57.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

A Wish.

MINE be a cot beside the hill;

A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear;
A willowy brook, that turns a mill,
With many a fall shall linger near.

The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch,
Shall twitter from her clay-built nest;
Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch,
And share my meal, a welcome guest.
Around my ivied porch shall spring
Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew;
And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing
In russet-gown and apron blue.

The village-church, among the trees,
Where first our marriage-vows were given,
With merry peals shall swell the breeze,
And point with taper spire to heaven.

1846 Edition.

58.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Sonnets.

XVII.

WHO will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life and shows not half your

parts.

If I could write the beauty of your eyes

And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say 'This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'

So should my papers, yellowed with their age, Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than

tongue,

And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:

But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice, in it and in my rhyme.

59.

XVIII.

SHALL I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate : Rough winds do shake the darling buds of

May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course un-
trimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 60.

XXX.

WHEN to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's

waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd

woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd

sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

61.

XXXIII.

FULL many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,

And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all-triumphant splendour on my brow;
But, out, alack! he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth ;
Suns of the world may stain when heaven's
sun staineth.

62.

LX.

LIKE as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes

before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.