Beneath those sunny banks a darker cloud,
Dropping with thicker dew, did melt apace,
And bent itself into a hollow shroud,

On which, if Mercy did but cast her face,
A thousand colours did the bow enchase,
That wonder was to see the silk distain'd

With the resplendence from her beauty gain'd,

And Iris paint her locks with beams so lively feign'd.

About her head a cypress heaven she wore,
Spread like a vail, upheld with silver wire,
In which the stars so burnt in golden ore,
As seem'd the azure web was all on fire:
But hastily, to quench their sparkling ire,
A flood of milk came rolling up the shore,
That on his curded wave swift Argus wore
And the immortal swan, that did her life depiore.

Yet strange it was so many stars to see,
Without a sun to give their tapers light;
Yet strange it was not that it so should be;
For, where the sun centers himself by right,
Her face and locks did flame, that at the sight
The heavenly vail, that else should nimbly move,
Forgot his flight, and all incensed, with love,

With wonder and amazement, did her beauty prove.

Over her hung a canopy of state,
Not of rich tissue nor of spangled gold,
But of a substance, though not animate,
Yet of a heavenly and spiritual mould,
That only eyes of spirits might behold:
Such light as from main rocks of diamond,

Shooting their sparks at Phoebus, would rebound,

And little angels, holding hands, danced all around.

THOMAS CAREW was of an ancient family, and was born in Gloucestershire in 1589. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, after which he travelled, for some time, upon the continent, and on his return to England, entered into the service of Charles the First, by whom he was made gentleman of the privy chamber, and was personally very highly esteemed. From this period his life was that of a courtier-witty, affable, and accomplished-without reflection; and in a strain of loose revelry which, according to Lord Clarenden, 'he deeply repented in his latter days.' He died in 1639, not having quite attained the fiftieth year of his age.

Carew was the precursor and representative of a numerous class of poets— courtiers of a gay and gallant school, who, to personal accomplishments, rank, and education, united a taste and talent for the conventional poetry then most popular and most cultivated. Their visions of fame were, in general, bounded by the circle of the court and of the nobility. To live in future generations, or to sound the depth of the human heart, seems not to have entered into their contemplations. A 'rosy cheek or coral lip' formed their

ordinary themes. The court applauded; the lady was flattered or appeased by the compliment; and the poet was praised for his wit and gallantry; while the heart had nothing to do with the poetical homage thus tendered and accepted.

Carew was capable, however, of ascending far beyond this heartless frivolity; and in his productions, therefore, we see only glimpes of a genius which might have been ripened into permanent and beneficial excellence. His short amatory pieces and songs were exceedingly popular in his day, and are now his only poems that are read. A few of these are here introduced, together with his lines on the Approach of Spring-a production which indicates that the passionate and imaginative view of the Elizabethan period had not wholly passed away, but that the 'genial and warm tints' of the elder muse still occasionally colored the landscape.

SONG.

Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauties, orient deep,
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat

She winters, and keeps warm her note.

Ask me no more if east or west
The Phoenix builds her spicy nest;

For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragant bosom dies.

THE COMPLIMENT.

I do not love thee for that fair
Rich fan of thy most curious hair;
Though the wires thereof be drawn
Finer than the threads of lawn,
And are softer than the leaves
On which the subtile spider weaves.

I do not love thee for those flowers
Growing on thy cheeks (love's bowers);
Though such cunning them hath spread,
None can paint them white and red:
Love's golden arrows thence are shot,
Yet for them I love thee not.

I do not love thee for those soft

Red coral lips I've kiss'd so oft;
Nor teeth of pearl, the double guard
To speech, whence music still is heard;

Though from those lips a kiss being taken,
Might tyrants melt, and death awaken.

I do not love thee, oh! my fairest,

For that richest, for that rarest
Silver pillar, which stands under
Thy sound head, that globe of wonder;

Tho' that neck be whiter far

Than towers of polish'd ivory are.

DISDAIN RETURNED.

He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires;
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.

But a smooth and steadfast mind,
Gentle thoughts and calm desires;
Hearts with equal love combined,
Kindle never-dying fires.
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks, or lips, or eyes!

No tears, Celia, now shall win

My resolv'd heart to return;

I have search'd thy soul within,

And find nought but pride and scorn;

I have learn'd thy arts, and now

Can disdain as much as thou.

Some power, in my revenge, convey
That love to her I cast away.

APPROACH OF SPRING.

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or calls an icy cream
Upon the silver lake, or crystal stream;

But the warm sun thaws the benumb'd earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble bee;
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world the youthful spring.
The valleys, hills, and woods, in rich array
Welcome the coming of the long'd for May.
Now all things smile.

