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And teach me how to sing
Unto the lyric string,
My measures ravishing!

Then, while I sing your praise,
My priest-hood crown with bays
Green to the end of days!

* 49 *

THE COMING OF GOOD LUCK

So Good-Luck came, and on my roof did light,
Like noiseless snow, or as the dew of night;
Not all at once, but gently, as the trees
Are by the sun-beams, tickled by degrees.

* 50 *

HIS CONTENT IN THE COUNTRY

HERE, here I live with what my board
Can with the smallest cost afford;
Though ne'er so mean the viands be,
They well content my Prue and me :
Or pea or bean, or wort or beet,
Whatever comes, Content makes sweet.
Here we rejoice, because no rent
We pay for our poor tenement ;
Wherein we rest, and never fear
The landlord or the usurer.

E

The quarter-day does ne'er affright
Our peaceful slumbers in the night:
We eat our own, and batten more,
Because we feed on no man's score ;
But pity those whose flanks grow great,
Swell'd with the lard of other's meat.
We bless our fortunes, when we see
Our own beloved privacy;
And like our living, where we're known
To very few, or else to none.

*51*

HIS RETURN TO LONDON

FROM the dull confines of the drooping west,
To see the day spring from the pregnant east,
Ravish'd in spirit, I come, nay more, I fly
To thee, blest place of my nativity !

Thus, thus with hallow'd foot I touch the ground,
With thousand blessings by thy fortune crown'd.
O fruitful Genius! that bestowest here

An everlasting plenty year by year;

O place! O people! manners! framed to please
All nations, customs, kindreds, languages!
I am a free-born Roman; suffer then
That I amongst you live a citizen.

London my home is; though by hard fate sent
Into a long and irksome banishment;
Yet since call'd back, henceforward let me he,
O native country, repossess'd by thee !

For, rather than I'll to the west return,
I'll beg of thee first here to have mine urn.
Weak I am grown, and must in short time fall;
Give thou my sacred reliques burial.

* 52 *

HIS DESIRE

GIVE me a man that is not dull,
When all the world with rifts is full;
But unamazed dares clearly sing,
Whenas the roof's a-tottering;
And though it falls, continues still
Tickling the Cittern with his quill.

*53*

an ode For Ben JonSON

Ан Ben!

Say how or when

Shall we, thy guests,
Meet at those lyric feasts,
Made at the Sun,

The Dog, the Triple Tun;
Where we such clusters had,
As made us nobly wild, not mad?
And yet each verse of thine

Out-did the meat, out-did the frolic wine.

My Ben!
Or come agair.,
Or send to us

Thy wit's great overplus ; But teach us yet Wisely to husband it, Lest we that talent spend ; And having once brought to an end That precious stock, -the store Of such a wit the world should have no more.

*54*

TO LIVE MERRILY,

AND TO TRUST TO GOOD VERSES

Now is the time for mirth;

Nor cheek or tongue be dumb ;

For with [the] flowery earth

The golden pomp is come.

The golden pomp is come;
For now each tree does wear,
Made of her pap and gum,
Rich beads of amber here.

Now reigns the Rose, and now
Th' Arabian dew besmears

My uncontrolled brow,
And my retorted hairs,

Homer, this health to thee !
In sack of such a kind,
That it would make thee see,
Though thou wert ne'er so blind.

Next, Virgil I'll call forth,

To pledge this second health
In wine, whose each cup's worth
An Indian commonwealth.

A goblet next I'll drink

To Ovid; and suppose

Made he the pledge, he'd think
The world had all one nose.

Then this immensive cup
Of aromatic wine,
Catullus! I quaff up

To that terse muse of thine.

Wild I am now with heat:
O Bacchus! cool thy rays;
Or frantic I shall eat

Thy Thyrse, and bite the Bays!

Round, round, the roof does run ;
And being ravish'd thus,
Come, I will drink a tun
To my Propertius.

Now, to Tibullus next,

This flood I drink to thee;

-But stay, I see a text,

That this presents to me.

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