THE Angel ended, and in Adams Eare So Charming left his voice, that he a while Thought him still speaking, still stood fixt to hear; Then as new wak't thus gratefully repli'd. What thanks sufficient, or what recompence Equal have I to render thee, Divine Hystorian, who thus largely hast allayd The thirst I had of knowledge, and voutsaf't This friendly condescention to relate Things else by me unsearchable, now heard With wonder, but delight, and, as is due, With glorie attributed to the high Creator; something yet of doubt remaines, Which onely thy solution can resolve. When I behold this goodly Frame, this World
Even as the sun with purple-colour’d face
Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek’d Adonis tried him to the chase;
Hunting he lov’d, but love he laugh’d to scorn;
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-fac’d suitor ‘gins to woo him.
Oui, pour jamais Chassons l’image De la volage Que j’adorais. PARNY. Matilda, farewell! Fate has doom’d us to part, But the prospect occasions no pang to my heart; No longer is love with my reason at strife, Though once thou wert dearer, far dearer than life.
Can we not force from widow'd poetry, Now thou art dead (great Donne) one elegy To crown thy hearse? Why yet dare we not trust, Though with unkneaded dough-bak'd prose, thy dust, Such as th' unscissor'd churchman from the flower Of fading rhetoric, short-liv'd as his hour, Dry as the sand that measures it, should lay Upon thy ashes, on the funeral day? Have we no voice, no tune? Didst thou dispense Through all our language, both the words and sense? 'Tis a sad truth. The pulpit may her plain And sober Christian precepts still retain, Doctrines it may, and wholesome uses, frame, Grave homilies and lectures, but the flame Of thy brave soul (that shot such heat and light
Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his mood Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round, At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods, Danced like a wither'd leaf before the hall. And toward him from the hall, with harp in hand, And from the crown thereof a carcanet Of ruby swaying to and fro, the prize Of Tristram in the jousts of yesterday, Came Tristram, saying, "Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?"
For Arthur and Sir Lancelot riding once Far down beneath a winding wall of rock Heard a child wail. A stump of oak half-dead. From roots like some black coil of carven snakes, Clutch'd at the crag, and started thro' mid air
Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids Those tears to issue which swell my eyelids; I must not laugh, nor weep sins and be wise; Can railing, then, cure these worn maladies? Is not our mistress, fair Religion, As worthy of all our souls' devotion As virtue was in the first blinded age? Are not heaven's joys as valiant to assuage Lusts, as earth's honour was to them? Alas, As we do them in means, shall they surpass Us in the end? and shall thy father's spirit Meet blind philosophers in heaven, whose merit Of strict life may be imputed faith, and hear Thee, whom he taught so easy ways and near To follow, damn'd? Oh, if thou dar'st, fear this;
To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, Am I thus ample to thy book and fame; While I confess thy writings to be such As neither man nor muse can praise too much; 'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise; For seeliest ignorance on these may light, Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right; Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance; Or crafty malice might pretend this praise, And think to ruin, where it seem'd to raise. These are, as some infamous bawd or whore Should praise a matron; what could hurt her more? But thou art proof against them, and indeed,
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