chat by the statutes laymen were excluded from died at Beaconsfield in October, 1687, the 83d year that provostship. This was thought the reason why of his age. He left several children by his second Waller joined the Duke of Buckingham, in his wife, of whom, the inheritor of his estate, Edmund, hostility against Clarendon.

after representing Agmondesham in parliament, On the accession of James JI., Waller, then in became a convert to Quakerism. his 80th year, was chosen representative for Salcash. Waller was one of the earliest poets, who obHaving now considerably passed the usual limit of tained reputation by the sweetness and sonorousness human life, he turned his thoughts to devotion, and of his strains; and there are perhaps few masters composed some divine poems, the usual task in at the present day who surpass him in this parwhich men of gaiety terminate their career. He ticular.

TO AMORET.

Unto that adored dame :
For 'tis not unlike the same,
Which I thither ought to send.
So that if it could take end,
"Twould to Heaven itself be due,
To succeed her, and not you:
Who already have of me
All that's not idolatry:
Which, though not so fierce a flame,
Is longer like to be the same.

Then smile on me, and I will prove
Wonder is shorter-liv'd than love.

TO AMORET.

Fair! that you may truly know,
What you unto Thyrsis owe;
I will tell you how I do
Sacharissa love, and you.

Joy salutes me, when I set
My blest eyes on Amoret :
But with wonder I am strook,
While I on the other look.

If sweet Amoret complains,
I have sense of all her pains :
But for Sacharissa I
Do not only grieve, but die.

All that of myself is mine,
Lovely Amoret! is thine,
Sacharissa's captive fain
Would untie his iron chain;
And, those scorching beams to shun,
To thy gentle shadow run.

If the soul had free election
To dispose of her affection ;
I would not thus long have borne
Haughty Sacharissa's scorn:
But 'tis sure some power above,
Which controls our wills in love!

If not a love, a strong desire
To create and spread that fire
In my breast, solicits me,
Beauteous Amoret! for thee.

"Tis amazement more than love,
Which her radiant eyes do move :
If less splendor wait on thine,
Yet they so benignly shine,
I would turn my dazzled sight
To behold their milder light.
But as hard 'tis to destroy
That high flame, as to enjoy:
Which how eas'ly I may do,
Heaven (as eas'ly scal'd) does know!

Amoret! as sweet and good
As the most delicious food,
Which, but tasted, does impart
Life and gladness to the heart.

Sacharissa's beauty's wine,
Which to madness doth incline :
Such a liquor, as no brain
That is mortal can sustain.

Scarce can I to Heaven excuse
The devotion, which I use

AMORET, the Milky Way,

Fram'd of many nameless stars!
The smooth stream, where none can say,

He this drop to that prefers !
Amoret, my lovely foe!

Tell me where thy strength does lie?
Where the power that charms us so?

In thy soul, or in thy eye ?
By that snowy neck alone,

Or thy grace in motion seen,
No such wonders could be done ;

Yet thy waist is straight, and clean,
As Cupid's shaft, or Hermes' rod :
And powerful too, as either god.

OF LOVE.

ANGER, in hasty words, or blows,
Itself discharges on our foes ;
And sorrow too finds some relief
In tears, which wait upon our grief:
So every passion but fond love,
Unto its own redress does move :
But that alone the wretch inclines
To what prevents his own designs ;
Makes him lament, and sigh, and weep,
Disorder'd, tremble, fawn, and creep;
Postures which render him despis'd,
Where he endeavors to be priz'd:

As Egypt does not on the clouds rely,

Your never failing sword made war to cease,
But to the Nile owes more than to the sky; And now you heal us with the acts of peace;
So, what our Earth, and what our Heaven, denies, Our minds with bounty and with awe engage,
Our ever-constant friend, the sea, supplies. Invite affection, and restrain our rage.
The taste of hot Arabia's spice we know, Less pleasure take brave minds in battles won,
Free from the scorching sun that makes it grow: Than in restoring such as are undone :
Without the worm, in Persian silks we shine;

Tigers have courage, and the rugged bear,
And, without planting, drink of every vine. But man alone can, whom he conquers, spare.

To dig for wealth, we weary not our limbs;
Gold, though the heaviest metal, hither swimg.
Ours is the harvest where the Indians mow,
We plow the deep, and reap what others sow.

To pardon, willing, and to punish, loth,
You strike with one hand, but you heal with both
Lifting up all that prostrate lie, you grieve
You cannot make the dead again to live.

Things of the noblest kind our own soil breeds; When Fate or error had our age misled,
Stout are our men, and warlike are our steeds : And o'er this nation such confusion spread;
Rome, though her eagle through the world had flown, Theonly cure, which could from Heaven come down
Could never make this island all her own. Was so much power and piety in one.

Here the third Edward, and the Black Prince too, One! whose extraction from an ancient line
France-conquering Henry, flourish'd, and now you ; Gives hope again, that well-born men may shine ·
For whom we stay'd, as did the Grecian state, The meanest in your nature, mild and good;
Till Alexander came to urge their fate.

The noblest rest secured in your blood.

When for more worlds the Macedonian cried,
He wist not Thetis in her lap did hide
Another yet: a world reserv'd for you,
To make more great than that he did subdue.

Oft have we wonder'd, how you hid in peace
A mind proportion'd to such things as these;
How such a ruling spirit you could restrain,
And practise first over yourself to reign.

He safely might old troops to battle lead, Your private life did a just pattern give, Against th' unwarlike Persian and the Mede, How fathers, husbands, pious sons, should live; Whose hasty flight did, from a bloodless field, Born to command, your princely virtues slept, More spoils than honor to the victor yield.

