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But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne'r so brave:
And after they have shown their pride,
Like you, awhile, they glide
Into the grave.

TO DAFFADILS.

FAIRE daffadills, we weep to see
You haste away so soone;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noone:

Stay, stay,

Untill the hast'ning day
Has run

But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will goe with you along!

We have short time to stay, as you;
We have as short a spring,

As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or any thing:

We die,

As your hours doe; and drie
Away

Like to the summer's raine,
Or as the pearles of morning dew,
Ne'r to be found again.

CORINNA GOING A MAYING.

GET up, get up for shame; the blooming morne
Upon her wings presents the God unshorne:
See how Aurora throwes her faire
Fresh-quilted colours through the aire:
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangling herbe and tree:

Each flower has wept, and bow'd toward the east,
Above an houre since; yet you are not drest;
Nay, not so much as out of bed;
When all the birds have mattens said,

And sung their thankfull hymnes; 'tis sin,
Nay, profanation, to keep in;

When as a thousand virgins on this day,
Spring sooner than the lark, to fetch in May!

Rise, and put on your foliage, and be seene
To come forth like the spring time, fresh and greene,
And sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gowne, or haire:
Feare not, the leaves will strew
Gems in abundance upon you:

Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,
Against you come, some orient pearls unwept :
Come, and receive them while the light
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night:
And Titan on the eastern hill

Retires himselfe, or else stands still

Till you come forth. Wash, dresse, be briefe in praying;
Few beads are best, when once we goe a Maying!

Come, my Corinna, come; and, comming, marke
How each field turns a street, each street a parke

Made green, and trimm'd with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough,

Or branch; each porch, each doore, ere this
An ark, a tabernacle is

Made up of whitethorn neatly interwove,
As if here were those cooler shades of love.

Can such delights be in the street
And open fields, and we not see't?
Come, we'll abroad; and let's obey
The proclamation made for May,

And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;
But, my Corinna, come, let's goe a Maying!

There's not a budding boy or girle this day
But is got up, and gone to bring in May:
A deale of youth, ere this, is come
Back, and with whitethorn laden home:
Some have dispatch't their cakes and creame,
Before that we have left to dreame;

And some have wept, and woo'd, and plighted troth,
And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth:
Many a green gown has been given;
Many a kisse, both odde and even;
Many a glance too has been sent
From out the eye, love's firmament;
Many a jest told of the keyes betraying

This night, and locks pick't; yet w'are not a Maying!

Come, let us goe, while we are in our prime,
And take the harmlesse follie of the time:
We shall grow old apace, and die
Before we know our liberty:
Our life is short, and our dayes run
As fast away as do's the sunne:
And, as a vapour, or a drop of raine
Once lost, can ne'r be found againe,

So when or you, or I, are made
A fable, song, or fleeting shade,
All love, all liking, all delight

Lies drown'd with us in endlesse night.
Then, while time serves, and we are but decaying,
Come, my Corinna, come, let's goe a Maying!

TO PRIMROSES, FILLED WITH MORNING DEW.

WHY doe ye weep, sweet babes ?

Can tears

Alas!

Speak griefe in you,

Who were but borne

Just as the modest morne
Teem'd her refreshing dew?
you have not known that shower
That marres a flower;

Nor felt th' unkind

Breath of a blasting wind;
Nor are ye worne with yeares;
Or warp't, as we,

Who think it strange to see

Such pretty flow'rs, (like to orphans young,)

To speak by teares before ye have a tongue.

Speak, whimp'ring younglings; and make known.
The reason why

Or, that

Ye droop, and weep.

Is it for want of sleep;
Or childish lullabie?

ye have not seen as yet
The violet?

Or brought a kisse

From that sweetheart to this?
No, no; this sorrow, shown
By your teares shed,

Wo'd have this lecture read,

"That things of greatest, so of meanest worth, Conceiv'd with grief are, and with teares brought forth."

SONG.

GATHER ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a flying;

And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heav'n, the sun,
The higher he's a getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And neerer he's to setting.

The age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, goe marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

CC

FRANCIS QUARLES was born in 1592, at Stewards, near Romford, in Essex. His father was Clerk of the Green Cloth, and Purveyor of the Navy to Queen Elizabeth. He received his education at Christ's College, Cambridge, and was entered at Lincoln's Inn-having, according to his widow, "studied the laws of England mainly with a desire to compose suits and differences between his friends and neighbours." He was afterwards appointed cup-bearer to the Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James the First; whose service he quitted to become Secretary to the most learned Archbishop Usher. In 1639, he was retained as Chronologer to the City of London, with an annual fee of one hundred nobles. The duties of this office, which has been long abolished, consisted, chiefly, in providing, at stated periods, pageants for the Lord Mayor. During the civil wars between the King and the Parliament, Quarles suffered much in mind and body. The publication of a piece called "the Royal Convert," so annoyed the dominant party, that they took occasion to "hurt him as much as they could in his estates." Winstanley asserts that his most serious affliction was the plundering him of his books and some rare manuscripts he was preparing for the press. He died on the 8th of September, 1644, and was buried in the church of St. Vedast, Foster Lane.

His character was that of a faithful and loving husband-"conscionably and orderly in his duties to God and man." "His person and mind," say his biographers, "were both lovely"-and the learned antiquary Aubrey emphatically describes him as "a very good man."

As a poet he has been somewhat hardly dealt with; having been judged more by the evidence of his conceits, absurdities and false taste, than by his striking and original images, his noble and manly thoughts, and the exceeding fertility of his language. It is not surprising that posterity has failed to reverse the unjust judgment passed upon him by his contemporaries. He is described by one of them as "an old puritanical poet, the sometime darling of our plebeian judgments"-by another as "in wonderful veneration among the vulgar;" even when he received praise, it was faint praise; his master Archbishop Usher styles him "a man of some fame for his sacred poetry"-and the best compliment that Lloyd could afford him was "that he taught poetry to be witty without profaneness, wantonness, or being satyrical— that is, without the poet's abusing God himself or his neighbour." His principal poetical works are "Job Militant," "Sion's Elegies," the "History of Queen Esther," "Argalus and Parthenia," that which he calls his "Morning Muse," "The Feast for Worms, or the History of Jonah;" and the "Divine Emblems"-the last being the only production of Quarles that is now at all known or read. This has passed through several editions:-the latest, perhaps, is that which a presumptuous Editor describes as "properly modernized," which means, according to a better reading, utterly spoiled. Quarles was indebted for the idea of his Emblems to Herman Hugo. Of the poems we shall give a specimen-the prints we should not be so well disposed to copy. They are for the most part absurd in the extreme. Thus, the picture which accompanies the motto, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" represents a man standing within a skeleton. They are not all however of this class; for example, one consists of a helmet turned into a beehive, surrounded by its useful labourers-the motto, "Ex bello pax."-The faults of Quarles are large and numerous. He would have escaped this censure if he had himself followed the advice he gave to others :-"Clothe not thy language either with obscurity or affectation." No writer is either more affected or more obscure. It is only by raking that we can gather the gold; yet it is such as will reward the seeker who has courage to undertake the search. His sagacity and good sense are unquestionable, and occasionally there is a rich outbreak of fancy: while at times he startles us by compressing, as it were, a volume into a single line. But he is often bombastic, and not seldom flat and prosaic-evils that are not to be found in his prose writings. The sacredness of his object doubtless pushed him on to communicate his observations and reflections through the medium of verse - he sought "to mix the waters of Jordan and Helicon in the same cup"-to gather his laurels upon Mount Olivet-and the attempt was singularly unsuccessful,

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