Veritopicon
The Harvard Classics › Vol. 4

Poems Written at School and at College, 1624-1632

John Milton

p. 7THE POEMS OF JOHN MILTONWRITTEN AT SCHOOL AND COLLEGE

1624-1632On the Morning of Chris T's Nativity(1629)

1THIS is the month, and this the happy morn,Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King,Of wedded maid and Virgin Mother born,Our great redemption from above did bring;For so the holy sages once did sing,That he our deadly forfeit should release,And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

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That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-tableTo sit the midst of Trinal Unity,He laid aside, and, here with us to be,Forsook the Courts of everlasting Day,And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

in

Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred veinAfford a present to the Infant God?Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,To welcome him to this his new abode,Now while the heaven, by the Sun's team untrod,Hath took no print of the approaching light,And all the spangled host keep watch in squadronsbright?
p. 8

IV

See how from far upon the Eastern roadThe star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet!Oh! run; prevent them with thy humble ode,And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,And join thy voice unto the Angel Quire,From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.

The Hymn

It was the winter wild,While the heaven-born childAll meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;Nature, in awe to him,Had doffed her gaudy trim,With her great Mastei so to sympathize:It was no season then for herTo wanton with the Sun, her lusty Paramour.

II

Only with speeches fairShe woos the gentle airTo hide her guilty front with innocent snow,And on her naked shame,Pollute with sinful blame,The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;Confounded, that her Maker's eyesShould look so near upon her foul deformities.

Hi

But he, her fears to cease,Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:She, crowned with olive green, came softly slidingDown through the turning sphere,His ready Harbinger,With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;And, waving wide her myrtle wand,She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.
p. 9

IV

No war, or battail's sound,Was heard the world around;The idle spear and shield were high uphung;The hooked chariot stood,Unstained with hostile blood;The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;And Kings sat still with awful eye,As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
vBut peaceful was the nightWherein the Prince of LightHis reign of peace upon the earth began.The winds, with wonder whist,Smoothly the waters kissed,Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,Who now hath quite forgot to rave,While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

VI

The stars, with deep amaze,Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,Bending one way their precious influence,And will not take their flight,For all the morning light,Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;But in their glimmering orbs did glow,Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

VII

And, though the shady gloomHad given day her room,The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed,And hid his head for shame,As his inferior flameThe new-enlightened world no more should need:He saw a greater Sun appearThan his bright Throne or burning axletree could bear.
p. 10

VIII

The Shepherds on the lawn,Or ere the point of dawn,Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;Full little thought they thanThat the mighty PanWas kindly come to live with them below:Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

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When such music sweetTheir hearts and ears did greetAs never was by mortal finger strook,Divinely-warbled voiceAnswering the stringed noise,As all their souls in blissful rapture took:The air, such pleasure loth to lose,With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.
xNature, that heard such soundBeneath the hollow roundOf Cynthia's seat the airy Region thrilling,Now was almost wonTo think her part was done,And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:She knew such harmony aloneCould hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union.

XI

At last surrounds their sightA globe of circular light,That with long beams the shamefaced Nightarrayed;The helmed CherubimAnd sworded SeraphimAre seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,[11]Harping in loud and solemn quire,With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's newborn Heir.

XII

Such music (as 'tis said)Before was never made,But when of old the Sons of Morning sung,While the Creator greatHis constellations set,And the well-balanced World on hinges hung,And cast the dark foundations deep,And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.

XIII

Ring out, ye crystal spheres!Once bless our human ears,If ye have power to touch our senses so;And let your silver chimeMove in melodious time;And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow;And with your ninefold harmonyMake up full consort to the angelic symphony.

XIV

For, if such holy songEnwrap our fancy long,Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold;And speckled VanityWill sicken soon and die,And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould;And Hell itself will pass away,And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

XV

Yes, Truth and Justice thenWill down return to men,The enamelled arras of the rainbow wearing;And Mercy set between,Throned in celestial sheen,[12]With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;And Heaven, as at some festival,Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.

