SIR THOMAS WYATT. DESCRIPTION OF THE ONE HE A FACE that should content me Should not be fair, but lovely to behold; With gladsome cheer, all grief for to expel; With sober looks so would I that it should Speak without words, such words as none can tell; The tress also should be of crispèd gold. With wit, and these, might chance I might be tied, And knit again the knot that should not slide. A LOVER'S PRAYER. DISDAIN me not without desert, Nor leave me not so suddenly; Refuse me not without cause why, Since that by lot of fantasy, renew. The fire that all things eke consumeth clean, May hurt and heal: then if that this be true, I trust some time my harm may be my health, This careful knot needs knit I Since every woe is joined with some must. wealth. EDWARD YOUNG. [From Night Thoughts.] NIGHT I. PROCRASTINATION, AND FORGET- ALL promise is poor dilatory man, In full content we sometimes nobly rest, Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish, As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. At thirty man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty, chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same. And why? Because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal, but themselves; Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread: But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, Soon close; where passed the shaft, no trace is found. As from the wing no scar the sky retains; The parted wave no furrow from the keel; So dies in human hearts the thought of death. Gone? they ne'er go; when past, they haunt us still: The spirit walks of every day deceased; And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns. Nor death, nor life, delight us. If time past, And time possessed, both pain us. what can please? That which the Deity to please ordained, Time used. The man who consecrates his hours By vigorous effort, and an honest aim, At once he draws the sting of life and death: He walks with nature; and her paths are peace. [From Night Thoughts.] NIGHT II. JOY TO BE SHARED. NATURE, in zeal for human amity, Denies, or damps, an undivided joy. Joy is an import; joy is an exchange; Joy flies monopolists: it calls for two Rich fruit! Heaven-planted! never plucked by one. Needful auxiliars are our friends, to To social man true relish of himself. give Full on ourselves, descending in a line, Pleasure's bright beam is feeble in delight: Delight intense is taken by rebound; Reverberated pleasures fire the breast. [From Night Thoughts.] NIGHT II. O TREACHEROUS conscience! while she seems to sleep On rose and myrtle, lulled with syren song; While she seems nodding o'er her charge, to drop On headlong appetite the slackened rein, And turn our blessings into bane. Since oft Man must compute that age he cannot feel, He scarce believes he's older for his years. [store Thus, at life's latest eve, we keep in One disappointment sure, to crown the rest: The disappointment of a promised hour. [From Night Thoughts.] NIGHT II. INSUFFICIENCY OF THE WORLD. 'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours; And ask them, what report they bore to heaven; And how they might have borne more welcome news. Their answers form what men experience call; If wisdom's friend, her best; if not, worst foe. Oh, reconcile them! Kind experience cries, "There's nothing here, but what as nothing weighs: The more our joy, the more we know it vain; And by success are tutored to despair." Nor is it only thus, but must be so. Who knows not this, though gray, is still a child; Loose then from earth the grasp of fond desire, Weigh anchor, and some happier clime explore. [From Night Thoughts.] NIGHT II. EFFORT, THE GAUGE OF GREATNESS. No blank, no trifle, nature made, or meant, Virtue, or purposed virtue, still be thine: [From Night Thoughts.] THE END OF THE VIRTUOUS. THE chamber where the good man meets his fate, Is privileged beyond the common walk Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven. A death-bed's a detector of the heart. Here, tired dissimulation drops her mask; Through life's grimace, that mistress of the scene! Here, real and apparent are the same. You see the man; you see his hold on heaven. Whatever farce the boastful hero. plays, Virtue alone has majesty in death; And greater still, the more the tyrant frowns. |