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Yeeld more delight; for I have oft possest
As much in this as all in all the rest,

And that without expence, when others oft
With their undoings have their pleasures bought.

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Requests, that with deniall could not meet,
Flew to our shepheard, and the voyces sweet
Of fairest nymphes intreating him to say
What wight he lov'd; he thus began his lay:
“Shall I tell you whom I love?
Hearken then a while to me;
And if such a woman move
As I now shall versifie;
Be assur'd, 'tis she, or none
That I love, and love alone.
"Nature did her so much right,
As she scornes the help of art.
In as many vertues dight

As e're yet imbrac'd a hart.
So much good so truely tride
Some for lesse were deifide.

"Wit she hath without desire

To make knowne how much she hath;

And her anger flames no higher

Than may fitly sweeten wrath.

Ful of pitty as may be,

Though perhaps not so to me.

"Reason masters every sense,

And her vertues grace her birth;
Lovely as all excellence,

Modest in her most of mirth :

Likelihood enough to prove

Onely worth could kindle love.

"Such she is: and if you know
Such a one as I have sung;
Be she browne, or faire, or so,
That she be but somewhile young;

Be assur'd, 'tis she, or none
That I love, and love alone."

VENUS by Adonis' side
Crying kist and kissing cryde,
Wrung her hands and tore her hayre
For Adonis dying there.

"Stay," (quoth she) "O stay and live!
Nature surely doth not give

To the earth her sweetest flowres
To be seene but some few houres."

On his face, still as he bled
For each drop a tear she shed,
Which she kist or wipt away,
Else had drown'd him where he lay.

"Fair Proserpina" (quoth she)
"Shall not have thee yet from me;
Nor thy soul to flye begin
While my lips can keepe it in."

Here she clos'd again. And some
Say, Apollo would have come
To have cur'd his wounded lym,
But that she had smother'd him.

NEVERMORE let holy Dee
O're other rivers brave,
Or boast how (in his jollity)
Kings row'd upon his wave.
But silent be, and ever know
That Neptune for my fare would row.

Those were captives. If he say
That now I am no other,
Yet she that beares my prison's key
Is fairer than Love's mother;

A god tooke me, those one lesse high,
They wore their bonds, so doe not I.

Swell, then, gently swell, ye floods,
As proud of what you beare,
And nymphes that in low corrall woods
String pearles upon your hayre,

Ascend: and tell if ere this day
A fayrer prize was seene at sea.
See the salmons leape and bound,
To please us as we passe,

Each mermaid on the rockes around,
Lets fall her brittle glasse,

As they their beauties did despize,
And lov'd no myrrour but your eyes.

Blow, but gently blow, fayre winde,
From the forsaken shore,
And be as to the halcyon kinde,
Till we have ferry'd o're:

So maist thou still have leave to blow,
And fanne the way where she shall goe.

Floods, and nymphes, and windes, and all
That see us both together,

Into a disputation fall;

And then resolve me, whether

The greatest kindnesse each can show

Will quit our trust of you or no?

THE SIREN'S SONG.-FROM THE INNER TEMPLE MASQUE.

STEERE hither, steere, your winged pines,

All beaten mariners,

Here lie Love's undiscover'd mines,

A prey to passengers;

Perfumes far sweeter than the best
Which make the phoenix' urn and nest,
Feare not your ships,

Nor any to oppose you, save our lips;
But come on shore

Where no joy dies till love hath gotten more.

For swelling waves, our panting breasts,
Where never stormes arise,
Exchange; and be awhile our guests:
For stars gaze on our eyes.
The compass, love shall hourly sing,
And as he goes about the ring,

We will not misse

To tell each point he nameth with a kisse.

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ROBERT HERRICK was born in London towards the close of the year 1591. His father was a goldsmith in Cheapside. He received his education at Cambridge-first at St. John's and afterwards at Trinity Hall-and commenced the study of the law, which he relinquished for that of divinity. In 1629, he was presented by Charles the First to the living of Dean Prior, in Devonshire; from this living he was ejected during the civil war; but it appears that the removal was not undesirable; he seems to have quitted, without regret, his parishioners, whom he describes as “a rocky generation," "churlish as the seas," and "rude (almost) as rudest salvages." He assumed the habit of a layman and resided in Westminster, by the assistance of some wealthier royalists, until the Restoration replaced him in his vicarage. He lived to an advanced age, but the year in which he died has not been ascertained.

His poetical reputation rests, chiefly, upon a few lyric pieces, the pure sentiment, the deep feeling, and the thrilling pathos of which, are so rare as to place his name high in the list of British Poets. His versification is peculiarly graceful and harmonious; few writers indeed have more successfully penned accompaniments to music-for even as they read, and without the association of sound, his lines are tuned to melody. Herrick, however, abounds in overstrained conceits, and is occasionally coarse and indelicate. It is not enough that he has told us, "although his rhymes were wild, his life was chaste." The example of ill acts is less prejudicial than the example inculcated by ill writing. The one may be forgotten when the actor is no more remembered, but the other endures to work evil long after the author has ceased to exist. We may, however, hope that the Poet not only saw but amended his error, and that the following pious prayer was a prayer of the heart:

"For these my unbaptized rhymes,
Writ in my wild unhallowed times,
For every sentence clause and word,
That's not inlaid with thee, O Lord,
Forgive me, God, and blot each line
Out of my book that is not thine;
But if, 'mongst all, thou findest one
Worthy thy benediction,

That one of all the rest shall be
The glory of my work, and me."

About the year 1648, he published his volume of "Hesperides," and soon afterwards, his "Noble Numbers, or short Pious Pieces, wherein, (amongst other things) he sings the Birth of Christ and sighs for his Saviour's sufferings on the Crosse." Our specimens have been taken from the former;-his "Noble Numbers" being by no means worthy of the high themes of which he wrote, if we except the "Dirge of Jephtha," and the "Litany of the Holy Spirit," both of which are exceedingly beautiful; full of pure and holy thoughts, and forming singular contrasts to the more light and careless productions of moments less sacred to reflection.

An engraved portrait of the Poet accompanies an early edition of his works. It is that of a man to whom the gay was more natural than the grave; and whose "habit,” as a layman, suited better his tastes and inclination than his robes as a priest.

The muse of Herrick is surpassingly gladsome and joyous. He was a light-hearted bard, who bounded from flower to flower with the gay thoughtlessness of the butterfly rather than the patient labour of the bee. He appears as if giving himself up to enjoyment-his life like a summer day-with the zest of an epicurean. He revels among his thoughts. Springing forth naturally and without an effort, they take the form of verse, airy and playful as the thistledown that is borne with the breeze from one spot to another, and, like the thistledown, rarely tarrying long enough on any to carry into air a particle of earth. His heart must have been always young; for with him care appears to have rather resembled a companion whom he could dismiss at pleasure, than the familiar associate who so frequently sits and communes with poets. We may, indeed, characterise the poetry of Herrick by a passage from himself:

"Has it a body! Aye, and wings
With thousand rare encolourings;

And, as it flies, it gently sings

'Love honey yields, but never stings.'"

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WHEN I behold a Forrest spread
With silken trees upon thy head;
And when I see that other dresse
Of flowers set in comelinesse :
When I behold another grace
In the ascent of curious lace,
Which like a pinacle doth shew
The top, and the top-gallant too:
Then, when I see thy tresses bound
Into an ovall, square, or round;
And knit in knots far more than I
Can tell by tongue or true-love tie:

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