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SPECIMENS WITH MEMOIRS OF THE LESS-KNOWN BRITISH POETS.

With an Introductory Essay,

By

THE REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN.

IN THREE VOLS.

VOL. II.

CONTENTS

SECOND PERIOD—FROM SPENSER TO DRYDEN. (CONTINUED.)

WILLIAM HABINGTON
Epistle addressed to the Honourable W. E.
To his Noblest Friend, J. C., Esq.
A Description of Castara

JOSEPH HALL, BISHOP OF NORWICH
Satire I.
Satire VII.

RICHARD LOVELACE
Song—To Althea, from Prison
Song
A Loose Saraband

ROBERT HERRICK
Song
Cherry-Ripe
The Kiss: A Dialogue
To Daffodils
To Primroses
To Blossoms
Oberon's Palace
Oberon's Feast
The Mad Maid's Song
Corinna's going a-Maying
Jephthah's Daughter
The Country Life

SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE
The Spring, a Sonnet—From the Spanish

ABRAHAM COWLEY
The Chronicle, a Ballad
The Complaint
The Despair
Of Wit
Of Solitude
The Wish
Upon the Shortness of Man's Life
On the Praise of Poetry
The Motto—'Tentanda via est,' &c
Davideis-Book II
Life
The Plagues of Egypt

GEORGE WITHER
From 'The Shepherd's Hunting'
The Shepherd's Resolution
The Steadfast Shepherd
From 'The Shepherd's Hunting'

SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT
From 'Gondibert'—Canto II
From 'Gondibert'—Canto IV

DR HENRY KING
Sic Vita
Song
Life

JOHN CHALKHILL
Arcadia
Thealma, a Deserted Shepherdess
Priestess of Diana
Thealma in Full Dress
Dwelling of the Witch Orandra

CATHARINE PHILLIPS
The Inquiry
A Friend

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE
Melancholy described by Mirth
Melancholy describing herself

THOMAS STANLEY
Celia Singing
Speaking and Kissing
La Belle Confidante
The Loss
Note on Anacreon

ANDREW MARVELL
The Emigrants
The Nymph complaining of the Death of her Fawn
On 'Paradise Lost'
Thoughts in a Garden
Satire on Holland

IZAAK WALTON
The Angler's Wish

JOHN WILMOT, EARL or ROCHESTER
Song
Song

THE EARL OP ROSCOMMON
From 'An Essay on Translated Verse'

CHARLES COTTON
Invitation to Izaak Walton
A Voyage to Ireland in Burlesque

DR HENRY MORE
Opening of Second Part of 'Psychozoia'
Exordium of Third Part
Destruction and Renovation of all things
A Distempered Fancy
Soul compared to a Lantern

WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE
Argalia taken Prisoner by the Turks

HENRY VAUGHAN
On a Charnel-house
On Gombauld's 'Endymion'
Apostrophe to Fletcher the Dramatist
Picture of the Town
The Golden Age
Regeneration
Resurrection and Immortality
The Search
Isaac's Marriage
Man's Fall and Recovery
The Shower
Burial
Cheerfulness
The Passion
Rules and Lessons
Repentance
The Dawning
The Tempest
The World
The Constellation
Misery
Mount of Olives
Ascension-day
Cock-crowing
The Palm-tree
The Garland
Love-sick
Psalm civ
The Timber
The Jews
Palm-Sunday
Providence
St Mary Magdalene
The Rainbow
The Seed Growing Secretly (Mark iv. 26)
Childhood
Abel's Blood
Righteousness
Jacob's Pillow and Pillar
The Feast
The Waterfall

DR JOSEPH BEAUMONT
Hell
Joseph's Dream
Paradise
Eve
To the Memory of his Wife
Imperial Borne Personified
End

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES—

FROM ROBERT HEATH—
What is Love?
Protest of Love
To Clarastella

BY VARIOUS AUTHORS—
My Mind to me a Kingdom is
The Old and Young Courtier
There is a Garden in her Face
Hallo, my Fancy
The Fairy Queen

* * * * *

SPECIMENS WITH MEMOIRS OF THE LESS-KNOWN BRITISH POETS.

SECOND PERIOD—FROM SPENSER TO DRYDEN. (CONTINUED.)

* * * * *

WILLIAM HABINGTON.

This poet might have been expected to have belonged to the 'Spasmodic school,' judging by his parental antecedents. His father was accused of having a share in Babington's conspiracy, but was released because he was godson to Queen Elizabeth. Soon after, however, he was imprisoned a second time, and condemned to death on the charge of having concealed some of the Gunpowder-plot conspirators; but was pardoned through the interest of Lord Morley. His uncle, however, was less fortunate, suffering death for his complicity with Babington. The poet's mother, the daughter of Lord Morley, was more loyal than her husband or his brother, and is said to have written the celebrated letter to Lord Monteagle, in consequence of which the execution of the Gunpowder-plot was arrested.

Our poet was born at Hindlip, Worcestershire, on the very day of the discovery of the plot, 5th November 1605. The family were Papists, and William was sent to St Omers to be educated. He was pressed to become a Jesuit, but declined. On his return to England, his father became preceptor to the poet. As he grew up, instead of displaying any taste for 'treasons, stratagems, and spoils,' he chose the better part, and lived a private and happy life. He fell in love with Lucia, daughter of William Herbert, the first Lord Powis, and celebrated her in his long and curious poem entitled 'Castara.' This lady he afterwards married, and from her society appears to have derived much happiness. In 1634, he published 'Castara.' He also, at different times, produced 'The Queen of Arragon,' a tragedy; a History of Edward IV.; and 'Observations upon History.' He died in 1654, (not as Southey, by a strange oversight, says, 'when he had just completed his fortieth year,') forty-nine years of age, and was buried in the family vault at Hindlip.

'Castara' is not a consecutive poem, but consists of a great variety of small pieces, in all sorts of style and rhythm, and of all varieties of merit; many of them addressed to his mistress under the name of Castara, and many to his friends; with reflective poems, elegies, and panegyrics, intermingled with verses sacred to love. Habington is distinguished by purity of tone if not of taste. He has many conceits, but no obscenities. His love is as holy as it is ardent. He has, besides, a vein of sentiment which sometimes approaches the moral sublime. To prove this, in addition to the 'Selections' below, we copy some verses entitled—

'NOX NOCTI INDICAT SCIENTIAM.'—David.

When I survey the bright
Celestial sphere,
So rich with jewels hung, that Night
Doth like an Ethiop bride appear,

My soul her wings doth spread,
And heavenward flies,
The Almighty's mysteries to read
In the large volume of the skies;

For the bright firmament
Shoots forth no flame
So silent, but is eloquent
In speaking the Creator's name.

No unregarded star
Contracts its light
Into so small a character,
Removed far from our human sight,

But if we steadfast look,
We shall discern
In it, as in some holy book,
How man may heavenly knowledge learn.

It tells the conqueror
That far-stretch'd power,
Which his proud dangers traffic for,
Is but the triumph of an hour;

That, from the furthest North,
Some nation may,
Yet undiscover'd, issue forth,
And o'er his new-got conquest sway,—

Some nation, yet shut in
With hills of ice,
May be let out to scourge his sin
Till they shall equal him in vice;

And then they likewise shall
Their ruin brave;
For, as yourselves, your empires fall,
And every kingdom hath a grave.

Thus those celestial fires,
Though seeming mute,
The fallacy of our desires,
And all the pride of life, confute;

For they have watch'd since first
The world had birth,
And found sin in itself accurst,
And nothing permanent on earth.

There is something to us particularly interesting in the history of this poet. Even as it is pleasant to see the sides of a volcano covered with verdure, and its mouth filled with flowers, so we like to find the fierce elements, which were inherited by Habington from his fathers, softened and subdued in him,—the blood of the conspirator mellowed into that of the gentle bard, who derived all his inspiration from a pure love and a mild and thoughtful religion.

EPISTLE ADDRESSED TO THE HONOURABLE W.E.

He who is good is happy. Let the loud
Artillery of heaven break through a cloud,
And dart its thunder at him, he'll remain
Unmoved, and nobler comfort entertain,
In welcoming the approach of death, than Vice
E'er found in her fictitious paradise.
Time mocks our youth, and (while we number past
Delights, and raise our appetite to taste
Ensuing) brings us to unflatter'd age,
Where we are left to satisfy the rage
Of threat'ning death: pomp, beauty, wealth, and all
Our friendships, shrinking from the funeral.
The thought of this begets that brave disdain
With which thou view'st the world, and makes those vain
Treasures of fancy, serious fools so court,
And sweat to purchase, thy contempt or sport.
What should we covet here? Why interpose
A cloud 'twixt us and heaven? Kind Nature chose
Man's soul the exchequer where to hoard her wealth,
And lodge all her rich secrets; but by the stealth
Of her own vanity, we're left so poor,
The creature merely sensual knows more.
The learned halcyon, by her wisdom, finds
A gentle season, when the seas and winds
Are silenced by a calm, and then brings forth
The happy miracle of her rare birth,
Leaving with wonder all our arts possess'd,
That view the architecture of her nest.
Pride raiseth us 'bove justice. We bestow
Increase of knowledge on old minds, which grow
By age to dotage; while the sensitive
Part of the world in its first strength doth live.
Folly! what dost thou in thy power contain
Deserves our study? Merchants plough the main
And bring home th' Indies, yet aspire to more,
By avarice in the possession poor.
And yet that idol wealth we all admit
Into the soul's great temple; busy wit
Invents new orgies, fancy frames new rites
To show its superstition; anxious nights
Are watch'd to win its favour: while the beast
Content with nature's courtesy doth rest.
Let man then boast no more a soul, since he
Hath lost that great prerogative. But thee,
Whom fortune hath exempted from the herd
Of vulgar men, whom virtue hath preferr'd
Far higher than thy birth, I must commend,
Rich in the purchase of so sweet a friend.
And though my fate conducts me to the shade
Of humble quiet, my ambition paid
With safe content, while a pure virgin fame
Doth raise me trophies in Castara's name;
No thought of glory swelling me above
The hope of being famed for virtuous love;
Yet wish I thee, guided by the better stars,
To purchase unsafe honour in the wars,
Or envied smiles at court; for thy great race,
And merits, well may challenge the highest place.
Yet know, what busy path soe'er you tread
To greatness, you must sleep among the dead.

TO HIS NOBLEST FRIEND, J.C., ESQ.

I hate the country's dirt and manners, yet
I love the silence; I embrace the wit
And courtship, flowing here in a full tide,
But loathe the expense, the vanity, and pride.
No place each way is happy. Here I hold
Commerce with some, who to my care unfold
(After a due oath minister'd) the height
And greatness of each star shines in the state,
The brightness, the eclipse, the influence.
With others I commune, who tell me whence
The torrent doth of foreign discord flow;
Relate each skirmish, battle, overthrow,
Soon as they happen; and by rote can tell
Those German towns, even puzzle me to spell.
The cross or prosperous fate of princes they
Ascribe to rashness, cunning, or delay;
And on each action comment, with more skill
Than upon Livy did old Machiavel.
O busy folly! why do I my brain
Perplex with the dull policies of Spain,
Or quick designs of France? Why not repair
To the pure innocence o' the country air,
And neighbour thee, dear friend? Who so dost give
Thy thoughts to worth and virtue, that to live
Blest, is to trace thy ways. There might not we
Arm against passion with philosophy;
And, by the aid of leisure, so control
Whate'er is earth in us, to grow all soul?
Knowledge doth ignorance engender, when
We study mysteries of other men,
And foreign plots. Do but in thy own shad
(Thy head upon some flow'ry pillow laid,
Kind Nature's housewifery,) contemplate all
His stratagems, who labours to enthrall
The world to his great master, and you'll find
Ambition mocks itself, and grasps the wind.
Not conquest makes us great. Blood is too dear
A price for glory. Honour doth appear
To statesmen like a vision in the night;
And, juggler-like, works o' the deluded sight.
The unbusied only wise: for no respect
Endangers them to error; they affect
Truth in her naked beauty, and behold
Man with an equal eye, not bright in gold,
Or tall in little; so much him they weigh
As virtue raiseth him above his clay.
Thus let us value things: and since we find
Time bend us toward death, let's in our mind
Create new youth, and arm against the rude
Assaults of age; that no dull solitude
O' the country dead our thoughts, nor busy care
O' the town make us to think, where now we are,
And whither we are bound. Time ne'er forgot
His journey, though his steps we number'd not.

