Threescore summers, when they're Both alike are mine and thine, SLEEP. WILLIAM OLDYS. YOR do but consider what an excellent thing sleep is! it is so inestimable a jewel, that, if a tyrant would give his crown for an hour's slumber, it cannot he bought; of so beautiful a shape it is, that, though a man live with an empress, his heart cannot be at quiet till he leaves her embracements to be at rest with the other: yea, so greatly are we indebted to this kinsman of death, that we owe the better tributary half of our life to him; and there is good cause why we should do so; for sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. Who complains of want, of wounds, of cares, of great men's oppressions, of captivity, whilst he sleepeth? Beggars in their beds take as much pleasure as kings. Can we therefore surfeit on this delicate ambrosia? Can we drink too much of that, whereof to taste too little, tumbles us into a churchyard, and to use it but indifferently throws us into Bedlam? No, no. Look upon Endymion, the moon's minion, who slept threescore and fifteen years, and was not a hair the worse for it! THOMAS DEKKER. year. EOPLE always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but in truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we were. Man becomes, indeed, in the different stages of life, a different being; but he cannot say that he is a better one, and in certain matters he is as likely to be as right in his twentieth as in his sixtieth JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE. That, changed through all, and yet in all the same, Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame; tent Spreads undivided, operates unspent, Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee; Submit; in this or any other sphere, All chance, direction which thou cans't not All discord, harmony not understood, All partial evil, universal good; To minstrel-harps at midnight's witching hour. Born in a trance, we wake, observe, inquire, We cast a longer shadow in the sun; And say, how soon, where, blithe and innocent, The boy at sunrise caroled as he went, Way worn and spent, another, and the same MAN'S MORTALITY. Or like the blossom on the tree, Like as the grass that's newly sprung, Or like the singing of a swan, FROM "FESTUS." E live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, W not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives, Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best, And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest: Lives in one hour more than in years do some Whose fat blood sleeps as it slips along the veins. Life is but a means unto an end; that end, Beginning, mean, and end to all things-God. The dead have all the glory of the world. PHILIP JAMES BAILEY. THE VOICELESS. E count the broken lyres that rest Where the sweet wailing singers slumber, But o'er their silent sister's breast The wild flowers who will stoop to number? A few can touch the magic string, And noisy Fame is proud to win them; Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them; Nay, grieve not for the dead alone Whose song has told their hearts' sad story; Weep for the voiceless, who have known The cross without the crown of glory! Not where Leucadian breezes sweep O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, But where the glistening nightdews weep On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. O hearts that break and give no sign Save whitening lip and fading tresses, Till death pours out his cordial wine Slow dropped from Misery's crushing press es, If singing breath or echoing chord ENCE, all you vain delights, H' As short as are the nights Oh, sweetest melancholy! A look that's fastened to the ground, valley; Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER |