Who not the least

Both love the cause, and authors of the

feast?

Give me my cup, but from the Thespian well, That I may tell to Sidney, what

This day

Doth say,

And he may think on that

Which I do tell;

When all the noise

Of these forced joys

Are fled and gone,

And he with his best Genius left alone.

This day says, then, the number of glad years Are justly summed that make you man; Your vow

Must now

Strive all right ways it can,

T'outstrip your peers:

Since he doth lack

Of going back

Little, whose will

Doth urge him to run wrong, or to stand

still.

Nor can a little of the common store

Of nobles' virtue show in you;

Your blood,

So good

And great, must seek for new,

And study more:

Not weary, rest
On what's deceased;

For they that swell

With dust of ancestors, in graves but dwell.

"Twill be exacted of your name, whose son, Whose nephew, whose grandchild you are; And men

Will then

Say you have followed far,

When well begun :

Which must be now,

They teach you how.

And he that stays

To live until to-morrow', hath lost two days.

So may you live in honor, as in name,
If with this truth you be inspired;

This day

Be more, and long desired;

And with the flame

Of love be bright,

As with the light

Of bonfires! then

The birthday shines, when logs not burn,

but men.

XV. TO HEAVEN.

Good and great God! can I not think of Thee,
But it must straight my melancholy be?
Is it interpreted in me disease,

That, laden with my sins, I seek for ease?
Oh, be Thou witness, that the reins dost know
And hearts of all, if I be sad for show,
And judge me after, if I dare pretend
To aught but grace, or aim at other end.
As Thou art all, so be Thou all to me,
First, midst, and last, converted One and Three,
My faith, my hope, my love; and in this state,
My judge, my witness, and my advocate.
Where have I been this while exiled from Thee,
And whither rapt, now Thou but stoop'st to me?
Dwell, dwell here still! O, being everywhere,
How can I doubt to find Thee ever here?

I know my state, both full of shame and scorn,
Conceived in sin, and unto labor born,
Standing with fear, and must with horror fall,
And destined unto judgment, after all.

I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground
Upon my flesh t' inflict another wound.

Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death,
With holy Paul, lest it be thought the breath
Of discontent; or that these prayers be
For weariness of life, not love of Thee.

UNDERWOODS.

CONSISTING OF DIVERS POEMS.

"Cineri, gloria sera venit.”. -MARTIAL.

TO THE READER.

With the same leave the ancients called that kind of body Sylva, or "Tn, in which there were works of divers nature and matter congested; as the multitude call timber-trees promiscuously growing, a Wood, or Forest, so am I bold to entitle these lesser poems, of later growth, by this of Underwood, out of the analogy they hold to the Forest in my former book, and no otherwise.

BEN JONSON.