retreat. 
 
 The soft-complaining flute 
 In dying notes discovers 
 The woes of hopeless lovers, 
 "Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute. 
 
 Sharp violins proclaim 
 Their jealous pangs and desperation, 
 Fury, frantic indignation. 
 Depth of pains, and height of passion. 
 For the fair disdainful dame. 
 
 But O, what art can teach. 
 What human voice can reach 
 
 The sacred Organ's praise ? 
 Notes inspiring holy love. 
 Notes that wing their heavenly ways 
 
 To mend the choirs above. 
 
 Orpheus could lead the savage race. 
 And trees uprooted left their place. 
 
 Sequacious of the lyre ; 
 But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher : 
 When to her Organ vocal breath was given 
 An angel heard 
 And straight appear'd, 
 Mistaking earth for heaven. 
 
 As from the power of sacred lays 
 
 The spheres began to move, 
 And sung the great Creator's praise 
 
 To all the Bless'd above,
 
 RICHARD FLECKNOE. 255 
 
 So, when the last and dreadful hour 
 This crumbling pageant shall -devour, 
 The trumpet shall be heard on high, 
 The dead shall live, the living die, 
 And Music shall untune the sky. 
 
 RICHARD FLECKNOE. 
 
 i6**— 1678. 
 
 CHLORIS. 
 
 Chloris ! if ere May be done 
 You but offer to be gone, 
 Flowers will wither, green will fade. 
 Nothing fresh nor gay be had. 
 Farewell pleasure ! farewell Spring ! 
 Farewell every sweeter thing ! 
 The Year will pine away and mourn, 
 And Winter instantly return. 
 
 But, if you vouchsafe to stay 
 Only till the end of May, 
 Take it upon Flora's word, 
 Never sweeter Spring was tow'rd. 
 Never was Favonian wind 
 More propitiously inclined, 
 Never was in heaven nor earth 
 Promised more profuser mirth. 
 
 Such sweet force your presence has 
 
 To bring a joy to every place ; 
 
 Such a virtue has your sight, 
 
 All are cheer'd and gladded by't ; 
 
 Such a freshness as does bring 
 
 Along with it perpetual Spring ; 
 
 Such a gaiety the while, 
 
 As makes both heaven and earth to smile.
 
 256 SIR CHARLES SEDLEY. 
 
 R. FLETCHER. 
 
 AN EPITAPH 
 
 ON HIS DECEASED FRIEND. 
 
 Here lies the ruin'd Cabinet 
 
 Of a rich Soul more highly set : 
 
 The dross and refuse of a Mind 
 
 Too glorious to be here confined. 
 
 Earth for a while bespoke his stay, 
 
 Only to bait, and so away : 
 
 So that what here he doated on 
 
 Was merely accommodation. 
 
 Not that his active soul could be 
 
 At home but in eternity. 
 
 Yet, while he bless'd us with the rays 
 
 Of his short-continued days. 
 
 Each minute had its weight of worth. 
 
 Each pregnant hour some star brought forth. 
 
 So, while he travel'd here beneath, 
 
 He lived when others only breathe : 
 
 For not a sand of time slipp'd by 
 
 Without its action sweet as high. 
 
 So good, so peaceable, so bless'd, — 
 
 Angels alone can speak the rest. 
 
 SIR CHARLES SEDLEY. 
 1639 — 1701. 
 
 TO CELIA. 
 
 Not, Celia ! that I juster am 
 
 Or better than the rest : 
 For I would change, each hour, like them 
 
 Were not my heart at rest. 
 
 But I am tied to very thee 
 By every thought I have :
 
 ALLAN RAMSAY. 257 
 
 I Thy face I only care to see, 
 ' I Thy heart I only crave. 
 
 All that in woman is adored 
 
 In thy dear self 1 find : 
 For the whole sex can but afford 
 
 The handsome and the kind. 
 
 Why then should I seek further store, 
 
 And still make love anew? 
 When change itself can give no more, 
 
 'Tis easy to be true. 
 
 ALLAN RAMSAY. 
 1686— 1758. 
 
 THE YELLOW-HAIRED LADDIE. 
 
 The Yellow-hair'd Laddie, sat down on yon brae. 
 
 Cries — Milk the ewes, Lassie ! let nane o' them gae ! 
 
 And aye she milked, and aye she sang — 
 
 The Yellow-hair'd Laddie shall be my gudeman. 
 
 And aye she milked, and aye she sang — 
 
 The Yellow-hair'd Laddie shall be my gudeman. 
 
 The weather is cauld, and my clai thing is thin ; 
 The ewes are new-clipped, they winna bught in : 
 They winna bught in, though I should die, — 
 O Yellow-hair'd Laddie ! be kind to me. 
 They winna bught in, though I should die, — 
 O Yellow-hair'd Laddie ! be kind to me. 
 
 The gude wife cries butt the house — Jenny ! come ben : 
 The cheese is to male' and the butter to kirn. 
 Though butter and cheese and a' should sour, 
 I'll crack and kiss wi' my Love ae ha'f hour. 
 It's ae ha'f hour, and we's e'en mak' it three : 
 For the Yellow-hair'd Laddie my husband shall be. 
 I.-17
 
 258 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 ALEXANDER POPE. 
 1688 — 1744. 
 
 ODE ON SOLITUDE, 
 
 Happy the iiian, whose wish and care 
 
 A few paternal acres boimd, 
 Content to breathe his native air 
 
 In his own ground! 
 
 Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, 
 
 Whose flocks supply him with attire ; 
 Whose trees in summer yield him shade, 
 In winter fire. 
 
 Bless'd who can unconcern'dly find 
 
 Hours, days, and years, slide soft away. 
 In health of body, peace of mind ; 
 Quiet by day, 
 
 Sound sleep by night ; study and ease 
 
 Together mix'd ; sweet recreation. 
 And innocence, which most does please 
 With meditation I 
 
 Thus let me live, unseen, unknown ! 
 
 Thus, unlamented, let me die, — 
 Steal from the world, and not a stone 
 Tell where I lie I 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 1700 — 1748. 
 
 THE SEASONS. 
 
 These as they change, Almighty Father ! these 
 Are but the varied God. The rolling year 
 Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring 
 Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
 
 JAiMES THOMSON. 259 
 
 Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ; 
 Echo the mountains round ; tlie forest smiles ; 
 And every sense, and every heart, is joy. 
 Then comes thy glory in the Summer months. 
 With light and heat refulgent : then thy sun 
 Shoots full perfection through the swellmg year ; 
 And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks. 
 And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, 
 By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales. 
 Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined, 
 And spreads a common feast for all that lives. 
 In Winter awful Thou ! with clouds and storms 
 Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roU'd, 
 Majestic darkness ; on the whirlwind's wing 
 Riding sublime. Thou bidd'st the world adore. 
 And humblest Nature with thy northern blast. 
 
 Mysterious round ! what skill, what force divine, 
 Deep felt, in these appear : a simple train, 
 Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art, 
 Such beauty and beneficence combined. 
 Shade unperceived so softening into shade, 
 And all so forming an harmonious whole. 
 That as they still succeed they ravish still. 
 But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze, 
 Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand 
 That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres ; 
 Works in the secret deep ; shoots steaming thence 
 The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring ; 
 Flings from the sun direct the flaming day ; 
 Feeds every creature ; hurls the tempest forth : 
 And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, 
 With transport touches all the springs of life. 
 
 Nature ! attend : join every living soul 
 Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, 
 In adoration join, and ardent raise 
 One general song ! To Him, ye vocal gales !
 
 26o JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes. 
 
 O, talk of Him in soUtary glooms 
 
 Where o'er the rock the scarcely waving pine 
 
 Fills the brown shade with a religious awe ! 
 
 And ye whose bolder note is heard afar, 
 
 Who shake the astonish'd world ! lift high to heaven 
 
 The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. 
 
 His praise, ye brooks ! attune, — ye trembling rills ! 
 
 And let me catch it as I muse along. 
 
 Ye headlong torrents ! rapid and profound, — 
 
 Ye softer floods ! that lead the humid maze 
 
 Along the vale, — and thou, majestic main ! 
 
 A secret world of wonders in thyself, — 
 
 Sound his stupendous praise whose greater voice 
 
 Or bids you roar or bids your roarings fall. 
 
 Soft roll your incense, herbs ! and fruits ! and flowers ! 
 
 In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts. 
 
 Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints. 
 
 Ye forests ! bend, — ye harvests ! wave to Him : 
 
 Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart 
 
 As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. 
 
 Ye that keep watch in heaven as earth asleep 
 
 Unconscious lies ! effuse your mildest beams, 
 
 Ye constellations ! while your angels strike 
 
 Amid the spangled sky the silver lyre. 
 
 Great source of day ! best image here below 
 
 Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide 
 
 From world to world the vital ocean round, 
 
 On Nature write with every beam his praise. 
 
 The thunder rolls : be hush'd the prostrate world ! 
 
 While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn. 
 
 Bleat out afresh, ye hills ! — ye mossy rocks ! 
 
 Retain the sound, — the broad responsive low. 
 
 Ye valleys ! raise : for the Great Shepherd reigns ; 
 
 And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come. 
 
 Ye woodlands all ! awake ; a boundless song
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 26 1 
 
 Burst from the groves ! and when the restless day, 
 
 Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, 
 
 Sweetest of birds, sweet Philomela ! charm 
 
 The listening shades, and teach the night his praise. 
 
 Ye chief for whom the whole creation smiles ! 
 
 At once the head, the heart, the tongue of all. 
 
 Crown the great hymn : in swarming cities vast, 
 
 Assembled men ! to the deep organ join 
 
 The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear, 
 
 At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass ; 
 
 And, as each mingling flame increases each. 
 
 In one united ardour rise to heaven. 
 
 Or if you rather choose the rural shade, 
 
 And find a fane in every sacred grove, 
 
 There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay, 
 
 The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre. 
 
 Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll ! 
 
 For me, when I forget the darling theme. 
 
 Whether the blossom blows, the summer ray 
 
 Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams, 
 
 Or Winter rises in the blackening East, 
 
 Be my tongue mute ; my fancy paint no more ; 
 
 And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat ! 
 
 Should fate command me to the farthest verge 
 Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, 
 Rivers unknown to song, — where first the sun 
 Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam 
 Flames on the Atlantic isles, — 'tis nought to me : 
 Since God is ever present, ever felt. 
 In the void waste as in the city full ; 
 And where He vital breathes there must be joy. 
 When even at last the solemn hour shall come 
 And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, 
 I cheerful will obey ; there with new powers 
 Will rising wonders sing. I can not go 
 Where Universal Love not smiles around :
 
 262 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 Sustaining all yon orbs and all their sons : 
 
 From seeming evil still educing good, 
 
 And better thence again, and better still, 
 
 In infinite progression. But 1 lose 
 
 Myself in Him, in Light Ineffable! 
 
 Come then, expressive silence ! muse his praise. 
 
 THE HAPPY MAN. 
 
 He's not the happy man to whom is given 
 
 A plenteous fortune by indulgent heaven : 
 
 Whose gilded roofs on shining columns rise, 
 
 And painted walls enchant the gazer's eyes ; 
 
 Whose table flows with hospitable cheer 
 
 And all the various bounties of the year ; 
 
 Whose valleys smile, whose gardens breathe the Spring ; 
 
 Whose curved mountains bleat, and forests sing ; 
 
 For whom the cooling shade in summer twines. 
 
 While his full cellars give their generous wines ; 
 
 From whose wide fields unbounded autumn pours 
 
 A golden tide into his swelling stores ; 
 
 Whose winter laughs ; for whom the liberal gales 
 
 Stretch the big sheet, and toiling commerce sails ; 
 
 Whom yielding crowds attend, and pleasure serves ; 
 
 While youth and health and vigour string his nerves. 
 
 Even not all these, in one rich lot combined. 
 
 Can make the happy man, without the mind : 
 
 Whose judgment sits, clear-sighted, and surveys 
 
 The chain of reason with unerring gaze ; 
 
 Where fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes 
 
 Bids fairer scenes and bolder figures rise ; 
 
 Where social love exerts her soft command, 
 
 And lays the passions with a tender hand, — 
 
 Where every virtue flows, in rival strife, 
 
 And all the moral harmony of life.
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 263 
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 
 1716 — 1771. 
 
 ELEGY. 
 
 Written in a country church yard. 
 
 The curfew tolls the knell of parting day ; 
 The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea ; 
 The ploughma.n homeward plods his weary way, 
 And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 
 
 Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight ; 
 And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 
 Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight. 
 And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds, — 
 
 Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower 
 The moping owl does to the moon complain 
 Of such as wandering near her secret bower 
 Molest her ancient solitary reign. 
 
 Beneath these rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
 Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, 
 Each in his narrow cell forever laid. 
 The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 
 
 The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 
 The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 
 The cock's shrill clarion, and the echoing horn, 
 No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 
 
 For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn. 
 Or busy housewife ply her evening care ; 
 No children run to lisp their sire's return. 
 Nor climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 
 
 Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield ; 
 Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke ; 
 How jocund did they drive their team a-field ! 
 How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke !
 
 264 THOMAS GRAY", 
 
 Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
 Their homely joys and destiny obscure ; 
 Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
 The short but simple annals of the Poor ! 
 
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
 Await alike the inevitable hour : 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 
 
 Nor you, ye Proud ! impute to them the fault 
 If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, 
 Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault 
 The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 
 
 Can storied urn or animated bust 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? 
 Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust ? 
 Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death ? 
 
 Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 
 Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire, 
 Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd 
 Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre : 
 
 But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 
 Rich with the spoils of Time, did ne'er unroll ; 
 Chill penury repress'd their noble rage. 
 And froze the genial current of the soul. 
 
 Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
 The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear ; 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 
 
 Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast 
 The little tyrant of his fields withstood, 
 Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, — 
 Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 265 
 
 The applause of listening Senates to command, 
 The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 
 To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
 And read their history in a nation's eyes. 
 
 Their lot forbade ; nor circumscribed alone 
 Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined ; — 
 Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne 
 And shut the gates of mercy on mankind ; 
 
 The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, 
 To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame. 
 Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride 
 With incense kindled at the Muses' flame. 
 
 Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife 
 Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray ; 
 Along the cool sequester'd vale of life 
 They kept the noiseless tenour of their way. 
 
 Yet even these bones from insult to protect, 
 
 Some frail memorial still, erected nigh. 
 
 With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, 
 
 Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 
 
 Their name, their years, spell'd by the unletter'd Muse, 
 The place of fame and epitaph supply ; 
 And many a holy text around she strews, 
 That teach the rustic moralist to die. 
 
 For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey 
 This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd ; 
 Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, 
 Nor cast one longing lingering look behind ? 
 
 On some fond breast the parting soul relies ; 
 Some pious drops the closing eye requires ; 
 Even from the tomb the voice of Nature cries ; 
 Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.
 
 266 THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 For thee who, mindful of the Unhonour'd Dead, 
 Dost ill these Hnes their artless tale relate, 
 If chance, by lonely contemplation led. 
 Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate: 
 
 Haply some hoary-headed swain may say — 
 " Oft have we seen him, at the peep of dawn, 
 Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, 
 To meet the sun upon the upland lawn ; 
 
 " There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech 
 That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 
 His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 
 And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 
 
 " Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn. 
 Muttering his wayward fancies would he rove, — 
 Now drooping, woeful-wan like one forlorn, 
 Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. 
 
 " One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill. 
 Along the heath, and near his favourite tree ; 
 Another came, — nor yet beside the rill. 
 Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he. 
 
