1150

catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar,

without a course, without a star,

but by the instinct of sweet music driven.

SOLITUDE

P. B. SHELLEY

HOW blest are they that waste their weary hours

in solemn groves and solitary bowers,

where neither eye nor ear

can see or hear

the frantic mirth

and false delights of frolic earth;

where they may sit and pant,

and breathe their pursy souls;

where neither grief consumes, nor griping want
afflicts, nor sullen care controuls.

Away false joys; ye murther where ye kiss:
there is no heaven to that, no life to this.

Chor.

GL

DIRGE

F. QUARLES

A. TENNYSON

LORIES, pleasures, pomps, delights and ease
can but please

the outward senses, when the mind
is, or untroubled, or by peace refined.

1st Voice Crowns may flourish and decay, beauties shine, but fade away.

2nd Voice Youth may revel, yet it must
lie down in a bed of dust.

3rd Voice Earthly honours flow and waste,
time alone doth change and last.
Sorrows mingled with content, prepare
rest for care;

Chor.

love only reigns in death: though art
can find no comfort for a broken heart.

J. FORD

1153

DIRGE IN A FUNERAL PAGEANT

LL the flowers of the spring

ALL

meet to perfume our burying;
these have but their growing prime,
and man does flourish but his time:
survey our progress from our birth;
we are set, we grow, we turn to earth.
Courts adieu, and all delights,

all bewitching appetites!

Sweetest breath and clearest eye
(like perfumes) go out and die;
and consequently this is done
as shadows wait upon the sun.
Vain the ambition of kings,

who seek by trophies and dead things
to leave a living name behind,

and weave but nets to catch the wind.

J. WEBSTER

1154 REFLECTIONS ON THE DEATH OF SAMSON

LL is best, though we oft doubt,

ALL

what the unsearchable dispose
of Highest Wisdom brings about,
and ever best found in the close.
Oft He seems to hide his face,
but unexpectedly returns;

and to his faithful champion hath in place

bore witness gloriously: whence Gaza mourns,

1155

and all that band them to resist

his uncontrollable intent.

His servants He, with new acquist

of true experience from this great event,
with peace and consolation hath dismissed,
and calm of mind, all passion spent.

TO MARS

J. MILTON

FIERCE and furious Mars! whose harmefull hart reioiceth most to shed the giltlesse blood: whose headie will doth all the world subvart, and doth enuie the pleasaunt merry moode of our estate, that erst in quiet stoode: why dost thou thus our harmlesse towne annoy whych mightie Bacchus gouerned in ioy? Father of warre and death, that doost remove with wrathfull wrecke from wofull mothers brest the trustie pledges of her tender loue!

so graunt the goddes, that for our finall rest, Dame Venus' pleasaunt lookes may please thee best, whereby, when thou shalt all amazed stand, the sword may fall out of thy trembling hand. 1156 And thou mayst proue some other way ful wel the bloudie prowesse of thy mightie speare, wherewith thou raisest from the depth of hel the wrathful sprites of all the Furies there; who, when they wake, doe wander euerie where, and neuer rest to range about the costes, t'enrich that pit with spoyle of damned ghostes. And when thou hast our fields forsaken thus, let cruel discorde bear thee companie, engirt with snakes, and serpents venomous, euen She, that can with red vermilion die the gladsome greene that florisht pleasauntly, and make the greedy ground a drinking cvp, to sup the blood of murdered bodies vp.

1157

G. GASCOIGNE

EARLY VALOUR OF CHROMIUS

HOW early has young Chromius begun

the race of virtue, and how swiftly run,

and borne the noble prize away,

whilst other youths yet at the barrier stay?

None but Alcides e'er set earlier forth than he;
the god his father's blood nought could restrain,
'twas ripe at first, and did disdain

the slow advance of dull humanity.

The big-limb'd babe in his huge cradle lay,
too weighty to be rock'd by nurses' hands,
wrapt in purple swadling-bands:

when lo! by jealous Juno's fierce commands,
two dreadful serpents come

rolling and hissing loud into the room.

To the bold babe they trace their bidden way,

forth from their flaming eyes dread lightnings went; their gaping mouths did forkéd tongues like thunderbolts present.

1158' WE

E must suffer ere we learn,'
golden truth, but hard to prize,
when the passions rage and burn,
when the torrent fills the eyes.
Men have struggled, men have striven,
on their weary pilgrimage,
records of their woes have given,

to instruct the coming age;

yet in vain; experience ever

is by time and suff'ring bought;
all must purchase that which never
cometh to the soul for nought.
Ev'ry man must taste of woe,
ere he can be fit for joy,
only fire, as well we know,

cleanseth gold from base alloy.

A. COWLEY

1159

ANON.

REVENGE

ND longer had she sung; but with a frown

AND

Revenge impatient rose;

he threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down; and with a withering look

the war-denouncing trumpet took,

and blew a blast so loud and dread,

were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!

and ever and anon he beat

the doubling drum with furious heat;

and though sometimes, each dreary pause between, dejected Pity at his side

her soul-subduing voice applied,

yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien,

while each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from his head.

W. COLLINS

1160

R.

G.

RIVER GOD-AMORET

FAIREST

AIREST virgin, now adieu:
I must make my waters fly,
lest they leave their channels dry,
and beasts that come unto the spring
miss their morning's watering:
which I would not; for of late
all the neighbour-people sate
on my banks, and from the fold
two white lambs of three weeks old
offer'd to my deity;

for which this year they shall be free
from raging floods, that as they pass
leave their gravel in the grass;

nor shall their meads be overflown,
when their grass is newly mown.
1161 Amo. For thy kindness to me shewn,
never from thy banks be blown
any tree, with windy force,

'cross thy streams, to stop thy course;
may no beast that comes to drink,
with his horns cast down thy brink;
may none that for thy fish do look,
cut thy banks to dam thy brook;
barefoot may no neighbour wade
in thy cool streams, wife nor maid,
when the spawns on stones do lie,
to wash their hemp, and spoil the fry.

H earlier shall the rosebuds blow

J. FLETCHER

1162in after years, those happier years:

and children weep, when we lie low,
far fewer tears, far softer tears.