Fly hence shadows, that do keep
Watchful sorrows charmed in sleep!
Though the eyes be overtaken,
Yet the heart doth ever waken
Thoughts chained up in busy snares,
Of continual woes and cares;
Loves and griefs are so exprest
As they rather sigh than rest;
Fly hence shadows, that do keep
Watchful sorrows charmed in sleep.
What bird so sings, yet so does wail?
'Tis Philomel, the nightingale ;
Jug, jug, jug, terue! she cries,
And, hating earth, to heaven she flies.
Ha, ha! hark, hark! the cuckoos sing
Cuckoo to welcome in the Spring.
Brave prick-song! who is't now we hear?
'Tis the lark's silver leer-a-leer;
How at heaven's gates she claps her wings,
The morn not waking till she sings. .
Ha, ha! hark, hark! the cuckoos sing
Cuckoo to welcome in the Spring.
Can you paint thought? or number
Every fancy in a slumber?
Can you count soft minutes roving
From a dial's point by moving?
Can you grasp a sigh?
No, oh, no! yet you may
Sooner do both that and this,
And never miss,
Than by any praise display
Beauty's beauty, such a glory,
As beyond all fate, all story.
Glories, pleasures, pomps, delights, and ease,
Can but please
The outward senses, when the mind
Is not troubled, or by peace refined.
Crowns may flourish and decay,
Beauties shine, but fade away.
Youth may revel, yet it must
Lie down in a bed of dust;
Earthly honours flow and waste,
Time alone doth change and last.
Sorrows mingled with contents prepare
Rest for care.
AUTHOR UNKNOWN.
[Possibly Ford.]
Since first I saw your face I resolved
To honour and renown you;
If now I be disdained, I wish
My heart had never known you.
What! I that loved, and you that liked,
Shall we begin to wrangle?
No, no, no, my heart is fast,
And cannot disentangle !
The sun whose beams most glorious are,
Rejecteth no beholder;
And thy sweet beauty, past compare,
Made my poor eyes the bolder.
Where beauty moves, and wit delights,
And signs of kindness bind me,
There, O there, where'er I go,
I leave my heart behind me.
1582-1635] BISHOP CORBET.
ON FRANCIS BEAUMONT.
Then newly dead.
He that hath such acuteness and such wit,
As would ask ten good heads to husband it;
He that can write so well, that no man dare
Refuse it for the best, let him beware;
Beaumont is dead! by whose sole death appears,
Wit's a disease, consumes men in few years.
From THE DISTRACTED PURITAN.
[Last line rhymed by Cambridge wit.]
In the house of pure Emanuel
I had my education;
In the holy tongue of Canaan
I took my recreation.
From THE FAIRIES' FAREWELL.
And though they sweep their hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanliness,
Finds sixpence in her shoe?
SIR HENRY WOTTON. [1568-1639
THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE.
How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill !
Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the world by care
Of public fame or private breath;
Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Nor 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.
TO ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.
Daughter of James I.
You meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes,
More by your number than your light,
You common people of the skies,
What are you when the moon shall rise?
You curious chanters of the wood,
That warble forth Dame Nature's lays,
Thinking your passions understood
By your weak accents; what's your praise,
When Philomel her voice shall raise?
You violets that first appear,
By your pure purple mantles known,
Like the proud virgins of the year,
As if the spring were all your own,
What are you when the rose is blown?
So when my mistress shall be seen,
In form and beauty of her mind,
By virtue first, then choice, a Queen,
Tell me if she were not designed
The eclipse and glory of her kind?
Died 1637] THOMAS HEYWOOD.
Pack, clouds away, and welcome, day,
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air, blow soft; mount lark, aloft,
To give my love good morrow!
Wings from the wind, to please her mind;
Notes from the lark I'll borrow;
Bird, prune thy wing; nightingale, sing;
To give my love good morrow!
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