A DESCRIPTION OF CASTARA.

1 Like the violet which, alone,
Prospers in some happy shade,
My Castara lives unknown,
To no looser's eye betray'd,
For she's to herself untrue,
Who delights i' the public view.

2 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.

3 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.

4 She obeys with speedy will
Her grave parents' wise commands;
And so innocent, that ill
She nor acts, nor understands:
Women's feet run still astray,
If once to ill they know the way.

5 She sails by that rock, the court,
Where oft Honour splits her mast:
And retiredness thinks the port
Where her fame may anchor cast:
Virtue safely cannot sit,
Where vice is enthroned for wit.

6 She holds that day's pleasure best,
Where sin waits not on delight;
Without mask, or ball, or feast,
Sweetly spends a winter's night:
O'er that darkness, whence is thrust
Prayer and sleep, oft governs lust.

7 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.

JOSEPH HALL, BISHOP OF NORWICH.

This distinguished man must not be confounded with John Hall, of whom all we know is, that he was born at Durham in 1627,—that he was educated at Cambridge, where he published a volume of poems,—that he practised at the bar, and that he died in 1656, in his twenty-ninth year. One specimen of John's verses we shall quote:—

THE MORNING STAR.

Still herald of the morn: whose ray
Being page and usher to the day,
Doth mourn behind the sun, before him play;
Who sett'st a golden signal ere
The dark retire, the lark appear;
The early cooks cry comfort, screech-owls fear;
Who wink'st while lovers plight their troth,
Then falls asleep, while they are both
To part without a more engaging oath:
Steal in a message to the eyes
Of Julia; tell her that she lies
Too long; thy lord, the Sun, will quickly rise.
Yet it is midnight still with me;
Nay, worse, unless that kinder she
Smile day, and in my zenith seated be,
I needs a calenture must shun,
And, like an Ethiopian, hate my sun.

John's more celebrated namesake, Joseph, was born at Bristowe Park, parish of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, in 1574. He studied and took orders at Cambridge. He acted for some time as master of the school of Tiverton, in Devonshire. It is said that the accidental preaching of a sermon before Prince Henry first attracted attention to this eminent divine. Promotion followed with a sure and steady course. He was chosen to accompany King James to Scotland as one of his chaplains, and subsequently attended the famous Synod of Dort as a representative of the English Church. He had before this, while quite a young man, (in 1597,) published, under the title of 'Virgidemiarum,' his Satires. In the year 1600 he produced a satirical fiction, entitled, 'Mundus alter et idem;' in which, while pretending to describe a certain terra australis incognita, he hits hard at the existent evils of the actual world. Hall was subsequently created Bishop of Exeter, where he exposed himself to obloquy by his mildness to the Puritans. 'Had,' Campbell justly remarked, 'such conduct been, at this critical period, pursued by the High Churchmen in general, the history of a bloody age might have been changed into that of peace; but the violence of Laud prevailed over the milder counsels of a Hall, an Usher, and a Corbet.' Yet Hall was a zealous Episcopalian, and defended that form of government in a variety of pamphlets. In the course of this controversy he carne in collision with the mighty Milton himself, who, unable to deny the ability and learning of his opponent, tried to cover him with a deluge of derision.

Besides these pamphlets, the Bishop produced a number of Epistles in prose, of Sermons, of Paraphrases, and a remarkable series of 'Occasional Meditations,' which became soon, and continue to be, popular.

Hall, who had in his early days struggled hard with narrow circumstances and neglect, seemed to reach the climax of prosperity when he was, in 1641, created by the King Bishop of Norwich. But having, soon after, unfortunately added his name to the Protest of the twelve prelates against the authority of any laws which should be passed during their compulsory absence from Parliament, he was thrown into the Tower, and subsequently threatened with sequestration. After enduring great privations, he at last was permitted to retire to Higham, near Norwich, where, reduced to a very miserable allowance, he continued to labour as a pastor, with unwearied assiduity, till, in 1656, death closed his eyes, at the advanced age of eighty-two. Bishop Hall, if not fully competent to mate with Milton, was nevertheless a giant, conspicuous even in an age when giants were rife. He has been called the Christian Seneca, from the pith and clear sententiousness of his prose style. His 'Meditations,' ranging over almost the whole compass of Scripture, as well as an incredible variety of ordinary topics, are distinguished by their fertile fancy, their glowing language, and by thought which, if seldom profound, is never commonplace, and seems always the spontaneous and easy outcome of the author's mind. In no form of composition does excellence depend more on spontaneity than in the meditation. The ruin of such writers as Hervey, and, to some extent, Boyle, has been, that they seem to have set themselves elaborately and convulsively to extract sentiment out of every object which met their eye. They seem to say, 'We will, and we must meditate, whether the objects be interesting or not, and whether our own moods be propitious to the exercise, or the reverse.' Hence have come exaggeration, extravagance, and that shape of the ridiculous which mimics the sublime, and has been so admirably exposed in Swift's 'Meditation on a Broomstick.' Hall's method is, in general, the opposite of this. The objects on which he muses seem to have sought him, and not he them. He surrounds himself with his thoughts unconsciously, as one gathers burs and other herbage about him by the mere act of walking in the woods. Sometimes, indeed, he is quaint and fantastic, as in his meditation

'UPON THE SIGHT OF TWO SNAILS.'

'There is much variety even in creatures of the same kind. See these two snails: one hath a house, the other wants it; yet both are snails, and it is a question whether case is the better; that which hath a house hath more shelter, but that which wants it hath more freedom; the privilege of that cover is but a burden—you see if it hath but a stone to climb over with what stress it draws up that artificial load, and if the passage proves strait finds no entrance, whereas the empty snail makes no difference of way. Surely it is always an ease and sometimes a happiness to have nothing. No man is so worthy of envy as he that can be cheerful in want.'

In a very different style he discourses

'UPON HEARING OF MUSIC BY NIGHT.'

'How sweetly doth this music sound in this dead season! In the daytime it would not, it could not so much affect the ear. All harmonious sounds are advanced by a silent darkness: thus it is with the glad tidings of salvation. The gospel never sounds so sweet as in the night of preservation or of our own private affliction—it is ever the same, the difference is in our disposition to receive it. O God, whose praise it is to give songs in the night, make my prosperity conscionable and my crosses cheerful!'

Hall fulfilled one test of lofty genius: he was in several departments an originator. He first gave an example of epistolary composition in prose,—an example the imitation of which has produced many of the most interesting, instructive, and beautiful writings in the language. He is our first popular author of Meditations and Contemplations, and a large school has followed in his path—too often, in truth, passibus iniquis. And he is unquestionably the father of British satire. It is remarkable that all his satires were written in youth. Too often the satirical spirit grows in authors with the advance of life; and it is a pitiful sight, that of those who have passed the meridian of years and reputation, grinning back in helpless mockery and toothless laughter upon the brilliant way they have traversed, but to which they can return no more. Hall, on the other hand, exhausted long ere he was thirty the sarcastic material that was in him; and during the rest of his career, wielded his powers with as much lenity as strength.

Perhaps no satirist had a more thorough conception than our author of what is the real mission of satire in the moral history of mankind; —that is, to shew vice its own image—to scourge impudent imposture —to expose hypocrisy—to laugh down solemn quackery of every kind—to create blushes on brazen brows and fears of scorn in hollow hearts—to make iniquity, as ashamed, hide its face—to apply caustic, nay cautery, to the sores of society—and to destroy sin by shewing both the ridicule which attaches to its progress and the wretched consequences which are its end. But various causes prevented him from fully realising his own ideal, and thus becoming the best as well as the first of our satirical poets. His style—imitated from Persius and Juvenal—is too elliptical, and it becomes true of him as well as of Persius that his points are often sheathed through the remoteness of his allusions and the perplexity of his diction. He is very recondite in his images, and you are sometimes reminded of one storming in English at a Hindoo—it is pointless fury, boltless thunder. At other times the stream of his satiric vein flows on with a blended clearness and energy, which has commanded the warm encomium of Campbell, and which prompted the diligent study of Pope. There is more courage required in attacking the follies than the vices of an age, and Hall shews a peculiar daring when he derides the vulgar forms of astrology and alchymy which were then prevalent, and the wretched fustian which infected the language both of literature and the stage. Whatever be the merits or defects of Hall's satires, the world is indebted to him as the founder of a school which were itself sufficient to cover British literature with glory, and which, in the course of ages, has included such writers as Samuel Butler, with his keen sense of the grotesque and ridiculous—his wit, unequalled in its abundance and point—his vast assortment of ludicrous fancies and language—and his form of versification, seemingly shaped by the Genius of Satire for his own purposes, and resembling heroic rhyme broken off in the middle by shouts of laughter;—Dryden, with the ease, the animus, and the masterly force of his satirical dissections—the vein of humour which is stealthily visible at times in the intervals of his wrathful mood —and the occasional passing and profound touches, worthy of Juvenal, and reminding one of the fires of Egypt, which ran along the ground, scorching all things while they pursued their unabated speed;—the spirit of satire, strong as death, and cruel as the grave, which became incarnate in Swift;—Pope, with his minute and microscopic vision of human infirmities, his polish, delicate strokes, damning hints, and annihilating whispers, where 'more is meant than meets the ear;' —Johnson, with his crushing contempt and sacrificial dignity of scorn; —Cowper, with the tenderness of a lover combined in his verse with the terrible indignation of an ancient prophet;—Wolcot, with his infinite fund of coarse wit and humour;—Burns, with that strange mixture of jaw and genius—the spirit of a caird with that of a poet—which marked all his satirical pieces;—Crabbe, with his caustic vein and sternly-literal descriptions, behind which are seen, half-skulking from view, kindness, pity, and love;—Byron, with the clever Billingsgate of his earlier, and the more than Swiftian ferocity of his later satires;—and Moore, with the smartness, sparkle, tiny splendour, and minikin speed of his witty shafts. In comparison with even these masters of the art, the good Bishop does not dwindle; and he challenges precedence over most of them in the purpose, tact, and good sense which blend with the whole of his satiric poetry.

SATIRE I.

Time was, and that was term'd the time of gold,
When world and time were young, that now are old,
(When quiet Saturn sway'd the mace of lead,
And pride was yet unborn, and yet unbred;)
Time was, that whiles the autumn fall did last,
Our hungry sires gaped for the falling mast
Of the Dodonian oaks;
Could no unhusked acorn leave the tree,
But there was challenge made whose it might be;
And if some nice and liquorous appetite
Desired more dainty dish of rare delight,
They scaled the stored crab with clasped knee,
Till they had sated their delicious eye:
Or search'd the hopeful thicks of hedgy rows,
For briary berries, or haws, or sourer sloes:
Or when they meant to fare the fin'st of all,
They lick'd oak-leaves besprint with honey fall.
As for the thrice three-angled beech nutshell,
Or chestnut's armed husk, and hide kernel,
No squire durst touch, the law would not afford,
Kept for the court, and for the king's own board.
Their royal plate was clay, or wood, or stone;
The vulgar, save his hand, else he had none.
Their only cellar was the neighbour brook:
None did for better care, for better look.
Was then no plaining of the brewer's 'scape,
Nor greedy vintner mix'd the stained grape.
The king's pavilion was the grassy green,
Under safe shelter of the shady treen.
Under each bank men laid their limbs along,
Not wishing any ease, not fearing wrong:
Clad with their own, as they were made of old,
Not fearing shame, not feeling any cold.
But when by Ceres' huswifery and pain,
Men learn'd to bury the reviving grain,
And father Janus taught the new-found vine
Rise on the elm, with many a friendly twine:
And base desire bade men to delven low,
For needless metals, then 'gan mischief grow.
Then farewell, fairest age, the world's best days,
Thriving in all as it in age decays.
Then crept in pride, and peevish covetise,
And men grew greedy, discordous, and nice.
Now man, that erst hail-fellow was with beast,
Wox on to ween himself a god at least.
Nor aery fowl can take so high a flight,
Though she her daring wings in clouds have dight;
Nor fish can dive so deep in yielding sea,
Though Thetis' self should swear her safëty;
Nor fearful beast can dig his cave so low,
As could he further than earth's centre go;
As that the air, the earth, or ocean,
Should shield them from the gorge of greedy man.
Hath utmost Ind ought better than his own?
Then utmost Ind is near, and rife to gone,
O nature! was the world ordain'd for nought
But fill man's maw, and feed man's idle thought?
Thy grandsire's words savour'd of thrifty leeks,
Or manly garlic; but thy furnace reeks
Hot steams of wine; and can aloof descry
The drunken draughts of sweet autumnitie.
They naked went; or clad in ruder hide,
Or home-spun russet, void of foreign pride:
But thou canst mask in garish gauderie
To suit a fool's far-fetched livery.
A French head join'd to neck Italian:
Thy thighs from Germany, and breast from Spain:
An Englishman in none, a fool in all:
Many in one, and one in several.
Then men were men; but now the greater part
Beasts are in life, and women are in heart.
Good Saturn self, that homely emperor,
In proudest pomp was not so clad of yore,
As is the under-groom of the ostlery,
Husbanding it in work-day yeomanry.
Lo! the long date of those expired days,
Which the inspired Merlin's word foresays;
When dunghill peasants shall be dight as kings,
Then one confusion another brings:
Then farewell, fairest age, the world's best days,
Thriving in ill, as it in age decays.

