TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME

(From the same)

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry:

For having lost but once your prime
You may forever tarry.

TO DAFFODILS

(From the same)

Fair daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon; As yet the early-rising sun Has not attain'd his noon.

Stay, stay,

Until the hasting day

Has run

But to the evensong;

And, having prayed together, we

Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die,

As your hours do, and dry
Away,

Like to the summer's rain;

Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

THE HAG

(From the same)

The hag is astride

This night for to ride, The devil and she together;

Through thick and through thin, Now out and then in, Though ne'er so foul be the weather.

A thorn or a burr

She takes for a spur,

With a lash of a bramble she rides now; Through brakes and through briars, O'er ditches and mires,

She follows the spirit that guides now.

No beast for his food

Dare now range the wood,
But hush'd in his lair he lies lurking;
While mischiefs, by these,

On land and on seas,

At noon of night are a-working.

The storm will arise
And trouble the skies;

This night, and more for the wonder,
The ghost from the tomb

Affrighted shall come,

Call'd out by the clap of the thunder.

Edmund Waller

1605-1687

ON A GIRDLE

(From Poems, 1645)

That which her slender waist confin'd, Shall now my joyful temples bind; No monarch but would give his crown, His arms might do what this has done.

It was my heaven's extremest sphere, The pale which held that lovely deer, My joy, my grief, my hope, my love, Did all within this circle move.

A narrow compass, and yet there Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair: Give me but what this riband bound, Take all the rest the sun goes round.

SONG

(From the same)

Go, lovely Rose,

Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,
That had'st thou sprung

In deserts where no men abide,

Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired;
Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not blush so to be admired.

Then die, that she

The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;

How small a part of time they share,
That are so wondrous sweet and fair.

ON THE FOREGOING DIVINE POEMS

(1686 ?)

When we for age could neither read nor write,
The subject made us able to indite.
The soul, with nobler resolutions deckt,
The body stooping, does herself erect:
No mortal parts are requisite to raise
Her, that unbody'd can her Maker praise.
The seas are quiet when the winds give o’er:
So, calm are we, when passions are no more:
For, then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness, which age descries,

The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in new light, thro' chinks that time has made:

Stronger by weakness, wiser, men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.

JOHN MILTON

John Milton

1608-1674

L'ALLEGRO

(1634)

Hence, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born
In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy!

Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous

wings,

And the night-raven sings;

There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks, As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou Goddess fair and free,

In heaven ycleped Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
Or whether (as some sager sing)
The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a-Maying,
There, on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown roses washed in dew,