ON THE MARCHIONESS OF WINCHESTER.

THIS rich marble doth inter
The honoured wife of Winchester,
A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir,
Besides what her virtues fair
Added to her noble birth,
More than she could own from earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told; alas! too soon,
After so short time of breath,

To house with darkness, and with death.
Yet had the number of her days
Been as complete as was her praise,
Nature and Fate had had no strife,
In giving limit to her life.

Her high birth, and graces sweet,
Quickly found a lover meet;
The virgin choir for her request
The God that sits at marriage feast;
He at their invoking came,

But with a scarce well-lighted flame:
And in his garland, as he stood,
Ye might discern a cypress bud.
Once had the early matrons run
To greet her of a lovely son,
And now with second hope she goes,
And calls Lucina to her throes;
But, whether by mischance or blame
Atropos for Lucina came;
And with remorseless cruelty
Spoiled at once both fruit and tree:
The hapless babe, before his birth,
Had burial, yet not laid in earth;
And the languished mother's womb
Was not long a living tomb.

So have I seen some tender slip,
Saved with care from winter's nip,
Tue pride of her carnation train,
Plucked up by some unheedy swain,
Who only thought to crop the flower
New shot up from vernal shower;
But the fair blossom hangs the head
Sideways as on a dying bed,

And those pearls of dew she wears,
Prove to be presaging tears,
Which the sad morn had iet fall
On her hasteaing funeral.
Gentle lady, may thy grave
Peace and quiet ever have;
After this thy travail sore
Sweet rest seize thee ever more,
That, to give the world increase,
Shortened hast thy own life's lease
Here, besides the sorrowing

That thy noble house doth bring,
Here be tears of perfect moan
Wept for thee in Helicon;
And some flowers, and some bays,

For thy hearse, to strew the ways,
Sent thee from the banks of Came,
Devoted to thy virtuous name;

Whilst thou, bright Saint, high sit'st in glory
Next her, much like to thee in story,
That fair Syrian shepherdess,
Who, after years of barrenness,
The highly favoured Joseph bore
To him that served for her before,
And at her next birth, much like thee,
Through pangs fled to felicity,
Far within the bosom bright
Of blazing Majesty and Light;
There with thee, new welcome Saint,
Like fortunes may her sou! acquaint,
With thee there clad in radiant sheen;
No marchioness, but now a queen.

For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art,
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 sepulchred, 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 has 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 these ten years full,
Dodged with him, betwixt Cambridge and The
Bull.

And surely Death could never have prevailed,
Had not his weekly course of carriage failed;
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 chamberlain

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 pressed 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
Linked to the mutual flowing of the seas,
Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase
His letters are delivered all and gone,
Only remains this superscription.

L'ALLEGRO.

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy!

Found out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night raven sings;

There, under cbon shades, and low-browed

rocks,

night,

Pulled off his boots, and took away the light: If any ask for him, it shall be said,

'Hobson has supped, and 's newly gone to bed.'

ANOTHER ON THE SAME.
HIERE lieth one, who did most truly prove
That he could never die while he could move;
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 numbered out his time;
And, like an engine moved with wheel and weight,
His principles being ceased, 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 hastened on his term.
Merely to drive the time away he sickened,
Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quick-
ened;

'Nay,' quoth he, on his swooning bed outstretch'd;
'If I may'nt carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetched,
But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers,
For one carrier put down to make six bearers.'

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou goddess, fair and free,
In Heaven yclep'd Euphrosyne,
And by Men, heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
Or whether (as some sages sing)
The frolic wind, that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a Maying;.
There on beds of violets blue,
The fresh-blown roses washed in dew,
Filled her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides:
Come, and trip it, as you go,
On the light fantastic toe;
And in thy right hand lead with thee,
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee honour due.
Mirth admit me of thy crew,

To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night
From his watchtower 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 brier, 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 list'ning 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,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,
Robed in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrowed land,
And the milk maid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landscape round it measures,
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray,
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The lab'ring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide:
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
Are at their savoury dinner set

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 rebees sound

"Cynosure of neighbouring eyes."-The pole star, in the lesser bear

To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequered shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holy-day,

Till the livelong daylight fail:
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How fairy 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 cropful out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.
Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arins, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend,
There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry;
Such sights as youthful poets dream,
On summer eves by haunted stream,
Then to the well trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native woodnotes wild.

And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse;
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes, with many a winding bout,
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;
That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed

Of heaped Elysian flowers, and lear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice.

These delights if thou canst give
Mirth, with thee I mean to live:

That owned the virtuous ring and glass:
And of the wondrous horse of brass,
On which the Tartar king did ride:
And if aught else great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of turneys, and of trophies hung,
Of forests, and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Thus, night, oft see me in thy pale career,
Till civil-suited morn appear,

Not tricked and frounced as she was wont
With the Attic boy to hunt,
But kercheft in a comely cloud,
While rocking winds are piping loud,
Or ushered with a shower still,
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves,
With minute drops from off the eaves.
And, when the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring,
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,

Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke,
Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt,
There in close covert by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide mne from day's garish eye;
While the bee with honied thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feathered sleep;
And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings in airy stream
Of lively portraiture displayed,
Softly on my eyelids laid.

And, as I wake, sweet music breath
About, above, or underneath,

Sent by some spirit to mortals good,
Or the unseen genius of the wood.

But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloisters pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antic pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light:
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced choir below,
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstacies,

And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell

Of every star that heaven doth show
And every herb that sips the dew:
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.

These pleasures, Melancholy, give, And I with thee will choose to live.

ARCADES.

Part of an entertainment presented to the Countess Doirager of Derby at Harefield, by some noble persons of her taini ly; who appear on the scene in pastoral nabit, moving to ward the seat of state, with this song.

I. SONG.

Look, nymphs and shepherds, look, What sudden blaze of majesty Is that which we from hence descry, Too divine to be mistook:

This, this is she

To whom our vows and wishes bend;
Here our solemn search hath end.
Fame, that, her high worth to raise,
Seemed erst so lavish and profuse,
We may just now accuse
Of detraction from her praise;

Less than half we find exprest,
Envy bid conceal the rest.

Mark, what radiant state she spreads,
In circle round her shining throne,
Shooting her beams like silver threads;
This, this is she alone,

Sitting like a goddess bright,
In the centre of her light.
Might she the wise Latona be,
Or the towered Cybele,
Mother of a hundred gods?
Juno dares not give her odds;

Who had thought this clime had held
A deity so unparalleled?

As they come forward, the Genius of the wood appears, and turning towards them, speaks.

Genius.

Stay, gentle swains, for, though in this disguise I see bright honour sparkle through your eyes; Of famous Arcady ye are, and sprung Of that renowned flood, so often sung, Divine Alpheus, who by secret sluice Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse, And ye, the breathing roses of the wood, Fair silver buskined nymphs, as great an¦ good, I know this quest of yours, and free intent, Was all in honour and devotion meant To the great mistress of yon princely shrine, Whom with low reverence I adore as mine; And, with all helpful service will comply To further this night's glad solemnity;