SATIRE VII.

Seest thou how gaily my young master goes,
Vaunting himself upon his rising toes;
And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side,
And picks his glutted teeth since late noontide?
'Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he dined to-day?
In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humphray.
Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer,
Keeps he for every straggling cavalier,
And open house, haunted with great resort;
Long service mix'd with musical disport.
Many fair younker with a feather'd crest,
Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest,
To fare so freely with so little cost,
Than stake his twelvepence to a meaner host.
Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say
He touch'd no meat of all this livelong day.
For sure methought, yet that was but a guess,
His eyes seem'd sunk for very hollowness;
But could he have (as I did it mistake)
So little in his purse, so much upon his back?
So nothing in his maw? yet seemeth by his belt,
That his gaunt gut no too much stuffing felt.
Seest thou how side it hangs beneath his hip?
Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip;
Yet for all that, how stiffly struts he by,
All trapped in the new-found bravery.
The nuns of new-won Calais his bonnet lent,
In lieu of their so kind a conquerment.
What needed he fetch that from furthest Spain.
His grandam could have lent with lesser pain?
Though he perhaps ne'er pass'd the English shore,
Yet fain would counted be a conqueror.
His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head,
One lock, Amazon-like, dishevelled,
As if he meant to wear a native cord,
If chance his fates should him that bane afford.
All British bare upon the bristled skin,
Close notched is his beard both lip and chin;
His linen collar labyrinthian set,
Whose thousand double turnings never met:
His sleeves half hid with elbow pinionings,
As if he meant to fly with linen wings.
But when I look, and cast mine eyes below,
What monster meets mine eyes in human show?
So slender waist with such an abbot's loin,
Did never sober nature sure conjoin,
Lik'st a strawn scarecrow in the new-sown field,
Rear'd on some stick, the tender corn to shield;
Or if that semblance suit not every deal,
Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel.
Despised nature, suit them once aright,
Their body to their coat, both now misdight.
Their body to their clothës might shapen be,
That nill their clothës shape to their body.
Meanwhile I wonder at so proud a back,
Whiles the empty guts loud rumblen for long lack:
The belly envieth the back's bright glee,
And murmurs at such inequality.
The back appears unto the partial eyne,
The plaintive belly pleads they bribed been:
And he, for want of better advocate,
Doth to the ear his injury relate.
The back, insulting o'er the belly's need,
Says, Thou thyself, I others' eyes must feed.
The maw, the guts, all inward parts complain
The back's great pride, and their own secret pain.
Ye witless gallants, I beshrew your hearts,
That sets such discord 'twixt agreeing parts,
Which never can be set at onement more,
Until the maw's wide mouth be stopt with store.

RICHARD LOVELACE.

This unlucky cavalier and bard was born in 1618. He was the son of Sir William Lovelace, of Woolwich, in Kent. He was educated some say at Oxford, and others at Cambridge—took a master's degree, and was afterwards presented at Court. Anthony Wood thus describes his personal appearance at the age of sixteen:—'He was the most amiable and beautiful person that eye ever beheld,—a person also of innate modesty, virtue, and courtly deportment, which made him then, but especially after when he retired to the great city, much admired and adored by the fair sex.' Soon after this, he was chosen by the county of Kent to deliver a petition from the inhabitants to the House of Commons, praying them to restore the King to his rights, and to settle the government. Such offence was given by this to the Long Parliament, that Lovelace was thrown into prison, and only liberated on heavy bail. His paternal estate, which amounted to £500 a-year, was soon exhausted in his efforts to promote the royal cause. In 1646, he formed a regiment for the service of the King of France, became its colonel, and was wounded at Dunkirk. Ere leaving England, he had formed a strong attachment to a Miss Lucy Sacheverell, and had written much poetry in her praise, designating her as Lux-Casta. Unfortunately, hearing a report that Lovelace had died at Dunkirk of his wounds, she married another, so that, on his return home in 1648, he met a deep disappointment; and to complete his misery, the ruling powers cast him again into prison, where he lay till the death of Charles. Like some other men of genius, he beguiled his confinement by literary employment; and in 1649, he published a book under the title of 'Lucasta,' consisting of odes, sonnets, songs, and miscellaneous poems, most of which had been previously composed. After the execution of the King, he was liberated; but his funds were exhausted, his heart broken, and his constitution probably injured. He gradually sunk; and Wood says that he became very poor in body and purse, was the object of charity, 'went in ragged clothes, and mostly lodged in obscure and dirty places.' Alas for the Adonis of sixteen, the beloved of Lucasta, and the envied of all! Some have doubted these stories about his extreme poverty; and one of his biographers asserts, that his daughter and sole heir (but who, pray, was his wife and her mother?) married the son of Lord Chief-Justice Coke, and brought to her husband the estates of her father at Kingsdown, in Kent. Aubrey however, corroborates the statements of Wood; and, at all events, Lovelace seems to have died, in 1658, in a wretched alley near Shoe Lane.

There is not much to be said about his poetry. It may be compared to his person—beautiful, but dressed in a stiff mode. We do not, in every point, homologate the opinions of Prynne, as to the 'unloveliness of love-locks;' but we do certainly look with a mixture of contempt and pity on the self-imposed trammels of affectation in style and manner which bound many of the poets of that period. The wits of Charles II. were more disgustingly licentious; but their very carelessness saved them from the conceits of their predecessors; and, while lowering the tone of morality, they raised unwittingly the standard of taste. Some of the songs of Lovelace, however, such as 'To Althea, from Prison,' are exquisitely simple, as well as pure. Sir Egerton Brydges has found out that Byron, in one of his be-praised paradoxical beauties, either copied, or coincided with, our poet. In the 'Bride of Abydos' he says of Zuleika—

'The mind, the music breathing from her face.'

Lovelace had, long before, in the song of 'Orpheus Mourning for his
Wife,' employed the words—

'Oh, could you view the melody
Of every grace,
And music of her face,
You'd drop a tear;
Seeing more harmony
In her bright eye
Than now you hear.'

While many have praised, others have called this idea nonsense; although, if we are permitted to speak of the harmony of the tones of a cloud, why not of the harmony produced by the consenting lines of a countenance, where every grace melts into another, and the various features and expressions fluctuate into a fine whole? Whatever, whether it be the beauty of the human face, or the quiet lustre of statuary, or the mild glory of moonlight, gives the effects of music, and, like that divine art,

'Pours on mortals a beautiful disdain,'

may surely become music's metaphor and poetic analogy.

SONG.

TO ALTHEA, FROM PRISON.

1 When Love, with unconfined wings,
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at my 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.

2 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,
Fishes, that tipple in the deep,
Know no such liberty.

3 When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my king;[1]
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.

4 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.

[1] Charles I., in whose cause Lovelace was then in prison.

SONG.

1 Amarantha, sweet and fair,
Forbear to braid that shining hair;
As my curious hand or eye,
Hovering round thee, let it fly:

2 Let it fly as unconfined
As its ravisher, the wind,
Who has left his darling east,
To wanton o'er this spicy nest.

3 Every tress must be confess'd
But neatly tangled at the best,
Like a clew of golden thread
Most excellently ravelled:

4 Do not then wind up that light
In ribands, and o'ercloud the night;
Like the sun in his early ray,
But shake your head and scatter day.

A LOOSE SARABAND.

1 Ah me! the little tyrant thief,
As once my heart was playing,
He snatch'd it up, and flew away,
Laughing at all my praying.

2 Proud of his purchase, he surveys,
And curiously sounds it;
And though he sees it full of wounds,
Cruel, still on he wounds it.

3 And now this heart is all his sport,
Which as a ball he boundeth,
From hand to hand, from breast to lip,
And all its rest confoundeth.

4 Then as a top he sets it up,
And pitifully whips it;
Sometimes he clothes it gay and fine,
Then straight again he strips it.

5 He cover'd it with false belief,
Which gloriously show'd it;
And for a morning cushionet
On's mother he bestow'd it.

6 Each day with her small brazen stings
A thousand times she raced it;
But then at night, bright with her gems,
Once near her breast she placed it.

7 Then warm it 'gan to throb and bleed,
She knew that smart, and grieved;
At length this poor condemned heart,
With these rich drugs reprieved.

8 She wash'd the wound with a fresh tear,
Which my Lucasta dropped;
And in the sleeve silk of her hair
'Twas hard bound up and wrapped.

9 She probed it with her constancy,
And found no rancour nigh it;
Only the anger of her eye
Had wrought some proud flesh nigh it.

10 Then press'd she hard in every vein,
Which from her kisses thrilled,
And with the balm heal'd all its pain
That from her hand distilled.

11 But yet this heart avoids me still,
Will not by me be owned;
But, fled to its physician's breast,
There proudly sits enthroned.

ROBERT HERRICK.

This poet—a bird with tropical plumage, and norland sweetness of song —was born in Cheapside, London, in 1591. His father, was an eminent goldsmith. Herrick was sent to Cambridge; and having entered into holy orders, and being patronised by the Earl of Exeter, he was, in 1629, presented by Charles I. to the vicarage of Dean Prior, in Devonshire. Here he resided for twenty years, till ejected by the civil war. He seems all this time to have felt little relish either for his profession or parishioners. In the former, the cast of his poems shews that he must have been 'detained before the Lord;' and the latter he describes as a 'wild, amphibious race,' rude almost as 'salvages,' and 'churlish as the seas.' When he quitted his charge, he became an author at the mature age of fifty-six—publishing first, in 1647, his 'Noble Numbers; or, Pious Pieces;' and next, in 1648, his 'Hesperides; or, Works both Human and Divine of Robert Herrick, Esq.'—his ministerial prefix being now laid aside. Some of these poems were sufficiently unclerical—being wild and licentious in cast—although he himself alleges that his life was, sexually at least, blameless. Till the Restoration he lived in Westminster, supported by the rich among the Royalists, and keeping company with the popular dramatists and poets. It would seem that he had been in the habit of visiting London previously, while still acting as a clergyman, and had become a boon companion of Ben Jonson. Hence his well-known lines—

'Ah, Ben!
Say how or when
Shall we, thy guests,
Meet at those lyric feasts,
Made at the "Sun,"
The "Dog," the "Triple Tun,"
Where we such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad?
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.
My Ben!
Or come again,
Or send to us,
Thy wit's great overplus.
But teach us yet
Wisely to husband it;
Lest we that talent spend,
And having once brought to an end
That precious stock, the store
Of such a wit, the world should have no more.'

With the Restoration, fortune began again to smile on our poet. He was replaced in his old charge, and seems to have spent the rest of his life quietly in the country, enjoying the fresh air and the old English sports—'repenting at leisure moments,' as Shakspeare has it, of the early pruriencies of his muse; or, as the same immortal bard says of Falstaff, 'patching up his old body' for a better place. The date of his death is not exactly ascertained; but he seems to have got considerably to the shady side of seventy years of age.

