213.

214.

Hear, ye Ladies

HEAR, ye ladies that despise

What the mighty Love has done;

Fear examples and be wise:

Fair Callisto was a nun;

Leda, sailing on the stream

To deceive the hopes of man,
Love accounting but a dream,
Doted on a silver swan;

Danaë, in a brazen tower,

Where no love was, loved a shower.

Hear, ye ladies that are coy,

What the mighty Love can do;

Fear the fierceness of the boy :

The chaste Moon he makes to woo;

Vesta, kindling holy fires,

Circled round about with spies,

Never dreaming loose desires,

Doting at the altar dies;

Ilion, in a short hour, higher
He can build, and once more fire.

God Lyaeus

OD Lyaeus, ever young,

GOD

Ever honour'd, ever sung,
Stain'd with blood of lusty grapes,
In a thousand lusty shapes
Dance upon the mazer's brim,
In the crimson liquor swim;

● 214. mazer] a bowl of maple-wood.

215.

216.

From thy plenteous hand divine
Let a river run with wine:

God of youth, let this day here
Enter neither care nor fear.

Rather like a perfume dwells;

Where the violet and the rose

Their blue veins and blush disclose, And come to honour nothing else:

Where to live near

And planted there

Is to live, and still live new;
Where to gain a favour is

More than light, perpetual bliss-
Make me live by serving you!

Dear, again back recall

To this light,

A stranger to himself and all!
Both the wonder and the story
Shall be yours, and eke the glory;
I am your servant, and your thrall.

Melancholy

HENCE, all you vain delights,

As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly!
There's naught in this life sweet,

If men were wise to see 't,
But only melancholy-
O sweetest melancholy!

Welcome, folded arms and fixèd eyes,
A sight that piercing mortifies,

A look that's fasten'd to the ground,
A tongue chain'd up without a sound!

Fountain-heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan-
These are the sounds we feed upon:

Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley,
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.

217.

WE

Weep no more

EEP no more, nor sigh, nor groan,
Sorrow calls no time that's gone:

Violets pluck'd, the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again.

Trim thy locks, look cheerfully;
Fate's hid ends eyes cannot see.
Joys as winged dreams fly fast,
Why should sadness longer last?
Grief is but a wound to woe;

Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn no moe.

218.

A Dirge

?-1630?

CALL for the robin-redbreast and the wren,

Since o'er shady groves they hover,

And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole

The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole,

To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm,
And (when gay tombs are robb'd) sustain no harm ;
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.

219. The Shrouding of the Duchess of Malfi HARK! Now everything is still,

The screech-owl and the whistler shrill,

Call upon our dame aloud,

And bid her quickly don her shroud!

Much had of land and rent;
you

Your length in clay's now competent:
A long war disturb'd

your

mind;

Here your perfect peace is sign'd.

Of what is't fools make such vain keeping?
Sin their conception, their birth weeping,
Their life a general mist of error,

Their death a hideous storm of terror.

Strew your hair with powders sweet,
Don clean linen, bathe your feet,

218. dole] lamentation.

220.

And the foul fiend more to check-
A crucifix let bless your neck:

'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day;
End your groan and come away.

A

Vanitas Vanitatum

LL the flowers of the spring
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.

WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF

STIRLING

221.

Aurora

1580 ?-1640

O

HAPPY Tithon! if thou know'st thy hap, And valuest thy wealth, as I my want, Then need'st thou not-which ah! I grieve to grantRepine at Jove, lull'd in his leman's lap: