NOTE. The sources of the poems of this section are stated in the Notes and Illustrations at the close of it. There are here also interesting additions. G. I. SONNETS. SENT BY GEORGE HERBERT TO HIS MOTHER AS A NEW YEAR'S GIFT FROM CAMBRIDGE. My God, where is that ancient heat towards Thee Wherewith whole shoals of martyrs once did burn, Besides their other flames? Doth poetrie Wear Venus' liverie, onely serve her turn? Why are not sonnets made of Thee, and layes Upon Thine altar burnt? Cannot Thy love Heighten a spirit to sound out Thy praise As well as any she? Cannot Thy Dove Outstrip their Cupid easilie in flight? 5 Or, since Thy wayes are deep, and still the same, IO Will not a verse runne smooth that bears Thy Name? Why doth that fire, which by Thy power and might Each breast does feel, no braver fuel choose Then that which one day worms may chance refuse? Sure, Lord, there is enough in Thee to drie Oceans of ink; for, as the Deluge did Cover the earth, so doth Thy Majestie. Each cloud distills Thy praise, and doth forbid Poets to turn it to another use; 15 Roses and lilies speak Thee, and to make 20 A pair of cheeks of them is Thy abuse. =abuse of Thee Why should I women's eyes for crystal take? Such poor invention burns in their low minde, Whose fire is wild, and doth not upward go To praise, and on Thee, Lord, some ink bestow. 25 Open the bones, and you shall nothing finde In the best face but filth; when, Lord, in Thee II. INSCRIPTION IN THE PARSONAGE, BEMERTON. TO MY SUCCESSOR. If thou chance for to find A new House to thy mind, As God gives thee store, And then my Labour's not lost. Another Version. Fuller writes in his character of The Faithful Minister: 'A clergyman who built his house from the ground wrote on it this counsel to his successor :' If thou dost find An house built to thy mind, Without thy cost; Serve thou the more God and the poor; My labour is not lost. III. ON LORD DANVERS. Sacred marble, safely keepe His dust who under thee must sleepe Untill the graves againe restore Theire dead, and time shal be no more. Meane while, if Hee which all thinges weares 5 Doe ruine thee, or if the tears Are shed for him dissolve thy frame, Thou art requited; for his fame, His vertues, and his worth shal bee Another monument for thee. G. HERBERT. 10 IV. ON SIR JOHN DANVERS. By the same (Geo. Herbert), Orator of [the] University at Cambridge; pinned on the curtaine of the picture of the old Sir John Danvers, who was both a handsome and a good man : Passe not by; Sr John Danvers' earthly part Worth your stay. In his progenie doth shine. What makes a Danvers Had he only brought them forth, Would you find? A fayre mind. Know that much had been his worth. Ther's no monument to a sonne; Read him there, and I have done. V. A PARADOX. THAT THE SICK ARE IN A BETTER CASE THEN THE WHOLE. (From Rawlinson мss. in Bodleian, Oxford, p. 78.) You who admire yourselves because You neither grone nor weepe, And think it contrary to nature's laws To want one ounce of sleepe; Your strong beleife Acquits yourselves, and gives ye sick all greife. Your state to ours is contrary; That makes you thinke us poore: So Black-Moores think us foule, and wee Are quit wth ym, and more: Nothing can see And judg of things but mediocrity. The sick are in ymselves a state Wch health hath nought to doe; How know you that or tears p❞ceed from woe, And not frō better fate? Since that Mirth hath Her waters alsoe and desyrèd bath. How know you yt ye sighs wee send Frō want of breath p❜ceede, Not frō excesse? and therefore we do spend That wch we do not neede: So trembling may As well shew inward warblings as decay. ΙΟ 5 15 20 |