By which wet glasses I find out
How lazily Time creeps about
To one that mourns; this, only this,
My exercise and business is:
So I compute the weary hours
With sighs dissolved into showers.
Nor wonder if my time go thus
Backward and most preposterous;
Thou hast benighted me; thy set
This eve of blackness did beget,
Who wast my day (though overcast
Before thou hadst thy noontide passed),
And I remember must in tears
Thou scarce hadst seen so many years
As day tells hours: by thy clear sun
My love and fortune first did run:
But thou wilt never more appear
Folded within my hemisphere,
Since both thy light and motion
Like a fled star is fallen and gone,
And 'twixt me and my soul's dear wish
The earth now interposed is,
Which such a strange eclipse doth make As ne'er was read in almanac.
I could allow thee for a time
To darken me and my sad clime:
Were it a month, or year, or ten,
I would thy exile live till then.
And all that space my mirth adjourn,
So thou wouldst promise to return,
And, putting off thy ashy shroud,
At length disperse this sable cloud!
But woe is me! the longest date
Too narrow is to calculate
These empty hopes: never shall I
Be so much blessed as to descry
A glimpse of thee, till that day come
Which shall the earth to cinders doom,
And a fierce fever must calcine
The body of this world like thine,
(My little world!) that fit of fire
Once off, our bodies shall aspire
To our souls' bliss: then we shall rise,
And view ourselves with clearer eyes
In that calm region where no night
Can hide us from each other's sight.
Meantime thou hast her, Earth: much good
May my harm do thee! Since it stood
With Heaven's will I might not call
Her longer mine, I give thee all
My short-lived right and interest
In her whom living I loved best;
With a most free and bounteous grief
I give thee what I could not keep.
Be kind to her, and, prithee, look
Thou write into thy doomsday book
Each parcel of this Rarity
Which in thy casket shrined doth lie.
See that thou make thy reckoning straight,
And yield her back again by weight:
For thou must audit on thy trust
Each grain and atom of this trust,
As thou wilt answer Him that lent,
Not gave thee, my dear monument.
So, close the ground, and 'bout her shade
Black curtains draw: my bride is laid.
Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed
Never to be disquieted!
My last good-night! Thou wilt not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake:
Till age or grief or sickness must
Marry my body to that dust
It so much loves, and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.
Stay for me there: I will not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale.
And think not much of my delay;
I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed
Desire can make, or sorrows breed.
Each minute is a short degree,
And every hour a step toward thee.
At night when I betake to rest,
Next morn I rise nearer my west
Of life, almost by eight hours' sail,
Than when Sleep breathed his drowsy gale,
Thus from the sun my bottom steers,
And my day's compass downward bears;
Nor labor I to stem the tide
Through which to thee I swiftly glide.
"T is true, with shame and grief yield; Thou, like the van, first took'st the field, And gotten hast the victory,
In thus adventuring to die
Before me, whose more years might crave
A just precedence in the grave.
But hark! my pulse, like a soft drum,
Beats my approach, tells thee I come;
And slow howe'er my marches be,
I shali at last sit down by thee.
The thought of this bids me go on,
And wait my dissolution
With hope and comfort. Dear (forgive
The crime) I am content to live,
Divided, with but half a heart,
Till we shall meet and never part.
I IN these flowery meads would be,
These crystal streams should solace me;
To whose harmonious bubbling noise
I, with my angle, would rejoice,
Sit here, and see the turtle-dove
Court his chaste mate to acts of love;
Or, on that bank, feel the west wind
Breathe health and plenty; please my mind,
To see sweet dew-drops kiss these flowers,
And then washed off by April showers;
Here, hear my kenna sing a song:
There, see a blackbird feed her young,
Or a laverock build her nest;
Here, give my weary spirits rest,
And raise my low-pitched thoughts above
Earth, or what poor mortals love.
Thus, free from lawsuits, and the noise
Of princes' courts, I would rejoice;
Or, with my Bryan and a book,
Loiter long days near Shawford brook;
There sit by him, and eat my meat;
There see the sun both rise and set;
There bid good-morning to next day;
There meditate my time away;
And angle on; and beg to have
A quiet passage to a welcome grave.
Death's Final Conquest.
THE glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armor 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
And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.
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 the dust.
FROM A BALLAD UPON A WEDDING.
THE maid, and thereby hangs a tale,
For such a maid no Whitsun-ale
Could ever yet produce:
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