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Which here enamels everything,
And sends the fowls to us in care
On daily visits through the air.
He hangs in shades the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night,
And does in the pomegranates close
Jewels more rich than Ormus shows.
He makes the figs our mouths to meet,
And throws the melons at our feet,
But apples plants of such a price
No tree could ever bear them twice.
With cedars chosen by his hand
From Lebanon, he stores the land,
And makes the hollow seas that roar
Proclaim the ambergris on shore.
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The Gospel's pearl upon our coast,
And in these rocks for us did frame
A temple where to sound his name.
Oh, let our voice his praise exalt
"Til it arrive at heaven's vault,
Which, then, perhaps, rebounding, may
Echo beyond the Mexique Bay."

Thus sung they, in the English boat, A holy and a cheerful note,

And all the way, to guide their chime, With falling oars they kept the time.

COURAGE, MY SOUL!

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE RESOLVED SOUL AND
CREATED PLEASURE.

Courage, my soul! now learn to wield
The weight of thine immortal shield;
Close on thy head thy helmet bright;
Balance thy sword against the fight;
See where an army, strong as fair,
With silken banners spread the air!
Now, if thou be'st that thing divine,
In this day's combat let it shine,

And show that nature wants an art To conquer one resolvéd heart. Pleasure. Welcome, the creation's guest,

Soul.

Lord of earth, and heaven's heir!
Lay aside that warlike crest,
And of nature's banquet share,
Where the souls of fruits and flowers
Stand prepared to heighten yours.

I sup above, and cannot stay
To bait so long upon the way.
Pleasure. On these downy pillows lie,
Whose soft plumes will thither fly;
On these roses, strewed so plain
Lest one leaf thy side should strain.
My gentler rest is on a thought,
Conscious of doing what I ought.
Pleasure. If thou be'st with perfumes pleased
Such as oft the gods appeased,

Soul.

Soul.

Soul.

Thou in fragrant clouds shalt show
Like another god below.

A soul that knows not to presume
Is Heaven's and its own perfume.
Pleasure. Everything does seem to vie
Which should first attract thine eye;
But since none deserves that grace,
In this crystal view thy face.
When the Creator's skill is prized,
The rest is all but earth disguised.
Pleasure. Hark how music then prepares
For thy stay these charming airs,
Which the posting winds recall,
And suspend the river's fall.
Had I but any time to lose,

Soul.

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See how the orient dew,

Shed from the bosom of the morn

Into the blowing roses,

(Yet careless of its mansion new,

For the clear region where 'twas born),
Round in itself incloses;

And in its little globe's extent
Frames as it can, its native element.

How it the purple flower does slight,
Scarce tonching where it lies;
But, gazing back upon the skies,

Shines with a mournful light,
Like its own tear,

Because so long divided from the sphere.
Restless it rolls and unsecure,
Trembling, lest it grow impure;

Till the warm sun pities its pain,

And to the skies exhales it back again.

So the soul, that drop, that ray,

Of the clear fountain of eternal day,

Could it within the human flower be seen, Remembering still its former height,

Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green; And, recollecting its own light,

Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express The greater heaven in a heaven less.

In how coy a figure wound,

Every way it turns away;
So the world excluding round,

Yet receiving in the day; Dark beneath, but bright above; Here disdaining, there in love. How loose and easy hence to go;

How girt and ready to ascend; Moving but on a point below,

It all about does upwards bend. Such did the manna's sacred dew distil, White and entire, although congealed and chill; Congealed on earth; but does, dissolving, run Into the glories of the almighty sun.

THOUGHTS IN A GARDEN.1

How vainly men themselves amaze,
To win the palm, the oak, or bays;
And their incessant labors see
Crowned from single herb, or tree,
Whose short and narrow-vergéd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all the flowers and trees do close,
To weave the garlands of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear?
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men:
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow :
Society is all but rude

To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen
So amorous as this lovely green.
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress' name.
Little, alas! they know or heed,
How far these beauties her exceed!
Fair trees! where'er your barks I wound,
No name shall but your own be found.

