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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

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O sweet to stray and pensive ponder
A heartfelt sang!
BURNS.

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,
As if there were no such cold thing.

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,
My barmy noddle's working prime,
My fancy yerkit up sublime

Wi' hasty summons:
Hae ye a leisure moment's time

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 fated me the russet coat,
An' damned my fortune to the groat;
But in requit,

Has blessed me wi' a random shot
O' countra wit.

Poesy, thou sweet'st content,
That e'er Heaven to mortals lent,
Though they as a trifle leave thee,
Whose dull thoughts cannot con
ceive thee,

Though thou be to them a scorn
Who to nought but earth are born;
Let my life no longer be

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;
Makes the desolatest place
To her presence be a grace;
And the blackest discontents
Be her fairest ornaments.
In my former days of bliss,
Her divine skill taught me this,
That, from every thing I saw,
I could some invention draw;
And raise pleasure to her height,
Through the meanest object's sight.
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rustling,
By a daisy, whose leaves spread,
Shut, when Titan goes to bed,
Or a shady bush, or tree,
She could more infuse in me,
Than all Nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man.
By her help, I also now
Make this churlish place allow
Some things that may sweeten glad-

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
Beating on these hollow caves;
This black den which rocks emboss
Overgrown with eldest moss;
The rude portals which give light
More to terror than delight
This my chamber of Neglect,
Walled about with Disrespect;
From all these, and this dull air,
A fit object for despair,
She hath taught me by her might
To draw comfort and delight.
Therefore, thou best earthly bliss,
I will cherish thee for this;

THE POET.

AND also, beau sire, of other things,
That is, thou hasté no tidings

Of Love's folk, if they be glade,
Ne of nothing else that God made,
And not only fro far countree,
That no tidings come to thee,
Not of thy very neighbors,
That dwellen almost at thy dores,
Thou hearest neither that ne this,
For when thy labor all done is,
And hast made all thy reckonings
Instead of rest and of new things,
Thou goest home to thine house

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,
Apollo through thy greate might,
This littell last booke now thou gie,*
Now that I will for maistrie,
Here art potenciall be shewde,
But for the rime is light and lewde,
Yet make it somewhat agreeable,
Though some verse fayle in a sillable,
And that I do no diligence,
To shewe craft, but sentence,
And if divine vertue thou
Wilt helpe me to shewe now,
That in my heed ymarked is,
Lo, that is for to meanen this,
The House of Fame for to discrive, —
Thou shalt see me go as blive t
Unto the next laurel I see
And kisse it, for it is thy tree,
Now enter in my brest anon.

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CHAUCER

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