XVI

But wisest Fate says No,This must not yet be so;The Babe lies yet in smiling infancyThat on the bitter crossMust redeem our loss,So both himself and us to glorify:Yet first, to those ychained in sleep,The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through thedeep,

XVII

With such a horrid clangAs on Mount Sinai rang,While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:The aged Earth, aghastWith terror of that blast,Shall from the surface to the centre shake,When, at the world's last session,The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

XVIII

And then at last our blissFull and perfect is,But now begins; for from this happy dayThe Old Dragon under ground,In straiter limits bound,Not half so far casts his usurped sway,And, wroth to see his Kingdom fail,Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

XIX

The Oracles are dumb;No voice or hideous humRuns through the arched roof in words deceiving.[13]Apollo from his shrineCan no more divine,With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.No nighdy trance, or breathed spell,Inspires the pale-eyed Priest from the prophetic cell.
xxThe lonely mountains o'er,And the resounding shore,A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;From haunted spring, and daleEdged with poplar pale,The parting Genius is with sighing sent;With flower-inwoven tresses tornThe Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thicketsmourn.

XXI

In consecrated earth,And on the holy hearth,The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;In urns, and altars round,A drear and dying soundAffrights the Flamens at their service quaint;And the chill marble seems to sweat,While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.

XXII

Peor and BaalimForsake their temples dim,With that twice-battered god of Palestine;And mooned Ashtaroth,Heaven's Queen and Mother both,Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine:The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn;In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuzmourn.

XXIII

And sullen Moloch, fled,Hath left in shadows dreadHis burning idol all of blackest hue;[14]In vain with cymbals' ringThey call the grisly king,In dismal dance about the furnace blue;The brutish gods of Nile as fast,Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.
xxrvNor is Osiris seenIn Memphian grove or green,Trampling the unshowered grass with lowingsloud;Nor can he be at restWithin his sacred chest;Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;In vain, with timbreled anthems dark,The sable-stoled Sorcerers bear his worshiped ark.

XXV

He feels from Juda's landThe dreaded Infant's hand;The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;Nor all the gods besideLonger dare abide,Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.

XXVI

So, when the Sun in bed,Curtained with cloudy red,Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,The flocking shadows paleTroop to the infernal jail,Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave,And the yellow-skirted FaysFly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lovedmaze.
p. 15

XXVII

But see! the Virgin blestHath laid her Babe to rest,Time is our tedious song should here have ending:Heaven's youngest-teemed starHath fixed her polished car,Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;And all about the courtly stableBright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable.

A Paraphrase on Psalm CXIV(1624)

WHEN the blest seed of Terah's faithful SonAfter long toil their liberty had won,And passed from Pharian fields to Canaan Land,Led by the strength of the Almighty's hand,Jehovah's wonders were in Israel shown,His praise and glory was in Israel known.That saw the troubled sea, and shivering fled,And sought to hide his froth-becurled headLow in the earth; Jordan's clear streams recoil,As a faint host that hath received the foil.The high huge-bellied mountains skip like ramsAmongst their ewes, the little hills like lambs.Why fled the ocean? and why skipped the mountains?Why turned Jordan toward his crystal fountains?Shake, Earth, and at the presence be aghastOf Him that ever was and aye shall last,That glassy floods from rugged rocks can crush,And make soft rills from fiery flint-stones gush.

