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Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;

Who God doth late and early pray
More of his grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day

With a religious book or friend.

This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And, having nothing, yet hath all.

ON HIS MISTRESS, THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.

γου

meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfy our eyes

More by your number than your light,
You common people of the skies;
What are you when the moon shall rise?

You curious chanters of the wood,
That warble forth Dame Nature's lays,
Thinking your passions understood

By your weak accents; what's your praise,
When Philomel her voice shall raise?

You violets that first appear,
By your pure purple mantles known
Like the proud virgins of the year,
As if the spring were all your own;
What are you when the rose is blown?

So, when my mistress shall be seen
In form and beauty of her mind,
By virtue first, then choice, a Queen,
Tell me if she were not designed
The eclipse and glory of her kind?

SIR JOHN WOTTON(?).

(Fl. circa 1600.)

Conjectured to be the half-brother of Sir Henry Wotton. The following poem appears in England's Helicon, 1600.

DAMÆTAS' JIG IN PRAISE OF HIS LOVE.

JOLLY

LLY shepherd, shepherd on a hill,
On a hill so merrily,

On a hill so cheerily,

Fear not, shepherd, there to pipe thy fill;
Fill every dale, fill every plain;
Both sing and say; Love feels no pain.

Jolly shepherd, shepherd on a green,
On a green so merrily,

On a green so cheerily,

Be thy voice shrill, be thy mirth seen,
Heard to each swain, seen to each trull:
Both sing and say; Love's joy is full.

Jolly shepherd, shepherd in the sun,
In the sun so merrily,

In the sun so cheerily,

Sing forth thy songs, and let thy rimes run

Down to the dales from the hills above:
Both sing and say; No life to love.

Jolly shepherd, shepherd in the shade,
In the shade so merrily,

In the shade so cheerily,

Joy in thy life, life of shepherd's trade,
Joy in thy love, love full of glee,

Both sing and say; Sweet Love for me.
(M 849)

P

Jolly shepherd, shepherd here or there,
Here or there so merrily,

Here or there so cheerily,

Or in thy chat, either at thy cheer,
In every jig, in every lay,

Both sing and say; Love lasts for aye.

Jolly shepherd, shepherd Daphne's love,
Daphne's love so merrily,

Daphne's love so cheerily,

Let thy fancy never more remove,
Fancy be fixed, fixed not to fleet,

Still sing and say; Love's yoke is sweet.

FRANCIS BEAUMONT.

(1584-1616.)

ON THE LIFE OF MAN.

From Poems, 1640 and 1653; written before 1616.

LIKE to the falling of a star,

Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
Even such is man, whose borrowed light
Is straight called in and paid to night:
The wind blows out, the bubble dies,
The spring intombed in autumn lies:
The dew's dried up, the star is shot,
The flight is past, and man forgot.

LINES ON THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER.

ORTALITY, behold and fear!

MORT

What a change of flesh is here!

Think how many royal bones

Sleep within this heap of stones;

Here they lie had realms and lands,

Who now want strength to stir their hands;
Where from their pulpits sealed with dust
They preach, "In greatness is no trust".
Here's an acre sown indeed

With the richest royal'st seed

That the earth did e'er suck in,

Since the first man died for sin:

Here the bones of birth have cried,

"Though gods they were, as men they died":

Here are sands, ignoble things,

Dropt from the ruined sides of kings:

Here's a world of pomp and state,

Buried in dust, once dead by fate.

JOHN FLETCHER.

(1579-1625.)

OR, BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Dyce's is the standard modern edition of the works of Beaumont and Fletcher. Most of the lyrics occur in plays in which Beaumont doubtless had no share.

SWEETEST MELANCHOLY.

From the Nice Valour, in the folio of 1647 (acted 1613?). Compare Burton's verses introductory to his Anatomy of Melancholy, and Milton's Il Penseroso.

HENCE, all you vain delights,

As short as are the nights

Wherein you spend your folly!
There's nought in this life sweet.
If man were wise to see 't,

But only melancholy;

O sweetest melancholy!

Welcome, folded arms and fixèd eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,
A look that's fastened to the ground,
A tongue chained up without a sound!
Fountain heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed save bats and owls!

A midnight bell, a parting groan,

These are the sounds we feed upon;

Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley;
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.

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