Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead,

For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,

Or that thy corse corrupts in Earth's dark womb, And last of all thy greedy self consum'd,
Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed,
Hid from the world in a low-delved tomb;
Could Heaven for pity thee so strictly doom?

Oh no! for something in thy face did shine
Above mortality, that show'd thou wast divine.

Resolve me then, oh soul most surely blest,
(If so it be that thou these plaints dost hear ;)
Tell me, bright spirit, where'er thou hoverest,
Whether above that high first-moving sphere,
Or in the Elysian Fields, (if such were there;)
Oh say me true, if thou wert mortal wight,
And why from us so quickly thou didst take thy

flight?

Wert thou some star which from the ruin'd roof
Of shak'd Olympus by mischance didst fall;
Which careful Jove in Nature's true behoof
Took up, and in fit place did reinstall?

Or did of late Earth's sons besiege the wall [fled,
Of sheeny Heaven, and thou, some goddess
Amongst us here below to hide thy nectar'd head?

Or wert thou that just maid, who once before
Forsook the hated Earth, O tell me sooth,
And cam'st again to visit us once more ?
Or wert thou that sweet-smiling youth?
Or that crown'd matrons,age white-robed Truth?

Or any other of that heavenly brood
Let down in cloudy throne to do the world some

good?

Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
Her false-imagin'd loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild;
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent;
This if thou do, he will an offspring give,

Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When every thing that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,
With truth, and peace, and love, shall ever shine
About the supreme throne

Of him, to whose happy-making sight alone,
When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb,
Then, all this earthy grossness quit,
Attir'd with stars, we shall for ever sit,

Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee,

O Time.

AT A

SOLEMN MUSIC.

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy,
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
Wed your divine sounds, and mix'd power employ
Dead things with inbreath'd sense able to pierce;
And to our high-rais'd phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure consent,
Aye sung before the saphire-colour'd throne
To him that sits thereon,

With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee;
Where the bright Seraphim, in burning row, 10
Their loud up-lifted angel-trumpets blow;
And the cherubic host, in thousand quires,
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
With those just spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout and holy psalms
Singing everlastingly:

That we on Earth, with undiscording voice,
May rightly answer that melodious noise;
As once we did, till disproportion'd Sin
Jarı'd against Nature's chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion
In perfect diapason, whilst they stood [sway'd
In first obedience, and their state of good.

O, may we soon again renew that song,
And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long
To his celestial consort us unite,
To live with him, and sing in endless morn of

light!

AN

ΕΡΙΤΑΡΗ

ON THE

That, till the world's last end, shall make thy MARCHIONESS OF WINCHESTER'.

name to live.

ON TIME.

TLY, envious Time, till thou run out thy race;
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping Hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain!

THIS rich marble doth inter
The honour'd wife of Winchester,
A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir,
Besides what her virtues fair

'She was the wife of John marquis of Winchester, a conspicuous loyalist in the reign of king Charles the first, whose magnificent house or castle of Basing in Hampshire withstood an obstinate siege of two years against the rebels, and when taken was levelled to the ground, be. cause in every window was flourished. Aymez Loyaute.

}

1

Orrocky Avon, or of sedgy Lee,

Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee;
Or Humber loud, that keeps the Scythian's name;
Or Medway smooth, or royal-tower'd Thame.

[The rest was prose.]

ΑΝ ΕΡΙΤΑΡΗ

ON THE ADMIRABLE DRAMATIC POET W.SHAKSPEARE.'

[bones,

WHAT needs my Shakspeare, for his honour'd
The labour of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid
Under a star-ypointing pyramid?

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Hast built thyself a live-long monument.
For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouringart,
Thy easy numbers flow; and that each heart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;
Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, so sepúlcher'd, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die.

ON THE

UNIVERSITY CARRIER,

Who sickened in the time of his vacancy, being
forbid to go to London, by reason of the plague.
HERE lies old Hobson; Death hath broke his girt,
And here, alas! hath laid him in the dirt;
Or else the ways being foul, twenty to one,
He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.
'Twas such a shifter, that, if truth were known,
Death was half glad when he had got him down;
For he had, any time this ten years full,
Dodg'd with him betwixt Cambridge and The

Bull.

And surely Death could never have prevail'd,
Had not his weekly course of carriage fail'd;
But lately finding him so long at home,
And thinking now his journey's end was come,
And that he had ta'en up his latest inn,
In the kind office of a chamberlin

Show'd him his room where he must lodge that

night,

Pull'd off his boots, and took away the light:
If any ask for him, it shall be sed,

"Hobson has supt, and's newly gone to bed."

ANOTHER ON THE SAME,

HERE lieth one, who did most truly prove
That he could never die while he could move;

Birch, and from him doctor Newton, asserts,

that this copy of verses was written in the twenty

second year of Milton's age, and printed with the Poems of Shakspeare at London in 1640. It first appeared among other recommendatory

prefixed to the folio edition of Shakspeare's

plays in 1632. But without Milton's name or initials. This therefore is the first of Milton's pieces that was published.

2 Hobson's inn at London was the Bull in Bi

VOL, VII,

So hung his destiny, never to rot
While he might still jog on and keep his trot,
Made of sphere-metal, never to decay
Until his revolution was at stay.

Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime
'Gainst old truth) motion number'd out his time :
And, like an engine, mov'd with wheel and weight
His principles being ceas'd, he ended straight.
Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,
And too much breathing put him out of breath;
Nor were it contradiction to affirm,

Too long vacation hasten'd on his term.
Merely to drive the time away he sicken'd,
Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quick-
en'd;
[stretch'd,
"Nay," quoth he, on his swooning bed out-
"If I mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetch'd,
But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hear-
ers,

For one carrier put down to make six bearers."
Ease was his chief disease; and, to judge right,
He died for heaviness that his cart went light:
His leisure told him that his time was come,
And lack of load made his life burdensome,
That even to his last breath, (there be that say't)
As he were press'd to death, he cried, "More
weight;"

But, had his doings lasted as they were,
He had been an immortal carrier.
Obedient to the Moon he spent his date
In course reciprocal, and had his fate
Link'd to the mutual flowing of the seas,
Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase
His letters are deliver'd all and gone,
Only remains this superscription.

ON THE NEW

FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE

UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT.

BECAUSE you have thrown off your prelate Lord,
And with stiff vows renounc'd his Liturgy,
To seise the widow'd whore Plurality

From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorr'd;

Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword
To force our consciences that Christ set free,
And ride us with a classic hierarchy
Taught ye by mere A. S. and Rotherford?
Men, whose life, learning, faith, and pure
intent,

Would have been held in high esteem with
Paul,

Must now be nam'd and printed heretics
By shallow Edwards and Scotch what d'ye call:
But we do hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packing worse than those of
Trent,

That so the Parliament

!

+

1

BRUTUS thus addresses DIANA in the country of What hinders? As some teachers give to boys