ON MARGARET RATCLIFFE

MARBLE! weep, for thou dost cover

A dead beauty underneath thee,

Rich as Nature could bequeath thee:
Grant then no rude hand remove her!
All the gazers on the skies

Read not in fair heaven's story
Expresser truth or truer glory
Than they might in her bright eyes.

Rare as wonder was her wit,
And like nectar overflowing;
Till Time, strong by her bestowing,
Conquer'd hath both life and it :
Life whose grief was out of fashion
In these times. Few so have rued
Fate in another. To conclude,-
For wit, feature, and true passion,
Earth thou hast not such another.

HIS EXCUSE FOR LOVING

ET IT NOT your wonder move,

LE

Less your laughter, that I love,
Though I now write fifty years:
I have had and have my peers.
Poets, though divine, are men ;
Some have loved as old again.
And it is not always face,

Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace,

Or the feature, or the youth;
But the language, and the truth
With the ardour and the passion,
Gives the lover weight and fashion.
If you then will read the story,
First prepare you to be sorry
That you never knew till now
Either whom to love or how;
But be glad as soon, with me,
When you know that this is She
Of whose beauty it was sung,-
She shall make the old man young,
Keep the middle age at stay,
And let nothing high decay,

Till She be the reason why
All the world for love may die.

SONG OF NIGHT

BREAK, Phantasy! from thy cave of cloud

And spread thy purple wings,—

Now all thy figures are allow'd,

And various shapes of things:

Create of airy forms a stream!

It must have blood, and nought of phlegm; And though it be a waking dream,

CHORUS Yet let it like an odour rise

To all the senses here,

And fall like sleep upon their eyes
Or music in their ear.

May with penance be suspended.

Not my will, but Fate, did fetch
Me, poor wretch,

Into this unhappy error:

Which to plague, no tyrant's mind
Pain can find

Like my heart's self-guilty terror.

Then, O then, let that suffice!
Your dear eyes

Need not, need not more afflict me ;
Nor your sweet tongue, dipp'd in gall,
Need at all

From your presence interdict me.

Unto him that Hell sustains

No new pains

Need be sought for his tormenting :
O, my pains Hell's pains surpass ;
Yet, alas!

You are still new pains inventing.

By my love, long, firm, and true,
Borne to you,—

By these tears my grief expressing,-
By this pipe, which nights and days
Sounds your praise,—

Pity me, my fault confessing!

Or, if I may not desire
That your ire

May with penance be suspended,
Yet let me full pardon crave

More I'll grant than you desire.

Faults confess'd are half amended;
And I have,

In this half, all that I crave.

Therefore banish now the terror

Which you find

In your guiltless grievèd mind!

For, though you have made an error,
From me, wretch,

First beginning it did fetch.

Ne'er my sight I 'll interdict thee
More at all;

Ne'er speak words more dipp'd in gall;
Ne'er, ne'er will I more afflict thee
With these eyes:

What is past shall now suffice.

Now new joys I'll be inventing,
Which, alas!

May thy passed woes surpass.
Too long thou hast felt tormenting;
Too great pains

So great love and faith sustains.

Let these eyes, by thy confessing
Worthy praise,

Never see more nights nor days,—
Let my woes be past expressing,—
When to you

I cease to be kind and true!

Thus are both our states amended:
For you have

Fuller pardon than you crave;
And my fear is quite suspended,
Since mine ire

Wrought the effect I most desire.