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had a singular vision, which is often reproduced among stories of psychical or supersensual power. He saw (as Izaak Walton narrates) the apparition of his wife enter his room, bearing a dead child; and shortly after he heard that his wife had been delivered of a still-born

child at the very moment. The best known poetical writings of Donne are his "Satires," and "The Progress of the Soul." His poems are characterized by brilliant wit, depth of reflection, and terseness of language; but his versification is generally rugged and uncouth, and he is often so obscure as to task the closest attention.

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But think that Death hath now enfranchised thee! And think this slow-paced Soul which late did cleave

To a body, and went but by the body's leave,
Twenty, perchance, or thirty miles a day,
Despatches in a minute all the way

"Twixt heaven and earth! She stays not in the air,
To look what meteors there themselves prepare;
She carries no desire to know, nor sense,
Whether the air's middle region is intense;
For the element of fire, she doth not know
Whether she passed by such a place or no;
She baits not at the moon, nor cares to try
Whether in that new world men live and die;
Venus retards her not to inquire how she
Can, being one star, Hesper and Vesper be.
He that charmed Argus' eyes, sweet Mercury,
Works not on her who now is grown all eye;

Who, if she meet the body of the Sun,
Goes through, not staying till her course be run;
Who finds in Mars's camp no corps of guard ;
Nor is by Jove, nor by his father, barred;
But, ere she can consider how she went,
At once is at, and through, the firmament:
And, as these stars were but so many beads
Strung on one string, speed undistinguished leads
Her through those spheres, as through those beads
a string,

Whose quick succession makes it still one thing:
As doth the pith which, lest our bodies slack,
Strings fast the little bones of neck and back,
So by the Soul doth Death string Heaven and
Earth.

ELEGY ON MISTRESS ELIZABETH DRURY. She of whose soul, if we may say 'twas gold, Her body was the Electrum, and did hold Many degrees of that-we understood. Her by her sight: her pure and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, That one might almost say her body thought. She, she, thus richly, largely housed, is gone, And chides us slow-paced snails who crawl upon Our prison's prison, Earth, nor think us well Longer than whilst we bear our little shell.

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-She whom we celebrate is gone before:
She who had here so much essential joy,
As no chance could distract, much less destroy;
Who with God's presence was acquainted so
(Hearing and speaking to him) as to know

His face in any natural stone or tree
Better than when in images they be;
Who kept, by diligent devotion,

God's image in such reparation

Within her heart, that what decay was grown
Was her first Parent's fault, and not her own;
Who, being solicited to any act,

Still heard God pleading his safe pre-contract;
Who by a faithful confidence was here
Betrothed to God, and now is married there;
Whose twilights were more clear than our mid-

day;

Who dreamed devoutlier than most use to pray;
Who, being here filled with grace, yet strove to be

Both where more grace and more capacity
At once is given. She to Heaven is gone,
Who made this world in some proportion
A heaven, and here became unto us all
Joy (as our joys admit) essential.

Ben Jonson.

After

Jonson (1574-1637) was thirty years old at the death of Queen Elizabeth. He was ten years younger than Shakspeare, and survived him twenty-one years, living on almost to the troubled close of the reign of Charles I. Born in the North of England of humble parentage, Jonson, after a period of soldier life in the Low Countries, where he fought bravely, settled in London, married, and took to literature and the stage as a means of livelihood. He tried his fortune as an actor, but did not succeed. A duel with a brother actor, whom, unhappily, he killed, caused his confinement for a time in jail. While there, he was visited by a priest; and his mind being turned to religious subjects, he became a Roman Catholic, and continued one for twelve years. that, when at the height of his fame and prosperity, he once more professed himself a member of the Church of England. But an estimate of the quality of his religious feeling may be formed from the fact that, on partaking of the Holy Communion for the first time after this event, he quaffed off the entire contents of the chalice! “He did everything lustily," says one of his recent biographers, as a comment on this incident. Whether "lustily" or through simple love of good liquor, and in unconcern as to the proprieties, may remain a question. Probably it was done in the spirit of the reply of Theodore Hook, who, when asked by the College functionary if he could sign the Thirty-nine Articles, said, "Yes, forty, if you wish it.”

On his release from prison, Jonson sprang at once into fame by his still-acted play of "Every Man in his Humor," in the representation of which no less a person than Shakspeare took a part. Jonson's works consist mainly of dramas and masks, of which he produced, in all, more than fifty. Poverty cast a gloom over his last years; he was obliged to solicit assistance from old friends; and so the bright life dimmed, and flickered, and went out. His mortal remains were buried in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey; and Sir John Young, a gentleman from Oxford, visiting the spot, gave eighteen-pence to a mason, to cut upon the flag-stone covering the poet's clay this epitaph: "O Rare Ben Jonson!" Such, at least, is the tradition.

