The scene changes, presenting Ludlow town and the president's castle; then come in country dancers, after them attendant Spirit, with the two Brothers, and the Lady. SONG. Spi. Back, shepherds, back, enough your play Till next sun-shine holiday; Here be without duck or nod Other trippings to be trod Of lighter toes, and such court guise As Mercury did first devise With the mincing Dryades On the lawns, and on the leas. This second song presents them to their father and mother. Noble lord, and lady bright, I have brought you new delight, Here behold so goodly grown To triumph in victorious dance The dance ended, the Spirit epiloguizes. All amidst the gardens fair Of Hesperus, and his daughters three, And from her fair unspotted side Quickly to the green earth's end, Mortals that would follow me, Heav'n itself would stoop to her. ON SHAKESPEAR, 1630. What needs my Shakespear for his honour'd bones Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? For whilst to the shame of slow endeavouring art SONNETS. To the Nightingale. O nightingale, that on yon blos'my spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May. Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, Portend success in love; O if Jove's will Have link'd that amorous power to thy soft lay, Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh; As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief, yet hadst no reason why: Whether the Muse, or Love call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I. On his being arriv'd at the Age of Twenty-three. How soon hath time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol'n on his wing my three and twentieth year! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, That I to manhood am arriv'd so near, And inward-ripeness doth much less appear, That some more timely happy spirits indu'th. L Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, It shall be still in strictest measure even To that same lot, however mean or high, Toward which time leads me, and the will of Heav'n; All is, if I have grace to use it so, As ever in my great task-master's eye. To Mr. H. Lawes, on his Airs. Harry, whose tuneful and well-measur'd song To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire, That tun'st their happiest lines in hymn or story. Dante shall give fame leave to set thee higher Than his Casella, whom he woo'd to sing Met in the milder shades of purgatory. To the Lord General Fairfax. Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings, Victory home, though new rebellions raise And public faith clear'd from the shameful brand Of public fraud. In vain doth Valour bleed, While Avarice and Rapine share the land. To the Lord General Cromwell. Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud Hast rear'd God's trophies, and his work pursued, To Sir Henry Vane the younger. Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old, The drift of hollow states hard to be spell'd, Then to advise how War may best upheld Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage: besides to know Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, What severs each, thou' st learn'd, which few have done: The bounds of either sword to thee we owe; Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son. On the late Massacre in Piemont. Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold; Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worship'd stocks and stones, Forget not; in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow O'er all th' Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundred fold, who having learn'd thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe. On his Blindness. When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide, Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide; Doth God exact day labour, light denied, I fondly ask? but patience to prevent That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait. To Mr. Lawrence. Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son, What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air: He who of those delights can judge, and spare To interpose them oft, is not unwise. To Cyriac Skinner. Cyriac, whose grandsire on the royal bench Of British Themis, with no mean applause Pronounc'd, and in his volumes taught our laws, Which others at their bar so often wrench; To day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth, that after no repenting draws; Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, And what the Swede intends, and what the French. To measure life learn thou betimes, and know Tow'rd solid good what leads the nearest way; For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains And disapproves that care, though wise in shew, That with superfluous burden loads the day, And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains. To the same. Cyriac, this three years day these eyes, tho' clear, Right onward. What supports me? dost thou ask: The conscience, Friend, to' ve lost them overply'd In liberty's defence, my noble task, Of which all Europe talks from side to side. This thought might lead me thro' the world's vain mask, Content though blind, had I no better guide. Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint. Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint, Purification in the old law did save, And such, as yet once more I trust to have Full sight of her in Heav'n without restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her mind: Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd So clear, as in no face with more delight. But O, as to embrace me she inclin'd, I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night. COWLEY-A. D. 1618-1667. 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 But verses only; they shall fresh appear When time shall make the lasting brass decay, Turning that monument wherein men trust New graven in eternity. Poets by death are conquer'd, but the wit Of poets triumphs over it. What cannot verse? When Thracian Orpheus took The learned stones came dancing all along, With all the better trees which erst had stood The beasts, too, strove his auditors to be, The fearful hart next to the lion came, Who, when their little windpipes they had found O'ercome by art and grief, they did expire, THE COMPLAINT. In a deep vision's intellectual scene, Of the black yew's unlucky green, Mix'd with the mourning willow's careful gray, And, lo! a Muse appeared to his clos'd sight, She touch'd him with her harp and rais'd him from the ground; The shaken strings melodiously resound. But when I meant t' adopt thee for my son, As ever any of the mighty Nine Of human lusts to shake off innocence; [create: Business! the thing which I of all things hate; Business! the contradiction of thy fate. Go, renegado! cast up thy account, Thy foolish gains by quitting me: The sale of knowledge, fame, and liberty, Thou thought'st if once the public storm were past, But whilst thy fellow-voyagers I see, As a fair morning of the blessed spring, After a tedious stormy night, Such was the glorious entry of our king; One of Old Gideon's miracles was shewn, And upon all the quicken'd ground The fruitful seed of Heav'n did brooding lie, When God to his own people said, (The men whom thro' long wand'rings he had led) That he would give them ev'n a heav'n of brass: They look'd up to that heav'n in vain, That bounteous heav'n! which God did not restrain Upon the most unjust to shine and rain. The Rachel, for which twice seven years and more, Tho' she contracted was to thee, Giv'n to another thou didst see, Of fairer and of richer wives before, Into the court's deceitful lottery: But think how likely 'tis that thou, With the dull work of thy unwieldy plough, Thou! to whose share so little bread did fall Thus spake the Muse, and spake it with a smile, "Ah! wanton foe! dost thou upbraid When in the cradle innocent I lay, Thou, wicked spirit! stolest me away, Into thy new-found worlds, I know not where, Lo, still in verse, against thee I complain. The foolish sports I did on thee bestow When my new mind had no infusion known, Thou gav'st so deep a tincture of thine own, That ever since I vainly try To wash away th' 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. As they who only heav'n desire This was my error, this my gross mistake, Thus with Sapphira and her husband's fate, Teach me not then, O thou fallacious Muse! The heav'n under which I live is fair, His long misfortunes' fatal end; How cheerfully, and how exempt from fear, On the Great Sovereign's will he did depend, I ought to be accurs'd if I refuse To wait on his, O thou fallacious Muse! [slow. Shouldst not reproach rewards for being small or Thou! who rewardest but with pop'lar breath, And that too, after death! THE COUNTRY MOUSE. At the large foot of a fair hollow tree, |