From others he shall stand in need of nothing, And peace shall lull him in her flowery lap; To harbour those that are at enmity." What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot? The next, QUANTITY and QUALITY, spake in prose: then RELATION was called by his name. Rivers, arise: whether thou be the son Of utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulfy Dun, Or Trent, who, like some earth-born Giant, spreads His thirty arms along the indented meads, Or coaly Tyne, or ancient hallowed Dee, The rest was prose. THE PASSION (1630) I EREWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth, But headlong joy is ever on the wing, In wintry solstice like the shortened light Soon swallowed up in dark and long outliving night. II For now to sorrow must I tune my song, Which on our dearest Lord did seize ere long, Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse than so, Which he for us did freely undergo: Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plight Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight! III He, sovran Priest, stooping his regal head, His starry front low-roofed beneath the skies: Yet more: the stroke of death he must abide; Then lies him meekly down fast by his Brethren's side. IV These latest scenes confine my roving verse; Of lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things. Befriend me, Night, best Patroness of grief! The leaves should all be black whereon I write, And letters, where my tears have washed, a wannish white. VI See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels, To bear me where the Towers of Salem stood, In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit. VII Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock For sure so well instructed are my tears VIII Or, should I thence, hurried on viewless wing, Might think the infection of my sorrows loud Had got a race of mourners on some pregnant cloud. This Subject the Author finding to be above the years he had when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished. ON SHAKESPEARE WHAT needs my Shakespeare, for his honoured bones, The labour of an age in pilèd stones? Or that his hollowed relics 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 livelong monument. For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art, Those Delphic lines with deep impression took; Dost make us marble, with too much conceiving; ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER Who sickened in the time of his Vacancy, being forbid to go to London by reason of the Plague. (1631) HERE lies old Hobson. Death hath broke his girt, Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and The Bull. Had not his weekly course of carriage failed; But lately, finding him so long at home, And thinking now his journey's end was come, In the kind office of a Chamberlin Showed him his room where he must lodge that night, If any ask for him, it shall be said, "Hobson has supped, and 's newly gone to bed." ANOTHER ON THE SAME HERE lieth one who did most truly prove So hung his destiny, never to rot While he might still jog on and keep his trot; Until his revolution was at stay. Time numbers Motion, yet (without a crime And, like an engine moved with wheel and weight, His principles being ceased, he ended straight. Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death, Too long vacation hastened on his term. But vow, though the cross Doctors all stood hearers, He had been an immortal Carrier. Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase. Only remains this superscription. AN EPITAPH ON THE MARCHIONESS THIS rich marble doth inter The honoured wife of Winchester, A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir, Added to her noble birth, More than she could own from earth. After so short time of breath, To house with darkness and with death! Yet, had the number of her days Been as complete as was her praise, |