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, That age is best which is the first, Then be not coy, but use your time, For having lost but once your prime 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, As your hours do, and dry Like to the summer's rain; Or as the pearls of morning's dew, 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, On land and on seas, At noon of night are a-working. The storm will arise This night, and more for the wonder, 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, In deserts where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died. Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired; Suffer herself to be desired, And not blush so to be admired. Then die, that she The common fate of all things rare How small a part of time they share, ON THE FOREGOING DIVINE POEMS (1686 ?) When we for age could neither read nor write, 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, JOHN MILTON John Milton 1608-1674 L'ALLEGRO (1634) Hence, loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born '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. In heaven ycleped Euphrosyne, As he met her once a-Maying, And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, |