Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed, Show'd life imprison'd in a body dead.
These gray locks, the pursuivants of death,
Nestor-like aged, in an age of care;
These eyes,-like lamps, whose wasting oil is spent,
Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent:
Weak shoulders overborne with burd'ning grief;
And pithless arms, like to a wither'd vine
That droops his sapless branches to the ground :-
Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,
Unable to support this lump of clay,-
Swift-winged with desire to get a grave.
With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave: Thou shalt not lack The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor The azured hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the ruddock* would, With charitable bill (O bill, sore-shaming Those rich-left heirs, that let their fathers lie Without a monument!) bring thee all this; Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none, To winter-groundt thy corse. 31-iv. 2.
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o' the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe, and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the light'ning flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure* rash:
Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consignt to thee, and come to dust.
I will rob Tellus of her weeds, To strew thy green with flowers; the yellows, blues,
The purple violets, and marigolds,
Shall, as a chaplet, hang upon thy grave,
While summer days do last.
How use doth breed a habit in a man!
This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns;
Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
And, to the nightingale's complaining notes,
Tune my distresses, and record my woes.
O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,
Leave not the mansion so long tenantless;
Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall,
And leave no memory of what it was!
And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low !
The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down,
Hangs one that gathers samphire : || dreadful trade!
Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head :
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice: and yon' tall anchoring bark,
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: The murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high: I'll look no more;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple* down headlong.
The dreadful summit of the cliff, That beetlest o'er his base into the sea, The very place puts toys of desperation, Without more motive, into every brain, That looks so many fathoms to the sea, And hears it roar beneath.
From the dread summit of this chalky bourn:
Look up a-height; the shrill-gorged|| lark so far
Cannot be seen or heard.
These things seem small and undistinguishable,
Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The season's difference; as, the icy fang,
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind;
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say,-
This is no flattery: these are counsellors,
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
Pacing through the forest,
Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
Lo, what befel! he threw his eye aside,
And, mark, what object did present itself!
Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age,
And high top bald with dry antiquity,
A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair,
Lay sleeping on his back: about his neck
A green and gilded snake had wreath'd itself,
Who with her head, nimble in threats, approach'd
The opening of his mouth; but suddenly
Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself,
And with indented glides did slip away
Into a bush: under which bush's shade
A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,
Lay couching, head on ground, with cat-like watch, When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis The royal disposition of that beast,
To prey on nothing, that doth seem as dead :
This seen, Orlando did approach the man,
And found it was his brother.
Natural graces, that extinguish art.
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's* ear:
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
Her stature, as wand-like straight;
As silver-voiced: her eyes as jewel-like,
And cased as richly: in pace another Juno;
Who starves the ears she feeds, and makes them
Without the bed her other fair hand was,
On the green coverlet: whose perfect white
Show'd like an April daisy on the grass,
With pearly sweat, resembling dew of night.
Her eyes like marigolds, had sheath'd their light;
And, canopied in darkness, sweetly lay,
Till they might open to adorn the day.
Fair ladies, mask'd, are roses in their bud:
Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture
Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.
You seem to me as Dian in her orb;
As chaste as is the bud, ere it be blown.
As morning roses newly wash'd with dew. 12-ii. 1.
Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good,
A shining gloss, that fadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies, when first it 'gins to bud;
A brittle glass, that's broken presently;
A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.
And as good lost, is seld or never found,
As faded gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead, lie wither'd on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress,
So beauty blemish'd once, for ever's lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pain, and cost.
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