Night, and her ugly subjects thou dost fright,

And sleep, the lazy owl of night;

Ashamed and fearful to appear

They screen their horrid shapes with the black hemisphere.

With them there hastes, and wildly takes the alarm,
Of painted dreams a busy swarm,

At the first opening of thine eye,

The various clusters break, the antic atoms fly.

The guilty serpents, and obscener beasts,
Creep conscious to their secret rests:
Nature to thee does reverence pay,

Ill omens and ill sights removes out of thy way.

At thy appearance, grief itself is said

To shake his wings, and rouse his head,
And cloudy care has often took

A gentle beamy smile reflected from thy look.

At thy appearance, fear itself grows bold;
Thy sunshine melts away his cold.
Encourag'd at the sight of thee,

To the cheek colour comes, and firmness to the knee.

When, goddess, thou lift'st up thy waken'd head
Out of the morning's purple bed,

Thy quire of birds about thee play,

And all the joyful world salutes the rising day.

All the world's bravery that delights our eyes
Is but thy sev'ral liveries,

Thou the rich dye on them bestowest,

Thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as thou goest.

A crimson garment in the rose thou wear'st;
A crown of studded gold thou bear'st,

The virgin lilies in their white,

Are clad but with the lawn of almost naked light!

FROM THE 'ODE TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY.'

From words, which are but pictures of the thought,
(Though we our thoughts from them perversely drew)
To things, the mind's right object, he1 it brought.
Like foolish birds to painted grapes we flew ;
He sought and gather'd for our use the true;
And when on heaps the chosen bunches lay,
He prest them wisely the mechanic way,
Till all their juice did in one vessel join,
Ferment into a nourishment divine,

The thirsty soul's refreshing wine.

Who to the life an exact piece would make,
Must not from others' work a copy take ;
No, not from Rubens or Vandyke ;

Much less content himself to make it like
Th' ideas and the images which lie
In his own fancy, or his memory.
No, he before his sight must place
The natural and living face;

The real object must command

Each judgment of his eye, and motion of his hand.

From these and all long errors of the way,
In which our wandering predecessors went,
And like th' old Hebrews many years did stray
In deserts but of small extent,

Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last.

The barren wilderness he past,

Did on the very border stand

Of the blest promis'd land,

And from the mountain's top of his exalted wit,
Saw it himself, and shew'd us it.

But life did never to one man allow

Time to discover worlds, and conquer too;

Nor can so short a line sufficient be

To fathom the vast depths of nature's sea:

1 Lord Bacon.

The work he did we ought t' admire,
And were unjust if we should more require
From his few years, divided 'twixt th' excess
Of low affliction and high happiness.

For who on things remote can fix his sight,
That's always in a triumph, or a fight?

7.

[From the Discourses by Way of Essays.]

ON SOLITUDE.

Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good!
Hail ye plebeian underwood!

Where the poetic birds rejoice,

And for their quiet nests and plenteous food,
Pay with their grateful voice.

Hail, the poor muse's richest manor seat!
Ye country houses and retreat,

Which all the happy gods so love,

That for you oft they quit their bright and great
Metropolis above.

Here nature does a house for me erect,
Nature the wisest architect,

Who those fond artists does despise
That can the fair and living trees neglect,
Yet the dead timber prize.

Here let me careless and unthoughtful lying,
Hear the soft winds above me flying
With all their wanton boughs dispute,
And the more tuneful birds to both replying,
Nor be myself too mute.

A silver stream shall roll his waters near,
Gilt with the sunbeams here and there,
On whose enamel'd bank I'll walk,
And see how prettily they smile, and hear
How prettily they talk.

Ah wretched, and too solitary he

Who loves not his own company!

He'll feel the weight of 't many a day Unless he call in sin or vanity

To help to bear't away.

O Solitude, first state of human-kind!
Which blest remain'd till man did find
Even his own helper's company.

As soon as two (alas!) together join'd,
The serpent made up three.

The god himself, through countless ages thee
His sole companion chose to be,

Thee, sacred Solitude alone,

Before the branchy head of number's tree
Sprang from the trunk of one.

Thou (though men think thine an unactive part)
Dost break and tame th' unruly heart,
Which else would know no settled pace,
Making it more well manag'd by thy art
With swiftness and with grace.

Thou the faint beams of reason's scatter'd light,
Dost like a burning-glass unite,

Dost multiply the feeble heat,

And fortify the strength, till thou dost bright
And noble fires beget.

Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks, I see
The monster London laugh at me,

I should at thee too, foolish city,

If it were fit to laugh at misery,
But thy estate I pity.

Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.

EDMUND WALLER.

[EDMUND WALLER was born, March 3, 1605, at Coleshill in Warwickshire. At seventeen years of age he was elected member of parliament for Agmondesham. He married early, and lost his wife soon; after her death he paid court to Lady Dorothy Sidney, daughter of the Earl of Leicester. He protracted his unsuccessful suit, celebrating the lady under the title of Sacharissa, until in 1639 she married the Earl of Sunderland. In 1640 he entered parliament again, and made himself remarkable by his opposition to the King's measures, but when the Civil War became imminent he took the Royalist side. · In 1643 he was arrested as one of the leaders of a plot against the Parliament, and having with difficulty preserved his life, proceeded to France on his release. After some years he returned to England and made his peace with Cromwell; at the Restoration he eagerly laid his homage at the feet of Charles II. He was made Provost of Eton, and sat in several parliaments after the Restoration. He died of dropsy at Beaconsfield, in Buckinghamshire, on the 21st of October, 1687. His poems, first published in 1645, were very frequently reprinted during his life-time, and always with additions.]

The reputation of Waller has suffered greater fluctuation of fortune than that of any other English poet. In his youth, he was outshone by the last great Elizabethans, his contemporaries; during the Civil Wars he gradually rose to be considered second only to Cowley. After the Restoration, and when that writer was in his grave, Waller found himself still more popular, and when he died, at a very great age, the wits and critics; with Thomas Rymer at their head, exalted him to the first place in the English Parnassus. Until the end of the century it was tacitly admitted that Waller was the greatest English poet. The juster sense of Addison and of Pope curtailed these extravagant honours, while leaving to Waller the praise of unrivalled sweetness. In the hands of Gray, Johnson and Cowper, Waller sank gradually back