36

Swift, swift, you dragons of the night!-that dawning May bare the raven's eye.

37

The gaudy, babbling, and remorseful day
Is crept into the bosom of the sea;

31-ii. 2.

And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades,
That drag the tragic melancholy night;
Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings,
Clip dead men's graves, and from their misty jaws

Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.

38

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phœbus' mansion; such a wagoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.

39

Sable Night, mother of Dread and Fear,
Upon the world dim darkness doth display,
And in her vaulty prison stows the day.

40

22-iv. 1.

35-iii. 2.

The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth.

41

Now the hungry lion roars,

Poems.

26-v. 9.

And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the scritch-owl, scritching loud,
Puts the wretch, that lies in woe,
In remembrance of a shroud.

Now it is the time of night,
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide:
And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate's team,
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream.

42

The crickets sing, and man's o'er-labour'd sense
Repairs itself by rest.

Thou sober-suited matron, all in black.

31-ii. 2.

43

Civil night,

35-iii. 2.

44

- The bat hath flown

His cloister'd flight ;

The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums,

Hath rung night's yawning peal.

45

15-iii. 2.

That when the searching eye of heaven is hid
Behind the globe, and lights the lower world,
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen,
In murders, and in outrage, bloody here;
But when, from under this terrestrial ball,
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,
And darts his light through every guilty hole,
Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,
The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves.

46

17-iii. 2.

Jove's lightnings, the precursors

O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-out-running were not: The fire and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune
Seem'd to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake.
1-i. 2.

47

We often see against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack* stand still,
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death: anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region.

48

The cross blue lightning seem'd to open
The breast of heaven.

29-i. 3.

49

Things, that love night,

Love not such nights as these: the wrathful skies
Gallow* the very wanderers of the dark,

And make them keep their caves: Since I was man,
Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry

The affliction, nor the fear.

50

Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish;

A vapour, sometime, like a bear, or lion,
A tower'd citadel, a pendant rock,

A forked mountain, or blue promontory

With trees upon't that nod unto the world,

34-iii. 2.

And mock our eyes with air: Thou hast seen these

signs;

They are black vesper's pageants.

That, which is now a horse, even with a thought,
The rackt dislimns: and makes it indistinct,

As water is in water.

My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is
Even such a body: here I am Antony;

Yet cannot hold this visible shape.

30-iv. 12.

51

Yon gray lines,

That fret the clouds, are messengers of day.

52

29-ii. 1.

Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the

cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Carck nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,

That make ingrateful man!

53

34-iii. 2.

Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;

A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements:

If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea,

What ribs of oak, when mountains melt* on them,

Can hold the mortise ?

Do but stand upon the foaming shore,

The chilling billow seems to pelt the clouds;

The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous

main,

Seems to cast water on the burning bear,†

And quench the guards of th' ever-fixed pole:

I never did like molestation view

The moon shines bright :-In such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,

And they did make no noise; in such a night,
Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls,
And sigh'd his soul towards the Grecian tents,

Where Cressid lay that night.

In such a night,

Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew;

And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,
And ran dismay'd away.

In such a night,

Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love

To come again to Carthage.

In such a night,

Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs,

56

Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions: oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd

By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb; which for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldame earth, and topples down

Steeples and moss-grown towers.

57

A red morn, that ever yet betoken'd Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field, Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds, Gust and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.

58

18-iii. 1.

I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have rived the knotty oaks; and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell, and rage and foam,
To be exalted with the threat'ning clouds.

59

Poems.

29-i. 3.

The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd,
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth,
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,-

The one, in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other, to enjoy by rage and war.

60

Well-apparell'd April on the heel

Of limping Winter treads.

17-ii. 4.

35-i. 2.

61
Flora

Peering in April's front.

62

13-iv. 3.

The violets now

That strew the green lap of the new-come spring.