PJ«!Piiii!'i;i wm N^ ICT ENGLISH CLASSICS :' LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ' TKvm ©^ap. - ©npFigi&t %. Shelf _.,.t^..2. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I Select lEnQtisb Classics Choice English Lyrics SELECTED AND ARRANGED JY JAMES BALDWIN Author of " The Book of Elegies," " The Famous Allegories, " Six Centuries of English Poetry," etc. j^^7 J- SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY New York BOSTON Chicago 1894 \ TKiin Copyright, 1894, By silver, BURDETT & COMPANY. Norbiooti ^rrss : J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith. Boston, Mass., U.S.A. PUBLISHERS' NOTE. This is the fourth volume of a series of Select English Classics which the pubUshers have in course of preparation. The series will include an extensive variety of selections chosen from the different departments of English literature, and arranged and annotated for the use of classes in schools. It will embrace, among other things, representative specimens from all the best English writers, whether of poetry or of prose ; selections from Enghsh dramatic literature, especially of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; choice extracts from the writings of the great essayists; selections from famous English allegories ; a volume of elegies and elegiacal poetry ; studies of English prose fiction, with illustrative speci- mens, etc. Each volume will contain copious notes, critical, explanatory, and biographical, besides the necessary vocabu- laries, glossaries, and indexes ; and the series when complete will present a varied and comprehensive view of all that is best in English literature. For supplementary reading, as well as for systematic class instruction, the books will possess many peculiarly valuable as well as novel features ; while their attractive appearance, combined with the sterling quality of their contents, will commend them for general reading and make them desirable acquisitions for every library. 3 CONTENTS. Songs of Nature and the Seasons; 1. A Morning Song 2. Dawn-Song 3. Morning 4. A Greeting 5. May Morning 6. Hunting Song 7. May-Day 8. The Story of a Summer Day 9. Holiday in Arcadia .... 10. After Rain 11. Under the Greenwood Tree . . 12. Evening 13. Evening Song 14. To Diana 15. Evening Hymn 16. Serenade 17. Slumber-Song 18. Invocation to Sleep .... 19. The Young May Moon . . . 20. Night in the Desert .... 21. The World's Wanderers . . . 22. To the Moon 23. The Coming of Spring . . . 24. Spring 25. To Blossoms 26. A Spring Idyll 5 William Shakespeare . Sir William Davenant James Beattie . . Thomas Heywood . John Milton . . . Sir Walter Scott . Robert Herrick . . Alexander Hume . James Shirley . . William Wordsworth William Shakespeare William Collins John Fletcher . . Thomas Heyivood . Sir Thomas Broivne Owen Meredith . John Fletcher . . Beaumont and Fletcher Thomas Moore . . Robert Southey . . Percy Bysshe Shelley Anon Thomas Nash . . Robert Herrick . . Sir Henry Wotton . PAGE 13 14 14 15 16 16 17 20 25 25 26 27 29 30 31 32 33 34 34 35 36 36 37 37 38 39 27- 29. 30- 31- 32. 33. 34- 35- 36. 37- 38. 39- 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45- CONTENTS. tAGfi To Daffadils Robert Herrick 39 To the Lark " " 40 Ode to the Cuckoo Michael Bruce 41 To the Cuckoo William Wordsivorth ... 42 To the Daisy " " ... 43 Almond Blossom Edwin Arnold 45 The Fly William Oldys 46 The Tiger William Blake 47 The Nightingale Richard Barnfield .... 47 To a Waterfowl William Cullen Bryant . . 48 The Chough and the Crow . . Joanna Baillie 50 Autumn Percy Bysshe Shelley . Ode to Autumn Thomas Hood . . . To Autumn Johji Keats .... Ode to the West Wind . . . Percy Bysshe Shelley . The Sea Bryan Waller Procter Winter William Shakespeare . Christmas Carol William Morris . . Dirge for the Year Percy Bysshe Shelley . 51 52 54 55 58 59 60 62 Notes 63 Songs of Battle, Bravery, and Patriotism: 1. The Battle of Agincourt . . . 2. The Charge of the Light Brigade 3. The Coming of Charlemagne 4. The Battle of Bannockburn . 5. The Gathering Song of Donuil Dhu 6. Killiecrankie .... 7. Lament for Flodden . 8. Bonnie George Campbell 9. The Battle of Ivry . . 10. The Armada .... 11. Ye Mariners of England 12. The Battle of Naseby . 13. The Battle of the Baltic 14. Hohenlinden .... Michael Drayton Alfred Tennyso7i Lord Macaulay Robert Burns . Sir Walter Scott . William E. Aytoun Jane Elliott . . . Lord Macaulay Thomas Campbell . Lord Macaulay Thomas Campbell . 69 73 75 76 77 79 83 84 85 88 93 95 99 lOI CONTENTS. PAGE 15. The Battle Thomas Moore 103 16. The End of the Siege .... Elizabeth Barreti Broivning 104 17. The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna Charles Wolfe 112 18. Battle Song Ebenezer Elliott . . . .113 19. The War Song of Dinas Vawr . Thomas Love Peacock . .114 20. The Destruction of Sennacherib Lord Byron n6 21. The Soldier's Dream .... Thomas Campbell . . . .117 22. The Minstrel-Boy Thomas Moore 118 23. The Last Buccanier .... Charles Kingsley . . . .118 24. My Native Vale Samuel Rogers 120 25. "I Travelled among Unknown Men" William Wordsworth . .121 26. The Isles of Greece .... Lord Byron 122 Notes 125 Ballads : 1. Robin Hood's Death and Burial 132 2. The Wife of Usher's Well 135 3. King John and the Abbot 137 4. The Douglas Tragedy 141 5. The Twa Corbies 144 6. Edward of the Bloody Brand . Sir David Dalrymple . . 145 7. Barbara Allen's Cruelty 147 8. Burd Helen Anon 150 9. The Twa Sisters ...... " 151 10. The Twa Brothers 154 11. Lochinvar Sir Walter Scott . . . .157 12. Black-Eyed Susan .... ^ohn Gay 159 13. Sally in Our Alley LLenry Carey 161 14. Auld Robin Gray L^ady Anne Barnard . . . 163 15. Jeanie Morrison William Motherwell . . .164 16. Lady Clare Alfred Tennyson . . . .168 17. Lucy Gray; or, Solitude . . . William Wordsworth . .171 Notes 174 8 CONTENTS. Lyrics of Love: PAGE 1. Old Love Song 178 2. My Swete Swetyng 179 3. In Praise of Daphne .... John Lyly 180 4. Phillis Sir Charles Sedley . . .180 5. The Lover to his Lute . . . Sir Thomas Wyatt . . . 181 6. The Lover to his Lyre . . . Abraham Cowley . . . .183 7. The Lover's Appeal .... Sir Thomas Wyatt . . .184 8. A Lost Love ...... John Addington Symonds . 185 9. To the Virgins to make much of Time Robert Herrick 186 10. The Rose's Message .... Edmund Waller . . . .186 11. Go, Happy Rose Robert Herrick 187 12. Phillida Flouts Me .... Anon 188 13. An Appeal Sir Thomas Wyatt . . . 191 14. The Passionate Shepherd to his Love Christopher Marlowe . . .192 15. The Shepherdess's Reply . . Sir Walter Raleigh . . .193 16. Little but Long 194 17. Pastoral William Shenstone . . .196 18. Silent Music Thomas Campion . . . .198 19. Samela Robert Greene 199 20. To Helen Edgar Allan Foe .... 200 21. My Jean Robert Burns 201 22. Mary Morison " " ..... 201 23. Highland Mary " " 202 24. To Mary in Heaven .... « , " 204 25. The Author's Resolution in a Sonnet George Wither 205 26. The Soldier going to the Field . Sir William Davenant . . 206 27. Song to Chloris Sir Charles Sedley . . . 207 28. Song Williatn Brozune .... 209 29. To Althea — From Prison . . Col. Richard Lovelace . . 210 30. Her Golden Hair " " " . . 211 31. To Lucasta (on going to the Wars) " " " . . 212 32. Apprenticed Jean Ingelow 212 • CONTENTS. 9 PAGE 33. The Long White Seam . . . Jean Ingelow 213 34. A Bridal Song Beautnont and Fletcher . .214 35. Constancy Sir John Stickling . . .215 36. Come o'er the Sea Thomas Moore 216 37. The Banks of Doon .... Robert Burns 217 38. Song Beaumont and Fletcher . .218 39. Penthea's Dying Song . . . John Ford 218 40. Stanzas for Music Lord Byron 219 Notes 220 Sonnets : 1. Description and Praise of his Love Geraldine Earl of Surrey 223 2. Herself all Treasure .... Edmund Spenser .... 224 3. A Vision upon the Faerie Queene Sir Walter Raleigh . . . 225 4. On first looking into Chapman's Homer John Treats 225 5. On his Blindness John Milton 226 6. To Milton William Wordsworth . . 226 7. The Parting Michael Drayton .... 227 8. Easter Morning Edmund Spenser .... 228 9. Quatuor Novissima .... William Shakespeare . . 228 10. A Lover's Letters . . . . *. Elizabeth Barrett Browning 229 11. Life's Lessons George Herbert 230 12. Sad and Sweet Aubrey de Vere .... 230 13. To the Moon Sir Philip Sidney . . . .231 14. The Common Grave .... Sidney Dobell 231 15. To his Lute William Drummond . . . 232 16. Resignation and Despair . . John Donne 233 17. Last Sonnet John Keats 233 18. Retirement Henry Kirke White . . .234 19. Evening Owen Meredith . . . .235 20. Twilight Lord Byron 235 21. Illusions William Drummojid . . . 236 22. Sweet and Bitter Edmund Spenser . . . .237 10 CONTENTS, The Nile ....... Leigh Hunt 237 In San Lorenzo . . . . . A. C. Swinburne .... 238 Her Eyes Edmund Spenser .... 239 Cupid and Campaspe . . . John Lyly 239 The Grasshopper and the Cricket Leigh Hunt 240 Fancy in Nubibus S. T. Coleridge . . . .241 Notes 241 Lyrics of Life: 9- 10. II. 12. 13- 14. 15- 16. 17- 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23- 24. 25- 26. Man's Mortality The Life of Man ..... Life and the Flowers .... The Retreat The Piper The Romance of the Swan's Nest A Boy's Song Youth and Age The Spring Journey .... Over the Hill Youth and Age The Stream of Life .... A Petition to Time .... A Proper Man A Proper Woman The Common Lot The Perfect Life The Contented Mind .... A Wish A Wish The Character of a Happy Life The Quiet Life The Easy Life Content Melancolia On Melancholy Simon Wastell 243 Francis Beaumont . . . 244 George Herbert 245 Henry Vaughan .... 246 William Blake .... 247 Elizabeth Barrett Browning 248 yames jfLogg . Charles Kingsley Reginald Heher George Macdonald S. T. Coleridge Arthur Hugh Clough Bryan Waller Procter Ben yonson . Tho?nas Carew . ya?nes Montgomery Ben yonson . . yoshua Sylvester Abraham Cowley Samuel Rogers . Sir Henry Wotton Alexander Pope Robert Herrick . Thomas Dekker Francis Beauniont Robert Burton . , 252 253 254 255 256 258 259 260 262 262 264 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 CONTENTS. 11 PAGE 27. Break, Break, Break .... Alfred Tennyson .... 274 28. The Soul's Errand .... Sir Walfer Raleigh ( ?) . . 274 29. The Light of Other Days . . Thomas Moore 277 30. John Anderson Robert Burns 278 31. Auld Lang Syne " " ..... 279 32. The Land of the Leal. . . . Lady Nairne 280 33. Growing Old Matthezo Arnold . . , .281 34. To My Grandmother .... Frederick Locker- Lampson . 283 35. Up-Hill Christina Rossetti . . . .285 36. A Parting in Dreamland . . . John Addington Symonds . 286 37. The Voyage of Life .... Francis Quarles .... 287 38. Crossing the Bar Alfred Tennyson .... 290 39. Life and Death Anna Letitia Barbanld . . 290 40. Sweet Peril George Macdonald . . .291 41. Death Percy Bysshe Shelley . . .291 42. Sorrow Song Samnel Rowley 292 43. Death's Triumph James Shirley 293 44. To Cife's Pilgrim Geoffrey Chaucer .... 294 45. Last Lines Sir Walter Raleigh . . . 294 Notes 295 Religious Songs and Melodies: 1. Peace Henry Vaughan .... 298 2. The Heavenly Jerusalem . . Anon 299 3. Sunday George Herbert 301 4. The Virtuous Soul .... " " 302 5. The Flower " " 303 6. The Pulley " " 304 7. Translation of the 23d Psalm . Joseph Addison 306 8. The Dying Christian to his Soul Alexander Pope .... 307 9. Resignation Johti Keble 308 10. From " The Waterfall " ... " " 311 11. The Lilies of the Field ... " « 312 12. Christ's Coming to Jerusalem in Triumph Jeremy Taylor . . . .313 13. The Litany Robert Herrick 313 12 CONTENTS. 14. A Thanksgiving John Henry Newman . .315 15. Christ our Example .... Charles Wesley . . . .317 16. Easter Hymn " " .... 318 17. An Hymn for Seriousness . . John Wesley 320 Miscellaneous Lyrics: 1. Songs from " The Princess " . Alfred Tennyson .... 322 2. Music Robert Her rick 325 3. Praise of Music William Strode .... 326 4. The Spirit of Dehght .... Percy Bysshe Shelley . . . 327 5. To Echo John Milton 329 6. The Fairy Queen Anon 329 7. As I lay A-thynkynge . . . Richard Harris Barham . 331 8. The Palm-Tree and the Pine . Lord Houghton 333 9. The Sands of Dee Charles Kingsley .... 333 10. Kubla Khan S. T. Coleridge .... 334 11. To a Lady, with a Guitar . . Percy Bysshe Shelley . . . 336 12. David playing before Saul . . Robert Broivnitig .... 339 1 3. Stanzas from Wine of Cyprus . Elizabeth Barrett Browning 341 14. Ode on a Grecian Urn . . . John Keats 343 15. Invocation to the Spirit of Achilles Lord Byron 345 16. Corinna from Athens, to Tanagra Walter Savage Lajtdor . . 346 ** 1 7. Arethusa Percy Bysshe Shelley . . . 348 18. The Garden of Proserpine . . A. C. Swinburne .... 351 19. Itylus " " • • • • 354 20. Byron's Last Poem .... Lord Byron 356 21. To the Muses William Blake .... 358 Notes 359 Index of First Lines 360 Index of Authors 364 Songe of mature an& tbe Seaeone* 3>«J»{c I^or ofttimes a love-song like a hymn of praise springeth spon- taneously from the singer''s heart, having been wrought therein through the rapturous contemplation of human beauty and perfect- ness. Such a song ministereth to the delight of all poetic natures and pointeth them to still loftier ideals of thought and life. And there be love-songs of another sort, mere airy nothings, full of artificial conceits tricked out with strained metaphors and far-fetched figures of speech. These last, like soap-bubbles, are not devoid of beauty, but they are fragile and lifeless, evanescent and cold. — Cecil Devereux. OLD LOVE SONG. Blow, northern wind, send Thou me my sweeting ; blow Northern wind, blow, blow, blow. She's a coral of goodness. She's a ruby of rich fulness, She's a crystal of clearness, And banner of beauty. She's a lily of largess, She is parnenke pronesse. She is salsecle of sweetness And lady of lealty. 178 LYRICS OF LOVE. 179 Blow, northern wind, send Thou me my sweeting ; blow Northern wind, blow, blow. 2. MY SWETE SWETYNG. Ah ! my swete swetyng, My lytyl pretie swetyng ! My swetyng wyl I loue whereuer I goe : She is soe proper and pure, Stedf aste, stabyll, and demure, — There is nonne suche, ye may be sure, As my swete swetyng. In all thys worlde, as thynketh mee, Is nonne soe plesaunte to my 'ee, That I am gladde soe ofte to see, As my swete swetynge. When I beholde my swetyng swete. Her face, her haundes, her minion fete, They seeme to mee ther is nonne soe mete As my swete swetynge. Above alle others prayse must I, And loue my pretie pigsnye ; For nonne I ^nde so womanlie As my swete swetynge. 180 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. She is soe proper and pure, Stedf aste, stabyll, and demure, — There is nonne suche, ye may be sure, As my swete swetynge. IN PRAISE OF DAPHNE. My Daphne's hair is twisted gold. Bright stars a-piece her eyes do hold. My Daphne's brow enthrones the graces. My Daphne's beauty stains all faces. On Daphne's cheek grow rose and cherry. But Daphne's lip a sweeter berry ; Daphne's snowy hand but touched does melt, And then no heavenlier warmth is felt ; My Daphne's voice tunes all the spheres. My Daphne's music charms all ears ; Fond am I thus to sing her praise. These glories now are turned to bays. — John Lyly. 1 4. PHILLIS. Phillis is my only joy, Faithless as the winds or seas ; Sometimes coming, sometimes coy. Yet she never fails to please. LYRICS OF LOVE. 181 If with a frown I am cast down, Phillis smiling And beguiling, Makes me happier than before. Though, alas ! too late I find Nothing can her fancy fix. Yet the moment she is kind, I forgive her all her tricks ; Which though I see, I can't get free ; She deceiving, I believing, What need lovers wish for more ? — Sir Charles Sedley. 5- THE LOVER TO HIS LUTE. My lute, awake ! perform the last Labor that thou and I shall waste ; And end that I have now begun : And when this song is sung and past, My lute ! be still, for I have done. As to be heard where ear is none ; As lead to grave in marble stone. My song may pierce her heart as soon ; Should we then sing, or sigh, or moan ? No, no, my lute ! for I have done. 182 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. The rock doth not so cruelly, Repulse the waves continually, As she my suit and affection : So that I am past remedy ; Whereby my lute and I have done. Proud of the spoil that thou hast got Of simple hearts thorough Love's shot, By whom, unkind, thou hast them won ; Think not he hath his bow forgot, , Although my lute and I have done. Vengeance shall fall on thy disdain. That makest but game of earnest pain ; Trow not alone under the sun Unquit to cause thy lovers plain, Although my lute and I have done. May chance thee lie withered and old In winter nights, that are so cold. Plaining in vain unto the moon ; Thy wishes then dare not be told : Care then who list, for I have done. And then may chance thee to repent The time that thou hast lost and spent To cause thy lovers sigh and swoon ; Then shalt thou know beauty but lent, And wish and want, as I have done. Now cease, my lute ! This is the last Labor that thou and I shall waste ; LYRICS OF LOVE. 183 And ended is that we begun : Now is thy song both sung and past ; My lute, be still, for I have done. — Sir Thomas Wyatt. 6. THE LOVER TO HIS LYRE. Awake, awake my Lyre ! And tell thy silent master's humble tale In sounds that may prevail, — Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire : Though so exalted she And I so lowly be. Tell her such different notes make all thy harmony. Hark ! how the strings awake ; And though the moving hand approach not near, Themselves with awful fear A kind of numerous trembling make. Now all thy forces try ; Now all thy charms apply : Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye ! Weak Lyre ! thy virtue sure Is useless here, since thou art only found To cure, but not to wound — And she to wound, but not to cure. Too weak too wilt thou prove. My passion to remove : Physic to other ills, thou'rt nourishment to love. 184 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre ! For thou canst never tell my humble tale In sounds that will prevail, Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire. All thy vain mirth lay by, Bid thy strings silent lie : Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master die ! — Abraham Cowley. 7- THE LOVER'S APPEAL. And wilt thou leave me thus ? Say nay ! say nay ! for shame, To save thee from the blame Of all my grief and grame. And wilt thou leave me thus .? Say nay ! say nay ! And wilt thou leave me thus. That hath loved thee so long In wealth and woe among : And is thy heart so strong As for to leave me thus } Say nay ! say nay ! And wilt thou leave me thus, That hath given thee my heart Never for to depart Neither for pain nor smart : And wilt thou leave me thus } Say nay ! say nay ! LYRICS OF LOVE. 185 And wilt thou leave me thus, And have no more pity Of him that loveth thee ? Alas ! thy cruelty ! And wilt thou leave me thus ? Say nay ! say nay ! — Sir Thomas Wyatt. 8. A LOST LOVE. The tide is high, and stormy beams Of sunlight scud across the down : Above, the cloudy squadrons frown ; On their broad front a rainbow gleams. Cease, boisterous wind. The west is gray With glory-coated mists, that swell From distant seas, and gathering tell Of coming storm and darkened day. Leave the dank clouds to droop, and guide Toward their fair port yon sleeping sails : Close-furled they wait the wakening gales ; Shower-sprinkled shines the pennon wide. Sail seaward, stately ships, and view Some blessed isle where love is bred. Bring me again my love that's dead And all I have I'll give to you. — John Addington Symonds. 186 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. 9- TO THE VIRGINS TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME. Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still a-fiying : And this same flower that smiles to-day, To-morrow will be dying. The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun, The higher he's a-getting The sooner will his race be run. And nearer he's to setting. That age is best which is the first. When youth and blood are warq;ier ; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times, still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time ; And while ye may, go marry : For having lost but once your prime. You may for ever tarry. — Robert Herrick. lO. THE ROSE'S MESSAGE. Go, lovely rose ! Tell her, that wastes her time and me, That now she knows When I resemble her to thee. How sweet and fair she seems to be. I LYRICS OF LOVE. 187 Tell her that's young, And shuns to have her graces spy'd, That had'st thou sprung In deserts where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended dy'd. Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retir'd : Bid her come forth. Suffer herself to be desir'd. And not blush so to be admir'd. Then die ! that she The common fate of all things rare May read in thee : How small a part of time they share, That are so wondrous sweet and fair ! — Edmund Waller. II. GO, HAPPY ROSE! Go, happy rose ! and, interwove With other flowers, bind my love ! Tell her, too, she must not be Longer flowing, longer free, That so oft hath fettered me. Say, if she's fretful, I have bands Of pearl and gold to bind her hands; Tell her, if she struggles still, I have myrtle rods at will. For to lame, thouofh not to kill. 188 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Take then my blessing thus, and go, And tell her this, — but do not so ! Lest a handsome anger fly, Like a lightning from her eye, And burn thee up, as well as L — Robert Herrick. 12. PHILLIDA FLOUTS ME. Oh, what a plague is love ! I cannot bear it ; She will unconstant prove, I greatly fear it : It so torments my mind That my heart f aileth ; She wavers with the wind As a ship saileth. Please her the best I may. She loves still to gainsay : Alack, and well-a-day ! Phillida flouts me. At the fair, t'other day, As she passed by me, She looked another way. And would not spy me. I wooed her for to dine. But could not get her ; Dick had her to The Vine He might entreat her ; LYRICS OF LOVE. 189 With Daniel she did dance, On me she would not glance : Oh, thrice unhappy chance ! Phillida flouts me. Fair maid, be not so coy — Do not disdain me ; I am my mother's joy, — Sweet, entertain me ! I shall have, when she dies. All things that's fitting, — Her poultry and her bees. And her goose sitting ; A pair of mattress beds, A barrelf ul of shreds ; And yet, for all these gauds, Phillida flouts me ! I often heard her say That she loved posies : In the last month of May I gave her roses ; Cowslips and gillyflowers. And the sweet lily, I got to deck the bowers Of my dear Philly : She did them all disdain. And threw them back again : Therefore 'tis flat and plain, Phillida flouts me. Thou shalt eat curds and cream All the year lasting. And drink the crystal stream. Pleasant in tasting ; 190 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Swig whey until thou burst, Eat bramble-berries, Pye-lid and pastry crust, Pears, plums, and cherries ; Thy garments shall be thin, Made of a wether's skin : Yet, all's not worth a pin, — Phillida flouts me ! Which way soe'er I go. She still torments me ; And whatsoe'er I do, Nothing contents me. I fade and pine away. With griefs and sorrow ; I fall quite to decay. Like any shadow : I shall be dead, I fear, Within a thousand year ; And all because my dear Phillida flouts me. Fair maiden, have a care ! And in time take me ; I can have those as fair, If you forsake me : There's Doll, the dairy-maid, Smiled on me lately ; And wanton Winifred Favors me greatly : She throws milk on my clothes, Th'other plays with my nose : What pretty toys are those ! PhiUida flouts me ! ^ LYRICS OF LOVE. 191 She has a cloth of mine, Wrought with blue Coventry, Which she keeps as a sign Of my fidelity ; But if she frowns on me, She ne'er shall wear it : I'll give it to my maid Joan, And she shall tear it. Since 'twill no better be, I'll bear it patiently ; Yet all the world may see Phillida flouts me. — Anonymous. 13- AN APPEAL. Forget not yet the tried'intent Of such a truth as I have meant ; My great travail so gladly spent Forget not yet ! Forget not yet when first began The weary life ye know, since whan The suit, the service none tell can ; Forget not yet ! Forget not yet the great assays, The cruel wrong, the scornful ways ; The painfu^ patience in delays. Forget not yet ! 192 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Forget not ! oh ! forget not this, How long ago hath been, and is The mind that never meant amiss — Forget not yet ! Forget not then thine own approved, The which so long hath thee so loved, Whose steadfast faith yet never moved — Forget not this ! — Sir Thomas Wyatt. 14. THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE. Come live with me, and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That valleys, groves, [or] hills and fields, Woods or steepy mountains yields. And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses. And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle, Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; A gown made of the finest wool. Which from our pretty lambs we pull ; I ! LYRICS OF LOVE. 193 Fair-lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold ; A belt of straw and ivy-buds, With coral clasps and amber studs : And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me, and be my love. Thy silver dishes for thy meat, As precious as the gods do eat. Shall, on an ivory table, be Prepared each day for thee and me. The shepherd swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May-morning. If these delights thy mind may move. Come live with me, and be my love. — Christopher Marlowe. 