789. FROM OUR BLESSED LADY'S LULLABY'
UPON my lap my Sovereign sits,
And sucks upon my breast;
Meanwhile his love sustains my life,
And gives my body rest.
Sing lullaby, my little boy!
Sing lullaby, my life's joy!
When thou hast taken thy repast,
Repose, my babe, on me!
So may thy mother and thy nurse
Thy cradle also be.
Sing lullaby, my little boy!
Sing lullaby, my life's joy!
My babe, my bliss, my child, my choice,
My fruit, my flower, and bud;
My Jesus, and my only joy,
The sum of all my good!
Sing lullaby, my little boy!
Sing lullaby, my life's joy!
A SWEET attractive kind of grace,
A full assurance given by looks,
Continual comfort in a face,
The lineaments of Gospel books!
I trow that countenance cannot lie
Whose thoughts are legible in the eye.
Was ever eye did see that face,
Was ever ear did hear that tongue,
Was ever mind did mind his grace
That ever thought the travel long?
But eyes and ears, and every thought
Were with his sweet perfections caught.
Did never love so sweetly breathe
In any mortal breast before,
Did never Muse inspire beneath
A poet's brain with finer store;
He wrote of love with high conceit,
And beauty reared above her height.
M. ROYDON (Friend's Passion for his Astrophill).
DORINDA'S sparkling wit and eyes
United, cast too fierce a light,
Which blazes high, but quickly dies;
Pains not the heart, but hurts the sight.
Love is a calmer, gentler joy;
Smooth are his looks, and soft his pace;
Her Cupid is a blackguard boy,
That runs his link full in your face.
C. SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET.
793. MAY THE AMBITIOUS EVER FIND
MAY the ambitious ever find
Success in crowds and noise,
While gentle love does fill my mind
With silent real joys.
May knaves and fools grow rich and great,
And the world think them wise,
While I lie dying at her feet,
And all that world despise !
Let conquering kings new triumphs raise,
And melt in court delights;
Her eyes can give much brighter days,
Her arms much softer nights.
C. SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET.
PHYLLIS, for shame, let us improve | Whilst you want courage to
A thousand several ways,
These few short minutes stolen by
The censure of the grave,
For all the tyrants in your eyes,
Your heart is but a slave.
My love is full of noble pride,
And never will submit
To let that fop, Discretion, ride
In triumph over wit.
False friends I have, as well as you,
That daily counsel me
Vain frivolous trifles to pursue,
And leave off loving thee.
When I the least belief bestow
On what such fools advise,
May I be dull enough to grow
Most miserably wise.
C. SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET.
795. A BALLAD WHEN AT SEA
To you, fair ladies, now at land,
We men at sea indite;
But, first, would have you understand
How hard it is to write.
The Muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore, to write to you,
With a fa, la, la, la, la!
But though the Muses should be kind,
And fill our empty brain :
Yet if rough Neptune cause the wind
To rouse the azure main,
Our paper, pens, and ink, and we
Roll up and down our ships at sea,
With a fa, la, la, la, Ĩa!
Then if we write not by each post,
Think not that we're unkind!
Nor yet conclude that we are lost
By Dutch, by French, or wind.
Our griefs will find a speedier way:
The tide shall bring them twice a day,
With a fa, la, la, la, la!
The King, with wonder and surprise,
Will think the sea's grown bold,
For that the tide does higher rise
Than e'er it did of old.
But let him know that 'tis our tears
Send floods of grief to Whitehall Stairs,
With a fa, la, la, la, la !
Should Count Toulouse but come to know
Our sad and dismal story,
The French would scorn so weak a foe,
Where they can get no glory,
For what resistance can they find
From men, who've left their hearts behind,
With a fa, la, la, la, la !
To pass our tedious time away
We throw the merry Main,
Or else at serious Ombre play.
But why should we in vain
Each other's ruin thus pursue?
We were undone when we left you,
With a fa, la, la, la, la!
When any mournful tune you hear,
That dies in every note,
As if it sighed for each man's care,
For being so remote,
Then think how often love we've made
To you, while all those tunes were played
With a fa, la, la, la, la!
Let wind and weather do their worst,
Be you to us but kind,
Let Frenchmen vapour, Dutchmen curse,
No sorrows we shall find.
"Tis then no matter how things go,
Nor who's our friend, nor who's our foe,
With a fa, la, la, la, la !
Thus, having told you all our loves,
And likewise all our fears,
In hopes this declaration moves
Some pity to our tears,
Let's hear of no inconstancy;
We have too much of that at sea,
With a fa, la, la, la, la !
C. SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET.
His face was lean, and some-deal pined away,
And eke his hands consumed to the bone,
But what his body was I cannot say,
For on his carcass raiment had he none
Save clouts and patches, piecèd 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.
T. SACKVILLE, Earl of Dorset (The Mirrour for Magistrates).
797. ODE ON HEARING THE DRUM
I HATE that drum's discordant sound,
Parading round, and round, and round:
To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields,
And lures from cities and from fields,
To sell their liberty for charms
Of tawdry lace and glittering arms,
And when Ambition's voice commands,
To march, and fight, and fall in foreign lands.
I hate that drum's discordant sound,
Parading round, and round, and round:
To me it talks of ravaged plains,
And burning towns, and ruined swains,
And mangled limbs, and dying groans,
And widows' tears and orphans' moans;
And all that misery's hand bestows
To fill the catalogue of human woes.
798. A WEARY LOT IS THINE
'A WEARY lot is thine, fair maid,
A weary lot is thine!
To pull the thorn thy brow to
braid,
And press the rue for wine!
A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien,
A feather of the blue,
A doublet of the Lincoln green,-
No more of me you knew,
My Love!
This morn is merry June, I trow,
The rose is budding fain;
But she shall bloom in winter
snow,
Ere we two meet again.'
He turned his charger as he spake,
Upon the river shore,
He gave his bridle-reins a shake,
Said, Adieu for evermore,
My Love!
And adieu for evermore.'
SIR W. SCOTT (Rokeby).
AH! County Guy, the hour is nigh, | The village maid steals through
Her shepherd's suit to hear;
To Beauty shy, by lattice high,
Sings high-born Cavalier.
The star of Love, all stars above,
Now reigns o'er earth and sky, And high and low the influence know,
But where is County Guy? SIR W. SCOTT (Quentin Durward).
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