 " The next, with dirges due, in sad array 
 
 Slow through the churchway-path we saw him borne : 
 Approach, and read (for thou canst read) the lay 
 Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn ! " 
 
 [There, scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, 
 By hands unseen, are showers of violets found ; 
 The red -breast loves to build and warble there, 
 And little footsteps lightly print the ground.] 
 
 THE EPITAPH. 
 
 Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth 
 A Youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown ; 
 Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, 
 And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 26/ 
 
 Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere ; 
 
 Heaven did a recompense as largely send : 
 
 He gave to Misery all he had, — a tear ; 
 
 He gain'd from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend. 
 
 No farther seek his merits to disclose 
 Or draw his frailties from their dread abode : 
 (There they alike in trembling hope repose) 
 The bosom of his Father and his God I 
 
 THE BARD. 
 
 " Ruin seize thee, ruthless King ! 
 
 Confusion on thy banners wait ! 
 Though fann'd by conquest's crimson wing, 
 
 They mock the air with idle state. 
 Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail, 
 Nor even thy virtues. Tyrant ! shall avail 
 To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, 
 From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears." 
 Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride 
 Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay, 
 As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side 
 He wound with toilsome march his long array. 
 Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance ; 
 To arms ! cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quivering lance. 
 
 On a rock, whose haughty brow 
 Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, 
 Robed in the sabled garb of woe, 
 With haggard eyes, the Poet stood, 
 (Loose his beard, and hoary hair 
 Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air). 
 And with a master's hand and prophet's fire 
 Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre. 
 " Hark how each giant oak and desert cave 
 Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath !
 
 268 THOMAS GRAY 
 
 O'er thee, O King ! their hundred arms they wave ; 
 Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe : 
 Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day, 
 To high-born. Hoel's harp or soft Llewellyn's lay. 
 
 " Cold is Cadwallo's tongue 
 That hush'd the stormy main ; 
 Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed ; 
 Mountains ! ye mourn in vain 
 Modred, whose magic song 
 
 Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topp'd head. 
 On dreary Arvon's shore they lie, 
 Smear'd with gore and ghastly pale : 
 Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail ; 
 The famish'd eagle screams, and passes by. 
 Dear lost companions of my tuneful art ! 
 Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes : 
 Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart : 
 Ye died amidst your dying country's cries. 
 
 No more I weep ! they do not sleep : 
 
 On yonder cliffs, a grisly band, 
 
 I see them sit ; they linger yet, 
 
 Avengers of their native land. 
 With me in dreadful harmony they join, 
 And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line. 
 
 " Weave the warp, and weave the woof. 
 The winding sheet of Edward's race : 
 Give ample room and verge enough 
 The characters of Hell to trace ! 
 Mark the year, and mark the night. 
 When Severn shall re-echo with affright 
 The shrieks of death through Berkley's roofs that ring. 
 Shrieks of an agonizing king ! 
 She wolf of France ! with unrelenting fangs 
 That tearest the bowels of thy mangled mate! 
 From thee be born who o'er thy country hangs,
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 269 
 
 The scourge of heaven ! What terrors round him wait ! 
 Amazement in his van with Fhght combined, 
 And Sorrow's faded form and Solitude behind. 
 
 " Mighty victor ! mighty lord ! 
 Low on his funeral couch he lies : 
 No pitying heart, no eye, afford 
 A tear to grace his obsequies ? 
 Is the sable warrior fled ? 
 Thy son is gone : he rests among the dead. 
 The swarm that in thy noon-tide beam were born ? 
 Gone to salute the rising Morn. 
 Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the zephyr blows, 
 While proudly riding o'er the azure realm 
 In gallant trim a gilded vessel goes : 
 Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm. 
 Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway, 
 That hush'd in grim repose expects his evening prey. 
 
 " Fill high the sparkling bowl ! 
 The rich repast prepare ! 
 Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast : 
 Close by the regal chair, 
 Fell Thirst and Famine scowl 
 A baleful smile upon their baffled guest. 
 Heard ye the din of battle bray, 
 Lance to lance, and horse to horse ? 
 Long years of havoc urge their destined course. 
 And through the kindred squadrons inow their way. 
 Ye towers of Julius ! London's lasting shame. 
 With many a foul and midnight murder fed, 
 Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame, 
 And spare the meek usurper's holy head ! 
 Above, below, the rose of snow 
 Twined with her blushing foe we spread : 
 The bristled boar in infant gore 
 Wallows beneath the thorny shade.
 
 270 THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 Now, brothers ! bending o'er the accursed loom, 
 Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom ! 
 
 " Edward ! lo, to sudden fate — 
 
 Weave we the woof ! the thread is spun : — 
 
 Half of thy heart we consecrate. 
 
 The web is wove : the work is done. 
 
 Stay ! O stay ! nor thus forlorn 
 
 Leave me, unbless'd, unpitied, here to mourn : 
 
 In yon bright track that fires the western skies 
 
 They melt, they vanish from my eyes. 
 
 But O ! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height 
 
 Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll ! 
 
 Visions of glory ! spare my aching sight ; 
 
 Ye unborn ages ! crowd not on my soul. 
 
 No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail : 
 
 All hail ! ye genuine kings ! Britannia's issue, hail I 
 
 " Girt with many a baron bold, 
 
 Sublime their starry fronts they rear ; 
 
 And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old 
 
 In bearded majesty, appear. 
 
 In the midst a form divine ! 
 
 Her eye proclaims her of the Briton Line, 
 
 Her lion port, her awe-commanding face 
 
 Attemper'd sweet to virgin grace. 
 
 "What strings symphonious tremble in the air ! 
 
 What strains of vocal transport round her play ! 
 
 Hear from the grave, great Taliessin ! hear ! 
 
 They breathe a soul to animate thy clay. 
 
 Bright Rapture, calls and, soaring as she sings, 
 
 Waves in the eye of heaven her many-colour'd wings. 
 
 " The verse adorn again ! 
 
 Fierce War, and faithful Love, 
 
 And Truth severe by fairy Fiction dress'd. 
 
 In buskin'd measures move, —
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 2/1 
 
 Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain, 
 
 With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast 
 
 A voice as of the cherub choir 
 
 Gales from blooming Eden bear ; 
 
 And distant warblings lessen on my ear, 
 
 That lost in long futurity expire. 
 
 Fond impious Man ! think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, 
 
 Raised by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of Day ? 
 
 To-morrow he repairs the golden flood, 
 
 And warms the nations with redoubled ray. 
 
 Enough for me ! with joy I see 
 
 The different doom our fates assign : 
 
 Be thine despair and sceptred care ! 
 
 To triumph and to die are mine." — 
 
 He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height 
 
 Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night. 
 
 HYMN TO ADVERSITY. 
 
 Daughter of Jove ! relentless Power ! 
 Thou tamer of the human breast ! 
 Whose iron scourge and torturing hour 
 The bad affright, afflict the best : 
 Bound in thy adamantine chain, 
 The proud are taught to taste of pain, 
 And purple tyrants vainly groan 
 With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. 
 
 When first thy Sire to send on earth 
 Virtue, his darling child, design'd, 
 To thee he gave the heavenly birth 
 And bade thee form her infant mind. 
 Stern rugged nurse ! thy rigid lore 
 With patience many a year she bore : 
 What sorrow was thou badest her know. 
 And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe.
 
 272 THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 Scared at thy frown terrific, fly 
 Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, 
 With Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy ; 
 And leave us leisure to be good : 
 Light they disperse, and with them go 
 The summer Friend, the flattering Foe ; 
 By vain Prosperity received. 
 To her they vow their truth, and are again believed. 
 
 Wisdom, in sable garb array'd, 
 Immersed in rapturous thought profound, 
 And Melancholy, silent maid. 
 With leaden eye that loves the ground, 
 Still on thy solemn steps attend, — 
 Warm Charity, the general friend, 
 With Justice, to herself severe. 
 And Pity dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. 
 
 O, gently on thy suppliant's head. 
 Dread Goddess ! lay thy chastening hand ! 
 Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad. 
 Not circled with the vengeful band, 
 (As by the impious thou art seen 
 With thundering voice and threatening mien), 
 With screaming Horror's funeral cry, 
 Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty t 
 
 Thy form benign, O Goddess ! wear, 
 Thy milder influence impart ; 
 Thy philosophic train be there, 
 To soften, not to wound my heart ! 
 The generous spark extinct revive I 
 Teach me to love and to forgive. 
 Exact my own defects to scan. 
 What others are to feel, and know myself a Man I
 
 WILLIAM COLLINS. 2/3 
 
 WILLIAM COLLINS. 
 1721—1759. 
 
 TO EVENING. 
 
 If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song 
 
 May hope, O pensive Eve ! to soothe thine ear 
 
 Like thy own solemn springs. 
 
 Thy springs and dying gales, — 
 
 O Nymph reserved ! while now the bright-hair'd sun 
 Sits in yon western tent whose cloudy skirts 
 
 With brede etherial wove 
 
 O'erhang his wavy bed, — 
 
 Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat 
 With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, 
 
 Or where the beetle winds 
 
 His small but sullen horn. 
 
 As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path. 
 Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum, — 
 
 Now teach me. Maid composed ! 
 
 To breathe some soften'd strain : 
 
 Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, 
 May not unseemly with its stillness suit, 
 
 As, musing slow, I hail 
 
 Thy genial loved return. 
 
 For when thy folding-star arising shows 
 His paly circlet, at his warning lamp 
 
 The fragrant Hours, and Elves 
 
 Who slept in buds the day. 
 
 And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge 
 And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still 
 
 The pensive Pleasures sweet. 
 
 Prepare thy shadowy car. 
 
 Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene ; 
 L— 18
 
 2/4 WILLIAM COLLINS. 
 
 Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells, 
 Whose walls more awful nod 
 By thy religious gleams ! 
 
 Or, if chill blustering winds or driving rain 
 Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut 
 That, from the mountain's side, 
 Views wilds and swelling floods, 
 
 And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires ; 
 And hears their simple bell ; and marks o'er all 
 
 Thy dewy fingers draw 
 
 The gradual dusky veil ! 
 
 While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont. 
 And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve ! 
 
 While Summer loves to sport 
 
 Beneath thy lingering light, 
 
 While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves, 
 Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, 
 
 Affrights thy shrinking train, 
 
 And rudely rends thy robes, — 
 
 So long, regardful of thy quiet rule. 
 
 Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, 
 
 Thy gentlest influence own. 
 
 And love thy favourite name. 
 
 THE PASSIONS. 
 
 AN ODE FOR MUSIC. 
 
 When Music, heavenly maid, was young, 
 While yet in early Greece she sung, 
 The Passions oft, to hear her shell, 
 Throng'd around her magic cell. 
 Exalting, trembling, raging, fainting, 
 Possess'd beyond the Muse's painting, 
 By turns they felt the glowing mind 
 Disturb'd, delighted, raised, refined :
 
 WILLIAM COLLINS, 2/5 
 
 Till once ('tis said) when all were fired, 
 Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspired, 
 From the supporting myrtles round 
 They snatch'd her instruments of sound ; 
 And, as they oft had heard apart 
 Sweet lessons of her forceful art, 
 Each, for Madness ruled the hour. 
 Would prove his own expressive power. 
 
 First Fear his hand, its skill to try, 
 
 Amid the chords bewilder'd laid, 
 And back recoil'd, he knew not why, 
 
 E'en at the sound himself had made. 
 
 Next Anger rush'd : his eyes, on fire. 
 
 In lightnings own'd his secret stings : 
 In one rude clash he struck the lyre. 
 
 And swept with hurried hand the strings. 
 
 "With woeful measures wan Despair, 
 
 Low sullen sounds, his grief beguiled : 
 A solemn, strange, and mingled air : 
 
 'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild. 
 
 But thou, O Hope ! with eyes so fair. 
 
 What was thy delightful measure ? 
 
 Still it whisper'd promised pleasure, 
 And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail. 
 Still would her touch the strain prolong ; 
 
 And from the rocks, the woods, the vale, 
 She caird on Echo still through all the song ; 
 And where her sweetest theme she chose 
 A soft responsive voice was heard at every close, 
 And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair. 
 
 And longer had she sung : but with a frown 
 
 Revenge impatient rose. 
 He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down, 
 And with a withering look
 
 2/6 WILLIAM COLLINS. 
 
 The war-denouncing trumpet took, 
 And blew a blast so loud and dread, 
 Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe. 
 
 And ever and anon he beat 
 
 The doubling drum with furious heat ; 
 And though sometimes, each dreary pause between, 
 
 Dejected Pity, at his side. 
 
 Her soul-subduing voice applied. 
 Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien 
 While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from his head. 
 
 Thy numbers. Jealousy ! to nought were fix'd, 
 Sad proof of thy distressful state : 
 Of different themes the veering song was mix'd ; 
 And now it courted Love, now raving call'd on Hate. 
 
 With eyes upraised, as one inspired, 
 Pale Melancholy sat retired ; 
 And from her wild sequester'd seat, 
 In notes by distance made more sweet, 
 Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul ; 
 And, dashing soft from rocks around, 
 Bubbling runnels join'd the sound. 
 Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, 
 Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay, 
 Round an holy calm diffusing. 
 Love of peace and lonely musing, 
 In hollow murmurs died away. 
 But O ! how alter'd was its sprightlier tone 
 When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, 
 
 Her bow across her shoulder flung. 
 
 Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew. 
 Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung 
 
 The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known. 
 The oak-crown'd Sisters and their chaste-eyed Queen, 
 
 Satyrs and Sylvan Boys, were seen 
 
 Peeping from forth their alleys green :
 
 WILLIAM COLLINS. 2/7 
 
 Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear ; 
 
 And Sport leap'd up, and seized his beechen spear. 
 
 Last came Joy's ecstatic trial : 
 
 He with viny crown, advancing, 
 
 First to the hvely pipe his hand address'd ; 
 
 But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol, 
 
 Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best. 
 
 They would have thought, who heard the strain, 
 
 They saw in Tempi's vale her native maids 
 
 Amidst the festal-sounding shades 
 To some unwearied minstrel dancing, 
 While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings, 
 Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round : 
 Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound ; 
 
 And he amidst his frolic play. 
 As if he would the charming air repay. 
 Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings. 
 
 O Music! sphere-descended Maid ! 
 Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid ! 
 Why, Goddess ! why, to us denied, 
 Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside ? 
 As in that loved Athenian bower 
 You learn'd an all-commanding power, 
 Thy mimic soul, O Nymph endear'dl 
 Can well recall what then it heard. 
 Where is thy native simple heart. 
 Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art ? 
 Arise, as in that elder time, 
 Warm, energic, chaste, sublime! 
 Thy wonders in that god-like age 
 Fill thy recording Sister's page : 
 'Tis said, and I believe the tale. 
 Thy humblest reed could more prevail, 
 Had more of strength, diviner rage. 
 Than all which charms this laggard age.
 
 MARK AKENSIDE. 
 
 E'en all at once together found, 
 Cecilia's mingled world of sound. 
 O bid our vain endeavours cease ! 
 Revive the just designs of Greece ! 
 Return in all thy simple state : 
 Confirm the tales her sons relate ! 
 
 MARK AKENSIDE. 
 1721 — 1770. 
 
 INSCRIPTION' FOR A GROTTO. 
 
 To me, whom in their lays the shepherds call 
 
 Actasa, daughter of the neighbouring stream, 
 
 This cave belongs. The fig-tree and the vine, 
 
 Which o'er the rocky entrance downward shoot. 
 
