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SONGS.

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Begin, begin; for look, the pair
Do longing listen to what air
You form your second touch
That they may vent their murmuring
hymns

Just to the tune you move your limbs,
And wish their own were such.
Make haste, make haste, for this
The labyrinth of Beauty is.

SONG III.

It follows now you are to prove The subtlest maze of all, that's Love,

And, if you stay too long, The fair will think you do them wrong.

Go choose among them, with a mind
As gentle as the stroking wind
Runs o'er the gentler flowers,
And so let all your actions smile,
As if they meant not to beguile
The ladies, but the hours.

Grace, laughter, and discourse
may meet,

And yet the beauty not go less:
For what is noble should be sweet,
But not dissolved in wantonness.

Will you that I give the law
To all your sport, and sum it
It should be such should envy draw,
But overcome it.
BEN JONSON.

SONG.

SHAKE off your heavy trance,
And leap into a dance,
Such as no mortals use to tread,
Fit only for Apollo-

To play to, for the moon to lead,
And all the stars to follow!

O blessed youth! for Jove doth pause,
Laying aside his graver laws

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Her nose is straight and handsome, her eyebrows lifted up; Her chin is very neat and pert, and smooth like a china cup; Her hair's the brag of Ireland, so weighty and so fine; It's rolling down upon her neck, and gathered in a twine.

The dance o' last Whit-Monday night exceeded all before; No pretty girl for miles about was missing from the floor; But Mary kept the belt of love, and O but she was gay! She danced a jig, she sang a song, that took my heart away.

When she stood up for dancing, her

steps were so complete, The music nearly killed itself to listen to her feet:

The fiddler moaned his blindness, he heard her so much praised, But blessed himself he wasn't deaf when once her voice she raised.

And

evermore I'm whistling or lilting what you sung;

Your smile is always in my heart, your name beside my tongue; But you've as many sweethearts as you'd count on both your hands, And for myself there's not a thumb or little finger stands.

Oh, you're the flower of womankind in country or in town;

The higher I exalt you, the lower I'm cast down.

If some great lord should come this way, and see your beauty bright, And you to be his lady, I'd own it was but right.

Oh might we live together in a lofty palace hall,

Where joyful music rises, and where scarlet curtains fall!

Oh might we live together in a cottage mean and small;

With sods of grass the only roof, and mud the only wall!

Oh! lovely Mary Donnelly, your beauty's my distress.

It's far too beauteous to be mine, but I'll never wish it less. The proudest place would fit your face, and I am poor and low; But blessings be about you, dear, wherever you may go!

SONG.

ALLINGHAM.

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Oh! fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing,

How light was thy heart till love's witchery came,

Like the wind of the South o'er a summer lute blowing,

And hushed all its music, and withered its frame.

But long upon Araby's green sunny highlands,

Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom

Of her who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands,

With nought but the sea-star to light up her tomb.

And still when the merry date-season is burning,

And calls to the palm-groves the young and the old,

The happiest there, from their pastime returning,

At sunset, still weep when thy story is told.

The young village maid, when with flowers she dresses

Her dark flowing hair, for some festival day,

Will think of thy fate, till, neglecting her tresses,

She mournfully turns from her mirror away.

Nor shall Iran, beloved of her hero! forget thee;

Though tyrants watch over her tears as they start;

Close, close by the side of that hero she'll set thee,

Embalmed in the innermost shrine of her heart.

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