"SLOW, SLOW, FRESH FOUNT, KEEP TIME WITH MY SALT TEARS:

But show thy winding ways and arts,
Thy risings, and thy timely starts

Of stealing fire from ladies' eyes and hearts.
Those softer circles are the young man's heaven,
And there more orbs and planets are than seven.
To know whose motion

Were a notion

As worthy of youth's study, as devotion.

Come forth, come forth! prove all the time will gain,
For Nature bids the best, and never bade in vain.

ECHO'S LAMENT OF NARCISSUS.

(From "Cynthia's Revels.")

SLOW, Slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears:
Yet slower, yet; O faintly, gentle springs:

List to the heavy part the music bears,
Woe weeps out her division, when she sings.
Droop, herbs and flowers,

Fall, grief, in showers,

Our beauties are not ours:
O, I could still,

Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,

Drop, drop, drop, drop,

Since nature's pride is now a withered daffodil.

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,

HATH LEFT US.

AND WHAT

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.
'Tis 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.

HE

But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill fortune of them, or 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
For names; but call forth thund'ring Æschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage; or when thy socks were on,
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 shew,
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 even 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 shines
In his well turned and true filled 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.

HYMN TO DIANA.

QUEEN and Huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,

Seated in thy silver chair,

State in wonted manner keep :
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made

Heaven to clear, when day did close:
Bless us then with wishèd sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,

And thy shining crystal quiver;

Give unto the flying heart

Space to breathe, how short soever :
Thou that mak'st a day of night,—
Goddess excellently bright.