Then came brave Glorie puffing by Yet when the houre of thy designe And then they have their answer home. PEACE. SWEET Peace, where dost thou dwell? I humbly crave, Let me once know. I sought thee in a secret cave, And ask'd, if Peace were there. I did; and going did a rainbow note: This is the lace of Peace's coat: But while I lookt the clouds immediately Then went I to a garden and did spy The crown Imperiall: Sure, said I, But when I digg'd, I saw a worm devoure At length I met a rev'rend good old man; I did demand, he thus began: There was a Prince of old At Salem dwelt, who lived with good increase He sweetly liv'd; yet sweetnesse did not save But after death out of his grave. There sprang twelve stalks of wheat: To plant and set. It prosper'd strangely, and did soon disperse For they that taste it do rehearse, A secret vertue, bringing peace and mirth Take of this grain, which in my garden grows, Make bread of it: and that repose James Shirley. Born 1596 Died 1666. A DISTINGUISHED dramatist, of whom it was said by the Censor that his plays were free from "oaths, profaneness, or obsceneness." He was born in London in 1596, and was designed for holy orders. He officiated as curate at St Albans, but resigned the curacy on becoming a Roman Catholic. He then removed to London, where he became a successful writer for the stage. Thirty-nine plays came successively from his pen, besides a volume of poems. He lost all his property at the great fire of London, and died amid the distress occasioned by it in 1666. DEATH THE CONQUEROR OF ALL. THE glories of our mortal state Are shadows, not substantial things; Death lays his icy hand on kings; Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and space. Some men with swords may reap the field, Early or late They stoop to Fate, And must give up their murmuring breath, See where the victor-victim bleeds: To the cold tomb; Only the actions of the just Smell sweet, and blossom from the dust. Edmund Waller. Born 1605. AN English Poet, born at Coleshill in 1605. While yet a child he was left heir to an estate of £3000 a year. His mother was a Hampden, and also related to Oliver Cromwell Waller wrote his first poem in his eighteenth year. His intellectual powers were of the highest order; and being graceful in his manners and sprightly in conversation, he was a general favourite. Waller was at one time a suitor for the hand of the daughter of the Earl of Leicester, and he wrote many poems in praise of "his Sacharissa," but she turned a deaf ear to his addresses. On meeting her long after, when she was advanced in years, she asked him when he would again write such verses upon her, he replied, "When you are as young and as handsome as you were then." Waller was utterly destitute of politica, principle, siding with the Parliament in the civil war, and seeking to betray them to the King; writing praises on Cromwell when in power; and o Charles II. and James II. after the restoration, and carrying off his apostasy with a flow of sparkling wit which made his peace with all. Charles challenged him for having written a panegyric on him inferior to that on Cromwell; "It is more easy for poets to write fiction than truth," was the reply. Waller was a keen observer of political matters, and is said to have given James II. much good advice. His fame rests chiefly on his short, light, occasional pieces written in "a melodious verse," which made him popular. He died on 21st October 1687, at Beaconsfield. ON LOVE. ANGER, in hasty words or blows, THE BRITISH NAVY. WHEN Britain, looking with a just disdain And knowing well that empire must decline To the rich troublers of the world's repose. And now some months, encamping on the main Our naval army had besieged Spain: They that the whole world's monarchy designed, Others may use the ocean as their road, And make a covenant with the inconstant sky: AT PENSHURST. WHILE in this park I sing, the list'ning deer More deaf than trees, and prouder than the heav'n! |