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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
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne'er so brave:
And after they have shown their pride,
Like you, a while, they glide
Into the grave.

TO CORINNA, TO GO A-MAYING.

Get up, get up! for shame! the blooming morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.

See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colors through the air!
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see

The dew bespangling herb and tree.

Come, my Corinna, come, and coming, mark
How each field turns a street, each street a park,
Made green, and trimmed with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough

Or branch; cach porch, each door, ere this

An ark, a tabernacle is,

Made up of white thorn neatly interwove,
As if here were those cooler shades of love.
Can such delights be in the street
And open fields, and we not see't?
Come, we'll abroad, and let's obey
The proclamation made for May,
And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;
But, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying.

There's not a budding boy or girl this day
But is got up and gone to bring in May.
A deal of youth, ere this, is come
Back, and with white thorn laden, home;
Some have despatched their cakes and cream
Before that we have left to dream;

And some have wept, and wooed, and plighted troth,
And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth;
Many a green gown has been given;
Many a kiss, both odd and even;
Many a glance, too, has been sent

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?
When all the birds have matins said,

And sung their thankful hymus, 'tis sin,
Nay, profanation, to keep in,

When as a thousand virgins on this day
Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May.

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
For jewels for your gown or hair;
Fear not, the leaves will strew
Gems in abundance upon you;

Besides, the childhood of the day has kept
Against you come some orient pearls unwept :
Come, and receive them while the light
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night,
And Titan on the eastern hill
Retires himself, or else stands still

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,
And take the harmless folly of the time.
We shall grow old apace, and die,
Before we know our liberty.
Our life is short, and our days run
As fast away as does the sun;
And as a vapor, or a drop of rain,
Once lost, can ne'er be found again,
So when or you or I are made
A fable, song, or fleeting shade,

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
Which, starlike, sparkle in their skies;
Nor be you proud that you can see
All hearts your captives-yours yet free;

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What mean, dull souls! in this high measure

To haberdash

In earth's base wares, whose greatest treasure
Is dross and trash!

The height of whose enchanting pleasure
Is but a flash!

Are these the goods that thou suppliest
Us mortals with? Are these the high'st?
Can these bring cordial peace? False world, thou
liest!

DELIGHT IN GOD ONLY.

I love (and have some cause to love) the earth:
She is my Maker's creature-therefore good;
She is my mother, for she gave me birth;
She is my tender nurse-she gives me food.

But what's a creature, Lord, compared with thee?
Or what's my mother or my nurse to me?

I love the air: her dainty sweets refresh
My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me;
Her shrill-mouthed quire sustain me with their

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,
My careful purveyor; she provides me store;
She walls me round; she makes my diet greater;
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore:

But, Lord of oceans, when compared with thee,
What is the ocean or her wealth to me?

To heaven's high city I direct my journey,
Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,
Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky:

But what is heaven, great God, compared to thee?
Without thy presence, heaven's no heaven to me.

Without thy presence earth gives no refection;
Without thy presence sea affords no treasure;
Without thy presence air's a rank infection;
Without thy presence heaven itself no pleasure:
If not possessed, if not enjoyed in thee,
What's earth, or sea, or air, or heaven to me?

The highest honors that the world can boast
Are subjects far too low for my desire;
The brightest beams of glory are at most
But dying sparkles of thy living fire;

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?
Not having thee, what have my labors got?
Let me enjoy but thee, what further crave I?.
And having thee alone, what have I not?

I wish nor sea nor land; nor would I be
Possessed of heaven, heaven unpossessed of thec.

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.
Accept, thou shrine of my dead saint,
Instead of dirges this complaint;
And for sweet flowers to crown thy hearse,
Receive a strew of weeping verse

From thy grieved friend, whom thou might'st see
Quite melted into tears for thee.

Dear loss! since thy untimely fate,

My task has been to meditate

On thee, on thee: thou art the book,
The library, whereon I look,

Though almost blind. For thee, loved clay,

I languish out, not live, the day,
Using no other exercise

But what I practise with mine eyes,
By which wet glasses I find out
How lazily time creeps about
To one that mourns; this, only this,
My exercise and business is:
So I compute the weary hours
With sighs dissolvéd into showers.

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HENRY KING.--BARTEN HOLYDAY.

Till age, or grief, or sickness must
Marry my body to that dust

It so much loves, and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.
Stay for me there: I will not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale.
And think not much of my delay;
I am already on the way,

And follow thee with all the speed
Desire can make or sorrows breed.
Each minute is a short degree,
And every hour a step toward thee.
At night when I betake to rest,
Next morn I rise nearer my west
Of life almost by eight hours' sail

Than when sleep breathed his drowsy gale.
Thus from the sun my bottom steers,
And my day's compass downward bears,
Nor labor I to stem the tide

Through which to thee I swiftly glide.

'Tis true, with shame and grief I yield,
Thou, like the van, first took'st the field,
And gotten hast the victory,
In thus adventuring to die

Before me, whose more years might crave
A just precedence in the grave.
But hark! my pulse, like a soft drum,
Beats my approach, tells thee I come;
And slow howe'er my marches be,
I shall at last sit down by thee.
The thought of this bids me go on,
And wait my dissolution

With hope and comfort. Dear (forgive
The crime!), I am content to live
Divided, with but half a heart,
Till we shall meet and never part.

SIC VITA.

Like to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are;
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew;
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood-
Even such is man, whose borrowed light
Is straight called in and paid to-night.
The wind blows out; the bubble dies;
The spring entombed in autumn lies;
The dew dries up; the star is shot;
The flight is past-and man forgot!

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;
So men: some stiff, some loose, some firm -- all

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:
Let the atheist storm then; Heaven is round about.

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.
Oh, various power of God in one small throat!

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.

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