 Were placed by Glycon. He with cowslips pale, 
 
 Primrose, and the purple lychnis, deck'd the green 
 
 Before my threshold, and my shelving walls 
 
 With honeysuckle cover'd. Here, at noon, 
 
 Lull'd by the murmur of my rising fount, 
 
 I slumber : here my clustering fruits I tend; 
 
 Or from the humid flowers at break of day 
 
 Fresh garlands weave, and chase from all my bounds 
 
 Each thing impure or noxious. Enter in, 
 
 O Stranger! undismay'd. Nor bat nor toad 
 
 Here lurks : and, if thy breast of blameless thoughts 
 
 Approve thee, not unwelcome shalt thou tread 
 
 My quiet mansion : chiefly if thy name 
 
 Wise Pallas and the immortal Muses own. . 
 
 ON A SERMON AGAINST GLORY. 
 Come then, tell me, sage divine ! 
 Is it an offence to own 
 That our bosoms e'er incline 
 Toward immortal Glory's throne ? 
 For with me nor pomp nor pleasure, 
 Bourbon's might, Braganza's treasure.
 
 JEAN ELLIOT. 279 
 
 So can Fancy's dream rejoice, 
 So conciliate Reason's choice, 
 As one approving word of her impartial voice. 
 
 If to spurn at noble praise 
 Be the passport to thy heaven. 
 Follow thou those gloomy ways ! 
 No such law to me was given : 
 Nor, I trust, shall 1 deplore me. 
 Faring like my friends before me ; 
 Nor an holier place desire 
 Than Timoleon's arms acquire, 
 And TuUy's curule chair, and Milton's golden lyre. 
 
 JEAN ELLIOT. 
 1727— 1805. 
 
 THE FLOWERS C THE FOREST. 
 I've heard the lilting at our yowe-milking, 
 Lasses a-lilting before dawn o' day ; 
 But now they are moaning in ilka green loaning : 
 The Flowers o' the Forest are a' wede away. 
 
 At bughts in the morning nae blithe lads are scorning. 
 The lasses are lonely and dowie and wae ; 
 Nae daffin', nae gabbin', but sighing and sabbing ; 
 Ilk ane lifts her luglen and hies her away. 
 
 In hairst, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering, 
 The bandsters are lyart and runkled and grey ; 
 At fair or at preaching nae wooing, nae fleeching : 
 The Flowers o' the Forest are a' wede away. 
 
 At e'en, at the gloaming, nae swankies are roaming, 
 'Bout stacks wi' the lasses at bogle to play ; 
 But ilk ane sits drearie, lamenting her dearie : 
 The Flowers o' the Forest are a' wede away. 
 
 Dule and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border ! 
 The English, for ance, by guile wan the day :
 
 280 WILLIAM COWPER. 
 
 The Flowers o' the Forest, that fought aye the foremost, 
 The Prime o' our Land, are cauld in the clay. 
 
 We hear nae mair lilting at our yowe -milking, 
 Women and bairns are heartless and wae, 
 Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning : 
 The Flowers o' the Forest are a' wede away. 
 
 WILLIAM COWPER. 
 1731 — 1800. 
 
 ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE. 
 
 Toll for the Brave ! 
 The Brave that are no more : 
 All sunk beneath the wave 
 Fast by their native shore ! 
 
 Eight hundred of the Brave, 
 Whose courage well was tried. 
 Had made the vessel keel 
 And laid her on her side : 
 
 A land-breeze shook the shrouds, 
 And she was overset : 
 Down went the Royal George, 
 With all her crew complete. 
 
 Toll for the Brave ! 
 Brave Kempenfelt is gone : 
 His last sea-fight is fought, 
 His work of glory done. 
 
 It was not in the battle, 
 No tempest gave the shock. 
 She sprang no fatal leak, 
 She ran upon no rock. 
 
 His sword was in its sheath, 
 His fingers held the pen,
 
 WILLIAM COWPER. 28 1 
 
 When Kempenfelt went down, 
 With twice four hundred men. 
 
 Weigh the vessel up 
 Once dreaded by our foes ! 
 And mingle with our cup 
 The tear that England owes ! 
 
 Her timbers yet are sound 
 
 And she may float again, 
 
 Full charged with England's thunder, 
 
 And plough the distant main : 
 
 But Kempenfelt is gone, 
 His victories are o'er ; 
 And he and his eight hundred 
 Shall plough the wave no more. 
 
 TO MARY. 
 
 The twentieth year is well-nigh past 
 Since first our sky was overcast : 
 Ah ! would that this might be the last, 
 My Mary ! 
 
 Thy spirits have a fainter flow, 
 I see thee daily weaker grow : 
 'Twas my distress that brought thee low, 
 My Mary ! 
 
 Thy needles, once a shining store. 
 For my sake restless heretofoi'e. 
 Now rust disused, and shine no more, 
 My Mary ! 
 
 For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil 
 The same kind office for me still. 
 Thy sight now seconds not thy will, 
 My Mary !
 
 282 WILLIAM COWPER. 
 
 But well thou play'dst the housewife's part ; 
 And all thy threads with niagic art 
 Have wound themselves about this heart, 
 My Mary ! 
 
 Thy indistinct expressions seem 
 Like language utter'd in a dream ; 
 Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme, 
 My Mary ! 
 
 Thy silver locks, once auburn bright, 
 Are still more lovely in my sight 
 Than golden beams of orient light, 
 My Mary ! 
 
 For, could I view nor them nor thee, 
 What sight worth seeing could I see ? 
 The sun would rise in vain for me, 
 My Mary ! 
 
 Partakers of thy sad decline, 
 Thy hands their little force resign ; 
 Yet, gently press'd, press gently mine, 
 My Mary ! 
 
 Such feebleness of limbs thou provest, 
 That now at every step thou movest 
 Upheld by two ; yet still thou lovest, 
 My Mary! 
 
 And still to love, though press'd with ill. 
 In wintry age to feel no chill, 
 With me is to be lovely still, 
 My Mary ! 
 
 But ah ! by constant heed I know 
 How oft the sadness that I show 
 Transforms thy smiles to looks of woe. 
 My Mary !
 
 MICHAEL BRUCE, 283 
 
 And should my future lot be cast 
 With much resemblance of the past, 
 Thy worn-out heart would break at last, 
 My Mary ! 
 
 THE POPLAR FIELD. 
 The poplars are fell'd : farewell to the shade 
 And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade ! 
 The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves ; 
 Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives. 
 
 Twelve years have elapsed since I first took a view 
 Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew : 
 And now in the grass behold they are laid, 
 And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade. 
 
 The blackbird has fled to another retreat. 
 Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat ; 
 And the scene where his melody charm'd me before 
 Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more. 
 
 My fugitive years are all hasting away. 
 And I must ere long lie as lowly as they ; 
 With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head 
 Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead. 
 
 The change both my heart and my fancy employs : 
 I reflect on the frailty of man and his joys : 
 Short-lived as we are, yet our pleasures, we see, 
 Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we. 
 
 MICHAEL BRUCE. 
 1746 — 1767. 
 
 TO THE CUCKOO. 
 Hail, beauteous stranger of the wood! 
 
 Attendant on the Spring ! 
 Now heaven repairs thy rural seat, 
 
 And woods thy welcome sing.
 
 284 MICHAEL BRUCE. 
 
 Soon as the daisy decks the green, 
 
 Thy certain voice we hear : 
 Hast thou a star to guide thy path, 
 
 Or mark the rolling year ? 
 
 Delightful visitant ! with thee 
 
 I hail the time of flowers, 
 When heaven is fill'd with music sweet 
 
 Of birds among the bowers. 
 
 The school-boy, wandering in the woods 
 
 To pull the flowers so gay, 
 Starts, thy curious voice to hear, 
 
 And imitates thy lay. 
 
 Soon as the pea puts on the bloom. 
 
 Thou fliest thy vocal vale, 
 An annual guest, in other lands 
 
 Another Spring to hail. 
 
 Sweet Bird ! thy bower is ever green. 
 
 Thy sky is ever clear ; 
 Thou hast no sorrow in thy song. 
 
 No winter in thy year. 
 
 Alas, sweet Bird ! not so my fate, 
 
 Dark scowling skies I see 
 Fast gathering round, and fraught with woe 
 
 And wintry years to me. 
 
 O, could I fly, I'd fly with thee : 
 
 We'd make, with social wing, 
 Our annual visit o'er the globe, 
 
 Companions of the Spring.
 
 SIR WILLIAM JONES. 28$ 
 
 SIR WILLIAM JONES. 
 
 1746— 1794. 
 
 AN ODE. 
 
 IN IMITATION OF ALCBUS. 
 
 What constitutes a State ? 
 Not high-raised battlement or labour'd mound, 
 
 Thick wall, or moated gate ; 
 Not cities proud with spires and turrets crown'd ; 
 
 Not bays and broad-arm'd ports 
 Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 
 
 Not starr'd and spangled Courts 
 Where low-brow'd Baseness wafts perfume to Pride 
 
 No ! Men, high-minded Men, 
 W^ith powers as far above dull brutes endued, 
 
 In forest, brake, or den, 
 As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude, — 
 
 Men who their duties know. 
 But know their rights and, knowing, dare maintain, 
 
 Prevent the long-aim'd blow. 
 And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain, — 
 
 These constitute a State. 
 And Sovereign Law, that State's collected will, 
 
 O'er thrones and globes elate. 
 Sits Empress, crowning Good, repressing 111. 
 
 Smit by her sacred frown, 
 The fiend Dissension like a vapour sinks 
 
 And e'en the all-dazzling Crown 
 Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. 
 
 Such was this heaven-loved Isle, 
 Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore ! 
 
 No more shall Freedom smile ? 
 Shall Britons languish, and be men no more ? 
 
 Since all must life resign. 
 Those sweet rewards which decorate the Brave 
 
 'Tis folly to decline. 
 And steal inglorious to the silent grave.
 
 286 THOMAS CHATTERTON. 
 
 THOMAS CHATTERTON. 
 1752— 1770. 
 
 ROUNDELAY. 
 
 O, sing unto my roundelay ! 
 
 O drop the briny tear with me ! 
 Dance no more on hoUday ! 
 Like a running river be ! 
 My Love is dead, 
 Gone to his death-bed, 
 All under the willow-tree. 
 
 Black his cryne as the winter night, 
 White his rode as the summer snow, 
 
 Red his face as the morning light, 
 Cold he lies in the grave below : 
 My Love is dead 
 
 Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note, 
 Quick in dance as thought can be, 
 
 Deft his tabor, cudgel stout : 
 O, he lies by the willow tree : 
 My Love is dead 
 
 Hark ! the raven flaps his wing 
 
 In the briar'd dell below ; 
 Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing 
 
 To the night-mares as they go : 
 My Love is dead 
 
 See ! the white moon shines on high, — 
 Whiter is my true Love's shroud, 
 
 Whiter than the morning sky, 
 Whiter than the evening cloud. 
 My Love is dead 
 
 Here upon my true Love's grave 
 Shall the barren flowers be laid :
 
 WILLIAM BLAKE. 28/ 
 
 Not one holy saint to save 
 All the coldness of a maid. 
 My Love is dead 
 
 "With my hands I'll dente the briars 
 
 Round his holy corse to gre : 
 Ouphante fairies ! light your fires ! 
 
 Here my body still shall be. 
 My Love is dead 
 
 Come ! with acorn-cup and thorn 
 
 Drain my heart's blood all away 1 
 Life and all its good I scorn, 
 
 Dance by night, or feast by day : 
 My Love is dead, 
 Gone to his death-bed 
 All under the willow- tree. 
 
 Water-witches crown'd with reytes ! 
 
 Bear me to your lethal tide : 
 I die, I come, my true Love waits. — 
 
 Thus the Damsel spake, and died. 
 
 WILLIAM BLAKE. 
 1757—1827. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 How sweet I roam'd from field to field. 
 And tasted all the summer's pride. 
 
 Till I the Prince of Love beheld 
 Who in the sunny beams did glide ! 
 
 He show'd me lilies for my hair, 
 And blushing roses for my brow ; 
 
 He led me through the gardens fair 
 Where all his golden pleasures grow.
 
 288 WILLIAM BLAKE. 
 
 With sweet may-dews my wings were wet, 
 And Phoebus fired my vocal rage : 
 
 He caught me in his silken net, 
 And shut me in his golden cage. 
 
 He loves to sit and hear me sing ; 
 
 Then, laughing, sports and plays with me ; 
 Then stretches out my golden wing, 
 
 And mocks my loss of liberty. 
 
 TO THE MUSES. 
 
 Whether on Ida's shady brow, 
 
 Or in the chambers of the East, 
 The chambers of the Sun, that now 
 
 From ancient melody have ceased, — 
 
 Whether in heaven ye wander fair, 
 
 Or the green corners of the earth, 
 Or the blue regions of the air 
 
 Where the melodious winds have birth, — 
 
 Whether on crystal rocks ye rove 
 
 Beneath the bosom of the sea, 
 Wandering in many a coral grove, 
 
 Fair Nine ! forsaking Poetry, — 
 
 How have you left the ancient love 
 
 That Bards of old enjoy'd in you ! 
 The languid strings do scarcely move. 
 
 The sound is forced, the notes are few. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 My silks and fine array, 
 
 My smiles and languish'd air, 
 By Love are driven away ; 
 
 And mournful lean Despair
 
 WILLIAM BLAKE. 289 
 
 Brings me yews to deck my grave : 
 Such end true lovers have. 
 
 His face is fair as heaven 
 
 When springing buds unfold : 
 O why to him was't given, 
 
 Whose heart is wintry cold ? 
 His breast is Love's all-worship'd tomb, 
 Where all Love's pilgrims come. 
 
 Bring me an axe and spade ! 
 
 Bring me a winding-sheet ! 
 When I my grave have made, 
 
 Let winds and tempests beat ! 
 Then down I'll lie as, cold as clay, 
 True love doth pass away. 
 
 THE PIPER. 
 
 Piping down the valleys wild, 
 Piping songs of pleasant glee. 
 
 On a cloud I saw a Child, 
 And he laughing said to me : 
 
 ** Pipe a song about a lamb ! " 
 
 So I piped with merry cheer, 
 " Piper ! pipe that song again ! " 
 
 So I piped; he wept to hear. 
 
 " Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe ! 
 Sing thy songs of happy cheer ! " 
 So I sang the same again. 
 
 While he wept with joy to hear. 
 
 " Piper ! sit thee down and write 
 In a book, that all may read ! " 
 So he vanish'd from my sight : 
 And I pluck'd a hollow reed ;
 
 290 WILLIAM BLAKE. 
 
 And I made a rural pen ; 
 
 And I stain'd the water clear ; 
 And I wrote my happy songs 
 
 Every child may joy to hear. 
 
 THE TIGER. 
 
 Tiger ! Tiger, burning bright 
 In the forests of the night ! 
 What immortal hand or eye 
 Framed thy fearful symmetry ? 
 
 In what distant deeps or skies 
 Burn'd the fire of thine eyes ? 
 On what wings dare he aspire ? 
 What the hand dare seize the fire ? 
 
 And what shoulder, and what art, 
 Could twist the sinews of thy heart ? 
 And, when thy heart began to beat, 
 What dread hand forged thy dread feet ? 
 
 What the hammer ? what the chain ? 
 In what furnace was thy brain ? 
 What the anvil ? What dread grasp 
 Dare its deadly terrors clasp ? 
 
 When the stars threw down their spears, 
 And water'd heaven with their tears, 
 Did He smile his work to see ? 
 Did He who made the lamb make thee ? 
 