Herrick's poetry was for a long time little known, till worthy Nathan Drake, in his 'Literary Hours,' performed to him, as to some others, the part of a friendly resurrectionist. He may be called the English Anacreon, and resembles the Greek poet, not only in graceful, lively, and voluptuous elegance and richness, but also in that deeper sentiment which often underlies the lighter surface of his verse. It is a great mistake to suppose that Anacreon was a mere contented sensualist and shallow songster of love and wine. Some of his odes shew that, if he yielded to the destiny of being a Cicada, singing amidst the vines of Bacchus, it was despair—the despair produced by a degraded age and a bad religion—which reduced him to the necessity. He was by nature an eagle; but he was an eagle in a sky where there was no sun. The cry of a noble being, placed in the most untoward circumstances, is here and there heard in his verses, and reminds you of the voice of one of the transmuted victims of Circe, or of Ariel from that cloven pine, where he

'howl'd away twelve winters.'

Herrick might be by constitution a voluptuary,—and he has unquestionably degraded his genius in not a few of his rhymes,—but in him, as well as in Anacreon, Horace, and Burns, there lay a better and a higher nature, which the critics have ignored, because it has not found a frequent or full utterance in his poetry. In proof that our author possessed profound sentiment, mingling and sometimes half-lost in the loose, luxuriant leafage of his imagery, we need only refer our readers to his 'Blossoms' and his 'Daffodils.' Besides gaiety and gracefulness, his verse is exceedingly musical—his lines not only move but dance.

SONG.

1 Gather the rose-buds, while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

2 The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

3 The age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse and worst
Times, still succeed the former.

4 Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, whilst ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

CHERRY-RIPE.

Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry;
Full and fair ones; come, and buy!
If so be you ask me where
They do grow? I answer, there,
Where my Julia's lips do smile;
There's the land or cherry isle,
Whose plantations fully show,
All the year, where cherries grow.

THE KISS: A DIALOGUE.

1. Among thy fancies, tell me this: What is the thing we call a kiss?— 2. I shall resolve ye what it is:

It is a creature, born and bred
Between the lips, all cherry red;
By love and warm desires 'tis fed;
Chor.—And makes more soft the bridal bed:

2. It is an active flame, that flies
First to the babies of the eyes,
And charms them there with lullabies;
Chor.—And stills the bride too when she cries:

2. Then to the chin, the cheek, the ear,
It frisks and flies; now here, now there;
'Tis now far off, and then 'tis near;
Chor.—And here, and there, and everywhere.

1. Has it a speaking virtue?—2. Yes. 1. How speaks it, say?—2. Do you but this, Part your join'd lips, then speaks your kiss; Chor.—And this love's sweetest language is.

1. Has it a body?—2. Aye, and wings,
With thousand rare encolourings;
And, as it flies, it gently sings,
Chor.—Love honey yields, but never stings.

TO DAFFODILS.

1 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 hast'ning day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along!

2 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 PRIMROSES.

1 Why do ye weep, sweet babes? Can tears
Speak grief in you,
Who are but born
Just as the modest morn
Teem'd her refreshing dew?
Alas! you have not known that shower
That mars a flower;
Nor felt the unkind
Breath of a blasting wind;
Nor are ye worn with years;
Or warp'd, as we,
Who think it strange to see
Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young,
To speak by tears before ye have a tongue.

2 Speak, whimpering younglings; and make known
The reason why
Ye droop and weep.
Is it for want of sleep,
Or childish lullaby?
Or that ye have not seen as yet
The violet?
Or brought a kiss
From that sweetheart to this?
No, no; this sorrow shown
By your tears shed,
Would have this lecture read,
'That things of greatest, so of meanest worth,
Conceived with grief are, and with tears brought forth.'

TO BLOSSOMS.

1 Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here awhile
To blush and gently smile
And go at last.

2 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.

3 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.

OBERON'S PALACE.

Thus to a grove
Sometimes devoted unto love,
Tinsell'd with twilight, he and they,
Led by the shine of snails, a way
Beat with their num'rous feet, which by
Many a neat perplexity,
Many a turn, and many a cross
Tract, they redeem a bank of moss,
Spongy and swelling, and far more
Soft than the finest Lemster ore,
Mildly disparkling like those fires
Which break from the enjewell'd tires
Of curious brides, or like those mites
Of candied dew in moony nights;
Upon this convex all the flowers
Nature begets by the sun and showers,
Are to a wild digestion brought;
As if Love's sampler here was wrought
Or Cytherea's ceston, which
All with temptation doth bewitch.
Sweet airs move here, and more divine
Made by the breath of great-eyed kine
Who, as they low, impearl with milk
The four-leaved grass, or moss-like silk.
The breath of monkeys, met to mix
With musk-flies, are the aromatics
Which cense this arch; and here and there,
And further off, and everywhere
Throughout that brave mosaic yard,
Those picks or diamonds in the card,
With pips of hearts, of club, and spade,
Are here most neatly interlaid.
Many a counter, many a die,
Half-rotten and without an eye,
Lies hereabout; and for to pave
The excellency of this cave,
Squirrels' and children's teeth, late shed,
Are neatly here inchequered
With brownest toadstones, and the gum
That shines upon the bluer plumb.

* * * * *

Art's
Wise hand enchasing here those warts
Which we to others from ourselves
Sell, and brought hither by the elves.
The tempting mole, stolen from the neck
Of some shy virgin, seems to deck
The holy entrance; where within
The room is hung with the blue skin
Of shifted snake, enfriezed throughout
With eyes of peacocks' trains, and trout—
Flies' curious wings; and these among
Those silver pence, that cut the tongue
Of the red infant, neatly hung.
The glow-worm's eyes, the shining scales
Of silvery fish, wheat-straws, the snail's
Soft candlelight, the kitling's eyne,
Corrupted wood, serve here for shine;
No glaring light of broad-faced day,
Or other over-radiant ray
Ransacks this room, but what weak beams
Can make reflected from these gems,
And multiply; such is the light,
But ever doubtful, day or night.
By this quaint taper-light he winds
His errors up; and now he finds
His moon-tann'd Mab as somewhat sick,
And, love knows, tender as a chick.
Upon six plump dandelions high-
Rear'd lies her elvish majesty,
Whose woolly bubbles seem'd to drown
Her Mabship in obedient down.

* * * * *

And next to these two blankets, o'er-
Cast of the finest gossamer;
And then a rug of carded wool,
Which, sponge-like, drinking in the dull
Light of the moon, seem'd to comply,
Cloud-like, the dainty deity:
Thus soft she lies; and overhead
A spinner's circle is bespread
With cobweb curtains, from the roof
So neatly sunk, as that no proof
Of any tackling can declare
What gives it hanging in the air.

* * * * *

OBERON'S FEAST.

Shapcot, to thee the fairy state
I with discretion dedicate;
Because thou prizest things that are
Curious and unfamiliar.
Take first the feast; these dishes gone,
We'll see the fairy court anon.

A little mushroom table spread;
After short prayers, they set on bread,
A moon-parch'd grain of purest wheat,
With some small glittering grit, to eat
His choicest bits with; then in a trice
They make a feast less great than nice.
But, all this while his eye is served,
We must not think his ear was starved;
But there was in place, to stir
His spleen, the chirring grasshopper,
The merry cricket, puling fly,
The piping gnat, for minstrelsy.
And now we must imagine first
The elves present, to quench his thirst,
A pure seed-pearl of infant dew,
Brought and besweeten'd in a blue
And pregnant violet; which done,
His kitling eyes begin to run
Quite through the table, where he spies
The horns of pap'ry butterflies,
Of which he eats; and tastes a little
Of what we call the cuckoo's spittle:
A little furze-ball pudding stands
By, yet not blessed by his hands—
That was too coarse; but then forthwith
He ventures boldly on the pith
Of sugar'd rush, and eats the sag
And well-bestrutted bee's sweet bag;
Gladding his palate with some store
Of emmets' eggs: what would he more
But beards of mice, a newt's stew'd thigh,
A bloated earwig, and a fly:
With the red-capp'd worm, that is shut
Within the concave of a nut,
Brown as his tooth; a little moth,
Late fatten'd in a piece of cloth;
With wither'd cherries; mandrakes' ears;
Moles' eyes; to these, the slain stag's tears;
The unctuous dewlaps of a snail;
The broke heart of a nightingale
O'ercome in music; with a wine
Ne'er ravish'd from the flatt'ring rine,
But gently press'd from the soft side
Of the most sweet and dainty bride,
Brought in a dainty daisy, which
He fully quaffs up to bewitch
His blood to height? This done, commended
Grace by his priest, the feast is ended.

THE MAD MAID'S SONG.

1 Good-morrow to the day so fair;
Good-morning, sir, to you;
Good-morrow to mine own torn hair,
Bedabbled with the dew:

2 Good-morning to this primrose too;
Good-morrow to each maid,
That will with flowers the tomb bestrew
Wherein my love is laid.

3 Ah, woe is me; woe, woe is me!
Alack, and well-a-day!
For pity, sir, find out this bee
Which bore my love away.

4 I'll seek him in your bonnet brave,
I'll seek him in your eyes;
Nay, now I think they've made his grave
I' th' bed of strawberries:

5 I'll seek him there; I know ere this
The cold, cold earth doth shake him;
But I will go, or send a kiss
By you, sir, to awake him.

6 Pray hurt him not; though he be dead,
He knows well who do love him,
And who with green turfs rear his head,
And who do rudely move him.

7 He's soft and tender, pray take heed,
With bands of cowslips bind him,
And bring him home;—but 'tis decreed
That I shall never find him!

CORINNA'S GOING A-MAYING.

1 Get up, get up for shame; the blooming morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn:
See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the air:
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangling herb and tree:
Each flower has wept, and bow'd toward the east,
Above an hour since; yet you are not drest;
Nay, not so much as out of bed;
When all the birds have matins said,
And sung their thankful hymns; 'tis sin,
Nay, profanation, to keep in;
When as a thousand virgins on this day,
Spring sooner than the lark, to fetch in May!

2 Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen
To come forth like the spring-time, fresh and green,
And sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gown, or hair:
Fear not, the leaves will strew
Gems in abundance upon you:
Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,
Against you come, some orient pearls unwept:
Come and receive them, while the light
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night,
And Titan on the eastern hill
Retires himself, or else stands still
Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying;
Few beads are best, when once we go a-Maying!

3 Come, my Corinna, come; and, coming, mark
How each field turns a street, each street a park
Made green, and trimm'd with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough,
Or branch; each porch, each door, ere this
An ark, a tabernacle is
Made up of whitethorn newly interwove,
As if here were those cooler shades of love.
Can such delights be in the street
And open fields, and we not see't?
Come, we'll abroad; and let's obey
The proclamation made for May,
And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;
But, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying!

4 There's not a budding boy or girl this day
But is got up, and gone to bring in May:
A deal of youth, ere this, is come
Back, and with whitethorn laden home:
Some have despatch'd their cakes and cream,
Before that we have left to dream;
And some have wept, and woo'd, and plighted troth,
And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth:
Many a green gown has been given;
Many a kiss, both odd and even;
Many a glance too has been sent
From out the eye, love's firmament;
Many a jest told of the key's betraying
This night, and locks pick'd; yet we're not a-Maying!

5 Come, let us go, while we are in our prime,
And take the harmless folly of the time:
We shall grow old apace, and die
Before we know our liberty:
Our life is short, and our days run
As fast away as does the sun:
And, as a vapour, or a drop of rain,
Once lost, can ne'er be found again,
So when or you, or I, are made
A fable, song, or fleeting shade,
All love, all liking, all delight
Lies drown'd with us in endless night.
Then, while time serves, and we are but decaying,
Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying!

JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER.

1 O thou, the wonder of all days!
O paragon and pearl of praise!
O Virgin Martyr! ever bless'd
Above the rest
Of all the maiden train! we come,
And bring fresh strewings to thy tomb.

2 Thus, thus, and thus we compass round
Thy harmless and enchanted ground;
And, as we sing thy dirge, we will
The daffodil
And other flowers lay upon
The altar of our love, thy stone.

3 Thou wonder of all maids! list here,
Of daughters all the dearest dear;
The eye of virgins, nay, the queen
Of this smooth green,
And all sweet meads, from whence we get
The primrose and the violet.