15- THE SHEPHERDESS'S REPLY. If all the world and Love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue. These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee, and be thy love. Time drives the flocks from field to fold. When rivers rage, and rocks grow cold ; Then Philomel becometh dumb. The rest complains of cares to come. 194 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall. Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall. Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies, Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten ; In folly ripe, in reason rotten. Thy belt of straw and ivy-buds. Thy coral clasps and amber studs, All these in me no means can move, To come to thee and be thy love. What should we talk of dainties, then, Of better meat than's fit for men .? These are but vain : that's only good Which God hath bless'd and sent for food. But could youth last, and love still breed. Had joys no date, nor age no need ; Then those delights my mind might move, To live with thee and be thy love. — Sir Walter Raleigh. i6. LITTLE BUT LONG. Love me little, love me long. Is the burden of my song. Love that is too hot and strong Burneth soon to waste. \ LYRICS OF LOVE. 195 Still I would not have thee cold, Not too backward or too bold ; Love that lasteth till 'tis old Fadeth not in haste. If thou lovest me too much, It will not prove as true as touch ; Love me little, more than such. For I fear the end. I am with little well content, And a little from thee sent Is enough, with true intent. To be steadfast, friend. Say thou lov'st me while thou live, I to thee my love will give. Never dreaming to deceive While that life endures : Nay, and after death, in sooth, I to thee will keep my truth. As now, when in my May of youth, This my love assures. Constant love is moderate ever, And it will through life persever ; Give me that — with true endeavor I will it restore. A suit of durance let it be, For all weathers ; that for me, For the l^d or for the sea. Lasting evermore. 196 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Winter's cold or summer's heat, Autumn's tempests on it beat, It can never know defeat, Never can rebel. Such the love that I would gain, Such the love, I tell thee plain, Thou must give, or woo in vain ; So to thee farewell. 17. PASTORAL. My banks they are furnished with bees Whose murmur invites one to sleep ; My grottos are shaded with trees. And my hills are white over with sheep. I seldom have met with a loss. Such health do my fountains bestow — My fountains all bordered with moss, Where the harebells and violets grow. Not a pine in my grove is there seen But with tendrils of woodbine is bound ; Not a beech's more beautiful green But a sweetbrier entwines it around. Not my fields in the prime of the year More charms than my cattle unfold ; Not a brook that is limpid and clear But it glitters with fishes of gold. LYRICS OF LOVE. 197 One would think she might like to retire To the bow'r I have labored to rear ; Not a shrub that I heard her admire But I hastened and planted it there. Oh, how sudden the jessamine strove With the lilac, to render it gay ! Already it calls for my love, To prune the wild branches away. From the plains, from the woodlands and groves, What strains of wild melody flow ! How the nightingales warble their loves From thickets of roses that blow ! And when her bright form shall appear, Each bird shall harmoniously join In a concert, so soft and so clear As she may not be fond to resign. I have found out a gift for my fair — I have found where the wood-pigeons breed But let me that plunder forbear — She will say 'twas a barbarous deed. For he ne'er could be true, she averr'd. Who would rob a poor bird of her young ; And I loved her the more when I heard Such tenderness fall from her tongue. I have heard her with sweetness unfold How that Pity was due to a dove ; That it ever attended the bold. And she called it the sister of Love. 198 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. But her words such a pleasure convey, So much I her accents adore, Let her speak, and whatever she say, Methinks I should love her the more. Can a bosom so gentle remain Unmoved when her Corydon sighs ? Will a nymph that is fond of the plain. These plains and this valley despise ? Dear regions of silence and shade ! Soft scenes of contentment and ease ! Where I could have pleasingly strayed. If aught in her absence could please. But where does my Phyllida stray ? And where are her grots and her bowers ? Are the groves and the valleys as gay. And the shepherds as gentle as ours ? The groves may perhaps be as fair. And the face of the valleys as fine ; The swains may in manners compare — But their love is not equal to mine. — William Shenstone. 1 i8. SILENT MUSIC. Rose-cheeked Laura, come! Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty's Silent music, either other Sweetly gracing. LYRICS OF LOVE. 199 Lovely forms do flow From concent divinely framed ; Heaven is music, and thy beauty's Birth is heavenly. These dull notes we sing Discords need for helps to grace them ; Only beauty purely loving Knows no discord ; But still moves delight, Like clear springs renewed by flowing. Ever perfect, ever in them- Selves eternal. — Thomas Campion. 19. SAMELA. Like to Diana in her summer weed, Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye, Goes fair Samela ! Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed, When washed by Arethusa faint they lie. Is fair Samela ! As fair Aurora in her morning gray, Decked with the ruddy glister of her love, Is fair Samela ! Like lovely Thetis on a calmed day, Whenas her brightness Neptune's fancies move. Shines fair Samela ! Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams ; Her teeth are pearl, the breasts are ivory Of fair Samela ! 200 CHOICE ENGLISH L YRICS. Her cheeks, like rose and lily, yield forth gleams; Her brows' bright arches framed of ebony : Thus fair Samela Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue, And Juno in the show of majesty. For she's Samela! Pallas in wit, — all three, if you will view, For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity. Yield to Samela. — Robert Greene. 20. TO HELEN. Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently o'er a perfumed sea. The weary way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam. Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face. Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo ! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand ! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land ! — Edgar Allan Foe. ii LYRICS OF LOVE. 201 21. MY JEAN. Of a' the airts the wind can blaw, I dearly Hke the west, For there the bonnie lassie lives, The lassie I lo'e best : There wild woods grow, and rivers row, And mony a hill between ; But, day and night, my fancy's flight Is ever wi' my Jean. I see her in the dewy flowers, I see her sweet and fair : I hear her in the tunefu' birds, I hear her charm the air : There's not a bonnie flower that springs By fountain, shaw, or green ; There's not a bonnie bird that sings. But minds me o' my Jean. — Robert Burns. MARY MORISON. Tune — "Bide ye yet." O Mary, at thy window be, It is the wished, the trysted hour ! Those smiles and glances let me see, That make the miser's treasure poor ; 202 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. How blithely wad I bide the stoure, A weary slave frae sun to sun ; Could I the rich reward secure, The lovely Mary Morison. Yestreen, when to the trembling string The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha', To thee my fancy took its wing, I sat, but neither heard nor saw ; Tho' this was fair, and that was braw. And yon the toast of a' the town, I sigh'd, and said amang them a', *' Ye are na Mary Morison." O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, Wha for thy sake wad gladly die ? Or canst thou break that heart of his, Whase only f aut is loving thee ? If love for love thou wilt na gie. At least be pity to me shown ! A thought ungentle canna be The thought o' Mary Morison. — Robert Burns. \ 23- HIGHLAND MARY. Ye banks and braes and streams around The castle o' Montgomery, Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, Your waters never drumlie ! LYRICS OF LOVE. 203 There simmer first unfauld her robes, And there the langest tarry ; For there I took the last fareweel O' my sweet Highland Mary. How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk, How rich the hawthorn's blossom, As underneath their fragrant shade I clasped her to my bosom ! The golden hours on angel wings Flew o'er me and my dearie ; For dear to me as light and life Was my sweet Highland Mary. Wi' mony a vow and locked embrace Our parting was f u' tender ; And pledging aft to meet again. We tore oursels asunder; But, oh ! fell Death's untimely frost. That nipt my flower sae early ! Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay, That wraps my Highland Mary ! Oh pale, pale now, those rosy lips, I aft hae kissed sae fondly ! And closed for aye the sparkling glance That dwelt on me sae kindly ; And mouldering now in silent dust That heart that lo'ed me dearly ! But still within my bosom's core Shall live my Highland Mary. — Robert Burns. 204 CHOICE ENGLISH L YRICB. 24. TO MARY IN HEAVEN. Tune — "Miss Forbes' Farewell to Banff." Thou ling'ring star, with less'ning ray, That lov'st to greet the early morn, Again thou usher'st in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary ! dear departed shade ! Where is thy place of blissful rest } Seest thou thy lover lowly laid } Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? That sacred hour can I forget, Can I forget the hallow'd grove. Where by the winding Ayr we met. To live one day of parting love ! Eternity will not efface Those records dear of transports past ; Thy image at our last embrace ; Ah ! little thought we 'twas our last ! Ayr gurgling kissed his pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green ; The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, Twined am'rous round the raptured scene. The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, The birds sang love on ev'ry spray, — Till too, too soon, the glowing west Proclaim'd the speed of winged day. Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes. And fondly broods with miser care ; { Time but th'impression deeper makes, ^ As streams their channels deeper wear. LYRICS OF LOVE. 205 My Mary, dear departed shade ! Where is thy place of blissful rest ? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? — Robert Burns. 25- THE AUTHOR'S RESOLUTION IN A SONNET. Shall I, wasting in despaire Dye, because a woman's fair ? Or make pale my cheeks with care Cause another's rosie are ? Be she fairer than the Day Or the flowry Meads in May, If she thinke not well of me, What care I Jioiv f aire she be ? Shall my seely heart be pin'd Cause I see a woman kind ? Or a well-disposed Nature Joyned with a lovely feature ? Be she Meeker, Kinder than Turtle-dove or Pellican : If she be not so to me. What care I how kind she be ? Shall a woman's Vertues move Me to perish for her Love ? Or her wel deservings knowne Make me quite forget mine own ? 206 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Be she with that Goodness blest Which may merit name of best : If she be not such to me, What care I how Good she be ? Cause her Fortune seems too high Shall I play the fool and die ? She that beares a Noble mind, If not outward helpes she find. Thinks what with them he wold do, That without them dares her woe. And unlesse that Minde I see What care I how great she be ? Great, or Good, or Kind, or Faire I will ne're the more despaire : If she love me (this beleeve) I will Die ere she shall grieve. If she slight me when I woe, I can scorne and let her goe, For if she be not for me What care I for whom she be } — George Wither. 26. THE SOLDIER GOING TO THE FIELD. Preserve thy sighs, unthrifty girl, To purify the air ; Thy tears to thread, instead of pearl. On bracelets of thy hair. LYRICS OF LOVE. 201 The trumpet makes the echo hoarse, And wakes the louder drum ; Expense of grief gains no remorse, When sorrow should be dumb : For I must go, where lazy peace Will hide her drowsy head ; And, for the sport of kings, increase The number of the dead. But first I'll chide thy cruel theft; Can I in war delight. Who, being of my heart bereft. Can have no heart to fight ? Thou knov/'st the sacred laws of old Ordained a thief should pay, To quit him of his theft, sevenfold What he had stol'n away. Thy payment shall but double be ; Oh then with speed resign My own seduced heart to me, Accompanied with thine. — Sir William Davenant. 27. SONG TO CHLORIS. Ah ! Chloris, that I now could sit As unconcerned as when Your infant beauty could beget No pleS-sure, nor no pain ! 208 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. When I the dawn used to admire And praised the coming day, I little thought the growing fire Must take my rest away. Your charms in harmless childhood lay, Like metals in the mine, Age from no face took more away Than youth concealed in thine. But as your charms insensibly To their perfection prest. Fond love as unperceived did fly, And in my bosom rest. My passion with your beauty grew, And Cupid at my heart, Still as his mother favored you, Threw a new flaming dart. Each gloried in their wanton part ; To make a lover, he Employed the utmost of his art, To make a beauty she. Though now I slowly bend to love, Uncertain of my fate, If your fair self my chains approve I shall my freedom hate. Lovers, like dying men, may well At first disordered be. Since none alive can truly tell What fortune they must see. — Sir Charles Sedley. LYRICS OF LOVE. 209 28. SONG. Welcome, welcome do I sing Far more welcome than the spring : He that parteth from you never Shall enjoy a spring for ever. Love, that to the voice is near Breaking from your ivory pale, Need not walk abroad to hear The delightful nightingale. Welcome, welcome then I sing Far more welcome than the spring : He that parteth from you never Shall enjoy a spring for ever. Love, that looks still on your eyes, Tho' the winter have begun To benumb our arteries. Shall not want the summer's sun. Welcome, welcome, &c. Love, that still may see your cheeks, Where all rareness still reposes. Is a fool if ere he seeks Other lilies, other roses. Welcome, welcome, Sz:c. Love, to whom your soft lip yields, And perceives your breath in kissing, All the odors of the fields Never, never shall be missing. Welcome, welcome, &c. o 210 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Love, that question would anew What fair Eden was of old, Let him rightly study you, And a brief of that behold. Welcome, welcome, &c. — William Browne. 29. TO ALTHEA — FROM PRISON. When Love with unconfined wings Hovers within my gates. And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the grates ; When I lie tangled in her hair And fetter'd to 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, I With shriller throat shall sing The sweetness, mercy, majesty And glories of my King ; 1 LYRICS OF LOVE. 211 When I shall voice aloud how good He is, how great should be, 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. — Colonel Richard Lovelace. 30- HER GOLDEN HAIR. Amarantha, sweet and fair, O braid no more that shining hair ! Let it fly, as unconfined As its calm ravisher, the wind Who hath left his darling east To wanton o'er that spicy nest. Ev'ry tress must be confest. But neatly tangled at the best — Like a clew of golden thread Most excellently ravelled ; Do not, then, wind* up that light In ribbons, and o'ercloud in night. Like the sun's in early ray ; But shartce your head, and scatter day ! — Colonel Richard Lovelace. 212 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. 31- 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 chase, 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. — Colonel Richard Lovelace. 1 1 32- APPRENTICED. (old style.) ** Come out and hear the waters shoot, the owlet hoot, the owlet hoot ; Yon crescent moon, a golden boat, hangs dim behind the tree, O ! The dropping thorn mak^s white the grass, O sweetest lass, and sweetest lass ; Come out and smell the ricks of hay adown the croft with me, O ! " LYRICS OF LOVE. 213 " My granny nods before her wheel, and drops her reel, and drops her reel ; My father with his crony talks as gay as gay can be, O ! But all the milk is yet to skim, ere light wax dim, ere light wax dim ; How can I step adown the croft, my 'prentice lad, with thee, O ? " "And must ye bide, yet waiting's long, and love is strong, and love is strong ; And O ! had I but served the time that takes so long to flee, O ! And thou, my lass, by morning's light, wast all in white, wast all in white ; And parson stood within the rails, a-marrying me and thee, O ! " — Jean Ingelow. 33- THE LONG WHITE SEAM. As I came round the harbor buoy. The lights began to gleam. No wave the land-locked harbor stirred, The crags were white as cream ; And I marked my love by candlelight Sewing her long white seam. It's aye sewing ashore, my dear, Watch and steer at sea, It's reef and furl, and haul the line, Set sail and think of thee. 214 CHOICE ENGLISH L YRICS. I climbed to reach her cottage door ; Oh sweetly my love sings ! Like a shaft of light her voice breaks forth, My soul to meet it springs, As the shining water leaped of old When stirred by angel wings. Aye longing to list anew, Awake and in my dream, But never a song she sang like this, Sewing her long white seam. Fair fall the lights, the harbor lights, That brought me in to thee, And peace drop down on that low roof, For the sight that I did see. And the voice, my dear, that rang so clear, All for the love of me. For O, for O, with brows bent low. By the flickering candle's gleam, Her wedding gown it was she wrought, Sewing the long white seam. — Jean Ingelow. 1 34. A BRIDAL SONG. Roses, their sharp spines being gone, Not royal in their smells alone. But in their hue ; Maiden-pinks, of odor faint ; Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint. And sweet thyme true; LYRICS OF LOVE, 215 Primrose, first-born child of Ver, Merry spring-time's harbinger, With her bells dim ; Oxlips in their cradles growing, Marigolds on death-beds blowing. Lark-heels trim ; All, dear Nature's children sweet. Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet, Blessing their sense ! Not an angel of the air, Bird melodious, or bird fair, Be absent hence ! The crow, the slanderous cuckoo, nor The boding raven, nor chough hoar, Nor chattering pie, May on our bride-house perch or sing, Or with them any discord bring. But from it fly ! — Beaumont and Fletcher. 35- CONSTANCY. Out upon it, I have loved Three whole days together ; And am like to love three more, If it {)rove fair weather. 216 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. fl Time shall moult away his wings, Ere he shall discover In the whole wide world again Such a constant lover. But the spite on't is, no praise Is due at all to me : Love with me had made no stays, Had it any been but she. Had it any been but she, ^ And that very face. There had been at least ere this A dozen dozen in her place. — Sir John Suckling. 36. COME O'ER THE SEA. Come o'er the sea, Maiden, with me. Mine through sunshine, storm, and snows ; Seasons may roll. But the true soul Burns the same, where'er it goes. Let fate frown on, so we love and part not ; 'Tis life where thou art, 'tis death where thou art not. Then come o'er the sea, Maiden, with me. Come wherever the wild wind blows ; Seasons may roll. But the true soul Burns the same, where'er it goes. LYRICS OF LOVE. 217 Was not the sea Made for the free, Land for courts and chains alone ? Here we are slaves, But on the waves Love and liberty's all our own. No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us, All earth forgot, and all heaven around us — Then come o'er the sea. Maiden, with me, Mine through sunshine, storm, and snows ; Seasons may roll. But the true soul Burns the same, where'er it goes. — Thomas Moore. 37- THE BANKS OF BOON. Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Boon, How can ye bloom sae fair ! How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae fu' o' care ! Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird, That sings upon the bough ; Thou minds me o' the happy days When my fause Luve was true. Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird, That sings beside thy mate ; For sae I sat, and sae I sang, And wist n^ o' my fate. 218 CHOICE ENGLISH L YRICS. Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon To see the woodbine twine, And ilka bird sang o' its love ; And sae did I o' mine. Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, Frae aff its thorny tree ; And my fause luver staw the rose, But left the thorn wi' me. — Robert Burns. 38. SONG. Lay a garland on my hearse Of the dismal yew ; Maidens, willow branches bear : Say, I died true. My love was false, but I was firm From my hour of birth. Upon my buried body lie Lightly, gentle earth ! — Beaumont and Fletcher. 39- PENTHEA'S DYING SONG. Oh no more, no more, too late Sighs are spent ; the burning tapers Of a life as chaste as fate. Pure as are unwritten papers, LYRICS OF LOVE. 219 Are burnt out ; no heat, no light Now remains ; 'tis ever night. Love is dead ; let lovers' eyes, Locked in endless dreams, Th'extremes of all extremes. Ope no more, for now Love dies. Now Love dies — implying Love's martyrs must be ever, ever dying. — John Ford. 40. STANZAS FOR MUSIC. There be none of Beauty's daughters With a magic like thee ; And like music on the waters Is thy sweet voice to me : When, as if its sound were causing The charmed ocean's pausing. The waves lie still and gleaming. And the lull'd winds seem dreaming : And the midnight moon is weaving Her bright chain o'er the deep ; Whose breast is gently heaving, As an infant's asleep : So the spirit bows before thee, To listen and adore thee ; With a full but soft emotion, Like the swell of Summer's ocean. — Lord Byron. 220 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. NOTES. No. I. Love Song. These lines are adapted from what Warton says is the earliest love-song in our language. The original is among the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum, and was written probably before the year 1200. No. 2. My Swete Swetyng. Written, it is supposed, in the time of Henry VIII. The author is unknown. 1. 13. minion. Dainty, neat. 1. 17. pigsnye. A word of endearment for a girl or a woman. From Danish pige, a girl. " She was a primerole, a piggesnie." — Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 3268. No. 3. In Praise of Daphne. Daphne, the daughter of a river- god, fleeing from Apollo, was changed into a laurel, or bay, tree. The bay is the tree of Apollo. No. 6. The Lover to his Lyre. The resemblance between this song and that which precedes it, although not approaching imitation, needs no comment. Dr. Johnson says of Cowley's love-songs that they are *' such as might have been written for penance by a hermit, or for hire by a philosophical rhymer who had only |feard of another sex." No. 7. The Lover's Appeal. L 4. grame. Sorrow. See Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 16,871: — " Lo swiche a lucre is this lusty game, A man's mirth it wol turn all to grame." No. 9. The Virgins. See Wisdom of Solomon, ii., 8: — " Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered." No. 10. The Rose's Message. "Waller's fame has sadly, but not undeservedly, declined since the time when it used to be taken for granted that he had virtually invented English poetry, or, one might almost say, the English language; since an editor ^ of his poems (1690) could write that his was ' a name that carries everything in it that is either great or graceful in poetry. He was indeed the parent of English verse, and the first that showed us our tongue had beauty and numbers in it. The tongue came into his hands like a rough diamond; he polished it first, and to that degree that all artists since him have admired the workmanship with- out pretending to mend it. ' " — Dean Trench. 1 Thought to be Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. LYRICS OF LOVE. Tl\ I. 7. graces spy'd. " These syllables drag painfully on the tongue and I remember to have heard the greatest living authority on melodious numbers suggest that Waller must have written graces eyed. The first edition of 1645, however, has, by an obvious misprint, ^raf»?C Scorn not the Sonnet : Critic you have frowned Mindless of its just honors ; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart ; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch'' s wound: A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound', With it Camohis soothed an exile'' s grief-. The so7inet glittered like a gay myrtle leaf Atnid the cypresses with which Dante crowned His visionary brow ; a glow-wor?n lamp It cheered 7nild Spetiser, called from Fae?y-land To struggle through dark ways ; and when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The thing became a trumpet ; whence he blew Soid-animating strains — alas, too few ! — William Wordsworth. I. DESCRIPTION AND PRAISE OF HIS LOVE GERALDINE. From Tuscan' came my lady's worthy race ; Fair Florence was some time their ancient seat ; The western isle, whose pleasant shore doth face Wild Camber's cliffs, did give her lively heat : Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast ; Her sire an earl ; her dame of princes' blood : 223 224 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. From tender years, in Britain she doth rest With king's child, where she tasteth costly food. Hunsdon did first present her to my een : Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight : Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine : And Windsor, alas, doth chase me from her sight. Her beauty of kind, her virtues from above ; Happy is he that can obtain her love. — Earl of Surrey. 