Though I miss the flowery fields,
With those sweets the spring-tide yields;
Though I may not see those groves,
Where the shepherds chant their loves,
And the lasses more excel,

Than the sweet-voiced Philomel;
Though of all those pleasures past,
Nothing now remains at last,
But remembrance (poor relief),
That more makes than mends my grief;
She's my mind's companion still,
Maugre Envy's evil will;

(Whence she should be driven too,
Wer't in mortal's power to do.)
She doth tell me where to borrow
Comfort in the midst of sorrow;
Makes the desolatest place
To her presence be a grace;
And the blackest discontents
Be her fairest ornaments.
In my former days of bliss,
Her divine skill taught me this,
That from every thing I saw,
I could some invention draw,
And raise pleasure to her height,
Through the meanest object's sight;
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rustling.
By a daisy, whose leaves spread,
Shut when Titan goes to bed,
Or a shady bush or tree,
She could more infuse in me,

Than all nature's beauties can1
In some other wiser man.

By her help, I also now,

Make this churlish place allow

Some things that may sweeten gladness,

In the very gall of sadness.

The dull loneness, the black shade,

That those hanging vaults have made;

The strange music of the waves,

Beating on these hollow caves;

This black den which rocks emboss,
Overgrown with eldest moss;
The rude portals that give light,
More to terror than delight;

1 Wordsworth is fond of expressing this result of the poetical temperament. In de scribing the hardness of " Peter Bell's" mind, he gives as one of the proofs of it

A yellow primrose was to him

A yellow primrose-nothing more.

FROM A DIRGE.

This my chamber of neglect,
Wall'd about with disrespect;
From all these, and this dull air,
A fit object for despair,

She hath taught me by her might,
To draw comfort and delight.
Therefore thou best earthly bliss,
I will cherish thee for this.
Poesie, thou sweet'st content
That ere Heaven to mortals lent,
Though they as a trifle leave thee,
Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee;
Though thou be to them a scorn,

That to nought but earth are borne;
Let my life no longer be

Than I am in love with thee.

Though our wise ones call it madness,
Let me never taste of sadness,

If I love not thy madd'st fits
Above all their greatest wits.
And though some too seeming holy
Do account thy raptures folly,

Thou dost teach me to contemn

What makes knaves and fools of them.1

Farewell,

Sweet groves to you!

You hills that highest dwell,
And all you humble vales adieu !

You wanton brooks and solitary rocks,

165

My dear companions all, and you my tender flocks! Farewell, my pipe! and all those pleasing songs whose moving strains Delighted once the fairest nymphs that dance upon the plains. You discontents, whose deep and over-deadly smart Have without pity broke the truest heart,

Sighs, tears, and every sad annoy,

That erst did with me dwell,
And others joy,
Farewell!2

1 Compare this whole passage with Ovid, Tristia, IV. 110.

2 The shape of this stanza, of a "rhomboidal dirge," as Ellis terms it, is an example of the affectation of moulding poems into the forms of objects.

THOMAS CAREW.

(1589-1639.)

CAREW, the gay courtier poet of Charles I., is one of the best types of the style of light voluptuous poetry which ripened into such mischievous luxuriance in the reign of Charles II. He is of the metaphysical school of Donne, with something of his earnestness and heart, and with infinitely more of elegance and grace. His poems are all occasional and short, with the exception of the masque, " Cœlum Britannicum," written at the request of Charles I. "Among the poets," says Campbell, "who have walked the same limited path, he is pre-eminently beautiful, and deservedly ranks among the earliest of those who gave a cultivated grace to our lyrical strains." Carew was descended from a Gloucestershire family; his life was a career of gaiety and licence, but he seems to have been respected and beloved by all who knew him. Clarendon writes of him-" His glory was, that after fifty years of his life spent with less severity or exactness than they ought to have been, he died with the greatest remorse for that licence, and with the greatest manifestation of Christianity that his best friends could desire.

