Thee lastly, nuptial bow'r, by me adorned With what to sight or smell was sweet; from thee

How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obscure
And wild? how shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?

Whom thus the angel interrupted mild: Lament not, Eve, but patiently resign What justly thou hast lost; nor set thy heart, Thus over-fond, on that which is not thine: Thy going is not lonely, -with thee goes Thy husband, him to follow thou art bound; Where he abides, think there thy native soil.

FAME.

[raise FAME is the spur that the clear spirit doth (That last infirmity of noble minds), To scorn delights and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears, [praise," And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling

ears.

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JOHN MILTON.

1608-1674.

EVE'S LAMENT.

[death! O UNEXPECTED stroke, worse than of Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades, [spend,

Fit haunt of Gods? where I had hope to
Quiet though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both. O flow'rs,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation, and my last

At ev'n, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first op'ning bud, and gave ye

names,

Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount?

ABRAHAM COWLEY.

1618-1667.

THE WISH.

WELL, then, I now do plainly see,
This busy world and I will ne'er agree:
The very honey, of all earthly joy,
Does of all meats the soonest cloy;

And they, methinks, deserve my pity,
Who for it can endure the stings,
The crowd, the buzz, the murmurings,
Of this great hive, the City.

Ah, yet ere I descend to the grave,
May I a small house and large garden have!
And a few friends, and many books both
true,

Both wise and both delightful too!
And since love ne'er will from me flee,
A mistress moderately fair,
And good as guardian angels are,
Only beloved and loving me.

THE GRASSHOPPER.

HAPPY insect! what can be
In happiness compared to thee?
Fed with nourishment divine,
The dewy morning's gentle wine.
Nature waits upon thee still,
And thy verdant cup does fill ;
'Tis filled wherever thou dost tread,
Nature's self's thy Ganymede.
Thou dost love to dance and sing,
Happier than the happiest king.
All the fields which thou dost see,
All the plants belong to thee;
All that summer hours produce,
Fertile made with early juice;
Man for thee does sow and plough,—
Farmer he, and landlord thou.
Thou dost innocently joy,
Nor does thy luxury destroy.
The shepherd gladly heareth thee,
More harmonious than he :

Thee country hinds with gladness hear,
Prophet of the ripened year!
Thee Phoebus loves and does inspire,
Phoebus is himself thy sire!
To thee, of all things upon earth,
Life is no longer than thy mirth;
Happy insect! happy, thou

Dost neither age nor winter know.
But when thou'st drunk, danced, sung
Thy fill the flowery leaves among
(Voluptuous and wise withal,
Epicurean animal),

Sated with thy summer feast,
Thou retir'st to endless rest.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired;

Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.

Then die! that she

The common fate of all things rare May read in thee,

How small a part they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair.

SIMON WASTELL.

1623-.

MAN'S LIFE.

LIKE as the damask rose you see,
Or like the blossom on the tree,
Or like the dainty flower in May,
Or like the morning of the day,
Or like the sun, or like the shade,
Or like the gourd which Jonas had,
E'en such is man, whose thread is spun,
Drawn out and cut, and so is done.
The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,
The flower fades, the morning hasteth,
The sun sets, the shadow flees,
The gourd consumes--and man he dies.

Like to the grass that's newly sprung,
Or like a tale that's new begun,
Or like the bird that's here to-day,
Or like the pearlèd dew of May,
Or like an hour, or like a span,
Or like the singing of a swan:
E'en such is man, who lives by breath,
Is here, now there, in life and death.
The grass withers, the tale is ended,
The bird is flown, the dew's ascended;
The hour is short, the span is long,
The swan's near death-man's life is
done.

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ANDREW MARVELL.

1620-1678.

THE FLOWER-DIAL.

WHAT Wondrous life is this I lead! Ripe apples drop about my head; The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine;

The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach.
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Insnared with flowers I fall on grass;
Meanwhile, the mind from pleasure less
Withdraws into its happiness.

The mind, that ocean, where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds and other seas,
Annihilating all that's made

To a green thought in a green shade.
Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide:
There like a bird it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings;
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.
How well the skilful gardener drew,
Of flowers and herbs, this dial new!
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run;
And, as it works, the industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome
hours

Be reckoned, but with herbs and flowers?

Does in its pure and circling thoughts ex

press

The greater heaven in a heaven less.

In how coy a figure wound,

Every way it turns away;
So the world, excluding round,
Yet receiving in the day;
Dark beneath, but bright above,
Here disdaining, there all love;
How loose and easy hence to go;
How girt and ready to ascend,
Moving but on a point below,

It all about does upwards bend.
Such did the manna's sacred stream distil,
White and entire, although congealed and
chill,-

[run Congealed on earth, but does dissolving Into the glories of the almighty sun.

How oft on fields of death thy presence sought, [bought! Nor thinks the mighty prize too dearly On foreign mountains may the sun refine The grape's soft juice, and mellow it in wine,

With citron groves adorn a distant soil, And the fat olives swell with floods of oil. We envy not the warmer clime, that lies In ten degrees of more indulgent skies; Nor at the coarseness of our heaven repine, Though o'er our heads the frozen Pleiads shine.

'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.

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ALEXANDER POPE.

1688-1744.

BLINDNESS TO THE FUTURE. From the "Essay on Man."

HEAVEN from all creatures hides the book of fate, [state:

All but the page prescribed, their present From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:

Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, [blood.

And licks the hand just raised to shed his
Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle marked by
Heaven;

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,*
A hero perish or a sparrow fall,
Atoms of systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a wo d.

Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar;

[adore. Wait the great teacher Death, and God What future bliss, He gives not thee to know,

But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never Is, but always To be blest;
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored
mind
[wind;
Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the

* St. Matthew x. 29.

His soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or Milky Way; Yet simple nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven; [braced,

Some safer world in depths of woods em-
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land
behold,
(gold.

No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for
To be, contents his natural desire,—
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

Go, wiser thou and, in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy opinion against Providence. Call imperfection what thou fanciest such, Say, here He gives too little, there too much; Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjust; If Man alone engross not Heaven's high