1 This poem is printed as a translation in Marvell's works; but the original Latin is obviously his own. Here is a speci

men of it: .

"Alma Quies, teneo te! et te germana Quietis
Simplicitas! vos ergo diu per templa, per urbes
Quæsivi, regum perque alta palatia frustra:
Sed vos hortorum per opaca silentia, longe
Celarunt plantæ virides, et concolor umbra."

When we have run our passion's heat
Love hither makes his best retreat:
The gods who mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race:
Apollo hunted Daphne so

Only that she might laurel grow:
And Pan did after Syrinx speed
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine, and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness:

The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds and other seas;
Annihilating all that's made

To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide:
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state,
While man there walked without a mate;
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there:
Two paradises are in one,
To live in paradise alone.

How well the skilful gardener drew,
Of flowers and herbs this dial new!
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run:
And, as it works, the industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.

How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers!

Thomas Stanley.

Stanley (1625-1678) edited schylus, wrote a creditable "History of Philosophy," and, in 1651, published a volume of verse. He was educated at Oxford, and spent part of his youth in travelling. His poems, though de formed by the conceits fashionable at the time, give signs of a rich and genuine poetical vein.

THE DEPOSITION.

Though when I loved thee thou wert fair Thou art no longer so;

Those glories, all the pride they wear,

Unto opinion owe:

Beauties, like stars, in borrowed lustre shine, And 'twas my love that gave thee thine.

The flames that dwelt within thine eye
Do now with mine expire;
Thy brightest graces fade and die
At once with my desire.

Love's fires thus mutual influence return;
Thine cease to shine when mine to burn.

Then, proud Celinda, hope no more
To be implored or wooed;
Since by thy scorn thou dost restore
The wealth my love bestowed;
And thy despised disdain too late shall find
That none are fair but who are kind.

Charles Cotton.

The friend of good old Izaak Walton, Cotton (16301687) was a cheerful, witty, and accomplished man, but improvident in worldly matters. His father, Sir George, left him the encumbered estate of Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, near the river Dove. Cotton was thenceforth always in money difficulties, and died insolvent. To get money, he translated several works from the French and Italian, and among them Montaigne's Essays. He made a discreditable travesty of Virgil, remarkable only for its obscenity. But some of his verses show a genuine vein.

NO ILLS BUT WHAT WE MAKE.

FROM "CONTENTATION: DIRECTED TO MY DEAR FATHER AND MOST WORTHY FRIEND, MR. IZAAK WALTON."

There are no ills but what we make

By giving shapes and names to things;
Which is the dangerous mistake

That causes all our sufferings.

O fruitful grief, the world's disease!
And vainer man, to make it so,
Who gives his miseries increase,
By cultivating his own woe!

We call that sickness which is health,
That persecution which is grace,
That poverty which is true wealth,
And that dishonor which is praise.
Alas! our time is here so short,

That in what state soe'er 'tis spent, Of joy or woe, does not import, Provided it be innocent.

But we may make it pleasant too,

If we will take our measures right, And not what Heaven has done undo By an unruly appetite.

The world is full of beaten roads,
But yet so slippery withal,

That where one walks secure 'tis odds
A hundred and a hundred fall.

Untrodden paths are then the best,
Where the frequented are unsure;
And he comes soonest to his rest
Whose journey has been most secure.

It is content alone that makes
Our pilgrimage a pleasure here;
And who buys sorrow cheapest takes
An ill commodity too dear.

on the great fire. His "Absalom and Achitophel" is regarded as one of the most powerful of modern satires. His "Religio Laici" exhibits the poet convulsed with religious doubts.

After the death of Charles II. Dryden became a Roman Catholic, had his children brought up in that faith, and lived and died in it. Macaulay calls him an "illustrious renegade." Scott takes a less uncharitable view of his motives. When William and Mary ascended the throne Dryden lost his laureateship, and thenceforth became a bookseller's hack. For translating Virgil into English verse he received £1200; for his "Fables," about £250. After a life of literary toil, productive of many splendid works, but dishonored by some which it were well for his memory if they could be annihilated, Dryden let fall his pen. He died at sixty-eight, and his body was buried in Westminster Abbey. In terms of extreme exaggeration, Johnson says of him that "he found the English language brick, and left it marble."