EPITAPH ON the duke of BUCKINGHAM.1

Reader, when these dumb stones have told
In borrowed speech what guest they hold,
Thou shalt confess the vain pursuit
Of human glory yields no fruit
But an untimely grave. If Fate
Could constant happiness create,
Her ministers, fortune and worth,
Had here that miracle brought forth :
They fix'd this child of honour where
No room was left for hope or fear
Of more or less: so high, so great,
His growth was, yet so safe his seat:
Safe in the circle of his friends;
Safe in his loyal heart and ends;
Safe in his native valiant spirit;
By favour safe, and safe by merit;
Safe by the stamp of Nature, which

Did strength with shape and grace enrich ;
Safe in the cheerful courtesies

Of flowing gestures, speech, and eyes;
Safe in his bounties, which were more
Proportion'd to his mind than store:
Yet though for virtue he becomes
Involv'd himself in borrow'd sums,

! George Villiers, the favourite of James I. and Charles 1. He was assassinated by the Irishman Felton, in revenge for some alleged injustice.

Safe in his care, he leaves betray'd
No friend engag'd, no debt unpaid.

But, though the stars conspire to shower
Upon one head th' united power

Of all their graces, if their dire
Aspects must other breasts inspire
With vicious thoughts, a murderer's knife
May cut (as here) their darling's life:
Who can be happy then, if Nature must,
To make one happy man, make all men just?

SONG.

Ask me no more, where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauties' orient deep,
These flow'rs, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more, whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For, in pure love, heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more, whither doth haste
The nightingale, when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.

Ask me no more, where those stars light,
That downwards fall in dead of night;
For, in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixéd become, as in their sphere.

Ask me no more, if east or west,
The phenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.1

FROM "COELUM BRITANNICUM."

MERCURY'S REPLY TO HEDONÉ.2

Bewitching Syren! gilded rottenness!
Thou hast with cunning artifice display'd
Th' enamel'd outside, and the honied verge
Of the fair cup where deadly poison lurks.
Within, a thousand sorrows dance the round;
And, like a shell, pain circles thee without.
Grief is the shadow waiting on thy steps,

This song furnishes an example of the conceits of the metaphysical school.
Pleasure.

Which, as thy joys 'gin towards their west decline,
Doth to a giant's spreading form extend
Thy dwarfish stature. Thou thyself art pain,
Greedy intense desire; and the keen edge
Of thy fierce appetite oft strangles thee,
And cuts thy slender thread; but still the terror
And apprehension of thy hasty end

Mingles with gall thy most refined sweets.
Yet thy Circean charms transform the world.
Captains that have resisted war and death,
Nations that over Fortune have triumph'd,
Are by thy magic made effeminate :
Empires, that knew no limits but the poles,
Have in thy wanton lap melted away.

*

*

To thy voluptuous den fly, witch, from hence;
There dwell, for ever drown'd in brutish sense.

WILLIAM BROWNE.

(1590-1645.)

Or the life of Browne little is known. He was descended of a "knightly family," and born at Tavistock in Devonshire. After a university education he entered the Inner Temple; but seems to have addicted himself more to poetry than to law. Spencer and Sydney were his models; and his young imagination seems to have been nursed by the scenery of his native county. His poems were written chiefly while he was very young. They have little vigour, but are often characterised by a delightful beauty of rural description. Milton's Comus has been said to be founded on Browne's "Inner Temple Masque :" but Fletcher's "Faithful Shepherdess" aspires to the same honour. "Lycidas" also has been traced to one of Browne's Eclogues; and Warton recognizes the scenery of "L'Allegro" in a passage in Britannia's Pastorals. Though thus alleged to have been the object of imitation by the greatest genius of poetry, and though commended and beloved by all the poets of his age, Browne very narrowly escaped oblivion. The want of interest and vigour in his writing will prevent him from being popular in an age which seeks excitement as the prime quality of poetry, but his elegance and tranquil grace will render the study of his works valuable in a literary education.-See Retrospective Review, vol. ii. p. 149.

FROM BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS.

BOOK II. SONG I.

A NIGHT SCENE.

Now great Hyperion1 left his golden throne
That on the dancing waves in glory shone,

The sun;-an appellation of Apollo, implying "the Heaven-walker."