To the Same, on Having Received Some Perfumes

ON HAVING RECEIVED SOME PERFUMES .

Why bribe with fragrant gifts the languid muse?
Cast but a glance — what poet can refuse?
The glorious lustre of your eye prevails,
More than the sweetness of Arabian gales:
Soon will Arabia's od'rous breezes die,
But beams immortal sparkle in your eye.

Downland Shepherd

While stable-boys go thundering by
Slinging dark divots at the sky,
Like a wind-hover he stands still
Beside the sun, late on the hill,
And chin on hands, hands on his crook,
Tegs, shearlings, yoes cons like a book
Or sees them pass slow as a cloud,
Four hundred heads with one prayer bowed.

Ben More

Two ravens from the summit rise and croak
Sailing in circles over the hill-smoke;
Why do their raucous cries strike on my ear
Less than those motor-horns I cannot hear?

Spring

I never noticed, till I saw today
How budding birches stand in their green spray
And bracken like a snake from earth upheaves,
How many in this wood are last year's leaves.

Envoy, L'

To thee, in honour of whose government
Entitled is this Praise of Chastity ,
My gentle friend, these hasty lines are meant:
So flowereth Virtue like the laurel-tree,
Immortal green, that every eye may see;
And well was Daphne turn'd into the bay,
Whose chasteness triumphs, grows, and lives for aye.

On the Death of the Duke of Cloucester

For Gloucester 's Death, which sadly we deplore,
Though Fate's accused, we should commend it more;
Left he with Burnet 's Faith should be imbrued,
Or learn of C — — Truth or Gratitude:
Left two such Masters should their Rules instil,
And his young Soul with poisonous Precepts fill.
Untimely Fate Heaven timely did employ,
And to preserve the Man, destroy'd the Boy.

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