Or have smelled of the bud o' the brier?
Or the 'nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!
EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.
UNDERNEATH this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother;
Death! ere thou hast slain another,
Learned, and fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.
EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH, L. H.
WOULD'ST thou hear what man can say
In a little?—reader, stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbor give
To more virtue than doth live.
If at all she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault.
One name was Elizabeth,
The other let it sleep with death:
Fitter, where it died, to tell,
Than that it lived at all. Farewell!
TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, AND WHAT HE HATH LEFt us.
To draw no envy, SHAKESPEARE, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such,
As neither man, nor Muse, can praise too much,
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For silliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise.
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin: Soul of the age!
The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further off, to make thee room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
I mean with great, but disproportioned Muses:
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek,
From thence to honor thee, I will not seek
For names; but call forth thundering Æschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage: or when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone, for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain! thou hast one to show,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet must I not give nature all; thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion; and, that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same,
And himself with it, that he thinks to frame;
Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn;
For a good poet's made, as well as born.
And such wert thou! Look how the father's face
Lives in his issue, even so the race
Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines
In his well turnéd, and true filéd lines;
In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our water yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza and our James!
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there!
Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage,
Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage,
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night, And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.
Thomas Heywood, a native of Lincolnshire, was a prolific dramatist; but little or nothing is now known of his personal history. He had written for the stage in 1596, and continned writing down to 1640. The song here printed is from a play.
LOVE'S GOOD MORROW.
PACK clouds away, and welcome day,
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air, blow soft, larks, mount aloft,
To give my love good morrow.
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I'll borrow;
Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale, sing,
To give my love good morrow,
Notes from them both I'll borrow.
Wake from thy nest, robin redbreast,
Sing, birds in every furrow;
And from each hill let music shrill
Give my fair love good morrow.
Blackbird, and thrush, in every bush,
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow!
You, pretty elves, among yourselves,
Sing my fair love good morrow.
To give my love good morrow,
Sing, birds, in every furrow.
John Fletcher is remembered best from his long and brilliant literary partnership with Francis Beaumont. As dramatic authors their names are inseparable; and, indeed, it is a matter of considerable difficulty to determine the share contributed by each to any of their plays. Fletcher had the more poetical and sensitive nature; Beaumont had more wit and more force. Fletcher was born in 1576, and died of the plague in 1625. The first poetical extract here inserted is from a play called The Nice Valor, in which Beaumont had no share.
MELANCHOLY.
[From The Nice Valor.]
HENCE, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly!
There's nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see't,
But only melancholy!
Welcome, folded arms, and fixéd eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,
A look that's fastened to the ground,
A tongue chained up, without a sound!
Fountain heads, and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan !
These are the sounds we feed upon;
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley:
Nothing's so dainty-sweet as lovely melancholy.
TO SLEEP.
[From Valentinian.]
CARE-CHARMING Sleep, thou easer of all woes,
Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose
On this afflicted prince: fall like a cloud
In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud
Or painful to his slumbers; easy, light,
And as a purling stream, thou son of night,
Pass by his troubled senses, sing his pain
Like hollow murmuring wind or gentle rain.
Into this prince, gently, O, gently slide,
And kiss him into slumbers like a bride.
Robert Herrick, born in London in 1591, was educated for the church, and officiated in a rural parish for about twenty years, when, the civil war breaking out, he was ejected from his living, and did not resume his clerical functions until the accession of Charles II. Most of his verses are rather inconsistent with the profession he had chosen. Without much depth of feeling or splendor of imagery, his poems are tender and melodious, and leave an impression of grace which it is difficult to analyze. He died in 1674.
FAIR daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained his noon:
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