rose

Define my weal, and tell the joys of Heav'n;
Express my woes, and show the pains of Hell;
Declare what fate unlucky stars have giv'n,
And ask a world upon my life to dwell;
Make known the faith that Fortune could not move;
Compare myu worth with others' base desert;
Let virtue be the touchstone of my love,
So may the heav'ns read wonders in my heart;
Behold the clouds which have eclips'd my sun,
And view the crosses which my course do let;
Tell me if ever since the world begun

Beauty, sweet love, is like the morning dew
Whose short refresh upon the tender green
Cheers for a time but till the Sun doth show,
And straight 'tis gone as it had never been.
Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish;
Short is the glory of the blushing Rose,
The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish
Yet which at length thou must be forc'd to lose.
When thou surcharg'd with burden of thy years
Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth,
When Time hath made a passport for thy fears,

If this be love, to draw a weary breath,
Paint on floods, till the shore, cry to th'air,
With downward looks still reading on the earth,
The sad memorials of my love's despair.
If this be love, to war against my soul,
Lie down to wail, rise up to sigh and grieve me,
The never-resting stone of care to roll,
Still to complain my griefs, and none relieve me.
If this be love, to clothe me with dark thoughts,
Haunting untrodden paths to wail apart,
My pleasures horror, music tragic notes,

Why, when I gaze on Phaon's beauteous eyes,
Why does each thought in wild disorder stray?
Why does each fainting faculty decay,
And my chill'd breast in throbbing tumults rise?
Mute, on the ground my Lyre neglected lies,
The Muse forgot, and lost the melting lay;
My down-cast looks, my faultering lips betray,
That stung by hopeless passion,--Sappho dies!
Now, on a bank of Cypress let me rest;
Come, tuneful maids, ye pupils of my care,
Come, with your dulcet numbers soothe my breast;

Taking my pen, with words to cast my woe,
Duly to count the sum of all my cares,
I find my griefs innumerable grow,
The reckonings rise to millions of despairs;
And thus dividing of my fatal hours,
The payments of my love I read and cross,
Subtracting, set my sweets unto my sours,
My joy's arrearage leads me to my loss;
And thus mine eye's a debtor to thine eye,
Which by extortion gaineth all their looks;
My heart hath paid such grievous usury
That all their wealth lies in thy beauty's books,

High on a rock, coaeval with the skies,
A Temple stands, rear'd by immortal pow'rs
To Chastity divine! ambrosial flow'rs
Twining round icicles, in columns rise,
Mingling with pendent gems of orient dyes!
Piercing the air, a golden crescent tow'rs,
Veil'd by transparent clouds; while smiling hours
Shake from their varying wings--celestial joys!
The steps of spotless marble, scatter'd o'er
With deathless roses arm'd with many a thorn,
Lead to the altar. On the frozen floor,
Studded with tear-drops petrified by scorn,

Down the strait vistas where a city street
Fades in pale dust and vaporous distances,
Stained with far fumes the light grows less and less
And the sky reddens round the day's retreat.
Now out of orient chambers, cool and sweet,
Like Nature's pure lustration, Dusk comes down.
Now the lamps brighten and the quickening town
Rings with the trample of returning feet.
And Pleasure, risen from her own warm mould
Sunk all the drowsy and unloved daylight
In layers of odorous softness, Paphian girls

o



THE partial Muse, has from my earliest hours,
Smil'd on the rugged path I'm doom'd to tread,
And still with sportive hand has snatch'd wild flowers,
To weave fantastic garlands for my head:
But far, far happier is the lot of those
Who never learn'd her dear delusive art;
Which, while it decks the head with many a rose,
Reserves the thorn, to fester in the heart.
For still she bids soft Pity's melting eye
Stream o'er the ills she knows not to remove,

XVII


Lawrence of vertuous Father vertuous Son,
Now that the Fields are dank, and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help wast a sullen day; what may be Won
From the hard Season gaining: time will run
On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
The frozen earth; and cloth in fresh attire
The Lillie and Rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of Attick tast, with Wine, whence we may rise

Were I the poet-laureate of the fairies,
Who in a rose-leaf finds too broad a page;
Or could I, like your beautiful canaries,
Sing with free heart and happy, in a cage;
Perhaps I might within this little space
(As in some Eastern tale, by magic power,
A giant is imprisoned in a flower)
Have told you something with a poet's grace.
But I need wider limits, ampler scope,
A world of freedom for a world of passion,
And even then, the glory of my hope
Would not be uttered in its stateliest fashion;