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CAREW AND HABINGTON

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If the quick spirits in your eye
Now languish and anon must die;
If every sweet and every grace
Must fly from that forsaken face;

Then, Celia, let us reap our joys
Ere Time such goodly fruit destroys.

Or if that golden fleece must grow
For ever free from agèd snow;

If those bright suns must know no shade,

Nor your fresh beauties ever fade;

Then fear not, Celia, to bestow

What, still being gather'd, still must grow.

Thus either Time his sickle brings
In vain, or else in vain his wings.

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II

INGRATEFUL BEAUTY THREATENED

Know, Celia, since thou art so proud, 'Twas I that gave thee thy renown. Thou hadst in the forgotten crowd

Of common beauties lived unknown, Had not my verse extoll'd thy name, And with it imp'd the wings of Fame.

That killing power is none of thine;
I gave it to thy voice and eyes;
Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine;

Thou art my star, shin'st in my skies; Then dart not from thy borrow'd sphere Lightning on him that fix'd thee there.

Tempt me with such affrights no more, Lest what I made I uncreate;

Let fools thy mystic form adore,

I know thee in thy mortal state.

AN EPITAPH

This little vault, this narrow room,
Of love and beauty is the tomb;
The dawning beam, that 'gan to clear
Our clouded sky, lies darken'd here,
For ever set to us: by death
Sent to enflame the world beneath.

'Twas but a bud, yet did contain
More sweetness than shall spring again;
A budding star, that might have grown
Into a sun when it had blown.
This hopeful beauty did create
New life in love's declining state;
But now his empire ends, and we
From fire and wounding darts are free;
His brand, his bow, let no man fear:
The flames, the arrows, all lie here.

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WILLIAM HABINGTON (1605-1654) NOX NOCTI INDICAT SCIENTIAM

When I survey the bright

Celestial sphere;

So rich with jewels hung, that night
Doth like an Ethiop bride appear:

My soul her wings doth spread
And heavenward flies,

Th' Almighty's mysteries to read
In the large volumes of the skies.

For the bright firmament

Shoots forth no flame

So silent, but is eloquent

In speaking the Creator's name.

No unregarded star

Contracts its light

Into so small a character,

Removed far from our human sight,

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In it, as in some holy book,

How man may heavenly knowledge learn.

It tells the conqueror

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Some nation yet shut in

With hills of ice

EDMUND WALLER (1606-1687)

May be let out to scourge his sin,

Till they shall equal him in vice.

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THE STORY OF PHOEBUS AND DAPHNE, APPLIED

Thyrsis, a youth of the inspired train,
Fair Sacharissa loved, but loved in vain.
Like Phoebus sung the no less amorous boy;
Like Daphne she, as lovely, and as coy!
With numbers he the flying nymph pursues,
With numbers such as Phoebus' self might use!
Such is the chase when Love and Fancy leads,
O'er craggy mountains, and through flowery
meads;

Invoked to testify the lover's care,

Or form some image of his cruel fair.

Urged with his fury, like a wounded deer,

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For Prayer the ocean is where diversely

All the love betwixt us two.

Men steer their course, each to a sev'ral coast; Where all our interests so discordant be

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What has been our past desire;

That half beg winds by which the rest are lost.

On what shepherds you have smiled, Or what nymphs I have beguiled;

By Penitence when we ourselves forsake,

Leave it to the planets too,

'Tis but in wise design on piteous Heaven; In Praise we nobly give what God may take, And are, without a beggar's blush, forgiven. 12

What we shall hereafter do;
For the joys we now may prove,
Take advice of present love.

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To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-briar or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine;

While the cock, with lively din,
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before:

Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill:
Sometime walking, not unseen,

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Russet lawns and fallows grey,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;

Mountains on whose barren breast

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And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, Filled her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Bosomed high in tufted trees,

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Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

And love to live in dimple sleck;

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Of herbs and other country messes,

Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses; And then in haste her bower she leaves, With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;

Or, if the earlier season lead,

To the tanned haycock in the mead.
Sometimes, with secure delight,

The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth and many a maid
Dancing in the chequered shade;

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L'ALLEGRO

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And young and old come forth to play

On a sunshine holiday,

Till the livelong daylight fail:

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,

With stories told of many a feat,

How faery Mab the junkets eat.

She was pinched and pulled, she said;

And he, by friar's lantern led,
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down, the lubber fiend,
And, stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And crop-full out of doors he flings,

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ΙΙΟ

IL PENSEROSO

Hence, vain deluding Joys,

The brood of Folly without father bred! How little you bested,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys! Dwell in some idle brain,

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And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the sun-beams, Or likest hovering dreams,

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. 10 But hail, thou Goddess sage and holy, Hail, divinest Melancholy!

Whose saintly visage is too bright

To hit the sense of human sight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,
Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above

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