They plague them with their warrants.
But now they feed them with good cheer,
And what they want they take in beer,
For Christmas comes but once a year,
And then they shall be merry.

"The client now his suit forbears,
The prisoner's heart is eased,
The debtor drinks away his cares,
And for the time is pleased;
Though others' purses be more fat,
Why should he pine or grieve at that?
Hang sorrow! Care will kill a cat;
And therefore let's be merry.

"Hark! how the wags abroad do call
Each other forth to rambling;
Anon you'll see them in the hall

For nuts and apples scrambling.

Hark! how the roofs with laughter sound,
Anon they'll think the house goes round,
For they the cellar's depth have found,
And there they will be merry.

"Then wherefore in these merry days
Should we, I pray, be duller?
No, let us sing some roundelays
To make our mirth the fuller;
And while we, thus inspired, sing
Let all the streets with echoes ring,
Woods and hills, and everything,
Bear witness, we are merry."

Robert Herrick and George Herbert, who flourished in the reigns of James I and Charles I, were both clergymen, as well as poets, but, as clergymen and poets both, were of a very different order. Herbert was a saintly character and his poetry is nearly all devotional, breathing a spirit of Herbert real piety. He lived in a sort of hallowed re- Born 1593. tirement, always in rather delicate health, tended Died 1632. by a loving and beloved wife, and dying in the odor of sanctity. He was a friend of Donne, and writes in the style of fantastic imagery, although he never wrote any verses in so light a humor as Donne. Nearly all

same

his songs were religious. Here is a stanza or two in his characteristic vein:

"I made a posy while the day ran by;

Here will I smell the remnant out, and tie

My life within this band;

But time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away,
And withered in my hand.

Farewell, dear flowers, sweetly your time ye spent;
Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament,

And after death, for cures.

I follow straight, without complaint or grief,
Since, if my scent be good, I care not if
It be as short as yours."

The following hymn of his, with which I have no doubt you are familiar, is, I think, the best thing he ever wrote, and yet, in the last verse, in which he compares the soul to seasoned timber, you can see the fantastic sort of conceits which marred the poetry of all this style of writers, and gained them the epithet metaphysical:

"Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky;
The dews shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.

"Sweet rose, whose hue, angry 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;
Thy music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

"Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like seasoned timber never gives;
But tho' the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives."

Herrick, as I have intimated, was very different from Herbert. The latter wrote only pious verses. Herrick was a lively rhymester, making love songs, Died 1662. drinking songs, epigrams and couplets on all world

Born 1591.

ly subjects. Herbert loved quiet and retirement, and could hardly be induced to come out into the world. Herrick sought society and convivial company, and railed at the country. Yet, of the two, Robert Herrick is much the more musical poet, although he wrote much that would better never have been written. And, although he professed to hate the country, and when he had a vicarage in Devonshire frankly vented his dislike in these lines:

"More discontent I never had,

Since I was born, than here,

Where I have been, and still am sad,

In this dull Devonshire."

Yet, as he himself says, his best verses are inspired by brooks, birds and blossoms, and no poet of the age has written so beautifully of nature as Herrick. I think this ode to Primroses Filled with Morning Dew is one of the most beautiful lyrics of his age, perhaps of any age of our poetry:

"Why do ye weep, sweet babes? Can tears

Speak grief in you,

Who were but born

Just as the modest morn

Teemed her refreshing dew?

Alas! you have not known that shower
That mars a flower,

Nor felt the unkind

Breath of a blasting wind,

Nor are ye worn with years,

Or warped as we,

Who think it strange to see

Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young,
Speaking by tears before ye have a tongue.

"Speak, whimpering younglings, and make known
The reason why

Ye droop and weep.

Is it for want of sleep,
Or childish lullaby?

Or that ye have not seen yet
The violet?

Or brought a kiss

From that sweetheart to this?

No, no; this sorrow shown
By your tears shed

Would have this lecture read,

That things of greatest, so of meanest worth,

Conceived with grief are, and with tears brought forth.”

Herrick was driven from his parish during the wars of the Puritans and went to London, where he lived for some time very poor. Here he and Ben Jonson were great friends, and used to sup together at a tavern, where they held what Herrick calls "Lyric feasts." But London never inspired such verses as did the country sights—the daffodils, violets and may-days, of which he wrote so feelingly. After a time he went back to his vicarage and wrote more sober In one of these he prays devoutly for pardon for some of his unhallowed rhymes:

verses.

"Forgive me, God, and blot each line

Out of my book that is not thine."

But, as Heaven is not likely to do for any one that which they could easily do for themselves, the lines remain unblotted to this day.

TALK XXVIII.

THE SINGERS OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF POETRY-CAREW, SUCKLING, LOVELACE, WALLER.

CAREW, Suckling and Lovelace have the air of courtiers, and were all men of the world. Thomas Carew held an office in the court of Charles I, and was a witty Born 1589. and accomplished gentleman, whose sonnets for Died 1639, ten or fifteen years before the Puritans came into power set to music, and the ladies sang them to their harpsichords. were the most popular verses of their time. They were

As you can

fancy, they were love-songs that Carew wrote. Indeed, have not nearly all the lyric poets of the world sung either to Love or Death?

tender air or a sad one.

when spring approaches:

Their verses are set to a Carew writes thus of his love

"Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth
And makes it tender, gives a second birth
To the dead swallow, wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee.
"Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world, the youthful spring.
The valleys, hills and woods, in rich array,
Welcome the coming of the longed-for May;
Now all things smile, only my love doth lower,
Nor hath the scalding noon-day sun the power
To melt that marble ice, that still doth hold
Her heart congealed, and makes her pity cold.

*