But you may stay yet here a while To blush and gently smile, And go at last. What! were ye born to be An hour or half's delight, And so to bid good-night? 'Twas pity Nature brought ye forth Merely to show your worth And lose you quite. But you are lovely leaves, where we TO CORINNA, TO GO A-MAYING. Get up, get up! for shame! the blooming morn See how Aurora throws her fair The dew bespangling herb and tree. Come, my Corinna, come, and coming, mark Or branch; cach porch, each door, ere this An ark, a tabernacle is, Made up of white thorn neatly interwove, There's not a budding boy or girl this day And some have wept, and wooed, and plighted troth, From out the eye, love's firmament; Each flower has wept, and bowed toward the Many a jest told of the keys' betraying east, Above an hour since; yet you not drest Nay, not so much as out of bed? And sung their thankful hymus, 'tis sin, When as a thousand virgins on this day Rise, and put on your foliage, and be seen To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green, And sweet as Flora. Take no care Besides, the childhood of the day has kept Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying: Few beads are best when once we go a-Maying. This night, and locks picked; yet we're not a-Maying. Come, let us go, while we are in our prime, All love, all liking, all delight, Lies drowned with us in endless night. Then while time serves, and we are but decaying, Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying. TO DIANEME. Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes What mean, dull souls! in this high measure To haberdash In earth's base wares, whose greatest treasure The height of whose enchanting pleasure Are these the goods that thou suppliest DELIGHT IN GOD ONLY. I love (and have some cause to love) the earth: But what's a creature, Lord, compared with thee? I love the air: her dainty sweets refresh flesh, And with their polyphonian notes delight me: But what's the air, or all the sweets that she Can bless my soul withal, compared to thee? I love the sea: she is my fellow-creature, But, Lord of oceans, when compared with thee, To heaven's high city I direct my journey, But what is heaven, great God, compared to thee? Without thy presence earth gives no refection; The highest honors that the world can boast The loudest flames that earth can kindle be But nightly glow-worms, if compared to thee. Without thy presence wealth is bags of cares; Wisdom but folly; joy disquiet, sadness; Friendship is treason, and delights are suares; Pleasures but pains, and mirth but pleasing mad ness: Without thee, Lord, things be not what they be, Nor have they being, when compared with thee. In having all things, and not thee, what have I? I wish nor sea nor land; nor would I be Henry King. King, bishop of Chichester (1591-1669), was the author of poems, elegies, and sonnets. His monody on his wife, who died before her twenty-fifth year, is beautiful and tender, containing the germ of some famous passages by modern poets. FROM THE EXEQUY ON HIS WIFE. From thy grieved friend, whom thou might'st see Dear loss! since thy untimely fate, My task has been to meditate On thee, on thee: thou art the book, Though almost blind. For thee, loved clay, I languish out, not live, the day, But what I practise with mine eyes, HENRY KING.--BARTEN HOLYDAY. Till age, or grief, or sickness must It so much loves, and fill the room And follow thee with all the speed Than when sleep breathed his drowsy gale. Through which to thee I swiftly glide. 'Tis true, with shame and grief I yield, Before me, whose more years might crave With hope and comfort. Dear (forgive SIC VITA. Like to the falling of a star, Barten Holyday. 59 A native of Oxford (1593-1661), Holyday became chaplain to Charles I., and Archdeacon of Oxford. He translated Juvenal, and wrote a "Survey of the World,” a poem containing a thousand distichs, from which we cull the following specimens, taken from Trench's collection. They will repay study. DISTICHS. River is time in water; as it came, Still so it flows, yet never is the same. I wake, and so new live: a night's protection Is a new wonder whiles a resurrection. The sun's up, yet myself and God most bright I can't see; I'm too dark, and he's too light. Clay, sand, and rock seem of a different birth; earth! By red, green, blue, which sometimes paint the air, Guilt, pardon, heaven, the rainbow does declare. The world's a prison; no man can get out: The rose is but the flower of a brier; The good man has an Adam to his sire. The dying mole, some say, opens his eyes: The rich, till 'tis too late, will not be wise. Pride cannot see itself by mid-day light; The peacock's tail is farthest from his sight. The swallow's a swift arrow, that may show With what an instant swiftness life doth flow. The nightingale's a quire-no single note. The silkworm's its own wonder: without loom It does provide itself a silken room. Herodotus is history's fresh youth; Thucydides is judgment, age, and truth. In sadness, Machiavel, thou didst not well To help the world to faster run to hell. |