By the imprisoning of unruly wind

Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldam earth, and topples down
Steeples, and moss grown towers.

ENGLAND.

O England!-model to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart,-

What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do,
Were all thy children kind and natural!

But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out
A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills
With treacherous crowns.

England bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of wat'ry Neptune, is bound in with shame,
With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds.
That England that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

Our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choak'd up,
Her fruit-trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,
Her knots disorder'd, and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars.

'Tis better using France, than trusting France:
Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas,
Which he hath given for fence impregnable,
And with their helps only defend ourselves;
In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies.

That pale, that white-fac'd shore,

Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides, from other lands her islanders.

And coops

ག

England never did (nor never shall)

Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

But when it first did help to wound itself.

Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them: nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true.

Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night,

Are they not but in Britain?

I' the world's volume

Our Britain seems as of it, but not in it;

In a great pool, a swan's nest.

Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull?

On whom, as in despight, the Sun looks pale,
Killing their fruit with frowns?

Would I had never trod this English earth,
Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it!

Ye have angels' faces, but heaven knows your hearts.

O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!
When that my care could not with-hold thy riots,
What wilt thou do, when riot is thy care?

O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,
Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!

ENVY.

Men, that make

Envy, and crooked malice, nourishment,

Dare bite the best.

Now I feel

Of what coarse metal you are moulded,-envy.
How eagerly you follow my disgraces,

As if it fed
ye; and how sleek and wanton
Ye appear in every thing may bring my ruin !

68 ENVY.-ERROR.-EXECUTION.EXPECTATION.

Follow your envious courses, men of malice;
You have christian warrant for them, and, no doubt,
In time will find their fit rewards.

My heart laments that virtue cannot live
Out of the teeth of emulation.

ERROR.

O hateful error, melancholy's child !
Why dost thou shew to the apt thoughts of men
The things that are not? O error, soon conceiv'd,
Thou never com'st unto a happy birth,
But kill'st the mother that engender'd thee.

EXECUTION.

You few that lov'd me,

And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham,

His noble friends, and fellows, whom to leave
Is only bitter to him, only dying,

Go with me, like good angels, to my end;
And, as the long divorce of steel falls on me,

Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,

And lift my soul to heaven.-Lead on, o' God's name.

'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow Thou must be made immortal.

EXPECTATION.·

Now sits expectation in the air,

And hides a sword, from hilt unto the point
With crowns imperial, crowns, and coronets,
Promis'd to Harry and his followers.

EXPERIENCE.-EXTRAVAGANCE.-EYES.

So tedious is this day,
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child, that hath new robes,
And may not wear them.

How slow,

This old moon wanes: she lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame, or a dowager,

Long withering out a young man's revenue.

Women are angels, wooing:

69

Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing:
That she belov'd knows nought, that knows not this,-
Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is.

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises: and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most sits.

EXPERIENCE.

To wilful men,

The injuries, that they themselves procure,
Must be their school-masters.

EXTRAVAGANCE.

'Tis not unknown to you, Anthonio,
How much I have disabled mine estate,
By something shewing a more swelling port,
Than my faint means would grant continuance.

EYES.

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive :
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;

They are the books, the arts, the academies,
That shew, contain, and nourish all the world;
Else, none at all in aught proves excellent.

Thou tell'st me, there is murder in mine eye :
'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,

That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies,—
Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!

Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee:
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it: lean but upon a rush,
The cicatrice and capable impressure

Thy palm some moment keeps: but now mine eyes,
Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not.

Faster than his tongue

did heal it up.

Did make offence, his eye

These

that now are dimm'd with death's black
eyes,
veil,

Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun,
To search the secret treasons of the world.

F.

FAIRIES.

Where the bee sucks, there suck I

In a cowslip's bell I lie :

There I couch when owls do cry.

On the bat's back I do fly,

After summer, merrily:

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.