Why art so sad and sullen, O my muse!
That now to make a verse thou dost refuse?
Must thou be mov'd by a reward to raise
Thy fancie up? Lo here's a sprig of bayes
To make a lawrel; if that wil not do it,
Meere indignation wil create a poet.
Art thou not angry yet at these mad times?
Canst thou forbeare to write satyric rhimes?
A rod is good for mad-men in their fits,
'Twil them restrain, if not restore teir wits;
The world is a great Bedlam, where men talke
Distractedly, and on their heads doe walk,
Treading antipodes to all the sages,

Lord! when Thou com'st to judg the world with right,
Thou'lt steale upon us like a thief i'th' night,
Or like a flash of lightning from the skie,
Or like the suddain twinkling of an eye,
Or like the pains on woman, much about
The time when once that her account is out.
O let me like to that good husband watch,
Lest that the thief me unprepared catch;
O let Thy grace be evermore my light,
That th' other lightning may not me affright.
O let mine eye be ever fixt on Thee,
That Thy last coming I with joy may see.

O how I long to be dissolv'd, and see
This mortal put on immortalitie!
Me thinks each day's a yeer, each year's an age
Till I arrive at that most glorious stage
Of heaven, where saints and martyrs gazing on,
Look if I tread the same steps they have gone;
But I, like Drake, so great a compasse take
About the world, such strange meanders make,
That they have got the goal in shorter space
Then I have been in running half my race.
So have I seen a christal streame to glide
In various windings by a meadowes side,

To praise thy life, or waile thy woorthie death,
And want thy wit, thy wit high, pure, divine,
Is far beyond the powre of mortall line,
Nor any one hath worth that draweth breath.

Yet rich in zeale, though poore in learnings lore,
And friendly care obscurde in secret brest,
And love that envie in thy life supprest.
Thy deere life done, and death hath doubled more.

And I, that in thy time and living state,
Did onely praise thy vertues in my thought,
As one that seeld the rising sunne hath sought,

'Twas in a village, near Castlebury,
A cobler and his wife did dwell;
And for a time no two so merry,
Their happiness no tongue can tell.

But to this couple, the neighbours tell us,
Something did happen that caus'd much strife,
For, going to a neighb'ring alehouse,
The man got drunk and beat his wife.

II.

But, though he treated her so vilely,

Lady farwell whom I in Sylence serve
Wold god thou knewste the depth of my desire,
Then might I hope, thoughe nought I can deserve,
Som drop of grace, wold quench my scorchyng fyre.
But as to Love unknowne I have decreed,
So spare to speake doth often spare to speed.

Yett better twere that I in woe should waste
Then sue for Grace and Pyty in Despighte
And though I see in thee such pleasures plaste
That feedes my Joy and breedes my cheef delyghte,
Wythall I see a chast Con[t]entt Dysdayne

" A Valentine . "

Though I have loved you well, I ween,
And you, too, fancied me,
Your heart hath too divided been
A constant heart to be.
And like the gay and youthful knight,
Who loved and rode away,
Your fleeting fancy takes a flight
With every fleeting day.

So let it be as you propose,
Tho' hard the struggle be;
'Tis fitter far — that goodness knows! —

So homeward fared beneath a star-lit sky,
Brooding brim-full of light above the sea;
And passed among the lava-rocks which lie,
Where, from the west, they shield fair Italy;
Passed Monte Cristo, mystic grot! whence he,
The new Aladdin, mystic treasure drew;
And Elba, more mysterious, whence there flew
His eagle last to awe the world again;
Whose lengthening shadow awes it now, as then.

And how one longs for points, though small as these,
Giddy until he finds them! How one craves,
On History's vast blue, amid her seas,

On the Overthrow of P HARAOH , in the Red-sea, from Exodus

The first Party only

I.

Temples, and altars, let us raise,
Ours , and our father's God , provokes our praise.
God is our strength, God is our theme:
Where is Egypt 's fall'n esteem?
Pharaoh wakes, from his proud dream:
Wakes, to feel a warrior's hand.
Lord of a pow'r more vast, than his , that shakes his wond'ring land!
Vainly, the following foes our God defy'd,
Their rapid wheels, in vain, tore up the strand:

Love's keenest darts are radiant Bolton's care,
Which the bright goddess poisons with despair;
The god of Wine the dire effect foresees,
And sends the juice that gives the lover ease.