To my Worthy Friend, Master T. Lewes

EES not my friend, what a deep snow

SEES

Candies our country's woody brow?
The yielding branch his load scarce bears,
Oppress'd with snow and frozen tears;
While the dumb rivers slowly float,

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?
Why vex ourselves with fear or hope,
And cares beyond our horoscope?
Who into future times would peer,
Looks oft beyond his time set here,
And cannot go into those grounds

But through a churchyard, which them bounds.
Sorrows and sighs and searches spend,

And draw our bottom to an end,

But discreet joys lengthen the lease,
Without which life were a disease;

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,
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot
take.
William Cory.

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
On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire

The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire
The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.

What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise
To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice

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.
J. Milton.

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
Besieged around thy noble heart,

Did not with more reluctance part

Than I, my dearest friend, do part from thee.

Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say,
Have ye not seen us walking every day?
Was there a tree about which did not know
The love betwixt us two?

Henceforth, ye gentle trees, for ever fade,
Or your sad branches thicker join,
And into darksome shades combine,
Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid.

Large was his soul; as large a soul as e'er
Submitted to inform a body here;

High as the place 'twas shortly in Heaven to have,
But low and humble as his grave;

So high that all the virtues there did come
As to the chiefest seat

Conspicuous, and great;

So low that for me too it made a room.

Knowledge he only sought, and so soon caught,
As if for him knowledge had rather sought;
Nor did more learning ever crowded lie
In such a short mortality.

Whene'er the skilful youth discoursed or writ,
Still did the notions throng

About his eloquent tongue;

Nor could his ink flow faster than his wit.

His mirth was the pure spirits of various wit,
Yet never did his God or friends forget;
And when deep talk and wisdom came in view,
Retired, and gave to them their due.
For the rich help of books he always took,
Though his own searching mind before
Was so with notions written o'er,

As if wise Nature had made that her book.

With as much zeal, devotion, piety,
He always lived, as other saints do die.
Still with his soul severe account he kept,
Weeping all debts out ere he slept.
Then down in peace and innocence he lay,
Like the sun's laborious light,

Which still in water sets at night,

Unsullied with his journey of the day.

But happy thou, ta'en from this frantic age,
Where ignorance and hypocrisy does rage!
A fitter time for heaven no soul ere chose,

The place now only free from those.