I neither seeke by bribes to please, Nor by desert to breed offence. Thus do I live; thus will I die; Would all did so as well as I!

SIR EDWARD DYER.*

TO THE HON. CHARLES MONTAGUE.
OUR hopes, like towering falcons, aim
At objects in an airy height;
But all the pleasure of the game
Is afar off to view the flight.

The worthless prey but only shows
The joy consisted in the strife;
Whate'er we take, as soon we lose

In Homer's riddle and in life.

So, whilst in feverish sleeps we think We taste what waking we desire, The dream is better than the drink, Which only feeds the sickly fire.

To the mind's eye things well appear,

At distance through an artful glass; Bring but the flattering objects near,

They're all a senseless gloomy mass.

Seeing aright, we see our woes :

Then what avails it to have eyes? From ignorance our comfort flows, The only wretched are the wise.

'Tis much immortal beauty to admire,
But more immortal beauty to withstand;
The perfect soul can overcome desire,
If beauty with divine delight be scanned.
For what is beauty but the blooming child
Of fair Olympus, that in night must end,
And be forever from that bliss exiled,
If admiration stand too much its friend?
The wind may be enamored of a flower,
The ocean of the green and laughing shore,
The silver lightning of a lofty tower,

But must not with too near a love adore;
Or flower and margin and cloud-capped tower
Love and delight shall with delight devour!

LORD EDWARD THURLOW.

OF MYSELF.

MATTHEW PRIOR,

THIS only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honor I would have,

Not from great deeds, but good alone;
The unknown are better than ill known:

Rumor can ope the grave.

Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends Not on the number, but the choice, of friends.

Books should, not business, entertain the light, And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night. My house a cottage more

Than palace; and should fitting be

For all my use, no luxury.

My garden painted o'er

BEAUTY.

FROM "HYMN IN HONOR OF BEAUTY."

So every spirit, as it is most pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer body doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairly dight
With cheerful grace and amiable sight;
For of the soul the body form doth take;
For soul is form, and doth the body make.

Therefore wherever that thou dost behold

A comely corpse, with beauty fair endued,
Know this for certain, that the same doth hold
A beauteous soul, with fair conditions thewed,
Fit to receive the seed of virtue strewed;
For all that fair is, is by nature good;
That is a sign to know the gentle blood.

Yet oft it falls that many a gentle mind

yield,

Horace might envy in his Sabine field.

*This is frequently attributed to William Byrd. Bartlett, how ever, gives it to Sir Edward Dyer, referring to Hannah's Courtly Poets as authority; so, also, Ward, in his English Poets, Vol. I., 1880.

Either by chance, against the course of kind, Or through unaptnesse in the substance found, Which it assumed of some stubborne ground, That will not yield unto her form's direction, But is performed with some foul imperfection.

And oft it falls (aye me, the more to rue!)
That goodly beauty, albeit heavenly born,
Is foul abused, and that celestial hue,
Which doth the world with her delight adorn,
Made but the bait of sin, and sinners' scorn,
Whilst every one doth seek and sue to have it,
But every one doth seek but to deprave it.

Yet nathèmore is that faire beauty's blame,
But theirs that do abuse it unto ill :

Nothing so good, but that through guilty shame
May be corrupt, and wrested unto will:
Natheless the soule is fair and beauteous still,
However fleshe's fault it filthy make;
For things immortal no corruption take.

THOUGHT.

EDWARD SPENSER.

THOUGHT is deeper than all speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought;
Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.

We are spirits clad in veils ;

Man by man was never seen; All our deep communing fails

To remove the shadowy screen.

Heart to heart was never known; Mind with mind did never meet; We are columns left alone

Of a temple once complete. Like the stars that gem the sky, Far apart, though seeming near, In our light we scattered lie;

All is thus but starlight here.

What is social company

But a babbling summer stream? What our wise philosophy

But the glancing of a dream?

Only when the sun of love

Melts the scattered stars of thought, Only when we live above

What the dim-eyed world hath taught,

Only when our souls are fed

By the fount which gave them birth, And by inspiration led

Which they never drew from earth,

We, like parted drops of rain,

Swelling till they meet and run, Shall be all absorbed again, Melting, flowing into one.

CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH.