Here Nature, in her unaffected dress, Plaited with valleys, and embossed with hills Enchased with silver streams, and fringed with woods, Who is not charmed with the rich quaintness of worthy GEORGE HERBERT? Here is his fine piece, entitled Virtue : Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky! Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, Thy root is ever in its grave— Sweet Spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie! Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber, never gives; But though the whole world turn to coal, These are the opening stanzas of his Man's Medley : Hark! how the birds do sing, And woods do ring: All creatures have their joy, and man hath his : Man's joy and pleasure Rather hereafter, than in present, is. To this life things of sense Make their pretence; In th' other angels have a right by birth; And makes them one, With th' one touching heaven-with th' other, earth. There is a charm about Herbert's poetry, notwithstanding the strange conceits with which it abounds; as in the following lines, entitled Life : I made a posie, while the day ran by: Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie My life within this band. But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they And wither'd in my hand. My hand was next to them, and then my heart; Who did so sweetly death's sad taste convey, Farewell, dear flowers; sweetly your time ye spent, I follow straight without complaints or grief, Addison, it may be remembered, thus refers to a brother bard in the following couplet : "Nor, DENHAM, must we e'er forget thy strains, While Cooper's Hill commands the neighboring plains." It was this DENHAM that wrote that celebrated quartette-which seems to have been a poetic inspiration : Oh! could I flow like thee, and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme! Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull; ANDREW MARVELL, the friend of Milton, wrote these glowing lines On a Drop of Dew: See how the orient dew, Shed from the bosom of the morn, Into the blowing roses, Yet careless of its mansion new, For the clear region where 'twas born, Round in itself encloses; Frames as it can its native element. How it the purple flower does slight! But giving back upon the skies, Like its own tear, because so long divided from the sphere, And to the skies exhales it back again. So the soul-that drop, that ray Of the clear fountain of eternal day, Remembering still its former height, Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green, And recollecting its own light, Does in its pure and circling thoughts express DRYDEN'S magnificent Ode, On the Power of Music, written in 1697, for the festival of St. Cecilia's day, is by many considered his masterpiece. It is pronounced unequalled by any thing of its kind since classic times; and is the best illustration of the pliancy of our English extant. He wrote this grand Ode at Burleigh House, where his translation of Virgil was partly executed. One morning Lord Bolingbroke chanced to call on Dryden, whom he found in unusual agitation. On inquiring the cause, "I have been up all night," replied the bard; "my musical friends made me promise to write them an Ode for the Feast of St. Cecilia: I have been so struck with the subject which occurred to me, that I could not leave it till I had completed it here it is, finished at one sitting.” The poem is designed to exhibit the different passions excited by Timotheus in the mind of Alexander, feasting a triumphant conqueror in Persepolis. The grandeur of the poem can only be appreciated by perusing it entire, and more fully, indeed, on even a second perusal. Here is the opening stanza : 'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won By Philip's warlike son: Aloft in awful state the god-like hero sate His valiant peers were placed around, Their brows with roses and with myrtle bound; So should desert in arms be crown'd. The lovely Thaïs by his side Sat, like a blooming Eastern bride, In flower of youth and beauty's pride: |