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SEE THE CHARIOT AT HAND.

FROM "A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS."
See the chariot at hand here of Love,
Wherein my lady rideth!

Each that draws is a swan or a dove,
And well the car Love guideth.
As she goes all hearts do duty
Unto her beauty;

And, enamored, do wish, so they might
But enjoy such a sight,

That they still were to run by her side,

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER, Through swords, through seas, whither she would

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, AND WHAT
HE HATH LEFT US.

To draw no envy, Shakspeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor muse can praise too much.

I, therefore, will begin: Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, and wonder of our stage!
My Shakspeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chancer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

ride.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light
All that Love's world compriseth!
Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As Love's star when it riseth!
Do but mark, her forehead's smoother
Than words that soothe her!
And from her arched brows, such a grace
Sheds itself through the face,

As alone there triumphs to the life
All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife.

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EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH, L. H.
Wouldst thou hear what man can say
In a little? Reader, stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die,
Which in life did harbor give
To more virtue than doth live.
If at all she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault.
One name was Elizabeth;

The other, let it sleep with death:
Fitter where it died to tell
Than that it lived at all. Farewell!

SONG TO CELIA.

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise

Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove's nectar sup

I would not change for thine.

Sir John Davies.

Davies (1570-1626), an English barrister, was the author of "Nosce Teipsum" (Know Thyself), a poem on the immortality of the soul. It bears the date of 1602, when Davies was about thirty-two years old. It was printed five times during his life. In 1598 Davies was ejected from membership in the Society of the Middle Temple, for having thrashed a man within the sacred precincts of that Inn of Court. But he was an able lawyer; and having won the favor of King James, he rose from one legal distinction to another, and was knighted in 1607.

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For who did ever yet in honor, wealth,

Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find? Who ever ceased to wish, when he had health; Or, having wisdom, was not vexed in mind?

Then, as a bee, which among weeds doth fall, Which seem sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay,

She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all,
But, pleased with none, doth rise and soar away.

So, when the soul finds here no true content,

And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take, She doth return from whence she first was sent, And flies to Him that first her wings did make.

MYSELF.

FROM "NOSCE TEIPSUM."

I know my body's of so frail a kind,

As force without, fevers within, can kill; I know the heavenly nature of my mind; But 'tis corrupted both in wit and will.

I know my soul hath power to know all things,
Yet is she blind and ignorant in all;

I know I'm one of Nature's little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest thing am thrall.

I know my life's a pain, and but a span;

I know my sense is mocked in everything; And, to conclude, I know myself a Man; Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

Francis Beaumont (1586–1616) and John Fletcher (15761625) were intimate friends; "the Orestes and Pylades of the poetical world." Both were of good descent. Beaumont's father was a Judge of the Common Pleas ; Fletcher was the son of the Bishop of London, and had for cousins Phineas and Giles Fletcher, the one the author of "The Purple Island," a tedious allegorical poem; the other the author of "Christ's Victory and Triumph," a work from which Milton is said to have borrowed a feather or two.

There was a difference of ten years between the ages of Beaumont and Fletcher. The latter, who was the elder, survived his friend nine years, continued to write, and died at the age of forty-nine. Beaumont died at thirty, in 1616, the same year as Shakspeare. Beaumont's poetical taste, it was said, controlled, in their joint work, Fletcher's luxuriance of wit and fancy. Their united

works amount to about fifty dramas, and were very popular in their day, even more so than those of Shakspeare and Jonson. As lyrical and descriptive poets they are entitled to high praise. Their dramas are sprightly, and abound in poetical ornament, but are often censurable for looseness of plot, repulsiveness of subject, and laxity of moral tone.

MELANCHOLY.'

FROM "NICE VALOR; OR, THE PASSIONATE MADMAN."
Hence, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights

Wherein you spend your folly!
There's naught in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see 't,
But only melancholy:

O sweetest melancholy!

Welcome, folded arms, and fixéd 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!

CESAR'S LAMENTATION OVER POMPEY'S

HEAD.

FROM "THE FALSE ONE."

Oh thou conqueror,

Thou glory of the world once, now the pity;
Thou awe of nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus ?
What poor fate followed thee, and plucked thee on
To trust thy sacred life to an Egyptian ?—
The life and light of Rome to a blind stranger,
That honorable war ne'er taught a nobleness,
Nor worthy circumstance showed what a man
was?-

That never heard thy name sung but in banquets
And loose lascivious pleasures?—to a boy
That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness,
No study of thy life to know thy goodness?-

1 Milton seems to have taken some hints for his "Il Penseroso" from this song.

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