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Her mouth so small, when she does speak,

Thou'dst swear her teeth her words did break,

That they might passage get:

But she so handled still the matter

They came as good as ours, or better,
And are not spent a whit.

Ballad upon a Wedding.

CAREW.

1589-1639.

ONE of the most eminent of the cavalier and sensuous, as it may be termed, or Anacreontic class of lyrical poets, of which Suckling, Herrick, and Waller are the other chief names. To celebrate the court-beauties, and, generally, to sing the praises of wine and women, was their highest aim and ambition. Vivacity, gaiety of feeling and expression, and undisguised licentiousness, are the principal characteristics of their school. They were the true disciples of the old-world masters of the sensuous lyre-of an Anacreon or Catullus-and they fully felt and inculcated the philosophy of the

'Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
Rumoresque senum severiorum
Omnes unius æstimemus assis.
Soles occidere, et redire possunt;
Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux

Nox est perpetua una dormienda!'

They were the 'Bohémiens' of the seventeenth century.

THE ADVENT OF SPRING.

'The flowers appear on the earth: the time of the singing of birds is come.'

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or calls an icy cream

Upon the silver lake, or crystal stream;

But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble bee.

Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world the youthful Spring.
The valleys, hills, and woods, in rich array,
Welcome the coming of the longed-for May.
Now all things smile.

SHIRLEY.

1596-1666 (?).

THE last of the dramatists who adorned the Elizabethan and Jacobian age. According to Hallam, he can claim little originality or dramatic power. Yet he has many lines of considerable beauty,' scattered about in his numerous works. Death's Final Conquest, his 'finest production,' occurs in one of his dramas.

THE ISOTIMIA OF HADES.*

THE glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hands on kings:
Sceptre and crown

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,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill:
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or late

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

* Some of the most graphic illustrations of this obvious but unpalatable truth are to be found in Ecclesiasticus and Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead.

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:
All heads must come

To the cold tomb:

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.

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