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The scene changes, presenting Ludlow town and the president's castle; then come in country dancers, after them attendant Spirit, with the two Brothers, and the Lady.

SONG.

Spi. Back, shepherds, back, enough your play Till next sun-shine holiday; Here be without duck or nod Other trippings to be trod

Of lighter toes, and such court guise

As Mercury did first devise

With the mincing Dryades

On the lawns, and on the leas.

This second song presents them to their father and

mother.

Noble lord, and lady bright,

I have brought you new delight,

Here behold so goodly grown
Three fair branches of your own;
Heav'n hath timely tried their youth,
Their faith, their patience, and their truth,
And sent them here through hard assays
With a crown of deathless praise,

To triumph in victorious dance
O'er sensual folly and intemperance.

The dance ended, the Spirit epiloguizes.
Spi. To the ocean now I fly,
And those happy climes that lie
Where day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky:
There I suck the liquid air,

All amidst the gardens fair

Of Hesperus, and his daughters three,
That sing about the golden tree:
Along the crisped shades and bowers
Revels the spruce and jocund spring,
The Graces, and the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Thither all their bounties bring;
That there eternal summer dwells,
And west-winds with musky wing
About the cedarn alleys fling
Nard and cassia's balmy smells.
Iris there with humid bow
Waters the odorous banks, that blow
Flowers of more mingled hue
Than her purfled scarf can shew,
And drenches with Elysian dew
(List mortals, if your ears be true)
Beds of hyacinths and roses,
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumber soft, and on the ground
Sadly sits th' Assyrian queen ;
But far above in spangled sheen
Celestial Cupid her fam'd sou advanc'd,
Holds his dear Psyché sweet intranc'd,
After her wand'ring labours long,
Till free consent the gods among
Make her his eternal bride,

And from her fair unspotted side
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.
But now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run

Quickly to the green earth's end,
Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend,
And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.

Mortals that would follow me,
Love virtue, she alone is free,
She can teach you how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if virtue feeble were,

Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

ON SHAKESPEAR, 1630.

What needs my Shakespear for his honour'd bones
The labour of an age in piled stones,

Or that his hallow'd 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 live-long monument.

For whilst to the shame of slow endeavouring art
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took ;
Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And so sepulcher'd, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

SONNETS.

To the Nightingale.

O nightingale, that on yon blos'my spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May. Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day,

First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, Portend success in love; O if Jove's will Have link'd that amorous power to thy soft lay, Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh; As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief, yet hadst no reason why:

Whether the Muse, or Love call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

On his being arriv'd at the Age of Twenty-three. How soon hath time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol'n on his wing my three and twentieth year! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, That I to manhood am arriv'd so near, And inward-ripeness doth much less appear, That some more timely happy spirits indu'th.

L

Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, It shall be still in strictest measure even

To that same lot, however mean or high, Toward which time leads me, and the will of Heav'n; All is, if I have grace to use it so, As ever in my great task-master's eye.

To Mr. H. Lawes, on his Airs.

Harry, whose tuneful and well-measur'd song
First taught our English music how to span
Words with just note and accent, not to scan
With Midas' ears, committing short and long;
Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng,
With praise enough for envy to look wan;
To after-age thou shalt be writ the man [tongue.
That with smooth air could'st humour best our
Thou honour'st verse, and verse must lend her
wing

To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire, That tun'st their happiest lines in hymn or story. Dante shall give fame leave to set thee higher Than his Casella, whom he woo'd to sing Met in the milder shades of purgatory.

To the Lord General Fairfax.

Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings,
Filling each mouth with envy or with praise,
And all her jealous monarchs with amaze,
And rumours loud, that daunt remotest kings;
Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings

Victory home, though new rebellions raise
Their hydra heads, and the false North displays
Her broken league to imp their serpent wings.
O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand,
(For what can war, but endless war still breed?)
Till truth and right from violence be freed,

And public faith clear'd from the shameful brand Of public fraud. In vain doth Valour bleed, While Avarice and Rapine share the land.

To the Lord General Cromwell.

Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud
Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith, and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plough'd,
And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud

Hast rear'd God's trophies, and his work pursued,
While Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbrued,
And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud,
And Worcester's laureat wreath. Yet much remains
To conquer still; Peace hath her victories
No less renown'd than war: new foes arise
Threat'ning to bind our souls with secular chains:
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.

To Sir Henry Vane the younger.

Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old,
Than whom a better senator ne'er held
The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms repell'd
The fierce Epirot and the African bold,
Whether to settle peace, or to unfold

The drift of hollow states hard to be spell'd, Then to advise how War may best upheld Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold,

In all her equipage: besides to know Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, What severs each, thou' st learn'd, which few have done:

The bounds of either sword to thee we owe; Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.

On the late Massacre in Piemont. Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold; Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worship'd stocks and stones, Forget not; in thy book record their groans

Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow O'er all th' Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundred fold, who having learn'd thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

On his Blindness.

