To horse! to horse! Sir Nicholas; the clarion's note is high!
To horse! to horse! Sir Nicholas, the big drum makes reply;
Ere this hath Lucas marched, with his gallant cavaliers,
And the bray of Rupert's trumpets grows fainter in our ears.
To horse! to horse! Sir Nicholas; white Guy is at the door,
And the Raven whets his beak o'er the field of Marston Moor.
Up rose the lady Alice from her brief and broken prayer,
And she brought a silken banner down the narrow turret stair;
Oh, many were the tears that those radiant eyes had shed,
As she traced the bright word "Glory," in the gay and glancing thread;
And mournful was the smile which o'er those lovely features ran,
As she said," It is your lady's gift; unfurl it in the van!"
"It shall flutter, noble wench, where the best and boldest ride,
Midst the steel-clad files of Skippon, the black dragoons of Pride;
The recreant heart of Fairfax shall feel a sicklier qualm,
And the rebel lips of Oliver give out a louder psalm,
When they see my lady's gewgaw flaunt proudly on the wing,
And hear the loyal soldiers shout, 'For God, and for the king!
'Tis noon; the ranks are broken along the Royal line.
They fly, the braggarts of the court! the bullies of the Rhine!
Stout Langdale's cheer is heard no more, and Astley's helm is down,
And Rupert sheaths his rapier with a curse and with a frown;
And cold Newcastle mutters, as he follows in their flight,
"The German boar had better far have supped in York to-night!"
The knight is left alone, his steel-cap cleft in twain,
His good buff jerkin crimsoned o'er with many a gory stain :
Yet still he waves his banner, and cries amidst the rout,
"For Church and King, fair gentlemen! spur on, and fight it out!"
And now he wards a Roundhead's pike, and now he hums a stave, And now he quotes a stage-play, and now he fells a knave.
God aid thee now, Sir Nicholas ! thou hast no thought of fear;
God aid thee now, Sir Nicholas ! for fearful odds are here!
The rebels hem thee in, and at every cut and thrust,
"Down, down," they cry, "with Belial! down with him to the dust!" I would," quoth grim old Oliver, that Belial's trusty sword This day were doing battle for the saints and for the Lord!"
REMONSTRANCE AGAINST CRUELTY.
WHY should man's high aspiring mind
Burn in him with so proud a breath,
When all his haughty views can find
In this world yields to Death?
The fair, the brave, the vain, the wise,
The rich, the poor, and great and small,
Are each but worms' anatomies
To strew his quiet hall.
Power may make many earthly gods,
Where gold and bribery's guilt prevails,
But Death's unwelcome honest odds
Kicks o'er the unequal scales.
The flattered great may clamours raise
Of power, and their own weakness hide,
But Death shall find unlooked-for ways
To end the farce of pride.
An arrow, hurteled e'er so high,
From e'en a giant's sinéwy strength, In time's untraced eternity
Goes but a pigmy length.
Nay, whirring from the tortured string,
With all its pomp of hurried flight,
'Tis by the skylark's little wing
Outmeasured in its height.
Just so man's boasted strength and power
Shall fade before Death's lightest stroke
Laid lower than the meanest flower
Whose pride o'ertopt the oak.
And he who, like a blighting blast,
Dispeopled worlds with war's alarms,
Shall be himself destroyed at last
By poor despisèd worms.
Tyrants in vain their powers secure,
And awe slaves' murmurs with a frown;
But unawed Death at last is sure
To sap the Babels down.
A stone thrown upward to the sky
Will quickly meet the ground again;
So men-gods of earth's vanity
Shall drop at last to men ;
And power and pomp their all resign,
Blood purchased thrones and banquet-halls Fate waits to sack Ambition's shrine
As bare as prison walls,
Where the poor suffering wretch bows down To laws a lawless power hath past;
And pride, and power, and king, and clown, Shall be Death's slaves at last.
Time, the prime minister of Death,
There's nought can bribe his honest will;
He stops the richest tyrant's breath,
And lays his mischief still :
Each wicked scheme for power all stops,
With grandeurs false and mock display,
As eve's shades from high mountain-tops
Fade with the rest away.
Death levels all things in his march,
Naught can resist his mighty strength;
The palace proud, triumphal arch,
Shall mete their shadows' length;
The rich, the poor, one common bed
Shall find in the unhonoured grave,
Where weeds shall crown alike the head
Of tyrant and of slave.-Andrew Marvel.
THE SHEPHERD'S RESOLUTION.
SHALL I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care,
'Cause another's rosy are?
Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flowery meads in May,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?
Shall my
foolish heart be pined,
'Cause I see a woman kind?
Or a well-disposèd nature
Joinèd with a lovely feature?
Be she meeker, kinder than
The turtle-dove or pelican,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how kind she be ?
Shall a woman's virtues move
Me to perish for her love?
Or, her well-deservings known,
Make me quite forget mine own?
Be she with that goodness blest
Which may merit name of Best,
If she be not such to me,
What care I how good she be ?
'Cause her fortune seems too high,
Shall I play the fool, and die?
Those that bear a noble mind,
Where they want of riches find,
Think what with them they would do
That without them dare to woo;
And unless that mind I see,
What care I how great she be?
Great or good, or kind or fair,
I will ne'er the more despair;
If she love me, this believe,
I will die ere she will grieve.
If she slight me when I woo,
I can scorn and let her go;
If she be not fit for me,
What care I for whom she be?
George Wither, 1588-1667.
THE pride of every grove I chose,]
The violet sweet and lily fair,
The dappled pink and blushing rose,
To deck my darling Chloe's hair.
At morn the nymph vouchsafed to place
Upon her brow the various wreath;
The flowers less blooming than her face,
The scent less fragrant than her breath.
The flowers she wore along the day,
And every nymph and shepherd said,
That in her hair they looked more gay
Than growing in their native bed.
Undressed at evening, when she found
Their odours lost, their colours past,
She changed her look, and on the ground
Her garland and her eyes she cast.
The eye dropped sense distinct and clear
As any Muse's tongue could speak,
When from its lid a pearly tear
Ran trickling down her beauteous cheek.
Dissembling what I knew too well,
My love, my life, said I, explain
This change of humour; prithee tell,
That falling tear,-what does it mean?
She sighed, she smiled, and to the flowers
Pointing, the lovely moral'st said,
See, friend, in some few fleeting hours,
See, yonder, what a change is made!
Ah, me! the blooming pride of May
Ánd that of beauty are but one:
At noon both flourish bright and gay,
Both fade at evening, pale and gone.
Matthew Prior, 1664-1721.
TO LUCASTA, ON GOING TO THE WARS.
TELL me not, sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.
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