Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
Mirth and youth and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,

Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

X.

ON SHAKESPEAR. 1630.

WHAT needs my Shakespear for his honour'd bones
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 th' 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.

XI.

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 chamberlain

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 said,

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

VOL. II.

21

XII.

ANOTHER ON THE SAME.

HERE 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 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 quicken'd; "Nay," quoth he, on his swooning bed out-stretch'd, "If I mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetch'd, "But vow," though the cross doctors all stood hearers, "For one carrier put down to make six bearers."Ease was his chief disease, and to judge right, He dy'd 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 ev'n to his last breath (there be that say't)
As he were press'd to death, he cry'd 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.

XIII.

L'ALLEGRO.

HENCE loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,

In Stygian cave forlorn,

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

Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night-raven sings;

There under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come thou goddess fair and free,
In Heav'n 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 sager 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,

And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,
Fill'd 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 righth and lead with thee,

The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;