Psalm CXXXVI

LET US with a gladsome mindPraise the Lord for he is kind;For his mercies aye endure,Ever faithful, ever sure.[16]Let us blaze his Name abroad,For of gods he is the God;For his, &c.
O let us his praises tell,That doth the wrathful tyrants quell;For his, &c.
That with his miracles doth makeAmazed Heaven and Earth to shake;
For his, & c .
That by his wisdom did createThe painted heavens so full of state;
For his, & c .
That did the solid Earth ordainTo rise above the watery plain;For his, &c.
That by his all-commanding might,Did fill the new-made world with light;For his, &c.
And caused the golden-tressed SunAll the day long his course to run;
For his, 4cc.
The horned Moon to shine by nightAmongst her spangled sisters bright;
For his, &c.
He, with his thunder-clasping hand,Smote the first-born of Egypt land;For his, &c.
And, in despite of Pharao fell,He brought from thence his Israel;
For his, & c .
The ruddy waves he cleft in twainOf the Erythraean main;
For his, & c .[17]The floods stood still, like walls of glass,While the Hebrew bands did pass;For his, &c.
But full soon they did devourThe tawny King with all his power;
For his, &c.
His chosen people he did blessIn the wasteful Wilderness;
For his, &c.
In bloody battail he brought downKings of prowess and renown;
For his, &c.
He foiled bold Seon and his host,That ruled the Amorrean coast;
For his, &c.
And large-limbed Og he did subdue,With all his over-hardy crew;For his, &c.
And to his servant IsraelHe gave their land, therein to dwell;
For his, &c.
He hath, with a piteous eye,Beheld us in our misery;
For his, &c.
And freed us from the slaveryOf the invading enemy;
For his, &c.
All living creatures he doth feed,And with full hand supplies their need;
For his, &c.
Let us, therefore, warble forthHis mighty majesty and worth;
For his, &c.[18]That his mansion hath on high,Above the reach of mortal eye;For his mercies aye endure,Ever faithful, ever sure.

On the Death of a Fair InfantDying of a Cough(1625-26)

1O FAIREST Flower, no sooner blown but blasted,Soft silken Primrose fading timelessly,Summer's chief honour, if thou hadst outlastedBleak Winter's force that made thy blossom dry;For he, being amorous on that lovely dyeThat did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kissBut killed, alas! and then bewailed his fatal bliss.
11For since grim Aquilo, his charioter,By boisterous rape the Athenian damsel got,He thought it touched his Deity full near,If likewise he some fair one wedded not,Thereby to wipe away the infamous blotOf long uncoupled bed and childless eld,Which, 'mongst the wanton gods, a foul reproachwas held.

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So, mounting up in icy-pearled car,Through middle empire of the freezing airHe wandered long, till thee he spied from far;There ended was his quest, there ceased his care:Down he descended from his snow-soft chair,But, all un'wares, with his cold-kind embrace,Unhoused thy virgin soul from her fair biding-place.
rvYet thou art not inglorious in thy fate;For so Apollo, with unweeting hand,[19]Whilom did slay his dearly-loved mate,Young Hyacinth, born on Eurotas' strand,Young Hyacinth, the pride of Spartan land;But then transformed him to a purple flower:Alack, that so to change thee Winter had no power!
vYet can I not persuade me thou art dead,Or that thy corse corrupts in earth's dark womb,Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bedHid from the world in a low-delved tomb;Could Heaven, for pity, thee so strictly doom?Oh no! for something in thy face did shineAbove mortality, that showed thou wast divine.

VI

Resolve me, then, O Soul most surely blest(If so be it that thou these plaints dost hear)Tell me, bright Spirit, where'er thou hoverest,Whether above that high first-moving sphere,Or in the Elysian fields (if such there were),Oh, say me true if thou wert mortal wight,And why from us so quickly thou didst take thy flight.

VII

Wert thou some Star, which from the ruined roofOf shaked Olympus by mischance didst fall;Which careful Jove in nature's true behoofTook up, and in fit place did reinstall?Or did of late Earth's sons besiege the wallOf sheeny Heaven, and thou some Goddess fledAmongst us here below to hide thy nectared head?

Viu

Or wert thou that just Maid who once beforeForsook the hated earth, oh! tell me sooth,And earnest again to visit us once more?Or wert thou [Mercy], that sweet smiling Youth?Or that crowned Matron, sage white-robed Truth?[20]Or any other of that heavenly broodLet down in cloudy throne to do the world some good?

