506 TO THE MEmory of the firST LADY LYTTELTON OFT FT would the Dryads of these woods rejoice for her despising, when she deigned to sing, the sweetest songsters of the spring: the woodlark and the linnet pleased no more; and every shepherd's flute 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 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: can aught of her espy, but the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie. So, where the silent streams of Liris glide, cold with perpetual snows; the tender-blighted plant shrinks up its leaves, and dies. O best of women! dearer far to me my lips first call'd thee wife; how can my soul endure the loss of thee? without my sweet companion can I live? 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 but kneaded, when by theft you bring When we speake love, nor art nor wit our soules engender, and beget 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. Prometheus-like when we steale fire 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; Acquaintance I would have, but when't depends Books should, not business, entertain the light, than palace, and should fitting be 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, these unbought sports and happy state, To-morrow let my Sun his beams display, 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 'tis Heaven itself, that points out an hereafter, Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought! through what new scenes and changes must we pass! |