Like humble David's, while the flock he kept. A race unconquer'd, by their clime made bold, But when your troubled country callid you forth, The Caledonians, arm'd with want and cold, Your flaming courage and your matchless worth, Have, by a fate indulgent to your fame,

Dazzling the eyes of all that did pretend, Been from all ages kept for you to tame.

To fierce contention gave a prosperous end. Whom the old Roman wall, so ill confin'd, Still, as you rise, the state, exalted too, With a new chain of garrisons you bind :

Finds no distemper while 'tis changed by you; Here foreign gold no more shall make them come; Chang'd like the world's great scene! when withou Our English iron holds them fast at home.

noise,

The rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys.
They, that henceforth must be content to know
No warmer region than their hills of snow, Had you, some ages past, this race of glory
May blame the sun; but must extol your grace,

Run, with amazement we should read your story: Which in our senate hath allow'd them place.

But living virtue, all achievements past,

Meets envy still, to grapple with at last. Preferr'd by conquest, happily o’erthrown,

This Cæsar found ; and that ungrateful age, Falling they rise, to be with us made one :

With losing him, went back to blood and rage; So kind dictators made, when they came home,

Mistaken Brutus thought to break their yoke, Their vanquish'd foes free citizens of Rome.

But cut the bond of union with that stroke. Like favor find the Irish, with like fate

That sun once set, a thousand meaner stars Advanc'd to be a portion of our state ;

Gave a dim light to violence and wars ; While by your valor, and your bounteous mind,

To such a tempest as now threatens all, Nations divided by the sea are join'd.

Did not your mighty arm prevent the fall. Holland, to gain your friendship, is content If Rome's great senate could not wield that sword To be our out-guard on the continent:

Which of the conquer'd world had made them lord ; She from her fellow-provinces would go,

What hope had ours, while yet their power was new, Rather than hazard to have you her foe.

To rule victorious armies, but by you?

In our late fight, when cannons did diffuse,
Preventing posts, the terror and the news,
Our neighbor princes trembled at their roar:
But our conjunction makes them tremble more

You! that had taught them to subdue their foes,
Could order teach, and their high spirits compose .
To every duty could their minds engage,
Provoke their courage, and command their rage

So, when a lion shakes his dreadful mane,
And angry grows, if he that first look pain
To tame his youth, approach the haughty beast,
He bends w him, but frights away the rest.

Verse, thus design'd, has no ill fate,
If it arrive but at the date
Of fading beauty, if it prove
But as long-liv'd as present love.

As the ver'd world, to find repose, at last
Itself into Augustus' arms did cast;
So England now does, with like toil opprest,
Her weary head upon your bosom rest.

THE STORY OF

Then let the Muses, with such notes as these,

PHCBUS AND DAPHNE
Instruct us what belongs unto our peace!
Your battles they hereafter shall indite,

APPLIED.
And draw the image of our Mars in fight;

Thyrsis, a youth of the inspired train,

Fair Sacharissa loy'd, but lov'd in vain : Tell of towns storm'd, of armies over-run,

Like Phobus sung the no less amorous boy; And mighty kingdoms by your conduct won; How, while you thunder'd, clouds of dust did choke With numbers he the flying nymph pursues ;

Like Daphne she, as lovely, and as coy! Contending troops, and seas lay hid in smoke.

With numbers, such as Phæbus' self might use!

Such is the chase, when Love and Fancy leads, Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,

O'er craggy mountains, and through flowery meads ; And every conqueror creates a Muse:

Invok'd to testify the lover's care, Here in low strains your milder deeds we sing :

Or form some image of his cruel fair. But there, my lord! we'll bays and olive bring

Urg'd with his fury, like a wounded deer,

O'er these he fled ; and now, approaching near, To crown your head, while you in triumph ride

Had reach'd the nymph with his harmonious lay, O'er vanquish'd nations, and the sea beside ;

Whom all his charms could not incline to stay.
While all your neighbor princes unto you, Yet, what he sung in his immortal strain,
Like Joseph's sheaves, pay reverence and bow.

Though unsuccessful, was not sung în vain :
All, but the nymph that should redress his wrong,
Attend his passion, and approve his song.
Like Phæbus thus, acquiring unsought praise,

He catch'd at love, and fill'd his arms with bays.
OF ENGLISH VERSE.
Poets may boast, as safely vain,
Their works shall with the world remain :

SONG.
Both bound together, live or die,
The verses and the prophecy.

Go, lovely Rose!

Tell her, that wastes her time and me, But who can hope his line should long

That now she knows, Last, in a daily-changing tongue?

When I resemble her to thee, While they are new, envy prevails;

How sweet, and fair, she seems to be. And as that dies, our language fails.

Tell her that's young, When architects have done their part,

And shuns to have her graces spied, The matter may betray their art:

That hadst thou sprung Time, if we use ill-chosen stone,

In deserts, where no men abide, Soon brings a well-built palace down.

Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth
Poets, that lasting marble seek,
Must carve in Latin or in Greek:

Of beauty, from the light retir'd:
We write in sand, our language grows,

Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desir'd,
And, like the tide, our work o'erflows.

And not blush so to be admir'd.
Chaucer his sense can only boast,
The glory of his numbers lost!

Then die! that she
Years have defac'd his matchless strain,

The common fate of all things rare And yet he did not sing in vain.

May read in thee :

How small a part of time they share,
The beauties, which adorn'd that age,

That are so wondrous sweet and fair!
The shining subjects of his rage,
Hoping they should immortal prove,
Rewarded with success his love.

TO PHYLLIS.
This was the gen'rous poet's scope ;

Phyllis! why should we delay And all an English pen can hope ;

Pleasures shorter than the day? To make the fair approve his flame,

Could we (which we never can!) That can so far extend their fame.

Stretch our lives beyond their span,