Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eye-lids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness!
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber;
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds; and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch-case, or a common larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf'ning clamours in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And, in the calmest and the stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king?
LOVELINESS OF FILIAL AFFECTION.
[From the "Fall of Jerusalem."]
Javan. Oh! farewell then
The faithless dream, the sweet yet faithless dream, That Miriam loves me!
Miriam. Love thee! I am here,
Here at dead midnight by the fountain's side,
Trusting thee, Javan, with a faith as fearless
As that which the instinctive infant twines
To its mother's bosom-Love thee! when the sounds
Of massacre are round me, when the shouts
Of frantic men in battle rack the soul
With their importunate and jarring din,
Javan, I think on thee, and am at peace.
Our famish'd maidens gaze on me, and see
That I am famish'd like themselves, as pale,
With lips as parch'd and eyes as wild, yet I
Sit patient with an enviable smile
On my wan cheeks, for then my spirit feasts
Contented on its pleasing thoughts of thee.
My very prayers are full of thee, I look
To heaven and bless thee; for from them I learnt
The way by which we reach the eternal mansions.
But thou, injurious Javan! coldly doubtest.
And-Oh! but I have said too much. Oh! scorn not The immodest maid, whom thou hast vex'd to utter What yet she scarce dared whisper to herself.
Javan. Will it then cease! will it not always sound Sweet, musical as thus? and wilt thou leave me? Miriam My father!
Javan. Miriam! is not thy father
(Oh, that such flowers should bloom on such a stock!) The curse of Israel? even his common name
Simon the assassin! of the bloody men
That hold their iron sway within yon city,
The bloodiest!
Miriam. O cease, I pray thee cease!
Javan! I know that all men hate my father!
Javan! I fear that all should hate my father;
And therefore, Javan, must his daughter's love,
Her dutiful, her deep, her fervent love,
Make up to his forlorn and desolate heart
The forfeited affection of his kind.
Is it not written so in our Law? and He
We worship came not to destroy the Law.
Then let men rain their curses, let the storm
Of human hate beat on his rugged trunk,
I will cling to him, starve, die, bear the scoffs
Of men upon my scatter'd bones with him.
Javan. Oh, Miriam! what a fatal art has thou
Of winding thought, word, act, to thy sole purpose,
The enamouring one even now too much enamour'd!
I must admire thee more for so denying,
Than I had dared if thou hadst fondly granted.
Thou dost devote thyself to utterest peril,
And me to deepest anguish; yet even now
Thou art lovelier to me in thy cold severity
Flying me, leaving me without a joy,
Without a hope on earth, without thyself;
Thou art lovelier now than if thy yielding soul
Had smiled on me a passionate consent.
Go; for I see thy parting homeward look,
Go in thy beauty! like a setting star,
The last in all the thick and moonless heavens,
O'er the lone traveller in the trackless desert.
Go! if this dark and miserable earth
Do jealously refuse us place for meeting,
There is a heaven for those who trust in Christ.
EFTSOONS they heard a most melodious sound, Of all that mote delight a dainty eare,
Such as at once might not on living ground, Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere: Right hard was it for wight that did it heare, To read what manner musick that mote be: For all that pleasing is to living eare
Was there consorted in one harmonie,
Birds, voices, instruments, windes, waters,-all agree.
The joyous birds shrouded in chearful shade,
Their notes unto the voyce attemp❜red sweet;
The angel call soft trembling voyces made
To the instruments divine respondence meet:
The silver sounding instruments did meet
With the base murmuré of the water's fall; The waters fall, with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call, The gently warbling wind lowe answering to all, SPENSER.
Tell her that wastes her time, and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
Tell her that's young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That, hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died
Small is the worth
Of beauty, from the light retir'd;
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desir'd,
And not blush so to be admir'd.
Then die! that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee:
How small a part of time they share,
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!
ADDRESS TO THE DEITY.
O THOU great arbiter of life and death!
Nature's immortal, immaterial sun!
Whose all-prolific beam late call'd me forth
From darkness, teeming darkness, where I lay
The worm's inferior, and, in rank, beneath
The dust I tread on, high to bear my brow,
To drink the spirit of the golden day,
And triumph in existence; and couldst know
No motive but my bliss; with Abraham's joy,
Thy call I follow to the land unknown;
I trust in thee, and know in whom I trust;
Or life or death is equal; neither weighs;
All weight in this-O let me live to thee!
YOUNG.
NOT with more glories in th' ethereal plain,
The sun first rises o'er the purpled main,
Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams
Launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames.
Fair nymphs, and well-drest youths, around her shone;
But ev'ry eye was fix'd on her alone.
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore.
Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,
Quick as her eyes, and as unfixt as those;
Favours to none, to all she smiles extends;
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the sun her eyes the gazers strike,
And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.
Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,
Might hide their faults, if belles had faults to hide
If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you'll forget them all.
My eye, descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays.
Thames, the most lov'd of all the Ocean's sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs ;
|