 Tiger ! Tiger, burning bright 
 In the forests of the night ! 
 What immortal hand or eye 
 Dare frame thy fearful symmetry ?
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 29I 
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 1759— 1796. 
 
 MARY MORISON. 
 
 Mary ! at thy window be ! 
 
 It is the wish'd, the trysted hour : 
 Those smiles and glances let me see 
 
 That make the miser's treasure poor ! 
 How blithely wad I bide the stoure, 
 
 A weary slave frae sun to sun, 
 Could I the rich reward secure, 
 
 The lovely Mary Morison ! 
 
 Yestreen, when to the trembling string 
 The dance gaed through the lighted ha'. 
 
 To thee my fancy took its wing ; 
 I sat, but neither heard nor saw. 
 
 Though this was fair, and that was braw, 
 And yon the toast of a' the town, 
 
 1 sigh'd, and said amang them a' — 
 
 " Ye are na Mary Morison ! " 
 
 O Mary ! canst thou wreck his peace 
 
 Wha for thy sake wad gladly die ? 
 Or canst thou break that heart of his 
 
 Whose only fault is loving thee ? 
 If love for love thou wilt na gie, 
 
 At least be pity to me shown ! 
 A thought ungentle canna be 
 
 The thought o' Mary Morison. 
 
 TO A MOUSE 
 
 Turned up by his plough, Novemher, 1783. 
 
 Wee, sleekit, cowerin', timorous Beastie ! 
 O, what a panic's in thy breastie ! 
 Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 
 
 Wi' bickering brattle :
 
 292 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 I wad be laith to rin and chase thee, 
 
 Wi' murdering pattle. 
 
 I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
 Has broken Nature's social union, 
 And justifies that ill opinion 
 
 Which makes thee startle 
 At me, thy poor earth-born companion 
 
 And fellow mortal. 
 
 I doubt na whiles but thou may thieve : 
 What then ? poor beastie ! thou maun live ; 
 A daimen icker in a thrave 
 
 'S a sma' request : 
 I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave. 
 
 And never miss't. 
 
 Thy wee bit housie too, in ruin. 
 Its silly wa's the winds are strewin' ; 
 And naething now to big a new ane 
 
 O' foggage green ; 
 And bleak December's winds ensuin', 
 
 Baith snell and keen ! 
 
 Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste, 
 And weary Winter comin' fast, 
 And cozie here beneath the blast 
 
 Thou thought to dwell : 
 Till, crash ! the cruel coulter pass'd 
 
 Out through thy cell. 
 
 That wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble 
 Has cost thee mony a weary nibble : 
 Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble, 
 
 But house or hauld, 
 To thole the winter's sleety dribble 
 
 And cranreuch cauld.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 293 
 
 But, Mousie! thou art no thy lane 
 In proving foresight may be vain : 
 The best-laid schemes o' mice and men 
 
 Gang aft agley, 
 And leave us nought but grief and pain 
 
 For promised joy. 
 
 Still thou art bless'd compared wi' me, — 
 The present only toucheth thee : 
 But O ! I backward cast my ee 
 
 On prospects drear ; 
 And forward, though I canna see, 
 
 I guess, an' fear. 
 
 TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, 
 
 On tumtn^one down tvith the plough, April, 17S6. 
 
 Wee, modest, crimson-tipped Flower! 
 Thou's met me in an evil hour : 
 For I maun crush amang the stoure 
 
 Thy slender stem ; 
 To spare thee now is past my power. 
 
 Thou bonnie gem ! 
 
 Alas ! it's no thy neebor sweet, 
 The bonnie Lark, companion meet, 
 Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet, 
 
 Wi' speckled breast, 
 When upward springing blithe to greet 
 
 The purpling East. 
 
 Cauld blew the bitter-biting North 
 Upon thy early humble birth, 
 Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 
 
 Amid the storm, 
 Scarce rear'd above the parent earth 
 
 Thy tender form.
 
 294 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 The flaunting flowers our gardens yield 
 High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield ; 
 But thou beneath the random bield 
 
 O' clod or stane 
 Adorns the histie stibble field, 
 
 Unseen, alane. 
 
 There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 
 Thy snavvie bosom sun-ward spread, 
 Thou lifts thy unassuming head 
 
 In humble guise : — 
 But now, the share uptears thy bed 
 
 And low thou lies. 
 
 Such is the fate of artless maid, 
 Sweet floweret of the rural shade. 
 By love's simplicity betray'd 
 
 And guileless trust, 
 Till she, like thee, all soil'd is laid 
 
 Low i' the dust. 
 
 Such is the fate of simple bard. 
 
 On life's rough ocean, luckless-starr'd, 
 
 Unskilful he to note the card 
 
 Of prudent lore, 
 Till billows rage and gales blow hard. 
 
 And whelm him o'er. 
 
 Such fate to suffering Worth is given. 
 Who long with wants and woes has striven. 
 By human pride or cunning driven 
 
 To misery's brink. 
 Till, wrench'd of every stay but Heaven, 
 
 He ruin'd sink. 
 
 Even thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate. 
 That fate is thine : no distant date,
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 295 
 
 Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate 
 Full on thy bloom, 
 
 Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight 
 Shall be thy doom. 
 
 AE FOND KISS. 
 Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ! 
 Ae fareweel, and then for ever ! 
 Deep in heart- wrung tears I'll pledge thee ; 
 Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 
 Who shall say that Fortune grieves him 
 While the star of Hope she leaves him ! 
 Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me : 
 Dark despair around benights me. 
 
 I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy : 
 Naething could resist my Nancy ; 
 But to see her was to love her. 
 Love but her and love for ever. 
 Had we never loved sae kindly, 
 Had we never loved sae blindly, 
 Never met — or never parted. 
 We had ne'er been broken-hearted. 
 
 Fare-thee-weel ! thou first and fairest ! 
 Fare-thee-weel ! thou best and dearest ! 
 Thine be ilka joy and treasure. 
 Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure ! 
 Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ! 
 Ae fareweel, alas ! for ever ! 
 Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee ; 
 Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 
 
 OF A' THE AIRTS. 
 Of a' the airts the wind can blaw 
 
 I dearly like the West : 
 For there the bonnie lassie lives. 
 
 The lassie I love best.
 
 296 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 There wild-woods grow and rivers row ; 
 
 And mony a hill between : 
 But day and night my fancy's flight 
 
 Is ever wi' my Jean. 
 
 I see her in the dewy flowers, 
 
 I see her sweet and fair ; 
 I hear her in the tunefu' birds, 
 
 I hear her charm the air : 
 There's not a bonnie flower that springs 
 
 By fountain, shaw, or green, 
 There's not a bonnie bird that sings. 
 
 But minds me o' my Jean. 
 
 O blaw, ye Westlin' winds ! blaw saft 
 
 Amang the leafy trees ; 
 Wi' balmy gale frae hill and dale 
 
 Bring hame the laden bees ; 
 And bring the lassie back to me, 
 
 That's aye sae neat and clean ! 
 Ae smile o' her wad banish care, 
 
 Sae charming is my Jean. 
 
 What sighs and vows amang the knowes 
 
 Hae pass'd atween us twa ! 
 How fond to meet, how wae to part, 
 
 That night she gaed awa ! 
 The Powers aboon can only ken, 
 
 To whom the heart is seen, 
 That nane can be sae dear to me 
 
 As my sweet lovely Jean. 
 
 BONNIE LESLEY. 
 
 O, saw ye bonnie Lesley 
 
 As she gaed o'er the Border ? 
 She's gane, like Alexander, 
 
 To spread her conquests farther.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 297 
 
 To see her is to love her, 
 
 And love but her for ever : 
 For Nature made her what she is, 
 
 And never made anither. 
 
 Thou art a queen, fair Lesley ! 
 
 Thy subjects we, before thee ; 
 Thou art divine, fair Lesley ! 
 
 The hearts o' men adore thee. 
 
 The Deil he couldna scaith thee, 
 Or aught that wad belang thee : 
 
 He'd look into thy bonnie face, 
 And say — " I canna wrang thee ! " 
 
 The Powers aboon will tent thee. 
 Misfortune shall na steer thee : 
 
 Thou'rt like themselves sae lovely 
 That ill they'll ne'er let near thee. 
 
 Return again, fair Lesley ! 
 
 Return to Caledonie, 
 That we may brag we hae a lass 
 
 There's nane again sae bonnie. 
 
 THE BANKS C DO ON. 
 
 Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon ! 
 
 How can ye bloom sae fair ? 
 How can ye chant ? ye little birds ! 
 
 And I sae fu' o' care. 
 
 Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird 
 
 That sings upon the bough ! 
 Thou minds me o' the happy days 
 
 When my fause Love was true. 
 
 Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird 
 That sings beside thy mate !
 
 298 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 For sae I sat, and sae I sang, 
 And wistna o' my fate. 
 
 Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon 
 
 To see the woodbine twine, 
 And ilka bird sang o' its love, 
 
 And sae did 1 o' mine. 
 
 Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose 
 
 Frae aff its thorny tree ; 
 And my fause lover staw the rose, 
 
 But left the thorn wi' me. 
 
 DUNCAN GRAY. 
 
 Duncan Gray cam' here to woo, 
 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't ! 
 
 On blithe Yule night when we were fou, 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't ! 
 
 Maggie coost her head fu' high, 
 
 Look'd asklent and unco sleigh, 
 
 Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh : 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't ! 
 
 Duncan fleech'd, and Duncan pray'd, 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't ! 
 
 Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig, 
 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't ! 
 
 Duncan sigh'd baith out and in, 
 
 Grat his een baith bleert and blin', 
 
 Spak o' louping o'er a linn : 
 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't ! 
 
 Time and chance are but a tide. 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't ! 
 
 Slighted love is sair to bide, 
 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't t 
 
 Shall I like a fool, quoth he,
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 299 
 
 For a haughty hizzie die ? 
 She may go to — France, for me. 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't ! 
 
 How it comes let doctors tell, 
 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't ! 
 
 Meg grew sick as he grew heal, 
 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't ! 
 
 Something in her bosom wrings, 
 
 For relief a sigh she brings, 
 
 And O her een ! they spak' sic things : 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't ! 
 
 Duncan was a lad o' grace. 
 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't ! 
 
 Maggie's was a piteous case. 
 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooing o't ! 
 
 Duncan couldna be her death, 
 
 Swelling pity smoor'd his wrath : 
 
 Now they're crouse and canty baith. 
 Ha ! ha ! the wooinsr o't ! 
 
 ANE-AND- TWENTY. 
 
 And O for ane-and-twenty, Tam ! 
 And hey, sweet ane-and-twenty, Tam ! 
 I'll learn my kin a rattlin' sang 
 An I saw ane-and-twenty, Tam ! 
 
 They snool me sair, and haud me down, 
 And gar me look like bluntie, Tam ! 
 But three short years will soon wheel roun'. 
 And then comes ane-and-twenty, Tam ! 
 
 A gleib o' Ian', a claut o' gear, 
 Was left me by my auntie, Tam ! 
 At kith or kin I need not spier, 
 An I saw ane-and-twenty, Tam !
 
 300 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 They'll hae me wed a wealthy coof, 
 Though I mysel' hae plenty, Tam ! 
 But hear'st thou, Laddie ! there's my loof : 
 I'm thine at ane-and-twenty, Tam ! 
 
 WHISTLE! AND I'LL COME TO YOU. 
 
 O, whistle ! and I'll come to you, my Lad ! 
 O, whistle ! and I'll come to you, my Lad ! 
 Though father and mither and a' should gae mad, 
 O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my Lad! 
 
 But warily tent when you come to court me, 
 And come na unless the back-yett be a-jee ; 
 Syne up the back-stile, and let naebody see ; 
 And come as ye were na coming to me ! 
 
 At kirk, or at market, whene'er ye meet me. 
 Gang by me as though that ye cared na a flic ; 
 But steal me a blink o' your bonnie black ee. 
 Yet look as ye were na looking at me ! 
 
 Aye vow and protest that ye care na for me ; 
 And, whiles, ye may lightly my beauty a wee ; 
 But court na anither, though jokin' ye be, 
 For fear that she wile your fancy frae me ! 
 
 O, whistle ! and I'll come to you, my Lad ! 
 O, whistle ! and I'll come to you, my Lad ! 
 Though father and mither and a' should gae mad, 
 O, whistle ! and I'll come to you, my Lad ! 
 
 A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' l^HAT. 
 
 Is there for honest Poverty 
 
 That hangs his head, and a' that ? 
 
 The coward slave ! we pass him by : 
 We dare be poor for a' that.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 3OI 
 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 Our toils obscure, and a' that. 
 The rank is but the guinea's stamp : 
 The Man's the Gowd for a' that. 
 
 "What though on hamely fare we dine, 
 Wear hoddin grey, and a' that, — 
 
 Gie fools their silks, and knaves their v/ine ! 
 A man's a man for a' that. 
 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 
 Their tinsel show, and a' that, 
 
 The honest man, though ne'er sae poor. 
 Is King o' Men for a' that. 
 
 Ye see yon birkie ca'd a Lord, 
 
 Wha struts and stares, and a' that : 
 
 Though hundreds worship at his word, 
 He's but a coof for a' that. 
 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 
 His ribbon, star, and a' that. 
 
 The man of independent mind, 
 He looks, and laughs at a' that. 
 
 A king can make a belted knight, 
 
 A marquis, duke, and a' that ; 
 But an Honest Man's aboon his might : 
 
 Gude faith ! he mauna fa' that. 
 For a' that, and a' that. 
 Their dignities and a' that, 
 The pith o' sense and pride o' worth 
 
 Are higher ranks than a' that. 
 
 Then let us pray that come it may, 
 
 As come it will for a' that. 
 That sense and worth o'er a' the earth 
 
 May bear the gree and a' that ! 
 For a' that, and a' that. 
 It's coming yet for a' that,
 
 302 CAROLINA, LADY NAIRN. 
 
 That man to man the warld o'er 
 Shall brothers be for a' that. 
 
 CAROLINA, LADY NAIRN. 
 
 1766— 1845. 
 
 r/f^ LAND O' THE LEAL. 
 I'm wearin' awa, John ! 
 Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John ! 
 I'm wearin' awa, 
 
 To the land o' the leal. 
 There's nae sorrow there, John ! 
 There's nae cauld nor care, John ! 
 The day is aye fair 
 
 r the land o' the leal. 
 
 Our bonnie bairn's there, John ! 
 She was baith gude and fair, John ! 
 And O we grudged her sair 
 
 To the land o' the leal. 
 But sorrow's sel' wears past, John ! 
 And joy's a-comin' fast, John ! 
 The joy that's aye to last 
 
 In the land o' the leal. 
 
 O dry your glistening ee, John ! 
 My saul langs to be free, John ! 
 And angels beckon me 
 
 To the land o' the leal. 
 Now fare ye weel, my ain John ! 
 This warld's cares are vain, John ! 
 We'll meet, and we'll be fain, 
 
 In the land o' the leal.
 
 NO TE S. 
 
 Geoffrey Chaucer, "the first finder of our fair language," "the 
 father of Enghsh poetry" (so Occleve and Dryden), was the son of a 
 London vintner. At first a page of Prince Lionel, he was afterwards in 
 the service of King Edward the third, and befriended by the Duke of 
 Lancaster, John of Gaunt. His authenticated poems are a translation 
 of the French Roman de la Rose (now lost— that still extant in a Northern 
 dialect not his) ; the Complaint to Pity, the Book of the Duchess, and the 
 Complaint of Mars, written about 1369-71 ; Troilus and Crescide, \}ae. Par- 
 liament of Fowls, the House of Fame, the Legend of Good Women, and his 
 greatest (unfinished) work, the Canterbury Tales. The Flower and the 
 Leaf, generally printed as his, belongs to the next century ; the Cuckoo 
 and Nightingale also is not by him. Our two short poems are thought to 
 be of his last days : the Good Counsel " written on his death-bed." 
 