4 Too soon, too dear did Jephthah buy,
By thy sad loss, our liberty:
His was the bond and cov'nant; yet
Thou paid'st the debt,
Lamented maid! He won the day,
But for the conquest thou didst pay.

5 Thy father brought with him along
The olive branch and victor's song:
He slew the Ammonites, we know,
But to thy woe;
And, in the purchase of our peace,
The cure was worse than the disease.

6 For which obedient zeal of thine,
We offer thee, before thy shrine,
Our sighs for storax, tears for wine;
And to make fine
And fresh thy hearse-cloth, we will here
Four times bestrew thee every year.

7 Receive, for this thy praise, our tears;
Receive this offering of our hairs;
Receive these crystal vials, fill'd
With tears distill'd
From teeming eyes; to these we bring,
Each maid, her silver filleting,

8 To gild thy tomb; besides, these cauls,
These laces, ribands, and these fauls,
These veils, wherewith we used to hide
The bashful bride,
When we conduct her to her groom:
All, all, we lay upon thy tomb.

9 No more, no more, since thou art dead,
Shall we e'er bring coy brides to bed;
No more at yearly festivals
We cowslip balls
Or chains of columbines shall make
For this or that occasion's sake.

10 No, no; our maiden pleasures be
Wrapt in a winding-sheet with thee;
'Tis we are dead, though not i' th' grave,
Or if we have
One seed of life left,'tis to keep
A Lent for thee, to fast and weep.

11 Sleep in thy peace, thy bed of spice,
And make this place all paradise:
May sweets grow here! and smoke from hence
Fat frankincense.
Let balm and cassia send their scent
From out thy maiden-monument.

12 May no wolf howl or screech-owl stir
A wing upon thy sepulchre!
No boisterous winds or storms
To starve or wither
Thy soft, sweet earth! but, like a spring,
Love keep it ever flourishing.

13 May all thy maids, at wonted hours,
Come forth to strew thy tomb with flowers:
May virgins, when they come to mourn,
Male-incense burn
Upon thine altar! then return
And leave thee sleeping in thy urn.

THE COUNTRY LIFE.

Sweet country life, to such unknown
Whose lives are others', not their own!
But serving courts and cities, be
Less happy, less enjoying thee!
Thou never plough'st the ocean's foam
To seek and bring rough pepper home;
Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove,
To bring from thence the scorched clove:
Nor, with the loss of thy loved rest,
Bring'st home the ingot from the West.
No: thy ambition's masterpiece
Flies no thought higher than a fleece;
Or how to pay thy hinds, and clear
All scores, and so to end the year;
But walk'st about thy own dear bounds,
Not envying others' larger grounds:
For well thou know'st, 'tis not the extent
Of land makes life, but sweet content.
When now the cock, the ploughman's horn,
Calls forth the lily-wristed morn,
Then to thy corn-fields thou dost go,
Which though well-soil'd, yet thou dost know
That the best compost for the lands
Is the wise master's feet and hands.
There at the plough thou find'st thy team,
With a hind whistling there to them;
And cheer'st them up by singing how
The kingdom's portion is the plough.
This done, then to th' enamell'd meads,
Thou go'st; and as thy foot there treads,
Thou seest a present godlike power
Imprinted in each herb and flower;
And smell'st the breath of great-eyed kine,
Sweet as the blossoms of the vine.
Here thou behold'st thy large sleek neat
Unto the dewlaps up in meat;
And, as thou look'st, the wanton steer,
The heifer, cow, and ox, draw near,
To make a pleasing pastime there.
These seen, thou go'st to view thy flocks
Of sheep, safe from the wolf and fox;
And find'st their bellies there as full
Of short sweet grass, as backs with wool;
And leav'st them as they feed and fill;
A shepherd piping on a hill.
For sports, for pageantry, and plays,
Thou hast thy eves and holidays;
On which the young men and maids meet,
To exercise their dancing feet;
Tripping the comely country round,
With daffodils and daisies crown'd.
Thy wakes, thy quintels, here thou hast;
Thy May-poles too, with garlands graced;
Thy morris-dance, thy Whitsun-ale,
Thy shearing feast, which never fail;
Thy harvest-home, thy wassail-bowl,
That's toss'd up after fox i' the hole;
Thy mummeries, thy Twelfth-night kings
And queens, thy Christmas revellings;
Thy nut-brown mirth, thy russet wit;
And no man pays too dear for it.
To these thou hast thy times to go,
And trace the hare in the treacherous snow;
Thy witty wiles to draw, and get
The lark into the trammel net;
Thou hast thy cockrood, and thy glade
To take the precious pheasant made;
Thy lime-twigs, snares, and pitfalls, then,
To catch the pilfering birds, not men.

O happy life, if that their good
The husbandmen but understood!
Who all the day themselves do please,
And younglings, with such sports as these;
And, lying down, have nought to affright
Sweet sleep, that makes more short the night.

SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE.

This gallant knight was son to Sir Henry Fanshawe, who was Remembrancer to the Irish Exchequer, and brother to Thomas Lord Fanshawe. He was born at Ware, in Hertfordshire, in 1607-8. He became a vehement Royalist, and acted for some time as Secretary to Prince Rupert, and was, in truth, a kindred spirit, worthy of recording the orders of that fiery spirit—the Murat of the Royal cause—to whom the dust of the mêlée of battle was the very breath of life. After the Restoration, Fanshawe was appointed ambassador to Spain and Portugal. He acted in this capacity at Madrid in 1666. He had issued translations of the 'Lusiad' of Camoens, and the 'Pastor Fido' of Guarini. Along with the latter, which appeared in 1648, he published some original poems of considerable merit. He holds altogether a respectable, if not a very high place among our early translators and minor poets.

THE SPRING, A SONNET. FROM THE SPANISH.

Those whiter lilies which the early morn
Seems to have newly woven of sleaved silk,
To which, on banks of wealthy Tagus born,
Gold was their cradle, liquid pearl their milk.

These blushing roses, with whose virgin leaves
The wanton wind to sport himself presumes,
Whilst from their rifled wardrobe he receives
For his wings purple, for his breath perfumes.

Both those and these my Caelia's pretty foot
Trod up; but if she should her face display,
And fragrant breast, they'd dry again to the root,
As with the blasting of the mid-day's ray;
And this soft wind, which both perfumes and cools,
Pass like the unregarded breath of fools.

ABRAHAM COWLEY.

The 'melancholy' and musical Cowley was born in London in the year 1618. He was the posthumous son of a worthy grocer, who lived in Fleet Street, near the end of Chancery Lane, and who is supposed, from the omission of his name in the register of St Dunstan's parish, to have been a Dissenter. His mother was left poor, but had a strong desire for her son's education, and influence to get him admitted as a king's scholar into Westminster. His mind was almost preternaturally precocious, and received early a strong and peculiar stimulus. A copy of Spenser lay in the window of his mother's apartment, and in it he delighted to read, and became the devoted slave of poetry ever after. When only ten he wrote 'The Tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe,' and at twelve 'Constantia and Philetus.' Pope wrote a lampoon about the same age as Cowley these romantic narratives; and we have seen a pretty good copy of verses on Napoleon, written at the age of seven, by one of the most distinguished rising poets of our own day. When fifteen (Johnson calls it thirteen, but he and some other biographers were misled by the portrait of the poet being, by mistake, marked thirteen) Cowley published some of his early effusions, under the title of 'Poetical Blossoms.' While at school he produced a comedy of a pastoral kind, entitled, 'Love's Riddle,' but it was not published till he went to Cambridge. To that university he proceeded in 1636, and two years after, there appeared the above-mentioned comedy, with a poetical dedication to Sir Kenelm Digby, one of the marvellous men of that age; and also 'Naufragium Joculare,' a comedy in Latin, inscribed to Dr Comber, master of the college. When the Prince of Wales afterwards visited Cambridge, the fertile Cowley got up the rough draft of another comedy, called 'The Guardian,' which was repeated to His Royal Highness by the scholars. This was afterwards, to the poet's great annoyance, printed during his absence from the country. In 1643 he took his degree of A.M., and was, the same year, through the prevailing influence of the Parliament, ejected, with many others, from Cambridge. He took refuge in St John's College, Oxford, where he published a satire, entitled 'The Puritan and Papist,' and where, by his loyalty and genius, he gained the favour of such distinguished courtiers as Lord Falkland. During this agitated period he resided a good deal in the family of the Lord St Albans; and when Oxford fell into the hands of the Parliament he followed the Queen to Paris, and there acted as Secretary to the same noble lord. He remained abroad about ten years, and during that period made various journeys in the furtherance of the Royal cause, visiting Flanders, Holland, Jersey, Scotland, &c. His chief employment, however, was carrying on a correspondence in cipher between the King and the Queen. Sprat says, 'he ciphered and deciphered with his own hand the greatest part of the letters that passed between their Majesties, and managed a vast intelligence in other parts, which, for some years together, took up all his days and two or three nights every week.' This does not seem employment very suitable to a man of genius. He seems, however, to have found time for more congenial avocations; and, in 1647, he published his 'Mistress,' a work which seems to glow with amorous fire, although Barnes relates of the author that he was never in love but once, and then had not resolution to reveal his passion. And yet he wrote 'The Chronicle,' from which we might infer that his heart was completely tinder, and that his series of love attachments had been an infinite one!

In 1556, being of no more use in Paris, Cowley was sent back to England, that 'under pretence of privacy and retirement he might take occasion of giving notice of the posture of things in this nation.' For some time he lay concealed in London, but was at length seized by mistake for another gentleman of the Royal party; and being thus discovered, he was continued in confinement, was several times examined, and ultimately succeeded, although with some difficulty, in obtaining his liberation, Dr Scarborough becoming his bail for a thousand pounds. In the same year he published a collection of his poems, with a querulous preface, in which he expresses a strong desire to 'retire to some of the American plantations, and to forsake the world for ever.' Meanwhile he gave himself out as a physician till the death of Cromwell, when he returned to France, resumed his former occupation, and remained till the Restoration. In 1657 he was created Doctor of Medicine at Oxford. Having studied botany to qualify himself for his physician's degree, he was induced to publish in Latin some books on plants, flowers, and trees.

The Restoration brought him less advantage than he had anticipated. Probably he expected too much, and had expressed his sanguine hopes in a song of triumph on the occasion. He had been promised, both by Charles I. and Charles II., the Mastership of the Savoy, (a forgotten sinecure office;) but lost it, says Wood, 'by certain persons, enemies to the Muses.' He brought on the stage at this time his old comedy of 'The Guardian,' under the title of 'Cutter of Coleman Street;' but it was thought a satire on the debauchery of the King's party, and was received with coldness. Cowley, according to Dryden, 'received the news of his ill success not with so much firmness as might have been expected from so great a man.' There are few who, like Dr Johnson, have been able to declare, after the rejection of a play or poem, that they felt 'like the Monument.' Cowley not only entertained, but printed his dissatisfaction, in the form of a poem called 'The Complaint,' which, like all selfish complaints, attracted little sympathy or attention. In this he calls himself the 'melancholy Cowley,' an epithet which has stuck to his memory.

He had always, according to his own statement, loved retirement. When he was a young boy at school, instead of running about on holidays, and playing with his fellows, he was wont to steal from them, and walk into the fields alone with a book. This passion had been overlaid, but not extinguished, during his public life; and now, swelled by disgust, it came back upon him in great strength. He seems, too, if we can believe Sprat, to have had an extraordinary attachment to Nature, as it 'was God's;' to the whole 'compass of the creation, and all the wonderful effects of the Divine wisdom.' At all events, he retired first to Barn Elms, and then to Chertsey in Surrey. He had obtained, through Lord St Albans and the Duke of Buckingham, the lease of some lands belonging to the Queen, which brought him in an income of £300 a year. Here, then, having, at the age of forty-two, reached the peaceful hermitage,' he set himself with all his might to enjoy it. He cultivated his fields, and renewed his botanical studies in his woods and garden. He wrote letters to his friends, which are said to have been admirable, and might have ranked with those of Gray and Cowper, but unfortunately they have not been preserved. He renewed his intimacy with the Greek and Latin poets, and he set himself to retouch the 'Davideis,' which he had begun in early youth, but which he never lived to finish, and to compose his beautiful prose essays. But he soon found that Chertsey, no more than Paris, was Paradise. He had no wife nor children. He had sweet solitude, but no one near him to whom to whisper 'how sweet this solitude is!' The peasants were boors. His tenants would pay him no rent, and the cattle of his neighbours devoured his meadows. He was troubled with rheums and colds. He met a severe fall when he first came to Chertsey, of which he says, half in jest and half in earnest—'What this signifies, or may come to in time, God knows; if it be ominous, it can end in nothing less than hanging.' Robert Hall said of Bishop Watson that he seemed to have wedded political integrity in early life, and to have spent all the rest of his days in quarrelling with his wife. So Cowley wedded his long- sought-for bride, Solitude, and led a miserable life with her ever after. Fortunately for him, if not for the world, his career soon came to a close.

