So as she shows, she seems the budding rose, Ah, when she sings, all music else be still, She comforts all the world, as doth the sun, Shine in my arms, and set thou in my breast! THE PALMER'S ODE IN NEVER TOO LATE.' Old Menalcas, on a day, As in field this shepherd lay, Which he hit with many a stripe, Once was young and full of glee. As I lay and kept my sheep, With her face to feed mine eye; There I saw Desire sit, That my heart with love had hit, Pray and sigh; all would not do: Coy she was, and I 'gan court; Told me flat, that Desire Was a brond of love's fire, Shook off Love, and made an oath Old I was when thus I fled Such fond toys as cloyed my head, SONG. Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content; The poor estate scorns fortune's angry frown: Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss, Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss. The homely house that harbours quiet rest; The cottage that affords no pride nor care; The mean that 'grees with country music best ; The sweet consort of mirth and music's fare; Obscured life sets down a type of bliss: A mind content both crown and kingdom is. PHILOMELA'S ODE. Sitting by a river's side, Where a silent stream did glide, That to man in life is lent. For by the breath the soul fleeteth, If love be so sweet a thing, That such happy bliss doth bring, But unhappy maidens all, Who esteem your virgin blisses, As true Love with kisses kind: ORPHEUS' SONG. He that did sing the motions of the stars, Of Hesper, henchman to the day and night; I loved Eurydice, the brightest lass, More fond to like so fair a nymph as she; In Thessaly so bright none ever was, But fair and constant hardly may agree: False-hearted wife to him that loved thee well, To leave thy love, and choose the prince of hell! Theseus did help, and I in haste did hie To Pluto, for the lass I loved so: The god made grant, and who so glad as I? I tuned my harp, and she and I 'gan go; She slipped aside, back to her latest love, To change and fleet, and every way to shrink, CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. [CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE was born at Canterbury in February, 1564, and educated at the King's School in his birth-place, and at Benet (Corpus Christi) College, Cambridge. He was killed in a tavern brawl, and was buried at Deptford, June 1, 1593. The dates and order of his works are somewhat uncertain. Of his plays, the first, Tamburlaine the Great, a tragedy in two parts, must have been acted in public by 1587. It was followed by The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus, The Jew of Malta (probably in 1589 or 1590), The Massacre at Paris (not earlier than the end of 1589), Edward II, and The Tragedy of Queen Dido, which was probably left unfinished at Marlowe's death, and completed by Nash. Another play, Lust's Dominion, was for some time wrongly attributed to Marlowe ; but, in return for this injustice, the probability that he may have had at least a share in Shakespeare's 2 and 3 Henry VI, or in the plays on which those dramas were based, is now rather widely admitted. Of his poems, the translations of Ovid's Amores and the first book of Lucan's Pharsalia are of uncertain date. The Passionate Shepherd to his Love was first printed complete in England's Helicon, 1600, but is quoted in The Jew of Malta. Hero and Leander was left unfinished at Marlowe's death; Chapman completed it, dividing Marlowe's fragment into two parts, which now form the first two Sestiads of the poem.] Marlowe has one claim on our affection which everyone is ready to acknowledge; he died young. We think of him along with Chatterton and Burns, with Byron, Shelley, and Keats. And this is a fact of some importance for the estimate of his life and genius. His poetical career lasted only six or seven years, and he did not outlive his 'hot days, when the mad blood's stirring.' An old ballad tells us that he acted at the Curtain theatre in Shoreditch and 'brake his leg in one rude scene, When in his early age.' If there is any truth in the last statement, we may suppose that Marlowe gave up acting and confined himself to authorship. He seems to have depended for his livelihood on his connection with the stage; and probably, like many of his fellows and friends, he lived in a free and even reckless way. A more unusual characteristic of Marlowe's was his 'atheism.' No reliance can be placed on the 1 сти Right n |