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide, Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide; Doth God exact day labour, light denied, I fondly ask? but patience to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest;

They also serve who only stand and wait.

To Mr. Lawrence.

Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won,
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favanius re-inspire
The frozen ocean, and clothe in fresh attire
The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.

What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise

To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air: He who of those delights can judge, and spare To interpose them oft, is not unwise.

To Cyriac Skinner.

Cyriac, whose grandsire on the royal bench

Of British Themis, with no mean applause

Pronounc'd, and in his volumes taught our laws, Which others at their bar so often wrench; To day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth, that after no repenting draws; Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, And what the Swede intends, and what the French. To measure life learn thou betimes, and know Tow'rd solid good what leads the nearest way;

For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains And disapproves that care, though wise in shew, That with superfluous burden loads the day,

And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.

To the same.

Cyriac, this three years day these eyes, tho' clear,
To outward view, of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot,
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up, and steer

Right onward. What supports me? dost thou ask:

The conscience, Friend, to' ve lost them overply'd In liberty's defence, my noble task,

Of which all Europe talks from side to side.

This thought might lead me thro' the world's vain mask,

Content though blind, had I no better guide.
On his deceased Wife.

Methought I saw my late espoused saint

Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint. Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint, Purification in the old law did save,

And such, as yet once more I trust to have Full sight of her in Heav'n without restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her mind: Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight

Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd So clear, as in no face with more delight. But O, as to embrace me she inclin'd,

I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.

COWLEY-A. D. 1618-1667.

THE PRAISE OF POETRY.

'Tis not a pyramid of marble stone, Though high as our ambition;

'Tis not a tomb cut out in brass, which can
Give life to th' ashes of a man,

But verses only; they shall fresh appear
Whilst there are men to read or hear,

When time shall make the lasting brass decay,
And eat the pyramid away,

Turning that monument wherein men trust
Their names to what it keeps, poor dust;
Then shall the epitaph remain, and be

New graven in eternity.

Poets by death are conquer'd, but the wit

Of poets triumphs over it.

What cannot verse? When Thracian Orpheus took
His lyre, and gently on it strook,

The learned stones came dancing all along,
And kept time to the charming song.
With artificial pace the warlike pine,
The elm and his wife the ivy twine,

With all the better trees which erst had stood
Unmov'd forsook their native wood.
The laurel to the poet's hand did bow,
Craving the honour of his brow;
And ev'ry loving arm embrac'd, and made
With their officious leaves a shade.

The beasts, too, strove his auditors to be,
Forgetting their old tyranny:

The fearful hart next to the lion came,
And the wolf was shepherd to the lamb.
Nightingales, harmless syrens of the air,
And muses of the place, were there;

Who, when their little windpipes they had found
Unequal to so strange a sound,

O'ercome by art and grief, they did expire,
And fell upon the conqu'ring lyre.
Happy, O happy they! whose tomb might be,
Mausolus! envied by thee!

THE COMPLAINT.

In a deep vision's intellectual scene,
Beneath a bow'r for sorrow made,
Th' uncomfortable shade

Of the black yew's unlucky green,

Mix'd with the mourning willow's careful gray,
Where rev'rend Cam cuts out his famous way,
The melancholy Cowley lay;

And, lo! a Muse appeared to his clos'd sight,
(The Muses oft in lands of vision play)
Body'd, array'd, and seen by an internal light:
A golden harp with silver strings she bore,
A wondrous hieroglyphic robe she wore,
In which all colours and all figures were

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She touch'd him with her harp and rais'd him from the ground;

The shaken strings melodiously resound.
"Art thou return'd at last," said she,
"To this forsaken place and me?
Thou prodigal! who did'st so loosely waste
Of all thy youthful years the good estate;
Art thou return'd, here to repent too late?
And gather husks of learning up at last,
Now the rich harvest-time of life is past,
And winter marches on so fast?

But when I meant t' adopt thee for my son,
And did as learn'd a portion assign

As ever any of the mighty Nine
Had to their dearest children done;
When I resolv'd t' exalt thy anointed name
Among the spiritual lords of peaceful fame ;
Thou changeling! thou, bewitch'd with noise and
Wouldst into courts and cities from me go; [shew,
Wouldst see the world abroad, and have a share
In all the follies and the tumults there;
Thou wouldst, forsooth! be something in a state,
And business thou wouldst find, or wouldst
Business! the frivolous pretence

Of human lusts to shake off innocence;
Business! the grave impertinence;

[create:

Business! the thing which I of all things hate; Business! the contradiction of thy fate.

Go, renegado! cast up thy account,
And see to what amount

Thy foolish gains by quitting me:

The sale of knowledge, fame, and liberty,
The fruits of thy unlearn'd apostacy.

