Page images
PDF
EPUB

AT A SOLEMN MUSIC.

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of heaven's joy,
Sphere born, harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ,
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce ;
And to our high-raised phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure consent,
Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne
To him that sits thereon,

With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee ;
Where the bright seraphim, in burning row,
Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow;
And the cherubic host, in thousand choirs,
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
With those just spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout and holy psalms

Singing everlastingly :

That we on earth, with undiscording voice,
May rightly answer that melodious noise;

As once we did, till disproportioned sin

Jarred against nature's chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made

To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed

In perfect diapason, whilst they stood

In first obedience, and their state of good.

O, may we soon again renew that song,

And keep in tune with heaven, till God ere long

To his celestial concert us unite,

To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light!

AN EPITAPH ON THE MARCHIONESS OF WINCHESTER.

THIS rich marble doth inter

The honoured wife of Winchester,

A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir,
Besides what other virtues fair
Added to her noble birth,

More than she could own from earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She has told; alas! too soon,

After so short time of breath,

To house with darkness, and with death.
Yet had the number of her days
Been as complete as was her praise,
Nature and fate had had no strife
In giving limit to her life.

Her high birth and her graces sweet
Quickly found a lover meet;
The virgin quire for her request
The god that sits at marriage feast;
He at their invoking came,
But with a scarce well-lighted flame;
And in his garland, as he stood,
Ye might discern a cypress-bud.
Once had the early matrons run
To greet her of a lovely son,
And now with second hope she goes,
And calls Lucina to her throes;
But, whether by mischance or blame,
Atropos for Lucina came;
And with remorseless cruelty
Spoiled at once both fruit and tree:
The hapless babe, before his birth,
Had burial, yet not laid in earth:
And the languished mother's womb
Was not long a living to ub.

So have I seen some tender slip,
Saved with care from Winter's nip,
The pride of her carnation train,
Plucked up by some unheedy swain,
Who only thought to crop the flower
New shot up from vernal shower;
But the fair blossom hangs the head
Side-ways, as on a dying bed,
And those pearls of dew she wears,
Prove to be presaging tears,
Which the sad morn had let fall

On her hastening funeral.

Gentle lady, may thy grave

Peace and quiet ever have;

After this thy travail sore,
Sweet rest seize thee evermore,
That, to give the world increase,
Shortened hast thy own life's lease

Here, besides the sorrowing

That thy noble house doth bring,
Here be tears of perfect moan
Wept for thee in Helicon;

And some flowers, and some bays,

For thy hearse, to strew the ways,

Sent thee from the banks of Came,

Devoted to thy virtuous name;

Whilst thou, bright saint, high sittest in glory,

Next her, much like to thee in story,
That fair Syrian shepherdess

Who, after years of barrenness,
The highly-favoured Joseph bore,

To him that served for her before,
And at her next birth, much like thee,
Through pangs fled to felicity,
Far within the bosom bright
Of blazing Majesty and Light:
There with thee, new-welcome saint,
Like fortunes may her soul acquaint
With thee there clad in radiant sheen,
No marchioness, but now a queen.

SONG ON MAY MORNING.

Now the bright morning-star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.

Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

AN EPITAPH ON THE ADMIRABLE DRAMATIC POET
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

WHAT needs my Shakspeare for his honoured bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones?

Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid

Under a starry-pointing pyramid?

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,

What needst 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 sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die.

ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER,

Who sickened in the time of his Vacancy; being forbid to go to London, by reason of the Plague.

HERE lies old Hobson; Death hath broke his girt,
And here, alas! hath laid him in the dirt;
Or else the ways being foul, twenty to one,
He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.
"Twas such a shifter, that, if truth were known,
Death was half-glad when he had got him down;
For he had, any time this ten years full,
Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and The Bull.
And surely Death could never have prevailed,
Had not his weekly course of carriage failed;

But lately finding him so long at home,

And thinking now his journey's end was come,
And that he had ta'en up his latest inn,

In the kind office of a chamberlin,

Showed him his room where he must lodge that night, Pulled off his boots, and took away the light:

If any ask for him it shall be said,

"Hobson has supt, and 's newly gone to bed."

ANOTHER ON THE SAME.

HERE lieth one, who did most truly prove
That he could never die while he could move;
So hung his destiny, never to rot

While he might still jog on and keep his trot;

Made of sphere metal, never to decay

Until his revolution was at stay.

Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime
'Gainst old truth) motion numbered out his time:
And, like an engine moved with wheel and weight,
His principles being ceased, he ended straight.
Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,
And too much breathing put him out of breath;
Nor were it contradiction to affirm,

Too long vacation hasted on his term.

Merely to drive the time away he sickened,

Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quickened;

[ocr errors]

Nay," quoth he, on his swooning bed outstretched, "If I mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetched, But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers, For one carrier put down to make six bearers." Ease was his chief disease; and, to judge right, He died for heaviness that his cart went light: His leisure told him that his time was come, And lack of load made his life burdensome, That even to his last breath (there be that say't),

As he were pressed to death, he cried, "More weight,'
But, had his doings lasted as they were,

He had been an immortal carrier.
Obedient to the moon he spent his date
In course reciprocal, and had his fate
Linked to the mutual flowing of the seas,

Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase:

His letters are delivered all and gone,

Only remains this superscription.

ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE, UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT.

BECAUSE you have thrown off your prelate lord,
And with stiff vows renounced his Liturgy,
To seize the widowed whore Plurality

From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorred;
Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword

To force our consciences that Christ set free,
And ride us with a classic hierarchy
Taught ye by mere A. S. and Rotherford?

« PreviousContinue »