And many a powerful smile, Cherish their flatteries of wit, While I my life of fame beguile, And under my own vine uncourted sit. For I have seen the pine, Famed for its travels o'er the sea, I have seen cedars fall, And in their room a mushroom grow; I have seen comets threatening all, Vanish themselves: I have seen princes so. Vain, trivial dust! weak man ! Where is that virtue of thy breath That others save or ruin can, When thou thyself art called to account by death? When I consider thee, The scorn of time and sport of fate, How can I turn to jollity My ill-strung harp, and court the delicate? How can I but disdain The empty fallacies of mirth, And in my midnight thoughts retain, How high soe'er I spread my roots in earth? Fond youth! too long I played The wanton with a false delight, Which when I touched I found a shade, That only wrought on th' error of my sight. Then since pride doth decay The soul to flattered ignorance, I from the world will steal away, And by humility my thoughts advance EDMUND WALLER. EDMUND WALLER was born at Coleshill, in Hertfordshire, in 1605, was educated at Eton, and at King's College, Cambridge. He was sent to parliament at the age of eighteen; frequented the court of James I., and suffered considerably during the civil war for his attachment to the monarchy, but closed his long life in peace, at Beaconsfield, in 1687. Waller was a fine poet, and he excelled all his contemporaries in his command of the harmonies of the English language. "He belonged," says Hazlitt," to the same class as Suckling: the sportive, the sparkling, and the polished." His sublimest poem is on the Death of Cromwell; but many of his religious pieces are distinguished for dignity and beauty. LOVE. TILL love appear, we live in anxious doubt; But smoke will vanish when that flame breaks out. This is the fire that would consume our dross, Refine and make us richer by the loss. For born in heaven, it does but sojourn here. Than thorns and thistles springing from the curse. LOVE OF GOD TO MAN. THAT early love of creatures yet unmade Moved on the waters, chased away the night With his own breath conveyed into his breast For such a gift, and tell from whence it came: But not with lasting numbers, and with thought, If He create, it is a world He makes; If He be angry, the creation shakes. From his just wrath our guilty parents fled; He cursed the earth, but bruised the serpent's head. Amidst the storm his bounty did exceed, THE Grecian muse has all their gods survived, Nor Jove at us, nor Phœbus, is arrived; Frail deities, which first the poets made, And then invoked to give their fancies aid! Yet if they still divert us with their rage, What may be hoped for in a better age, When not from Helicon's imagined spring, But sacred writ, we borrow what we sing? This with the fabric of the world begun, Elder than light, and shall outlast the sun. Before this oracle, like Dagon, all The false pretenders, Delphos, Hammon, fall: Long since despised and silent, they afford Honor and triumph to the eternal Word. As late Philosophy our globe has graced, And rolling earth among the planets placed, So has this Book entitled us to heaven, And rules to guide us to that mansion given; Tells the conditions how our peace was made, And is our pledge for the great Author's aid. His power in nature's ample book we find ; But the less volume doth express his mind. This light unknown, bold Epicurus taught, That his blest gods vouchsafe us not a thought, But unconcerned, let all below them slide, As fortune does, or human wisdom, guide. Religion thus removed, the sacred yoke, And band of all society, is broke: What use of oaths, of promise, or of test, Where men regard no God but interest? What endless war would jealous nations bear, Among themselves to find so little trust! |