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506 TO THE MEmory of the firST LADY LYTTELTON

OFT

FT would the Dryads of these woods rejoice
to hear her heavenly voice;

for her despising, when she deigned to sing,

the sweetest songsters of the spring:

the woodlark and the linnet pleased no more;
the nightingale was mute

and every shepherd's flute
was cast in silent scorn away,
while all attended to her sweeter lay.
Ye larks and linnets now resume your song,
and thou, melodious Philomel,

again this plaintive story tell;

for death has stopped that tuneful tongue, whose music could alone your warbling notes excel. In vain I look around,

507

o'er all the well-known ground,

my Lucy's wonted footsteps to descry;
where oft we us'd to walk,

where oft in tender talk

we saw the summer sun go down the sky;

nor by yon fountain's side,

nor where its waters glide

along the valley, can she now be found:
in all the wide-stretch'd prospect's ample bound
no more my mournful eye

can aught of her espy,

but the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie.

So, where the silent streams of Liris glide,
in the soft bosom of Campania's vale,
when now the wintry tempests all are fled,
and genial Summer breathes her gentle gale,
the verdant orange lifts its beauteous head;
from every branch the balmy flowerets rise,
on every bough the golden fruits are seen;
with odours sweet it fills the smiling skies,
the wood-nymphs tend it, and th' Idalian queen;
but, in the midst of all its blooming pride,
a sudden blast from Apenninus blows,

cold with perpetual snows;

the tender-blighted plant shrinks up its leaves, and dies.

O best of women! dearer far to me
than when, in blooming life,

my lips first call'd thee wife;

how can my soul endure the loss of thee?
How in the world, to me a desert grown,
abandon'd and alone,

without my sweet companion can I live?
without thy lovely smile,

the dear reward of every virtuous toil,

what pleasures now can pall'd ambition give? E'en the delightful sense of well-earn'd praise, unshar'd by thee, no more my lifeless thoughts could

raise.

GEORGE LORD LYTTELTON

508 TO THE World-the perfection of love

OU who are earth, and cannot rise

γου

above your sence,

boasting the envyed wealth which lyes

bright in your mistris' lips or eyes,

betray a pittyed eloquence.

That which doth joyne our soules, so light

and quicke doth move,

that like the eagle in his flight,

it doth transcend all humane sight,

lost in the element of love.

You poets reach not this who sing
the praise of dust

but kneaded, when by theft you bring
the rose and lilly from the spring
t' adorne the wrinckled face of lust.

When we speake love, nor art nor wit
we glosse upon:

our soules engender, and beget
ideas, which you counterfeit

in your dull propagation.

While time seven ages shall disperse,

wee'le talke of love,

and when our tongues hold no commerse,

our thoughts shall mutually converse;

and yet the blood no rebell prove.

509

510

And though we be of severall kind

fit for offence;

yet are we so by love refined

from impure drosse, we are all mind.
Death could not more have conquer'd sence.
How suddenly those flames expire
which scorch our clay!

Prometheus-like when we steale fire
from Heaven, tis endless and intire;
it may know age but not decay.

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Too low for envy, for contempt too high;

HIS only grant me, that my means may lye

some honour I would have,

not from great deeds, but good alone;
the unknown are better than ill known;
rumour can ope the grave.

Acquaintance I would have, but when't depends
not on the number, but the choice of friends.

Books should, not business, entertain the light,
and sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night:
my house a cottage more

than palace, and should fitting be
for all my use, not luxury:

my garden painted o'er

with Nature's hand, not art's, that pleasures yield, Horace might envy in his Sabine field.

Thus would I double my life's fading space,
* for he that runs it well, twice runs his race:
and in this true delight,

these unbought sports and happy state,
I would not fear, nor wish my fate,
but boldly say each night;

To-morrow let my Sun his beams display,
or in clouds hide them: I have lived to-day.

A. COWLEY

511

CATO'S SOLILOQUY

T must be so-Plato, thou reason'st well!

IT

else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,

this longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horrour

of falling into nought? why shrinks the Soul
back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;

'tis Heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
and intimates eternity to man.

Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
through what variety of untried being,

through what new scenes and changes must we pass!
the wide, the unbounded prospect, lies before me;
but shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us,
(and that there is all Nature cries aloud
through all her works,) he must delight in virtue;
and that which he delights in must be happy.

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