IX

Or wert thou of the golden-winged host,Who, having clad thyself in human weed,To earth from thy prefixed seat didst post,And after short abode fly back with speed,As if to shew what creatures Heaven doth breed;Thereby to set the hearts of men on fireTo scorn the sordid world, and unto Heaven aspire?
xBut oh! why didst thou not stay here belowTo bless us with thy heaven-loved innocence,To slake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe,To turn swift-rushing black perdition hence,Or drive away the slaughtering pestilence,To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart?But thou canst best perform that office where thou art.
Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,Her false-imagined loss cease to lament,And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild;Think what a present thou to God hast sent.And render him with patience what he lent:This if thou do, he will an offspring giveThat till the world's last end shall make thy name tolive.
AT A VACATION EXERCISE IN THE COLLEGE ,

Part Latin, Part English(1628)

The Latin speeches ended, the English thus began:—HAIL, Native Language, that by sinews weak,Didst move my first-endeavouring tongue to speak,And madest imperfect words, with childish trips,[21]Half unpronounced, slide through my infant lips,Driving dumb Silence from the portal door,Where he had mutely sat two years before:Here I salute thee, and thy pardon ask,That now I use thee in my latter task:Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,I know my tongue but little grace can do thee.Thou need'st not be ambitious to be first,Believe me, I have thither packed the worst:And, if it happen as I did forecast,The daintiest dishes shall be served up last.I pray thee then deny me not thy aid,For this same small neglect that I have made;But haste thee straight to do me once a pleasure,And from thy wardrobe bring thy chieftest treasure;Not those new-fangled toys, and trimming slightWhich takes our late fantastics with delight;But cull those richest robes and gayest attire,Which deepest spirits and choicest wits desire.I have some naked thoughts that rove about,And loudly knock to have their passage out,And, weary of their place, do only stayTill thou hast decked them in thy best array;That so they may, without suspect or fears,Fly swiftly to this fair Assembly's ears.Yet I had rather, if I were to choose,Thy service in some graver subject use,Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound:Such where the deep transported mind may soarAbove the wheeling poles, and at Heaven's doorLook in, and see each blissful DeityHow he before the thunderous throne doth lie,Listening to what unshorn Apollo singsTo the touch of golden wires, while Hebe bringsImmortal nectar to her kingly Sire;Then, passing through the spheres of watchful fire,And misty regions of wide air next under,And hills of snow and lofts of piled thunder,May tell at length how green-eyed Neptune raves,[22]In heaven's defiance mustering all his waves;Then sing of secret things that came to passWhen beldam Nature in her cradle was;And last of Kings and Queens and Heroes old,Such as the wise Demodocus once toldIn solemn songs at King Alcinoiis' feast,While sad Ulysses' soul and all the restAre held, with his melodious harmony,In willing chains and sweet captivity.But fie, my wandering Muse, how thou dost stray!Expectance calls thee now another way.Thou know'st it must be now thy only bentTo keep in compass of thy Predicament.Then quick about thy purposed business come,That to the next I may resign my room.
Then ENS is represented as Father of the Predicaments, his ten Sons;whereof the eldest stood for SUBSTANCE with his Canons: which ENS,thus speahjng, explains:—
Good luck befriend thee, son; for at thy birthThe faery Ladies danced upon the hearth.The drowsy Nurse hath sworn she did them spyCome tripping to the room where thou didst lie,And, sweedy singing round about thy bed,Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head.She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst stillFrom eyes of mortals walk invisible.Yet there is something that doth force my fear;For once it was my dismal hap to hearA Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age,That far events full wisely could presage,And, in Time's long and dark prospective-glass,Foresaw what future days should bring to pass."Your Son," said she, "(nor can you it prevent,)Shall subject be to many an Accident.O'er all his Brethren he shall reign as King;Yet every one shall make him underling,And those that cannot live from him asunderUngratefully shall strive to keep him under.In worth and excellence he shall outgo them;Yet, being above them, he shall be below them.[23]From others he shall stand in need of nothing,Yet on his Brothers shall depend for clothing.To find a foe it shall not be his hap,And peace shall lull him in her flowery lap;Yet shall he live in strife, and at his doorDevouring war shall never cease to roar;Yea, it shall be his natural propertyTo harbour those that are at enmity."What power, what force, what mighty spell, if notYour learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?
The next. QUANTITY and QUALITY, spah.e in prose: then RELATIONcalled by his name.
Rivers, arise: whether thou be the sonOf utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulfy Dun,Or Trent, who, like some earth-born Giant, spreadsHis thirty arms along the indented meads,Or sullen Mole, that runneth underneath,Or Sevren swift, guilty of maiden's death,Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lea,Or coaly Tyne, or ancient hallowed Dee,Or Humber loud, that keeps the Scythian's name,Or Medway smooth, or royal-towered Thame.
The rest was prose.

