THE FATHER ON HIS DEAR SON,

GERVAIS BEAUMONT.

AN I, who have for others oft compiled The songs of death, forget my sweetest child?

Which, like a flower crush'd with a blast,

is dead,

And ere full time, hangs down his smiling head,
Expecting, with clear hope, to live anew
Among the angels, fed with heavenly dew?
We have this sign of joy, that many days
While on this earth his spirit struggling stays,
The name of Jesus, in his mouth, contains
His only food, his sleep, his ease from pains.
O may that sound be rooted in my mind,
Of which such strong effect in him I find.
Dear Lord, receive my son, whose winning love,
To me, was like a friendship, far above
The course of nature, or his tender age,
Whose looks could all my bitter griefs assuage.

Let his pure soul, ordain'd seven years to be In that frail body, which was part of me, Remain my pledge in heaven, as sent to show How to this port at every step I go.

SIR J. BEAUMONT.

EPITAPH

ON THE FIRST DAUGHTER.

ERE lies, to each her parents' ruth,
Mary, the daughter of their youth.
Yet, all heaven's gifts being heaven's due,
It makes her father less to rue.

At six months' end, she parted hence
With safety of her innocence,

Whose soul heaven's queen (whose name she bears),

In comfort of her mother's tears,

Hath placed among her virgin train:
Where, while that sever'd doth remain,
This grave partakes the fleshly birth,
Which cover lightly, gentle earth!

BEN JONSON.

TIME'S DOINGS.

IME'S glory is to calm contending kings; To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light;

To stamp the seal of time on aged things;

To wake the morn, and sentinel the night; To wrong the wronger till he render right; To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours, And smear with dust their glittering golden towers:

To fill with worm-holes stately monuments;
To feed oblivion with decay of things;
To blot old books, and alter their contènts;

To pluck the quills from ancient ravens' wings;
To dry the old oak's sap, and cherish springs;
To spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel,
And turn the giddy round of Fortune's wheel:

To show the beldam daughters of her daughter;
To make the child a man, the man a child;
To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter;

To tame the unicorn and lion wild;

To mock the subtle, in themselves beguiled; To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops, And waste huge stones with little water-drops.

SHAKESPEARE.

EPITAPH

ON THE FIRST SON.

AREWELL! thou child of my right hand, and joy;

My sin was too much hope of thee,
loved boy.

Seven years were lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate on the just day.

Oh, could I lose all father, now!

For why

Will man lament the state he should envy?—
To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
And if no other misery, yet age.-

Rest in soft peace! and, ask'd, say, here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poesy.

For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.

BEN JONSON.

MEMORIES AND ASPIRATIONS.

HEY are all gone into a world of light,
And I alone sit lingering here;

Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove;
Or those faint beams, in which the hill is drest,
After the sun's remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days,-
My days which, at the best, are dull and hoary,
Mere glimmerings and decays.

O holy hope, and high humility,

High as the heavens above!

These are your walks, and you have show'd them me,

To kindle my cold love.

Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just,

Shining nowhere but in the dark;

What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,

Could man outlook that mark!

G