That breaft she pierc'd, and through the breaft

Love found an entry to her heart;
At feeling of this new-come gueft,
Lord! how the gentle nymph did start.

She runs not now, she shoots no more.
Away fhe throws both shaft and bow;
She feeks for what she shunn'd before,

She thinks the fhepherd's hafte too flow.

Though mountains meet not, lovers may,
What other lovers do did they ;

The God of Love fat on a tree,

And laugh'd that pleasant fight to see.

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT,

Brother of Francis Beaumont, and author of Bosworth Field, and other poems, 1629.

A DESCRIPTION OF LOVE.

LOVE is a region full of fires,
And burning with extreme defires
An object feeks, of which poffefs'd
The wheels are fix'd, the motions reft,
The flames in ashes lie opprefs'd.
This meteor, ftriving high to rife,
The fuel spent falls down and dies.

Why then should lovers (moft will fay)
Expect so much th' enjoying day?

Love is like youth: he thirsts for age,
He fcorns to be his mother's page;
But when proceeding times affuage
The former heat, he will complain,
And wish those pleasant hours again.

We know that Hope and Love are twins ;
fruition now begins :

Hope gone,

But what is this? unconftant, frail,
In nothing fure, but fure to fail,
Which, if we lose it, we bewail;
And when we have it, ftill we bear
The worst of paffions, daily fear!

When Love thus in his center ends,
Defire and Hope, his inward friends,

Are shaken off; while Doubt and Grief,
The weakest givers of relief,

Stand in his council as the chief. And now he to his period brought,

From Love becomes fome other thought.

These lines I write not to remove
United fouls from ferious love:

The best attempts by mortals made
Reflect on things that quickly fade;
Yet never will I men perfuade
To leave affections, where may shine
Impreffions of the love divine.

WILLIAM ALEXANDER,

OF MENSTRIE, EARL OF STERLIN.

The poems of this writer are remarkable for their elegance and purity. He was born in 1580, and died in 1640. The earliest English edition of his works was publisbed in Quarto, 1607. It contains four tragedies in alternate rhime, with chorufes, viz. Cræfus, Darius, the Alexandrean tragedy, and Julius Cæfar; a Parænefis to the Prince, and Aurora, a collection of fonnets. This laft was never republished.

EXTRACT

FROM A SPEECH OF

COELIA, IN THE TRAGEDY OF
CROESUS.

FIERCE tyrant, Death, that in thy wrath didst take

One half of me, and left a half behind,

Take this to thee, or give me t'other back,
Be altogether cruel, or all kind.

ftill my

choice!

For whilft I live, thou canst not wholly die-
O! even in spite of death, yet
Oft, with imagination's love-quick eye
I think I fee thee, and I hear thy voice.

And to content my languishing defire,

Each thing, to ease my mind, fome help affords : I fancy whiles thy form-and then a-fire, In every found I apprehend thy words.

Then, with fuch thoughts my memory to wound,
I call to mind thy looks, thy words, thy grace-
Where thou didst haunt, I yet adore the ground!
And where thou ftept-O facred seems that place!

My folitary walks, my widow'd bed,

My dreary fighs, my fheets oft bath'd with tears, Thefe can record the life that I have led

Since first fad news breath'd death into

my ears

I live but with despair my fprite to dash;
Thee first I lov'd, with thee all love I leave;
For my chafte flames extinguish'd in thy ash,
Can kindle now no more but in the grave!

!