The Passion(1630)

EREWHILE of music, and ethereal mirth,Wherewith the stage of Air and Earth did ring,And joyous news of heavenly Infant's birth,My muse with Angels did divide to sing;But headlong joy is ever on the wing,In wintry solstice like the shortened lightSoon swallowed up in dark and long outliving night.

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For now to sorrow must I tune my song,And set my Harp to notes of saddest woe,[24]Which on our dearest Lord did seize ere long,Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse than so,Which he for us did freely undergo:Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plightOf labours huge and hard, too hard for human wightt

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He, sovran Priest, stooping his regal head,That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,Poor fleshly Tabernacle entered,His starry front low-roofed beneath the skies:Oh, what a mask was there, what a disguise!Yet more: the stroke of death he must abide;Then lies him meekly down fast by his Brethren'sside.
rvThese latest scenes confine my roving verse;To this horizon is my Phoebus bound.His godlike acts, and his temptations fierce,And former sufferings, otherwhere are found;Loud o'er the rest Cremona's trump doth sound:Me softer airs befit, and softer stringsOf lute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things.
vBefriend me, Night, best Patroness of grief!Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,And work my flattered fancy to beliefThat Heaven and Earth are coloured with my woe;My sorrows are too dark for day to know:The leaves should all be black whereon I write,And letters, where my tears have washed, a wannishwhite.

VI

See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels,That whirled the prophet up at Chebar flood;My spirit some transporting Cherub feels[25]To bear me where the Towers of Salem stood,Once glorious towers, now sunk in guiltless blood.There doth my soul in holy vision sit,In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.

VII

Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rockThat was the casket of Heaven's richest store,And here, though grief my feeble hands up-lock,Yet on the softened quarry would I scoreMy plaining verse as lively as before;For sure so well instructed are my tearsThat they would fitly fall in ordered characters.
vm
Or, should I thence, hurried on viewless wing,Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,The gende neighbourhood of grove and springWould soon unbosom all their Echoes mild;And I (for grief is easily beguiled)Might think the infection of my sorrows loudHad got a race of mourners on some pregnant cloud.
This Subject the Author finding to be above the years he had when hewrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished.

On Shakespeare(1630)

WHAT needs my Shakespeare, for his honoured bones,The labour of an age in piled stones?Or that his hollowed relics should be hidUnder a star-ypointing pyramid?Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame,What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,Hast built thyself a livelong monument.For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art,Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heartHath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,[26]Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,Dost make us marble, with too much conceiving;And, so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

On the University Carrier

Who sickened in the time of his Vacancy, being forbid to go toby reason of the Plague.

(1631)

HERE lies old Hobson. Death hath broke his girt,And here, alas! hath laid him in the dirt;Or else, the ways being foul, twenty to oneHe's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.T was such a shifter that, if truth were known,Death was half glad when he had got him down;For he had any time this ten years fullDodged with him betwixt Cambridge and The Bull.And surely Death could never have prevailed,Had not his weekly course of carriage failed;But lately, finding him so long at home,And thinking now his journey's end was come,And that he had ta'en up his latest Inn,In the kind office of a ChamberlinShowed him his room where he must lodge that nigPulled off his boots, and took away the light.If any ask for him, it shall be said,"Hobson has supped, and's newly gone to bed."

