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86

JOHN DONNE.

I know my body's of so frail a kind,
As force without, fevers within can kill;
I know the heavenly nature of my mind,
But 'tis corrupted both in wit and will.

I know my soul hath power to know all things,
Yet is she blind and ignorant in all;

I know I'm one of nature's little kings,

Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall,

I know my life's a pain, and but a span;
I know my sense is mock'd in every thing:
And, to conclude, I know myself a man,
Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.

CHAP. IV.

50. John DONNE. 1573-1631. (Manual, p. 82.)

FROM HIS ELEGIES.

Language, thou art too narrow and too weak
To ease us now; great sorrows cannot speak.
If we could sigh our accents, and weep words,
Grief wears, and lessens, that tears breath affords.
Sad hearts, the less they seem, the more they are;
So guiltiest men stand mutest at the bar;
Not that they know not, feel not their estate,
But extreme sense hath made them desperate.
Sorrow! to whom we owe all that we be,
Tyrant in the fifth and greatest monarchy,
Was't that she did possess all hearts before

Thou hast killed her, to make thy empire more?

Knew'st thou some would, that knew her not, lament,
As in a deluge perish the innocent?

Was't not enough to have that palace won,

But thou must raze it too, that was undone?

Had'st thou stay'd there, and looked out at her eyes,
All had adored thee, that now from thee flies;
For they let out more light than they took in;
They told not when, but did the day begin.
She was too sapphirine and clear for thee;
Clay, flint, and jet now thy fit dwellings be.
Alas, she was too pure, but not too weak;
Whoe'er saw crystal ordnance but would break?
And, if we be thy conquest, by her fall
Thou hast lost thy end; in her we perish all:
Or, if we live, we live but to rebel,

That know her better now, who knew her well.

51. BISHOP HALL. 1574-1656. (Manual, p. 83.)

FROM THE SATIRES.

Seest thou how gaily my young master goes,
Vaunting himself upon his rising toes;

And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side;
And picks his glutted teeth since late noon-tide?
'Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he din'd to-day?
In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humfrày.1
Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer,
Keeps he for every straggling cavalier.
And open house, haunted with great resort;
Long service mixt with musical disport.
Many fair yonker with a feather'd crest,
Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest,
To fare so freely with so little cost,
Than stake his twelvepence to a meaner host.
Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say
He touch'd no meat of all this live-long day,
For sure methought, yet that was but a guess,
His eyes seem'd sunk for very hollowness,
But could he have (as I did it mistake)

So little in his purse, so much upon his back?
So nothing in his maw? yet seemeth by his belt,
That his gaunt gut no too much stuffing felt.
Seest thou how side it hangs beneath his hip?
Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip.
Yet for all that, how stiffly struts he by,
All trapped in the new-found bravery.
The nuns of new-won Calais his bonnet lent,

In lieu of their so kind a conquerment.
What needed he fetch that from farthest Spain,
His grandame could have lent with lesser pain?
Though he perhaps ne'er pass'd the English shore,
Yet fain would counted be a conqueror.

His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head,
One lock amazon-like dishevelled,

As if he meant to wear a native cord,

If chance his fates should him that bane afford.

All British bare upon the bristled skin,

Close notched is his beard both lip and chin;
His linen collar labyrinthian set,

1 The phrase of dining with Duke Humphry arose from St. Paul's being the general resort of the loungers of those days, many of whom, like Hall's gallant, were glad to beguile the thoughts of dinner with a walk in the middle aisle, where there was a tomb, by mistake supposed to be that of Humphry, Duke of Gloucester.

Whose thousand double turnings never met:
His sleeves half hid with elbow pinionings,
As if he meant to fly with linen wings.

But when I look, and cast mine eyes below,
What monster meets mine eyes in human shew?
So slender waist with such an abbot's loin,
Did never sober nature sure conjoin.
Lik'st a straw scare-crow in the new-sown field,
Rear'd on some stick, the tender corn to shield.
Or if that semblance suit not every deal,

Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel.

52. ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 1560-1595. (Manual, p. 85.) Robert

TIMES GO BY TURNS.

The loppèd tree in time may grow again,

Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower;
The sorriest wight may find release of pain,

The driest soil suck in some moistening shower:
Time goes by turns, and chances change by course,
From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

The sea of fortune doth not ever flow,

She draws her favors to the lowest ebb:
Her tides have equal times to come and go;

Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web:
No joy so great but runneth to an end,

No hap so hard but may in fine amend.

Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring;
Not endless night, yet not eternal day:
The saddest birds a season find to sing,

The roughest storm a calm may soon allay.
Thus, with succeeding turns, God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.

d;

A chance may win that by mischance was lost;
That net that holds no great, takes little fish;
In some things all, in all things none are cross'
Few all they need, but none have all they wish.
Unmingled joys here to no man befall;
Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all.

53. GILES FLETCHER. (Manual, p. 84.)

From Christ's Victory in Heaven.

JUSTICE ADDRESSING THE CREATOR.

Upon two stony tables, spread before her,
She leant her bosom, more than stony hard;
There slept th' impartial judge and strict restorer
Of wrong or right, with pain or with reward;
There hung the score of all our debts - the card

Where good, and bad, and life, and death, were painted:
Was never heart of mortal so untainted,

But, when that scroll was read, with thousand terrors fainted.

Witness the thunder that Mount Sinai heard,
When all the hill with fiery clouds did flame,
And wand'ring Israel, with the sight afear'd,
Blinded with seeing, durst not touch the same,
But like a wood of shaking leaves became.

On this dead Justice, she, the living law,

Bowing herself with a majestic awe,

All heaven, to hear her speech, did into silence draw.

*

54. WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 1585-1649. (Manual, p. 87.)

ON SLEEP.

Sleep, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest,
Prince, whose approach peace to all mortals brings,
Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,
Sole comforter of minds with grief oppress'd;
Lo, by thy charming rod, all breathing things
Lie slumbering, with forgetfulness possess'd,
And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings
Thou spar'st, alas! who cannot be thy guest.
Since I am thine, O come, but with that face
To inward light, which thou art wont to show,
With feigned solace ease a true-felt woe;

Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace,
Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath;
I long to kiss the image of my death.

CHAPTER V.

THE NEW PHILOSOPHY AND PROSE

LITERATURE IN THE

REIGNS OF ELİZABETH AND JAMES I.

55. SIR PHILIP SYDNEY. 1554-1586. (Manual, p. 78.)

(For his Poetry, see page 79.)

From the Defence of Poesy.

IN PRAISE OF POETRY.

Now therein (that is to say, the power of at once teaching and enticing to do well) — now therein, of all sciences—I speak still of human and according to human conceit-is our poet the monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice any man to enter into it. Nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that, full of that taste, you may long to pass further. He beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margent with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness; but he cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well-enchanting skill of music; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimneycorner; and pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue, even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome things, by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste. For even those hard-hearted evil men, who think virtue a school name, and know no other good but indulgere genio, and therefore despise the austere admonitions of the philosopher, and feel not the inward reason they stand upon, yet will be content to be delighted; which is all the good-fellow poet seems to promise; and so steal to see the form of goodness—which, seen, they cannot but love ere themselves be aware, as if they had taken a medicine of cherries. By these, therefore, examples and reasons, I think it may be manifest that the poet, with that same hand of delight, doth draw the mind more effectually than any other art doth. And so a conclusion not unfitly ensues, that as virtue is the most excellent resting-place for all worldly learning to make an end of, so poetry, being the most familiar to

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