2. HERSELF ALL TREASURE. Ye tradefull Merchants, that, with weary toyle Do seeke most pretious things to make your gain ; And both the Indias of their treasure spoile ; What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine } For loe, my Love doth in herselfe containe All this world's riches that may farre be found : If Saphyres, loe, her eies be Saphyres plaine ; If Rubies, loe, her lips be Rubies sound ; If Pearles, her teeth be Pearles, both pure and round ; If Ivorie, her forhead Ivorie weene ; If Gold, her locks are finest Gold on ground : If Silver, her faire hands are Silver sheene : But that which fairest is, but few behold — Her mind adorned with vertues manifold. — Edmund Spenser. SONNETS. 225 3- A VISION UPON THE FAERIE QUEENE. Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay, Within that temple where the vestal flame Was wont to burn ; and passing by that way To see that buried dust of living fame, Whose tomb fair Love and fairer Virtue kept, All suddenly I saw the Faerie Queene : At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept ; And from thenceforth those Graces were not seen, For they this Queen attended ; in whose stead Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse. Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed, And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce. Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief. And cursed the access of that celestial thief. — Sir Walter Raleigh. 4. ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. Much have I travelled in the realms of gold. And many goodly states and kingdoms seen ; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne : Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold : 226 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken ; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific — and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise — Silent, upon a peak in Darien. John Keats. 5- ON HIS BLINDNESS. When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent, which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he, returning, chide ; " Doth God exact day-labor, light denied ? " I fondly ask : but Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, *'God doth not need Either man's work, or his own gifts ; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best : his state Is kingly ; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest ; They also serve who only stand and wait." — John Milton. 6. TO MILTON. Milton ! thou shouldst be living at this hour ; England hath need of thee : she is a fen SONNETS, 227 Of stagnant waters : altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men : Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart : Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea ; Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free ; So didst thou travel on life's common way. In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on itself did lay. — William Wordsworth. 7- THE PARTING. Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part — Nay, I have done, you get no more of me ; And I anr glad, yea, glad with all my heart. That thus so cleanly I myself can free ; Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows. And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath, When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies. When faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And innocence is closing up his eyes, — Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over. From death to life thou might'st him yet recover ! — Michael Drayton. 228 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS, 8. EASTER MORNING. Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day- Didst make thy triumph over death and sin, And, having harrowed hell, didst bring away Captivity thence captive, us to win ; This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin, And grant that we, for whom Thou diddest die, Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin. May live for ever in felicity : And that thy love we weighing worthily, May likewise love Thee for the same again : And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy, With love may one another entertain. So let us love, dear Lord, like as we ought ; Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught. — Edmund Spenser. 9- QUATUOR NOVISSIMA. That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang' Upon those boughs which shake against the cold. Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds san^ In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west. I SONNETS. 229 Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. — William Shakespeare. lO. A LOVER'S LETTERS. My letters ! all dead paper, mute and white ! And yet they seem alive and quivering Against my tremulous hands which loose the string And let them drop down on my knee to-night. This said, — he wished to have me in his sight Once, as a friend : this fixed a day in spring To come and touch my hand — a simple thing, Yet I wept for it! this — the paper's light — Said, Dear, I love thee ; and I sank and quailed As if God's future thundered on my past. This said, / am thine — and so its ink has paled With lying at my heart that beat too fast : And this — O Love, thy words have ill availed. If, what this said, \ dared repeat at last ! — Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 230 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. II. LIFE'S LESSONS. Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round! Parents first season us : then schoolmasters 1 DeHver us to laws ; they send us bound, jH To rules of reason, holy messengers, '^■ Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes, Fine nets and stratg.gems to catch us in, Bibles laid open, millions of surprises. Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness, The sound of glory ringing in our ears ; Without, our shame ; within, our consciences ; Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears. Yet all these fences and their whole array One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away. — George Herbert. 12. SAD AND SWEET. Sad is our youth, for it is ever going. Crumbling away beneath our very feet ; Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing In current unperceived, because so fleet ; Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sowing - But tares, self-sown, have overtopped the wheat Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing — And still, oh still, their dying breath is sweet ; And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us Of that which made our childhood sweeter still ; SONNETS. 231 And sweet is middle life, for it hath left us A newer good to cure an older ill ; And sweet are all things when we learn to prize them Not for their sake, but His who grants them or denies ^^^"^* —Aubrey De Vere. 13- TO THE MOON. With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies ! How silently, and with how wan a face ! What, may it be that even in heavenly place That busy archer his sharp arrows tries ! Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case, I read it in thy looks ; thy languisht grace, To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me. Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit ? Are beauties there as proud as here they be ? Do they above love to be lov'd, and yet Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess ? Do they call virtue there ungratefulness ? — Sir Philip Sidney. 14. THE COMMON GRAVE. Last night beneath the foreign stars I stood, And saw th^ thoughts of those at home go by To the great grave upon the hill of blood. •I< 232 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Upon the darkness they went visibly, Each in the vesture of its own distress. Among them there came One, frail as a sigh, And like a creature of the wilderness Dug with her bleeding hands. She neither cried Nor wept ; nor did she see the many stark ^fll And dead that lay unburied at her side. ^^^' All night she toiled ; and at that time of dawn, When Day and Night do change their More and Less, And Day is More, I saw the melting Dark Stir to the last, and knew she labored on. — Sydney Dobell. 15- TO HIS LUTE. My lute, be as thou wert when thou didst grow With thy green mother in some shady grove, When immelodious winds but made thee move. And birds their ramage did on thee bestow. Since that dear Voice which did thy sounds approve, Which wont in such harmonious strains to flow, Is reft from Earth to tune those spheres above, What art thou but a harbinger of woe .'' Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more, But orphans' wailings to the fainting ear ; Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear ; For which be silent as in woods before : Or if that any hand to touch thee deign, Like widow'd turtle still her loss complain. — William Drummond. SONNETS. 233 i6. RESIGNATION AND DESPAIR. As due by many titles, I resign Myself to Thee, O God. First I was made By Thee and for Thee ; and, when I was decayed, Thy blood bought that, the which before was thine : I am thy son, made with Thyself to shine ; Thy servant, whose pains Thou hast still repaid, Thy sheep, thine image ; and, till I betrayed Myself, a temple of thy Spirit divine. Why doth the devil then usurp on me .? Why doth he steal, nay, ravish that's thy right } Except Thou rise, and for thine own work fight, Oh ! I shall soon despair, when I shall see That Thou lov'st mankind well, yet wilt not choose me And Satan hates me, yet is loth to lose me. — John Donne. 17- LAST SONNET. Bright star ! would I were steadfast as thou art Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, 234 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors. — No — yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell. Awake for ever in a sweet unrest ; Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever — or else swoon to death. — John Keats. 1 8. RETIREMENT. Give me a cottage on some Cambrian wild Where, far from cities, I may spend my days, And by the beauties of the scene beguil'd. May pity man's pursuits, and shun his ways, While on the rock I mark the browsing goat. List to the mountain-torrent's distant noise. Or the hoarse bittern's solitary note, I shall not want the world's delusive joys ; But with my little scrip, my book, my lyre. Shall think my lot complete, nor covet more ; And when, with time, shall wane the vital fire, I'll raise my pillow on the desert shore, And lay me down to rest where the wild wave Shall make sweet music o'er my lonely grave. — Henry Kirke White. SONNETS. 235 19. EVENING. Already evening ! In the duskiest nook Of yon dusk corner, under the Death's-head, Between the alembics, thrust this legended And iron-bound, and melancholy book ; For I will read no longer. The loud brook Shelves his sharp light up shallow banks thin-spread ; The slumbrous west grows slowly red, and red : Up from the ripen'd corn her silver hook The moon is lifting : and deliciously Along the warm blue hills the day declines. The first star brightens while she waits for me, And round her swelling heart the zone grows tight : Musing, half-sad, in her soft hair she twines The white rose, whispering "He will come to-night! ' ^ — Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton). 20. TWILIGHT. It is the hour when from the boughs The nightingale's high note is heard ; It is the hour when lovers' vows Seem sweet in every whispered word ; And gentle winds, and waters near. Make music to the lonely ear. 236 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Each flower the dews have lightly wet, And in the sky the stars are met, And on the wave is deeper blue, And on the leaf a browner hue. And in the heaven that clear obscure, So softly dark, and darkly pure. Which follows the decline of day. As twilight melts beneath the moon away. — Lord Byron. i 21. ILLUSIONS. A GOOD that never satisfies the mind, A beauty fading like the April flow'rs, A sweet with floods of gall, that run combin'd, A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours, An honour that more fickle is than wind, A glory at opinion's frown that low'rs, A treasury which bankrupt time devours, A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind, A vain delight our equals to command, A style of greatness, in effect a dream, A swelling thought of holding sea and land, A servile lot, deck'd with a pompous name, Are the strange ends we toil for here below. Till wisest death make us our errors know. — William Drummond. SONNETS. 237 SWEET AND BITTER. Sweet is the rose, but grows upon a brere ; Sweet is the juniper, but sharp his bough ; Sweet is the eglantine, but pricketh near ; Sweet is the firbloom, but his branches rough ; Sweet is the Cyprus, but his rind is tough ; Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill ; Sweet is the broom flower, but yet sour enough ; And sweet is moly, but his root is ill ; So, every sweet with sour is tempered still, That maketh it be coveted the more : For easy things that may be got at will Most sorts of men do set but little store. Why then should I account of little pain. That endless pleasure shall unto me gain } — Edmund Spenser. 23. THE NILE. It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands, Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream ; And times and things, as in that vision, seem Keeping along it their eternal stands, — Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme* 238. CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam, The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands. Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong. As of a world left empty of its throng, And the void weighs on us ; and then we wake. And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along 'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take Our own calm journey on for human sake. — Leigh Hunt. 24. IN SAN LORENZO. Is thine hour come to wake, O slumbering Night ? Hath not the Dawn a message in thine ear .'' Though thou be sto'lie and sleep, yet shalt thou hear When the word falls from heaven — Let there be Light. Thou knowest we would not do thee the despite To wake thee while the old sorrow and shame were near. We spake not loud for thy sake, and for fear Lest thou should'st lose the rest that was thy right. The blessing given thee that was thine alone. The happiness to sleep and to be stone. Yea, we kept silence of thee for thy sake. Albeit we knew thee alive, and left with thee The great good gift to feel not nor to see ; But will not yet thine Angel bid thee wake .? — A. C. Swinburne. 1 SONNETS. 239 25- HER EYES. Long-while I sought to what I might compare Those powerful eyes, which lighten my dark spright : Yet found I nought on earth, to which I dare Resemble th'image of their goodly light. Not to the Sun ; for they do shine by night ; Nor to the Moon ; for they are changed never ; Nor to the Stars ; for they have purer sight ; Nor to the Fire ; for they consume not never ; Nor to the Lightning ; for they still persever ; Nor to the Diamond ; for they are more tender ; Nor unto Crystal ; for naught may them sever ; Nor unto Glasse ; such baseness might offend her. Then to the Maker's self they likest be, Whose light doth lighten all that here we see. — Edmund Spenser. 26. CUPID AND CAMPASPE. Cupid and my Campaspe play'd At cards for kisses ; Cupid paid : He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows. His mother's doves, and team of sparrows ; Loses them too ; then down he throws The coral oi his lip, the rose 240 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Growing on's cheek (but none knows how); With these, the crystal of his brow, And then the dimple on his chin ; All these did my Campaspe win : At last he set her both his eyes — She won, and Cupid blind did rise. O Love ! has she done this to thee ? What shall, alas ! become of me ? — John Lyly. i 27. THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET. Green little vaulter on the sunny grass, Catching your heart up at the feel of June, Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon, When ev'n the bees lag at the summoning brass ; And you, warm little housekeeper, who class With those who think the candles come too soon. Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune Nick the glad silent moments as they pass ; O sweet and tiny cousins, that belong. One to the fields, the other to the hearth. Both have your sunshine ; both, though small, are strong At your clear hearts, and both seem given to earth To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song. In doors and out, summer and winter, mirth. — Leigh Hunt. SONNETS. 241 28. FANCY IN NUBIBUS. Oh, it is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonhght skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily-persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend's fancy ; or, with head bent low, And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold, 'Twixt crimson banks ; and then a traveller go From mount to mount, through Cloudland, gorgeous land! Or, listening to the tide with closed sight. Be that blind Bard, who on the Chian strand, By those deep sounds possessed with inward light. Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge. NOTES. No. 3. A Vision upon the Faerie Queene. This is the first of the commendatory verses prefixed to the first edition of The Faerie Queene. — "Two persons, I have no doubt, were included in the magnificent flat- tery of this sonnet — Queen EHzabeth as well as Spenser; for it was she whom the poet expressly imaged in his Queen of Fairyland; and Sir W. Raleigh was not the man to let the occasion pass for extolling that great woman, their joint mistress. His abolition of Laura, Petrarch, and Homer all in a lump, in honour of his friend Spenser is in the highest style of his wilful and somewhat domineering genius; but everything in the poem is as grandly as it is sumnmrily done." — Leigh Hunt. o 242 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. No. 15. To HIS Lute. This sonnet was later expanded by Shelley in his beautiful poem entitled To a Lady, with a Guitar (see page 336). ramage. Wood-song. harbinger. Messenger, herald, turtle. Turtle dove. No. 22. Sweet and Bitter. brere. Briar. eglantine. Hawthorn, moly. A herb with a black root and white blossoms, mentioned in the Odyssey. No. 23. The Nile. One of the finest of Leigh Hunt's poems. Sisostris. One of the greatest of Egypt's ancient rulers. A name given to the third king of the nineteenth dynasty, 2300 B.C. The laughing queen. Cleopatra. No. 24. In San Lorenzo. Line i. "(9 slumbering Night.^^ The famous statue of sleeping Night, on the tomb of Giuliano de' Medici, by Michael Angelo, in the Medici Chapel of San Lorenzo, Florence. The poet supposes the dawn of Italian liberty to be at hand as indeed it was, when this fine sonnet was written. No. 26. Cupid and Campaspe. From the drama entitled Alexander and Campaspe, published in 1584. "It is full," says Hazlitt, "of sweet- ness and point, of Attic salt and the honey of Hymettus." X?ric6 of Xife^ The poet's mission is not to disguise men frojn thejus elves, but to reveal to them their own stature, and make them better acquaijtted with the world around them. True, poetry is the re7ne77ibrance of love, the embodimejit in words of the happiest and holiest moments of life, of the noblest thoughts of man, of the greatest deeds of the past. — Professor Jowett. MAN'S MORTALITY. Like as the damask rose you see, Or like the blossom on the tree, Or like the dainty flower in May, Or like the morning of the day, Or like the sun, or like the shade. Or like the gourd which Jonas had — E'en such is man ; whose thread is spun, Drawn out, and cut, and so is done. The rose withers ; the blossom blasteth ; The flower fades ; the morning hasteth ; The sun sets, the shadow flies ; The gour(J consumes ; and man he dies ! 243 244 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Like to the grass that's newly sprung, Or like a tale that's new begun, Or like the bird that's here to-day, Or like the pearled dew of May, Or like an hour, or like a span, Or like the singing of a swan — E'en such is man ; who lives by breath, Is here, now there, in life and death. The grass withers, the tale is ended ; The bird is flown, the dew's ascended ; The hour is short, the span is long ; The swan's near death ; man's life is done ! — Simon Wastell. 2. THE LIFE OF MAN. Like to the falling of a star. Or as the flights of eagles are. Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue, Or silver drops of morning dew. Or like a wind that chafes the flood. Or bubbles which on water stood : Even such is man, whose borrowed light Is straight called in and paid to night : The wind blows out ; the bubble dies ; The spring intomb'd in autumn lies ; The dew's dry'd up ; the star is shot ; The flight is past ; and man forgot ! — Francis Beaumont. LYRICS OF LIFE. 245 3- LIFE AND THE FLOWERS. I MADE a posy while the day ran by : " Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie My life within this band." But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they By noon most cunningly did steal away, And withered in my hand. My hand was next to them, and then my heart. I took, without more thinking, in good part Time's gentle admonition ; Who did so sweetly death's sad taste convey, Making my mind to smell my fatal day. Yet sugaring the suspicion. Farewell, dear flow'rs ! sweetly your time ye spent ; Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament ; And after death, for cures. I follow straight, without complaints or grief ; Since, if my scent be good, I care not if It be as short as yours. — George Herbert. 246 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS, THE RETREAT. Happy those early days, when I Shin'd in my angel-infancy ! Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy ought But a white, celestial thought ; When yet I had not walk'd above A mile or two, from my first love, And looking back — at that short space — Could see a glimpse of His bright face ; When on some gilded cloud or flower My gazing soul would dwell an hour, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity ; Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound. Or had the black art to dispense, A sev'ral sin to ev'ry sense. But felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness. Oh how I long to travel back, And tread again that ancient track ! That I might once more reach that plain, Where first I left my glorious train ; From whence th' enlightened spirit sees That shady city of palm trees. But ah ! my soul with too much stay Is drunk, and staggers in the way ! 1 LYRICS OF LIFE. 247 Some men a forward motion love, But I by backward steps will move ; And when this dust falls to the urn, Into that state I came, return. — Henry Vaughan. 5- THE PIPER. Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me : — " Pipe a song about a lamb : " So I piped with merry cheer. " Piper, pipe that song again : " So I piped ; he wept to hear. " Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe, Sing thy songs of happy cheer : " So I sung the same again, While he wept with joy to hear. " Piper, sit thee down and write In a book that all may read " — So he vanished from my sight ; And I plucked a hollow reed. And I made a rural pen. And I stained the water clear. And I wrote my happy songs. Every child may joy to hear. • —William Blake. 248 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. 6. THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST. " So the dreams depart, So the fading phantoms flee, And the sharp reality Now must act its part." — Westwood'S Beads from a Rosary. Little Ellie sits alone 'Mid the beeches of a meadow, By a stream-side on the grass, And the trees are showering down Doubles of their leaves in shadow, On her shining hair and face. II. She has thrown her bonnet by, And her feet she has been dipping In the shallow water's flow ; Now she holds them nakedly In her hands, all sleek and dripping, While she rocketh to and fro. III. Little Ellie sits alone, And the smile she softly uses Fills the silence like a speech. While she thinks what shall be done, And the sweetest pleasure chooses For her future within reach. LYRICS OF LIFE. 249 IV. Little Ellie in her smile Chooses, '' I will have a lover, Riding on a steed of steeds : He shall love me without guile, And to him I will discover The swan's nest among the reeds. • V. " And the steed shall be red-roan. And the lover shall be noble. With an eye that takes the breath. And the lute he plays upon Shall strike ladies into trouble. As his sword strikes men to death. VI. " And the steed it shall be shod All in silver, housed in azure ; And the mane shall swim the wind ; And the hoofs along the sod Shall flash onward, and keep measure, Till the shepherds look behind. VII. " But my lover will not prize All the glory that he rides in, When he gazes in my face. He will say, ' O Love, thine eyes Build the shrine my soul abides in, And I kneel here for thy grace ! ' I 250 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. VIII. " Then, ay, then he shall kneel low, With the red-roan steed anear him, Which shall seem to understand, Till I answer, ' Rise and go ! For the world must love and fear him Whom I gift with heart and hand. IX. " Then he will arise so pale, I shall feel my own lips tremble With a yes I must not say : Nathless maiden-brave, * Farewell,' I will utter, and dissemble — ' Light to-morrow with to-day ! ' X. " Then he'll ride among the hills To the wide world past the river, There to put away all wrong. To make straight distorted wills. And to empty the broad quiver - Which the wicked bear along. \ XI. " Three times shall a young foot-page Swim the stream, and climb the mountain, And kneel down beside my feet : * Lo ! my master sends this gage. Lady, for thy pity's counting. What wilt thou exchange for it } * LYRICS OF LIFE. 251 XII. ** And the first time I will send A white rosebud for a guerdon : And the second time, a glove ; But the third time I may bend From my pride, and answer, — ' Pardon, If he comes to take my love.' xin. "Then the young foot-page will run ; Then my lover will ride faster. Till he kneeleth at my knee : * I am a duke's eldest son. Thousand serfs do call me master, But, O Love, I love but thee I ' XIV. " He will kiss me on the mouth Then, and lead me as a lover Through the crowds that praise his deeds ; And, wnen soul-tied by one troth. Unto him I will discover That swan's nest among the reeds." XV. Little Ellie, with her smile Not yet ended, rose up gayly. Tied the bonnet, donned the shoe, And went homeward, round a mile, Just to see, as she did daily. What more eggs were with the two. 252 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. XVI. Pushing through the elm-tree copse, Winding up the stream, Hght-hearted, Where the osier pathway leads. Past the boughs she stoops, and stops. Lo, the wild swan had deserted, And a rat had gnawed the reeds ! XVII. Ellie went home sad and slow. If she found the lover ever, With his red-roan steed of steeds, Sooth I know not ; but I know She could never show him — ■ never, That swan's nest among the reeds. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 7. A BOY'S SONG. Where the pools are bright and deep, Where the grey trout lies asleep. Up the river and o'er the lea, That's the way for Billy and me. Where the blackbird sings the latest, Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest, Where the nestlings chirp and flee. That's the way for Billy and me. LYRICS OF LIFE. 253 Where the mowers mow the cleanest, Where the hay lies thick and greenest ; There to trace the homeward bee, That's the way for Billy and me. Where the hazel bank is steepest, Where the shadow falls the deepest, Where the clustering nuts fall free, That's the way for Billy and me. Why the boys should drive away Little maidens from their play, Or love to banter and fight so well, That's the thing I never could tell. But this I know, I love to play, Through the meadow, among the hay : Up the water and o'er the lea, That's the way for Billy and me. — James Hogg. 8. YOUTH AND AGE. When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green ; And every goose a swan, lad. And every lass a queen ; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away ; Young blood must have its course, lad, And etery dog his day. 254 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown ; And all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down ; Creep home, and take your place there, The spent and maimed among : God grant you find one face there. You loved when all was young. — Charles Kingsley. 9- THE SPRING JOURNEY. Oh, green was the corn as I rode on my way. And bright were the dews on the blossoms of May, And dark was the sycamore's shade to behold. And the oak's tender leaf was of emerald and gold. The thrush from his holly, the lark from his cloud, Their chorus of rapture sang jovial and loud : From the soft vernal sky to the soft grassy ground. There was beauty above me, beneath, and around. The mild southern breeze brought a shower from the hill ; And yet, though it left me all dripping and chill, I felt a new pleasure as onward I sped, To gaze where the rainbow gleamed broad overhead. Oh, such be life's journey, and such be our skill, To lose in its blessings the sense of its ills ; Through sunshine and shower may our progress be even. And our tears add a charm to the prospect of heaven ! — Reginald Heber. LYRICS OF LIFE. 255 lO. OVER THE HILL. " Traveller, what lies over the hill ? Traveller, tell to me : I am only a child — from the window-sill Over I cannot see." *' Child, there's a valley over there, Pretty and wooded and shy ; And a little brook that says, ' Take care, Or I'll drown you by-and-by.' " " And what comes next ? " " A little town, And a towering hill again ; More hills and valleys, up and down, And a river now and then." " And what comes next } " "A lonely moor Without a beaten way ; And grey clouds sailing slow before A wind that will not stay." " And then ? " " Dark rocks and yellow sand, And a moaning sea beside." " And then t " '* More sea, more sea, more land, And rivers deep and wide." '' And then .? " " Oh, rock and mountain and vale. Rivers and fields and men. Over and over — a weary tale — And round to 'your home again." 256 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. ** And is that ail ? Have you told me the best ? " ** No, neither the best nor the end. On summer eves, away in the west. You will see a stair ascend, " Built of all colors of lovely stones, A stair up into the sky — Where no one is weary, and no one moans. Or wants to be laid by." **I will go." " But the steps are very steep ; If you would climb up there, You must lie at the foot, as still as sleep, A very step of the stair." — George Macdonald. II. YOUTH AND AGE. Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee — Both were mine ! Life went a-Maying With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, When I was young ! When I was young } — Ah, wof ul when ! Ah, for the change 'twixt Now and Then ! This breathing house not built with hands. This body that does me grievous wrong. O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands How lightly then it flash'd along : Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore. On winding lakes and rivers wide, LYRICS OF LIFE, 257 That ask no aid of sail or oar, That fear no spite of wind or tide ! Nought cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I Uved in't together. Flowers are lovely ; Love is flower-like ; Friendship is a sheltering tree ; Oh, the joys, that came down shower-like, Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, Ere I was old ! Ere I was old ? Ah woful Ere, Which tells me. Youth's no longer here! Youth ! for years so many and sweet 'Tis known that thou and I were one; I'll think it but a fond conceit — It cannot be, that thou art gone ! Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd : — And thou wert aye a masker bold ! What strange disguise hast now put on To make believe that thou art gone ? 1 see these locks in silvery slips. This drooping gait, this alter'd size : But Springtide blossoms on thy lips, And tears like sunshine from thine eyes ! Life is but Thought : so think I will That Youth and I are housemates still. Dew-drops are the gems of morning, But the tears of mournful eve ! Where no hope is, life's a warning That only serves to make us grieve When wfe are old : 258 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. — That only serves to make us grieve With oft and tedious taking-leave, Like some poor nigh-related guest That may not rudely be dismisst, Yet hath out-stay'd his welcome while, And tells the jest without the smile. — S. T. Coleridge. 12. THE STREAM OF LIFE. O STREAM descending to the sea, Thy mossy banks between, The flowerets blow, the grasses grow, The leafy trees are green. In garden plots the children play, The fields the laborers till. And houses stand on either hand, And thou descendest still. O life descending into death, Our waking eyes behold. Parent and friend thy lapse attend. Companions young and old. Strong purposes our minds possess, Our hearts affections fill, We toil and earn, we seek and learn, And thou descendest still. LYRICS OF LIFE. 259 O end to which our currents tend, Inevitable sea, To which we flow, what do we know, What shall we guess of thee ? A roar we hear upon thy shore. As we our course fulfil ; Scarce we divine a sun will shine And be above us still. — Arthur Hugh Clough. 13- A PETITION TO TIME. Touch us gently, Time ! Glide us adown thy stream Gently, — as we sometimes glide Through a quiet dream ! Humble voyagers are we. Husband, wife, and children three — (One is lost, — an angel, fled To the azure overhead !) Touch us gently. Time ! We've not proud nor soaring wings : Oii7' ambition, our content Lies in simple things. Humble voyagers are we. O'er Life's dim unsounded sea, Seeking only some calm clime : — Touch us gently, gentle Time ! • — Bryan Waller Procter. 260 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. 14. A PROPER MAN. Of your trouble, Ben, to ease me, I will tell what man would please me. I would have him if I could Noble ; or of greater blood ; Titles, I confess, do take me, And a woman God did make me ; French to boot, at least in fashion, And his manners of that nation. Young I'd have him too, and fair, Yet a man ; with crisped hair. Cast in thousand snares and rings, For love's fingers and his wings : Chestnut color, or more slack, Gold upon a ground of black. Venus and Minerva's eyes, For he must look wanton-wise. Eyebrows bent like Cupid's bow. Front, an ample field of snow ; Even nose, and cheek withal. Smooth as is the billiard-ball ; Chin as woolly as the peach ; And his lip should kissing teach, Till he cherished too much beard, And made Love or me afeard. He should have a hand as soft As the down, and show it oft ; Skin as smooth as any rush, And so thin to see a blush Rising through it, ere it came ; All his blood should be a flame. LYRICS OF LIFE. 261 Quickly fired, as in beginners In Love's school, and yet no sinners. 'Twere too long to speak of all ; What we harmony do call In a body should be there. Well he should his clothes, too, wear, Yet no tailor help to make him ; Drest, you still for man should take him, And not think h' had eat a stake. Or were set up in a brake. Valiant he should be as fire, Showing danger more than ire. Bounteous as the clouds to earth, And as honest as his birth ; All his actions to be such, As to do no thing too much : Nor o'er praise, nor yet condemn, Nor out-value, nor contemn ; Nor do wrongs, nor wrongs receive. Nor tie knots, nor knots unweave ; And from baseness to be free, As he durst love Truth and me. Such a man, with every part, I could give my very heart ; But of one if short he came, I can rest me where I am. — Ben JONSON. 262 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. 15- A PROPER WOMAN. He that loves a rosy cheek Or a coral lip admires, Or from star-like eyes doth seek Fuel to maintain his fires ; As old time makes these decay, So his flames must waste away. But a smooth and steadfast mind. Gentle thoughts and calm desires, Hearts with equal love combined. Kindle never dying fires ; — Where these are not, I despise Lovely cheeks, or lips, or eyes. — Thomas Carew. i6. THE COMMON LOT. Once, in the flight of ages past. There lived a man : — and who was he } Mortal ! howe'er thy lot be cast, That man resembled thee. Unknown the region of his birth. The land in which he died unknown : His name has perished from the earth ; This truth survives alone : — LYRICS OF LIFE. 263 That joy and grief, and hope and fear, Alternate triumphed in his breast ; His bHss and woe, — a smile, a tear ! — Oblivion hides the rest. The bounding pulse, the languid limb. The changing spirits' rise and fall. We know that these were felt by him, For these are felt by all. He suffered, — but his pangs are o'er; Enjoyed, — but his delights are fled ; Had friends, — his friends are now no more; And foes, — his foes are dead. He loved, — but whom he loved, the grave Hath lost in its unconscious womb : Oh, she was fair ! — but nought could save Her beauty from the tomb. He saw whatever thou hast seen ; Encountered all that troubles thee : He was — whatever thou hast been; He is — what thou shalt be. The rolling seasons, day and night, Sun, moon, and stars, the earth and main, Erewhile his portion, life and light. To him exist in vain. The clouds and sunbeams o'er his eye That once their shades and glory threw. Have left in yonder silent sky No vestige where they flew. 264 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. The annals of the human race, Their ruins since the world began, Of HIM afford no other trace Than this, — there lived a man ! — James Montgomery. 17. THE PERFECT LIFE. 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 night — It was the plant and flower of Light. In small proportions we just beauties see ; And in short measures life may perfect be. — Ben Jonson. 18. THE CONTENTED MIND. I WEIGH not fortune's frown or smile ; I joy not much in earthly joys ; I seek not state, I seek not style ; I am not fond of fancy's toys ; I rest so pleased with what I have, I wish no more, no more I crave. LYRICS OF LIFE. 265 I quake not at the thunder's crack; I tremble not at noise of war ; I swound not at the news of wrack ; I shrink not at a blazing star ; I fear not loss, I hope not gain, I envy none, I none disdain. I see ambition never pleased ; I see some Tantals starved in store ; I see gold's dropsy seldom eased ; I see e'en Midas gape for more : I neither want, nor yet abound — Enough's a feast, content is crowned. I feign not friendship, where I hate ; I fawn not on the great in show ; I prize, I praise a mean estate — Neither too lofty nor to low : This, this is all my choice, my cheer — A mind content, a conscience clear. — Joshua Sylvester. 19. A WISH. This only grant me, that my means may lie Too low for envy, for contempt too high. Some honor I would have Not from great deeds, but good alone. The unknown are better than ill known ; Rumor can ope the grave. Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends Not on the ifumber, but the choice of friends. 266 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Books should, not business, entertain the light, And sleep, as undisturb'd as death, the night. My house a cottage, more Than palace, and should fitting be, For all my use, not luxury. My garden painted o'er With nature's hand, not art's ; and pleasures yield, Horace might envy in his Sabine field. Thus would I double my life's fading space, For he that runs it well, twice runs his race. And in this true delight, These unbought sports, this happy state, I would not fear nor wish my fate. But boldly say each night. To-morrow let my sun his beams display. Or in clouds hide them ; I have liv'd to-day. — Abraham Cowley. 20. A WISH. Mine be a cot beside the hill ; A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear; A willowy brook that turns a mill. With many a fall shall linger near. The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch Shall twitter from her clay-built nest ; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch. And share my meal, a welcome guest. LYRICS OF LIFE. 267 Around my ivied porch shall spring Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew ; And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing In russet-gown and apron blue. The village church among the trees, Where first our marriage vows were given. With merry peals shall swell the breeze And point with taper spire to Heaven. — Samuel Rogers. 21. THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE. How happy is he born and taught That serveth not another's will ; Whose armor is his honest thought. And simple truth his utmost skill ; Whose passions not his masters are ; Whose soul is still prepared for death, Untied unto the world by care Of public fame or private breath; Who envies none that chance doth raise, Nor vice ; who never understood How deepest wounds are given by praise ; Nor rules of state, but rules of good ; Who hath his life from rumors freed ; Whose conscience is his strong retreat ; Whose state can neither flatterers feed. Nor rum make oppressors great ; 268 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS, Who God doth late and early pray More of his grace than gifts to lend; And entertains the harmless day With a religious 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. — Sir Henry Wotton. THE QUIET LIFE. Happy tl^e man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound. Content to breathe his native air In his own ground. Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire ; Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter, fire. Blest, who can unconcern'dly find Hours, days, and years, slide soft away In health of body ; peace of mind ; Quiet by day ; Sound sleep by night ; study and ease Together mix'd ; sweet recreation, And innocence, which most does please With meditation. LYRICS OF LIFE. 269 Thus let me live, unseen, unknown ; Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie. — Alexander Pope. ♦ 23- THE EASY LIFE. Is this a life, to break thy sleep, To rise as soon as day doth peep ? To tire thy patient ox or ass By noon, and let thy good days pass, Not knowing this, that Jove decrees Some mirth, t'adulce man's miseries } — No : 'tis a life to have thine oil Without extortion from thy soil ; Thy faithful fields to yield thee grain, Although with some, yet little pain ; To have thy mind, and nuptial bed. With fears and cares uncumbered; A pleasing wife, that by thy side Lies softly panting like a bride; — This is to live, and to endear Those minutes Time has sent us here. Then, while fates suffer, live thou free, As is that air that circles thee ; And crown thy temples too ; and let Thy servant, not thy own self, sweat. To strut thy barns with sheaves of wheat. — Time steals away like to a stream. And we glfde hence away with them ; 270 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. No sound recalls the hours once fled, Or roses, being withered; Nor us, my friend, when we are lost. Like to a dew, or melted frost. — Then live we mirthful while we should, And turn the iron age to gold ; Let's feast and frolic, sing and play, And thus less last, than live our day. Whose life with care is overcast, That man's not said to live, but last ; Nor is't a life, seven years to tell. But for to live that half seven well ; And that we'll do, as men who know. Some few sands spent, we hence must go, Both to be blended in the urn, From whence there's never a return. — Robert Herrick. 24. CONTENT. Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers ? O sweet Content ! Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed ? O Punishment ! Dost laugh to see how fools are vexed To add to golden numbers golden numbers t O sweet Content, O sweet, O sweet Content ! Work apace, apace, apace, apace. Honest labor bears a lovely face. Then hey noney, noney ; hey noney, noney. LYRICS OF LIFE. 271 Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring ? O sweet Content ! Swim'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears ? O Punishment ! Then he that patiently Want's burden bears, No burden bears, but is a king, a king. O sweet Content, O sweet, O sweet Content ! Work apace, apace, etc. -Thomas Dekker. 25- MELANCOLIA. Hence, all you vain delights, As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly: There's nought in this life sweet, If man were wise to see't. But only melancholy, O sweetest melancholy ! Welcome, folded arms, and fixed eyes, A sigh that piercing mortifies, A look that's fasten'd to the ground, A tongue chain'd 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. — Francis Beaumont. m 272 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. 26. ON MELANCHOLY, li When I go musing all alone, Thinking of divers things foreknown ; When I build castles in the air, Void of sorrow, void of care. Pleasing myself with phantasms sweet, Methinks the time runs very fleet. All my joys to this are folly ; Naught so sweet as melancholy ! 2. When I go walking all alone, Recounting what I have ill-done. My thoughts on me then tyrannise. Fear and sorrow me surprise, Whether I tarry still, or go, Methinks the time moves very slow. All my griefs to this are jolly ; Naught so sad as melancholy. 3- When to myself I act and smile, With pleasing thoughts the time beguile. By a brookside or wood so green. Unheard, unsought for, or unseen, A thousand pleasures do me bless. And crown my soul with happiness. ^ All my joys besides are folly ; None so sweet as melancholy. LYRICS OF LIFE. 273 4. When I lie, sit, or walk alone, I sigh, I grieve, making great moan ; In a dark grove or irksome den, With discontents and furies then, A thousand miseries at once Mine heavy heart and soul ensconce. All my griefs to this are jolly ; None so sour as melancholy. Methinks I hear, methinks I see Sweet music, wondrous melody. Towns, palaces, and cities fine ; Here now, then there, the world is mine; Rare beauties, gallants, ladies shine, Whate'er is lovely, is divine. All other joys to this are folly; None so sweet as melancholy. 6. Methinks I hear, methinks I see Ghosts, goblins, fiends : my fantasy Presents a thousand ugly shapes ; Headless bears, black men, and apes; Doleful outcries, fearful sights My sad and dismal soul affrights. All my griefs to this are jolly ; None so damn'd as melancholy. ^ —Robert Burton. s 274 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. 27. BREAK, BREAK, BREAK! Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea ! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. Oh well for the fisherman's boy. That he shouts with his sister at play! Oh well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay ! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill ; But oh for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still ! Break, break, break. At the foot of thy crags, O Sea ! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me. — Alfred Tennyson. 28. THE SOUL'S ERRAND. Go, Soul, the body's guest, Upon a thankless errand ; Fear not to touch the best ; The truth shall be thy warrant. Go, since I must die, And give the world the lie. LYRICS OF LIFE. 275 Say to the Court it glows And shines like rotten wood ; Say to the Church it shows What's good, and doth no good. If Church and Court reply, Then give them both the lie. Tell Potentates they live Acting but others' actions; Not loved unless they give. Not strong but by their factions. If Potentates reply. Give Potentates the lie. Tell men of high condition, That manage the estate, Their purpose is ambition, Their practice only hate. And if they once reply. Then give them all the lie. Tell them that brave it most. They beg for more by spending. Who in their greatest cost Like nothing but commending : And if they make reply. Then tell them all they lie. Tell Zeal it wants devotion ; Tell Love it is but lust ; Tell Time it is but motion ; Tell Flesh it is but dust. And wish them not reply. For thou must give the lie. 276 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Tell Age it daily wasteth ; Tell Honor how it alters ; Tell Beauty how she blasteth ; Tell Favor how it falters. And as they shall reply, Give every one the lie. Tell Wit how much it wrangles In tickle points of niceness ; Tell Wisdom she entangles Herself in over-wiseness. And when they do reply, Straight give them both the lie. Tell Physic of her boldness ; Tell Skill it is pretension ; Tell Charity of coldness ; Tell Law it is contention. And as they do reply, So give them still the lie. Tell Fortune of her blindness ; Tell Nature of decay ; Tell Friendship of unkindness ; Tell Justice of delay. And if they will reply, Then give them all the lie. Tell Arts they have no soundness, But vary by esteeming ; Tell Schools they want profoundness, And stand too much on seeming. If Arts and Schools reply. Give Arts and Schools the lie. LYRICS OF LIFE. 211 Tell Faith it's fled the city; Tell how the country erreth ; Tell Manhood shakes off pity ; Tell Virtue least preferreth. And if they do reply, Spare not to give the lie. So when thou hast, as I Commanded thee, done babbling, Although to give the lie Deserves no less than stabbing, Yet stab at thee who will. No stab the soul can kill. — Sir Walter Raleigh (?). 29. THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS. Oft in the stilly night Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me ; The smiles, the tears Of boyhood's years. The words of love then spoken ; The eyes that shone, Now dimmed and gone. The cheerful hearts now broken ! Thus in the stilly night Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Sad Memory brings the light Of ^ther days around me. 278 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. When I remember all The friends so linked together I've seen around me fall Like leaves in wintry weather, I feel like one Who treads alone Some banquet-hall deserted, Whose lights are fled, Whose garlands dead, And all but he departed ! Thus in the stilly night Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Sad Memory brings the light Of other days around me. — Thomas Moore. 30- JOHN ANDERSON. John Anderson my jo, John, When we were first acquent Your locks were like the raven, Your bonnie brow was brent ; But now your brow is bald, John, Your locks are like the snow ; But blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson my jo. John Anderson my jo, John, We clamb the hill thegither, And mony a canty day, John, We've had wi' ane anither: LYRICS OF LIFE. 279 Now we maun totter down, John, But hand in hand we'll go, And sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson my jo. — Robert Burns. 31- AULD LANG SYNE. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind ? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days o' lang syne } Chorus. For auld lang syne, my dear. For auld lang syne, We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, For auld lang syne. And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp, And surely I'll be mine ; And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet For auld lang syne. For auld, &c. We twa hae run about the braes. And pu'd the gowans fine ; But we've wander'd mony a weary foot Sin' auld lang syne. Por auld, &c. CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. We twa hae paidl'd i' the burn, From morning sun till dine ; But seas between us braid hae roar'd Sin' auld lang syne. For auld, &c. And here's a hand, my trusty fiere, And gie's a hand o' thine ; And we'll tak a right guid willie-waught, For auld lang syne. For auld, &c. — Robert Burns. 1 32. THE LAND O' THE LEAL. I'm wearin' awa', John, Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John, I'm wearin' awa' To the land o' the leal. There's nae sorrow there, John, There's neither cauld nor care, John, The day is aye fair In the land o' the leal. Our bonnie bairn's there, John, She was baith gude and fair, John, And oh ! we grudg'd her sair To the land o' the leal. But sorrow's sel' wears past, John, And joy's a-comin' fast, John, And joy that's aye to last In the land o' the leal. LYRICS OF LIFE. 281 Sae dear that joy was bought, John, Sae free the battle fought, John, That sinfu' man e'er brought To the land o' the leal. Oh ! dry your glistening e'e, John, My soul langs to be free, John, And angels beckon me To the land o' the leal. Oh ! baud ye leal and true, John, Your day it's wearin' thro', John, And I'll welcome you To the land o' the leal. Now fare ye weel, my ain John, This warld's cares are vain, John ; We'll meet, and we'll be fain, In the land o' the leal. — Lady Nairne. ♦ GROWING OLD. What is it to grow old ? Is it to lose the glory of the form. The lustre of the eye t Is it for beauty to forego her wreath t Yes, but not this alone. Is it to feel our strength — Not our bloom only, but our strength — decay } Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every function less exact, Each nerre more weakly strung t 282 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Yes, this, and more ! but not, Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dream'd 'twould be ! 'Tis not to have our Hfe Mellow'd and soften'd as with sunset glow, A golden day's decline ! 'Tis not to see the world As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, And heart profoundly stirr'd ; And weep, and feel the fulness of the past, The years that are no more ! It is to spend long days And not once feel that we were ever young. It is to add, immured In the hot prison of the present, month To month with weary pain. It is to suffer this, And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel. Deep in our hidden heart Festers the dull remembrance of a change. But no emotion — none. It is — last stage of all — When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves, To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man. — Matthew Arnold. LYRICS OF LIFE. 283 34. TO MY GRANDMOTHER. This Relative of mine, Was she seventy-and-nine When she died ? By the canvas may be seen How she looked at seventeen, As a Bride. Beneath a summer tree. Her maiden reverie Has a charm; Her ringlets are in taste ; What an arm ! . . . what a waist For an arm ! With her bridal-wreath, bouquet, Lace farthingale, and gay Falbala, — If Romney's art be true, What a lucky dog were you. Grandpapa ! Her lips are sweet as love ; They are parting ! Do they move ? Are they dumb ? Her eyes are blue, and beam Beseechingly, and seem To say, " Come ! " What funny fancy slips From atween these cherry lips ? • Whisper me, 284 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Fair Sorceress in paint, What canon says I mayn't Marry thee ? That good-for-nothing Time Has a confidence sublime ! When I first Saw this Lady, in my youth. Her winters had, forsooth, Done their worst. Her locks, as white as snow, Once shamed the swarthy crow By-and-by That fowl's avenging sprite Set his cruel foot for spite Near her eye. Her rounded form was lean. And her silk was bombazine : Well I wot With her needles would she sit, And for hours would she knit, — Would she not } Ah, perishable clay; Her charms had dropt away One by one : But if she heaved a sigh With a burthen, it was, '' Thy Will be done." In travail, as in tears. With the fardel of her years Overprest, Ai LYRICS OF LIFE. 285 In mercy she was borne Where the weary and the worn Are at rest. Oh, if you now are there, And sweet as once yon were^ Grandmamma, This nether world agrees You'll all the better please Grandpapa. — Frederick Locker-Lampson. 35- UP-HILL. Does the road wind up-hill all the way } Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day } From morn till night, my friend. But is there for the night a resting-place } A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. May not the darkness hide it from my face > You cannot miss that inn. Shall I meet other wayfarers at night ? Those who have gone before. Then must I knock, or call when just in sight } They will not keep you standing at that door. Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak .? Of labor you shall find the sum. Will there be beds for me and all who seek } Yea, beds for all who come. — Christina Rossetti. 286 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. 36. A PARTING IN DREAMLAND. Among the poppies by the well Of Lethe, where I weary lay, Upon my soul a slumber fell. Making the light of summer gray; Nepenthe too I ate of him. Whose eyes were eyes of Seraphim. But ere I slept, while still it seemed That sleep was a delicious thing. The splendor of a vision streamed Above the poppy-heads that fling Their drowsy juice and drowsy scent Through blood and brain with ravishment. For there he stood whose eyes are eyes Of Seraphim : and lo ! his lips Seemed quivering with the winds of sighs ; And all his forehead in eclipse Burned not, but showered well-heads of tears Amid the deserts of dead years. Yea, and his heart fed living fire ; And both his cheeks like ashes wan Were cinders of a spent desire For lack of food to feed upon : Therewith the Spirit smiled and spake Words sweet as breath from buds that break : "I go ; take now, dear soul, thy rest ; Slumber beneath the poppy-flowers ! The mole within her winter nest Be not so folded from sad hours LYRICS OF LIFE, 287 As thou, who of the thought of me Eatest Nepenthe wearily. "I go ; but when thy dream is o'er, When thou awakest cold perchance, And haply from sleep's golden door Gazest upon the drear expanse Of barren years and vacant life And long monotony of strife, ** Think then of me : though hence I go ; Though I am withered, worn, and old, With waiting, praying, weeping through Long days that shiver in the cold Of thy scant love — yet will I come, And, when thou callest, bear thee home." He spake ; and fire with sudden pain Flashed in his face. Then slumber fell Upon my lids like summer rain ; And through faint dreams the terrible Flame of that head, of those wild eyes. Died ; and my sleep was Paradise. — J. A. Symonds. — ♦ 37- THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. Let not the water floods overfloiv me^ neither let the deeps sivallow me up. Psalm Ixii. 15. The world's a sea ; my flesh a ship that's manned With lab'ring thoughts, and steered by reason's hand, My heart's the seaman's card whereby she sails ; My loose affections are the greater sails ; 288 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. The top-sail is my fancy, and the gusts That fill these wanton sheets, are worldly lusts. Prayer is the cable, at whose end appears The anchor hope, ne'er slipped but in our fears : My will's th' unconstant pilot, that commands The stagg'ring keel ; my sins are like the sands : Repentance is the bucket, and mine eye The pump unused (but in extremes) and dry : My conscience is the plummet that does press The deeps, but seldom cries, O fathomless : Smooth calm's security : the gulf, despair ; My freight's corruption, and this life's my fare : My soul's the passenger, confusedly driven From fear to fright ; her landing port is heaven. My seas are stormy, and my ship doth leak; My sailors rude ; my steersman faint and weak : My canvas torn, it flaps from side to side : My cable's crack'd, my anchor's slightly tied, My pilot's crazed ; my ship-wrack sands are cloaked My bucket's broken, and my pump is choked ; My calm's deceitful; and my gulf too near; My wares are slubbered, and my fare's too dear : My plummet's light, it cannot sink nor sound ; Oh shall my rock-bethreateuld" soul be drown'd } Lord, still the seas, and shield my ship from harm ; Instruct my sailors, guide my steersman's arm : Touch thou my compass, and renew my sails, Send stiffer courage or send milder gales ; Make strong my cable, bind my anchor faster ; Direct my pilot, and be thou his master ; Object the sands to my more serious view. Make sound my bucket, bore my pump anew : New-cast my plummet, make it apt to try LYRICS OF LIFE. 289 Where the rocks lurk, and where the quick-sands lie ; Guard thou the gulf with love, my calms with care ; Cleanse thou my freight ; accept my slender fare ; Refresh the sea-sick passenger ; cut short His voyage ; land him in his wished port : Thou, then, whom winds and stormy seas obey. That through the deep gavest grumbling Israel way, Say to my soul, be safe ; and then mine eye Shall scorn grim death, although grim death stand by. O thou whose strength-reviving arm did cherish Thy sinking Peter, at the point to perish. Reach forth thy hand, or bid me tread the wave, I'll come, I'll come : the voice that calls will save. — Francis Quarles. The confluence of lust makes a great tempest, which in this sea disturbeth the sea-faring soul, that reason cannot govern it. — St. Ambrose. Apol. post, pro David, cap. 3. We labour in the boisterous sea : thou standest upon the shore and seest our dangers ; give us grace to hold a middle course between Scylla and Charybdis, that, both dangers escaped, we may arrive at the port secure. — St. Augustine. Soliloq, cap. 35. Epig. II. My soul, the seas are rough, and thou a stranger In these false coasts ; O keep aloof ; there's danger : Cast forth thy plummet; see a rock appears; Thy ship wants sea-room ; make it with thy tears. 290 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. 38. CROSSING THE BAR. Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me ! And may there be no moaning at the bar When I put out to sea, But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam. When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark ! And may there be no sadness of farewell When I embark ; For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar. — Alfred Tennyson. ♦ 39- LIFE AND DEATH. Life ! I know not what thou art, But know that thou and I must part ; And when, or where, or how we met I own to me's a secret yet. Life ! we've been long together Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear — Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear ; — LYRICS OF LIFE. 291 Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time ; Say not Good-night, — but in some brighter clime Bid me Good-morning. — Anna Letitia Barbauld. ■♦ 40. SWEET PERIL. Alas ! how easily things go wrong — A sigh too much, or a kiss too long, And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, And life is never the same again. Alas ! how hardly things go right — 'Tis hard to watch in a summer night, For the sigh will come, and the kiss will stay, And the summer night is a winter day. — George Macdonald. 41. DEATH. They die — the dead return not. Misery Sits near an open grave, and calls them over, A youth with hoary hair and haggard eye. They are the names of kindred, friend, and lover. Which he so feebly calls'. They all are gone. Fond wretch, all dead ! Those vacant names alone, This most familiar scene, my pain. These tombs, — alone remain. 292 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Misery, my sweetest friend, oh ! weep no more ! Thou wilt not be consoled ? I wonder not : For I have seen thee from thy dwelling's door Watch the calm sunset with them, and this spot Was even as bright and calm but transitory, — And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary. This most familiar scene, my pain, These tombs, — alone remain. — Percy Bysshe Shelley. 42. SORROW-SONG. O SORROW, sorrow, say where dost thou dwell } In the lowest room of hell. Art thou born of human race t No, no, I have a furier face. Art thou in city, town, or court t I to every place resort. Oh, why into the world is sorrow sent ? Men afflicted best repent. What dost thou feed on t Broken sleep. What tak'st thou pleasure in } To weep. To sigh, to sob, to pine, to groan. To wring my hands, to sit alone. Oh, when, oh, when shall sorrow quiet have } Never, never, never, never. Never till she finds a grave. — Samuel Rowley- 1 LYRICS OF LIFE, 29Z 43- DEATH'S TRIUMPH. The glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things ; There is no armor against fate : Death lays his icy hand on kings. Sceptre and crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade. Some men with swords may reap the field, And plant with laurels where they kill ; But thdr strong nerves at last must yield. They tame but one another still; Early or late. They stoop to fate, And must give up their murmuring breath, When they, pale captives ! creep to death. The garlands wither on your brow ; Then boast no more your mighty deeds ; Upon death's purple altar, now. See where the victor victim bleeds ! All heads must come To the cold tomb. Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust. — James Shirley. 294 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. 44. TO LIFE'S PILGRIM. Fly from the press, and dwell with soothf astness ; Suffice unto thy good, though it be small. For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness ; Preise hath envie, and weal is blent o'er all. Savour no more than thee behoven shall, Rede well thyself that other folk can'st rede, And Truth thee shalt deliver — 'tis no drede. That thee is sent receive in buxomness : The wrestling of this world, asketh a fall. Here is no home, here is but wilderness. Forth, pilgrim, forth — on, best out of thy stall ; Look up on high, and thank the God of all ! Weivith thy lust, and let thy ghost thee lead, And Truth thee shalt deliver — 'tis no drede. — Geoffrey Chaucer. 45- LAST LINES. Even such is time, that takes in trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have, And pays us but with earth and dust ; Who, in the dark and silent grave. When we have wandered all our ways. Shuts up the story of our days ; But from this earth, this grave, this dust, My God shall raise me up I trust. — Sir Walter Raleigh. L YKICS OF LIFE, 295 NOTES. No. I. Man's Mortality. First published in the second edition of Wastell's Microbiblion, 1629. There are doubts concerning its authorship. 1. 6. gourd which Jonas had. See Jonah, iv. No. 4. The Retreat. "This poem, apart from its proper beauty, has a deeper interest, as containing in the germ Wordsworth's still higher strain, namely, his Ode on Intimations of Inwiortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. I proceeded in my first edition to say, ' I do not mean that Wordsworth had ever seen this poem when he wrote his own. The coincidences are so remarkable that it is certainly difficult to esteem them accidental; but Wordsworth was so little a reader of anything out of the way, and at the time when his Ode was composed, the Silex Scintillans was altogether out of the way, a book of such excessive rarity, that an explanation of the points of contact between the poems must be sought for elsewhere.' That this was too rashly spoken I have since had proof. A correspondent, with date July 13, 1869, has written to me, 'I have a copy of the first edition of the Silex, incomplete and very much damp- stained, which I bought in a lot with several other books at the poet Wordsworth's sale.' The entire forgetfulness into which poetry, which, though not of the very highest order of all, is yet of a very high one, may fall, is strikingly exemplified in the fact that as nearly as possible two centuries intervened between the first and second editions of Vaughan's poems. The first edition of the first part of the Silex Scintillans appeared in 1650, the second edition of the book in 1847. That which is sometimes referred to as a second edition, bearing date 1655, is indeed only the first, with a new title-page and preface, and some eighty-four pages of addi- tional matter. Oblivion overtook him from the first. Phillips in his Theatrum Poetartvn, 1675, just mentions him and no more; and knows him only by his Olor Iscanus, a juvenile production, of comparatively little worth; which yet, seeing that it yields such lines as the following — they form part of a poem addressed to the unfortunate Elizabeth of Bohemia, daughter of our first James — cannot be affirmed to be of none : ' Thou seem'st a rosebud born in snow ; A flower of purpose sprung to bow T# heedless tempests and the rage Of an incensed stormy age : 296 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. ' And yet as balm-trees gently spend Their tears for those that do them rend, Thou didst not murmur nor revile, But drank'st thy wormwood with a smile.' As a theologian Vaughan may be inferior, but as a poet he is certainly superior, to Herbert, who never wrote anything so purely poetical as TAf Retreat. Still Vaughan would probably never have written as he has, if Herbert, whom he gratefully owns as his master, had not shown him the way." — Trench. No. 5. The Piper. This poem forms the introduction to Blake's Songs of hmocence, 1789. No. 8. Youth and Age. A song from the story of The Water-Babies, 1863. No. II. Youth and Age. Leigh Hunt says : " This is one of the most perfect poems for style, feeling, and everything, that ever was written." No. 12. The Stream of Life. Yxova. Poems on Life and Duty. No. 20. The Character of a Happy Life. First published in the Reliquicz IVottoniance, in 165 1, twelve years after Wotton's death. No. 21. A Wish. First published in /'^(f/zV^/ ^/^jj(?W(?5', 1633. No. 22. The Quiet Life. It is said that these lines were written by Pope in 1700, when only twelve years old. No. 24. Content. From the drama entitled Patient Grissell. No. 25. Melancolia. This might be supposed to have suggested Milton's // Penseroso., were it not that it did not appear until two years after the publication of that poem (1637). No. 26. On Melancholy. From The Anatomy of Melancholy , 1621, — the book of which Dr. Johnson said it was the only one that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise. No. 28. The Soul's Errand. Published in Davison's Poetical Rhap- sody, 1608. It is ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh by no better evidence than tradition. As it appeared some ten years before his death, there can be no truth in the statement which is sometimes made that it was written on the night before his execution. LYRICS OF LIFE. 297 No. 30. John Anderson. jo. Darling. brent. Brown. pow. Poll, head. canty. Happy, maun. Must. No. 31. AuLD Lang Syne. pint-stowp. Flagon. braes. Hill-slopes. gowan. Daisy. burn. Brook. sun till dine. Sunrise to sunset. fiere. Companion. willie-waught. Hearty pull. No. 32. The Land o' the Leal. leal. True. aye. Ever. bairn. Child. sair. Sorely. e'e. Eye. baud ye. Keep yourself. fain. Glad. No. 34. To My Grandmother. The poem was suggested by a pict- ure by Mr. Romney. No. 37. The Voyage of Life. From Emblems, Divine and Moral, 1635. "He uses language almost as greatly as Shakespeare," says Tho- reau; "and although there is not much straight grain in him, there is plenty of tough crooked timber." L 27. slubbered. Smeared over. 1. 28. plummet. Lead. No. 42. Sorrow-Song, The writer of this poem was one of the play- ers in the service of Henry, Prince of Wales. His best known work is a play called The Spanish Writer, from which this little song has been taken. No. 43. Death's Triumph. From the drama entitled The Conten- tions of Ajax and Ulysses, 1659. No. 44. Last Lines. These verses are said to have been written by Sir Walter Raleigh in his Bible on the night before his execution, October 29, 1618. 1ReUgiou0 Songe anb flDeloMee^ >><^c With Christians, a poetical view of thijigs is a duty, — we are bid to color all things with hues of faith, to see a Divine fneaning 171 every evejit, and a siiperhtiman tendency. Even our friends ar 01171 d are invested with unearthly brightness — no lojiger imperfect men, but beings taken into Divine favor, sta?nped with His seal, and in training for future happiness. Religion presents us with those ideal forms of excellence in which a poetical mind delights, and with which all grace and har?nony are associated. — John Henry Newman. I. PEACE. My soul, there is a country, Afar beyond the stars. Where stands a winged sentry, All skilful in the wars. There, above noise and danger. Sweet Peace sits crowned with smiles, And One born in a manger Commands the beauteous files. He is thy gracious friend. And (O my soul, awake !) Did in pure love descend, To die here for thy sake. 298 RELIGIOUS SONGS AND MELODIES. 299 If thou canst get but thither, There grows the flower of peace, The rose that cannot wither, Thy fortress, and thy ease. Leave then thy fooHsh ranges ; For none can thee secure. But One who never changes, Thy God, thy Life, thy Cure. — Henry Vaughan. THE HEAVENLY JERUSALEM. Jerusalem, my happy home. When shall I come to thee } When shall my sorrows have an end. Thy joys when shall I see } O happy harbor of the saints ! O sweet and pleasant soil ! In thee no sorrow may be found, No grief, no care, no toil. In thee no sickness may be seen. Nor hurt, nor ache, nor sore : There is no death, nor ugly dole, But Life for evermore. There lust and lucre cannot dwell, There envy bears no sway : There is no hunger, heat, nor cold, But pleasure every way. Thy walls are made of precious stones, Thy bulwarks diamonds square ; 300 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Thy gates are of right orient pearl, Exceeding rich and rare. Thy turrets and thy pinnacles With carbuncles do shine ; Thy very streets are paved with gold, Surpassing clear and fine. Thy houses are of ivory, Thy windows crystal clear ; Thy tiles are made of beaten gold ; — O God, that I were there ! Ah, my sweet home, Jerusalem, Would God I were in thee ! Would God my woes were at an end. Thy joys that I might see ! Thy saints are crowned with glory great ; They see God face to face ; They triumph still, they still rejoice, Most happy is their case. We that are here in banishment Continually do moan, We sigh, and sob, we weep and wail, Perpetually we groan. Our sweet is mixed with bitter gall. Our pleasure is but pain, Our joys scarce last the looking on, Our sorrows still remain. But there they live in such delight. Such pleasure and such play, RELIGIOUS SONGS AND MELODIES. 301 As that to them a thousand years Doth seem as yesterday. Thy gardens and thy gallant walks Continually are green ; There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers As nowhere else are seen. Quite through the streets, with silver sound, The flood of Life doth flow ; Upon whose banks on every side The wood of Life doth grow. There trees for evermore bear fruit, And evermore do spring ; There evermore the angels sit. And evermore do sing. Jerusalem, my happy home. Would God I were in thee ! Would God my woes were at an end, Thy joys that I might see ! — Anon. 3- SUNDAY. O Day most calm, most bright ! The fruit of this, the next world's bud ; The endorsement of supreme delight, Writ by a Friend, and with his blood ; The couch of Time ; Care's calm and bay The ^eek were dark but for thy light ; Thy torch doth show the way. 302 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. The other days and thou Make up one man, whose face thou art, Knocking at heaven with thy brow : The working-days are the back part ; The burden of the week Ues there. Making the whole to stoop and bow. Till thy release appear. Man had straightforward gone To endless death ; but thou dost pull And turn us round, to look on One, Whom, if we were not very dull. We could not choose but look on still ; Since there is no place so alone The which He doth not fill. Sundays the pillars are On which heaven's palace archM lies The other days fill up the spare And hollow room with vanities ; They are the fruitful beds and borders In God's rich garden ; that is bare Which parts their ranks and orders. — George Herbert. 