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THE SELF-BANISHED.

SONG.

T is not that I love you less
Than when before your feet I lay,
But to prevent the sad increase
Of hopeless love I keep away.

In vain, alas! for every thing

Which I have known belongs to you; Your form does to my fancy cling,

And makes my old wounds bleed anew. Absence is vain, for every thing

Which I have known belongs to you.

[graphic]

Who, in the Spring, from the new sun
Already has a fever got,

Too late begins those shafts to shun

Which Phoebus through his veins has shot. Too late he would the pain assuage,

And to thick shadows would retire ; About with him he bears the rage,

And in his tainted blood the fire.

But vow'd I have, and never must
Your banish'd servant trouble you;
For if I break, you may mistrust
The vow I made to love you to

WALLER.

SILENCE.

[graphic]

EACE, idle voice, be ever dumb;
Sorrows speak loud without a tongue;
And my perplexèd thoughts beware
To breathe yourselves in any ear:
'Tis scarce a true or manly grief,
Which gads abroad to find relief.

If silence be a kind of death,

He kindles grief who gives it breath :
But let it, raked in embers, lie

On thine own hearth-'twill quickly die;
And, spite of fate, that very womb
Which carries it, will prove its tomb.

BISHOP KING.*

* Henry King, Bishop of Chichester.-This and several other pieces are taken from his Poems, republished by Pickering, 1820.

SIC VITA.

IKE as the damask rose you see,
Or like the blossom on the tree,
Or like the dainty flower of May,
Or like the morning of the day,

Or like the sun, or like the shade,
Or like the gourd which Jonas had,
E'en such is man-whose thread is spun,
Drawn out and cut, and so is done-

The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,
The flower fades, the morning hasteth,
The sun sets, the shadow flies,

The gourd consumes, and man he dies.

[graphic]

Like to the grass that's newly sprung,
Or like a tale that's new begun,
Or like the bird that's here to-day,
Or like the pearlèd dew of May,
Or like an hour, or like a span,
Or like the singing of a swan,
E'en such is man-who lives by breath,
Is here, now there, in life or death-

The grass withers, the tale is ended,
The bird is flown, the dews descended,
The hour is short, the span's not long,
The swan's near death-man's life is done.

SIMON WASTELL. 1580.

VIRTUE.

WEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die!

[graphic]

Sweet rose whose hue, early and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in the grave,
And thou must die!

Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die!

GEORGE HERBERT.

GO, LOVELY ROSE.

SONG.

[graphic]

O, lovely Rose !

Tell her, that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet, how fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung

In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have unregarded died.

Sweet is the worth

Of Beauty, from the light retired :
Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not so blush to be admired.

Then die, that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee

How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

WALLER.

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