Another on the Same

HERE lieth one who did most truly proveThat he could never die while he could move;So hung his destiny, never to rotWhile he might still jog on and keep his trot;Made of sphere-metal, never to decayUntil his revolution was at stay.Time numbers Motion, yet (without a crime'Gainst old truth) Motion numbered out his time;And, like an engine moved with wheel and weight,[27]His principles being ceased, he ended straight.Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,And too much breathing put him out of breath;Nor were it contradiction to affirmToo long vacation hastened on his term.Merely to drive the time away he sickened,Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quickened."Nay," quoth he, on his swooning bed outstretched,"If I may n't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetched,But vow, though the cross Doctors all stood hearers,For one carrier put down to make six bearers."Ease was his chief disease; and, to judge right,He died for heaviness that his cart went light.His leisure told him that his time was come,And lack of load made his life burdensome,That even to his last breath (there be that say't),As he were pressed to death, he cried, "More weight!"But, had his doings lasted as they were,He had been an immortal Carrier.Obedient to the moon he spent his dateIn course reciprocal, and had his fateLinked to the mutual flowing of the seas;Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase.His letters are delivered all and gone;Only remains this superscription.

An Epitaph on the MarchionessOf Winchester

THIS rich marble doth interThe honoured wife of Winchester,A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir,Besides what her virtues fairAdded to her noble birth,More than she could own from earth.Summers three times eight save oneShe had told; alas! too soon,After so short time of breath,To house with darkness and with death!Yet, had the number of her daysBeen as complete as was her praise,[28]Nature and Fate had had no strifeIn giving limit to her life.Her high birth and her graces sweetQuickly found a lover meet;The virgin quire for her requestThe god that sits at marriage-feast;He at their invoking came,But with a scarce well-lighted flame;And in his garland, as he stood,Ye might discern a cypress-bud.Once had the early Matrons runTo greet her of a lovely son,And now with second hope she goes,And calls Lucina to her throes;But, whether by mischance or blame,Atropos for Lucina came,And with remorseless crueltySpoiled at once both fruit and tree.The hapless babe before his birthHad burial, yet not laid in earth;And the languished mother's wombWas not long a living tomb.So have I seen some tender slip,Saved with care from Winter's nip,The pride of her carnation train,Plucked up by some unheedy swain,Who only thought to crop the flowerNew shot up from vernal shower;But the fair blossom hangs the headSideways, as on a dying bed,And those pearls of dew she wearsProve to be presaging tearsWhich the sad morn had let fallOn her hastening funeral.Gentle Lady, may thy gravePeace and quiet ever havelAfter this thy travail sore,Sweet rest seize thee evermore,That, to give the world encrease,Shortened hast thy own life's lease![29]Here, besides the sorrowingThat thy noble House doth bring,Here be tears of perfect moanWeept for thee in Helicon;And some flowers and some baysFor thy hearse, to strew the ways,Sent thee from the banks of Came,Devoted to thy virtuous name;Whilst thou, bright Saint, high sitt'st in glory,Next her, much like to thee in story,That fair Syrian Shepherdess,Who, after years of barrenness,The highly-favoured Joseph boreTo him that served for her before,And at her next birth, much like thee,Through pangs fled to felicity,Far within the bosom brightOf blazing Majesty and Light:There with thee, new-welcome Saint,Like fortunes may her soul acquaint,With thee there clad in radiant sheen,No Marchioness, but now a Queen.

On His Being Arrived to theAge of Twenty - Three(1631)

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year!My hasting days fly on with full career,But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,That I to manhood am arrived so near,And inward ripeness doth much less appear,That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th.Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,It shall be still in strictest measure evenTo that same lot, however mean or high,Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven,,All is, if I have grace to use it so,As ever in my great Task-master's eye.