Now spinning like a millwheel round, Now hunting Echo's empty sound, Now climbing up some old tall tree For climbing's sake: 'tis sweet to thee Child of the town and bustling street, The stream's too strong for thy small bark: A story in each stream and bower; And lockt men's looks within her golden Hath from the cunning workman's pencil flown hair, These lips look fresh and lively as her own, Seeming to move and speak. Alas! now I Neither to be so great as to be envied, Nothing of her but this! This cannot speak; Love is much in winning, yet is more in It has no lap for me to rest upon, leesing; No lip worth tasting. Here the worms will Love is ever sick, and yet is never dying; feed, As in her coffin. Hence, then, idle art! True love's best pictured in a true love's heart. Here art thou drawn, sweet maid, till this be So that thou livest twice, twice art buried. Love is ever true, and yet is ever lying; Love does dote in liking, and is mad in loathing; Love indeed is anything, yet indeed is nothing. THOMAS MIDDLETON. But cannot shield the tempest from them- Thou prayest God to hasten to thine aid; selves. I love to dwell betwixt the hills and dales, Immortal is thy soul: thy heart will heal. By longing and regret thy life is torn, The past shuts out the future from thine Grieve not for yesterday: await the morn; Thy form is bent beneath oppressive thought, way; Oh, bow the knee! fall prostrate, thing of naught! Then I'll not be proud of my youth nor my beauty, Since both of them wither and fade, This will scent like a rose when I'm dead. OH, NANNY, WILT THOU GANG Immortal is thy soul: death frees thy clay. OH, Nanny, wilt thou Thy mouldering form its mother-earth will feed, Thy glory, name and memory must die, But not thy love: if thou hast loved indeed, gang wi' me, The lowly cot and russet gown? Thy deathless soul will cherish it on high. Say, canst thou quit each courtly scene HOW Translation of HURD & HOUGHTON. THE ROSE. OW fair is the rose! what a beautiful The glory of April and May! But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour, And they wither and die in a day. Yet the rose has one powerful virtue to boast When its leaves are all dead and its fine Still how sweet a perfume it will yield! So frail is the youth and the beauty of men, rose, But all our fond care to preserve them is vain : Time kills them as fast as he goes. Where thou wert fairest of the fair? Oh, Nanny, when thou'rt far awa', Wilt thou not cast a look behind? Nor shrink before the winter wind? Severest hardships learn to bear, Where thou wert fairest of the fair? Oh, Nanny, canst thou love so true Through perils keen wi' me to gae, To share with him the pang of wae? Wilt thou assume the nurse's care, Where thou wert fairest of the fair? And when at last thy love shall die, Wilt thou receive his parting breath? Wilt thou repress each struggling sigh And cheer with smiles the bed of death? And wilt thou o'er his much-loved clay Strew flowers and drop the tender tear, Nor then regret those scenes so gay Where thou wert fairest of the fair? DR. THOMAS PERCY. L'AMOUR TIMIDE. F in that breast, so good, so pure, IF in that breast, Pity the sorrows I endure; The cause I must not, dare not, tell. The grief that on my quiet preys, That rends my heart, that checks my WHO sleeps below? who sleeps below? tongue, It is a question idle all! Ask of the breezes as they blow: Say, do they heed or hear thy call? They murmur in the trees around, And mock thy voice, an empty sound. A hundred summer suns have showered Say, did he come from East, from West, From southern climes, or where the pole With frosty sceptre doth arrest The howling billows as they roll? Within what realm of peace or strife Did he first draw the breath of life? Was he of high or low degree? Did grandeur smile upon his lot? Came the swift bolt that dashed him Then what is life, when thus we see down, When she, his chosen, blossoming In beauty, deemed him all her own, By day, by night, through calm and storm, The deck his walk, the sea his home? No trace remains of life's career? Mortal, whoe'er thou art, for thee A moral lesson gloweth here. Puttest thou in aught of earth thy trust? 'Tis doomed that dust shall mix with dust. What doth it matter, then, if thus, Without a stone, without a name, To impotently herald us, We float not on the breath of fame, But like the dewdrop from the flower Pass after glittering for an hour? |