 (" The date usually assigned to Chaucer's birth, 1328, is inferred from 
 the inscription on his monument in Westminster Abbey. This monu- 
 ment, an altar-tomb under a Gothic canopy, was not erected until 1556, 
 when Nicholas Brigham, a small poet who reverenced the genius of Chau- 
 cer, built it at his own expense. But we know from Caxton that there 
 was an earlier inscription on a table hanging on a pillar near the poet's 
 burial-place ; and Brigham can hardly have done otherwise than repeat 
 on the new tomb the old record that Chaucer died on the 25th of Octo- 
 ber, 1400, and that his age was then seventy-two. This date is in har- 
 mony with what we know of Chaucer's life and writings." — Henry Mor- 
 LEY : A First Sketch of English Literature.) 
 
 Soothfastness is truthfulness ; tickleness — insecurity ; rede — counsel ; a 
 nail — a nail; deeme — judge ; in buxomness — civilly and obediently ; weive 
 — forsake ; certes but — certainly unless ; ellis — else ; mote — must ; stere — 
 guide, governor ; frere — friar ; )>iowen — able.
 
 304 NOTES. 
 
 Henryson : a schoolmaster of Dunfermline in Scotland. His chief 
 performance is the Testament of Cresseid, a continuation of Chaucer's 
 Troilus and Crescide. He wrote also Moral Fables of ^sop, inverse; 
 and is notable as the author of our first pastoral — Robin and Mawkin, 
 and one of our earliest ballads — the Bloody Sark. In his Garment of 
 Good Ladies (as in other poems by Chaucer, Dunbar, Surrey, etc., in the 
 present collection) the old spelling is retained wherever alteration would 
 disturb the character or destroy the rhyme or rhythm. Else our text is 
 in modern orthography: sometimes, as Mr. Main observes, " a whole- 
 some test of poetic vitality." 
 
 Gar mak' till — have made for ; tio deeming- deir — no judgment hurt ; 
 sark — shirt or shift ; perfyt — perfect ; lasit — laced ; lesam — lawful ; mail- 
 lies or tnailyheis — eyelet holes ; purfill'd — embroidered ; ilk — each ; thole 
 — withstand ; patelet — a ruff, or part of the head-dress, of uncertain 
 meaning ; pansing — thought ; hals-ribbon — neck-ribbon ; esperance — 
 hope ; shoon — shoes ; sickerness — sureness ; seill — happiness ; set her so 
 •weil — suit her so well. 
 
 Dunbar: the "Scottish Chaucer." His principal poems are the 
 Dance of the Seven Deadly Si?is ; the Thistle and Hose (on occasion of the 
 marriage of James the fourth of Scotland with the English Princess Mar- 
 garet) ; and the Golden Targe (printed at the first Scottish press). A 
 fiery satirist also. 
 
 Imprent — imprint ; leir — learn ; ferquier — therefore ; from he be ken'd 
 — when he is known ; wettt — gone ; discure — discover ; garth — garden ; 
 / of menc — I moan for, or lament ; bcen—\\ex& or have been (been also 
 used in old poetry for are, is, and be). 
 
 Wyatt : courtier, statesman, and poet. His poems first appeared, 
 along with poems by Surrey and others, in Tottel 's Miscellany, 1557, fif- 
 teen years after his death and ten years after the death of Surrey. The 
 two poets are therefore generally coupled together, though Wyatt's work 
 is earlier, and though there is no trace of any friendship. Surrey was 
 the sometime companion of the poet's son, executed for conspiring in 
 favour of Lady Jane Grey. A/y lute ! awake ! has been wrongly ascribed 
 to Lord Rochfort. 
 
 Grame — sorrowful anger ; hert — heart ; since ye know — after you know ; 
 ne — nor ; withoziten — without ; boordes — jests ; fain — glad ; unquit — un- 
 requited ; plain — plaint ; plaining — complaining. 
 
 Surrey. Henry, Lord Howard (by courtesy Earl Surrey during the 
 life of his father, the Duke of Norfolk), was executed, for some trivial
 
 NOTES. 305 
 
 offence, by Henry the eighth. He translated the second and fourth 
 books of Virgil's yEtieid into (the first English) blank verse ; paraphrased 
 some Psalms and part of Ecclesiastes ; and wrote sonnets and other short 
 poems, given with Wyatt's in Tottel's Miscellany : his rank probably the 
 reason for his name alone appearing on the title-page. 
 
 Sayn — say ; Ttioe — more ; sith — since ; eke — also ; make — mate ; smale 
 — small ; mings — mingles, mixes ; worne — denied, rejected. 
 
 Vaux is known only for two poems in Tottel's Miscellany and fourteen 
 in the Paradise of Dainty Devices, a similar collection in 1576 from which 
 our poem is taken. 
 
 Grimoald, Grimaold, or Grimald, also one of Tottel's contributors, 
 wrote a play of Troilus and Cressida ; yohji the Baptist, a tragedy, in 
 Latin ; and a " Latin" paraphrase of Virgil's Georgics. 
 
 John Heywood : chief inventor of the moral plays called Interludes, 
 because played in the intervals of banquets. A noted epigrammatist 
 also. He published in 1546 a Dialogue of Proverbs, arguing for and 
 against marriage either with a poor girl or a rich widow. In later editions 
 of this some six hundred Epigrams were added. He wrote also a long 
 poem, the Spider and Fly, in praise of Queen Mary and defence of the 
 Romish Church. He was a great favourite of Mary and of Henry the 
 eighth, esteemed for his wit and skill in singing. 
 
 Harington : plain John, the father of Sir John (translator of Ari- 
 osto). These verses are addressed to Isabella Markham (afterward his 
 wife) " when I first thought her fair as she stood at the Princess' window 
 in goodly attire ": the Princess to become Queen Elizabeth. They are 
 printed in Park's Nugcs Antique, in a mixed collection of papers, prose 
 and verse, by Sir John Harington and others ; and there stated to be 
 from a MS. of John Harington dated 1564. The date can be only that 
 of the transcription. Other poems by the elder Harington' to Isabella 
 Markham in the same collection bear date of 1549. There can be little 
 doubt of the right ascription of them all, though they may have been 
 polished by the collector, or transcriber, who confesses in a note to one 
 poem that " the quaint phraseology in the original copy occasioned some 
 liberties to be taken with it." 
 
 Gascoigne. The date of his birth should perhaps be much earlier, as 
 he himself speaks of his " crooked age and hoary hairs." He wrote the 
 I. — 20
 
 306 NOTES. 
 
 Steele Glas, a satire ; Posies (Flowers, Herbs, Weeds) ; a prose comedy 
 after Ariosto, called The Supposes ; and was part-author of a tragedy. 
 Wot is know ; fere — companion. 
 
 GOOGB : also Goche, Goghe, Gouche. " Eglogs, Epitaphes, and Sow 
 ettes." 
 
 Vere. Ellis gives a list of twenty-one poems by him, scattered through 
 the Miscellanies. 
 
 Breton. His poems amatory and religious : but lately collected by 
 Dr. Grosart, who gives 1542-3 as date of his birth. The Rev. Thomas 
 Corser has it 1551-2. Breton is said to have written not less than fifty 
 volumes (or pamphlets) of prose or poetry. 
 
 Yode is went, or walked ; dole — woe ; leese — lose. 
 
 Raleigh. The Lie, called also the SotiFs Arrant, has been attributed 
 to Francis Davison, Sylvester, and others ; but now rests with Raleigh, 
 though certainly not written by him " the night before his execution" 
 in 1618, nor during his long cruelly unjust imprisonment from 1603 to 
 1616. It is found in a manuscript collection of poems, dated 1596, in the 
 British Museum. But few of the poems called his can be satisfactorily 
 authenticated. Part of a long poem to Cynthia, alluded to by Spenser, 
 has been lately recovered and printed by the Rev. John Hannah. 
 
 Arrant — errand ; the Estate — the State ; tickle — ticklish ; conceit — con- 
 ception ; spright — spirit. 
 
 Spenser, the friend of Raleigh, spent most of his manhood in Ireland, 
 employed by the government, at first as Secretary to Lord Grey, the 
 Queen's Deputy. His Shepherd' s Calendar appeared in 1580 ; the first 
 three books of his Faery Queen in 1590, and three more in 1595-6. In 
 1598 his house, Kilcolman Castle, county Cork, was sacked by the Irish, 
 and he narrowly escaped to England, where in the same year he died, 
 leaving his great poem incomplete. The Prothalamion was written in 
 honour of the marriage on the same day of two sisters, daughters of the 
 Earl of Worcester ; the A?noretti, a series of eighty-nine sonnets, are his 
 own love-poems ; and for his own marriage he wrote the Epithalamion, 
 that " intoxication of ecstasy, ardent, noble, and pure," as Hallam justly 
 calls it. 
 
 Glister — glisten : flasket — probably flask ; featously — cleverly ; eftsoons 
 — presently ; assoil — make clean ; gan — began ; whilome — formerly ; a
 
 NOTES. 307 
 
 noble Peer — the Earl of Essex ; ttvins of Jove — Castor and Pollux ; tead — 
 torch ; dight — clothe ; mavis — song-thrush ; ouzel — blackbird ; ruddock — 
 robin ; mote — might ; croud — fiddle ; ^in — begin ; nathless — ne'ertheless ; 
 wull — would ; the ^reat Tirynthiaft g-room — Hercules ; the Potike — an 
 evil Puck ; tlie Latmian Shepherd — Endymion. 
 
 Lylv, Lilye, or Lilly, author of eight plays, court-comedies ; besides 
 his prose works, Euphues, or The Anatomy of Wit, and Euphices and his 
 England. 
 
 Dyer, the friend of Sidney, highly esteemed by his contemporaries, 
 but little remaining of his writing. This poem has been altered and cor- 
 rupted without measure. A continuation or imitation of it, by Sylvester, 
 will be found on page 86. 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney, the hero and darling of his day, one of the truest 
 and yet most neglected of all our poets ; " passion, thought, and fineness 
 of art" his characteristics, as well observed by Dr. Grosart. His prose 
 romance, Arcadia, is richly interlaced with verse ; and his Sonnets and 
 Songs to Stella {Astrophil and Stella) are among the most real, the 
 most musical and impassioned love-poems in the language. Trentals 
 are masses held for thirty days. 
 
 Greville, Lord Brooke, who has this proud epitaph : " Servant to 
 Queen Elizabeth, Counselor to King James, and Friend to Sir Philip 
 Sidney." He wrote poems of Monarchy and Religion ; sonnets to Caelica ; 
 and two tragedies, Alaham and Alustapha, described by Lamb as " polit- 
 ical treatises, not plays." 
 
 A meadow God (so in all copies) may mean a wild, field-haunting god, 
 not caring for cities or staid rules. 
 
 Watson : if not a friend, a lover of Sidney. The lines on Sidney's 
 death are found in Byrd's Italian Madrigals, madrigals composed " after 
 the Italian vein," with English words. Watson's chief work is a Pas- 
 sionate Centurie of Love, ninety-seven " sonnets," poems or poetic con- 
 ceits of eighteen lines each, with prose explanations prefixed. 
 
 Constable's " ambrosial Muse," says Ben Jonson. He wrote 
 " Diana^ the praises of his Mistress in certain sweet soimets ;'" some 
 sixty-seven poems in all, the word sonnet again very loosely used. The 
 same afterward "augmented with divers quatorzains of honourable and 
 learned personages." He also wrote a few Spiritual '' Sonnets."
 
 308 NOTES. 
 
 Lodge : a prolific writer, novelist, satirist, and poet ; but his works now 
 rare. His pastoral, Rosalynde, or Euphues' Golden Legacy^ 159O1 seems 
 to have been the ground whence Shakespeare transplanted his As you 
 like it. "Love guards the roses of thy lips" is from " Pkillis, hon- 
 oured with pastoral sonnets, elegies, and amorous delights." 1593. In 
 his later days he was a successful physician. 
 
 GiFFORD. Dates of birth and death unknown. Our poem from his 
 " Posie of Gillojlowers, eche differing from other in colour and odour, yet 
 all sweete. By Humfrey Gifford, Gent." 1580. 
 
 Peele. Dates very doubtful. A play-wright, but many of his plays 
 lost. The best of those remaining is David and Befhsahe, first printed in 
 1599. His Arraignment 0/ Paris, in which is Cupid'' s Curse, was played 
 before Queen Elizabeth in 1584. 
 
 Greene: a voluminous writer of poems, plays, and prose tracts. Grees 
 is an old form of agrees ; modest face — in all the copies viusic s, evidently 
 a misprint ; glister — brightness ; pri^ — two syllables, as in French poetry ; 
 JVoserez Fous — Will you not dare ? 
 
 Francis Bacon : born in London, Baron Verulam, Viscount St. 
 Albans, Lord High Chancellor of England. Mr. Spedding gives these 
 lines, without title, as paraphrased from a Greek poem, and not certain 
 to have been written by Bacon, to whom they are ascribed only in later 
 editions of Isaak Walton's Kcliquics Wottoniancs. Spedding, however, 
 believes them to be his. 
 
 Southwell : an English gentleman, hanged as a Jesuit priest and 
 plotter, in 1594-5. His principal work, of considerable talent, is St. 
 Peter's Compla'int ; like all his writings, of a religious character. 
 
 Daniel: '' for sweetness and rhyming second to none." Such the 
 judgment of Drummond. Besides some plays, a masque, Sonnets to 
 Delia, and other poems, he wrote The Civil Wars between York and 
 Lancaster, a poem in eight books, published 1595, 1599, 1609. 
 
 Griffin. No dates except of his book — " Fidessa more chaste than 
 kind, by B. Griffin, gent : 1596." In our second sonnet he has mistaken 
 lo for Danae. One of his sonnets — "Venus and Young Adonis sitting 
 by her '' — was given as Shakespeare's in Jaggard's Composite edition of 
 the Passionate Pilgrim, in 1599.
 
 NOTES. 309 
 
 John Davies : writing-master of Hereford, " greatest master of the 
 pen that England ever produced,'' writes Fuller ; not without esteem 
 from contemporary poets, but ignored by all the anthologists, though he 
 wrote enough to fill two goodly quartos, rescued from oblivion by Dr. 
 Grosart. His more considerable works are Mlcrocosmos ; Humour's 
 Heaven on earth (in which is a Dantesque picture of the Plague) ; Wit' s 
 Pilgrhnage ; the Scourge of Folly ; and the Muse's Sacrifice, or Divine 
 Meditations. His Pictttre 0/ an happy Man antedates Wotton's popular 
 and much inferior lines. 
 
 Squire — square ; lively — life-like, living ; blase — blazon. 
 
 Sylvester : a London merchant, who amused his leisure by translat- 
 ing from the French ' ' the Divine VVeekes and Workes of the noble, learned, 
 and religious Lord of Bartas " ; and in writing various poesies. His Mind 
 Content is in imitation of Dyer. Two hearts in one is in Davison's Poetical 
 Rhapsody. 
 
 Nash. Our two songs are from a "pleasant comed}'' " — Su7n7ner's 
 Last Will a?id Testament. 
 
