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The softer dressings of the spring,
Or summer's later store,
I will not for thy temples bring,
Which thorns, not roses, wore :

But a twin'd wreath of grief and praise,
Praise soil'd with tears, and tears again
Shining with joy, like dewy days,

This day I bring for all thy pain, Thy causeless pain: and as sad death, Which sadness breeds in the most vain, O not in vain! now beg thy breath, Thy quick'ning breath, which gladly bears Through saddest clouds to that glad place Where cloudless quires sing without tears, Sing thy just praise, and see thy face.

SONE-DAYS.

SABBATH-DAYS.

Modernized by Bernard Barton.

TYPES of eternal rest-fair buds of bliss,
In heavenly flowers unfolding week by week-
The next world's gladness imag'd forth in this-
Days of whose worth the Christian's heart can
speak!

Eternity in Time-the steps by which

We climb to future ages-lamps that light Man through his darker days, and thought enrich, Yielding redemption for the week's dull flight.

Wakeners of prayer in Man-his resting bowers
As on he journeys in the narrow way,
Where, Eden-like, Jehovah's walking hours
Are waited for as in the cool of day.

Days fix'd by God for intercourse with dust,
To raise our thoughts, and purify our powers-
Periods appointed to renew our trust-

A gleam of glory after six days' showers!

Foretastes of heaven on earth-pledges of joy
Surpassing fancy's flights, and fiction's story—
The preludes of a feast that cannot cloy,
And the bright out-courts of immortal glory!

ABRAHAM COWLEY.

BORN 1618-DIED 1667.

ABRAHAM COWLEY, a poet whom Milton has classed after Shakspeare and Spenser, was the posthumous son of a London shopkeeper. His first biographer, Dr Sprat, gives an interesting account of the exertions made by his widowed mother to procure him a learned education. It is related by himself, that the seeds of poetry in his mind were originally set a fermenting by perusing in childhood the Faery Queen, which he found in the window of his mother's chamber. Accordingly at ten and twelve he wrote verses, and at fifteen published a volume of little juvenile pieces. At Cambridge he wrote all that is completed of his Davideis, a heroic poem founded on sacred history.

Cowley, who was a zealous loyalist, was ejected from Cam

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bridge, and retired to Oxford, and afterwards to France, where he was for many years confidentially employed in managing the correspondence, and decyphering the letters which passed between the Queen-mother and the King, his nominal office being secretary to Lord Jermyn. When his presence was no longer required in France he secretly returned to London, where he was imprisoned for a time on suspicion. On the death of Cromwell he went back to France, but at the Restoration found himself so much neglected, and his former services so entirely overlooked, that he retired to Chertsey filled with chagrin and disappointed. By the interest of his former patron, Lord Jermyn, who was now Earl of St Albans, Cowley obtained an advantageous lease, which set him at ease in fortune. But he was not long to enjoy the quiet and leisure for which he had so earnestly longed amidst the toils, chagrins, and petty intrigues of a courtier's life. He died at Chertsey in his forty-ninth year; and was buried in Westminster Abbey near Chaucer and Spenser. Though the writings of Cowley are entirely disregarded by modern readers, they possess great intrinsic merit. Many of his short pieces possess a brilliance of fancy and sprightliness of wit, which rival the happiest of the lighter productions of the modern muse. His chief excellence, however, does not lie in his sacred verses.

THE SCRIPTURES.

THE Holy Book, like the eighth sphere doth shine, With thousand lights of truth divine;

So numberless the stars, that, to our eye,

It makes all but one galaxy:

Yet reason must assist too; for in seas
So vast and dangerous as these,

Our course by stars above we cannot know,
Without the compass too below.

ON THE DEATH OF THE POET CRASHAW.

POET and Saint! to thee alone are giv'n
The two most sacred names of earth and heav'n,
The hard and rarest union which can be,
Next that of Godhead with humanity.
Long did the Muses banish'd slaves abide,
And built vain pyramids to mortal pride;

Like Moses thou (tho' spells and charms withstand)
Hast brought them nobly home back to their Holy
Land.

Ah, wretched We! poets of earth! but thou Wert living the same poet which thou'rt now. Whilst angels sing to thee their airs divine, And joy in an applause so great as thine, Equal society with them to hold,

Thou need'st not make new songs, but say the old : And they, kind Spirits! shall all rejoice to see How little less than they exalted man may be.

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Pardon, my Mother Church! if I consent That angels led him when from thee he went ; For ev'n in error sure no danger is,

When join'd with so much piety as his.

Ah, mighty God! with shame I speak't, and grief!
Ah! that our greatest faults were in belief!
And our weak reason were ev'n weaker yet,
Rather than thus our wills too strong for it.
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right :
And I myself a Catholic will be,

So far, at least, great Saint! to pray to thee.

Hail, Bard triumphant! and some care bestow On us, the Poets militant below!

Oppos'd by our old enemy, adverse Chance,
Attack'd by Envy and by Ignorance,
Enchain'd by Beauty, tortur'd by Desires,
Expos'd by tyrant Love to savage beasts and fires,
Thou from low earth in nobler flames didst rise,
And, like Elijah, mount alive the skies:
Elisha-like (but with a wish much less,
More fit thy greatness and my littleness),
Lo! here I beg (I whom thou once didst prove
So humble to esteem, so good to love),
Not that thy sp'rit might on me doubled be,
I ask but half thy mighty sp'rit for me;

And when my Muse soars with so strong a wing, 'Twill learn of things divine, and first of thee, to sing.

CHARACTERS OF MERAB AND MICHAL, THE DAUGHTERS OF SAUL.

(From the Sufferings of David.)

LIKE two bright eyes in a fair body plac'd,
Saul's royal house two beauteous daughters grac'd:
Merab the first, Michal the younger nam'd,
Both equally for different glories fam'd.
Merab with spacious beauty fill'd the sight,
But too much awe chastis'd the bold delight.
Like a calm sea, which to th' enlarged view
Gives pleasure, but gives fear and rev'rence too;
Michal's sweet looks clear and free joys did move,
A no less strong, tho' much more gentle, love;
Like virtuous kings, whom men rejoice t' obey,
Tyrants themselves less absolute than they.
Merab appear'd like some fair princely tow'r ;
Michal some virgin queen's delicious bow'r.

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