Dryden was sixty-six years old when he wrote his "Alexander's Feast," one of the finest lyrics in all literature. "I am glad," he wrote to his publisher, "to hear from all hands that my Ode is esteemed the best of all my poetry by all the town. I thought so myself when I writ it; but being old, I mistrusted my own judgment." Let it be added in Dryden's behalf that he had the grace to submit with meekness to Collier's severe criticism of the moral defects of his plays. Undoubtedly, the recollection of them caused him many bitter regrets. His prose style is excellent. "In his satire," says Scott, "his arrow is always drawn to the head, and flies directly and mercilessly to his object."

John Dryden.

One of the most celebrated of English poets, Dryden 1031-1700) was born in Northamptonshire, of Puritan rents. He received his school education at Westminster, under Dr. Busby, of birchen memory; his college ucation, at Cambridge. When Cromwell died, he wrote adatory stanzas to his memory; but this did not preVent his greeting Charles II., at his restoration, with a intatory poem, entitled "Astræa Redux." Dryden's eerings in religion, politics, criticism, and taste exhibit A mind under the dominion of impulse. His marriage, which took place in 1665, was not a happy one, though le seems to have been warmly susceptible of domestic flection. In 1668 he succeeded Sir William Davenant a poet-laureate. For many years he had supported Limself by writing for the stage. He wrote some tweny eight plays. His tragedies are stilted and ineffective; while his comedies are execrably impure and licentious,

not to be palliated even by the laxity of that corrupt and shameless age. He lacked some of the greatst elements of poetic genius, and in moral carnestness as sadly deficient. His "Annus Mirabilis" is a poem

ALEXANDER'S FEAST.

AN ODE IN HONOR OF ST. CECILIA'S DAY.

St. Cecilia, a Roman lady born about A.D. 295, and bred in the Christian faith, was married to a Pagan nobleman, Valerianus. She told her husband that she was visited nightly by an angel, whom he was allowed to see after his own conversion. They both suffered martyrdom. The angel by whom Cecilia was visited is referred to in the closing lines of Dryden's "Ode," coupled with a tradition that he had been drawn down to her from heaven by her melodies. In the earliest traditions of Cecilia there is no mention of skill in music. The great Italian painters fixed her position as its patron saint by representing her always with symbols of harmony-a harp or organ-pipes. Then came the suggestion adopted in Dryden's "Ode," that, the organ was invented by St. Cecilia. The practice of holding Musical Festivals on Cecilia's Day (the 22d of November) began to prevail in England at the close of the 17th century.

I.

'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won
By Philip's warlike son;
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne:

His valiant peers were placed around; Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound, (So should desert in arms be crowned):

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Timotheus, placed on high

Amid the tuneful quire,

With flying fingers touched the lyre: The trembling notes ascend the sky,

And heavenly joys inspire.

The song began from Jove,

Who left his blissful seats above,
Such is the power of mighty love.

A dragon's fiery form belied the god,
Sublime on radiant spires he rode,

When he to fair Olympia pressed,

And while he sought her snowy breast: Then round her slender waist he curled,

And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of

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IV.

Soothed with the sound the king grew vain;

Fought all his battles o'er again:

And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.

The Master saw the madness rise;
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And, while he heaven and earth defied,
Changed his hand and checked his pride.
He chose a mournful muse

Soft pity to infuse:

He sung Darius great and good,
By too severe a fate
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,

And weltering in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed,
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.

With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his altered soul

The various turns of chance below; And now and then a sigh he stole, And tears began to flow.

CHORUS.

Revolving in his altered soul

The various turns of chance below; And now and then a sigh he stole, And tears began to flow.

V.

The mighty Master smiled to see That love was in the next degree:

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