4- THE VIRTUOUS SOUL. Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright. The bridal of the earth and sky. Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night. For thou must die. RELIGIOUS SONGS AND MELODIES. 303 Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie. My music shows you have your closes. And all must die. Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber, never gives ; But when the whole world turns to coal, Then chiefly lives. — George Herbert. 5- THE FLOWER. How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns! e'en as the flowers in spring; To which, besides their own demean. The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief melts away. Like snow in May, As if there were no such cold thing. Who could have thought my shrivelled heart Could have recovered greenness } It was gone Quite under ground ; as flowers depart To see their mother-root, when they have blown ; Where they together All the hard weather. Dead to fhe world, keep house unknown. 304 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. These are thy wonders, Lord of power, KilUng and quickening, bringing down to hell And up to heaven in an hour ; Making a chiming of a passing bell. We say amiss, This or that is : Thy word is all, if we could spell. Oh, that I once past changing were. Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither ! Many a spring I shoot up fair, Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither : Nor doth my flower Want a spring-shower. My sins and I joining together. But while I grow in a straight line. Still upwards bent, as if heaven were mine own, Thy anger comes, and I decline : What frost to that } what pole is not the zone Where all things burn. When thou dost turn. And the least frown of thine is shown ? And now in age I bud again. After so many deaths I live and write ; I once more smell the dew and rain, And relish versing : O my only Light, It cannot be That I am he On whom thy tempests fell at night. These are thy wonders, Lord of love. To make us see we are but flowers that glide ; RELIGIOUS SONGS AND MELODIES. 305 Which when we once can find and prove, Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide. Who would be more, SwelUng through store, Forfeit their Paradise by their pride. — George Herbert. 6. THE PULLEY. When God at first made man, Having a glass of blessing standing by ; Let us (said he) pour on him all we can : Let the world's riches which dispersed lie Contract into a span. So strength first made a way ; Then beauty flow'd, then wisdom, honor, pleasure ; When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure, Rest in the bottom lay. For if I should (said he) Bestow this jewel also on my creature. He would adore my gifts instead of me. And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature ; So both should losers be. Yet let him keep the rest. But keep them with repining restlessness : Let him be rich and weary, that at least. If goodness lead him not, yet weariness May toss Him to my breast 306 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Man cannot serve thee : let him go And serve the swine — there, there is his delight : He doth not like this virtue, no ; Give him his dirt to wallow in all night : These preachers make His head to shoot and ache. ******** Indeed, at first man was a treasure, A box of jewels, shop of rarities, A ring whose posy was *' My pleasure " ; He was a garden in a Paradise ; Glory and grace Did crown his heart and face. But sin hath f ool'd him ; now he is A lump of flesh, without a foot or wing To raise him to a glimpse of bliss ; A sick-toss'd vessel, dashing on each thing, Nay, his own self; My God, I mean myself. — George Herbert. TRANSLATION OF THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM. The Lord my pasture shall prepare, And feed me with a shepherd's care ; His presence shall my wants supply. And guard me with a watchful eye ; My noonday walks he shall attend. And all my midnight hours defend. RELIGIOUS SONGS AND MELODIES. 307 When in the thirsty glebe I faint, Or on the thirsty mountain pant, To fertile vales and dewy meads My weary, wand'ring steps he leads; Where peaceful rivers, soft and slow, Amid the verdant landscape flow. Though in the paths of death I tread. With gloomy horrors overspread, My steadfast heart shall feel no ill. For thou, O Lord, art with me still ! Thy friendly crook shall give me aid, And guide me through the dreadful shade. Though in a bare and rugged way. Through devious, lonely wilds I stray. Thy bounty shall my wants beguile ; The barren wilderness shall smile. With sudden greens and herbage crowned. And streams shall murmur all around. — Joseph Addison. THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL. Vital spark of heavenly flame ! Quit, oh, quit this mortal frame ! Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying. Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying ! Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife. And let me languish into life. 308 CHOICE ENGLISH L YRICS. Hark ! they whisper ; angels say, " Sister spirit, come away ! " What is this absorbs me quite ? Steals my senses, shuts my sight. Drowns my spirits, draws my breath ? Tell me, my soul, can this be death ? The world recedes ; it disappears ! Heaven opens on my eyes ! My ears With sounds seraphic ring : Lend, lend your wings ! I mount ! I fly ! O Grave ! where is thy victory ? O Death ! where is thy sting ? — Alexander Pope. 9- RESIGNATION. Lord my God, do thou thy holy will — I will lie still — 1 will not stir, lest I forsake thine arm, And break the charm Which lulls me, clinging to my Father's breast, In perfect rest. Wild Fancy, peace ! thou must not me beguile With thy false smile : I know thy flatteries and thy cheating ways ; Be silent. Praise, Blind guide with siren voice, and blinding all That hear thy call. RELIGIOUS SONGS AND MELODIES. 309 Come, Self-devotion, high and pure. Thoughts that in thankfulness endure, Though dearest hopes are faithless found, And dearest hearts are bursting round. Come, Resignation, spirit meek. And let me kiss thy placid cheek. And read in thy pale eye serene Their blessing, who by faith can wean Their hearts from sense, and learn to love God only, and the joys above. They say, who know the life divine, And upward gaze with eagle eyne, That by each golden crown on high. Rich with celestial jewelry. Which for our Lord's redeemed is set, There hangs a radiant coronet, All gemm'd with pure and living light, Too dazzling for a sinner's sight, Prepar'd for virgin souls, and them Who seek the martyr's diadem. Nor deem, who to that bliss aspire. Must win their way through blood and fire. The writhings of a wounded heart Are fiercer than a foeman's dart. Oft in Life's stillest shade reclining. In Desolation unrepining, Without a hope on earth to find A mirror in an answering mind. Meek souls there are, who little dream Their daily strife an Angel's theme. Or that the rod they take so calm Shall prov*e in Heaven a martyr's palm. 310 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. And there are souls that seem to dwell Above this earth — so rich a spell Floats round their steps, where'er they move, From hopes fulfilled, and mutual love. Such, if on high their thoughts are set, Nor in the stream the source forget. If prompt to quit the bliss they know, Following the Lamb where'er He go, By purest pleasures unbeguiled To idolise or wife or child ; Such wedded souls our God shall own For faultless virgins round his throne. Thus everywhere we find our suffering God, And where he trod May set our steps : the Cross on Calvary Uplifted high Beams on the martyr host, a beacon light In open fight. To the still wrestlings of the lonely heart He doth impart The virtue of his midnight agony. When none was nigh, Save God and one good angel, to assuage The tempest's rage. Mortal ! if life smile on thee, and thou find ' All to thy mind. Think, who did once from Heaven to Hell descend, Thee to befriend : So shalt thou dare forego, at his dear call, Thy best, thine all. RELIGIOUS SONGS AND MELODIES. 311 " O Father ! not my will, but thine be done " — So spake the Son. Be this our charm, mellowing Earth's ruder noise Of griefs and joys ; That we may cling forever to thy breast In perfect rest ! — John Keble. lO. FROM "THE WATERFALL.'*. Go where the waters fall. Sheer from the mountain's height — Mark how a thousand streams in one, — One in a thousand on they fare. Now flashing to the sun, Now still as beast in lair. Now round the rock, now mounting o'er, In lawless dance they win their way, Still seeming more and more To swell as we survey, They rush and roar, they whirl and leap, Not wilder drives the wintry storm. Yet a strong law they keep. Strange powers their course inform. Even so the mighty skyborn stream Its living waters from above, All marred and broken seem, No uni5n and no love. 312 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Yet in dim caves they softly blend In dreams of mortals unespied : One is their awful end, " One their unfailing Guide. — John Keble. II. THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. Sweet nurslings of the vernal skies, Bathed in soft airs, and fed with dew, What more than magic in you lies, To fill the heart's fond view t In childhood's sports, companions gay, In sorrow, on Life's downward way, How soothing ! in our last decay Memorials prompt and true. Relics ye are of Eden's bowers. As pure, as fragrant, and as fair. As when ye crowned the sunshine hours Of happy wanderers there. Fall'n all beside — the world of life. How it is stained with fear and strife ! In Reason's world what storms are rife. What passions range and glare ! — John Keble. RELIGIOUS SONGS AND MELODIES. 313 12. CHRIST'S COMING TO JERUSALEM IN TRIUMPH. Lord, come away, Why dost thou stay ? Thy road is ready : and thy paths, made straight, With longing expectation wait The consecration of thy beauteous feet. Ride on triumphantly ; behold we lay Our lusts and proud wills in thy way. Hosanna ! welcome to our hearts. Lord, here Thou hast a temple too, and full as dear As that of Sion ; and as full of sin ; Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein. Enter, and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor; Crucify them, that they may never more Profane that holy place. Where thou hast chose to set thy face. And then if our stiff tongues shall be Mute in the praises of thy Deity, The stones out of the temple wall Shall cry aloud, and call Hosanna ! and thy glorious footsteps greet. — Jeremy Taylor. ♦ 13- THE LITANY. In the hour of my distress. When temptations me oppress. And when I my sins confess, • Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! 314 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. When I lie within my bed, Sick in heart, and sick in head, And with doubts discomforted, Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! When the house doth sigh and weep, And the world is drown'd in sleep, Yet mine eyes the watch do keep, Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! When the artless doctor sees No one hope, but of his fees, And his skill runs on the lees. Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! When his potion and his pill, Has, or none, or little skill. Meet for nothing but to kill. Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! When the passing-bell doth toll, And the furies in a shoal Come to fright a parting soul. Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! When the tapers now burn blue. And the comforters are few. And that number more than true, Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! When the priest his last hath pray'd. And I nod to what is said, 'Cause my speech is now decay'd, Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! RELIGIOUS SONGS AND MELODIES. 315 When, God knows, I'm tost about, Either with despair or doubt ; Yet, before the glass be out, Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! When the tempter me pursu'th With the sins of all my youth. And half damns me with untruth, Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! When the flames and hellish cries Fright mine ears, and fright mine eyes, And all terrors me surprise. Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! When the Judgment is reveal'd. And that open'd which was seal'd ; When to Thee I have appeal'd. Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! — Robert Herrick. 14. A THANKSGIVING. Lord, in this dust thy sovereign voice First quickened love divine ; I am all thine — thy care and choice, My very praise is thine. I praise thee, while thy providence In childhood frail I trace. For blessings given, ere dawning sense Could seftk or scan thy grace ; 316 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Blessings in boyhood's marvelling hour, Bright dreams and fancyings strange ; Blessings, when reason's awful power Gave thought a bolder range ; Blessings of friends, which to my door Unasked, unhoped, have come ; And choicer still, a countless store Of eager smiles at home. Yet, Lord, in memory's fondest place I shrine those seasons sad. When looking up, I saw thy face In kind austereness clad. I would not miss one sigh or tear, Heart-pang or throbbing brow ; Sweet was the chastisement severe, And sweet its memory now. Yes ! let the fragrant scars abide. Love-tokens in thy stead. Faint shadows of the spear-pierced side, And thorn-encompassed head. And such thy tender force be still, When self would swerve or stray. Shaping to truth the froward will Along thy narrow way. Deny me wealth ; far, far remove The lure of power or name ; Hope thrives in straits, in weakness love, And faith in this world's shame. — John Henry Newman. RELIGIOUS SONGS AND MELODIES. 317 15- CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. Lamb of God, I look to thee ; Thou shalt my example be ; Thou art gentle, meek, and mild ; Thou wast once a little child. Fain I would be as thou art ; Give me thy obedient heart ! Thou art pitiful and kind ; Let me have thy loving mind ! « Meek and lowly may I be ; Thou art all humility ! Let me to my betters bow ; Subject to thy parents thou. Let me above all fulfil God my heavenly Father's will ; Never his good Spirit grieve ; Only to his glory live ! Thou didst live to God alone ; Thou didst never seek thine own ; Thou thyself didst never please ; God was all thy happiness. Loving Jesu, gentle Lamb, In thy gracious hands I am ; Make me. Saviour, what thou art ! Live thyself within my heart ! 318 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. I shall then shew forth thy praise ; Serve thee all my happy days ; Then the world shall always see Christ, the Holy Child, in me. — Charles Wesley. EASTER HYMN. Christ the Lord is risen to-day. Sons of men and angels say : Raise your joys and triumphs high. Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply. Love's redeeming work is done. Fought the fight, the battle won : Lo ! our Sun's eclipse is o'er ; Lo ! he sets in blood no more. Vain the stone, the watch, the seal ; Christ hath burst the gates of hell ! Death in vain forbids his rise ; Christ hath opened Paradise ! Lives again our glorious King : Where, O Death, is now thy sting ? Once he died, our souls to save : Where thy victory, O Grave } Soar we now where Christ has led. Following our exalted Head ; RELIGIOUS SONGS AND MELODIES. 319 Made like him, like him we rise ; Ours the cross, the grave, the skies. What though once we perished all, Partners in our parents, fall ? Second life we all receive, In our heavenly Adam live. Risen with him, we upward move; Still we seek the things above ; Still pursue, and kiss the Son Seated on his Father's throne. Scarce on earth a thought bestow, Dead to all we leave below ; Heav'n our aim, and loved abode, Hid our life with Christ in God : Hid, till Christ our Life appear Glorious in his members here ; Join'd to him, we then shall shine. All immortal, all divine. Hail the Lord of Earth and Heaven ! Praise to thee by both be given ! Thee we greet triumphant now ! Hail, the Resurrection thou ! King of glory, Soul of bliss ! Everlasting life is this, Thee to know, thy power to prove. Thus to sing, and thus to love ! • — Charles Wesley. 320 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. 17- AN HYMN FOR SERIOUSNESS. Thou God of glorious majesty, To thee against myself, to thee A worm of earth I cry. An half-awakened child of man, An heir of endless bliss or pain, A sinner born to die. Lo ! on a narrow neck of land, 'Twixt two unbounded seas I stand Secure, insensible : A point of life, a moment's space Removes me to that heavenly place. Or shuts me up in hell. O God, mine inmost soul convert. And deeply on my thoughtful heart Eternal things impress, Give me to feel their solemn weight. And tremble on the brink of fate, And wake to righteousness. Before me place in dread array The pomp of that tremendous day. When thou with clouds shalt come To judge the nations at thy bar : And tell me. Lord, shall I be there To meet a joyful doom } Be this my one great business here. With serious industry, and fear. My future bliss to insure, RELIGIOUS SONGS AND MELODIES. 321 Thine utmost counsel to fulfil, And suffer all thy righteous will, And to the end endure. Then, Saviour, then my soul receive, Transported from the vale, to live And reign with thee above, Where faith is sweetly lost in sight, And hope in full supreme delight, And everlasting love. — John Wesley. flDi6ceUaneou6 X^ric6» 3j<«C Poetry makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful in the world; it arrests the vanishing apparitions which haunt the inter- lunations of life, and veiling them or in language or in form, sends them forth among mankind, bearing sweet news of kindred joy to those with whom their sisters abide — abide^ because there is no portal of expression fro7n the caverns of the spirit which they inhabit into the universe of things. Poetry redeems from decay the visita- tions of the divinity in jnan. — Percy Bysshe Shelley. I. SONGS FROM ''THE PRINCESS." Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea — Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea ! Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me : While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 322 MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 323 Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Father will come to thee soon ; Rest, rest, on mother's breast, Father will come to thee soon ; Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the west Under the silver moon : Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. II. The splendor falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story : The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying. Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O hark ! O hear, how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going ! O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying ; Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O love ! they die in yon rich sky. They faint on hill or field or river : Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever. Blow, bugle, bl^w, set the wild echoes flying. And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying, 324 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. III. Ask me no more : the moon may draw the sea ; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape ; But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee ? Ask me no more. Ask me no more : what answer should I give } I love not hollow cheek or faded eye : Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die ! Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ; Ask me no more. Ask me no more : thy fate and mine are seal'd : I strove against the stream and all in vain : Let the great river take me to the main : No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield ; Ask me no more. IV. Home they brought her warrior dead : She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry. All her maidens, watching, said, *' She must weep, or she will die." Then they praised him, soft and low, Call'd him worthy to be loved. Truest friend and noblest foe ; Yet she neither spoke nor moved. Stole a maiden from her place. Lightly to the warrior stept. Took the face-cloth from the face ; Yet she neither moved nor wept. MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 325 Rose a nurse of ninety years, Set his child upon her knee — Like summer tempest came her tears — ** Sweet my child, I live for thee." — Alfred Tennyson. 2. MUSIC. Charm me asleep, and melt me so With thy delicious numbers. That being ravish'd, hence I go Away in easy slumbers. Ease my sick head, And make my bed. Thou Power that canst sever From me this ill ; — And quickly still. Though thou not kill My fever. Thou sweetly canst convert the same From a consuming fire. Into a gentle-licking flame, And make it thus expire. Then make me weep My pains asleep. And give me such reposes, That I, poor I, May think, thereby, I^live and die 'Mongst roses. 326 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Fall on me like a silent dew, Or like those maiden showers, Which, by the peep of day, do strew A baptism o'er the flowers. Melt, melt my pains With thy soft strains ; That having ease me given, With full delight, I leave this light. And take my flight For Heaven. — Robert Herrick. 3- PRAISE OF MUSIC. When whispering strains do softly steal With creeping passion through the heart. And when at ev'ry touch we feel Our pulses beat and bear a part ; When threads can make A heart-string quake. Philosophy Can scarce deny The soul consists of harmony. Oh lull me, lull me, charming air. My sense is rock'd with wonder sweet ! Like snow on wool thy fallings are — Soft like a spirit's are thy feet. Grief who need fear That hath an ear .'' MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. %11 Down let him lie, And slumb'ring die, And change his soul for harmony. — William Strode. ♦- 4. THE SPIRIT OF DELIGHT. Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight ! Wherefore hast thou left me now- Many a day and night ? Many a weary night and day 'Tis since thou art fled away. How shall ever one like me Win thee back again } With the joyous and the free, Thou wilt scoff at pain. Spirit false ! thou hast forgot All but those who need thee not. As a lizard with the shade Of a trembling leaf. Thou with sorrow art dismayed ; Even the sighs of grief Reproach thee that thou art not near, And reproach thou wilt not hear. Let me set my mournful ditty To a merry measure ; — Thou wilt never come for pity, Thou wilt come for pleasure ; 328 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Pity then will cut away Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay. I love all that thou lovest, Spirit of Delight ! The fresh earth in new leaves dressed, And the starry night, Autumn evening, and the morn When the golden mists are born. I love snow, and all the forms Of the radiant frost ; I love waves and winds and storms, — Everything almost Which is Nature's, and may be Untainted by man's misery. I love tranquil solitude. And such society As is quiet, wise, and good. Between thee and me What difference } But thou dost possess The things I seek, not love them less. I love Love, though he has wings, And like light can flee ; But above all other things, Spirit, I love thee — Thou art love and life ! Oh, come ! Make once more my heart thy home ! — Percy Bysshe Shelley. MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 329 5- TO ECHO. Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen Within thy aery shell, By slow Meander's margent green. And in the violet-embroider'd vale. Where the love-lorn nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well ; Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair That likest thy Narcissus are ? Oh if thou have Hid them in some flowery cave, Tell me but where. Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere ! So may'st thou be translated to the skies. And give resounding grace to all Heaven's harmonies. — John Milton. ■♦ 6. THE FAIRY QUEEN. Come follow, follow me, You fairy elves that be : Which circle on the greene. Come follow Mab your queene. Hand in hand let's dance around, For this place is fairye ground. When mortals are at rest, And^snoring in their nest ; Unheard, and unespy'd. Through key-holes we do glide ; 330 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Over tables, stools, and shelves, We trip it with our fairy elves. Upon a mushroome's head Our table-cloth we spread ; A grain of rye, or wheat. Is manchet, which we eat ; Pearly drops of dew we drink, In acorn cups fill'd to the brink. The brains of nightingales. With unctuous fat of snailes. Between two cockles stew'd. Is meat that's easily chew'd ; Tailes of wormes, and marrow of mice, Do make a dish that's wondrous nice. The grasshopper, gnat, and fly, Serve for our minstrelsie ; Grace said, we dance a while. And so the time beguile : And if the moon doth hide her head. The gloe-worm lights us home to bed. On tops of dewie grasse So nimbly do we passe. The young and tender stalk Ne'er bends when we do walk : Yet in the morning may be seen Where we the night before have been. — Anonymous. MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 331 7- AS I LAYE A-THYNKYNGE. (^Last Lines of Thomas Ingoldsby.) As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, Merrie sang the Birde as she sat upon the spraye ; There came a noble Knyghte, With his hauberke shynynge brighte, And his gallant heart was lyghte, Free and gaye ; As I laye a-thynkynge, he rode upon his waye. As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, Sadly sang the Birde as she sat upon the tree ! There seemed a crimson plain, Where a gallant Knyghte lay slayne, And a steed with broken rein Ran free. As I laye a-thynkynge, most pitiful to see. As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, Merrie sang the Birde as she sat upon the boughe ; A lovely Mayde came bye, And a gentil Youth came nighe And he breathed many a syghe And a vowe ; As I laye a-thynkynge, her heart was gladsome now. As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, Sadly sang the Birde as she sat upon the thorne ; No more a Youth was there. But a Maiden rent her haire. 332 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. And cried in sad despaire, "■ That I was borne ! " As I lay a-thynkynge, she perished forlorne. As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, Sweetly sang the Birde as she sat upon the briar ; There came a lovely Childe, And his face was meek and milde, Yet joyously he smiled On his Sire ; As I laye a-thynkynge, a Cherub mote admire. But I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, And sadly sang the Birde as it perched upon a bier ; That joyous smile was gone. And the face was white and wan, As the downe upon the Swan Doth appear, As I laye a-thynkynge — O ! bitter flowed the tear ! As I laye a-thynkynge, the golden sun was sinking, Oh merrie sang that Birde as it glittered on her breast, With a thousand gorgeous dyes. While soaring to the skies, 'Mid the stars she seemed to rise, As to her nest ; As I laye a-thynkynge, her meaning was exprest : — ** Follow, follow me away, It boots not to delay," — *Twas so she seemed to saye, *' Here is Rest ! " — R. H. Barham. MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 333 8. THE PALM-TREE AND THE PINE. Beneath an Indian palm a girl Of other blood reposes ; Her cheek is clear and pale as pearl, Amid that wild of roses. Beside a northern pine a boy Is leaning fancy-bound, Nor listens where with noisy joy Awaits the impatient hound. Cool grows the sick and feverish calm, Relaxt the frosty twine ; The pine-tree dreameth of the palm, The palm-tree of the pine. As soon shall nature interlace Those dimly-visioned boughs, As these young lovers face to face Renew their early vows. — Lord Houghton. 9- THE SANDS OF DEE. " O Mary, go and call the cattle home, . And call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, Across the sands of Dee." The wester]^ wind was wild and dank with foam, And all alone went she. 334 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. The creeping tide crept up along the sand, And o'er and o'er the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see. The blinding mist came down, and hid the land : And never home came she. *' Oh ! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair — A tress of golden hair, • A drowned maiden's hair, Above the nets at sea "^ Was never salmon yet that shone so fair Among the stakes on Dee." They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam. The cruel hungry foam. To her grave beside the sea : But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home Across the sands of Dee. — Charles Kingsley. lO. KUBLA KHAN. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree : Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 335 And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover ! A savage place ! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover ! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced : Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail : And 'mid those dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran. Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean : And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war ! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves ; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice ! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw : 336 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air. That sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry. Beware ! Beware ! His flashing eyes, his floating hair. Weave a circle round him thrice. And close your eyes with holy dread. For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge TO A LADY, WITH A GUITAR. Ariel to Miranda : — Take This slave of music, for the sake Of him, who is the slave of thee ; And teach it all the harmony In which thou canst, and only thou, Make the delighted spirit glow. Till joy denies itself again. And, too intense, is turned to pain. For, by permission and command Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 337 Poor Ariel sends this silent token Of more than ever can be spoken ; Your guardian spirit Ariel, who Fron^ life to life must still pursue Your happiness, for thus alone Can Ariel ever find his own. From Prospero's enchanted cell, As the mighty verses tell, To the throne of Naples he Lit you o'er the trackless sea. Flitting on, your prow before, Like a living meteor. When you die, the silent Moon In her interlunar swoon Is not sadder in her cell Than deserted Ariel. When you live again on earth, — Like an unseen star of birth, Ariel guides you o'er the sea Of life from your nativity. Many changes have been run Since Ferdinand and you begun Your course of love, and Ariel still Has tracked your steps and served your will. Now, in humbler, happier lot. This is all remembered not ; And now, alas ! the poor Sprite is • Imprisoned for some fault of his In a body like a grave : From you he only dares to crave, For his service and his sorrow, A smile to-d*ay, a song to-morroW. V 338 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. The artist who this idol wrought, To echo all harmonious thought, Felled a tree while on the steep The woods were in their winter sleep, Rocked in that repose divine On the wind-swept Apennine, And dreaming, some of Autumn past, And some of Spring approaching fast, And some of April buds and showers. And some of songs in July bowers, And all of love. And so this tree — Oh, that such our death may be ! — Died in sleep, and felt no pain, To live in happier form again : From which, beneath heaven's fairest star The artist wrought this loved Guitar, And taught it justly to reply, To all who question skilfully. In language gentle as thine own ; Whispering in enamored tone Sweet oracles of woods and dells, And summer winds in sylvan cells. For it had learnt all harmonies Of the plains and of the skies, Of the forests and the mountains. And the many-voiced fountains ; The clearest echoes of the hills, The softest notes of falling rills. The melodies of birds and bees. The murmuring of summer seas, And pattering rain, and breathing dew, And airs of evening ; and it knew That seldom-heard mysterious sound MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 339 Which, driven on its diurnal round, As it floats through boundless day, Our world enkindles on its way : — All this it knows, but will not tell To those who cannot question well The spirit that inhabits it ; It talks according to the wit Of its companions ; and no more Is heard than has been felt before By those who tempt it to betray These secrets of an elder day. But, sweetly as its answers will Flatter hands of perfect skill. It keeps its highest, holiest tone For one beloved Friend alone. — Percy Bysshe Shelley. 12. DAVID PLAYING BEFORE SAUL. Then I tuned my harp, — took off the lilies we twine round its chords Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide — those sunbeams like swords ! And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after one. So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done. They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed Where the long 'grasses stifle the water within the stream's bed : 340 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star Into eve and the blue far above us, — so blue and so far! — Then the tune, for which quails on the cornland will each leave his mate To fly after the player ; then, what makes the crickets elate Till for boldness they fight one another : and then, what has weight To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house — There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse ! God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear. To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here. Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine- song, when hand Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great hearts expand And grow one in the sense of this world's life. — Then, the last song When the dead man is praised on his jouney — *' Bear, bear him along With his few thoughts shut up like dead flowerets ! Are balm seeds not here To console us.? The land has none left such as he on the bier. Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!" — And then, the glad chaunt MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 341 Of the marriage, — first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vaunt As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling. — And then, the great march Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch Nought can break ; who shall harm them, our friends ? Then, the chorus intoned As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned. But I stopped here : for here in the darkness Saul groaned. — Robert Browning. 13- STANZAS FROM ''WINE OF CYPRUS." Go, — let others praise the Chian ! This is soft as Muses' string. This is tawny as Rhea's lion. This is rapid as his spring. Bright as Paphia's eyes e'er met us, Light as ever trod her feet ; And the brown bees of Hymettus Make their honey not so sweet. Very copious are my praises. Though I sip it like a fly ! Ah — but, sipping, — times and places Change before me suddenly : As Ulysses' old libation Drew the ghosts from every part, So your (^yprus wine, dear Grecian, Stirs the Hades of my heart. 342 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. And I think of those long mornings Which my thoughts go far to seek, When, betwixt the folio's turnings. Solemn flowed the rhythmic Greek : Past the pane the mountain spreading. Swept the sheep-bells' tinkling noise. While a girlish voice was reading, Somewhat low for ats and ots. Then, what golden hours were for us ! While we sat together there, How the white vests of the chorus Seemed to wave up a live air ! How the cothurns trod majestic Down the deep iambic lines. And the rolling anapaestic Curled like vapor over shrines ! Oh, our ^schylus, the thunderous. How he drove the bolted breath Through the cloud, to wedge it ponderous In the gnarled oak beneath ! Oh, our Sophocles, the royal. Who was born to monarch's place. And who made the whole world loyal, . Less by kingly power than grace ! Our Euripides, the human, With his droppings of warm tears. And his touches of things common Till they rose to touch the spheres ! MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 343 Our Theocritus, our Bion, And our Pindar's shining goals ! — These were cup-bearers undying, Of the wine that's meant for souls. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 14. ODE ON A GRECIAN URN. Thou still unravished bride of quietness ! Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme. What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady } What men or gods are these ? what maidens loath } What mad pursuit ? What struggle to escape } What pipes and timbrels .? What wild ecstasy } d[eard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter ; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on ; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared. Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone ; Fair youth beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare ; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss. Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair ! 344 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Ah, happy, happy boughs ! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu ; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new ; More happy love ! more happy, happy love ! For ever warm and still to be enjoyed, For ever panting and for ever young ; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high sorrowful and cloyed, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue, Who are these coming to the sacrifice ? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest ? What little town by river or sea-shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn ? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be ; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. O Attic shape ! Fair attitude ! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought. With forest branches and the trodden weed ; Thou, silent form ! dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity : Cold Pastoral ! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, " Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. — John Keats. MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 345 15- INVOCATION TO THE SPIRIT OF ACHILLES. Beautiful shadow Of Thetis's boy ! Who sleeps in the meadow Whose grass grows o'er Troy : From the red earth, Hke Adam, Thy Hkeness I shape. As the being who made him, Whose actions I ape. Thou clay, be all glowing. Till the rose in his cheek Be as fair as, when blowing, It wears its first streak ! Ye violets, I scatter. Now turn into eyes ! And thou, sunshiny water. Of blood take the guise ! Let these hyacinth boughs Be his long flowing hair. And wave o'er his brows As thou wavest in air ! Let his heart be this marble I tear from the rock ! But his voice as the warble • Of birds on yon oak ! Let his flesh be the purest Of mould, in which grew The lily-root surest. Ana drank the best dew ! 346 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Let his limbs be the lightest Which clay can compound, And his aspect the brightest On earth to be found ! Elements, near me, Be mingled and stirr'd, Know me, and hear me, And leap to my word ! Sunbeams, awaken This earth's animation ! *Tis done ! He hath taken His stand in creation ! — Lord Byron. 1 6. CORINNA, FROM ATHENS, TO TANAGRA. Tanagra ! think not I forget Thy beautifully-stoned streets ; Be sure my memory bathes yet In dear Thermodon, and yet greets The blithe and liberal Shepherd boy. Whose sunny bosom swells with joy When we accept his matted rushes Upheaved with sylvan fruits; away he bounds and blushes. I promise to bring back with me What thou with transport will receive. The only proper gift for thee. Of which no mortal shall bereave MISCELLANEOUS LYRLCS. 347 In later times thy mouldering walls, Until the last old turret falls ; A crown, a crown from Athens won, A crown no god can wear, beside Latona's son. There may be cities who refuse To their own child the honors due, And look ungently on the Muse ; But ever shall those cities rue The dry, unyielding, niggard breast, Offering no nourishment, no rest, To that young head which soon shall rise Disdainfully, in might and glory, to the skies. Sweetly where caverned Dirce flows Do white-armed maidens chaunt my lay, Flapping the while with laurel-rose The honey-gathering tribes away ; And sweetly, sweetly, Attic tongues Lisp your Corinna's early songs ; To her with feet more graceful come The verses that have dwelt in kindred breasts at home. Oh, let thy children lean aslant Against the tender mother's knee, And gaze into her face, and want To know what magic there can be In words that urge some eyes to dance. While others as in holy trance Look up to heaven ; be such my praise ! Why linger } I n>ust haste, or lose the Delphic bays. — Walter Savage Landor. 348 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. 17- ARETHUSA. Arethusa arose From her couch of snows In the Acroceraunian mountains, — From cloud and from crag, With many a jag. Shepherding her bright fountains. She leapt down the rocks With her rainbow locks Streaming among the streams ; Her steps paved with green The downward ravine Which slopes to the western gleams : And gliding and springing, She went, ever singing. In murmurs as soft as sleep ; The Earth seemed to love her, And Heaven smiled above her. As she lingered towards the deep. Then Alpheus bold, On his glacier cold. With his trident the mountains strook And opened a chasm ( In the rocks ; — with the spasm All Erymanthus shook. And the black south wind It concealed behind The urns of the silent snow. And earthquake and thunder Did rend in sunder The bars of the springs below. MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 349 The beard and the hair Of the River-god were Seen through the torrent's sweep, As he followed the light Of the fleet nymph's flight To the brink of the Dorian deep. " Oh ! save me ! Oh ! guide me ! And bid the deep hide me ! For he grasps me now by the hair ! " The loud Ocean heard, To its blue depth stirred. And divided at her prayer ; And under the water The Earth's white daughter Fled like a sunny beam. Behind her descended. Her billows unblended With the brackish Dorian stream. Like a gloomy stain On the emerald main, Alpheus rushed behind, — As an eagle pursuing A dove to its ruin Down the streams of the cloudy wind. Under the bowers • Where the Ocean Powers Sit on their pearled thrones ; Through the coral woods Of the weltering floods ; Over heaps of unvalued stones ; 350 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Through the dim beams Which amid the streams Weave a network of colored light ; And under the caves Where the shadowy waves Are as green as the forest's night ; Outspeeding the shark, And the swordfish dark, — Under the ocean foam, And up through the rifts Of the mountain clifts. They passed to their Dorian home. And now from their fountains In Enna's mountains, Down one vale where the morning basks, Like friends once parted Grown single-hearted. They ply their watery tasks. At sunrise they leap From their cradles steep In the cave of the shelving hill ; At noontide they flow Through the woods below And the meadows of asphodel ; And at night they sleep In the rocking deep Beneath the Ortygian shore ; Like the spirits that lie In the azure sky, When they love but live no more. — Percy Bysshe Shelley. MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 351 1 8. THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE. Here, where the world is quiet ; Here, where all trouble seems Dead winds' and spent waves' riot In doubtful dreams of dreams ; I watch the green field growing For reaping folk and sowing. For harvest-time and mowing, A sleepy world of streams. I am tired of tears and laughter, And men that laugh and weep; Of what may come hereafter . For men that sow to reap ; I am weary of days and hours. Blown buds of barren flowers, Desires and dreams and powers, And everything but sleep. Here life has death for neighbor, And far from eye or ear Wan waves and wet winds labor, Weak ships and spirits steer ; They drive adrift, and whither They wot not who make thither; But no such winds blow hither. And no such things grow here. No growth of moor or coppice. No heather-flower or vine. But bloomless buds of poppies, Gre^n grapes of Proserpine, 352 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. Pale beds of blowing rushes Where no leaf blooms or blushes Save this whereout she crushes For dead men deadly wine. Pale, without name or number, In fruitless fields of corn. They bow themselves and slumber All night till light is born ; And like a soul belated, In hell and heaven unmated, By cloud and mist abated Comes out of darkness morn. Though one were strong as seven, He too with death shall dwell, Nor wake with wings in heaven. Nor weep for pains in hell ; Though one were fair as roses. His beauty clouds and closes; And well though love reposes In the end it is not well. Pale, beyond porch and portal, Crowned with calm leaves, she stands Who gathers all things mortal With cold immortal hands ; Her languid lips are sweeter Than love's who fears ta greet her To men that mix and meet her From many times and lands. MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 353 She waits for each and other, She waits for all men born ; Forgets the earth her mother, The life of fruits and corn ; And spring and seed and swallow Take wing for her, and follow Where summer song rings hollow And flowers are put to scorn. There go the loves that wither, The old loves with wearier wings ; And all dead years draw thither. And all disastrous things ; Dead dreams of days forsaken, Blind buds that snows have shaken. Wild leaves that winds have taken, Red strays of ruined springs. We are not sure of sorrow. And joy was never sure ; To-day will die to-morrow ; Time stoops to no man's lure ; And love, grown faint and fretful, With lips but half-regretful Sighs, and with eyes forgetful Weeps that no loves endure. From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free. We thai^ with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be 354 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. That no life lives for ever ; That dead men rise up never ; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea. Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light ; Nor sound of waters shaken, Nor any sound or sight : Nor wintry leaves nor vernal, Nor days nor things diurnal ; Only the sleep eternal In an eternal night. A. C. Swinburne. 19. ITYLUS. Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow, How can thine heart be full of the spring ? A thousand summers are over and dead. What hast thou found in the spring to follow t What hast thou found in thy heart to sing t What wilt thou do when the summer is shed t O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow. Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south. The soft south whither thine heart is set t Shall not the grief of the old time follow t Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth 1 Hast thou forgotten ere I forget } MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 355 Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow, Thy way is long to the sun and the south ; • But I, fulfilled of my heart's desire, Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow, From tawny body and sweet small mouth. Feed the heart of the night with fire. I, the nightingale, all spring through, swallow, sister, O changing swallow. All spring through till the spring be done, Clothed with the light of the night on the dew, Sing, while the hours and the wild birds follow. Take flight and follow and find the sun. Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow, Though all things feast in the spring's guest-chamber. How hast thou heart to be glad thereof yet 1 For where thou fliest I shall not follow, Till life forget and death remember. Till thou remember and I forget. Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow, 1 know not how thou hast heart to sing. Hast thou the heart .^ Is it all past over } Thy lord the summer is good to follow. And fair the feet of thy lover the spring : But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover .?. O swallow, sister, O fleeting swallow, • My heart in me is a molten ember. And over my head the waves have met. But thou would'st tarry or I would follow, Could I forget or thou remember, Couldst thou remember and I forget. 356 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow, The heart's division divideth us. Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree ; But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollow To the place of the slaying of Itylus, The feast of Daulis, the Thracian sea. O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow, I pray thee sing not a little space. Are not the roofs and the lintels wet .'' The woven web that was plain to follow. The small slain body, the flower-like face. Can I remember if thou forget } O sister, sister, thy first-begotten ! The hands that cling and the feet that follow, The voice of the child's blood crying yet Who hath re77ienibered me ? who hath forgotten ? Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow. But the world shall end when I forget. — A. C. Swinburne. 20. BYRON'S LAST POEM. 