SINCE FIRST I SAW YOUR FACE.*

MADRIGAL.

INCE first I saw your face, I vow'd
To honour and renown you:
If now I be disdain'd, I wish

My heart had never known you.

What! I that loved and you that liked,

Shall we begin to wrangle?

No, no, no, my heart is fast,

And cannot disentangle.

The sun, whose beams most glorious are,

Rejecteth no beholder;

And your sweet beauty, past compare,
Made my poor eyes the bolder.
Where beauty moves and wit delights,
And signs of kindness bind me,
There, O there, where'er I go,

I leave my heart behind me.

UNKNOWN.

*The music to which these lines are set is generally ascribed to FORD; the words are more doubtful, but there seems reason to believe they are also Ford's.

SINCE THERE'S NO HOPE.

SONNET.

INCE there's no hope, come, let us kiss and part,

Nay, I have done: you get no more

of me :

And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so clearly I myself can free:-
Shake hands for ever: cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen, in either of our brows,
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now, at the last gasp of love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies;
When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And innocence is closing up his eyes,

Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him.

over,

From death to life thou mightst him yet recover.

DRAYTON.

1563-1631.

TO BLOSSOMS.

AIR pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?

Your date is not so past

But you may stay yet here awhile,

To blush and gently smile,

And go at last.

What, were ye born to be

An hour and half's delight,

And so to bid good night?
'Twas pity nature brought you forth,
Merely to show your worth
And lose you quite ;—

But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne'er so brave.
And after they have shown their pride,

Like you, awhile, they glide

Into the grave.

E

HERRICK.

TRUE INDEPENDENCE.

E that of such a height hath built his mind,

And rear'd the dwelling of his thoughts

so strong,

As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame
Of his resolved powers, nor all the wind
Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong

His settled peace, or to disturb the same-
What a fair seat hath he! from whence he may
The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey !

And with how free an eye doth he look down
Upon these lower regions of turmoil!
Where all the storms of passion mainly beat

On flesh and blood; where honour, power, renown,

Are only gay afflictions, golden toil;

Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet As frailty doth, and only great doth seem

To little minds, who do it so esteem.

And while distraught ambition compasses,

And is encompass'd-whilst, as craft deceives, And is deceived-while man doth ransuchen* man, And builds on blood, and rises by distress, And the inheritance of desolation leaves

To great-expecting hopes, he looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears no venture in impiety.

Knowing the heart of man is set to be

The centre of this world, about the which
These revolutions of disturbances

Still roll where all th' aspècts of misery
Predominate whose strong effects are such
As he must bear, being powerless to redress,
And that unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!

SAMUEL DANIEL.

* Ransack.