The garlands wither on your brow;
Then boast no more your mighty deeds, Upon death's purple altar now
See where the victor-victim bleeds.
All heads must come
To the cold tomb;
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.
HABINGDON.—BORN 1605; DIED 1654.
Nox nocti indicat scientiam.
WHEN I survay the bright
Celestiall spheare;
So rich with jewels hung, that night
Doth like an Ethiop bride appeare,
My soule her wings doth spread,
And heavenward flies
The Almighty's mysteries to read
In the large volume of the skies.
For the bright firmament
Shootes forth no flame
So silent, but is eloquent
In speaking the Creator's name.
No unregarded star
Contracts its light
Into so small a character
Removed far from our humane sight,
But, if we steadfast looke,
We shall discerne
In it, as in some holy booke,
How man may heavenly knowledge learne.
It tells the conqueror,
That farre-stretcht powre,
Which his proud dangers traffique for,
Is but the triumph of an houre.
That from the farthest North,
Some nation may,
Yet undiscovered, issue forth,
And o'er his new-got conquest sway.
Some nation yet shut in
With hills of ice
May be let out to scourge his sinne,
Till they shall equal him in vice.
And then they likewise shall
Their ruin have;
For as your selves your empires fall,
And every kingdom hath a grave.
Thus those celestiall fires
Though seeming mute,
The fallacie of our desires
And all the pride of life confute.
For they have watcht since first
The world had birth:
And found sinne in it selfe accurst
And nothing permanent on Earth.
WALLER.-BORN 1605; DIED 1687.
OLD AGE AND DEATH.
THE seas are quiet when the winds give o'er;
So calm are we when passions are no more.
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.
The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view
That stand upon the threshold of the new.
MILTON.-BORN 1608; DIED 1674.
EXTRACTS FROM PARADISE LOST.
CREATION OF MAN.
THERE wanted yet the master-work, the end
Of all yet done; a creature, who not prone
And brute as other creatures, but endued
With sanctity of reason, might erect
His stature, and upright with front serene
Govern the rest, self-knowing, and from thence
Magnanimous to correspond with Heaven:
He formed thee, Adam, thee, O man,
Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breath'd
The breath of life; in His own image He
Created thee, in the image of God
Express, and thou becam'st a living soul.
He brought thee into this delicious grove,
This garden, planted with the trees of God,
Delectable both to behold and taste,
And freely all their pleasant fruit for food
Gave thee; all sorts are here that all th' earth yields,
Variety without end; but of the tree,
Which, tasted, works knowledge of good and evil,
Thou may'st not; in the day thou eat'st, thou dy'st:
Death is the penalty impos'd; beware,
And govern well thy appetite, lest sin
Surprise thee, and her black attendant death.
SOUTHWARD through Eden went a river large,
Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill
Pass'd underneath ingulph'd; for God had thrown
That mountain as his garden mound, high rais'd
Upon the rapid current, which through veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirst updrawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Water'd the garden; thence united fell
Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
Which from his darksome passage now appears;
And now divided into four main streams
Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm
And country, whereof here needs no account;
But rather to tell how, if art could tell,
How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,
Rolling on orient pearls, and sands of gold,
With mazy error under pendant shades
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flow'rs worthy of Paradise, which, not nice art,
In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon
Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpierced shade Imbrowned the noontide bowers. Thus was this place A happy rural seat of various view.
Groves, whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm ;
Others, whose fruit, burnish'd with golden rind,
Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only, and of delicious taste.
Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks
Grazing the tender herb, were interpos'd:
Or palmy hillock, or the flow'ry lap
Of some irriguous valley spread her store;
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.
Another side, umbrageous grots and caves
Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps,
Luxuriant. Meanwhile murm'ring waters fall
Down the slope hills, dispers'd or in a lake,
That to the fringed bank with myrtle crown'd
Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams;
The birds their choir apply: airs, vernal airs,
Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
The trembling leaves, while universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance
Led on th' eternal Spring.
Now came still evening on, and twilight grey
Had in her sober livery all things clad:
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased: now glow'd the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus that led
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