To my Worthy Friend, Master T. Lewes EES not my friend, what a deep snow SEES Candies our country's woody brow? All bound up in an icy coat. Let us meet then! and while this world In wild eccentrics now is hurl'd, Keep we, like nature, the same key, And walk in our forefathers' way. Why any more cast we an eye On what may come, not what is nigh? But through a churchyard, which them bounds. And draw our bottom to an end, But discreet joys lengthen the lease, And who this age a mourner goes, Doth with his tears but feed his foes. Henry Vaughan. Heraclitus (After Callimachus) ◇ THEY 'HEY told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. I wept as I remembered how often you and I Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky. And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, To Mr. Lawrence LAWRENCE, of virtuous father virtuous son, Now that the fields are dank and ways are mire, Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire Help waste a sullen day, what may be won From the hard season gaining? Time will run The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air? He who of these delights can judge, and spare To interpose them oft, is not unwise. 'YRIACK, whose grandsire, on the royal bench CYR Of British Themis, with no mean applause Pronounc'd, and in his volumes taught, our laws, Which others at their bar so often wrench; To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth, that after no repenting draws; Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, And what the Swede intend, and what the French. To measure life learn thou betimes, and know Toward solid good what leads the nearest way ; For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains, And disapproves that care, though wise in show, That with superfluous burden loads the day, And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains. Mr. William Hervey MY Y sweet companion, and my gentle peer, Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here, Thy end for ever, and my life, to moan? O thou hast left me all alone! Thy soul and body, when death's agony Did not with more reluctance part Than I, my dearest friend, do part from thee. Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say, Henceforth, ye gentle trees, for ever fade, Large was his soul; as large a soul as e'er High as the place 'twas shortly in Heaven to have, So high that all the virtues there did come Conspicuous, and great; So low that for me too it made a room. Knowledge he only sought, and so soon caught, Whene'er the skilful youth discoursed or writ, About his eloquent tongue; Nor could his ink flow faster than his wit. His mirth was the pure spirits of various wit, As if wise Nature had made that her book. With as much zeal, devotion, piety, Which still in water sets at night, Unsullied with his journey of the day. But happy thou, ta'en from this frantic age, The place now only free from those. |