"Lo," quoth he, "cast up thine
eye,

See yonder, lo! the galaxie,
The which men clepe the Milky Way,
For it is white; and some parfay
Callen it Watling streete,

That once was brent with the hete,
When the Sunne's sonne the rede,
That hight Phaeton, would lead
Algate his father's cart, and gie.*

The cart horses gan well aspie,
That he could no governaunce,
And gan for to leape and praunce,
And bear him up, and now down,
Till he saw the Scorpioun,
Which that in Heaven a signe is yet,
And for feré lost his wit

Of that, and let the reynés gone
Of his horses, and they anone
Soone up to mount, and downe de-
scend,

Till both air and Earthé brend,
Till Jupiter, lo! at the last
Him slew, and fro the carté cast.
CHAUCER.

I am the daughter of earth and water,

And the nursling of the sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;

I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain, when with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again.

SHELLEY.

A DROP OF DEW.

SEE how the orient dew,
Shed from the bosom of the morn
Into the blowing roses,

(Yet careless of its mansion new, For the clear region where 'twas born,)

Round in itself encloses And, in its little globe's extent, Frames, as it can, its native element. How it the purple flower does slight,

Scarce touching where it lies', But gazing back upon the skies, Shines with a mournful light, Like its own tear, Because so long divided from the sphere.

Restless it rolls, and insecure,

Trembling, lest it grow impure;

Till the warm sun pities its pain, And to the skies exhales it back again.

So the soul, that drop, that ray, Of the clear fountain of eternal day,

Could it within the human flower be seen,

Remembering still its former height,

Shuns the sweet leaves, and blossoms green,

And, recollecting its own light, Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express

The greater heaven in a heaven less.
In how coy a figure wound,
Every way it turns away,
So the world excluding round,
Yet receiving in the day,
Dark beneath, but bright above,
Here disdaining, there in love.
How loose and easy hence to go;
How girt and ready to ascend;
Moving but on a point below,
It all about does upwards bend.
Such did the manna's sacred dew dis-
til,

White and entire, although congealed and chill;

Congealed on earth; but does, dissolving, run

Into the glories of the almighty sun.. MARVELL.