My soul is free as ambient air, Although my baser part 's immew'd, To accompany my solitude: Attributed to L'ESTRANGE. 75 DEATH'S FINAL CONQUEST. THE glories of our birth and state There is no armour against fate: Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade. Some men with swords may reap the field, They stoop to fate, 5 10 And must give up their murmuring breath, 15 The garlands wither on your brow, Then boast no more your mighty deeds: Upon Death's purple altar now See, where the victor-victim bleeds! 20 All heads must come To the cold tomb: Only the actions of the just Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust. SHIRLEY. CONTENT. THIS only grant me, that my means may lie Some honour I would have, Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends Books should, not business, entertain the light, Than palace, and should fitting be My garden painted o'er With Nature's hand, not Art's; can pleasures yield, Horace might envy in his Sabine field. 10 16 Thus would I double my life's fading space; For he that runs it well, twice runs his race. And in this true delight, These unbought sports, this happy state, But boldly say each night, To-morrow let my sun his beams display, Or in clouds hide them; I have lived to-day. COWLEY. T 20 THE DIRGE. WHAT is the existence of man's life And never feels a perfect peace Till death's cold hand signs his release ? It is a storm-where the hot blood Is like a furious gust of wind, Which beats the bark with many a wave, It is a flower-which buds and grows, 5 10 Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep, 15 It is a dream-whose seeming truth 20 15 25 Till all-obscuring earth hath laid It is a weary interlude— Which doth short joys, long woes, include: The acts vain hopes and varied fears: 30 35 KING. ATHENS. Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount, 5 City or suburban, studious walks and shades. Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird 10 Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long; There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls His whispering stream: within the walls then view 15 The schools of ancient sages; his, who bred Great Alexander to subdue the world, Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next: There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power 20 By voice or hand; and various-measured verse, And his who gave them breath, but higher sung, Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece 35 MILTON. EXTRACT FROM LYCIDAS. RETURN, Alpheus, the dread voice is past, 5 10 |