Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to West with this disgrace.
Even so my Sun one early morn did shine,

With all-triumphant splendour on my brow,
But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;

The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now; Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

Suns of the world may stain, when Heaven's Sun

staineth.

SHAKESPEARE.

THE SURRENDER.

Y once dear love, hapless that I no more Must call thee so: the rich affection's store

That fed our hopes, lies now exhaust
and spent,

Like sums of treasure unto bankrupts lent.
We that did nothing study but the way
To love each other, with which thoughts the day
Rose with delight to us, and with them set,
Must learn the hateful art, how to forget-
We that did nothing wish that heaven could give
Beyond ourselves, nor did desire to live
Beyond that wish, all these now cancel must
As if not writ in faith, but words and dust.
Yet witness those clear vows which lovers make,
Witness the chaste desires that never break
Into unruly hearts; witness that breast
Which in thy bosom anchor'd its whole rest:
"Tis no default in us, I dare acquit

Thy maiden faith, thy purpose fair and white

As thy pure self-cross planets did deny
Us to each other-and heaven did untie

Faster than vows could bind. Oh, that the stars,
When lovers meet, should stand opposed in wars!
Since, then, some higher destinies command,
Let us not strive nor labour to withstand
What is past help: the longest date of grief
Can never yield a hope of our relief:

And though we waste ourselves in moist laments,
Tears may drown us, but not our discontents.
Fold back our arms, take home our fruitless loves,
That must new fortunes try, like turtle doves
Dislodged from their haunts; we must in tears
Unwind a love knit up in many years.
In this last kiss I here surrender thee
Back to thyself, so thou again art free.
Thou in another, sad as that, re-send

The truest heart that lovers ere did lend.

Now turn from each: so fare our sever'd hearts, As the divorced soul from her body parts.

BISHOP KING.

LIFE'S AUTUMN.

SONNET.

HAT time of year thou mayst in me behold,

When yellow leaves, or none, or few,

do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare, ruin'd choirs, where late the small birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day,

As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by-and-by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou seest the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consumed by that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

SHAKESPEARE.

EPITAPH ON A FRIEND.

ERE lies the ruin'd cabinet
Of a rich soul, more highly set,
The dross and refuse of a mind

Too glorious to be here confined.
Earth for awhile bespoke his stay,
Only to bait, and so away;

So that what here he doated on
Was mere accommodation.

Not that his active soul could be

At home, but in eternity;

Yet while he blest us with the rays

Of his short-continued days,

Each minute had its weight of worth,

Each pregnant hour some star brought forth.
So whilst he travell'd here beneath,

He lived where others only breathe ;
For not a sand of time slipp'd by
Without its action sweet and high:
So good, so peaceable, so blest,
Angels alone can speak the rest.

JOHN CLEVELAND.

1613-1659.