One hot day in summer, he stayed too long among his labourers in the meadows, and was seized with a cold, which, being neglected, carried him off on the 28th of July 1667. He was not forty-nine years old. He died at the Porch House, Chertsey, and his remains were buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser; and King Charles, who had neglected him during life, pronounced his panegyric after death, declaring that 'Mr Cowley had not left behind him a better man in England.' It was in keeping with the character of Charles to make up for his deficiency in action, by his felicity of phrase.

If we may differ from such a high authority as 'Old Rowley,' we would venture to doubt whether Cowley was the best—certainly he was not the greatest—man then in England. Milton was alive, and the 'Paradise Lost' appeared in the very year when the author of the 'Davideis' departed. Cowley gives us the impression of having been an amiable and blameless, rather than a good or great man. At all events, there was nothing active in his goodness, and his greatness could not be called magnanimity. He was a scholar and a poet misplaced during early life; and when he gained that retirement for which he sighed, he had, by his habits of life, lost his capacity of relishing it. 'He that would enjoy solitude,' it has been said, 'must either be a wild beast or a god;' and Cowley was neither. How different his grounds of dissatisfaction with the world from those of Milton! Cowley was wearied of ciphering, and his 'Cutter of Coleman Street' had been cut; that was nearly the whole matter of his complaint; while Milton had fallen from being the second man in England into poverty, blindness, contempt, danger, and the disappointment of the most glorious hopes which ever heaved the bosom of patriot or saint.

We find the want of greatness which marked the man characterising the poet. Infinite ingenuity, a charming flexibility and abundance of fancy, a perception of remote analogies almost unrivalled, great command of versification and language, learning without bounds, and an occasional gracefulness and sparkling ease (as in 'The Chronicle') superior to even Herrick or Suckling, are qualities that must be conceded to Cowley. But the most of his writings are cold and glittering as the sun-smitten glacier. He is seldom warm, except when he is proclaiming his own merits, or bewailing his own misfortunes. Hence his 'Wish,' and even his 'Complaint,' are very pleasing and natural specimens of poetry. But his 'Pindaric Odes,' his 'Hymn to Light,' and most of his 'Davideis,' while displaying great power, shew at least equal perversion, and are more memorable for their faults than for their beauties. In the 'Davideis,' he describes the attire of Gabriel in the spirit and language of a tailor; and there is no path so sacred or so lofty but he must sow it with conceits,—forced, false, and chilly. His 'Anacreontics,' on the other hand, are in general felicitous in style and aerial in motion. And in his Translations, although too free, he is uniformly graceful and spirited; and his vast command of language and imagery enables him often to improve his author—to gild the refined gold, to paint the lily, and to throw a new perfume on the violet, of the Grecian and Roman masters.

In prose, Cowley is uniformly excellent. The prefaces to his poems, especially his defence of sacred song in the prefix to the 'Davideis,' his short autobiography, the fragments of his letters which remain, and his posthumous essays, are all distinguished by a rich simplicity of style and by a copiousness of matter which excite in equal measure delight and surprise. He had written, it appears, three books on the Civil War, to the time of the battle of Newbury, which he destroyed. It is a pity, perhaps, that he had not preserved and completed the work. His intimacy with many of the leading characters and the secret springs of that remarkable period,—his clear and solid judgment, always so except when he was following the Daedalus Pindar upon waxen Icarian wings, or competing with Dr Donne in the number of conceits which he could stuff, like cloves, into his subject-matter,—and the bewitching ease and elegance of his prose style, would have combined to render it an important contribution to English history, and a worthy monument of its author's highly-accomplished and diversified powers.

THE CHRONICLE, A BALLAD.

1 Margarita first possess'd,
If I remember well, my breast,
Margarita first of all;
But when a while the wanton maid
With my restless heart had play'd,
Martha took the flying ball.

2 Martha soon did it resign
To the beauteous Catharine:
Beauteous Catharine gave place
(Though loth and angry she to part
With the possession of my heart)
To Eliza's conquering face.

3 Eliza till this hour might reign,
Had she not evil counsels ta'en:
Fundamental laws she broke
And still new favourites she chose,
Till up in arms my passions rose,
And cast away her yoke.

4 Mary then, and gentle Anne,
Both to reign at once began;
Alternately they sway'd,
And sometimes Mary was the fair,
And sometimes Anne the crown did wear,
And sometimes both I obey'd.

5 Another Mary then arose,
And did rigorous laws impose;
A mighty tyrant she!
Long, alas! should I have been
Under that iron-sceptred queen,
Had not Rebecca set me free.

6 When fair Rebecca set me free,
'Twas then a golden time with me:
But soon those pleasures fled;
For the gracious princess died
In her youth and beauty's pride,
And Judith reign'd in her stead.

7 One month, three days, and half an hour,
Judith held the sovereign power:
Wondrous beautiful her face,
But so weak and small her wit,
That she to govern was unfit,
And so Susanna took her place.

8 But when Isabella came,
Arm'd with a resistless flame,
And the artillery of her eye,
Whilst she proudly march'd about,
Greater conquests to find out,
She beat out Susan by the bye.

9 But in her place I then obey'd
Black-eyed Bess, her viceroy made,
To whom ensued a vacancy.
Thousand worst passions then possess'd
The interregnum of my breast.
Bless me from such an anarchy!

10 Gentle Henrietta then,
And a third Mary, next began:
Then Joan, and Jane, and Audria;
And then a pretty Thomasine,
And then another Catharine,
And then a long et caetera.

11 But should I now to you relate
The strength and riches of their state,
The powder, patches, and the pins,
The ribands, jewels, and the rings,
The lace, the paint, and warlike things,
That make up all their magazines:

12 If I should tell the politic arts
To take and keep men's hearts,
The letters, embassies, and spies,
The frowns, the smiles, and flatteries,
The quarrels, tears, and perjuries,
Numberless, nameless mysteries!

13 And all the little lime-twigs laid
By Mach'avel the waiting-maid;
I more voluminous should grow
(Chiefly if I like them should tell
All change of weathers that befell)
Than Holinshed or Stow.

14 But I will briefer with them be,
Since few of them were long with me.
An higher and a nobler strain
My present Emperess does claim,
Heleonora! first o' the name,
Whom God grant long to reign.

THE COMPLAINT.

In a deep vision's intellectual scene,
Beneath a bower for sorrow made,
The uncomfortable shade
Of the black yew's unlucky green,
Mixed with the mourning willow's careful gray,
Where rev'rend Cam cuts out his famous way,
The melancholy Cowley lay;
And, lo! a Muse appeared to his closed sight
(The Muses oft in lands of vision play,)
Bodied, arrayed, and seen by an internal light:
A golden harp with silver strings she bore,
A wondrous hieroglyphic robe she wore,
In which all colours and all figures were
That Nature or that Fancy can create.
That Art can never imitate,
And with loose pride it wantoned in the air,
In such a dress, in such a well-clothed dream,
She used of old near fair Ismenus' stream
Pindar, her Theban favourite, to meet;
A crown was on her head, and wings were on her feet.

She touched him with her harp and raised him from the ground;
The shaken strings melodiously resound.
'Art thou returned at last,' said she,
'To this forsaken place and me?
Thou prodigal! who didst so loosely waste
Of all thy youthful years the good estate;
Art thou returned here, to repent too late?
And gather husks of learning up at last,
Now the rich harvest-time of life is past,
And winter marches on so fast?
But when I meant to adopt thee for my son,
And did as learned a portion assign
As ever any of the mighty nine
Had to their dearest children done;
When I resolved to exalt thy anointed name
Among the spiritual lords of peaceful fame;
Thou changeling! thou, bewitch'd with noise and show,
Wouldst into courts and cities from me go;
Wouldst see the world abroad, and have a share
In all the follies and the tumults there;
Thou wouldst, forsooth, be something in a state,
And business thou wouldst find, and wouldst create:
Business! the frivolous pretence
Of human lusts, to shake off innocence;
Business! the grave impertinence;
Business! the thing which I of all things hate;
Business! the contradiction of thy fate.

'Go, renegado! cast up thy account,
And see to what amount
Thy foolish gains by quitting me:
The sale of knowledge, fame, and liberty,
The fruits of thy unlearned apostasy.
Thou thoughtst, if once the public storm were past,
All thy remaining life should sunshine be:
Behold the public storm is spent at last,
The sovereign is tossed at sea no more,
And thou, with all the noble company,
Art got at last to shore:
But whilst thy fellow-voyagers I see,
All marched up to possess the promised land,
Thou still alone, alas! dost gaping stand,
Upon the naked beach, upon the barren sand.
As a fair morning of the blessed spring,
After a tedious, stormy night,
Such was the glorious entry of our king;
Enriching moisture dropped on every thing:
Plenty he sowed below, and cast about him light.
But then, alas! to thee alone
One of old Gideon's miracles was shown,
For every tree, and every hand around,
With pearly dew was crowned,
And upon all the quickened ground
The fruitful seed of heaven did brooding lie,
And nothing but the Muse's fleece was dry.
It did all other threats surpass,
When God to his own people said,
The men whom through long wanderings he had led,
That he would give them even a heaven of brass:
They looked up to that heaven in vain,
That bounteous heaven! which God did not restrain
Upon the most unjust to shine and rain.

'The Rachel, for which twice seven years and more,
Thou didst with faith and labour serve,
And didst (if faith and labour can) deserve,
Though she contracted was to thee,
Given to another, thou didst see, who had store
Of fairer and of richer wives before,
And not a Loah left, thy recompense to be.
Go on, twice seven years more, thy fortune try,
Twice seven years more God in his bounty may
Give thee to fling away
Into the court's deceitful lottery:
But think how likely 'tis that thou,
With the dull work of thy unwieldy plough,
Shouldst in a hard and barren season thrive,
Shouldst even able be to live;
Thou! to whose share so little bread did fall
In the miraculous year, when manna rain'd on all.'

Thus spake the Muse, and spake it with a smile,
That seemed at once to pity and revile:
And to her thus, raising his thoughtful head,
The melancholy Cowley said:
'Ah, wanton foe! dost thou upbraid
The ills which thou thyself hast made?
When in the cradle innocent I lay,
Thou, wicked spirit, stolest me away,
And my abused soul didst bear
Into thy new-found worlds, I know not where,
Thy golden Indies in the air;
And ever since I strive in vain
My ravished freedom to regain;
Still I rebel, still thou dost reign;
Lo, still in verse, against thee I complain.
There is a sort of stubborn weeds,
Which, if the earth but once it ever breeds,
No wholesome herb can near them thrive,
No useful plant can keep alive:
The foolish sports I did on thee bestow
Make all my art and labour fruitless now;
Where once such fairies dance, no grass doth ever grow.

'When my new mind had no infusion known,
Thou gavest so deep a tincture of thine own,
That ever since I vainly try
To wash away the inherent dye:
Long work, perhaps, may spoil thy colours quite,
But never will reduce the native white.
To all the ports of honour and of gain
I often steer my course in vain;
Thy gale comes cross, and drives me back again,
Thou slacken'st all my nerves of industry,
By making them so oft to be
The tinkling strings of thy loose minstrelsy.
Whoever this world's happiness would see
Must as entirely cast off thee,
As they who only heaven desire
Do from the world retire.
This was my error, this my gross mistake,
Myself a demi-votary to make.
Thus with Sapphira and her husband's fate,
(A fault which I, like them, am taught too late,)
For all that I give up I nothing gain,
And perish for the part which I retain.
Teach me not then, O thou fallacious Muse!
The court and better king t' accuse;
The heaven under which I live is fair,
The fertile soil will a full harvest bear:
Thine, thine is all the barrenness, if thou
Makest me sit still and sing when I should plough.
When I but think how many a tedious year
Our patient sovereign did attend
His long misfortune's fatal end;
How cheerfully, and how exempt from fear,
On the Great Sovereign's will he did depend,
I ought to be accursed if I refuse
To wait on his, O thou fallacious Muse!
Kings have long hands, they say, and though I be
So distant, they may reach at length to me.
However, of all princes thou
Shouldst not reproach rewards for being small or slow;
Thou! who rewardest but with popular breath,
And that, too, after death!'

