Works

When factious rage to cruel exile drove
The queen of beauty,[1] and the court of love,
The Muses droop'd, with their forsaken arts,
And the sad Cupids broke their useless darts:...

God has his plans, and what if we
With our sight be too blind to see
Their full fruition; cannot he,
Who made it, solve the mystery?
One whom we loved has fall'n asleep,...

And live I still to see relations gone,
And yet survive to sound this wailing tone;
Ah, woe is me, to write thy Funeral Song,
Who might in reason yet have lived long,...

Rich Statue, double-faced,
With Marble Temples graced,
To rayse thy God-head hyer,
In flames where Altars shining,
Before thy Priests diuining,
Doe od'rous Fumes expire.
...

Whence is it that, amazed, I hear
From yonder wither'd spray,
This foremost morn of all the year,
The melody of May?


And why, since thousands would be proud
Of such a favour shown,...

An Ode. 1685.


I.

Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the blest;
Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,...

O lovely river of Yvette!
O darling river! like a bride,
Some dimpled, bashful, fair Lisette,
Thou goest to wed the Orge's tide.

Maincourt, and lordly Dampierre,
See and salute thee on thy way,...

How large thy task, O teacher of the young,
To take the ravelled threads by parents flung
With careless hands, and through consummate care
To weave a fabric, fine and firm and fair....

To-night I close my eyes and see
A strange procession passing me
The years before I saw your face
Go by me with a wistful grace;
They pass, the sensitive shy years,...

Both you two have
Relation to the grave:
And where
The funeral-trump sounds, you are there,

I shall be made,
Ere long, a fleeting shade:
Pray, come
And do some honour to my tomb.
...

Ah! why with tell-tale tongue reveal [1]
What most her blushes would conceal?
Why lift that modest veil to trace
The seraph-sweetness of her face?
Some fairer, better sport prefer;...

Let your feet not falter, your course not alter
By golden apples, till victory's won!
The sword's sharp clangour, the dart's shrill anger,
Swerve not the hero thundering on.
...

A TALE OF THE HEDGE.

HEDGE-PLANTS.

"Beware!
We advise you to take care.
He lodges with us, so we know him well,
And can tell
You all about him,...

Or ever the knightly years were gone
With the old world to the grave,
I was a King in Babylon
And you were a Christian Slave.

I saw, I took, I cast you by,
I bent and broke your pride....

Let us twain walk aside from the rest;
Now we are together privately, do you discard ceremony,
Come! vouchsafe to me what has yet been vouchsafed to none, Tell me the whole story,...

The bookman he's a humming-bird -
His feasts are honey-fine, -
(With hi! hilloo!
And clover-dew
And roses lush and rare!)
Hiss roses are the phrase and word
Of olden tomes divine;...

Drink wine, and live here blitheful while ye may;
The morrow's life too late is; Live to-day.

Where art thou gone, light-ankled Youth?
With wing at either shoulder,
And smile that never left thy mouth
Until the Hours grew colder:

Then somewhat seem'd to whisper near...

I know! I know!--
The ceaseless ache, the emptiness, the woe,--
The pang of loss,--
The strength that sinks beneath so sore a cross.
"--Heedless and careless, still the world wags on,...

A new song here shall be begun--
The Lord God help our singing!--
Of what our God himself hath done,
Praise, honour to him bringing:
At Brussels in the Netherlands,
By two young boys, He gracious...