361

His murdered friends and kindred he does see,
and from his flaming country flee:

much is he tossed at sea and much at land,
does long the force of angry gods withstand:
he does long troubles and long wars sustain,
ere he his fatal birthright gain.
With no less time or labour can
destiny build up such a man,
who's with sufficient virtue fill'd
his ruin'd country to rebuild.

THE

DEATH THE LEVELLER

A. COWLEY

HE glories of our blood and state
are shadows, not substantial things:

there is no armour against fate;

Death lays his icy hands on kings:
Sceptre and Crown

must tumble down

and in the dust be equal made

with the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,.
and plant fresh laurels where they kill;
but their strong nerves at last must yield;
they tame but one another still:
early or late

they stoop to fate,

and must give up their murmuring breath
when they, pale captives, creep to death.
The garlands wither on your brow;

then boast no more your mighty deeds;
upon Death's purple altar now

see where the victor-victim bleeds:
your heads must come

to the cold tomb;

only the actions of the just

smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.

362

J. SHIRLEY

THE GREAT LEVELLER

WHY should man's aspiring mind

WHY

burn in him with so proud a breath,

when all his haughty views can find

in this world yields to death?

The fair, the brave, the vain, the wise,
the rich, the poor, the great and small
are each but worms' anatomies,

to strew his quiet hall.

Power may make many earthly gods,
where gold and bribery's guilt prevails;
but death's unwelcome honest odds
kicks o'er the unequal scales.

The flatter'd great may clamours raise
of power, and their own weakness hide;
but death shall find unlooked for ways
to end the farce of pride.

Death levels all things, in his march
nought can resist his mighty strength;
the palace proud, triumphal arch,
shall mete their shadow's length:
the rich, the poor, one common bed
shall find in the unhonoured grave,
where weeds shall crown alike the head
of tyrant and of slave.

A. MARVELL

363

Go

THE GREEK BOY

'ONE are the glorious Greeks of old,
glorious in mien and mind;

their bones are mingled with the mould,
their dust is on the wind;

the forms they hewed from living stone
survive the waste of years alone,

and scattered with their ashes, shew
what greatness perished long ago.

Yet fresh the myrtles there-the springs
gush brightly as of yore;

flowers blossom from the dust of kings,

as many an age before;

there nature moulds as nobly now,
as e'er of old, the human brow;
and copies still the martial form

that braved Platea's battle storm.

Boy! thy first looks were taught to seek

their heaven in Hellas' skies;

her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek,
her sunshine lit thine eyes;

and Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth see
her youth renewed in such as thee;

a shoot of that old vine that made
the nations silent in its shade.

W. C. BRYANT

364

CONTEMPLATION

VOICE divine, whose heavenly strain
no mortal measure may attain,
O powerful to appease the smart
that festers in a wounded heart,
whose mystic numbers can assuage
the bosom of tumultuous rage,
can strike the dagger from despair,
and shut the watchful eye of care.
Oft lured by thee, when wretches call,
Hope comes, that cheers and softens all;
expelled by thee, and dispossest
Envy forsakes the human breast.
Full oft with thee the Bard retires,
and lost to earth to heaven aspires:
how nobly lost! with thee to rove
through the long deepening solemn grove,
or underneath the moonlight pale
to silence trust some plaintive tale
of nature's ills and mankind's woes,
while kings and all the proud repose:
or where some holy aged oak
a stranger to the woodman's stroke,
from the high rock's aërial crown
in twisting arches bending down,
bathes in the smooth pellucid stream;
full oft he waits the mystic dream
of mankind's joys right understood,
and of the all prevailing good.
Go forth invoked, O voice divine!
and issue from thy sacred shrine.

W. HAMILTON

365 TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY ON TUrning one down

WITH THE PLOUGH

TEE, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,

WEE

thou's met me in an evil hour;

for I maun crush amang the stoure
thy tender stem;

to spare thee now is past my pow'r,
thou bonnie gem!

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
upon thy early, humble birth;
yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
amid the storm,

scarce reared above the parent earth
thy tender form.

The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield
high sheltering woods and wa's maun shield;
but thou, beneath the random bield

o' clod or stane,

adorns the histie stibble-field,

unseen, alane.

but now the share uptears thy bed,
and low thou lies!

366 Such is the fate of artless maid,
sweet flowret of the rural shade,
by love's simplicity betrayed,

and guileless trust,

till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid
low i' the dust.

Such is the fate of simple bard,
on life's rough ocean luckless starred!
unskilful he to note the card

of prudent lore,

till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
and whelm him o'er!

Such fate to suffering worth is given,

who long with wants and woes has striven,
by human pride or cunning driven

to misery's brink,

till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven,
he, ruined, sink!

Even thou, who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
that fate is thine-no distant date;
stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,
full on thy bloom,

till crushed beneath the furrow's weight
shall be thy doom!

R. BURNS

367

ON DISAPPOINTMENT

WHAT is this passing scene?

WHAT

a peevish April day!

a little sun—a little rain,

and then night sweeps along the plain,

and all things fade away.

Man (soon discussed)

yields up his trust,

And all his hopes and fears lie with him in the dust.

Oh, what is Beauty's pow'r?

it flourishes and dies!

Will the cold earth its silence break,
to tell how soft, how smooth a cheek

beneath its surface lies?

Mute, mute is all

o'er Beauty's fall;

her praise resounds no more when mantled in her pall

The most beloved on earth

not long survives to-day:

so music past is obsolete,

and yet 'twas sweet, 'twas passing sweet,

but now 'tis gone away.

Thus does the shade

in memory fade

when in forsaken tomb the form belov'd is laid.

H. K. WHITE