ON LUCY, COUNTESS OF BEDFORD. THIS morning, timely rapt with holy fire, I thought to form unto my zealous Muse What kind of creature I could most desire To honor, serve, and love, as poets use. I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise, Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great; I meant the Day-Star should not brighter rise, Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat. I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet, Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride; I meant each softest virtue there should meet Fit in that softer bosom to reside. The rock, the spindle, and the shears control Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours. Such when I meant to feign, and EPITAPH ON SHAKSPEARE. WHAT needs my Shakspeare for his honored bones, The labor of an age in pilèd stones? Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Under a star-y-pointing pyramid? Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a live long monument. For whilst, to the shame of slowendeavoring art Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book Those Delphic lines with deep impression took, Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving, Dost make us marble with too much conceiving; And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie, That kings for such a tomb would wish to die. EPITAPH. MILTON. UNDERNEATH this stone doth lye TRANSLATION OF COWLEY'S EPIGRAM ON FRANCIS DRAKE. THE stars above will make thee known, If man were silent here; The sun himself cannot forget His fellow-traveller. BEN JONSON. TO SIR HENRY VANE. VANE, young in years, but in sage counsel old, Than whom a better senator ne'er held The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, repelled The fierce Epirot, and the African bold, Whether to settle peace, or to unfold The drift of hollow states, hard to be spelled; Then to advise how War may, best upheld, Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage: besides to know Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, What severs each, thou hast learned, which few have done: The bounds of either sword to thee we owe: Therefore on thy firm hand In peace, and reckons thee her And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait." MILTON. SONNET. O, FOR my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide, Than public means, which public manners breeds. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, And almost thence my nature is subdued To what it works in, like the dyer's hand: Pity me then, and wish I were renewed; Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink Potions of eyesell, 'gainst my strong infection: No bitterness that I will bitter think, Nor double penance, to correct correction. Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye, Even that your pity is enough to Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds, And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds. Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow? From the dry rock who bade the waters flow? Not to the skies in useless columns tost, Or in proud falls magnificently lost, But clear and artless, pouring through the plain Health to the sick, and solace to the swain. Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows? Whose seats the weary traveller repose? Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise? "The Man of Ross," each lisping babe replies. Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread! The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread: He feeds yon almshouse, neat, but void of state, Where age and want sit smiling at the gate: Him portioned maids, apprenticed orphans blest, The young who labor, and the old who rest. |