He's a fool that basely dallies

Where each peasant mates with him. Shall I haunt the thronged vallies, Whilst there's noble hills to climb ? No, no ;-though clowns

Are scar'd with frowns,

I know the best can but disdain :
And those I'll prove,

So will thy' love

Be all bestow'd on me in vain.

I do scorn to vow a duty

Where each lustful lad may woo:
Give me her whose sun-like beauty
Buzzards dare not soar unto.
She, she it is

Affords that bliss

For which I would refuse no pain:

But such as you,

Fond fools, adieu !

You seek to captive me in vain.

Leave me then, thou Syren, 2 leave me!

Crafty wiles cannot deceive me;
I'am proof against your charms.

You labour may

To lead astray

The heart that constant shall remain;

And I the while

Will sit and smile

To see you spend your time in vain.

[On his Muse.]

[From "The Shepherd's Hunting."]

AND though for her sake I'm crost,
Though my best hopes I have lost,
And knew she would make my trouble
Ten times more than ten times double,
I should love and keep her too,
Spite of all the world could do.
For though banish'd from my flocks,
And confin'd within these rocks,
Here I waste away the light,
And consume the sullen night,
She doth for my comfort stay
And keeps many cares away.

"Who."

Though I miss the flowery fields,

With those sweets the spring-tide yields,
Though I may not see those groves
Where the shepherds chant their loves,
And the lasses more excel: }
Than the sweet-voic'd Philomel;
Though of all those pleasures past
Nothing now remains at last
But remembrance, poor relief,

That more makes than mends my grief;

She's my mind's companion still,
Maugre Envy's evil will.

Whence she should be driven too,

Were't in mortals power to do.
She doth tell me where to borrow
Comfort in the midst of sorrow,
Makes the desolatest place
To her presence be a grace,
And the blackest discontents
To be pleasing ornaments.
In my former days of bliss
Her divine skill taught me this,
That from every thing I saw
I could some invention draw,
And raise pleasure to her height
Through the meanest object's sight.
H

VOL. III.

By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rusteling;
By a daisy whose leaves spread,
Shut when Titan goes to bed;
Or a shady bush or tree

She could more infuse in me,

Than all nature's beauties can

In some other wiser man.
By her help I also now

Make this churlish place allow

Some things that may sweeten gladness.
In the very gall of sadness. ·

The dull loneness, the black shade

That these hanging vaults have made,
The strange music of the waves,
Beating on these hollow caves;
This black den, which rocks emboss,
Overgrown with eldest moss;
The rude portals that give light
More to terror than delight;
This my chamber of neglect,
Wall'd about with disrespect;
From all these and this dull air,
A fit object for despair,

She hath taught me by her might
To draw comfort and delight.

Therefore, thou best earthly bliss,
I will cherish thee for, this,
POESY!-thou sweet'st content
That e'er heaven to mortals lent.
Tho' they as a trifle leave thee

Whose dull thoughts can not conceive thee,
Tho' thou be to them a scorn

That to nought but earth are born;

Let my life no longer be

Than I am in love with thee.

Though our wise ones call thee madness,
Let me never taste of gladness

If I love not thy maddest fits

More than all their greatest wits.
And tho' some too seeming holy
Do account thy raptures folly,
Thou dost teach me to contemn

What makes knaves and fools of them.

Oh, high power! that oft doth carry
Men above-