Of fitting objects be not so flamed. in How much, then, were this kingdom's main soul maimed To want this great inflamer of all powers That move in human souls! All realms but yours Are honored with them, and hold blest that State That have his works to read and contemplate, In which humanity to her height is raised; Which all the world, yet none enough hath praised. Seas, earth, and heaven, he did in verse comprise, Outsung the Muses, and did equalize Their King Apollo; being so far from cause Of princes' light thoughts, that their gravest laws May find stuff to be fashioned by his lines. Through all the pomp of kingdoms still he shines, And graceth all his gracers. Then let lie Your lutes and viols, and more loftily Make the heroics of your Homer sung; To drums and trumpets set his angel O sweet to stray and pensive ponder THE FLOWER. How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns! even as the flowers in spring; To which, besides their own de mean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief melts away Like snow in May, Who would have thought my shrivelled heart Could have recovered greenness? It was gone Quite underground; as flowers depart To see their mother root, when they have blown; Where they together All the hard weather, Dead to the world, keep house unknown. And now in age I bud again, After so many deaths I live and write; I once more smell the dew and rain, And relish versing: O my only light, It cannot be That I am he On whom thy tempests fell all night. HERBERT. WRITING VERSES. JUST now I've ta'en a fit of rhyme, Wi' hasty summons: To hear what's comin'? Sonie rhyme a neebor's name to lash; Some rhyme (vain thought!) for needfu' cash; Some rhyme to court the countra clash, An' raise a din; For me, an aim I never fash! I rhyme for fun. The star that rules my luckless lot, Has blessed me wi' a random shot Poesy, thou sweet'st content, Though thou be to them a scorn Than I am in love with thee. GEORGE WITHER. BURNS. THE MUSE. THE Muse doth tell me where to borrow Comfort in the midst of sorrow; ness, In the very gall of sadness. The dull loneness, the black shade, That these hanging vaults have made; The strange music of the waves THE POET. AND also, beau sire, of other things, Of Love's folk, if they be glade, anone, And also dumbé as a stone, Thou sittest at another booke, Till fully dazèd is thy looke, And livest thus as an hermite. CHAUCER. PRAYER TO APOLLO. GOD of science and of light, -- CHAUCER |