THE DESPAIR.

1 Beneath this gloomy shade,
By Nature only for my sorrows made,
I'll spend this voice in cries,
In tears I'll waste these eyes,
By love so vainly fed;
So lust of old the deluge punished.
Ah, wretched youth, said I;
Ah, wretched youth! twice did I sadly cry;
Ah, wretched youth! the fields and floods reply.

2 When thoughts of love I entertain,
I meet no words but Never, and In vain:
Never! alas! that dreadful name
Which fuels the infernal flame:
Never! my time to come must waste;
In vain! torments the present and the past:
In vain, in vain! said I,
In vain, in vain! twice did I sadly cry;
In vain, in vain! the fields and floods reply.

3 No more shall fields or floods do so,
For I to shades more dark and silent go:
All this world's noise appears to me
A dull, ill-acted comedy:
No comfort to my wounded sight,
In the sun's busy and impert'nent light.
Then down I laid my head,
Down on cold earth, and for a while was dead,
And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.

4 Ah, sottish soul! said I,
When back to its cage again I saw it fly:
Fool! to resume her broken chain,
And row her galley here again!
Fool! to that body to return,
Where it condemned and destined is to burn!
Once dead, how can it be
Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,
That thou shouldst come to live it o'er again in me?

OF WIT.

1 Tell me, O tell! what kind of thing is Wit,
Thou who master art of it;
For the first matter loves variety less;
Less women love it, either in love or dress:
A thousand different shapes it bears,
Comely in thousand shapes appears:
Yonder we saw it plain, and here 'tis now,
Like spirits, in a place, we know not how.

2 London, that vends of false ware so much store,
In no ware deceives us more:
For men, led by the colour and the shape,
Like Zeuxis' birds, fly to the painted grape.
Some things do through our judgment pass,
As through a multiplying-glass;
And sometimes, if the object be too far,
We take a falling meteor for a star.

3 Hence 'tis a wit, that greatest word of fame,
Grows such a common name;
And wits by our creation they become,
Just so as tit'lar bishops made at Rome.
'Tis not a tale, 'tis not a jest,
Admired with laughter at a feast,
Nor florid talk, which can that title gain;
The proofs of wit for ever must remain.

4 'Tis not to force some lifeless verses meet
With their five gouty feet;
All everywhere, like man's, must be the soul,
And reason the inferior powers control.
Such were the numbers which could call
The stones into the Theban wall.
Such miracles are ceased; and now we see
No towns or houses raised by poetry.

5 Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part;
That shows more cost than art.
Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear;
Rather than all things wit, let none be there.
Several lights will not be seen,
If there be nothing else between.
Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' the sky,
If those be stars which paint the galaxy.

6 'Tis not when two like words make up one noise,
Jests for Dutch men and English boys;
In which who finds out wit, the same may see
In an'grams and acrostics poetry.
Much less can that have any place
At which a virgin hides her face;
Such dross the fire must purge away; 'tis just
The author blush there where the reader must.

7 'Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage,
When Bajazet begins to rage:
Nor a tall met'phor in the bombast way,
Nor the dry chips of short-lunged Seneca:
Nor upon all things to obtrude
And force some old similitude.
What is it then, which, like the Power Divine,
We only can by negatives define?

8 In a true piece of wit all things must be,
Yet all things there agree:
As in the ark, joined without force or strife,
All creatures dwelt, all creatures that had life.
Or as the primitive forms of all,
If we compare great things with small,
Which without discord or confusion lie,
In that strange mirror of the Deity.

OF SOLITUDE.

1 Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good!
Hail, ye plebeian underwood!
Where the poetic birds rejoice,
And for their quiet nests and plenteous food
Pay with their grateful voice.

2 Hail the poor Muse's richest manor-seat!
Ye country houses and retreat,
Which all the happy gods so love,
That for you oft they quit their bright and great
Metropolis above.

3 Here Nature does a house for me erect,
Nature! the fairest architect,
Who those fond artists does despise
That can the fair and living trees neglect,
Yet the dead timber prize.

4 Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying,
Hear the soft winds above me flying,
With all their wanton boughs dispute,
And the more tuneful birds to both replying,
Nor be myself, too, mute.

5 A silver stream shall roll his waters near,
Gilt with the sunbeams here and there,
On whose enamelled bank I'll walk,
And see how prettily they smile,
And hear how prettily they talk.

6 Ah! wretched, and too solitary he,
Who loves not his own company!
He'll feel the weight of it many a day,
Unless he calls in sin or vanity
To help to bear it away.

7 O Solitude! first state of humankind!
Which bless'd remained till man did find
Even his own helper's company:
As soon as two, alas! together joined,
The serpent made up three.

8 Though God himself, through countless ages, thee
His sole companion chose to be,
Thee, sacred Solitude! alone,
Before the branchy head of number's tree
Sprang from the trunk of one;

9 Thou (though men think thine an unactive part)
Dost break and tame the unruly heart,
Which else would know no settled pace,
Making it move, well managed by thy art,
With swiftness and with grace.

10 Thou the faint beams of reason's scattered light
Dost, like a burning glass, unite,
Dost multiply the feeble heat,
And fortify the strength, till thou dost bright
And noble fires beget.

11 Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks I see
The monster London laugh at me;
I should at thee, too, foolish city!
If it were fit to laugh at misery;
But thy estate I pity.

12 Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.

THE WISH.

I.

Lest the misjudging world should chance to say
I durst not but in secret murmurs pray,
To whisper in Jove's ear
How much I wish that funeral,
Or gape at such a great one's fall;
This let all ages hear,
And future times in my soul's picture see
What I abhor, what I desire to be.

II.

I would not be a Puritan, though he
Can preach two hours, and yet his sermon be
But half a quarter long;
Though from his old mechanic trade
By vision he's a pastor made,
His faith was grown so strong;
Nay, though he think to gain salvation
By calling the Pope the Whore of Babylon.

III.

I would not be a Schoolmaster, though to him
His rods no less than Consuls' fasces seem;
Though he in many a place,
Turns Lily oftener than his gowns,
Till at the last he makes the nouns
Fight with the verbs apace;
Nay, though he can, in a poetic heat,
Figures, born since, out of poor Virgil beat.

IV.

I would not be a Justice of Peace, though he
Can with equality divide the fee,
And stakes with his clerk draw;
Nay, though he sits upon the place
Of judgment, with a learned face
Intricate as the law;
And whilst he mulcts enormities demurely,
Breaks Priscian's head with sentences securely.

V.

I would not be a Courtier, though he
Makes his whole life the truest comedy;
Although he be a man
In whom the tailor's forming art,
And nimble barber, claim more part
Than Nature herself can;
Though, as he uses men, 'tis his intent
To put off Death too with a compliment.

VI.

From Lawyers' tongues, though they can spin with ease
The shortest cause into a paraphrase,
From Usurers' conscience
(For swallowing up young heirs so fast,
Without all doubt they'll choke at last)
Make me all innocence,
Good Heaven! and from thy eyes, O Justice! keep;
For though they be not blind, they're oft asleep.

VII.

From Singing-men's religion, who are
Always at church, just like the crows, 'cause there
They build themselves a nest;
From too much poetry, which shines
With gold in nothing but its lines,
Free, O you Powers! my breast;
And from astronomy, which in the skies
Finds fish and bulls, yet doth but tantalise.

VIII.

From your Court-madam's beauty, which doth carry
At morning May, at night a January;
From the grave City-brow
(For though it want an R, it has
The letter of Pythagoras)
Keep me, O Fortune! now,
And chines of beef innumerable send me,
Or from the stomach of the guard defend me.

IX.

This only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honour I would have,
Not from great deeds, but good alone:
The unknown are better than ill known:
Rumour can ope the grave.
Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends
Not from the number, but the choice of friends.

X.

Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night.
My house a cottage more
Than palace, and should fitting be
For all my use, not luxury;
My garden, painted o'er
With Nature's hand, not Art's, that pleasure yield
Horace might envy in his Sabine field.

XI.

Thus would I double my life's fading space;
For he that runs it well twice runs his race;
And in this true delight,
These unbought sports, and happy state,
I would not fear, nor wish my fate,
But boldly say each night,
To-morrow let my sun his beams display,
Or in clouds hide them, I have lived to-day.

UPON THE SHORTNESS OF MAN'S LIFE.

1 Mark that swift arrow, how it cuts the air,
How it outruns thy following eye!
Use all persuasions now, and try
If thou canst call it back, or stay it there.
That way it went, but thou shalt find
No track is left behind.

2 Fool! 'tis thy life, and the fond archer thou.
Of all the time thou'st shot away,
I'll bid thee fetch but yesterday,
And it shall be too hard a task to do.
Besides repentance, what canst find
That it hath left behind?

3 Our life is carried with too strong a tide,
A doubtful cloud our substance bears,
And is the horse of all our years:
Each day doth on a winged whirlwind ride.
We and our glass run out, and must
Both render up our dust.

4 But his past life who without grief can see,
Who never thinks his end too near,
But says to Fame, Thou art mine heir;
That man extends life's natural brevity—
This is, this is the only way
To outlive Nestor in a day.

ON THE PRAISE OF POETRY.

'Tis not a pyramid of marble stone,
Though high as our ambition;
'Tis not a tomb cut out in brass, which can
Give life to the ashes of a man,
But verses only; they shall fresh appear,
Whilst there are men to read or hear,
When time shall make the lasting brass decay,
And eat the pyramid away,
Turning that monument wherein men trust
Their names, to what it keeps, poor dust;
Then shall the epitaph remain, and be
New graven in eternity.
Poets by death are conquered, but the wit
Of poets triumph over it.
What cannot verse? When Thracian Orpheus took
His lyre, and gently on it strook,
The learned stones came dancing all along,
And kept time to the charming song.
With artificial pace the warlike pine,
The elm and his wife, the ivy-twine,
With all the better trees which erst had stood
Unmoved, forsook their native wood.
The laurel to the poet's hand did bow,
Craving the honour of his brow;
And every loving arm embraced, and made
With their officious leaves a shade.
The beasts, too, strove his auditors to be,
Forgetting their old tyranny.
The fearful hart next to the lion came,
And wolf was shepherd to the lamb.
Nightingales, harmless Syrens of the air,
And Muses of the place, were there;
Who, when their little windpipes they had found
Unequal to so strange a sound,
O'ercome by art and grief, they did expire,
And fell upon the conquering lyre.
Happy, oh happy they! whose tomb might be,
Mausolus! envied by thee!

THE MOTTO.

TENTANDA VIA EST, ETC.

What shall I do to be for ever known,
And make the age to come my own?
I shall like beasts or common people die,
Unless you write my elegy;
Whilst others great by being born are grown,
Their mother's labour, not their own.
In this scale gold, in the other fame does lie;
The weight of that mounts this so high.
These men are Fortune's jewels, moulded bright,
Brought forth with their own fire and light.
If I, her vulgar stone, for either look,
Out of myself it must be strook.
Yet I must on: What sound is't strikes mine ear?
Sure I Fame's trumpet hear:
It sounds like the last trumpet, for it can
Raise up the buried man.
Unpass'd Alps stop me, but I'll cut through all,
And march, the Muse's Hannibal.
Hence, all the flattering vanities that lay
Nets of roses in the way;
Hence, the desire of honours or estate,
And all that is not above Fate;
Hence, Love himself, that tyrant of my days,
Which intercepts my coming praise.
Come, my best friends! my books! and lead me on,
'Tis time that I were gone.
Welcome, great Stagyrite! and teach me now
All I was born to know:
Thy scholar's victories thou dost far outdo;
He conquered th' earth, the whole world you,
Welcome, learn'd Cicero! whose bless'd tongue and wit
Preserves Rome's greatness yet;
Thou art the first of orators; only he
Who best can praise thee next must be.
Welcome the Mantuan swan! Virgil the wise,
Whose verse walks highest, but not flies;
Who brought green Poesy to her perfect age,
And made that art which was a rage.
Tell me, ye mighty Three! what shall I do
To be like one of you?
But you have climb'd the mountain's top, there sit
On the calm flourishing head of it,
And whilst, with wearied steps, we upward go,
See us and clouds below.

