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The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my

Love.

Sir Henry Wotton.

CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE.

HOW happy is he born and taught

That serveth not another's will;

Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill !

Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death,

Not tied unto the world with care
Of public fame, or private breath;

Who envies none that chance doth raise
Or vice; Who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;
Who hath his life from rumours freed,

Whose conscience is his strong retreat ; Whose state can neither flatterers feed, Nor ruin make accusers great;

Who God doth late and early pray More of his grace than gifts to lend;

And entertains the harmless day

With a well-chosen 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.

Ben Jonson.

THE NOBLE NATURE.

IT is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make Man better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that nightIt was the plant and flower of Light. In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures life may perfect be.

HYMN TO DIANA.

DRINK

RINK 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.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,

Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not wither'd be;

But thou thereon didst only breathe

And sent'st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

Not of itself but thee!

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US.

'O draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,

Το

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.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For silliest ignorance on these would light,
Which, when it sounds, at best but echoes right;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urges all by chance;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin, where it seem'd to raise.
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin: Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

A little further off, to make thee room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
I mean with great but disproportion'd Muses:
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd or Marlowe's mighty line.
And though thou had small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee I will not seek
For names; but call forth thund'ring Eschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,

To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage: or when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison

Of all, that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury, to charm!
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joy'd to wear the dressing of his lines!
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,

Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;

But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of nature's family.
Yet must I not give nature all; thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion; and, that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same,
And himself with it, that he thinks to frame;
Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn;

For a good poet's made as well as born.

And such wert thou! Look how the father's face
Lives in his issue, even so the race

Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines
In his well-turned and true-filed lines:

In each of which he seems to shake a lance,

As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance.

Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our water yet appear,

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza and our James!

But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there!
Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage,

Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage,

Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned like night,

And despairs day, but for thy volume's light!

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