upon At Youth, to Fortune & to Same unknown: Fair Science frown'd on his humble Birth, And Melancholy mark I him for her his Bounty, & his soul sincere;
Recompense all, he had, lesion was
gain'd from leav'n Itwas all he wish'd) a Friend No farther seek his Meries to disclose, Or draw his Frailties from their dread Abode; There they alike in trembling Hope rep:se) The Bosom of his Father, & his God.
Have to the tolling bells
In echoes deeps and slew. While on the breeze our banner floats Draped in the weeds of wee.
L. Huntley Siquenes.
Across the everlasting Alp
I poured the torrent of my powers, And feeble Cæsars shrieked for help,
In vain, within their seven-hilled towers! I quenched in blood the brightest gen That glittered in their diadem, And struck a darker, deeper dye In the purple of their majesty,
And bade my Northern banners shine Upon the conquered Palatine.
My course is run, my errand done; I go to Him from whom I came ; But never yet shall set the sun
Of glory that adorns my name; And Roman hearts shall long be sick, When men shall think of Alaric.
My course is run, my errand done;
But darker ministers of fate, Impatient, round the eternal throne,
Aud in the caves of vengeance, wait; And soon mankind shall blench away Before the name of Attila.
THE COMPLEYNTE OF CHAUCER TO HIS PURSE.*
To you, my purse, and to noon other wight Compleyn I, for ye be my lady dere!
I am so sorry now that ye been lyght,
For certes, but-yf ye make me hevy chere, Me were as leaf be layde upon my bere, For whiche unto your mercy thus I crye, Beeth hevy ageyne, or ellès mote I dye !
Now voucheth sauf this day, or it be nyghte, That I of you the blissful soune may here, Or see your colour lyke the sonnè bryghte,
That of yelownesse haddè never pere. Ye be my lyfe! ye be myn hertys stere !+ Quene of comfort and good companye! Beth hevy ageyne, or ellès mote I dye.
Now, purse, that ben to me my lyves lyght
And saveour, as doun in this worlde here, Oute of this toune helpe me thurgh your myght,
"From this unique petition," says Mr. Gilman in his "Riverside" Chaucer, "there seems to have resulted an additional pension of forty marks a year, on the strength of which Chaucer took a lease of a house in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel, Westminster, for fifty-three years, at an annual rent of two pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence, the lease to be void on the poet's death." So that the practical results of this poetical plaint show that Chaucer well described one of his own characteristics in his description of the MARCHANT, among his Canterbury Pilgrims,
"This worthy man ful wel his wit bisette [used]." + guide
But were it to my fancy given
To rate her charms, I'd call them heaven; For, though a mortal made of clay, Angels must love Anne Hathaway; She hath a way so to control, To rapture, the imprisoned soul,
And sweetest heaven on earth display,
That to be heaven Anne hath a way;
She hath a way,
Anne Hathaway;
To be heaven's self, Anne hath a way..
ON THE PORTRAIT† OF SHAKESPEARE.
THIS figure, that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; Wherein the Graver had a strife With Nature to outdo the life: O, could he but have drawn his wit As well in brass, as he hath hit
TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US.
To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, Am I thus ample to thy book and fame; While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor Muse can praise too much. "T is true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise; For silliest ignorance on these would light, Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right; Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance The truth, but gropes, and urges all by chance; Or crafty malice might pretend this praise, And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise.
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed, Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin: Soul of the age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further off, to make thee room: Thou art a monument without a tomb, And art alive still, while thy book doth live, And we have wits to read, and praise to give. That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses, I mean with great but disproportioned Muses: For if I thought my judgment were of years, I should commit thee surely with thy peers, And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine, Or sporting Kyd or Marlowe's mighty line. And though thou had small Latin and less Greek, From thence to honour thee I will not seek
This poem has sometimes, but without much reason, been For names; but call forth thundering Eschylus,
attributed to Shakespeare.
The engraving by Martin Droeshout.
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And stock reserved of every living kind, So, in the compass of the single mind,
And shake a stage or when thy socks were on, The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie,
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all, that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show, To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. He was not of an age, but for all time! And all the Muses still were in their prime, When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm Our ears, or like a Mercury, to charm! Nature herself was proud of his designs, And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines! Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit, As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit. The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please : But antiquated and deserted lie, As they were not of nature's family. Yet must I not give nature all; thy art, My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part. For though the poet's matter nature be, His art doth give the fashion; and, that he Who casts to write a living line, must sweat (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same, And himself with it, that he thinks to frame; Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn; For a good poet's made as well as born. And such wert thou! Look how the father's face Lives in his issue, even so the race
Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly
In his well turned and true filed lines: In each of which he seems to shake a lance, As brandished at the eyes of ignorance. Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames That so did take Eliza and our James ! But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere Advanced, and made a constellation there! Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage, Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume's light!
THE soul of man is larger than the sky, Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark Of the unfathomed centre. Like that ark, Which in its sacred hold uplifted high, O'er the drowned hills, the human family,
WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones,
The labor of an age in pilèd stones?
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a livelong monument. For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavoring art Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book Those Delphic lines with deep impression took, Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving, Dost make us marble with too much conceiv-
And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie, That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
TO THE MEMORY OF BEN JONSON. THE Muse's fairest light in no dark time, The wonder of a learned age; the line Which none can pass the most proportioned wit,
To nature, the best judge of what was fit; The deepest, plainest, highest, clearest pen; The voice most echoed by consenting men; The soul which answered best to all well said By others, and which most requital made; Tuned to the highest key of ancient Rome, Returning all her music with his own; In whom, with nature, study claimed a part, And yet who to himself owed all his art: Here lies Ben Jonson! every age will look With sorrow here, with wonder on his book.
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