Thou thought'st if once the public storm were past,
All thy remaining life should sunshine be:
Behold the public storm is spent at last,
The sovereign is toss'd at sea no more,
And thou, with all the noble company,
Art got at last to shore:

But whilst thy fellow-voyagers I see,
All march'd up to possess the promis'd land,
Thou still alone, alas! dost gaping stand
Upon the naked beach, upon the barren sand.

As a fair morning of the blessed spring, After a tedious stormy night,

Such was the glorious entry of our king;
Enriching moisture dropp'd on every thing:
Plenty he sow'd below, and cast about him light.
But then, alas! to thee alone,

One of Old Gideon's miracles was shewn,
For ev'ry tree, and ev'ry herb around,
With pearly dew was crown'd,

And upon all the quicken'd ground

The fruitful seed of Heav'n did brooding lie,
And nothing but the Muse's fleece was dry.
It did all other threats surpass,

When God to his own people said,

(The men whom thro' long wand'rings he had led) That he would give them ev'n a heav'n of brass: They look'd up to that heav'n in vain,

That bounteous heav'n! which God did not restrain Upon the most unjust to shine and rain.

The Rachel, for which twice seven years and more,
Thou didst with faith and labour serve,
And didst (if faith and labour can) deserve,

Tho' she contracted was to thee,

Giv'n to another thou didst see,
Giv'n to another, who had store

Of fairer and of richer wives before,
And not a Leah left, thy recompense to be.
Go on, twice sev'n years more, thy fortune try,
Twice sev'n years more God in his bounty may
Give thee to fling away

Into the court's deceitful lottery:

But think how likely 'tis that thou,

With the dull work of thy unwieldy plough,
Shouldst in a hard and barren season thrive,
Shouldst even able be to live;

Thou! to whose share so little bread did fall
In the miraculous year when manna rain'd on all."

Thus spake the Muse, and spake it with a smile,
That seem'd at once to pity and revile:
And to her thus, raising his thoughtful head,
The melancholy Cowley said:

"Ah! wanton foe! dost thou upbraid
The ills which thou thyself hast made?

When in the cradle innocent I lay,

Thou, wicked spirit! stolest me away,
And my abused soul didst bear

Into thy new-found worlds, I know not where,
Thy golden Indies in the air;
And ever since I strive in vain
My ravish'd freedom to regain;
Still I rebel, still thou dost reign;

Lo, still in verse, against thee I complain.
There is a sort of stubborn weeds,
Which, if the earth but once it ever breeds,
No wholesome herb can near them thrive,
No useful plant can keep alive:

The foolish sports I did on thee bestow
Make all my art and labour fruitless now; [grow.
Where once such fairies dance, no grass doth ever

When my new mind had no infusion known, Thou gav'st so deep a tincture of thine own,

That ever since I vainly try

To wash away th' inherent dye:

Long work, perhaps, may spoil thy colours quite, But never will reduce the native white.

To all the ports of honour and of gain

I often steer my course in vain ;

Thy gale comes cross, and drives me back again. Thou slacken'st all my nerves of industry,

By making them so oft to be

The tinkling strings of thy loose minstrelsy.
Whoever this world's happiness would see,
Must as entirely cast off thee,

As they who only heav'n desire
Do from the world retire.

This was my error, this my gross mistake,
Myself a demi-votary to make.

Thus with Sapphira and her husband's fate,
(A fault which I, like them, am taught too late)
For all that I gave up I nothing gain,
And perish for the part which I retain.

Teach me not then, O thou fallacious Muse!
The court and better king t' accuse;

The heav'n under which I live is fair,
The fertile soil will a full harvest bear:
Thine, thine is all the barrenness, if thou
Mak'st me sit still and sing, when I should plough.
When I but think how many a tedious year
Our patient sovereign did attend

His long misfortunes' fatal end;

How cheerfully, and how exempt from fear,

On the Great Sovereign's will he did depend,

I ought to be accurs'd if I refuse

To wait on his, O thou fallacious Muse!
Kings have long hands, they say, and tho' I be
So distant, they may reach at length to me.
However, of all princes, thou

[slow.

Shouldst not reproach rewards for being small or Thou! who rewardest but with pop'lar breath, And that too, after death!

THE COUNTRY MOUSE.

At the large foot of a fair hollow tree,
Close to plow'd ground, seated commodiously,
His ancient and hereditary house,
There dwelt a good substantial Country Mouse,
Frugal, and grave, and careful of the main.
A City Mouse, well coated, sleek, and gay,
A mouse of high degree, which lost his way,
Wantonly walking forth to take the air,
Had arriv'd early, and belighted there
For a day's lodging. The good hearty host
(The ancient plenty of his hall to boast)
Did all the stores produce that might excite,
With various tastes, the courtier's appetite:
Fitches and beans, peason, and oats, and wheat,
And a large chesnut, the delicious meat
Which Jove himself, were he a mouse, would eat.
And for a hautgout, there was mix'd with these
The swerd of bacon, and the coat of cheese,
The precious relics which at harvest he

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