DAVIDEIS.

BOOK II.

THE CONTENTS.

The friendship betwixt Jonathan and David; and, upon that occasion, a digression concerning the nature of love. A discourse between Jonathan and David, upon which the latter absents himself from court, and the former goes thither to inform himself of Saul's resolution. The feast of the New-moon; the manner of the celebration of it; and therein a digression of the history of Abraham. Saul's speech upon David's absence from the feast, and his anger against Jonathan. David's resolution to fly away. He parts with Jonathan, and falls asleep under a tree. A description of Fancy. An angel makes up a vision in David's head. The vision itself; which is a prophecy of all the succession of his race, till Christ's time, with their most remarkable actions. At his awaking, Gabriel assumes a human shape, and confirms to him the truth of his vision.

But now the early birds began to call
The morning forth; up rose the sun and Saul:
Both, as men thought, rose fresh from sweet repose;
But both, alas! from restless labours rose:
For in Saul's breast Envy, the toilsome sin,
Had all that night active and tyrannous been:
She expelled all forms of kindness, virtue, grace,
Of the past day no footstep left, or trace;
The new-blown sparks of his old rage appear,
Nor could his love dwell longer with his fear.
So near a storm wise David would not stay,
Nor trust the glittering of a faithless day:
He saw the sun call in his beams apace,
And angry clouds march up into their place:
The sea itself smooths his rough brow awhile,
Flatt'ring the greedy merchant with a smile;
But he whose shipwrecked bark it drank before,
Sees the deceit, and knows it would have more.
Such is the sea, and such was Saul;
But Jonathan his son, and only good,
Was gentle as fair Jordan's useful flood;
Whose innocent stream, as it in silence goes,
Fresh honours and a sudden spring bestows
On both his banks, to every flower and tree;
The manner how lies hid, the effect we see:
But more than all, more than himself, he loved
The man whose worth his father's hatred moved;
For when the noble youth at Dammin stood,
Adorned with sweat, and painted gay with blood,
Jonathan pierced him through with greedy eye,
And understood the future majesty
Then destined in the glories of his look:
He saw, and straight was with amazement strook,
To see the strength, the feature, and the grace
Of his young limbs; he saw his comely face,
Where love and reverence so well-mingled were,
And head, already crowned with golden hair:
He saw what mildness his bold sp'rit did tame,
Gentler than light, yet powerful as a flame:
He saw his valour by their safety proved;
He saw all this, and as he saw, he loved.

What art thou, Love! thou great mysterious thing?
From what hid stock does thy strange nature spring?
'Tis thou that movst the world through every part,
And holdst the vast frame close, that nothing start
From the due place and office first ordained;
By thee were all things made, and are sustained.
Sometimes we see thee fully, and can say
From hence thou tookst thy rise, and wentst that way;
But oftener the short beams of Reason's eye
See only there thou art, not how, nor why.
How is the loadstone, Nature's subtle pride,
By the rude iron woo'd, and made a bride?
How was the weapon wounded? what hid flame
The strong and conquering metal overcame?
Love (this world's grace) exalts his natural state;
He feels thee, Love! and feels no more his weight.
Ye learned heads whom ivy garlands grace,
Why does that twining plant the oak embrace?
The oak, for courtship most of all unfit,
And rough as are the winds that fight with it.
How does the absent pole the needle move?
How does his cold and ice beget hot love?
Which are the wings of lightness to ascend?
Or why does weight to the centre downwards bend?
Thus creatures void of life obey thy laws,
And seldom we, they never, know the cause.
In thy large state, life gives the next degree,
Where sense and good apparent places thee;
But thy chief palace is man's heart alone;
Here are thy triumphs and full glories shown:
Handsome desires, and rest, about thee flee,
Union, inheritance, zeal, and ecstasy,
With thousand joys, cluster around thine head,
O'er which a gall-less dove her wings does spread:
A gentle lamb, purer and whiter far
Than consciences of thine own martyrs are,
Lies at thy feet; and thy right hand does hold
The mystic sceptre of a cross of gold.
Thus dost thou sit (like men, ere sin had framed
A guilty blush) naked, but not ashamed.
What cause, then, did the fab'lous ancients find,
When first their superstition made thee blind?
'Twas they, alas! 'twas they who could not see,
When they mistook that monster, Lust, for thee.
Thou art a bright, but not consuming, flame;
Such in the amazed bush to Moses came,
When that, secure, its new-crown'd head did rear,
And chid the trembling branches' needless fear;
Thy darts are healthful gold, and downwards fall,
Soft as the feathers that they are fletched withal.
Such, and no other, were those secret darts
Which sweetly touched this noblest pair of hearts:
Still to one end they both so justly drew,
As courteous doves together yoked would do:
No weight of birth did on one side prevail;
Two twins less even lie in Nature's scale:
They mingled fates, and both in each did share;
They both were servants, they both princes were.
If any joy to one of them was sent,
It was most his to whom it least was meant;
And Fortune's malice betwixt both was cross'd,
For striking one, it wounded the other most.
Never did marriage such true union find,
Or men's desires with so glad violence bind;
For there is still some tincture left of sin,
And still the sex will needs be stealing in.
Those joys are full of dross, and thicker far;
These, without matter, clear and liquid are.
Such sacred love does heaven's bright spirits fill,
Where love is but to understand and will,
With swift and unseen motions such as we
Somewhat express in heighten'd charity.
O ye bless'd One! whose love on earth became
So pure, that still in heaven 'tis but the same!
There now ye sit, and with mix'd souls embrace,
Gazing upon great Love's mysterious face,
And pity this base world, where friendship's made
A bait for sin, or else at best a trade.
Ah, wondrous prince! who a true friend couldst be
When a crown flatter'd, and Saul threaten'd thee!
Who held'st him dear whose stars thy birth did cross,
And bought'st him nobly at a kingdom's loss!
Israel's bright sceptre far less glory brings,
There have been fewer friends on earth than kings.

To this strong pitch their high affections flew,
Till Nature's self scarce looked on them as two.
Hither flies David for advice and aid,
As swift as love and danger could persuade;
As safe in Jonathan's trust his thoughts remain,
As when himself but dreams them o'er again.

'My dearest lord! farewell,' said he, 'farewell;
Heaven bless the King; may no misfortune tell
The injustice of his hate when I am dead:
They're coming now; perhaps my guiltless head
Here, in your sight, must then a-bleeding lie,
And scarce your own stand safe for being nigh.
Think me not scared with death, howe'er 't appear;
I know thou canst not think so: it is a fear
From which thy love and Dammin speaks me free;
I've met him face to face, and ne'er could see
One terror in his looks to make me fly
When virtue bids me stand; but I would die
So as becomes my life, so as may prove
Saul's malice, and at least excuse your love.'

He stopped, and spoke some passion with his eyes.
'Excellent friend!' the gallant prince replies;
'Thou hast so proved thy virtues, that they're known
To all good men, more than to each his own.
Who lives in Israel that can doubtful be
Of thy great actions? for he lives by thee.
Such is thy valour, and thy vast success,
That all things but thy loyalty are less;
And should my father at thy ruin aim,
'Twould wound as much his safety as his fame.
Think them not coming, then, to slay thee here,
But doubt mishaps as little as you fear;
For, by thy loving God, whoe'er design
Against thy life, must strike at it through mine,
But I my royal father must acquit
From such base guilt, or the low thought of it.
Think on his softness, when from death he freed
The faithless king of Am'lek's cursed seed;
Can he t' a friend, t' a son, so bloody grow,
He who even sinned but now to spare a foe?
Admit he could; but with what strength or art
Could he so long close and seal up his heart?
Such counsels jealous of themselves become,
And dare not fix without consent of some;
Few men so boldly ill great sins to do,
Till licensed and approved by others too.
No more (believe it) could he hide this from me,
Than I, had he discovered it, from thee.'

Here they embraces join, and almost tears,
Till gentle David thus new-proved his fears:
'The praise you pleased, great prince! on me to spend,
Was all outspoken, when you styled me friend:
That name alone does dangerous glories bring,
And gives excuse to the envy of a king.
What did his spear, force, and dark plots, impart
But some eternal rancour in his heart?
Still does he glance the fortune of that day
When, drowned in his own blood, Goliath lay,
And covered half the plain; still hears the sound
How that vast monster fell, and strook the around:
The dance, and, David his ten thousand slew,
Still wound his sickly soul, and still are new.
Great acts t' ambitious princes treason grow,
So much they hate that safety which they owe.
Tyrants dread all whom they raise high in place;
From the good danger, from the bad disgrace.
They doubt the lords, mistrust the people's hate,
Till blood become a principle of state.
Secured not by their guards nor by their right,
But still they fear even more than they affright,
Pardon me, sir; your father's rough and stern;
His will too strong to bend, too proud to learn.
Remember, sir, the honey's deadly sting!
Think on that savage justice of the King,
When the same day that saw you do before
Things above man, should see you man no more.
'Tis true, the accursed Agag moved his ruth;
He pitied his tall limbs and comely youth;
Had seen, alas! the proof of Heaven's fierce hate,
And feared no mischief from his powerless fate;
Remember how the old seer came raging down,
And taught him boldly to suspect his crown.
Since then, his pride quakes at the Almighty's rod,
Nor dares he love the man beloved by God.
Hence his deep rage and trembling envy springs;
Nothing so wild as jealousy of kings.
Whom should he counsel ask, with whom advise,
Who reason and God's counsel does despise?
Whose headstrong will no law or conscience daunt,
Dares he not sin, do you think, without your grant?
Yes, if the truth of our fixed love he knew,
He would not doubt, believe it, to kill even you.'

The prince is moved, and straight prepares to find
The deep resolves of his grieved father's mind.
The danger now appears, love can soon show it,
And force his stubborn piety to know it.
They agree that David should concealed abide,
Till his great friend had the Court's temper tried;
Till he had Saul's most sacred purpose found,
And searched the depth and rancour of his wound.

'Twas the year's seventh-born moon; the solemn feast,
That with most noise its sacred mirth express'd.
From opening morn till night shuts in the day,
On trumpets and shrill horns the Levites play:
Whether by this in mystic type we see
The new-year's day of great eternity,
When the changed moon shall no more changes make,
And scattered death's by trumpets' sound awake;
Or that the law be kept in memory still,
Given with like noise on Sinai's shining hill;
Or that (as some men teach) it did arise
From faithful Abram's righteous sacrifice,
Who, whilst the ram on Isaac's fire did fry,
His horn with joyful tunes stood sounding by;
Obscure the cause, but God his will declared,
And all nice knowledge then with ease is spared.
At the third hour Saul to the hallowed tent,
'Midst a large train of priests and courtiers, went;
The sacred herd marched proud and softly by,
Too fat and gay to think their deaths so nigh.
Hard fate of beasts more innocent than we!
Prey to our luxury and our piety!
Whose guiltless blood on boards and altars spilt,
Serves both to make and expiate, too, our guilt!
Three bullocks of free neck, two gilded rams,
Two well-washed goats, and fourteen spotless lambs,
With the three vital fruits, wine, oil, and bread,
(Small fees to Heaven of all by which we're fed)
Are offered up: the hallowed flames arise,
And faithful prayers mount with them to the skies.
From thence the King to the utmost court is brought,
Where heavenly things an inspired prophet taught,
And from the sacred tent to his palace gates,
With glad kind shouts the assembly on him waits;
The cheerful horns before him loudly play,
And fresh-strewed flowers paint his triumphant way.
Thus in slow pace to the palace-hall they go,
Rich dressed for solemn luxury and show:
Ten pieces of bright tapestry hung the room,
The noblest work e'er stretched on Syrian loom,
For wealthy Adriel in proud Sidon wrought,
And given to Saul when Saul's best gift he sought,
The bright-eyed Merab; for that mindful day
No ornament so proper seemed as they.