Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Or vice; who never understood

How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good:

Who hath his life from rumours freed,
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;

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.

VIRTUE.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;

For thou must die.

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 ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives;

But though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

GEORGE HERBERT.

LOVE AND THE AFFECTIONS.

Love is life's end, (an end, but never ending,)
All joys, all sweets, all happiness, awarding;
Love is life's wealth, (ne'er spent, but ever spending,)
More rich by giving, taking by discarding;
Love 's life's reward, rewarded in rewarding:

Then from thy wretched heart fond care remove;
Ah! shouldst thou live but once love's sweets to prove,
Thou wilt not love to live, unless thou live to love.

EDMUND SPENSER.

They sin who tell us Love can die;
With life all other passions fly,

All others are but vanity.

In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell;
Earthly these passions of the Earth,

They perish where they have their birth;
But Love is indestructible.

Its holy flame for ever burneth,

From Heaven it came, to Heaven 'returneth;
Too oft on Earth a troubled guest,

At times deceived, at times opprest,
It here is tried and purified

Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest:
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest time of Love is there.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

FROM THE CUCKOW AND THE NIGHTINGALE“.

The god of love, and benedicite,

How mighty and how great a lord is he!
For he can make of low hertes 1 hie, 2
And of high low, and like for to die,
And hard hertes he can maken free.

He can make within a little stound, 3
Of sicke folke hole, 4 fresh, and sound,
And of hole he can make seke, 5
He can bind and unbinden eke,

That he woll6 have bounden or unbound.

To tell his might my wit may not suffice,
For he can make of wise folke full nice, 7
For he may do all that he woll devise,
And lither folke to destroyen vice,
And proud hertes he can make agrise. 9

Shortly, all that ever he woll he may,
Against him dare no wight say nay,

For he can glad and greve whom he liketh,

And who that he woll he lougheth 10 or siketh, 11
And most his might he shedeth ever in May.

1 hearts. 5 sick. 6 will.

2 high. 3 a moment; a short space of time.
7 foolish. 8 wicked. 9 shudder. 10 laughs.

4 whole. 11 sighs.