Works

Thou hast inspired me with thy soul, and I
Who ne'er before could ken of poetry,
Am grown so good proficient, I can lend
A line in commendation of my friend.
Yet 'tis but of the second hand; if ought...

Words beget anger; anger brings forth blows;
Blows make of dearest friends immortal foes.
For which prevention, sociate, let there be
Betwixt us two no more logomachy....

Wanton wenches do not bring
For my hairs black colouring:
For my locks, girls, let 'em be
Grey or white, all's one to me.

Alas! I can't, for tell me, how
Can I be gamesome, aged now?
Besides, ye see me daily grow
Here, winter-like, to frost and snow;
And I, ere long, my girls, shall see
Ye quake for cold to look on me.

Serus in coelum redeas, diuque
Laetus intersis populo. - HOR., Carm. I, ii, 45.


Great, good, and just, was once applied
To one who for his country died;[l]
To one who lives in its defence,...

For brave comportment, wit without offence,
Words fully flowing, yet of influence:
Thou art that man of men, the man alone,
Worthy the public admiration:
Who with thine own eyes read'st what we do write,...

Did I or love, or could I others draw
To the indulgence of the rugged law,
The first foundation of that zeal should be
By reading all her paragraphs in thee,
Who dost so fitly with the laws unite,...

For civil, clean, and circumcised wit,
And for the comely carriage of it,
Thou art the man, the only man best known,
Mark'd for the true wit of a million:
From whom we'll reckon. Wit came in but since...

Stand by the magic of my powerful rhymes
'Gainst all the indignation of the times.
Age shall not wrong thee; or one jot abate
Of thy both great and everlasting fate....

To this white temple of my heroes here,
Beset with stately figures everywhere
Of such rare saintships, who did here consume
Their lives in sweets, and left in death perfume,...

I can but name thee, and methinks I call
All that have been, or are canonical
For love and bounty to come near, and see
Their many virtues volum'd up in thee;
In thee, brave man! whose incorrupted fame...

Rise, household gods, and let us go;
But whither I myself not know.
First, let us dwell on rudest seas;
Next, with severest savages;
Last, let us make our best abode
Where human foot as yet ne'er trod:...

Welcome to this my college, and though late
Thou'st got a place here (standing candidate)
It matters not, since thou art chosen one
Here of my great and good foundation.

Seeing thee, Soame, I see a goodly man,
And in that good a great patrician.
Next to which two, among the city powers
And thrones, thyself one of those senators;
Not wearing purple only for the show,...

When I consider, dearest, thou dost stay
But here awhile, to languish and decay;
Like to these garden glories, which here be
The flowery-sweet resemblances of thee:...

Next is your lot, fair, to be number'd one,
Here, in my book's canonisation:
Late you come in; but you a saint shall be,
In chief, in this poetic liturgy.

When first I find those numbers thou dost write,
To be most soft, terse, sweet, and perpolite:
Next, when I see thee tow'ring in the sky,
In an expansion no less large than high;...

"Teach me, love, to be true;
Teach me, love, to love;
Teach me to be pure like you.
It will be more than enough!

"Ah, and in days to come,
Give me, my seraph, too,
A son nobler than I,...

The greater and the lesser ills:
He waved his grey hand wearily
Back to the anger of the sea,
Then forward to the blue of hills.

Out from the shattered barquenteen...

One night i'th' year, my dearest Beauties, come,
And bring those dew-drink-offerings to my tomb;
When thence ye see my reverend ghost to rise,
And there to lick th' effused sacrifice,...