Page images
PDF
EPUB

Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all the adulteries of art;

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

Ben Jonson.

CCCXCVI.

HIS LOVE ADMITS NO RIVAL.

SHALL I, like a hermit, dwell
On a rock, or in a cell,
Calling home the smallest part
That is missing of my heart,
To bestow it where I may
Meet a rival every day?
If she undervalue me,

What care I how fair she be?

Were her tresses angel gold,
If a stranger may be bold,
Unrebuked, unafraid,

To convert them to a braid,
And with little more ado
Work them into bracelets too;
If the mine be grown so free,
What care I how rich it be?

Sir Walter Raleigh.

CCCXCVII.

TO HIS PECULIAR FRIEND, MR. JOHN WICKS.

SINCE shed nor cottage I have none,

I sing the more that thou hast one,
To whose glad threshold and free door
I may a poet come, though poor,
And eat with thee a savoury bit,
Paying but common thanks for it.
Yet should I chance, my Wicks, to see
An over-leaven look in thee,

To sour the bread, and turn the beer
To an exalted vinegar;

Or shouldst thou prize me as a dish

Of thrice boiled worts, or third day's fish,
I'd rather hungry go and come,

Than to thy house be burdensome :

Yet in my depth of grief I'd be

One that should drop his beads for thee.

Robert Herrick.

CCCXCVIII.

COME, let us now resolve at last
To live and love in quiet;
We'll tie the knot so very fast,
That Time shall ne'er untie it.

The truest joys they seldom prove
Who free from quarrels live;
'Tis the most tender part of love
Each other to forgive.

When least I seemed concerned, I took

No pleasure, nor no rest;

And when I feign'd an angry look,

Alas! I loved you best.

Own but the same to me, you'll find

How blest will be your fate :

O, to be happy, to be kind,

Sure never is too late.

John, Duke of Buckingham.

CCCXCIX.

HER LIPS.

OFTEN I have heard it said
That her lips are ruby-red.
Little heed I what they say,
I have seen as red as they.
Ere she smiled on other men,
Real rubies were they then.

When she kiss'd me once in play,
Rubies were less bright than they,
And less bright were those that shone
In the palace of the Sun.

Will they be as bright again?

Not if kiss'd by other men.

Walter Savage Landor.

CCCC.

IT often comes into my head

That we may dream when we are dead,

But I am far from sure we do.

O that it were so! then my rest
Would be indeed among the blest;
I should for ever dream of you.

CCCCI.

Walter Savage Landor.

TO FANNY.

NATURE! thy fair and smiling face
Has now a double power to bless,
For 'tis the glass in which I trace
My absent Fanny's loveliness.

Her heavenly eyes above me shine,
The rose reflects her modest blush,

She breathes in every eglantine,

She sings in every warbling thrush. That her dear form alone I see, Need not excite surprise in any, For Fanny's all the world to me, And all the world to me is Fanny. Horatio Smith.

CCCCII.

WITH A GUITAR TO JANE.

ARIEL to MIRANDA :- Take
This slave of Music, for the sake
Of him who is the slave of thee;

And teach it all the harmony
In which thou can'st, and only thou,
Make the delighted spirit glow,
Till joy denies itself again,

And, too intense, is turned to pain.
For by permission and command
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand,
Poor Ariel sends this silent token
Of more than ever can be spoken;
Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who
From life to life must still pursue
Your happiness, for thus alone
Can Ariel ever find his own.
From Prospero's enchanted cell,
As the mighty verses tell,
To the throne of Naples, he
Lit you o'er the trackless sea,
Flitting on, your prow before,
Like a living meteor.

When you die, the silent moon
In her interlunar swoon

Is not sadder in her cell
Than deserted Ariel.

When you live again on earth,
Like an unseen star of birth,
Ariel guides you o'er the sea
Of life, from your nativity.
Many changes have been run
Since Ferdinand and you begun

Your course of love, and Ariel still

Has tracked your steps and served your will.

Now, in humbler, happier lot,

This is all remembered not;

And now, alas! the poor Sprite is
Imprisoned for some fault of his
In a body like a grave:

From you he only dares to crave,
For his service and his sorrow,
A smile to-day, a song to-morrow.

The artist who this idol wrought
To echo all harmonious thought,
Felled a tree while on the steep
The woods were in their winter sleep,

Rocked in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine,
And dreaming, some of autumn past,
And some of spring approaching fast,
And some of April buds and showers,
And some of songs in July bowers,
And all of love. And so this tree-
Oh, that such our death may be !—
Died in sleep, and felt no pain,
To live in happier form again :

From which, beneath heaven's fairest star,

The artist wrought the loved Guitar;
And taught it justly to reply
To all who question skilfully,
In language gentle as thine own;
Whispering in enamoured tone
Sweet oracles of woods and dells,
And summer winds in sylvan cells.
For it had learnt all harmonies
Of the plains and of the skies,
Of the forests and the mountains,
And the many-voiced fountains;
The clearest echoes of the hills,
The softest notes of falling rills,
The melodies of birds and bees,
The murmuring of summer seas,
And pattering rain, and breathing dew,
And airs of evening; and it knew
That seldom-heard, mysterious sound
Which, driven on its diurnal round,
As it floats through boundless day,
Our world enkindles on its way:
All this it knows; but will not tell
To those who cannot question well
The Spirit that inhabits it.
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more
Is heard than has been felt before
By those who tempt it to betray
These secrets of an elder day.
But, sweetly as its answers will
Flatter hands of perfect skill,
It keeps its highest, holiest tone
For our beloved Jane alone.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

« PreviousContinue »