'Tis time this heart should be unmoved. Since others it hath ceased to move : Yet, though I cannot be beloved. Still let me love ! My days are in the yellow leaf ; The flowers and fruits of love are gone ; The worm, the canker, and the grief Are mine alone ! MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 357 The fire that on my bosom preys Is lone as some volcanic isle ; No torch is kindled at its blaze — A funeral pile. The hope, the fear, the jealous care, The exalted portion of the pain And power of love, I cannot share, But wear the chain. But 'tis not thus — and 'tis not here — Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor 7ioWy Where glory decks the hero's bier. Or binds his brow. The sword, the banner, and the field, Glory and Greece, around me see ! The Spartan, borne upon his shield, Was not more free. Awake ! (not Greece — she is awake !) Awake, my spirit ! Think through whom Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, And then strike home ! Tread those reviving passions down. Unworthy manhood ! — unto thee Indifferent should the smile or frown Of beauty be. 358 CHOICE ENGLISH LYRICS. If thou regret' St thy youth, why Uve ? The land of honorable death Is here : — up to the field, and give Away thy breath ! Seek out ■ — less often sought than found — A soldier's grave, for thee the best ; Then look around, and choose thy ground, And take thy rest. — Lord Byron. 21. TO THE MUSES. Whether on Ida's shady brow, Or in the chambers of the East, The chambers of the Sun, that now From ancient melody have ceased ; Whether in heaven ye wander fair. Or the green corners of the earth, Or the blue regions of the air Where the melodious winds have birth ; Whether on crystal rocks ye rove Beneath the bosom of the sea, Wandering in many a coral grove, Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry ; How have you left the ancient love That bards of old enjoyed in you ! The languid strings do scarcely move. The sound is forced, the notes are few ! — William Blake. MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS. 359 NOTES. No. lo. KUBLA Khan. Coleridge says that this poem came to him in a dream, as he was sleeping one day in a chair. As soon as he awoke he seized a pen and wrote thus far, when he was interrupted by a visitor. He was never able to recall the rest of the dream. It was probably suggested by a passage in Purchas's travels, which he was reading. No. II. To A Lady, with a Guitar. See the sonnet by William Drummond, entitled To his Lute. Ariel, Miranda, Prince Ferdinand, Prospero. Characters in Shakes- peare's drama of The Tempest, which see. No. 12. David playing before Saul. From Browning's tragedy of Saul. See i Samuel, xvi. 23. No. 13. Stanzas from "Wine of Cyprus." See Classical Dictionary for the numerous proper names mentioned in these verses. No. 14. Ode on a Grecian Urn. " We do not know in the whole field of English poetry a more exquisite piece of fancy than this, which supposes a moment of early Greek life, with its buoyant gaiety and all its simple incidents, transferred to the surface of the Urn and there arrested forever." — Miss A. B. Edzvards. No. 15. To THE Spirit of Achilles. From the drama entitled The Deformed Transfor??ied, 1824. No. 16. CoRiNNA, FROM ATHENS, TO Tanagra. From Landor's Imag- inary Conversations. Corinna was a woman of Tanagra, (a town near Thebes,) who five times won the prize of poetry from Pindar. No. 17. Arethusa. For the myth of Arethusa, see Classical Diction- ary. See also the references to Arethusa in The Book of Elegies. No. 19. Itylus. See note on Philomel, page 65. Also the poem on The Nightingale by Richard Barnfield, page 47. No. 20. Byron's Last Poem. "These lines, written in Greece, and only three months before his death, are the last which Byron wrote, and, in their earlier stanzas at least, about the truest." — Trench. INDEX OF FIRST LINES. A good that never satisfies the mind, 236. Ah ! Chloris, that I now could sit, 207. Ah ! my swete swetynge, 179. Alas 1 how easily things go wrong — 291. All in the Downs the fleet was moor'd, 159- Already evening ! In the duskiest nook, 235- Amarantha, sweet and fair, 211. Among the poppies by the well, 286. An ancient story He tell you anon, 137. And wilt thou leave me thus ? 184. Arethusa arose, 348. Ariel to Miranda : — Take, 336. Art thou pale for weariness, 36. Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers ? 270. As due by many titles, I resign, 233. As I came round the harbor buoy, 213. As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, 331. As it fell upon a day, 47. As I was walking all alane, 144. Ask me no more : the moon may draw the sea, 324. Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble England's praise ; 88. Awake, awake, my Lyre ! 183. Beautiful shadow, 345. Beneath an Indian palm a girl, 333. Blossom of the almond trees, 45. Blow, northern wind, send, 178. Break, break, break, 274. Bright star 1 would I were steadfast as thou art — 233. Busy, curious, thirsty fly, 46. By the hope within us springing, 103. Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, — 33. Charm me asleep, and melt me so, 325. Christ the Lord is risen to-day, 318. Come follow, follow me, 329. Come live with me and be my love, 192. Come o'er the sea, 216. Come out and hear the waters shoot, 212. Come, Sleep, and with thy sweet de- ceiving, 34. Cupid and my Campaspe play'd, 239. Day, like our souls, is fiercely dark ; 113- Dear is my little native vale, 120. Does the road wind up-hill all the way? 285. Even such is time that takes in trust, 294. Fair Daffadils, we weep to see, 39. Fair pledges of a fruitful tree, 38. Fair stood the wind for France, 69. Fly from the press and dwell with soothfastness ; 294. Forget not yet the tried intent, 191. From Tuscan' came my lady's worthy race ; 223. Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, 186. Get up, get up, for shame ! the bloom- ing morn, 17. 360 INDEX OF FIRST IINES. 361 Give me a cottage on some Cambrian wild, 234. Go, happy rose ! and, interwove, 186, Go — let others praise the Chian ! 341. Go, lovely rose ! 186. Good speed, for I this day, 40. Go, Soul, the body's guest, 274. Go where the waters fall, 311. Green httle vaulter on the sunny grass, 240. Hail, beauteous Dian, queen of shades, 30- Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove ! 41. Half a league, half a league, 73. Happv the man whose wish and care, 268.' Happy those early days, when I, 246. Hark, hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings, 13. Helen, thy beauty is to me, 200, Hence, all you vain delights, 271. Here, where the world is quiet ; 351. He that loves a rosy cheek, 262. High upon the Highlands, 84. Home they brought her warrior dead : 324- How beautiful is night ! 35. How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean, 303. How happy is he born and taught, 267. If all the world and Love were young, 193- If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song, 27. I made a posy while the day ran by, 245. I'm wearin' awa', John, 280. In Scarlet towne, where I was borne, 147. In the hour of my distress, 313. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, 334. I saw old Autumn in the misty morn, 52. Is thine hour come to wake, O slum- bering Night ? 238. Is this a life, to brea^ thy sleep, 269. It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands, 237. It is not growing like a tree, 264. It is the hour when from the boughs, 235- I travelled among unknown men, 121. It was the time when lilies blow, 168. I've heard them lilting at our ewe- milking, 83. I've wandered east, I've wandered west, 164. I weigh not fortune's frown or smile ; 264. I wish I were where Helen lies ; 150, Jerusalem, my happy home, 299. John Anderson my jo, John, 278. Lamb of God, I look to Thee ; 317. Last night beneath the foreign stars I stood, 231. Lay a garland on my hearse, 218. Life! I know not what thou art, 290. Like as the damask rose you see, 243. Like to Diana in her summer weed, 199. Like to the falling of a star, 244. Little EUie sits alone, 248. Long-while I sought to what I might compare, 239. Lord, come away, 313. Lord, in this dust thy sovereign voice, 315- Lord, with what care hast Thou be- girt us round ! 230. Love me little, love me long, 194. Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay, 225. Milton ! thou shouldst be living at this hour, 226. Mine be a cot beside the hill : 266. Most glorious Lord of Life, that on this day, 228. Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, 225. My banks they are furnished with bees, 196. My Daphne's hair is twisted gold, 180. 362 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. My letters ! all dead paper, mute and white ! 229. My lute awake ! perform the last, 181. My lute, be as thou wert when thou didst grow, 232. My soul, there is a country, 298. Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, 112. Now glory to the Lord of hosts, from whom all glories are ! 85. Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger, 16. O blithe new-comer! I have heard, 42. O Day most calm, most bright ! 301. Of all the girls that are so smart, 161. Of a' the airts the wind can blow, 201. Of Nelson and the North, 99. Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray; 171. Oft in the stilly night, 277. Of your trouble, Ben, to ease me, 260. Oh England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and high, 118. Oh, green was the corn as I rode on my way, 254. Oh, it is pleasant, with a heart at ease, 241. Oh no more, no more, too late, 218. Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, 157. Oh, what a plague is love ! 188. Oh ! wherefore come ye forth, in tri- umph from the North, 95. O Lord my God, do Thou thy holy will — 308. O Mary, at thy window be, 201. " O Mary, go and call the cattle home," 333- Once, in the flight of ages past, 262, On Linden when the sun was low, loi. On the heights of Killiecrankie, 79. O perfect Light, which shaid away, 20. Orphan Hours, the Year is dead ! 62. O sorrow, sorrow, say where dost thou dwell ? 292. O stream descending to the sea, 258. Our bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lowered, 117. Outlanders, whence come ye last ? 60. Out upon it, I have loved, 215. O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, 55. Pack clouds away, and welcome day, 15- Phillis is my only joy, 180 Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, 77. Piping down the valleys wild, 247. Preserve thy sighs, unthrifty girl, 206. Rarely, rarely comest thou, 327, " Rise up, rise up, now, Lord Doug- las," she says, 141. Rose-cheeked Laura, come ! 198. Roses, their sharp spines being gone, 214. Sad is our youth, for it is ever going, 230. Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 76. Season of mists and mellow fruitful- ness ! 54. Shall L wasting in despaire, 205. Shepherds all, and maidens fair, 29. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 279. Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part — 227. Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king ; 37. Summer is i-cumen in, 37. Sunset and evening star, 290. Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow, 354- Sweet and low, sweet and low, 322. Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, 302. Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen, 329. Sweet is the rose, but grows upon a brere ; 237. Sweet nurslings of the vernal skies, 312. Tanagra ! think not I forget, 346. Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind, — 212. Tell me, thou star, whose wings of light, 36. INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 363 That time of year thou mayst in me behold, 228. The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, 116. The chough and the crow to roost are gone, so. The cock is crowing, 25. The day is down into his bower, 32. The glories of our blood and state, 293. The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece ! 122. The lark now leaves his watery nest, 14. The Lord my pasture shall prepare, 306. The Minstrel-boy to the war is gone, 118. The mountain sheep are sweeter, 114, The night is come, like to the day, 31. Then I tuned my harp, 339. There lived a wife at Usher's Well, 135. There were twa brothers at the scule, 154. There were twa sisters lived in a bouir, 151- The Sea ! the Sea ! the open Sea ! 58. These be none of Beauty's daughters, 219. The splendor falls on castle walls, 323. The tide is higTi, and stormy beams, 185. The warm sun is falling, the bleak wind is wailing, 51. The world's a sea; my flesh a ship that's manned, 287. They die — the dead return not. Mis- ery, 291. They have fetched the steed with care, 104. The young May moon is beaming, love, 34- This day. Dame Nature seem'd in love ! 39. This only grant me that my means may lie, 265, This Relative of mine, 283. Thou God of glorious majesty, 320. Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray, 204. Thou still unravished bride of quiet- ness ! 343. Tiger! Tiger! burning bright, 47. 'Tis time this heart should be un- moved, 361. To Oggier spake King Didier : 75, Touch us gently, Time ! 259. 'I'raveller, what lies over the hill ? 255. Under the greenwood tree, 26. Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms stray- ing, 256. Vital spark of heavenly flame ! 307. Waken, lords and ladies gay, 16. Welcome, welcome, do I sing, 209. What is it to grow old ? 281. What tongue the melodies of morn can tell? 14. When all the world is young, lad, 253. When God at first made man, 305. When icicles hang by the wall, 59. When I consider how my light is spent, 226. When I go musing all alone, 272. When Love with unconfined wings, 210. When Robin Hood and Little John, 132. When the sheep are in the fauld and the kye at hame, 163. When whispering strains do softly steal, 326. Where the pools are bright and deep, 252. Whether on Ida's shady brow, 358. Whither, midst falling dew, 48. " Why does your brand so drop with blood ?" 145. With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies ! 231. With little here to do or see, 43. Woodmen, shepherds, come away, 25. Ye banks and braes and streams around, 202. Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, 217. Ye Mariners of England ! 93. Ye tradefull Merchants, that, with weary toyle, 224. INDEX OF AUTHORS. Anonymous '. The Coming of Spring, 37. Bonnie George Campbell, 84. Robin Hood's Deatli and Burial, 132. The Wife of Usher's Well, 135. King John and the Abbot, 137. The Douglas Tragedy, 141. The Twa Corbies, 144. Barbara Allen's Cruelty, 147. Burd Helen, 150. The Twa Sisters, 151. The Twa Brothers, 154. Old Love Song, 178. My Swete Swetyng, 179. Phillida flouts me, 188. Little but Long, 194. The Heavenly Jerusalem, 299. The Fairy Queen, 329. Addison, Joseph (b. Milston, 1672; d. Holland House, 1719) : Translation of the Twenty-third Psalm, 306. Arnold, Edwin (b. 1832) : Almond Blossom, 45. Arnold, Matthew (b, Laleham, 1822; d. 1888) : Growing Old, 281. Aytoun, William Edmondstoune (b. Edinburgh, 1813; d. 1865): Killiecrankie, 79. Baillie, Joanna (b. Bothwell, 1762 ; d. Hampstead, 1851) : The Chough and the Crow, 50, Barbauld, Atma Letitia (b. Leicester- shire, 1743 ; d. 1825) : Life and Death, 290. Barham, Richard Harris (b. Canter- bury, 1788 ; d. London, 1845) : As I lay a-thynkynge, 331. Barnard, Lady Anne (b. Scotland, 1750 ; d. 1825) : Auld Robin Gray, 163. Barnfield, Richard (b. 1574) : The Nightingale, 47. Beattie, Jaines (b. Scotland, 1735 ; d. 1803) : Morning, 14. Beaumont and Fletcher: Invocation to Sleep, 34. A Bridal Song, 214. Song, 218. Beaumont, Francis (b. Leicestershire 1586; d. 1616) : ' The Life of Man, 244. Melancolia, 271. Blake, William (b. London, 1757; d. 1827) : The Tiger, 47. The Piper, 247. To the Muses, 358. Browne, Sir Thomas (b. London, 1605 ; d. 1682) : Evening Hymn, 31. Browne, William (b. Devonshire, 1590 ; d.1645): Song, 209. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (b. Lon- don, 1809; d. Florence, 1861) : The End of the Siege, 104. A Lover's Letters, 229. The Romance of the Swan's Nest, 248. Stanzas from Wine of Cyprus, 341. 364 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 365 Browning, Robert (b. Camberwell, 1812; d. 1889) : David playing before Saul, 339. Bruce, Michael (b. Kinross-shire, Scotland, 1746; d. 1767) : Ode to the Cuckoo, 41. Bryant, William Cullen (American, b. Cummington, Mass., 1794; d. 1878) : To a Waterfowl, 48, Burns, Robert (b. Ayr, Scotland, 1759 ; d. Dumfries, 1796) : The Battle of Bannockburn, 76. Mary Morison, 201. Highland Mary, 202. My Jean, 201. To Mary in Heaven, 204. The Banks of Doon, 217. John Anderson, 278. Auld Lang Syne, 279, Burton, Robert (b. Leicestershire, 1576 ; d. 1639) : On Melancholy, 272. Byron, Lord (b. London, 1788; d. Greece, 1824) : The Destruction of Sennacherib, 116. The Isles of Greece, 122. Stanzas for Music, 219. Twilight, 235. [345. Invocation to the Spirit of Achilles, Last Poem, 361. Campbell, Thotnas (b. Glasgow, 1777 ; d. Boulogne, 1844) : Ye Mariners of England, 93. The Battle of the Baltic, 99. Hohenlinden, loi. The Soldier's Dream, 117. Campion, Thotnas (b. ; d. 1622) : Silent Music, 198. Carew, Thomas (b. Gloucestershire, 1589 ; d. 1639) : A Proper Woman, 262. Carey, Henry (b. ; d. 1743) : Sally in our Alley, 161. [1400) : Chaucer, Geoffrey (b. about 1340 ; d. To Life's Pilgrim, 294. Clough, Arthur Hugh (b. Liverpool, 1819; d. Florence, f66i) : The Stream of Life, 258. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (b. Devon- shire, 1772; d. Highgate, 1834) : Fancy in Nubibus, 241. Youth and Age, 256, Kubla Khan, 334. Collins, William (b. Chichester 1721 d. 1756) : Evening, 27. Cowley, Abraham (b. London, i6i£ d. 1667) : The Lover to his Lyre, 183. A Wish, 265. Dairy mple, Sir David {Lord Hailes) (b. Scotland, 1726; d. 1792} : Edward of the Bloody Brand, 145. Davenant, Sir William (b. 1606; d. i668) : Dawn-Song, 14. The Soldier going to the Field, 206. Dekker, Thomas (b. about 1570; d. 1637) : Content, 270. De Vere, Aubrey (b, 1814) : Sad and Sweet, 230. Dobell, Sidney (b. near London, 1824 ; d. 1874) : The Common Grave, 231. Donne, John (b. London, 1573; d. 1631) : Resignation and Despair, 233. Drayton, Michael (b. Warwickshire, 1563; d. 1631): The Battle of Agincourt, 69. The Parting, 227. Drummond, William (b. Hawthorn- den, near Edinburgh, 1585; d. 1649) : To his Lute, 232. Illusions, 236. Elliott, Ebenezer (b. near Rotherham, 178 1 ; d. 1849) : Battle Song, 113. Elliott, Jane (b. 178 1 ; d. 1841) : Lament for Flodden, 83. Fletcher, John (b. Rye, 1579 ; d. 1625) : Evening Song, 29. Slumber Song, 33. 366 INDEX OF AUTHORS. Ford, John (b. Islington, 1586; d. 1640) : Penthea's Dying Song, 218. Gay, "John (b. near Barnstaple, 1688 ; d. London, 1732) : Black-Eyed Susan, 159. Greene, Robert (b. Norwich, 1560; d. 1592) : Saniela, 199. Heber, Reginald (b. Cheshire, 1783 ; d. 1826) : The Spring Journey, 254. Herbert, George (b. Montgomery Cas- tle, 1593 ; d. 1632) : Life's Lessons, 230. Life and the Flowers, 245. Sunday, 301. The Virtuous Soul, 302. The Flower, 303. The Pulley, 304. Herrick, Robert (b. London, 1591 ; d. 1674) : May Day, 17. To Blossoms, 38. To Daffadils, 39. To the Lark, 40. To the Virgins to make much of Time, 186. Go, Happy Rose, 187. The Easy Life, 269. The Litany, 313. Music, 325. Heywood, Thomas (b. 1607 ; d. 1649) : A Greeting, 15. To Diana, 30. Hogg, fames (b. Selkirkshire, Scot- land, 1772; d. 1835) : A Boy's Song, 252, Hood, Thotnas (b. London, 1798; d, 1845) : Ode to Autumn, 52. Houghton, Lord (b. 1809 ; d. 1885) : The Palm-tree and the Pine, 333. Hume, Alexander (b. 1560 ; d. 1609) : The Story of a Summer Day, 20. Hunt, Leigh (b. 1784 ; d. 1859) : The Nile, 237. Hunt, Leigh (continued) : The Grasshopper and the Cricket, 240, Ingelow, yean (b. Boston, England, 1830) : Apprenticed, 212. The Long White Seam, 213. Jonson, Ben (b, Westminster, 1574 ; d. 1637) : A Proper Man, 260. The Perfect Life, 264. Keats, John (b. London, 1796; d. Rome, 1821) : To Autumn, 54. On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, 225. Last Sonnet, 233. Ode on a Grecian Urn, 343. Keble, John (b. Gloucestershire, 1792; d. 1866) : Resignation, 308. From "The Waterfall," 311. The Lilies of the Field, 312. Kingsley, Charles (b. Devonshire, 1819; d. 1875) : The Last Buccanier, 118. Youth and Age, 253. The Sands of Dee, 333. Landor, Walter Savage (b. Warwick, 1775 ; d. Florence, 1864) : Corinna from Athens, to Tanagra, 346. Locker-Lanipson, Frederick (b. 1821): To My Grandmother, 283. Lovelace, Colonel Richard (b. Kent, 1618 ; d. London, 1658) : To Althea — From Prison, 120. Her Golden Hair, 211. To Lucasta (on going to the Wars) , 212. Lyly, John (b. Kent, 1553 ; d. 1601) : In Praise of Daphne, 180. Cupid and Campaspe, 239. Lytton, Lord {Owen Meredith) (b. 1831; d. 1891) : Serenade, 32. Evening, 235. INDEX OP AUTHORS. 367 Macaulay, T/iomas Babingtoii (b. Leicestershire, 1800; d. Kensing- ton, 1859) : The Coming of Charlemagne, 75. The Battle of Ivry, 85. The Armada, 88. The Battle of Naseby, 95. Macdonald, George (b. Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 1824) : Over the Hill, 255. Sweet Peril, 291, Marlowe, Christopher{h. 1564 ; d. 1593) : The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, 192, Milton, John (b. London, 1608 ; d. 1674) : May Morning, 16. On his Blindness, 226. To Echo, 329, Montgomery, James (b. Ayrshire, Scot- land, 1771 ; d. 1854) : The Common Lot, 262. Moore, Tkomas (b. Dublin, 1779; d. 1852) : The Young May Moon, 34. The Battle, 103. The Minstrel Boy, 118. Come o'er the Sea, 216. The Light of Other Days, 277. Morris, William (b. 1834) : Christmas Carol, 60. Motherwell, William (b. Glasgow, 1797 ; d. 1835) : Jeanie Morrison, 164. Nairne, Lady (b. Scotland, 1766; d. 184s) •• The Land o' the Leal, 280. NaSh, Thomas (b. Suffolk, 1567; d. about 1600) : Spring, 37. Newman, John Henry (b. London, 1801 ; d. 1890) : A Thanksgiving, 315. Oldys, William (b. 1696; d. 1761) : The Fly, 46. Peacock, Thomas Love (b. 1785; d. 1866) : • The War-Song of Dinas Vawr, 114. ! Poe, Edgar Allan (American, b. Bos- ton, 1809; d. 1849) : To Helen, 200. Pope, Alexander (b. London, 1688; d. 1744) : The Quiet Life, 268. The Dying Christian to his Soul, 307. Procter, Brya?t Waller (b, 1787 ; d. 1874) : The Sea, ^8. A Petition to Time, 259. Quarles, Francis (b. Essex, 1592 ; d. 1644) : The Voyage of Life, 287. Raleigh, Sir Walter (b. Devonshire, 1552; d. 1618): The Shepherdess's Reply, 193. A Vision upon The Faerie Queene, 225. The Soul's Errand, 274. Last Lines, 294. Rogers, Samuel (b. near London, 1763 ; d. 1855) : My Native Vale, 120. A Wish, 266. Rossetti, Christina (b. London, 1830) : Up-Hill, 285. Rowley, Samuel (i6th century) : Sorrow-Song, 292. Scott, Sir Walter (b. Edinburgh, 1771 ; d. Abbotsford, 1832) : Hunting Song, 16. Gathering Song of Donuil Dhu, jj. Lochinvar, 157. Sedley, Sir Charles (b. 1639; d. 1701): Phillis, 180. Song to Chloris, 207. Shakespeare, Williatn (b. 1564; d. 1616) : A Morning Song, 13. Under the Greenwood Tree, 26. Winter, 59. Quatuor Novissima, 228. Shelley, Percy Bysshe (b. Sussex, 1792 ; d. Gulf of Spezzia, 1822) : The World's Wanderers, 36, To the Moon, 36. Autumn, 51. 368 INDEX OF AUTHORS. Shelley, Percy Bysshe (continued) : Ode to the West Wind, 55. Dirge for the Year, 62. Death, 291. The Spirit of Dehght, 327, To a Lady, with a Guitar, 336. Arethusa, 348. Shenstone, William (b. Shropshire, 1714 ; d. 1763) : Pastoral, 196. Shirley, Jatnes (b. London, 1594; d, 1666) : Holiday in Arcadia, 25. Death's Triumph, 293. Sidney, Sir Philip (b. Kent, 1554 ; d. Zutphen, 1586) : To the Moon, 231. Southey, Robert (b. Bristol, 1774; d. 1843) : Night in the Desert, 35. Spenser, Edmund (b. London, 1552 ; d. 1599) : Herself all Treasure, 224. Easter Morning, 228. Sweet and Bitter, 237. Her Eyes, 239. Strode, William (b. 1600; d. 1644) : Praise of Music, 326. Suckling, Sir John (b, 1609; d. 1641) : Constancy, 215. Surrey, Earl of {Henry Howard) (b. about 15 16; d. 1547) : Description and Praise of Ger- aldine, 223. Swinburne, Algernon Charles (b. Lon- don, 1837) : In San Lorenzo, 238, The Garden of Proserpine, 351. Itylus, 354. Sylvester, Joshua (b. 1563 ; d. 1618) : The Contented Mind, 264. Symonds, John Addiftgton (b. 1840; d. 1893) : A Lost Love, 185. A Parting in Dreamland, 286. Taylor, Jeremy (b. Cambridge, 1613 ; d. 1667) : Christ's Coming to Jerusalem, 313. Tennyson, Alfred (b. Lincolnshire, 1809; d. 1892) : The Charge of the Light Brigade, 73- Lady Clare, 168. Break, Break, Break, 274. Crossing the Bar, 290. Songs from " The Princess," 322. Vaughan, Henry (b. 1621 ; d. 1695) : The Retreat, 246. Peace, 298. Waller, Edmund (b. Hertfordshire, 1605 ; d. 1687) : The Rose's Message, 186. Wastell, Simon (17th century) : Man's Mortahty, 243. Wesley, Charles (b. 1708 ; d. 1788) : Christ our Example, 317. Easter Hymn, 318. Wesley, John (b. 1703; d. 1791): A Hymn for Seriousness, 320. White, Henry Kirke (b. 1785 ; d. 1806) : Retirement, 234. Wither, George (b. Hampshire, 1588 ; d. 1667) : The Author's Resolution in a Son- net, 205. Wolfe, Charles (b. Ireland, 1791 ; d. 1823) : The Burial of Sir John Moore, 112. Wordsworth, William (b. 1770; d. 1850) : After Rain, 25. To the Cuckoo, 42. To the Daisy, 43. " I travelled among Unknown Men," 121. Lucy Gray, 171. To Milton, 226. Wotton, Sir Henry (b. Kent, 1568 ; d. 1639) : A Spring Idyll, 39. The Character of a Happy Life, 267. Wyatt, Sir Thoinas (b. Kent, 1503 ; d. 1542) : The Lover to his Lute, 181. The Lover's Appeal, 184. An Appeal, 191.