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And next within the entry of this lake

Sat fell Revenge, gnashing her teeth for ire,
Devising means how she may vengeance take,
Never in rest till she have her desire;

But frets within so far forth with the fire
Of wreaking flames, that now determines she
To die by death, or venged by death to be.

When fell Revenge, with bloody foul pretence,
Had show'd herself, as next in order set,
With trembling limbs we softly parted thence,
Till in our eyes another sight we met;
When from my heart a sigh forthwith I fet,3
Rewing, alas! upon the woeful plight
Of Misery, that next appear'd in sight.

His face was lean and some-deal pined away,
And eke his handes consumed to the bone,
But what his body was I cannot say ;
For on his carcass raiment had he none,
Save clouts and patches, pieced one by one;
With staff in hand, and scrip on shoulders cast,
His chief defence against the winter's blast.

His food, for most, was wild fruits of the tree;
Unless sometime some crumbs fell to his share,
Which in his wallet long, God wot, kept he,
As on the which full daintily would he fare.
His drink the running stream, his cup the bare
Of his palm closed, his bed the hard cold ground;
To this poor life was Misery ybound.

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By him lay heavy Sleep, the cousin of Death,
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,
A very corps, save yielding forth a breath;
Small keep took he whom Fortune frowned on,
Or whom she lifted up into the throne
Of high renown: but as a living death,
So dead, alive, of life he drew the breath.

The body's rest, the quiet of the heart,

The travail's ease, the still night's fere5 was he;
And of our life in earth the better part,

Reever of sight, and yet in whom we see

3 fetched.

4 also.

5 companion.

6 bereaver.

Things oft that tide,7 and oft that never be;
Without respect esteeming equally

King Croesus' pomp and Irus' poverty.

And next in order sad Old Age we found,
His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind;
With drooping cheer still poring on the ground,
As on the place where Nature him assign'd
To rest, when that the sisters had entwined
His vital thread, and ended with their knife
The fleeting course of fast-declining life.

Crook'd-back'd he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-eyed,
Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four;
With old lame bones that rattled by his side,
His scalp all pill'd, and he with eld forlore,
His wither'd fist still knocking at Death's door;
Trembling and driv'ling as he draws his breath;
For brief, the shape and messenger of Death.

And, by and by, a dumb dead corpse we saw,
Heavy, and cold, the shape of Death aright,
That daunts all earthly creatures to his law,
Against whose force in vain it is to fight;
Ne peers, ne princes, nor no mortal wight,
No towns, ne realms, cities, ne strongest tower,
But all, perforce, must yield unto his power.

Lastly, stood War, in glittering arms yclad,"
With visage grim, stern look, and blackly hued:
In his right hand a naked sword he had,
That to the hilts was all with blood imbrued;
And in his left (that kings and kingdoms rued)
Famine and fire he held, and therewithal
He razed towns and threw down towers and all;

Cities he sack'd, and realms (that whilom flower'd
In honour, glory, and rule, above the rest)
He overwhelm'd, and all their fame devour'd,
Consum'd, destroy'd, wasted, and never ceas'd,
Till he their wealth, their name, and all oppress'd:
His face forehew'd with wounds; and by his side
There hung his targe, with gashes deep and wide.

7 happen.

8 bare.

9 clothed.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, the glory of Queen Elizabeth's court, presented there the image of a chivalry which belonged rather to that of Edward III. A scholar, a soldier, and a courtier, he was great alike in all the walks of greatness. The estimate in which he was held by the world at large is attested by the foreign throne which was offered to him; while such was the love entertained for him at home, that all England wore mourning at his death. He died on the field of Zutphen. His character is happily illustrated by a well-known trait. A cup of water had been brought to assuage his dying thirst; he waved it away, pointing to a wounded soldier beside him, and saying, "He needs it more than I." The variety of his pursuits prevented Sidney from attaining as high a degree of excellence in literature as would otherwise have been reached by him, even in his brief career; but his poetry, which is replete with beauty, purity, and refined grace, is marked not less by a peculiar and chivalrous nobleness, characteristic of him who was regarded as Europe's first gentleman. At his family seat, Penshurst, many memorials of Sidney are preserved; and amid the groves of Wilton still remains "Sidney's walk." It is a memorial, both of him and of his celebrated sister, the Countess of Pembroke, in concert with whom he wrote his Arcadia. Sidney was born in 1554, and died in 1586, at the age of thirty-two.

SLEEP.

а

With how sad steps, O Moon! thou climb'st the skies,
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What may it be, that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long with love acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks, thy languish'd grace
To me that feel the like thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be lov'd, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

II.

Come, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
The indifferent judge between the high and low.

With shield of proof shield me from out the prease1
Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw;
O, make in me those civil wars to cease:

I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.

Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed;
A chamber, deaf to noise and blind to light ;
A rosy garland, and a weary head.

And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me
Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see.

MARLOW.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOW was born A.D. 1562, and died A.D. 1593. In genius he was a forerunner of Shakespeare. Unfortunately his moral being stood in no proportion to his intellectual; and thus was lost to the world one who would have ranked among her greatest poets. The religious troubles of the age had produced, not only great dissoluteness of morals, but also an incipient spirit of infidelity. Several of the early dramatists were sceptics, and Marlow, whether justly or not, has been branded with the name of atheist. After leaving Cambridge, he betook himself to London, where he became a writer for the stage. He lived a reckless life among his dramatic compeers, and fell, at the age of thirty, in a drunken brawl, stabbed through the head with his own dagger. His most important works are his narrative poem, Hero and Leander, completed after his death by Chapman, and two tragedies, Edward the Second, the first important contribution to England's historical drama, and Faustus, the basis of Goethe's celebrated work. The chief characteristics of Marlow are an impassioned imagination and a masculine vigour, alluded to in the well-known expression, "Marlow's mighty line." His genius was appreciated in his own day. "That elemental wit, Kit Marlowe," is the mode in which he is designated by one of his contemporaries; and Drayton speaks of him as" bathed in the Thespian springs."

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, and hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,

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By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning.
If these delights thy mind may move,
Come live with me and be my love.

SOUTHWELL.

ROBERT SOUTHWELL was born A.D. 1560, and underwent his martyrdom A.D. 1595. Of all the hundred and twenty-eight Catholic priests put to death in Elizabeth's reign, not one was more worthy of pious commemoration. Descended from an ancient family in Norfolk, he was educated on the Continent, and became a Jesuit at Rome. While on the English mission, he resided chiefly at the house of Anne, Countess of Arundel, who died in the Tower of London. He was thrown into prison in 1592, where he remained three years, during which time he was put on the rack ten several times. Nothing could be proved against him, except what he confessed;-that he was a Catholic priest, and prepared to die for his faith. Such was the condition of the dungeon in which Southwell suffered his long captivity, that his own father petitioned that he might be released from it, although but to die. On the 21st of February 1595, he was hung, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn, being subjected, during a prolonged death, to those horrible tortures commonly undergone by the martyrs of that reign, tortures to which he replied only by repeatedly making the sign of the cross. Besides his poems, which possess a solid energy of diction, as well as a noble spiritual elevation, Southwell left behind

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