GEORGE WITHER was born in Hampshire on the eleventh of June, 1588, and was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. In the twenty-fifth year of his age he published a satire entitled Abuses Stript and Whipt, for which he was thrown into Marshalsea; but so far from allowing his imprisonment to depress his spirits, he there composed his fine poem, The

Shepherds' Hunting. When the abuses satirized by the poet had accumulated and brought on the civil war, Wither embraced the popular side, and sold his patrimonial estate to raise a troop of horse for the Parliament. He rose to the rank of a major, and in 1642, was made governor of Farnham Castle. During the struggle that immediately followed, Wither was made prisoner by the royalists, and stood in danger of capital punishment, but was saved by the interference of his brother poet Denham. Nothing daunted by the perilous contentions of the times, he again joined the parliamentary army, became one of Cromwell's major-generals, and was appointed by that dauntless leader to keep watch over the royalists of Surrey. From the sequestrated estates of these gentlemen, Wither obtained a considerable fortune, but the Restoration came, and he was stript of all his possessions. Against this he remonstrated loudly and angrily; his remonstrances were voted libels, and the unfortunate poet was again thrown into prison. In 1663 he was released from prison under bond of good behaviour, and died in London on the second of May, 1665.

Wither's poetic fame is derived chiefly from those early productions which were composed while he was incarcerated in prison. His mind was extremely active, and though his body was confined within stone walls and iron bars, his fancy was among the hills and plains, with shepherds hunting; or loitering with Poesy, by rustling boughs or murmuring springs. There is hence a freshness and natural vivacity in his poetry, that render his early works a perpetual feast.' It is certainly not a feast where no crude surfeit reigns,' for he is often harsh, obscure, and affected; but he has an endless diversity of style and subject, and true poetical feeling and expression.

Wither, for more than a century and a half, shared the fate so common to poets of his own age and class, of being comparatively forgotten; but his reputation has recently been revived by Ellis, who, in his Specimens of Early English Poets, first pointed out that playful fancy, pure taste, and artless delicacy of sentiment, which distinguish the poetry of his early youth.' His 'Address to Poetry' in the 'Shepherds' Hunting' is worthy of the theme, and superior to most of the effusions of that period. The pleasure with which he recounts the various charms and the 'divine skill' of his muse, that had derived nourishment and delight from the meanest objects' of external nature—a daisy, a bush, or a tree; and which, when these picturesque and beloved scenes of the country were denied him, could gladden even the vaults and shades of a prison, is one of the richest offerings that has yet been made to the pure and hallowed shrine of poesy. The superiority of intellectual pursuits over the gratifications of sense, and all the malice of fortune, has never been more touchingly or finely illustrated. The poem itself follows:

THE COMPANIONSHIP OF THE MUSE.

See'st thou not, in clearest days,

Oft thick fogs cloud heaven's rays;

And the vapours that do breathe
From the earth's grass womb beneath,
Seem they not with their black steams
To pollute the sun's bright beams,
And yet vanish into air,

Leaving it, unblemish'd fair?

So my Willy, shall it be

With Detraction's breath and thee:

It shall never rise so high,

As to stain thy poesy.

As that sun doth oft exhale

Vapours from each rotten vale;

Poesy so sometime drains

Gross conceits from muddy brains;

Mists of envy, fogs of spite,

'Twixt men's judgments and her light: But so much her power may do,

That she can dissolve them too.
If thy verse do bravely tower,

As she makes wing she gets power;
Yet the higher she doth soar,
She's affronted still the more:
Till she to the high'st hath past,
Then she rests with fame at last:
Let nought therefore thee affright,
But make forward in thy flight;
For, if I could match thy rhyme,
To the very stars I'd climb;
There begin again, and fly
Till I reach'd eternity.
But, alas! my muse is slow;
For thy page she flags too low:
Yea, the more's her hapless fate,
Her short wings were clipt of late:

And poor I, her fortune ruing,
Am myself put up a mewing:

But if I my cage can rid,

I'll fly where I never did:

And though for her sake I'm crost,
Though my best hopes I have lost,
And knew she would make my trouble
Ten times more than ten times double:

I should love and keep her too,

Spite of all the world could do.
For, though banish'd from my flocks,

And confin'd within these rocks,

Here I waste away the light,

And consume the sullen night,
She doth for my comfort stay,
And keeps many cares away.
Though I miss the flowery fields,
With those sweets the springtide yields,
Though I may not see those groves,
Where the shepherds chant their loves,