 Drayton : the many-thousanded. The Barons' fFarj (time of Edward 
 the second), first published in 1596, finally shaped in 1619 ; England's 
 Heroical Epistles, 1597 ; and his great work, Polyolbion, 1612-18, a typo- 
 graphical poem descriptive, county by county, of England and Wales, 
 with historical episodes, — thirty books in twelve-syllable verse, some 
 thirty thousand lines. He wrote also Eclogues, from which are the first 
 three poems in our text; JVymphidia, a fairy-poem, "an airy master- 
 piece of whimsical grace "; and the Ballad of Agincourt, the best ballad 
 in our language. 
 
 Marlowe : dramatist. His two plays of Tamburlain the Great are 
 our first stage-plays in blank verse ; his tragedies of Dr. Faustus and 
 Edward the secondare second to none but Shakespeare's. His unfinished 
 poem of Hero and Leander was after his death (he was killed in a tavern- 
 brawl) completed by Chapman. Of the Passionate Shepherd four stanzas 
 were printed as Shakespeare's in Jaggard's Passionate Pilgriin, 1599. 
 The six here given are from England's Helicon, 1600. A seventh stanza, 
 with "silver dishes" and " ivory table,"' plainly out of place, was given 
 by Walton in his Complete Angler, 1655. 
 
 Uncertain Authors. The Nymph's Reply (with also a seventh 
 additional stanza) is ascribed to Raleigh by Walton ; but Walton is not
 
 3IO NOTES. 
 
 accurate ; and there is no corroborative evidence. It appeared in 
 England 's Helicon with the signature Ignoto, which by no means identifies 
 it with Raleigh. For no other reason Raleigh has also been credited 
 with Phillidii's Love-Call. More likely to be his are our two next poems 
 (also anonymous), To Cynthia and The Hermit's Song : the first from the 
 Hclico7i, the second from one of the Song Books of Dowland the Lutenist. 
 Beauty bathing has been attributed to Anthony Munday because signed* 
 Shepherd Tonie, though Totiie may be only a rhyme to honnie. And /m- 
 portune me no more / is surely not by Queen Elizabeth, though so taken 
 by Arber on the mere ascription by some unknown transcriber. 
 
 Say — a thin kind of serge ; Waly — an exclamation of grief ; sync — then ; 
 liusk — deck ; kame — comb ; fyled — defiled ; sic — such ; gars — compels, 
 makes ; cranioisie — crimson ; guedes — goods, things ; clout — kerchief ; 
 blue covetztry — cloth or stuff made at the town of Coventry ; whig — but- 
 termilk; weevil's skin — {weaver s Q.nd wethei-'s in the copies) the weevil 
 is a small delicate wheat-eating caterpillar. 
 
 Shakespeare. Of whose wonderful and world-known dramas nothing 
 need be said here. Concerning his text disputation seems to be endless. 
 Even the snatch of song in the Tempest ("Where the bee sucks ") cannot 
 be settled to the agreement of commentators. It is punctuated in half a 
 dozen ways, not without alteration of the sense. Lnrk in place of suck, 
 and sunset instead of summer have the authority of the elder Hazlitt. 
 Keel is skim ; cypress — crape ; Time' s chest — should it not be qiiest ? 
 
 Devereux : Robert, second Earl of Essex, the latest favourite of Queen 
 Elizabeth, by her beheaded. 
 
 Barnes. Love-songs, under the W\\& oi Parthenophil a7id Parthenophe ; 
 2l Divine Century of Spiritual Sonnets ; and the Devil's Charter, a tragedy 
 showing forth the life and death of Pope Alexander the sixth (the Borgia), 
 '■ as it was plaied before the King's Majestic upon Candlemasse night" 
 Heliochrise — the marigold ? 
 
 Sir John Daviks. Nosce teipsum (know thyself), a poem on the im- 
 mortality of the soul ; Hy?n?is to Astrea (acrostic compliments to Queen 
 Elizabeth) ; and a poem on dancing. 
 
 Barnfteld. The Affectionate Shepherd, written before the age of 
 twenty, dedicated to Lady Penelope Rich (Sidney's Stella) ; Cynthia 
 (some twenty sonnets) ; the Encomium of Lady Pecunia ; etc. Two of his
 
 NOTES. 311 
 
 poems, '' As it fell upon a day " and '' If music and sweet poetry agree," 
 were printed by Jaggard as Shakespeare's. 
 
 Dr. John Donxb. His poems consist of Songs and Sonnets, divine 
 and secular ; Epigrams, Elegies, Satires, Epistles, etc. He has been called 
 metaphysical ; but is rather fantastical : deserving however a far higher 
 place in our anthologies than has hitherto been accorded him. 
 
 Ben Jonson (or Benjamin Johnson) was educated at Westminster 
 School and, according to Fuller, at St. John's College, Cambridge. For 
 a while he followed the occupation of his step-father, a master bricklayer ; 
 was a soldier, a poet, and a dramatist inferior only to Shakespeare. His 
 comedy of Every man in his hu7no7ir was acted in 1598 ; Sejanus, Volpone^ 
 or the Fox, the Alchemist, and other plays, followed. He also wrote 
 Masques, for which Inigo Jones prepared the scenery. The Fo?-gst and 
 Utiderwoods contain his minor poems. The lines on Margaret Ratcliffe 
 are an acrostic. Few so have rued fate in another refers to her having lost 
 four brothers. Set up iti a brake — used for vicious horses. 
 
 Dekker : an excellent dramatic poet, credited by the elder Hazlitt 
 with " more of the unconscious simplicity of Nature than Webster has." 
 Associated in his works with Webster, Ford, Middleton, and Massinger. 
 The date of his death very uncertain. Only we hear nothing of him after 
 1638. Content is from Patient Grissel, a comedy, in which he was helped 
 by Houghton and Chettle. 
 
 Webster. Dates again very doubtful. His best plays are Vittoria 
 Corombona and the Duchess of Malfy, brought out in 1612 and 1616. He 
 is said to have written part of the Thracian Wonder, for or with Rowley. 
 The song at page 132 is most probably Rowley's. 
 
 Rowley. Author of some half-dozen plays (and helper perhaps in 
 others), one of which has Shakespeare's name also on the title-page. 
 
 Davison : Francis and Walter, sons of Queen Elizabeth's Secretary 
 of State. They brought out in 1602 their Poetical Rhapsody^ a collection 
 of poems by themselves, Raleigh, Watson, Sylvester, and others. The 
 poems here given may be by either of the brothers, or both. 
 
 Thomas Heywood. "A sort of prose Shakespeare" Lamb calls 
 him. A fellow actor too with Shakespeare. He wrote or assisted in
 
 312 NOTES. 
 
 writing some two hundred and twenty plays : perhaps in that number in- 
 cluding the City Pageants for several years invented by him. Of his 
 plays only twenty-three remain. He was also the author of Troja Bri- 
 tannica, a poem in seventeen cantos ; and the Hierarchy of the Blessed 
 Angels, in nine books. 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher. Authors, singly or jointly, of fifty-two 
 plays: the Maid's Tragedy (principally by Beaumont) their best tragic 
 work, the Faithful Shepherdess (by Fletcher) the best of pastoral come- 
 dies. Fletcher is said to have also aided Ben Jonson, Middleton, Field, 
 and Massinger, in their works ; and to have written the Tzuo Noble Kins- 
 men and another (lost) play in conjunction with Shakespeare. Skeat 
 would give the first scene of the Two Noble Kinsmen (not published till 
 after Fletcher's death, and perhaps completed by Rowley or Middleton), 
 with the Bridal Song, to Shakespeare — for whom also the first stanza of 
 Take those lips away is claimed. If not Shakespeare's, these two songs 
 are Fletcher's ; his too Beauty clear and fair, the Hymti to Pan, and Lay 
 a garland. The rest by Beaumont. 
 
 Giles Fletcher : younger brother of Phineas (famous for a long 
 physiological allegory, the Purple Island); rector of Alderton in Suffolk. 
 His birth-date should probably be earlier. His great poem is Christ's 
 Victory and Triumph " in heaven and earth, over and after death " : pub- 
 lished in 1610. Panglorie (world-glory) is brought in, attempting to se- 
 duce the Saviour. In her bower of Vain-Delight she sings " this Woo- 
 ing-Song, to welcome Him withal." 
 
 Ford. Another excellent dramatist : the Broken Heart and Love's 
 Sacrifice perhaps the best of his eight plays. 
 
 Field. A dramatist also : of a lower grade. 
 
 Uncertain Authors. To Night— irom the Phcenix Nest, a collection 
 from various writers, published in 1593 ; His Lady's Grief and Weep 710 
 more from Dowland's Song Books ; the Tomb of Desire from Davison's 
 Poetical Rhapsody ; Love till death and Since first I saw your face from 
 Music of Sundry Kinds, by Thomas Ford, 1607 ; Love tne not for comely 
 grace from Wilbye's Madrigals, of the same period ; the Epitaph on a 
 beautiful Virgin from Wit's Recreations, 1654. 
 
 Wotton. His poem is dated 1620, addressed to Elizabeth, daughter
 
 NOTES. 313 
 
 of James the first. His not very important poetical remains, of which 
 this is the best, were collected by Isaak Walton. 
 
 Aytoun, born in Kinaldie Castle, Scotland, was secretary to the 
 
 Queens of James the first and Charles the first. He died in Whitehall 
 
 Palace and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He wrote a few Latin 
 and English poems. 
 
 Drummond, of Hawthornden near Edinburgh: poet, pamphleteer, 
 and historian. His poems "amorous, elegiac, pastoral, and divine": 
 his best the amorous {Sonnets and Madrigals) and the divine (Flowers of 
 Si on). 
 
 Me77inon s Mother is Aurora, the Dawn ; By Peneus' streams refers to 
 the love of Phoebus for Daphne, whom he there met ; two suns., it is said, 
 once appeared as an augury in Rome; that learned Grecian is Plato ; 
 cariire — career ; decore — decorate. 
 
 Burton. The well-known author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, to 
 which in the later editions these verses were prefixed. 
 
 Wither. The chief of his many works during a long life are the 
 Shepherd' s Hunting (written while in prison for some political satire, in 
 1615); Fair Virtue, or the Mistress of Philarete ; Fidelia; and Hymm 
 and Songs of the Church. 
 
 Brownb. Britannia' s Pastorals (the first book printed in 1613, the 
 second in 1616, the third remaining in manuscript till 1851); the Shepherd' s 
 Pipe, partly Wither's, in seven eclogues, 1614. The Syren s Song is the 
 opening song of a Masque presented by the Gentlemen of the Middle 
 Temple, in 1614. 
 
 Carew. Poems, 1640. The song of Outer Beauty is also called Dis- 
 dain Returned, and has sometimes a third stanza added. But there is no 
 disdain in our two stanzas ; and there is a lack of evidence that the third 
 is by Carew. W. C. Hazlitt very doubtfully assigns to him the lines of 
 Chloris in the Snow. In the Gentleman' s Magazine, Vol. 93, part 2, they 
 are given to Strode. 
 
 GoFFE, or Goff. Three tragedies. 
 
 Herbert: born in Wales, was rector of Bemerton in Wiltshire, 
 where he wrote his series of sacred poems entitled The Temple.
 
 314 NOTES. 
 
 QUARLES. Emblems: a series of quaintly written verses, of which 
 our quotation gives a fair sample. 
 
 Dr. Henry King, bishop of Chichester. 
 
 Herkick (Herricke, Heyrick, Eyrick, Herycke) : also in holy orders, 
 Vicar of Dean Prior in Devonshire, but deprived of his living, under the 
 Commonwealth, in 1647-8. In the same year he published his Hespe- 
 ridcs. He wrote also Noble Numbers, pious poems. He returned to his 
 vicarage at the Restoration. 
 
 Shirley, the last of the great line of Dramatists, wrote thirty-three 
 popular plays, most of them tragi-comedies, " now sprightly and broadly 
 humorous," says Dyce, " now serious and solemn." Death the Con- 
 queror is in a Masque of Cupid arid Death. Earthly Glories, from the 
 Co7itention of Ajax and Ulysses for the armour of Achilles, is a dirge 
 for Ajax, who, not getting the armour, slew himself. 
 
 Strode, according to Wood {Atkeii: (9x(?« .•), was " a pithy and sen- 
 tentious preacher, an exquisite orator, and an eminent poet." He wrote 
 the Floating Island, a tragi-comedy, acted in 1636. A few scattered 
 poems also are traceable to him. 
 
 Randolph, a lawyer, wrote five plays and translated the Plutus of 
 Aristophanes. 
 
 Habington. Poems to Castara, in three parts : before marriage ; 
 after marriage ; the third part religious poems. He also wrote the Queen 
 of Arragoi, a play. 
 
 Davenant : author of Gondibert, an "epic poem"; plays; and 
 minor poetry. 
 
 Waller : Hampden's nephew, now with the Commonwealth, now 
 with the King; of ability which should have kept him above time-serv- 
 ing. A good and witty speaker and an elegant writer : his poems ama- 
 tory and panegyrical, on either side. 
 
 Suckling wrote the Sessions of the Poets, a witty poetical criticism ; 
 the Goblins, a comedy ; Aglaura, a tragi-comedy ; two other plays ; and 
 minor poems collected after his death under the title Fragmenta Aurea.
 
 NOTES. 315 
 
 The Ballad is corrupt in the editions of his works. We have used the 
 text of Wit's Recreations where it appears as " a Discourse between two 
 countrymen." As the nineteenth century is not the seventeenth century, 
 we have concluded not to give the last three stanzas. 
 
 " For nature brings not back the mastodon, 
 Nor we those times." 
 
 Where -we do sell our hay is the street still known as the Haymarket, 
 hard by Charing Cross ; conrse-a-park is some country dance or game. 
 
 Vorty (forty) and Widsun (Whitsun) are retained as characteristics of 
 the countrymen. 
 
 Fanshawe translated the Lusiad of Camoens and Guarini's Pastor 
 Fido: and wrote some not important poems. 
 
 Milton: Cromwell's secretary "for foreign tongues"; the author of 
 Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, CoTtius, and Samson Agonistes ; and, in 
 prose, the Defe7ice of the People of England, etc., etc. As Dryden's poetry 
 may be called prosaic, so Milton's prose is as sublimely poetic as his 
 verse. The difference is but in form. The poems here given are in the 
 order of his writing. 
 
 Eglantine — honeysuckle ; tells his tale — counts his flock ; ojitwatch the 
 Bear — watch till morning ; him that left half told the story of Cambiiscaii 
 — Chaucer ; frounced — curled ; Lycidas — Milton's friend, Edward King, 
 drowned on his voyage from Chester to Ireland ; Sisters of the Sacred 
 Well — the Muses ; Mona — the Isle of Anglesea ; Deva — the river Dee ; 
 fountain Arethuse — in Sicily, referring to the Sicilian pastoral poet, 
 Theocritus, as Mincius, a tributary of the Po, refers to Virgil ; the Her- 
 ald of the Sea — Triton ; Hippotades — ^olus, God of Winds ; Panope — a 
 smooth-water Sea-Nymph ; Camus — the river Cam, Milton and King 
 having been fellow students at Cambridge ; the Pilot of the Galilean Lake 
 — St. Peter ; Alphczis — a stream in Greece, supposed to be connected 
 with that of Arethusa ; rath — early; Bellerus — a giant of Cornwall, 
 where St. Michael (it was said) appeared on the Mount bearing his name. 
 There is no land in a direct line between there and Namancos and Bay- 
 ona in the northwest of Spain. The triple Tyrant is the Pope. 
 
