GOOD that never satisfies the mind,
A beauty fading like the April flowers,
A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined,
A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours,
A honour that more fickle is than wind,
A glory at opinion's frown that lowers,
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 fabulous thought of holding sea and land,
A servile lot, decked with pompous name :
Are the strange ends we toil for here below,
Till wisest death make us our errors know.
LOOK how the flower which lingeringly doth fade,
The morning's darling late, the summer's queen,
Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and green,
As high as it did raise, bows low the head:
Right so my life, contentments being dead,
Or in their contraries but only seen,
With swifter speed declines than erst it spread,
And blasted, scarce now shows what it hath been.
As doth the pilgrim therefore, whom the night
By darkness would imprison on his way,
Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright
Of what yet rests thee of life's wasting day;
Thy sun posts westward, passèd is thy morn,
And twice it is not given thee to be born.
THE BOOK OF THE WORLD.
OF this fair volume which we World do name
If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care,
Of him who it corrects and did it frame,
We clear might read the art and wisdom rare:
Find out his power which wildest powers doth tame,
His providence extending everywhere,
His justice which proud rebels doth not spare,
In every page, no, period of the same.
But silly we, like foolish children, rest
Well pleased with coloured vellum, leaves of gold,
Fair dangling ribands, leaving what is best,
On the great writer's sense ne'er taking hold;
Or if by chance our minds do muse on ought,
It is some picture on the margin wrought.
'HE last and greatest herald of Heaven's King,
Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild,
Among that savage brood the woods forth bring,
Which he than man more harmless found and mild.
His food was blossoms, and what young doth spring,
With honey that from virgin hives distilled;
Parched body, hollow eyes, some uncouth thing
Made him appear, long since from earth exiled.
There burst he forth: All ye whose hopes rely
On God, with me amidst these deserts mourn,
Repent, repent, and from old errors turn!—
Who listened to his voice, obeyed his cry?
Only the echoes, which he made relent,
Rung from their marble caves, Repent! Repent!
THE PRAISE OF A SOLITARY LIFE.
HRICE happy he, who by some shady grove,
Far from the clamorous world doth live his own;
Though solitary, who is not alone,
But doth converse with that Eternal Love.
O how more sweet is birds' harmonious moan,
Or the hoarse sobbings of the widowed dove,
Than those smooth whisperings near a prince's throne,
Which good make doubtful, do the evil approve!
O how more sweet is Zephyr's wholesome breath,
And sighs embalmed which new-born flowers unfold,
Than that applause vain honour doth bequeath!
How sweet are streams to poison drunk in gold!
The world is full of horrors, troubles, slights;
Woods' harmless shades have only true delights.
WEET bird, that sing'st away the early hours,
Of winters past or coming void of care,
Well pleased with delights which present are,
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers;
To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers
Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare,
And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare,
A stain to human sense in sin that lowers.
What soul can be so sick which by thy songs,
Attired in sweetness, sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,
And lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven!
Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost raise
To airs of spheres, yes, and to angels' lays.
CONTENT AND RESOLUTE.
AS when it happeneth that some lovely town
Unto a barbarous besieger falls,
Who there by sword and flame himself instals,
And, cruel, it in tears and blood doth drown ;
Her beauty spoiled, her citizens made thralls,
His spite yet so cannot her all throw down
But that some statue, arch, fane of renown
Yet lurks unmaimed within her weeping walls :
So, after all the spoil, disgrace, and wrack,
That time, the world, and death, could bring combined,
Amidst that mass of ruins they did make,
Safe and all scarless yet remains my mind.
From this so high transcending rapture springs,
That I, all else defaced, not envy kings.
OTH then the world go thus, doth all thus move?
Is this the justice which on earth we find?
Is this that firm decree which all doth bind?
Are these your influences, Powers above?
Those souls which vice's moody mists most blind,
Blind Fortune, blindly, most their friend doth prove ;
And they who thee, poor idol Virtue! love,
Fly like a feather tossed by storm and wind.
Ah! if a Providence doth sway this All,
Why should best minds groan under most distress?
Or why should pride humility make thrall,
And injuries the innocent oppress?
Heavens! hinder, stop this fate; or grant a time
When good may have, as well as bad, their prime.
BEFORE A POEM OF IRENE.
MOURN not, fair Greece, the ruin of thy kings,
Thy temples razed, thy forts with flames devoured,
Thy champions slain, thy virgins pure deflowered,
Nor all those griefs which stern Bellona brings:
But mourn, fair Greece, mourn that that sacred band
Which made thee once so famous by their songs,
Forced by outrageous fate, have left thy land,
And left thee scarce a voice to plain thy wrongs!
Mourn that those climates which to thee appear
Beyond both Phoebus and his sister's ways,
To save thy deeds from death must lend thee lays,
And such as from Musæus thou didst hear;
For now Irene hath attained such fame,
That Hero's ghost doth weep to hear her name.
AIREST, when by the rules of palmistry
You took my hand to try if you could guess,
By lines therein, if any wight there be
Ordained to make me know some happiness,
I wished that those charácters could explain
Whom I will never wrong with hope to win ;
Or that by them a copy might be seen
By you, O Love, what thoughts I have within.
But since the hand of Nature did not set
(As providently loth to have it known)
The means to find that hidden alphabet,
Mine eyes shall be th' interpreters alone.
By them conceive my thoughts and tell me, fair,
If now you see her that doth love me there!
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