Since that the soul doth only lie
Immersed in matter, chained in sense,
How can, Romira, thou and I
With both dispense?
And thus ascend

In higher flights than wings can lend.

Since man's but pasted up of earth,
And ne'er was cradled in the skies,
What terra lemnia gave thee birth?
What diamond, eyes?
Or thou alone,

To tell what others were, came down?

10

FROM The Second Book of Divine Poems, 1647, published with

Poems, 1646

[Even as the wandering traveler]

Ecclesiastes i. 3

What profiteth a man of all his labor, which he taketh under the sun?

Even as the wandering traveler doth stray,

Led from his way

By a false fire, whose flame to cheated sight

Doth lead aright,

All paths are footed over but that one

Which should be gone;

Even so my foolish wishes are in chase
Of ev'rything but what they should embrace.

We laugh at children, that can when they please
A bubble raise,

And when their fond ambition sated is,

Again dismiss

The fleeting toy into its former air;
What do we here

But act such tricks? Yet thus we differ: they
Destroy, so do not we; we sweat, they play.

Ambition's tow'rings do some gallants keep
From calmer sleep;

Yet when their thoughts the most possessed are,
They grope but air,

And when they're highest, in an instant fade
Into a shade;

10

20

Or like a stone, that more forced upwards, shall
With greater violence to 'ts center fall.

Another, whose conceptions only dream
Monsters of fame,

The vain applause of other madmen buys

With his own sighs,

Yet his enlargëd name shall never crawl
Over this ball,

But soon consume; thus doth a trumpet's sound
Rush bravely on a little, then's not found.

But we as soon may tell how often shapes

Are changed by apes,

As know how oft man's childish thoughts do vary,

And still miscarry.

So a weak eye in twilight thinks it sees

New species,

While it sees nought; so men in dreams conceive

Of specters, till that waking undeceive.

A pastoral hymn

Happy choristers of air,

Who by your nimble flight draw near
His throne, whose wondrous story

And unconfinëd glory

Your notes still carol, whom your sound
And whom your plumy pipes rebound.

Yet do the lazy snails no less

The greatness of our Lord confess,

And those whom weight hath chained,

And to the earth restrained,

Their ruder voices do as well,

Yea, and the speechless fishes tell.

Great Lord, from whom each tree receives,

Then pays again, as rent, his leaves,

Thou dost in purple set

The rose and violet,

And giv'st the sickly lily white,

Yet in them all thy name dost write.

30

40

10

THOMAS STANLEY

The Introduction and Notes are at page 1029

FROM Poems and Translations, 1647

Expectation

Chide, chide no more away The fleeting daughters of the day,

Nor with impatient thoughts out

run

The lazy sun,

Or think the hours do move too

slow;

Delay is kind,

And we too soon shall find

That which we seek, yet fear to

know.

The mystic dark decrees Unfold not of the destinies, Nor boldly seek to antedate

The laws of fate;

To be by such

Blind fools admired,

Gives thee but small esteem,
By whom as much

10

10

tense,

Thy anxious search awhile for

bear,

Suppress thy haste,

And know that time at last Will crown thy hope or fix thy

fear.

FROM Poems, 1651

Changed, yet constant

Wrong me no more In thy complaint, Blamed for inconstancy; I vowed t' adore

The fairest saint,

Nor changed whilst thou wert
she;

But if another thee outshine,
Th' inconstancy is only thine.

Who pay their hearts where they Of all love's cruelties, and

And yet neglects to shun that It was my fall that deified

SIR EDWARD SHERBURNE

The Introduction and Notes are at page 1030