 Cary : Lucius, Viscount Falkland, killed at the battle of Newbury, 
 fighting on the royalist side. 
 
 N.\BBES. Some few Masques and Plays ; Poems, and Elegies.
 
 3l6 NOTES. 
 
 Grahamb: James, first Marquis of Montrose, the most devoted of 
 the adherents of Charles the first. Executed at Edinburgh. 
 
 Crashaw. Steps to the Temple (sacred poems); Delights of the Muses : 
 and other worlcs. He became a Roman Catholic, and died Canon of 
 Loretto. His excellent Wishes, for no apparent reason except the num- 
 ber of them, have been always abridged in the collections. 
 
 Denham. Born at Dublin. His fame rests on a single descriptive 
 poem. Cooper's Hill ; though he also wrote a tragedy, the Sophy, in which 
 are the lines to Morpheus. 
 
 Lovelace. Lucasta ; Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, Songs, etc. Aramaittha, 
 a pastoral. 
 
 Cowley. Poetical Blossoms (published at the age of fifteen) ; Davi- 
 deis, a sacred poem, in four books, of the troubles of King David ; the 
 Mistress, a series of sham love-poems ; Pindaric and other odes in 
 English and Latin; and six books in Latin oi Plants (Herbs, Flowers, 
 Weeds). Employed much abroad by Charles the first. Later he took 
 his degree as a physician, but does not seem to have practised. 
 
 Sherburne. Some translations, and a few amatory and religious 
 poems. 
 
 Richard Brome. The date of his birth unknown. His works are 
 LachrymcB APusariwi, and fifteen plays of considerable merit. 
 
 Alexander Brome. Songs, epigrams, translations from the French 
 and Latin, bacchanalian verses, satires, of no great poetic value. He 
 also wrote a comedy ; and edited Richard Brome's dramatic works, 
 though it does not appear that they were kinfolk. A Palinode is a 
 recantation. 
 
 Marvell : born near Hull, Assistant Secretary of State with Milton, 
 Member of Parliament for Hull in the reign of Charles the second ; poet 
 and satirist. His poems (English and Latin) were not collected till after 
 his death. To the Glow-worms is generally called The Mower to the 
 Glow-worms, from being found in a little group of poems in the character 
 of Damon, the Mower. His //cra/'/aw Orft- (Miltonic also) in its severe 
 sculptural beauty stands by itself in English verse. In the stanza — As if
 
 NOTES. 317 
 
 his highest plot to plant the bergamot he recognizes the simple unam- 
 bitious character of Cromwell's early days : the bergamot is a kind of 
 pear. The bleeding head refers to a supposed event while digging for the 
 foundations of the Capitol at Rome. Climacteric here means death- 
 giving ; this valour sad — serious, in opposition to the changeful policy of 
 the Scots. 
 
 Vaughan. Silex Scintillans : "sacred poems and private ejacula- 
 tions," 1650. The Epithalamium is from Olor Iscantis, " a collection of 
 select poems and translations, by Henry Vaughan, Silurist," 1651. In 
 the second stanza the original has a he Rose and a she Sun ; but the he 
 throughout the poem hardly e.\presses a gender. 
 
 Stanley. Translations and Poems of little mark. 
 
 Hall of Durham : some Poems, " amatory and divine." 
 
 Dryden : "glorious John!" The grandest of prose poets. His 
 greatest poem is Absolof/i and Achitophcl, a political satire against the 
 Duke of Monmouth and Lord Shaftesbury (time of James the second). 
 Among his numerous works are many plays, tragedies, and comedies, 
 and adaptations of Shakespeare's Te?npest and Antho7iy and Cleopatra. 
 His latest important work was his Fables, Translations from Boccaccio, 
 and from Chaucer — "into our language as it is now refined. " He was 
 the translator also of Virgil (the yEneid), Ovid, Juvenal, Theocritus, etc. 
 
 St. Cecilia is said to have invented the organ ; which should be known 
 to explain the Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, and the last strophe of Alexan- 
 der s Feast. 
 
 Flecknoe. Dates unknown ; that of his death but guessed. A most 
 industrious writer of verse and prose, fiercely satirized by Dryden. Of 
 his productions we may mention Hierothalamium, or Heavenly Nuptials, 
 1626 ; the Affections of a Pious Soid., 1640 ; some Comedies ; Heroic Por- 
 traits ; and Epigrams. 
 
 Fletcher. Christened name tmknown ; nor of his works anything 
 but a small volume of Translations from Martial, with a few original 
 verses. 
 
 Sedley : one of the wits and verse writers (perhaps the best) of the 
 Court of Charles the second.
 
 3l8 NOTES. 
 
 Ramsay : a Scottish bookseller and publisher, and literary impostor ; 
 notwithstanding a man of genius, chiefly of a comic vein. The Gentle 
 Shepherd, a pastoral drama in Scottish dialect, 1725, is his own, and 
 entitles him to fame. Of his minor poems it is difficult to prove the 
 authorship. Two collections of Scottish and English Songs, the Tea- 
 Table Miscellany and the Ever^een, were brought out by him in 1724-7. 
 The Miscellany contains many poems "by him"; the Evcrgreeti pur- 
 ported to be by ingenious writers "before 1600,'' and has among undoubt- 
 ed old poems, one by Ramsay, signed A. R. Scot, the Vision, stated by 
 him to have been " compylit in Latin anno 1300." The Yellow-Hair' d 
 Laddie then may or may not be his. 
 
 Brae — broken ground, as on a hill-side ; winna bught in — will not come 
 into the bughts — the pens in which they are milked ; butt the house — out- 
 side ; kirn — churn ; crack — talk. 
 
 Pope. In 1709 Pope published his Pastorals ; the Essay 07t Criticism 
 in 171 1 ; the Rape of the Lock, his most poetic poem, the " most exquisite 
 filagree-work ever invented," " the daintiest of all mock heroics," in 1714 ; 
 translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey between 1715 and 1726 ; the 
 first part of the Essay on Man in 1732 ; and his Dunciad'va. 1728, enlarged 
 in 1742-3. The scope of the present volume forbidding fragments, not 
 even the perfection of smoothly measured versification for which he is 
 most to be considered can have fair representing. The Ode o?i Solitzide, 
 by his own account, was written by him before he was twelve years old. 
 
 Thomson. The Seasons (Winter, Summer, Spring, and Autumn, in 
 such succession), 1726-30 ; Liberty, 1734-S ; the Castle of Indolence, in 
 Spenserian stanzas, his best work, 1748. His dramas are of little worth. 
 
 Gray. A man of leisure and inactivity ; his inspiration cramped. 
 Notwithstanding his few poems show him as an accomplished writer. 
 The Elegy is his masterpiece. In a manuscript draft, immediately after 
 the line — 
 
 With incense kindled at the Muse' s flatne, 
 
 he concluded the poem with the following four stanzas : — 
 
 The thoughtless world to majesty may bow. 
 Exalt tlie brave, and idolize success ; 
 But more to innocence their safety owe 
 Thau power or genius e'er conspired to bless.
 
 NOTES. 319 
 
 And thou who, mindful of the unhonour'd dead. 
 Dost in these notes their artless tale relate, 
 By night and lonely contemplation led 
 To wander in the gloomy walks of fate, — 
 
 Hark ! how the sacred calm that breathes around 
 Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease ; 
 In still small accents whispering from the ground 
 A grateful earnest of eternal peace. 
 
 No more, with reason and thyself at strife. 
 Give anxious cares and endless wishes room ; 
 But through the cool sequester'd vale of life 
 Pursue the silent tenour of thy doom ! 
 
 Again, after completing his new version (these stanzas omitted), he struck 
 out the stanza in parenthesis, before the Epitaph ; altering also the first- 
 written names of Gracchus, Tally, and Caesar, to Hampden, Milton, and 
 Cromwell, as they now stand — the Cromwell certainly not according so 
 closely with the utterance of the line. 
 
 The occasion of the Bard is the massacre of the Welsh Bards by Ed- 
 ward the first. Berkley's roofs — Berkley Castle, where Edward the sec- 
 ond was murdered, his wife consenting ; the tnighty victor is Edward the 
 third ; the sable warrior — the Black Prince, who died before his father ; 
 Thirst and Famine refer to Richard the second, starved to death ; the 
 bristled boar is Richard the third; and the form divine i% Elizabeth, of 
 Welsh descent. 
 
 Collins : a poet of genius ; but his life aimless and closing in insanity. 
 His works Orie7ital Eclogues and Odes descriptive and allegorical. 
 
 Akenside : a physician. His best-known poem, the Pleasures of Im- 
 agination, w'as published in 1744. His miscellanies were collected in 
 1772. 
 
 Bourbon's might, Braganza's treasure — the power of France and In- 
 dian wealth of Portugal. 
 
 Jean Elliot : daughter of Sir Gilbert Elliot, of Minto House, Tev- 
 iotdale, where she was born. The Flowers o the Forest (the Forest being 
 the name of a large Border district, on the Scottish side) is also called 
 the Lament for Flodden, for the defeat of James the fourth at Flodden 
 Field.
 
 320 NOTES. 
 
 Lilting — carolling ; yowe-milking — ewe-milking ; ilka — each ; loaning — 
 a lane ; wede — weedfed ; scorning — rallying, chaffing ; dowie — dreary ; 
 daffin — joking ; gabbin — chatting ; luglen — milking-pail ; skcariiig — reap- 
 ing ; bandsters — sheaf-binders ; lyart and runkled — grizzled and wrinkled ; 
 fleeching — coaxing ; gloaming — twilight ; swankies — lithe, active lads ; 
 bogle — ghost ; dule — grief. 
 
 CowPER : author of John Gilpin. His most important poem is The 
 Task, in six books. Of other sustained works the chief are his Table- 
 Talk and Tirocinium, or a Review of Schools. He wrote also Olney 
 Hymns ; and translated the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. 
 
 The lines on the loss of the Royal George tell their own story. It hap- 
 pened in Portsmouth harbour, in 1782. Mary was his most faithfully at- 
 tached friend, Mrs. Unwin, the cheerer of long years clouded by religious 
 melancholy. 
 
 Bruck, of Scottish birth, in youth a shepherd, died of consumption 
 while studying for the Secession Church. His trusted friend and literary 
 executor, the Rev. John Logan, published the lines To the Cuckoo as his 
 own, omitting one stanza (the seventh) which identifies it with Bruce. Dr. 
 Grosart, in his edition of Bruce's few poems, 1865, conclusively proves 
 both Logan's theft and Bruce's authorship. 
 
 Sir William Jones is scarcely to be counted as a poet even for these 
 high-toned lines. Trench gives The fiend Dissension : which seems to 
 make sense ; but in the copy printed by the " Society for Constitutional 
 Information," about 1780-2, the Ode apparently written for them, it is 
 The fiend Discretion. 
 
 Chatterton : the " marvellous boy,'' who astonished and puzzled 
 the literary world with his Poems of Rozvley : forgeries, purporting to 
 have been written in the 14th and 15th centuries. The Rev. Walter W. 
 Skeat has completely overthrown the supposition of there being any 
 early English foundation for these poems. He shows the metres to be 
 wrong, the words wrongly syllabled, the phrases involving anachronisms. 
 " Nothing but patience is required to unravel every riddle which the 
 Rowley poems present." Their sole claim to attention is as the remark- 
 able work of a precociously clever boy. The Roundelay (from ^-Ella, " a 
 Tragycal Enterlude or Discoorseynge Tragedie wrotenn by Thomas Row- 
 leye ") and a Ballad of Charity (of his latest writing) give fair indication
 
 NOTES. 321 
 
 of what he might have done had he lived. Barely eighteen when, de- 
 spairing of life, he poisoned himself 
 
 As he ''coined a language," so he made his own glossary for words 
 not otherwise to be explained. Cryme is hair ; rode — complexion ; dentc — 
 fasten ; grc — grow ; Ouphanie — Elfm. 
 
 Blake: engraver, painter, poet; who wrote, printed, and published 
 his poems, with his own designs, his own engraving, and his own colour- 
 ing. Very beautiful some of these, young and simply natural, giving 
 promise, as with Chatterton, of a rich maturity; but excess of imagina- 
 tion, verging on insanity, rendered his longer and later works incoherent 
 and unintelligible. His shorter lyrics, his best, yet not always clear, are 
 in the Songs ofLmocence, 1787, and Songs of Experience, 1794. ycrusaletn 
 and Milton, "written against his will," soon after 1800, was the latest of 
 his longer poetic utterances. After that he devoted himself mainly to 
 Art. 
 
 Burns. Halloiv-ecn, the Cotter'' s Saturday Night, "and other poems," 
 appeared in 1786 ; Tain CShanter in 1793. No need to comment on 
 Songs which have gained a world-wide popularity, which close our four 
 centuries of Verse with a music ever fresh and young as that of Chaucer 
 in his youngest days. Very many of Burns' songs, altered or built up 
 from old fragments, were contributed by him to Johnson's Scots' Musical 
 Museum; and others afterward to Thomson's collection of Original 
 Scottish Airs. 
 
 Wad — would ; bide the stoure — bear the storm ; yestreen — yester-even ; 
 bra-w — smart ; sleekit — creeping ; brattle — stir ; pattle — a stick to clear the 
 plough of earth ; daimen icker — an odd ear of corn ; thrave — a number of 
 sheaves ; the lave — the remainder ; big — build ; foggage — moss ; S7iell — 
 bitter; but hottse or hauld — out of house or hold ; thole — endure; cran- 
 reuch — frost ; no thy lane — not alone ; aglcy — awry ; stoure — here mean- 
 ing the ploughed-up ground ; bield — shelter ; histie — barren ; ilka — every ; 
 airts — quarters ; row — roll ; shaw — a copse, a wood ; knoT.ves—V.-no\\.h, hills ; 
 aboon — above ; scaith — injure ; /^«/— guard ; steer — molest ; staw — stole ; 
 foic — full of drink, merry ; coost — toss'd ; asklent — askance ; unco sleigh — 
 very proudly ; gart — made ; abeigh — by ; fleech'd — coax'd ; grat, etc. — 
 wept till his eyes were blear'd and blind ; louping — leaping ; linn—\iaX&r- 
 fall ; smoor'd — smother'd ; crouse and canty — brisk and jolly ; snool — snub ; 
 bluntie — stupid ; gleib — patch, morsel ; clout — snatch ; kith — friends, not 
 relations ; spier — ask ; coof—ioo\, a word of contempt ; loof—^e. open 
 hand, the inside ; zvarily tent — be on the look out ; back-yctt — back-gate ; 
 I.— 21
 
 322 NOTES. 
 
 a-jee — ajar; syne — then; lightly — make light of; gozud — gold; hoddin 
 g-rey — undyed wool ; birkic — fellow ; the gree — the triumph, or prize of 
 victory. 
 
