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TO SLEEP.

Care-Charmer Sleep, son of the sable right,

Brother to death in silent darkness born,
Relieve my languish, and restore the light:
With dark forgetting of my care return,
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth:
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,
Without the torment of the night's untruth.
Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires,
To model forth the passions of the morrow;
Never let rising sun approve you liars

To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow:
Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,
And never wake to feel the day's disdain.

THE LAST CHANCE.

MICHAEL DRAYTON.

SINCE there's no help, come let us kiss and part

1563-1631. Nay, I have done, you get no more of me ;

And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,

That thus so cleanly I myself can free;

Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,

And when we meet at any time again,

Be it not seen in either of our brows

That we one jot of former love retain.

Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath,

When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,

When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

And innocence is closing up his eyes,

Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over,

From death to life thou might'st him yet recover!

JOHN DONNE.

SELF-DEDICATION.

As due by many titles, I resign

1573-1631. Myself to Thee, O God. First I was made

By Thee and for Thee; and when I was decayed,
Thy blood bought that, the which before was thine :
I am thy son, made with thyself to shine;

Thy servant, whose pains Thou hast still repaid,

.

Thy sheep, thine image; and till I betrayed

Myself, a temple of thy Spirit divine.

Why doth the devil then usurp on me?

Why doth he steal, nay ravish that's thy right?

Except Thou rise, and for thine own work fight,

Oh! I shall soon despair, when I shall see

That Thou lov'st mankind well, yet will not choose me,

And Satan hates me, yet is loth to lose me.

JOHN DONNE.

TO DEATH.

DEATH, be not proud, though some have called thee 1573-1631. Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou thinkest thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be,

Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow :

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,

And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

SIN.

LORD, with what care hast Thou begirt us round!

GEORGE HERBERT. 1593-1632.

Parents first season us; then schoolmasters

Deliver us to laws; they send us bound
To rules of reason, holy messengers;
Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin,
Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes,

Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in,
Bibles laid open, millions of surprizes,
Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness,

The sound of glory ringing in our ears:
Without, our shame; within, our consciences:

Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears.

Yet all these fences and their whole array

One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.

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