A DIRGE.

ULL fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes;

Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.

Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell,

Hark! now I hear them-ding, dong, bell.

(Shakespeare.)

ON MARGARET RATCLIFFE.

ARBLE, weep, for thou dost cover
A dead beauty underneath thee,

M

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 ever flowing;
Till time, strong by her bestowing,
Conquered hath both life and it.
Life whose grief was out of fashion
In these times; few so have rued
Fate in a brother. To conclude,
For wit, feature, and true passion,
Earth, thou hast not such another.

(Ben Jonson.)

LIFE AND DEATH.

HE ports of death are sins, of life good deeds,

Through which our merit leads us to our
meeds.

How wilful blind is he then that should stray,
And hath it in his power to make his way.
This world death's region is, the other life's,
And here it should be one of our first strifes,
So to front death, as men might judge us past it;
For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.
(Ben Jonson.)

ON ELIZABETH L. H.

OULD'ST thou hear what man can

say,

In a little? reader, stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbour give
To more virtue than doth live.
If at all she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault.

One name was Elizabeth,

The other, let it sleep with death;

Fitter, where it died, to tell,

Than that it lived at all.

Farewell.

(Ben Jonson.)

ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.

INDERNEATH this marble hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,

Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mo-
ther;

Death, ere thou hast slain another
Learned, fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.

(Ben Jonson.)