 Nairn. Burns' countrywoman, Lady Nairn, may appropriately com- 
 plete our volume, with a song worthy of Burns himself, and for a long 
 while attributed to him as his death-singing. It was supposed to be ad- 
 dressed to his wife Jean, and so printed ; but it has been claimed by and 
 for Lady Nairn, who wrote during the latter part of the century a num- 
 ber of songs : Caller Herrings, the Laird o' Cockpen^ and many more, 
 keeping her name secret. The Land o the Leal was written in 1798. 
 Four lines, not helping the song, were added by her many years later ; 
 and of four other lines (says the Rev. Charles Rogers, who edited her 
 poems in 1869) it is doubtful whether they be not "an interpolation by 
 another hand." The words are here given as Lady Nairn first wrote 
 them.
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 TACK 
 
 Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ! 295 
 
 Alas ! have I not pain enough, my friend ! 59 
 
 All ye woods and trees and bowers ! 136 
 
 And O for ane-and-twenty. Tarn ! 299 
 
 And wilt thou leave me thus ? 7 
 
 Art thou gone in haste 132 
 
 Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers 130 
 
 As it fell upon a day 118 
 
 Ask me no more where Jove bestows 166 
 
 At Beauty's Bar as I did stand 16 
 
 Avenge, O Lord ! thy slaughter'd saints 215 
 
 Away with these self-loving lads 61 
 
 Beauty clear and fair 136 
 
 Beauty sat bathing by a spring loi 
 
 Beauty, sweet Love ! is like the morning dew 80 
 
 Because I breathe not love to every one 60 
 
 Blessings as rich and fragrant crown your heads 246 
 
 Blow ! blow ! thou winter wind ! 105 
 
 Buzz ! quoth the Blue-Fly 129 
 
 Call for the robin red-breast and the wren 131 
 
 Calm was the day, and through the trembling air 28 
 
 Care-charmer, Sleep ! son of the sable Night 79 
 
 Change thy mind since she doth change 114 
 
 Chloris ! if ere May be done 255 
 
 Choose me your Valentine ! 178
 
 324 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 PAGR 
 
 Come away, come away, Death ! 107 
 
 Come ! come away ! the Spring 235 
 
 Come, little Babe ! come, silly soul ! 21 
 
 Come live with me and be my Love ! 93 
 
 Come, Sleep ! and with thy sweet deceiving 139 
 
 Come, spur away ! 183 
 
 Come then, tell me, sage divine ! 278 
 
 Come unto these yellow sands 103 
 
 Comforts lasting, loves increasing 143 
 
 Corydon ! arise, my Corydon ! 94 
 
 Cromwell ! our chief of men, who through a cloud 214 
 
 Cupid and my Campaspe play'd 47 
 
 Cyriack ! this three years' day, these eyes 217 
 
 Damon ! come drive thy flocks this way ! 243 
 
 Daughter of Jove ! relentless power ! 271 
 
 Diaphenia, like the daffadown-dilly 64 
 
 Disdain me not without desert ! 8 
 
 Drink to me only with thine eyes 129 
 
 Drop golden showers, gentle Sleep ! i63 
 
 Duncan Gray cam' here to woo 298 
 
 Early, cheerful, mounting Lark 117 
 
 Fair and fair and twice so fair 71 
 
 Fair Daffodils ! we weep to see 17S 
 
 Fair Madam ! you 186 
 
 Fair pledges of a fruitful tree ! 17S 
 
 Fair Summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore ! 88 
 
 False World ! thou liest : thou canst not lend 171 
 
 Fear no more the heat o' the sun 108 
 
 Fine young Folly ! though you were 188 
 
 First-born of Chaos, who so fair didst come 228 
 
 First shall the heavens want starry light 69 
 
 Flee from the press and dwell with soothfastness ! 3 
 
 Fly hence, Shadows ! that do keep 142 
 
 Fresh Spring ! the herald of Love's mighty king 33 
 
 From fame's desire, from love's delight retired 97 
 
 From harmony, from heavenly harmony 253 
 
 Full fathom five thy father lies 103
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 325 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Give place, ye Lovers ! here before 11 
 
 Give place, you Ladies ! and begone 14 
 
 Glide, gentle streams ! and bear 177 
 
 Glories, pleasures, pomps, delights, and ease 141 
 
 Go, lovely rose igi 
 
 Good Muse ! rock me asleep 23 
 
 Go, Soul ! the body's guest 25 
 
 Hail, beauteous stranger of the wood ! 283 
 
 Happy the man, whose wish and care 258 
 
 Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings 108 
 
 Hark, how chimes the Passing-Bell 181 
 
 Hark ! now every thing is still 131 
 
 Hence, loathed Melancholy jgg 
 
 Hence, vain deluding Joys ! 203 
 
 Here lies the ruin'd Cabinet 256 
 
 Her lamp the glow-worm lend thee ! 174 
 
 He's not the happy man to whom is given 262 
 
 He that loves a rosy cheek 167 
 
 How bless'd is he, though ever cross'd 82 
 
 How ill doth he deserve a Lover's name 167 
 
 How long with vain complaining 62 
 
 How oft when thou, my Music ! music play'st 113 
 
 How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth 199 
 
 How sweet I roam'd from field to field 287 
 
 I dare not ask a kiss 178 
 
 I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair 150 
 
 If all the world and love were young 94 
 
 If aught of oaken stop or pastoral song 273 
 
 If great Apollo offer'd as a dower 81 
 
 If true love might true love's reward obtain 65 
 
 If women could be fair and yet not fond 20 
 
 If ye would love and loved be 6 
 
 I have done one braver thing 122 
 
 I must not grieve my Love, whose eyes would read 80 
 
 I'm wearin' awa, John ! 302 
 
 In a grove, most rich of shade 51 
 
 In the merry month of May 20 
 
 In this marble buried lies 149
 
 326 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 In time long past, when in Diana's chace 63 
 
 I once may see when years shall wreak my wrong 79 
 
 I prithee let my heart alone ! 247 
 
 I saw fair Chloris walk alone 168 
 
 I saw my Lady weep 145 
 
 Is there for honest poverty 300 
 
 I tell thee, Dick ! where I have been 193 
 
 I've heard the lilting at our yowe-milking 279 
 
 I weigh not Fortune's frown nor smile 86 
 
 Lady ! you are with beauties so enriched 132 
 
 Lately, by clear Thames, his side 234 
 
 Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son ! 216 
 
 Lay a garland on my hearse 137 
 
 Let me not to the marriage of true minds 114 
 
 Let Mother Earth now deck herself in flowers 55 
 
 Let us use it while we may 198 
 
 Like the violet, which alone 189 
 
 Like to Diana, in her summer weed 73 
 
 Like to the clear in highest sphere 67 
 
 Love guards the roses of thy lips 69 
 
 Love hath delight in sweet delicious fare 64 
 
 Love in my bosom like a bee 66 
 
 Love is the blossom where there blows 140 
 
 Love me not for comely grace 146 
 
 Madam ! Withouten many words 9 
 
 Marble ! weep, for thou dost cover 128 
 
 Marina's gone : and now sit I 164 
 
 May I find a woman fair " 139 
 
 Men ! if you love us, play no more 127 
 
 Methought I saw my late espoused Saint 217 
 
 Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay 27 
 
 Morpheus, the humble God that dwells 224 
 
 Mortality ! behold and fear 137 
 
 My dear and only Love ! I pray 219 
 
 My Dearest ! to let you or the world know 173 
 
 My love is of a birth as rare 245 
 
 My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming 112 
 
 My Lute ! awake ! perform the last 9
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 32/ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 My mind to me a kingdom is 48 
 
 My Mistress' eyes a.re nothing like the sun 113 
 
 My Muse may well grudge at my heavenly joy 59 
 
 My silks and fine array 288 
 
 My thoughts are wing'd with hope, my hopes with love 96 
 
 My true Love hath my heart and I have his 61 
 
 No more, no more of this I vow ! 236 
 
 Not, Celia ! that I juster am 256 
 
 Not marble, nor the gilded no 
 
 Now that the Spring hath fill'd our veins i6S 
 
 O Fair ! O Sweet ! when I do look on thee 49 
 
 Of a' the airts the wind can blaw 295 
 
 Of her pure eyes, that now is seen 89 
 
 Of your trouble, Ben ! to ease me 12S 
 
 O gentle Love ! ungentle for thy deed 72 
 
 O Hand ! of all hands living i34 
 
 O, how thy worth with manners may I sing no 
 
 O joy too high for my low style to show ! 60 
 
 O Mary ! at thy window be ! 291 
 
 O Mistress mine ! where are you roaming ? 107 
 
 O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray 214 
 
 O Night ! O jealous Night ! repugnant to my measures 144 
 
 O, no more, no more ! too late 142 
 
 Orpheus with his lute made trees io3 
 
 O, saw ye bonnie Lesley 296 
 
 O, sing unto my roundelay ! 286 
 
 O thou that swing'st upon the waving 225 
 
 Out upon it ! I have loved 197 
 
 O, waly ! waly ! up the bank 98 
 
 O, what a pain is love ! 99 
 
 O, whistle ! and I'll come to you, my Lad ! 300 
 
 Pack, clouds ! away, and welcome, day ! 134 
 
 Pan's Syrinx was a girl indeed 47 
 
 Passion may my judgment blear 133 
 
 Phoebus ! arise ^ 151 
 
 Phoebus, rich father of eternal light 116
 
 328 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Piping down the valleys wild 289 
 
 Pretty twinkling starry eyes ! 24 
 
 Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair ! 127 
 
 Reach with your whiter hands to me 178 
 
 Reveal, O tongue ! the secrets of my thought ! 71 
 
 Ring out your bells ! let mourning shows be spread ! 54 
 
 Rise, Lady Mistress ! rise ! 143 
 
 Roses, their sharp spines being gone 135 
 
 Ruin seize thee, ruthless King ! 267 
 
 See the chariot at hand here of Love 123 
 
 See ! with what simplicity . 238 
 
 Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green 12 
 
 Shake off your heavy trance ! 138 
 
 Shall I, hopeless, then pursue 233 
 
 Shall I tell you whom I love ? 162 
 
 Shall I, wasting in despair 159 
 
 Shut not so soon ! the dull-eyed Night 179 
 
 Sigh no more, Ladies ! sigh no more 104 
 
 Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea no 
 
 Since first I saw your face I resolved 148 
 
 Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part ! 92 
 
 Sith gone is my delight and only pleasure 154 
 
 Sitting by a river-side 74 
 
 Slow, slow, fresh fount ! keep time with my salt tears 124 
 
 Some there are as fair to see too 133 
 
 Sometimes I wish that I his pillow were 120 
 
 So shoots a Star as doth my Mistress glide 84 
 
 Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king 88 
 
 Stay, O sweet ! and do not rise ! 121 
 
 Stay, Phoebus ! stay 1 192 
 
 Steer, hither steer your winged pines 161 
 
 Stella ! the fullness of my thoughts of thee 59 
 
 Stella ! the only planet of my night 58 
 
 Still to be neat, still to be dress'd 129 
 
 Sweet Adon ! darest not glance thine eye 75 
 
 Sweet are the thoughts that savor of content 73 
 
 Sweet Day ! so cool, so calm, so bright 168
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 329 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sweet Rose of virtue and of gentleness ! 7 
 
 Sweet Soul ! which in the April of thy years 154 
 
 Take, O take those lips away 133 
 
 Tell mc not of a face that's fair 235 
 
 Tell me not, Sweet ! I am unkind 227 
 
 Tell me not Time hath play'd the thief 181 
 
 Tell me, thou skilful shepherd swain ! 90 
 
 That learned Grecian, who did so excel 153 
 
 That time of year thou may'st in me behold iii 
 
 That which her slender waist confined 191 
 
 The chief perfections of both sexes join'd 218 
 
 The curfew tolls the knell of parting day 263 
 
 The doubt which ye misdeem, fair Love ! is vain 34 
 
 The faery beam upon you ! 124 
 
 The flower of virgins in her prime of years 155 
 
 The forward violet thus did I chide 112 
 
 The forward youth that would appear 240 
 
 The fowler hides, as closely as he may 65 
 
 The glories of our blood and state 180 
 
 The lark now leaves his watery nest 190 
 
 The lopped tree in time may grow again 78 
 
 The motion which the ninefold sacred quire 85 
 
 Then, as she was 'bove human glory graced 116 
 
 The poets feign that when the world began 87 
 
 The poplars are fell'd : farewell to the shade 283 
 
 There is a Lady, sweet and kind 147 
 
 The rushing rivers that do run 18 
 
 These as they change. Almighty Father ! these 258 
 
 The Stoics think (and they come near the truth) 119 
 
 The sweet season, that bud and bloom forth brings 12 
 
 The twentieth year is well-nigh past 281 
 
 The World's a bubble, and the Life of Man 77 
 
 The Yellow-hair'd Laddie sat down on yon brae 257 
 
 This latter night, amidst my troubled rest 63 
 
 Thou think'st I flatter, when thy praise I tell 197 
 
 Thrice happy Pair ! who had and have 248 
 
 Thrice happy She that is so well assured 33 
 
 Tiger ! Tiger, burning bright 290 
 
 Tired with all these, for restful death I cry iii
 
 330 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Toll for the Brave ! 280 
 
 To me, whom in their lays the shepherds call 278 
 
 Tongue ! never cease to sing Fidessa's praise 81 
 
 To the old long life and treasure ! 125 
 
 To you, my Purse ! and to none other wight 4 
 
 Trust not, sweet Soul ! those curled waves of gold 153 
 
 'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won 249 
 
 Tyrian dye why do you wear 232 
 
 Underneath this marble stone 233 
 
 Under the greenwood tree 106 
 
 Unto the boundless ocean of thy beauty 79 
 
 Vane ! young in years, but in sage counsel old 215 
 
 Victorious men of earth ! no more 179 
 
 Wee, modest, crimson-tipped Flower ! 293 
 
 Weep you no more, sad fountains ! 147 
 
 Wee, sleekit, cowerin', timorous Beastie ! 291 
 
 Welcome, Maids of Honour ! 176 
 
 Welcome ! welcome ! do I sing 163 
 
 Well then, I now do plainly see 231 
 
 Were I as base as is the lowly plain 87 
 
 What constitutes a State ? 285 
 
 What is Love but the desire 91 
 
 What is the cause when I elsewhere resort 160 
 
 What is the existence of Man's Life 172 
 
 What sweet relief the showers to thirsty plants 13 
 
 What though with figures I should raise 218 
 
 When all is done and said, in the end this 13 
 
 Whence comes my love ? O heart ! disclose ! 16 
 
 When daisies pied, and violets blue 104 
 
 When God at first made Man 17° 
 
 When icicles hang by the wall loS 
 
 When I consider how my light is spent 216 
 
 When I essay to blaze my lovely Love 85 
 
 When I go musing all alone 15^ 
 
 When in the chronicle of wasted time 113 
 
 When I was fair and young, and favour graced me 102 
 
 When Love with unconfined wings 226
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 331 
 
 PAGE 
 
 When Music, heavenly maid, was young 274 
 
 When this crystal shall present 181 
 
 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 109 
 
 When Venus saw Desire must die 146 
 
 When whispering strains do softly steal 182 
 
 Where the bee sucks, there lurk I 103 
 
 Whether on Ida's shady brow 288 
 
 Whoe'er she be 220 
 
 Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm 121 
 
 Who is the honest man ? 169 
 
 Why came I so untimely forth 192 
 
 Why covet I thy blessed eyes to see 161 
 
 Why doth heaven bear a sun 115 
 
 Why so pale and wan ? fond lover ! 198 
 
 Would my good Lady love me best S 
 
 Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon ! 297 
 
 Ye learned Sisters ! which have oftentimes 34 
 
 Ye living lamps, by whose dear light 239 
 
 Yet once more, O ye laurels ! and once more 208 
 
 You meaner beauties of the night 150 
 
 You who are earth and can not rise 187
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 NOV 1 5 ' 
 
 980 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CAVLONO 
 
 
 
 POINTED INU S *
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILIT 
 
 AA 000 945 206 i