XXVI. So, when the sun in bed, Curtained with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale Troop to the infernal jail, Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave, And the yellow-skirted fays 230 Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. XXVII. But see the Virgin blest Time is our tedious song should here have ending: Hath fixed her polished car, 240 Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable. THE PASSION. I. EREWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth, But headlong joy is ever on the wing, In wintry solstice like the shortened light Soon swallowed up in dark and long outliving night. II. For now to sorrow must I tune my song, And set my harp to notes of saddest woe, Which on our dearest Lord did seize ere long, ΙΟ Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse than so, Which he for us did freely undergo : Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plight Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight ! III. He, sovran Priest, stooping his regal head, His starry front low-roofed beneath the skies : Yet more the stroke of death he must abide; 20 Then lies him meekly down fast by his brethren's side. IV. These latest scenes confine my roving verse: Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things. V. Befriend me, Night, best patroness of grief! And work my flattered fancy to belief That heaven and earth are coloured with my woe; My sorrows are too dark for day to know: 30 The leaves should all be black whereon I write, And letters, where my tears have washed, a wannish white. VI. See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels, My spirit some transporting cherub feels To bear me where the towers of Salem stood, In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit. VII. Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock For sure so well instructed are my tears VIII. Or, should I thence, hurried on viewless wing, 50 Might think the infection of my sorrows loud Had got a race of mourners on some pregnant cloud. This Subject the Author finding to be above the years he had when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished. SONG ON MAY MORNING. Now the bright morning-star, Day's harbinger, Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire VOL. I. L 146 ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER. Thus we salute thee with our early song, ΙΟ WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones The labour of an age in pilèd stones? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid ? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a livelong monument. For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art, · Those Delphic lines with deep impression took, ΙΟ ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER. Who sickened in the time of his Vacancy, being forbid to go to London by reason of the Plague. HERE lies old Hobson. Death hath broke his girt, Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and The Bull. And surely Death could never have prevailed, And thinking now his journey's end was come, In the kind office of a chamberlin Showed him his room where he must lodge that night, Pulled off his boots, and took away the light. If any ask for him, it shall be said, "Hobson has supped, and's newly gone to bed." ANOTHER ON THE SAME. HERE lieth one who did most truly prove So hung his destiny, never to rot While he might still jog on and keep his trot; ΙΟ Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime 20 |