The Name of all our lives and loves: The heirs elect of love; whose names belong All ye wise souls, who in the wealthy breast Bring hither thy whole self; and let me see Of noble powers I see, And full of nothing else but empty me; Alas! will never do ; We must have store; Go, soul, out of thyself, and seek for more; Great Nature for the key of her huge chest Of nimble art, and traverse round All-sovereign Name, To warn each several kind And shape of sweetness-be they such Or answer artful touch That they convene and come away To wait at the love-crown'd doors of that illustrious day. Gasp for thy golden show'rs with long-stretch'd hands! Lo, how the labouring earth, The attending world, to wait thy rise, And then, not knowing what to do, And kill the death of this delay. To catch the daybreak of thy dawn! And know what sweets are suck'd from out it. By which they thrive, Where all their hoard of honey lies. Lo, where it comes, upon the snowy dove's The birth of our bright joys. O, thou compacted Body of blessings! spirit of souls extracted! Cloud of condensed sweets! and break upon us O, fill our senses, and take from us All force of so profane a fallacy, To think aught sweet but that which smells of thee. Fair flow'ry name! in none but thee, And thy nectareal fragrancy, Hourly there meets An universal synod of all sweets; By whom it is defined thus That no perfume For ever shall presume To pass for odoriferous, But such alone whose sacred pedigree Can prove itself some kin, sweet Name! to thee. A thousand blest Arabias dwell; The soul that tastes thee takes from thence. How many unknown worlds there are Of comforts, which thou hast in keeping! In pity's soft lap lie a-sleeping! Happy he who has the art To awake them, And to take them Home, and lodge them in his heart. O, that it were as it was wont to be, When thy old friends, on fire all full of thee, Fought against frowns with smiles; gave glorious chase To persecutions! and against the face Of death and fiercest dangers, durst with brave And sober pace march on to meet a grave. On their bold breasts about the world they bore thee, And to the teeth of hell stood up to teach thee; In centre of their inmost souls they wore thee, Where racks and torments striv'd in vain to reach thee. Little, alas! thought they Who tore the fair breasts of thy friends, Their fury but made way For thee, and serv'd them in thy glorious ends. More freely to transpire That impatient fire The heart that hides thee hardly covers ? Of thy so oft-repeated rising. Each wound of theirs was thy new morning, With blush of thine own blood thy day adorning: Of wrath, and made the way through all these wounds. For sure there is no knee That knows not thee; Or if there be such sons of shame, When stubborn rocks shall bow, And hills hang down their heav'n-saluting heads Of dust, where, in the bashful shades of night, Shall then, with just confusion, bow HABINGTON. WILLIAM HABINGTON belonged to an ancient and honourable family, and was born at Hindlip, in Worcestershire, A.D. 1605. Like the poet, his family was Catholic; and his father narrowly escaped destruction on a false charge of having been connected with the Gunpowder Plot. He was saved through the influence of Lord Morley, his brother-in-law. The poet was educated in the Jesuits' College at St. Omer, and afterwards in Paris. On his return to England, Habington married Lucy, daughter of William Herbert, first Lord Powis. He died A.D. 1654, and was interred at Hindlip, in the family vault. Habington's "Castara" was his wife; and no other woman has ever been so honourably celebrated in verse. The poems which are clustered round her name relate to many subjects; but the spirit of an elevated love is in them all, and constitutes their connecting link. The peculiar character of genius, uniting deep thought with an expansive imagination, which belonged to his age, is, in Habington's Castara, combined with a moral purity and true refinement not common in any age. Habington writes ever like a Christian and a gentleman, as well as like a poet: and few circumstances should teach us more to distrust the award of popular opinion than the obscurity in which his writings have so long remained. TO CASTARA, INQUIRING WHY I LOVED HER. Why doth the stubborne iron prove How know you that the orbs doe move; "Tis not thy vertues, each a starre Which in thy soules bright spheare doe shine, To make each gazer's heart like thine; 'Tis not thy face; I cannot spie, Nor is❜t thy birth. For I was ne're Which, ballance it, no weight doth beare, But onely fils the vulgar eare. Nor yet thy fortunes: since I know That raising they but overthrow. And yet these attributes might prove THE DESCRIPTION OF CASTARA. Like the violet, which alone For shee's to her selfe untrue, Such is her beauty, as no arts Folly boasts a glorious blood;- |