But with my finger pointed to
The lips of Julia.
Some asked how pearls did grow and where,
Then spoke I to my girl
To part her lips and show them there
The quarrelset of pearl.
6. TO THE MEADOWS IN WINTER.
Ye have been fresh and green;
Ye have been filled with flowers;
And
ye the walks have been,
Where maids have spent their hours.
Ye have beheld where they
With wicker arks did come,
To kiss and bear away
The richer cowslips home.
Ye've heard them sweetly sing,
And seen them in a round,
Each virgin like a spring,
With honey-suckle crowned.
But now ye see none here,
Whose silvery feet did tread,
And with dishevelled hair
Adorned this smoother mead.
Like unthrifts, having spent
Your stock, and needy grown,
Ye're left here to lament
Your
poor
estates alone.
LX. GEORGE HERBERT.
1. CONVERSATION. If thou be master-gunner, spend not all
That thou canst speak at once, but husband it:
And give men turns of speech : do not forestall
By lavishness thine own and others' wit,
As if thou madest thy will: a civil guest
Will no more talk all, than eat all the feast.
Be calm in arguing: for fierceness makes
Error a fault, and truth discourtesy.
Why should I feel another man's mistakes
More than his sickness or his poverty ?
In love I should ; but anger is not love,
Nor wisdom neither; therefore gently move. Calmness is great advantage: he that lets
Another chafe, may warm him at his fire;
Mark all his wanderings, and enjoy his frets,
As cunning fencers suffer heat to tire.
Truth dwells not in the clouds: the bow that's there
Doth often aim at, never hits the sphere.
2. VIRTUE.
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky!
Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.
Sweet
rose, whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye;
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.
Sweet Spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie:
My music shows you have your closes,
,
And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives ;
But when the whole world turns to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
LXI. ISLAC WALTON
THE ANGLER'S WISH.
I in these flowery meads would be:
These crystal streams should solace me
To whose harmonious bubbling noise
I with my angle would rejoice,
Sit here, and see the turtle dove
Court his chaste mate to acts of love,
Or on a bank feel the west wind
Breathe health and plenty, please my mind
To see sweet dew-drops kiss these flowers,
And then wash'd off by April showers :
Here hear my Kenna sing a song,
There see a blackbird feed her young,
Or a laverock build her nest;
Here give my weary spirits rest,
And raise my low-pitch'd thoughts above
Earth or what poor mortals love :
Thus free from lawsuits and the noiso
Of princes' courts I would rejoice.
Or with my Bryan and my book,
Loiter long days near Shawford brook;
There sit by him and eat my meat,
There see the sun both rise and set,
There bid good-morning to next day,
There meditate my time away,
And angle on, and beg to have
A quiet passage to a welcome grave.
1. LXII. SHIRLEY.
DEATH : A SONG.
The glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things :
There is no armour against fate :
Death lays his icy hands on kings :
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill,
But the strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still,
Early or late,
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath,
Vhen they, pale captives, stoop to death.
The garlands wither on your brow;
Then boast no more your mighty deeds :
Upon death's purple altar now
See where the victor victim bleeds :
All heads must come
To the cold tomb;
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.
2. A FINE DAY OVERCLOUDED.
Have you never
Look'd from the prospect of your palace window,
When some fair sky courted your eye to read
The beauties of a day: the glorious sun
Enriching so the bosom of the earth
That trees and flowers appear’d but like so much
Enamel upon gold: the wanton birds
And every creature but the drudging ant
Despising providence, and at play, and all
That world you measure with your eye so gay
And proud, as winter were no more to shake
His icy locks upon them, but the breath
Of gentle Zephyr to perfume their growth,
And walk eternally upon the spring;
When from a coast you see not, comes a cloud
Creeping as overladen with a storm,
Dark as the womb of night, and with her wings,
Surprising all the glories you behold,
Leaves not your frighted eyes a light to see
The ruins of that fluttering day ?
Great monarch of the world, from whose power springs
The potency and power of kings,
Record the royal woe my suffering sings.
Nature and law, by thy divine decree
(The only root of righteous royalty)
With this dim diadem invested me.
The fiercest furies, that do daily tread
Upon my grief, my grey discrownéd head,
Are those that owe my bounty for their bread. Tyranny bears the title of taxation,
Revenge and robbery are reformation,
Oppression gains the name of sequestration.
The church of England doth all factions foster,
The pulpit is usurped by each impostor,
Extempore excludes the Paternoster.
The corner-stone's misplaced by every pavier :
With such a bloody method and behaviour
Their ancestors did crucify our Saviour.
LXIV. WILLIAM HABINGTON.
THE FIRMAMENT.
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 heaven-ward flies,
The Almighty's mysteries to read
In the large volumes 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.
|