When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fetter'd with her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air,
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round,
With no allaying Thames,

Our careless heads with roses crown'd,
Our hearts with loyal flames;

When thirsty grief in wine we steep,

When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the deep,
Know no such liberty.

When linnet-like confined,

With shriller note shall sing
The mercy, sweetness, majesty,
And glories of my King;

When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,

The enlarged winds that curl the flood
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take

That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.

TO LUCASTA, ON GOING TO THE WARS.

Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,

That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I choose,
The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield,

Yet this inconstancy is such

As you, too, shall adore:

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.

ON LELY'S PORTRAIT OF CHARLES THE FIRST.

See what an humble bravery doth shine,
And grief triumphant breaking through each line,
How it commands the face! So sweet a scorn
Never did happy misery adorn!

So sacred a contempt that others show

To this (o' the height of all the wheel) below;
That mightiest monarchs by this shaded book
May copy out their proudest, richest look.

An elegant and accurate critic, Sir Egerton Brydges, has pointed out a singular coincidence between an illustration employed by Lovelace and a line for which Lord Byron has been, as it seems to me, unjustly censured in the " Bride of Abydos." The noble poet says of his heroine

"The mind, the music breathing from her face;"

and he vindicated the expression on the obvious ground of its clearness and truth. Lovelace, in a Song of Orpheus, lamenting the death of his wife, uses the same words in nearly the same sense. Lord Byron had probably never seen the poem, or, if he had, the illustration had perhaps remained in his mind to be unconsciously reproduced by that strange process of amalgamation which so often combines memory with invention. These are the lines sung by Orpheus, who works out the idea too far :

Oh, could you view the melody

Of every grace,

And music of her face,

You'd drop a tear

Seeing more harmony
In her bright eye

Than now you hear.

The poem of "Loyalty Confined" is supposed to have been written by Sir Roger L'Estrange, while imprisoned on account of his adherence to Charles the First. On a first reading, these terse and vigorous stanzas seem too much like a paraphrase of Lovelace's fine address "To Althea from Prison;" but there is so much that is original, both in thought and expression, that we can not but admit that the apparent imitation is the result of sim

N*

ilarity of sentiment in a similar situation. These imprisoned cavaliers think and feel alike, and must needs speak the same language.

Beat on, proud billows. Boreas, blow;

Swell-curled waves, high as Jove's roof;

Your incivility doth show

That innocence is tempest-proof;

Though truly heroes frown, my thoughts are calm;
Then strike affliction, for my wounds are balm.

That which the world miscalls a jail,

A private closet is to me;

While a good conscience is my bail,
And innocence my liberty;

Locks, bars, and solitude together met
Make me no prisoner, but an anchoret.

I, while I wished to be retired,

Into this private room was turned,
As if their wisdoms had conspired

The Salamander should be burned;

Or like those sophists, that would drown a fish,
Even constrained to suffer what I wish.

The cynic loves his poverty,

The pelican her wilderness,

And 'tis the Indian's pride to be

Naked on frozen Caucasus :
Contentment can not smart. Stoics we see
Make torments easy to their apathy.

These manacles upon my arm

I, as my mistress' favors, wear;
And for to keep my ankles warm

I have some iron shackles there;

These walls are but my garrison; this cell,
Which men call jail, doth prove my citadel.

I'm in the cabinet locked up

Like some high-priced Marguerite;
Or, like the Great Mogul or Pope,

Am cloistered up from public sight.
Retiredness is a piece of majesty,

And thus, proud Sultan, I'm as great as thee.

Here sin, for want of food, must starve

Where tempting objects are not seen;

And these strong walls do only serve

To keep vice out, and keep me in;
Malice of late's grown charitable, sure;
I'm not committed, but am kept secure.

So he that struck at Jason's life,

Thinking to have made his purpose sure,
By a malicious friendly knife

Did only wound him to a cure.

Malice, I see, wants wit; for what is meant
Mischief, ofttimes proves favor by the event.

When once my Prince affliction hath,
Prosperity doth treason seem;
And to make smooth so rough a path,
Sweet patience I can learn from him.
Now not to suffer shows no loyal heart;

When kings want ease, subjects must bear a part.

What though I can not see my King,

Neither in person nor in coin,

Yet contemplation is a thing

That renders what I have not, mine.

My King from me what adamant can part,
Whom I do wear engraven on my heart?

Have you not seen the nightingale
A prisoner-like cooped in a cage;
How she doth chant her morbid tale
In that her narrow hermitage?

Even then her charming melody doth prove
That all her bars are trees, her cage a grove.

I am that bird whom they contrive
Thus to deprive of liberty;

But though they do my corpse confine,
Yet, maugre hate, my soul is free.

And though immured, yet can I chirp and sing,

Disgrace to rebels, glory to my King.

My soul is free as ambient air,
Although my baser part's immew'd;
While loyal thoughts do still repair
To accompany my solitude.
Although rebellion do my body bind,

My King alone can captivate my mind.

The following lines were written by the Marquis of Montrose

upon the execution of Charles the First.

He shut himself up for

three days, and when Dr. Wishart, his chaplain, and the elegant historian of his wars, was admitted to him, he found these verses, which probably were intended as a sort of vow, on his table. We all know how that vow was redeemed.

Great, good, and just! could I but rate

My grief to thy too rigid fate,

I'd weep the world to such a strain

As it should deluge once again;

But since thy loud-tongued blood demands supplies
More from Briareus' hands than Argus' eyes,

I'll sing thy obsequies with trumpet sounds,

And write thy epitaph with blood and wounds.

LOVE VERSES, BY THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE.

Sometimes the jargon of the different governments of the day, and sometimes the technical phrases of warfare, are made strange use of in these verses; yet some of the lines are so noble, and many so original, that we forgive this soldierly mode of wooing in favor of its frankness. It is to be presumed the lady did the same.

My dear and only love, I pray
This noble world of thee,
Be governed by no other sway
Than purest monarchy.
For if confusion have a part,
Which virtuous souls abhor,
And hold a synod in thy heart,
I'll never love thee more.

Like Alexander I will reign,
And I will reign alone;

My thoughts shall evermore disdain

A rival on my throne.

He either fears his fate too much,
Or his desert's too small,

That puts it not unto the touch
To win or lose it all.

But I must rule and govern still,
And always give the law,
And have each subject at my will,
And all to stand in awe.

But 'gainst my battery if I find
Thou shunn'st the prize to bore,
Or that thou sett'st me up a blind,
I'll never love thee more.