"Is this" (say they)" that place, whose wonted fame Made troubled earth to tremble at her name?
Is this that state? Are these those goodly stations? Is this that mistress, and that Queen of Nations ?"
WOUNDED, and wasted by the' eternal hand
Of heaven, I grovel on the ground; my land
Is turn'd a Golgotha; before mine eye,
Unsepulcher'd, my murther'd people lie:
My dead lie rudely scatter'd on the stones;
My causies all are paved with dead men's bones;
The fierce destroyer doth alike forbear
The maiden's trembling, and the matron's tear;
The' imperial sword spares neither fool nor wise,
The old man's pleading, nor the infant's cries.
Vengeance is deaf and blind, and she respects
Not young, nor old, nor wise, nor fool, nor sex.
YEARS, heavy laden with their months, retire;
Months, gone their dates of number'd days, expire;
The days full houred, to their period tend;
And hours, chaced with light-foot minutes, end;
Yet my undated evils, will no time diminish,
Tho' years and months, tho' days and hours finish:
Fears flock about me, as invited guests
Before the portals at proclaimed feasts;
Where heaven hath breathed, that man, that state must fall;
Heaven wants no thunderbolts to strike withal:
I a.n the subject of that angry breath,
My sons are slain, and I am mark'd for death.
Mercy tempering Justice.
HAD not the milder hand of mercy broke
The furious violence of that fatal stroke
Offended Justice struck, we had been quite
Lost in the shadows of eternal night:
Thy mercy, Lord, is like the morning Sun,
Whose beams undo what sable night hath done;
Or like a stream, the current of whose course,
Restrain'd a while, runs with a swifter force;
Oh, let me glow beneath those sacred beams,
And after bathe me in these silver streams;
To Thee alone my sorrows shall appeal;
Hath earth a wound, too hard for heaven to heal?
IN Thee, dear Lord, my pensive soul respires,
Thou art the fulness of my choice desires;
Thou art that sacred spring, whose waters burst
In streams to him, that seeks with holy thirst;
Thrice happy man, thrice happy thirst to bring
The fainting soul to so, so sweet a spring;
Thrice happy he, whose well-resolved brest
Expects no other aid, no other rest;
Thrice happy he, whose downy age had been
Reclaim'd by scourges from the prime of sin,
And early season'd with the taste of truth,
Remembers his Creator in his youth.
THOU great Creator, whose diviner breath
Preserves thy creature, joy'st not in his death,
Look down from thy eternal throne, that art
The only Rock of a despairing heart;
Look down from heaven, O Thou! whose tender ear
Once heard the trickling of one single tear;
How art Thou now estranged from his cry,
That sends forth rivers from his fruitful eye!
How often hast Thou, with a gentle arm,
Raised me from death, and bid me fear no harm!
What strange disaster caused this sudden change?
How wert Thou once so near, and now so strange?
IMPETUOUS Famine, sister to the sword,
Left hand of death, child of the' infernal lord,
Thou torturer of mankind, that with one stroke,
Subject'st the world to thy imperious yoke:
What pleasure tak'st thou in the tedious breath
Of pined mortals, or their lingering death?
The sword, thy generous brother's not so cruel,
He kills but once, fights in a noble duel,
But thou, malicious Fury, dost extend
Thy spleen to all, whose death can find no end;
Alas! my hapless weal can want no woe,
That feels the rage of sword, and famine too.
No Escape from Destruction.
So the quick-scented beagles in a view,
O'er hill and dale the fleeting chase pursue,
As swift-foot death and ruine follow me,
That flees, afraid, yet knows not where to flee:
Flee to the fields? There with the sword I meet;
And, like a watch, death stands in every street;
No cover hides from death; no shade, no cells
So dark wherein not death and horror dwells;
Our days are number'd, and our number's done,
The empty hour-glass of our glory's run,
Our sins are summ'd, and so extreme's the score,
That heaven could not do less, nor hell do more.
[From an Alphabet of Elegies on Dr. Ailmer.]
THUS to the world, and to the spacious ears
Of fame, I blazon my unboasted tears:
Thus to thy sacred dust, thy urn, thy herse
I consecrate my sighs, my tears, my verse;
Thus to thy soul, thy name, thy just desert
I offer up my joy, my love, my heart:
That earth may know, and every ear that hears,
True worth and grief were parents to my tears:
That earth may know thy dust, thy urn, thy herse,
Brought forth and bred my sighs, my tears, my verse;
And that thy soul, thy name, thy just desert,
Invites, incites my joy, my love, my heart.
[From Hieroglyphics of the Life of Man.]
Man born to Trouble.
No sooner are we born, no sooner come
To take possession of this vast,
This soul-afflicting earth,
But danger meets us at the very womb;
And sorrow, with her full-mouth'd blast,
Salutes our painful birth
To put out all our joys, and puff out all our mirth.
Nor infant-innocence, nor childish tears,
Nor youthful wit, nor manly power,
Nor politic old-age,
Nor virgin's pleading, nor the widow's prayers,
Nor lowly cell, nor lofty tower,
Nor prince, nor peer, nor page,
Can 'scape this common blast, nor curb her stormy rage.
Tost to and fro, our frighted thoughts are driven
With every wind, with every tide
Our peaceful flame, that would point up to heaven,
Is still disturb'd and turn'd aside;
Commits such waste in man, as man cannot repair.
What may this sorrow-shaken earth present
To the false relish of our taste
That's worth the name of sweet?
Her minute's pleasure's choked with discontent,
Her glory soil'd with every blast:
How many dangers meet
Poor man, between the biggen and the winding-sheet!
ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX.
BORN 1567. BEHEADED 1601.
[The following lines were enclosed in a letter from this celebrated favourite of Queen Elizabeth, addressed to her Majesty, when he was in Ireland, which he considered his place of banishment. It is both curious and affecting to observe how the most ambitious and courtly spirits, when crossed in their schemes of worldly aggrandizement, fondly turn (in imagination at least,) to Nature and Solitude for repose. This little piece acquires an interest far beyond its poetical merit, from having been adopted, if not actually composed, by this unfortunate nobleman as the expression of his disappointed feelings, at a very critical juncture in his turbulent life. It is lamentable to think, how men deceive themselves when they indulge in such delightful reveries.]
HAPPY if he could furnish forth his fate
In some unhaunted desert; most obscure
From all society, from love and hate
Of worldly folk; then he should sleep secure;
Then wake again, and yield God every praise;
Content with hips and haws and bramble berry;
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