"Ah, death! once greatest ill, now only blessing,
Untroubled sleep, short travel, ever resting,
All sickness' cure, thou end of all distressing,
Thou one meal's fast, usher to endless feasting;
Tho' hopeless griefs cry out, thy aid requesting,
Tho' thou art sweeten'd by a life most hateful,
How is't, that when thou com'st, thy coming is
ungrateful?

"Frail flesh, why would'st thou keep a hated guest, And him refuse whom thou hast oft invited!

Life thy tormenter, death thy sleep and rest.
And thou, (poor soul!) why at his sight art frighted,
Who clears thine eyes, and makes thee eagle-
sighted?

Mount now, my soul, and seat thee in thy throne: Thou shalt be one with him, by whom thou first

wast one.

"Why should'st thou love this star, this borrow'd light,

And not that Sun, at which thou oft hast guessed, But guess'd in vain? which dares thy piercing sight, Which never was, which cannot be expressed?

Why lov'st thy load, and joy'st to be oppressed? Seest thou those joys? those thousand thousand [embraces." Mount now, my soul, and leap to those outstretch'd

graces?

Thus said, and while the body slumb'ring lay,
(As Theseus Ariadne's bed forsaking)
His quiet soul stole from her house of clay;
And glorious angels on their wings it taking,
Swifter than lightning flew, for Heaven making;
VOL. V.

K

There happy goes he, heav'nly fires admiring, Whose motion is their bait, whose rest is restless jeering.

And now the courts of that thrice blessed King
It enters, and his presence sits enjoying;
While in itself it finds an endless spring
Of pleasures new, and never weary joying,

Ne'er spent in spending, feeding, never cloying: Weak pen to write! for thought can never feign tain them.

them: The mind that all can hold, yet cannot half con

There doth it blessed sit, and looking down,
Laughs at our busy care, and idle paining;
And fitting to itself that glorious crown,

Scorns Earth, where even kings most serve by reigning;

Where men get wealth, and Hell; so lose by gaining.

Ah, blessed soul! there sit thou still delighted,
Till we at length to him with thee shall be united..

SELECT POEMS

OF

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

WITH

A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

FROM CAMPBELL.

LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

BORN 1552.-DIED 1618.

It is difficult exactly to estimate the poetical character of this great man, as many of the pieces that are ascribed to him have not been authenticated. Among these is the "Soul's Farewell," which possesses a fire of imagination that we would willingly ascribe to him; but his claim to it, as has been already mentioned, is exceedingly doubtful. The tradition of his having written it on the night before his execution is highly interesting to the fancy, but, like many fine stories, it has the little defect of being untrue, as the poem was in existence more than twenty years before his death. has accordingly been placed in this collection, with several other pieces to which. his name has been conjecturally affixed, among the anonymous poetry of that period.

It

Sir Walter was born at Hayes Farm, in Devonshire, and studied at Oxford. Leaving the university at seventeen, he fought for six years under the Protestant banners in France, and afterwards served a campaign in the Netherlands. He next distinguished himself in Ireland, during the rebellion of 1580, under the lord deputy Lord Grey de Wilton, with whom his personal disputes eventually promoted his fortunes; for being heard in his own cause, on returning to England, he won the favour of Elizabeth, who knighted him, and raised him to