Thee lastly, nuptial bow'r, by me adorned With what to sight or smell was sweet; from thee How shall I part, and whither wander down Whom thus the angel interrupted mild: Lament not, Eve, but patiently resign What justly thou hast lost; nor set thy heart, Thus over-fond, on that which is not thine: Thy going is not lonely, -with thee goes Thy husband, him to follow thou art bound; Where he abides, think there thy native soil. FAME. [raise FAME is the spur that the clear spirit doth (That last infirmity of noble minds), To scorn delights and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears, [praise," And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears. :0: :0: JOHN MILTON. 1608-1674. EVE'S LAMENT. [death! O UNEXPECTED stroke, worse than of Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades, [spend, Fit haunt of Gods? where I had hope to At ev'n, which I bred up with tender hand names, Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount? ABRAHAM COWLEY. 1618-1667. THE WISH. WELL, then, I now do plainly see, And they, methinks, deserve my pity, Ah, yet ere I descend to the grave, Both wise and both delightful too! THE GRASSHOPPER. HAPPY insect! what can be Thee country hinds with gladness hear, Dost neither age nor winter know. Sated with thy summer feast, Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired; Bid her come forth, Suffer herself to be desired, Then die! that she The common fate of all things rare May read in thee, How small a part they share That are so wondrous sweet and fair. SIMON WASTELL. 1623-. MAN'S LIFE. LIKE as the damask rose you see, Like to the grass that's newly sprung, -:0: ANDREW MARVELL. 1620-1678. THE FLOWER-DIAL. WHAT Wondrous life is this I lead! Ripe apples drop about my head; The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine; The nectarine and curious peach The mind, that ocean, where each kind To a green thought in a green shade. Be reckoned, but with herbs and flowers? Does in its pure and circling thoughts ex press The greater heaven in a heaven less. In how coy a figure wound, Every way it turns away; It all about does upwards bend. [run Congealed on earth, but does dissolving Into the glories of the almighty sun. How oft on fields of death thy presence sought, [bought! Nor thinks the mighty prize too dearly On foreign mountains may the sun refine The grape's soft juice, and mellow it in wine, With citron groves adorn a distant soil, And the fat olives swell with floods of oil. We envy not the warmer clime, that lies In ten degrees of more indulgent skies; Nor at the coarseness of our heaven repine, Though o'er our heads the frozen Pleiads shine. 'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile. -:0: ALEXANDER POPE. 1688-1744. BLINDNESS TO THE FUTURE. From the "Essay on Man." HEAVEN from all creatures hides the book of fate, [state: All but the page prescribed, their present From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, [blood. And licks the hand just raised to shed his Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,* Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar; [adore. Wait the great teacher Death, and God What future bliss, He gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. * St. Matthew x. 29. His soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or Milky Way; Yet simple nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven; [braced, Some safer world in depths of woods em- No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for Go, wiser thou and, in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy opinion against Providence. Call imperfection what thou fanciest such, Say, here He gives too little, there too much; Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjust; If Man alone engross not Heaven's high |