Page images
PDF
EPUB

They dwell who love the highest virtue made,
For I am sure to find Endymion there.

Endymion.

From this vexed world when we shall both retire

Where all her lovers, and where all rejoice,
I need not seek thee in the heavenly choir,
For I shall know Olivia by her voice.

For the Lady Olivia Porter. A present upon a New Year's
Day

Go! hunt the whiter ermine, and present
His wealthy skin as this day's tribute sent
To my Endymion's love; though she be far
More gently smooth, more soft, than ermines are!
Go! climb that rock, and when thou there hast found
A star, contracted in a diamond,

Give it Endymion's love, whose glorious eyes
Darken the starry jewels of the skies!
Go! dive into the Southern Sea, and when
Th'ast found, to trouble the nice sight of men,
A swelling pearl, and such whose single worth
Boast all the wonders which the seas bring forth,
Give it Endymion's love, whose ev'ry tear
Would more enrich the skillful jeweler.
How I command! how slowly they obey!
The churlish Tartar will not hunt to-day;
Nor will that lazy sallow Indian strive
To climb the rock, nor that dull Negro dive.
Thus poets, like to kings by trust deceived,
Give oftener what is heard of than received.

The philosopher and the lover
To a mistress dying

Lover.

Your beauty, ripe, and calm, and fresh
As eastern summers are,

Must now, forsaking time and flesh,
Add light to some small star.

Philosopher.

Whilst she yet lives, were stars decayed,
Their light by hers relief might find;
But death will lead her to a shade
Where love is cold, and beauty blind.

20

10

20

Lover.

Lovers, whose priests all poets are,
Think ev'ry mistress when she dies
Is changed at least into a star;

And who dares doubt the poets wise?

Philosopher.

But ask not bodies doomed to die
To what abode they go;

Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy,
It is not safe to know.

Song

O thou that sleep'st like pig in straw,
Thou lady dear, arise;
Open, to keep the sun in awe,
Thy pretty pinking eyes.

And having stretched each leg and arm,
Put on your clean white smock,

And then I pray, to keep you warm,
A petticoat on dock.

Arise, arise! why should you sleep,

When you have slept enough?
Long since French boys cried, Chimney-sweep,

And damsels, Kitchen-stuff.
The shops were opened long before,
And youngest prentice goes
To lay at 's mistress' chamber door
His master's shining shoes.
Arise, arise! your breakfast stays,
Good water-gruel warm,
Or sugar-sops, which Galen says

With mace will do no harm.

Arise, arise! when you are up

You'll find more to your cost, For morning's draught in caudle cup,

Good nutbrown ale and toast.

From News from Plymouth

SIR JOHN DENHAM

The Introduction and Notes are at page 1033

FROM Cooper's Hill a corrected impression, 1655

Cooper's Hill

My eye descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames amongst the wanton valleys strays.

10

10

20

Thames, the most loved of all the ocean's sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,

Like mortal life to meet eternity.

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,

Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold,
His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,

10

And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring;
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay;
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.✓
No unexpected inundations spoil
The mower's hopes, nor mock the plowman's toil;
But godlike his unwearied bounty flows,
First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to the banks confined,
But free and common as the sea or wind:

When he, to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying towers
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,

Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants;
So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.
Oh, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.
Here nature, whether more intent to please
Us or herself with strange varieties,
(For things of wonder give no less delight
To the wise maker's, than beholder's sight;
Though these delights from several causes move,
For so our children, thus our friends, we love)
Wisely she knew the harmony of things,
As well as that of sounds, from discord springs.
Such was the discord which did first disperse_
Form, order, beauty, through the universe;
While dryness moisture, coldness heat, resists,
All that we have, and that we are, subsists;
While the steep horrid roughness of the wood
Strives with the gentle calmness of the flood;

20

30

40

Such huge extremes when nature doth unite,
Wonder from thence results, from thence delight.
The stream is so transparent, pure, and clear,
That had the self-enamoured youth gazed here,
So fatally deceived he had not been,
While he the bottom, not his face, had seen.
But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes; his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows,
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat,
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is placed,
Between the mountain and the stream embraced,
Which shade and shelter from the hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives,
And in the mixture of all these appears
Variety, which all the rest endears.

This scene had some bold Greek or British bard
Beheld of old, what stories had we heard

Of fairies, satyrs, and the nymphs, their dames,
Their feasts, their revels, and their amorous flames?

Tis still the same, although their airy shape
All but a quick poetic sight escape.
There Faunus and Sylvanus keep their courts,
And thither all the horned host resorts

To graze the ranker mead; that noble herd
On whose sublime and shady fronts is reared
Nature's great masterpiece, to show how soon
Great things are made, but sooner are undone.

FROM Poems and Translations, 1668

On Mr. Abraham Cowley, his death and burial amongst the ancient poets

Old Chaucer, like the morning star,

50

60

70

[blocks in formation]

To us discovers day from far;
His light those mists and clouds

dissolved,

Our stage's luster Rome's outshines.

Which our dark nation long involved;

These poets near our princes sleep,

[blocks in formation]

That in the Muses' garden grew, And amongst withered laurels threw!

20

His fancy and his judgment such, Time, which made them their Each to the other seemed too fame outlive,

[blocks in formation]

much,

50

[blocks in formation]

Their garb, but not their clothes,

did wear.

He not from Rome alone, but
Greece,

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Seeing such transmigration here,
She thought it not a fable there-
Such a resemblance of all parts,
Life, death, age, fortune, nature,

Of th' others, as his own was known.

arts;

On a stiff gale, as Flaccus sings,

Then lights her torch at theirs, to tell

« PreviousContinue »